Gender

Everyone is equal, but not everyone is the same.

Our modern thinking
The question of gender and identity is one of the more controversial issues that has faced western society and the church in the last 30 years. The advent of feminism and the push for equal rights has rightly made us question long held views about men and women.

At the heart of this issue is the idea that gender-based role discrimination is unjust.  It says that as far as emotions, psyche, and intellect are concerned, there are no demonstrable differences between male and female. Any apparent differences are the result of cultural conditioning rather than biological fact. Men and women should be treated equally because they are fundamentally the same and so the culture of our society needs to change.

When we turn to the bible, however, we see something very different – a real equality between men and women that encompasses the real differences between them. A complementary partnership, not a self-centred competition.

The basic truth: the complementarily equality of the sexes
The Bible teaches the fundamental equality of men and women. Each human being, man or woman, stands before God as a person created purposefully to be the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). That is our most fundamental identity. Further, each human being, man or woman stands before God as a sinner in desperate need of salvation (Rom 3:9-21,23). Each of us, male or female, has absolute equality of worth before God, and before one another, and a total equality of need for Jesus Christ as Saviour.

But the Bible does not teach an equality between men and women that depends on sameness, male and female are not fundamentally the same. Rather it teaches an equality that encompasses the real differences between men and women and is not threatened by them. Men and women are a complementary partnership, where the differences between them (their roles and responsibilities) are meant to serve the partnership as a whole. The weaknesses of a man are complemented by the strengths of a woman and vice versa.

Nor does the Bible teach that the differences between men and women give either one the right to dominate the other. We are not meant to be at war with each other nor in competition, we are to serve and care for each other.

This brings us to reality.

The basic problem: the self-centredness of men and women
Men have in many ways oppressed women and denied them freedoms that they should have had and the bible does not deny this. It has a clear message about what has destroyed the ideal partnership that ought to exist between men and women, and between husbands and wives.

What we see as male chauvinism and belligerence is an expression of what the Bible calls “sin” – a basic self-centredness we all share. People cannot live in harmony when each one’s chief concern is his or her own welfare. This is competition and is seen clearly in the consequence of sin in Gen 3 verse 16 where the woman will desire to control her husband but he will rule over her.

Thus while the Bible presents the ideal of men and women working together in complementary partnership, it also recognises the reality of sin that turns that partnership into competition and war.

So what is the solution? How can we reconcile these two views?

The solution: forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ
Since our problem begins with a rejection of God, the solution for us depends on God’s willingness to take us back. Humanity begins to be healed, only when human beings return to God. Men and women can only begin to be reconciled when they are first reconciled to God.
And here the news is good - the way back to God is open. Jesus died on the cross, for both men and women, to demonstrate that to each of us, and to make it possible.

And together, forgiven and reconciled, the partnership for which we were made male and female can begin again. In Christ we are being renewed in the image of our creator (cf. Colossians 3:10).

Our modern feminist thinking does not have the answers to our brokenness, our hurts, our emptiness, our frustration. Not really. It is flawed in its analysis of human nature, inadequate in its appreciation of human sinfulness, and way off the mark in its dream of liberation.

The way forward is to first be reconciled to God which opens the way for us to then be reconciled to each other as male and female so that we live life as God has created us to live – in complementary partnership.

Adapted from ‘Men and Women: Partners in God’s Purposes’,
a Bible Study presented by Dr John Woodhouse at the joint
Anglican Church League / Equal but Different conference
“Men and Women: Partners in the Gospel”
Saturday 13 September 1997