Someone asked me earlier in the thread if I've read a pamphlet on "Bible verses that support equality" or something to that effect.
Actually, no, I haven't read any pamphlets. As a Bible College Professor and Department Head, however, I did spend a number of years researching this topic. My research took me from the oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament to some excellent books written by colleagues that I greatly respect. I summarized my findings in a book of my own called "Let My People Go: A Call to End the Oppression of Women in the Church."
My research convinced me that many Christians today are profoundly unaware of changes that took place in the church during the third and fourth centuries. I'd like to reference some of these changes now.
Specifically, I'd like to highlight an incredible difference that can be found in the message of the Bible itself, versus the message of some third century Roman Bishops that helped shape the church's patriarchal traditions.
In the Bible we read that husbands "ruling over" wives is a curse. It is not part of God's design for humanity. It is portrayed as the outcome of sin (Genesis chapter 3).
In Galatians chapter 3, the Bible tells us that Jesus died to redeem us from this curse: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law <sup class="crossreference" value='(
V)'></sup>by becoming a curse for us, for it is written:
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole" (Galatians 3:13, NIV).
The biblical author then goes on to say that
as a result of Christ's redemption, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, <sup class="crossreference" value='(AU)'></sup>nor is there male and female, <sup class="crossreference" value='(AV)'></sup>for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28, NIV).
This message came at a time when there were sharp divisions between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women. This was a radical message, a message of hope for the oppressed. In Christ, these inequalities are ended, we are "all one." In Christ, we are all called to love and serve one another, just as Jesus loved us.
In the third century, the Christian church officially became an institution of the Roman Empire. This was an extremely patriarchal culture. Women were viewed as wild sources of social upheaval that required male supervision from birth until death. Wives were legally beaten to death by Roman husbands if they were not appropriately submissive. Did this merger between Christianity and Roman culture have an impact on the church's view of women?
It's easy to answer this question by sharing quotes from two of Rome's most prominent Bishops of this time period:
St. Augustine:
It is the natural order among people that women serve their husbands and children their parents, because the justice of this lies in (the principle that) the lesser serves the greater…This is the natural justice that the weaker brain serve the stronger. This therefore is the evident justice in the relationships between slaves and their masters, that they who excel in reason, excel in power. (Augustine, as cited in Wijngaards, 2010, emphasis mine) Please not that Augustine is using the same rationale to justify male domination of women, and slavery.
St. John Chrysostom (c347-407), Doctor of the Church and Bishop of Constantinople, said that women are, in general, "weak and flighty." He neatly put together the twin theological ideas of anti-women and anti-sex in this passage: "It does not profit a man to marry. For what is a woman but an enemy of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a domestic danger, delectable mischief, a fault in nature, painted with beautiful colors?" [11] To help believers overcome the temptation of women, Chrysostom devised the following description: "The whole of her body is nothing less than phlegm, blood, bile, rheum and the fluid of digested food ... If you consider what is stored up behind those lovely eyes, the angle of the nose, the mouth and the cheeks you will agree that the well-proportioned body is only a whitened sepulchre." [12] A clearer example of outright woman-hate would be difficult to find.
Another notable scholar from this time period was St. Jerome. Please note that he was one of the first Bible translators.
St. Jerome (c342-420), the well known Biblical scholar and translator of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) have a simple view of women. To him
"woman is the root of all evil." [8] Like all the early Christian theologians, Jerome glorified virginity and looked down on marriage. He reasoning, was also rooted in Genesis: "Eve in paradise was a virgin ... understand that virginity is natural and that marriage comes after the Fall."
[9] The marital act to Jerome cannot be good because it only acts as a relief valve: "
Thus it must be bad to touch a woman. If indulgences is nonetheless granted to the marital act, this is only to avoid something worse. But what value can be recognized in a good that is allowed only with a view of preventing something worse?" Jerome wrote that the only good thing about marriage is that "it produces virgins."
[10] http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/womenfathers.html
Augustine also believed that "flesh" in the Bible refers to women, and "spirit" refers to men. Just as the spirit must rule the flesh, he taught, men must rule women. (Trombley, 2003). Jerome said that women are saved from sin by bearing children, literally.
These views of women from this point forward became the official doctrine of the church.
At the turn of the millennium they became known as "canon law." Resistance to this law was quite literally punishable by death--burning at the stake to be precise.
Luther, a protestant reformer, was also an Augustinian monk. He had similar views of women. Calvin, another protestant reformer, based much of his theology--including his views of women--on the writings of St. Augustine. Thus, Augustine's misogyny spread into the Protestant churches, and became "official church doctrine" there as well.
Those who say things like, "the Bible teaches that women are inferior" (particularly those that look down on "education") quite literally have absolutely no idea what legacy they are passing on. They are not passing on the gospel of freedom from the curse that the Bible teaches. They are passing an oppressive prejudice that has its origin in ancient Rome.
I can't help remembering how Jesus confronted the religious leaders of his day for nullifying the word of God by giving priority to the traditions of man. I think some church leaders do the same when they absorb and teach Augustine's twisted worldview and nullify the redemption we have in Christ.
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