"...that distinction would always belong to a woman."

I think every family has silly sayings which seem perfectly normal to those on the inside but a bit odd to the rest of the world.  In our family, one of those is "When Dad's queen..." because Dad often has better ideas about how to run the country than those who do, and plans to implement them as queen. As a heads up if you're interested, when Dad does gain the crown children won't go to school till they're 7, and all bananas will be sold with names on them according to how many there are in the bunch, such as Paul, John, George and Ringo on bananas sold in bunches of four. 

I prefer to play "when I'm Archbishop", or in my humbler moments, "when I'm vicar". My latest round of this was inspired by the book I'm reading, which I may or may not have raved  to you about already, "A Year of Biblical Womanhood" by Rachel Held Evans.  She was noting the privileged role given to Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection, and how she was the one to announce the news to the apostles despite the fact that as a woman, her testimony would have counted for nothing in that context.  She points out that in most churches on Easter Sunday,  a man stands up at front and announces "Christ is risen!" but that if we really wanted to do justice to the biblical story, "that distinction would always belong to a woman".

That got me thinking.  That would be a striking way to commemorate Mary and in fact all the women whose faith played such an important role in Jesus' ministry and in spreading the good news of his resurrection.  In churches where women are rarely stood at the front, let alone preaching the good news, to have a woman speak those history-shaping words on Easter morning would be both an encouragement to the women in those churches that their ministry is noticed and valued, and a challenge to remember that in trusting this task to a woman, Jesus defied all social and religious expectations about what women were worthy or capable of doing. In the new community of those who follow the risen Christ, there are no social hierarchies, no-one above needing to hear the news and no-one beneath preaching it. 

Mary Magdalene,
 apostle to the apostles.

But if I was a vicar, there'd be nothing too striking about a woman standing at the front and announcing that Christ is risen. Fortunately, in a lot of churches no-one would bat an eyelid that it was a woman speaking those words, and that's great - it shows us that those cultural expectations which Jesus began to challenge have continued to be challenged and changed to the extent where it's not so crazy to believe something a woman tells us. 

So if I was  vicar, how would I commemorate Mary Magdelene on Easter Sunday, how would I demonstrate that destruction of social hierarchy and the invitation for all to come and be part of announcing the good news? I think each Easter, I'd ask someone to take that role who is looked down on or disadvantaged by others in society for any kind of reason, because of class or race or sexual orientation or poverty or disability or age or anything else - we're so good at creating hierarchies and telling people they're not good enough, both inside and outside the church, that it shouldn't be a problem to think of many people who could well represent Mary and  take the honour given to her by Jesus. Maybe one year I'd ask the single teenage mum, maybe another year the long term alcoholic. Then the next year I'd ask the child of asylum seekers, and then the next year the great-grandmother with Alzheimers. Another year the trans* woman, and the next year the guy who just came out of prison. 

I'd be worried that to ask those people to make the Easter announcement might be insulting or patronising, as if trying to label them as people as the bottom of social hierarchies. But in reality, it's not about creating "us and them" groups but about recognising that none of the many reasons we look down on others and think ourselves above them makes any difference in this post-Easter community. It's about knowing how much we all need to hear the great news that Jesus is alive, and that we're all invited to be part of passing it on. It's about celebrating that news as a whole community, knowing that its not only for the privileged, the wealthy, educated, married, white, Western European men, but for the Mary Magdelenes too. It's for all of us. 

An open apology to inspiring women - and a very belated thank you.

My home church never had women preaching, and I grew up as a teenager believing that women shouldn't preach or lead churches. I understood there were difficulties with that view: at what age does a boy become a man whom I shouldn't teach? Did it apply to say, home groups, or only church services? What if I was sharing a testimony that had some explanation of the Bible in it? What about those women who feel called by God to lead and preach, can they all be mistaken? All the same though, I was convinced that was the right way to interpret the Bible. Men and women were made with different roles, and the challenge for was to work out how to maintain that they were equal while having such defined leader and follower roles.

This was all reinforced to me on the couple of occasions I’d heard women preaching. It seemed that they didn’t pay much attention to the Bible passage they were meant to be speaking from, and instead talked about their personal feelings and journeys, occasionally seemed close to tears and rarely preached the gospel. It all seemed a bit pathetic. Clearly God was right to leave preaching and Church leading to men, they could do it without crying and they knew that the gospel was more important than their own life story. Of course, I found excuses  for the one or two amazing women speakers I heard at events like Soul Survivor. They must have had special training, and the Church couldn’t afford to train everyone to that standard. They were only speaking to teenagers, and that was allowed.

