Redemption / God's Best

A few weeks ago, Graduate Christian Fellowship had the first of its three talks on the series Creation/Fall/Redemption. Sadly, I missed the "Fall" talk to go see Das Weisse Band / The White Ribbon, but it winds up that I would have simply agreed with many of the things addressed at the talk. The focus was how, post-fall, relations between the sexes was put awry, and how this is not God's intention. Yet we, the Church, continue living as though the curse had real weight for us, weight not simply as a description of how the world is fallen, but as a prescription, as though God truly intended for us to be out of touch with nature and for men to rule over women.

Radically feminist? Perhaps. But it's also very much a Biblical concept. In Galatians, the church is corrected for incorrect teaching, for having hierarchies among the believers, for wanting to draw distinctions where none were intended:

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendant, heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 27-29)

So why do we still treat women as second-class citizens in the Church? In relationships? Why do we continue to believe that woman's desire for man and man's rule over woman is what God intends for marriage, which is a metaphor for covenant?

Perhaps this is why I was so disturbed a few months ago when a male colleague, a believer, intended to be sympathetic when he acknowledged how difficult things are for women in academia, women who try to have families, a career, and still get paid less than their male counterparts. He said to me, "Gosh, don't you sometimes just wish you were a man? Then you wouldn't have to worry about this."

He meant well, but sadly, was his hope for me was not any different from the Jewish prayer said by men every morning, "Blessed are you...for not having made me a woman."

Where is the redemption there?

If Christians truly believe that we live in a world redeemed by Christ and in the process of reflecting this, can we really say that women must remain under male authority (note that I do not question people being under authority generally--this is reason for another post)?

I believe I have been redeemed, and therefore thank God for having made me a woman--a difference which does not matter in his eyes.