Rose

I just wanted to add, for the record, that yes, I am aware of the fact that on some occasions like in Isaiah for instance, God does identify Himself as a kind of mother. But the vast majority of the time, God does express Himself in male terms and like I just said, since 99 percent of the time He does express Himself as a male, that can really make the female half of the population in the Church feel left out and like we’re just not quite as important as the men are.

I have to say that this is another one of the issues involving women in the Church that I struggle with a good deal. I can understand the position that God is pure Spirit and since He is not human, He doesn’t have a gender. But I am definitely going to ask God about this when I finally do meet Him face to face (at least in a manner of speaking) in Heaven. Quite frankly, it does bother me that God so often expresses Himself in male terms for this reason: since God constantly identifies Himself in His Word as a male (Father, King, etc.) in a lot of ways it provides men with a fellow male role model in Heaven they can identify with, and that in turn leaves me as a woman feeling quite left out. It does hurt me that men have a Father role model they can identify with in Heaven, but women are seemingly left out of the equation — we don’t get to have a God who identifies Himself as mother and therefore we don’t get to have any kind of a female God we can identify with and relate to. It does make me as a woman feel pretty left out and hurt that all the Christian men get to have something like that but we don’t.

I want to say first off that while my feelings against John Piper are strong, I am determined to love him as a brother in Christ. But I don’t think I will ever like who he is as a person. He won’t ever come out and confess it publicly, I don’t think, but I think in his heart of hearts, at his root, he has a hatred of women and I think that hatred against women is at the true heart of teachings like this. What else could be in the heart of a man who thinks it’s acceptable for women to be abused, ABUSED, by their husbands “for a season.” Is he honestly that STUPID, that he doesn’t realize that a woman following his advice, enduring a “season” of abuse by her husband, could be KILLED during that “season”??? Does he not understand that giving women such EVIL advice could result in their DEATHS??? Or what’s even more dangerous as far as his soul’s concerned…does he just not care???

Man Rachael, my heart really breaks for you. I was really blessed, at least in some ways, to have the earthly father I had. He did and said some really hurtful things to me especially in the last years of his life, but one thing he NEVER did was make me feel diminished because I was female. He did really love and respect me, I believe, as a person. And, I always loved and respected him for who he was too. I actually went to the link Cheryl provided and read about her experience with your dad, so I have more of an idea of what living with him was probably like for you, and I’m so sorry. In a way, at least, I really do know how you feel because while my dad loved me greatly, my mom was one of those people who had absolutely NO business being a parent…EVER. Typically in situations with abuse in families, it’s the men who are abusers and the women who are too pathetic and gutless to leave and get their kids out, but my family situation was reversed. While I don’t know what it’s like to be hated or put down because I’m female, I DO know what it’s like to have a parent behave hatefully towards you, so in that respect, I really do know how it feels and I’m so sorry for what you went through.

