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Women's Issues: Feminism
309 Plays4 years ago
Should a Christian woman call herself a feminist? Does Scripture support the feminism we see today? This episode talks about the nuanced issue of feminism, whether Jesus was a feminist, and whether or not we can admire the work of modern day feminist icons. Show notes and links on the blog at phyliciamasonheimer.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching.
00:00:21
Speaker
And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
Women's Issues Series: Feminism among Christians
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back, friends. If you are listening to this episode, we are knee deep in the Women's Issues series of Verity podcast.
00:00:40
Speaker
And this episode is one of those you've looked forward to for a while. It's a top question on Ask Anything Monday and I've written and talked about it on repeated occasions. The topic is feminism. How do we navigate this ideology as Christian women?
00:01:00
Speaker
I think you know if you're coming to this episode that this can be very controversial. You will know Christian women who will identify as Christian feminists and you will know Christian women who decry the idea of being a feminist or even call themselves anti-feminists. There are Christian influencers and leaders who will market their entire platform as anti-feminist
00:01:24
Speaker
and then you'll see the exact opposite in other places.
Historical Perspective on Feminism
00:01:28
Speaker
And so I hope that this episode can give a little bit of clarity to this, why it's so divisive, a little history into modern day feminism and what we see today, and then how we can navigate that through the lens of the gospel.
00:01:44
Speaker
As always, I want to remind you that each of these episodes are an overview, a broad overview. I can't get into every nuanced detail angle viewpoint within the arc of this story, and I would recommend doing further research, reading some of the biographies of the women mentioned in this episode,
00:02:06
Speaker
doing some digging into modern day feminism versus feminism during the sexual revolution versus feminism during women's suffrage and just the differences between those things because it's so important to see how it has morphed and changed over the years and what principles have stayed or what has become priority here in 2020.
00:02:28
Speaker
So I think it's most helpful if we just begin with a definition of feminism. If you were to google feminism, it has a simple definition.
Evolving Definition of Feminism
00:02:37
Speaker
The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. And that sounds like common sense.
00:02:44
Speaker
Equality of the sex is men and women are equal. They have equal value. They should have equal rights as humans, both in government, in the eyes of God. And if this were normative feminism, if this was all that it is, I think a lot more Christians would be on board with it.
00:03:02
Speaker
And I personally, you're going to hear my personal view of course navigate that through your own lens and through scripture, dig into it. I always have to share my personal view. Everybody who talks about these things has a bias. I am hesitant and careful with the topic of feminism because this definition is not what we're seeing today.
00:03:24
Speaker
Feminism has morphed over the years. It goes in waves. It changes with the tide of public priority and opinion. And the feminism of today is not the feminism of women's suffrage. It's not even the feminism of Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton. In fact, if you look at Hillary Clinton's voting bloc from the last election, so four years ago, you would see that she actually lost a lot of the younger feminists.
00:03:51
Speaker
because there's a different kind of feminism rising today. This is a new intersectional feminism. It's a worldview that really involves a lot of self-actualization, a freedom of choice, moral relativity.
Women in Church Roles: Challenges and Responsibilities
00:04:07
Speaker
Feminism today is far more than just women's rights and equality. The question then is, why do we see so many women, so many Christian women flocking to the Christian feminist label?
00:04:21
Speaker
Because until recently, and I would say even now it's still a struggle, the church has not had a great framework for embracing female believers. In our last episode, we talked about what women can do in the church and the different conflicting views on this. And I think the conflict and the inability to find a place for women to serve in the church in this fear of allowing them to be in certain positions that scripture
00:04:49
Speaker
supports has caused many women to seek validation outside the church. Now should they do that? No. Should they wrestle with that with Christ even if the church isn't handling it well? Yes, but the church is partially responsible for what is happening here. A lot of the time in the church what we've seen is we're spending so many words telling women where not to be.
