The Uproar Newsweek magazine had a recent article about women in Saudi Arabia -they are unable to drive car, speak to a man in public, or even go out of the house without a male relative accompanying them. We are different...or is our difference one of degree rather than kind? To explain: When Karen King, a historian of early Christianity at Harvard University, suggested that based on a reading of a shred of papyrus that Jesus may have been married, many people were offended/ scandalized. Jesus with a woman? Emilie Townes (the other school - Yale) suggests that the problem is that we have never accepted our bodies and sexuality as a gift from God. We separate body and spirit; some still believe that perfection is male celibacy, to which women are a threat. To quote a Presbyterian Minister, Carol Merritt: "Many years ago, when I first read fictional accounts of Jesus being married, my reaction at some gut level was anger and repulsion. I began to ask myself why? Was my view of sex so low that I couldn't imagine Jesus having any part of it? Did I imagine that a woman could somehow corrupt his divine nature?" Have we really liberated ourselves from ancient middle-eastern culture of which misogyny was so much a part and which, sadly, Islam is still so deeply embedded? Before you say yes, ask yourself why, in Christendom, the overwhelming majority of women are in communities where they could never be ordained? (For the record - I don't think Jesus was married; the evidence is much too weak to make a case otherwise).
In Faith,
Pastor Tim
PS Mine would be, "it's all about grace".
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