Shawna R. B. Atteberry

From Kimberly Roth at Jesus Manifesto:

I am a daughter of Eve.

I am a daughter of the woman who plucked fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because it seemed good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom (and was also kind enough to share with her husband).

I am a daughter of the curse.

I am a son of God.

Through faith, I have been clothed with Christ Jesus and am neither male nor female but Christ, Abraham’s seed, living in me through the Spirit.

I am a son of the promise.

<snip>

Why is it that women in vocational ministry seems to be Christianity’s final frontier?

Ok, God, we can accept those Gentile believers, and we can even give up our slaves… but you can not be serious about that female thing?! Surely you’re not going to let Eve off the hook that easily. Did Jesus put you up to this? Do you have any idea how long it took us to live down that whole Deborah thing (and don’t even get me started on her friend Jael…)?

There seems to be a lot of fear surrounding what would happen if women were released to run amok in ministry, at least down here in the Bible belt. Children would be abandoned, meals would go unprepared, men would be disrespected in their own homes and left to pick up their own dirty underwear. Chaos would ensue. Theology would be twisted beyond recognition. Salvation as we know it would cease. Sunday school is one thing, but the entire Body of Christ… that’s just too much to consider.

I grew up with this attitude. It took God a long time to convice me that yes God could call me into leadership positions, and that it was okay that I DID NOT want to be a traditional wife, and do not want to have children. God used women like Deborah and Jael who were not typical wives, and the Bible does not even mention if they have children. God also used women like Mary Magdalene and Lydia–single women who were not linked to men, other than Jesus. God also used Priscilla and Aquilla who worked side by side making tents and pastoring churches. It’s been a long, and at times hard, road. I know I need to write about it. I have said that I would. I guess I need to start writing. I always put off telling my story. I guess I don’t think it’s that important. But may be it is important. May be I need to tell my story, so I can tell other women’s stories. I know that is far past time for Eve and her daughters to be redeemed.

How do you feel about telling your story?

Lisa Guyla at Utne Reader’s Spirituality Blog directed my attention to an article in Boston College Magazine written by four female theologians: Lisa Sowle Cahill, Ruth Langer, M. Shawn Copeland, Patricia DeLeeuw, and Colleen Griffith. These five women talk about women in the Jewish and Christian traditions whom they consider to be their foremothers. Here is an excerpt from Colleen Griffith who wrote about Evelyn Underhill:

Perhaps her most enticing and challenging idea was that of “practical mysticism.” For Underhill, who was always less interested in defining mysticism than in practicing it, mysticism implied a life linked to social concerns. It was the art of union with reality. As our union with God grows, so does our identification with humanity and the Earth. “The riches and beauty of the spiritual landscape,” Underhill said, “are not disclosed to us in order that we might sit in the sun parlor, be grateful for the excellent hospitality, and contemplate the glorious view. . . . Our place is not the auditorium, but the stage . . . the field, workshop, study, laboratory. . . . We are the agents of the Creative Spirit, in this world.” Becoming a practical mystic, to her, meant simplifying one’s tangled and cluttered character and training one’s attention. Regular meditation and recollection would help.

Not many people today aspire to become practical mystics, thinking, perhaps, that mysticism remains the realm of the few, the proud, and the brave. But through Underhill, we catch sight of a spirituality of ordinary life, and the possibility of an increased capacity for union with God, the Real. This doesn’t require the abstentions of the cloister, just the virtues of the golf course.

Please go and read the whole article. Tomorrow I will be posting a poem I wrote about the foremothers who have inspired me. Who inspires you?

“Everyone Has a Story”

Judges 4-5

One of my absolutely favorite news segment periods was “Everybody Has a Story.” Journalist Steve Hartman had this absolutely cockamamie idea that a person didn’t need to be rich, or famous, or even a celebrity to have a story. He believed that ordinary people, living ordinary lives, in ordinary places had stories that the rest of us would want to hear and might even help us live our own little, ordinary lives. Even Steve has admitted that he wasn’t sure his idea would work. But for years Steve Hartman proved that everybody has a story. One of things I loved about this news segment is that Steve finds some of the most unlikely people, in the most unlikely places, who have lived through and done some of the most unlikely things.

His stories remind me a lot of the stories I read in the Bible. Ordinary people, doing ordinary things, living ordinary lives. But instead of a pesky reporter dropping in, a pesky God decides to show up and change those ordinary lives forever. That’s what happened in Judges 4.

