Over the last two weeks I have been preaching a series called Counterfeit Christianity, to reveal the truth about the false Christianity that is being presented in the media, particularly by a popular fictional book written by Dan Brown called The DaVinci Code. Even though this book is a work of fiction, it presents so called “facts” about Christian faith and history which are not accurate at all, and I believe are misleading people away from the truth of the Christian faith. So I have been attempting to equip you with the truth not only for your benefit but to share with others who are being led astray.
We have already explored two attacks the book makes on the Christian faith namely, the reliability of the Bible, and the divinity of Jesus. The characters in The DaVinci Code try to present false historical information, particularly about the other gospels which were discovered in the 1950’s, to make us believe our Bible is unreliable, inaccurate. He also presents false historical information to make us believe neither Jesus nor his followers believed Jesus was the divine Son of God. I have gone through and presented the real facts, and brought us back to the truth of our history, the Scriptures, and our faith. If you were not able to attend these services I encourage you to pick up a tape of these services afterwards.
This week we are looking into a more difficult accusation of The DaVinci Code, which is perhaps more subtle but nevertheless is a major theme running throughout the book. The accusation is that Christianity, particularly after the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, has been anti-women because it has intentionally stamped out the feminine side of God, or feminine character of God in favor of a more masculine God, therefore encouraging the devaluing of women and their sacredness. In other words Christianity has been a male dominated religion and has suppressed the equality of women, emphasizing a male God
(for example God is referred to as “he” and as “Father”) to justify their behavior. There is a subtle encouragement throughout the book for people to return to a more pagan religion which emphasizing god (small “g”) and goddess worship, because it is more egalitarian. The reason I am addressing this issue is because there are women in particular who are reading the book believing the Christian church oppresses women (conversation with Cheryl and her sisters comments), and they are turning to New Age spirituality which praises mother earth like Wicca (witchcraft) because it is more supportive of women.
Let me read for you a passage out of the book The DaVinci Code:
“Sophie” Langdon said, “the Priory’s [of Sion] (the secret society trying to protect the truth of the holy grail) tradition of perpetuating goddess worship is based on a belief that powerful men in the early church ‘conned’ the world by propagating lies that devalued the female and tipped scales in favor of the masculine…The Priory believes that Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever.”
The book continues by accusing the Church of instructing clergy to kill “freethinking women” including female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, and that as many as five million women were killed in this fashion. Women were banished from the temples of the world. No longer could they be Jewish rabbis, Catholic priests, or Islamic clerics. So the accusation is that because paganism, or the worship of gods and goddesses, was eliminated in favor of a male dominated Christianity, including a male God, women were relegated to second class citizens until recent decades.
Let’s look at the accusation, is Christianity anti-women or anti-feminist? Is Christianity patriarchal, and do we believe in a male God which causes us to oppress women?
It is no secret that the ancient Israelites even into Jesus’ day were a male dominated society, called a patriarchal society. In other words men were in control and women were generally speaking considered lower in status in society. Of course most of the world has been a male dominated society no matter what the religion. It has only been recently that there have been changes in our country and around the world in women in leadership.
The Christian church has in times past used the male image of God as an excuse to elevate men and oppress women and treat them like dirt. I am not trying to deny this hasn’t happened or perhaps even continues to this day in some Christian traditions, however we need to separate what God teaches us in the Scriptures from Christian religion, which is the way people have practiced their faith throughout history. Truth be told our practice of faith hasn’t always reflected God’s teaching (like the Crusades).
The OT and Women
When we try to understand what the Bible teaches us about women I think it is helpful for us to start at the beginning, at creation and the way God intended for things to be. In Genesis 1:26-27 on the sixth and last day of creation:
NRS Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind (man) in our image, according to our likeness…27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Right from the beginning the Bible affirms that both men and women were equally created in the image of God. At the end of that day, God saw everything he had made and said, “It is very good.” In other words it was perfect, exactly the way God wanted it to be, man and woman created in God’s image, neither one was above the other. This also reveals something about God to us. God is not male nor is God female, since both are created equally in God’s image. Throughout the OT God is never viewed as a male, even though the pronoun “he” is used of God. God is occasionally given female characteristics (like a mother hen gathering her chicks), as well as male characteristics (husband to his bride Israel), but ultimately as Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” God is totally unique and cannot be labeled by gender tags.
In the second chapter of Genesis, Adam is created first, and then God created Eve from Adam as his helper. Some try to say that Adam is still above Eve in the garden because God created Eve to be his helper, however the word “helper” is not a subservient word. For example in the Psalms David writes: NAU Psalm 54:4 Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is the sustainer of my soul. Is God inferior to David? No, obviously not. To be a helper is not to be less than. Eve was not subservient to Adam, they worked together in the garden.
So what went wrong, why haven’t men and women been treated as equals? The Fall, when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they messed up God’s perfect order. The punishment for the woman was increased childbirth pains, and that she would desire her husband and he would rule over her. The placement of man over woman was not a result of God’s perfectly created order, it was the curse over the sin in the garden. It is not the way God originally intended for it be. I had a professor in seminary say this curse pitted men and women in competition with each other for power. God placed men in charge not because they are superior but to create order, however this was not the way God intended it. Throughout the OT of the Bible we see the curse lived out in a Patriarchal or male dominated society.
