God’s Kingdom Women – Justice, Part 3

Part 3 – Spiritual Abuse

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and SISTERS, I do not want you to be uniformed. … Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good . … All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines (No gender mentioned). I Corinthians 12:1, 7, 11.

I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. Romans 16:1.[1]

In Part 1 of this series on justice, we shared a true story that illustrated physical abuse present in many churches that proceeds from an unbiblical view of gender relationships.

In Part 2 we told some stories of women who encounter psychology or emotional abuse. The trauma of constantly feeling belittled is just as real as the trauma from physical battering.

In Part 3 we will discuss the often-overlooked topic of spiritual abuse.

We are seeking to answer some serious biblical, historical, theological, philosophical, and ethical questions in the series on God’s Kingdom Women. We have covered the first four:
1. If men are superior to women, then why doesn’t God say so in his word?
2. If men are in charge, then why have women gotten the blame historically?
3. If men desire to rule by privilege and domination, then why did Jesus become a servant?
4. If men are essentially equal to women, then why are women still forbidden to serve in leadership positions?
5. If men are effective leaders, then why is there still so much abuse in the church and the home?

Abuse comes in many forms: physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Three in ten women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. It may surprise some to find that statistics for physical abuse inside the church are the same as in the rest of society. Women may be held in bondage to wrong-headed ideas about their fitness for kingdom work. We related several examples of physical and psychological abuse. For Christians, those things ought not to be. But for those who follow the gentle Jesus, spiritual abuse should also be of utmost concern.

 

Spiritual abuse can occur when the church puts an emphasis on its own rules rather than on biblical injunctions. For example, some churches believe that drinking any alcohol is a sin and people who have a glass of wine are judged as inferior Christians. Of course, drunkenness is a sin; the problem comes in when the church has set an unbiblical standard. Jesus changed water into wine. He also expects us to have self-control.

When the church creates an unbiblical hierarchy of leadership that excludes women entirely, it sets itself up for spiritual abuse. Of course, not all men who believe in female subordination are perpetrators of physical abuse, but their rationale does exacerbate the problem. It is hypocritical to say out of one side of their mouths that women are “equal” but out of the other side of their mouths that women must submit to men based on their “femaleness”. No one is fooled; this can only mean that women are inferior.

I challenge readers to find the verse in the Bible where God says that men are superior to women.

The following stories illustrate the hypocrisy of the double standard. Neither Jesus nor Paul treated women the way many men treat women in fundamentalist churches.

Eleanor’s Story –

Some years ago, it was my joy and privilege to know one of the godliest couples I had ever met. My husband and I had just joined a new church. I was by the coat rack getting ready to leave after the service and I noticed a man being pushed along in a wheelchair by his wife. They seemed really shy and since I was also shy and could relate, I decided to go over and talk to them. They perked up immediately and we had a good time getting acquainted. We told each other about our lives and our children. No one else came over to talk to us. I just put other people’s neglect down to anxiousness to get home. I heard many of the men talking about the football game on TV that afternoon.

Eleanor helped Andrew with his coat, their children showed up, and they left for home. Over the next few weeks I got to know them better. Andrew had a degenerative disease. He had only two years at most left to live. He and Eleanor had decided to homeschool their children so that he could spend more time with them. I met their son and daughter, and they were the most polite, respectful and mature children for their age that I knew.

Andrew was the teacher at home while Eleanor held a full-time job at the local bank. The bank, realizing the situation, had vested her almost immediately with a good salary, insurance, sick days, vacation days, and a pension. Eleanor was thankful to the bank and believed that God was really blessing her family. Andrew also was grateful to God for helping him be a good father to the children. I don’t remember if they knew how serious their dad’s condition was at that time.

The children learned a lot from their dad. I do know that they scored really high on their C.A.T.’s! They also learned humility, perseverance, faithfulness, and respect for their mother who worked 5 days a week to provide for the family. The children helped out with the chores at home. Andrew was able to coach them through preparing dinner for mom. They never felt that it was wrong for Andrew to be the parent at home while Eleanor worked outside the home to provide for them.

Unfortunately, the church did not see it that way. Week after week, I noted that no one came up to Andrew and Eleanor after the service. It seems that the problem was that he was letting his wife work outside the home. I asked several other women what was expected of Andrew. They had many suggestions for how Andrew and Eleanor should manage their family. They believed that if Andrew and Eleanor were faithful Christians that God would bless them with the means so that Eleanor would not have to work. The implication was that Andrew and Eleanor were not spiritual enough.

