The Side
Issue
We might say Adam was the first Freudian because he traced his problem to sexuality. He looked at the state he was in and complained to God about the woman God had given him. Men and women have been blaming eachother for their troubles ever since. But sexuality is God's idea, and for all the flurry over the male-female controversy, no one can imagine life without it.
Sexuality is not synonymous with sex, as this word is used today. The sexual aspect of life unfortunately is often reduced to the sex act, something almost apart from our persons. Sexuality is far more encompassing, and our failure to understand this impoverishes us. We are sexual beings. The very fact of your human existence means that you are a sexual being. Sexuality is part of the divine creative order; it is personality incarnate as male or female.
That's obvious, you say. But I would go beyond that to say obviously good. Not just a fact, but a positive contribution to life. Sexuality is not tacked on to selfhood but belongs to its essence. Sexuality is the way I express who I am to others. In that sense, everything I do is sexual because I am a woman. To be a woman is a total way of existing.
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God made the man, placed him in a garden, and invited him to participate creatively with the Godhead. Man was given the privilege of naming all the creatures God had created. It was serious business, for the Bible says that whatever Adam called the animals that was their name. That kind of partnership in creativity never fails to excite me. Imagine the thrill of Adam's task.
But, the Genesis account continues, Adam found no one of his kind in all creation. He was alone. God knows the joy of unity because he experiences this wholeness within the Trinity to an extent that we cannot understand. In fact, oneness is God's idea; it is a God-concept. Knowing the joy of completion, of oneness, of fellowship, God declared that it was not good for man to be alone. So God fashioned someone like the man in kind, yet different in function. A person to complement and complete Adam. He recognized immediately that this was "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." He called her woman because she was taken out of man, and he received her joyfully. Then follows a most important and beautiful verse defining marriage, a verse quoted by Jesus and Paul in the New Testament: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).
Humanity is both male and female, not one or the other. Genesis 1:27 reads, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them." It is important to note that when both male and female are created the text speaks of their being made in the image of God. A unity. Mankind, as opposed to animalkind. Together male and female represent man made in the image of God. Together they are given dominion over the earth.
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The generic term man includes woman. The word Adam also means mankind, as in Genesis 5:2, "Males and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man [or Adam] when they were created." The creation account clearly and profoundly links male and female into a unity. Far more than being a "helper," woman is essential to man's being, and he is incomplete without her. Priority of creation may indicate male headship, but there is no evidence of superiority between the first and second persons of the Trinity. As the Son was to the Father, so woman is to be to man (1 Corinthians 11:3). The two, male and female, are side by side in creation.
We often think in terms of masculine and feminine characteristics. Both are found within the personality of God. A fuller representation of God's image necessitated female. Man and woman together represent the image of God.
Therefore, I believe it is superficial to say that the difference between the male and the female is merely physiological. If that were the only difference, it would still not be so "mere," since a woman's physiology permeates and conditions her daily life more directly than a man's does. In fact, it is one of the burdens many women resent. One thing seems obvious: Woman is not a man with feminine features anymore than a man is a woman with masculine features. A common humanness exists, which includes mental and spiritual equality, but God had more in mind than procreation when He made male and female.
Woman is a separate creative act of God. She is like the man and yet different. She has proven herself to be the equal of man, but that is different than being equal to or the same. We err if we overemphasize sameness, and we fall into a trap
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of another kind if we specialize only in differences. Suffice it to say here that women brings different gifts to the world, and this observation placed into experience has been the joy and conflict of many lives.
I labor over this because some of the currents of thought today begrudge the idea that God should be spoken of as a male. Some even object that the term mankind is prejudiced against women. God is Spirit (John 4:24). He is represented to us in ways which we can understand, and thus he is spoken of as God, the Father. Personally, I find the Fatherhood of God to be a vastly comforting experience, and it seems to me that all that is implied in his Fatherhood is found at the core of the universe.
If we are personally diminished by the male reference to God, we have not begun in any way to come to terms with our own sexuality. God made me a woman, and although all the world were to be male-dominated and oppressive, I believe He expects me to carry my womanhood with dignity and honor because it is not inferior in His sight.
