Speaking Truth to Worldly Power in the Feminine Voice

Please consider these three women who were in positions of speaking truthfully about inherent risks and dangers to the US and international financial systems: Elizabeth Warren, Brooksley E. Born and Christine Lagarde. All of them have consistently, wisely and courageously held to the truth revealed by their experiences, education,  and informed understandings, even at the risk of being sidelined and dismissed. Most women and men would give up in the face of such relentless pressure, but we should be grateful for whatever familial and professional support these women have had that has encouraged them to persevere. 

Godly, strong women in scripture are depicted in the roles of judge, prophet, warrior, queen, spiritual leaders, and economic providers. All of us who summarily dismiss the feminine voices in our lives which speak truthfully endanger ourselves and others. The voice of Wisdom in Proverbs is feminine. The voice of Proverbs' Alien or Strange woman is also feminine. (Proverbs describes her by her unrepentant actions of promiscuity, adultery, and her misleading of others while being blind & deaf to the truth.) Spiritual maturity necessitates the discerning of whose voices to listen to by attending to the fruit of their lives. Some of the wisest voices in my life have been/are women's, and yet, some of the most threatening, divisive, violent and abusive voices I've ever heard were also female - and one was a close relative! Hearing well and wisely heeding may mean the difference between life and death. Proverbs certainly indicates so. (cf. Prov. 7-9)

One of the major contributors to the dismissing & ignoring of godly women's voices in the US, in business and other spheres, is an attitude that can prevail unchecked in any male-dominated environment, among them religious circles (not only Christian, but including them). From my perspective and training, it seems to be the metaphorical "fruit" of "reading" reality as one might read Genesis 3:17 erroneously as literalistic, in a way that self-justifies, self-elevates, and promotes a "rule over" mindset. (I read Genesis 3 as a metaphorical, poetic and theological description of the status quo and the results we observe in the human actions and interactions around us. It describes "what is".)

Human responsibility & accountability require that we hear and discern Truth in the male and female voices that constantly clamor for our attention. In this world, men's voices have to soften and welcome women's voices to be heard, and women's voices need assertiveness and confidence to continue speaking despite the ongoing opposition to the feminine voice for being feminine. As Christians, we believe in the God who reveals Godself to us as grace and truth, incarnate Word in the Son, Jesus Christ, and present with us in the indwelling Holy Spirit, through all members of Christ. We receive the words of those who tell truth and whose lives evidence godly ways and wisdom. Any person's repeated and stubborn denial of evident, revealed and living truth should be a warning sign for each of us to walk cautiously when in their presence. Truth, holiness, grace and light journey hand in hand. When men and women, together, reflect God's image faithfully, we more clearly see the world we live in. 

For more on Brooksley Born and her gutsy confrontations of men in power, cf. this Washington Post article from 2008.       

The Bechdel Test

Systemic? It surely appears to be!

The Bechdel Test

Breaking the Chains that Bind Women & Girls

How we need to love one another! How we need to be reconciled in Christ and being God's hands acting redemptively in love to the poor, the oppressed and the abused!

Break the Chains - a ministry of the Evangelical Covenant Church to get behind.

International Peasants Movement and Violence Against Women

It was heartening to hear an agreeing voice, tonight. Raj Patel, the economist and author of Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing, referred to the International Peasants Movement during his interview on Democracy Now, today. Patel is particularly interested in "food sovereignty" and the inabilities of capital markets to price goods appropriately, accounting for a wide variety of factors - including environmental impact of production, ecological sustainability of production, cost in carbon emissions, societal costs, etc. He noted that the International Peasants Movement has principles of justice for all people underlying its advocacy. The IPM sees the equalizing of power relationships as one of the root causes behind the injustice that characterizes contemporary capitalism. One of the IPM's platforms, according to Patel, is that, "Food Sovereignty is about an end to all forms of violence against women."

Consider that statement against the backdrop of Genesis 3 and the "fall" from grace of humanity. Consider the implications of what it should mean to be restored to grace and relationship with God and each other because of Jesus Christ. Consider the deeper theological implications of heterosexual marriage "in Christ", and the marriage between Christ and his Bride, the Church.

As a Christian and an academic who studied and worked in Government & Economics, it is clear to me that "equalizing power" isn't the final remedy. Equalization of power in the world's terms is meeting force with opposing force. People get squashed and decimated in such contests of force, and the most squashed are the poorest and the most powerless (more women and children than men, too). God's power, as revealed in Christ, is all about emptying ourselves, dying to self, loving & serving others. How fascinating it seems that wise "peasants" are more clued into the dynamics of systemic injustice and gender violence than are the educated and wealthy! Wisdom certainly can't be purchased with tuition payments!

"Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters! Has God not chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs in the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" (James 3:5-8)

As Iron Sharpens Iron

Our daughter pulled a sharpening steel out of the drawer, tonight. The rest of us at the dinner table laughed and wondered what knife she was going to sharpen and why!

I was reading articles and posts about philosophical debates, today, too. All of the writings were by men arguing with other men.

