Liberating Tradition (RenewedMinds)

Women's Identity and Vocation in Christian Perspective

LaCelle-Peterson, Kristina

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781441206152
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Sexualité et genre dans la religion

Kristina LaCelle-Peterson seeks both to affirm the central place of Scripture in the Christian life and to highlight the liberating nature of the gospel for both men and women. To do this the author considers the biblical ideal for human beings and then proceeds to offer a biblical foundation for each of the topics under discussion--identity, body image, personal relationships, marriage, church life, and language for God. Along the way she examines the cultural nature of gender roles and the ways in which they have become entangled with ecclesial expectations. This book will help women better appreciate themselves as women, gain a better understanding of their value in God's eyes, and recognize their potential for meaningful engagement in a variety of relationships and vocational callings.

Part One

WOMEN’S IDENTITY,
HUMAN IDENTITY

1

MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE

What does Scripture actually say about women, about gender, and about how we conduct our lives together? And how do we go about discovering, or uncovering or recovering, what Scripture says? If we rely on Sunday school and sermons, we probably hear about five or six women in the biblical texts—Eve, Sarah, Ruth, Esther, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene—and we hear about how women are supposed to submit to their husbands and be quiet in church. That is about all many churches have to say to and about women. We can expand that picture by considering the creation stories (there are two in the first couple chapters in Genesis) to see what is being taught about the woman and the man, and then by surveying the ways in which women figure into the drama of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments. Surely the stories of women in the Bible should have something to say about women’s value in the community of God’s people.

Equally in the Image of God

Secular feminists and feminist Christians, as well as people who would not choose the label “feminist” at all, often agree on this one point: the equal worth of men and women. Obviously the source of that belief might be very different: secular writers might argue from Enlightenment notions of the value of all human beings, whereas Christians might root their discussion in Scripture, starting with the creation narrative in Genesis 1. Since Jesus himself appealed to this passage to highlight God’s intentions for humanity in marriage (Mark 10), it seems fair to look to the pre-fall Genesis account to learn about God’s design for the race.

First, Genesis tells us, God states intentions regarding the human race in 1:26 (to make the race in God’s image and to have dominion over the rest of creation) and then proceeds to create according to that intention. The result? In verse 27 we find this:

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Amazingly enough, the man and woman bear God’s image or reflect God’s image, though what the phrase “image of God” refers to has been the subject of considerable debate. Some have suggested that the imago Dei refers to some sort of likeness to God, such as human rationality, or moral nature, or the ability to love deeply, or even the capacity for creativity. Others have suggested that the imago Dei has to do with humans being created for relationship with God, and still others link it to the rulership the humans were to have or the care they were supposed to exercise over creation on God’s behalf. Finally, some have suggested that the imago Dei is a royal image signifying that human beings represent God much as monarchs in ancient societies were thought to represent the divine, or even in the way statuary was said to represent a deity, by being the location of a deity’s presence. In this sense, human beings would be the bearers of God’s presence in the world.1 Whatever interpretation of the imago Dei we embrace, though, the point is that the man and the woman both bear a likeness to God and/or reflect God to this world. The text does not suggest that men bear a greater resemblance to God, or bear God’s image more fully. Simply, human beings were created in the image of God.

Some of the confusion has come, one may surmise, from the word translated humankind here, traditionally translated man. The word in Hebrew is adam, “Let us make humankind (adam) in our image.” The word adam is used in a few different ways in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. It can distinguish the living (adam) from the dust of the ground (adamah). It can be used to distinguish human life from other forms of life. And it can be used, and is used later in the account, to distinguish the male human, Adam, from the female human, Eve, the mother of all living. In Genesis 1:27, the text is not designating the male human being; this is clearly demonstrated by the latter part of the verse: “male and female [God] created them.” It is not the male human being who is made in God’s image but both the male and the female humans who are to bear God’s image in the creation. Further, because both of them bear God’s image, neither one can be considered to be more in the image of God.

However, the church has not done an effective job in communicating this message. For one thing, if we focus on the masculine images of God in Scripture and overlook the feminine ones, we may gradually begin to think that God is male; this will make it more or less impossible to consider women as being equally made in God’s image. If God is male, then men are by nature more closely formed in the image of God, and therefore represent God more fully in this world. If this is true, then men have divine justification for ruling over women, who are naturally inferior, an argument used for centuries to justify unjust relations between men and women. However, the Genesis text calls this into question through its assertion that both male and female are made in God’s image, suggesting that God is large enough to encompass both.

Further, there is a complete dearth of sexualized language for Yahweh in the Old Testament (now often referred to as the Hebrew Scriptures), especially compared with the sexual deities of the ancient Near East during the time frame of the Old Testament events and writing. It was not the maleness of God that was significant, but what this God did: rescuing them from Egypt, giving them the Law, guiding them in the wilderness, and planting them in the land promised to them. Finally, we have to remember the female images of God given in Scripture and allow them to call into question taking too literally any male image of God.