The divine design is no mistake. The mutual attraction of male and female calls us out of our aloneness, out of our independence to see that we need each other. It is the foundation of human history. We are meant to enhance each other, to affirm the other's personhood, and to discover that in our mutual dependence we solve the mystery of our existence.
Obviously, something has gone awry in the relationship between men and women. The unity, the complementing, the enhancing has become the rare experience rather than the norm. Absorption with sex as a commodity or an experience has dehumanized both men and women so that an act becomes more important than personhood. Sex clouds our appreciation of sexuality. Sexuality belongs to the essence
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of our person, and if this were properly understood we could be content with an emphasis on accepting ourselves as persons.
Perhaps because I am a woman I believe that women suffered the greatest loss as the result of the fall. I have speculated on Satan's strategy in making his approach through the woman. Was there something inherent in her nature that made her more receptive to his deceit? And was there likewise a receptivity to his wife that influenced Adam's behavior? Whatever the answer, a disaster took place. Both the man and woman hid themselves from the presence of God. This simple sentence — both tragic and profound — is the key to understanding subsequent history.
Everything changed for both the man and the woman. Henceforth the man would toil to obtain his food all the days of his life, the very ground of the earth working against him. Thorns, thistles, the sweat of his face. Sin's disorder more directly affected the woman's person. Childbirth would be painful; her own body would work against her. Her desire would be for her husband and her husband would rule over her. Sin was let loose in the world. Selfishness. One-up-manship. Exploitation. Domination. Fatigue. Unrest. Abuse. Deceit. The misery of meeting self's needs. The loss of identity.
Conceit and moral perversion led men away from God's ideal in the mutual creation of mankind. Men began to see women as inferior and for their own use. The farther men went from the divine revelation, the darker the picture for women. Her loss of prestige and her rightful place beside man degenerated steadily, and history indicates that the darkest years came after 1000 BC. One of the first indications of this decline in the Bible is found when Lamech took two wives. Polygamy was never sanctioned by God and directly
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opposes the principle found in Genesis 2:2. God receives considerable blame from contemporary feminists for the subjection of women. Blaming God for mankind's troubles is consistent with our perverse nature; the subjection of women was born out of sinfulness, out of the fall.
A study of history reveals that the ancient Hebrews, in contrast to the pagan nations around them, never completely lost the ideal God had given them at creation. In the Law, for instance, children were instructed to honor both father and mother. Women of excellent spirit rose to prominence and national leadership in Israel. A woman was a judge, some were poets, and others were leaders. One thinks of Esther, Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and others. Even the power of a wicked Jezebel shows the extent of women's influence in Israel. History records that Queen Alexandra during the inter-testamental period initiated compulsory education for both boys and girls, a revolutionary concept at that time, thus banishing illiteracy in Palestine. Yet the Old Testament also records discrimination against women, the adoption of pagan practices, and the prophets' outcry against the desecration of marriage (Malachi 2). The Bible is very honest in recording wickedness.
The desire to dominate, to subjugate another, to be superior comes out of the heart of mankind set in opposition to God. We have only to think of galley slaves in Mediterranean ships to realize that women have not been the only ones to suffer. In fact, wherever women have been able to maneuver the situation, they have dominated men with a variety to weapons, leaving their own mark on history. But when Jew prayed, "I thank thee that I am not a woman," he was not reflecting the viewpoint of God anymore than the contemporary church does when it expresses prejudice. It seems natural for mankind to try to find someone to look
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down upon. And others take pride in "looking down on those who look down on people."
Even at the height of their culture, a low view of women existed in the Greek and Roman worlds. Noble women are mentioned, as well as businesswomen like Lydia, but only in Greek art and poetry are women heroines. Aristotle is said to have taught that women were inferior in every way, only a rank above slaves. Xenophon, the historian, recorded these prejudices and wrote that women are best kept confined to an "inside world." Plato advocated community wives. Goddesses, fertility rites, and prostitution in pagan temples scarred the lives of both the men and women to whom Paul preached in Gentile cities. In the city of Corinth, for instance, a thousand prostitutes were kept in the temple as part of pagan worship. Without question, the life of the early church was complicated by the experience of the people in it, and this is the context of Paul's teaching about women and the problems of marriage. First Corinthians 7 must be read in light of the entangled relationships which existed in a new church born out of such a culture.
