Women and Christianity

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing — if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
— 1 Timothy 2:11-15 NIV

Though this text doesn’t make it into the Kindergarten Sabbath School Memory Verse Roll among foundational verses like Romans 3:23 and John 3:16, it and other texts which relegate women to subservient roles are undeniably part of Scripture. Certainly the most published and probably the most well-read book ever, the Holy Bible and its God have for centuries held a position of supreme moral authority on a variety of issues, including the difficult task of defining roles for women in society.

Consider Joseph Swetnam’s use of the Holy Scriptures, for instance. In 1615, under the pseudonym Thomas Tel-Troth, Swetnam published a pamphlet entitled “The Araignment of Lewde, idle, froward, and inconftant women: Or the vanitie of them, choofe you whether.” In the pamphlet, Swetnam claims to have a Biblical, or at least religious, basis for his slanders against women and marriage. Not surprisingly, his abuse prompted a slew of outraged essays, including one by his contemporary Rachel Speght which challenges Swetnam’s claim that the Bible teaches that women are full of wickedness: “The Scripture verifieth, that God made woman and brought her to man; and that a prudent wife commeth of the Lord: yet have you not feared blafphemoufly to fay, that women fprung from the diuell, Page 15. line 26" (31). Speght’s essay contains marginal references to her proof-texts: “And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Gen. 2:22 KJV) and “Houses and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the Lord” (Prov. 19:14 KJV). While they differ in their interpretations of it, both Swetnam and Speght agree that the Bible is a source of moral authority.

Like these 17th century essayists, most modern Christians claim to draw their attitudes toward women from the Holy Scriptures. Like their ancestors, too, modern Christians interpret the Bible in a way which jives with their preconceived notions about women, often misreading Scripture or ignoring certain parts of texts. Just a year ago, I listened as an earnest elder in a rural Seventh-day Adventist church led a discussion on the “fall of man [sic],” emphasizing that Eve’s fateful sin began with her first step away from Adam’s side. With John Milton, (see Paradise Lost, Book IX), the Adventist prophetess Ellen White teaches that Eve succumbed to the serpent’s wiles because she wandered away from her strong and wise mate: “The angels had cautioned Eve to beware of separating herself from her husband while occupied in their daily labor in the garden; with him she would be in less danger from temptation than if she were alone. But absorbed in her pleasing task, she unconsciously wandered from his side” (Patriarchs 53). As I listened to the Sabbath School class berate the wayward Mother of Humanity, I turned to Genesis 3:6-7 and read, amazed, that “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate” (NRSV, emphasis added1). How shocking, I whispered to my brother, that for twenty years I’ve listened attentively to people like these well-meaning Sabbath School members develop profound insights about the nature of sin and the weakness of women, believing all along that the Bible said Eve sinned by wandering from Adam. In an effort to find a Biblical basis for the idea that a woman needs a man at her side at all times, interpreters (even female ones like White!) have made a practice of reshaping certain Scriptural accounts.

One can easily write off the interpretations of Swetnam, Speght, White, and even the Sabbath School members by claiming that they are abusing the Bible to push agendas not present in the original text. The real trouble which this paper seeks to highlight is that even when read carefully and “in-context,” many Biblical sayings and stories truly do not promote either healthy ideas about women or healthy philosophies for women. The text which opens this paper is only one example. At a wedding I attended recently, the charming bride and handsome groom stood together at the altar shedding tears of joy as the young and personable pastor read his scripture, Ephesians 5:22-23: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church” (KJV). The teary couple listened with rapt attention as the pastor intoned, “Now Sky, your job is to make Todd look good. When he is about to turn left when you know he ought to go right, you just hold your tongue and let him make his decision. And later, if it turns out he was wrong, remember that it’s at this time, when his authority is the most vulnerable, that your support matters the most. And Todd, it’s your job to make those decisions. You are to love Sky and do your best to lead your household just as Christ leads the church.” The message? “Hey, Sky, Todd is right even when he’s wrong, because the Bible says so.” This philosophy removes responsibility from women, diminishing their self-confidence and reducing their ability to contribute to family decision-making.

Texts like these show that the Bible, traditionally the foundation of morality, fails to meet feminist standards for gender equality. In fact, as Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza writes, “the Bible has played a key role in the argument against women’s emancipation” (In Memory 7).2 What then, should we do with the Bible, and with the Christian God? This paper explains how the Old Testament Yhwh-God and the New Testament God-Incarnate may not serve the needs of women. It then explores several options for remodeling Christianity so that it is no longer a system which oppresses women.

The Old Testament God makes it easy to marginalize women

From the very beginning, the Bible presents stories which catch a feminist’s attention. In the poetic and symbolic first chapters of Scripture, Eve, the first woman, is “taken out” (Gen. 2:23 NIV) of man, only to quickly bring about the fall of all humanity. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, God appears advanced for his time in his kindness toward the oppressed, but takes no action to liberate women. Because God does not forward the value of women, and often treats women as property, uses them to symbolize waywardness, and seems to sanction certain misogynist behaviors, it is easy for God’s followers to use his behavior to justify the marginalization of women.

Eve — helpmate or partner?

In the first of the two Genesis creation accounts, Woman and Man are created together, both “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27). In the second account, however, Woman is created after Man, shaped as a “helpmate” (Gen. 2:18 KJV) from a rib removed from his side. The combination of these two stories has been used by theologians throughout history to demonstrate man’s superiority to woman. Rosemary Radford Ruether quotes St. Augustine’s De Trinitate:

Woman, together with her own husband, is the image of God, so that the whole substance may be one image, but when she is referred to separately in her quality as a helpmeet, which regards the woman alone, then she is not the image of God, but as regards the male alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one. (De Trinitate 7.7.10 qtd. in Ruether 95)

In St. Augustine’s interpretation of the creation, women are not complete humans or imago Dei unless joined with men. St. Augustine is not the only one to use the creation story to argue for woman’s second-place value. Janet Martin Soskice explains that Ambrosiaster, writing toward the end of the 4th century AD, claimed that women could not be imago Dei because they lack the things which make men imago Dei: freedom, rationality, and dominion. St. Augustine and Ambrosiaster are only two of many interpreters who have used the creation story to show that women are inferior to men.3

Not all interpretations of the creation story are negative for women, however. I’ve heard several sermons in which the pastor emphasized the first part of verse 18, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone,’” implying that Man needed the help of Woman in order to live a fulfilled life. Furthermore, the fact that Woman was shaped from a rib can be taken to symbolize Woman’s partnership with Man — she belongs at his side, not at his head and not at his feet. The NRSV reflects this notion of partnership by having God say “‘I will make him a helper as his partner’” (emphasis added); contrast this with the bare “‘I will make a helper suitable for him’” of the NIV or “‘I will make him an help meet for him’” of the KJV.

These women-friendly interpretations of creation are helpful, but they unfortunately cannot explain why the author of the second creation story has God make Man first, then form Woman only as an afterthought. A metaphorical interpretation of creation does not remove this difficulty from the story, since the presence of Man before Woman would have to be assigned some symbolic significance. The Bible gets off on the wrong foot, so to speak, from a woman’s perspective. She reads that, at least in one creation account, her gender is not an original part of creation but merely a divine afterthought.

Oh Eve . . .

While the creation stories have been somewhat abused in order to vilify women, the bulk of Christianity’s negative attitude toward women probably stems from the account of the fall in Genesis 3. For centuries, believers have viewed Eve as the mother of all women, counting her waywardness as symbolic of the natural deviance of all women. Women find it difficult to argue against their second place position in society when men throw in their faces the divine order that “‘your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you’” (Gen. 3:16, emphasis added). Women cannot escape culpability: Eve is clearly the first sinner, and God seems to accept the man’s excuse that “‘the woman whom you gave to be with me’” (Gen. 3:12) is the root of the man’s trouble, for God punishes woman by giving her husband “rule over” her. Alice Ogden Bellis, in her book Helpmates Harlots Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible, summarizes a question Susan Lanser raises about the fall: “If Adam and Eve both sinned equally should the result be Adam’s domination of Eve?” (52). One possible answer is that of course the punishment for an equal sin ought not to be the domination of one over the other. However, an even more obvious interpretation would simply say that the punishment accurately reflects the nature of the sin: Eve must have sinned more than Adam, and therefore God places Adam in domination over Eve. This divine endorsement of woman’s subjugation to man makes White’s and Milton’s emphasis on Eve’s absence from Adam’s side during the temptation seem more plausible despite the lack of Biblical support for the idea. 4 Thus tradition adds to the Biblical pain of subjugation the underlying doctrine that woman sinned because she tried to make a decision on her own, without the help of man.

Some feminists try to raise Eve as a positive role model because she moves actively rather than being acted upon passively in the story. For instance, Rachel Conrad Wahlberg suggests that the story makes Eve “a strong, decisive person (even though mistaken)” while “Adam was weak, easily influenced, and a coward” (3-4). While Wahlberg’s observation is valid, her strategy backfires if one reads the Genesis account closely: it is precisely Eve’s strength and decisiveness, coupled with her desire to know things, which get her into trouble. If one raises Eve as a heroine, one must find a way to make the results of her actions positive. The options are fairly limited, unless one buys into the gnostic idea that, as Howard Chua-Eoan summarizes, “Jesus [was] the spirit of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, giving Adam and Eve a chance to escape from their dastardly creator with a taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge” (57). If one accepts the incident at the tree as a negative event, the story almost unquestionably teaches that a strong, decisive person ought not to exercise his or her strength and decisiveness in opposition to an arbitrary command from an authority figure. According to the Genesis story, both man and woman were originally subject to only one authority figure — God. After the fall, however, God’s words “and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16) make man an additional authority figure over woman, so that she must limit her strength and decisiveness to areas which neither God nor man control.

In addition to explaining women’s subjugation to men with a Biblical imperative, the story of the fall provides the framework for a philosophy which endorses the continuing punishment of women and identifies them with the body as a wicked thing.

Perpetual punishment

The non-biblical but strongly traditional doctrine that all women deserve continuing punishment because Eve was the origin of sin has deeply affected women for centuries. Ruether points out that God’s curse in the garden makes the subjugation of the first woman and her daughters “not a sin against her, but her punishment for her sin. It is the expression of divine justice. Any revolt, or even complaint, against it by woman is a caviling refusal to accept the judgment of God” (97). Susan Thistlethwaite also addresses this notion, explaining that women seek something to “[free] them from the guilt that somehow, because of the original sin of being female, they [deserve] what they [get]” (93). The fact that it was Eve who first ate the fruit somehow has justified a view of women as automatically guilty of waywardness and self-will, simply because they share the anatomical characteristics of the mother of the human race. As 1 Timothy 2:11-12 suggests, women are doomed to climb perpetually uphill from Eve’s valley of sin, bearing whatever burden men deem appropriate as their just punishment for the sin of being women.

