and the

Feminism Bible

Mardi Keyes

Updated April, 2013

Feminism and the Bible 2013 Update © 2013 Mardi Keyes

Text originally published as Feminism & the Bible by Mardi Keyes.

Copyright © 1995 Mardi Keyes. Used by permission of the author.

First Edition (1995) published by Intervarsity Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
(other than short quotations for the sake of reviews or academic work)
without written permission from the author.

This edition is part of a special pre-release run of ten issues in anticipation

of a more wide release by a new publishing collective to be formed and
operating in Summer of 2013. This non-exclusive one time permission for
ten copies was given in writing by the author to Shawn Birss.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the
HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®.
Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by
permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Printed in Canada

For information on the upcoming wide release of this book, the new
publishing collective, or to see other available titles go to pirate-
pastor.blogspot.com. To contact the publisher for a catalogue or other
inquiries write to Shawn Birss P.O. Box 52188 Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G
2T5, or email jesuspunks@gmail.com.

2
Contents

5 – Introduction
7 – Gendered God Language
10 – Created Equal in God's Image
11 – Rebellion Begets Patriarchy
13 – Jesus Challenged Cultural Norms
16 – Full Recognition of Women
18 – Common Between the Bible and Feminism
20 – Incompatibilities Between Secular Feminism and
Christianity
1. Human Nature - The Shared Image of God
2. Ultimate Moral Authority
3. The Measure of Human Greatness
31 – Are Christianity and Feminism Compatible?

33 – Endnotes
36 – About the Author

3
4
Are Christianity and feminism compatible?
That depends on what you think is essential to
Christianity, and what is essential to feminism. Feminists
differ among themselves. They distinguish between liberal,
Marxist, radical, socialist, psychoanalytic, existentialist,
neopagan, postmodernist and black feminism (or
womanism). And many younger Third Wave Feminists
eschew politics and revel in narcissistic “anything goes”
sex, while accusing their 1960’s Second Wave foremothers
of “stodgy” old fashioned moralism.
There are also biblical feminists. In his article
Jesus Was a Feminist, Leonard Swidler defines a feminist as
“a person who is in favor of, and who promotes, the equality
of women with men, a person who advocates and practices

5
treating women primarily as human persons (as men are so
treated) and willingly contravenes social customs in so
acting.1 He argues that by this definition Jesus was a
feminist.
In contrast, Annie Laurie Gaylor, an editor of
Freethought Today, scorns the possibility of any
compatibility between Christianity and feminism. She asks,
"How can you be a feminist if you refuse to defer to men on
Earth, but submit to a divine authority? . . . Feminism
cannot be argued by authority - much less by male,
supernatural authority."2
We must admit from the start that Christians and
feminists have been guilty of stereotyping one another,
without reading each other's literature or even talking to
each other. Many Christians unfairly equate all feminism
with self-centered careerism, the breakdown of the family,
and the wholesale rejection of men. Many non-Christian
feminists equate Christianity and the church with the worst
of patriarchy and male chauvinism. They seem unaware of
the alliance between Christian and non-Christian women in
the nineteenth century feminist, abolitionist and temperance
movements. They are ignorant of the role of Christians in
unbinding the feet of Chinese women and rescuing girl
babies from infanticide and temple prostitution in India. It
was a Christian, William Carey, who fought against sati
(widow burning, upon the funeral pyre of the husband) in

6
Calcutta, a center for goddess worship, where woman was
called devi or goddess. The Indian writer and political
activist, Vishal Mangalwadi points out the irony of the fact
that "the entire religious establishment of the goddess cult"
resisted Carey as "he fought for women's rights because he
believed that they were made in the image of our heavenly
Father - who is neither male nor female."3
Those of us who are Christians must admit the
church's misdeeds and inconsistencies. It is true that women
have been denied education and the vote, barred from using
their gifts in the church and the culture, even told to submit
to wife-battering – all in the name of the Christian God. But
those failings do not negate the fact that, the more Christians
have lived out what the Bible actually teaches, the more
they have been a force for liberation from all kinds of
oppression.

