08 Christianity A GENERAL FACTS Origins As with Buddhism, Christianity can be traced back to the life of its founder. In this case that is Jesus of Nazareth (c. 5BCE – 30CE). It may seem strange that historians estimate that Jesus was born several years “before Christ” but that is the result of a small error when the Roman system was converted to the new BC/AD Christian system in the 6th Century. Jesus was born into a Jewish family and was thoroughly Jewish in background and worldview. Thus, many consider Judaism as the mother religion of Christianity in the same way that Hinduism is the mother religion of Buddhism. We know very little of his early years except for stories about his conception and birth at the start of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Both writers agree that he was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth; and that his biological mother was Mary but that he had no human father. Otherwise they provide very different perspectives on the Christmas story. For example, Luke focuses on Mary and mentions angelic appearances to her as well as the shepherds in the fields. In contrast, Matthew focuses on her husband, Joseph, his dreams, as well as the star, the wise men and King Herod’s attempts to kill the child. Jesus was probably a tradesman like his ‘father’, Joseph, but something happened in his early thirties that changed the direction of his life, much like the four sights that Gautama experienced. All gospels agree that it occurred at the Jordan River where a prophet-like character named John was inviting his fellow Jews to immerse themselves in the waters and renew their Jewish faith. Jesus was among the crowds but, unlike the others, we are told that he experienced an epiphany when he was baptised by John. The voice of God declared him to be “my beloved Son” and a dovelike image hovered above him, representing God’s Spirit. It is one of the rare occasions in the gospels that the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity are mentioned together (Father, Son and Spirit). As a result, Jesus relinquished his trade and took up an itinerant lifestyle as a religious teacher and healer, moving from town to town throughout Israel (and rarely beyond). He taught in synagogues and in public places, attracting crowds, not only because of his message but also because of his reputation as a miraculous healer. The gospels mention cures of all types of illnesses as well as control over natural forces. In this respect he was not unique in Jewish history. For instance, Moses was said to have worked miracles in Egypt and in the desert; and the 9th century BCE prophets Elijah and Elisha also had wondrous powers. Indeed, many of Jesus’ miracles resemble those of Elijah and Elisha. Scholars generally agree that the key theme linking his teaching and healings is the ‘Kingdom of God’, which is not so much a place or territory but a new relationship between Jewish people and their God. According to Jesus, God is a gracious and loving father in whose King.

1. 08 Christianity A
GENERAL FACTS
Origins
As with Buddhism, Christianity can be traced back to the life of
its founder. In this case that is Jesus of Nazareth (c. 5BCE –
30CE). It may seem strange that historians estimate that Jesus
was born several years “before Christ” but that is the result of a
small error when the Roman system was converted to the new
BC/AD Christian system in the 6th Century. Jesus was born into
a Jewish family and was thoroughly Jewish in background and
worldview. Thus, many consider Judaism as the mother religion
of Christianity in the same way that Hinduism is the mother
religion of Buddhism. We know very little of his early years
except for stories about his conception and birth at the start of
the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Both writers agree that he
was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth; and that his
biological mother was Mary but that he had no human father.
Otherwise they provide very different perspectives on the
Christmas story. For example, Luke focuses on Mary and
mentions angelic appearances to her as well as the shepherds in
the fields. In contrast, Matthew focuses on her husband, Joseph,
his dreams, as well as the star, the wise men and King Herod’s
attempts to kill the child.
Jesus was probably a tradesman like his ‘father’, Joseph, but
something happened in his early thirties that changed the
direction of his life, much like the four sights that Gautama
experienced. All gospels agree that it occurred at the Jordan
River where a prophet-like character named John was inviting
his fellow Jews to immerse themselves in the waters and renew

2. their Jewish faith. Jesus was among the crowds but, unlike the
others, we are told that he experienced an epiphany when he
was baptised by John. The voice of God declared him to be “my
beloved Son” and a dovelike image hovered above him,
representing God’s Spirit. It is one of the rare occasions in the
gospels that the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity are mentioned
together (Father, Son and Spirit). As a result, Jesus relinquished
his trade and took up an itinerant lifestyle as a religious teacher
and healer, moving from town to town throughout Israel (and
rarely beyond). He taught in synagogues and in public places,
attracting crowds, not only because of his message but also
because of his reputation as a miraculous healer. The gospels
mention cures of all types of illnesses as well as control over
natural forces. In this respect he was not unique in Jewish
history. For instance, Moses was said to have worked miracles
in Egypt and in the desert; and the 9th century BCE prophets
Elijah and Elisha also had wondrous powers. Indeed, many of
Jesus’ miracles resemble those of Elijah and Elisha.
Scholars generally agree that the key theme linking his teaching
and healings is the ‘Kingdom of God’, which is not so much a
place or territory but a new relationship between Jewish people
and their God. According to Jesus, God is a gracious and loving
father in whose Kingdom repentant sinners are very welcome,
but where the self-righteous and arrogant have no place. Many
of his parables make this point and he began to attract followers
as a result. He invited some of these to join him on the road,
while others remained in their homes and offered hospitality
and support in a more general way. He also began to create
enemies, especially among the religious and political leadership
who saw him as a potential threat, especially given that talk
about a Kingdom suggested that Jesus thought of himself as a
sort of King (messiah in Hebrew; christos in Greek). Sadly,
after just two or three years in the public eye, he was betrayed
by a member of his inner circle, arrested and put on trial. The
gospels claim that there was initially a religious hearing by the

3. Jewish Sanhedrin (the principal court of Jewish leaders in
Jerusalem) who condemned Jesus as a false messiah. He was
then taken to the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced
him to death by crucifixion. The gospels suggest that Pilate’s
hand was forced by the Jewish leadership but history remembers
Pilate as a brutal ruler who readily put down any form of
insurrection or threat to the civil order.
Jesus was crucified on a Friday and hurriedly buried before
sunset to avoid breaking the Sabbath laws. In contrast to the
calm death of Buddha Gautama at a ripe old age surrounded by
his disciples, Jesus’ demise was bloody, premature and lonely,
as most of his followers deserted him in fear. That might have
been the end of the story since his movement was in profound
crisis as a result, but the gospels claim that two events occurred
within days of his burial. First, some of his female followers
found his tomb open and empty on the Sunday morning (the
“first day of the week”). Second, his followers began to report
that Jesus had appeared to them in a glorious, yet bodily, form
although he was not recognisable at first, except for the marks
of crucifixion. These two elements combined to generate the
kernel of a new faith that eventually became Christianity:
namely that Jesus had been “raised from the dead”. Resurrection
was not a Christian invention as it was already part of the
Jewish tradition (the Pharisee party believed that it would
happen at the end of the world). What was unique was that one
man had been raised and the world did not end. This set Jesus
apart from all other figures of Israel’s past and eventually led to
the Christian claim that, not only was he the long-awaited
messiah (christos) - hence his title Jesus “Christ” – but, more
importantly, that he was somehow divine as well as human: an
incarnation of the one God.
Jesus’ baptism Jesus teaching Jesus’ death

4. Main Subdivisions
Two thousand years later Christianity is the largest religion in
the world with about 2.3 billion members. Like most religions,
it has not remained unified and homogeneous in that time.
Basically, it can be subdivided into three main branches, which
are the results of two splits: the first occurred in 1054 when
Eastern Christianity (centred on Constantinople) and Western
Christianity (centred on Rome) separated. The second split
occurred in Western Christianity in the 16th Century when the
Protestant Reformers broke from the Catholic Church.
a. Eastern Orthodox Churches
Eastern Christianity (sometimes called Greek Christianity)
consists of many national/linguistic based churches such as the
Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox Church, the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and
so on. Most Orthodox Christians live in Eastern Europe and the
Middle East (e.g. Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Armenia etc.) and
many of them look to the Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul)
as their symbolic leader or figurehead (he has no jurisdictional
power). The current Patriarch, Bartholomew I, has been in that
role since 1991. Orthodox Christianity is probably the most
conservative form and, thus, loyalty to tradition is paramount
and change comes slowly.
Bartholomew I
Patriarch of Constantinople
b. Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is the largest denomination of Christians
and is very much centred on the bishop of Rome (the pope) who

5. has real and extensive jurisdictional power. Most Catholics live
in southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France plus other
countries such as Poland and Ireland) and Latin America (from
Mexico to Argentina). The current pope, Francis, is from
Argentina and is the first non-European pope for 1300 years.
Needless to say, papal teachings (past and present) are very
important in Catholicism.
Pope Francis
c. Protestant Churches
The 16th Century saw many groups separate from Rome “in
protest”, hence the umbrella term “Protestant” is often used to
contrast them to “Catholic”. Many prefer to call themselves
“Reform” since the intention was to clean up the church and
return to the original ideals of New Testament period. Martin
Luther is considered to be the first to break formally with Rome
and those who follow his brand of Christianity are known as
Lutherans. But other Protestant leaders shaped their own
versions of Christianity such as Presbyterians, Anglicans,
Baptists, Evangelicals and so on. There are over 20,000
different Protestant churches and, thus, there is quite a bit of
diversity: from churches with bishops (eg. Anglicans) to
churches with no clergy at all (eg. Quakers). Most Protestant
Christians live in Northern Europe (Britain, Germany, Holland,
Scandinavia) and in former British colonies such as the USA,
Canada and Australia. One common element among them is
their emphasis on scripture (the bible) as the ultimate source of
authority, rather than “tradition” (usually meaning the teachings
of popes and councils of bishops).
Key Texts
The Christian Bible consists of two main sections: Old