Wicked body

In addition to bolstering the idea that all generations of women deserve punishment for the sin of their mother Eve, the fall story contributes to the idea that the female is linked with sex and the body, and that these things are wicked.

Ironically, the command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) is part of the first creation account, and is given to the pair of humans before any mention of the fall. Even in the second creation account, there is a suggestion that sex was part of the divine plan: “A man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Despite this fact, church tradition generally considers sexual relations to be a result of the fall, or at least the church affirms chastity over sexuality. In an essay titled “Subtle Bodies” Giulia Sissa summarizes the writings of the fourth century Saint Ambrose and the eleventh century Peter Damian, both representatives of the Catholic Church. Both Ambrose and Damian made particular note of the importance of a girl’s retaining her virginity, since God gave her a seal (the hymen) which could never be replaced, once broken. The virgin birth, as we shall see in more detail later, reinforced the idea that chastity, and in particular female virginity, was part of holiness.

The Bible does to some degree substantiate the idea that sexual relations, if not initiated at the fall, at least changed as a result of it. Before the fall, according to the second creation account, “The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:24). After eating the forbidden fruit, however, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7). Even if sex was part of the original divine plan, God’s curse of the woman, which promises to “greatly increase [her] pangs in childbearing” (Gen. 3:16), suggests that the sexual act was somehow tainted by the fall — it is now associated with the painful event of childbirth.

Many who believe that sex was a consequence of the fall try to return to an Eden state by abstaining from sex or insisting that it be used only for procreation and not for recreation. With the idea that sex was tainted by the fall comes the mentality that the body which performs sex is wicked. As a consequence, the Christian church has often taught that the body is wicked and that the pleasures of the body, including eating and sex, ought to be restricted or entirely avoided if possible. Monks and nuns who strive for the holiest of lives takes vows of chastity and practice fasts.

Catholics aren’t the only ones who view the body negatively. The prophetess Ellen White, who helped form the Adventist movement in the early 1900s, holds a dualistic view of the body and mind: gratifying the body leads to atrophy of the mind and spiritual powers, while training the mind appropriately removes the base sexual passions. While White doesn’t specify the creation story as the source of her negative attitude toward the body, her deprecation of sex and masturbation suggests that God’s original plan did not include the pleasures of the body. In Testimonies for the Church Volume 2 White blames parents for sinning in their sexual relations, thus negatively influencing their children and causing them to masturbate: “They [the parents] have abused their marriage privileges, and by indulgence have strengthened their animal passions. And as these have strengthened, the moral and intellectual faculties have become weak. The spiritual has been overborne by the brutish” (391). Because White believes that overindulging in the pleasures of the body causes people to lose their mental acuity and spirituality, she upholds temperance in all appetites as key to living a pure Christian life. White even accepts the common belief of the time that sex reduces a person’s “vital energy”:

They [many married people]. . . reason that marriage sanctifies the indulgence of the baser passions. Even men and women professing godliness give loose rein to their lustful passions, and have no thought that God holds them accountable for the expenditure of vital energy, which weakens their hold on life and enervates the entire system. (Testimonies Vol. 2 p. 472)

At least at the time when she wrote the letters collected in Testimonies, Ellen White held the typical Christian view that sex, if not completely wicked, is at least something which ought to be restrained.

Dualism

Feminists like Starhawk argue that these Christian ideas of the body and its sexuality as tainted and dirty things perpetuate the harmful dualistic mind-set introduced by Plato in which the male is seen as the rational-mind part of humanity while the female is seen as the irrational or chaotic bodily part. Although Starhawk does not specifically cite the creation story as a source of dualism, one can see that it does lend itself to Platonic interpretation; good is opposed to evil and male is opposed to female. According to the Genesis account, the female caused the first sin, so she lands in the “evil” category; the male, by default, is “good.” Sexuality, tainted by the fall and God’s curse of pain in childbearing, must be “evil,” and female sexuality must be especially disdained since the female is already linked with evil. Chastity, as the opposite of sexuality, is “good.” Mind and body are also categorized. Since sexuality is bad, the body which performs the sexual act is also “evil,” while the mind is “good.”

Starhawk argues that dualities such as good-bad, male-female, mind-body, and chastity-sexuality “become the metaphor of hierarchy” (21), falsely dividing humanity into two opposing parts where ideally we would be one cohesive whole. In addition to disrupting the unity of humanity by dividing us along gender lines, dualism has specific negative consequences for female sexuality. Starhawk writes that dualism forces women to choose between good and evil — between chastity and sexuality: “Woman is herself seen in split terms: virgin or whore, madonna or slut — not as a whole person in whom virtue and sexuality can both reside” (20). In order to be a good person, a woman must squelch her sexuality and deny her body.

Result of dualism: Denying female sexuality

White is a good example of a Christian dualist who assumes that no good woman has sexual urges; a good woman participates in the sexual act largely out of duty to her husband. In a compilation of her manuscripts published in The Adventist Home under the chapter heading “Marital Duties and Privileges,” White cautions the husband to guard his sexual appetite: “It is not pure love which actuates a man to make his wife an instrument to minister to his lust. It is the animal passions which clamor for indulgence” (123). There is no corresponding warning issued to the wife about the dangers of lust, however. Instead, White explains that the wife’s duty is to help her husband move beyond a love of “base, earthly, sensuous character” (125) to a noble focus on the mind, and in particular the “mind of Christ” (125). The love of the body, in this dualistic mind-set, is far below the quality of the love of the mind. The wife must not “patiently submit to become his slave and minister to his depraved passions” (125) but must instead help him develop self-control so that he can avoid the “self-destruction” (124) brought on by submission to the body’s pleasures. Throughout the entire discussion, White simply assumes that the woman has no struggle with any sexual urges of her own. By utterly ignoring even the possibility of female sexuality, White banishes it to nonexistence.

This mentality — that good women have no sexuality — is also evident in Mariology, the philosophy which views Mary as the New Eve who atones for the sin of the first Eve by bearing the Christ child of the Holy Ghost. According to Conrad Wahlberg, Mariology perpetuates the idea that sex is wicked by asking women to model their lives after a character who “skipp[ed] from virginity to motherhood with no sex in between. What do women hear? That to be virtuous is to be a virgin — and a mother. Sex is not even in the picture” (48). The ideal woman would emulate Mary by retaining virginity until the time when she could exchange it for motherhood. Sexuality — even sexuality within marriage — would upset this system by distracting the woman from the two Biblically sanctioned roles: virgin and mother.5

Result of dualism: Denying the female body

Besides squelching female sexuality, Christianity’s negative view of the body has other consequences for women. Sometimes, women who wish to rid themselves of the wicked body and its accompanying sexuality deny the body the nourishment it needs. Hillel Schwartz summarizes the Freudian ideal that anorexia, a disorder found mainly among women, is linked with an effort to escape sexuality and reach perfection: “the girl — and sometimes the boy — resorted in effect to a second self whose asexual, incredibly thin body was at once a powerful demonstration of perfection and unspoken protest against imprisonment” (435). Although anorexia doesn’t affect all women, most women exhibit other behaviors which demonstrate their desire to deny their bodies. The natural menstrual cycle, for instance, is often viewed as a shameful event which must be hidden with perfumed feminine products and subtle refusals to participate in exposing events such as swimming or dancing. As Simone De Beauvoir writes, “disgust at [a girl’s] too fleshly body arises or is exacerbated” (312) at the time of menstruation. Dualism makes the body and sexuality ignoble in comparison with the mind and its higher pleasures, and as a consequence women become ashamed of both their bodies and their sexuality.

Result of dualism: Sexism

In addition to robbing women of their sexuality and inducing a negative self-image of the body, dualism leads to sexism. Once woman is associated with the body, man, who supposedly possesses the noble mind, can claim superiority. In his effort to leave behind the ignoble body, Ruether suggests, the man comes to “regard her [woman] as representing the part of himself that must be repressed and kept under control by reason to prevent a fall into sin and disorder” (94-5). Since woman reminds man of the “lower” powers of the body and sexuality, he feels justified in controlling her as part of his pursuit of virtue.

Whether or not its author(s) intended it, the story of the fall has been used to keep women subject to men, stereotype them as wayward, justify their continual punishment, and establish the female body as wicked, thereby creating a divisive dualistic view of the sexes.

Lord God doesn’t like girls as well as boys

The rest of the Old Testament hardly denies the negative image of woman which begins with the creation and fall. The Old Testament God sends mixed signals about how he views women, generally ignoring them when he can interact with a man instead, but also often sympathizing with their barrenness. Although he shows some benevolence toward women, God affirms a hierarchical structure, lets women symbolize waywardness, and fails to include among his many counter-cultural demands any which would liberate women.

God’s interactions with women

From a rocky beginning with Eve in the garden, God evolves in his relationship with women throughout the rest of the Old Testament. God demonstrates a subtle irony: after cursing Eve with pain in childbearing, he bestows children on those who are oppressed as a sort of blessing. Indeed, God’s primary interaction with women seems to grow from his sympathy for their barrenness. God blesses the unloved Leah and “opened her womb” (Gen. 29:31), and later “remembered Rachel, and . . . heeded her and opened her womb” (Gen. 30:22). God hears the barren Hannah and lets her bear Samuel, and blesses Ruth with a son. God has a few other scattered interactions with women. He commands the Israelites to treat widows and orphans gently: “You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans” (Ex. 22:23-24). God directly contacts Deborah, a female judge famous for prophesying that the glory of Barak’s battle against the Canaanites will go to a woman (Jud. 4-5).

God’s interactions with Leah, Rachel, Hannah, and Deborah are the exception, rather than the rule in the Old Testament. As Jack Miles points out in God: A Biography, God does not often address himself to women, or even to a husband-wife pair such as Abraham and Sarah. Instead, Miles notes, “Even when God tells Abraham that Sarah will conceive and Sarah laughs, God takes the matter up with Abraham — ‘Why did Sarah laugh . . .?’ (18:13)” (67). The implication is that God does not deign to address Sarah directly. Her half of the necessary genetic material is ignored as God discusses the great nation he will make out of Abraham. Notably, the other most famous women of the Old Testament, Rahab and Esther, never have direct contact with God. Rahab learns of God through others, and prospers as a result, but she never develops the intimacy with God which Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, and other famous male characters enjoy. The entire book of Esther never mentions God; one can only speculate as to whether God’s absence indicates his reticence to interact with women or simply reflects a human feeling of separation from God characteristic of the period and unrelated to gender. Regardless, the Old Testament God seems to prefer male leaders to female ones. He chooses the sons of Aaron as the priestly tribe, giving Miriam’s children no equivalent role despite their equivalent familial relation to Moses. God chooses few women as prophetesses, while calling numerous men to fill the role of prophet. Occasional stories highlight God’s interaction with women, but on the whole the Old Testament portrays a God who prefers communion with men to communion with women.

