Having provoked people to thought with a post on Gnosticism women doing theology and the western church, I thought I'd better have a go ( having promised) to unpack these thoughts a little more- but I warn you as I did on the original posts these thoughts are in a formative stage, and may be wildly over stretched and over connected!
First to answer Rodney's questions- it may help to know a little of where I come from- I have no grounding in Christian teaching. neither of my parents would have called themselves Christian- to add to this I picked up nothing at school having attended The Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur from the age of 3- 12. In my second year of senior level schooling my parents moved back to England a few turbulent years followed; and I ended up in St Peters High School Burnham On Crouch... suffice to say I underwent a huge cultural shift in my early teens!
I started to attend church for two reasons, one was a serious seeking, and secondly a need to belong... I was accepted and welcomed, this was a milestone in my journey of faith...
My life in Malaysia had been relatively sheltered- a big English High School came as a shock- with this being at a formative stage in life and my parents concentrating on divorce I was all at sea in the complicated waters of discovering my own sexuality! I did not understand my body and the desires and "needs" that were surfacing- but as I talk to other women now I know that I was not alone- the mid- late seventies were still largely affected by the free love anything goes ethos of the 60's, but to put things in the immortal words of Mae West:
"Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere!"
This type of thinking is still prevalent in our society today- and good girls are pure and chaste... given the pressures of society and culture... we need to develop a way of reaching a generation who felt compelled to give themselves away sexually, whilst remaining pure... ( an impossible ask!)
Although I desperately wanted to be good, I did not fit into that category- I lived a dual existence, hiding one part of me from the other! I suggest this is an unacknowledged experience of many women in the west where for all our talk of equality and freedom neither of these things are acceptable in practise... overlay this with an expectation of innocence and purity from a largely patriarchal church and another layer of hiding is imposed!
I have great sympathy and empathy for the woman at the well in John Ch4- she smelled (metaphorically) of her sex, her life of searching for love had become confused and she was shunned by the society she lived in- I contend that for many women in the west this is their story- were they free to tell it- even those who have not stepped beyond the conventional boundaries have surely been challenged by them! There is a deep need to be real, to express the confusion caused by a society that demands young mothers regain their shape soon after childbirth in order to become attractive sexual beings again... there is a deep need to challenge the manufacturers of children's clothing NOT to sell T-shirts adorned with words like "Sex Kitten" to 4 & 5 year olds!
Women are encouraged to excel intellectually and in business- but there is an underlying current that demands nevertheless that their lives be centred upon their husbands and families No matter how free the West claims to be this demand often causes women to be stretched in many different directions- in some cases to breaking point! For women like me whose creativity lies not in needlework nor in baking, but in the use of words and in thinking- there seems to be no safe place to express ourselves without the challenge to be something we are not! Also go ahead read the chapter- this woman is seriously asexual!!! We need the challenge of biblical women like Ruth and Esther to be held high, but how often is this the case??? How comfortable are we when women use their sensuality ( note not sex- but sensuality- these two things are different!) to gain favour... we do not like to go there I think! It takes a woman confident in herself, able to "smell" and control her own sexuality to go into seemingly dangerous places for those who have long been declared rather patronisingly the "weaker sex"! Both Ruth and Esther did this with grace and control- Esther winning favour for her people- and preventing their destruction!
As for women in leadership roles; especially in male dominated areas such as the Church- here again there is a serious dualism at work- on the one hand- it is widely acknowledged that women are as intellectually capable as men- but because this often ( not always) expresses itself in feminine ways such as intuition and not rationality, this is rejected as inferior, because little time or effort is invested into understanding it. Womens leadership styles are often not those of traditional upfront trailblazers, rather they will be those who encourage people from behind, leading yet not standing out in obvious ways... those who dare to are often categorised as cold and hard... how many men are cold and hard if this is the case, and why is that acceptable?
I have been involved in working with an Evangelistic organisation for many years, I have a letter from the leader quoting General Booth who said:
" Some of my best men are women and such are you."
It was genuinely meant as a compliment, and I took it as such, but there is an underlying message there that challenges the core of who I am- I am a woman- I can never become one of the best men in the organisation because I am not a man, I do not act think or speak as a man! It has taken me a long time to define my own preaching style- because I was largely taught to preach by men- whose systematic approach was a mystery to me (having said that I did gain from their teaching, but have fought to retain my own style which is not systematic).
In may ways women who adopt a feminine leadership style are a challenge to the current systems- and although I know we are all different I wonder how many women are able to be true to themselves- or how about men who tend towards right brained functioning- must we wear masks of rationality and reason and order?
I have been challenged about my unsuitability for tasks which I have completed well, such as chairing meetings, and running events- I have been challenged by some about my suitability for Ministry- one man accused me of stealing my husbands glory ( see 1 Corinthians 11 vs 7)...
So when I speak of the need to smell my sex I am talking about the acknowledgement of who I am as a woman in Christ- of how my gifts and talents are expressed and of a deep desire to be real- many in the Western Church find this disturbing, and I contend that although women are being released into ministry and recognised as having gifts and talents in their own right- there is still an underlying demand for us to become as men- in order for the boat not to be rocked too far from its comfortable even keel!
These thoughts were sparked by Marcella Althous-Reid through her book Indecent Theology- as I read more I find myself more challenged- but also find that this challenge resonates deeply with me... are these dangerous water? I am not sure, they are largely uncharted especially from a Western perspective- it is one thing to speak from the standpoint of the poor and oppressed in Latin America whose experiences may resonate but are entirely other- it is another to take up the challenge of Indecent Theology from a Western perspective and to ask- in our apparently enlightened and free context - what does this mean- and what is God saying... how is She challenging me to learn and to grow?
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