Growing up in a Christian church, I often heard how counter-cultural Jesus was when it came to women. Jesus is so often cast as a first century proto-feminist. Now, that I have learnt more about the history and the culture of first century Palestine, I know this to be untrue. Yet this fake news persists. I see it everwhere. I got so frustrated, I thought I’d solve it once and for all by writing my monthly blog post on this topic.
It starts like this:
There’s a meme doing the rounds on social media. It is a list of two polar opposites, like slavery and chain breaking, or segregation and unity. The meme claims both are biblical, yet only one is Christlike. It keeps popping up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, and all I can say is “thanks, I hate it.”
One of the reasons I hate it is because the entire thinking behind this meme is that God’s revelation is worthless without Jesus. Basically, the meme places doubt in the value of the covenant that God made with the Israelites and God’s revelation to peoples before Christ. When it claims “Christ transforms, not the Bible,” it is denigrating the power of God’s revelation and the power of God’s spirit.
If you want to learn a bit more about the Gender and Jesus, check out this amazing interview with my friend Sara Parks:
