God has created a world with all sorts of diversity. Within humanity, that diversity can be seen in gender, race, personality, culture, giftedness, age and experience. God meant that diversity for good, and He delights in the different contributions all of these varied individuals make to the greater whole. Scripture teaches that God values all humanity equally and that He extends the offer of salvation without discrimination.
In our fallen world, the diversity God created is not always appreciated or valued. I am grieved this week by the President’s egregious statement devaluing people by nation of origin. Certain traits can become a standard within a particular culture. Those who are different are often treated with less privilege or even oppressed. This faulty, unequal valuing of diverse human beings can lead to emotional and material injury. Therefore, a just government must legislate and enforce equal opportunity and protection for all. Fairness matters. There must be a certain uniformity of treatment for all in our society to ensure fairness.
One area where we can see this in human history is with regard to gender. In fallen human thinking, the genders compete for value. The pendulum of thought swings from valuing maleness to valuing femaleness, from defining masculinity and femininity rigidly to blurring the distinction so that all can be affirmed and valued. The idea of gender is a perpetually changing and confusing field.
Thankfully, the Bible teaches that differences between men and women can be acknowledged without unequal value and oppression. In the second chapter of Genesis, we see God creating man and women in His image. Both are equal bearers of God’s image (as we discussed in Plumb-Lines). Following the example of scripture, Christians should recognize difference and equality simultaneously and value the diverse participation of each varied member of the body or family. Gender is the first difference to be spelled out in the human race, and a primary focus of our writing. It makes its appearance in the first chapters of the Bible and reappears frequently throughout.. In the New Testament we find that the purpose of gender roles within marriage is to display something about how Christ’s people relate to him (Ephesians 5:22-33). They also are compared to how Christ, the Son of God relates to his own Father (1 Corinthians 11:3). Last week in Plumb-Lines, I emphasized that gender roles do not negate equality, that human equality must frame all practice of gender roles. This week, my emphasis is that equality in terms of our humanness does not negate or erase the beauty and depth of gender differences. True human equality must not “iron out” gender difference, but truly celebrate and express it.
Biblical womanhood transcends race and culture. It may not look the same from one culture to another. We also believe it transcends personality and we are looking forward to writing in the future about some of the ways it has been lived out in our personal lives. Difference and equality held in balance with one another are key to preventing oppressive treatment of women. We will be unpacking that assertion over the next months in our posts. Equally valuing men and women matters in our homes and in our churches. But equally valuing both genders in our homes and churches will not be achieved by uniformity. God did not design us to be clones. He designed humanity as male and female, equal members of the human race, but different in gender.
It is to this topic that Ruth and I will direct our upcoming posts. We want to talk about how race and culture, our gifts, talents, and opportunities intersect with our gender. Is gender a hard-wired difference between masculinity and femininity or something more malleable? We will write about ways the competitive, exclusionary thinking of the world can creep into our family and church practices. These are just some of the ideas Ruth and I are ruminating on and discussing.