Before this conversation turns controversial or heated, let's clarify a bit. First, I'm not sure I would go so far as to promote a "down with the current gender teachings" approach. They benefit many lives, and that's all good and well. However, for those that they not only do not benefit but even exclude, a better alternative needs to come into the light. For those that are hurt by these teachings rather than helped, a better approach must be taken. When teachings in the Church hurt, exploit, or marginalize precious souls, people that are made of life and breath and stories and cells, then I am venturing to say that those teachings need to be reevaluated. I want to dig into these teachings, and I want to examine who they affect. I want to consider where the roots of such teachings lie, and I want to delve into the Bible and read the text for what it says, straight up. I want to take those sweet Jesus truths and apply them to my life, and I want to invite you to join me.
Hand me that old mug and I'll fill it right up. I take my coffee black, but here's a bit of cream and sugar if you'd like.
Set that campfire aflame, kick back, and let's engage fruitful conversation. Let's speak freedom to one another.
Let's have an authentic conversation. Let's ask hard questions. Let's live our way into answers.
The premise of our campfire talk?
These words: gender teachings are a form of unbiblical oppression to many.
Here's the thing: accuracy isn't the problem. Some men and women fit such molds, and that's all good and well for them. The problem is that not everyone fits such stereotypes, and I'd like to propose that perhaps not everyone is meant to.
In discussing general stereotypes within society (zoomed in on American society rather than other cultures) during my last post in this series I offered the idea that the little girl who pretends to slay dragons is just as welcome into the kingdom of God than the one who prefers tea-parties. The little boy who likes ballet is just as loved as the one who desires to fish and shoot things.
When it comes to gender expectations it is unfair to assume that any person will fit into a mold. Each person is a unique human being, and the best way to humanize someone is to look them in the eye and proclaim "you are a beautiful creation".
There's no one quite like you, and I will not, I cannot cram your marvelous self into a confining box of roles and expectations. In society, we need to overstep gender assumptions and molds. We need to see people as individuals, all with our own stories and personalities and preferences. It's also not fair to define a person by anatomy alone, to reduce a person down to genitals, for our anatomy is not who we are.
We're more than flesh.
I'm not simply bone and marrow. You aren't just a mere compilation of star stuff (though isn't it beautiful that simultaneously we are of this world?). We're a part of this earth and yet we are of another world. Obviously we're flesh and blood, but there's more to us than that.
Darling, you are made of kingdom stuff too, and those sort of characteristics cannot be defined by a biology textbook much less a book on biblical womanhood or manhood.
I really, really dislike books that teach women how to be one sort of person and men how to be another. Aren't we all made to embody characteristics of Jesus?
Am I really made to be a "kingdom woman" and that guy over there a "kingdom man"?
Or are we all made to be kingdom people?
Among common gender teachings within the Church are some of the following:
- Men are to initiate, provide, and protect
- Men are to use words to convey facts, not feelings
- Men are less influenced by emotions and hormones
- Men have out of control sex drives
- Men are destined to be knights in shining armor, the ones who slay dragons and fight battles and lead, well, everything
- Women are to respond in passivity
- Women are to be nurturing and gentle
- Women are run by emotions and hormones
- Women are fragile and weak, which means they need a protector
- Women are destined to be princesses, the ones who await their princes and don pink and never lead, well, anything
Let's take what I presented last post and use it in the Church context. In society, the little girl who pretends to slay dragons is just as welcome into the kingdom of God than the one who prefers tea-parties. The little boy who likes ballet is just as loved as the one who desires to fish and shoot things.
On a spiritual level, might it be true that the woman who is naturally nurturing is just as kingdom-effective as the one who isn't? Not everyone is meant to be a mom. The man who is a natural-born leader is just as gifted as the man who is a natural-born follower. Not every man is meant to be a preacher and not every women is meant not to be. Some of us are better at preaching, teaching, leading, following, whatever, while some of us aren't.
Not everyone is gifted just the same.
And in case you didn't know, women are sexual beings too. Shocking, I know. We aren't all emotions and hormones. On the other end, men aren't all sexual urges. Men have emotions too, and that's okay. I won't even delve into how demeaning these mindsets are, the ones that confine men to "x" box and women to "y", but to be sure those words and posts will come.
What bothers me about such teachings is not that they work for some people and don't work for others, though this is certainly true. Far too many people are oppressed because of these teachings, but there is a larger issue at hand. The problem with making lists and gender confinements is that doing so is engaging legalism.
