Pagan Misconceptions, Part 2

Posted by Susy Flory on May 25th, 2007 | no comments home title

For women, perhaps the most emotionally charged and hotly debated pagan misconception about Christianity, from a top 5 list in my previous post, is this:

"The church is male-dominated and Christianity is a religion for men only."

There are so many ways to go about this subject, it’s hard to know how to begin. But here’s something I heard recently at a New College Berkeley course by Sharon Gallagher called "Women: Empowered to Serve."

During the first century, women were pretty much confined to the home and had very few rights. In first century Jewish culture, a man would not talk to or even look at a woman in public. Because of the status of women, first century literature about women is pretty much nonexistent. Written sources do not reference women by name, unless they were royalty.

"Defined by the men in their lives, women in Ancient Rome were valued mainly as wives and mothers…Not much information exists about Roman women in the first century. Women were not allowed to be active in politics, so nobody wrote about them. Neither were they taught how to write, so they could not tell their own stories." (from The Roman Empire in the First Century)
"In first century Israel, women were considered second-class citizens, akin to slaves. The fact that they are mentioned as avid followers of Jesus is unusual – both that they would be allowed to follow him with his disciples, and unusual that the authors of Jesus’ biographies would mention their presence at all." (from First Century Context of Palestine/Israel)

But the New Testament scriptures mention women … lots of them. In the early church, women were very active in ministry, serving alongside Jesus, Paul, and others.

Here’s a list of New Testament women: Mary of Nazareth, Elizabeth, Anna, Woman accused of adultery, Jairus’ daughter, Woman with an incurable flow of blood, Woman who anoints Jesus’ head, Crippled Woman, Poor Widow, Canaanite Woman, Herodias & Daughter, Woman at the Well, Mary & Martha, Susanna, Johanna, Mary Magdalene, Mary Wife of Cleopas, Peter’s Mother-in-law, Women at Pentecost, Dorcas/Tabitha, Rhoda, Mary Mother of John Mark, Lydia, Female Slave of Philippi, Damaris, Philip’s Prophetic Daughters, Euodia & Syntyche, Phoebe, Prisca, Nympha, Apphia, Chloe, Lois & Eunice, (source: Women of the New Testament, from WomanWord by Miriam Winter. The original web page includes verse citations, if you’d like to make a study of this). That’s just the New Testament; there are many more in the Old Testament.

Women partnered joyfully, and counterculturally, with men in the work of the early church. That is what Jesus intended. His offer of the abundant life is for men and women equally, without prejudice.

It’s just that, sometimes, people get in the way. Church people. And I’m one of them.

Today I want to apologize if I’ve offended you, marginalized you, judged you, acted arrogant to you, made you feel unwelcome, or misrepresented Jesus to you.

We’re all of us, every one, women and men, sinners and ragamuffins in need of God’s grace.

Me, first.

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