What is it, this “Feminism”?

I like Laura Turner’s piece in CT:

The word feminist, for some, still conjures up images of second-wave bra-burners and radical leftist politics, forgetting entirely about women like Anne Hutchison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. To let these characterizations define feminism is akin to letting a single denomination define Christianity: it is inherently limiting, untrue, and anathema to unity in Christ.

The church needs feminism because at its core, feminism affirms to us what our faith teaches us about male and female in God’s Kingdom and what Jesus himself preached throughout the New Testament.

Feminism is simply the belief that women are equally as human as men—equal in the eyes of God, equal in image-bearing, equal in ability. (This is why it is possible to be both a feminist and a complementarian, something Elijah Turrell wrote a great blog post about. I don’t agree with him about complementarianism, but still.)

I would add one dimension: feminism is also about rectifying the injustices of male domination or unjust, unequal representation of women. Yes, it’s about equality. That great apostle Paul was one of the earliest to utter this sense of feminism.

Speaking of rectifying…. rectifying means we were wrong in the past; it means repenting; anyone who doesn’t think rectification needs to take place about women in positions of leadership doesn’t believe we were wrong in the past. They’d be wrong.