Elders Throwing Rocks at Stained Glass Ceilings

It's true. A group of elders have taken to throwing rocks at stained-glass ceilings. And where are stained-glass ceilings found? Why in churches, of course.

Who are these elders?

The elders are an independant group eminent global leaders brought together by South Africa's Nelson Mandela. Members of this group include Desmond Tutu, Kafin Anan, Aung San Suu Kye, and our very own former President Jimmy Carter.

A recent article featured at The Elders website by Mr Carter has him stating, "The words of God do not justify cruelty to women."

This statement was made in their most recent initiative:

Religious values and teachings, along with traditional customs, have provided comfort to hundreds of millions of people, stability for societies and have been a major force for good in our world and in our history.Sadly, they have also been used throughout the centuries to justify and entrench inequality and discrimination against women and girls. These teachings and practices have been abused by men to give them power over the female members of their families and women across their communities.

The initiative also convered the issues of violence, property rights, financial power, and other critical areas for women and girls around the world, particularly in developing countries. But it had a special emphasis with it's plea to religious traditions around the world to end discrimination and cruelty to women.

At first glance this might sound less urgent than sex trafficking. Women not being allowed to lead as pastors or seen as subserviant to their husbands is surely less of a social crisis than women forced into prostitution. And yet, it is not that far apart.

Today in America, a so-called superpower among the nations of the earth, there still exists with very little resistance a disparity of equity among the genders in the very place that is meant to be the most level playing field around - the church.

There are many women who suffer quietly with a sense of disquietude as they believe that they are meant to serve their men and no more. It is one thing for a woman to happily choose to do this for she finds great satisfaction in doing so. It is entirely another when that woman has been theologically conditioned to believe that it is God's design for her to be subserviant with men and not stand shoulder to shoulder among them in matters of civic, spiritual or domestic leadership.

I met a woman a few months ago who told me that she and her family were part of a church that taught it's members that God created women to be helpers for men. That's why women exist. This created an atmosphere of devaluing of this woman's personhood. She began to acutely feel the tension between what she had been taught as God's divine order, and what her soul knew was happening: she was suffocating. All in the name of Jesus, she was slowly being strangled and felt certain that if she did not escape the grip of it would break her neck.

Her family finally exited and she is recovering. Her marriage is recovering. There is a new liberation in her outlook about herself and her world. She no longer accepts that the word of God promotes unjust relationships between the sexes just because of one chromosome.

There are many invisible women suffering quietly as this woman was. When theology cages a person in, when there is a belief about one's limitability rooted in one's concept of God, then there will exist a breeding ground for abuse and exploitation.

The Elders, in my opinion, are issueing a prophetic-like call to repentance to the leaders of the communities of God-followers around the globe. The hour has become late, and even in the wealthiest of nations and the most affluent and educated of religious institutions, there remains firmly entrenched the idea that men lead, women follow. It's our role, the perpetual role of women eveyrwhere to be happy helpers to our manly men.

What do you think? Is it overstated that women in Christian traditions are treated less than just? Have you experienced injustice because of your gender? Or do you see it differently? What have been the experiences that have shaped your theology about the genders?

(a special shout-out to my friend, Erin Word, who writes about The Elders in her most recent article for Communitas Collective, an online community that exists to encourage people who are discovering new ways to be the church.)