Some things haven’t changed – I do still think men and women are different somehow. For all my musings and puzzling over gender, which I still don’t have many answers to, I think that I think that gender exists in some way which is not purely a social construct. I think “male and female he created them” does mean something, even though it doesn’t mean most of what we’ve taken it to mean. If you follow. Also, I do still think preaching from the Bible and explaining the gospel message clearly are hugely important. When I go to Church on a Sunday, the best thing for me to hear is a part of God’s word, explained and opened up, in a way that helps me hear God through it and think about how he might want to apply it to my life. 

Here’s what did change though – over a couple of years , in sixth form and on my gap year, I started to read for myself some books about those verses, the silencer verses. When dad went to theological college, the hypothetical women who felt called to lead were no longer hypothetical, they were my dad’s friends. One of them (to whom is owed a greatly overdue thanks) gave me a book and lent me another, which started to open my eyes to the possibility that there were people who took the Bible as seriously as, if not far more seriously than, me and yet still believed women could and should be leaders in today’s church. As I started to read about contexts, about language, about big theological concepts and good methods of interpretation and exegesis, my mind was blown. I wasn’t instantly convinced, and I read enough conservative material to keep me on the fence for a while, but by the time January 2010 came around, I was ready to try preaching out myself. Once I stopped reading the entire Bible in the light of one interpretation of a couple of verses (never a good way round to work out what the Bible means!) I discovered that equal really does mean equal to God, without ifs, buts or qualification. It set me free to see what God really thinks of women. 

Ever since I started that first bit of reading in sixth form and allowed myself to see how God can and does use women in amazing ways, I’ve been inspired by so many amazing women, especially in the last few months. So I want to say a huge thank you: to the women I know and those I don’t know, those whose sermons I’ve learned so much from, those whose blogs I read and books I’ve started, to those I get to have breakfast dates and coffee dates with, those who minister to me and teach me every day, those who listen to me think aloud and are patient when I need to work out the same thoughts all over again – thank you, and I’m so sorry I doubted you.

I’ve learned that being a man in no way guarantees you'll be good at teaching the Bible - I've heard as many vague, 'here are my thoughts with little connection to the passage' sermons from men as from women. But far more importantly, I've learned that women absolutely can teach the Bible and explain the gospel, and I’m sorry I ever thought I needed to ‘preach like a man’ if I were to be any good. People like Danielle Strickland, Ali Martin, Becky Manley Pippert and MJ Axelson have left me in no doubt about that. I'm so grateful to role models closer to home who've modelled to me various kinds of teaching and pastoral ministry like Michelle Tepper, Laura Gallacher and Sharon Mac. 

I’ve learned that women’s experiences, their feelings, and their journeys are in no way pathetic but incredibly valuable, that vulnerability isn’t weakness but strength, and it strengthens everyone who has the honour of sharing it. I’ve learnt that it’s not just about women needing to cry all the time, but that men and women all need to share themselves in community, to journey together – and that those words aren’t touchy feely rubbish but a hugely important part of what it means to be gospel-believing followers of Jesus. To see this lived out has validated my own experiences, feelings and journey, and reassured me I'm not pathetic too. 

I’ve learnt that being a woman doesn’t mean being judgemental or closed or bitchy, but it can mean sharing life together in a way I’d never really done before. Friends who’ve stuck around, who’ve dealt with my crap, who’ve shared theirs with me, who’ve talked honestly, who’ve reassured me, who’ve prayed for me, who’d questioned with me, have become the most inspiring people in my life.

I’ve learnt that I want to be like my mum when I grow up. The more of myself I’ve shared honestly with her in the last couple of years, the more she’s taught me about strength, compassion, resilience and grace. I want to share her determination and her humility and her sense of humour, if not her wardrobe. My little sister (who is not little any more but a beautiful and opinionated woman) constantly inspires me too with her stories of how she challenges the misconceptions and ignorance she sometimes hears at school and questions whatever she hears, so as to know her own mind. She even manages to do it without losing friends, which I think is admirable in itself! I hope she keeps challenging me like that for years to come.

