Emerging Women

This story from the Czech Republic was recently brought to my attention –

Fresh from their success in parliamentary elections, a group of female politicians have posed for a calendar to highlight the growing presence of women in Czech politics. Members of the Public Affairs party will feature in a 2011 charity calendar posing provocatively in revealing outfits. The party’s racy calendar comes after a record 44 women were voted into the 200-seat lower house of the Czech parliament.

Predictably the response to this is mixed. Some are praising the women for being empowered – in their bodies and in their careers. It is classic third wave feminism, women taking control of their sexuality and using it to their advantage to show that they are in control of their own lives. Others though are mocking these women, saying that they are demeaning themselves, setting the women’s movement back thirty years, and playing into the idea that women are only useful as sex objects.

I’d be interested to hear how the readers here respond to something like this. But beyond that I’d like to hear your thoughts on women’s sexuality. Does a woman being sexy imply that she is an object for men to consume or can it be an expression of her reclaiming ownership of her body and being comfortable in her own skin? For Christians, is there any place for a woman to look good or sexy, or is that automatically condemned as sinful or tempting? What options are there for Christian women to affirm her body without sending the wrong message?

I love to hear how the readers here navigate these issues in a world where there are obviously drastically different points of view.

Over at Sojourner’s God’s Politics blog, Brian McLaren posted a list of women writers of spirituality and theology he recommends reading. He suggests –

1. Sharon Baker: Her new book, Razing Hell, will put her on the front line of Christian thinkers asking important questions and responding to them in helpful ways.
2. Phyllis Tickle: I’m one of many who has found in Phyllis a wise big sister and mentor. (The Great Emergence)
3. Joan Chittister: She is a force of nature. Her books have enriched me for decades. (The Gift of Years)
4. Rita Nakashima Brock: Rita’s book Saving Paradise is a masterpiece.
5. Cynthia Bourgeault: Cynthia reminds me of Thomas Merton — she is a mystic with a brilliant mind who deserves far wider readership. (Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening)
6. Sallie McFague: Sallie explores the boundaries of theology and feminism, ecology, and humanness. I find her ideas stimulating and challenging, page after page. (The Body of God)
7. Nancey Murphy: Fuller Theological Seminary is fortunate to have this thought leader in postmodernism, science and faith, theological anthropology, and related issues. Her books have influenced me a great deal. (Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism)
8. Jo-Ann Badley: Though she hasn’t published yet, this professor from Mars Hill Graduate School is one of the best Bible expositors I’ve ever been exposed to.
9. Diana Butler Bass: Diana radiates balance and insight as she writes on church history, ethics, and politics. (A People’s History of Christianity)
10. Sharon Watkins: She hasn’t published either, but her leadership of the Disciples of Christ denomination is exemplary, and her theological instincts are superb.
11. Ruth Padilla DeBorst and Elisa Shannon Padilla: These two sisters, daughters of Rene Padilla, are formidable theological thinkers who deserve a far wider audience — not just as Latin American theologians, but as theologians of an emerging, holistic world Christianity. Both contributed to The Justice Project, which I helped edit.

I’ve read a number of these women and just added a few more to my to read list. Obviously, I think it is important that the voices of the whole church – men and women – get heard. All too often we only end up hearing from the male voices, so I appreciate the suggestions of women who are speaking important and transformative ideas into the church today. To that end I would love to hear your suggestions of women we should be reading. Please add your recommendations in the comments!

By Julie Clawson

Jim Henderson of Off the Map is working on a book on how the church treats women. As part of his research he commissioned the Barna Group to conduct a survey of women’s experiences in the church. They (Barna Group) spoke with 603 women who met the following qualifications: 18 years or older, described themselves as “Christian” And had attended a Christian church service at least once during the past six months. Among those women, 63% met the survey criteria for being a “Born Again Christian.”

Here’s a bit of what the survey discovered –

1. 84% say that their church’s perspective on women in ministry is almost identical, very similar, or somewhat similar to their own.
2. 83% say that their Senior Pastor is somewhat, highly or completely supportive of women leading in their church
3. 82% say they can tell by their church’s actions that the church values the leadership of women
4. 81% say that their church provides women with the same degree of leadership opportunities as Jesus would.
5. 72% say they possess a lot of spiritual freedom in their life
6. 70% say that the media has little influence on their decision-making
7. 71% say fear is not something they experience ever or often in their life
8. 62% say that ALL leadership roles are open to them in their church.
9. Only 1% say they often struggle with jealousy
10. Among those who feel they are capable of doing more to serve God, and should be doing more, only 4% say that their fear of failure is holding them back from doing more to serve God.