6. Testament and New Testament. The former is actually the
Tanach (the Hebrew bible) but with the books arranged in a
slightly different order. This is a remarkable overlap between
two world religions. It means that the same texts are being read
in a synagogue on Saturday and a church on Sunday – but each
congregation is reading them through the lens of their own
Jewish or Christian faith. Christians call it the “Old Testament”
because they believe it is a preamble or preparation for what
comes in the New Testament. Thus, Old Testament (Tanach)
passages still carry great weight in Christianity since they are
“scriptural”, even though Christianity does not think that all
Old Testament laws still apply (only some).
The New Testament is a collection of 27 books all authored by
various Christians (not Jesus) in the first century CE. Most of
those books are either gospels or letters. The term ‘gospel’
literally means “good news” but essentially it is a short (partial)
biography of Jesus, written to demonstrate his importance to the
believer. Many gospels were written but only four were
included in the canon: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first
three are very similar in terms of content and order of events.
As a result, they are called the Synoptic Gospels. Most scholars
believe that Mark was the first gospel to be written (around
60CE) since his version is the shortest. It seems that Matthew
and Luke copied Mark and added material from a hypothetical
collection of Jesus’ teachings known as the “Q Source” (from
the German word “quelle” which means source), shaping their
own versions a few decades later. Incidentally, Luke also wrote
a “second volume” called Acts of the Apostles, which narrates
the story of the early Christian community, focussing mainly on
Peter and Paul.
The fourth gospel, John, is the ‘odd man out’ not only in terms
of the contents and order of events, but also in regard to the

7. portrait of Jesus that it presents. Whereas the Synoptics paint a
very human Jesus who speaks mainly about the Kingdom of
God, John presents a distinctly divine Jesus who speaks mainly
about his true identity and his special relationship to the Father.
The Four Gospel writers
symbolised by a man, lion, ox and eagle
Apart from the gospels, there are also 21 letters (“epistles”) in
the New Testament. Thirteen of these are ascribed to Paul: a
zealous Jew and enemy of Christianity who experienced a
radical conversion and became one of the great ambassadors of
the new faith. He never met Jesus during his life and, indeed,
Paul’s letters say little about Jesus’ public ministry,
concentrating mainly on his death and resurrection. The
inclusion of so many of Paul’s letters means that his influence
is profound and some historians argue that you really have to
say that Christianity was founded by both Jesus and Paul. Many
biblical scholars think that Paul only wrote some of the letters
ascribed to him in the New Testament; the others were possibly
written in his name by his disciples or associates. There are
other letters included in the canon which bear the names of
members of the Twelve (Jesus’ closest associates): John, Peter,
James and Jude. Again, it is debated whether the Aramaic
speaking disciples of Jesus actually wrote these Greek texts or
whether they were written later in their name and with the
stamp of their authority in the communities in which they lived.
Key Periods
There are many ways to divide up the two thousand years of
Christian history but for the purposes of this course we will use
five major periods. In particular we will be looking for
prevalent attitudes and practices concerning the role of women
in each period.

8. a. New Testament (30-130CE)
The earliest period of Christianity corresponds to that time
during which the books of the New Testament were being
composed. For convenience sake we are taking the first hundred
years after the death of Jesus, which covers most of the 1st
Century and the early 2nd Century CE. At this early stage,
Christianity was still being worked out in practice and the
situation was very fluid and diverse. Christians were a tiny
minority in the Empire and those of Jewish background still
prayed in synagogues on the Sabbath (Saturday). There were no
public churches yet and Christians gathered in private homes
(often owned by wealthy women) for their services. There were
also no set guides for ritual, and worship services tended to be
spontaneous and charismatic, with Spirit inspired activities such
as “prophesying” and “speaking in tongues.” Today’s
Pentecostal and Charismatic movements are attempts to return
to that form of prayer meeting. Church authority was also very
inchoate; the roles of bishop, priest and deacon were not yet
defined and other roles existed as well. We will need to
investigate what the New Testament authors actually say about
women in general, their appropriate roles at home and in the
church, and whether the picture that we gain is consistent or
not.
St Paul: was he really a misogynist?
b. The Patristic Period (130-800CE)
This refers to the long period extending from the end of New
Testament times to the beginning of the Middle Ages. The term
“Patristic” can be translated as “Fathers” and it reflects the fact
that the most influential thinkers and writers in Christianity
were men: male bishops to be exact. They either wrote on an

9. individual basis or they gathered in “councils” and issued
statements and decrees. Many of them have been canonised as
saints in mainstream Christianity (both East and West). For
example, one of the most famous and influential Fathers of
Western Christianity was Saint Augustine, who developed key
ideas about God as a Trinity as well as the “original sin” of
Adam and Eve and the way it affects all humans. What is
interesting is that Augustine and many of his fellow Fathers
were quite happy to use the ideas of the ‘in vogue’ Greek
philosopher, Plato, to shape their views of Christianity. We will
need to examine why there are no Mothers of the Church, and
what the Fathers say about the first woman, women in general,
and the roles that women should play in the emerging
organizational structures of Christianity.
Augustine: What did he say about Eve and women in general?
c. The Medieval Period (800-1500CE)
This also covers a long period from the end of the Patristic
times to the break-up of the Western Church in the 16th
Century. The key difference between the Patristic and medieval
periods is that the key theologians who were thinking and
writing about Christianity were no longer bishops but academic
professors. They taught theology in schools and colleges and,
hence, their style of theology was called “scholastic”. This was
the age in which theology was “queen of the sciences” and one
of the most famous theologians was Thomas Aquinas who lived
in the 13th Century. Just as Augustine had used Plato for his
theology, Aquinas turned to the recently rediscovered works of
that other great ancient Greek thinker, Aristotle. It was also the
time when the Eastern and Western churches separated and the
authority of the Pope (both religious and political) increased
dramatically in the West. One of the key developments in this
period was the establishment of large, influential orders of nuns

10. out of which emerged some outstanding individual women.
Thomas Aquinas: How did Aristotle influence his thinking on
women?
d. The Protestant Reformation (1500-1800CE)
As stated above, Western Christianity suffered major
fragmentation in the 16th Century, when groups of Christians
began to break away from the authority of the Pope and
establish their own versions of the faith. The first figure to do
so was the German monk and professor, Martin Luther, after
whom the Lutheran branch of Christianity is named. He was
quickly followed by others: John Calvin who established the
Reformed Churches; the theological advisors of Henry VIII who
established the Anglican tradition; as well as Baptists,
Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and
so on. With so many different forms of Christianity appearing,
it is no wonder that there is a corresponding variety of
structures. Some Protestant churches kept bishops and priests as
roles of authority (e.g. Lutherans and Anglicans); others
preferred a body of elected elders (Reformed or Presbyterian);
others preferred complete autonomy for local churches that were
run by their own congregations. We will need to investigate
whether or not these new forms of church organization gave
women greater access to positions of authority.
Martin Luther:
Did he and his fellow Reformers rethink women’s roles in the
church?
e. The Modern Period (1800-now)

11. The fifth phase in the story of Christianity is marked by the
massive impact felt by the Scientific Revolution, otherwise
known as “The Enlightenment”. It is often called the Age of
Reason in contrast to the preceding Age of Faith; the transition
from an essentially religious view of reality to a scientific view.
As the famous poem by Alexander Pope stated:
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hidden by night
God said “Let Newton be”; and all was light.
The new scientific knowledge often sat uneasily with, or even
flatly contradicted, traditional religious interpretations, and
names such as Galileo and Darwin immediately spring to mind.
Many of these issues have been worked out as theology and
biblical studies adapted the insights of science to redefine
Christian belief, although there are still smouldering fires such
as the issue of Creationism.
One of the key principles of the Enlightenment was the idea of
human equality: an idea famously enshrined in the second
sentence of the 1776 United States Declaration of
Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.
Looking back now, we might ask: what did it mean by “men”?
· Did it mean “(white) men”?
· Did it mean “men (not women)”?
· Did it mean “(heterosexual) men”?
· Did it mean “(adult) men”? and so on....
Indeed, despite the noble Enlightenment principle of human
equality, history shows that its full implications are still being

12. worked out today in many contexts. But the principle of
equality did start social movements that sought to overcome
discrimination based on race, sex, sexual preference and age.
This is the context for the rise of Christian feminism: when
Christians (women and men) began to examine the Christian
tradition and measure it against the ideal that men and women
are “created equal”. We will need to see how that played out in
the 19th and 20th Centuries, and into today’s world.
Feminist theologian: Rosemary Reuther
How do she and her fellow theologians argue for women’s
equality?
THE GENDER OF GOD
Because Christianity incorporated the entire Jewish bible into
its own canon, renaming it the Old Testament, it inherited much
from its mother religion regarding the nature of God. Thus, on
one hand, it agreed with Judaism that there is only one Creator
God and that this Creator God is a transcendent being, beyond
anything in creation itself. Thus, it shares with Judaism the idea
that God has no physical body and, hence, no biological sex. In
terms of God’s “gender” (namely whether God has masculine or
feminine traits), it also inherited the dominant images of the
Old Testament, which were masculine, although it also accepts
as valid the (fewer) feminine images of God found there as
well.
Father
On the other hand, it also developed its own distinctive ideas
about God as a result of Jesus and the New Testament writings.
A critical ingredient in the ‘new’ Christian thinking about God

13. was Jesus’ own preferred metaphor: “Father”. The Greek word
“pater” appears over 20 times in the Q Source (the teachings of
Jesus found in Matthew and Luke) and over 100 times in the
gospel of John. The original Aramaic term (the language
actually spoken by Jesus) was probably “abba”, which is less
formal and more endearing – probably best translated as “dad”.
Most of the time, Jesus distinguished himself from his audience
by using the phrases “my heavenly Father” and “your heavenly
Father”. On the one occasion he used the plural “our Father” it
was given as an example for his followers to use when they pray
as a group.
The teachings of Jesus overwhelmingly portray God as a kind,
forgiving father who is willing to welcome back his stray
children with open arms. So, the question arises whether the
gospels contain any feminine imagery for God, as the Old
Testament does; and the answer is: “very little”. In fact, there is
only one explicit occasion in Luke where Jesus compares God
seeking a sinner to a thrifty housewife frantically seeking a lost
coin.
What woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them,
does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully
until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her
friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have
found the coin that I had lost”. Just so, I tell you, there is joy in
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
(Lk 15:8-10)
This story sits between similar stories of a shepherd seeking a
lost sheep and the famous parable of the “Prodigal Son”, which
tells of a father waiting for the return of his wayward boy.