00:05:16
Speaker
And little has been said about what our part is in the Great Commission. If we don't have a framework for showing women how they can impact the kingdom for God's glory, and we have no talking points for confronting abuse in the church, and our women's ministries only talk about how beautiful we are,
00:05:33
Speaker
We aren't equipping women to engage theologically and they're susceptible to what secular feminism teaches on some levels and they're also susceptible to just being plain deceived and sucked into a system that is not actually celebrating their femininity and their strength but ends up twisting
Critique of Modern Secular Feminism
00:05:54
Speaker
it. Now you might be like ah Felicia that is a really strong statement and I'm shutting this off right now. Wait a minute I think you'll be surprised at where I go with this.
00:06:03
Speaker
The facts are there are a lot of problems with modern-day secular feminism, but it has also accomplished a lot of good through history, and I don't want to ignore that, so we'll get to that in a few minutes. But through modern-day feminism, as it's been twisted and changed from when it was women's suffrage,
00:06:23
Speaker
We're selling women short of God's full intentions. Secular feminism cannot, on its own, accomplish God's intentions. But this monstrous void that's within the church has led so many women to feminism as the answer. The problem that we're facing as Christian women is that the issues we see in the church and the world can't be fixed by feminism.
00:06:47
Speaker
Now, one of the arguments that is often brought back to that is, well, Jesus was a feminist. You may have read some of Sarah Bessie's work, Rachel Held Oven's work, that says that Jesus was a feminist.
Biblical View of Women's Equality
00:07:01
Speaker
But Jesus' pro-woman stance was not rooted in a secular worldview that, quite frankly, if you do your research and I'll put some links in the show notes, is linked to racism, eugenics, socialism, Marxism, misandry, which is man-hating, and murder. Jesus exalted women long before the feminist movement came into existence.
00:07:25
Speaker
before Mary Wollstonecraft attacked the institution of marriage, before Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony pushed for suffrage in our right to vote, before Margaret Sanger advocated for eugenics and birth control to prevent poverty, before Jermaine and Gloria and Sheila and Betty all had their say, Jesus advocated for women in a culture where women were denied their most basic rights.
00:07:49
Speaker
and Jesus did not make the gospel any less exclusive or the truth any less hard in order to do so. The way Jesus walked with women is often adopted by Christian feminists as proof that Jesus was on board with this modern-day mission, but Jesus' actions were not dictated by or confined to any ideological box. See, Jesus doesn't get on board with our human ideas,
00:08:13
Speaker
we get on board with His. And it's really easy to fall into this chronological snobbery, as Nathan Fanocchio puts it, and think that we, as modern day believers, modern day people, we have it figured out. These ideologies are the best. And then we look backwards at Jesus to validate what we are thinking, instead of doing the reverse and saying, what did Jesus teach? And does what He taught the original message
00:08:40
Speaker
Does that fit with this modern day narrative that undoubtedly has been influenced by secular things? We need to remember that Jesus' view of women is consistent both with God's view of women in the Old Testament, since Jesus and God are one, and with Peter and Paul's discussion of women in the New.
00:08:59
Speaker
Jesus wasn't contradicting the Old Testament God or what Paul writes in Ephesians 5. We talked about this in the marriage episode. And what often happens, especially in Christian feminist circles, is we will ignore those New Testament passages or downplay Paul or even discredit Paul.
00:09:17
Speaker
based on authority of Scripture and manuscripts, and that's all covered in the canon series, by the way, or we will separate Jesus from the Old Testament God and we'll just concentrate on Jesus alone, distinct, separated from his entire context to prove our point.
00:09:36
Speaker
And that is not good scholarship. That is not a solid hermeneutic or way of studying scripture, and therefore it can't be trusted. We have to look at the holistic picture of who Jesus was because he affirmed the Old Testament and he inspired Paul. And so everything in the Bible that's said about women, if we're going to adopt an ideology and say that Jesus supported it, that means the whole Bible has to support it. And so we have to look at the big picture
00:10:04
Speaker
when we are linking an ideology to scripture.
