The hashtag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear has appeared recently and had huge numbers of women tweeting responses. This article lists fifty-five of responses from the women. Reading the tweets and comments on various articles prompts the question: What is the role of feminism in Christianity? Unlike one commenter who stated that Christianity and feminism are mutually exclusive, I believe that they complement each other.
A lot of the tweets circled around female leadership in the church or who has more authority in a marriage. I hadn't really thought about it much until this hashtag came out, but, through all the churches I have ever attended, I have only ever had one woman give a sermon (or homily, in this case as it was at a Catholic Church).
Furthermore, all of the youth groups I have attended were directed by a husband and wife team, but the husband was always in charge of giving the sermon. I do not think that this prevalence is healthy. There were plenty of strong women in the Bible who did fabulous jobs of following God.
It is 2017, and it shouldn’t be so surprising that God can use anyone (yes, even women!) to teach. If you are saying that women cannot be church leaders because of their emotions or other female stereotypes, you are also calling God’s creation defective.
People always bring up the Adam and Eve story in order to explain that women are the source of sin, and that is why they are inferior. I do not like this interpretation at all. Genesis 1-3 has a lot of discrepancies within itself, and I personally think that this needs to reinterpreted. Also, why does no one ever point out how spineless Adam must have been to sin, just because his wife was? St. Augustine actually believes that Adam’s unwillingness to stand up for what is right was the real, grievous act.
In a marriage, I do not see anywhere in the Bible that says the husband should make the final decisions or be completely in charge. It does say that wives should obey their husbands, and that may seem like it creates a hierarchy, but it does not. Husbands are also told that they should love their wives as they love themselves. I would say that in more cases, the husbands that exert their “superiority” and insist on making the final decision are not acting out of the love that is described in the Bible.
I think that feminism, the equality of men and women, is completely in line with Christianity. Christianity is about loving Christ, believing that He is our Savior, and striving to live like him. And guess what Jesus did? He loved everyone equally. He hung out with people that no one would even speak to momentarily, and he loved the underdog. I highly doubt that Jesus would have denied a woman the opportunity to teach just because of their genitalia. In fact, does anyone remember Lydia? She started a church and was a huge part of early Christianity, and she was a woman.
Christianity and feminism are not at odds with each other, and it is hugely important that Christians discuss and re-evaluate women’s roles in the Church. This hashtag should just be the first step in recognizing the discrimination in the Church.