14. Commentators sometimes add another saying that refers to a
mother hen gathering in her chicks:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those
who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and you would not! (Matt 23:37; Lk 13:34)
However, Jesus is speaking of himself here rather than his
Father.
In John’s gospel most of the references are to both the Father
and the Son (identified as Jesus). The addition of the Holy
Spirit led to the distinctively Christian idea that God is one and
three at the same time: a “tri-unity” or “Trinity” consisting of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The heavily masculine language used in the gospels has
influenced Christian art. Although the Orthodox and Protestant
churches avoid images of God the Father, the Catholic tradition
has allowed artists to paint the first person of the Trinity in the
shape of an older human male, typically with a white beard (a
sort of grandfatherly figure).
A Catholic painting of the Trinity
Moreover, Christian language follows the usual grammar rules
and, thus, the noun “Father” naturally demands masculine
pronouns (he, him, his) for God, further emphasising the
masculine, rather than the feminine. While accepting the reality
that “Father” is the dominant metaphor for God in Jesus’
teaching, nevertheless Christian feminists call for greater
balance and usually request inclusive language, i.e. using the
word “God” instead of “he”, “him” or “his” whenever possible.
Incarnate Son
It is not only the dominant “Father” metaphor that profoundly

15. influences the way Christians think of and speak about God. A
second, central element of Christian faith further reinforces the
sense that divinity is masculine. This is the notion that Jesus of
Nazareth is an incarnation of God. We met this idea in
Hinduism where it is believed that Vishnu comes down to earth
in animal or human form on a number of occasions to save the
world. These are the avatars of Vishnu and the traditional list
has 10 names, including Rama and Krishna (7th and 8th).
Christianity also believes that God has “descended” to earth in
worldly form in order to save humanity, but the key difference
is that, for Christians, this occurs only once in all of history.
So, Jesus is the one unique incarnation of God in human form
for all time. Moreover, Christianity professes that this
incarnation was not temporary. Jesus did not rise from the dead
and shed his humanity, returning to his former purely divine
status as eternal Son. Mainstream Christianity claims that the
incarnation is a permanent state. God has taken on a human
form forever, thus linking divinity and humanity in a most
profound sense. Needless to say, this raises some real
difficulties for the Christian feminist. The fact that there is only
one divine incarnation, but that there are two human sexes,
means that God had to choose one sex and the choice was male.
The traditional explanation is that God became “human/male” in
order to save all persons: men and women. Moreover, it is
argued that God had to become a man given the cultural and
social norms of the day. In other words, if he had become a
woman in first century Palestine no-one would have taken him
seriously. Of course, that raises the next question “why that
particular time in history”?
Byzantine icon of the male Christ
For some thinkers, the fact that God has a resurrected male
body and has experienced human life in male form, implies that
he is “closer” or more intimately linked to maleness than

16. femaleness, forever. Paul called Jesus “the image of the
invisible God” (Col 1:15) and that image is a human, male face.
The implications for Christian language and art are less
ambiguous than the Father (who is not incarnate). Jesus is
naturally referred to as “he” and is naturally depicted as a
human male, usually with long hair and beard (especially since
the Byzantine era where beards symbolised masculine strength).
The Holy Spirit
So, the dominant “Father” image in Jesus’ teaching and the
Christian belief that (the male) Jesus is the unique incarnation
of God in history, reinforce the masculinity of God to a degree
greater than in Hinduism, Judaism and (as we shall see) Islam.
But what about the third ‘person’ of the Christian Trinity: the
Holy Spirit?
The fact that the Spirit is usually depicted in Christian art as a
dove is based on the gospel episode of Jesus’ baptism in the
Jordan. All four gospels state that the Spirit descended on Jesus
“like a dove” (Mark 1:11; Luke adds “in bodily form” - Luke
3:22). This is somewhat reminiscent of the animal avatars of
Vishnu, but Christianity makes no claim that the Spirit is
incarnate, least of all as a small bird. In fact, the dominant
images of the Spirit in both the Old and New Testaments are
more ethereal: wind, breath, fire. In other words, there is less
connection with human masculinity and more with neuter,
natural forces.
Images of the Holy Spirit: dove and fire-wind
Indeed, the gender of the nouns used for Spirit in different
languages is interesting. In Latin “spiritus” is a masculine noun
and it is not uncommon for Christians to refer to the Spirit as a

17. “he”. In Greek the word is “pneuma” (from which we derive
pneumonia and pneumatic tyres – suggesting air) and it is a
neuter noun. Thus, Christians also use the pronoun “it” when
speaking of the Spirit. However, in the original Hebrew, as we
noted earlier, the word is “ruah” and this is a feminine noun.
Thus, feminists argue that there is as much justification to refer
to the Spirit as “she” as there is to use “he” or “it”.
It is worth noting that in Gnostic Christianity (an early form of
Christianity that was rejected as heretical) the Spirit was
depicted as Mother alongside the Father and Son, creating a sort
of divine family. Some also point out that the “we” used by God
in the Genesis 1 creation account can be interpreted as the
masculine-feminine balance within God (Father-Mother) who
creates humankind “male and female, in OUR likeness”
(Genesis 1:26).
The Cult of Mary
Some think that the dominance of masculine imagery for the
Christian God (Father, Son and Spirit) was the reason that
Christians looked elsewhere within their religion for feminine
forms of divinity, much like the ancient Israelites turned to
Astarte and Hindus turn to the Mother Goddess. Given that
Jesus had no wife or daughters, the person in whom they found
divine maternity, to balance the divine paternity, was naturally
his mother: Mary (Miriam in the original Aramaic).
The portrait of Mary varies quite significantly across the four
gospels. In Mark and Matthew, she plays only a very minor role
and is possibly included among his relatives who thought Jesus
was “out of his mind” and needed to be restrained in some way.
In response Jesus seems to disown his own kin, calling his
disciples his ‘true’ family (Mark 3:21, 31-35). In contrast, Luke
depicts Mary as a key person in God’s plan. The angel Gabriel

18. greets her as “highly favoured” (traditionally “full of grace”);
she ponders carefully what God is doing in her life; and she is
mentioned with the Twelve in Jerusalem after Jesus’
resurrection. Similarly, John gives Mary two key appearances at
the start and end of his gospel. The first is when Jesus works his
first public miracle (turning water into wine at the wedding at
Cana), precisely as a result of her request. The second is at the
foot of the cross where a dying Jesus gives her to his favourite
(unnamed) disciple to be in a mother-son relationship.
Gabriel appears to Mary (Luke) Mary at the foot of the
cross (John)
Her apotheosis continued after the New Testament period,
especially in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions (Protestants
have always been worried about elevating saints to the same
level as Christ). At the Council of Ephesus in 431CE, Mary was
officially proclaimed “Mother of God” (literally
“Theotokos” or God-bearer). Although this was actually a way
of confirming that her son was both divine and human, the
effect was to elevate her to a quasi-divine status in popular
thinking.
Prayers and devotion to Mary grew over the centuries as
Christians preferred her feminine compassion to the masculine
sternness of Christ and the mysterious remoteness of the Father.
She was considered a mediatrix and intercessor alongside her
son. Indeed, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment aptly captures these
sentiments; Christ stands in the centre as dispenser of divine
justice while Mary pleads with him for clemency upon the
world’s sinners.
Mary as Theotokos Michelangelo’s Last Judgment

19. The Catholic rosary was one of the most popular prayer forms
and its main unit was the “Hail Mary” (“Ave Maria” in Latin).
There were feast days for her on the calendar and claims of
apparitions of Mary to children in Lourdes (1858), Fatima
(1917) and Medjurgorie (1980s). A famous hymn sung for
centuries reflects this need for a maternal celestial being:
19
Hail, Queen of heaven, the ocean star,
Guide of the wanderer here below,
Thrown on life's surge, we claim thy care,
Save us from peril and from woe.
Mother of Christ, Star of the sea
Pray for the wanderer, pray for me.
O gentle, chaste, and spotless Maid,
We sinners make our prayers through thee;
Remind thy Son that He has paid
The price of our iniquity.
Virgin most pure, Star of the sea,
Pray for the sinner, pray for me.
Orthodox and Catholic Christians believe that her body was
taken to heaven in a way similar to her son, although it is called
her Assumption rather than her Ascension. This was declared a
dogma of the Catholic Church in 1950. A century earlier, in
1854, the Catholic Church also declared that she was conceived
without original sin and given the title “Immaculate
Conception”. This term is often erroneously used to refer to the
claim that Jesus was conceived without a human father;
technically that is called the “virginal conception” of Jesus.
Today, feminists appreciate the need for Christians to

