“Does the Bible Approve the Oppression of Women?
Romans 16:1
I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant [diakonos in Greek from which the English word “deacon/deaconess” is derived] of the church which is at Cenchrea.
I have a very famous cousin who grew up attending church but has long left the faith. When asked why, he said it was due to the poor treatment of women taught in Scripture and practiced by the church. That response reminded me of a pamphlet I got from The United Atheists of America that says, “The harm done to women by the Christian religion began with the Bible giving the stamp of God’s approval to the oppression of women. Christian men used the Bible to keep women silent, submissive and uneducated for centuries.” No doubt, today’s passage—one that tells the women to be silent in the church—would rank high in the cynics’ laundry list against the church. Sure, that and few other passages in the Bible look awful in the modern era where women can not only vote, which became a law only about 100 years ago, but run for political offices— including the POTUS.
But, before condemning the church as the enemy of women, please recognize this simple fact: In antiquity women were treated badly across the board; that is to say, no men living in antiquity—regardless of whether they were today’s equivalent of conservatives, liberals or left, religious or irreligious—could be deemed pro-women in light of today’s enlightened standard. So, to fairly judge the early church’s treatment of women, the merits of the church should be compared to the standard of that era.
When that’s done, you would agree with what Rodney Stark (a sociologist at the University of Washington) writes in The Rise of Christianity (1996), described by Newsweek as brilliant. To the charge that “the Bible . . . ke[pt] women silent, submissive and uneducated,” Stark declares, “They’re all wrong.” How? According to this leading sociologist, “Christianity ‘promoted liberty, social relations between the sexes and within the family’ . . ., giving women more status than they enjoyed in Rome society, where they remained the property of men.’” Furthermore, “women also benefitted from the church’s sanctification of marriage and opposition to divorce” since divorced women were deemed “damaged goods”; some even “ma[de] a place in the community as a prostitute” (Willards 1997:71).
One irony is this: Many critics often claim that the New Testament writers borrowed ideas from Mithraism—a mystery religion from Persia—and other ancient religions like it. For instance, Dan Brown says in The Da Vinci Code that Jesus can be identified with “the pre-Christian God Mithras—[who was] called the Son of God and the Light of the World” (p. 232). While making that unwarranted claim (Reinventing Jesus 2006), Brown never mentions that Mithraism’s “membership was restricted to men” (Latourette 1975:25). On the contrary, as Stark notes, “most Christians in the Roman Empire were women,” some of whom became deaconesses (Rom. 16:1), a mid-level leadership in the church. That may mean nothing to you and me, but the elevation of women to such a leadership position was unheard of among the many mystery religions at that time (Cybele, Isis, Ishtar, a.k.a., Venus, etc.). Truth be told, a key role of women in these religions was serving as temple prostitutes. In The Da Vinci Code, the detective Sophie, when she was young, had rejected her beloved grandfather after witnessing him in orgies with the members of a secret society. When told of this, Harvard symbologist Langdon explained: “What you saw was not about sex, it was about spirituality. The . . . ritual is not a perversion. It’s a deeply sacrosanct ceremony . . . For the early church, mankind’s use of sex to communicate directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base” (p. 309). Oh really? I have one question for Langdon: “If these mystery religions were so wonderful to women and the church was such an anti-women institution, why were the women so drawn to the church?
So, please consider what is presented here and not be misled into thinking that the church and the Bible are against women. The reality is that the powerful truth in Scripture set the social forces in motion to liberate women from societal restrictions placed on them, in time. Too slow of a process? Yes, but that’s the fault of many males, who, being sinners and ignorant of Scripture, treated women badly, some more than others. Nevertheless, that’s not God’s fault because He gave us His Word and Spirit to turn our world into a safer place for women (“Your kingdom come”), but like everything else, we’ve failed God—who created and loves women. And for them Jesus died.
I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant [diakonos in Greek from which the English word “deacon/deaconess” is derived] of the church which is at Cenchrea.
I have a very famous cousin who grew up attending church but has long left the faith. When asked why, he said it was due to the poor treatment of women taught in Scripture and practiced by the church. That response reminded me of a pamphlet I got from The United Atheists of America that says, “The harm done to women by the Christian religion began with the Bible giving the stamp of God’s approval to the oppression of women. Christian men used the Bible to keep women silent, submissive and uneducated for centuries.” No doubt, today’s passage—one that tells the women to be silent in the church—would rank high in the cynics’ laundry list against the church. Sure, that and few other passages in the Bible look awful in the modern era where women can not only vote, which became a law only about 100 years ago, but run for political offices— including the POTUS.
But, before condemning the church as the enemy of women, please recognize this simple fact: In antiquity women were treated badly across the board; that is to say, no men living in antiquity—regardless of whether they were today’s equivalent of conservatives, liberals or left, religious or irreligious—could be deemed pro-women in light of today’s enlightened standard. So, to fairly judge the early church’s treatment of women, the merits of the church should be compared to the standard of that era.
When that’s done, you would agree with what Rodney Stark (a sociologist at the University of Washington) writes in The Rise of Christianity (1996), described by Newsweek as brilliant. To the charge that “the Bible . . . ke[pt] women silent, submissive and uneducated,” Stark declares, “They’re all wrong.” How? According to this leading sociologist, “Christianity ‘promoted liberty, social relations between the sexes and within the family’ . . ., giving women more status than they enjoyed in Rome society, where they remained the property of men.’” Furthermore, “women also benefitted from the church’s sanctification of marriage and opposition to divorce” since divorced women were deemed “damaged goods”; some even “ma[de] a place in the community as a prostitute” (Willards 1997:71).
One irony is this: Many critics often claim that the New Testament writers borrowed ideas from Mithraism—a mystery religion from Persia—and other ancient religions like it. For instance, Dan Brown says in The Da Vinci Code that Jesus can be identified with “the pre-Christian God Mithras—[who was] called the Son of God and the Light of the World” (p. 232). While making that unwarranted claim (Reinventing Jesus 2006), Brown never mentions that Mithraism’s “membership was restricted to men” (Latourette 1975:25). On the contrary, as Stark notes, “most Christians in the Roman Empire were women,” some of whom became deaconesses (Rom. 16:1), a mid-level leadership in the church. That may mean nothing to you and me, but the elevation of women to such a leadership position was unheard of among the many mystery religions at that time (Cybele, Isis, Ishtar, a.k.a., Venus, etc.). Truth be told, a key role of women in these religions was serving as temple prostitutes. In The Da Vinci Code, the detective Sophie, when she was young, had rejected her beloved grandfather after witnessing him in orgies with the members of a secret society. When told of this, Harvard symbologist Langdon explained: “What you saw was not about sex, it was about spirituality. The . . . ritual is not a perversion. It’s a deeply sacrosanct ceremony . . . For the early church, mankind’s use of sex to communicate directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base” (p. 309). Oh really? I have one question for Langdon: “If these mystery religions were so wonderful to women and the church was such an anti-women institution, why were the women so drawn to the church?
So, please consider what is presented here and not be misled into thinking that the church and the Bible are against women. The reality is that the powerful truth in Scripture set the social forces in motion to liberate women from societal restrictions placed on them, in time. Too slow of a process? Yes, but that’s the fault of many males, who, being sinners and ignorant of Scripture, treated women badly, some more than others. Nevertheless, that’s not God’s fault because He gave us His Word and Spirit to turn our world into a safer place for women (“Your kingdom come”), but like everything else, we’ve failed God—who created and loves women. And for them Jesus died.
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