Does it occur to us that what passes for "debates" is, too often, one side trying to win vs. another? I.e., the debate's goal seems not pursuing greater truth or exhibiting the "love of wisdom" (philo-sophia), but rather one intellect's victory over another's, one's worldview over another's. The raised arms of victory over another view's "foolishness" crown the conclusion.

Proverbs 27:17 states, "Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another." (NRSV)
In the NLT, "As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend."
The Tanakh translation is a more literal translation, "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the wit of his friend."

The problem I have with many debates is the goal of victory and triumph over any others. Isn't this simply another perverse form of proselytization by academic or philosophical warfare?

Be a Christian! No, be an Atheist! To be religious means you're an idiot. To be a non-believer means you're going to hell! Religion is anti-intellect, anti-logic, and anti-mind. Atheism is anti-god, anti-believer, and anti-order.

To return to the metaphor my daughter pulled out of the drawer...

Anyone who has sharpened a knife by hand realized that if our angle of sharpening is too high, we dull the blade rather than sharpen it. The knife sharpening experts recommend 15/20 degree beveled angles. In other words, the stone or sharpening steel is more alongside the knife than against it. It is counterproductive to confront the knife edge with a harsher angle. The Hebrew isn't impersonal; the one sharpening the wit of another is a companion or friend. In the context of wisdom literature, "love of wisdom" isn't a love of abstract, detached knowledge and logic but love of wise and thoughtful living in the companionship of fellow humans.

So, to those who love debating, may we examine the product of those arguments! Do you gain or lose friends of differing views? (We all know that gathering people of views similar to ours is the norm!) Do we fail at relating well to the person, or do we gain both increasing insight and relationships that last?

Finally, to make a comment on what may have seemed the "coincidence" of men's debates, may I offer another look at the infamous text most frequently cited vs. women?

1 Timothy 2:8, in my opinion, begins a discussion of negative gender paradigms in that culture. Paul began with the men, "I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument..." The Greek word for argument, dialogismos, has the meaning of a "verbal exchange that takes place when conflicting ideas are expressed, dispute, argument." (BDAG)

I've been around enough discussion boards to recognize that the disputes are most frequently dominated by men. There are some women in the fray, but many have told me in "asides" that they are quiet because they don't want to get beaten up in the "discussions."

Guys, please tell me. Is that a coincidence? Or, would you recognize Paul's admonition as countering a particularly male penchant for warfare - whatever the battlefield?

I love wisdom. I find philosophy intriguing, inspiring and provocative, at its best. But, the warfare, folks, the warfare has gotta go. Telling others they're stupid or hell-bent won't win them to your logic, but it may serve to beat them down into submission to your god. (That god isn't mine.) However, loving them and walking alongside them may build up and encourage them in wisdom.

Alienation, Reconciliation and Power in Gender Relationships

Every time that I see a discussion on the issue of homosexuality, the Bible and the Church, I can't help but wince. (The latest discussion I read was on Scot McKnight's blog, http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/ ) The appropriate expression of human sexuality is a tremendously polarizing subject. A couple of months ago I heard a presentation by a Princeton professor which effectively reduced the difficulty men have forming close friendships with one another to homophobia; he drew heavily on Freudian theory. Although the professor heavily nuanced his thoughts with intellectual language, sexual fears and expression were central. In talking with men I know, their response to this thesis was similar to mine. "Not!"

Generally, from my observations of working in male-dominated fields of economics and finance, and from conversations with thoughtful and insightful men I know with backgrounds in diverse cultures and continents, the major barrier to intimacy between us is abuse of power. Sexual power is one aspect of power, but it is by no means the only one.

IMHO, the Princeton professor cannot escape his environment; the majority of his students are unattached, young men and women with rampant hormones. Most of them have yet to experience the realities of the non-academic world, where men and women work side by side in businesses, corporations, and bureaucracies. The practice of their sexuality features centrally in their imagination and/or lives. Furthermore, an academic practices being in his/her mind, and intellectuals may get completely detached from the rough and tumble realities of the world.

Having worked in economics, government bond market, and asset-backed securities while I was putting myself through college, I experienced what, at times, felt to be parallel universes. The academic theory of neoclassical economics has underlying assumptions that just don't line up with the realities I experienced while working at the Federal Reserve Bank, or in Wall Street firms. By the time I graduated with a double major in Government and Economics, some of what I'd learned seemed laughably naive. For instance, the basic principle underlying neoclassical economics is that "people make rational decisions." The problem with that principle is obvious to any post or pre-modernist. What constitutes "rational"? Is there a universal set of "rational decisions"? Is what is "rational" to an American equally rational in Asia, or Africa, or Europe? Is what is "rational" gender-specific? family heritage specific? How do so-called "irrational" emotions such as fear, or groundless euphoria figure into the behavior of financial markets? Can they be accounted for? (short answer, "No!") Alan Greenspan's errors stem, at least in part, from his great intellect which overlooked the way things really worked on Wall Street!