20. rediscover the softer, maternal side of God, but they recommend
that these need to be traits of the Christian God who is not just
Father but also Mother. Moreover, elevated ideas about Mary
need to be toned down and the historical, human Miriam of
Nazareth needs to be rediscovered as a down-to-earth realistic
model for women.
JESUS AND WOMEN
Given the importance of the founder in any religious tradition,
we now need to look at Jesus’ teachings and practice in terms of
women. We have already seen how Buddha Gautama admitted
women into the monastic life despite his initial reluctance. So,
what were Jesus’ attitudes to women and how did he relate to
the actual women in his life?
A celibate Jesus
The first thing we need to note is that the Christian tradition
believes that Jesus never married. There have been claims down
through the ages that Jesus did have a wife, and possibly
children, the most recent example being Dan Brown’s novel,
The Da Vinci Code. The most common hypothesis (adopted by
Brown also) is that Jesus married Mary Magdalene or at least
had a special affection for her (see also the musical Jesus Christ
Superstar). This idea is based on a few verses in later Gnostic
gospels, where Mary Magdalene is portrayed as the foremost of
Christ’s disciples, even greater than Peter. In particular, one
verse from the Gospel of Philip states:
And the companion of [the saviour was Mar]y Ma[gda]lene.
[Christ loved] M[ary] more than [all] the disci[ples, and used
to] kiss her [often] on her [mouth].
The text is badly fragmented with many missing characters [see

21. brackets] and goes on to portray Mary Magdalene as “barren”
and “angelic”. So, it is difficult to know whether these later
writings, which elevate Mary Magdalene as the premier disciple
in a rather Platonic sense, point to an actual historical
relationship with Jesus before his death.
Apart from these verses, there is no reference anywhere else
that Jesus had a wife. If the mainstream tradition is correct and
Jesus was celibate, then it would have been a rather unusual
state for a man of his age, especially one who was a religious
leader or rabbi. There were Jewish groups that practised
celibacy, the best known of which was the Qumran community
that lived on the shores of the Dead Sea. Their writings were
rediscovered in the 1940s and are famously known as the Dead
Sea Scrolls. Their celibacy seems to have been a deliberate
choice based on their belief that the world was coming to an
end. Many early Christians, including St Paul, also chose a
celibate lifestyle since they were convinced that the end was
nigh. This may also have been a major factor in Jesus’ decision
and he gives a hint of this in one of his sayings:
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there
are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there
are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of
the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.
(Matthew 19:12)
In other words, for Jesus it seems that the imminent, yet
mysterious, Kingdom took priority over all things, including
spouse and children. This echoes the decision of Gautama to
leave his family for the higher spiritual road of celibacy and
indeed for much of Christian history the life of a celibate monk,
nun or priest was seen as a more powerful imitation of the
founder and an anticipation of heaven. However, unlike

22. Buddhism, Christian marriage was still seen as a holy
institution. In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, marriage is
listed as one of the seven sacraments (special rituals that
allegedly were established by Jesus). St Paul even adapted
Hosea’s analogy of marriage from Israel as God’s bride to the
Church as Christ’s bride (see Ephesians 5). Moreover,
Christianity sees children – sons and daughters - as a blessing
from God, not a shackle holding one back from heaven. In fact,
for many churches today, a Christian couple must declare that
they are at least open to having children for the marriage to be
valid.
Jesus’ teachings
Perhaps not surprisingly, we do not find an explicit policy on
women’s rights in the teachings of Jesus, but scholars note that
his key idea of the Kingdom had certain implications for
women. The Kingdom of God, as described by Jesus, is a state
in which a merciful God welcomes home those who are
marginalized by society. The God of Jesus does not keep a strict
account of wrongdoings but, rather, forgives and forgets,
perhaps too easily for some. One of Jesus’ sayings, addressed
precisely to the self-righteous religious leaders, captures this
dangerous, unsettling idea: “Tax collectors and prostitutes are
entering before you.” (Matt 21:31). Feminist Christians often
note that not only prostitutes but women in general would have
welcomed such a message since most women would have found
themselves marginalized and victimized by the socio-religious
culture of the day.
A specific issue brings out the point more clearly. When asked
for his opinion on divorce, Jesus took a surprisingly firm
position. Quoting both Genesis creation stories, he stated:
Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning

23. “made them male and female”, and said, “For this reason a man
shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and
the two shall become one flesh”? So, they are no longer two,
but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no
one separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command
us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’ He said
to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses
allowed you to divorce your wives, but at the beginning it was
not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for
unchastity, and marries another commits adultery. (Mark 10:2-
12).
Jesus’ answer seems unusually strict given his liberal attitude to
many traditional laws and regulations. However, scholars point
out that such a stance would have favoured the wife since,
according to the Law of Moses, she had no right to initiate
divorce, whereas her husband could dispense with her by simply
writing up a divorce notice for which no grounds were required.
He also seems to be revising the one-sided Torah definition of
adultery by stating that it applies to the husband as much as the
wife.
Despite Jesus’ firm teaching, most churches today accept the
reality of marriage breakdown and allow divorce and remarriage
for pastoral reasons. In general, either party may initiate the
proceedings and, thus, it is not really a gender issue in
Christianity. The Orthodox tradition permits remarriage a
second and even a third time, but it is no longer considered a
sacrament and the ceremony is more restrained. The Protestant
tradition likewise stresses the ideal of permanence but allows
for divorce and remarriage within the Church. Even the Catholic
Church, which is strictest in its interpretation of the permanence
of marriage, has developed a process of “annulment” whereby a
Catholic may remarry within the Church if it can be established
that an element was lacking in the original marriage that
prevented it from being considered a sacrament: for example,

24. psychological maturity or the willingness to have children.
Otherwise, Catholics who remarry “outside the Church” may not
participate in Holy Communion until the situation is rectified.
Jesus’ actions
If Jesus’ attitude and teachings were favourable to women in
theory, how did he treat them in practice? The common
response to this question is to cite four episodes in the gospels
that seem to indicate that Jesus did practice what he preached.
The first incident is related in John 4, where Jesus has a long
conversation with a woman at a well. There are three taboos
that he disregards: he was alone with a strange woman in
public; she was a Samaritan (a neighbouring people greatly
despised by Jews); and she was living in an adulterous
relationship. Despite the triple taboo, Jesus spends considerable
time speaking to her about spiritual matters and what constitutes
true “water” (the setting is a well).
The second episode concerns a woman who has suffered from a
chronic haemorrhage (presumably menstrual) for 12 years. She
has heard about Jesus’ reputation as healer and so, despite the
jostling crowd, she reaches out and touches his cloak. As a
result, she finds herself cured but Jesus notices something has
happened and asks: “who touched me?” Petrified that she would
be reprimanded, she nevertheless comes forward and owns up,
but Jesus simply replies: ‘Daughter, your faith has made you
well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.’ (Mark 5:34).
Again, Jesus does not seem to be concerned about the menstrual
taboo and the spiritual contamination that would have occurred
when she touched him. As a result, most Christian churches do
not view menstruation as a time of impurity requiring separation
and a spiritual bath. This is also reflected in the very non-
Jewish understanding of the Christian communion service where
the wine, which is consumed by participants, is believed to be
the blood of Christ. Nevertheless, a degree of fear about

25. menstrual impurity persisted in Christian theology and law until
modern times and even today some Orthodox churches instruct
female members to avoid receiving communion during their
menstrual cycles (see
http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/unclean.asp).
The woman at the well. The woman with the
haemorrhage.
The third incident is when a woman, accused of adultery, is
brought to Jesus. Commentators note that the gospel writer
gives no explanation as to where her male partner is, even
though we are told that she was “caught in the act”. According
to the Torah, the woman (and the missing man) faces death by
stoning (Deut 22:22) but Jesus utters his famous reply: “Let
anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a
stone at her” and the crowd sheepishly disperses. Jesus then
sends her home, effectively saving her life.
The fourth incident is when Jesus is guest at a dinner and a
woman enters the room and anoints his head and feet with
expensive oil. She also washes his feet with her tears and dries
them with her hair. Despite the inappropriateness of a woman
touching him in this way and the apparent “waste” of expensive
ointment (both of which prompt protests from others present),
Jesus supports her actions. The woman’s identity is unclear and
has led to much confusion over the centuries. In Mark she is
unnamed but the gospel writer says that the story will always be
told “in her memory”. In Luke, she is also unnamed but he adds
that she is a “sinner”, presumably a prostitute; later tradition
erroneously identifies her as Mary Magdalene. In John’s gospel
she is named as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha, and a very
close friend and disciple of Jesus (see below).

26. The woman caught in adultery A woman anoints Jesus
Female Disciples
Mention of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany raises the
question of female disciples. What was the status of the women
who followed Jesus and were they subordinate or equal to the
men?
The first point we should note is that there were two types of
disciple: those who stayed at home and those who travelled with
Jesus on the road. The first type was the majority, since most
people who recognised Jesus as a prophet or rabbi or miracle
worker (or possibly even ‘messiah’) did not abandon their
families and careers. There were men and women in the crowds
that listened to Jesus preach in public and in the synagogue.
There were men and women who came to Jesus seeking healing
for themselves or loved ones. Some of these persons are named
and among the most significant were the three siblings who
lived in Bethany: Lazarus, Martha and Mary. These were not
only disciples but close friends of Jesus, whom “he loved”
(John 11:5). The sisters Martha and Mary feature in the third
and fourth gospels. In Luke, there is a scene where Jesus visits
their home.
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village,
where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.
She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and
listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by
her many tasks; so, she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you
not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?
Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha,
Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is
need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which
will not be taken away from her.’ (Luke 10:38-42)

