JESUS - HOW HE BEHAVED TOWARDS WOMEN .
JESUS - AND THE WAY HE BEHAVED WITH WOMEN (By. Keith Skillicorn)
Isn't it paradoxical that, although Christ came to set people free, in the past, the church was the last bastion of support for slavery in the Western World. . Similarly, although Christ came to break down all racial barriers, it was the church in South Africa that was one of the most ardent advocates of Apartheid, one of the most blatant and degrading forms of racial discrimination witnessed this century. And in our society today, it is the church - a section of the church, mainly Catholic and Fundamentalist - that maintains sexual discrimination, even though Christ was the first real "Women's Libber" in a truly positive sense.
WOMEN AND SCRIPTURE
The real division within Christendom is not denominationalism but between those who see God acting UPON history and those who believe he acts IN and THROUGH history, or rather People, who give history meaning and purpose. Those of fundamentalist persuasion see God exercising a unilateral role - inerrantly. We dance when he pulls the strings ! On the other hand, some see God reaching out to the human race in love and compassion, yearning for acceptance. This longing for identification is mutual (Psalms 42:1-3), culminating in the fusion of the two spirits (New Birth) in Jesus Christ. His Spirit acts WITH our spirits, not apart from them (Rom. 8:16). As Christians, we believe that the fulness of the Godhead is revealed incarnately in Jesus Christ (Col.2:9) and that, prior to the advent of Jesus, no one had come to fully see the real nature of God. (Jn.14:9)
But God, through the Holy Spirit, which is another name for God at work in human society, had all along been active, right through history, patiently waiting for the opportunity to burst forth on to the human scene, not to stage a "take-over", but to negotiate a "covenant" - a two-way deal. When we read chapter 53 of Isaiah, it is clear that he "nearly made it", centuries prior to his final break-through in the person of Jesus. Some passages of Scripture reveal the struggle God had to gain entry to solve our human problems of pride and self-will. Other passages show what humankind THOUGHT God was doing; biblical revelation is progressive.
The fundamentalist view of Scripture makes a big thing of the first woman being an off-shoot from Adam's rib (Gen.2:21). From the very start, she had a role inferior to that of her mate. Her "travail" and subordination to the opposite sex was THOUGHT to be ordained of God. (Gen.3:16). Queen Victoria was reminded of this when the male clerics of her day expressed strong disapproval of the use of chloroform in the royal labour ward !! Do you think Jesus would have had such chauvinistic and vindictive attitudes ? No way; he was not a sadist.
Even the concept of God as "Father" has a somewhat deleterious effect on the role of women in the church today. Unfortunately, there was really no way that the ancient Hebrews could conceive of "Him" in any other way. Their God, Yahweh, was a loving, active deity, the provider of all needs and, in the Hebrew language, all that was active, had to be expressed in the masculine gender. To have portrayed "Him" in any other way, would have implied inaction. Incidently, the Hebrew grammarians were all males !! But, even within fundamentalist groups, women are not without hope. When they get to heaven, where there is neither sex nor sexuality (Mt. 22:30), all such anomalies will be no more! Women in our Western society have an advantage of gaining their equal rights through only one death, whereas a Indian woman in a conservative Hindu society, has to endure the trauma of a whole cycle of deaths and rebirths and still have no real guarantee of ever finding liberation, unless, of course, she experienced the good fortune of being reborn as a male. Hindu fundamentalists promise a more expeditious removal of such sexual disparities and hopelessness if only they could reintroduce the rite of "Sati", the burning of the widow on the funeral pyre of her husband. In India, I once met an ardent advocate of "Sati" who claimed that the heinous rite has a sacramental efficacy far in excess of that of the Cross of Christ. It is only in Christ, through death to self and identification with his sufferings and death in human relationships, that women can come into their own, for to be "in Christ" is to be in Heaven -- in the "Heavenly Places" (Ephes.2:6). And they don't have to wait until they die physically because, "in Christ", where there is neither male not female (Gal.3:28), we have ALREADY come (Present Perfect tense) to Mount Zion, the Heavenly Jerusalem (Heb.12:22).
