Judeo-Christian

Anti-Women Views

he anti-woman views expressed in these Bible verses are still at the core of fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

In case you think that the Bible quotes referenced in the link above are no longer accepted by fundamentalist Christians, consider this quote from the Rev. Pat Robertson, one of today's most influential Christian fundamentalist evangelists:

The Feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

A nd just recently The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant decision-making body added to its core teachings that a woman must be subject to her husband in all things. Plus, a woman is not to have authority over a man-a concept that could even now reap havoc in the workplace.

In marriage and family life this is termed "headship, with the husband's views prevailing, no matter how ill-informed.

M ore examples of the strong anti-woman currents in fundamentalist Christianity can be found here.

he Judeo-Christian tradition allowed for multiple wives and refused to allow allow for divorce, no matter how abusive the husband.

These views saw women as not educatable, not intelligent enough to vote, to own property, or to enter a profession (except possibly for prostitution, which at one time was apparently excused by the Catholic Church as being a "necessary evil").

I t should come as no surprise that even those who staunchly maintain that every word of the Bible is inspired by God and is to be taken literally prefer not to quote the linked passages above.

Any attempt to "explain them away" based on a rationale of earlier times and conditions simply opens the door to "picking and choosing" what to believe from the scriptures and what to discard, which is what more modern religious thinkers do anyway.

Even so, the impact of these strong anti-woman, anti-sex scriptures remains.

enouncing a scriptural tradition that sees women as both corrupt and corrupting must be the operative principle of a religious system that quotes Jesus as saying, "I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

-Bishop John Shelby Spong

B ut it's not only women that are affected.

Just yesterday (06/01/2005), we heard from a Nevada man who, as a result of his ultra-conservative Christian upbringing, has struggled all of his adult life to overcome debilitating sexual problems.

T he file, Were Jesus' Views on Women and Sex Quite Different than We've Been Led to Believe , deals with related issues.