Hierarchy

Starhawk points out that Yahweh gives human beings “power-over” (4) the living things, and that it is tempting for humans to extend that dominance into power-over one another. Although Starhawk does not go into detail, one can see that the Old Testament God does often operate within dualistic or hierarchal structures which grant power to one group and force other groups into submission. In the first creation account, God gives humankind “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth . . .” (Gen. 1:26). Following the fall, the Lord God shifts the hierarchy so that man has dominion over woman, as part of Eve’s punishment for sin: “Your [Eve’s] desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). Starhawk and other feminists decry both the Eden hierarchical structure of humans-over-creatures and the post-fall structure of man-over-woman.

Yahweh’s offense is not limited to the proclamations at creation and after the fall — he also chooses a special people and grants them power over the nations which already inhabit the Canaan promised land: “I will send the pestilence in front of you [the Israelites], which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. . . . I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will hand over to you the inhabitants of the land, and you shall drive them out before you” (Ex. 23: 28, 31). Setting a divine example of hierarchy at its best, God arbitrarily choose a people and gives them “power-over” the surrounding nations.

Those who worship a God who arbitrarily values one group over another are more likely to justify their own unfair treatment of women or certain ethnic groups. As Thistlethwaite points out in a critique of the hierarchies introduced by the church after Christ’s life on earth, “Monotheistic monarchism [the idea that there is one supreme God-‘Father’ who ranks above all including the ‘Son’ and ‘Spirit’] has been a powerful weapon for both church and state in their efforts to legitimate the ultimate power of some over others. It is certainly a theological source for the justification of slavery” (121). Humans far too easily fall prey to the idea, “If God can do it, so can we.” Although worshiping a God who imposes hierarchies does not necessarily lead to sexism or racism, feminists like Starhawk reject the Old Testament God because that God too easily provides a justification for marginalizing certain groups of people.6

Women symbolize waywardness

In addition to condoning a hierarchical social structure, the Lord God employs women to symbolize waywardness throughout the Old Testament. As Schussler Fiorenza puts it, “Israel is seen not only as the dependent virgin and wife but also as the unfaithful harlot” (18) in the Old Testament accounts of the relationship between the Lord and Israel. The Lord God describes himself as a jilted but longsuffering husband or lover. For instance, consider Jeremiah 3, which personifies Israel and Judah as a pair of wayward sisters, determined to commit adultery with other gods to the anger of their rightful sexual partner, the Lord:

If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife, will he return to her? . . . You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? says the Lord. . . . The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there? And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me”; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says the Lord. (Jer. 3:1, 3:6-10).

In the story of Hosea, God makes an object lesson of an actual relationship between the prophet and a whore named Gomer. The plot consists of Gomer’s habitual infidelity and retreats to whoredom and Hosea’s God-inspired motions of forgiveness and offerings of restoration. Since this story is told as if it actually happened, the stereotype of women as wayward carries even more weight than the figurative language of Jeremiah.

Few of the Lord-God’s rules liberate women

Perhaps most disconcerting of all the indictments against the Lord God is that he demands a large variety of counter-cultural behaviors from his chosen people, but does not include among those behaviors many which would contribute to the liberation of women. God requires monotheism from a people who had been surrounded by Sun gods, Frog gods, etc. in the land of Egypt, “‘You shall have no other gods before [or besides, according to the footnote] me’” (Ex. 20:2). He doesn’t want his people to “‘make for [themselves] an idol’” (Ex. 20:4), even though other nations of the period had idols of their gods and goddesses. God asks his people to keep the seventh day holy (Ex. 20:8), he regulates their diet (Lev. 11), and he even addresses many social issues (e.g., appropriate treatment of slaves and widows(Ex. 21:1-11, 22:23-4), appropriate sexual relations (Lev. 20: 10-21), etc.).

Among all these counter-cultural demands, however, God does not include commands which would set women equal to men. The Lord God sympathizes with the oppressed slaves and widows, but he doesn’t make rules to change their position in society. As Ruether criticizes, “Although Yahwism dissents against class hierarchy, it issues no similar protest against gender discrimination” (63). In fact, God seems to view women as property, including them among the list of household items which a man ought not to covet from his neighbor in the tenth commandment (Ex. 20:17). The Lord God also makes rules about how a female captive taken in war should be treated when a male Israelite brings her back to his house to marry her (Deut. 21:10-14). The rules kindly allow the girl a month to grieve for her parents before submitting sexually to her captor. However, by making this set of rules the Lord God demonstrates that he sees a woman as property, albeit property with feelings. If the Lord God really wanted women to be treated equally, he would not write a set of rules endorsing the practice of capturing a woman, as one might capture an enemy’s cow or goat, and forcing her into marriage with a foreign man.

Since the divine authority assigns women the status of “property,” it’s no surprise that he gives them few formal rights. Numbers 5:11-31 describes a detailed process through which a man may discipline a wife he suspects of infidelity, but no congruent process is available to a woman who suspects her husband of infidelity. In Numbers 30, Moses details the Lord’s pronouncement regarding a woman’s ability to speak for herself:

If she made a vow in her husband’s house, or bound herself by a pledge with an oath, and her husband heard it and said nothing to her, and did not express disapproval to her, then all her vows shall stand, and any pledge by which she bound herself shall stand. But if her husband nullifies them at the time that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning her pledge of herself, shall not stand. (Num. 30:10-13)

According to this rule, a woman’s word is subject to the approval of her husband if she is married or of her father if she is not. The implication of the passage is that a woman’s words ought not to be taken seriously unless first censored by her ruling male. The passage suggests that this arrangement prevents a woman from having to stand in guilt before the Lord if she does not fulfill her vow. Only the words of women who are widowed or divorced are accepted as binding without male censorship.

Although the Lord God doesn’t hesitate to demand a multitude of strange behaviors of the Israelites, he does not make any convincing effort to liberate women. Instead, the Lord God’s detailed rules perpetuate, and perhaps even initiate, a misogynist mentality among his chosen people.

Can we explain the Lord God’s misogyny?

Some might suggest that in comparison with the other gods of the time period, the Lord God was actually quite progressive in his treatment of women. However, the question still nags, “Why would this God, who made so many counter-cultural demands of his people, not choose to champion the equality of women?” In the stories of Balaam and Jonah, God seems to have no qualms about forcing his will and his way upon his people. If it were his will to abolish slavery or to liberate women, what would have stopped him from doing so?

Alden Thompson’s toboggan model of the Old Testament is somewhat helpful for explaining the Lord God’s negative behavior toward women. Thompson suggests7 that after the fall, people were so distant from God that God was forced to pick his battles with them, revising their understanding of himself little by little. In the toboggan model, God’s negative treatment of women would be explained as one of the lesser battles which God chose to put off until after he had revised the more important aspects of human beings’ understanding of him.

One can always make the point that God is not accurately represented by the Old Testament — that the text is a human-mediated interpretation of God which is sure to contain some of the warped perspectives of the authors. Indeed, it is my hope that God is misrepresented in our Scriptures. Since one can only speculate on this issue, however, I simply reiterate that the Old Testament depicts a God who does not treat women as equal to men, and does not insist that his people do so. Whether or not God actually is a misogynist will always be open to debate, but I think it is clear that the Old Testament portrays him as a misogynist.

The New Testament Christ brings a whole new set of troubles

The Old Testament Lord God does appear to have an “unenlightened” attitude about women, but then he also demands bizarre ritual cleansings and sacrifices which modern believers no longer endorse. Christians recognize the Old Testament God as part of their history, but they interpret that history from the perspective of those who have seen God revealed in the flesh. Most believers are happy to accept Jesus as a more accurate revelation of God, allowing him to overwrite the bloody, racist Old Testament stories with healings, grace and once-for-all-sacrifice. While Jesus does smooth over some of the Old Testament God’s rough edges, his alleged divinity and his maleness combine to create a whole new set of troublesome issues for women who wish to approach God. Since Jesus, “God-in-the-flesh,” is male, the male can be seen as the “normative” human while the female is, as Simone De Beauvoir writes, the “second sex.” Jesus’ masculinity and his status as “priest” of the church have been used to deny women leadership roles within the church. Finally, the view of Jesus as a silent suffering martyr encourages women to emulate his submissive, people-pleasing behavior in their relationships with abusive people.8

Male is normative

One of the most basic, and consequently the most easily overlooked, aspects of the incarnation is the idea that the male is normative while the female is inferior. Because God chose to manifest God’s Self on earth only one time using one human body, God had to choose a gender. Rather than moving against cultural norms which value men above women, God succumbed to them — God chose to become a male rather than a female.

From a position beside Adam as imago Dei at the original creation, women take a step downward to a position of lesser value with Jesus’ arrival. In the “priestly” creation account, at least, the יelohim-God “created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). Jesus, the New Revelation of God, the one so many welcome as a happy displacement of the fiery Old Testament God, destroys the Eden equality by arriving with a penis. The implicit message is that a male can fully represent and redeem the human race, while a female could not do so. The norm of humanity is no longer “male and female”; it is now solely “male.” It’s no wonder that Christians like St. Augustine view the male as a complete representation of humanity while the female does not, in the absence of the male, qualify as a complete human (see above). One could argue that the same disparity would exist if God had chosen a female body. Given humanity’s history of gender inequality, however, God’s appearance in female form would probably have merely brought the two genders into a healthy balance of equality. Instead, God’s male incarnation affirmed the already-accepted norm of male supremacy.

Maybe God-Incarnate had to be male

Much theological discourse centers on the irony of God becoming human, but little attention, until recently, has been given to God’s choice to become a male human rather than a female one. Jesus’ masculinity has seemed to “fit” God. As one of my girlfriends said to me recently, “I can’t imagine God being a woman. It just isn’t right.” The assumption that only a male is worthy of God-hood has been perpetuated by lack of discussion. As Garrett Green writes, that lack of discussion is a serious weakness in Christianity: “Failure to address [the issue of gender-specific language for God] with theological rigor imperils the integrity of Christian teaching” (45). Opening dialogue regarding Jesus’ masculinity is a good first step toward eliminating the unquestioned assumption that it is “right” for God to be male.

