Feminist Theology

I've been talking about this latest book I'm reading on deconstruction, and there are so many glaring fundamental errors in it - as there have been in every book on the subject I have read - that we need to look closely at what is being said. 

Again - the questions are usually valid, but the answers are usually heresy. 

And a lot of these books stem from the same starting point - they are the wrestlings of persons who are "not dominant in white patriarchy." Women, children, persons of color, queer folk, etc. They're all looking for their place in the story, especially in relation to a culture that says they are valuable and worthy and capable and have every right to do whatever they want in this world. 

I don't want to go down any rabbit holes here, so there's a lot we're not going to touch on. But what I want to point out is that the end goal of these feminist/minority deconstructionists is that they come out with exactly the same power, presence, and voice as the white male patriarchs they so despise. 

Not one of them comes out with a better understanding of the unique gifts of women. Or persons of color. Or queer folk. Or whoever. 

No. They all come out with an argument that they are powerful white males. One and the same. Exactly as the men they despise. So they ought to be treated exactly the same way as the men they are trying to tear down. 

This is something I, too, have wrestled with for a long time. 

I am a woman with a heart for God and an ache for ministry. I have been since I met God 26 years ago. The gifts that He's put in me, the calling He's put on my life, the ways that He has encouraged and trained me up...they all point in one direction. 

And I've met my share of male gatekeepers in the faith. Men who affirm my gifts, but still work to keep me out of certain spaces. Men who cannot accept that God might gift a woman in these ways for this type of service. 

In response, I have masculinized myself. Learned to speak with a firmer voice. Brought the fullness of a loud passion to the forefront. I have tried to demonstrate that I am just as worthy as any man...by becoming as much like those men as I could. 

But the longer that I have been in ministry spaces, the more I have given all of that up. Because God has not called me to become a masculinized female. He gave me these gifts in my femininity. And so the proper way to use them is as a woman. Not by pushing my way into male spaces. 

I used to think that the best way to offer my gifts to the world was to prove that women could do anything men can do. And...maybe we can. But we can never do it as well as men can. We're not created for that. 

What we are created for is to do things men can do, but to do them the ways that women will do. There's something beautiful about the way that a woman will do it. 

So it's not about standing in men's spaces and saying, "See? Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I don't belong here." Sorry, but it does. Women were not created for men's spaces, and it's not some massive triumph to prove that we're exactly like them. 

Women were not made to be men. No matter what culture and feminism and whatever else tells us. Women were meant to be women. And what we most need is a full, robust understanding of what that means. 

And we'll never understand that if we're so busy trying to be men.