Judges 4:1-5, An Unlikely Couple
The first three verses of this chapter are typical for the book of Judges. In the book of Judges Israel is caught in a very destructive cycle. They decide to worship the gods around them instead of Yahweh—the God who brought them out Egypt. God then gives them over to an enemy who oppresses them for a while—in this case 20 years. Then the people come to their senses and cry out to God who then raises a judge to deliver them from their oppressors. There is much rejoicing and the people obey God during the life of that judge and then the cycle starts all over again. This is called a downward spiral because not only does the same cycle keep happening, but each time it gets worse.

Then we come to verse 4: “At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel.” Now we come to the first twist in this story—the judge is not a man–it’s a woman. We have an unlikely judge—she’s a wife and probably a mother. And why is she the judge and not her husband? Because God called her and not him. Yes, it’s as simple as that. And what about Lappidoth? I always wonder about this man. He’s only mentioned once in the Bible, but he intrigues me. Since Deborah is judging Israel at the palm of Deborah and fulfilling her calling as a prophet, I’m assuming he’s okay with the arrangement. And yes, in our day and age, we go “Well, duh, yes—she can work if she wants to.” Back then in that day and age Deborah should have been home being a wife and mother–cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids. The place she should not have been was out in public, resolving disputes among the people. That was man’s work. That should have been what Lappidoth was doing. But this unlikely couple obeyed God’s rather strange calling on their lives—God called Deborah to be a prophet and judge, and both she and Lappidoth obeyed God’s calling.

So, not only Deborah, but Deborah and Lappidoth are the first unlikely people we meet in this story. Now we will meet our next unlikely person.

(more…)

Sally has a beautiful poem and a post thinking about what it means for women to be made in the image of God. Here is the beginning of the poem:

Dark am I
and lovely!
Made in Her image
not chiselled,
starved,
or mutilated
by the whims
of fashion…

If you are a woman, what does it mean for you, a woman, to be made in the image of God? For everyone: How do male and female together more fully reflect the image of God than the exclusively male-based images of God we are used to?

I have upadated my book review after comments Susan left. Please make sure you read her comment. There’s somef good stuff there. Thank you Susan for stopping by!

Today is the release date of Susan McLeod-Harrison’s first book Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Mends a Divide (Barclay Press, 2008). Upfront I have to say I’m not sure I can review this book objectively. Susan’s story is very close to my own. Reading this book, I wished it had been published about eight years earlier. That is when I was going through my own struggle on whether or not to remain in the Church. And I do mean Church with a big C. I wasn’t thinking of only leaving my denomination, I was thinking of leaving the Church period. I was in seminary and on the ordination track. I did not see a place for myself in Christian ministry. I was single; I was evangelical; and I was called to preach and pastor. I was also asked in various churches if I was going to seminary to be a pastor’s wife. I had come to the point where I wanted to leave. I wanted to walk away. I just did not see a future for myself in the Church.

Saving Women from the Church addresses several of the myths that woman hear in church. Some of the chapter titles are: “If you’ve felt alienated and judged in the church,” “If you believe women are inferior to men,” “If as a single woman, your gifts have been rejected or overlooked,” and “If you’ve been encouraged to deify motherhood.” In the Introduction, she starts with my favorite starting point on women in the church: creation. Both men and women are created in the image of God, and therefore, image God with their gifts and talents God has given them. In each chapter she starts with a fictional account of a woman who is experiencing and living one of the myths. She follows it with a imaginative portrayal of how Jesus treated women in a similar position in the New Testament. She follows the biblical story by explaining what Jesus was doing and with questions for discussion. Each chapter ends with a meditation meant for healing. Saving Women does a great job of translating theology into practical, everyday examples in language normal people use. The history and sociological work she does for each passage, explaining the culture of the people, at the time is also well done.

I think this book would make an excellent woman’s study or small group study. It addresses most of the myths women in the evangelical church have grown up with and still deal with. It would be a great conversation starter, and it is a valuable addition to other books on this subject. The language and tone of the book make it much more accessible and understandable to the typical lay person than most books in this genre. In the conclusion, Susan recommends women in abusive churches leave and gives a list of churches that are egalitarian and open to women in ministry. Saving Women does a good job of acknowledging and describing the myths, and encourages women to get out of these environments. The Recommended Reading at the end of the book also has books that would help in this regard.

