gender and the emerging church
Let me begin with a lexical clarification. In this essay, I’ll use the term “Emergent/ing” as a blanket term for those who may or may not associate themselves directly with Emergent, a group of pastor-writers who gathered under that name at the beginning of the decade to pool their efforts in encouraging/facilitating postmodern faith “conversation,” through their local faith communities and also through their published works, the most famous of those being Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian. There’s been lots of talk on the interwebs about whether you can be “Emerging” without being “Emergent,” and I think by this point it’s clear that you can. The definition at Wikipedia is a good one:
The emerging church or emergent church is a diverse movement within Christianity that arose in the late 20th century as a reaction to the influence of modernism in Western Christianity. The movement is usually called a “conversation” by its proponents to emphasize its diffuse nature with contributions from many people and no explicitly defined leadership or direction. The Emergent/ing church seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity as its mainly Western members live in a postmodern culture.
When I first encountered the Emergent/ing “conversation” last year, I was incredibly optimistic. Having read some of the texts valued by the Emergent/ing crowd already (Brian McLaren, Donald Miller), I was pleased to see that there was serious discussion going on about the true nature of Christianity and its placement within a postmodern context.
But then, I found that Emergent has an alarming tendency to be androcentric, and even anti-feminist.
First, the majority of Emergent/ing leaders are men, and white men at that. This list of pioneers in the Emerging Church movement contains 16 names; of those, one is a woman. I’m not suggesting that list is comprehensive (it isn’t), nor am I suggesting that women are not involved in the Emergent/ing Church movement. There’s never been a short supply of women attending church, after all, but there has been a dearth of women in leadership. In the past, it was due to direct decrees and misapplication of Pauline biblical texts. Now, it’s more a holdover from that era. Often, women are not expressly forbidden from leadership but the culture is such that it’s still not done, much. After all, what young girl sitting in a pew will dream of growing up to be a pastor when the person standing behind the pulpit is a man, and she is taught to identify with the woman sitting next to her? Until there are women leaders in the movement — vocal ones on the level of the men on the aforementioned list, Emergent/ing will lack credibility in the eyes of me and other feminists.
Second, the Emergent/ing theological makeover has not gone far enough to excise the pervasive gendering of the divine. Tony Jones, an founding member of Emergent has said that Christianity is suffering from a case of bad theology. Hey, I’m all for remaking Christian theology. The Emergent crowd will likely bristle at the word “remaking” because that’s exactly the kind of word their conservative critics would fling back in their faces, accusing them of making the religion into whatever they want to be. Personally, I’m all for remaking this patriarchal, sexist religion. By all means, do it. But make sure you address the fact that the religion is patriarchal and sexist. I haven’t read Brian McLaren’s new book, but I know that his previous works have given only a token acknowledgment to the fact that Christianity as a religion is incredibly oppressive and dismissive of women. (See Michelle Murrain’s review of A Generous Orthodoxy.)
Patriarchy is so ingrained into evangelical Christianity that I don’t expect it to be removed in a generation. Women have made some gains in agency in American Christianity over the past 25 years, but not nearly to the point where even one third of pastors are women, let alone one half as it should be. Women are doing feminist theology — Gail Ramshaw, Rosemary Radford Reuther, Anne Lamott. But none of them is in the Emergent/ing movement, and few are even known to Emergent/ing adherents. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read the anthology edited by the late godfather of postmodern Christianity, Mike Yaconelli, Stories of Emergence: Moving from Absolute to Authentic. In it, Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote about her “Personal Journey through Feminism,” meaning, her journey from being a self-identified feminist to being a self-identified non-feminist. You can read the entirety of my reactions in this blog post.
What I want to know is, where are the feminist Emergent/ing Church writers? In my experience, the men of the Emergent/ing movement are not anti-feminist, but rather feminist-ignorant. Sexism simply isn’t on their radar. Part of me wants to cut them some slack — it’s not their fault they grew up reading a holy text where God was the same gender as they and thus they don’t know how disheartening it is to have to constantly mentally switch the pronouns when reading in order to apply its teachings to their lives.