Jim admits that these results seem almost unnaturally positive and asked for other women to comment if these results actually represent their own experience. Here’s what a few Emerging Women wrote on their own blogs concerning the results -

Pam Hogeweide responded -

When I first saw these stats, I had to reread them three times just to make sure I was understanding the data. It then became apparent to me: if a woman in church believes she is only meant to serve and lead other women or children, then yes, of course she is content within her church experience. If today’s Christian woman is convinced by the men in power who teach her that she is to remain dutifully in her biblically mandated role, then this is the perception she will report from.

To answer Jim’s question for myself, No, these stats do not match my experience, nor the experience of many, many women on the road of faith I have known for the last 28 years.

Kathy Escobar commented as well –

once i look up and out at the reality of women in the typical evangelical-y church system i get really, really sad. and really, really mad. when i read these statistics i honestly thought it was a joke. they are not representative of the majority of women that i know and their experiences. but then i remembered that most of the women i hang out with on a regular basis are, on the whole, no longer drinking the christian company kool-aid.
what do i mean by the company kool-aid?

i mean the things that the system tell us to believe. the things that leaders engrain into the community’s culture. the things that are backed up with “we’re 100% certain this is what God meant.” the subtle and direct messages that “good christians believe this.” the herd mentality that is so strong in any homogenous culture–this is the direction everyone’s going so i better tow the line and walk this way, talk this way, too.

And Sonja writes –

It made me angry to read these statistics. It made me angry, not just for the women … but for all the people involved in those churches. They are losing out. This is not the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, or as he walked with his disciples or at any time. Would even Peter, or John the beloved disciple be able to answer these questions so affirmatively? How about Mary Magdalene? Good grief, if even the disciples struggled with jealousy why on earth can only 6 women out 603 acknowledge it? Perhaps it was the word, often, that threw them off. Maybe they decided that they could deny that jealousy was something that strolled in and regularly did battle in their hearts. I know I will stand up and say that I am jealous all the time. It doesn’t make me mean anymore, but acknowledging it to myself and being able to laugh at it has made it easier.

Then this report made me sad. The kind of sad that aches in my bones. Because when I look at it I see poverty. The church in North America (like the US) may have a lot of money. It may have a lot of stuff. We may also have a lot of people for all I know. But we are starving to death. Emaciated and dying for lack of food, water and oxygen. Worse, we are doing it to ourselves. With a huge smile on our faces. We are a people with anorexia or bulimia. When we look in the mirror we see fat and happy, but the reality is we are starving. Dying.

In all truth I lost my faith in the Barna Group’s ability to conduct meaningful surveys years ago. The way they ask their questions, and especially who they ask them of, doesn’t exactly represent reality as I know it. But I get that for women in churches that tell them that “1. Women must not lead in the church, 2. To question that is to question the Bible, and 3. That to question the Bible (or admit there might be different interpretations) is a slippery-slope into unchristian liberalism” OF COURSE they are going to say that they are in agreement with their church’s confining views of women. I bought that lie hook, line, and sinker for years, I know that world.

So like the other women have expressed, these survey results sadden me. They do represent a segment of the church – one where patriarchy rules disguised in biblical clothing. These women don’t have the freedom to question their position without fear of being mocked or excluded from their fellowship. They don’t even have the freedom to admit they experience fear or jealousy (what sort of sick repression is going on here in our image first church world????) They don’t believe that they are allowed to be happy in any other setting. I get that that part of the church exists. But it’s not my experience anymore. Maybe the women who have escaped that world might not fall into Barna’s strict definition of Christian (didn’t a few years ago they define a Christian as one who believes in the Bible’s inerrancy?) I don’t know, I just know that some of these results are disturbing on a deep and visceral level. There is much we can learn from the results, and I am eager to read Jim’s response in his book. But I also think there is a real danger of these statistics being grievously misused in defense of the continued oppression of women and the silencing of half the church. I pray that is not the case.

By Sherrie Lowly

“Now I become myself. Now to stand still, to be here, Feel my own weight and density!”

I began saying “no” to desserts and experimenting with my control over food intake at a very young age. No one ever told me that I was fat or not fat. This disorder of the mind and body takes place inside, in the stomach and the soul. I grew up hearing my Dad make jokes with my Mom; “I think I’ll run off with Mina,” my dad would joke (Mina Feikema—a single woman at the church who was quite thin and always trim and a friend of my mom—in comparison to my mom’s rounded body). My mom’s learned silence in deference to my father lay like a stone in my stomach. In my body I identified myself with my mom while desperately wanting the power and approval of my dad.

