Friday, September 23, 2011

Essential Inequality

In the nineteenth-century it was heresy to say that men and women are by creation equal. The woman was considered inferior by God’s creation and punished by God with an additional subjection because of her sin. There was no place for equality in the equation.
           
Then something happened. The inferior woman disappeared in the early decades of the twentieth century and the newly found “true woman” was declared the man’s rational equal. The church added equality to its theology, but not without causing a ripple effect that we can still feel today. Somehow the church had to explain how it was possible for the equal woman to be also the man’s subject; and why God punished the woman with subjection because of her sin. Theologians created more or less plausible answers, but at the end the task proved impossible, and by common consent subjection as a punishment was dropped in the 1980s. But the problem didn’t go away. Theologians had to still answer how it was possible for the woman to be by creation equal and by creation unequal. Every possibility has been explored: the image of God is said to be transmitted only by the man, the woman’s creation from the man coupled with the word “help” has been proposed as the reason for her subjection, the naming of the animals and the woman by the man is seen as giving the man authority, the Hebrew word ‘adam (humankind) is given the meaning “male human,” God is seen as calling only Adam after the two had sinned, that the death penalty was given to the man instead of the woman is seen as giving the man the ultimate leadership, the woman was deceived but the man is said to have eaten the fruit out of love,  only the man is said to have been given the commandment not to eat of the tree, the man and woman are seen reversing their roles when the woman takes the fruit instead of the man, the original blessing is divided making the man the ruler of the creation (and the woman) and the woman responsible for the multiplying.

Not one word or concept is left untouched in the creation and fall accounts by hierarchical theologians in their effort to give the man authority over the equal woman. If they had left at least one word untouched, it would have given them more credibility, but their sheer desperation is seen in that they haven't. They must find a reason for the woman’s subjection, for permanent equality cannot co-exist with permanent inequality. It is true that in life we find ourselves often unequal to those around us, but this inequality is based on our talents, strengths, weaknesses and gifts; they do not make us permanently unequal to other humans for we are all superior in some areas while inferior in others. This kind of inequality is essential in order to create a vast array of abilities that enrich life instead of a mathematical equality which allows for no variation between individuals.

          That God made us male and female does not mean that the male is always this way and the female always that way. Instead, the male and female blend until there is only one humankind, created in the image of God. This was what the nineteenth-century church could not see for the society separated the man and the woman artificially, and lowered the woman to an inferior status. The church of that era never saw the beauty that is created when male and female come together as equals for the glory of God.  We do – well... almost.

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