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Christianity Is Not a Boys' Club (Or Is It?)

Piper, when making these statements, was speaking to a group of men trying to encourage them to step up in their leadership as men in the church and in their homes.  I fully support building up and encouraging men in the Church.  As a married woman, homeschooling mother of 3, and Christ follower, I sincerely desire my husband to have leadership in our family.  I am grateful for strong Christian men who nurture the faith of men in our Church.  I just don’t understand why the building up of men needed to result in slighting the Church’s femininity, tearing one part down so as to raise up the other.

In the book, UnChristian, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, we read countless pages of data by the Q commissioned Barna Group study identifying what today’s generation of young people believe about the Church.  “A huge chunk of a new generation has concluded they want nothing to do with us [Christians].”  (39)  Why is that?  One reason suggested: “Outsiders think Christianity is out of tune with the real-world choices, challenges, and lifestyles they face.”  (122)

When today’s culture has come so far in the inclusion and acceptance of the gifts and influence of women, from a female Secretary of State, to a female CEO of eBay, to a female author of the most popular series of books in the 21st century, what does it say about our Christianity when we suggest it is slanted toward masculinity?  How archaic and out of touch is the Church when I can elect a Congresswoman to represent my political views but I cannot elect a female elder to represent my views in my own church (where I tithe and serve regularly)?  Moreover, as it relates to evangelism efforts, why would my female friends in today’s culture want to join the Bride of Christ if it is, in reality, a spiritual Elks Club? 

Linda Hartz Rump in her article in Christianity Today, “Is Christianity Oppressive to Women?”, remarks that sometimes our Christian heritage must be overcome, not celebrated.  She addresses the ways Christian leaders have failed in Church history to adequately acknowledge the equality of the sexes as characterized in Jesus’ teachings.  And she’s right. 

Labeling Christianity with “a masculine feel” takes us two steps backwards.  If we look at the revolutionary life of Jesus, He broke all the cultural rules when it came to His interaction with women (and the poor and the outcast and the sinner—the marginalized of His time). 
At dinner with the Pharisees, a prostitute wets the feet of Christ with tears of repentance, and He explains: “Her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much.”  (Luke 7:47)  Jesus has a very sweet friendship with two sisters, Mary and Martha, and the Gospels recount multiple visits and interactions between them, uncharacteristic for that day and time.  Reclining at the table of a leper, a woman bathes Jesus’ hair with an expensive bottle of perfume.  (Mark 14:3)  Jesus engages a Samaritan woman at a well, revealing for the first time His identity as the Messiah to a woman who had 5 husbands.  There He offers her “water welling up to eternal life.”  (John 4:14)  Women are the first to discover Jesus has risen from the dead, and they race to the Apostles and other disciples to share the Good News.  (Luke 24:10)  These are a few examples of Jesus paving the way and breaking cultural boundaries to include women.

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