Gendered God Language

Before considering gender in the broad biblical

drama, a few words about God language are in order. This
is a big issue in Feminist Theology. Radical feminist
Mary Daly attacks the fatherhood of God saying, “If God
is male, then the male is god.” But the biblical writers do
not equate God’s Fatherhood with maleness.

7
 The intention of gendered God-language in the
Bible - metaphors, images and pronouns, whether male or
female - is not to communicate that God is a sexual being.
God is Spirit. He created and transcends sexuality.
Therefore Moses prohibited making either male or female
images of God as equally idolatrous (see Deuteronomy
4:15-16).
The Bible also teaches that men and women are
equally the image of God. Neither sex is a more accurate
likeness of God than the other.
Gendered God language in the Bible
communicates the personal nature of God, who relates to
His people as a personal being and not as an impersonal
object or force. While the New Testament in particular
addresses God as Father, and the majority of God
language is “masculine,” the Biblical writers included
feminine/maternal God imagery as well. For example, the
prophet Isaiah describes God "like a woman in childbirth"
(Isa. 42.7) and he writes "as a mother comforts her child,
so will I comfort you" (Isa. 66.13). Deuteronomy 32:18
reads “You forgot the God who conceived you and gave
you birth" (or “writhed in labor”.) Male sex organs are
never associated with God, but the womb and breasts are.
This kind of metaphorical language warns against
identifying God as a male.

8
 The absence of a female consort, and antipathy
to the goddess in the Bible, did not come from sexism, but
from the monotheistic nature of the Biblical God. The
belief in one sovereign, ethical, creator God, who created
by his word, not by sex, stood in stark contrast to the
polytheistic fertility religions of the surrounding peoples.
In fact, embracing polytheism, nature religion and
goddess worship, has never guaranteed a more just or
egalitarian life for girls or women.
The city of Athens was named after Athena, the
great goddess of wisdom, yet the women of Athens were
some of the most oppressed and denigrated in known
history. In Corinth during the New Testament period, over
1000 slave girls and boys served as sacred prostitutes in
the temple of Aphrodite alone. Most of them had been
abandoned as infants and sold into temple service. There
was nothing "liberating" about the lives of sacred
prostitutes, even though they served a female deity.
The rich diversity of language about God, and
names for God in the Bible indicate the limitations of
human language to fully and adequately describe an
infinite divine being. Gendered language is unavoidable,
as the biblical God also personal, and persons are either
male or female. But gendered God language in the bible is
neither sexist nor sexual in intent.

9
Created Equal in God's Image

The Bible teaches clearly that men and women

were created equally in the image of God, and God said that
was very good (Gen 1:31). This central biblical teaching
contrasted radically with the ideas of the culture of that time.
It gives a powerful basis for the equal value and dignity of
every human being - including male and female, young and
old, every racial, class and ethnic group, the physically and
mentally well and the sick and disabled.
Genesis also mandates work, the building of
families and culture, care for the environment – all as shared
male and female responsibilities (Gen 1:28; 2:15, 18). The
traditionalist adages “A woman's place is in the home" and
"The man is the breadwinner" are neither traditional nor
biblical. Until the Industrial Revolution wrenched work out
of the home, men and women raised bread and children
together from the home.
The origin of male and female from the same
substance is the physical basis for marriage and its
goodness. During the ascendancy of Greece and later Rome,
this teaching became particularly significant in contrast to
the Greek belief that women were made of inferior material
from men. They were considered to be more like animals
and soulless. There was no way an upper-class educated
Greek man could have an equal relationship with a woman.

10
So men had wives to produce male heirs and keep house,
but they preferred other men for sexual and intellectual
intimacy. In the ancient Graeco-Roman world, male
homosexuality was a clear putdown to women as inferior
beings.
In the biblical creation account, Eve is described as
Adam's “equal and adequate helper” (ezer kenegdo).
Although the English word helper can imply subordination,
the Hebrew word ezer never does. In the twenty-one times it
appears in the Old Testament, it almost always refers to
God, the mighty helper of his people (see Deut 33:26, 29; Ps
121:1).
According to Genesis, no sexual hierarchy existed
at creation. In Francis Schaeffer's words, man and woman
lived in an "unstructured democracy"4 before the fall. There
was a "golden age" before patriarchy, a question feminists
debate.