“Do you think you really need that piece of pie?” said my Dad with a smile, blurring the lines for me between need and desire; between pleasure and need; between eating as a function of bodily nutrition and eating as a social and physical event. I ingested a web of control; of withholding approval tied up with religion, with discipline, with saving money, with power of the will over all that is not “good”. I carried with me a constant perception that I am fat. I caught myself between two worlds—male and female gender; fat and thin; pretty and not pretty. What I put into my mouth or did not put into my mouth was one thing over which I had control. I thought it was the way that I could gain my father’s attention and blessing; the way that I could gain my self-esteem.

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
~Frederick Buechner, (author and theologian) was interviewed about his daughter’s near death experience with anorexia nervosa and tied it to his own depression.

I left my father’s house for Central Michigan University carrying in my stomach the stones of silence and control, of saving money and being “good,” no, not only good, perfect. “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. I chose a cafeteria meal plan with no breakfast and I had a work/study job serving food in the cafeteria of the men’s dorm. It was the perfect set-up for feeding my secret desire. I made up the rules of this secret world as I went along; no breakfast; no drinking milk; nibbles of food rather than a full meal. It was a secret, this not eating. It was a secret way of covering myself up; of desiring to look like the boy-child that could be like my Dad. I could not please him being a rounded, curved woman, yet secretly I could make him look at me and make him be pleased with me because of how thin and boy-like I could become. Combining my stomach control with rebellion of house and church rules I drank alcohol and joined in the cruel jokes of fellow roommates and dorm mates of a “nerdy” and “ugly” woman I shared a room with. This led to a thinness of body and spirit that barely contained my secrets and guilt. I don’t know how much weight I loss that year—getting down to 110 or even 100 pounds or below was a goal. I often fell asleep in class and I went without my period an entire summer.

I believed that I could not find unconditional acceptance as a “fat” woman. I could not feel my own weight and the density of myself. I lived lost in my secret middle world, caught in a web of making myself sick by being good. To unweave this web is nearly impossible without friendship and growing a community of trust coaxing the secret soul out of its prison. One of the first of such friendships for me was with Lois Dorman. I admired this woman whom I met in a campus Christian fellowship group. Lois was tall, big-boned, and beautifully rounded. She, along with some other women friends taught a female sexuality class as part of their studies at CMU. Feminism with all of its liberation and freedom was new to me. Lois introduced me to this world and I found a community of women who were living and exploring them selves with gusto. I ate it up and it sustained my body and spirit. Yet the community of university is short-lived and I returned to my father’s house after graduation. Unable to reconcile the growing density of my self-image within an environment where I blamed a heavenly father for inaccessibility and an earthly father for indifference, I searched for communities of acceptance and for women who loved their selves and their bodies.

Through many years I see sawed up and down in my body weight. I carried with me a depressive weight of shame at the pit of my stomach that I could not let go of. Anorexia nervosa—this lingering image of myself as fat—remained with me. The birth of my daughter Temma with severe brain damage began the final unraveling of the tight web of shame, guilt, perfection, and secrets. Temma’s severe and profound mental and physical disabilities nearly crushed me. I starved my love and fed my guilt and shame. The church community that I was a part of at the time of Temma’s birth kept me alive. When I had no hope, other community members kept hope for me and for Temma.

For her sake, I could finally break the silence and gain the professional help that I needed to work at reconciling my inner and outer images of self. Within a supportive community of twelve, all of us together studying at a Master’s degree program in Pastoral Counseling, I engaged in my own therapeutic relationship. I spent three years unraveling the knots of shame and silence tied up with pleasing authority and punishing myself for my daughter’s brain damage. Three years into the therapy I remember the exact place that I was sitting when my counselor repeated to me something that now, finally, I could hear and allow to sink inside of me. “You did the best that you could,” she said. And I had done the best that I could. I began the long process of forgiveness, to settle into my own self and my own weight.

Sherri Lowly is currently pastor at Berry United Methodist Church located on the north side of the city of Chicago. She lives with her husband and daughter in the parsonage of Berry Church and they have living with them a wonderful couple and their two beagles. Their small intentional community home life revolves around care of her daughter Temma who is severely, profoundly impaired, and 25 years old in September.