thoughts on Christianity and gender

Quick note - I would very much appreciate comments from either side of this debate. I have not by any means come to any conclusions and need some help in clarification. Also, I am not trying to offend anyone by my ideas which may be a) too conservative, b) too liberal, or c) completely off-base academically or historically. I'm not by any means a biblical scholar or an ancient historian.

I was walking through the religious history section of the library the other day on my way to find a book on religion in Nazi Germany when I stumbled past a whole section of books on first century Christian society as it relates to women. Ironically enough, I have not only been really interested in understanding the culture that Jesus was a part of, but I have also been very interested to figure out how I feel about the issue of women's role in the church and society in general today. So I checked out a couple of the books. I have been reading one called When Women were Priests by Karen Jo Torjesen for the past few days. So far, I highly recommend the book. It is giving me a whole new context in which to not only understand Paul's views on gender/women but also a new context in which to understand many of Jesus' parables.

In my observations of the churches that I have been part of (all of them Evangelical Free, which is a relatively conservative denomination), I have begun to notice something interesting. Society has changed to such an extent in the past 50 or so years, that outside of church government/leadership, I would be hard pressed to observe a significant number (in my opinion definitely not a majority) of conservative Christian women who act out the ideals of the New Testament in regard to gender. Sure, women don't preach in my churches, they don't give communion, and they don't even collect offering. They're not on the elder board. Most are involved in leading Christian education, music (as I am), or women's ministry, but that's about it. (Now that I think about it, teaching Sunday School definitely seems to me to be "speaking in church," which Paul teaches against). Even assuming that my churches (my home church, the church I attended in college, and the church I now attend) are following the NT to the "T" in regard to women's involvement in the church, what are their home lives like?

Most women in modern society -and in the churches I have attended- have jobs. Some even make more than their husbands. I have even known husbands to stay home with the kids so their wife can pursue a career. So there's that. Let's assume 60% (a VERY conservative estimate in my opinion) work outside of the home in some significant way. Even of those who do stay home, what are the dynamics of their marriages like? Now, on this count, I have few solid facts, because I am not a fly in the corner of many houses. But from my observations, it seems as if many women that I know "lead" the family - either spiritually or just in a general sense. Many wives have strong personalities. In many marriages, decisions made are at least a joint effort. The husband doesn't hold all the cards anymore.

That is where I am coming from in questioning what a God-honoring approach to women's involvement in church and society is. I have read all the key passages about women and men and their relationship to one another and God so many times, looking for some loophole, some way to rationalize or excuse the behavior I see around me and in myself. Why am I at school, pursuing a post-baccalaureate degree if my place is in the kitchen or with the kids, in submission to my husband's lead in all areas of my life? Why am I not spending my time babysitting or nannying in preparation for God's plan for me, and full-heartedly seeking out marriage? What am I thinking?

I've heard the "culture" argument before. According to this line of reasoning, Paul was actually radical for his day. In acknowledging women in his letters, he was being very egalitarian for his day.

So, when I walked by the whole section of books on the culture of the early church as it pertains to women just waiting for me to pick them up and read them, I knew what I needed to do.

I didn't quite know what to expect though. After all, I attend a "secular university" full of "liberals." Who knows what books they choose to fill their library with.

The first chapter found me pleasantly surprised. Torjesen approached early Christianity (and it seems Christianity in general) from a very sympathetic and seemingly orthodox perspective. At the least, she knows and uses the "language of Christianity" flawlessly. Many scholarly works on religion betray the author's lack of personal religiosity in their failure to accurately employ Christian vocabulary and concepts. Although Torjesen draws from a variety of early Christian sources - not only the New Testament, but also extra-canonical works such as the Gospel of Mary - I believe this makes her work fuller and able to stand up under academic criticism.

Torjesen argues that through the early centuries of Christianity, women occupied important places of leadership at all levels of the church. During this time, churches were found primarily in houses. When Christianity moved from a house church movement to a state religion, this all changed. Women were marginalized, and scholars worked to "erase" as much as possible women leaders from the historical record. Although women leaders in the church never occupied an unchallenged position, as is clearly evident from Paul's ambivalence in his treatment of the issue, they were not barred from leading churches until the rise of institutional Christianity.

Also important to understand is Roman ideals of men and women's place in society. After all, ancient Rome was far from egalitarian. So how were women able to be leaders? The secret lies in the separation of men's and women's spheres. Men were ideally supposed to occupy the public sphere, while women were relegated to the private. The line was (ideally speaking) supposed to be hard. Men found their most full realization if they stayed in public - in government, in politics in finances. Women, as heads of the household, were able to exercise fair amounts of power, as long as they stayed within the household and its workings. Men, in fact, were able to stay outside the house because the women took care of things there. Because of women's heavy involvement in the private sphere, they were often able to accrue significant power and resources, even becoming patrons with second-hand pull in the public sphere.

So it makes perfect sense in the context of a house church movement that women were leaders. The fact that this power often bled into a more public realm, though caused their position to be constantly challenged.

For a woman to be involved in leading a house church was fine as long as she was involved in the "household" aspects of it. When she began to speak, though this too closely resembled involvement in a more public aspect of the church. Could it be this was why Paul warned against women speaking? Was he was trying to reassure society at large that Christianity was not about upsetting society? I'm not sure how I feel about that theory - the confused Paul theory. Although I have no doubt that Paul was human and was not perfect, the fact that he wrote what he did and that it became recognized as canonical makes it a tricky prospect indeed for me to assume that Paul was okaying something about society that he may not have actually at the core believed.

I think that's the biggest problem I have with this whole quest I am on. If it turns out that what Paul wrote was entirely a product of his culture (not only in the sense that he wrote things that we could only fully understand if we lived there but also that he had presuppositions and prejudices that my society rejects as immoral (namely sexism)), then what does that say about the nature of the inspiration of Scripture?

And so my foray into a relatively safe question of a Christ-honoring perspective on gender leads me to a less safe question. Namely, assuming modern, "egalitarian society" has it right, what was Paul thinking? And how can we claim every word to be inspired if we pick and choose what was "cultural" and what wasn't?