I’ve learnt that women really can be funny – since mum bought me “How to be a woman”, and my college mum (if I remember rightly, Rosie?!) sat me down to watch Miranda, I’ve discovered that the experiences and ups and downs that many women seem to share are put into this hilarious kind of perspective when reflected back to you by someone like Caitlin Moran or Miranda Hart. And it makes life that little bit better.

I’ve learnt that women who stand up against misogyny in all its forms are not pointlessly angry, making a fuss over nothing, bra burning man haters. I’ve learnt that feminism is necessary and good, despite the few who give it a bad name. I’ve learnt that it’s definitely not all men who cat-call and grope, objectify and dehumanise women  - but that the ones who do need to be challenged, and there are plenty of women and men doing just that. The Everyday Sexism Project, the Misogyny Overheard at Oxford group, and the No More Page 3 Campaign have all inspired me to join in.

I could go on. There are so many blogs and stories and books I want to keep reading, so many women I want to meet and pick the brains of and listen to and learn from. But even to those I won’t get around to reading the thoughts of or won’t get to meet and have a conversation with, I still owe my thanks. Just knowing that they’re all over the place, getting on with life with grace and compassion and strength and humour is pretty inspiring, and it makes me want to do the same. It’s because of everyone of these people and groups I’ve mentioned that I feel free now to explore my own call to ministry, whatever that might look like, and free to do it as I am, as a woman, whatever difference that might make. So thank you too for that.

I can’t say for sure that there is a causal link between my change of theological position on women in leadership and speaking roles in the church, and my learning so much from these inspiring women. But while I held the difference between men and women to be the most important thing, and struggled to fit some idea of a kind of equality around that, I don’t think I’d ever have listened as closely or been so open to what God could teach me through the words of women.

Final apology – if you see me sending this post to a lot of people on Twitter or Facebook, please excuse the repetition. It’s only that I want to make sure the apology and the thank you reaches those it’s most intended for.

Love, Claire xxx

CUs and women - thoughts on the BUCU fiasco

There are bound to be mixed feelings when conflict apparently arises between two sets of values, people or groups that you care a lot about. This seems to happen particularly for me when Christian groups and Christian principles end up at odds with the values of gender equality that I want to hold to so firmly. There's an instinct for many of us who are committed to groups like university CUs and their mission, to keep the peace, to stop "secondary issues" such as gender distracting from the focus on Jesus and sharing the gospel. But there's got to be a time and a place to stop and think about these issues properly, however secondary they might be - and I think many would say gender equality is an issue which relates to the gospel, both in terms of what difference the gospel makes to Christians, and also in terms of how the gospel is received by others, the reputation it has in society. Both are important things for any evangelistic organisation to have thought about.

The story has been reported by the Huffington Post, the Guardian and the Telegraph as well as student press, and has attracted a fair amount of Facebook and Twitter discussion. There's been a bit of mis-representing, so here's the situation as best as I can make out:

• Bristol University CU, like many other CUs, had a policy against women speaking in its main meetings. Whether this policy was constitutional or not, spoken or unspoken, I'm not sure; in practice though, women hadn't been speakers at CU meetings and events for at least 7 years. 
• There had been a recent discussion and decision made that because the Christian Union is not a church, any perceived prohibitions on women teaching in churches (a view presumably held by some of the exec) did not need to apply in a CU context, and so women were going to be allowed to speak. 
• This decision was opposed by some, including the International Secretary, who could not accept a woman teaching in a CU context. In response, the decision was changed so that women could not speak in the main meetings, and could only be joint speakers with their husbands at weekends away and mission week events. 
• This was still a step too far for some, and the International Secretary stepped down from his position.

What was actually a small move towards women having more active speaking roles at BUCU led to a written clarification, in an email from the president, of what women are and are not allowed to do in this particular CU. It's attracted media attention because it looks like a backwards moving ban, but actually reflects the unspoken situation in many CUs across the country. OICCU for instance, Oxford's CU, has nothing in its constitution about the gender of speakers, and similarly nothing about the gender of the President - but the conservative evangelical culture of many CUs means that women are simply not invited to teach at main meetings and events, with perhaps only a couple of rare exceptions in recent years in Oxford.

