This document is an outline covering topics related to the roles of men and women. It examines the state of men’s and women’s roles in modern (1986) culture, God’s plan for humanity in this area, roles of men and women in marriage and in family, and scriptural models for men and women.
Introduction
1. In talks like this we speak of men as men and women as women. In other circumstances we speak of those truths that apply to us all as human persons, regardless of our sexual identity. 2. First we’ll review the state of men’s and women’s roles in modern culture. 3. Second we’ll examine three principles in God’s plan for the area. 4. Third we’ll take a brief look at the Christian family. 5. Fourth we’ll close by holding up two biblical models, one for men, one for women
I. Men’s and women’s roles in the modern world
A. A review of the modern situation. — As we all know contemporary attitudes toward men’s and women’s roles are all over the map. Ironically this sad state of affairs comes in the wake of one of the most promising developments of the century. It is this development that will be the starting point for our review. I’m talking about: 1. The new awareness we have of the rights and dignity of women. — As Christians we know these rights and this dignity are rooted in women being made in the image and likeness of God, as were men, and in their being called to a heavenly destiny, as were men. a) Modern society has recognized women’s equality with respect to basic human rights — just wage, education, voting, owning property b) Many unjust forms of discrimination have been repudiated — wives treated as property of husbands c) Bad attitudes, too, are passing away — “If it’s women’s work or a womanly trait or hobby, it’s automatically inferior.” — “A man can do anything better” (e.g. women authors and painters had to use men’s names). d) These are all very good developments. 2. In the wake of these developments, though, there became fewer and fewer external supports for the notion that the differences between men and women are important. It became harder to maintain customs our culture had for expressing and honoring these differences. a) In the field of employment, jobs required less physical strength. Women could fill many jobs formerly restricted to men. b) In the home: families became smaller, day care available, homemaking aids available. All making it possible for wives to seek fulfillment outside the home. There were fewer reasons for wives to stay home. c) In education: women were trained and competent to take a place in society formerly denied them (e.g. voting). d) As jobs became available to married and single women, they became financially independent of men. Financial security became less a reason for women to marry or to stay married. e) None of these developments is bad in itself. Most are good. But they did have an inadvertent erosive impact on men’s and women’s roles in our culture. It became more difficult to see why any differences should be maintained. 3. Also as this was going on there emerged bad developments. a) Overemphasis on equality — To say that women and men have equality with respect to basic human rights and that they are equal heirs to the Kingdom of God is not to say that there are no differences, and that there should be no distinction of customs, roles, etc. based on these differences. — Differentiation is good and the best way to justice. Not to differentiate is often unjust:bright kids and normal kids, same education; handicapped and non-handicapped, same facilities; families and singles, same tax provisions. — It would be unjust if, in the interest of equality (ERA), society were to deny women certain protections, e.g. policies against women serving on the front lines in combat, laws against rape,separate jail cells for women, separate toilet and locker rooms in public facilities. b) Alliance between women’s movement and the sexual revolution. — The goal of the sexual revolution is a society in which there will be no restrictions on sexual indulgence — E.g. availability of contraceptives became a shared objective. For the sexual revolution it removed another barrier to “free sex.” For the women’s movement it offered wives more say in size of their families. — The alliance had really bad affects on the women’s movement. c) Gay and lesbian movements. — Logical consequences of the sexual revolution B. Some results: some good, some bad, and some in between 1. Women have more opportunities for fulfillment and participation in the broad society around them. This is good. 2. Men and women find themselves filling same jobs, same roles, and often in competition with one another. This is fine usually but it does pose problems that need to be worked out. 3. Women experience confusion/conflict over value of homemaking, motherhood and traditionally womanly values. This is unfortunate. — Naturally they are drawn to them. — Some think: because men don’t pursue these, they must be worthless. 4. Men experience confusion/conflict of different sort: This too is unfortunate. — By nature want to protect and look after women — By circumstance have to compete with them for jobs, prestige, money, power. 