I’m not meant to just stay quiet, I’m meant to be a lion.
Whatever popular Christian artist Francesca Battistelli meant by these lyrics, they find themselves a decent indicator of culture’s popular perspective on women. Many women, Christian women, are asking: Why should I be quiet? Why shouldn’t I give my gender a voice? Hasn’t God made me to roar?
I sympathize with these questions—yet I cringe at them too. I sympathize because I sense a sincere desire to be part of the ministry that “proclaims His deeds among the peoples,” and “tells about all His wonderful works” (Ps 105:1-2). Yet I cringe because of the mutual exclusion assumed in these words. I cringe at the suggestion this statement brings.
Because, you see, it assumes that quiet women cannot have the heart of a lion.
It assumes a woman must have one without the other. But in fact there are women—strong, godly women—who believe in being quiet. Ironically, their voice is not heard in our culture because...well, they are quiet (though their actions hopefully have had more influence on our culture than any of us yammering bloggers will ever have). Frank O’ Conner noted: “No man is as anti-feminist as a really feminine woman” (he said it, not me!). I would like to give these quiet women a voice.
I would also like to be a voice for (or add my voice to those of) many godly men. Men who, in our culture, care deeply about women and yet are silenced because of their views on men and women. Men who are expected to play Twister with their eyes because they are not to care about women’s clothing styles. Men who are expected not to hurt women yet not to protect them, to love women yet not to lead them, and to cherish women yet not to get in their way. While some might not see the plight of these men as valid (as women and children worldwide are being raped, abused, mutilated, enslaved, etc.) still I would like to be a voice for/with them.
And while I’m being presumptuous, I might as well go ahead and say that I would like to speak for God too—or rather to attempt to reflect accurately the words He Himself has already powerfully spoken on this topic.
How we got here (the boring part)
We live a confused culture. It’s hard to believe that a civilization this advanced, this progressive, and this enlightened (if you will) would be so confused about the fundamental aspects of our nature, but we are. It’s hard to think straight about these things in our culture. More than ever before, women are asking: What does it mean to be a woman? And men are asking: What does it mean to be a man? What does my gender mean? What does my sexuality mean?
Our culture is not so much a feminist culture anymore; rather it might more accurately be described as a “post-feminist” culture. We have inherited the feminism of our mothers. It is important to clarify terms. What do I mean by feminism? Everybody will define it differently. At the risk of a vast oversimplification, when I think of feminism, three points come to mind:
- A twentieth-century socio-political movement advocating for increased legal, political and social rights for women, that has since ebbed somewhat.
A strong loyalty to other feminist women for support, the “sisterhood.” For example:
Gloria Steinem | Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.
Not necessarily an urgent desire to reconcile its statements and beliefs with the biblical text. For example, we compare Stanton’s letter to Susan B. Anthony with the Bible:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Women's degradation is in man's idea of his sexual rights. Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man.
1 Corinthians 11:8 | Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
More recently, early feminism has been called into question. Why might this be? I think the following quote is revealing:
Rosalind Coward | One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behavior was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary people's experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women (emphasis mine).
Attempts have been made to soften the original thrust of feminism. Instead of hearing statements like the famous “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” today you might hear something more like “I’m anti-feminism, pro-equality.”
Yet the effects of feminism still reign in our society. Strong feminists accuse anti-feminist women of being disloyal traitors. Anti-feminist men are accused of being tyrants, sexists (with whatever definition of “sexist” the accuser sees fit to use), and not caring about the plight of women and children under abuse. Meanwhile, feminist men are accused of being traitors as well, and feminist women are accused of being irrational. The two genders still regard each other with suspicion, and still treat the other as the enemy rather than the ally.
And above all, the cry “equality, equality!” rings louder than ever; yet everybody seems to mean something different by it, and often those who disagree about definitions are silenced as not really believing in “equality.”