Theologians like Green, who acknowledge the possibility that God could have chosen a female body, try to put forward reasons why God chose a male body. Green posits that God-Incarnate had to be male in order to preserve the “ironic reversal of power” (62) inherent in Jesus’ life message. In order to fully submit his power and autonomy to the Father, Jesus had to first possess that power and autonomy. A woman in the time of Jesus, Green suggests, simply did not have much power to give over to God.
At first Green’s idea about the reversal of power seems helpful, but on further examination I find it somewhat inconsistent. I often hear sermons on what a counter-cultural Messiah Jesus was; he was born in a stable, raised in Nazareth, and mingled throughout adult life with prostitutes and tax collectors. Christians laud Jesus’ identification with the underclass society, but fail to note that his masculinity gave him a distinct advantage over any woman of the time. If God were really trying to prove that God is manifest in the lowliest of humans, why didn’t God manifest God’s Self as a woman?

Another explanation for the masculinity of God-Incarnate hinges on the recognition of time and place. The idea is that people at Jesus’ time just wouldn’t have listened to a woman, so God had to choose a male body. I shy from this idea because it implies that a woman is not worth listening to, and that even God recognizes this. This attitude that women can speak no worthwhile words takes us right back to the offensive passage in Numbers 30 which restricts a woman’s ability to make and keep a vow.

Although I’ve highlighted here a few insufficient attempts to explain Jesus’ masculinity, I do not believe that all attempts are as inadequate. Later I will discuss two other potential, and possibly more viable, solutions to the question of the maleness of Jesus: 1) some point out that Jesus exhibits feminine characteristics, and, more importantly, 2) others propose that the humanity of Jesus is far more important than his masculinity. Whether or not these two explanations are satisfactory, and whether or not God meant to show that male was superior to female by incarnating in male form, I think it fair to assert that our unquestioning acceptance of a male God contributes to our hierarchal understanding of human gender.

Jesus’ masculinity is used to prevent women from acting as priests or pastors

The author of Hebrews sets forth the model of Jesus as the great high priest, who represents all believers before God: “We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God” (Heb. 4:14). Jesus is presented as the culmination of a long line of high priests, and he will remain the priest of the people forever (Heb. 7:21). In his own parable of the ten virgins, and even more explicitly in Revelation, Jesus is understood as the bridegroom coming to claim the church as his bride. Because our great high priest is also our divine bridegroom, Jesus’ masculinity becomes an important part of his identity. Recognizing Jesus as the great high priest, the Christian church has tried to choose leaders who emulate as many of Jesus’ characteristics as possible. With masculinity an important component of Jesus’ identity, it’s no wonder that, as Schussler Fiorenza highlights, women are excluded from ordination on the basis of sex. One senses Schussler Fiorenza’s deep feeling on the topic as she shares, “my own church still does so [excludes women from ordination] today on grounds of anatomical sex. It is female sex that disqualifies a person from representing Christ” (Jesus 39).

Although Schussler Fiorenza’s statement seems a bit outlandish, such sexism is not uncommon within Christianity. Ruether cites the Vatican declaration in 1976: “‘There must be a physical resemblance between the priest and Christ’” (126). Chancellor Mary Jo Tooley of the St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon, discussed the issue of women’s ordination with me in a telephone interview on August 19, 1997. Chancellor Tooley agrees that the traditional view of the church as the bride of Christ is one reason for excluding women from ordination. In addition, Tooley explains that Jesus only called male apostles to follow him, so only men can be called to priesthood. Schussler Fiorenza offers a tongue-in-cheek summary of this dogmatic view: “Jesus was divine and . . . he could not have made a mistake. Since he did not choose women to be his apostles, he obviously did not intend for women to be successors of the apostles” (Jesus 74-75). Ruether’s interpretation of apostolic succession is slightly less abrasive than Schussler Fiorenza’s; she blames tradition and culture more than Christ himself for initiating the exclusion of women. After Christ left for heaven, Ruether explains, the Church believed they could only connect with him through the “official line of apostolic teaching” (124). During the Church’s early years, male leadership was normative, and that structure continues today: “Only males can occupy the apostolic teaching office and thus represent Christ. Women are to keep silent” (124). The attitude is that men are the best representatives of Christ, Ruether elaborates, is substantiated by Jesus’ maleness: “Their [women’s] inability to represent Christ is sealed by the definition of Christ as founder and cosmic governor of the existing social hierarchy and as the male disclosure of a male God whose normative representative can only be male” (125). When they are proclaimed incapable of representing Christ, the perfect human being, women are declared inferior to men.

We should note that not all exclusion of women from ordination is rooted in Christology. My own Seventh-day Adventist church voted down women’s ordination in its 1990 General Conference, and voted against allowing individual divisions to determine ordination policies in its most recent 1995 session at Utrecht, Sweden. The exclusion of women from ordination within Adventism, however, does not hinge on an understanding of Christ as the bridegroom and priest of the church. In fact, as Gary Patterson, field secretary of the General Conference, explains, the issue is decided “in the context of preserving church unity, not on theological grounds” (37). Since Adventism is a worldwide church, it encompasses many countries where women are still viewed as less intelligent and less valuable than men. Ordaining women, some believe, would undermine the authority of the Adventist message in the eyes of these world church members.9 In an article defending women’s ordination, Patterson explains the Adventist position on women’s ordination by quoting the official statement from the 1990 General Conference :

The action clearly states that it “does not have a consensus as to whether or not the Scriptures and the writings of Ellen G White explicitly advocate or deny the ordination of women to pastoral ministry.” As A. C. McClure asked the 1994 Annual Council, “Does it not speak for itself that after more than 20 years of serious study the church has not taken a theological position?” (37).

While Christology forms a basis for sexism within some denominations, it is not entirely to blame for all exclusion of women from ordination within Christian churches.

Consequences for all women

The church’s unwillingness to fully acknowledge female pastoral leaders through ordination has consequences even for women who do not seek official church positions. First, those who disagree with their church’s position on women’s ordination face separation from their community. Tooley explains that the Holy Father John Paul II believes that the exclusion of women from ordination is one of the fundamental doctrines of the magisterium, along with such unquestionable beliefs as transubstantiation and the virgin birth. Some theologians, Tooley says, argue that the issue of women’s ordination does not belong in the magisterium. As long as the Holy Father includes women’s ordination in the magisterium, though, there will be no change in church policy. And, as Tooley says, “There are just certain things that you believe if you’re a Catholic. If you’re going to be a Catholic, you believe the magisterium.” Those who believe that women should be allowed to represent Christ as ordained priests or pastors move against the official position of their denomination, giving up the right to call themselves by the name “Catholic.” Women in other Christian denominations which do not ordain women face similar problems.

Those who disagree with the church’s position on women’s ordination forfeit community, but those who accept the teaching don’t escape difficulties. The Vatican’s 1976 declaration that women cannot represent Christ teaches women that they cannot identify with God as fully as men can. While men can take Jesus as a role model and strive to emulate his life on earth, women are taught that their femininity prevents them from becoming fully like Jesus.10 Excluding women from ordination is damaging because it suggests that women are not only less capable of representing humanity before God, but also less capable of connecting with God than men.

Be like Jesus: Form no boundaries, suffer silently

Be like Jesus, this my song,
in the home and in the throng;
Be like Jesus all day long!
I would be like Jesus.
— words to hymn by James Rowe (1865-1933)

Even though women may have been conditioned to believe that their femininity prevents them from fully identifying with Jesus, they still, like male Christians, believe they ought to emulate Jesus as much as possible. By far the most serious of my concerns about Jesus is that women, in their efforts to imitate his obedience, submission and self-sacrifice, enter and then maintain abusive relationships with other human beings.

A look at Jesus: Submission and silence

Jesus certainly did teach and model full submission to God as well as a remarkable willingness to put up with abuse from human beings around him. While teaching his disciples to pray and then again when praying in Gethsemane, Jesus demonstrates that submission to his Father’s wishes is paramount. He prays, “‘Thy will be done’” (Mt. 6:10, 26:39 KJV). Giving up one’s own will is an important part of Jesus’ philosophy: “‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’” (Mt. 16:24-25). Jesus puts this self-denying policy into practice, and requires the same of his disciples. After his twelve disciples return from their first mission, Jesus invites them to “‘come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’” (Mk. 6:31). But when Jesus and the tired men arrive at the other side of the lake and see all the people, Jesus has “compassion for them” (vs. 34) and chooses to teach them all day long instead of resting. When Christians sing “Be like Jesus, this my song,” they set for themselves the task of submitting to the Father’s will and denying the needs of self in favor of serving others.

Jesus doesn’t draw the line at submission to the Father’s will. He also argues for submission, or at least non-retaliation, to other human beings: “‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” but I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also’” (Mt. 5:38) and “‘Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you’” (Lk. 6:28 ). The message is not “get out of abusive situations,” but “turn the other cheek, do good, bless, pray.”

Jesus himself demonstrates this attitude in action (or perhaps in passivity) as he refuses to resist the Roman soldiers who whip, spit at, and taunt him during his arrest, trial and crucifixion. Jesus does not speak in defense of himself, but instead offers words addressed to God (“‘Father, forgive them’” (Lk. 23:34)) or brief statements in reply to direct questions (“‘You say that I am’” (Lk. 22:70)). The closest thing to a rebuttal Jesus puts forth is his mocking statement, “‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me’” (Mk. 14:48-49).11 Even with these words, Jesus is not attempting to remove himself from an abusive situation. He views his crucifixion as God-ordained, and even chides Peter for trying to fight against it: “‘Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’” (Jn. 18:11).12 Since Jesus’ attitude is one of submission to the Father’s will, it’s no wonder that most Christian teachings emphasize Jesus’ silence during his trial and crucifixion, letting the silence become a sort of testimony of Jesus’ innocence. Dostoevsky’s well-known chapter of The Brothers Karamazov, “The Grand Inquisitor,” and Ellen White’s description of Jesus’ trial (Desire of Ages 726, 730), for instance, build on the theme of silence.

Too often, women who model their lives after the silent, submissive Jesus do not establish healthy boundaries for their interactions with other people. Rita Nakashima Brock speaks out against modeling our lives after Jesus. She claims that Jesus’ obedience to his father even “to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8) is a thinly disguised example of parent-child abuse. As such, it becomes a sick endorsement of abuse, teaching children that it is somehow always right to succumb to parental authority: “The father-child images for divine-human relationships mystif[y] abuse” (37). For adult women as well as children, the picture of Jesus as the one obedient even unto death can reinforce the idea that one ought to submit to those in authority rather than move against their abusive behaviors. For Nakashima Brock, Jesus’ verbal teaching that we should “turn the other cheek” only adds to the unhealthy example he sets. A woman who turns the other cheek to a man who is beating her either physically or emotionally can hardly be considered healthy.

