For my children.
May you each live abundantly in a world that welcomes
and celebrates the beauty of your full humanity.
Contents
4 A Brief History of Sexism in the Church
5 A Brief History of Antisexism in the Church
7 Politics, Power, Pornography, and the Perpetuation of Sexism
8 Confronting Sexism in Relationships
9 Confronting Sexism in Christian Leadership
10 Confronting Sexism in a Church or Organization
11 Confronting Systemic Cultural Sexism
Praise for Confronting Sexism in the Church
More Titles from InterVarsity Press and Missio Alliance
SCOT MCKNIGHT
Over the last decade of teaching seminary students, a group in my favorite class gave themselves the name “the Gertie Girls.” Somehow, in the chatrooms to which I did not have access, a troll on the top of a hill at the Morton Arboretum and an attempted explanation by the professor of “gird up your loins” coalesced into a name for the group. They were and still are a wonderful group of Christian women leaders, pastors, moms, wives, writers, therapists, and all sorts of other vocations and avocations.
But what perhaps was most important was what I learned from them. Women were the majority in the class, and what I learned, time and time again, were their sensitivities toward what was written about women (and men) in the Bible, what was written in the textbooks as well as who wrote those textbooks, what was said by peers in the classroom, and what I said when lecturing or responding.
The Gertie Girls reminded us all that sexism is alive and well. That sexism needs to be noted, named, and nixed. Had the class been a majority of White, privileged males, comments like “A man would say that” may not have been heard, and especially its impact and implications not heeded. For the church to eradicate sexism—the systemics of sexism, and even vestiges of sexism—will require vigilance. And it will need to discover more and more rooms of majority women where men will struggle to power up and assert their male majority’s voice, and so learn the art of other voices.
We need to approach sexism from a variety of angles, including books like Heather Matthews’s excellent Confronting Sexism in the Church. (By the way, Heather was not one of the Gertie Girls, but they would love one another!) It’s a handbook for discovering and dismantling sexism in the church and in Christian institutions. Heather speaks, as did the Gertie Girls, from her own experiences of sexism in the church. Heather’s book does not back down: it brings to the table most every topic, it dismantles the topics (definitions of all the major terms, problems with power, relationships, the damage to women, etc.), and it opens up possibilities for demolishing sexism in particular locations.
What I have learned about sexism is that it lurks in systems and emerges in the most ...
|
About Confronting Sexism in the Church: How We Got Here and What We Can Do About ItHow to Fight Sexism in the Church Despite the real progress that has been made in recent years, women continue to be silenced, wounded, and relegated to the sidelines in our churches. Many churches—even churches that outwardly affirm and platform women—remain unaware of the patterns and cultures at play that set up unseen barriers for women. This is a book for Christians who want to learn how to do better. Heather Matthews has experienced sexism in the church firsthand. In Confronting Sexism in the Church, she explores the history and culture of sexism in our contemporary evangelical world and describes the many ways—subtle and not so subtle—that it lives on in the church today. She gives simple, practical steps for how Christians can actively fight sexism in its many forms. The mistreatment of women has been part of the human experience from the very beginning—but in Christ, women are set free to be all they've been created to be. This book invites churches to live out that reality in all its fullness. |
| Support Info | 9781514008195 |