WOMEN AND THE "MINISTRY"
As the Church, by and large, came to see that racial and cultural discrimination has no place in the mind of God, so we shall some day realise that Jesus established his Church with a "lay" ministry, also irrespective of sex / gender. There is no question of women - or men - being called to the Christian Ministry through "ordination" in the traditional connotation of that word. . In the Old Testament, an individual could be "ordained" or "anointed" as a priest (singular), but in the New Testament, the only Priest (singular) is Jesus Christ - our Great High Priest (Heb.9:11). His followers - male or female - are priests (always plural) but only by virtue of their "togetherness", or sharing the Ministry of the Great High Priest through the "Priesthood" (1 Pet. 2:5 - 9) -- the Church.
I am not decrying the need for a trained Christian leadership, but rather stressing that we should be careful not to judge dedicated "lay" persons, male or female, as any less "ordained ministers" because they have not had theological training. In fact, it is possible for a humble, illiterate Believer to be a more dynamic communicator of the incarnate Christ than the most eloquent D.D.. I have apprehensions that one of the principles of The Restoration Movement that attracted me to Churches of Christ, may be relegated to the archives by those who see "Our Plea" as having no further relevance. As one who has served in a "Ecumenical Ministry" for the last four decades, I have been excited by those in many different denominations who are developing concepts of the ministry that some of us think we have outgrown.
In order to realise why the traditional role of women in the church today has become so tractable, we need to understand how the professional male ministry evolved. The problem can be traced back to the second half of the 3rd. century when, as a result of the Church's struggle with Gnosticism and Montanism, excessive powers and "gifts" came into the hands of the "clergy" and, in particular, the bishops. The trouble could even have started earlier when distinctions arose between the "sacred" and "secular" activities of the Church (Acts 6:2-4). Of course, in Christ, every activity for the real welfare of others is "sacred", but there are those who denigrate "secular" ministries as "mere social work". Even in the first century Church, there were those with such misconceptions --- "We should spend our time preaching, not administrating a feeding program" (Acts 6:2 'Living New Testament') .
Similar to the Hindu concept of matter as being inherently evil, was that of the Montanists who reacted to "secular" tendencies and advocated that strenuous asceticism should be practiced. Though the fiery Montanist Tertullian, was extremely well-read and one of the most influential personalities in the early Church, he made a contribution from which we have not yet recovered. As an ascetic, he introduced the word "Sacerdos" in relation to the ministry, and glorified celibacy, implying that there is something intrinsically evil, unclean or unworthy about women. While there have been some highly spiritual and well motivated sacerdotal priests in the Church, down through the centuries, who have displayed in their characters the incarnate Christ, sadly, there have been some without the spiritual resources to "make the grade" as celibates. There have been hundreds of such priests, mostly associated with the Roman Catholic Church, who have not found strength enough to restrain their sexual desires and have ended up, often in jail, as paedophiles and rapists.
The martyred Cyprian, the intellectual heir of Tertullian, carried on the torch of asceticism and celibacy and,, although it was Ignatius who championed the "monarchical" bishop, it was Cyprian who gave particular stress to the need for more episcopal control. He claimed that - "the bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop!" By the beginning of the 3rd. century, the "clergy" (Greek - "Kleros") were sharply divided from the "laity" ( Greek -"laikos") . "Kleros" is derived from the original Greek word in Ephesians 1:14 and 18, translated "inheritance" (KJV and RSV). It was believed that, through the laying on of the hands of the "kleros", in some magical sort of way, "gifts" were bestowed and the "laity" granted access to the "inheritance"! As can be understood, the "clergy" became a politically strong power-bloc within the church leadership, a complete travesty of what Jesus intended the Church's leadership to be, exercised through "shepherds", not "herdsmen". . At the same time, "Ordo", the latin equivalent of the Greek "kleros", had become a common usage to describe those with powers to dispense such favours. Tertullian wrote of clerical "Orders" and ecclesiastical "Orders". The traditional concept of a "valid", historical, episcopal, Ordination" was, by this time, an established practice.