Overall I am very pleased that this book is on the market. It starts with the premise that women are made in the image of God and called to build God’s kingdom. Then it deals chapter-by-chapter with the destructive myths that have prevailed in evangelical culture to keep women as second-class citizens and powerless in the pews. It is an excellent resource to begin busting these myths and helping women find their God-given ability to be equal partners in building God’s kingdom with their brothers.

Chuck Warnock has a very through-provoking post up: 10 Marks of the Church-as-Abbey. Here are two of the marks:

Hospitality. The Celtic abbey was open to all who needed its hospitality and help. Monks, even those fasting, would interrupt their discipline to greet and welcome those who came into the abbey’s confines. Welcoming the stranger is a vital part of the abbey’s ministry.

Economics. The abbeys were self-supporting, engaged in cultivating fields, raising livestock, operating public markets, and giving employment opportunities to the community. I read about a church the other day that also operates a farmers’ market, and has been doing so for years. I am exploring the agrarian movement, particularly as it attracts followers of Christ. More on that later.

He also has this post following up on the economics of the church-as-abbey, The Abbey Church and Economics. When I think of the church I want, I think like this. I want a community that is very involved in the larger community. I need to get one of the books he recommends. I already have Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History), which I loved (may need to review it). I now need to add George Hunter’s The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again.

Julie Clawson has a great post up titled Sexism Sells.

It is hard to avoid given the current political situation, but it serves as a sad reminder of how normal sexism is in the daily life of many people. I’ve mentioned that I am not a Hillary supporter, but I am becoming more and more upset at how she is being used as an excuse to trash women. I am sick of hearing news commenters ridiculing Hillary because she is a woman. I’m sick of hearing, “we can’t have a woman president because then other countries wouldn’t respect us.” (do people realize that most other countries are far ahead of us in electing women leaders!!!). It’s not about her it is about women, she is just an excuse to be sexist on national television.

How many years ago was Margaret Thatcher prime minister of England? The German Chancellor is a woman, and Kenya voted in their first female president last year. Oh yes, so many countries that won’t respect us. Have these people never heard of Golda Mieir, Catherine the Great, or Elizabeth I for that matter? Like Julie this bothers me as well. She goes on to say:

No one would dare call a black man lesser, or make fun of his race, or question if he deserves respect (which is good), but it’s okay for that to happen to women. And then people get upset at you for if you get upset by it - they say you are overreacting, or just roll their eyes and mumble “feminist” under their breath.

This reminds me of all the hot water Joe Biden got himself into when he said Barak Obama was articulate and clean. Yet, we hear none of the same thing when announcers basically do the same thing with Hillary. Like Julie, I am not a Hillary fan, but I am tired of all the sexism and female-bashing going on because she is running.

Gifted for Leadership’s most recent post is What Our Feminity Means. Here is an excerpt that sums up the entire post:

The benefits of modesty aside, femininity became a new way to behave, a role I played, a corset I wrapped around my soul and tightened down to get approval. Femininity quickly became something I did to get what I needed or wanted in life. It was something to use, not something I owned.

I don’t think this is what God intended when he created Woman. In Genesis 1 God wanted to splash more of the Trinity onto Earth. So God made Man and Woman to mirror his image (Gen 1:27). Femininity in its truest, original sense was one way God’s image appeared, and this image was not weak, catty, emotionally crazy, or inferior because God is none of these things. Femininity wasn’t a role Eve played to get what she needed; femininity was part of who she was. Even after Eden, as broken image bearers, we reflect God. If a child is humble, she mirrors her God. If a man is gentle, he mirrors his God. If women are feminine in the original sense, we reflect our God.

My main problem with this is that “feminine” and “femininity” are social and sociological constructs, not biblical or theological terms. Genesis 2:26-28 states:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

God did not make “masculine” and “feminine” in God’s likeness. God made Male and Female in God’s likeness. And what does this image and likeness look like? According to these verses it means that man and woman subdue the earth and rule it as well as being fruitful and multiplying. Both the man and woman are commanded to have a family and to have a vocation.

In Genesis 2, we found that God created a human being and placed the human in the Garden of Eden. God decided that it was not good for the human to be alone, so God made an ezer cenegdo for the human. After the ezer is made there is now man and woman. What exactly is an ezer? Outside of Genesis 2, it appears 20 times in the Bible*. Seventeen of those times, ezer is used to describe God. In each instance military imagery is used to describe God coming to help Israel against its enemies. I found Psalm 146 particularly fascinating:

1 Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul!
2 I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.
4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
5 Happy are those whose help [ezer] is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God,
6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free;
8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous.
9 The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
10 The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD!