The high and almighty God of Scripture cannot be limited to either gender or even simply a composite of “feminine” and “masculine” characteristics. One popular misunderstanding of the imago Dei assigns women the “feminine” characteristics of God’s image, and men the “masculine” ones, but this is neither suggested by the text nor sustained by the text.2 Rather, Genesis 1 affirms that human beings bear God’s image in the world in a manner distinct from all other created beings. Nowhere in Scripture are we given the warrant to divide God into female and male “sides”; in fact, this view of God resembles the yin/yang, male/female balance found in Eastern religions such as Daoism, and not the God of the Bible. Further, the practice of dividing up the human traits into categories of “feminine” and “masculine” does not derive from Scripture, since these words are not even mentioned by biblical writers. They seem unconcerned about teaching femininity and masculinity—indeed, many of the stories of women don’t fit our ideals of a “good woman” at all—and they certainly do not assign different characteristics of God to each sex on that basis.

Though the equality of male and female in their bearing of the imago Dei has been the explicit theology of most churches in orthodox Christian circles, still many exegetes have allowed their assumption of female inferiority to influence their interpretation of the text. For instance, some have been unable to affirm the plain sense of the verse—that all humanity is made equally in the image of God—because they consider the maleness of Jesus’ incarnation to be theologically significant. In other words, they assume that Jesus’ being a male was indicative of something inherently male in the nature of God. This, in turn, would mean that men approximated the divine more closely, that they were, in fact, made more in the image of God somehow. Though this issue will be taken up in chapter 11, it is worth noting here that the maleness of Jesus is not what is significant about the incarnation; rather, it is the fact that God became human, became one of us. It is the humanity of Jesus, along with his divinity, that extends salvation to humanity. Therefore, the maleness of Jesus does not imply anything about men’s superior bearing of God’s image.

Another problematic assumption that has plagued the church ever since Augustine (354–430 CE) is that the image of God in humanity primarily refers to our rationality, including things such as the memory, intellect, and will. We are like God, says Augustine, in our ability to reason and reflect on our existence. Augustine, and of course many others, also assumed that men are more rational than women, which leads to the conclusion that men are inherently more in the image of God than women are. Of course the text does not specify that rationality is the essence of that image, nor that men are more rational, but these felt like givens in his cultural milieu.

In fact, scholars recently have critiqued this assignment of rationality to men and emotionality to women as part of a larger set of Greek dualisms that crept into our interpretation of Scripture via people such as Augustine. Whereas Adam and Eve are named co-reflectors of God’s image in Genesis 1, exhibiting mutuality and variety, the concepts of male and female came to be seen as opposites, even as oppositional constructs: men/reason/spirit versus women/emotion/body. This type of thinking, that femaleness is linked to emotions or physicality, is not taught in the Bible but is a constant lens through which people have read the Scriptures. And because of that supposed link, women were considered unable to represent God, which calls into question their bearing of the image of God in creation. Taking it one step further, theologian Elizabeth Johnson observes that “this dichotomization of humanity proceeded to the point where women were even projected to be the symbol of evil, the anti-image of God, the representative of evil tendencies in the sin-prone part of the male self.”3 At this point, women were considered not just less like God in their essence, but also evil and dangerous to men on account of Eve’s fall. Yet, as we shall see, Genesis 3 describes Adam and Eve eating together, which makes them both culpable. And in the New Testament, Paul mentions Eve’s sin just one time; generally his shorthand for the fall of humanity is the sin of Adam (e.g., see Rom. 5).

Of course, to admit that the text may actually affirm the equal essence of men and women, or their equal capacity to bear God’s image in this world, would have far-reaching ramifications for how we treat one another. If we really believe that someone else is made in the image of God, we might have to engage with that person as our equal, treating him or her with the same high regard we have for ourselves. We would have to respect or even love that person. And we might even have to give up playing gender wars.

Equally Commissioned by God

Significantly, the two human beings in Genesis not only bear the image of God equally, but they are commissioned by God to carry out God’s work in the world together. In other words, women and men share the same essence and have, in a general sense, the same function. Again we see that this is God’s stated intention (1:26), and then it is realized as God creates them.

Genesis 1:28 reads: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ ” Clearly this is not simply a directive to Adam, the male human being, since he obviously could not be fruitful and multiply without the woman. We know that at least the first part of the command is given to both of them, and in the verses that follow, there is nothing to indicate that the rest of the commission isn’t also given to both Adam and Eve. In other words, God commissions Adam and Eve to be fruitful and then goes on to give them dominion over the rest of creation. The text does not suggest that Adam is the big boss over creation in general or over Eve in particular; rather, the woman, along with the man, is commissioned jointly with him to carry out God’s work in this world. Here we see God’s original intention for the human race: a collaborative model of mutual dominion, or care-taking. Before sin enters the picture we have a model of joint responsibility. In God’s original economy, human beings would work together to produce progeny and to care for creation.