In New Testament times, there seems to have been a democratic system of church government (Act.1:26; 6:3; 11:22; 15:22). The "presbytery" or "bishopric", never was in the hands of only one person, for obvious reasons. Authority in the early Church was always delegated, never usurped. We are asked to SUBMIT ourselves to God (James 4:7); to submit ourselves to one-another (Ephes. 5:2) and to the elders (1 Pet.5:5). Even in relation to women, who in ancient times were subordinate throughout the whole of society, it was they who, in the early church, were to voluntarily submit themselves to their husbands in order not to deliberately provoke the male-dominated system. (Ephes.5:22; Col.3:18). But in the pagan world, it was the husband who took the initiative to force his spouse into submission. Paul's injunction never was meant to apply to women right down through the ages, but was rather an expedient act of grace requested of the sisters in order to meet a particular problem of THEIR day. Sadly, male chauvinists within the church, and to this day, still want to maintain their male superiority and aggression over the "weaker" sex , failing to observe that Paul also urged them to LOVE ("Agape" - love them enough to die for them) their wives, as Christ loves the Church and gave his life for it.
From the earliest days of the Church, women held positions of pastoral responsibility. Phoebe (Rom.16:1) was a deaconess but then, of course, the male will grant that much authority to a woman and avail of all the services she can render. The vital question is -- "Will man allow a woman the same, equal place of authority and responsibility in the ecclesiastical realm as he now shares with her in the technological, cultural, political and other fields ?" Much misunderstanding re. women in the ministry seems to come from the Judaistic and other non-Christian concepts of women in society that Paul, unfortunately, mentions in some of his letters. What, in his day, was designed to PREVENT offence, now-a-days, CAUSES offence. 1 Tim.2:11-15 is so provocative that, if read out of context in some public place today, would generate contempt. It is so essential that we see women as Jesus saw them, in a manner unbiased by time and cultural factors. Paul's attitude towards women was conditioned by the sexual inequalities of his day and must always be understood in that context. I seriously question whether Paul's opinion that Adam had priority in Creation would get into the Canon of Scripture if biblical revision is ever called for in the future,. Unless, of course, all the theologians were males !! Although Paul's letters may be very offensive to feminists and others today, we must give him credit for the complementary things he said of women in his day. And it should be understood that, in ancient times, little, if any credit, was ever given to the fairer sex. Paul was never slow to praise the women who "laboured with him in the Gospel"( Phil.4:3). He mentions the "senior women" or "presbyterial widows" (1 Tim.5:2) as the "true widows". The word "presbyterial" is the same Greek word in the feminine gender used to describe an "elder" in 1 Tim.5:1 … "Rebuke not an elder…". It is also the same word in the feminine gender used in Tit. 1:5 where Paul speaks of "appointing elders" (presbyteros)" in every city. Furthermore, in Tit.1:7, after referring to the appointment of elders, Paul lists the qualifications required for such an office of "overseer" (episkopos), the word used to describe a bishop.
It is quite clear, in Titus chapter one, that the two words - "presbyteros" and "episcopos" are used interchangeably as terms denoting different facets of one and the same pastoral office. Therefore, as women were "elders" they were also "bishops. Isn't it ludicrous that, in years gone by, Presbyterians and Episcopalians (Anglicans) actually fought bloody battles over a dispute that should never have arisen.
Those who believe that women should have no place in the ordained ministry, are not keen to mention that the three-score years requirement for the enrolment of widows, refers to the high office of "presbyterial widows" who had to be at least 60 years of age. With their brethren, they exercised the highest office in the early church. With their brethren of mature age and experience, they were also "shepherds", overseers of the flock and, as such -- "bishops" in their own right and equal to their male colleagues. It was later, in the post-apostolic period, that "oversight" (episcope) made for a separation of what, hitherto, had been one and the same office. In this way, the offices of Bishop and Presbyter evolved separately, with the bishops gaining the upper-hand and their office crystalising into the "episcopacy" . As the Church became secularised, requiring a closer relationship with non-Christian governmental Authorities, in a male-dominated society, it was only natural that the male office of bishop became pre-eminent.
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