(Adapted in-class essay from my Women in the Bible course)
I consider myself Christian because I hope, as a spiritual freedom fighter, to follow Jesus’ example in healing the world. But I have mixed feelings about including the Bible in my personal practice of faith--even a spiritual interpretation of it--because of the rampant chauvinism portrayed in it and perpetuated by its societies. That said, I find it useless to read the Bible selectively, as some feminist Christians have. I do find valuable lessons and principles in the scriptures, and those I strive to embody, but the sexism is there, and instead of being ignored or omitted, it should be considered as we solve the same issues engrained in society today. While we look to parts of the Bible for inspiration and guidance, we should look to other parts in our self-examination, as we work out our own principles and give the long-overdue justice to those marginalized groups that have endured our selfishness and prejudice since, it seems, the beginning of human history.
I consider myself Christian because I hope, as a spiritual freedom fighter, to follow Jesus’ example in healing the world. But I have mixed feelings about including the Bible in my personal practice of faith--even a spiritual interpretation of it--because of the rampant chauvinism portrayed in it and perpetuated by its societies. That said, I find it useless to read the Bible selectively, as some feminist Christians have. I do find valuable lessons and principles in the scriptures, and those I strive to embody, but the sexism is there, and instead of being ignored or omitted, it should be considered as we solve the same issues engrained in society today. While we look to parts of the Bible for inspiration and guidance, we should look to other parts in our self-examination, as we work out our own principles and give the long-overdue justice to those marginalized groups that have endured our selfishness and prejudice since, it seems, the beginning of human history.
In Second Samuel 13, King David’s son Absalom asks his sister Tamar, after she has undeniably undergone rape, “Has Aminon your brother been with you?” Bible scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky writes, “By not naming the offense as rape, he belittles Tamar’s pain, denies her outrage, and compounds her tragedy” (Reading the Women of the Bible, page167). Similarly, when we ignore what has happened in our history and, indeed, in our own lives, we belittle the pain and sorrow of those who we and our societies, past and present, have wronged and wrong still.
When King David heard what had transpired, he fumed, but did nothing (2 Sam. 13: 21). We must learn from David’s disparaging and partial passiveness and right our wrongs, ensuring that the marginalized will no longer be downtrodden. The Greek Septuagint explains, as quoted by Frymer-Kensky, “but he didn’t trouble the spirit of Amnon his son, for he loved him, for he was his firstborn.” We must trouble the spirit of our wrongdoing across history. If not to take revenge or persecute the guilty, we must make reparations in thought and deed and remove discrimination from the realm of normality and acceptance. Those victimized in the past may not be here to see it, but let us pay it forward in their names.
By looking to the stories portrayed in the Bible, we can admit to our wrongs and see to it that they don’t remain our story today.
No comments:
Post a Comment