Rebellion Begets Patriarchy

The problems began in the third chapter of

Genesis. Here, human rebellion (sin) against the Creator
resulted in much tragic alienation, including sexual
hierarchy, rivalry and exploitation. In feminist terminology,
patriarchy was born. It is crucial to understand that the
curse in Genesis 3:16 is not a command from God, but a

11
tragic description of what life would be like in a broken
world. As with the other results of the fall - sickness and
death, pain in childbirth, alienation from nature and work -
the appropriate human response is not resignation, but
resistance.
Life between the Fall and the coming of
redemption through Christ included good and bad in the
male-female relationship. The Old Testament portrays three
strands. First, there is a dark strand, an honest record of
human sin, including stories of men raping and exploiting
women, and women (like Rachel) deceiving and
manipulating men. God did not condone any of this.
A brighter strand appears in the Old Testament
law, which curbed or regulated patriarchal practices (such as
polygamy) in the direction of greater justice and protection
of the vulnerable. God did not establish or condone these
practices but allowed them temporarily because, as Jesus
said in reference to divorce, people’s (in this case
husbands’) “hearts were hard” (Mt 19:8). A “good” law
does not legislate God’s ideal, but leads a very imperfect
group of people toward it.
The extended family-clan-tribal system of ancient
Israel, though undeniably patriarchal, provided an effective
social welfare system for the vulnerable. Widows, single
mothers, fatherless children and aliens were cared for within
local communities. Modern individualism, with its reliance

12
on the state to care for the needy, is neither as personal nor
as efficient.
Finally, the brightest strand shows through in
powerful women like Deborah, Huldah and Miriam, who
were called by God to the highest positions of religious and
political leadership. Proverbs 31 praises a strong, competent
wife who juggles a multitude of economic and nurturing
responsibilities. She is paid for her work and praised in the
private and public sphere. We also see a beautiful
celebration of monogamous sexual intimacy and mutuality
in the Song of Solomon.

Jesus Challenged Cultural Norms

A new era began with the coming of Jesus, the

Messiah. Jesus came into a world, where in law and life,
women were treated as inferior in every way. By his
teaching and behavior, he constantly challenged the
patriarchal norms of his culture. Rejecting the practice of
keeping women separate and silent, Jesus included them in
his traveling band of disciples (theological students). He
surprised everyone by rebuking Martha for her
preoccupation with "women's work" (cooking and serving
men) and praising her sister Mary for studying theology
with the men (Lk 10:41-42).

13
 In a culture that blamed women for male lust,
Jesus put the blame where it belonged--on the men who
looked lustfully at women. Jesus and later the apostle Paul
abolished the double standard regarding divorce and
adultery, whereby a man could send his wife away at a
whim, and she had no equivalent power. Husbands and
wives have the same responsibility to avoid adultery, and
the same rights to divorce when the marriage covenant has
been radically broken. And both Jesus and Paul affirmed
singleness as a valuable choice for men and women (Mt
19:12; I Cor 7).
In a culture that so devalued a woman's word that
it prohibited women from testifying in court, Jesus chose
women to be the first witnesses of his resurrection. That
distinction conferred a unique authority on women in the
early church. This fact was not lost on the Romans, many
of whom scorned the Christian faith for the authority it
recognized and invested in women.
Dorothy Sayers wrote this about Jesus of Nazareth:

Perhaps it is no wonder that the

women were first at the cradle and last at the
cross. They had never known a man like this
Man - there never has been another. A
prophet and teacher who never nagged at
them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised;

14
 who never made arch jokes about them, never
treated them either as “The women, God help
us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who
rebuked without querulousness and praised
without condescension; who took their
questions and arguments seriously; who never
mapped out their sphere for them, never urged
them to be feminine or jeered at them for
being female; who had no axe to grind and no
uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them
as he found them and was completely unself-
conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no
parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its
pungency from female perversity; nobody
could possibly guess from the words and
deeds of Jesus that there was anything
“funny” about woman's nature.5

Jesus the Messiah reconciled God and humanity

by his death and resurrection. Soon after these momentous
events, the Christian church was born with the coming of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The apostle Peter quoted the
prophet Joel (Acts 2:17-18), announcing to a multi-racial
crowd that the Spirit of God was removing sex, class and
age barriers to ministry (Joel 2:28-29).