The mostly male leaders of the Emergent/ing movement cannot expect women like me to take their so-called “progressive” theology seriously if they do not check their privelege. If you truly want to create a progressive, egalitarian Christianity, you cannot ignore the gender inequities that are embedded in religious practice and, of course, in the Bible itself.
Would it be too much to suggest that Emergent/ing types start to eliminate the male pronoun when referring to God? There are very few American Christians who, when pressed, would say that God is male. God is without gender and sex, they would say, as would, I’d wager, all Emergent/ing types. So why the hell are you still referring to God with a male pronoun? It’s a bad habit, albeit a millennia-old one. Get over it. No Emergent/ing adherent would ever suggest that God was gendered or sexed. Even most conservative evangelicals will say that God is without gender and sex. But still we see so few members of these communities making any attempt to change the language they use in liturgy, worship, and day-to-day conversation,
The gendered language is right there in the originals (or, the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals as they are). And presumably there’s going to be no changing of the text itself, beyond attempts to be as accurate in translation possibly (as the TNIV has done, never defaulting to the male pronoun when it is not indicated in the original Greek). So that means that Christian faith communities need to make sure their liturgies are as inclusive as possible. That is something the Emergent community is, for the most part, not doing.
I want Emergent/ing adherents, specifically men, to back up their belief that God is not a he with the excision of that pronoun from their discussions. I want those leaders to step outside their experience as men in the Christian faith and try to imagine what it’s been like for those of us in the other half of the human species, the half that’s rarely mentioned in the holy text and usually only as object lessons.
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:37 pm
great post jenny. as always, i agree with you on just about every point. in fact, I would say that i would back you up on this 100%, if not for one big issue. not a theological issue or a gender issue, but a lexiconical issue. a big problem with the english language is that we don’t have a gender-neuter that implies person. to use “it” or even “he/she” muddies the gender of God rather than clarifying. any suggestions?
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Thank you for your support, Dylan.
I should have clarified that I advocate the excision of all pronouns in this case. No he, she or it. It’s not that hard to avoid using a pronoun when talking about God. You just use the name “God” where you would use a pronoun. It’s not that difficult to change the way you use language to make pronouns unnecessary.
Some might argue that this is awkward, but I say suck it up and exercise the brain a little bit.
Of course, the name “God” and the gender associations with the word in itself is a whole other issue. But for now, I just want Emergent types to consider changing the way they talk about God in this way.
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 pm
What I want to know is, where are the feminist Emergent/ing Church writers?
I just finished reading the best one I know.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:04 am
That is so kind of you to say, Steve. Would that I were a) actually a Christian and b) not just a blogger writing to, like, five readers.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:16 am
I think part of the problem isn’t just the gender issue, but, as you briefly touched on, the privilege issue. I think the main reason there aren’t more women in church leadership and/or writing theological treatises (even in emergent/ing or other progressive forms of church) is because women have never been encouraged to persue the field, and, on the whole, lack the societal support to do so. Much like any race/gender who is not top dog in society (if you’re not white, male, or middle-to-upper-class), you’re less likely to receive the education necessary to be a theological/intellectual/spiritual leader in a faith community. After all, how many asian/black/hispanic leaders (male or female) have written theological books on par with Tony Jones and Brian McLaren? For that matter, how many of the current crop of white male leaders did NOT come out of (relatively) privileged backgrounds?
I think, like you mentioned, it’s not so much intentional, as it’s just being blind to their own privileged place in society and the faith community, and not understanding how much of a struggle it may be to overcome these things when you DON’T grow up with society’s or the faith community’s official stamp of approval on your forehead. It’s time they were made aware of this disparity, and actively work to resolve it through their books, from the pulpit, and systematically.
July 3rd, 2006 at 7:17 am
Sorry for all my misspelling in that last post. I never won any spelling bees, and I’m too lazy and bleary-eyed at this time of the morning (especially before coffee) to spell-check.
July 3rd, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I just finished reading the best one I know.
hear hear, steve!
Would that I were a) actually a Christian and b) not just a blogger writing to, like, five readers.
hmmmm. i may disagree on both points actually.
July 4th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
You all are too kind.
