{"id":3268,"date":"2014-03-07T13:26:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T20:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2014-03-07T13:26:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T20:26:16","slug":"jesus-feminist-a-gospel-of-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/2014\/03\/jesus-feminist-a-gospel-of-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"“Jesus Feminist:” A Gospel of Empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cJesus Feminist: Exploring God\u2019s Radical Notion that Women are People, Too.\u201d<\/p>\n

My initial reaction to that title was \u201cWell yeah\u2026 Like we been sayin.\u201d Because in most mainline protestant circles, we have been HELLA sayin. For like, 100 years. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I was glad to see this book\u2014an apologetic for empowering women leaders in the church\u2014emerge in the evangelical circle, because, you know, \u2018those people\u2019 sure need to read it. But I didn\u2019t really expect to find anything in it that would speak to me or \u2018my people.\u2019<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert: I was wrong.<\/p>\n

This book is full of good news. For women and for men; for mainliners, progressives, evangelicals, and all who defy classification; and for all who wonder how much of the church\u2019s identity is shaped by culture more than by Jesus.<\/p>\n

The self-proclaimed progressives should read this book, if for no other reason than to rejoice in the fact that we have another sister on this mission against patriarchy. \u00a0An especially eloquent and empassioned one at that\u2014and one who will reach a far broader audience than we\u2019ve managed to thus far.<\/p>\n

Speaking of apologetics\u2014Sarah Bessey\u2019s<\/a> are spot on. She visits the biblical \u2018clobber texts\u2019 used to keep women in narrowly focused roles, and she clobbers them right back; with a powerful mix of theology, scholarship, common sense and grace. \u00a0For those of us who long ago gave up defending women\u2019s \u2018place\u2019 in the church, because we thought our particular tradition had moved on, Bessey\u2019s book is like reading the class notes of your smarter, harder working friend\u2026 She explores, in depth, some of the questions we\u2019ve long dismissed as \u2018not our issue anymore.\u2019<\/p>\n

Also? On a side note, I went to my denomination\u2019s Senior Minister conference a couple weeks ago (a gathering for the pastors of our largest congregations) and\u2014spoiler alert\u2014I was the only girl there this year. So yeah, maybe our super enlightened and progressive churches have not exactly moved on\u2026<\/p>\n

But this book, on the whole, is not an apologetic. It is a memoir; a gospel of Jesus; \u00a0a prayer; and ultimately, an invitation and a commissioning. The author challenges all Christians\u2014not just women, and certainly not just those called to official leadership roles\u2014to fully live into the call of discipleship. She holds up powerful stories of women throughout history, up until now, who are doing the powerful, transformative work of Jesus in their communities and world\u2013 with or without titles, acknowledgment, or permission. Really, isn\u2019t this how all the important things get done?<\/p>\n

There is a gentleness about Sarah that I rail against, am challenged by, and am drawn to. All at the same time! That\u2019s how I know it\u2019s a great book. I rail against it because when she invites women to stop fighting for \u2018a place at the table\u2019 and just follow Jesus and love people, I want to be like, \u2018no, sister, you\u2019ve got to get pissed! You\u2019ve got to keep banging on that drum!\u2019 And she does acknowledge that perhaps some women are called to keep up that fight. And maybe that\u2019s me. But she\u2019s right\u2026it does get exhausting.<\/p>\n

So maybe that\u2019s also why I\u2019m drawn to and challenged by Sarah Bessey\u2019s work\u2026 There\u2019s something appealing about her gracious tone and alternate road to empowerment. Something more effective, more kingdom-shaping, and more subversive than all the drum beating in the world.<\/p>\n

Kind of sounds like someone else I know.<\/p>\n

There were a few parts of the book that I wanted to push back against, but ultimately, I found it to be life-giving, affirming, and hopeful. I will challenge her on one point, though. She says at multiple times that she, herself, does not feel called to preach.<\/p>\n

Really? Please, girl. This whole book is a sermon. And for the gift of it, we say thanks.<\/p>\n

Here are some of my favorite parts, and those most telling of the work as a whole:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be done lobbying for a seat at the Table\u2026I want to be outside with the misfits, with the rebels, the dreamers, second-chance givers, the radical grace lavishers\u2026the ones rejected by the Table as not worthy enough or right enough.<\/em><\/p>\n

Patriarchy is not God\u2019s dream for humanity. <\/em><\/p>\n

In a time when women were almost silent or invisible in literature, Scripture affirms and celebrates women. Women were a part of Jesus\u2019 teaching, part of his life. Women were there for all of it. <\/em><\/p>\n

Culture mores were passing as biblical mandates.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the well-meaning glibly parrot Bible verses, stomping through the thin places between the Spirit and my humanity with all the subtlety of a clumsy four-year-old boy, something in me needs a long, deep, cleansing breath. <\/em><\/p>\n

Life in Christ is not meant to mirror life in a Grecco-Roman culture. <\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure when the Church decided that \u201cbiblical\u201d was the perfect adjective for subjective roles and situations. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s helped us. Usually when people use that phrase, they are thinking more about June Cleaver than the early church\u2019s Lydia\u2026a sanitized sitcom society that never actually existed instead of Deborah\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

[also on biblical womanhood] If the title can\u2019t be enjoyed by a woman in Haiti, or even by the women hailed in scripture, the same way it can by a middle class woman in Canada, then biblical womanhood must be more than this.<\/em><\/p>\n

True justice and equality don\u2019t flow from celebrity of position or platform. Justice flows from the heart of our Abba, and when our hearts are tuned in to his heart, that justice flows through our own right-now lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

We do not grow weary in well doing. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cJesus Feminist: Exploring God\u2019s Radical Notion that Women are People, Too.\u201d My initial reaction to that title was \u201cWell yeah\u2026 Like we been sayin.\u201d Because in most mainline protestant circles, we have been HELLA sayin. For like, 100 years. 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