When Christians disagree, we're meant to do something unnatural and uncomfortable - show grace and love to one another. We're meant to resist the urge to insult, slander or rage against one another, because we're family. So before I say anything more about how the attitude of a lot of CUs towards gender and division needs to be rethought, here's some positives about the Bristol University CU and what I think they should be commended for in this situation:

• Being prepared to be unpopular and counter cultural, for the sake of their Christian conviction. Whether or not we agree with that particular conviction, it's always hard to go against the grain of popular feeling and opinion, but Jesus tells us we'll have to. "If the world hates you," he says in John 15:18, "keep in mind that it hated me first."
• Seeking God's wisdom on the issue.The President's email stated that they understood it was a difficult issue, and the exec have therefore been looking to God for wisdom on it. 
• Recognising that CU is not a church. This seems to be a key issue in the debate over women's roles in CUs and yet is completely ignored by many - CUs seem to unanimously agree that their meetings should not replace churches, and members are encouraged to be part of local church communities as well as the CU, and yet most people who hold that women shouldn't teach in a CU context do so because of verses specifically about women in churches. 
• Seeking to maintain unity around the gospel. Christian unity is a very difficult thing to maintain where there is disagreement  and it takes courage to keep this as a priority rather than risk infighting, splinter groups and factions. Although the phrase "secondary issue" can be used to brush important discussions under the carpet, BUCU are right to keep stressing that the gospel is the most important thing which Christians hold in common and should stay our top priority. 

All good things which I think a lot of CUs share. Focus on the gospel, whatever other people think. Focus on God's wisdom over people's. Recognition of what a CU is and what it's not. But there are a few questions which to me, suggest that the thinking of BUCU and others on this issue needs an overhaul. Here are a few questions/thoughts:

• If a CU is not a church, why are we still debating this as if it were? Why don't we call on those who oppose women teaching in CU because of verses from Paul's letters which they interpret as prohibiting women speaking in church, to explain why they feel that their interpretation of those verses also extends a prohibition to CUs? 
• Why is it only those who do want women teaching who are seen as divisive on this issue? It seems obvious that opinion is divided, and that anyone who has any opinion on it is part of that split of opinion - we need to avoid the labelling of one group as divisive.
• Why is the offence taken by one group of people more important than the offence taken by another group? The email sent round to BUCU members said that despite a recognition that CU isn't a church and therefore women should definitely be allowed to speak in all CU contexts, "However, we understand that this is a difficult issue for some and so decided that women would not teach on their own at our weekly CU:Equip meetings..." Why is it that those who have "difficulty" with the decision previously reached are important enough to have it completely turned around, when there are loads of women and men who also have great difficulty with the fact that they don't get to benefit from women teaching at their CU meetings? Perhaps it is time for those who feel equally hurt and offended at the lack of women speaking to be a little more vocal so that their concerns are heard within CUs too? 
• If women speaking is a "secondary" issue, not a "gospel" issue, shouldn't we use gospel principles to solve it? Paul's take on secondary issues was that they should always be used to promote the gospel. He had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3) so that the Jews in the area would listen to the message. The priority was the gospel - even though circumcision was a contentious issue, it was unnecessary for salvation, it wasn't the point of the gospel, Paul was happy to adapt on secondary issues so that they gospel could be shared with the most people, and so that  it could be received in the best possible way. Surely all this media attention shows that the gospel will not be received by a world which sees Christians as sexist. If we're to have any hope of sharing the gospel effectively in universities, students need to hear it equally from the mouths of women and men. 

Most of all, CUs need to stop silencing those who want to talk about women's speaking roles in CU. We do need to talk about it! We do need to ask why those with a particular opinion on women teaching in church are also being allowed to apply that to CUs, which are definitely not churches. We need to ask why we're allowing a "secondary issue" to cause such damage to the gospel's reputation and alienate so many people. We need to use this opportunity to get talking about the questions, and get listening to women in every setting - for the sake of the gospel.

Feet in high heeled shoes

As a kid my parents told me “you can be whatever you choose,”

So I dreamt of being a singer and learning to walk in high heeled shoes.

And I started a fashion company, and I designed football kits for dogs

(Yeah, really I did, it combined all of my passions in one ideal job).

Then I looked around me and saw a planet that needed saving,

So in my infants school, I "saved the daisies" by making everyone walk on the paving.

