So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
-Galatians 3:26-28
Several definitions should be established before a viable discussion on women, Christianity, leadership and culture can be put forward. We must answer the question of culture, Christianity, scripture and sin. We begin to explore the possible definitions and my own understandings of these terms.
The most important question to ask first is that of culture. What is culture? Anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor defined culture in his 1871 Primitive Culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [and woman] as a member of society.”[i] Richard Niebuhr’s thought is also a springboard to a definition. “[Culture is] the total process of human activity and the total result of such activity in which sometimes the name culture and sometimes the name civilization is applied in everyday use. Certain characteristics are clear: social, human achievement, world of values, human good or usefulness, temporal and material realization of values, conservation of values.”[ii] These two definitions firmly place culture in the hands of human development and indicate a changeable nature to what we understand as culture.
Christianity as a Belief System
I believe that Christianity, as established in the person of Jesus Christ, is a transforming belief system. This system is particular and unique in that its source is other than human—it is a living and divine source that is at the base of all creation and is the force that begins before time (and gender, and ethnicity, etc.) and pushes us beyond present time (and gender, and ethnicity, etc.). This source is God the Creator. Elizabeth Achtemeier puts it best in this way: “Biblical scholars agree universally that the God of the Bible has no sexuality. Sexuality is a structure of creation.”[iii] God as Creator is essentially beyond gender.
How one views the world without, through or in Scripture shapes theology and culture. There are several basic approaches that one can adopt. Two of these are listed here as particular to the Christian tradition. The stark difference between widespread Christian fundamentalism and The Church of the Nazarene, and many sister denominations, doctrine turns on the understanding of Scripture. While many fundamentalists believe that the Bible is without error and therefore can be taken by every English word as inerrant in every verse, The Church of the Nazarene states: “We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.” [iv] (Emphasis added.) This doctrine then, allows for non-essential differences in the various translations from the original text over the centuries and in other languages, while not dismissing the theological struggles translators have had over these same centuries.
A large stream of Christianity holds to this view of Scripture, believing that the words are an avenue to a relationship with the revealed, Living Word. This also means that we take Scripture in the context of the whole Bible, the book it is within and the immediate context of that passage within a book of the Bible. We try to not pick and choose verses to support a particular theological point but work with the whole of the revealed Word.
The beginning of and transmission of sin is particularly important in relation to the role of women. Here again, we choose two differing viewpoints that create boundaries filled with a variety of arguments. Viewpoint 1: Woman is the cause of sin because she accepted the serpent’s temptation first, thus ushering sin into the world. Woman is also the womb of sin thus when the “seed of man” is placed within her the child is born into sin. The seed of the man is the child. (traditional Catholic view). Viewpoint 2: Woman was initially created as a co-heir, sharing the responsibility and privileges of the garden. The man had the capability and resources to be the one initially eating the apple as well as the capability and resources to refuse to sin (a modern view of “polarity” that I agree with in many measures).[v]
Setting out these possibilities as definitions and understanding my views will hopefully move us forward in discovering more about possible beliefs about women in Christian leadership. When we can discern the underlying principles and belief systems of individuals or groups we can more readily understand our own stories and the possibilities of inter-relatedness or newness that move us beyond gender.
Looking into the current cultural milieu of opposing forces of radical feminism and radical Christian fundamentalism may be a good starting point for more specific discussion. These two forces are admittedly extreme, but may prove to be valuable in describing and defining a new way to think.
Elizabeth Achtemeier, in an article confronting the radical feminist theology, relates a radical feminist principle: language about God is analogical and metaphorical. Because of this principle some radical feminists believe that there needs to be an elimination of masculine terminology, thereby replacing the masculine with feminine or neutral terminology.[vi] The implications of such ideas are disturbing, particularly when the end of some radical feminist theology denies the incarnation of Christ simply because he came in a human male form. Other radical feminists would like to deny any male participation in society, believing that anything male is evil and ultimately oppressive.[vii] This swings so wide as to be the counterpoint to the belief that woman is evil!
