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i think the word and concept of "submission" has been grossly misinterpreted in an attempt to keep women in their place and exclude them from leadership. that's an outrage and something we must reject...
I've been watching and learning from my mentor as he just sits and listens to people (even though he probably has the perfect response to give them). People want to be heard...not just women.
My only hindrance here is that, to me, men and women DO have certain roles in their relationships (especially marraige).
IMHO, men are the givers and women are the receivers. This by no means to say that women can't or shouldn't have equal rights and authority or that women shouldn't be providers along with their husbands (or even in place of their husbands). But that in general, men give and women receive. I think this is even evidenced in sex. The man gives and the women receives. One is going into the other.
What do you think?
I do agree there seem to be different roles, but the common understanding of them seems to be shallow. For example, Paul talks about the male being the "head" of the relationship in 1 Cor 10:2-16 and likens that to how Christ is the head of men (he also says that about the church in general elsewhere). We often just assume this means "in charge," but in greek literature that word is usually translated at "source." It would make sense to translate it this way because when Paul explains it he talks about how women "came from" man and then how man comes from women. Also that makes sense, because in terms of Christ and God, it makes more sense to say that Christ's source in the Godhead, than to say the person in charge is "God."
I do think this implies some authority, but I wonder if it is more in terms of how there has already been authority given to that person. So, for example, Christ has authority because he comes from the Godhead, but he chooses to lay it aside in order to bring reconciliation between people and God. Man is also considered to naturally have authority according to tradition that his source is God (which would be why Paul then emphasizes that women came from man), but again modeling Christ, man is asked to lay down his life for the person who doesn't already have recognized authority.
I love that Paul creates an equalizer for the "man coming from God" tradition by reminding them that man now comes from women.
finally, this idea of being "contentious" fits in with radical subordination. We aren't called to be prone to anger and dispute, to tear down society's structures, but to treat each other differently within them in order to subvert them, lovingly and gracefully. Again, I don't think different roles are wrong. I just think enforcing them in a way that is based in coercion and bullying is wrong. We should always approach relationships with the idea of laying down your ego for the other.
I seriously don't want to get to detailed about this (I do get a little uncomfortable talking about sexual activity with strangers), but I feel the need to emphasize that within the abilities of men and women to engage in sexual relations, the male does not have to always be the penetrater (females penetrating the penis is even found in our culture). If you want to know more you can read Toward an Anthropology of Women.
----someone with authority can delete this if it is too explicit----------
I agree. I think it is even more interesting if you start around Eph 2:20. You can see Paul outline what it means to "put on a new self." He rejects the idea that we should really on the proper rules to make us pure and right with God, discusses the ways of the old life (most of which involve relational sin, that is: angry, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, covetousness, sexual sin...),
and then, to begin the discussion on the new life he starts with the concept that we there is none of the social divisions in Christ, so we are a new restored, equal people. We are reconciled with each other, and as such the ways of the new life are also largely based in relationships. Here we see terms that ask us to seek reconcilition and to forgive each other, which will mean a that a person who is harmed would have to lay down their rights for the sake of their reconciliation!
then Paul lays down the nitty gritty. He recognizes that within our fallen society the distinctions still exist. We aren't asked to fight against them in a way that would create adversaries, but in a way that shows Christ's nature (which made end up creating adversaries, but not at the Christian's initiation). I think this is why Paul says elsewhere that a wife to a non-believing husband may win her to Christ this way.
Anyway, point is, i agree! context is so often overlooked when i hear this passage preached. it's always been frustrating to me. in regards to the women as pastors or elders question, i think i agree with Yoder when he says that we are "asking the wrong question." this issue may be less of an issue if our church structure was more de-centralized and churches were smaller. I also think both people who still believe males somehow have greater "authority" could still benefit from understanding that within this context. I don't think Paul explicitly rejects male authority, but he does make the enforcement of it pretty impossible (especially in personal relationships), as well as the enforcement of slavery and even weakens parental authority. ultimately it is a very humanizing ethic.
I am more egalitarian in my views. I believe in mutual submission, and quite frankly, in issues where we disagree we often work and discuss until we come to some consensus, rather than my views trumping hers in whatever way
I do not have time to write out a book supporting this opinion, but I do think it is biblically sound. I attended Bible college and studied the subject, among others, extensively. Not that that means anything- I simply mention it to say that I am not uninformed on the subject. My conclusion is that this was largely a cultural mandate.
I also have trouble seeing how my wife submitting to my "leadership" really shows Christ to a watching world. I think more often that not it creates just one more, rather silly, obstacle to my many friends who are not Christians. In the past, iust beginning to try to explain this to someone who is not a Christian has gotten me some pretty strong responses, not because they are super liberal or weird-- but just because it is a bizarre concept in our "modern/postmodern/contemporary whatever you want to call it" world. It is similar to trying to any friend why women would need to cover their head or aren't supposed to speak in church. Those things were directly relevant in Paul's time. They are not relevant in the same way now.
I think the issue needs to be subject to interpretation- based on Paul saying this to Christians back then, what does that mean for Christians in our time.
Just one man interpretation.
What I wanted to do was communicate what Paul was doing within the context of his culture. He spoke differently to men and women because they were operating in different roles within that culture. My point is that we aren't abolishing the system, we are making the system inoperable.
Maybe I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too... but I guess this comes from my perspective that we as social animals, are molded and formed by our society. Roles exist in every culture through-out history. There has never been a place where women and men have exactly the same roles, and I don't think we are called to abolish the roles, but operate within them in such a way that does not enforce them coercively, or that communicates inferiority.
