Someone I know from twitter challenged something I said in an interview that aired yesterday over at Key Life Network. Now before you cry out, “Down with trolls!”, I have to say this individual is far from a troll and is someone for whom I have sincere respect. I don’t entertain trolls, but I’ve learned that when Travis* asks what seems like a nonchalant, casual question or finishes a statement with an ellipses, I’m quite certain something is about to be unearthed, some preconceived notion of mine is about to be radically altered…for the better.  So, when he asked,

Why don’t you want to sound ‘like a complete, total feminist’?

I thought, “Oh, crap…here we go…”,  and I buckled up and braced for impact. My answers and his push-back revealed (to me) that I had serious cracks in my understanding about feminism in general and exposed (to me) my own very deep seated fear of being associated with feminism and called a feminist–not something I’m proud to admit. And if the initial question and the following push-backs weren’t well aimed arrows hitting each of their marks, it was the last remark he made that hit me so perfectly and with such skill that Legolas himself would be jealous. I had just defended myself by saying,

…even tho I’m cautious (and maybe overly so) about how i define myself as a feminist does not discredit all the work I do to promote women and men…

To which he wrote,

Nope, doesn’t discredit it. But it (your caution) may implicitly discredit the work being done by others…

That arrow hurt. That impact hurt. While I wasn’t hurled into an existential crisis, I was forced to reckon with some questions:

Why am I cautious about a feminist label?

Am I potentially hindering good work being done by disassociating myself from feminism?

Am I a feminist?

To answer the first question, I think the main reason I’m hesitant to call myself a feminist because of the way “feminist” is a four letter word in conservative evangelical circles, in which I was spiritually reared and (to some extent) academically trained. Not only is it considered a four letter word, but it is assumed to be so connected to secular life, that  a good Christian woman would never want to call herself a feminist. Feminist, from what I can deduce from my experience, seems to draws up imagery of an angry, man-hating women, looking to overthrow the entire system by her rejection of marriage and family. A couple of years back, my seminary had to deal with the issue of some male MDiv and DMin students singling out female MDiv students on the ordination track telling them they were acting against God’s divine ordering of the sexes. In conservative contexts, many feminist theologians get a bad name for some of the awkward things they do exegetically to scripture (sometimes the accusation is valid; sometimes not. And let us not confuse feminist theologian with a theologian who is also a feminist). As a woman student and then as a Teacher’s Assistant, who spoke up for the equality and freedom of women using both theology and scripture as my foundation, I thought I was in a bind: I’d lose my audience if I played the feminist card. So I distanced myself, “Not feminist…so you can listen to me…” Rather than stand ground and demand that the word “feminist” be defined correctly in spite of the few places it’s been run into the mud, I attempted to placate the more conservative folk I was encountering.

And here I can answer the second question posed above: yes, my disassociation from feminism hinders the good work others are doing. How so? In this way: as I go about both my academic and pastoral callings, which incorporates a message of freedom for women and men, while simultaneously denying that I am a feminist essentially creates a dividing line where I make the implicit statement that what I am doing is good and what other feminists are doing is bad. For all intents and purposes, I’m promoting my work at the expense and detriment of the work of other feminists. I’m creating teams, an “us” and “them.” As a Christian the “us” and “them” will almost always take on the flavor of Christian and Secular, good and bad; this is unacceptable.

And since when is it a good idea for Christians (for me) to shirk a word or phrase because of the historically negative connotations it has carried? Am I not given a new language, a new grammar, a new voice to speak, new eyes to see, and new ears to hear as a result of faith in Christ? To part ways with “feminist” because of fear, rubs against the confidence I’ve been given in Christ. Rather than throw out language because of its baggage (hypothetical or not), let us use the new language we’ve been given in Christ to rightly define the language.

Feminism rightly understood is freedom and equality for woman alongside man; and this freedom and equality is beneficial for man in that it demands and expects more from him than has been previously expected from patriarchy. This freedom and equality for woman is exactly what is given to her through Jesus Christ; for scriptural support, start by reading through the gospel of Luke and move on from there. This demand on man that expects more than what patriarchy has ever expected is justified in the person and being of Jesus Christ.  The way Jesus interacts with women throughout the gospels is a demand and expectation on man to be capable of more. In union with Christ by faith in Him, men are neither tyrannical overlords lusting to rule over the weak woman nor primal beasts needing to be tamed and educated by the domesticated and civil hand of the woman; in union with Christ by faith in Him, the free man is rightly oriented to the free woman, and she to him because they are rightly oriented to God by the power of the Holy Spirit.This is the goal of feminism rightly understood, and it has everything to do with us Christians and Christianity.

Am I feminist?

Yes.

I am a complete and total feminist.

 

* @WTravisMcMaken (on Twitter) and I highly recommend visiting his blog: Die Evangelischen Theologen   http://derevth.blogspot.com/