Aligning Cultural Frameworks with Scripture
00:10:08
Speaker
So what did God have to say about equality? To God, women are utterly equal. They are the magnum opus of creation, the final touch, the very good. They were meant to be man's one companion in relationship outlined at the beginning.
00:10:24
Speaker
And we are as much a part of man's work and mission as he is, partners in producing fruitful labor. We're creating and making an echoing God in this world. We are that strong easer, that military aid that is coming to help fulfill this great commission. So what happened? Where did the church miss God's intentions that we have to run to feminism as the solution?
00:10:48
Speaker
The Church went wrong, in my opinion, when it deemed women as people to be managed, instead of as partners in the Great Commission, when texts were taken out of their historical and literary context, when decisions were made in fear instead of in faith, and when people became more interested in the right roles than in God's divine purpose, women were shoved to the corners of Church history.
00:11:11
Speaker
Not surprisingly, we didn't stay there or like it there. But it's not because we're all feminists. It's because God designed us for more. God's initial design was for women to make man better at what he was called to do. Man was not going to do it alone. God said he couldn't do it alone. He needs a helper. And we need men just as well.
00:11:32
Speaker
Women bring something to God's table that men do not, and that's not a self-exalting thing to say. It's simply fundamental to our sexuality and gender. God intended for women to be part of His mission, not just as mothers and wives, even though those are significant and important roles.
00:11:51
Speaker
But because some factions in the church have denied this for many years and in many capacities, we're told we should all be feminists because maybe something would change. Something does need to change. But I don't think the full-fledged mission of feminism as we see it in today's world in 2020 is the answer. Why not? Okay, number one, we don't need cultural frameworks to accomplish God's will.
00:12:22
Speaker
God's will is yesterday, today, and forever. He has worked in countless cultures and kingdoms. He has accomplished His will regardless of movement or march. And so while we should understand the cultural and worldview frameworks around us, and why some of them are great and helpful, we do not need them to accomplish what God has set out to do. God has given us His Holy Spirit for that express purpose. He has given us His word to guide our actions, and He's called us to a commission outside ourselves.
00:12:53
Speaker
it will be acceptable and applaudable to align oneself with Christian feminism or rather secular feminism linked with Christianity. But if we adopt a cultural framework and then read it backwards into scripture, we are at great risk of committing an exegetical fallacy or committing
00:13:17
Speaker
a misreading of Scripture, or even being misled ourselves and deceiving others. We need to start with the Word of God, and then move forward into our worldview. We check our frameworks against it, and what does not line up with God's vision for discipleship and justice, we reject the things that do fit with God's vision for men and women, come second to His existing commands. This doesn't mean we throw out all of feminism.
00:13:46
Speaker
It has done some amazing things. We are able to vote, to own property, to move freely within society, to not have to depend on marriage in order to interact in a legal fashion or to own land or start a business. These are incredible privileges and advances that feminism helped create.
00:14:06
Speaker
And it's important to recognize that. But we also don't want to latch on to the entire worldview, no questions asked, no scanning through who these ideological leaders are and what they're saying and what their mission is, without first checking that against our framework, which is scripture.
00:14:24
Speaker
The second thing is that clarity of worldview is absolutely essential in this culture.
Worldview Clarity and Feminism Labels
00:14:30
Speaker
Clarity of worldview. There has never been a time in history when clarity was more important. We live in a literal new age. Morality is relative. Everyone has his own truth. People regularly discuss their beliefs and their faith and their spirituality. And this is an incredible opportunity for us to share about Christ and to live Christ in front of them.
00:14:53
Speaker
But if we too freely call ourselves feminist with no caveat, with no addendum, no explanation, it associates us with a movement whose core values fly in the face of the Christian worldview. So unless we have time to sit down and explain exactly which feminist priorities we agree with and which we reject, we are in danger of leading countless unbelievers and young believers into confusion. These people need clarity regarding the Christian worldview.