I gave assemblies on human trafficking because I thought my school needed to be told

That even in this day and age, there are people being bought and sold.

I wanted to change the world, and more than anything I still do,

But as I grew up I realised that I didn’t just love the sound of my own voice,

I love God’s people too.

As I met a God who knows me and loves me and stuck with me through a whole load of mess,

I could see no better reason to live than to give myself to bless

The broken and the hurting and those who don’t know him still,

And to encourage those who do, as together we seek his will,

And as we build each other up and as we gather round his word,

I want to sing the loudest, to make sure his praises will be heard.

I want to be part of it, at the heart of it, and though its a massive learning curve,

If God will use me despite my weakness, it’s his church I want to serve.

So as a woman I’m frustrated that it's still now being debated

As to whether my field of service will stay ring fenced and gated.

See, I’m not trying to argue that Jesus had a modern feminist agenda,

But that he radically liberated women from societal expectations of our gender.

I get that those who oppose it are trying to stay true to God’s word

But if you’re questioning my motives, above all let this be heard:

"Whoever wants to be an overseer, he desires a noble task"

So why is it career-driven, selfish ambition when its she who dares to ask?

No, I love the Bible too, and everything it’s got to say,

I don’t want to ignore Paul, or just to run the church my way,

But when I’ve looked at the cultural context of what Paul said on women leading

I think his prohibitions were context specific, and that's my most sincere reading.

Today I think he’d want to see all hands set to the gospel’s task

Served by an army of faithful bishops whose gender no one thinks to ask.

So let’s get on with being Christ’s body, in trainers, deck shoes or high heels,

Let’s be the feet who take good news to a world he longs to heal.

And when it comes to where and how I’ll serve, it’ll be God who gets to choose

But I long to do it in a church where women bishops are old news.

Uncertain that... sexuality is simple.

Over the summer, I spent a lot of time thinking about gender issues. I wrote the post below “Gender in crisis?” on my Facebook and invited a whole range of people to comment. Some did, others sent me their thoughts privately, and it was a privilege to hear so many takes on the whole set of issues. It gave me a whole load more to think about, and I’m not sure I’m much closer to many answers.

At the same time, something which I’ve been thinking a lot about and is in various ways related to gender issues is sexuality. There are SO many questions to ask, I could try to list them but I'd be here all day. Here’s a few fairly universal questions: what do we mean by sexuality, and attraction? What are the differences between romantic attraction, sexual attraction, desire for friendship, admiration? How do we know that when I use one of those terms, I mean the same thing that you understand by it? Have those categories always been separated in the same way as they are now, or have people used different terms for different things at different times? Can we predict who we will feel those different things towards, does it depend on the people we meet, or is it set for each person? Do these aspects of our sexuality change or are they generally consistent? How much do societal expectations of sexuality and the boundaries of our definitions of relationships affect what we experience towards different people? What would the spectrum for sexuality look like if those expectations were different?

I’ve got so much to ask.

There’s a whole other set of questions as a Christian too. I’ve been fortunate really in that having a gay mum and a gay friend who are both Christians has meant I’ve had a great excuse to bring up some of these questions in Christian contexts, to challenge the status quo and the sometimes very ignorant assumptions of some of the Christians I’ve spent time with. I’ve think perhaps I’ve gained myself a bit reputation for being “difficult” on this subject, especially among some of the more conservative evangelicals I’ve met, because I’m never really comfortable with the certainty I’ve found. What I mean is this: in evangelical churches, this thing exists which is “The Homosexuality Issue”. It’s a little bit troubling for many because it’s this Big Issue which people outside the church sometimes use to force Christians to say something very unpopular. Conversations can go something like: “Why does God hate gay people? Is my mate going to hell because he’s gay? Christians are so homophobic.”

So inside the churches, they’ve come up with this defence strategy. The response is meant to be “God doesn’t hate gay people, he loves everyone. Homosexual acts are sinful because God designed sex to be for a man and a woman inside marriage. But we’re not homophobic because we still think God loves you, so please come to church anyway and we’ll do our best not to stare at you.” Maybe that’s not quite the response we’re meant to actually give, but it’s the spirit of what I’ve heard sometimes. I understand why conservative evangelical Christians want to be able to give this certain, clear cut answer, I really do. It’s so much safer to know what we think, to have the set piece, and to avoid the pitfalls of sounding blatantly homophobic or the condemning stares of other Christians if we don’t say something clear enough about it being Wrong when questioned. It’s safe to have an answer to stick to, even if other people disagree.