5. Hatred. This is understandable but terrible. a) Women — Viewing men as those who deny them what they want, what they’re entitled to — Reacting to real and imagined prejudice — Hating themselves for not being men — Hate marriage and family; view as man’s institutions for enslaving women b) Men — Viewing women as unfair competitors: intruding into their domain. Competing for same goals but not playing by same rules. Often stakes are high: unemployment. — Increase in rape, wifebeating, violent pornography, violence against women in movies — One way for men to take out hostilities against women. c) This hatred is sometimes what fuels the battles over men’s and women’s roles (e.g. why discussions often heat up quickly). C. Some responses to the modern situation 1. Some go too far, saying there are no important differences, only accidental biological differences that men tend to exploit to maintain control over women. 2. Others go too far in the opposite direction. Some say there are differences and they make men superior to women. — They discourage higher education for women, they advocate strict dress codes for women, an undignified subservient role for wives, and macho activities for men. 3. But more commonly people are just confused. a) They have a sense for the importance of roles for men and women but don’t know where to draw the line - They receive little or no support in this from important sectors of their environment: media, church, work — Different customs seem appropriate in different crowds. b) Generally speaking our culture hasn’t really recovered from the changes introduced when real progress was made in women’s rights and dignity. — It will take time before the dust settles, the radicals lose their influence, hostilities cool, and common sense re-emerges. Then we’1l see a serious effort to find new ways of expressing our differences in the modern era. Ways that also reflect genuine advances in the area. 4. In the People of Praise we’ve already taken measures to find roles for men and women appropriate for our age — You could say we’re ahead of our time. Avante garde. a) We have an approach and customs which affirm the genuine progress made in the area of women’s rights and at the same time place high value on masculinity for men, femininity for women. It’s well balanced, we feel. We have a common approach with room for flexibility. b) Some typical elements: — No androgyny — Men’s groups and women’s groups — Traditional family order — Male leadership at the level of coordinators — Honor and respect shown: men for women and vice versa — Women in the community are encouraged to pursue careers and interests that society would have denied them 100 years ago (e.g. women airplane pilots, retail executives, college profs. and a women’s soccer team. II. What we believe is God’s plan in the area of men’s and women’s roles — Not exhaustive treatment. More in other courses. - Three principles A. First principle: God’s design for the human race includes natural, inherent differences between men and women as well as cultural expressions of these differences. 1. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27) a) From the beginning, by his own conscious design and perfect will God made men men and women women. — The most important, foundational differences are put there by God. 2. The most obvious differences are physiological, but right away you see some of God’s purpose — Men are built the way they are to father children, to protect mother and children, to provide for their sustenance, and to keep unruly teenagers in line. — Women are built the way they are to bear children, give birth to them, nurse them and generally care for them in their early years. 3. Along with the biological differences are psychological differences that augment the physiological and contribute to the same purposes: (Note: hormones, their role, seem to bridge the gap between biological and psychological) —e.g. men tend to be more combative and aggressive: helps to protect —e.g. women tend to be more sympathetic, compassionate: helps to nurture B. Second principle: God wants these very real, foundational differences to be expressed culturally. 1. In our etiquette, our social conventions, our dress, our language, our work and our play — He wants men to be men and women to be women. 2. If they are not expressed culturally, if the differences are not recognizable in the way we act, if they are not preserved and given respect by our customs then it’s easy for God’s purpose in the area to be ignored or thwarted. —e.g. When the father is not given proper respect as a father in a family he is less inclined to take responsibility for the well-being of his wife and children. —e.g. When the role of mother and homemaker is devalued, women are less inclined to stay home and raise their young children C. Before going on to the third principle, let me point out that this design of God’s can be seen in both divine revelation and empirical evidence. 