00:15:21
Speaker
So, we need to be able to explain, yes, we believe women are completely equal, but in ways that align with the biblical sexual ethic. We need to be able to explain that we believe women need to be supported and encouraged and that their creativity and their work is important to society, but not at the sacrifice of unborn baby girls.
00:15:46
Speaker
So, in my opinion, it would be far simpler to stop picking up the feminist label and instead have these conversations as someone who's simply pro-woman, like Jesus was.
00:15:59
Speaker
The third point I want to make is that reading feminism into scripture is a misleading exegesis. Exegesis is taking the meaning out of the text. The facts are that much of scripture was written in a society that was not feminist. And the feminist ideology we see in 2020 or even in 1960 was not what Paul had in mind when he was writing about women.
00:16:26
Speaker
It's not what Isaiah had in mind when he called his wife a prophetess. We have to stop taking our present-day chronologically bound idea and putting it into scripture. The Bible preceded feminism, so it cannot rightly be called feminist even though it talks about equality. Proof-texting arguments to support our claims, that's not consistent. It's not honest.
00:16:55
Speaker
Jesus exalted women based on their divine design and purpose, and not because He simply held to a worldview of equality. In fact, equality was the bare minimum Jesus called for among His disciples. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, Jesus continually brings people back to the spirit of the law, the heart of selflessness and love that God intended His people to display.
00:17:18
Speaker
We're not to settle for treating men and women as equals. We're to treat them as better than ourselves. This is Matthew 5, 43-48, and Luke 6, 33-36. This theme is consistent in both the Old Testament and the New. In Leviticus 25, God points out that treating the poor, the foreigner, or any human among us with disrespect and dishonor is offensive to Him.
00:17:40
Speaker
In Romans 12, 10, we're called to outdo one another in showing honor. And in Philippians 2, 3, to count others as more significant than ourselves. We see provisions in Leviticus for the poor, especially women, to be able to glean. And this is what Ruth was doing as a poor, foreign woman in Boaz's field. She was gleaning wheat to survive. This was almost like an early welfare system that God set up to take care of people in a fallen world.
00:18:10
Speaker
So, do we need feminism, the ideology in order to honor women? No. We need a proper exegesis of God's word, and hearts ready and willing to act on it. We are to supersede feminism. And while some of what God teaches will come through in modern day feminism, and so we will cross paths and probably be able to link arms in many ways,
00:18:34
Speaker
We need to simply start with what God has already taught, what God has already said about women and what we can do for the underprivileged and how we can further the Great Commission. Start with His mission and then if it crosses over with feminism, partner where you can.
00:18:53
Speaker
Christmas is on its way, and I know some of you already have your Christmas decorations up. And if you're thinking ahead for what you're going to buy for friends and family, I hope you will check out our theology pop-up shop November 20th through 23rd.
00:19:10
Speaker
We only open the shop four times a year, and this is the last shop in 2020. We have all new products, plus we're bringing back some of the favorites, like our student of the heart of God sweatshirt. If you are interested in a mug or some leather goods, new e-books on parenting and on pregnancy, this is the shop for you.
00:19:33
Speaker
It will be open November 20th. It will close November 23rd. I'm so excited for this launch. The theme is peace, which I think is so perfect for this time of year after the election, after the difficulty of 2020. So be sure to mark your calendars November 20th through 23rd. The shop will be live on my website and you can grab your products just in time for Christmas.
00:20:00
Speaker
The next point I want to make is that women must maximize our current mobility.
Using Rights and Mobility for the Gospel
00:20:05
Speaker
Today, we have more rights, privileges, and cultural mobility than ever before, at least in America and in Western societies. In other cultures, great strides are being made, but there's a lot of work that has to be done. And that is just the point. There is work to be done. Feminism has accomplished some amazing things. But what was accomplished remains empty if the Gospel is not furthered through those victories.
00:20:30
Speaker
So the question I'm always asked is, do I personally think that you can be a Christian and be a feminist? I do not doubt the faith of those who claim both worldviews, but I do doubt whether most Christian feminists are aware of feminism's history and its current role in society. Most of them truly believe that the Google definition is the definition of feminism, and they want to separate the label from the legacy.
