A Theology of Antisexism
By Karen Fletcher Smith
The Professor said to write what you know
Lookin' backwards
Might be the only way to move forward[1]
- Taylor Swift
These lyrics have remained in my brain like an earworm causing me to reflect. Over the past year, as I worked through some intense church trauma, I have been in a constant state of self-evaluation, wondering how I will “write what I know”. I am honored to join you as a guest on Scot McKnight’s Substack and to share with you the vulnerable work of a woman wrestling with the intersection of theology and women. Ultimately, I seek answers to the question: Do I have value in the kingdom of God? As a female, this question has haunted my church experience, and maybe you feel that too. Through several years of deep theological work and most recently seminary, I can now say the answer is a resounding yes, I have value! I can also say that I gained one of the greatest gifts of my life: theological agency in Jesus.
That said, this gift of agency is a gift I have never found in the church.
That is a painful sentence to write and yet one that stands true. Our theology matters and thoughts have consequences. Every church I have ever consistently been a part of has restricted the movement of women in the kingdom. Every single one. Some differed in those regulations, allowing women to baptize their children, or publicly pray, and one even let women preach, but all of them restricted women at least from serving as head pastor or elder.
So, I went to seminary in search of Jesus and a theology that gives women the same gospel that it gives to men. The Good News should be good news for women too. I was tired of seeing sexist theology harm women around me. For example, abused women who should have had a female advocating for them in rooms where only men were allowed. Men in leadership who were friends with her abuser. Men who believed his lies. Men who did not protect or love their sister because their theology told them she was weak, naïve, and made to submit.
Jesus never treated women this way. Our theology matters, and believing in a Jesus that keeps women subordinate weakens the restorative nature of Jesus. Sexism weakens what Christ came to accomplish.
If you’ve been following along in this Substack about Heather Matthews’ work, Confronting Sexism in the Church, this week we are looking into the Theology of Antisexism. Antisexism, a term that, in the year of our Lord 2024, is not even recognized by my computer, let alone the 7 churches I have been a part of in my life. In chapter three, Matthews encourages the reader towards a theology of antisexism.
Matthews masterfully highlights three truths found in Scripture that are a foundation for antisexism. First, she takes the reader back to creation noting there is “no indication of hierarchy.” This idea of hierarchy in the creation account came up for me several years ago. At that time in my life, I sought out perspectives from different elders and pastors. Some said hierarchy came from the fall and that women were to be subordinate because of Eve’s unfortunate choice, but I wondered what they thought Heaven would look like. Would I be able to use my gifts fully to glorify Jesus there? If so, shouldn’t we as believers be ushering in his kingdom now?
The second view of creation came from elders and pastors that told me I was to be subordinate because that was God’s good design before the fall. Women were created second and from Adam. However, this theology did not fit with the grand narrative of Scripture that showed me a God who delights in choosing the second born, and the unexpected. It also unraveled as I studied the Hebrew words that speak of a human created, void of gendered terms until God takes it’s side and creates and equal. A helper, but a term that God even uses to describe himself. Surely not a subordinate term unless you see Yahweh as subordinate to Israel. Furthermore, a logical orthopraxy from this theology would lead to the conclusion that women should not lead anywhere in society. Is that Good News for women?
A second truth Matthews highlights as a foundation for antisexism is the theology of power. She states, “Sexism is a misuse of power in which men hold power over women and use that power for themselves while diminishing and restricting women’s God-given power.” This definition abruptly stopped my reading. The waves of grief and reality brought me to a sobering place of truth. I have been called by God, but the church has largely used its power to diminish and restrict me.
I am reminded of, Beth Moore, who tweeted the following five years ago.
“I had the eye-opening experience of my life in 2016. A fog cleared for me that was the most disturbing, terrifying thing I’d ever seen. All these years I’d given the benefit of the doubt that these men were the way they were because they were trying to be obedient to Scripture... Then I realized it was not over Scripture at all. It was over sin. It was over power. It was over misogyny. Sexism. It was about arrogance. About protecting systems. It involved covering abuses & misuses of power. Shepherds guarding other shepherds instead of guarding the sheep.[2]
Power. This explained much of the pain and grief I have experienced in church as a woman.
“Did God really call you to be a pastor?”
“Your seminary education has made you too prideful.”
“You will never pastor or teach here.”
“You are too wounded to teach.”
“You should probably just leave this church.”
These are all comments that have been said to me by pastors or elders in the last couple of years. And they are all comments that, as a male seminary friend pointed out, would never be said to a male. Deeply wounded, I did what many women do, I made myself smaller and I fought the urge to become a shell of who I used to be in Christ. My soul has been trampled on by pastors that used their power to control in the name of Jesus. Yet, this does not sound like the Jesus I see in Scripture.
Matthews brings the reader to the final truth as a foundation for antisexism: a theology of redemption and restoration. Since I was a teenager, I have had what I can only describe as a burning in my soul to talk about Jesus. As a female, this has created a delicate experience of navigating church spaces, searching for unwritten rules of where and how I can walk forward. I learned to hesitate, to make myself smaller, and to delicately ask questions about female spaces, genuinely trying to learn where it was acceptable to use my gifts in the kingdom. I refuse to believe that Heaven and the restoration of all things will continue to produce this constant state of anxiety, worried I will offend male leadership by using my feminine voice. That is not the kingdom.
Matthews turns our attention to the kingdom that is coming in fullness. A kingdom that is “a new, reconciled humanity where there are no more barriers based on ethnic, socioeconomic, or gender distinctions.” I genuinely, and with tears in my eyes, long for this day. The New Testament shows us how Jesus came to create a new humanity, one devoid of lines drawn around race, gender and economic status. A church where slaves could function as elders, women could teach and shepherd, and the poor are sought out for their perspective on the kingdom.
Matthew’s work reminds us that a theology of antisexism is a theology that truly believes men and women are created equal. Jesus was not sexist. He did not accuse women of seeking power, in fact his harshest words were for the men who used their power to restrict others in the kingdom. As Dorothy Sayers once said,
“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 never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; 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.”[3]
As I move forward in my calling, I long for the church to treat women the same way Jesus treated women, and it starts with our theology. There is no place for sexism in the kingdom of God.
[1] Swift, Taylor. “The Manuscript” iTunes audio, 2:30, 2024. https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-manuscript/1742073690?i=1742076181.
[2] https://x.com/BethMooreLPM/status/1127213553268686848
[3] Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
