Gifted for Leadership

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This is a powerful and important post! Judy, thank you for raising the alarm. Just today the networks are in uproar over one child trafficked in the USA. Yet we are oblivious to the staggering numbers of women and girls being trafficked worldwide.

Read Half the Sky, as Judy urges and may God help us to raise our voices and get involved!

Posted By: Carolyn Custis James | November 24, 2009 3:57 PM

This is such a moving article that I want more. While it strikes me as true that "wherever the message of Jesus has been received, the status of woman has been raised" it cries out for more historical data. Just how has the gospel made a difference in Asia? Other nations and cultures? And how does that message work in our own culture, where it seems that evangelical Christianity has, at least recently, been the tailight of equality for women? Thank you for raising this important issue. More please!

Posted By: Jim | December 1, 2009 7:17 AM

You are right, it does call for more. My experience has shown me this as I travel the world that this is true. And in Half the Sky the authors verify this. But we could use some hard facts and statistics. Yes, our own culture is not where it should be on valuing women, but is still mostly ahead of most of the world. As I mentioned in the article, women here may not feel worthless, but many feel worth less. If you--anyone-- know of some studies/research to give the back up, I would love to see it.

Posted By: Judy D | December 1, 2009 12:10 PM

Great article, Judy. Thank you so much. Our experience with tribal people in Kenya bears this out, as well.

Posted By: Sandra Glahn | December 1, 2009 8:15 PM

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. If you follow the facts (instead of what we'd like to believe) Christianity is no more a boon to woman's rights than any other religion. Which is why over it's 2000 year history most of it involved oppressing woman. If we were to follow the authors logic freely chosen atheism is what leads to women being recognized as equal. That is what the facts support. There may be many good results from Christianity but sexual equality isn't one of them.
Facts concerning gender equality and a nations religoin.
*The higher the degree of organic atheism the more egalitarian. -2004 Human Development Report's "Gender Empowerment Measure,"
*- Of the top ten nations most accepting of gender equality, all but the United States had high levels of non-belief (The fact that the U.S. is the exception not the rule may be why Judy Douglas made this error)
-Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris's (2003) "Gender Equality Scale,"
Also if you look at which countries have the most woman in government it is the most non-religious ones.
I am not advocating atheism I am explaining the facts. It does a disservice to pretend that followong Jesus naurally leads to equality because the facts don't back it up. This article feeds into the stereotype that Christians attribute ever good in this world to Christ even if others are actually the ones who acheived it. Christians have a lot to be proud of but claiming victories that are rightly others is not one of them.

Posted By: August | December 1, 2009 10:06 PM

What about the fact that America has a serious "body" issue and thinking that somehow women are made equal, because we don't participate in one type of practice is absurd. Until Christians start to address how we demonize, objectify, and treat the female body in the U.S., how can we possibly say anything about another country? It's completely hypocritical. Also, if women are treated as equal, why are they not Senior Pastors in our churches, but merely relegated to the nursery? I mean how many American Christians mis-interpret I Timothy 2, then use it against women? If anyone doesn't think it exists, simply mention Feminine Theology in church and watch the reaction.

Posted By: Paul | December 2, 2009 9:36 AM

The author said, "Women have been elevated."
She did not say gender equality has been realized. That's why she calls us to raise our voices!

Certainly the church has had and still has an imperfect record. Some of the church fathers who had a great "biblical theology of the Trinity" missed the boat on "a biblical theology of anti-Semitism" and "a biblical theology of women." Nevertheless, if you trace the history of women's social justice, you will usually find that where Christ is worshiped, women's lives improve.

A glance through the Gospels makes it easy to determine why. In the words of Oxford-educated British author, Dorothy L. Sayers, “Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there has never been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as ‘The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.”

As for Barna, it's true that people who accept the label of "Christian" have lousy divorce rates. But if you quantify it by something more objective like church attendance and praying together, you find those marriages are much LESS prone to divorce.

Posted By: Sandra Glahn | December 2, 2009 9:49 PM

I think we all need to remember that Jesus Christ gave us the practice of how to treat our fellow men AND women and that we would all benefit from doing those things BUT in an imperfect world we aren't doing them most of the time or all the time but we can try to do them and know that we all are blessed as we do follow Jesus. If we continue to pray, Be in he Word and recieve the Sacraments available to us we can come closer "to the Glory of God". If we give up because we are not perfect and the world's not perfect then Satan has won and he will rejoice and we will be lost!