A parable on equality
When I say that two things are equal, what comes to your mind? When I say that a father is equal to his son, what do you think I mean? Or that a mother is equal to her daughter? How about when I say that a cup of flour is equal to a cup of sugar? Or that 5 + 16 = 7 × 3? In computer science, variables of differing type can store the “same” information. Sometimes, variables of differing type yet storing the “same” information can be considered equal; sometimes the variables must be of the same type and store the same information to be considered equal.
Yet a father is not equal to his son in every way; a mother is not equal to her daughter in every way; a cup of flour is not equal to a cup of sugar in every way, and even the two sides of a mathematical equation are not really equal because they use different paths to arrive at the same number.
My point is that true equality is a myth. The only way for two things or persons to be truly equal to each other is if they are in fact one and the same. The question we must ask is not: How equal is one thing or person to another? but: How different is one thing or person from another? When we say two separate things or persons are equal, what we really mean is that they are equal in some aspects, and different in other aspects.
The same is true with man and woman. They are equal in certain ways, and different in certain ways.
The knock on the door breaks the afternoon silence, ringing, echoing through the great stone halls. The Father looks up: “Come in, beloved Son.”
“Thank you Father.” The Son sits down to the Father’s right. A pause. “I’ve come to talk with you, Father, about this matter of the humans.” The Father’s grave face grows graver; he waits for the Son to finish. “They are wretched. They’ve transgressed our laws. They deserve hell. But...I...you...we love them. And we’ve determined that we’re going to save them.” The Father looks up at the Son: “Yes, the Plan...what about it, Son?”
“Well—Father, do you love me?” The Son interrupts his own sentence.
“Of course I love You, Son. My love for you is not like the love of humanity. My love for you is not even like the love the angels display. My love for you is divine—the love of the eternal Source of love for His eternal Son—a love unblemished; unbroken; unfathomable; unchangeable. That is my love for you. You know that.”
“And, Father, am I worth as much as you are?”
“Son! You are worth every bit as much as I am. If possible, I would hold you up as worth even more than me, as even more valuable than I am. Son, you and I are one; we are the same being; you are my equal. Of course you are worth as much as I am!”
“Then Father, if you love me, and if I am your equal, I’d like to make some modifications to the Plan.” The Father’s face puzzles ever so slightly. “How’s that, Son?”
“Well, I’d like to split the task of going down there fifty-fifty. Maybe you could incarnate yourself on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I can take the other days (I don’t mind having an extra day). Maybe you could submit to me sometimes instead of my always submitting to you. And maybe we could both go to the cross together. And while I’m at it, I guess it’d be nice if you’d let me sit in your throne sometimes, and bear your title sometimes.”
And so, because the Father loved his Son, his equal, he traded shifts with the Son on earth; he practiced mutual submission with the Son; they died side by side on two crosses, each pouring out wrath on the other; they raised themselves up; and they exalted each other—together.
We understand that there is something fundamentally wrong about this story (and not that God lives in a great stone palace in the sky!) I felt uneasy writing it. I might guess that you felt uneasy reading it. Why? Because that is not how God did it or does it.
John 3:35 says, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hands” (cf. Jn 5:20; 15:9; Mt 3:17; 17:5). The Father loves the Son. And the Son is the Father’s equal. As the Word, He was not only “with God,” but “was God” (Jn 1:1). As God, He had equality with the Father, not only before His incarnation (Php 2:6; Jn 1:3; 17:5), but also during (Jn 10:30; Jn 5:18) and afterwards (Col 2:9).
And yet Jesus submits to God. Prior to the incarnation, Jesus submitted to His Father’s authority in sending Him—He says in John 8:42, “I came not of my own accord, but He sent me.” During His time on earth, He told the Father “not as I will, but as You will.” (Mt 26:39; c.f., Jn 5:19; 6:38; 8:49; 14:28, 31; 15:10; Php 2:8). Seated at the right hand of God (Rm 8:34), Jesus will submit to His Father for all eternity:
1 Corinthians 15:24-28 | Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when He abolishes all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death. For God has put everything under His feet. But when it says “everything” is put under Him, it is obvious that He who puts everything under Him is the exception. And when everything is subject to Christ, then the Son Himself will also be subject to the One who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all.
