Biblical Women, Contemporary Christian Women: Finding Courage to Follow Christ: Part 2

The first time I heard some one equate the cross with child abuse was in Berkeley at the GTU class I wrote about earlier. It was a woman who stated that unchristian notion. So as I write on biblical women and contemporary Christian women I also want to look at some ways that Christ’s redemptive death on the cross intersects with the faith of women.

And going beyond that, but looking still at the cross of Christ, I want to explore the objection that some men have to women being in ministry because supposedly, according to the men, they can’t represent Christ since they are women.

As you will hopefully see, these thoughts will all merge together. I should add that I am going to reach back to early church history and forward to the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

Last year, during the celebration in the PCUSA of the ordaining of women as Deacons, Elders and Pastors, the Women’s Ministry Area as well as Presbyterian Women included the first Presbyterian woman to be ordained in their list of honored women. Louisa M. Woosley was ordained in 1889 by the Nolin Presbytery in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. On the Women’s Area web site is an article about her, “From Preacher in the Field to Mother in the Church: Reverend Louisa M. Woosley.”

What the article does not stress at all is Woosley’s very definite orthodoxy. Surprisingly in her little book Shall Woman Preach? Or The Question Answered, she uses a woman to emphasize her understanding of the crucifixion.

That text of terror, as some have called it, is the story of Jephthah and his daughter who ran to meet him after his victory against the Ammonites. Jephthah had vowed to sacrifice the first thing that came from the door of his house if God gave him the victory. The first to greet him was his daughter.

Woosley believed this story to be somewhat like the one of Abraham attempting to sacrifice Isaac to God. (The difference of course is that it is God who called Abraham to obedience; Jephthah acted out of rashness.) But Isaac is a picture of Jesus who gives himself for the sins of humanity. And Woosley sees the daughter picturing the kind of obedience Jesus offered to the Father in his death. She writes:

"In the history of this heroic woman, who gave her life to vindicate her father’s words, we have vividly brought before our minds the promised redemption through Christ. God said that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. In the fulfillment of this promise, ‘we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.’ ‘He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’ The sword which was the instrument of her death, reminds us that they came out against Christ with swords and with staves. He, too, invited the fatal blow: it came; he passed out and now appears in the presence of the Father for us. We have a faithful high priest, one that is easily ‘touched with the feelings of our infirmities.’"(39)

But going back much earlier is the slave girl Blandina. Eusebius tells her story in his Ecclesiastical History. Her story occurs in Gaul, and it is during a time of great persecution. Others around Blandina, including her mistress, were afraid that because of weakness she would deny her faith in the midst of torture. But Blandina proved to be a faithful witness.

After much torture and time in prison she is led into the arena with three other Christians. Eusebius writes of Blandina:

"Blandina, however, was bound and suspended on a stake, and thus exposed as food to the assaults of wild beasts, and as she thus appeared to hang after the manner of the cross, by her earnest prayers she infused much alacrity into the contending martyrs. For as they saw her in the contest, with the external eyes, through their sister, they contemplated Him that was crucified for them, to persuade those that believe in him, that every one who suffers for Christ, will for ever enjoy communion with the living God. " (176)

Faith in the redeeming death of Jesus Christ on the cross is in deed an essential doctrine of the Church. And women are not allowed to stand idly by either denying or ignoring this glorious truth. Rather they are called, as are men, to live out what it means to be a witness for Jesus Christ.

Biblical Women, Contemporary Christian Women: Finding Courage to Follow Christ: Part 1

Picture by Derek McHenry

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Most Christian women relate to biblical women as role models. For instance, to Deborah as a mother and judge in Israel or to Jehosheba who with foresight hid one of the sons of King Ahaziah away from his murderous grandmother. (Not that I know any murderous grandmothers). Because of Jehoseba's care Judah had a King who "did right in the sight of the Lord,"for at least a small time.

Or, what about Samson's mother? She is not named in Scripture, but she is used by God because of her commonsense. I think this is one of the funniest stories in the Old Testament and I am sure I have related it elsewhere in something I have written. But I will tell it again.

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Samson's mother, before he was conceived, was alone and the Angel of the Lord came to her telling her she was to have a baby and he should be raised as a Nazirite. The Angel gave her instructions about how to raise the child. She informs her husband Manoah of the good news and the text gives the reader the feel that he felt slighted by the Lord. So he prays and asks the Lord to send the Angel to him so they would know how to raise the child.

So once again the Angel of the Lord comes to Manoah's wife while she is alone and she dutifully runs and gets her husband who proceeds to ask for instructions. The Angel of course repeats himself. Then Manoah's curiosity gets the better of him; he invites the Angel for dinner and also asks the Angel to reveal his name.