This means, of course, that the cultural messages about women’s secondary importance in the human project are simply not true from the perspective of Genesis 1. The humans equally display or bear God’s image, and they are equally commissioned to care for and tend this earth. There is no hierarchy designed by God according to Genesis 1, and the text does not imply any. Whatever priority has been given to men in Christian and secular circles does not reflect God’s stated design, and therefore does not represent the way things have to be. It is not the “natural” way of doing things. In fact, one could argue just the opposite: the “natural” way, that is, according to the nature given them by God, is that men and women collaborate in doing God’s work. The gender wars, seen in this light, are nothing more than a profound expression of the brokenness of humanity since the fall. Similarly, the male chauvinism that has characterized the church is not a standing against culture, but an expression of the sinfulness of cultural practices. In their book Why Not Women? A Fresh Look at Scripture on Women in Missions, Ministry, and Leadership, the leaders of Youth with a Mission assert that to treat women as second-class beings is an affront to God’s character (since God is just) and a rejection of the image of God in them. In fact, they contend that the restriction of women in the church is nothing but the negative treatment of women the world over brought into Christian circles.4

This is also the thesis of the book Veiled and Silenced, in which the author, Alvin Schmidt, shows how sexist societal practices have hamstrung the church throughout its history. The old jab made by traditionalists at feminist Christians—that they are simply capitulating to culture—is turned here against the traditionalists: sexist church practices show that traditional churches are bound by social assumptions about women. It’s not the feminists who are bringing (the worst of) culture into the church, Schmidt argues, but the traditionalists who have imbibed male chauvinism so deeply that they think it is synonymous with Christian values.5

Because we live in a culture that thrives on the so-called Mars/Venus divide, it can be difficult to hear the generic tone of Genesis 1. The fact that we’re all made in the image of God doesn’t fit the current societal practice of emphasizing (and even fabricating) differences between men and women, and further, the fact that we’re supposed to work together in the project of human life flies in the face of the “gender war” mentality and the competition between the sexes that it fosters. Perhaps many Americans, even Christian Americans, accept the idea of a war between the sexes because by doing so they can avoid the sometimes hard work of listening to each other and cooperating in the large and small things of life. Perhaps we should take to heart Dorothy Sayers’s observation from the early twentieth century that “male” and “female” are adjectives that modify the noun “human being.” What we have in common far outweighs the differences.6

Besides, the overriding concern of the Genesis text is not sexuality, but being created in the image of God and being commissioned to do God’s work in the world. The male and female aspect of Genesis 1:27 more likely has to do with fertility, since the commissioning follows directly upon it and begins with the command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. In other words, this distinguishing feature of personhood—to bear God’s image and do God’s work—is found equally in the male and female version of the human race, and this separates us, not from each other but from the rest of creation. This approach rejects the idea that the mention of sex here implies that sex is fundamental to being human, or intrinsic to God’s nature. Rather, the driving point of the passage is that human beings are the pinnacle of creation, God delights in them, and they represent God in the world.

Genesis 2 Creation Story: Equal in Substance

Some interpreters find their justification for woman’s dependent role in Genesis 2. In fact, in rabbinic Judaism (from approximately 200 to 600 CE) the exegetes found their most basic rationale for women’s inferiority in this text. For instance, Rabbi Joshua is asked why a woman needs to wear perfume while a man does not. Referring to Eve’s being created from Adam’s rib, he answers, “Man was created from earth and earth never putrefies, but Eve was created from a bone. For example: if you leave meat three days unsalted, it immediately goes putrid.”7 For Rabbi Joshua, Eve’s very essence is corruptible and Adam’s is not. Later, he reflects on the Almighty’s thinking about “from what part to create her. ‘I will not create her from [Adam’s] head lest she be swell-headed; nor from the eye, lest she be a coquette; nor from the ear, lest she be an eavesdropper; nor from the mouth, lest she be a gossip; nor from the heart, lest she be prone to jealousy; nor from the hand, lest she be light-fingered; nor from the foot, lest she be a gadabout.’ ”8 Here we have, negatively stated, a depiction of ideal womanhood according to rabbinic tradition as well as an argument for women’s inferiority, since the rabbi goes on to line up texts from Hebrew Scripture to show how women have fallen prey to all these vices. By citing the negative uses of all of women’s “parts,” the writer argues implicitly for limiting women’s roles in rabbinic society.9

Now if this strikes us as a bit unfair, stretching the text to grind a particular axe, we should bear in mind that many Christian exegetes have carried on the same tradition.10 Christian writers too have sought to find difference and inferiority of the female from the moment of creation and in the portrayals of women in subsequent Scriptural texts. They too have linked this supposed inherent inferiority to a limitation of women’s participation in public worship or leadership.

However, again we should ask what the text actually demands. Does it demand that we read it to mean that Eve is an afterthought of God, a little assistant to God’s main man, Adam? Is this why this story was preserved? Many creation stories in other ancient Near E...