Jesus and women
This curse carried on for thousands of years until we get to the NT and we read about this guy named Jesus and his ministry and teaching. On the surface Jesus operated like most rabbis, he waited until he was 30 to begin his ministry, he gathered a group of male disciples around him. It would seem that Jesus supported the patriarchal system.
However Jesus did some very revolutionary things for that day especially in regard to women. According to the scriptures Jesus allowed women to travel with him (Luke 8:1-3), which was very unusual for the time. On one occasion Jesus encouraged his friend Mary to sit at his feet listening to his teaching, instead of doing the “womanly” chores with her busy sister Martha. By sitting at Jesus’ feet captured by his presence, she was doing what only male disciples would normally be allowed to do by cultural norm of the day.
On another occasion in John’s gospel Jesus decided to talk with a Samaritan woman at a well, which was a cultural double no-no. Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along at all, and therefore it wasn’t kosher for a Jew to associate with a Samaritan. Jesus broke a cultural barrier by talking with this “enemy”. Second, according to their culture men were not supposed to engage woman in conversation, which of course he did. Jesus was not concerned with cultural barriers, he was only concerned with doing God’s will, sharing the Good News about himself, and seeing God’s kingdom come on earth.
For the 1st century, Jesus was not an anti-feminist at all, in fact Jesus was quite the opposite. Jesus treated women with more equality and respect than the culture said he should. But Jesus didn’t live according to the culture he lived according to God’s values. Jesus did not come to change the culture, but to transform people within the culture, which includes women and men.
According to the Scripture Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. Jesus came to remove the curse which we have been under since the time of Adam and Eve, to return us to the Eden like state of God’s original creation, where we are also reunited in our relationship with God
Christian Treatment of Women According to Paul
The reason Christians are often accused of being anti-women is because we are perceived as trying to force women into traditional subservient roles, and yet the Apostle Paul, who is often accused of being the one who encouraged women to be in these traditional roles is also the one who wrote the revolutionary words of our passage this morning:
NRS Galatians 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
According to Paul, because we are in Christ, we are all equal to each other. The curse, the punishment has been removed, God’s kingdom has come. This statement would have been extremely liberating to Greeks, to slaves, and to women, that they are equally children of God, and not second class citizens in God’s family.
While Christians may be accused of being anti-women, the truth is that the only freedom women (and men) can experience is through Christ. Only through Christ are we forgiven of our sins, only through Christ can we be set free from the bonds and chains society has placed on us: feelings of low self worth (I’m a nobody), loneliness, the need to impress people with the way you look or act, self-centeredness, pride, lust, the desire for power . only Jesus can truly set us free as we experience God’s unconditional love. God loves you just the way you are, and through Jesus you can become one of God’s children, being part of a loving spiritual family. Only through Christ can we find this wholeness and peace.
Like The DaVinci Code Christians are accused of being anti-women, and yet the Scriptures share with us that the only way women can be truly liberated is not through a matriarchal pagan religion that worships the sacred feminine but by the love of God through Christ. Through Christ, whether we are woman or man, we are set free from our selfish desires, and fills us with God’s Spirit to love God and others people more fully than we ever could before. In Christ we discover our true selves, the way God created us to be.
The Story of Amy Tracy (Christianity Today, Jan. 20, 2000, pp. 57-60) .
Amy grew up in a demanding family, her dad would only give approval if she succeeded in athletics. Later she decided to go to a women’s college to find the affirmation she was looking for. Several feminist teachers gave her the approval she longed for, and after college she found purpose in fighting for women’s rights, she even became the press secretary for the National Organization for Women (NOW), where she would organize protest marches for women’s rights, picketed against pro-lifers at abortion clinics. Christians would shout at her, call her names, she came to hate Christians and yet in her heart there was a growing awareness that “joy, purity, and peace” were missing from her life even though she had a job she enjoyed, friends, respect, everything a woman could want. She also noticed a gradual awareness of a hunger for God, but she buried these feelings and pushed forward in her frontline protests. Finally after the feeling of a deep hunger for God, she decided to run away to a more supportive community of her lifestyle in Seattle. Unfortunately, after living a hard life she realized the lie she had been believing that everyone in her lifestyle was as broken as she was, and that she had become hard, burned, and hateful. At one point she went to a workshop on spirituality which encouraged her to chant to a goddess and instead she found herself chanting Jesus. She hit rock bottom, finally after several days of desperate soul searching she opened the yellow pages until she found a church with the word “Christian” on it. Scared stiff she attended week after week until she finally realized she needed to commit her life to Christ, to have a personal relationship with God. This was a difficult decision because she knew it meant leaving friends, job, and lifestyle. And yet that was exactly what she did one day, she accepted Christ into her life, and found healing. She was forgiven, the hard shell began melting, and over time she became the person she always knew she should be, but it only happened through Christ.
Conclusion
Whether we are women or man, the Scriptures teach us we are each created in God’s image, loved equally by God, God sent his Son to die for everyone of us, and each of us is equally indebted to Christ for what he has done for us.