00:20:59
Speaker
And often, that's not possible. Even the very best of versions of feminism, pro-life feminism, new wave feminism, equality feminism, are often anti-God or universalist, and they're adamantly opposed to biblical values.
00:21:15
Speaker
Now, I'm not expecting to change minds, but I do want to make you think. I want you to think about the implications of trying to merge Christianity and feminism. One or the other has to be diluted from its original nature. And so we need to take this opportunity to maximize our current mobility. We can drop the label and do something.
00:21:36
Speaker
We can be more than a feminist. We can be fully and utterly pro-woman, adding value, radiating kindness, listening well, bringing the truth just like Jesus did. Now, with all of this said,
00:21:50
Speaker
I don't want you to think that I'm anti-feminist because I'm not. I am just very concerned with the idea of merging feminism and scripture to the point that we no longer are conscious of the secular components of feminism. I am very pro-woman, and I think by this point in our series, you know that. And if you haven't listened to previous episodes, I recommend doing so.
00:22:17
Speaker
So what do we do? So if we're not gonna call ourselves feminists because it's confusing, what do we do and how do we interact with the women in history who accomplish these amazing things?
00:22:28
Speaker
I think that for me, what's been easiest is calling myself pro-woman. Calling myself pro-woman in conversations has bridged that gap between myself and secular feminists because we are on the same page in that sense. We both want women to have equal rights. We celebrate women who have accomplished great things.
Historical Feminists and Their Contributions
00:22:47
Speaker
We celebrate women who are doing things that we can admire and look up to and we can teach our girls to do that too. I have two daughters and I've come from a family with a really strong mom
00:22:57
Speaker
and strong sisters. It's important to me to have those role models. So let's think about some so-called feminist icons, we can call them feminist icons, that we can really learn from and model after. We can look as early as Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony and the partnership they had in order to accomplish women's suffrage.
00:23:24
Speaker
Something interesting is that many of the women who were interested in advancing women's suffrage, it was partially to have more rights and ability to have a say in government, but one of the driving factors was prohibition.
00:23:39
Speaker
Many of these women believed that if they could get prohibition of alcohol passed, it would help many impoverished women with alcoholic husbands to have a better quality of life. They even thought that it might alleviate poverty. So if we removed alcohol,
00:23:58
Speaker
If women had the right to vote and then voted out alcohol, you would have a better life for these women, for these families. Now, as we know with what happened at prohibition, people still have a sin nature and they will drink if they want to drink. So that idea that they had didn't actually work, but it did get women the right to vote. And that's an incredible accomplishment and something to be celebrated.
00:24:27
Speaker
We have other women throughout history, and I'm talking American history here, but there are many, many more that we can look to. You have Harriet Tubman, who had almost no rights at all and used her freedom once she had it to go back and rescue those still in bondage.
00:24:48
Speaker
I love reading missionary stories. There are countless missionary women who lived in all different kinds of societies with different levels of rights, often none at all, who accomplished amazing things for the gospel, but also transformed the lives of other women at the same time.
00:25:07
Speaker
This is the heart of true Christian feminism, the going above and beyond of enabling women to know the full gospel and mobilize for the Great Commission and impact their communities with their gifts.
00:25:21
Speaker
Now, another question I'll often get is, well, isn't there anything we can admire in secular feminist icons?
Complexities of Admiring Feminist Icons
00:25:29
Speaker
So like Margaret Sanger or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We know that Margaret Sanger, what the founder of Planned Parenthood advocated for eugenics. I've read her book. She does say that.
00:25:43
Speaker
And if you don't know what eugenics is, it is eliminating people based on their ethnicity. In this case, black babies, she thought should be aborted. There shouldn't be any more of them. They should be eliminated because they weren't worthy to live. And that is the founder of Planned Parenthood.
