Theology of women. Part One

Wall's of Eden, sung by Pat Green

She holds the key to Eden's gate, Somewhere deep inside

When she gives to me her patience,

And a hundred smiles, none the same

Her eyes are the ocean, I am drowning constantly

I am lucky just to linger in the corners of her scene.

Chorus:

I am lost inside the walls of Eden

Don't you ever set me free

I am lost inside the walls of Eden

I'll never go back, no I'll never go back again.

End chorus

Outside the world's a bastard

The son whose father never cared

It keeps on raging like some crazy storm, but not in here.

Repeat chorus

All it cost me was my whole life, all it gives me is everything

A love like fire, the taste of skin

The feeling of falling again and again

It's a long drink from a cool well

It's everything, baby, it's everything, baby, it's everything

I am lost inside the wall's of Eden, don't you ever set me free

This will probably bore most of my readers so feel free to skip this post. You won't hurt my feelings. If you do read this post, I would love to hear comments, but know that this is only the tip of the ice burg and more thoughts are coming.

I have been doing a lot of thinking the last couple of years about what it means to be a woman, how this relates to men, and how it also relates to my relationship to the world around me and God. To give you some background, I was raised in a conservative evangelical tradition. Women don't preach, they submit to their husbands, and most stay at home with their kids. Now this plays out very differently in different places. Looking at most of the marriages of my parent’s friends and my own friends that are married, the wives are very valued by their husbands and there is a lot of love in the families. Most husbands don't attempt to be lord and master of their wives, and I would say that women still exert a fair amount of power in the home and at church.

What concerns me when looking at some of the more conservative strains within the evangelical church (and believe me, there are many types of people under the heading of evangelical), is that in an attempt to reconcile the family structure with the culture that we live in, we neglect what the Bible really does say about women and listen to some of the most ridiculous notions. All for the sake of being better women or wives, but placing women in positions that are ridiculous as well as, placing men in positions that are ridiculous as well. Most recently is a book that I am reading for a group that I foolhardily joined for the summer. Created to be His Helpmeet will make you want to pull your hair out. The use of Scripture is appalling, and I would add, dangerous. I will go over some of the books fallacies at a later time, but now I want to really look at the story of the first family.

[A quick aside: I am not going to address cases of physical abuse in this post. Most people, even those who believe in submission, believe that physical abuse is wrong. But I am saving that for another day.]

Genesis 1:27 is where we see the first reference to humans and/or women in the Bible. This is a HUGE verse. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The author of Genesis goes back in chapter two to give more detail about the creation of mankind, but in chapter one, he is giving a summary. And in that summary, we find that BOTH men and women are created in God’s image. (This is where you imagine me jumping up and down to make this point.)

So, Deborah, you the intelligent reader may ask, why is this such a big deal? Because it means that women and not just men are created in the image of God. This sets the precedence for the rest of the discussion. I think that often we are confident that men are created in God’s image and we are not quite sure where women fit into all of that. Some readers may be uncomfortable with this, because God is a male, and am I trying to make Him into a woman? Nooooooo. (Again with the jumping!) But God is spirit and as one of my husband’s crazy seminary friends once pointed out, “God doesn’t have boy parts.” Men are created in God’s image and reflect His glory and women are created in God’s image and reflect His glory. God has chosen to relate to us in the male gender and how that all works out, I have no idea. But we are to assume that BOTH genders are created to image God.

This is such a huge deal, because I am running into people who believe that as women, we were created to only an assistant to our husbands fulfilling their dreams and abilities. Beyond the natural cringe that runs through you because if that was the only what we as women are created for, then why did God give us so many other abilities and desires, this verse reminds us of our true calling. To image God and glorify Him.