As for the whole “woman issue,” I don’t know why, but for some reason, I’ve always felt deeply affected by it emotionally. Like I said, it’s played no actual role in my life. I haven’t been personally attacked or put down for being female, but for some reason, as a woman, I’ve always felt rather insecure about being a woman and afraid of not having equal worth in God’s sight because of my gender and the strong resurgence of complementarian thinking in the church these days. I mean, when you really think about it, how DO those verses in Ephesians about husbands and wives sound from the perspective of a woman? To me, they’ve always sounded really terrible and chauvinistic against women. And, I’m sorry, but the verses about how husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church don’t make the verses about wives submitting to their husbands any easier for me as a woman to swallow. I mean, think about it. REALLY think about it. What does the verse, “Wives submit unto your husbands AS UNTO THE LORD” REALLY say to you? To me, it has always seemed to SCREAM that a woman does not have the same worth in God’s eyes as a man does. To me, that verse has always basically seemed to say, “Wives, make your husbands God.” That’s certainly how I think a lot of men in the church take it (and I think they THOROUGHLY ENJOY doing so, although they probably won’t admit it!) I mean, think about it. REALLY THINK about those words for a minute. Wives, submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. You know what that verse does for me? For me, it basically makes a woman sub-human if she’s married. For me, that verse basically makes marriage a mere contract of slavery that allows a husband to own his wife like a sub-human piece of property. That verse REALLY seems to say that if a woman is married, her husband is God. And, that verse is one of several reasons why I likely will NEVER get married. I mean, I believe the egalitarian position is the correct one. But why do I believe it is correct? Because I WANT it to be correct. I believe it is correct because I merely HOPE it is correct. I don’t really know for sure, and if the comps are right about Ephesians…well, that is a chance I am not ABOUT to take. I want God to be my God and no one else, and certainly not a MAN, because while my father was great to me, I’ve seen the way men (one man in particular in my life) think of and treat women. To say the least, the verses on wifely submission are enough to put men on one HECK of an ego-trip, no matter how much following verses may preach at men to love their wives. I don’t think those verses are enough to prevent the ego-trip the preceding verse about wives submitting to their husbands “as unto the Lord” can really give them. I guess “the woman issue” is as important to me as it is because of the insecurity the submission verses have really given me all my life. And I won’t admit this often, but I do struggle inside, I have all my life, about being a woman because of the way certain Bible verses can sometimes make me feel, although in my heart of hearts, I don’t really believe that was ever God’s intent.

I have a question. Quite honestly, I’ve been rather irritated at God for a long time about this too. I personally don’t believe that ANYONE, either the wife OR the husband, should have to remain married to their spouse if their spouse abuses them, and CERTAINLY not if their lives and safety and/or the lives and safety of their children are in danger. However, to my knowledge, it doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that God approves of a divorce in an abusive situation. As a matter of fact, I am rather hurt and upset at Jesus that when He did discuss divorce, He said it was alright in cases of marital unfaithfulness but He doesn’t say that it’s alright for one spouse to get out of an abusive marriage, especially if they are unsafe in their marriage. It seems to me that while the subject was being discussed, it would have been MORE than an ideal opportunity for Jesus to say, “And ladies, please, for Heaven’s sake, if you’re being beaten to a pulp, GET OUT!” And from what all research I’ve done on the subject, Jesus’s silence on the subject of domestic violence only seems to add fuel to the fire of those who preach male supremacy and claim that a woman being abused by her husband must stay in that relationship. His silence on the subject only seems to confirm what they say, as a matter of fact, that if a woman is being abused, God will not support her if she leaves the abusive marriage. God makes an allowance for divorce in the cases of adultery and abandonment, and it hurts me that (to my knowledge anyway) He doesn’t seem to make a clear allowance for it in the case of abuse. I mean, what is God trying to do about abuse, here? Endorse it?? I know that can’t be the case so I definitely seem to be missing something.

I’ve just GOT to say that this whole idea of comps that men and women are “equal but different” actually sort of reminds me a little bit of the phrase “separate but equal,” which was nothing more than a bunch of garbage from a bunch of racial bigots that simply wanted to keep their white children from going to the same school with black children. The government TRIED to present this idea of “separate but equal” but there was nothing at all EQUAL about it. The white kids had it TONS better than the black kids did and everybody knew it. Now we have a bunch of sad, sorry, chauvinistic bigots against women who are trying to present the same idea of recycled hogwash, that women are “separate but equal” to men in terms of roles, both in marriage and ministry. *Vomit!* Now true, the “roles,” so to speak, of man and woman, of husband and wife, of father and mother, do differ, but it all basically boils down to the fact that we’re all to serve each other out of love, regardless of what role, be it a role of leadership or anything these, is played by whom. Just like in the racially prejudiced “separate but equal” days, all this really comes down to is a bunch of male chauvinist pigs wanting to turn women into second class citizens just as white people wanted to do to blacks decades ago, to feed their pathetic male egos. *Rolleyes*