But light comes to the darkness. God becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ to restore mankind to Himself. The Son of God confines Himself to a woman's womb and is dependent on her care and nurture. In that one event alone God signaled women's status. Mary's song is a song of enablement by God. As Jesus becomes a grown man He moves about in the company of women with a freedom unknown to the teachers of His day. Even His disciples marveled that He, a teacher, should hold a conversation with a woman in public. And to that very woman (see John 4) He gave the first revelation that He was the Messiah. He was direct and natural in His manner with women, never stooping to a patronizing or domineering role.
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Jesus regularly taught women the Scriptures, a practice not normally allowed in Judaism. He commended Mary for taking the "male role" in sitting at His feet and listening to His teaching. He refused to force her into a typical stereotype when He told Martha that Mary had chosen that better part. In fact, He treated both of them as persons who could exercise their own priorities.
In Jewish tradition a woman was not permitted to bear witness. Jesus deliberately broke that tradition and commissioned women to be the first witnesses of the resurrection. He said, "Go, tell the disciples...." He also broke the taboo about the ritual uncleanness of a menstrous woman by curing the woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years. He did not simply cure her quietly, but called public attention to the fact that she had touched Him, and He did not shrink from her touch.
When a woman called out, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that you sucked!" Jesus rejected that limited view of women and affirmed a greater view of personhood by replying, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"
A careful reading of the gospels reveals that Jesus sought to give equal dignity to women in many ways. When He wanted to illustrate how much God loves lost people, He told three parables. In the first, the shepherd, who leaves ninety-nine sheep to seek the lost one, represents God. In the second parable, a woman seeking a lost coin represents God. In the third, a father longs for his son, and the father is God.
Unquestionably Jesus made a sharp break with contemporary culture by giving women full dignity and freedom as persons. Women were not only the first to believe, but were honored with some of the most significant revelations about Jesus. He is Christ, the Liberator, restoring
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us to God and offering to redeem our prejudices, our failures, and our position in life.
Because of him Paul could write, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
Years have passed since His coming. The patterns of sin are deeply ingrained in our society. The abuses of the past have left many women with a loss of personhood, of self-value. Bible verses quoted out of context to prove that woman's existence is for man continue to excuse man's selfish use of and domination of women in some circles. It is appalling to think that as late as the early 1900s women were treated as second-class citizens, without the right to vote, to hold property, or to go to court. If a girl did not marry, few careers were open to her. Time has erased many of the prohibitions of the past, and yet women still must crusade for equal pay for equal jobs. The opportunity to enter almost any profession, including serving in the armed forces, now belongs to women. Yet in many places women still feel discriminated against, and the church is often one of those places.
The church reads the magnificent tribute of a king to his mother in Proverbs 31 on Mother's Day, and then the rest of the year overapplies the transcultural significance of Paul's instructions for women to keep silent. They forget about Philip's four daughters who prophesied and about Priscilla, a co-worker with Paul, who taught Apollos and whose name is often mentioned before that of her husband in the work of the church.
That's the background of the world in which we live. Meanwhile, women have not always been examples of godliness in the face of this stress. Their strengths and their
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gifts have been twisted out of shape. The instructions of the New Testament that irritate women today were necessitated by real-life situations, interestingly as real today as the day they were written. "And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to" (1 Timothy 5:13). ..."give the enemy no opportunity for slander" (v.14). Paul was helping churches in a pagan world to see that those who believed in Jesus were to have conduct worthy of the gospel. And one of the things that most impressed the first-century world was the honor and chastity shown within the Christian home and the integrity of interpersonal relationships. The pagan Libanius is said to have exclaimed, "What women these Christians are!" That same witness is needed today.
