Addressing the Bible’s Treatment of Women

Mormonism’s treatment of women was a major reason why I left.

I find the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog interesting and admire the writers for having the guts to call out screwy doctrine and practices, but at the same time wonder why they bother when it makes so much more sense to just walk away.

It’s funny that when I talk to someone from my old church I learn that what Christianity REALLY says is different than what I learned growing up in that church.

“We’re Christian. We can make these words mean anything we want them to.”

*applause*

My first step away from Christianity was at 14, on the day I mentioned my newly realized “call” to the ministry to the school bible club president. He “corrected” my “misinterpretation” of my vocation with some of the usual 1st Corinthians tripe. I swore I would study the bible and religion until I understood how both my conviction and the scripture could be true. Ironically, i eventually discovered neither was true in the slightest. Ironically, had the bible been more progressive, I probably wouldn’t have been moved to explore so deeply into how the sausage was made in the first place. Which raises a question: in the unlikely case that there is a superior being of some sort in the universe, could religious texts really be working as a gradual tool of societal deconversion and growth?

They write “context” or “historical context” as if that just makes the problem go away. So what you’re saying is given the context the way these people acted, with God’s blessing, was correct?

I like it when they claim God just couldn’t promote modern liberal values, because Christians would’ve had a tougher sell trying to make converts. Apparently walking on water isn’t good enough.

“Oh sure, walking on water… it’s impressive. But really, this business about letting women *speak*? Come on, now, don’t be ridiculous, mate.”

“Ok, that weird cannibalistic ceremony with the wafers, ok I can do that. We should hang out with lepers and prostitutes and preach to them, sure. Eye/needle/camel – give away nearly all my worldly possessions, no problem. Let women speak in church? WHOA WHOA WHOA… whoa. Hold on there.”

One the one hand, it would be nice if the woman had instead left Christianity because of its misogyny. On the other hand, filling up Christianity with women who don’t believe that the Bible condones sexism is also a good thing.

Yeah, and who the fuck else in Christianity is going to listen to them? Excuse my bluntness, but she herself gave examples of several Christians’ views of women and mentioned that her “opinion wasn’t the consensus view”. It’s support of a sexist religion for no good reason.

There are some religions in the world that venerate women as creators, wise guides and similar stereotypes. I think they are silly but at least they don’t tell women that they are worth less than men. I say: just scrap the whole ridiculous bunch of these daft stereotypes and judge people on how they actually behave rather than on how some Iron Age myth claim they act.

The Bible clearly means whatever the hell people want it to mean at any given point in history—but they can’t admit that.

Go back to 1910 and most of modern America’s Christian’s would be seen as heretics. Go back to 1810 and all of them would be heretics. Go back to 1710 and they’d be burned at the frickin stake for their heresy.

I’ve always wondered how they don’t think it just a wee bit suspicious that the only time in human history were people actually interpreted their holy book the ‘right’ way is within the last few decades were their religion changed it’s rules to be in line with modern standards against racism, sexism and violence. Especially when their church is probably in the process of flip-flopping their stance on homophobia. A few decades ago practically all of them agreed gays should be denied any rights and in a few decades from now practically all will agree theirs absolutely nothing wrong with being gay.

The entire time though they’ll be claiming their objective rules are eternal and unchanging unlike are worthless wishy washy subjective morals.

The Bible’s bad passages (the sexist, slavery-supporting, genocidal, etc. ones) are often ignored by most Christians. When not ignored, the non-fundie Christians tend to make up other interpretations of those passages, which usually don’t make sense. I wish they would stop trying to rationalize all the ridiculous crap in their “holy” book and realize that it’s just a terrible book to base your morals on. And I wish they’d stop trying to rationlize the sexism in their religion and just leave it entirely.

Not too many comments on the article at Christianity Today, but of course leave it to the sole male voice to argue that “weaker” doesn’t mean “lesser,” that different roles may still be complementary. Oh how I hate that line. We’re made different as individuals, not through gender. I would give mythological Eve a lot of credit: she listened, contemplated, and decided for herself to take a bite of the fruit. Adam, however, seemed just to eat whatever was put in front of him.

And the woman-as-inherently-evil-and-feeble is an interesting premise against contemporary Victorian values, for example, that maintained women were more delicate and nurturing and thus the moral backbone of any family or relationship, meant to gently guide the nature of the beast in man. Neither is accurate, but it’s a telling shift that women are damned in either assessment.

they know the god of the Bible really does intend for women to be submissive to the men in their lives

If I had left that to the “man” of the house, the whole family but the cat (who would have hunted for herself) would have starved on the street. Fortunately, I’m not that idiotic and fed myself, the cat and the baby. I threw him the hell out!

On occassion, I mention to my wife that according to God she has to do what I say.
She invariably responds “So? You don’t believe in God.”
“Damn, screwed by atheism again” I say “How about if I say please?”
Not being able to assert my authority by basing it on an all-powerful diety really cramps my style. I actually have to treat my wife as an equal – perhaps if I ask nicely she can do the same for me. Tongue firmly in cheek here by the way – for the humour-impaired. I certainly wouldn’t want to be solely in charge of my family – there’s no way to spread the blame that way.