15
Full Recognition of Women

Before Pentecost, circumcision was the sign of

membership in the community of God's people. Obviously,
full membership could apply only to Jewish males. After
Pentecost, baptism became the sign of entering into the
community of believers. The inclusiveness of this sign is
underscored in a very early baptismal formula found in
Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor
free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
The things that used to divide and rank people lost their
relevance in a truly multicultural Christian community.
The inclusiveness and love evident in the early
Christian church, though not perfect, were so real and
dramatic that some in the Roman world called the Christians
"the third race." Women went from silence to teaching and
leadership. Slaves became deacons and bishops. Wealthy
Christians willingly sold their property and shared it with
the poor.
The marriage relationship changed radically. One-
sided male rule converted to mutual submission, the wife
submitting to a husband who was commanded to model
Christ by loving her sacrificially, even to the point of death
(Eph 5:21-33), and mutual authority, husbands and wives
having exactly the same authority over their own and each
other's bodies (1 Cor 7:3-5).

16
 The all-male priesthood gave way to the
priesthood of all believers (male and female) with Christ as
the one High Priest. Evidence throughout the New
Testament shows that women were teachers and leaders in
the early church. Biased English translations obscure some
of this evidence. For example, Junia, commonly recognized
as a female apostle, was turned into a male by a fourteenth
century commentator with no textual warrant.6
Paul commended numerous women as faithful
coworkers, including Phoebe, described in the Greek as a
gospel minister and leader. Using the same Greek root, Paul
told leaders to govern diligently (Rom 12:8); yet one Bible
paraphrase calls Phoebe a dear Christian woman instead of
a leader or governor! Paul called apostles and prophets the
“foundation of the church” (Eph 2:20). Ephesians 3:5 makes
it clear that these are New Testament prophets. They taught
with foundational authority, and both groups included
women. The apostle John sent one of his letters to a woman
in authority over a church that met in her home (2 Jn).
Two controversial texts appear to prohibit
women's teaching and authority in the church (1 Cor 14:33-
35 and 1 Tim 2:12). These texts have unfairly given Paul the
reputation of being a misogynist (woman hater). Problems
riddle both texts. The meanings of several critical Greek
words are uncertain. Both texts are in letters to churches
struggling with specific problems concerning women. Both

17
churches included respected women teachers. Although
Christians differ in their understanding of these verses7 it is
a serious mistake to use them to exclude women from
leadership, when so much clear New Testament evidence
points to the opposite conclusion.
You may be surprised that what I am saying does
not match the practice of much of the church throughout
history or even today. Too often Christians have fallen
captive to human traditions that conflict with the radical
New Testament message. We must constantly hold our
traditions up to the light of the Bible and allow it to reform
our theology and lives.

Common Ground Between the Bible and Feminism

The common ground between the Bible and

feminism is that both recognize there is a problem and
believe we have a responsibility to do something about it.
Elaine Storkey, a Christian philosopher and sociologist,
describes it by saying,

Men constitute a problem for

women, not as individuals necessarily, but as
those who combine to impose certain attitudes
and values, to uphold certain interests in
society. Pay differentials, educational

18
 priorities, rape, domestic violence,
pornography, workloads in the home, leisure
patterns, all produce their own evidence to
indicate the extent of the problem. For it is
woven into the very structure of contemporary
society. 8