00:26:03
Speaker
But Margaret Sanger also advocated heavily for some form of birth control. And the reason that she did this was because she was seeing the poverty of women in the city, oftentimes immigrant women, Irish immigrants with, you know, their husband who in her case, she was seeing a lot of alcoholism and just downright poverty.
00:26:28
Speaker
And so she wanted to advocate for birth control so that these women would not have 10, 11, and 12 children that they could not feed and care for. How she went about it was to establish Planned Parenthood to advocate for abortion and lead this, quite frankly, go into a murderous mode of solving this problem. But it's the same problem, that same original empathy for the problem,
00:26:57
Speaker
is what we as Christians need to be willing to take action on and solve. So when we choose not to align with secular feminism, it doesn't mean that we sit on our hands. It's that we think about what was Margaret Sanger trying to do? What was she trying to solve?
00:27:17
Speaker
Because many times people who are pro-choice in the feminist community aren't coming to pro-choice because they simply hate babies. It's because they think that there is a sacrifice worth making. Trust me, I think it's terrible. I don't agree with that at all. But they believe that this is a sacrifice worth making in order to solve this
00:27:41
Speaker
bigger problem. What is the bigger problem? How does the gospel mean that? What are Christians doing to deal with that? That is how you can engage with secular feminism. How does Christianity answer the original problem while also supporting sanctity of life?
00:28:01
Speaker
That question can be answered many ways. There are so many ministries, so many pregnancy centers that have resources. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I can try and link a few in the show notes on my blog.
00:28:14
Speaker
But another example is, you know, what's another feminist icon? Well, just recently Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. She passed away. And a lot of Christians were posting that she was going to answer for her pro-choice judicial decisions. And is that true? Biblically, I would say yes. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg also made some decisions that paved the way for Amy Coney Barrett.
00:28:44
Speaker
Amy Coney Barra is able, our newly nominated Supreme Court Justice, the youngest female justice, who has seven children, two of whom are adopted, and a thriving community, a marriage that seems like a healthy marriage with her spouse. And she is a Supreme Court Justice. This position that Amy is now in was a door open to her through much of what Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for during her career.
00:29:14
Speaker
In fact, the reason that you and I can have a retirement account just like a man can is something that Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for. So when we're looking at these feminist icons, if we just say, I'm not a feminist and none of this matters and I don't want to talk about her, she's a baby killer.
00:29:35
Speaker
That is not going to get you very far in a conversation with someone who calls themselves a feminist. It's not logical, first of all. It's not gracious. And I understand that in our passion to be pro-life and to be pro-woman alongside that, we can lose our grace and we can lose our ability to acknowledge actual advances that were made for women through secular feminism. And that can be a really hard tension to hold.
00:30:05
Speaker
Our inability to hold tension is human, but that doesn't mean that we should stay that way. We need to be able to have these conversations in a gracious, logical, and biblical way, in a way that upholds the equality and honor of women alongside the sanctity of life for all, including the unborn.
00:30:28
Speaker
Is it difficult? Yes. But by holding that tension and being able to recognize there was some good that came out of what this person accomplished, and in fact, I am benefiting from it today, even while disagreeing with most of her policies, that allows us to have more gracious conversations, to bridge some of these gaps and show that Christianity is not reactive, but it is discerning, and it is
00:30:57
Speaker
a belief system that upholds the value of life for every being, born and unborn, male and female. So if you call yourself a Christian feminist, I'm grateful that you sat through this because I know that some of it was probably very hard to listen to.
Reflective Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:31:16
Speaker
Some of you may still call yourselves Christian feminists despite the confusion around the label.
00:31:21
Speaker
I would encourage you to think about that when you're having your conversations. Understand that for some people in Christianity there will be a visceral reaction because the immediate association of feminism is with the pro-choice camp, even if you are a pro-life feminist.
00:31:38
Speaker
And so that is why I choose to call myself pro-woman, to avoid that confusion. But I do still recognize the advances made through history by these women who have accomplished so much that I am benefiting from today. And I would encourage you to do that as well. Remember what has been accomplished, but through the gospel, accomplish more.
00:32:01
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.