Women in church – Feminism and Religion

Moderator’s note: Today’s post has been paired deliberately with yesterday’s archival post by Mary Sharratt. Both pay homage to Margaret Fell in very different yet complementary ways.

In the conservative evangelical church world—a world I was deeply invested in for most of my twenties—people often spoke of Christian feminism as if it appeared for the first time in our generation, or maybe one generation prior. I’m not totally sure why I accepted this as true—but I did, for a long time. It wasn’t until seminary that I learned otherwise.

It turns out that the dream of full, real, felt equality for women within Christianity is a very, very old dream. The history of women in church is a great deal more complex than I had assumed, or been led to believe. Over the course of two thousand years of Christian history, women have fought for, and sometimes experienced, freedom to lead and minister and be fully human.

Why are so few women mentioned in the great feast days like Pentecost, the Last Supper, the Baptism of Christ, etc.? God made no commandment that they not be included.

Inquisitive women like myself have always been around Christ listening to His message. There they were, cooking and cleaning at the Last Supper, at the wedding at Canon and when He fed the five thousand. When Christ invited the children to come to him, you can be sure the mothers were there, too.

Beginning as early as the fourth century the dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to thwart the ascendant positions for women within the religious hierarchy and in christian societies in general. Yet, the underlying teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, – all call for the proper and equitable treatment of God’s children. Without a doubt, God and Christ love all of humankind with no gender bias. When women listen to scripture we naturally fill in the gap, or adjust the gap knowing in our hearts and souls, we are not inferior to men.

Continue reading “In Light of Women by Mary Jane Miller”