I think the relationship between the Son and the Father is the Achilles heel of evangelical feminism. It shows that it is indeed possible for two equal partners to have a loving relationship in which one partner submits to the other in a way that the other does not reciprocate.
And not only is it possible. It is divine.
It was as if God knew ahead of time the complications and the mystery that would be involved in the union of two vastly different genders. It was as if God knew the questions we would ask; the difficulties we would face; the objections that would be raised—and for an answer...
...He gave us Himself.
In the beginning
Why “in the beginning?” Why is that phrase used so much? Why does it matter? Why is so much attention poured into the first two chapters of Genesis when it comes to the issue of how men and women relate to one another?
Because here “in the beginning,” we are outside of culture.
Here, “in the beginning,” there is not yet the curse of the fallen world in which we live. We are not yet affected by sin here. Raymond Ortlund, Jr. writes, “As Genesis 1-3 go, so goes the whole Biblical debate.” And it is here, in the garden—where especially after the creation of man God saw “that it was very good” (Gn 1:31)—that we learn that male headship was not a sinful conspiracy invented by power-lustful men, but a divine institution. And we learn that male-female equality is not a product of feminism, but of God’s design.
Gloria Steinem | A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.
Marie Shear | Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
I’ve got news for Steinem and Shear: Somebody’s already beaten them to the punch:
Genesis 1:26-30 | Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule [root: radah] the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule [root: radah] the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it. I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Note the structure already found in this chapter. God has created the earth for the benefit of the plants, for the benefit of the animals, for the benefit of women, and for the benefit of men. God has created the plants for the benefit of the animals, for the benefit of women, and for the benefit of men. God has created the animals for the benefit of women, and for the benefit of men. And, as we see the story unfolding, God has created women for the benefit of men.
Man as male and female are the apex of God’s creation. Man are the only creatures that are made Imago Dei, in the Image of God. What does it mean for man to be made in God’s image?
First we recognize the ontological equality of men and women asserted in this simple fact. Both are made in the Image of God: neither is worth more, nor more important, than the other—just as God is not worth more, or more important, than Jesus, and Jesus is not worth more, or more important, than the Holy Spirit. As equals, the two sexes were to rule over the rest of creation. The world for rule here comes from the Hebrew word radah. It is not the same word used in the curse of Genesis 3:16. It means “to have dominion or authority over.” This dominion and authority of humanity over the rest of creation is God-given, proper, and wholesome.
We also notice the “specific/whole” paradox here. Man is used to refer both to a specific part of humanity: males; as well as to the whole of humanity: males and females. In a similar fashion, God is used to refer to a specific part of the Godhead: Father, Son or Spirit; as well as being used to refer to the whole of the Godhead: the Trinity.
Finally, we recognize the real structure of authority here. Man as male and female reflect the authority structure of the Image after which they were patterned: the Godhead, in which the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit submits to both. Man reflects this image in that the female submits to the male.
I’ve got another “radical notion.” My radical notion is that the best way to give dignity and worth to any created thing or person is to treat them according to the purpose and intent for which they were created. It does not dignify a child to be given authority over her parents. We do not dignify animals by treating them like humans or by spending fortunes on them (sorry, pet lovers!). We do not dignify angels by giving them worship. We do not even “dignify” the Holy Spirit by treating Him in a way that usurps the Father’s authority. Likewise, we do not dignify women by treating them in ways only meant for men, and we do not dignify men by treating them in ways only meant for women.
So how do we dignify men and women properly? What was the intent and purpose for which man and women were created?