Gonzalez writes about the rising voices of those who have been in a “position of political weakness”—the powerless.[viii] These people (women, ethnic minorities, etc.) are now speaking and being heard in many parts of the world. It is disturbing that once some women do gain a voice in feminist theology, the dominant tone has been partisan, militant and nihilistic. How sad that when given the opportunity to speak, some women do not forgive the men or societies who have harmed them and “turn the other cheek” rather than speaking in reaction from their rage and sense of oppression! This is not to deny the systematic or historical acts of oppression toward women. Rather, it is a call to forgive and to begin to work together toward the transformation of oppressive cultures and systems.
Margaret Bendroth, in Fundamentalism and Gender,[ix] addressed the “displacement” of women in several respects. She points out that the marketing of male leadership in early revivals and church structures was a tool to gain men’s interest in the church. The fundamentalist camps were predominantly peopled with women in the early years. Dwight L. Moody, a revivalist and supporter of women’s Christian education and service in the late 1800’s, moved into a focus on men primarily for this reason. Bendroth relates that Moody’s focus was on the salvation and spiritual development of men, not because they were better, stronger or more pure, but because there were so few in the church![x]
It was after men like Moody that Christian fundamentalism took its darkest turn toward women. Ensuing arguments and doctrine focusing on the literal verse-by-verse interpretation, the inerrancy of Scripture and the predominantly patriarchal structures represented in the Bible that increasingly narrowed the field of vision for women in that tradition. Fundamentalist reactions against the suffrage movement caused even more restrictive measures on women’s roles.[xi] Today many of these same extreme Christian fundamentalist restrictions on women are little changed.
Historical References or Stories
Rather than citing the opinions of men regarding women’s roles in the Church, it may be best to look briefly at a few individual roles of women in Christian history. How did they function in their cultural milieu? What were they able to do in spite of or because of their societal structures?
As an example, Macrina the Teacher was the elder sister to Gregory and Basil of Nissa. These two men, along with Gregory of Nazianzus, the third great Cappadocian, were important to the defeat of Arianism (a 4th century heresy denying the divinity of Jesus Christ and purporting that he was a created being) and the “clarifying, defining and defending the Trinitarian doctrine.”[xii] Gregory of Nyssa wrote two works about his elder sister—Life of Macrina and The Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection. Both of these works are tributes to Gregory’s devout sister. In Life of Macrina Gregory compares his sister to Thecla, a legendary figure in early Church. Thecla’s life is recounted in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla and “is presented as a disciple of Paul who eventually is given by him the same commission to preach which he received. She is presented therein as an evangelist, a confessor who faced martyrdom, and a model and teacher in the virginal life.”[xiii] Gregory compares Thecla to his sister, their lives being somewhat similar in dedication and passion. Macrina, hailed as a premiere philosopher and Christian scholar of her time, was also an influential part of the defeat of Arianism.[xiv] The same accounting is in The Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection. Here Gregory compared Macrina to Plato as a way to show his sister’s philosophical prowess and life. This is a helpful comparison showing the depth and agility of Macrina’s philosophical skill.
Macrina was known as a skilled teacher adept with psychological insight, even exercising that role on her deathbed. She was skilled at refuting pagan philosophy, not only in words but by her pious living. “Macrina does not represent a triumph of Christian asceticism over philosophy, but the triumph of true philosophy over false.”[xv] Gregory emphasizes Macrina as a “virgin-philosopher par excellence, [who having] freely chosen the philosophical life, she is enabled to know the higher truth through her living of it.”[xvi] Wilson-Kastner reflects that “a teacher-philosopher’s ability is judged by the capacity of the soul, not by the body…One of the major consequences of this view is that there is no distinction of sex in the virtuous life…the question of whether or not one is male or female is irrelevant to the question of who can be virgin, teacher, philosopher. There is no inherent difference in relating to God between male or female.”[xvii]
The veneration that Gregory holds for his elder sister is quite moving. It is not remarkable in the sense of their familial relationship. But, we can wonder at the motivation for writing of her and the audience his two writings may have had. Pious, virginal women were held in high regard in many places and times. His intentional comparisons to a legendary woman (Thecla) and an even more legendary man (Socrates) seem to be an effort to bring to the fore the spiritual, intellectual and philosophical characteristics of his sister.