Nakashima Brock also argues that the traditional emphasis on Jesus’ innocence reinforces women’s guilt, making it more difficult for them to justify leaving abusive situations: “Doctrines about the sinless purity of Jesus and the image of him as an innocent lamb taken obediently to slaughter reinforce the idea that victims ought to be innocent and virtuous or else pain and suffering are deserved” (42). Women recognize that they are not innocent as Jesus was, and come to believe that they therefore deserve to suffer.13

While not all women suffer literal physical abuse, many — perhaps a majority — struggle with boundary issues. Women feel guilty pursuing their own interests because they believe that they ought to focus on filling the needs of family members, friends, and even unknown underprivileged people. Jesus’ teaching of self-denial builds on women’s tendency to serve others to the exclusion of their own needs. As Schussler Fiorenza testifies, “The cultural socialization of wo/men [sic] to selfless femininity and altruistic behavior is reinforced and perpetuated by the Christian preaching of self-sacrificing love and humble service” (38). The idea that we ought to serve others before serving ourselves is not, in itself, offensive. However, the emphasis on loving others within Christianity has been so great that developing one’s own talents or serving one’s own needs has become a sin. As Ruether suggests, women in particular struggle with the idea that they should ignore their own needs in favor of service:

Although this doctrine of sin and virtue supposedly is for “all Christians,” it becomes, for women, an ideology that reinforces female subjugation and lack of self-esteem. Women become “Christ-like” by having no self of their own. They become the “suffering servants” by accepting male abuse and exploitation. Women are made to feel profoundly guilty and diffident about even the smallest sense of self-affirmation. They fear the beginning steps of asking who they are and what they want to do, rather than “putting others first.” (186)

One Christian woman I know illustrates the problem Ruether describes. This fine lady suffers from a debilitating disease which drains her energy and becomes progressively worse if she does not rest enough. Under doctor’s orders, this woman has stopped working. She is hardly able to keep herself going, and yet she constantly reaches out to help others. She mows the lawn for her neighbor, who recently broke his hip, and she watches a friend’s three children without receiving reimbursement on a regular basis. Some force impels this woman to serve others even when her body is rebelling and demanding rest.

I speak not only as an observer, but as a participant. I too can testify to the power of the philosophy “deny yourself and do as Jesus would do.” An internal battle wages, for in my desire to serve others as Jesus did, I try to befriend people who are emotionally needy. After a session of listening to their problems, my energy is sapped, but I feel morally upright: I’ve been serving others. When I spend time with people who energize me, who talk about topics I enjoy, I accuse myself of selfishness: I’m gratifying my own desires instead of helping others. While I suspect that I would tend toward this sort of codependence regardless of my Christology, I am convinced that the internal imperative, “do as Jesus would do,” plays a strong role in my guilt feelings. Deep within, I feel that Jesus would deny himself and take up the cross, and so I am impelled to do likewise, even when doing so means letting my own talents atrophy and my needs go unmet.

As well as emphasizing submission rather than retaliation, Jesus models a silence during his trial and execution which emphasizes his innocence. Women who read the Christ story learn that speaking out about their abuse admits of their own guilt. When they emulate Jesus by remaining silent in abusive situations, women become isolated from outside support systems. They lose a valuable self-analytical tool — if they maintain the Christ-endorsed silence, they can no longer think through the problem by talking about it to a friend. The Jesus who suffered in silence, when taken as a role model, strips women of the power they need to extricate themselves from abuse.

Another look at Jesus: Suffering as a route to God

A consequence of Jesus’ policy of non-retaliation, as articulated in the sermon on the mount, is that he must suffer at the hands of his enemies. Jesus shows commitment to his philosophy, allowing his persecutors to crucify him without a single movement of resistance. In fact, Jesus seems indifferent to his current suffering, in light of the kingdom to come: “‘I am [the Messiah]; and “you will see the son of Man seated at the right hand of Power,” and “coming with the clouds of heaven.”’” (Mk. 14:62). 14

Those who follow Jesus’ philosophy must be prepared for the suffering which is sure to be involved. Jesus teaches his followers to expect, and even welcome, persecution: “‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven’” (Mt. 5:11). Theologians have developed the idea that suffering and self-denial are legitimate indicators of a successful Christian life, and can even be means of approaching God. One of the earliest commentators on the subject is the author of Philippians, who emphasizes the importance of Jesus’ obedience to the Father and his willingness to endure suffering in this passage on imitating Jesus: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus . . . he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5,8). Modern theologians also view suffering as a means of becoming close to Christ. I explore the comments of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in some depth here in order to demonstrate how easily a woman can interpret Jesus’ teachings of obedience, submission, and self-denial as justifications for enduring abuse.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, written during the World War II persecution of the Jews, places great value on sharing the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we are able to completely deny self and look only at Jesus, we will be able to bear the “suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ” (98). Bonhoeffer makes it a point, however, to distinguish between suffering just for the sake of suffering and suffering with Christ:

It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life, but the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life. It is not suffering per se but suffering-and-rejection, and not rejection for any cause or conviction of our own, but rejection for the sake of Christ.” (98)

Bonhoeffer further clarifies that “there is no need for [a Christian] to go out and look for a cross for himself [sic], no need for him deliberately to run after suffering” (98). Although a careful reader recognizes that Bonhoeffer limits the kinds of suffering which are part of the Christian journey, his comments are easy to misinterpret. The distinction between suffering for the sake of Christ and simply suffering for the sake of suffering is buried under many references to suffering as the “badge of true discipleship” (100). When I first read Bonhoeffer’s discussion, I misunderstood him to mean that any suffering for any reason was conducive to spiritual growth. He does indicate that one way Christians suffer is by bearing and forgiving the sins of others (100). Together with his emphasis on suffering as a requirement of Christianity, this notion is easily interpreted (probably misinterpreted) to mean that Christians ought not to try to remove themselves from situations which require forgiveness and suffering. This philosophy does little to encourage a physically or emotionally abused woman to leave her abuser: after all, she is following Christianity by bearing an abuser’s sins, and she is suffering in her effort to forgive.

A good Christian is a suffering Christian

Apparently my misinterpretation of Bonhoeffer is common among female Christians. It is easy for a woman to believe that her particular abusive situation is the “cross destined and appointed by God” (Bonhoeffer 97) for her. After all, Jesus does say “‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you . . .’” (Mt. 5:11). A woman who buys this philosophy might think of enduring abuse as a discipline to ensure that she is utterly denying self and suffering in forgiveness. If she were to extricate herself from that abuse, she would no longer be suffering, and then how could she be assured that she was on the Christian path? A woman might even take pleasure in knowing that she is enduring abuse just as Jesus did. Again let me clarify that Bonhoeffer’s philosophy, taken in its entirety, does not justify this mentality. My point is that his emphasis on suffering is terribly easy to misinterpret. Since, as outlined above, the Biblical account of Jesus’ life also tends to encourage suffering, it is terribly easy for Christian women to believe that God wants them to remain in abusive situations.

Many feminists hold that what individuals believe about Jesus can determine the degree of difficulty they have in removing themselves from physically or emotionally abusive situations. Schussler Fiorenza summarizes an essay by Sheila Redmond, which posits that many children have trouble recovering from sexual abuse because they “have internalized questions, images, and values that prevent such recovery, namely, the notions of suffering as good and forgiveness as a virtue, the necessity — especially for little girls — of remaining sexually pure, the need for redemption, and, most importantly, the emphasis on obedience to authority figures” (Jesus 99). As we have seen, modeling one’s life after Jesus would certainly contribute to the internalized images and values which Redmond cites. Jesus did embrace suffering, encourage forgiveness, remain sexually pure (not to mention being born of a virgin), highlight the need for redemption, and endorse obedience to the authority of both God and other humans. It’s not hard to imagine that these internalized images and values affect adult women in abusive relationships as well. Being like Jesus, for many, consists of being submissive, silent, forgiving, and obedient even in abusive situations.

An androcentric tradition?

Christianity teaches that all believers should deny their own needs in favor of serving God and other human beings. The troubles I’ve described are largely contained within the female population of Christians, however. Why is it that most Christian men do not fall into codependence, even though they are socialized within the same framework as female Christians? Several feminists have put forward a bold explanation for the negative effect Christianity and traditional Christology has had on women. They suggest that the Bible is an androcentric book, written by men, for men, addressing male sins.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as Schussler Fiorenza relates, pioneered the “insight that the biblical text is androcentric and that men have put their stamp on biblical revelation” (In Memory 13) by compiling in 1895 The Woman’s Bible, a rewrite of the Bible which revises God’s dealings with and statements about women. Following Cady Stanton’s controversial lead, feminists have continued to develop the idea that the Bible addresses mainly male needs and, more importantly, male sins. The Bible, particularly in the teachings of Jesus, decries the stereotypically male sins of pride, selfishness, and aggressiveness in favor of humility, self-denial, and submission. Ironically, stereotypically female sins are just the opposite of male ones. Women tend toward self-effacement, submitting so fully to authority that they relinquish their freedom, individuality, and responsibility. Conrad Wahlberg offers a clear statement of the issue:

Sin must be defined from the woman’ point of view as well as the man’s. To identify sin with pride, lust and aggressiveness . . . is to indicate what men feel guilty about, not women. Women, like blacks, have been cautioned to hold back, be subject, suffer quietly in this world, do menial jobs. Thus, women’s sin is to be self-denying, self-demeaning, reluctant to admit strength and God-given creativity and potential. (10 emphasis in original)

While men often need to learn to bow to others’ wishes, women often need to accept the responsibility of making choices on their own instead of relinquishing freedom to an outside influence which they can blame for their behavior.

The Bible, because it addresses mainly male sins, can actually hinder the moral and spiritual development of women who take its teachings seriously. Elizabeth Johnson agrees that conquering pride is good for some people, but argues that those who are “already relegated to the margins of significance” (64) shouldn’t be taught to negate self. She continues, “Women’s primordial temptation is not to pride and self-assertion but rather to the lack of it, to diffuseness of personal center, overdependence on others for self-identity, drifting, and fear of recognizing one’s own competence” (64). Self-acknowledged feminists aren’t the only ones who have articulated the idea that women and men need different moral emphases in their philosophies as they strive for the virtuous golden mean. Thistlethwaite summarizes Reinhold Niebuhr’s ideas on the subject: “What may be described as sin for male experience, namely self-assertion, is in fact not sin but grace in female experience” (78). The current Christian tradition, which highlights Jesus’ teachings about giving up self in obedience and submission, seems to help men overcome the sin of pride and dominance. The effect of the same philosophy on women, however, is to produce self-effacement and irresponsibility in women who already tend to ignore their own needs as they give to others.