Suffering from exploitation, women have found ways to exploit others: manipulation, playing the distorted female image for all it is worth. Accepting your sexuality precludes this kind of behavior. Men alone have not made women sex-objects; women have let them do it. While seeming to resist, they respond to all the clamor of sexual come-one by the products they buy and the way they act. I've watched women with good minds and high ambitions stoop to the silliest of maneuvers, turning their backs on their best friends, to gain what they thought was that experience of supreme value — the attention of a male.
At the other end of the spectrum are the scared ones who can endure no healthy, wholesome friendships with men. They cut themselves off into exclusive friendships with their own sex, and repudiating the natural attraction between men and women, they grow prudish and become a type of atrophied humanity.
Neither of these have accepted their sexuality and found fulfillment in their personhood. A healthy freedom shines out
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from the one who can celebrate the joy of being a woman. Shout it out. This chaotic, tension-filled, sex-oriented world has plenty of room for a free and joyous acceptance of womanhood. Redeemed womanhood has a kind of clear, wholesome atmosphere about it that has an uplifting effect on everyone.
A person's attitude toward her sexuality manifests itself in all of her behavior: the way she finds fulfillment, her acceptance of responsibility, her self-discipline, her ability to give herself in relationships, her attitude toward men, and her treatment of other women. The woman struggling with self-acceptance rarely likes other women. She may use them for her purposes, but her loyalty is thin even toward those who seem closest to her. She may avoid women completely and opt to radiate in the presence of men, and thus fulfill a need for approval and identity, but she is wary of relationships which demand anything of her.
Learning integrity in one's emotional life is never easy, especially in the face of the pressures of our present culture, so plastic and pervaded with dishonesty. Yet I feel it must be learned if a woman is to experience the fulfillment and commitment of meaningful relationships.
What do I mean by this? Simply wholeness. Putting it together so that your personhood and your sexuality are in harmony. You've accepted yourself. You have stopped grabbing at life to fill your own needs. You face reality honestly. You can relax and be wholesomely you — not celebrating your hangups, but celebrating the joyful acceptance of being a woman and the freedom to give yourself in your relationships.
The potential for this kind of wholeness is made possible by the redemption found in Jesus Christ. The answer to accepting your sexuality is the same as the answer
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to accepting yourself. Jesus Christ has redeemed us; He will redeem our personalities, our relationships, our expression of self in the world. He tells us who we are and what we can do. He puts our priorities straight; He fills our empty spots so that we are kept from seeking fulfillment in the wrong places. He understands women. He understands you.
Then why does the Christian church sometimes treat women as inferior, as if they aren't qualified for spiritual leadership? What about those sticky Bible passages about women being silent?
The passages in question come from two main sources: the letter to the Corinthians and Paul's letter to Timothy at Ephesus. Both letters were written in the context of the Greco-Roman culture where women were given an inferior status and temple prostitution was part of life. In interpreting these letters, we need to remember the difficulty this would pose when women were converted and joined the first-century church.
Elsewhere the Scriptures tell of Phillip's four daughters who prophesied, of Priscilla who participated with her husband Apollos, and of the large number of women mentioned by Paul in Romans 16 who were active in spreading the Christian message. For example, Paul mentions two women (Philippians 4:3) who contended at his side in the cause of the gospel. Paul's accounts of the role of women in the early church are astounding in light of the place women had in the culture in which he lived. We can hardly conceive that the early church fathers would have written as they did on this subject if they had understood the significance and magnificence of Paul's instruction that man love his wife as Christ loved the church!
But Scripture has been read with a cultural prejudice over the centuries.
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The early church fathers were more strongly influenced by Aristotle and Xenophon, the major voices of the Greek culture, than they were by Jesus' attitude toward women or Paul's writing about marriage. Tertullian spoke of women as "the mother of all ills." Chrysostom wrote of women as "a natural temptation and desirable calamity, a deadly fascination," almost as if women were designed by Satan instead of created in the image of God. Thomas Aquinas betrayed his prejudice by agreeing with Aristotle that "woman is a misbegotten male," a statement that hardly honors God as the creator of both male and female in His image. Saint Augustine agreed with the Greco-Roman tradition that a woman's sole function was procreation. In fact, I find the writings of the early church fathers on this subject appalling. We are still saddled with remnants of this biased interpretation of theology.