Are there other men and historians who have made or make decisions about the inclusion of women in the telling of history or their own stories? What of Luther’s own changes in response to women after his marriage to Katharina von Bora? Indeed, Gonzalez, in a brief footnote relates that Luther’s “understanding of justification by faith led him to reject the distinction between commandments and counsels of perfection on which the monastic life was based. This in turn led him to renounce the principle of monastic and clerical celibacy. After he himself was married, he gained further insights into the value of marriage and the traditional negative views of women.”[xviii]
Later examples to explore are women of the Medieval period. Upper-class Medieval women had two choices: marry the man selected for them or be delivered to a convent. This last option was generally the lot of this ilk. These women had families that could financially support them and the convents. And the church made a place for them, a place where education was accessible, where intellectual and spiritual development was unhindered. “To be a bride of Christ was for many women not a denial of the ‘natural’ desire to marry and bear children, but rather the route to a life more independent and intellectually creative than in the marriage of the day.”[xix]
There were a variety of roles and titles, most of which were designed by the church hierarchy. The following list explores some of those roles:
Roles of Women in the Middle Ages:
Nuns
Chosen by Family, Upper Class
Three vows to chastity, poverty, and obedience; rural
Example:
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) mystic, author, adviser to popes, kings and emperors.
Hermitesses
Self-Choice
Mystics, isolationists, outside formal organization of the church; rural
11th and 12th century
Benguines
“Religious Woman”; Middle Class
Temporary vows of simplicity and chastity; urban; activity primarily included caring for poor and sick
13th and 14th century
Examples:
Ivetta of Huy (1157-1228) mystic, worked with lepers
Mary of Oignies (1177-1213) moral leader of group of women who worked among sick
Tertiarties
After St. Francis of Assisi
First Order: Men—13th century
Second Order: Nun vows, enclosed nunneries
Third Order: Laypersons, male and female, married and single, varying religious lives; Church supported, religious protection
Examples: Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) mystic, religious life in the world, counselor to popes and princes.
Anchoresses
Solitary, bound to “cell” living near or in the church building; took Nun vows; urban; great asceticism. Many were previously Nuns, Benguines or Tertiaries.
1100-1500
Examples: Julian of Norwich—first English book known to be written by a woman
The Revelations of Divine Love; Christina of Markyate
It is important to particularly note the Benguines that Ann Warren relates:
“While acknowledging the social and demographic components of the movement, it is important to stress that this was essentially a religious happening, a great outpouring of religious fervor. These women, who stood apart from hierarchy and structure, were degraded by many. The word benguine itself was a smear meaning “heretic.” Yet the movement could not be stopped. It offered women a wide range of charitable employment with a minimum of complications, a self-regulated balance between outreach and contemplative withdrawal, and the freedom to change one’s mind and later marry or assume another religious role. [They were] in the forefront of the religious moods of their days…they had a strong sense of identity and purpose and an absolute certainty of the rightness of their relationship with their Savior.”[xx]
The Renaissance and Reformation radically changed all of these roles. Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation[xxi] covers a large variety of factors affecting women in this time period—education, social roles/culture, humanism, religious structures, etc. Katharina Wilson relates two meaningful phenomena that dramatically affected the women of this age: the shift in educational emphasis from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance educational range and possibilities and the influence on women’s education through the Reformation.[xxii] This period is also characterized by the terms “ambivalence” and “diversity.” Ambivalence is represented by the array of written and spoken stands male leaders and reformers took on the issue of women in their lives or how they were viewed culturally in opposition to the women. In ecclesiastical leadership it was fairly clear that women were very restricted with few, if any, inroads to formal roles or positions. The available roles in religion were defined early by the Monastic tradition in convents. The informal roles were much more diverse and more accessible. These roles included the advanced value of the wife/mother (of primary importance for the Catholic laity and Protestant women in general), noblewomen of secular power and those of unusual charismatic influence/reputation. Tucker and Liefeld articulated these changes as well.
“What is significant about the Protestant Reformation in regard to women is that while there was a change in viewpoint toward women as wives and their worth as human beings, the theological perspective on their role in the church had changed very little from the perspective that pervaded the medieval Catholic church. The concept of the priesthood of believers raised the status of the laity in their direct responsibility to God, but it did not open the door for equality of men and women in the church. Women were excluded from leadership positions and office holding. Male clerics—were they Catholic, Reformed, or sectarian—held tenaciously to the traditional view that restricted their ministry. . . [The] source of a woman’s power was usually her charismatic qualities, and the scope of her ministry was outside the institutionalized church.” [xxiii]
Clerical limitations, however, did not avert the influence that women of this period held in religious efforts. We see that women of medieval times ministered beyond their gender by the power of God.
