A Year of Biblical Womanhood

A YEAR OF BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD

Back in 2012, Rachel Held Evans’s book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” was released. In this book, she recounted her year-long endeavors, striving to live in compliance with a strict, literal interpretation of biblical passages about a woman’s role in the home, church, and society. Evans’s experiment successfully exposed the fallacy of approaching scripture in such a literal manner and advocated for woman’s equity in the unifying love and justice of Jesus.

As a pastor of a congregation, largely made up of people who have left conservative religious churches (oftentimes after experiencing very painful trauma), one of the things I frequently encounter is a tension between the heart and head of earnest followers of Jesus. Well-meaning people, with hearts that care for others, are deeply troubled by heads full of repetitious narratives from their past that trip them up and threaten their ability to love others with sincerity and authenticity. One of the many expressions of this strain occurs when a person has a heart for gender equity but they are stuck with reverberating biblical interpretations like those enacted by Evans. 

One of the greatest responsibilities of pastors today is to help people unify their heads with their hearts. Loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength necessitates that we devote all of ourselves to the passionate pursuit of a God, who harmonizes and unifies us in divine mercy.

This is why I took the entire year of 2024 to lead our congregation in our own “year of biblical womanhood.” Instead of trying to live in compliance with the surface-level understanding of passages about women, we spent the entire year raising the voices of women in the Bible, history, and our modern era.

From a biblical viewpoint, we examined many of the well-known women of the Bible: Eve, Sarah, Rachel, Miriam, Rahab, Ruth, Esther, Mary (the mother of Jesus), and Mary Magdalene, just to name a few. However, we also explored some lesser-known feminine heroines such as Hagar, Jael, Abigail, Huldah, Anna, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Junia. We considered the possible identities of pharaoh’s daughter as Hatshepsut of Egypt and the Queen of Sheba as Makada of Ethiopia.

As we examined the biblical text, we noted how God used people in virtually every debated role at some point in the Bible. Women served as governmental leaders, judges, and queens. Women served as religious leaders, pastors, prophets, deacons and evangelists. Women served in roles that were counter-cultural and revolutionary in their largely patriarchal societies.

We also took time to walk through some of the passages that are oftentimes used to claim women are obedient to God by being in a subservient role to men.  These included scriptures like: 1 Corinthians 11:1-16, 14:33-40, Ephesians 5:21-33, and 1 Timothy 2:8-15. We wrestled with the text, the culture, the history, and the uniqueness of how the epistles were written to address particular circumstances in specific settings.

In addition to the biblical story, we leaned in to celebrate some of the influential women of history, who likewise were trailblazers against social norms and injustices. People like Joan of Arc, Lily Gladstone, Florence Nightengale, Corrie Ten Boom, Mother Teresa, Recy Taylor, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, and Sally Ride urged us to push beyond the comfortable and into the courageous. Governmental revolutionaries like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Shehla Qureshi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Deb Haaland, and Tammy Duckworth compelled us to envision a world of shared female leadership. Business professionals like Elizabeth Blackwell, Margaret Knight, Coco Chanel, Anna May Wong, Melinda Gates, Jeanne Gang, Tracy Chapman, and Dolly Parton inspired us to see the value of women in every profession. Religious pastors and literary pioneers like Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Maya Angelou, Diana Butler Bass, Sarah Bessey, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Danielle Strickland, Barbara Brown Taylor, Jacqui Lewis, Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker, Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle called us to champion the voice of women in religious spaces.

As our year of biblical womanhood comes to a close, some central themes propel us into the new year:

1. Biblical interpretation is complex and necessitates a deep study of the setting, culture, and language of its origin. Oftentimes a casual reading through modern Western eyes fails to capture the original meaning of biblical texts. This is especially true of books of the Bible that address a specific context, such as the New Testament epistles. While we cannot fully discern what all may have occurred at a particular time, we can set the writing in the specific nuances of the religious, political, and social norms of the cultural setting and use them as parameters in our interpretation. We are also wise to lean into the linguistic tools readily available to us that help us discern the best corollary to our present-day language and colloquialisms.

2. Even in the 21^st century American culture, recognizable gender disparities exist and are perpetuated in the home, church and society. There is a vast difference between the Bible describing what was happening and prescribing what should always happen. While the biblical instruction intends to move humanity toward kingdom values, it never does so in a vacuum. Thus, we should embrace the trajectory towards an all-inclusive society based on mercy, justice, and equality. Specific instructions to women and wives about the proper way to relate to men in the home, church, and society should be viewed as an evolution towards mutual respect and shared leadership rather than a compartmentalization of what is appropriate for one gender over the other.

3. Patriarchal dominion is a powerful machine that funnels into many other oppressions and injustices. Throughout human history and within many cultures, men have used gender as a means to control, manipulate, and rule over women. This hunger for power oftentimes leads to the abuse of it and of the women around them. It is not coincidental that in spaces where male “headship” is touted that sexual scandal and abuse are oftentimes fostered and hidden. Additionally, patriarchy opens the gate for other forms of prejudice (racism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, etc.) and runs deep in the undercurrent of Christian Nationalism.

4. Advocacy for equity and justice for women and other marginalized populations is costly and dangerous. For many progressive followers of Jesus, the concept of gender equity is desirable. Yet, the dangers are real. Those who find themselves in marriages, families, congregations, and communities where misogyny reigns, speaking out for themselves or other women is a real danger. The threat of loss of employment, health-care, financial security, relationships and safety are realistic concerns. These realities should not be minimized or overlooked. Advocates for equality need to walk alongside those in abusive contexts and, when ready, support them in seeking guidance and assistance out of domestic violence.

5. The kingdom of God remains at hand and compels us to work towards a time when all have equal opportunity and shared benefits. Following John, Jesus emphasized a central message: “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). The acceptance, equality and fairness of all people is crucial in the coming fulfillment of the kingdom of God. The values Jesus taught and modeled are the essence of what we prioritize and how we should best live. Churches that emphasize, teach and lead in the cause of gender equity embody the nature of Jesus in our modern world. Decentralizing the systems of oppression against women, especially those based on an over-simplified misreading of the biblical text, is an ongoing urgency to empower women to serve God fully and unequivocally.

Dr. Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, led the charge to call people to submit their prayers of solidarity for women, which were read by Stone and her staff outside of this past summer’s SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dr. Stone began the prayer collective with her own prayer, “God of all people, may Baptist women who have been limited in how they can minister find unlimited Spirit empowerment to follow their callings.”

As we join in the movement to advocate for women, may the coming year be the “year of biblical womanhood.” Rather than reading scripture through the lens of oppression, may we denounce all systems of despotism, applauding women who seek to serve God and fulfill their calling in the home, church and society.  With one harmonious voice, may women and men arise together with the saints of old and collectively say, “Here am I. Send me!”

God, hear our prayers!