Life is a crazy ride. To blog about it makes it even crazier in some ways - my failures of thought, my confusion and questions are public. It took me years of passive aggressive blogging to come to terms with the fact that it could be okay to have opinions that turn out to be wrong. And I'm still struggling with it. Tonight I present to you the temporary result of years of questions and doubting and hurt. Tonight I present to you an opinion in progress, just as I myself am a work in progress. What I present to you is not something I arrived at easily. But, nonetheless, here it is:
I remember the first time I ran across a different reading of the Pauline texts about women in the first century church than the one with which I grew up. I remember the horror I felt, the judgment I passed. I remember pouring over the texts again and again, trying to figure out how these crazy liberals could have so completely mangled the Bible.
And yet, it was the opposite, too. You see, I've always sort of wrestled with what the Bible says about women. Always thought the part about women wearing head coverings odd, even if earlier versions of myself were mostly concerned because my church didn't require me to cover my head while praying even though the Bible pretty obviously commands it. I grew up being taught from all angles to read the Bible as an instruction manual.
And, you know, life happened. More specifically, college happened. I decided one fateful day to be a history major. Things began to shift almost immediately as I was taught to think like a historian. Doubts flooded in. I wrestled for years. Came to terms with God's existence. Went to grad school. Graduated and moved to the conservative capital of America, rural Georgia.
And that's when things really began to shift.
Funny, huh?
I'd like to think that God waited to bring these changes into my life until I was here so I'd know it was from Him and not just the result of my "liberalization."
It's been so scary, though. So. stinking. scary. I'll make a decision, freak out, and change my mind. Then eventually I come crawling back to the realization that maybe, just maybe, my instincts in the first place were good.
Some things have happened lately that have forced me to think quite intensively about about my views on women in the church. Today I broke down and did some research. Read some blog posts and articles from both sides of the great divide of theological/doctrinal opinion. Begged God for humility and wisdom and begged him to stop me if I was wrong. I say that not as a statement that is intended to set myself up as someone who has heard from God. Because, friends, I don't know that I have. I've prayed, yes. I've read from the Bible and from learned scholars, yes. But, no booming voice. Just confusion.
And through the confusion, late in the day, hope.
Hope that maybe there really is intended to be no separation, no demarcation. That maybe, just maybe, God's kingdom is a place of mutual submission, of true equality and not just injustice and shame masquerading as equality.
And, yes, this does mean what you may think it does.
I don't read the Bible like most of you do.
That, I think, is the hardest part. It's hard not because I believe in my heart of hearts that I have fallen from God, but because it makes it almost impossible to even have the conversation with fellow believers about why I believe what I believe. Ask a person who has learned to use the Bible as a manual to life to debate the issue of women in the church, and you'll get the typical responses: 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy, Ephesians 5, Genesis 1-2. And to that person, the Bible is clearly self-evident. Anyone can read and understand it. It clearly says, "Wives, submit." Case closed.
Problem is, it's not case closed. Please, do the research. You'll find a much murkier situation indeed. What I found when I did a google search is a couple guys like John Piper and Wayne Grudem making huge assumptions ("The Bible says women should submit, and it just makes sense, I mean, women like babies and the kitchen and stuff!") while other people offered serious exegetical basis for their claims. What's more, some took the time to consider what the people originally receiving Paul's letters would have thought based on what their culture was rather than just reading Paul's words into the current day. I'm a historian, so the differences I just mentioned mean a lot to me.
[And, admittedly, I'm sure that there's some serious scholarship on the Piper/Grudem side of the fence. After all, those two came out with this huge book about Biblical Manhood and Womanhood or something like that. So there's scholarship. It's just hidden somewhere and I'm not sure how to find it easily. And ultimately, I'm lazy. Let's face it. I remember reading the first chapter of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (or whatever it's called) a couple months ago and almost throwing my Kindle across the room in anger.]
Yes, to me historical context is extremely important. If we don't understand why Paul wrote what he wrote about women covering their heads and men being the head of their wives, we can't understand the bounded nature of what he wrote. When you try to quote verses at me, I shut down. I don't shut down because I don't respect the Bible. Trust me when I say that the Bible is everything to me. I shut down because until we understand why Paul wrote what he wrote and how the people who read it read it, we cannot even begin to understand what God may or may not be saying to us today.
Let the firestorm begin.
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