Although sexual relationships were certainly abused by colleagues in the financial firms, other components of power such as money, status, position, influence, information, and personal connections figured more broadly. As a matter of fact, sexual abuse is a subset of some other power imbalance. Acquiring money and position drove most people, and the means were subject to the end. I was frankly told that women didn't get ahead in "this" business environment unless they were witches (use a "b") or promiscuous with people who "counted." (crude expression omitted) Gender discrimination was the norm. Money, powerful friends, and positions ranked higher in calculations of personal value. Sexual favors might be solicited because of one's comparatively greater power in a corporate structure, but using sex to "get ahead" was only the ploy of the less powerful.

When I left investment banking, I chose another field altogether. I worked as the financial director of a non-profit organization, a shelter for battered women and their children. All our employees were women dedicated to the prevention and reduction of violence against women. Physical, verbal and positional violence against women is endemic to every nation, culture, race, and religion of the world.

So, how does this connect to the issue of homosexuality and the use of Scripture? We read Scripture, naturally, as a series of "laws" because we are legal beings. We read our own perspective and power into Scripture because we cannot escape our bodies. There is no "detached mind" available to any one of us. There is no "disembodied law" accessible to our intellect, which is subject to who we are. Our Savior needed to be God incarnate, God enfleshed, that we may know how corrupted we are, how alienated we are from God and from one another.

It was not unusual for women to become practicing lesbians after experiencing one or more instances of serious, physical abuse by a man. (85-95% of victims of domestic violence are women.)

Instead of speaking of sexual expression as indicative (or not) of personal identity, as law-breaking or law-abiding, Scripture helps to reorient this conversation. From Genesis, we understand that we are fundamentally alienated, as humanity from God, and primarily as male and female, from one another. Every other alienation seems to be subsequent to those. In Christ Jesus these alienations are overcome; we have been reconciled in the death of Christ to God and to one another. (cf. Eph. 2:13-14) If one's "body" dies, is denied, is crucified with Christ, then the legal and deadly gender differences are gone. Yet, both male and female are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), so there are God-created differences which reflect God together. Without the other gender, there is an intrinsic alone-ness to and incompletion in our fleshly existence (Gen. 2).

As Christians, we affirm that our identity is founded in God's creation. Our alienation from God and each other originates in our sin which is embodied; i.e., the only way out of "this body of death" is the death of flesh and resurrection in the new life of Christ. (cf. Romans 7:21-ff.)

Fallen creatures usurp power - from God (impossible, but an imaginative product of our self-delusion), and from one another (possible, because we are all deluded). Our power builds human kingdoms of this world: kingdoms of money, of status, of physical strength, of domination and control. Simplistically, human responses to human power are to seek to overpower another's power (verbally, physically, influentially), to subject oneself to another's dominance, to hook oneself to the other's power trip, or to try to escape alien and/or destructive exercises of power.

All of these responses omit the exercising of appropriate dominion, truth, justice, mercy, and reconciliation to God and each other.

If the church is to BE the Body of Christ, and we are to be conformed to Christ, then we are to reveal the power of God in the foolishness of the cross to one another and to the world. We are they who are to be reconciled and reconciling, "ambassadors of reconciliation" proclaiming the good news of God in Christ to the world. Marriage is the reflection that man and woman are "flesh of my flesh" to one another, together reflecting the image of God, being reconciled through the power of God in Christ, serving one another, looking to the best interests of the other, and creating new life together. The only role we ever model to one another is that of Christ Jesus, who emptied himself, and who came to serve (Matt. 20:24-28, Luke 22:24-27).

It is my humble conviction that the issue of homosexuality in the church is so destructive exactly because there have been so many centuries of hypocrisy, of the inappropriate rule of one sex, of one gender demeaning the other, undermining or lording it over the other within the Church universal. Appropriate Christian rule, whether of a man or a woman, is always serving of, and always building up every person created in God's image - male and female. Homosexuality merely reflects the power imbalances and alienation present in our fallen world from humanity's first power grab. In Christ, we are to enact reconciliation, dying to our flesh, emptying ourselves, having the same mind-will-purpose as Christ, living to reveal Christ through our lives individually, familially, and corporately. When Paul spoke of there being no longer "Jew or Greek... slave or free... male or female" (Gal. 3, Col. 3) he spoke of the reconciliation that is ours in Christ Jesus; it is not reconciliation enforced by the law!

As churches, as families, as married men and women, we need to embody the reconciliation of Christ to one another in word and deed. "Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding." (Rom. 14:17) Men and women have severely wounded one another throughout human history. Although the historical preponderance of the damage seems to have been done by men against women, women should not deny how they have rejected, humiliated and debased men when women have abused any positions of power they've had in themselves. (It's not coincidental that Paul used the word for authority, authentein, in 1 Timothy 2 in the context of Adam and Eve's story. Eve's authority was not from the Author of all who is God the Creator of all, but in and of herself. The root of authentein is the personal pronoun, autos.) Our broken sexual problems and expressions, heterosexual or homosexual, are fundamentally based in the abuse of power which disables true intimacy and reconciliation. The only way out is to seek first the reign of God, to be crucified with Christ, and to live forgiving and forgiven lives, full of grace, and giving of grace to one another. Men and women will not "know" reconciliation until we do the humbling work of being reconciled to one another, of confessing and forgiving, and being restored in Christ. "...but [God] disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled." (Heb. 12:10-15)