27. Mary and Martha
Martha’s frustration and jealousy are understandable given that
she is endeavouring to show hospitality to the guests. However,
Jesus’ reply is significant, not just for the two sisters, but
women in general. Basically, he is saying that the “better part”,
or proper place for a woman, is not in the kitchen but in the
sitting room with the men who are discussing Torah.
In John’s gospel both Mary and Martha appear in critical
scenes. We have seen above how, according to John, it was
Mary who anointed Jesus’ feet. The same gospel has Martha
make the inspired proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah (John
11:27). In the Synoptic gospels, this breakthrough recognition
and announcement is made by Simon, which prompts Jesus to
rename him Peter (from the Greek petros meaning “rock”) and
appoint him to a position of leadership within the group
(Matthew 16:13-19) – this is a key basis for the Pope’s
authority in Catholicism. So, in one sense, the “Peter” of John’s
gospel is really Martha. In fact, in John’s gospel it is usually
the women, rather than the men, who truly understand who
Jesus is and what he is about.
There were also disciples who travelled with Jesus from town to
town, joining him in the mission of preaching and healing.
Some of these were women and names are provided by the
gospel writers.
Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages,
proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.
The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had
been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called
Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and

28. Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and
many others, who provided for them out of their resources
(Luke 8:1-3)
Clearly the itinerant group were a mix of men and women,
which would have created a degree of scandal since they,
apparently, were not married couples. Moreover, the women
seemed to have organized the much-needed material assistance
such as food, clothing and accommodation. Some are named -
Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna – but there were apparently
“many others” who must have been women of means to be able
to provide such logistical support.
Later in the gospel, several of these very women are identified
as the ones who witness the execution and burial of Jesus (the
male disciples fled in fear) and who, on the Sunday morning
(the day after Sabbath), found the tomb empty and encountered
the risen Jesus. In other words, according to the gospels, the
eye-witnesses to the key events at the end of the founder’s life
were women. For this reason, the Christian tradition has
described Mary Magdalene and her colleagues as “apostola
apostolorum” – apostle to the apostles. It was women who
narrated the first stories to the men and, in this sense, Mary
Magdalene and her female friends are aptly called the “first
Christians”. Moreover, the fact that Jewish law did not
recognise a woman as an official witness in court leads some
scholars to posit that these stories were not fabricated
(otherwise male characters would have been chosen).
Christ appears to Mary Magdalene
Despite the stories of Mary Magdalene and the other women
being first witnesses to the founder’s resurrection, the tradition
eventually left them out of the official list, which Paul provides
in his first letter to the Corinthians:

29. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had
received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the
third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared
to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to more
than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of
whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared
to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone
untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Cor 15:3-8)
So, who are “the Twelve” that are mentioned here by Paul and
were there any women in that group? According to the gospels,
Jesus created an inner circle of twelve persons personally
selected from his larger group of followers. We are told that the
Twelve were given authority to preach and power to heal. We
are also given the list of the membership:
So, he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name
Peter); James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to
whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);
and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and
Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon
the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. (Mark
3:16)
The exclusion of women from the Twelve is one of the main
arguments still used today by the Catholic Church for not
allowing women to be ordained as priests. The reasoning is that
if Jesus had wanted women to be priests he would have included
women among the Twelve, who are seen as the first “priests” of
his new religion. Allegedly only the Twelve were present at his
last supper when he commanded them to remember him in the
breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine. Biblical
scholars tend to take a different line, suggesting that the
numeral “12” is the key to the meaning of this group. Israel

30. consisted of twelve tribes which can be traced back to the
twelve sons of Jacob (with a minor adjustment). So, the number
twelve symbolises “all of Israel”, and the establishment of the
Twelve by Jesus is a symbol of his aim to establish a new
Israel. More importantly, it is pointed out that he could not have
included a woman in the group without breaking the symbolism
(the twelve sons of Jacob). It is also interesting that the
institution of Twelve male leaders disappeared from early
Christianity within a couple of decades of Jesus’ death.
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci The Twelve
Tribes of Israel
In conclusion, it seems fair to say that, like Buddha Gautama,
Jesus was not a 21st Century feminist thinker. He was a man of
his time but, within that context, he comes across as one who is
sensitive to women’s concerns. He interpreted the Torah in
favour of women; he advocated that women should study it
along with men; he was not concerned about socio-religious
taboos that pertained to women; women were among his closest
friends and even among his itinerant band of disciples providing
much needed support; and it is quite likely that the title of the
“first Christian” properly belongs to a woman.
Video : Handmaids of the Lord (Bettany Hughes)
https://unsw.kanopy.com/video/handmaids-gods
(available via Kanopy in UNSW Library)
Watch from 25:00 until end.
Listen for
· Paul and Thecla
· Role of women in the early spread of Christianity
· Fr Scott Brodeur’s comments about Phoebe
· Augustine’s influence

31. · Council of Nicea
09 Christianity B
NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES
Having considered the attitude and actions of the founder
regarding women, we now turn to the next phase of the
Christian story. What was the status of women in Christianity
during its earliest period when the Christian scriptures were
being composed? Many commentators note that the New
Testament does not provide a single, consistent view of women.
Instead, we find two very different – and arguably incompatible
- attitudes to women in its pages. This should not be surprising
given that the New Testament itself is a collection of writings
by different persons in different places at different times across
a period of nearly a century or so. The two New Testament
“theologies of women” can be labelled:
1. Equivalence and
2. Subordination
Scholars argue that these two attitudes are not only rooted in
the New Testament but can be traced across the subsequent
centuries and are still being advocated by different individuals,
groups and churches today.
Equivalence
This approach is based on the premise that men and women are
equal in the eyes of God and this should be reflected in attitudes
and practices within the church. It is inherently egalitarian and
finds its biblical foundation in the first story of Genesis
(Chapter 1), where God creates humankind on the sixth day,
both male and female, and both in God’s divine image.

32. Adam and Eve
Such equality is supposed to exist between men and women in
heaven where earthly hierarchies dissolve. It is also supported
by an “eschatological mentality” – in other words, the sense that
this world is soon coming to an end and a radically new world
will be ushered in. Such a mentality can be found among many
of the early Christians who thought that they were living in the
“end times” and that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent.
So, which New Testament texts support the idea of radical,
“heavenly” gender equivalence? The most famous text can be
found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (one of his earlier
letters). He writes:
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there
is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28)
Earlier in this course we noted the Dawn Blessing in Judaism,
which thanks God for not being born a gentile, a slave or a
woman. The same sentiments provide the background for this
radical statement by Paul, who was Jewish before his
conversion. According to Paul, differences of race, social status
and gender are no longer relevant for Christians. Baptism brings
a new order that dissolves these old prejudices. Indeed, many
think that it was this open attitude that attracted so many
gentiles (non-Jews), slaves and women to the new religion.
The idea of gender equivalence is also evident in other letters of
Paul. In 1 Corinthians he speaks of the balanced, mutual rights
of husband and wife:
The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and

33. likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have
authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise,
the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the
wife does. (1 Cor 7:3-4)
Paul also indicates that women were given important roles
alongside men within the early church. He calls some women
his “co-workers”:
I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the
Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these
women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the
gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers,
whose names are in the book of life. (Phil 4)
At the end of his most important letter (written to Christians in
Rome) he lists many women, as well as men, some of whom are
called “deacon” and “apostle”:
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at
Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is
fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require
from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself
as well.
Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and
who risked their necks for my life... Greet also the church in
their house.
Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you.
Andronicus and Junia, my compatriots who were in prison with
me; they are prominent among the apostles. (Rom 16)
Similar roles are mentioned in another New Testament book, the
Acts of the Apostles, authored by Luke. Women are given the
gift of prophecy along with men:
In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my

34. Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old
men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and
women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall
prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)
He (Philip) had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of
prophecy. (Acts 21:8)
Wealthy women open up their houses so that Christians could
gather for prayer and other activities:
... to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name
was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying” (Acts
12:12-13)
Women such as Priscilla (who is always named before her
husband Aquila) accompany Paul on his journeys and act as
teachers and trainers for new missionaries:
Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria,
accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. (Acts 18.18 )
He (Apollos) began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when
Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and
explained the Way of God to him more accurately. (Acts 18.26)
Subordination
In contrast to texts that speak of equivalence between men and
women in the home (roles of husband and wife) and in the
church (various roles of leadership and teaching), there are also
New Testament passages that reflect a theology of
subordination. This view considers it proper that the man is the
“head” in the family and in the church, and that women should
obediently accept this. It is considered to be the “natural order”

35. willed by God and it is usually substantiated by Genesis 2
where Eve is created “after”, “from” and “for” Adam.
Furthermore, proponents add that Eve was the first to take the
forbidden fruit in Genesis 3 and, thus, she carries the greater
guilt. They warn that rejection of this order is tantamount to
rebellion against God and will only lead to social chaos.
God creates Eve from Adam’s rib
The passages that reflect this theology of subordination of
women tend to be in later sections of the New Testament and,
indeed, this tendency further increases in the post New
Testament period. It is possible that with the fading of the
belief that the world would soon end (it didn’t end of course),
Christians began to abandon the “eschatological mentality” and
settle into this world for the long haul. This meant adopting
many of the prevailing patriarchal structures of the surrounding
Roman culture. Prayer meetings became less spontaneous and
charismatic, and more formal and ritualised. Leadership roles
were clarified, further defined and many of them eventually
limited to men only. And the husband-wife relationship began to
be described as “love patriarchy” where the husband loves but
also rules over his wife.
Even though we saw some very explicit comments by Paul about
equivalence, there are also passages in his early letters that
reflect subordination:
Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of
his wife and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or
prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but
any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled
disgraces her head.... For a man ought not to have his head
veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman
is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from

36. woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the
sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. For this reason,
a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head. (1
Cor 11:3-15)
Paul is saying that it is fitting that women cover their heads
while praying and prophesying, but not men. It clearly implies
that women were allowed to speak at prayer meetings but the
rationale for her wearing a veil is that she is under the authority
of her husband who is her “head”. Paul cites Genesis 2 and
explicitly states that the male is the image of God, whereas the
female is the merely the image of the man.
In the very same letter, he goes on to make this statement:
As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in
the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be
subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they
desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is
shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Cor 14:34)
According to this passage, women are not allowed to speak in
church, apparently contradicting what was said earlier. For this
reason, some scholars think that these verses were inserted by a
later editor.
Early Christian communities to whom Paul wrote letters
Paul’s later letters to the Colossians and Ephesians show further
erosion of the equivalence model in favour of subordination. In
Colossians 3:11 he wrote:
You have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being
renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In
that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and

37. uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is
all and in all.
This is a repeat of the famous equivalence formula found in
Galatians 3 above, but with one glaring omission. Although race
and social rank are mentioned, the statement about gender
equality has vanished (there is no mention of “male and
female”).
In the same letter he compares the husband-wife relationship to
that of master-slave and parent-child:
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your
acceptable duty in the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your
children, or they may lose heart. Slaves, obey your earthly
masters in everything, not only while being watched and in
order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. (Col
3:18-4:1)
And in the letter to the Ephesians (written about the same time)
he compares the husband-wife relationship to the Christ-Church
relationship, which demands love from the husband and
obedience from the wife.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For
the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of
the church... Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also
wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her
with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the
church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or
anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without
blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as
they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

38. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and
tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because
we are members of his body.* ‘For this reason a man will leave
his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will
become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it
to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his
wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. (Eph
5:22-33)
The last group of letters traditionally ascribed to Paul are called
the “Pastoral Letters”. These were addressed to Timothy and
Titus, who were newly appointed “bishops” in Ephesus and
Crete.
Timothy and Titus
The letters were probably written late in his career since Paul
was “in prison” and some scholars speculate that these epistles
may even have been composed in Paul’s name after he died. The
author might be the same person who inserted the controversial
passage in 1 Corinthians 14 above, since these letters also
demand silence from women in church, and forbid them from
teaching or having authority.
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no
woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep
silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a
transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing,
provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with
modesty. (1 Tim 2:9-15)
Within the home, women are to be submissive to their husbands
for the sake of Christianity’s reputation:

39. Encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love
their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of
the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that
the word of God may not be discredited. (Titus 2:4-5)
So, the New Testament texts suggest that an earlier theology of
gender equivalence based on Genesis 1 and inspired by the
eschatological sense of a new order was gradually overtaken by
a theory of gender subordination based on Genesis 2 and
reinforced by the realisation that the world was not about to
end, giving impetus to the need to adapt to the Roman world.
THE PATRISTIC and MEDIEVAL PERIODS
Attitudes to women
The gradual eclipsing of a theology of equivalence in favour of
a theology of subordination that was found in the early New
Testament continued into the subsequent Patristic period. This
was a time when prominent bishop-theologians, known as
“Church Fathers”, began to define Christian belief and practice
in much greater detail. Naturally this process was not without
disagreement and debate, and often the conflicts were settled by
gathering of bishops known as councils. As the term “Patristic”
suggests, almost all of the influential writers were male, partly
because the role of bishop (and other roles as well) was limited
to men.
The attitude of the Church Fathers towards women has been
described as “ambivalent” by some and “downright sexist” by
others. The amount of material involved here is enormous –
literally bookshelves of letters, tomes, dialogues and decrees. In
general, there is a tendency to quote Genesis 2 rather than
Genesis 1; to see Adam primarily as God’s image; to blame Eve
primarily for the original sin; to see women as sources of sexual

40. temptation; to insist on the wife’s submission to her husband;
and so forth. There are also some very negative statements such
as these four egregious samples:
Tertullian Clement Ambrose John Chrysostom
The curse God pronounced on your sex still weighs on the
world. You are the devil's gateway. You are the first that
deserted the divine laws. All too easily you destroyed the image
of God, Adam. Because you deserved death, it was the son of
God who had to die. (Tertullian)
The consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of
shame. Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought
that she is a woman.(Clement of Alexandria)
Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam, so it is right that
he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the role of
guide lest he fall again through feminine instability.(Ambrose)
The male sex enjoyed the higher honour. Man was first formed;
and elsewhere he shows their superiority. God wishes the man
to have the pre-eminence in every way. (John Chrysostom)
One of the most influential writers in the Western church was
Augustine (died 420 CE). Like many Church Fathers, he was
heavily influenced by Plato’s suspicion of the material world,
especially sexual activity. He himself had been obsessed with
sex as a young man and had a love child with a long-term
concubine before his conversion. Augustine argued that Eve was
subordinate to Adam even before the first sin (commonly called
“the Fall”). In his thinking, the serpent approached Eve first
because she was frailer and more gullible than her husband. He
also believed that Adam was the true image of God, and that
Eve was made in the image of Adam, rather than God directly.
He wrote:

41. The woman together with her husband is the image of God, so
that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned
as a help-meet, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is
not in the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he
is by himself alone the image of God.(De Trinitate 12.7.10 )
Augustine
These ideas continued into the medieval period, even though
Christian theologians turned away from Plato and began to use
the newly rediscovered writings of Aristotle instead. The most
famous medieval theologian is Thomas Aquinas (died 1274 CE),
who borrowed from Aristotle’s biological theories when
discussing the status of women. Unaware of the existence of the
female ovum (only discovered in 1825 by K.E. von Baer), the
theory claimed that the male seed provides the “form” of the
new being, while the female womb provides the “matter”.
Moreover, daughters arise because of a “defect” in the process.
In other words, a girl was a “misbegotten male”, intellectually
inferior and psychologically less stable. Nevertheless, Aquinas
argued that women were capable of reaching heaven where all
gender-based hierarchy disappears. In the meantime, however, it
is a very different situation on earth. (See Aristotle, The
Generation of Animals II.4.20-21; Aquinas, Summa Theol.
I.92.1)
Thomas Aquinas
The prevailing sexism of the day was noted by Geoffrey
Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. In the
Wife of Bath Prologue he wrote:
For take my word for it, there is no libel
On women that the clergy will not paint,

42. Except when writing of a woman saint
By God, if women had but written stories
Like those the clergy keep in oratories
More had been written of man’s wickedness
Than all the sons of Adam could redress.
Church Leadership
As the early charismatic prayer meetings of Christianity gave
way to more institutional forms of worship, a threefold clerical
hierarchy began to emerge and became the norm during the
Patristic period:
1. Bishop (episkopos)
2. Priest (presbyter)
3. Deacon (diakonos)
One of the main proponents of this structure was Ignatius of
Antioch who wrote a number of letters in the early second
century advocating a single (male) episkopos in each local
church. This triple hierarchy is still the basic structure for the
clergy in many mainstream Christian churches today, including
Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican.
The question for us is whether women were ever included in
these ranks. There is no doubt that there were women deacons in
the early church but the issue of whether women were ever
ordained as presbyter (priest) or episkopos (bishop) is still
debated. There is not a lot of evidence for the existence of
women priests and bishops but these four items are usually cited
in literature on the topic:
1. Testamentum Domini: A 5th century document which speaks
of female “presbyters” who fast and pray with their local bishop
each day.

43. 2. Tomb inscriptions in Phrygia, Egypt and Sicily that
commemorate female “presbyters”
3. Frescoes in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome could be
interpreted as depicting a woman leading a Eucharist (the sacred
meal of bread and wine) and a bishop ordaining a woman (the
three figures on the left in the second image).
A woman leading Eucharist? A bishop ordaining a
woman (on left)?
4. A mosaic in St Prassede Church in Rome depicts a person
titled “Episcopa Theodor(a)”, although some argue that that this
was an honorific title for the mother of the current pope.
Episcopa Theodora
A number of 2nd century Church Fathers condemn the thought
of a woman performing the functions of a priest or bishop,
quoting the letters to Timothy and Titus, which ultimately are
based on Genesis 2.
It is not permitted for a woman to speak in church. Neither may
she teach, baptize, offer, nor claim for herself any function
proper to a man, least of all the priestly office. (Tertullian)
Even if it is granted to a woman to show the sign of prophecy,
she is nevertheless not permitted to speak in an assembly. When
Miriam the prophetess spoke, she was leading a choir of
women; for, as Paul declares, “I do not permit a woman to
teach," and even less to tell a man what to do. (Origen)

44. There is also a series of official statements condemning the
practice of ordaining women as presbyters (priests):
1. The 3rd century Syrian document entitled “The Teachings of
the Apostles” (Didascalia Apostolorum) permitted women
deacons but they were only allowed to minister to other women,
not men. It also prohibited women from teaching or preaching.
2. In 364 CE a local Council at Laodicea decreed: “so-called
presbyteresses or presidentesses are not to be ordained in the
Church". (Canon 11)
3. A century later in 495CE, Pope Gelasius wrote to Christians
in southern Italy: With impatience we have heard that divine
things have undergone such contempt that women are
encouraged to serve at the sacred altars, and that all tasks
entrusted to the service of men are performed by a sex for
which these [tasks] are not appropriate. Some argue that
Gelasius was only condemning the practice of allowing women
to act as altar-servers, while others think that he meant women
acting as priests.
Pope Gelasius
Commentators note that the very existence of these bans may
suggest that women were given priestly roles of sorts in certain
places. In any event, the series of bans were ultimately effective
and the issue of women priests (and bishops) would not surface
again until modern times.
Nuns
So, if women were effectively excluded from the main

45. ecclesiastical ranks of authority, what did they do, apart from
being wives and mothers? The basic answer is: they became
nuns. Paul speaks of “virgins” in 1 Corinthians 7. These were
women who, like Paul, had opted for a celibate lifestyle out of
dedication to the church; the story of Thecla is a good example
(see earlier video). During Patristic times, the Church Fathers
praised the “order of virgins”. Seen as “spouses of Christ”, they
cut their hair and took the veil, dedicating themselves to prayer
and service. Although they were not presbyters (priests), they
were given special honour and received communion before the
laity.
By the 3rd century, these women were living in community
residences and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Augustine even developed a special rule for these women and,
in time, many different orders of nuns emerged. By the middle
ages, their numbers had increased dramatically as many women
saw this career path as an attractive option to married life and
motherhood. It offered women education, status and economic
security. Although under the ecclesiastical control of a bishop,
most female religious orders were relatively autonomous. These
were women living in communities under their own elected
abbesses: “a self-governing female world” as Rosemary Radford
Ruether describes it. Abbesses themselves became powerful and
influential figures alongside bishops and kings. Like abbots,
they were allowed to carry the shepherd’s staff (crosier), which
is also used by bishops as a symbol of pastoral leadership. For
much of history, nuns spent most of their time within the
convent and their main task was to pray and meditate – much
like their Buddhist sisters. They also engaged in arts and crafts
to supplement donations, offered advice to visitors and some
even published works on a variety of subjects, both religious
and secular. After the Protestant Reformation, new forms of
religious life appeared that allowed nuns to leave their convent
and perform “apostolic” work, mainly in the fields of health,
education and social work.

