Jesus Christ
the feminist?
The Gaia Tradition and the Partnership Future
Almost two thousand years ago on the shores of Lake Galilee a gentle and compassionate young Jew called Jesus denounced the ruling classes of his time -- not just the rich and powerful but even religious authorities -- for exploiting and oppressing the people of Palestine. He preached universal love and taught that the meek, humble, and weak would someday inherit the earth. Beyond this, in both his words and actions he rejected the subservient and separate position that his culture assigned women. Freely associating with women, which was itself a form of heresy in his time, Jesus proclaimed the spiritual equality of all.
Not surprisingly, according to the Bible, the authorities of his time considered Jesus a dangerous revolutionary whose radical ideas had to be silenced at all cost. How truly radical his ideas were from the perspective of an androcratic system in which the ranking of men over women is the model of all human rankings is succinctly expressed in Galatians 3:28. For here we read that those who follow the gospel of Jesus, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Jesus Christ."
[In the gospels] we find that the cornerstone of dominator ideology, the masculine-superior/ feminine-inferior species model is, but for a few exceptions, conspicuous by its absence. Instead, permeating these writings is Jesus' message of spiritual equality. More on early Galillean 'Christianity'
Even more striking -- and all-pervasive -- are Jesus' teachings that we must elevate "feminine virtues" from a secondary or supportive to a primary and central position. We must not be violent but instead turn the other cheek; we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us; we must love our neighbor and even our enemies. Instead of the "masculine virtues" of toughness, aggressiveness, and dominance, what we must value above all else are mutual responsibility, compassion, gentleness, and love.
When we look closely, not only at what Jesus taught but at how he went about disseminating his message, time and again we find that what he was preaching was the gospel of a partnership society. He rejected the dogma that high-ranking men -- in Jesus' day, priests, nobles, rich men, and kings -- are the favorites of God. He mingled freely with women, thus openly rejecting the male-supremacist norms of his time. And in sharp contrast to the views of later Christian sages, who actually debated whether woman has an immortal soul, Jesus did not preach the ultimate dominator message: that women are spiritually inferior to men.
"Perhaps the most compelling argument for the historicity of Jesus is his feminist and gylanic thought and actions."Was Jesus in fact a feminist?
It is ... hard to see why a figure would have been invented who, as we read in John 4:7-27, violated the androcratic customs of his time by talking openly with women. Or whose disciples "marveled" that he should talk at all with women, and then at such great length. Or who would not condone the customary stoning to death of women who, in the opinion of their male overlords, were guilty of the heinous sin of having sexual relations with a man who was not their master.
In Luke 10:38-42, we read how Jesus openly included Jesus among his companions -- and even encouraged them to transcend their servile roles and participate actively in public life. He praises the activist Mary over her domestic sister Martha. And in every one of the official Gospels we read about Mary Magdalene and how he treated her -- a prostitute -- with respect and caring.
Even more astonishing, we learn from the gospels that it is to Mary Magdalene that the risen Christ first appears. Weeping in his empty sepulcher after his death, it is Mary Magdalene who guards his grave. There [she has a vision in which] Jesus appears to her before he appears [in visions] to any of his much-publicized twelve male disciples. And it is Mary Magdalene whom the risen Jesus asks to tell the others that he is about to ascend.
It is not surprising that in his time the teachings of Jesus had -- as they still have -- great appeal to women.
Some scholars have even concluded that Jesus' entire teaching is in fact FEMINIST. The Christian theologian Leonard Swidler is an instance of such a scholar (see Riane Eisler's Chalice and the Blade). Eisler particularly draws attention to some of the early scriptures of African Christianity, Nag Hammadi and Alexandria, and the power of their gylanic message prior to their suppression by the later male-dominated, androcratic and hierarchic ecclesiastical authorities of subsequent church history. (See Elaine Pagels. The Gnostic Gospels; James Robinson. The Nag Hammadi Library.)
The theme of our interconnectedness -- which Jean Baker Miller calls affiliation, Jessie Bernard calls the "female ethos of love/duty," and Jesus, Gandhi, and other spiritual leaders have simply called love -- is today also a theme of science. This developing "new science" -- of which "chaos" theory and feminist scholarship are integral parts -- is for the first time in history focusing more on relationships than on hierarchies. To Martin Luther King, Jr.
As the physicist Fritjof Capra writes, this more holistic approach is a radical departure from much of Western Science, which has been characterized by a hierarchic, overcompartmentalized, and often mechanistic approach. It is in many ways a more "feminine" approach, as women are said to think more "intuitively" [soft, creative almost inspired comprehension rather than hard, rigid, hammered-out ideological science and dogma].
See Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture.
It is ironic that now, as male scientists are discovering how limited the traditional "masculine" linear approach is, there is more openness to the idea that both sexes probably have similar innate thinking capabilities. Although there are some biological differences, women's ability to process information more holistically is probably mainly due to sexually stereotyped socialization and roles. For instance, unlike men, women have been socialized to see their lives primarily in terms of relationships and to be more attuned to the needs of others.
| The ancient Shemitic languages themselves reveal much that androcratic, and dogmatic religion (supposedly based upon those ancient roots) has often obscured. For example the word for "prophet." In Walt Whitman's Speciman Days, he writes: The word prophecy is much misused; it seems narrow'd to prediction merely. This is not the main sense of the Hebrew word translated 'prophet'; it means one whose mind bubbles up and pours forth as a fountain, from inner, divine spontaneities revealing God. Prediction is a very minor part of prophecy. The great matter is to reveal and outpour the Godlike suggestions pressing for birth in the soul. This is briefly the doctrine of the Friends or Quakers. |
Androcratic attitudes in America's West - who were the real savages?
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