Of course, charismata of any sort in any person, can lead into sectarianism, heresy, and large varieties of misguided thinking. It is important to be aware of some of the extremist women and their obviously detrimental influences inside and outside the Church. These include Anabaptist enthusiasts, argumentative and divisive Protestants, as well as militant Catholic monastics, not to mention tyrannical queens!
However, through the found histories there are numerous representations of women who found ways to exercise their gifts as teachers, mystics, political and social influencers, godly wives and nuns praying for and encouraging the male leadership of the day. In truth, many women were confidants, advisors and theologically conversant with many of the same religious leaders who were hesitant or noncommittal about taking any stand on “legitimate” female leadership, even when some of those men were their husbands.
Even though the Reformation and changed thinking lead to some expressions of ministry and Christian influence and the value of women was heightened as wives and mothers, Tucker and Liefeld point out that “at no time in church history had the opportunity for women in ministry been so limited, and on the surface that would have been the case. Nevertheless, women rose above their prescribed station in Protestantism and left an indelible mark on church life.”[xxiv]
One of the most difficult parts of the Reformation for women was when the Reformers, in their zealous efforts, forced nuns out of convents in order to save them from the ravages of, in their minds, evil Catholic leaders and influences. Tucker and Liefeld capture the sorrow of this activity. “The medieval church had offered education and careers for women comparable to no other institution in society. Although monasticism had its obvious limitations, women in large numbers found fulfillment through its varied opportunities and lifestyles.”[xxv] Despite this dismantling, Teresa of Avila is the clearest example of one who endured and ministered beyond gender. She is studied today as one of the finest mystics in history. Her writing and spirit continue to be venerated and admired. During the reformation many other women lived beyond gender by the power of God.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s women in Protestant ministry began to grow in numbers. This change was derived from a Wesleyan/Holiness movement that included the doctrine of sanctification. The doctrine stated today is that “sanctification is the work of God which transforms believers into the likeness of Christ. It is wrought by God’s grace through the Holy Spirit in initial sanctification, or regeneration (simultaneous with justification), entire sanctification, and the continued perfecting work of the Holy Spirit culminating in glorification.”[xxvi] Women in the newly founded Church of the Nazarene in America and in the Salvation Army in England, and then in America, found freedom and support within the ranks to minister, preach and teach openly. Susie Stanley states that this doctrine “provided a social ethic that challenged the prevalent belief in woman’s sphere, which maintained that a woman’s place was in the home . . . [W]omen in the Wesleyan/Holiness movement, relied on the power of the Holy Spirit to break through male-created barriers erected in an attempt to inhibit their activities outside the home.”[xxvii] These women were contemporary to the Fundamentalist movement we have previously discussed. But, these women believed that sanctification overcame their fear of negative human reaction, which enabled them to preach and minister. They were no longer bound to the expectations of other people (men and women) or institutions. They were living beyond gender through the power of God.
There is a more powerful point in history that shows us a way beyond gender. The Gospel releases women from cultural customs. This is so clearly seen in the relationships between Jesus and the women he knew and worked with. Alvin John Schmidt clarifies Christ’s relationship to women in several ways. He first describes Jesus as “breaking the silence barrier” and then indicts our “ultraconservative clergy” by stating that their “ignorance of ancient culture, and what women had to endure in that culture, before and during Jesus’ day, has prevented them from seeing that Jesus broke the silence barrier that had kept women silent for centuries.”[xxviii] The Samaritan woman, of course, is the premiere example. Schmidt then relates that Jesus “taught theology” to women. This was unthinkable in the Hebrew culture of the time. One poignant example he cites is found in John 11:25-26 where Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Here Schmidt points out that this is the place “which contains the heart of the Christian gospel. And to whom were they spoken? To a woman.”[xxix] Schmidt provides detailed and unsettling arguments throughout his book. He caused me, a woman, to look again at the Scriptures and see what I missed! “Jesus refused to legitimate the socioeconomic values of the agrarian-patriarchal system of his era”[xxx] Schmidt calls out to centuries of sexist theologians and demands that they look again at the Scriptures and see how Jesus Christ responded to women.
