Gender & Society

Question 1

Christian teaching on the roles of men and women in the family and society

Answer 1

three competing views in Christianity:
1) men are superior to women
2) men and women are equal
3) women are superior to men

gender as a choice:
- the Church hasn’t moved past the gender binary, and is yet to fully accept the spectrum of genders that people identify as
- terms such as ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attribute certain traits to men and women but some would argue that the emotions and actions attributed to these titles should not be gendered at all
- gender should be viewed as a spectrum upon which people can choose how they identify

Gender in the Bible:
- Ephesians presents women as much lesser, submissive and in need of guidance from their husbands
- “wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head if the wife as Christ is the head of Church”
- by modern standards, Paul had some controversial opinions:
- “I do not permit a women to teach or have authority over a man, she must be silent”
- although some female figures are shown in the Bible as equal to men, often they are only exalted to this level because they have been chosen by God
- traditions play a primary role in the Church, however there is still opportunity for change; in 1988, Pope John Paul II wrote Mulieris dignitatem as a response to modern feminism and the pressure it was putting on the Church
- “even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the biblical words “he shall rule over you” must not under any condition lead to the ‘masculinisation’ of women. In the name of liberation from male ‘domination’, women must not appropriate to themselves male characteristics contrary to their own feminine ‘originality’.”

Question 2

Christian response to contemporary secular views of women

Answer 2

parenthood:
- believe families are essential to a successful society, and that if we start to undermine these traditional family structures by changing, or completely removing gender roles, we run the risk of society weakening
- its the responsibility of Christianity to try and combat this change, and continue to promote normative gender roles
- Church tried to use the increase in prescriptions of antidepressants in Britain to illustrate how changing gender roles has damaged society
- however, correlation does not imply causation

• biology proves men and women are different, so a person who changes their gender is being intentionally ignorant of biological evidence
• if Christianity is based on God’s revelation of the Truth, then discarding these beliefs would be nothing short of heretical

defence of secular view:
- Christianity is a historically evolving religion, its origins were from a sect of Judaism which evolved to better fit the social landscape of Israel at the time
- seems the faith communities are only unwilling to change when it is inconvenient to them

science, gender, and sex:
- only current explanations to explain gender roles and why people feel aligned to certain genders are social and anthropological ones
- there is no ‘gay gene’ and a negligible amount of scientific research to make a claim that our biology determines our gender identity
- benefits religious institutions because they can easily claim gender identity is a choice
- however we know through countless testimony that people don’t choose to align themselves with a gender identify

sexuality and the Church:
- while science can prove it, it’s widely accepted people are born homosexual
- if this is the case, a religious believer surely couldn’t deny they were made this way by God
- Christianity is based on revelation, and part of revelation should be to fight against the oppression of all people to include them in the love of Jesus