Female Christians, then, could benefit from a shift in their understanding of the Bible as an authoritative text. If women are to retain healthy boundaries and claim responsibility for their actions, they must rid themselves of the Biblically based notion that God requires silent suffering and utter self-effacement. To make this mental shift, women must understand the Bible not as the single, ultimate, authoritative word of God, but as a helpful text which, because it grew out of patriarchy, aims more at the needs and sins of men than at those of women. Changing the way one looks at the Bible, as Ray Anderson articulates, is not easy: “To read and interpret the Bible from other than a male-dominated perspective requires a radical ‘rereading’ and rethinking by those who are part of the oppressed rather than the oppressors” (305). Although it’s not easy to “reread” and “rethink” the Bible, doing so is perhaps the only way for female Christians to get around the “Be like Jesus” syndrome which leads them into people-pleasing, guilt-motivated relationships.

Is There a Way Out?

Recognizing the Bible as an androcentric text is one step toward healing the women who have adopted unhealthy philosophies of self-effacement and codependence as a result of Christianity. This final section suggests a few other modifications which might help women combat the negative effects of traditional Christianity.

Positive female role models

Emphasizing the Biblical and apocryphal stories about women who were courageous and well-connected with God may be a good starting place for modern Christians. If Christians heard from an early age the stories of strong women, they might build healthier pictures of femininity. The apocryphal story of Judith, for instance, depicts a beautiful, intelligent, wise, and decisive woman. Many Biblical stories could be read with a more positive emphasis on female characters. Jann Aldredge-Clanton critiques the church’s negative imaging of Mary Magdalene, and suggests that Paul unfairly “ignores the prominent role Jesus gave to Mary Magdalene and the other female disciples” (40). Aldredge-Clanton argues that if we taught the truth about these women — that they faithfully followed Jesus and were the first to visit his tomb and recognize his resurrection — modern Christians would have trouble claiming that women are not as spiritual or as worthy of connecting with Christ as men. Conrad Wahlberg agrees that the female disciples are often painted unfairly and suggests, as an example, this alternative reading of the story about the woman who anointed Jesus: “In this story of the ministering woman, then, Christendom has missed several things: the initiative of the woman, the passive as well as the verbal responses of Jesus to her initiative, and the implication that neither sex identity nor sexual purity is a prerequisite to performing a service for Jesus” (59). By acknowledging the existence of stories about women in the Bible, and then by positively interpreting those stories, Christians can improve their concepts of women.

Feminine expressions of God

The Old Testament God, as we have seen, is not particularly friendly to women, and even uses the female sex to represent waywardness in sections of Old Testament poetry and prophecy. The Lord is mainly described doing male things — for instance, he is Lord of Hosts (or of Armies),15 not the God of Cooking and Sweeping. There are, however, a few passages within the Old Testament which combine masculine and feminine metaphors to describe God. Feminine imagery for God can help Christians move toward gender equality by refuting those who claim that women are not imago Dei and shouldn’t be allowed to represent Christ as priests of the church. Ruether highlights Isaiah 42:13-14 as a text which models the melding of male and female language which by implication includes both men and women as imago Dei:

The Lord goes forth like a soldier,
like a warrior he stirs up his fury;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.

For a long time I have held my peace,
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor,
I will gasp and pant. (Is. 42:13-14)

By juxtaposing male and female metaphors for God, this text manages to avoid limiting God to one or the other of the genders. Johnson posits that God’s transcendence becomes clearer when we describe God with both male and female metaphors. We recognize that God is an “incomprehensible mystery” (55) because we see that all language falls short of encompassing God.

Not many texts meet the ideal of placing male and female imagery so close together. Because Jesus made the Father image of God so popular, Christians tend to emphasize the male aspects of God. There are, however, certain elements of God’s character which the Bible consistently describes with female imagery. Ruether adds to her own work the ideas of Phyllis Trible, who indicates that God’s compassion and forgiveness are often described in female terms: “The root word for the ideas of compassion and mercy in Hebrew is rechem, or womb” (56). Johnson affirms that the presence of God among the Israelites was also described with a feminine Hebrew word, Shekinah. The Spirit of God dwelling with us, then, is imaged as a female presence (83). This view of the Spirit as female carries over into the New Testament. Johnson suggests that Christ’s instruction to Nicodemus about being born again of the Spirit is evidence of the female nature of the Spirit — giving birth is a female activity (82-83). Aside from the idea of the Spirit as God’s female presence, other feminine metaphors for God are difficult to find, particularly in the New Testament. The one story which stands out is Jesus’ parable about the woman who searches her whole house for a lost coin (Lk. 15:1-10), in which the woman seems to represent God searching for a lost sinner. Simply emphasizing the female metaphors for God which already exist in the Bible helps quell the notion that only men are worthy of divinity.

Sophia

By far the most obvious female imaging of God is found in the Hebrew Wisdom literature. The canonical book of Proverbs and the apocryphal book known as the Wisdom of Solomon personify wisdom as Sophia, a female character who calls out to all people to live prudently in the knowledge of God.

Sophia’s relation to the divine is somewhat unclear. Ruether writes that Hebrew tradition represented Wisdom as “a dependent attribute or expression of the transcendent male God rather than an autonomous, female manifestation of the divine” (57). Ruether asserts that the book of Wisdom itself pictures Wisdom as a “manifestation of God through whom God mediates the work of creation, providential guidance, and revelation” (57). From Ruether’s perspective, then, Sophia is not actually God.

My own reading of the book of Wisdom leaves me less certain than Ruether about Sophia’s divinity. Sophia is not depicted as completely self-sufficient: “She is . . . the flawless mirror of the active power of God and the image of his goodness” (Wis. 7:26 NEB). A mirror is not the thing itself, so this verse suggests that Sophia is less than God. An earlier verse, which may or may not be referring to the personified character Sophia, affirms that “even wisdom is under God’s direction and he corrects the wise” (Wis. 7:15 NEB). If Sophia is a mirror of God and is under God’s direction, then she can’t actually be God. On the other side, however, Sophia has the power, eternal consistency, and creativity which are often associated with the divine: “She is but one, yet can do everything; herself unchanging, she makes all things new; age after age she enters into holy souls, and makes them God’s friends and prophets” (Wis. 7:27 NEB). While it’s not clear whether or not Sophia is actually divine, she is definitely connected with God.

Unfortunately, Judeo-Christian tradition does not emphasize the role of Sophia in our approach to God. The association of the feminine with the divine in the character Sophia can help Christians modify their view of God as an exclusively male entity.

Christ as Sophia

Theologians have noted that the character and sayings of Christ in the gospels are similar to those Sophia, or Wisdom, makes in Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon. Many feminists capitalize on these similarities, picturing Jesus as a prophet of Sophia, or even as Sophia-made-flesh. An extensive comparison is not possible here, but I will highlight some of the major similarities between Jesus and Sophia.16

Sophia’s actions are similar to those associated with Christ. As Johnson reveals, Sophia is a street corner preacher who berates the people to follow her: “Wisdom cries out in the street. . . . At the busiest corner she cries out” (Prov. 1:20-21) and “‘she cries out: ‘To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it’” (Prov. 8:4-5). Sophia-Wisdom herself is the prudence and intelligence which she tells the people to acquire. She is asking people to become like her or obtain from her that which they need for life. In the same way, Jesus teaches the common people from the hillsides and streets, and asks tax collectors, fishermen, and others to “‘Follow me’” (see Mk. 1:17, Mt. 19:21, Lk. 9:59, etc.). Christian tradition, built largely on the book of John, has Jesus offering the people himself as “‘the way, and the truth and the life’” (John 14:6) just as Sophia offers herself as the means to a good life.

The account of Sophia’s origin in Proverbs 8 is comparable to the mysterious origin of Jesus. Sophia, like Jesus in most Christologies, was begotten of God, yet also somehow participates in God’s divinity as creator: “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. . . . When he established the heavens, I was there . . . when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight” (Prov. 8:22-23, 27, 29-30). Proverbs 3:19 also depicts Sophia as God’s creative force: “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens.” Jesus’ origin is as mysterious as Sophia’s: his position as son of God puts him somehow after God in existence, yet, at least according to John, he is also one with the Father (Jn. 10:30). As Aldredge-Clanton points out (11), Jesus is traditionally understood as a creator: “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see, I am making all things new’” (Rev. 21:5). Created and yet creating, Sophia and Jesus have similar origins and similar roles.

Working from Wisdom 9:18-10:21, Schussler Fiorenza offers another comparison between Sophia and Christ: both, she suggests, are saving agents. In a style comparable to the faith chapter in Hebrews, this section of the book of Wisdom lists events such as Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, claiming that Wisdom gave all the heroes the ability to act righteously. Wisdom guides, gives knowledge, and saves good people from destruction. Also listed in the chapter are those who went astray; without fail their demise is a result of shunning Sophia: “Wisdom they ignored, and they suffered for it” (Wis. 10:8 NEB). Like Sophia, Christ is pictured as the saving agent who is the light of the world, saving all who believe in him from eternal damnation.

Christ doesn’t just act like Sophia; he sounds like her too. Aldredge-Clanton notes that the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) encourages people to shoulder the yoke of Sophia just as Christ asked people to shoulder his yoke: “Put your feet in wisdom’s fetters and your neck into her collar. . . . Come to her whole-heartedly, and keep to her ways with all your might. Follow her track, and she will make herself known to you; once you have grasped her, never let her go. In the end you will find the relief she offers” (Ecc. 6:24-27 NEB). Christ’s teaching is remarkably similar, using the yoke metaphor and also offering relief: “‘Come to me, all whose work is hard, whose load is heavy; and I will give you relief. Bend your necks to my yoke, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble-hearted; and your souls will find relief. For my yoke is good to bear, my load is light’” (Mt. 11:28-30 NEB). Wisdom in Ecclesiasticus also seems to be subject to God just as Jesus was subject to God: “Who has laid bare the root of wisdom? Who has understood her subtlety? One alone is wise, the Lord most terrible, seated upon his throne” (Ecc. 1:6-8 NEB). Jesus’ sayings also acknowledges that God stands above him just as God stands above wisdom: “‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone’” (Mk. 10:18).

Many of Christ’s sayings build on those attributed to Sophia in Proverbs. For instance, Sophia proclaims, “‘I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me’” (Prov. 8:17). Jesus’ saying is similar: “‘Ask, and it will be given you, search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you’” (Mt. 7:7). In at least one instance, Jesus actually mentions Sophia and identifies himself with her: “‘For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’” (Mt. 11:18-19). 17 Jesus seems to be referring to himself as wisdom, implying that he will be vindicated even though people are judgmental of him.