Would that I were a) actually a Christian and b) not just a blogger writing to, like, five readers.
>>>hmmmm. i may disagree on both points actually.
Dude, I’m pretty sure you can’t be a Christian if you don’t believe in Jesus.
Ninja:
I think you’re right on re: privilege.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Dude, I’m pretty sure you can’t be a Christian if you don’t believe in Jesus.
Looks like that upcoming podcast just got a lot more interesting….
July 8th, 2006 at 11:46 am
you got linked from the carnival, I’m guessing you’re having a few more readers pass through.
I’m not christian either, but I thought this was a fascinating post.
July 10th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I just found your site through the feminist carnival and really appreciate what you have to say here, in part because I found my experience with emergent church alienating for the reasons you describe.
I had been looking for a church in a new town when some friends invited me to a self-identified emergent church, which seemed at first really creative and interesting. I was surprised to find that the 3 church leaders were all men, having come from a more traditional church led by women, but gave it a few chances. However, the experiment ended when I walked out of their Christmas service during a sermon about childbirth, in which the speaker told us that childbirth was “really creepy,” and he felt really lucky that Jesus had been willing to be born that way. What?? There were pregnant women in the congregation, which, I believe like that most emergent churches, was made up mostly of people in their 20’s. I was so shocked and upset–just another way women in Christian churches are “othered,” even in supposedly progressive congregations.
Sorry for the long comment, but I was so glad to see that I wasn’t alone in this one! Thanks also for your thoughts on pronouns. I think incorporating “God” in place of “he” in every instance is such an appropriate and even aesthetically pleasing way to go.
July 10th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Layne, thanks so much for commenting. Your experience is a great illustration. The fact that you came from a more traditional church with women leaders is also interesting. It makes me think of how, in my evangelical past, I would have looked at communities like, say, the Episcopalians and said to myself, “Woah, like, they’re wearing robes and carrying gold cups and shit. Why are they so old-fashioned?” When of course some of the most gender progressive churches fall under the Episcopalian umbrella (I realize that not all Episcopalians are as progressive) and of course they just elected a woman leader of the whole damn show, which is more than the Emergent crowd has done (though, of course, they would never “elect” anyone because they are not an “organization” but a “conversation.”)
On another tack, the speaker’s comment about the creepiness of childbirth seems to also line up with the old Evangelical tendency to denigrate all natural “worldly” things. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a sermon just like that one, where the speaker goes into great detail to extoll the virtues of a divine figure who would become just like gross, disgusting humans — a worldview problematic in its implications on how humans should view each other and the planet on which we live.
Jax — thanks for reading and commenting!
July 11th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Jenny, I am a Christian in a mainline denomination, and I’d just like to say that you make incredibly good sense. I suspect one reason there’s such a dearth of female leadership in the Emergent/ing Church phenomenon is that it comes largely out of the evangelical free church bodies, which don’t ordain women or even permit much “mixed” leadership for laywomen. Evangelical Pentecostals (yes, there are such Christians), as well as mainline Protestants, have been saying and doing many of the same things as the Emergents, but while remaining within their denominational affiliations and even their congregations. They tend not to get as much press. And with them (us), women in leadership is largely a non-issue because it’s so common. There are still issues of parity, but we’ve accepted both the principle and the practice of women leading. The problem may be with some evangelicals thinking that non-evangelicals aren’t “real” Christians. (We are, but don’t tell them that!) It’s gotta be their way or the highway, and their way, the women still pretty much mind the kitchen and little else.
I agree with your (and a couple of commenters’) critique of so many preachers’ denigration of the human earthly experience. As I understand Jesus, he embraced the experience; his Jewish tradition called the created world “good” and the human creature “very good.” This is at odds with the Greek notion that anything to do with the world or the body was evil and only the spirit was good. Anyway, I think it’s rather foolish of preachers to carry on about the big bad world and dirty, evil humans. I believe our deeds may well be evil, or good, but to call the created order itself evil is to make God a liar. I try not to do that.
Perhaps it will encourage you to know that there are actual Christian feminists who take your concerns very seriously; in fact, they’re our concerns, too.