46. An abbess holding her crosier
For most orders, Mary (the mother of Jesus) was held up as the
perfect model. This may seem strange given that Mary was a
wife and mother. However, based on the birth stories in
Matthew and Luke, Christians generally believe that Jesus had
no human father. In other words, Mary conceived him
miraculously without loss of her virginity. This is technically
known as the virginal conception of Christ (it is often confused
with the “immaculate conception” of Mary that we discussed
earlier). Moreover, the Orthodox and Catholic Churches believe
that Mary never consummated her marriage to Joseph and
remained a virgin for the remainder of her life, hence the
common titles “Ever Virgin Mary” or “Blessed Virgin Mary”.
The mid-2nd century work known as the Protoevangelium of
James was one of the first texts to promote this theory. Thus,
Mary is a paradoxical figure in mainstream Christianity:
simultaneously a model for wives and mothers, as well as for
virginal nuns.
Modern Christian feminism has mixed thoughts about the
institution of convents and nuns. On one hand, it represented a
genuinely liberating option for women apart from the
traditional, and often enslaving, roles of domestic wife and
mother. It also gave women the opportunity to pursue study and
engage in intellectual and practical activities otherwise not
available. On the other hand, like their Buddhist sisters, nuns
were ultimately under the authority of men (male bishops) and
did not enjoy the same status and authority as the ordained
clergy.
THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

47. General traits
Christianity had always experienced internal tensions and many
splinter groups had broken away from the mainstream church
since the first century. However, a major split occurred in 1054
when Eastern and Western Christianity separated, but both
branches retained a male-only clergy (actually women deacons
existed in the Eastern Church until the 12th century). Towards
the end of the Middle Ages, theological tensions within Western
Christianity intensified and this resulted in a massive
fragmentation of the Western Church in the 16th century. We
now turn to that period with an eye to see what the new
Protestant churches said about women in general and their
proper ecclesiastical roles in particular.
One general trait of Protestantism was its criticism of celibacy
and the abuses that were related to it. In Protestant theology,
clerical celibacy was no longer required or even endorsed, and
the entire monastic tradition (for men and women) was
effectively abandoned. For example, Martin Luther was a monk
who married a nun, Katharina von Bora. The keenness of the
Protestant reformers to return to the original form of
Christianity, as outlined in the New Testament, may have
initially given women hope that the theology of equivalence
might make a comeback and replace centuries of subordination.
However, key Protestant leaders, such as Luther and Calvin, did
not take that path. Female ordination was not on the agenda and
the New Testament texts that were highlighted were often those
that enshrined the idea of male headship and female obedience.
Moreover, the closing of monasteries and convents removed that
important career option for women as well.
Luther did teach that Adam and Eve were both made in the
image of God but he added that Eve still bore primary guilt for
the Fall. This meant subordination for all women according to

48. Genesis 3:16 (“He shall rule over you”) in terms of “children,
kitchen and church”. For Luther, Eve’s punishment was not just
the pain of childbirth but also restriction to the domestic sphere:
Woman is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home and
should stay at home and look after the affairs of household. In
this way Eve is punished. The natural order does not assign
woman any other function than what corresponds to her sexual
and procreative organs. (Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis)
Although Calvin appreciated the refining influence of women,
theologically he was even more negative than Luther. He agreed
with Augustine that Eve was subordinate even before the Fall.
This was the original order of creation, even prior to sin. He
also closely followed the New Testament household codes that
stressed the husband’s headship over his wife. In his view, this
was a positive system designed by God to keep order and to
avoid sin. Each person, and each gender, had its appointed
place.
More egalitarian models
However, with time, more egalitarian models of home and
church life began to emerge. These were not without precedent.
In the 12th century, a movement in southern France and
northern Italy, known as the Waldensians, had advocated a
simple lifestyle and allowed women to preach. Inspired by
Joachim de Fiore’s theory that the Third Age of the Holy Spirit
had arrived, the Waldensians (named after their founder Peter
Waldo) abandoned the traditional clerical hierarchy and
preached a “priesthood of the people”. They were declared
heretical and heavily persecuted for centuries but their gender
inclusive ideas were taken up by a number of 17th century
reformers, including some outstanding women.
One of those women was Margaret Fell (1614 -1702), the co-

49. founder of Quakerism in 17th century England. Officially
known as the Society of Friends, the nickname “Quaker” arose
because fellow founder George Fox, whom Margaret eventually
married, made a magistrate “quake” at God’s word. Indeed,
charismatic prayer meetings and powerful preaching was a key
element in the Quaker movement, which rejected sacramental
rituals and a hierarchical priesthood. Despite persecution by the
Anglican establishment, Quakerism spread rapidly throughout
England and in the American colonies. One of Margaret Fell’s
important achievements was a treatise published in 1666
entitled
“Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the
Scriptures. Her arguments included:
· The existence of women prophetesses in the Old Testament
· Christ overturned the subordination of women that resulted
from Eve’s sin and restored equality between the sexes
· Women were the first witnesses to the Resurrection and
brought the good news to the apostles
Thus, in the Quaker marriage ceremony, the wife did not
promise to “obey” her husband, but rather both promised to
obey God. Today many churches omit the word “obey” in the
bride’s wedding vows although more conservative groups retain
it.
Margaret Fell and her famous treatise
During the 18th century a new movement emerged from the
Quakers called the “Shakers” led by Mother Ann Lee (1736-
1784). In this more radical form of Christianity, God was
considered to be androgynous and, thus, a female incarnation
was needed to complement the male incarnation that had
occurred in Jesus Christ. The Shakers believed that Mother Ann
Lee herself was this second (female) incarnation. As with the

50. early church, the Shakers believed that the end of the world was
imminent and practised celibacy. The movement literally died
out but one feminist author comments:
“it is the most explicit effort of mystical Christianity to work
out a theology of equivalence in terms of doctrine of God,
anthropology, christology and church polity within the
framework of eschatological transcendence of patriarchy as the
order of fallen creation” (Rita Gross)
Mother Ann Lee
Witch-Hunts
This period of Christian history was also characterised by an
outbreak of witch-hunts across Europe and North America. Prior
to the 16th century, the Church denied the reality of Satanic
witchcraft and associated witches with pre-Christian pagan
custom. Under Charlemagne, the persecution and burning of
supposed witches was condemned and was punishable by death.
However, in 1486 a German priest named Heinrich Kramer
published a treatise called Malleus Maleficarum("Hammer of
the Witches"). Its double aim was to prove that Satanic
witchcraft did exist and to provide the means to identify and
convict witches. In fact, Kramer found little support from the
official Church, which condemned his book in 1490.
Nevertheless, it gained widespread popular support, especially
via the newly invented printing press, and was reprinted more
than 30 times until 1669.
The Hammer of the Witches
It argued that God allows the Devil to wield power in this world
and witches are his assistants. This power is mainly channelled

51. through sexual temptation and women were considered to be
weaker in this area and, thus, more susceptible to be enlisted as
his servants. The upshot of this was the rise of organized witch-
hunts that affected tens of thousands of people. The hunts
targeted both sexes but it is estimated that about 75% of the
victims were women. The most famous incidents in Europe
were:
1590 Berwick, Scotland
1603 Fulda, Germany
1609 Basque, Spain
1675 Torsaker, Sweden
In North America, witch-hunts occurred in New England
including the Massachusetts Bay Colony where 13 women and 2
men were hanged, and Salem (1692-3) where 150 people were
imprisoned, with 14 women and 5 men being executed. The
latter is the setting for Arthur Miller’s famous play, The
Crucible. The phenomenon eventually faded and disappeared
during the late 18th century although the British 1735
Witchcraft Act was not officially repealed until 1951.
Looking back on the entire episode, modern commentators
identify various causal factors. Many “witches” were in fact
independent, single minded women who were seen as defiant
and dangerous to the social order. There were also issues of
property, family feuds, inheritance and even romantic
entanglements. In the case of Salem, there are theories that the
so-called witches were actually suffering from a medical
condition such as ergot poisoning, Lyme disease, encephalitis or
even post-traumatic stress disorder after recent French and
native American attacks.
THE MODERN PERIOD
Enlightenment Ideals

52. During the 18th century, the scientific revolution began to
affect the way people understood how the world worked. The
Age of Reason began to replace the Age of Faith, and the new
scientific explanations of the natural world presented serious
challenges to the old, faith-based explanations. The two
classical examples are astronomy (Copernicus and Galileo) and
biology (Darwin). But there were also new challenges coming
from philosophy, especially ideas about the fundamental
equality of all human beings. It was argued that if all humans
are created equal, with the same human nature as well as reason
and free will, then all humans have the same fundamental
rights. It would take quite some time to work through the
implications of this important notion and, indeed, it is still
happening today in the early 21st century on many fronts. One
obvious application was the question of gender inequality and
the extent to which Christianity endorsed and promoted it.
There were many Christians who embraced the new
Enlightenment idea of basic human equality as a non-negotiable
fundament principle. Thus, they argued that any elements of
androcentrism and patriarchy that were found in the Bible or
Church tradition were not divinely willed but, rather, human
(male) creations that distorted the truth and perpetuated
injustice. What was needed was a thorough reform of Christian
ideas and structures that enshrined the idea of equality between
men and women. They claimed that it was not good enough to
wait for heaven in order to enjoy gender equivalence. It should
start now, here on earth. This is the philosophical and
theological basis of all forms of modern feminist Christian
theology.
Christian Feminism
Commentators usually speak about three waves of feminism
during the modern period.