Using these and other similarities, feminists point out that the view of Jesus as the Sophia or wisdom of God is just as valid, if not more so, as the view of Jesus as the Logos or word of God. Unfortunately, the gospel of John substantiates the Logos metaphor, and as a consequence the female Sophia has been ignored. Ruether feels that Sophia in Proverbs 8 and in Wisdom of Solomon "is theologically identical to what the New Testament describes as the Logos, or ‘Son’ of God.” Ruether goes on to describe the real problem with using Logos to the exclusion of Sophia: “Because Christianity chooses the male symbol for this idea, however, the unwarranted idea develops that there is a necessary ontological connection between the maleness of Jesus’ historical person and the maleness of Logos as the male offspring and disclosure of a male God” (117). Bringing the feminine Sophia into the foreground as a pre-figure of Christ may temper the masculinity of the Christ figure, preventing the exclusion of women from communion with divinity.

Unfortunately, not all the results of connecting Christ with Sophia are so palatable. If one accepts Jesus, as Schussler Fiorenza suggests we ought to, as simply one in a long chain of Sophia’s prophets, we give up Jesus’ claim to divinity. Jesus is no longer God-incarnate, and his death is not a death of atonement any more than any of the other prophets’ deaths brought atonement.

Viewing Christ as a divine Sophia-incarnate is perhaps a better solution than accepting Schussler Fiorenza’s picture of him as just another of Sophia’s prophets. In this Christology, Christ retains his divinity (as long as one holds Sophia divine), and his death can still be one of atonement. Because Sophia is an entity prefiguring Christ, however, associating Christ with her results in a rather metaphorical theology. Aldredge-Clanton, one of the pioneers of the “Christ-Sophia,” does not believe it important to dwell on the identity of the historical Jesus. Instead of focusing on facts, she prefers to concentrate on the “spiritual reality of the risen One” (56). The important thing, for Aldredge-Clanton, is that we continue looking to the future, a process which the Christ-Sophia facilitates by existing without a particular identity in the “historical” gospel accounts. With the Christ-Sophia, believers are not tempted to dwell on history and can thus attend to the current and future actions of their savior. In addition to including the feminine in the Christ figure, then, the Christ-Sophia allows believers to attend to God’s present spiritual activity rather than remaining stuck in the distant facts of the past.

Christa

Distinct from the somewhat metaphorical interpretation of Christ as God’s Sophia or Wisdom is the view of Christ as an androgynous or even female character. I do not find this approach particularly helpful, but I feel that it deserves mention in a paper which explores ways to move toward gender equality within Christianity.
Some theologians draw attention to Jesus’ speech, behavior, and in particular his body, claiming that he exhibits feminine characteristics. Aldredge-Clanton, who believes that Jesus was a feminist, points out that Jesus “used feminine images in self-references” (46). For instance, in Matthew 23:37 Jesus speaks as a mother, “‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.’” Aldredge-Clanton also sees John 7:37-38, where Jesus invites the thirsty to come to him and drink for “‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jn. 7:38), as a maternal image often overlooked: “The image of drinking from a human being could only be interpreted as a maternal image, but translations have rendered the Greek word koilia as ‘heart,’ when a more accurate translation would be ‘breast’” (46). Jesus’ words in John, “‘I am the bread of life’” (Jn. 6:35), can also be interpreted as a claim to be a motherly, nurturing figure. In addition to using feminine self-descriptive terms, feminists argue, Jesus does womanly things. In John 4, he talks with a woman about a typically feminine subject — her personal relationships. At the last supper, he takes on a maid’s task of washing feet.

While these verbal statements and actions from Jesus can be interpreted with a feminine twist, they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule. Many of the supposedly “feminine” statements can be interpreted along either of the gender lines. For instance, there are plenty of masculine associations with bread — men are often referred to as the “bread-winners” because they are responsible for providing for their families. Even if Jesus did employ feminine metaphors and occasionally do feminine things, most of his behaviors in the gospels are gender neutral or clearly masculine. These occasional feminine words and actions, then, hardly negate his masculinity.

A more convincing case for the Christa, however, can be found outside the gospels in works of art. Whether or not they realize it, Christians often depict Jesus’ body as feminine. In the overwhelming majority of pictures and icons detailing his crucifixion, Jesus’ body is slender and undeveloped; he certainly is not portrayed as a brawny, “manly” man. Often in crucifixion scenes, Jesus rests on one leg so that the other hip juts out to create the smooth “S” curve often associated with femininity. Consider, for instance, the 17th Century Spanish oil painting Crucifixion, pictured in Buechner and Boltin's The Faces of Jesus (Plate 108, pg 187). Jesus’ arms are slender, and his torso smooth and rounded, lacking the triangular upper body of a developed man. His head hangs modestly with long hair covering his eye, and his right hip leans suggestively away from the otherwise straight lines of his body. In this and many other art pieces, Jesus is portrayed not as a robust and masculine character, but as a smooth-fleshed, gentle, and somewhat effeminate figure.

Other non-Biblical feminine associations with Jesus grow from the crucifixion as well. Some theologians connect the blood flow of the female menstrual cycle with the life-giving blood Jesus shed on the cross. Caroline Walker Bynum summarizes some of the rich possibilities when one compares menstrual blood, as the essential nutrient for a developing baby, with Jesus’ blood: “Such medical conceptions of blood [as the source of life] could lead to the association of Christ’s bleeding on the cross — which purges our sin in the Atonement and feeds our souls in the Eucharist — with female bleeding and feeding” (185). Like a woman’s body, Jesus’ body imparts life by giving up some of its own life. Prompted by artwork and theology, believers have accepted a body of Christ which encompasses femininity almost to the exclusion of masculinity.18

Strangely, women do seem to identify with Jesus’ body more closely than men. Historically, the stigmata, or signs of the cross, have been manifested far more often in women than in men, as Walker Bynum points out: “Medieval women came more frequently than medieval men to literal, bodily imitatio Christi, both in stigmata and in other forms of miraculous sufferings and exudings” (185). Women experience mysterious lactation, signs of the cross, and holy anorexia,19 all of which are physical phenomenon deeply associated in some way with the body of Christ. Walker Bynum theorizes that “women mystics often simply became the flesh of Christ, because their flesh could do what his could do: bleed, feed, die and give life to others” (188).
Although the fact that women identify with the body of Christ does not indicate that he was necessarily feminine (Christa), it does confirm that he is not perceived as exclusively masculine.

Perhaps as a result of his association with the female body, some Christians have seriously defended the idea of Christ as a female character. The 14th century Mother Julian of Norwich is famous for the sixteen “Showings” God gave her after she nearly died of a serious illness. In the Showings, which Julian recorded and later expanded with commentary, Julian describes Christ as our compassionate Mother who longs to nurture and forgive us:

Often time when we fall . . . we scarcely know which way to turn. In such times our courteous Mother [Christ] does not want us to run away: he would loathe nothing more than that. Rather, he wants us to act like a child: for when it is distraught or frightened, it runs hastily to its mother for help with all its strength. So Christ wants us to do, acting like a meek child and saying thus: “My mother, by nature, my mother, by grace, my ever-loving mother, have mercy on me. I have made myself filthy and unlike to you. And I may not, nor cannot, make amends except with your secret help and grace.” (From the Fourteenth Showing; brackets inserted by the editor of Praying. 124)

Christ does not give up his saving role by taking on the motherly role. Julian still clings to the importance of Christ’s atoning blood: “Let us not fear — except insofar as fear may profit us. Rather, let us make humble complaints to our beloved Mother [Christ]. And he will sprinkle us all over with his precious blood and make our soul pliable and mild and heal us beautifully in the course of time” (From the Fourteenth Showing; brackets inserted by the editor of Praying. 128). Julian’s figure of the Mother-Christ shows deep compassion and offers comfort to the suffering while still covering their sins to make them right before God.

Although Julian doesn’t say so outright, she seems to view the Mother as a sort of metaphorical description of Christ, which serves to emphasize his compassion and ability to comfort. She is not concerned with changing the historical Christ’s gender, for she continues to refer to him using the masculine pronouns “he” and “his.” Julian does not seem to be pushing a feminist cause; instead she is reporting the marvelous comfort and forgiveness she has found in Christ by likening him to a Mother. Her description of Christ as mother, then, is not necessarily a description of Christa, but it has certainly been construed as such by modern readers.

Many of the examples of Jesus’ feminine side seem a bit contrived, but perhaps highlighting Jesus’ feminine traits can be healing for women who feel unable to identify with the god-incarnate because of his maleness. The feminine depiction of Christ’s body does seem to undercut the argument against women’s ordination which claims that a physical resemblance to Christ is a prerequisite for serving as his representative.

Stress the humanity of Christ

Perhaps the most helpful way to deal with Jesus’ masculinity is not to deny it, but to teach that his humanity is far more important than his masculinity. Unfortunately, Christians have adopted Jesus’ language about God, picturing God primarily as “Father” and allowing other metaphors such as Rock, Shepherd, and Light take a back seat. Martin Soskice highlights the research of Robert Hamerton-Kelly, who counted only 11 references to God as “Father” in the Old Testament, while Jesus refers to God as “Father” over 170 times (Martin Soskice 88). With the emphasis on God as Father, Jesus’ role as son becomes central. This understanding of the trinity places undo importance on the masculinity of God as “the Father” and Jesus as “the Son.”

Schussler Fiorenza complains that in “malestream theology . . . to be a Christian requires one to believe that masculine G*d-language [sic] and the historical maleness of Jesus constitute ultimate revelation” (Jesus 44). Under this definition, many feminists are not able to call themselves Christians. To get around this problem, some teach that Jesus’ importance as a saving figure is unrelated to his maleness. In this view, the trinity, with its emphasis on Jesus as a male figure, is a helpful model for understanding God, but is not the only possible understanding of Jesus. Johnson writes, “A mentality centered on the priority of men has taken identification with Christ as its own exclusive prerogative, aided by a naive physicalism that collapses the totality of the Christ into the bodily form of Jesus” (71-72). To clarify the point that Christ’s masculinity is not a fundamental prerequisite for his saving power, Aldredge-Clanton speculates that it would have been possible for theologians to have embraced Jesus’ race rather than his gender. If this had been the case, “the Jewishness of Jesus would be reflected in trinitarian language” (28) just as the masculine gender is reflected in the notion of Father-Son. Ideally, Christians would accept the trinity as a helpful model for understanding God, but would recognize that Jesus’ masculine representation in the trinity is not a fundamental part of his identity.