After telling the congregation not to put their trust in human leaders, the psalmist proclaims: “Happy are those whose ezer is the God of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah!” (author’s paraphrase). The psalmist then goes on to describe how God helps Israel: God executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, and loves the righteous. God watches over the strangers, upholds the orphan and widow, and brings the way of the wicked to ruin. God’s help is not to dominate the people, but to lift them out of poverty and hunger, to set them free from oppressors and oppressive debts (most people in prison then were in debtor’s prison: they could not pay their debts). God helps the orphans and widows: those in society who have no one else to help them and be strong for them. God uses God’s strength and power to help those that no one else will help because they are seen as weak, poor, and marginal. Again we see military imagery used to describe God as Israel’s ezer or helper.

Carolyn Custis James does a wonderful job of exploring the word ezer and its military connotations in her book, Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories, in the chapter on Eve. She translates ezer as “strong helper.” Woman was created in the image of God to be a helper to the man as God was a helper to Israel. But this does not make her superior to the man. That’s where the second word of the phrase comes in: cenedgo, which means standing or sitting face to face. It means equal. So the full translation of ezer cenedgo is a powerful helper equal to. Woman was created to be a powerful helper equal to the man the way God is a powerful helper to God’s people.

Man and woman are created in God’s image to image God in our world. Psalm 146 gives a description of what God is doing in the world. God is not only fighting enemies and saving God’s people. God is also taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves. This means that both man and woman should be doing the things God does to image God to our world. This includes fighting systemic and spiritual evil, but it also includes tenderness and compassion toward those who are poor, needy, and those whom society overlooks.

I want to look at two women in the Bible; one in the Hebrew Scriptures and the other in the New Testament. Deborah is the woman of Hebrew Scriptures that I want to look at. We are introduced to Deborah in Judges 4. She is a prophet and judge, and she leads Israel. The Israelite people come to her with the problems and disputes, and she mediates God’s will as Moses had once done. She is married, but she is a working woman. God has called her to be a prophet and judge, and she has answered. When God commands Israel to go to battle with their enemy Sisera and the Canaanites, Deborah summons the military commander Barak, and tells him what God says. But Barak will not go into battle without God’s representative, Deborah. Both Barak and Deborah lead Israel’s armies into battle. Here we see a man and a woman working together to fight the people’s enemies and obey God’s words and will. And irony of ironies is that Deborah’s husband, Lappidoth, is probably in the troops following his wife.

Deborah, Barak, and Lappidoth do not resemble or act according to the societal constructs of masculine and feminine, but they are obeying God and building God’s kingdom side by side. Leading men into a battle is not considered “feminine” in Western society, but Deborah was obeying God. God called her to lead her people and protecting them from their enemies. She was an ezer who was imaging God in her every word and action.

The next woman I want to look at in the New Testament is Priscilla (or Prisca). Priscilla ran a business with her husband, Aquilla. They made tents together. They worked in Corinth with Paul where they heard the Gospel and were saved (Acts 18:1-3). Later the couple would meet Apollos who had heard only of John’s baptism and not heard of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Priscilla and Aquilla heard him, they took him aside and “explained the Way of God to him more accurately” (v. 26). They also lead a home church when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:3-5). It is very odd during this time for a wife’s name to be mentioned before her husband’s, and yet four times Priscilla’s name is put before her husband’s. Many scholars believe that she was the dominant one in ministry: the teacher and pastor of the churches that met in their home.

Again we see a man and woman working side by side making a living and building God’s kingdom. There is no mention of what is masculine and what is feminine. They work together as the team God created them to be.

I think being made in male and female in the image of God has very little to do with modern notions of femininity and masculinity. It has everything to do with faithfully imaging God to our world by obeying God’s callings on our lives and working together–both men and women–to build the kingdom of God on earth.

*Exodus 18:4; Deuteronomy 33:7, 26, 29; Psalm 20:2; 33:20; 70:5; 89:19; 115:9-11; 121:1-2; 124:8; 146:5; and Hosea 13:9.

The New Revised Standard Version is used for biblical quotes unless otherwise noted.

The picture is Thomasz Rut’s Insuspenco.

Crossposted at Emerging Women.