Posted By: trish | December 3, 2009 7:29 AM

As Sandra mentioned, we are talking about the fact that where Jesus has gone, women are elevated. It is about Jesus and his valuing women. Christianity certainly has an imperfect record because we are imperfect people. However, the authors of Half the Sky, who are not writing from a Christian perspective, validate that, where the message of Christ has gone, the status of women has improved. And yes, surely the church has a long way to go to truly value women. But in reality, whereas in much of the world women are worthless, they are more highly valued where Jesus has had an impact. Yet the sense that they feel "worth less" compels us to see what we can do at home and all around the world.

Posted By: Judy D | December 3, 2009 11:34 AM

Christianity lowered the equality of women in many cultures. To see an example we can look as far as tropical islands but we really need only to look as far asour own backyard. There are many native american tribes such as the Iroquois tribe that did not have the perverse notions of of gender inequality that the "Christians invaders" brought to them. Women in the Iroquois tribe owned their own land, family names were passed down through the woman (instead of men like in our culture) Also while the chief was a man he could be removed by the "clan mother". Woman were equal partners in this society and the inequalities in the native culture that exists today is thanks to native children being forced from their parents to learn christianity often in religious run boarding schools (which were rife with abuse by the way). Today the native population is one of the most at risk in North America with huge problems of substance abuse and domestic violence. Christianity literally ripped their culture and it's egalitarian ideas about about women apart as it ripped apart these famailies (all in the name of Jesus).
I stand by my assertion that this article is nonsense and the author simply wrote down what they would like to be true instead of what the facts support.
Did the early Christians misuse Jesus;s name sure, but the fact remains.....as Jesus came to North America so to did the equality of Iroquois women become harmed and is still harmed today.

Posted By: August | December 3, 2009 9:29 PM

When people truly follow Christ, then yes, women have been raised. True Christians have done much good all over the world. But, problems arise when some Christians let sin interfere. They then take on the prejudices around them or they distort the Bible to fit their sin-filled views. For example, a friend once heard a Catholic priest give a homily on how evil women area. We have one well-known Christian leader who says that women are not made in God's image to the same extent that men are. We have another Christian leader who says, even in this day and age of educated, accomplished women, that women are easily deceived and should therefore learn their theology from their husbands.

Now, what no one wants to discuss, probably not this magazine and certainly not the complementarians, is the why. Why have women been systematically oppressed legally, physically etc., in every society throughout time. Why this mentality that women have to be controlled? Unfortunatley, for the most part, it's man verses woman. Even the women who have bought into the anti-woman sentiments have done so because they live in extreme male-controlled societies. So, we go back to the why. Of course, it's sin, but we need to dig deeper if we're ever to overcome this. Of course, there are millions of great guys who value women, but that doesn't change the fact that we still have this problem, and yelling "male basher" won't change these facts.

Posted By: K. | December 4, 2009 6:09 PM

That's what Synergy is all about--a fresh vision of God's intentions in creating women and His plan that men and women are to work together in a blessed alliance to build His Kingdom. Visit www.SynergyToday.org.

Posted By: Judy D | December 5, 2009 5:29 AM

For all of you carping and whining about how "inequal" women around the world are, just look at how great you all have it in the West, America in particular. Women don't have to pay their own way, because Big Government sees to it that you don't. You all go on about how bad men treat you, yet you treat men worse and have the blessing of our (in)justice system to back you up there.

Stop whining and know your place. Were it not for men, nothing would get done industrially, and were it not for women, men would be savages. THAT is the plan God had, not for you to be put on the same plain as men, as if that is someplace you can either handle or want to be. If you want real equality, stop going on welfare to replace men, and lobby hard for all women who turn 18 to be forced to sign up with the Selective Service. See, men are forced into servitude (should it come to that), but women aren't forced into anything here. I don't see many people whining about that.

Also, any time someone throws out numbers like the 39,000 girls in China dying because their parents don't take care of them like they do their sons, I yawn. 39,000 out of a country of 1.31 BILLION is statistically 0%. For one thing, the guy doesn't know why the 39,000 girls die, it is simple conjecture, but you broads just lap it up without question. Sickening, quite sickening.

Posted By: Lona | December 24, 2010 7:26 AM

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