Women in Christianity
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The roles of women in Christianity have varied since its founding. Women have played important roles in Christianity especially in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, and parachurch organizations. In 2016, it has been estimated that the female share (aged 20 years and over) of the World's Christian Population is between 52 and 53 percent.
Misogyny
Differences in tradition and interpretations of scripture have caused sects of Christianity to differ in their beliefs with regard to their treatment of women.
In The Troublesome Helpmate, Katharine M. Rogers argues that Christianity is misogynistic, and she lists what she says are specific examples of misogyny in the Pauline epistles. She states:
- The foundations of early Christian misogyny — its guilt about sex, its insistence on female subjection, its dread of female seduction — are all in St. Paul's epistles.
In K. K. Ruthven's Feminist Literary Studies: An Introduction, Ruthven makes reference to Rogers' book and argues that the "legacy of Christian misogyny was consolidated by the so-called 'Fathers' of the Church, like Tertullian, who thought a woman was not only 'the gateway of the devil' but also 'a temple built over a sewer'."
Several Christian institutions exclude women. For example, women are excluded from the Mount Athos region of Greece and from the governing Hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Some Christian theologians, such as John Knox in his book The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, have written that women should be excluded from secular government institutions as well for religious reasons.
However, some other scholars have argued that Christianity does not include misogynistic principles, or at least that a proper interpretation of Christianity would not include misogynistic principles. David M. Scholer, a biblical scholar at Fuller Theological Seminary, stated that the verse Galatians 3:28 ("There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus") is "the fundamental Pauline theological basis for the inclusion of women and men as equal and mutual partners in all of the ministries of the church." In his book Equality in Christ? Galatians 3:28 and the Gender Dispute, Richard Hove argues that—while Galatians 3:28 does mean that one's sex does not affect salvation—"there remains a pattern in which the wife is to emulate the church's submission to Christ and the husband is to emulate Christ's love for the church."
In Christian Men Who Hate Women, clinical psychologist Margaret J. Rinck has written that Christian social culture often allows a misogynist "misuse of the biblical ideal of submission". However, she argues that this a distortion of the "healthy relationship of mutual submission" which is actually specified in Christian doctrine, where "[l]ove is based on a deep, mutual respect as the guiding principle behind all decisions, actions, and plans". Similarly, Catholic scholar Christopher West argues that "male domination violates God's plan and is the specific result of sin".
See also
- African and African-American women in Christianity
- Katharine Bushnell, pioneer Christian feminist
- Catharism#Role of women and sex
- Christians for Biblical Equality, an egalitarian organization
- Female disciples of Jesus
- Feminist theology
- List of Christian women of the patristic age
- List of women hymnwriters
- List of women in the Bible
- Misogyny
- Quaker views on women
- The Woman's Bible
- Women and religion
- Women as theological figures
- Women in Buddhism
- Women in Church history
- Women in Hinduism
- Women in Islam
- Women in Judaism
- Women in the Bible
