Is it possible to be a good Christian at the same time as being a feminist?

[SummerHoliDidi]

I count myself as a feminist, and am also a Catholic, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to be both.

I sat through a very Christian wedding (much more overtly Christian than I have ever been to before) yesterday, where there were a LOT of references to the bible passage that talks about women submitting to their husbands but men only having to love their wives. I found myself wanting to tell the minister to fuck off, which is hardly a Christian thing to want to do. The man is the head of the household - fuck off. If a man loves his wife and only wants to do the best for her what wife wouldn't submit? - fuck off. Hearing "obey" in the vows - fuck off. Having children is God's will - fuck off. The bride being "given away" by her father - fuck off.

I appreciate that this particular wedding is not typical of Christianity as a whole, and my friend has actively chosen to have this type of ceremony (she was always very sensible back when we were at uni, but "found God" a couple of years ago and I hadn't realised quite how much she's bought into it).

How do other Christian feminists reconcile both viewpoints, or do you find yourself picking and choosing which bits to take from each?

Hilda of Whitby is one of my favourite saints.

Yes, curryeater, I've also had Martha and Mary presented to me in quite a sexist way - because if those uppity women started to think that learning was more important than housework and servicing men, then where would we be? It's still something some men (and indeed some women who've spent their lives servicing men) going quite threatening.

Going? Stupid autocorrect, I meant find!

I am fascinated by my misremembering of the Martha and Mary story. However, I still don't think it's a particularly pro women story, apart from the fact that Jesus was happy for women to listen to him preach. I wonder if that was uncommon- I assume that women went to synagogue- they just weren't allowed to speak. And there's no reason to suppose it was any different in Jesus's "mobile synagogue".

Actually I think in first-century Palestine women didn't even go to synagogue. I haven't got any reference books with me (on holiday) so can't check, but I'm pretty sure in the context of the time it's radical stuff.

Just had to sign up again to say thanks to the Christian feminists on this thread. I've been struggling to fully integrate the two and there have been parts of posts that have really helped a lot.

Interesting then that consorting with women wasn't one of the accusations brought against Jesus. Consorting with tax collectors, Samaritans and so on, and being a "glutton and a wine bibber" but no mention of women. Or was there, and I'm showing my ignorance again?

Going back to the Mary Martha story, it's important to understand that the phrase 'sitting at the feet of...', was a euphemism for being a student of a great teacher. for e.g. the apostle Paul is described as having sat at the feet of Gamaliel (sp) meaning he was a disciple of Gamaliel. So when Mary is described as sitting at the feet of Jesus, it means that she was being a disciple of Jesus, being taught by him. This was radical for the time as women were not regarded as those who should be taught but as those who should operate only in the domestic sphere. One first- century rabbi, Eliezer, put the point bluntly: "Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman ...Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her lasciviousness. " So Jesus' willingness to teach Mary, and his praise of her for taking on a 'masculine' role would have been very shocking at the time.

The website www.godswordtowomen.org is a really good resource, full of scholarly articles about such things as women in leadership and headship.

and on the adultery / stoning thing: what do you mean curlew, when you say "just social justice"? Are you saying it was not a gendered thing? Or that he was just saying you shouldn't in general stone people, or not for adultery?

Here is how it should be understood as a very gendered point: adultery was a sex crime that applied to a huge range of behaviours when women did them, including even smiling at a man not your husband. Jesus' point was that the men doing the stoning were very unlikely not to have ogled or flirted. He was asking them ("let he who is perfect throw the first stone") to lift the sexual double standard. This is radical. Lifting the sexual double standard is radical now, even.

It also says the woman was caught in the act. So I presume the man was also there. They weren't about to stone him...so this was very much a gender issue.

I see the woman caught in adultery as a legal issue as much as a gender one. After all, the context gives away the fact that 1st c. Palestine wasn't a fair place for women - the man with whom she had adultery isn't anywhere to be seen, is he? The crowd are within their rights to stone her - they are keeping the law by doing so, and could defend their actions with reference to the legal codes of the Hebrew Bible, and pride themselves that by doing so, they are keeping Israel pure.

But what Jesus does is to take that thinking to the very extreme by implying that no-one is pure, that an Israel cleansed of all its sins would have no-one left in it. It's like the idea (in Matthew's Gospel) that Jesus doesn't come to abolish the law but to fulfil it, to take it to the extreme - and what the extreme of the law looks like in this instance is a crowd all realising their own complicit collusion in an understanding of the law that rates some sins as punishable and others as not (as I said, the man is nowhere to be seen).

Where all that leads from a feminist POV I'm not sure; that we are all equal, male and female, in the eyes of God, and equally culpable?