1. Scripture a) God’s order and plan for the family includes in a central way the distinction between man and woman, husband and wife — We’ll talk more about this later but the point here is that Scripture presents husbands as different from wives and their respective roles in the family as different. b) The question now is: How much of what we know about relationships in a family can we carry over to relationships in broader society. Do we have to start from scratch? Or is the notion of family very strongly and essentially related to that of society? The answer is yes. We can see this in three ways. (1) The family you’re born into is your first society— where all your needs are met, where you learn the basics: social relationships, language, self understanding, etc. — A son learns how to relate to older men from his relationship with his father and to girls from his relationships with his sisters. (2) Society is a collection of families. — Practically everyone can be described in terms of relationship to living kin (e.g. in inheritance laws). (3) In a very real way all people in society are part of the same family. — "All the dispersed children of God (Jn. 11:52). — One way to understand the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is to conclude that from 2 parents came all the rest of the human race. It would have been different if there had been 100 sets of first parents. c. Let’s look at 1 Tim. 5:1,2. St. Paul is saying two things here1: (1) If you want to know how to relate to those around you, look back to what you learned when you lived with your family and take your cue from that. (2) Familial relationships observe sexual differences. 2. In addition to revelation we can see God’s plan for sexual differentiation and cultural expression of this by looking at what the experts tell us in fields of bio logy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. The evidence is abundant and the implication is clear: the differences between men and women are inborn and in every culture they make themselves manifest somehow. — e.g. Women in the Kibbutz by Tiger and Fox D. Third Principle: Cultural expression, the way these differences are expressed culturally, will vary from age to age and culture to culture and country to country. 1. The root differences remain the same so there is a great deal of commonality, e.g. role of mother. 2. We do have freedom here as we try to live out God’s plan in 20th century, U.S.A. — e.g. Women don’t have to “put her hand to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle.” (Prov. 31:19) But it does make sense for a mother to be responsible for outfitting the kids with clothes and seeing to it that they’re clean and mended. 3. Some of the ways we have chosen for our life in the People of Praise are not God’s only way for doing things — Men’s groups and women’s groups, for example. a) They do work well for us, though. b) They might not work well for others. A pastoral team of men and women might work better than all male coordinators for some groups. c) Also, not all organizations should be modeled after the family (e.g. businesses) III. Headship and submission in marriage A. “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). A wife is a partner to her husband in the work of raising a family. Their project, he the head. Regarding his other work, she supports, encourages, etc. Shouldn’t marry a man whose work you can’t endorse —This is not to say wives shouldn’t have work of their own, or that husbands shouldn’t sacrifice for the sake of their wives’ work. B. “Wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Eph. 5:22). Not a blank check. The wife’s integrity as a person must be upheld. But she should take his direction very seriously, normally expecting to follow it. C. Husband relates to wife as Christ to church. (Eph. 5: 23-30). 1. Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her, so husband must do likewise. Her servant (as Christ came to serve). Uses authority to carry out this responsibility for her. Not for selfish gain. In this sense some speak of “mutual submission,” with the husband still the head. 2. Christ also presents the church holy and spotless, and so the husband must lead the wife into holiness. It’s hard to discuss spiritual things with your wife because she knows you too well. 3. Husband’s headship is a channel of the Holy Spirit for the wife. Expectant faith. 4. Husband should care for the wife as he cares for his own body. Make sure she gets enough sleep, is clothed well, gets recreation. IV. Close with two classic scriptural role models for us. Their traits don’t begin to cover all we say about men’s and women’s roles but they are inspiring. A. Job 29 presents a helpful picture of what it means to be a man. 1. Job as “elder” a) Respected as a man of wisdom and authority (vs, 8-10) b) Can make decisions, take charge of situations (vs, 21, 22, 23, 25) c) Sees to the welfare of those in his circle (vs. 24) d) Helps the oppressed, widows, poor, etc. (vs. 12, 15, 16) e) Can correct error where it surfaces (vs. 17) B. Prov. 31:10 ff. Picture of the woman of God 1. Characterized by holiness (vs. 30), wisdom (vs. 26), charity (vs. 20), taking initiative (vs. 16, 24), responsibility (vs. 21), and strength and dignity (vs. 25) 2. Not weak, passive, “Victorian,” silent, helpless 3. She runs things on domestic front so well her husband is free to do his work. She’s not overly dependent asking him about every little decision (vs. 23). Summary 1. Review the state of men’s and women’s roles in modern culture. — A great deal of confusion — Great progress for women followed by great dislocation in society at large. Some of it to be expected after such a bit of upheaval, some of it caused by people of ill will — In People of Praise we have a coherent and realistic approach. 2. God’s plan a. There are real inborn differences—more than biological in character; God intended it to be so from the beginning. b. God wants these differences to be expressed, lived out in our culture. c. Much room here for flexibility in the cultural expression of these differences
Endnote
1. 1 Timothy 5:1-2: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. (NIV)”