Ep. 5: Unholy Trinity: Patriarchy
Show Notes
Episode Summary
If you are like us, you grew up in a home and a church where men were in charge and women submitted. The Bible was even used as the reason why. Why can women be Prime Ministers or Vice Presidents but not pastors or priests? Why also is the church one of the safest places to be for a sexual predator and one of the more dangerous places to be as a female victim of sexual assault? The answer, “biblical” Patriarchy. It’s time to shatter the glass ceiling the church has placed on women. Looking at the second of the 3 Ps that make up the unholy trinity, Gary Alan and Melanie discuss how Patriarchy pervades every area of our lives, often without us realizing it.
Quotables
“Our culture values dominance. We value male qualities and devalue female qualities.” (tweet this)
“Patriarchy has created an entire cultural system that dehumanizes and subjugates and, at its most extreme, destroys female bodies, whether we want to acknowledge that or not.” (tweet this)
“If you believe that God created women as second-class citizens, there is no limit to the harm and the damage you can perpetrate against them.” (tweet this)
“We don’t worship the Bible. We worship and follow Christ. So when we come across something in the text that feels wrong, we have to weigh it with the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus always wins.” (tweet this)
“When it comes to patriarchy, are we going to do what the Bible apparently says or follow how Jesus lived His life?” (tweet this)
“It was women who saved the Jesus movement. Without them, it probably would have died.” (tweet this)
Timestamps and References
[04:00]—“The Origins of Sexism: How Men Came to Rule 12,000 years Ago” by Anil Ananthaswamy and Kate Douglas for New Scientist
[05:12]—Greek poet Semonides said, “The worst pestilence Zeus ever made is women.”
[05:21]—Attributed to Confucius: “One hundred women are not worth a single testicle.”
[05:39]—Hebrew scholar Ben Sirach said, “Do not sit down with the women; for moth comes out of clothes, and a woman’s spite out of a woman...Women give rise to shame and reproach.”
[06:13]—St. Augustine wrote, “I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.”
[14:42]—“The world and the church are both guided only by the masculine half, by masculine means, for masculine meanings alone. And as a result, the world walks on one leg and sees with one eye and thinks with only one-half of the human brain—and it shows.” (from Woman Strength by Sister Joan Chittister)
[15:03]—“Many of the seminal social issues of our time—poverty, lack of education, human trafficking, war and torture, domestic abuse—can track their way to our theology of, or beliefs about, women, which has its roots in what we believe about the nature, purposes, and character of God.” (from Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey)
[16:03]—“National Security Experts Warn of Rise in Authoritarianism” by Oliva Beavers for The Hill
[16:10]—“What evangelical Christians really think about climate change” by Kashmira Gander for Grist
[16:30]—15 million adolescent girls (ages 15-19) worldwide have experienced forced sex at some point in their lives (source)
[16:39]—72% of trafficking victims worldwide are women and girls (source)
[16:47]— “Two-thirds of World’s Illiterate Population Are Women, Report Finds” by Liz Ford for The Guardian
[16:51]—Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives (source)
[23:25]—The Southern Baptist Convention’s current Articles of Faith: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
[24:35]—Video: “John Piper: Does a Woman Submit to Abuse?”
[26:33]—“If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to liberate or honor women, you will find them...This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not ‘what does it say?’ but ‘what am I looking for?’” from Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
[30:00]—“Given the pluralism of arguments, we might ask: in what sense does or can the Bible actually function as an instructive, issue-clarifying authority for the open-minded Bible believer who simply wants to know what the scriptures teach about gender roles, marriage relations, and the place of women in church ministry? In actual practice, it does not and apparently cannot serve as such an authority.” (from The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith)
[28:17]—NT “submission” passages: Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1-22, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 1 Timothy 2:11-15, Ephesians 5:22-24, Titus 2:3-5.
[32:53]—Matthew 12:46-50
[34:19]—Luke 10:38-42
[35:45]—Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels by Kenneth E. Bailey
[37:24]—Video: “Robin R. Meyers: "UNDONE: Faith as Resistance to Empire”
[37:56]—“It is women who anointed him, and women who proclaimed him, and women who prepared him for burial…It was women, in fact, whom Jesus put at the very center of the only two mysteries of the faith—the Incarnation and the Resurrection.” (from Woman Strength by Sister Joan Chittister)
[39:10]—The story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:2-11), the story of the woman at the well (John 4:1-26), the story of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet with oil (Luke 7:36-50).
[53:03]—The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann
[54:10]—Genesis 1:27
[54:45]—“How can women be made in the image of God if God cannot be imagined in female form?” (from The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg)
[55:22]—Genesis 2:23 (also Galatians 3:28)
Helpful Resources for Your Personal Research
Two articles from The Sophia Society about patriarchy and the Bible:
“Capitol Siege: The Price of Christian Patriarchy” by Gary Alan Taylor
“Grabbing Paul by the Patriarchy: 4 Reasons Why the Apostle Wasn’t Patriarchal” by Gary Alan Taylor
For further research on the topic of Paul, his supposed patriarchal stance, and his letters (which contain many of the passages often used as evidence for patriarchy):
“Paul: Appealing or Appalling?” from The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan
Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians by Kenneth E. Bailey
Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul's Letters by Philip B. Payne
“Abuse of Faith” from The Houston Chronicle
For more info on the patriarchal movements we mentioned (many of these are by people who espouse these views):
“Examining the Christian Patriarchy Movement with Todd Burdow” episode of The New Geneva podcast
“The Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy” from Vision Forum Ministries (via the Wayback Machine)
“What are the Quiverfull and Patriarchy Movements?” from GotQuestions.org
“The Patriarchy Movement: Five Areas of Grave Concern” from Reformation21.org
Wikipedia entry on “Biblical Patriarchy”
“When Having Kids Is a Religious Experience” from ABC News
“Quiverfull: More Children for God’s Army” by Kathryn Joyce for Rewire News Group
“Inside the Duggar Family’s Conservative Ideology” from Newsweek
“What to Expect When No One’s Expecting” by Dr. Kevin DeYoung (an outspoken proponent of these movements; mentions “militant fecundity”)
“When Blessing Makes Life Bitter” sermon by Dr. Kevin DeYoung
“The Patriarchy and Patriocentricity Series” from ThatMom.com
Created to Be His Help Meet: Discover how God can make your marriage glorious by Debi Pearl
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Credits
This episode was written by Gary Alan Taylor and Melanie Mudge (read their bios here) and produced by The Sophia Society.
Music is by Faith in Foxholes, and sound levels were mixed by Joshua Mudge.