The culprit behind all these injustices is what

feminists call the patriarchal system. It includes the
powerful assumption that men are entitled to define women
and their place. Christian and non-Christian feminists share
a sense of responsibility to challenge these assumptions and
injustices. Christians recognize that ever since the Fall, sex-
gender reality has included a complicated mixture of good
(creational) and bad (fallen) patterns. We strive to restore
relationships and institutions to God's good
creation/redemption plan of male-female equality,
complementarity, interdependence and mutual respect and
enjoyment.
Politically, Christians and feminists may find
themselves working together in some surprising alliances.
Prolife Christians and members of Feminists for Life of
America9 both oppose prochoice feminists on the abortion
issue. Christians ally with radical feminists against the free-
speech liberal feminist position on pornography. Some
Christians and feminists lobby together for working

19
conditions sympathetic to the needs of parents and children.
Similar partnerships are forming to fight rape, incest and
domestic violence, inside and outside the church.10

Incompatibilities Between Secular Feminism and

Christianity

No overarching feminist worldview encompasses

the diversity of feminist views of human nature, the causes
of women's oppression or the solutions to it. But there are a
number of basic non-negotiable biblical teachings essential
to Christianity. Three of them are particularly important to
compare and contrast with any strand of feminist thought:
(1) human nature, (2) ultimate moral authority and (3) the
measure of human greatness or excellence.

1. Human Nature - The Shared Image of God

The Bible affirms a universal human nature that

unites both sexes and all other diversities (class, race,
ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, physical and mental
ability, and so on). Because all people are made in the
image of God, no group can be considered intrinsically
superior to any other. The shared image of God makes
communication and love possible between people who may

20
have little else in common. While human differences are
real and must be respected, our most basic identity is
grounded in the things that unite us.
Without a grasp on the essential unity of the race,
our differences tend to spawn hostility, because all people
are also fallen or sinful. No group can claim total
innocence, nor can any be blamed for all the evil in the
world. But because God's grace extends to all people, no
group or individual is unredeemable. Within the basic unity
of the human race, the Bible affirms a good sexual diversity.
Procreative differences, for example, are good. True
women's liberation does not mean overcoming pregnancy
and lactation, as some feminists have argued. And it is
counterproductive to deny (in the name of equality) the
unique vulnerabilities that come with childbearing.
Sex differences are real and rooted in creation, but
the Bible is surprisingly silent about defining those
differences. It never defines masculinity or femininity and
never exhorts men to be “manly” or women to be
“womanly”. That silence gives freedom for individuals and
cultures to express the sex-gender difference in many ways.
In fact, the main emphasis in the Bible is on the unity of the
human race, and our call to the same character goals - the
imitation of Christ (love, humility, service, forgiveness,
willingness to suffer unjustly and courage) and the fruit of
the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

21
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).
Some of the most troubling trends in feminism
today come from radical feminists who make too much of
the sex-gender difference, rather than from feminists who
make too little of it. Some radical feminists insist that males
and females are morally and ontologically two different
kinds of beings. Men are evil oppressors; women are
innocent victims; all men are essentially rapists; and all men
hate all women. These things are simply not true. They
express radical feminist ideology and rhetoric. Reality is
much more complex.
Black feminists and other women of color have
been some of the most powerful critics of the radical
feminist tendency to oversimplify moral reality. For
example, bell hooks (sic) describes many privileged white
feminists as “so determined to create awareness of the ways
they were victimized within patriarchy that they could not
accept any analysis of their experience that was more
complex, that showed the forms of power they maintain
even in the face of sexist exploitation - class and race
privilege.”11
The belief in female goodness stands behind
feminist separatism and the utopian hope often placed in all-
female communities and woman-centered culture. While we
must never minimize the horror of experiences like rape and
domestic violence, that often drive women to reject male

22
society, the sad fact is that all-female societies are plagued
with the same attitudes of pride, dominance, greed and self-
centeredness that wreck any relationship or community. It is
also a sad fact that women who ascend to positions of power
in society do not necessarily advocate for or sacrifice for
their less powerful sisters. No sex, race or class is free from
the sin that ruins relationships, exploits power or starts wars.
The Bible's teaching on sin, often rejected as
overly pessimistic, actually leads to hope. Where sin is our
shared human problem, possibility for change exists. People
can repent, apologize, and be forgiven and reconciled to
God and to each other.
God's forgiveness extends to the entire human
race, male and female. Admitting guilt and receiving
forgiveness powerfully equalizes and humbles us. Once I
admit my need for forgiveness, it is much harder to justify
the self-righteousness that divides me from others, and
interpersonal reconciliation becomes possible. Even painful
relationships between men and women can know real and
substantial healing.