Marking place to read properly. Lots of interesting stuff here. I'm a Catholic and a feminist, lots of issues with the wider church and struggle with this a lot.

On 1st century Jewish women's participation in religious life: synagogue was optional for women. They couldn't read in synagogue or be counted towards the quorum of people you need for public prayer, they weren't meant to study the Torah and didn't even have much of a religious role in the home - the prayers and blessings were reserved for men. Plus remember this is Second Temple period - they were excluded from the innermost parts of the Temple and from the hereditary priesthood of the Temple.

So when you look at how fully involved the women in Jesus's group were and how central they are in events of the Gospels and Acts, and how Paul references women of the various churches, it's a pretty astonishing contrast.

"So when you look at how fully involved the women in Jesus's group were and how central they are in events of the Gospels and Acts, and how Paul references women of the various churches, it's a pretty astonishing contrast."

Hang on, who are these "fully involved" women in Jesus's group? And you are talking about Paul "women keep silent in churches" of Ephesus?

Hmm curlew I appreciate your difficulty with the silence in churches which Paul spoke of.

As a Christian, it helps me to think of it as men just not being won over by lots of intellectual arguments....actions speak louder than words sometimes.

I find it ....irritating....that people are so quick to find justification for the misogyny of the Church. It's always......oh, it's just interpretation...... yes of course there were loads of women among Jesus' followers, they just didn't get written about.......Oh, Paul, yes, he was a bit grumpy but he was an old dote really.....look, god chose a woman to be his son s mother didn't he?.....women and men are different but equal..of course doing the flowers and polishing the silver is as important as being a priest.....

I agree curlew - that was the wriggle room that I was talking about upthread. Some can do it. Good for them. I can't - there would be far too much religious gymnastics going on to make the Bible fit into a particular world view.

Shame for me. I love going into old churches, love the music, carols at Christmas etc. and the community feel, but I can't square the circle enough to be part of a church that treats half the population as lesser beings.

For me, the church lacks the Christian ideal of compassion, fairness and justice where women are concerned.

Took me a while to find it, but the passage (1Corinthians 14) talks of God being '...not the author of confusion,but of peace..)v33 . In this passage he also talks about the church events being orderly, in case unbelievers were to walk in. He mentions everyone speaking together in tongues, with no one to interpret, in the same vein.

I expect that in the society they lived in, it was not regarded as correct for a woman to be speaking up and Paul did not want unbelievers to be put off by lots of vocal women or everyone speaking in tongues at the same time. He wanted the message to be clearly communicated.

Sorry for monster post.

The "fully involved women" are the women disciples and followers of Jesus who are named throughout the Gospels and Acts.

Mary, Jesus' mother. Probably present through most of his ministry - certainly there at the first miracle at Cana (and prompted it), and at the crucifixion. Named as present at Pentecost too.
Mary Magdalene. Described in Luke (8:1-3) as having being cured of seven demons and as one of the group of women who were travelling from town to town with Jesus and the Twelve through his ministry and supporting his ministry. Present at the crucifixion, burial and the first witness to the resurrection. Told the Twelve that Jesus had risen.
Salome. Present at crucifixion. Probably also the woman who petitions Jesus for her sons to sit with him in Paradise. Mentioned as at the tomb in Mark.
Mary the mother of James. Named as one of the women who saw the crucifixion and who went to the tomb afterwards.
Joanna - another women who had been healed and travelled with Jesus, financially supporting the group. Wife of Herod's steward and so possibly an eyewitness for Luke the Evangelist on the court of Herod. Another of the first group of witnesses to the resurrection.
Mary of Bethany. Sister of Lazarus. Treated as a disciple as discussed above.
Martha of Bethany. Sister of Lazarus. Jesus also treats her as a disciple after the death of Lazarus, teaching her that he is the resurrection and the life.
Susanna - also healed and travelling with the group and supporting them.
Mary of Clopas - present at the execution. Possibly she is also the unnamed disciple the risen Christ appeared to on the road to Emmaus.
Tabitha/Dorcas - named in Acts. Peter raised her from the dead.
Lydia - named in Acts. A merchant converted by Paul who had the apostles stay at her home.
Mary the mother of Mark John - named as hosting as housechurch in Jerusalem.
Damaris - named in Acts. A Greek woman converted by Paul in Athens.

There were probably more unnamed female followers and disciples, and many of the women who were present at the crucifixion (described as the group who had followed from Galilee) were probably also present at the entry to Jerusalem and the Last Supper.
Plus there is Peter's MIL mentioned in Mark as having been healed by Jesus.