The Angel, instead of accepting the dinner invitation, tells Manoah to make a sacrifice to the Lord. And he asks Manoah this beautiful question. "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?" In other words, "Manoah, don't you know who I am?"

When the Angel of the Lord ascends in the flame of the sacrifice Manoah suddenly realizes that this Angel is the Angel of the Lord, meaning he is a theophany, that is, a manifestation of God. So now Manoah is fearful and believes that both he and his wife will die. It is as though he has not heard a word that the Angel said.

It is the commonsense of his wife, and her faith, that saves the day and perhaps gives him courage. She tells Manoah, "If the Lord had desired to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would he have shown us all these things, nor would he have let us hear things like this at this time." (Judges 13:23)

Far better is how the Angel of the Lord's description of his name directs our attention to Isaiah 9:6:

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."

But now about some contemporary women of faith whose walk with Jesus Christ I find inspiring. One of them, Sophie Scholl, did not live beyond her twenties. A movie was produced about this young woman just last year, "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days."

Newly discovered documents and historical interviews provide the information for the movie which features members of "The White Rose," a group of students and academics who published papers against Hitler and the Nazis in Germany during that era. The main character Sophie Scholl is a Christian who intellectually and morally defeats her interrogator Robert Mohr with both her humanitarianism and her faith.

The director Marc Rothemund in an interview writes, "I admire her courage. She turned down the 'golden bridge' offered to her by the interrogation officer Robert Mohr--thus practically signing her own death sentence. I find this approach to death quite startling: how does such a life-affirming, positive minded young woman like Sophie Scholl come to terms with the fact that her life is being taken away from her? How does she find meaning in her death? And, of course, as an atheist I ask myself; Is it easier to face death as a believer?"

Another woman who showed faithful courage in the face of other's Utopian dreams is Irina Ratushinskaya. The Story of her experiences in a Soviet prison can be found in her book "Grey is the Color of Hope," published in 1988. She is a poet with beautiful soft but piercing poetry.

The charges against her were, "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." Many of her poems were written in prison and smuggled out on small pieces of paper. Here is the one that caught my attention.

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"Believe Me"

Believe me, it was often thus:

In solitary cells, on winter nights

A sudden sense of joy and warmth

And a resounding note of love.

And then, unsleeping. I would know

A-huddle by an icy wall:

Someone is thinking of me now,

Petitioning the Lord for me.

My dear ones, thank you all

Who did not falter, who believed in us!

In the most fearful prison hour

We probably would not have passed

Through everything - from end to end,

Our heads held high, unbowed-

Without your valiant hearts

to light our path.

(Kiev, 10 Oct. 1986)

found in "Pencil Letter: Poems" ---

- Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

found at Ratushinskaya -

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One other woman I want to write about is a contemporary historian who started one of the first Women's Studies departments in a university. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese founded the Institute for Women's Studies at Emory University.

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Fox-Genovese became increasingly concerned about radical feminism's anti-life stance and it was partly this that drove her to Christ. Amazing the ways the wooing Holy Spirit draws us to Jesus Christ. She writes of her conversion to Jesus Christ via the Catholic faith in an article she wrote for First Things. The article is entitled A Conversion Story . In that story she writes:

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"For practical purposes, I grew up a nonbelieving Christian. Wait a minute, you may fairly protest, is that not an oxymoron? How can a nonbeliever describe herself as Christian if faith constitutes the essence of Christianity? Time and again throughout the Gospels, Jesus evokes belief in himself and the Father who sent him as the only test or standard. Think of Martha at the time of Lazarus’ death: "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world" (John 10:27). And Martha is not alone. Time and again petitioners receive what they seek because Jesus fulfills their belief. As he tells Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 10:25-26). A Christian, by definition, is one who accepts Jesus Christ as his personal savior and, no less important, as Lord. Everything depends upon belief. "

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For those interested one of her books on history is: "Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South," and another good book by her is "Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life: How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch with the Real Concerns of Women."

My next posting I intend to look at other faithful Christian women including several in the Reformed tradition. But I will end this post with one more poem by Ratushinskaya:

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The stars have flown, but we still dare wish.

A snowflake falls, no worse in size than a star.

Foretell us a miracle with a solemn childish faith,

Not in vain did the guest's bold hand burn you.

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Then another rebelled and broke from the flock

And settled like a bird awkwardly on my shoulder.

It waits for the ineffable word, is slow to melt,

And I whisper hastily, stumblingly-

You know just what

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Over us December bursts its banks.

It is brave as a Hussar, its generosity is without reproach.

But the winter is short,

But we are so eternally young

That the snows of all Russias are not enough for our wishes.