The web has been buzzing in recent weeks over the controversial issue as to whether Christianity is a "masculine" religion. Mark Driscoll jump-started the current round in an old debate during a podcast interview with Justin Brierley in which Driscoll illegitimately criticized British Christianity as being characterized by a feminine ministry. Driscoll added insult to injury by criticizing Brierley's wife, who is a pastor. Summaries of Driscoll's comments are available elsewhere; so I'll not describe them in detail here. Suffice it to say that Driscoll carelessly suggested that the sort of thinking that leads to women holding positions of ministry leadership is related to a variety of deficient views on atonement, hell, and, not least, one's doctrine of God.
The debate gained some momentum soon afterwards when pastor and author John Piper declared that God has given Christianity a "masculine feel."
Read the rest of this article on Seedbed.com to find out what Piper's supposedly "masculine" Christianity may have in common with second century Gnosticism.
9 comments:
Matt -
although i take umbrage with Piper, et. al. on this issue (which is quickly devolving into issues because they simply are stressing this issue without the biblical material to have such a focus), the connection with the Gospel of Thomas seems unfair.
not only would Piper not say a woman must become a man to enter the kingdom, he would also never say a woman is not "worthy of life." this seems to me to be an important line of distinction. the fact that his views of scripture push him toward complementarianism, the idea that Christianity has/should have a masculine feel, etc. has it's problems, but such a stark claim probably isn't warranted.
Thanks for the comment, Scott. I make the distinctions you are raising in the full post at Seedbed. The point of the article wasn't to say Piper is a gnostic. Of course, he is not. The point is that faithful Christianity has critiqued abberant portrayals of Christianity as masculine.
Matt - i read the full article on seedbed prior to my intital post...and didn't see the distinction you suggest is there.
maybe I'm missing something along the way, but was the gospel of Thomas rejected by the early church because it was gnostic or because of its views on masculinity? while these dint have to be different, they certainly can be. a specific quote from a church father would have helped your case.
the distinction I am making is that there is a difference between someone working from an orthodox position and making such comments, and those who are making such statements from an aberrant thought-world, such as Gnosticism. as I'm sure you are aware, while you are correct that the church has consistently promoted the equality of women, there are many aberrant statements littered throughout the church fathers regarding women that make Piper and Driscoll look moderate on this issue. while I think those early statements also missed it, it didn't mean these guys were brodering on or even delving into gnostic thought...
Matt, I agree with Engebretson's comments, that your 'Gospel of Thomas' comment, subltly comparing Piper's position to Gnosticism is taking your oppisition too far.
If indeed Christiaity is being emasculated (by the cult of feminism), advocating for a recognition of the distinction between men and women in faith neither amounts to the advocation of inequality, nor mysogynism. More incredibly it doesn't even come close to Gnosticism. What does come close however, is the denial that there are differences between men and women, either actual or in biblical treatment. (Recall, for example, that like it or not, man is appointed head of his wife; and that man, not woman, is held responsible for sin, though it was woman that sinned first?)
Historically, since the enlightenment at least, the growth of liberal humanism has perfused Christian thinking. This not only dilutes the Gospel, but it changes it.
You say: "In contrast, the four canonical gospels provide the basis for a critique of anti-feminine distortions of Christianity" yet I believe the onus is on you to show how Pipers comments, at least, are either anti-feminine, or distortions. I don't believe you can. I can't even find evidence that they are unorthodoxed. Whereas the position Piper appears to be refuting can easily be seen to be modern, humanistic, and unorthodoxed.
(Liberty, Egality, and Fraternity are French Revolutionary ideals, not biblical ones)
Scott, I distanced Piper from gnosticism by saying, "Piper would never say that a woman must become a man in order to enter the kingdom of heaven." I cited Thomas and placed it in the larger context of the larger culture, the values of which it reflected. Then raised a point from the canonical gospels which critique anti-feminine/hyper-masculine worldviews. I see what you are getting at, but I would maintain that you can compare similar viewpoints in disparate sources without attributing every idea from one to the other. The idea was to say, "Hey, here's a more extreme hyper-masculinism that represented the culture in which early Christianity spread, and here's one way the authors of the gospel seemed to resist that cultural reality."
Thanks for commenting and pressing back. I certainly expected some pushback on this post. ;)
Ekklesia, to be clear, I'm not objecting to Piper's premises. Obviously, all the priests and the 12 apostles were men, though there is evidence for at least one female apostle named Junia in Rom. 16. I don't think that his conclusion that God has given Christianity a "masculine feel" follows from the premises. There is other evidence to suggest a more balanced description, not least the fact that the gospel was entrusted to women as "apostles to the apostles" (to borrow a phrase). Women weren't allowed to testify in court and the fact that the message of the resurrection was first delivered by women is implausible if it's not historically accurate. If the story was made up, they wouldn't have picked women to carry the message. My point is that Piper's comments are one sided. That's what I mean by distorted. That's why I decided to point out the way the Bible critiques hyper-masculine things like this.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Matt, I understand. The point is that Piper's point stands whether or not one holds to a complementarian view or an egalitarian view.
One can legitimately argue, as Piper has, that the faith has a masculine feel and still hold to balance between the genders, conceding such things as the Gospel of the resurrection first came to a woman as witness, in a culture that did not value the word of women.
For example, Piper said: "He (God) does not intend for women to languish or be frustrated or in any way suffer or fall short of full and lasting joy in this masculine Christianity," he explained. "From which I infer that the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families that have this masculine feel."
The position Piper's opponents are reacting to, is a strawman, implying somehow that men and women stand separately before the Lord. The following premises can all be held without contridiction:
God is no respecter of persons.
The husband is head of the wife.
God represents himself as father, and son.
Male and female, he create them in His image.
WRT to his 'conclusion', I actually believe it is not, in fact, a 'conclusion' but an additional premise, or presupposition (that Christianity has a masculine feel) required by his belief the faith is being attacked by a feminist perspective.
I believe both Piper and Driscoll are required to presuppose a masculine feel to the faith if they are to successfully refute the immasculation of the faith, and remain intellectually honest.
The controversy here, is actually whether or not the faith is being immasculated, and NOTwhether it feels masculine, since one cannot hold the one, and deny the other.
Personally, I agree that the faith is being immasculated, and therefore also must presuppose that it has a masculine feel.
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