The list of books I wanted to read after graduating from college is still very long, and I’m just now getting around to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Wish it would have been sooner! I’m about halfway through, and there are some great quotes. After reading that—plus after reading the comments at a recent post at SBCOutpost.com—I would say it could be pretty easy to get down about being a Baptist/evangelical woman. I guess I’m not involved in a Baptist church anymore, but that tradition is what has influenced and affected me the most.
Anyway, Kingsolver sneaks in the funniest things in her book, especially since I know some people who resemble the missionary/preacher Nathan Price in a few ways. The preacher’s wife, Orleanna, notes how she would try to turn to Scripture for solace in the midst of her marriage to a self-righteous, abusive man, with young children close in age. She would be greeted with gems like this: “Unto the woman God said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and they desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Orleanna remarks, “Oh, mercy. If it catches you in the wrong frame of mind, the King James Bible can make you want to drink poison in no uncertain terms” (192).
I *love* it when people bring up Eve and blame her for the sin that came into this world…. To me not only does it represent a hateful attitude towards women, but also an incomplete understanding of the gospel. When those who use the fall to justify the status quo today, I wonder if they missed out on the Cross/Resurrection/New Creation story—you know, Jesus? Didn’t he come to make all things new? Why would we want to reinforce a structure that was set up pre-fall? Why are some Christian men seemingly scared of women who have leadership and academic abilities, and who are great theologians and pastors?
The author of the above-mentioned post makes a very interesting observation in the comments:
I find it a little bit strange that when a woman even hints that she doesn’t hold to the traditional view of women’s roles, she is automatically suspected of being unsubmissive to her husband and unwilling to submit to the Bible. Yet, when a man vehemently defends male headship in marriage and male leadership in the church (as some have chosen to do today), no one thinks to suspect that he is domineering to his wife and/or “lording it over” anyone in his church.
So true. If women try to break out of the male-dominated paradigm, we often have to add qualifiers and disclaimers, so that we’re not pegged a certain way. It’s quite the tightrope sometimes. It seems that Christian men have less to worry about when asserting their views. A lot of assumptions and subtle, implicit things are working against us in this conversation. I’m encouraged, though, as I come across more and more women around my age who are preparing for the ministry and aren’t affected as much by that urge to drink poison! Hopefully my generation will be able to look back to this issue the same way that we currently do with slavery. Hopefully.
I am just scared of seeing mediocre men and women in positions of power, aka, leadership.
Posted by: Art | August 02, 2007 at 02:50 AM