I was miffed. I had requested Jim Henderson’s upcoming book,The Resignation of Eve, expecting a fiery egalitarian polemic about how limiting women’s roles is driving women away from the church–a premise supported by recent research from Barna indicating that women, as a group, are abandoning the church faster than men. Instead, I found myself immersed in a series of interviews that sounded an awful lot like the conversations I have over chocolate chip muffins and watery Folgers at my weekly women’s Bible studies. And frankly, after 15 years of involvement in women’s ministries, the last thing I wanted to read about was one more woman expressing insecurity about her gifts and ambivalence about her position in her church.
It was what I needed to read, though. By the time I reached the third interview, my annoyance had vanished, and I was nodding in recognition as the common threads wove a telling tapestry. While most books discussing women’s positions in church focus on doctrinal or social issues, Henderson boldly goes where no man has gone before–into the thickly-veiled thought life of the “average” Christian woman. In doing so, he hits the heart of the matter:
Millions of women have given up protesting, given up trying to move forward, and allowed themselves to be convinced that they aren’t and shouldn’t want to be men’s equals in the church that dares to name itself after one of history’s most radical advocates for women–Jesus of Nazareth. Some women have resigned from Christianity, some have resigned from God, but many have simply developed a more insidious form of resignation, the invisible resignation that people develop when they have given up hope. This kind of resignation leads a woman to appear to be present when she actually left the building years ago.
Ouch. The jig is up, ladies–Jim Henderson has been spying on us.
While the theological discussion about gender equality is extremely important, it may not be bringing change and empowerment to the women in the pews, women who are being fed a starvation diet of “Bible” studies that have more to do with homemaking and beauty than hermeneutics, and devouring books by Beth Moore because they’re the meatiest teaching their leaders seem to think them capable of digesting. Add to the menu the fact that many egalitarians keep silent for fear of creating division, and we find that many churches are packed with intelligent, well-educated, extremely competent women who have no idea how to use their gifts in church without creating conflict. So they don’t. They may plant their gifts in the secular world, where they are appreciated, but gifts meant for the church are left rotting on the vine all around us. Can’t you just smell it?
The Resignation of Eve reminds us that the real issue–and solution–is in the hearts and minds of women. Women need to be encouraged. They need to be mentored. They need to be reminded that they, too, were created in the image of God, and that stifling their gifts is like hiding a mirror designed to reflect God’s care for a hurting world. Once they believe that, believe it deep in their bones, they’re not going to let anything stop them.
Let’s go encourage some women!
