what's a girl to do?--warning: a long post--

I read this article today, by Sally Morgenthaler of Christianity Today's website, "Gifted for Leadership: A community of Christian women" and I was feeling disgruntled about it all day. Rather than stew by myself, I have chosen to write a rebuttal of sorts. Lucky you, gentle reader!

Gender roles are a huge hot potato in the evangelical world, in my own life as a Christian, and in most of the churches I've been a part of. N.T. Wright, in a commentary I have on Timothy, refers to the issue as unexploded ordinance that's lying around after a major war, just waiting for a curious kid to come pick up. Here I go, then...KABOOM!

I've covered the spectrum of belief about gender roles during my short life, from the super-pro-choice-we-girls-can-do-anything-right-Barbie view, to what the author would probably call a fundamentalist position. I'm deeply uncomfortable with her definition of gender fundamentalism, as it is just about as abrasive and wrong-headed as the people she saddles with the term.

The author's definition of gender fundamentalism is the belief that women were made solely for the use and pleasure of men. If that was really what is meant by having clearly defined gender roles, then sign me up for NOW. That's not it at all. Women were created by God to be a help-meet, a helper, and one of the only other beings described in this way in the Bible is the Holy Spirit. Not too shabby, to be a helper akin to one person of the Trinity. And as a side note, men need all the help they can get. God knew that, so here we are.

To continue, the Bible continually upholds the dignity and worth of women in cultures altogether hostile to them. Women had as much dignity and status as slaves in the Greco-Roman world, and yet the early church boasted of intelligent, successful and powerful women. They weren't preachers or apostles, but they had every other conceivable position in the church, including teaching Apollos the finer points of the Christian faith. There's a lot more that could be said here, and has been said by better people, so I'll go back to the article (*the links are for Redeemer Presbyterian's series on gender roles, and McLean Bible Church sermons--go to the Da Vinci Code sermons and listen to "Christianity is the best friend a woman ever had." It's great).

The article raises a multitude of questions that require an answer, and inaccuracies that need to be addressed. First, the author's references to Mars Hill Church in Seattle need to be dealt with. According to Ms. Morgenthaler, "women [at Mars Hill] are regularly encouraged to leave education and professional careers behind, embrace homemaking, and do their part to repopulate their godless city with Christians." Not quite. True, the teaching stresses the importance of the married man to provide for his wife and kids, and his wife to take care of their children if they have them. But it isn't so simple as all that. You can't get a sense of the church's position from 20-second sound bytes or little blog entries. I have listened to about half of the sermons available from MHC, each of them at least an hour long, and there's a lot more that is said and explained about this issue than anything a little article can address. Like, if you're going to get married, you better be on the same page as your potential spouse. Duh, or otherwise why get married? Like, if you are married, the man's job is to love and please his wife in every way and vice versa, and that Biblical submission has nothing to do with abuse, denigration or anything less than Christ-like sacrificial behavior to one's wife. I could go on, but the author could more easily gain this insight from listening to the sermons instead. Mark Driscoll is abrasive, can be off-color and sometimes downright rude, but at least he is clear about his position, and has credible scriptural texts to back up the theology (maybe not the jokes and sarcasm though...that's just gravy).

The author goes on to quote Driscoll's criticism of the current state of the church, where he bemoans the pastel walls, sloppy sentimental songs, and girly-man preachers (my paraphrase entirely). He says no wonder there is no innovation, as all the innovative guys are sitting at home watching football. Ms. Mergenthaler's response was this:

"When 64 percent of the conservative church can only innovate in the kitchen, the nursery, and the bedroom, we shouldn’t be surprised that we’ve lost our edge. And when the 36 percent remaining spend so much of their time and energy making sure the 64 percent don’t invade their territory, well, what you have is a whole lot of nothing going on. And a culture that looks at us, and just laughs."

First of all, the culture is going to laugh at us whatever we do, unless we look exactly like them, then...wait, many churches already look exactly like the rest of the culture, and we're still laughed at. Moot point.

Secondly, MHC never talks about women "invading" men's territory, and in fact, encourages women to speak up if their husband is doing something boneheaded. Instead of being human doormats, women are asked to be--here's the word again--a helper to her husband, helping him to see that he is being boneheaded and needs to listen to wisdom. I could go on, but it feels like I am dignifying the article's falsehoods too much.

MHC is the only church where I have heard men being called out for cowardice and abandonment of their kids and responsibilities, called out for devaluing women by expecting sex on dates and steamrolling family decisions. It's one of the only places where men are encouraged to protect women and truly cherish them, and where I think men would feel more at home.

And amazingly, there are tons more people joining MHC each year. Is that a coincidence? Let's see...where do we not see growth of the church, but a severe hemorrhaging of membership? In churches where gender roles have lost all meaning, to the point that homosexual behavior is something requiring serious debate. Jettisoning traditional Biblical gender roles has been the crack in the door that ushers in other heresies in the name of progress. People can now "feel called" to be everything from pastors to transgender divorcees working on seminary degrees. No one can argue with the calling of God, especially as God no longer speaks through the Bible, but only directly to the individual who hears what she wants to hear.

So if you get rid of all of these "sexist" gender roles, what do you have left? What's a girl to do? Well, let's have a look at the last 40 years of sexual liberation: exponential divorce rates, a third of the population effectively fatherless (70 percent fatherless in the African-American community), skyrocketing eating disorders and widespread anti-depressant use. Who can blame the current generation for wanting to "rethink what it means to be a female?" From my vantage point, it sucks just as bad as it did before, with the added fear of STD's and condemnation from both feminists and conservative women, no matter what you choose to do.

Articles like Ms. Morgenthaler's belittle the choices of so many women to stay at home and raise their families. They imply that taking care of a household and children were merely things one could do on the side, while important work gets done elsewhere. What would they suggest we do then? Go get a "real job" somewhere, and leave the distasteful job of mothering to others? Be filled with discontent as we wash the 14th soiled outfit for the day, as we are being vastly underutilized for our skill set? Aren't we to learn to be content in all circumstances, and rejoice in sufferings and triumphs alike? Doesn't the kingdom of heaven belong to "the least of these" little children? Aren't I submitting out of love when I clean poopy Batman underwear and do the dishes occasionally? Or do I have to do something more fabulous for it to count in the kingdom of heaven?

Finally, what is wrong with having a college course that teaches women how to be good stewards of their homes and take better care of their children? It's a heck of a lot more practical than "Environmental Relativism and the Resurgence of Post-Kantian Welding," and other total crap one gets at university. If you're going to be forty thousand dollars in debt after graduation, shouldn't you know how to launder that one shirt you can afford to buy? Students today can't rely on their mothers for this information, because their moms were too busy burning their bras and signing no-fault divorce papers to teach them how to take care of practical things like cooking and writing up a budget. Many high schools are no better than babysitting with textbooks, so they certainly aren't going to learn anything useful there. College is the last bastion, then, before you are cruelly dumped into working a thankless job you're overqualified for, to make interest payments on a lifetime of student loans while you live in the basement of your stepmom's house.

I'd choose traditional gender roles any day. At least I can be overqualified for my thankless job in the comfort of my own home.