Ultimately, if the church had done this, they would've then begin operating within freer and looser roles as people's identities were shaped different by the culture they'd created, and as the society began to create different, and possibly more "equal" roles. That point is, that our equality and freedom is not derived from whether our society tells us we are free and equal, but from the fact that Christ makes up free and equal.
I feel less confident in my understanding of the change in roles, which is why I didn't want to address it. I feel like I need to do more research, and think more about whether this makes sense biblically... but I am definitely feeling like what I am understanding Paul to say, combined with my understanding of what it means to be human (from Anthropology) leads me in this direction.
I do think that plays a major role in this discussion though. Where-as before women were forced to submit, in Christ women can choose to submit in imitation of Him, from a place of freedom and integrity.
It's not about allowing women to assert them in the same manner as men, but that the men give themselves up as Christ did so they are not asserted over the woman.
Imagine that conversation in heaven. "Father, you know that it is my job to save the world. You set it up that way, you go down their and die. How will they ever respect me if I am some weak minded fool. Now, as the king, I am telling you to shut up and get down there and you show them how to live. Otherwise, I'm out and we can just sit here and enjoy this wonderful place just the three of us. Now no more talk about whose more important, or powerful, or supposed to lead in the creation process. I got this and we know it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I'll let you know when you can do something." It seems that if Jesus concern was a lack thereof for himself, that it is never my job to promote a woman's position instead it is to merely acknowledge mine in humility and down right humiliation of self below not only my wife but all women, men, children perhaps even creation if I believe redemption is of all things. What would that world look like?
As a woman, I like what you say about submission. I don't get the impression that people understand that when they submit to authority, the buck stops with those in authority. When women submit to men, then men have to own up to their own failings, they can't pass them off like Adam did to Eve. (My definition of submitting doesn't mean that a wife can't point out the potential consequences of the choices the husband is making.) By submitting to our husbands, we allow God to work in his heart.
The comment about language is piercing to me, quite directly. The impulse to NEED to talk has been one that Jesus has been explicitly working on in me for the past thirty months at least. In a church membership class at Imago Dei, my impulse was to answer all the questions, even if someone already asked them. Sometimes the motive was to prove my knowledge, other times to stand up for a better interpretation. The line between those motives was usually blurry.
So, to be perfectly charismatic about it, the Holy Spirit shut me up. I felt the mental impulses to chat, but somehow I felt gently restrained from raising my hand or my voice to answer. It was fascinating to see male friends in the class whom I know well continue to chirp in EVERY TIME.
The experience of the Spirit chastening my tongue for that multi-week class ended with the class, but the lesson and the habit has increased since then.
And here's what I've found it boils down to: CONTROL. For me, I think it was some self-important need to control, steer, or otherwise guide a conversation on my terms. And in church circles, the impulse was usually out of a zeal for standing up for peace, justice, what-have-you. Not a bad reason to chime in. But why should I need to defend Jesus so zealously, every time? It's as if I had a Francis Schaeffer-like impulse to be contentious.
So, I'm learning to listen to others better, instead of thinking up my own contribution or response. And it's almost morbidly fun to watch that (masculine) impulse to chirp-chirp-chirp be squashed by this new discipline of "non-grasping" of situations. I'm learning to be increasingly other-minded in conversations, to stop thinking of my own best opinion and just listen and respond well. It's another bit of learning to love well.
(Yes I'm aware of the irony of writing that much about my own learning to shut up, heheh)
Lastly, I love your line in one of your responses --"My point is that we aren't abolishing the system, we are making the system inoperable." I'm going to be processing that for quite a while, as I think it explains the cross, and the cross-bearing community, in a way that no Che or Guitterez ever could.
"Egalitarians make the mistake of ignoring the ethic of submission in an attempt to make co-masters."
Fabulous.
1) Men still must refuse to acknowledge any idea that they have some sort of "right" or "power" over their wives, or over women in general in the Church.
2) But also, in redefining our understanding of "submission" as the Apostles applies it to women, it radically robs culture, society and the world of any and all power to define and to dominate. When women submit, it is not to acknowledge the superiority of men, or that husbands have some sort of "right" over their wives, but that the act of submission suddenly becomes a "turn the other cheek".
Suddenly, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ means to imitate Him; the act of imitating Him in submitting, there is no power, and that which had formerly been powerful loses all power. That's amazing. Women who, in imitation of Christ, submit to their husbands are not quietly accepting the "authority" of their husbands, but rather, paradoxically, becoming imitators of the One who is Lord of all things. "Whoever is greatest among you must be least."
Awesome.
I've been working through my own struggles as a Christian female-- seeking healing for the patriarchal past of Christianity, desiring to hear Jesus as Christ for who he was and is and his radical example through his interactions with women. Meditating on Jesus' beautiful, holistic, and deeply respectful interactions with women gives me hope for men in the church. That they would be inspired to imitate Jesus in his interactions with women. After all the gospel is all about Jesus not Paul right? Not to disregard Paul, but hey--his commentary often overshadows the deepth of Jesus' revolutionary love and servitude.
One more comment on overcoming female oppression in the church is to think about how much we use "HE" in reference to God--If we are in fact made in the image of God--both male and female they HEY where is "SHE"? This voice of "HE" is heard in the songs we sing, and in the way we talk about God in the masculine voice. The problem I have with this is the male attributes of God are focused on (whether consciously or subconsciously) and the balance is both male and female--the female characteristics of God are something to behold! Nurturing, healing. . .
I could go on for paragraphs more--but thanks for your thoughtful writing!