Does Women’s History Matter?

In light of Women’s History Month I want to share this very personal story in very short detail. The full story belongs to the victim, who I want to honor as I share how what happened to her changed my life forever.

Over a year ago, I was confronted with an issue of abuse at my church. I advocated really hard for the victim (a woman) to be taken seriously and for the church to do the right thing by naming the abuse and holding the perpetrator (a male church leader) accountable publicly so that other women in the church could be protected—and so that anyone else who’d been harmed by that leader’s teachings could receive the care they needed.

I was told told that the church leadership “didn’t know what good it could do” to take a stance publicly. Instead, they sent me an article from the denomination’s website showing that the affiliated church believed that women were fully equal to men and should be allowed to preach, teach, and be leaders, and therefore the power balance within its walls was even.

[EDIT] They also promised to remove at least one problematic book from their church library, however, I never checked to see if they followed through on this.

I was not only completely shocked by their refusal to take accountability, but also at this revelation of their theological “beliefs” which were published in 2010.

Having attended the church for over a decade, I had never once heard a single teaching on the contents of this article. I’d never heard a male pastor or leader say that women were full equals and that they could be spiritual leaders and teachers, even to their husbands.

Sure, a woman might preach a sermon every now and then, like on Mother’s Day, or when a male pastor was out of town, but there were also men in the church who would literally get up and walk out of service when this occurred.

Church leadership knew these walkouts were happening, yet they never confronted these issues or taught from the platform about any of the theological conclusions from their denominational article about women’s authority to lead and teach men, or their status in the church as spiritual equals.

Mind you, I was raised in Christian fundamentalism. I’ve been trained to see the world through the lens of complementarianism and knew my “God-given place” in the world as a woman. I’d been indoctrinated to hold to Christian patriarchal views of marriage and family, and to look to the men in my life for spiritual leadership and guidance because my own thoughts, feelings, and intuition were not to be trusted.

Sounds a little like a cult, yeah?

The issues at my (now former) church—and sadly other instances of spiritual abuse that were going on in my life during this period of time—lit a fire in me that was completely unquenchable and is still raging within me as I type this story today.

I began to read every book, listen to every podcast, and make every change in my life to shed the weight of Christian patriarchy that had long suppressed the voices of women in its grasp and called it holy.

I learned about liberation theology, process theology, womanist theology, and a host of other ways of existing in the house of Christian faith that I had been completely ignorant to or warned against.

I read books like Jesus & John Wayne, The Great Sex Rescue, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, and Do I Stay Christian?

I learned from scholars, historians, and thought-leaders like Diana Butler Bass, Sheila Gregoire, Rebecca Lindenbach, Dr. Angela Parker, Kristin DuMez, Beth Allison Barr, Megan Schantz, and others who unpacked a host of very complicated, deeply-rooted beliefs that had built me, so that I could wrap my mind around my equality with men—even while a million “yeah buts” screamed inside my head.

Yeah but, Paul…

Yeah but, Eve and the curse…

Yeah but, submit…

Yeah but, be silent in church…

The insidiousness of Christian patriarchy for me, is that it sounds *just right enough* that  Christian women not only fall in line with it, they often become its loudest mouthpiece and advocate, even in their own minds.

I’m still very much in process (and very much in therapy) with all of this, but in celebration of Women’s History Month, I wanted to take this moment to celebrate and acknowledge the women who’ve made history in my life—those brave enough to stand against Christian patriarchy and all its violence, hate, and harm at their personal expense to free women from modern religious oppression and abuse.

Till next time….

-Cherri