How can men make their partners attend churches like these? Why do men allow male clergy to get away with this kind of discrimination? Why do women go along with it? Why would parents want to bring their children up in this sort of environment? Is there something else controlling them? Fear? Fear that if they leave they will lose their salvation or that they are not good Christian women or men? Could this be a form of brain washing? How could people be tricked into thinking this is the gospel?
Has anyone left this kind of church and discovered that they are still loved by God?
3 comments:
This is an interesting issue... particularly in light of the recent appointment of our first female prime minister. I caught the bus home from work that day, as the last passenger on the bus the bus driver stopped me for conversation as I was disembarking. He asked me if as a woman I was happy that Australia now had a female prime minister. I replied, it's great that a woman has reached the position of prime minister (albeit my political views are somewhat different to the appropriateness of the appointment) however when equal numbers of men start taking their wife's surname at marriage, then and only then will I believe we have achieved equality amongst the sexes. My point is that in the world of workplaces and business I think women (in general) are treated equally and fairly. It's such a pity that within community groups such as the Church women continue to still play second fiddle to men when it comes to role delegation. In the past I've been shocked by the "boys club" approach taken by some Churches and that generally the leaders of those particular Churches are so dismissive of women and listening to their point of view.
Thanks for you input anonymous.
I recently sat at a table with about twelve clergy of different denominations, all were male. It felt very much like a boys club. It felt strange that the top positions in all these churches were held by men. I know that the conversation topics would have been much different if women had been there in equal number or in any number at all. I have always found it strange that the more women attend church than men yet the men are the ones at the centre. Sadly, the gospel we have preached to the world is a gospel of male domination and female subordination which keeps and protects the power at the centre. Deep down are men still threatened by women?
I see this desire to hold onto power by men in the church as contrary to the spirit of things revealed through the teaching of Jesus about the kingdom of God.
To hold power whether in politics, business or in religion seems to require the demonising, or scapegoating, or the ridiculing, or putting down of those whom one wants to hold power over. For example, it doesn't take much for a colonial power through the use of armed force,laws which favour those in power against the colonised, limitations on rights, control of the education system etc, to even recruit those colonised, into subscribing to the view that the colonisers are indeed more superior than them. They are conscripted into believing a lie about themselves.
Likewise theological colleges for hundreds of years have taught men and women that women are not to hold positions of power in the church. Patriarchy is defended "because there is a hierarchal chain of being under God, with men first, then women, then animals."
I attended Moore theological college in the early nineties and this was still being taught with no murmur of objection by students whether male or female.
Feminists are seen as a scapegoat, the ones men, the church, society and the media can blame almost anything for.
The church in many ways is out of step with society because it is trying to hang onto its power and influence in society. I guess I believe that when men actually relinquish their power and the desire for power that they may experience something of what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the kingdom of God.
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