Nobody's Mother (eBook)

INFLUENTIAL VOICES

John Chrysostom (347–407 CE), an early church father who served as archbishop of Constantinople, wrote, “The woman taught once, and ruined all. On this account therefore he [Paul] says, ‘let her not teach.’ But what is it to other women, that she suffered this? It certainly concerns them; for the sex is weak and fickle.”5

Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) was a theologian, philosopher, bishop in North Africa, and one of fewer than forty people named as “doctor of the church.” Many consider Augustine one of the most important figures of the Latin church in the Patristic Period. He wrote this: “[Satan made] his assault upon the weaker part of that human alliance, that he might gradually gain the whole, and not supposing the man would readily give ear to him or be deceived.”6

We see similar ideas in the works of theologians in the Middle Ages. Bonaventure (ca. 1217–1274 CE), also named as a doctor of the church, was an Italian bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian, and philosopher. He argued that only males could serve at the altar because women lacked the image of God, “but man by reason of his sex is ‘imago Dei.’”7

Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274 CE) was a theological and educational doctor’s doctor. His views on male and female were deeply influenced by those of Aristotle, who saw woman as “defective and misbegotten.”8

Such ideas endured through the Renaissance. Desiderius Erasmus (ca. 1466–1536 CE) was a prominent Dutch philosopher and theologian. He said that that while woman was deceived by the serpent, man was impervious to such beguilement: “The man could not have been taken in either way by the serpent’s promises or by the allure of this fruit.”9

Of the Protestant reformers, who celebrated the priesthood of all believers, the most influential was German priest, theologian, and author Martin Luther (1483–1546 CE). Rather than seeing male mastery of the woman as rooted in the fall, Luther believed that “by divine and human right, Adam is the master of the woman. . . . There was a greater wisdom in Adam than in the woman.”10

The next generation of Reformers taught similarly. Here’s an example: John Knox (ca. 1514–1572 CE), founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, was a theologian and writer who described women as “weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish” as well as “inconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment.”11

This is no random sampling of obscure theologians. Some tremendously influential leaders whom the church has revered through the centuries (and still does) held unbiblical views of women. William Witt, in Icons of Christ, observed: “Historically, there is a single argument that was used in the church against the ordaining of women: women could not be ordained to the ministry (whether understood as Catholic priesthood or Protestant pastorate) because of an inherent ontological defect. . . . Moreover, this argument was used to exclude women not only from clerical ministry, but from all positions of leadership over men, and largely to confine women to the domestic sphere.”12

The ontological-defect argument of traditionalists is why a segment of Christian believers in the United States began to call themselves complementarians rather than traditionalists. Unlike the men quoted above, complementarians affirm that, on an ontological level, woman is equal with man. Complementarians make the following affirmation in the Danvers Statement: “Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood (Gen 1:26-27; 2:18).”13 Such a pronouncement was a break with tradition. Yet on the foundation of traditionalist views of woman’s ontology, practices for society, church, and home were built.

WHAT WOMEN ACTUALLY DID

If the practice of women serving in public leadership did not originate with feminists such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Bella Abzug, when did such practices start? They began before the American and French Revolutions, with their calls for freedom and individual rights. One call for women to lead was a pamphlet by Margaret Fell (later married to Quakerism founder George Fox) written in 1666. Titles were longer in her day. Here is hers: “Womens Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the SCRIPTURES, All such as speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord JESUS. And how WOMEN were the first that preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of JESUS, and were sent by CHRIST’S Own Command, before he ascended to the Father, John 20. 17.”14 Lithographs of women preaching often accompanied such writings, depicting events that predated the Women’s Movement by two hundred and fifty years. Yet the evidence points still earlier.

The Protestant reformers in the sixteenth century emphasized the priesthood of all believers. That movement included women such as Katharina Schütz Zell, who preached at her husband’s funeral and wrote in defense of women in ministry.15 But one might notice, even earlier, The Book of the City of Ladies, written by the widow Christine de Pizan. She was born in the 1300s. Each time one explores an earlier period, the sources point back to prior sources. Here’s a sampling from earlier centuries, with the most recent first.

• Pope Paschal I (Rome; West; ca. 822 CE)—For the Basilica of Santa Prassede, Rome, Pope Paschal I had a mosaic made of his mother, Theodora, which included a label in stone describing her as “Theodo[—] Episcopa.” Elsewhere in the church, an inscription refers to her as “Lady Theodora Episcopa.” Some tesserae in the mosaic have been replaced, removing her name’s feminine ending to make it say “Theodo[—] Episcopa.” But the matching inscription confirms the mosaic’s original wording: “Theodora Episcopa.” The word episcopa is often translated “bishop” or “elder.” If the pope identified his mother as episcopa, why would someone later change the evidence?

• The Council of Trullo (Constantinople; East; 692 CE)—In canon 14, the council speaks of ordination (cheirotonia) for women deacons using the same term used for ordination of priests and male deacons.

Two local synods in Gaul speak of the diaconate of women for their region:

• Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon; East; 451 CE)—in canon 15, an earlier minimal age of sixty...