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Sunday, June 25, 2006
Are We Helping Our Own Cause?
I recently attended a symposium at Regent Univ. Divinity school which presented a variety of workshops on leadership in the church. The lone female presenter, Dr. Estrelda Alexander, presented an excellent critique of the lack of weight currently given to social justice issues in the Pentecostal slice of Christianity despite the fact that it was an integral part of the response to the Azuza Street revival. She argued for the need of a resurgence of female voices in leadership in order: 1. to recapture the egalitarian leadership that was integral during the whole 1906 revival and 2. to bring, once again, the needed attention to social justice issues that so very often encompass women and children. Then, a response was given by a female, divinity PhD candidate and in her prepared response, she used King David repeatedly as the example to give support to Dr. Alexander's argument. Don't get me wrong ... I'm glad she was in agreement, but if we don't give voice to the female biblical characters in our sermons, our examples, our conversations, our prepared responses, who will? These biblical women are our first role models and if we don't give them their spiritual place of leadership, who will? When given a chance to preach do we give voice to the marginalized women of scripture? What are your thoughts?
 
posted by Anonymous at 6:57 PM ¤ Permalink ¤


8 Comments:


  • At 6/26/2006 10:18:00 AM, Blogger Julie

    Its hard to do that. I'm all for learning from all examples - male and female. But a lot of the women whose stories we have in the bible are kinda disappointing, or at least have traditional interpretations that reduce the women to their bodies (apparently women can't serve God unless sex is somehow involved). And with the minor characters there are a lot of blanks to fill in. I've found that people, especially women, are very resistant to alternative interpretations of traditional characters and question your sources when the minor characters are brought up. Does that mean we should not ty - of course not. But its an uphill battle. unlike with the men, we can;t just learn about them or learn a spiffy life lesson from them - we have to fight the whole sexism battle first, then learn.

     

  • At 6/26/2006 10:20:00 AM, Blogger Unknown

    To be honest, I am the worst about knowing all the details in the Bible. However, I do think you make a point. We should try to use women as an example. Jesus certainly held them close to his heart and there obviously are women throughout the Bible, that can be used as wonderful examples.
    I can hear it already, if it became nothing but the female perpective! Unfortunately, I think it might have to be a gradual thing. My experience is that sometimes if it trickles in, it's accepted over time, more so, than if it came in with a bang!
    I have laughed inwardly (maybe not real nice) a few times watching these kind of situations in my family. If you hit them hard, they fight like crazy! If it trickles, the next thing you know they didn't even realize that their thinking evolved.

     

  • At 6/26/2006 04:06:00 PM, Blogger Jessica

    Sylvia,

    I think you bring up a great point. Changing our theoretical understanding of an issue such as women in leadership is easy to do, on paper. With proper hermeneutics many people have no problem saying they see how tradition has been wrong in understanding the role of women in the church. However, theories are only a step in changing practices and then culture. So we're all fine with "saying" God is neither male or female and that God created male and female in "His/Her" image but as a culture we're not ok with allowing that to change our practices to include the feminine vernacular expressions (and neuter is out of the question: God is not an "it!") and we find ourselves with a catch 22. Most are ok with the theory which should lead to a change in our practice eventually influencing our culture but the culture doesn't seem to be ready for the change in practice. I find myself continuing to refer to God with masculine terminology though increasingly bringing in a balance of non-gender references while using feminine terms to speak of what some would consider God's more feminine traits. I have no idea when this may change but at least the conversation is happening in many circles.

    I'd like to know what Scripture references you are thinking of when you say "God is referred to many times in scripture with female language, yet we mainly refer to him as male." Would you mind sharing those?

    It would be great to see more female examples used in teaching, particularly when the topic is one such as this. Over all though, when I teach I am not willing to select a character to prove my point but would rather the character and what Scripture has to say about them, male or female speak for themselves and the truths found in their story should apply to everyone, regardless of gender.

    Just my 2 cents.

     

  • At 6/27/2006 06:23:00 AM, Blogger Lydia

    and neuter is out of the question: God is not an "it!

    I think what the english language needs, Jessica, is a gender-neutral pronoun other than "it."

    It would help to solve a lot of the language problems surrounding our use of masculine (and to a lesser degree feminine, if only because it's much more rare) pronouns in describing a being that is beyond gender.

     

  • At 6/27/2006 06:26:00 AM, Blogger Lydia

    I'm sure some of the envelope pushers in our community will probably give that a try.

    Actually, this is something that I occassionally play with in my online (and face-to-face) conversations.

    So far I've only done it with people who would understand, though.

    Great conversation, everyone. :)

     

  • At 6/27/2006 09:20:00 AM, Blogger Jessica

    Margins (I don't know your real name) I loved your point about the fictionalized portions of the male characters in Scripture, Jabez is an excellent example! Thank you.

    Thanks for some of the references on Scriptural examples of feminine language used when speaking of God. I hate to admit this but this is one area that I believe and know is there but I always have to go look it up because it doesn't just pop into my mind. The only one I have used in conversation before was about Lady Wisdom and I got an earful on how that and other feminine references to God were really just metaphors that spoke nothing to God's gender. I just let it go. There are only three people that I regularly use feminine pronouns with when referring to God and surprisingly, two of them are male.

     

  • At 6/27/2006 09:21:00 AM, Blogger Jessica

    I agree Lydia, would that there was another gender-neutral pronoun other than "it!" In this area I'm not sure which is stronger, Latin languages or Germanic Languages. It would be interesting to see if there are other languages that have such a pronoun.

    BTW, my husband has enjoyed reading here, would it be ok if he left a comment sometime?

     

  • At 6/27/2006 11:43:00 PM, Blogger Mike Clawson

    Hi ladies,

    Julie's husband, Mike, here (aka Gandalf at the Ooze). As far as biblical imagery goes don't forget all the rich imagery in Isaiah 66. In verse 9 he compares himself to a female midwife when he says:

    "Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?" says the LORD.

    "Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?" says your God."

    and then a few verses later God actually compares him/herself to a mother as it says in verse 13:

    "As a mother comforts her child,
    so will I comfort you;
    and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."

     
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