Women and Men

Sometimes interesting things coincide.  I am reading "The Pastor", the memoir of Eugene Petersen.  His earliest recollection of ministry comes from his mom, who was a traveling preacher among the mining camps in the Rockies where they grew up.  She stopped when some man quoted Paul about women not teaching or having authority over men.  Oi.

Cut to Halloween 2012.  I am in a Costume Warehouse looking to complete the costuming of the family for the holiday.  Being late October in 2012, Christmas stuff is also on display (in a Costume Warehouse a week before Halloween...but that's another post).  There are the red and white furry costumes for a grand old Christmas time.

For the men, it is the classic St. Nick costume, red hat to trousers, white trim at the ankles and wrists, heck, white trim on the faces as well.  You see hands, eyes, a bit of the cheeks, rest guarenteed to be covered against the cold of the Yuletide sleighride.

And then there were the costumes for the ladies...  There is the classic image of Mrs. Claus, red plaid floor length dress, a jolly companion to Mr. Claus.  But in the Costume Warehouse, they were the Christmas bimbettes, not dressed for the cold but...what...the warm fire back home?  Same color scheme as Father Christmas, but shrunk in the dryer...then shrunk again...and maybe a third time as well.

It is a repeat of the two classic gender role heroes in the D.C. comicbook universe, Superman and Wonder Woman.  Supe had the long johns that covered neck to toes, Wonder Woman equipped with armored Victoria Secret.

As followers of Jesus, we should really have something to say about that, objectifying women, treating them as second class people though first class sex objects.  Maybe Paul's words about how in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free, in other words, in Christ, there is the systematic dismantling of hierarchy based on race, gender or economy.

But way too many of us Jesus freaks like Paul's other stuff better, the sideline stuff, the specific stuff, the contextual stuff, women stay in the second class, no authority, no teaching men.  I used that argument myself.  But I was an obnoxious middle school kid in a Christian school with a pastor's wife as my homeroom teacher.

We need to speak up.  And we need to speak up strong!