At Restless Wanderings, Bruce Gerencser, former fundamentalist pastor, writes about how women are viewed in fundamentalist Christian churches:
Women are to submit to men. Women are best suited to be mothers and keepers of the home. Women are emotional whereas men are logical. Women should be discouraged from going to college because this makes it less likely that the woman will be a good mother and a good keeper of the home. If a woman is insistent on going to college she should go to a Christian college. Her choices? Pastor’s wife, single missionary, Christian school teacher. Women are not suited to intellectual endeavors. Women should not be involved in making decisions. The decision maker in the home is the husband. The decision makers in the Church are the men. Government is reserved for men. Women were to give the husband sex whenever he wanted it. If she didn’t put out she was risking her husband having an adulterous affair and it would then be HER fault.
This is about as repressive as it gets. I’ve never attended a church that subscribed to all of these points, but I have attended churches that subscribed to some of them. As a general rule, the more conservative the theology, the more repressive the atttitude toward women. At one particular church, the manner in which my daughters would have been “educated” drove the decision to flee to a more moderate congregation. Over the years, I have met many former Christians driven from the faith because of the way women are treated in conservative churches.
What do you think? How would you describe the role of women in your church, and do you consider that role essential to how your church functions, or to how it meets its goals (whatever they are)?
I be having a problem with scallywags who be treating women as such. Take a look at Acts and all the women’s ministries there! Phoebe for example. I never be understanding this, my pastor is a woman in a country where women aren’t so free as they are here in the US. Churches who believe this and women who submit to this make me question the validity of their faith. Did they not know that in Christ there is no male or female?
When my views on women in ministry changed the passage about Philip and his 7 daughters who prophesied really was pivotal.
They prophesied. They spoke. They ministered. In Church. One preacher told me they did it “silently” :(
A woman pseaking to 3 people on a street corner is “witnessing.” That’s ok.
A woman speaking to 10 people in a Church building is “preaching.” That’s not OK.
I could write thousands of words giving stories about women and the Church.
It is a wonder ANY women go to Church. Or that they haven’t started their own and told the men to keep out of their club. :)
I regret the harm I did to my marriage and my wife. I work daily to change it. Pity the man that marries my daughter though. She definitely has not been raised to be a doormat. She will be a challenge for any man who lands her. They have been warned. :)
Bruce
I have yet to find a church that can accommodate views as liberal as mine never mind that I am also a woman. It was the attitude towards woman that finally caused me to give up on the Catholic Church and I’ve been wandering ever since.
The last church I tried (post-Catholicism) used my being a woman and a mother to tell me I wasn’t capable of helping them out any longer. (This was not a conservative church!)
A good church needs the contributions of everyone whatever their skills may be and whether they be man, woman, or child. I don’t think you can define a role within a church by gender alone. Some woman have more masculine qualities, some men have more feminine qualities. Each individual needs to be accepted and allowed to contribute on their own merits and based on their gender. I think a church that can realize that to be the case will better succeed in finding members and holding on to them in this day and age.
Powerful words, MJ. Thanks for sharing them. And thanks to Bruce for the original article and his comments here. This is an important topic.
Powerful topic thanks for sticking to facts and staying level headed!
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