I believe God created man with the purpose in mind of loving, humble headship, leadership, and protection of the woman. God created woman with the purpose in mind of intelligent, respectful following, nurturing, and complementing (not complimenting, though that is nice, too!) of the man. In opposition to evangelical feminism, I do think that there are very clear signs of these roles and authority positions before the fall. Several points in the biblical narrative display the headship of man:
- Woman was created after man (2:7, 22). We might not think this indicates too much, except that Paul (and therefore God) affirms this as a valid reason for male headship in 1 Timothy 2:13: “For Adam was created first, then Eve.” It might be objected: wouldn’t the fact that the animals were created before Adam invalidate the order of creation as a serious indicator of headship? For an answer, I might ask if a firstborn son’s right to inheritance in the Old Testament was invalidated if his father happened to own cattle prior to his birth. Rather, just as with firstborn sons, we understand the context here to be concerned with humans. The order of creation considered here is confined to these two. (Additionally, God also wanted to create woman out of man, and to do that, man necessarily had to have been created for this to take place).
Our God is a God of order—concerned about order. His institution of the firstborn son was not based on preference but on order (Dt 21:15-17). Again, the importance of order is seen in that the phrase “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15) is used to refer to our supreme authority, Christ. - Woman was created for man. Genesis 2:18 reads: “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.” It’s become popular in recent decades to argue over whether the word ezer here means “helper” or “rescuer” (i.e., implies a certain rank, whether lesser or greater or equal) but the fact is that ezer is a generic word, used to describe a person of any rank giving aid to another person of any rank. Funny that we argue so much about this word when the biblical writers never trouble themselves with it. The biblical argument for male headship is not that the woman helps the man, but that the woman was created for the benefit of the man (i.e., man was not created for the benefit of woman). 1 Corinthians 11:9 notes: “And man was not created for woman, but woman for man.”
There is no doubt that we men need women. And we need them badly. We don’t need them to fight us, or to be our rivals, we need them to help us; we need them to complete us. - Woman was created from man. Genesis 2:22-23 reads: “Then the Lord God made the rib He had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken from man.” God created Adam and the land mammals from the dust of the ground (1:24; 2:7). Eve’s total worth and importance are indisputable considering the fact that she was the only creature made out of another living creature. Think about that. Yet Paul (and therefore God) underscores this unique facet of her creation as another reason for male headship. 1 Corinthians 11:8: “For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man” (Note: the fact that man now comes through woman (1Co 11:11-12), which shows the mutual interdependence of the sexes, does not negate the point that Paul makes here from creation).
- Adam named the woman, both before the fall (2:23), and after the fall (3:20). Over and over again in the Bible, we see that the privilege of naming is given to the one in authority. God named the day and the night (1:5), the sky (1:8), and the land and sea (1:10). He named the human race “man” (1:26) Adam named the animals, thereby actualizing his God-given dominion over them (2:19-20). Cain named the city he had built (4:17). Parents name their children (4:25-26; 5:29; 16:11, 15; 19:37-38; 21:3; 25:25-26; 29:32-35; 30:6-24; 38:3-5). God renamed Abraham and Sarah (17:5, 15). God renamed Jacob (32:28; 35:10). Isaac’s naming of the wells he built shows the reader his true authority over them even though others claimed authority over them (26:20-22). And that’s just in Genesis! God the Father named Jesus (Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31). Jesus gave Simon a new name: Peter (Mk 3:16). He gave James and John a new name: Sons of Thunder (Mk 3:17). Finally, upon Jesus’ resurrection, His own authority, His Father, “highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Php 2:9-10).
- God named the human race “man” (1:26). Our current cultural sensibilities sniff discrimination here. Why couldn’t God name the human race “woman” or even something neutral like “people”? Yet God named us man. Ironically, that our feminist culture recognizes the full impact of what this signifies is shown by our recent disapproval of women taking their husband’s last name as their own upon marriage. (This is also why it is not discriminatory to use a masculine word to refer to both genders).
So what happened?
The nature of the curse
Three more reasons for the headship of man are found in the story of the fall:
- Before the fall, Satan approached Eve, not Adam, reversing the headship role God had put in place (3:1). Paul (and therefore God) uses this as an argument for male headship in 1 Timothy 2:13: “For Adam was created first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.” Although it is true that Eve was seduced by Satan’s clever arguments (2Co 11:3), I do not think that Paul is asserting a universal female gullibility as the reason for male headship here in 1 Timothy, but that the reversal of male headship comes from Satan and not from God. Note the points:
- Adam was created first.
