It is certainly possible to be both a feminist and a Christian. In many cases it is absolutely necessary for Christians to be feminists if they want to see the Truth of God extended to the destitute and needy. As a Christian, I see at least 2 very clear examples of feminism as necessary expressions of faith.
1. International development
Christians are obligated to promote social development on a global scale. Certainly this agrees with the bible (James 1:27 advocates providing helping widows and orphans calling it “Pure and undefiled religion”). Social development involves instituting many basic tenants of feminism including advocating woman’s suffrage, promoting women’s education, giving women the ability to choose in issues of marriage, and forwarding equal rights between women and men in all things politically and socially. Studies have shown that birth rates decrease, infectious diseases and malnutrition decrease, and professionalism increases in developing nations where women’s education is promoted. It is our duty as Christians to plead the case of women suffering in developing nations, and the feminist language of equality, rights and liberties is often the best way.
2. Feminism for the sake of evangelism
Evangelicals may find that feminism is also necessary for the promotion of the gospel in nations that both 1. Lack clear equality between the sexes AND 2. Where Christian women vastly outnumber Christian men. A case in point is the Japanese church. In a recent trip to a somewhat male dominated Japan, (.46% of the nation is Christian), I was surprised to see the disproportionate number of women to men in church. Upon questioning my Japanese friends regarding this, I learned many Christian women are married to non Christian men who are often far too busy with their professional roles to go to church (I also learned that it is rare to have a female boss). As I unraveled this cultural issue, I wondered if increased equality between the sexes now might lead to more receptivity to the gospel on the part of men in Japan in the future. That is to say, if men and women work together more instead of deferring to traditional gender roles, this would not only lead to more “sharing”, but it would also lead to men being more open to their Christian wives’ views and Sunday activities.
What to do about anti-woman biblicisms: go polemic
The most common ways to diffuse the multiple sections of biblical literature which preach female subservience (ie mutilation of women who assert themselves to defend their husbands Deut 25:11-12, Prolonged female uncleanness after having born a daughter [twice as long as if she had born a son] Lev 12:2-5, the rulership of men over women Gen 3:16, women being created for men’s use I Cor 11:8-9, silencing of women in church I Tim 2 11-14, etc.) is by:
1. Pointing to other sections of scripture where women are in fact exceptional trail blazers, example: Esther, Ruth, Deborah…
2. Claiming individual passages taken out of biblical context.
3. Advocating the relativism of scripture to the societal norms contemporary to the times of its writing.
It is absolutely necessary to frame all that is ‘biblical’ in terms of the cultural and historical context of its writing. This means that first we must divorce the notion of “book” from bible and instead look at it as a series of books all with unique purposes, functions and stories of origin (the church didn’t have a bible until late 4th century). The bible was written over the course of more than a millennia, during which nationalistic shifts and religious developments created more than just nuances to Hebraic society. Indeed, pre-dating the establishment of the Jewish nation we have the story of Adam and Eve. From this story (if you are brave enough to take it literally) one finds that acceptable ethics changed between the establishment of the human race and the establishment of the Jewish nation (it was during the establishment of the Jewish nation that oral tradition was being established as written history and the foundation of the old testament was being recorded). After all, if incest was unlawful as Jewish law points out, then how did Eve’s sons/daughters copulate lawfully?
Such transitions of acceptable social norms have endured to this day. To read the bible in the 21st century is to ask how we translate the meaning of scripture into our own cultural terms. It is through this process of translation that anti-woman statements may be discredited on the basis of newly revealed historical facts, or on the basis of being culturally untranslatable/ irrelevant for our times. Of course, this is very offensive for many fundamentalist-scriptural-authority touting types. However, it is a way out for struggling Christian feminists who embrace feminism alongside the truth of the Gospel.
Personally, while I support the role of feminist assertions for the purpose of societal development on a broad scale, I see that modern modes of justice often seem falsely totalizing. At best they will only be crude forms of temporal justice. We cannot fit the infinite God into the box of equality, universal rights and absolute liberty, so we mustn’t filter him through a feminist based world view.
Further more, I think that feminism has as much to do with individual God fearing man-woman relationships as chauvinism. I do not mean to equate the two, for as the former blogger pointed out, feminism should not be construed as a prejudice against men. However, the danger that both mindsets pose to true loving relationships is this: they both may become rooted in the autonomy of the self, rather than service to the other (Note: the autonomy of the self and the vital well being of the self are often very different from one another). If we are to follow Jesus in our relationships, the way we relate to others must be about dying to our own autonomy, not defending the autonomy of the self to the very last. Advocating feminism in order to serve others is absolutely acceptable, (especially in the case of a neighbor who is being mistreated by an abusive husband) but when it comes to asserting your rights to defend your own autonomy, this is certainly as bad as any man asserting his gender role as a justification to put a woman in her place so that he might defend his autonomy. Selfishness and love do not mix, but thankfully love looks beyond selfishness.