i’m just going to say it

Gods heart for women and their lives is huge, giant, bigger than any feminist movement this world has seen.

I wrote that sentence in something I was drafting recently and it stopped me in my tracks. Mainly because I wasn’t sure where it came from. It wasn’t something I actively hadn’t believed, but it hit me because I realised that it was not how I viewed God’s relationship with women.

I’m a proud and sometimes loud, advocate for women, for feminism, for women’s rights and the injustices that affect women. I have been for as long as I remember.

I also have become a cautious one within Christian circles, within Christian workplaces, and churches. Because, well, I got scared.

Scared and disheartened that in each instance I got the strange glance, the rolling eyes and the ‘but what about…insert bible verse here’. Also the ‘feminist agenda’ and the ‘women’s rights girl’ with a giggle and a slight sneer that was akin to putting baby in the corner.

And because I am human, and as so many people in the world do, I also link those behaviours experienced in the church to the character of God.

Today I figure that a lot of the western evangelical church culture is like a bad publicist that plays around with the wording you gave them, and eventually it just doesn’t look like what you said at all. I thoroughly believe the church has got a lot wrong. I thoroughly believe that the church has not represented God’s heart well all the time.

A year ago I wouldn’t have written that, I would have been too scared and scarred to write those words.

I am more outspoken now, more sure of who I am and what I will speak out for, irrelevant of whether someone will like me.

But when I wrote that sentence, the one this post started with, it hit me like a tonne of bricks.

I still attributed those reactions that scarred me with God. The patriarchal (that unpopular word that essentially means a system is dismissive of women), and ‘ignore her’ reactions.

And the more I look at the bible, the more I learn about God, the more I delve into the stories of who the Bible says he/she are…the less I can attribute those reactions with God.

My feminism and my faith do not have to be separate, my belief that all humanity is created equal and beautifully and wonderfully by God is actually not separate from my faith.

I have always lived in a patriarchal society, and have only belonged to churches led by men; white middle class men. And therefore, my faith and Christianity has been shaped by their opinions, their worldviews and often by the white male theologians or scholars that they read.

One of the joyful and beautiful things about the Bible is that the stories within those pages, the ones Christian’s hold so tightly to; are stories from a diverse group of people. And it is what I loved about it as a child, and what I love about it now.

Firstly the Bible was written and set in the middle east, so no one in the Bible was white (or at least very few were, if any).

Haggai was a slave, Moses was adopted into the royal family, Esther was a victim of human trafficking, Job was a wealthy man who lost all his family and wealth - he went bankrupt, David was a shepherd - the lowest rank in his family and then became a fugitive on the run. Naomi was a widow who had lost both her sons, Lydia and Priscilla were wealthy trades women who helped start the church, John and James were fishermen - the working class of their day, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute who was treated well by Jesus, and the Israelite’s were a displaced people group - they were refugees. And a lot of the heroes of the Christian faith are Jewish.

These stories are rich and diverse and cover all social classes, all walks of life. The Bible is full of their stories, their journeys with faith and God.

The book Christians hold so sacredly is not about a white, male perspective. It isn’t told from that perspective, and so, if that is the only perspective it is taught from, then I believe we are missing a huge depth of information and of understanding who God is.

In a faith where we hold Jesus as the Messiah; this man who actively chose the outcast, who actively included the women and the lepers and those hated by society….aren’t we missing something if that isn’t where we start? Are we not missing something if we don’t hear interpretations and opinions and revelations from the whole diverse world we are in? Do we not miss something when we don’t open our ears to how black women and men see these stories, or how any women see it, or how it is understood by immigrants and those ostracised by society, if we don’t listen to the understanding coming from those living in the places it was written?

The sentence I wrote, the one at the start of this post - it is actually bigger than women and feminism. I read the Bible and see a God who accepts all people. Who loves all people. Who is the creator of the universe and all within it.

And when I see that, I can no longer attribute the reactions of humans within the church to God. It doesn’t match.

I believe that God loves all people. I believe that Jesus died and rose again so all people could have intimacy with God. I believe that God accepts all people in the place they are, and that God is beyond our full understanding. I believe that God created all humans. And in that belief I can no longer see God and feminism as separate. Because I believe God created women in all their complex, beautiful, intelligent glory. I believe God created women and men to partner together in this world, with all their differences and similarities. And I cannot believe that, without also believing that God created black, brown and white people as equal and partners in the world.

That sentences stopped me cold because I saw how much I had put God in a box. A box created by humans in a world of brokenness. How I had constructed a God based on, not what I had read of him or experienced of him, but on what others had defined him as and represented him as.

I don’t know what you believe, or where you are at. But I guess what I am saying in this post is that God isn’t always reflected well by the church, we aren’t always good PR for God. The church has a long way to go.

So if humans in the church have given you reason to hate them and Christianity, I understand. But I would say, maybe, if you can, study Jesus’ life. Because I believe he was God and man, and the way he lived is a reflection of God and the true heart and character of God. More so than any church.

R/