The cultural attitude to slavery was similar. Paul told Onesimus, a newly converted runaway slave, to return to his owner, but by doing this he did not condone slavery. It has taken many years for society, with a growing Christian influence, to break the chains of slavery. And still there is prejudice. Paul wrote so clearly that Christ had come to break down all barriers: Jew—Gentile, Slave—Free, Rich—Poor, Male—Female. He told Ephesian Christians that God is without partiality.
Prejudice is passed on from generation to generation. The interpretation of difficult passages of Scripture is also passed down to us, sometimes without fresh investigation of the text. We need to continue to search for truth and to ask hard questions, with humility and careful scholarship. We need the grace to admit that we might be wrong in our opinions. What is spiritual leadership, and what is repressive, egotistical domination? Is spiritual leadership only serving as an elder in
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the church, or as a pastor? Can a woman be a pastor? Were women pastors of churches in Paul's time? What kind of leadership represents Christ's care for the church? Why did God give women exceptional gifts of teaching and administration, as well as high intelligence if they cannot be used in the church?
Have we taken relational words like submission and head and made roles out of them? Do we stereotype people in ways that Jesus did not? Are we afraid to trust the Holy Spirit in each other? Do we have two levels of spirituality — one for men and one for women?
The weight of biblical emphasis gives godly women more freedom than most have yet realized. The problem is godliness and the godly exercise of gifts by both men and women. Women are not captive to ancient culture; they are captive to God and His working in them.
A person can be many things at once. To say that one thing is true about any person is not to say that some other trait is not sometimes also present. A given trait does not make one inferior or superior. The Hebrew word for man, ish, means strong. The word for woman, ishshah, means soft and delicate. On the one hand, that is a matter-of-fact observation. On the other hand, we can make from this such rigid stereotypes that a woman can never be an initiator, a man is never tender, and both come out with a cookie-cutter regularity that defies reality. It is hard to believe this is what a creative God planned for us.
Differences exist between men and women. Both can be cooks, tailors, teachers, lawyers, doctors, or business people. Both sexes are capable of performing a variety of kinds of work and doing so with equal intelligence. However, that is not to say that both will react the same way in the same situations. If one person arrives at an answer intuitively and
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another rationally, that is no comment on which way of reaching a conclusion is best.
At the risk of being misunderstood, I do believe a different pulse beats in the veins of a woman. Emotionally they look at the world differently. Women have been gifted by God with special sensitivities and gifts — and responsibilities — in the emotional realm which enhance human relationships. Her attention to detail introduces color, harmony, joy, lightheartedness into human life. Berdysen remarks that woman is the doorway to community, that she has a civilizing effect on the world.
Ah, you say, I know men who are sensitive to others too. So do I. And I know women who are not. That does not invalidate the generality. Nor do I think of these as rigid categories that confine women. I believe they enhance her self-appreciation. They need to be emphasized because we are losing what the world needs because of our strenuous efforts to be equal. Equality is not what women need, but the right to develop to our fullest potential to be what God wants us to be. And the last phrase of that sentence is important. The job we do may be relatively unimportant; what we are is critical.
Commenting on the difference in the sexes says nothing about intelligence or ability to think — or inherent value in spiritual terms. I am not complimented when I am told that I think like a man or drive like a man. For me a man is not the standard. I am a woman. The best of femaleness is the standard.
But we strain too much on this point. Once we've accepted femininity we can get on with being a person — a feminine person. Feminine defined is simply that pertaining to being a woman. It's not the ruffles we wear, it's the person God made us. And expressions of femininity will vary with our genes and ambitions, but they will be
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feminine because that is what we are. Feminine can mean continuing to grow, tapping the potential of our minds and hearts as well as our wombs. It can mean rejoicing in the force of life within us and being present in every moment in all that we do.
Do not let others poison your joy in being created female. The possibilities inherent in being made woman are as creative as the God who made us. And there is great dignity in His design.