Eleanor and Andrew felt themselves to be blessed. Of course, they prayed for the miracle of healing. When their prayers were not answered that way, they prayed for God to continue to provide for their family in his way. God chose to take Andrew home some months later. Eleanor did not have the funeral at our church. She continued to work at the bank and take care of her family. It happened to be our bank, and I was always blessed with her cheerful smile.

Martha’s Story –

Churches have various ways of practicing spiritual abuse. I have heard of godly men being left out of leadership positions because they would not take an oath to support the church’s rigid rules for conduct. We attended a church once where there were no black people or poor. We had a poor family try to join once. They were having some problems. The elders sent someone over to their house to tell them what was expected of them. The family never came back. Disillusioned, we also left a few months later.

Paul said that in the church there was neither “Jew nor Gentile (read white or black), neither slave nor free (read poor or rich), nor is there male and female (self-evident), for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Our former church practiced an unbiblical hierarchy. I’m not sure why they did not understand that Jesus treated Gentiles, women, and the poor with compassion and so should they.

My friend Martha went to a church that practiced a more subtle form of spiritual abuse. They preached equality, but they still limited women in ministry. That denomination had adopted a change in its policy and were asking member congregations to allow more women in ministerial positions. About 20 to 30 percent of the congregations began ordaining women. Martha’s church was one of the nearly 80% that did not.

However, they were concerned about their reputation and wanted to save face so they told Martha that she could teach a Sunday School class if an elder was present in the room. She had to submit her lesson to the board and the pastor each week. She was delighted for the opportunity and carefully chose a subject that would be first of all Biblical, also simple and interesting – Women Ancestors of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first 10 to 20 minutes would be reading directly from the Scriptures. She would summarize the life of the women – from Eve to Mary. She only used conservative, biblically rich sources for background material. She found an elder who would work with her.

The church could then report at the annual nationwide Denomination meeting that they were allowing women to teach. What they did not mention was that they put Martha in the Sunday School supply closet for her class. The real classrooms were taken up by courses taught by men and the closet was the only space available. The church had subtle ways of discouraging the class. Anyone looking in the closet would see the small table with 8 chairs. The church clearly expected to be successful in preventing people from going to the class and they accomplished their goal. No weekly follow-up appeared in any church publication. The supply closet was off by itself; probably most people forgot or never knew there was a class there. The other classes were featured in the church bulletin; no mention was ever made of the class on Jesus’s Ancestors.

Martha told me that six brave people showed up on the first day. By week 3, the class was down to her and the elder. She finished the entire 12-week session anyway. When she left the 10×12 closet she held her head high and smiled at anyone she saw. Most looked the other way. She told me that that was the last time a woman was allowed to teach. The church could save face at their meetings but blame the failure on Martha.

Martha was sad because most of the stories that she covered in the bible – in God’s very own word – were never covered from the pulpit. The minister never preached about Eve, Sarah, Leah, Tamar or any of Christ’s female ancestors. At Christmas the minister might mention that Mary was the mother of Jesus, but there were never any other stories. Martha wondered why the minister could say he was preaching the word of God when he left so much out.

Martha came to the conclusion that leaving out women’s stories made the women and girls in the congregation feel less important than the men. It was a form of spiritual abuse. She left a few months later.

Conclusion

In the Bible, human flourishing has nothing to do with gender roles and everything to do with spiritual rebirth in Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is Christ in you as lived out through the fruit of the Spirit that results in holy living (Col. 1:21–27, Gal. 5:16–25). By emphasizing gender over the true gospel of rebirth in Christ, those with a male hierarchy position make a grave error. Maleness is not a morality or a character quality. By emphasizing maleness as the primary qualification for leadership, they continue to place females at risk by putting biology ahead of godly character. It can allow sinful, abusive men to have authority whether or not they have demonstrated spiritual maturity.

Though some churches have begun to call women into leadership positions, many patriarchal churches are denying women opportunities to serve as they have been called and gifted by God. The body suffers when gifted and willing members are not allowed to serve simply due to their gender. Patriarchal teaching leaves women open to abusive relationships. When a hierarchical position is stressed in the church, men suffer too. Cast into stereotypical roles, men needlessly limit themselves from available spiritual, emotional, and ministerial help. Society suffers as well. Christians have been called to be salt and light to the world. The church’s message of peace and love through Christ is lost when freedom is denied to women. The church cannot preach about justice without giving justice to its most vulnerable members. The world needs to hear a gospel of love, justice, and freedom.

[1] Of the 18 people Paul commends in Romans 16, 9 or 10 are women.