Some days I want to shout it from the mountaintops: legalism is not love.
Listing out how a man should be a man and how a woman should be a woman is legalistic at best, because what it does is closes doors to how the Holy Spirit can work in a person. When we expect all men to be brave and all women to be passive we are boxing God in, for we aren't allowing the Spirit to empower a woman to be courageous or a man to be gentle-hearted. We've created a mindset that condemns men for being sensitive and women for being bold, and this is closed-minded as well as detrimental.
Men are made to be courageous and gentle-spirited. Women are made to be brave and kind-hearted. We're all made to be feet-washers, and we're all made to live in submission to Jesus. The cross calls us all to kneel, to set aside ourselves for the sake of loving other people. We're all called to be kingdom people, and that means that godly attributes are for us all to embrace.
What a person does cannot be reduced down to a list or a "how-to" book. Life is not so black and white. What a person does depends on context and how the Spirit is moving and breathing in that person.
How a person lives, from a biblical perspective, should be based upon spiritual giftings rather than sex or gender (yes, they are different from one another).
Once I watched a friend cry, full-on weep because she felt called to preach and various voices were coming at her from all angles telling her not to. That couldn't be God's plan, of course not. Women aren't made to be so bold. Women are supposed to be reserved, passive, gentle.
And there is no way, absolutely no way that God could speak through a female in such a way, especially if the female is speaking to males.
As she sobbed, frustrated at men and God and women too afraid to speak up for her all I could think was how anti-Jesus it all was.
How Jesus would lift up her head, wipe the tears from her face, and tell her to preach His good news if the Spirit was moving her to do so.
After His resurrection Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, and what He told her was this: "Go instead and tell my brothers, I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God".
Mary went from that place and proclaimed that she had seen the Lord. With the impact of Jesus in her heart and the kingdom on her mind, Mary Magdalene was perhaps the first preacher.
The point is not that women should replace men as preachers or leaders. The point is that the Spirit works and moves and breathes within us all, and we need to do away with lists and legalism to make room for love. We need to be open to how God is working all around us, whether that be through a man, woman, or child.
We need to acknowledge that gender roles are cultural confinements rather than absolute truths. God's plan for humanity is not that women fit one mold while men fit another. God's plan for humanity is that all people become His children, that as we come to know Jesus better we begin to move and live and breathe right alongside His empowering Spirit.
A spirit that takes us past cultural borders and boundaries.
A spirit that takes us deeper than we would ever go on our own.
A spirit that breaks chains and sets the oppressed free.
The phrases "biblical man" and "biblical woman" confuse me, because at the end of the day we're all made to be like Jesus. We're all made to be children of light.
We're all made to be kingdom people.
As I mentioned in my last post, there is nothing wrong with communities or people leaning into communities or preferences, but we need to be cognizant that not every person is exactly the same; we're all uniquely diverse from one another, and that's perfectly alright. We're all different yet all the same.
And that's beautiful.
Over time I want to discuss gender roles and teachings as they pertain to relationships, as well as delve into the roots of such teachings and perhaps better alternatives that exist for those that are interested. Thanks for reading these words, I truly hope they are life-giving to you.
You're made for it, this freedom life in which Jesus is at the center and legalism is done away with.
You're made to walk away from the margins and toward this warm and toasty campfire, this sacred space in which we throw our arms 'round each other as kingdom people, because we're all walking each other home. We're living life together, and we need each other each day.
Life: that's what we call it when we can't call it hell.
Thankfully, we have a God who walks with us through these present fires.
And as we live this life with God and commune together in unity we realize that it is in such places that Heaven leans down to kiss earth, and wow what a collision that is. It wrecks us from the inside out, but like any updated renovation it's the best sort of wreckage there is to be experienced. It's a renovation from dry to watered, from death to live. It's beautiful and hard and messy all at once, living out the kingdom based on the hope that we have in the invisible.
But that's our hope: the invisible, impossible, overwhelming story of a God who brings life from death. The kingdom of God is here and inaugurated by Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and because of this we can live empowered and beautiful and alive and free.
The kingdom is both here and to come, and as we take steps of faith away from cultural conformities and toward the God who expands past our limitations we undergo a sweet process of transformation.
This is transformation into who Jesus calls us to be: His resurrection people.
"There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus".
-Galatians 3:28
Check out these important words on gender roles from my friend and fellow blogger Kevin Bain: F-Bombs Part Three: Role-ing Right Along.