2. Ultimate Moral Authority

Next we must ask: Who has the highest moral

authority? If feminism requires autonomous woman with no
higher authority over her, able to determine true and false,

23
right and wrong, then there is a basic incompatibility with
the Christian faith.
It is arrogant for any finite, mortal creature to
claim the Creator's prerogatives. But giving up God for the
sake of moral freedom is also ultimate folly. Without God
we lose the moral authority needed to support the most
fundamental values of feminism - the belief in the equal
value and dignity of all persons, male and female.
Elaine Pagels reflects on the radical nature of the
Bible's teaching that all human beings are equal image-
bearers of God: “The Genesis accounts of creation
introduced into Graeco-Roman culture many (new)
values...for example, the intrinsic worth of every human
being, made in God's image...Aristotle, among others,
would have considered [these ideas] absurd...The idea of
human moral equality flourished among converts to
Christianity, many of whom, especially slaves and women,
were anything but equal under Roman law.12
These ideas inspired The Declaration of
Independence, the feminist crusade for the inclusion of
women with all the men who had been "created equal," and
the abolitionist movement for the inclusion of African-
Americans. Most of us in the West still take for granted the
belief in human equality.
But as Pagels has pointed out, it is important to
understand that there is nothing self-evident about this idea.

24
It is dependent on belief in the Judeo-Christian Creator.
Therefore, when people stop believing in the God who
created all human beings in his image, they lose the
necessary basis for the unique and equal value of all
persons.
Before feminists reject God and his standards in
favor of autonomous freedom for an individual or a group,
they should consider the possible implications of doing that.
For, if I have the right to be my own highest moral
authority, how can I deny that right to anyone else,
including men? Yet men have repeatedly victimized women
in the practice of their autonomous freedom. And, if there is
no higher moral law that both men and women stand under,
then women will always be the most victimized.
Furthermore, in a world without God, where
impersonal nature is the final reality, why shouldn't the one
whom nature has endowed with greater strength use the
weaker to his advantage? This applies directly to men's
abuse of women.
Without belief in God, how do we argue with
Honore de Balzac's view of the sexes? “Pay no attention to
[woman's] murmurs, her cries, her pains; nature has made
her for our use and for bearing everything: children,
sorrows, blows and pains inflicted by man. Do not accuse
yourself of hardness. In all the codes of so-called civilized
nations, man has written the laws that ranged woman's

25
destiny under this bloody epigraph: 'Vae victus! Woe to the
weak!”13
But if the Bible's message is true, then men and
women are not mere products of nature, but children of
God, and subject to God's laws - which, in fact, turn Balzac
upside down. According to biblical ethics, the person with
more power has a special responsibility to serve, care for
and empower the less powerful.
As Western culture has discarded belief in the
Judeo-Christian God, we have lost the most powerful
philosophical-religious base for the feminist belief in the
equal value, dignity and rights of all persons, including
women. Secularism cannot produce an equivalent
foundation. The biblical worldview provides a powerful
moral authority for denouncing sexism, racism and all
injustice as wrong. Rape, incest and violence against women
are always wrong -not because feminists say so, nor because
a majority or the state says so, but because these things
violate God's character and laws.
More than that, human outrage at injustice is not a
freakish quirk in an impersonal and amoral universe. Our
sense of justice points to a God of justice, and at its best
reflects his justice, because we are made in his image. And
there is the promise that one day all will be made right by a
just and merciful Creator. Without such a hope, injustice is
bound to have the final word.

