A Year of (anything but) Biblical Womanhood

Rachel Held Evans is a self-proclaimed Christian blogger.  It's no secret that she tends to the left on just about every issue, and her writing tends to get conservative people like me all riled up.  A lot of my left-leaning Christian Facebook friends link to her articles frequently, and that's pretty much sums up my experience with her.  I don't read her often, nor do I regularly check what she writes, but I run across her every once in a while.

Several months ago, during one of my various times at her blog, I noticed that she was in the process of writing a book called "A Year of Biblical Womanhood," written in the same vein as this book that details the complexities of supposedly living completely biblically for one year.  Held Evans (or is it just evans?  I never know when it comes to people with three names) does everything she can to supposedly obey every command and requirement placed upon women by the Bible for one year.  According to Evans, this endeavor led her to do all kinds of crazy things, most of which she records in her book for comic relief, according to her.

Unfortunately (for Evans) a plethora of devastating reviews have been unleashed on her book, almost exclusively from the conservative side of the Christian camp.  I have taken the time to read these reviews, such as this one, and this one, and this one from the always funny and witty Doug Wilson.  If the content of the reviews and opinions of the reviewers are accurate (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), then it appears that Evans' book is one to stay away from.

To be fair to Evans, I haven't read the book, nor do I intend to (I have a limited amount of time, which means a limited amount of reading time, and her book is not at the top of my very select list)  But from what I can tell from the reviews, one of the major hermeneutical mistakes that Evans makes is that she fails to understand the purpose for those laws and commandments given to women, and especially their purpose under the specific covenant that they were given.  That is, any time we talk about Old Testament laws, we need to in the same breath affirm that Jesus fulfills all of those laws, and that they are no longer necessary.  Therefore, asserting that the Bible is oppressive to women based on Old Testament requirements for women is absolutely uneducated, and almost embarrassingly so.  This is Christianity 101 type stuff.  Of course we don't follow those laws (for women or men) because they are impossible to follow.  That's why we needed a Savior.  Now that we have a Savior, our obedience and righteousness rests in him, not in a hopeless endeavor to obey a myriad of laws.  Again, from what I hear from the reviews, this distinction is painfully lacking in Evans' work, and that's incredibly unfortunate, if for no other reason that it robs Jesus of the glory he is due for meeting those requirements, and secondarily for confusing modern day women and coercively convincing them that the Bible is oppressive toward women.

The key to understanding these issues, and several others that are reportedly in Evans' book is hermeneutics.  I just used this term in an email conversation with a friend yesterday, and he had no idea what it means, so let me define: hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation - particularly biblical interpretation.  The way we interpret the Bible will color and influence the conclusions we make from the Bible.  Hermeneutics then, is an especially important thing to understand.  From what you will read in the reviews of Evans' book linked above, it appears that her grasp of hermeneutics leaves something to be desired.  Unfortunately, she has chosen a very sensitive issue to be very wrong about, as her writing will no doubt influence thousands of women to distrust the Bible, and distrust God.

It should be noted that I decided to write this post after reading Doug Wilson's review (the third review of the three linked to above).  As I did a little looking around, I meandered over to Evans' site and noticed that she just happened to be appearing on "The View" this morning, right around the time that I was writing the post.  This is important to note, since Evans and her supporters insist that her critics have gotten her wrong.  She does not attack the Bible, they say, but rather the notion that there is a "right" interpretation, and also the idea that there is such a thing as objective biblical interpretation.  This is an idea that I would carefully affirm.  I say "carefully affirm," because we also need to note that just because we all bring a certain set of suppositions to the text when we interpret, this does not mean that we should not make absolute statements about the Bible, or or truths we have interpreted from the Bible.  It does mean, however, that we need to recognize and admit those things we bring to the text (and even force upon the text) and be aware of them.  The more we are aware of them, the more we can fight against them as we interpret the Bible and conform our lives to what it says.  And the more open and honest we are about the things we bring to our study of scripture, the more we can hold each other accountable when we read and study it together.  In fact, even a realization of the fact that we each bring things to the text when we study it, will influence the way we study it.

