Is Christianity a Religion for Women - Essay Example

Is Christianity a Religion for Women? To answer the question about whether or not Christianity is a religion for women, the history, culture and sociology of the religion must be taken into consideration. As well, the fundamental tenets of the religion should be examined for their reflection on the spiritual and social needs of women. Religion consists of multiple facets of fulfillment for a variety of needs. There are many ways in which the Christian religion is celebrated, thus the answer can also be found through an exploration of the varieties of belief systems that have developed around the basic premise. While the mythologies, the traditions, the social concepts, and the cultural adaptations will vary, the basic belief system may have a different impact on women than does the sociological aspects. The general environment for Judaic women in the first century within the Middle East was very oppressive. Issues of inheritance, betrothal, and divorce were all biased toward the males, and fathers and husbands held a lot of control over their daughters and wives. Everything that belonged to women belonged to their fathers until she was twelve and a half, including the right to betrothal. After that age, she could gain some freedoms in her choices, but it was rare that a girl of this age would have survived without being betrothed until the age of consent in order to actually have consent. Women did not have much of a voice, at least through the traditions and legal system, in designing their life. However, the Judaic heritage includes a balanced point of view in regard to the sexes as witnessed in the commandments where it requires an individual to “honor your father and your mother (Exodus 20:12)” (Witherington 1992, p.5). As well, according to Witherington (1992), women were considered necessary within the home and held a position that promoted proper atonement for men. In other words, women were regarded with respect without relevancy of the legal position that women held. Within the New Testament, there is a very prominent presence of women who were there during the development of the foundation for the belief in Jesus as the savior of mankind. Mary Magdalene is mentioned nine times within the New Testament, and it is suggested through the way that she is always listed first and the nature of the attention that Jesus paid to her that she held a role of some importance in the movement that surround Jesus and within his life (Vander Velde 2000). There are three incidents of sinful women that are mentioned within the gospels and each one is treated with compassion and a sense of respect by Jesus. The Samarian woman (John 4), the sinful woman (Luke 7:37), and the woman taken into adultery (John 8:3-11) all were treated well by Jesus despite their actions and transgressions (Witherington 1992). The example of the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery and was led to Jesus with the intent of the crowd, who had taken her in order to stone her to death, is a very good example of the compassion that Jesus shows and how it is not limited by gender. While the event is an example of how it is not within the province of men and women to judge each other as they are all guilty of sin, it is interesting to note that a woman was used in order to make this point. His response was to suggest that the one amongst the crowd that had no sin feel free to throw the first stone. No one threw a stone, and when the woman still faced Jesus, even after the crowd had left, he said she should go on her way and end her sinful behavior. Jesus does not condemn her, but rather says simply that she just should not sin anymore (Feree 2010). While Jesus was alive and during his ministry, the way in which women were treated appears to pull them into an almost equal sense of existence with men. While the contemporary culture held a series of rules and traditions that distinctly separated men and women, the culture that grew around Jesus during his ministry appears to have held men and women equal in the sense of their spirituality and their responsibility towards their salvation. However, this freedom would soon fall apart as the religion began to formalize and Christian women would bear the weight of traditions that they had thought they could abandon through the sacrifice of Jesus. Within the books of the bible are distinct examples of how those freedoms were stripped from women in order to put them back into the mainstream culture with all of the repressive tenets that they may have thought that through Christ they could abandon. In letters that Paul writes to different churches he lays down different cultural habits that had developed that should be ended so that women would once again take their place as appearing to be good and wholesome women of the time, dressing modestly and not suggesting that they had been freed from the need to show their virtue. In Romans, Paul suggests that women should not braid their hair or wear gold jewelry. From a social standpoint in reference to the culture of the time, this was so that they would not be associated with houses of prostitution or with women who were worshiping pagan gods. It must also be noted, however, that within Romans women are mentioned who have official leadership within the Church or who should be given the tasks of leading (Merriam 2004). The unfortunate circumstance that appears to be the way for women within the development of the Christian religion is that during the actual time of Christ they had an equality of status within His ministry, having no more or less responsibility or for their sin, neither being held to a higher standard and put on a pedestal, nor being treated as inferior. However, shortly after, standards began to appear that would diminish their standing while putting upon them more responsibility for the nature of sin. Paul goes into lengthy descriptions about how women should behave through his letters (Kraemer and D‘Angelo 1999). As well, it was considered the responsibility of the female gender to be covered in order not to incite the passions of men, holding them responsible for the sins of the flesh should they reveal something of their body. According to writings by Clement of Alexandria, women should not open their mouths wide when taking a drink nor tilt their head back exposing their throat when they drink as these were both signs of immodesty (Miller 2004, p71). Where during the ministry of Jesus women seemed to only be responsible for their own sins, this quickly turned towards the idea that women were responsible for the sinful thoughts and actions of men as well. Christian history has supported the theory that women are more responsible for their actions than are men and are also responsible for the sinful