53. a. The First Wave
The first wave of Christian feminism occurred in the early 19th
century during the 1830s-1840s. It was closely connected to the
Abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement in North America and the
Suffragette movement that sought the vote for women. In other
words, it was very much linked to concerns about racial and
gender equality in the social-political sphere, but these had
implications for gender equality within the religious sphere.
One of its chief spokespersons was Sarah Grimke who published
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of
Women in 1836. It was a response to the Massachusetts
Congregation clergy who had denounced women speaking in
churches on behalf of the abolition of slavery. Grimke based her
arguments on Genesis 1, pointing out that men and women were
created equal and that both shared dominion over nature.
Moreover, she argued that the real effect of the original sin was
male lust for domination and that woman was the first victim.
In 1848, a watershed convention was held in Seneca Falls, New
York state. It was the first serious meeting to be organized by
women in the Western world that considered the full list of
feminist concerns. Key figures were Lucretia Mott (a famous
Quaker preacher) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a skeptical non-
Quaker). The convention produced the famous List of
Sentiments: a litany of restrictions placed on women in the
areas of political franchise, occupation, property, divorce and
education. It also listed areas of concern within the churches
themselves:
· In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise
obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and
purposes, her master - the law giving him power to deprive her
of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
· As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

54. · He allows her in church, as well as State, but a subordinate
position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from
the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public
participation in the affairs of the Church.
· He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah (God) himself,
claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action,
when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton went on to publish The Woman’s Bible
in 1895. It was not accepted by male biblical scholars, but it
became a popular best-seller and opened up a completely new
way of reading the sacred text from a woman’s perspective –
one of the key ingredients in 20th century feminist theology.
Stanton’s Bible was scathing in its attack on sexist
interpretations of the biblical texts and, not surprisingly, it
attracted widespread controversy and opposition. She wrote:
If we, who see the absurdities of the old superstitions, never
unveil them to others, how is the world to make any progress in
the theologies? I am in the sunset of life, and I feel it to be my
special mission to tell people what they are not prepared to
hear."
Here are some excerpts:
On Genesis 1:26-27 when God creates both male and female in
God’s image:
Here is the sacred historian's first account of the advent of
woman; a simultaneous creation of both sexes, in the image of
God. It is evident from the language that there was consultation
in the Godhead, and that the masculine and feminine elements
were equally represented. Scott in his commentaries says, "This
consultation of the Gods is the origin of the doctrine of the
trinity." But instead of three male personages, as generally
represented, a Heavenly Father, Mother, and Son would seem

55. more rational.
On Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother and cleave unto his wife."
The assertion of the supremacy of the woman in the marriage
relation is contained in v. 24: Nothing is said of the headship of
man, but he is commanded to make her the head of the
household, the home, a rule followed for centuries under the
Matriarchate.
On Gen 3:6: Eve taking the fruit:
Then the woman, fearless of death if she can gain wisdom, takes
of the fruit; and all this time Adam standing beside her
interposes no word of objection. "Her husband with her" are the
words of v. 6. Had he been the representative of the divinely
appointed head in married life, he assuredly would have taken
upon himself the burden of the discussion with the serpent, but
no, he is silent in this crisis of their fate. Having had the
command from God himself he interposes no word of warning
or remonstrance, but takes the fruit from the hand of his wife
without a protest.
b. The Second Wave
The first wave of feminism subsided once women began to gain
the vote in Western countries. This occurred first in New
Zealand in 1893, followed by South Australia in 1895, the new
Australian federation in 1902, Norway in 1913 and the USA in
1920 (France did not grant women the vote until 1944).
Commentators claim that the 1950s represented a new “low”
since women’s participation in the professions was minimal and
most girls were taught to be good wives and mothers. One
catalyst for a new wave was Betty Frieden’s The Feminine
Mystique published in 1963. In it she examined “the problem

56. that had no name” – the deep-seated unhappiness of the female
“happy homemaker”:
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds
of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of
dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of
the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban housewife
struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for
groceries … she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent
question — “Is this all?” (Betty Frieden)
The book launched a second wave of feminism that coincided
with the civil rights movement in the USA, but also with the
invention of the contraceptive pill. Whereas first wave feminism
focused mainly on the vote, second-wave feminism broadened
the debate to a wider range of issues: sexuality; family;
workplace; reproduction; legal inequalities; and domestic
violence. In Christianity it led to the emergence of a fully-
fledged feminist theology, pioneered by scholars such as:
Mary Daly: The Church and the Second Sex (1968) and Beyond
God the Father (1973)
Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza: In Memory of Her (1983)
Rosemary Radford Ruether: Sexism and God-talk: Toward a
Feminist Theology (1993).
Mary Daly Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Rosemary Radford Ruether
Commentators also point to a third wave of feminist thinking
that emerged in the late 20th century, which moves beyond the
specific issues of heterosexual, white Western women. This is
also being reflected in third-wave Christian feminist writers
such as Ada Maria Isasi Diaz, a Cuban-American theologian.

57. The method of feminist theology works from the non-negotiable
premise that men and women are created equal in the eyes of
God. This principle of fundamental gender equality is then
applied back onto the scriptures and later Church traditions as
the ultimate “litmus test” for what is true, just and divinely
willed. Patriarchal mentalities residing in the texts themselves
or traditional interpretations are identified and criticised – much
like Elizabeth Cady Stanton did in her Women’s Bible. It also
means rediscovering forgotten or overlooked elements
(passages, stories, characters) that bring greater balance to the
overall perspective. Not everyone in Christianity is happy with
this approach and the debate continues to this day in many
churches, often with feminists citing Genesis 1 and the New
Testament equivalence passages on one hand; and traditionalists
citing Genesis 2 and the New Testament subordination passages
on the other.
In general, most Christian rituals have been gender neutral since
the earliest days. For example, in the Catholic and Orthodox
churches, the “seven sacraments” constitute the most important
ceremonies in one’s life. Six of these are equally available to
women and men: baptism, confirmation, holy communion,
confession of sins, anointing of the sick and marriage. However,
the seventh sacrament - priestly ordination - is a storm centre of
debate in terms of gender discrimination today. For many
contemporary Christian feminists, it is THE litmus test for true
gender equality.
Women’s Ordination
Since the ban on women presbyters during the Patristic period,
the question of whether women should be allowed to undertake
the role of priest, bishop or other ordained ministry effectively
disappeared for centuries. As we have seen, persons like
Margaret Fell successfully argued for preaching and teaching

58. roles within their communities but these churches were usually
ones that had abandoned the traditional clerical hierarchy for a
common “priesthood of the people”. For example, in 1851
Antoinette Brown Blackwell was given a license to preach and
act as minister in a Congregational Church in the USA.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
The question is whether the mainstream churches (Orthodox,
Catholic and some Protestant) that retained the offices of bishop
and priest would reconsider the issue of ordaining women in
modern times. After a century or more of debate, the current
situation is that most Protestant churches allow female
ordination whereas the Catholic and Orthodox Churches do not.
Let us look at two cases: Anglican and Catholic.
Anglican
In 1971 three women were ordained as priests in the Anglican
diocese of Hong Kong – the first in the Anglican world. Many
other Anglican dioceses around the world followed but the
decision to admit women to the priesthood in Australia and
England took another twenty years. In 1992, in Perth, ten
women were ordained to the priesthood. By 2017, 20 out of 23
Australian dioceses allowed women to be ordained as priests
(the exceptions are Sydney, Murray and NW Australia). In 1994
in Bristol, the first English women were ordained as Anglican
priests. Their subsequent experiences in parish life inspired the
TV series “The Vicar of Dibley”.
Bristol 1994 “The Vicar of Dibley”
The next question that the Anglican Church had to face was

59. whether women could also be ordained as bishops (the highest
rank in their church). After further debate, the first female
Anglican bishop, Barbara Harris, was ordained in 1989 in
Massachusetts. In 2008 Kay Goldsworthy was the first woman
to be ordained as an Anglican bishop in Australia; in 2018 she
was ordained as Archbishop of Perth, becoming the first female
archbishop (senior bishop) in the worldwide Anglican
communion.
Bishop Barbara Harris (USA) Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy
(Australia)
In England, as recently as 2012, the General Synod of the
Church of England rejected the proposal that women be allowed
to be ordained as bishops. It was passed by the House of
Bishops and the House of Clergy but rejected by the House of
Laity, falling just 6 votes short (see first video). However, just
two years later, in 2014, the proposal was passed with a
dramatic change in the attitudes of the members of the House of
Laity. There was one important proviso: an “opt out” clause that
allowed a particular diocese to not appoint a woman bishop if it
chose (see second video).
2014 Church of England General Synod votes in favour of
female bishops
Catholic
There were women deacons (the first rank of holy orders) in the
Orthodox Church until the medieval period and some Orthodox