Anyway, since Evans was appearing on The View around the time that I was writing the post, I decided to tune in (going against every fiber of my being).  I bring this up, because Evans was anything but open and honest about her own presuppositions that she brings to the text during this interview.  The segment was designed to make the Bible look stupid and irrelevant.  It focused on videos of her doing the things she describes in the book, which look absurd and outdated, as indeed they are (outdated at least).  This woman is not interested in openness and honesty about where we all lack when it comes to interpreting the Bible.  She wants to advance her feminist agenda by downgrading the authority of scripture.  This seems to me to be the height of hypocrisy.

For example, the tagline before the commercial break preceding Evans' appearance on the show said this: "You won't believe what she did to obey the strict laws the Bible has for women, for an entire year."  Yeah, that sounds like it's going to be an open and honest conversation about hermeneutics.  Ms. Evans, don't tell conservative reviewers that they're not getting to the heart of the issue represented in the book, when you yourself aren't getting to the heart of the issue of your book on a nationally televised program.  It's extremely hypocritical.  Moreover, the hosts of The View took this opportunity to laugh at the Bible and what it says.  Congratulations, Ms. Evans.  You've given unbelievers a reason to laugh at, condemn, and disbelieve the Bible (including the audience members of the day, as they were each given a copy of the book).  Well done.

For someone who reportedly wants an open dialogue about how we interpret the Bible, but seems to try to initiate that dialogue by spending her time belittling the Bible and ignoring context, she has a strange way of going about it.

Complementarianism for Dummies

Ever heard the term "complementarianism"?  Don't be surprised if you haven't.  Complementarianism is a theological position that I hold to that delineates the ways in which men and women reflect the glory of God in ways that are unique to their gender, and in a complementary way.  This view asserts that God has specifically designed the two genders for certain roles and responsibilities in society, the home, and even the church.  The complementarian position stands in contrast to egalitarianism, the view that men and women are equal in every way and that their are no God-given, gender specific roles or functions for men and women.  In fact, egalitarianism asserts, gender roles are interchangeable between men and women.  The difference between complementarianis and egalitarianism is an incredibly important issue, and is one that the church would do well to sort out at the local level.

Here's a really good, brief description of complementarianism called "Complementarianism for Dummies" that I'd like to recommend to you.  Unfortunately, given our culture's hyper knee-jerk reaction to any kind of supposed gender discrimination, not to mention the gender confusion perpetuated in our society by those who would seek to eliminate any kind of gender distinctions between men and women, positions like the complementarian one are not readily welcomed in the public square - especially when those positions are derived from a commitment to the Bible.  Often times complementarians are pigeon-holed as being discriminatory, chauvinistic, sexist, and patriarchal.  Nothing could be further from the truth, however, and this short description of the position helps to clear up a lot of the common misunderstandings about complementarianism.

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of complementarianism is that males bear the responsibility of holding positions of authority within the home and the church.  What is commonly misunderstood about this aspect of complementarianism is that the authority men bear is not the kind of authority that permits them to rule over women, or that women are somehow less valuable than men, or even that men somehow rank higher than women in some kind of preconceived authority structure.  Rather, complementarianism asserts that the authority men have in the church and the home is "not the right to rule - it's the responsibility to serve."  Or, as Doug Wilson has said, "Husbands if you want to preach the gospel to your wife, then you have to die."

Anyway, rather than me doing a poor job of summarizing the position in this post, I recommend you read the article.  (Note: for other good, brief descriptions of complementarianism, see here, here, and here.  And here's a typical egalitarian response to complementarian views.)

It should be noted that this is a difficult issue, and that good, God-fearing Christians differ on this topic and remain brothers and sisters in Christ.  This should not be something that unnecessarily divides the church.  Rather, it should be an issue we can discuss openly and honestly with each other as we wrestle through it in scripture.