But... there’s so much more to say, so much more to ask. The idea that there’s just one “Homosexuality Issue” for the church to respond to is ridiculous. For a start, it’s not like there’s just this one group of “gay people” over there that we need to respond to, and the questions can’t be as narrow as who sleeps with whom. If we take the widely held view that human sexuality constitutes a spectrum along which most people lie (others being asexual and not considering themselves on that spectrum at all) and many people move, then there are surely far more questions going on for far more people than just that group of “gay people” who we’ve handily put in a box over in the corner while we discuss them. Surely those universal questions I asked above are questions for everyone?

For those of us asking them from a Christian perspective, they take on another dimension which in my mind only increases the questions we can ask: what does the God who created us have to say about all those universal questions? Are these categories of friendship, romantic attraction, intimacy, sexual attraction and so on, categories defined by society or by God? What parameters, if any, has he set around them, and what if our experiences don’t seem to fit in to those parameters, if they exist? Are those boundaries about who we are, what we do, or what our relationships look like? Can we even separate those categories?

For some people, I think these questions are completely alien. I know that because of the completely confused/blank/bewildered looks I’ve got when I start asking them at church or with certain Christians. To some Christians, these questions seem to be totally irrelevant. They are totally clear on their own gender identity and are attracted exclusively to people of the opposite gender. They experience a very clear division between feelings of friendship towards people of their own gender and attraction to people of the opposite, although they may occasionally get these muddled when it comes to friends of the opposite gender, but this is not too much of a problem.  They get happily married, and have a good group of same gender friends around them for accountability and support. Gay people, to them, are just doing it all the other way around. They must experience that same clear cut distinction between sexual attraction and friendship (the only two categories) but their sexual attraction goes the wrong way. That makes them either sinful (if they act on it by having gay sex) or to be pitied (if they don’t act on it, by not having gay sex.) For some people, there’s not a lot else to say.

That might be most people, I don't know. I might be alone in thinking that there are a zillion other questions like those I’ve raised. I might be the only one who things human relationships are more complex than sex or not-sex. I might be the one person who missed the memo about a universally accepted and understood set of definitions about relationships and intimacy and sexuality. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. There’s this whole huge interesting conversation about gender and sexuality and relationships and all sorts going on outside the church. And as the church, we’re shutting our eyes, putting our fingers in our ears, and repeating our set piece on "The Homosexuality Issue" until people go away and stop asking us difficult questions. We’re missing out! Surely we’ve got loads to learn? Surely we have questions to ask too? Perhaps we might even have something to contribute too? I’d suggest we start by listening though, because we’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

On a personal note, you might be wondering where all these questions have left me. Somewhat predictably, I don’t know. I mentioned earlier that having a gay mum and a gay friend has been helpful in being able to explore these questions for reasons that are not too personal. But naturally, they’re questions I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about myself. How do I personally want to understand and label and classify my whole range of experiences with friendship, intimacy, and attraction? The best conclusion I’ve come to at the moment is that I don’t. Not for now. See, I’m not sure I like the idea that everyone is straight until they come out otherwise. If we are complicated creatures, and these questions are real and valid, isn’t it silly to start with any assumption at all? Doesn’t it discourage questioning, and exploration, and ultimately understanding of ourselves? The way I see it, labels are for people who know. Or are at least people who know they want to use that label. So if the majority of people in the world want to define themselves as straight, that’s totally fine. I just hope they are using that word themselves, having thought through their own experiences of their sexuality as a whole. I hope it’s something deliberate. Same for people who define themselves in other ways – that’s totally cool for them. I’m glad they are sure enough to be able to pick a label that expresses them. As for me, I’m not sure of much yet. I don’t think I’m clear enough on what we mean by these various words and categories, what everyone else means by them and what I mean by them. I’m not sure enough yet how they define different types of relationships, and who I want those types of relationships with. I’m not sure of my answers now, so I’m certainly not sure what my answers will look like in 5, 10, 50 years time. Maybe I will have clear cut answers then, maybe I’ll have a label. Maybe not. So I don’t think any of the labels are right for me yet, because labels are for people who know.