26
3. The Measure of Human Greatness

The rise of First Wave Feminism in the second

half of the nineteenth century represented the revolt of
women against a system that defined service and self-
sacrifice as uniquely feminine responsibilities. In an
understandable reaction to the injustice of that idea, some
feminists have rejected the idea of service as a worthy ideal
for anyone. Instead, one's highest moral obligation is
described in individualistic, narcissistic language. My
empowerment and self-fulfillment matters most, no matter
what the cost to anyone else.
If a self-centered, individualistic definition of
greatness or success is essential to feminism, then it is
incompatible with the Christian faith. For Christians, Jesus
is not only the Savior but also our Lord and the model of
human excellence for men and women. He redefined power
and greatness in terms of service (Mk 10:42-45).
The human capacity and responsibility to love and
empathize with others - as Jesus taught, to "love your
neighbor as yourself" (Mt 22:39) - is rooted in our common
humanity. No matter how diverse we are in terms of gender,
race, class, or anything else, we are still one as human
beings. Therefore, we are capable of the imaginative work
of putting ourselves in each other's shoes.
So we are to love our neighbors; we are to care for

27
the vulnerable; we are to be hospitable, a word that means
“loving the stranger”. Why? Because God loved us in our
need. And because, no matter how different the stranger is,
we are still the same flesh and blood, and we both stand
ultimately in the same place. We are equally recipients of
the undeserved gift of life and equally vulnerable to death.
If I have power, health and wealth today, I may
lose them tomorrow. There is neither condescension nor
codependency in the Bible's ethic of power and service. It is
based on the reality that, ultimately, we are all in the same
boat.
Loving and serving others does not mean being
weak or passive, or always deferring to those in power.
Jesus was no doormat! He confronted injustice and the
abuse of power wherever he saw it, which was mostly in the
patriarchal religious/political establishment. It takes courage
and strength to live a life of service, particularly where
corrupt institutions need reform in order for human caring
and justice to take place.
Florence Nightingale is a model for many feminist
reformers in the nursing profession today. Born in the
nineteenth century into the British upper class, she did not
explicitly identify with the woman's rights movement, but
her life and work embodied a powerful feminist revolt
against the Victorian definition of passive womanhood,
expressed in her famous words, "Why have women passion,

28
intellect, moral activity - these three - and a place in society
where no one of the three can be exercised?"14
She found ways to exercise all three. Her sharp
mind for facts, statistics, documentation, and persuasion was
bonded to her deep compassion for suffering people and a
dogged determination to bring reform. The only way for a
woman in her culture to make large-scale reforms was
through influencing men with political power. And she was
remarkable at it! People in her day spoke with awe of the
Nightingale power. During her ninety years, she wrote over
two hundred books, reports and pamphlets and
accomplished an amazing amount of reform in nursing,
public health, the army and poor houses - in England, India,
the United States and elsewhere.
In an article called “Feminism and Nursing”,
Peggy Chinn and Charlene Wheeler write:

“In her closing note in (Notes on

Nursing) Nightingale cautions her sisters
against doing what men do merely because
men do it, and against doing what women do
merely because it is prescribed for them by
society. She states, "surely woman should
bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the
work of God's world, without attending to
either of these cries." 15

29
 Sojourner Truth is another model of human
excellence. Born into slavery, she came from a background
radically different from Florence Nightingale's. Yet, in their
common determination to serve God and humanity with all
their strength, both model powerful lives of Christian
feminist heroism. The Victorian definition of passive,
leisured womanhood that Nightingale found unbearably
constricting actually disqualified Sojourner Truth from
being a woman at all! In a public address, Truth confronted
the white cultural stereotype:

"That man over there, [who had said

women were the weaker sex], he says women
need to be helped into carriages and lifted
over ditches and to have the best everywhere.
Nobody ever helps me into carriages, over
mud puddles, or gets me any best places.”
And raising herself to her full height, she
asked, "And ain't I a woman?"...
"Look at me!" She bared her right
arm and raised it in the air. The audience
gasped as one voice. Her dark arm was
muscular, made strong by hard work. "I have
ploughed. And I have planted. And I have
gathered into barns..." She paused again and
asked this time in a whisper,