thoughts and deeds of men. Linguistically, there is a whole list of words to describe promiscuous women in derogatory ways, but there are few specific derogatory words to describe promiscuous men and few are within popular speech. Some of the darkest periods during the history of Christianity include a specific discrimination towards women as being higher perpetrators of sin than men. During the period of time when the Spanish Inquisition was terrorizing Christians, a disproportionate number of women were arrested, tortured, and ultimately killed in the name of Christian purity and piety (Giles 1999). The witch trials that took play during the 17th and 18th centuries were primarily focused on female victims with approximately nine million women being executed in Europe (Apps and Gow 2003, p. 39). As well, the historical records of women as leaders within the church have been diminished or obliterated supporting the male domination of leadership which still exists into the current era. Even Mary Magdalene was defamed and declared a prostitute by Pope Gregory who either on purpose or through confusion named her as a prostitute, although many scholars believe that Mary Magdalene was actually a very wealthy woman who helped to fund the ministry that was lead by Jesus. There is also evidence to support the idea that she was a leader within the ministry community and that Jesus held her in high regard (Houston 2006). Despite this position, the Magdalene laundries or asylums in Ireland, Scotland, and England were a prime example of the ways in which women have been subjugated and abused for a higher expectation of piety. The asylums were created to rehabilitate women with what the state would determine to be at a low standard of morals. The concept of the ’fallen’ woman was used to suggest that women who did not maintain their virginity until marriage or who had to depend solely on their own means in order to survive, were most likely prostitutes or in danger of being prostitutes. Through hard work, long days of prayer, physical punishment and imposed silence, the asylums intended to bring back to righteousness those women who were no longer righteous. While the goal of the English asylums was to put women back into society, the Irish institutions took the stand that once fallen, it was unlikely that a woman could be rehabilitated, thus many women spent their entire lives within the laundries. In the twentieth century, women could be incarcerated within the asylums for being too pretty, too flirtatious, too promiscuous, or for being abused. Family members recommended their entry into the institutions. The last Magdalene laundry in Ireland closed in 1996 (McCarthy 2010). The Christian religion, from the point of view of the sociological and anthropological aspects of the religion is not the most supportive and empowering institution. From a historical perspective, Christianity has been a patriarchal institution with sometimes violent outcomes for the women who are involved. The pervasive social construct of the female gender responsibility for sin over the male responsibility puts a higher burden on female members of the religion. As well, the expectations of the dress, behavior, and deportment of women is laid out far more clearly than that of men in writings that date back to the letters of Paul that are within the Bible. Being a Christian woman means accepting a culture that will hold her responsible for the thoughts of men as well as for her own transgressions. Despite this long historical point of view that still infuses the Christian communities with a highly patriarchal sense of power within the Church, it is a mistake to suggest that Christianity as a belief system is not a religion for women. To study the gospels is to reveal a gentility and equality that was suggested within the ministry of Jesus. The actions of Jesus can be interpreted as a source of forgiveness for all. In none of the stories of his life does there appear to be a suggestion that women should be held to a different standard than men. Men were held responsible for their own actions as were women. This shift in social control is not found within the reported life and ministry of Jesus, but in the interpretations of men who were within a political and social, patriarchal society that gave power to those who would wield it without the true message of the religion at the foundation of their actions. The question of whether or not Christianity is a religion for women requires answers that are given on at least two levels. From a sociological and anthropological point of view, the society of the Christian religion has sufficient male domination to not be considered an ideal environment for women. Throughout history women have been persecuted by those who would persecute Christians and by Christian men who for their own reasons would persecute women. Women were not safe from abuse and patriarchal domination that could deprive them of basic humane rights. From the perspective of spiritual support and guidance, the religion of Christianity can offer a great deal of comfort for women as the gospels tell stories of women who were respected and held accountable for only their own sins. The guilt that is imposed by the sociological Church is not reflected in the expectations from the point of view of the spiritual Church if interpreted through the ministry of Jesus. Jesus appears to have freed women as equally as he freed men from the burden of their sins. It is the dominating male leadership that seems to hold women to higher expectations and to impose male sins as female responsibility. Bibliography Apps, Lara, and Andrew Gow. 2003. Male witches in early modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ferree, Marnie C. (2010). No stones: women redeemed from sexual addiction. Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books. Giles, Mary E. (1999). Women in the Inquisition: Spain and the New World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press Houston, Siobhan. 2006. Invoking Mary Magdalene: accessing the wisdom of the divine feminine. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. Kraemer, Ross Shepard, and Mary Rose DAngelo. (1999). Women & Christian origins. New York: Oxford University Press. Merriam, Stuart Hamilton. (2004). Paul the apostle: at the edge by faith. Tucson, Ariz: Fenestra Books. McCarthy, Rebecca Lea. (2010). Origins of the Magdalene laundries: an analytical history. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Miller, Patricia C. (2004). Women in early Christianity: translations from Greek texts. New York: CUA. Vander Velde, Frances. (2000). Women of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications. Witherington, Ben. (1992). Women and the genesis of christianity. Cambridge [u.a.]: Univ. Press. Read More