To Clarify

Since it was brought up in the last blog (please see “this hit home” and comments), here are some misconceptions about women and the Bible:

The so-called sexism of the Bible is a real misconception because Christians were ahead of their time in their treatment of women. That is why so many Greek women converted. As I mentioned in my commentaries, the Greek philosopher greats considered (as did everyone at the time) women to be stupid or inferior to men intelligence-wise. Meanwhile, the Scriptures taught men to treat their wives as they would themselves. They taught that in the faith, there was no distinction between men and women, Jew or Gentile, slave or free. My own church is a reflection of this as people of racist backgrounds are now friends with blacks, where women have better marriages with once-macho men, and where once culturally homophobic (as opposed to faith-based) people began to really love and respect their gay siblings. (Yes, the Bible forbids homosexuality but it does not say to mistreat anyone.)

I took a philosophy of religions class in college and the professor taught us that Paul the Apostle was sexist/misogynist, which was a total lie but I didn’t know it at the time, having never read the Bible. I just took his biased word for it. Paul is the one who taught (from the Spirit) what I wrote above- the equality of the children of God. I don’t want to mislead and yes, because of culture and because of the events in Eden, women are considered below men spiritually. But mistreatment of women is not sanctioned and neither is the belief that men are mentally superior.

The Bible mentions, as I said, the conversion of many prominent Greek women. They actually were very happy to join a group full of love and respect. The Christians were known for their love of each other and were in fact thought to be homosexuals among other things because of their behavior. The early Christians also gave everything they had up so that it could be divided among all believers in the church and no one would be without. It was sort of communist.

What Jesus did in his lifetime of speaking to a Samaritan woman was amazing in that not only was she from an inferior people (according to the Jewish beliefs) but a woman, a second class citizen. And he was going to drink from her jug! The apostles happened upon this and were shocked but made no mention of it to him (they knew better!) Jesus taught by example and here was one of loving and respecting the unlovable/despicable.

Finally, though the horrors caused by faith are constantly brought up, no one mentions that there are groups who do horrible things who are not Christian or faith-based people. The Nazis, as they set out to exterminate Jews and create a master race (and were pagans or atheists) only saw women as baby-making machines—they were not given any roles of importance at all.

In conclusion, Christianity is not responsible for all the evils of the world. The Bible is not responsible for all the evils of the world.
I advocate respect. Obviously I have very set-in values/beliefs and make no bones about it and stand up for them. But I don’t make fun of others, advocate hatred or disrespect and I do not like to be treated that way myself. I don’t push my beliefs on others, I just make mine loud and clear.