30
 "And ain't I a woman?”
"I have borne children and seen them
sold into slavery, and when I cried out in a
mother's grief, none heard me but Jesus. And
ain't I a woman?"16

Sojourner Truth could not read, but she knew

much of the Bible by heart. She was a powerful preacher,
public speaker and activist for the rights of blacks and
women. Over six feet tall, she bore herself in a way that
commanded respect. She was one of the first African-
American women to win a court case. In fact she won three,
all against whites.
Both Nightingale and Truth were well known in
their lifetimes. But fame is not intrinsic to heroism. Many
anonymous heroes risked their lives to save Jews during the
holocaust, for example. I believe we are drawn to and
inspired by these kind of people, because we intuitively
recognize human excellence - the excellence of God's
image-bearers, reflecting the character of their Maker.

Are Christianity and Feminism Compatible?

However you decide to answer, I hope you are

persuaded that there is a place for fruitful dialogue. Modern
feminism has challenged the church to reevaluate its life and

31
theology of sex and gender. Christians should be deeply
thankful for all the responsible biblical scholarship that has
resulted, reaffirming that the gospel Jesus brought to the
poor, the prisoners, the blind and all who are oppressed is
indeed, good news for women.
Many have experienced the church as bad news for
women. I would invite them to look beyond the failures of
Jesus' followers and examine his life and teachings for
themselves. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, then in him
there are solutions, not only to the legitimate problems
raised by feminists, but to the even deeper human dilemma -
our alienation from our Creator.

32
Endnotes
1
Leonard Swidler, “Jesus Was a Feminist,” quoted in
reprint by Christians for Biblical Equality (112 West Franklin Ave,
Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451), p.1.
2
Annie Gaylor, "Feminist Salvation," The Humanist
July/Aug. 1988, pp. 33-34.
3
Vishal Mangalwadi, When the New Age Gets Old,
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 133
4
Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time in The
Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, (Westchester, Ill.:
Crossway, 1982), 2:65.
5
Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 47
6
Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle
(Minneapolis MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2005). Epp’s book is a
meticulously documented examination of the evidence for Junia
(Romans 16:7) being both a woman and an apostle. See also Aida
Besancon Spencer, Beyond the Curse (New York: Thomas Nelson,
1985) pp.100-102
7
The leadership of L'Abri Fellowship, the organization
with which the author is associated, allows differences of
interpretation and application of these controversial verses among
themselves. The author has expressed her views, which do not
represent any official L'Abri position.
33
 8
Elaine Storkey, What's Right with Feminism? (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 162.
9
For information about Feminists for Life of America
(FFLA), see their web site: <feministsforlife.org>
10
see <godswordtowomen.org/pasch.htm> to learn about
Peace and Safety in the Christian Home (PASCH)
11
bell hooks, Yearnings: Race, Gender and Cultural
Politics (Boston: South End Press, 1990), pp. 75-76.
12
Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve and the Serpent (New York:
Random House, 1989), pp. xix-xx.
13
Honore de Balzac, as quoted by Rosemarie Tong in
Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 1989), p. 206.
14
Quoted by Peggy L. Chinn and Charlene Eldridge
Wheeler in “Feminism and Nursing: Can Nursing Afford to
Remain Aloof from the Women's Movement?” Nursing Outlook
33, (March/April 1985): 77
15
Ibid.
16
Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick Mckissack,
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a Woman? (New York: Scholastic,
1992), quoted from the back cover

34
35
Mardi Keyes holds a B.A. in biblical history from Wellesley
College. In 1979 she and her husband Dick helped start the
Southborough (Massachusetts) branch of L'Abri Fellowship
where they continue to work. She has published numerous
articles and contributed to the book Women and the Future
of the Family with Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Stanley J.
Grenz, and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. She also lectures
widely on gender issues. A number of her lectures are
available at www.labri-ideas-library.org and from Sound
Word Associates at www.soundword.com. The Keyes have
three married sons and six grandchildren.

36