At first glance, modifying the understanding of the trinity to remove emphasis on Jesus’ masculinity seems like a fairly good way to prevent the exclusion of women from ordination. However, de-emphasizing the masculinity of Christ affects more than one’s ability to relate to him: it has the potential to alter one’s view of the historical Jesus. Most commentators agree that emphasizing, or at least retaining, the masculinity of Christ helps to keep him within a historical framework. Anderson argues that Jesus’ masculinity ought not to be covered over by well-meaning feminists, because too often “the historical particularity of Jesus of Nazareth disappears along with the ‘maleness’ of Christ” (303). For Anderson, it is vital that Jesus be maintained as a historical one-time revelation of God who actually bore the sins of the world and restored humanity to union with God. Aldredge-Clanton agrees with Anderson that speaking about Jesus as a male human being emphasizes his historicity. However, she urges Christians to move beyond history, following Christ out of his grave and on into the future: “In subtle ways, exclusively masculine language for Christ keeps us thinking about what Jesus did in the past rather than joining with Christ in transforming the world today” (4). While Anderson would like to retain the historical Jesus by using gender-specific language, Aldredge-Clanton would prefer to drop gender-specific language in order to focus on the resurrected Christ who is a force for good in modern times. The consequences of trying to reduce the emphasis on Jesus’ masculinity are more far-reaching than they at first appear.

Maybe service is actually power

While satisfying feminists with an explanation of Jesus’ masculinity may be an impossible task, reconciling his philosophy with a healthy lifestyle for both sexes may be within reach. As we have seen, women who follow Jesus tend to become self-denying to the point of losing their personal identity as they submit in service to God and other people. While we have considered this philosophy of self-effacement to be a negative thing, Ruether advocates Jesus’ teaching as a way of moving toward a new, non-hierarchical society. According to Ruether, Christ brings a “new kind of power, a power exercised through service, which empowers the disinherited and brings all to a new relationship of mutual enhancement” (30). In the kingdom of God, everyone will serve one another, so that no one group has power above another.

Ruether’s optimism is contagious, and her hopeful look to the future is inspiring. However, her position does little for women who are suffering today as servants of those who are unwilling to serve in return. In order for the kingdom of God to truly come, all people will have to serve with equal enthusiasm. In the mean time, Ruether’s philosophy would leave women serving (literally) as shining examples — and therefore remaining oppressed and abused. Following Jesus’ philosophy, it seems, simply leads to a disadvantaged life.

Let’s do it ourselves

Faced with these less-than-successful attempts to reconcile women and Christianity, some feminists take a radical approach which accepts Jesus as a helpful model but which does not acknowledge his divinity or his role as savior. Schussler Fiorenza and Nakashima Brock, for instance, suggest that Jesus was not the final representation of God, but only a demonstration of what love looks like. Schussler Fiorenza refuses to believe that God would require an atoning death to pay for human sin. Instead, she sees the crucifixion as a political event brought about by the Romans as a result of Jesus’ talk of the basileia, or coming kingdom of God (130 In Memory). Nakashima Brock believes Christians must recognize our ability and our responsibility to move against evil, becoming “willful agents of salvation” (49). In Nakashima Brock’s mind, it is a cop-out to teach that Jesus is the final or the only agent of salvation, because love by its very nature is evolutionary and relational: “For both love and justice to exist, there must be more than one person, no matter how spectacular he may be. For the power of God as love to be fully incarnate, the full presence of God cannot reside in Jesus only, but in the messy middle of our relationships” (48). These feminists remake Christianity into a philosophy which does not marginalize women, but they do it by denying Christ’s special role in salvation and emphasizing human responsibility to destroy evil and uphold love.

Metaphorical theology

While it is true that none of the suggestions above completely reconcile women with Christianity, the utter rejection of Christ as a special revelation of God seems unnecessarily radical. I find Sallie McFague’s metaphorical theology helpful because it maintains the importance of the Christ without insisting that he is the final and complete revelation of God.
Metaphorical theology grows from a realization that human beings naturally think and speak in terms of metaphors. Sallie McFague explains, in the opening chapters of Metaphorical Theology, that in order to put ideas into a language, we have to use a process which makes a connection between the actual thing and the thing as an idea in the mind. In this process, the word used to describe an object both “is and is not” (19) the thing itself: in the sense that it evokes an image or concept in the listener’s mind, the word is the thing described, but, in another sense, of course the word is not actually the thing itself. A metaphor is anything which, like a word, both “is and is not” the thing itself. Human beings use models and metaphors regularly. Scientific models, such as the Bohr model of the atom, help us understand physical phenomena we see; poems, songs, and stories give us a means to describe emotions, historical events, and other important parts of reality. We recognize, however, that any metaphor both “is and is not” the actual thing which we are describing. Metaphors are characteristic of all human thought, including all thought about God.

Paul Tillich, in Dynamics of Faith, makes it clear that humans can approach an infinite God only through metaphors, symbols, and myths. Since we cannot actually talk about something infinite, every expression we make about God, including even the name “God,” is a symbol which “points beyond itself while participating in that to which it points” (45). People who try to deny the symbolic nature of the language, Tillich expounds, begin to worship the symbol rather than the infinite God: “Faith, if it takes its symbols literally, becomes idolatrous! It calls something ultimate which is less than ultimate” (52). For Tillich, recognizing that language about God is necessarily symbolic is the only way to keep from limiting God: “Faith, conscious of the symbolic character of its symbols, gives God the honor which is due him” (52). Tillich’s effort to avoid idolatry includes recognizing that Christian symbols such as the host and the wine are not actually God, but are instead a symbol which points toward God without actually assuming divinity.

Viewing Jesus as the complete revelation of God limits God to something finite and comprehensible just as surely as does the doctrine of transubstantiation. 20 If God is not any more than the historical man Jesus, then God is not infinite. In order to preserve an infinite God and avoid the idolatry associated with calling a symbol the thing itself, both Tillich and McFague encourage an understanding of Jesus as a mythological or metaphorical character. McFague writes, “No finite thought, product, or creature can be identified with God and this includes Jesus of Nazareth, who as parable of God both ‘is and is not’ God” (19 emphasis in original). McFague cautions against “Jesusolatry” (50), or worshiping Jesus as a complete manifestation of God. For Tillich, our understanding of Christ as a real divine being manifest in human flesh is fundamentally mythical: “If the Christ--a transcendent, divine being--appears in the fullness of time, lives, dies and is resurrected, this is an historical myth. . . . It is a broken myth [i.e., a myth recognized as a myth which is not necessarily historically accurate], but it is a myth; otherwise Christianity would not be an expression of ultimate concern” (54). For both authors, no model can claim to completely describe a transcendent God. Metaphorical theology has important consequences for all Christians, but in this paper I will limit discussion to those aspects which have a direct effect on women in particular.

Moving God beyond the male

As we have discussed, the doctrine of the trinity assigns God a role as Father, effectively tying his divinity to masculinity. A metaphorical theology recognizes the difference between saying God is Father and saying God is like a Father or God “is and is not” Father. When we say that God is a Rock, we do not mean that God is only a rock, or even that God has every characteristic associated with a rock. In the same way, the father image for God is a metaphor: God “is and is not” Father. Metaphorical theology, rather than insisting on the trinity as the only way to understand God, recognizes the trinity as one of many helpful metaphors. Since some metaphors do work better to describe God than others, it is natural that we would choose some favorite images and use them regularly. Sanctifying particular metaphors and teaching them as the one way to understand God, however, places a limit on God and estranges those who do not relate well to those metaphors. Unfortunately, as Johnson points out, Jesus’ understanding of God as father has become our only model for understanding God: “Jesus’ example and teaching make the paternal metaphor normative for the church in such a way that other names for God are excluded” (79). Metaphorical theology acknowledges the father as an appropriate and helpful metaphor, but does not accept it as the only metaphor, or even the best one. McFague discusses the father metaphor for God from a woman’s perspective: “The feminist critique of God as father centers on the dominance of this one model [God as father] to the exclusion of others, and on the failure of this model to deal with the anomaly presented by those whose experience is not included by this model” (145 emphasis in original). A female pastor’s story at a small group session I attended substantiates McFague’s point: “My dad abused me. He was not a good father. I know it would shock many of my people, but I simply cannot worship God as Father. Even when I say the ‘Our Father’ prayer, I always edit it in my mind to ‘Our Mother.’” McFague would affirm this pastor’s effort to develop her own metaphors for God because the new metaphors allow her to relate to God. The important thing, McFague emphasizes, is not a particular metaphor or understanding, but a recognition that the kingdom of God consists of a “relationship modeled in the parables and in Jesus of Nazareth; hence, this relationship and not ‘God the father’ (or ‘God the mother,’ or any other model) is the root-metaphor of Christianity” (116). Metaphorical theology focuses on building a relationship with God, not on sustaining a particular traditional metaphor almost to the point of idolizing that metaphor. Because it acknowledges that all language about God falls short of describing God completely, metaphorical theology never insists upon a particular metaphor or even a particular interpretation of a metaphor. In metaphorical theology, the father metaphor is recognized as one of many appropriate metaphors, and God’s identity is no longer exclusively masculine. Believers are freed from the constraints of stagnant tradition and are able to apply other helpful metaphors for God without feeling as if they are denying God’s existence.

Jesus as one of many metaphors of God

Just as it provides for alternate metaphors for God, metaphorical theology makes room for alternative metaphorical interpretations of Christ’s role on earth. Alongside John’s idea of Christ as Logos, the masculine Word of God, there is room for Christ as Sophia, the feminine Wisdom of God. Also appropriate within metaphorical theology is the symbolic congruence between Jesus’ life-giving blood and the blood of menstruation. Interpretations like these using feminine metaphors for Jesus can satisfy those like Eleanor McLaughlin, who worry that women will fully recognize their equality with men only if “the image of God made Flesh is seen and experienced as female as well as male. We need a Jesus . . . ‘like me,’ a woman” (121). Because it justifies the figures of Christ-Sophia and Christa as legitimate metaphors for approaching God, metaphorical theology is saving philosophy for believers who feel separated from Jesus by his masculinity.

One of metaphorical theology’s main purposes is to preserve faith in the face of criticism of the historical Jesus by emphasizing that Jesus is an important metaphor for God regardless of his historical identity and divinity. The conviction that Jesus’ importance does not hinge on his historical identity is positive for feminists who wish to deemphasize the maleness of Jesus, which, as we have seen, tends to dissolve his historical identity. Although she does deemphasized Jesus as a historical character, McFague is far from ditching Jesus entirely; she insists that Jesus is a serious metaphor for God which “says what cannot be said any other way” (50). Jesus is an important revelation of God, in fact “