- But Satan did not go deceive Adam (Thus, Adam was not deceived by Satan).
- He went and deceived Eve (Thus, she was deceived by Satan and sinned).
- After the fall, God approached Adam, not Eve, affirming the headship role He had put in place. Even though both Adam and Eve were hiding, “the LORD God called out to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (3:9). Our human (cultural?) intuition would tell us that the serpent ought to be called out first, since he was the primary instigator, than Eve, than Adam (who would’ve had the “least” amount of guilt in the situation). But God holds Adam responsible as the head of his family.
- Adam, not Eve, represented the entire human race. Interestingly enough, we as a human race are counted sinful at birth (Original Sin) not because of Eve’s sin, but because of Adam’s sin. Romans 5:12 asserts, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Again in 1 Corinthians 15:22, we read “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”
If you suspect that men read male headship into the Bible out of a desire to gain an unfair, immature advantage for themselves, then I have a very serious question for you: Do you think men consider it advantageous to be held responsible for the sin of another person in addition to their own? To bear shame and dishonor before God for a sin that seemingly would be another’s responsibility? Do you think men enjoy that part too?
Because it’s part of the package for men who embrace male leadership.
Unfortunately, Adam failed to shoulder this responsibly for the sin, preferring instead to blame Eve (3:12). Unfortunately, Eve failed to take responsibility for the sin, preferring instead to blame the serpent (3:13). Fortunately, the serpent apparently had nobody handy to pin the blame on, so God started with him (3:14-15), then moved to Eve (3:16), and finally to Adam (3:17).
The nature of the curse was one of corruption. Because of sin, the once good things that God’s creatures had enjoyed now became corrupted. They became tainted things. Work, for example. God, in an explosion of divine creativity, formed the earth out of nothing—the stars, sun, moon, skies, land, seas, plants, animals, and humans. He describes all that artistic energy as work (2:1-3). Good work. In addition, Adam worked the ground in the Garden of Eden (2:5, 15). This was fulfilling, satisfying, wholesome work. Yet it became tainted in the fall, becoming “painful labor” for Adam (3:17, 19). The land was good as well, producing pleasing vegetation. Yet it was also tainted in the fall, “cursed because of you” (3:17), producing “thorns and thistles for you” (3:18). The reproductive ability of the woman was good and healthy. She was to “be fruitful and multiply” (1:28). Yet, this reproductive ability became cursed and tainted, so that she would “bear children in anguish” (3:16). Other good things became tainted by the fall: the serpent’s mode of transportation (3:14), its food (3:14), the relationship between females and snakes (3:15), the man’s composition of dust (2:7, 3:19), and the humans’ nakedness (2:25) which became a source of shame for them (3:7, 10).
Likewise, woman’s desire for man was tainted, as was man’s rule over woman. Verse 16 is of particular interest:
Genesis 3:16b | Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
We might ask: why is it bad that the woman desires her husband? Isn’t that a good thing? The word for desire, teshuqah, is only used two other places: Genesis 4:7 and Song of Songs 7:10. It means “to long for, to stretch out after.” In Songs 7:10, the desire is obviously sexual (read verses 1-9). Sexual desire can be good and wholesome, but it can also be domineering: a desire to have, to grasp, to control. The word for rule, mashal, does not have to mean a harsh, draconian rule (Gn 1:18; Jdg 8:22-23), but it can (Dt 15:6; Pr 22:7). A good verse to understand how these two words interact together is Genesis 4:7, where God is warning Cain about sin:
Genesis 4:7 | If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
Sin’s desire was to dominate Cain. To control him. To conquer him. Yet, in the face of that desire, Cain was to rule over it, to stamp it out, to defeat it.
In the same way, woman’s desire for man became twisted; became corrupted. This type of controlling desire is not a good thing. Likewise, the man’s rule now becomes tainted. Rather than the humble, loving, servant-hearted rule found pre-fall, this rule is a rule that seeks to stamp out; to crush; and to defeat.
We are still living under the results of this curse.
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