Schmidt also reminds us of many women in the Old Testament such as Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, and more, with the hope that we will realize that it was not just when Jesus came incarnate that this value of women was in place. It was in place from the beginning. Old Testament women complete the “evidence” of God’s view of women and their participation in His Kingdom. Schmidt, as a sociologist, identifies culture as the “hidden dimension” and elaborates on the profound influence it has on our theology. He recognizes the blind spots we will have. But his argument goes all the way to the heart of the matter: what we believe to be the truth may be nothing more than cultural norms that seem constant to us, but are not constant with the God of history.
As we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it becomes increasingly clear that godly women who have made a difference, theologically and socially, work beyond gender in every generation. Mother Theresa, in a 1989 Time interview, responded to the question of gender in this manner—“I never think like that.” To the question if she thinks the world better responds to a mother she said, “People are responding not because of me but because of what we are doing.”[xxxi]
The human need for truth, compassion, purity, light and life is beyond gender, race, age or creed. Historians, writers and editors who compile compendiums of the lives of Christian women, whether or not they are leaders in the traditional sense or working outside of culture, record women who live and speak beyond their gender and become a part of keeping the truth of our living God before us.
The question to our culture and the Church today is whether or not godly women will be allowed to be fully functioning servants of God. Will we allow cultural, sociological and theological definitions to still God’s voice in particular people? Will we continue to push women into lesser realms of service or disservice because we are more dedicated to our culture than to the Gospel? The role of gender in God’s Church is not a matter of dominance, competition or hierarchy. It is a matter of walking beside another, sharing what the other does not have, in order to build the Kingdom of God—far beyond gender.
© M.R.Hyde 2023
[i] Schmidt, Alvin John, Veiled and Silenced: How Culture Shaped Sexist Theology, Mercer University Press, Macon, Georgia, 1989, page 2.
[ii] Niebuhr, H. Richard, Christ and Culture, New York: Harper, 1951.
[iii] Elizabeth Achtemeier, Christianity Today, 37:9, “Why God is Not Mother: A Response to Feminist God-talk in the Church,” August 16, 1993, pages 17-23.
[iv] Church of the Nazarene, Articles of Faith, Article IV: The Holy Scriptures. http://nazarene.org/articles-faith (2015).
[v] Moll, Helmut, ed. The Church and Women: A Compendium, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988. Chapter 1: “The Place of Women as a Problem in Theological Anthropology, by Karl Lehmann.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] “Since God is male, the male is God.” Mary Daly. Ibid.
[viii] Gonzalez, History, Volume 3, page 476.
[ix] Bendroth, Margaret Lamberts, Fundamentalism and Gender: 1875 to the Present, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1993.
[x] Ibid. page 22.
[xi] Schmidt, Alvin John, Veiled and Silenced: How Culture Shaped Sexist Theology, Mercer University Press, Macon, Georgia, 1989, page 156.
[xii] Gonzalez, History, Vol. 1, page 322.
[xiii] “Macrina: Virgin and Teacher”, Patricia Wilson-Kastner, Andrews University Seminary Studies, Vol. 17:1, Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, Michigan, pages 105-117.
[xiv] Read On the Soul and the Resurrection by Gregory of Nissa at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.x.iii.ii.html
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Ibid.
[xvii] Ibid.
[xviii] Gonzalez, History, Volume 3, page 40.
[xix] “Five Religious Options for Medieval Women,” Christian History, Issue 30, 1991, p. 12-15.
[xx] Ibid.
[xxi] Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, Katharina M. Wilson, editor, University of Georgia Press, Athens, 1987.
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] Tucker and Liefeld, p. 203.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] From the Articles of Faith - X. Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification. http://nazarene.org/articles-faith 2015.
[xxvii] Feminist Pillar of Fire: The Life of Alma White, Susie Cunningham Stanley, Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 1993, p. 2.
[xxviii] Schmidt, p. 164.
[xxix] Ibid. p. 168.
[xxx] Ibid. p. 196.
[xxxi] “A Pencil in the Hand of God,” Edward W. Desmond, Time, December 4, 1989.