Women named by Paul:

Priscilla. Named in Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians and 2 Timothy. Priscilla is always named with her husband Aquila - they seem to have been a co-missionary couple who taught theology together. Paul lived, travelled and worked with them and it is clear that he regards them both as co-workers - half the time he names her first and specifically calls her a co-worker. They were Jewish tentmakers who met Paul in Corinth, and were probably involved in the founding of the church in Corinth along with Paul. In Romans he says that they both risked their lives to save his. In Acts they are described as having taken a preacher to one side and having taught him better theology. Possibly the author of Hebrews.
Junia. Called an apostle (in fact 'outstanding among the apostles') by Paul in Romans.
Euodia. Called a co-worker by Paul in Philippians.
Syntyche. Called a co-worker by Paul in Philippians.
Phoebe. Mentioned in Romans as a deacon in the church in Cenchreae, and as a benefactor to Paul.
Julia. Named in Romans.
Nympha. Named in Colossians as having a church in her house in Laodicea.
Apphia. Philemon is addressed to her.
Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis - mentioned as workers in Romans.
Chloe - mentioned in 1 Corinthians. 'Her people' tell Paul that there is dissension in the church in Corinth, which probably means she leads a church there.

Then there's the unnamed women present at Pentecost, who probably included the group who had seen the crucifixion and resurrection, and the unnamed women who are eating with the men after Pentecost.
Also the wives of Peter and the apostles mentioned in 1 Corinthians.

The passage about women teaching in church is from 1 Timothy which is one of the deutero-Pauline letters. It's certainly not consistent with Paul's attitude to and relationship with Priscilla, and there are other reasons for not considering it to have been genuinely authored by Paul.

And going back to my original point, this all adds up to women being involved in the life of the early church in a way they wouldn't ever have been in the contemporary Jewish or Helleno-Roman world.

Straw man, curlew. No-one on this thread has used anything like those arguments. Paul is problematic for feminists, I agree. But dismissing analysis and commentary on the text as special pleading, without acknowledging that it comes from a period where treatment of women was at the same level as modern Afghanistan, is perhaps overly simplistic. (It also makes some unexamined and irritating assumptions about how 'Christians' read the Bible, which are not true of all of us by any means.) I don't mind arguing about what I believe, but I mind rather a lot when people who want to argue with me start by telling me what I believe!

Curlew:

"I find it ....irritating....that people are so quick to find justification for the misogyny of the Church."

So do I. I got so irritated, and worse, I did not go to church for years. I can never be a Catholic, and I get (quite unfairly) annoyed with Catholics who don't vote with their feet (unfair because I see why they can't too) - because I feel that people staying within the Catholic church while being pro-contraception, for instance, are encouraging an accommodation with unacceptable viewpoints.

" It's always......oh, it's just interpretation...... yes of course there were loads of women among Jesus' followers, they just didn't get written about.......Oh, Paul, yes, he was a bit grumpy but he was an old dote really.....look, god chose a woman to be his son s mother didn't he?....."

This is different. There is stuff in the gospels that is radically pro-woman-as-human. There just is. And don't forget you completely misremembered Martha and Mary. you are mixing up the gospels, the church, and the wider culture within which churches operate. Are you from ROI? You sound Irish cultural catholic to me, is that right?

"women and men are different but equal..of course doing the flowers and polishing the silver is as important as being a priest....."

Yes well the ones that come out with that brand of shite can just fuck off.

Yy to that last sentence, curryeater!

It's always very interesting to me how invested so many non-Christians are in arguing that the Bible/Gospels are anti-woman, or that you can't do interpretation or textual criticism of them - just as invested, in fact, as the super fundy 'Bible believing' folk or all the half-dead leadership of the major churches.

curlew By misrepresenting the Gospel and saying that the Gospel has a misogynist message (when it's clear you don't even remember the NT properly), you hand yet more cultural power to people who are not friends to any women, Christian or otherwise. It would be like if I said that Islam preaches terrorism - I'd be reinforcing a dangerous and false worldview.

I'm not saying that there aren't passages of Paul (genuine Paul) that I don't struggle with. But I do think you have to read Paul recognising that he was an exceptionally obnoxious person whose life was changed overnight and was running around truly convinced that the world was about to end. He wasn't trying to build a church for the ages. The first Christians really thought Christ was coming back in their lifetimes. It would be unfair to read him in any other context.

You put that much more eloquently and politely than I did, FairPhyllis.

Fair despite the love-in on this thread about the fantastic impact of Christ on the lives and status of women, for non-Christian (and plenty of Christian) women the impact of the Chruch has been to hold down women and try to push them into a servile role. In what way is it "interesting" that people who have grown up in a culture which pushed this sexist message based in part on the bible are invested in arguing that this is what it says (since that's what they've heard all their lives and what plenty of people who study the bible do believe)? Surely it's simply to be expected that now they are socially permitted to reject this message, they'd like to point out that it sucks?