Women's roles in Christianity debated

A story of a man, a woman and a religion:

The Rev. Patricia Meye met her husband Doug while studying in a California seminary. The two married in 1980. Both became American Baptist ministers.

Their first jobs were at a California church where she was the adult education minister and he was the youth minister, both answering to the church's senior pastor.

"We really bumped heads for very solid reasons. We struggled with the gender issue. We argued about a lot of things -- starting with who should pray over dinner. It was a given in his mind that he should pray. We had to laugh about it even though some days it wasn't funny," said Meye, now associate pastor at Warm Springs Baptist Church in Las Vegas.

"I'm a 1960s kid who grew up with a father telling me I could do anything I wanted to do regardless of my gender. And Doug and I are both very competitive, Type A personalities."

At the request of their denomination's leaders they moved to Las Vegas in 1986 to start a church and, in doing so, had to decide which of them would be senior pastor.

"Finally we decided to be co-pastors. We asked a small group of people who were going to help us start this church if it was okay with them, and they said yes," Meye said.

"We both consider ourselves to be biblical feminists: God has called both the male and the female to serve. And yet you have to work within the boundaries of our culture."

The Meyes co-pastored until Patricia became pregnant and decided to stay home to raise the children in their toddler years -- and finish her doctorate degree.

"When the children came I took the time out," she said. "And when I came back after five years it had to be sorted out as to where I would fit. We looked at the situation and thought about pushing the envelope and bringing me back as co-pastor, but I really didn't even know some of the (congregation) by then ... So now we both preach, but he's the dominant preacher. My hours are logged more in adult education. I can do what I was called to do with a lesser title."

As two Christian pastors and as a man and a woman, the Meyes are a story of strife and resolution. But in the larger picture, not all Christians have come to a resolution about the different roles of men and women in the church or in Christian life.

Sexism -- considered by many secularists to be a topic too tired for small talk, is considered by many Christians to be too controversial for any talk whatsoever. ("This is still a very troubling, divisive issue in the churches, and I really don't want to put my opinions out there because it will upset people in my congregation who are more traditional," one female Christian pastor said. "Would it be OK if we just focus on other, more positive things?")

"It's a huge, difficult issue," Meye said. "The fabric of the evangelical world is being pulled so hard I would say it's going to rip."

Creating the tension

The Old Testament treated women like property. Eve was created as Adam's "helpmate." In the New Testament, the apostle Paul declared that women shouldn't be able to teach men and should keep quiet. God has a male identity -- the Father. In the churches, men occupy most leadership positions. In some denominations promulgations have been made relegating women to secondary roles.

As women have gained ground in some areas of secular life in the United States, some feel the Christian church is slow to follow. They say the church should be a leader in equal rights, as it was in the civil rights era.

Women outnumber men 2 to 1 in main line U.S. Christian denominations -- except in leadership positions. Men dominate the clergy about 8 to 1. Men also outnumber women in U.S. seminaries about 7 to 3.

"Certainly the Bible reflects the cultures in which it was written," said Karen Torjeson, director of the Women's Studies in Religion program at Claremont University in Claremont, Calif. "But the question becomes, 'What does it mean to be male or female within the context of the Christian faith, as opposed to the Roman culture?' And the churches have not really thought through this question. People have debated (ancient) Roman attitudes toward women present in the Bible, as they debated the (ancient) Roman attitude toward slavery."

And though interpreting the Bible without those cultural influences -- the patriarchal influences -- has been tried, some say such an interpretation depletes the bulk of the Scriptures. If the patriarchal influences were entirely removed from the Bible, perhaps what would remain is a hearty pamphlet.

Further, others argue that trying to harvest a pro-woman sentiment out of a work steeped in male supremacy is illogical.

"A Bible-based feminism actually promotes the patriarchy it tries to eliminate," writes University of Chicago religious scholar Lena Ksarjian in a 1999 article. "(A Bible-based feminism) seeks legitimacy from a patriarchal document written by men, edited by men, and canonized by men thriving in male-dominated cultures."

But in today's popular culture "feminism" is passe, and super-moms -- women who have careers and children -- have been recast in the ideological war as victims of militant feminists.

"Feminism is an antiquated term," said the Rev. Francine Green, a methodist minister and psychiatrist in Las Vegas. "Feminism was a phase and now we've moved past that. Now we're more well-balanced. It's not a question of who is superior and who is inferior any more. There is a need in the world for both the masculine and the feminine."

Here lies a new opportunity for old dogma in the Christian church: everyone is valuable, but men have the authority.

"Everyone is the same in God's eyes, but men and women have different responsibilities," said the Rev. Martha Perry, a pastor at 800-member Victory Christian Center in Las Vegas, where she teaches the church's women's Bible study group. "We don't make an issue of that. We don't push competition between men and women.

"I think people who try to dissect things intellectually are missing the point. I'm not into that liberal way of thinking. God is a spiritual thing. The Bible says we have to have faith and receive God's word by faith. "God gave Adam dominion first. There has got to be a leader. I don't have a problem with that. If I was the man, I'd be the leader and the head of the home. That doesn't mean that as a woman I don't have responsibilities. But men and women are different.

"My husband teaches the men's study group. He feels that God has put the man here to guide and guard his family, not to be wimpy, but to be strong. And I believe that the man of the family should be the one to account to the Lord. I tell women that they better pray for their husbands."