Hi everyone. I’ve really enjoyed reading through your blog Cheryl, and hats off to you. I think you do a great job. I guess you can say that I’m in the middle of the road. I have very “old-fashioned” beliefs as far as being a Christian is concerned. I believe the Bible is the perfect, inspired Word of God and I do believe that Jesus is the one and *only* way to the Father in Heaven and that you can only be saved and have eternal life through Him alone. A lot of my other beliefs tend to be strongly “conservative” I guess you can say. I’m strongly anti-abortion and I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, etc. *But,* I also tend to be a real outsider in a way because even though I do have these strong beliefs, I do *not* have a lot of the traditionally comp beliefs that most others with these same beliefs tend to have. I do believe that Phoebe was very likely a deaconess in the early church and I do believe that Priscilla was a pastor of a home church, facts that a lot of comps like to try and sweep under the rug and overlook to suit their own purposes (which of course is what they accuse egals of doing, but I think the comps are a lot guiltier of it than they realize. I think that Deborah is a very strong example of God putting a woman in a position of spiritual authority over His people, and if God would do that in the stricter Old Testament days then why wouldn’t He do it in the New Testament days and the Age of Grace, right? I personally think that the thought of women being able to think and do things like earning degrees and having careers and being doctors or microbiologists or — gasp!– even ministers of churches, in *addition* to the fact that we have the ability to carry and give birth to children and bring forth new life, really intimidates the heck out of men, so they want to try to take our mental capabilities away from us and restrict them to crocheting and learning new recipes (*rolleyes*). If only more of them would remember that God made them physical protectors and gave them more physical strength than women and the fact that they have their unique gifts from God as well so there’s no reason for intimidation, but…oh well, we do live in a fallen world, *sigh.*

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’ve been a lurker here for quite some time and I really love your blog, Cheryl. It’s a great place for someone “in the middle of the road,” I guess you can say, whose opinions of theology don’t seem to fit in too many places in the Church nowadays. It seems that the churches who do hold to truer Biblical beliefs are chauvinistic as heck when it comes to women being in positions of leadership, especially within the church, and the churches who *do* treat women as equals are apostate as heck and ridiculously liberal in their beliefs! *Facepalm!* So yeah, it’s really hard for somebody like me to find a place in the Church where she feels like she belongs. So thanks so much for this blog!

Okay, now that I’ve made proper introductions, I have a couple of issues about God supposedly preferring males over females that I really want to ask you guys about and find out your opinions, if you all can help me with this. As a woman, I’ve struggled with questions about these two things for a while now and have sort of wondered if God didn’t prefer males to females. The two things I want to ask about are:

1.) Whenever angels appeared in human form on earth, they always assumed male form. A certain minister I like to listen to (even though he’s strictly comp) does like to harp on this sometimes, I think when he’s speaking out against homosexuality. I think he says that Satan has had a lot to do with how “effeminate” pictures of angels have become nowadays and that that’s because Satan is trying to take away masculinity from men or something like that. It’s always bothered me that angels have always taken male form in the Bible when they’ve appeared to human beings. If females really *are* equal to God in His sight, why are there no female angels? When God talks about the angels appearing before Him in Job, why are they “the sons of God”? If God loves women equally to men, why can there not be angelic “sons AND daughters of God”? That kind of suggests to me that women are second-class citizens in God’s eyes, but I know that cannot be the case, so somebody please help me there!
2.) Whenever there were births announced by angels, why is it always the birth of *males*??? Why didn’t God ever send angels to announce to Mary’s parents, for example, that they would have a daughter who would be that one special woman that *every* Jewish woman wanted to be, who would be the mother of the foretold Messiah? John the Baptist’s birth was foretold. Most importantly, Jesus’s birth was foretold. Why couldn’t Mary’s birth have been foretold? Why was it always male babies that got to be foretold? That, too, kind of suggests that God doesn’t consider female babies to be as important as male babies.

Many thanks for your patience with the lengthy post!

Rose (BTW, “Rose” isn’t my real name; I’m just uncomfortable sharing my real name over the Internet and I love roses so I chose the nickname “Rose” is that’s okay.)

Much love to all my brothers and sisters in Christ here! 🙂