So to clarify, I’m not saying I’m bisexual, I’m not saying I’m gay, I’m not saying I’m straight. Or anything in between. I’m not even defining myself as “questioning”. I’m just rejecting the idea that we should be labelled as something until proven otherwise, I’m starting from a clean sheet if you like.

In the mean time, I just want to join in the conversation. I wish the rest of the church would too. I’m sure there are plenty of Christians in fact who already are, so I’m off to find them and I hope at some point I can take a few others with me. 

Gender in Crisis?

[[This was originally posted on my Facebook page on August 31st 2012, and there were some interesting replies which sparked many more questions for me.]]

I've been thinking a lot about gender over the last few months. The issues seem to pop up everywhere. Supermarkets are finally getting rid of the gender divisions on their magazine racks (so it'll now be acceptable for women to take an interest in politics, science, technology...) and Oxford's academic dress rules  no longer include gender distinctions. When Bic brought out biro pens "for her" in pink and purple, the product was mocked and targetted for sarcastic reviews on Amazon. It all seems really positive.

At the same time, I've been questioning with other Christians what gender is meant to mean to us. A few seem to hold the view that housework really is a woman's job, and should a woman find herself too busy to do it, it is her responsibility to organise a cleaner, rather than expect that her husband might do it even if he has more time. It's been suggested that I should aspire to be a vicar's wife rather than a vicar, and that even before I'm married I can practice submitting to my husband by stepping back to allow men to take more leadership roles. I've also seen Christian men and women stand on a stage and explain very clearly that God has given women and men equal authority to lead, equal gifts and equal roles, that Christian leadership should in no way be limited by gender. 

I've spoken to people fed up with being told to get a sense of humour when they challenge a sexist remark, read endless stories of sexism so normalised it almost goes unnoticed, and I can understand when  some people begin to say that distinguishing between people by gender at all only seems to do harm.

So I've got some questions that I'd love to hear your thoughts on: (if I've tagged you, it's only because I thought you might have a thought to share,if I haven't tagged you, please do contribute anyway!) 

- What kind of an understanding of gender do you think our society is or should be moving towards, as we try to eliminate more and more discrimination on the basis of gender? Are we trying to eliminate any concept of gender altogether, to reduce it to something as arbitrary as hair colour or taste in music? Do we still want to understand it as a key part of identity or is it less important than that?

- Is there a difference between what we can say descriptively about gender ("Generally speaking, women are likely to own more shoes than men") and prescriptively ("You're a woman, you have to enjoy buying shoes") - or does one flow from the other so much that we should not make any descriptive comment? Is it possible to talk about gender descriptively without offending, discriminating or excluding some? 

- Is it more acceptable to hold on to an idea of gender identity, gender differences, and some kinds of generalisations based on gender, as long as we are happy for everyone to choose which gender if any they want to identify with? How do we stop that from being artifically created categories for everyone to slot themselves into? Is there anything we can say about gender that isn't purely a social construct, or is it okay that it is? 

- Given that gender is used so negatively, to shame and manipulate ("man up!", "you throw like a girl", "she trains like a man"), is it possible for gender to become a postive way to identify ourselves, or is it beyond redemption as a concept?

Bonus question - for those who are interested from a Christian point of view:

- Some Christians seem very clear on gender roles, that men and women are 'equal but different', equally in the image of God, equal in dignity and value, but given different roles. Not only do Christians coming from this view find it easier to define what men and women should do, in terms of leadership, marriage and so on, but also seem to be far clearer on what men and women are (as well as should be) like - try "Wild at heart" and "Captivating" for books that are confident they can describe and explain the differences between men's and women's hearts.

For those Christians who don't agree on the different roles of men and women in terms of leadership and marriage, for those who think leadership and authority are given to men and women equally, do we have much left to say about a biblical view of gender? What does it mean to be a Christian man if not that you can preach a sermon, what am I as a Christian woman if not designed to be a mother, wife, Sunday school teacher, and cake-baker? What do we mean when we say "male and female God created them?" 

So, thoughts if you have any? If anyone does want to post a few, could you keep them to your own thoughts rather than replying to anyone elses? And feel free not to post an essay (unless you're super keen). Thanks, I'd really like to hear what you think.

Claire