Perry's sentiments are representative of a growing number of American women, according to a 1998 survey of U.S. women conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates on behalf of the New York-based Center for Gender Equality.

The survey, which was taken from a representative sample of the U.S. adult female population, shows a resurgence in social and political conservativism among religious women.

Seventy-five percent of U.S. women now say religion is "very important" in their lives (up from 69 percent in 1996) and 51 percent of Christian women say they subscribe to more conservative, born-again or evangelical beliefs.

Nearly half of the women feel it is "better for society" if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the family.

Thirty-six percent of U.S. women agree with the 1998 Southern Baptist resolution that "wives should submit graciously to the leadership of their husbands."

"Much of what we see in this survey is disturbing," said Faye Wattleton, a longtime women's rights advocate and president of the Center for Gender Equality in a 1999 statement.

"While women say they receive many benefits from their religious involvement, it is also clear that women are becoming more conservative on a number of social issues as they become more involved with religion, and as conservative religious political activism increases. ...

"In recent years, many representatives of conservative religions have campaigned to reverse social advances made by women ... such as support for affirmative action programs and equal opportunity outside the home. ...

"Religion must recognize and promote the full equality and worth of women. ... We ask women to expect nothing less than equality from their religious organizations."

Top-selling beliefs

God's purpose for Christian women may have something to do with laundry. Or friendliness. Or caretaking. In the index of the Women's Devotional Bible, which sports a pink, flower-adorned jacket, there are 13 references to "homemaking," 12 to "friendliness," and one to "laundry."

In the Men's Devotional Bible there are no references to homemaking, friendliness or laundry, but five to "wealth" and two to "money."

The top-selling Bibles are full of "devotions" -- additional passages written by contemporary Christians intended to help other Christians understand their faith. Men wrote the men's devotions; women wrote the women's devotions. Zondervan, one of the nation's largest Christian publishing houses, has sold more than 2.5 million copies of the women's and 1 million of the men's.

And while neither wealth nor money made the women's index, females did get 33 references to "love for others," one to "self-image," and one to "caretaking." None of these is mentioned in the men's version.

Furthermore, the women's version has eight references to "relationships" and none to "sex," while the men's has three references to "sex," five references to "sexual restraint," two to "lust," one to "sexuality" and four to "relationships."

"Christianity is not sexist," said Perry, who owns a copy of the Women's Devotional Bible. "It is ignorant for anyone to say the Bible is sexist. Women are totally created equal, just different than men. Different and equal."

Different spiritual walks

"I don't think there is sexism in Christianity, I just think men and women have different spiritual walks," said Judy Hagerman, a secretary at Griffith United Methodist church. "From my own point of view, I worship differently than my husband. Women are more socially interactive than men. We meet in women's groups and I find that women understand spirituality differently, and women understand where I'm coming from more. We're just different."

"Well, women are by far the preponderant element of American churches," Torjeson said. "They are the backbone of all those main line denominationl churches. They do most of the work -- except the work at the top. Given that they carry the structure of those churches, and have for so long, they are not willing to abandon them."

"You can't throw the baby out with the wash," Meye said. "If you label the Scriptures patriarchal, you throw out Christ. I am first and foremost committed to Jesus Christ.

Jesus, Meye said, was a liberator of women in his culture.

In the New Testament, Galatians 3:28 says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

"That is in some ways prophetic," Meye said. "First, there was the difference between the Jew and Greek, and the battle over slavery, and right now we are working out the male and female issue."

"The Christian faith and therefore Christian churches need to be about ... how men and women must work together in order that the living God be seen," Meye said.

"The bottom line is, I don't think the Scriptures are demeaning or limiting to women," Meye said. "That's where cultural eyes come in. We are in a tough place in our culture."

Most Protestant denominations allow women to be ordained, and individual churches make the decision about whether she will be a senior pastor. In the Roman Catholic Church, women may not be priests.

Pope John Paul II has repeatedly stated that the role of women is different than that of men and does not include the authoritative priesthood. In a recent statement, the pope reiterated his stance:

"The fact that the blessed Mary, mother of God and mother of the church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that nonadmission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the Universe ...

"It is appropriate to emphasize how important and burdensome is the work women do within the family unit: that work should be acknowledged and appreciated."

Frustrated by their sometimes limited roles in Christianity, some women have left and started or joined smaller, woman-centered faiths, according to Torjesin.

"There are many faiths that are goddess-centered or borrow elements from American-Indian or other religions that are more appealing to some women, Torjeson said.

"We get a lot of women from those churches who would like to be more in church leadership positions or in an environment where the roles are exactly equal," said Ardis Coffman, president of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Las Vegas, which doesn't accept the Bible as the exclusive source of truth.

Hagerman said others have sought out "pro-woman" activities within their Christian faith, such as the Women of Faith seminars that have been offered in cities throughout the country.

Women of Faith is a group of six women who host weekend-long seminars that address "women's issues" in spirituality. A seminar was held in Las Vegas at the Thomas & Mack Center last year, and Hagerman attended.

"It was great -- the women are dynamic speakers, and they talked about women's issues, and the whole program fed on that 'it's OK to be you' feeling," Hagerman said. "The only men in the Thomas & Mack were the custodians, and a few of the speakers' husbands were there to sit at the tables and hand out literature."

Meye said that it is critical that Christian men and women not focus on the differences but instead on what "God would accomplish through men and women serving Him."

She suggests that Christians find the answers in John 17:20-26, in which Jesus prays for all believers:

"May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me ... "

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