Part 6 (1/2)
CHAPTER VIII
WOMEN AND THE CHURCH
HEART TO HEART TALK WITH THE WOMEN OF THE CHURCH BY THE GOVERNING BODIES
Go, labor on, good sister Anne, Abundant may thy labors be; To magnify thy brother man Is all the Lord requires of thee!
Go, raise the mortgage, year by year, And joyously thy way pursue, And when you get the t.i.tle clear, We'll move a vote of thanks to you!
Go, labor on, the night draws nigh; Go, build us churches--as you can.
The times are hard, but chicken-pie Will do the trick. Oh, rustle, Anne!
Go, labor on, good sister Sue, To home and church your life devote; But never, never ask to vote, Or we'll be very cross with you!
May no rebellion cloud your mind, But joyous let your race be run.
The conference is good and kind And knows G.o.d's will for every one!
In dealing with the relation of women to the church, let me begin properly with a text in Genesis which says: ”G.o.d created man in his _own _image ... male and female created he _them_.” That is to say, He created male man and female man. Further on in the story of the creation it says: ”He gave _them_ dominion, etc.”
It would seem from this, that men and women got away to a fair start.
There was no inequality to begin with. G.o.d gave _them_ dominion over everything; there were no favors, no special privileges. Whatever inequality has crept in since, has come without G.o.d's sanction. It is well to exonerate G.o.d from all blame in the matter, for He has been often accused of starting women off with a handicap. The inequality has arisen from men's superior physical strength, which became more p.r.o.nounced as civilization advanced, and which is only noticeable in the human family. Among all animals, with the possible exception of cattle, the female is quite as large and as well endowed as the male.
It is easy for bigger and stronger people to arrogate to themselves a general superiority. Christ came to rebuke the belief that brute strength is the dominant force in life.
It is no wonder that the teachings of Christ make a special appeal to women, for Christ was a true democrat. He made no discrimination between men and women. They were all human beings to Him, with souls to save and lives to live, and He applied to men and women the same rule of conduct.
When the Pharisees brought the woman to Him, accused of a serious crime, insistent that she be stoned at once, Christ turned his attention to them. ”Let him that is without sin among you throw the first stone,” he said. Up to this moment they had been feeling deliciously good, and the contemplation of the woman's sinfulness had given them positive thrills of virtue. But now suddenly each man felt the spotlight on himself, and he winced painfully. Ordinarily they would have bluffed it off, and laughingly declared they were no worse than other men. But the eyes of the Master were on them--kind eyes, patient always, but keen and sharp as a surgeon's knife; and measuring themselves up with the sinless Son of G.o.d, their pitiful little pile of respectability fell into irreparable ruin. They forgot all about the woman and her sin as they saw their own miserable sin-eaten, souls, and they slid out noiselessly. When they were gone Christ asked the woman where were her accusers.
”No man hath condemned me, Lord,” she answered truthfully.
”Neither do I condemn you,” He said. ”Go in peace--sin no more!”
I believe that woman did go in peace, and I also believe that she sinned no more, for she had a new vision of manhood, and purity, and love. All at once, life had changed for her.
The Christian Church has departed in some places from Christ's teaching--noticeably in its treatment of women. Christ taught the n.o.bility of loving service freely given; but such a tame uninteresting belief as that did not appeal to the military masculine mind. It declared Christianity was fit only for women and slaves, whose duty and privilege it was lovingly to serve men. The men of Christ's time held His doctrines in contempt. They wanted gratification, praise, glory, applause, action--red blood and raw meat, and this man, this carpenter, nothing but a working man from an obscure village, dared to tell them they should love their neighbor as themselves, that they should bless and curse not.
There was no fun in that! No wonder they began to seek how they could destroy him! Such doctrine was fit for only women and slaves!
It is sometimes stated as a reason for excluding women from the highest courts of the church, that Christ chose men for all of his disciples--that it was to men, and men only, that he gave the command: ”Go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” but that is a very debatable matter. Christ's scribes were all men, and in writing down the sacred story, they would naturally ignore the woman's part of it. It is not more than twenty years ago that in a well-known church paper appeared this sentence, speaking of a series of revival meetings: ”The converted numbered over a hundred souls, exclusive of women and children.” If after nineteen centuries of Christian civilization the scribe ignores women, even in the matter of conversion, we have every reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke or John might easily fail to give women a place ”among those present” or the ”also rans.”
Superior physical force is an insidious thing, and has biased the judgment of even good men. St. Augustine declared woman to be ”a household menace; a daily peril; a necessary evil.” St. Paul, too, added his contribution and advised all men who wished to serve G.o.d faithfully to refrain from marriage ”even as I.” ”However,” he said, ”if you feel you must marry, go ahead--only don't say I did not warn you!” Saint Paul is very careful to say that he is giving this advice quite on his own authority, but that has in no way dimmed the faith of those who have quoted it.
Later writers like Sir Almoth Wright declare there are no good women, though there are some who have come under the influence of good men.
Many men have felt perfectly qualified to sum up all women in a few crisp sentences, and they do not shrink from declaring in their modest way that they understand women far better than women understand themselves. They love to talk of women in bulk, all women--and quite cheerfully tell us women are illogical, frivolous, jealous, vindictive, forgiving, affectionate, not any too honest, patient, frail, delightful, inconstant, faithful. Let us all take heart of grace for it seems we are the whole thing!
Almost all the books written about women have been written by men.
Women have until the last fifty years been the inarticulate s.e.x; but although they have had little to say about themselves they have heard much. It is a very poor preacher or lecturer who has not a lengthy discourse on ”Woman's True Place.” It is a very poor platform performer who cannot take the stand and show women exactly wherein they err. ”This way, ladies, for the straight and narrow path!” If women have gone aside from the straight and narrow path it is not because they have not been advised to pursue it. Man long ago decided that woman's sphere was anything he did not wish to do himself, and as he did not particularly care for the straight and narrow way, he felt free to recommend it to women in general. He did not wish to tie himself too closely to home either and still he knew somebody should stay on the job, so he decided that home was woman's sphere.
The church has been dominated by men and so religion has been given a masculine interpretation, and I believe the Protestant religion has lost much when it lost the idea of the motherhood of G.o.d. There come times when human beings do not crave the calm, even-handed justice of a father nearly so much as the soft-hearted, loving touch of a mother, and to many a man or woman whose home life has not been happy, ”like as a father pitieth his children” sounds like a very cheap and cruel sarcasm.
It has been contended by those high in authority in church life, that the admission of women into all the departments of the church will have the tendency to drive men out. Indeed some declare that the small attendance of men at church services is accounted for by the ”feminization of the church,” which is, in other words, an admission of a very ugly fact that even in the sacred precincts of the church, women are held in mild contempt. Many men will resent this statement hotly, but a brief glance at some of the conditions which prevail in our social life will prove that there is a great amount of truth in it.