The Junia Project

Advocating for Women's Equality in the Church and Home

Is God Male?

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When I teach about the Trinity in my introductory theology class, the topic of God and gender often comes up. “Is God male?” Let’s think about that.

The Bible often refers to God with masculine personal pronouns. Following this, Christians usually say “He,” “Him, “His,” and “Himself,” when referring to God. Trinitarian language is predominately masculine (“Father” and “Son”) though “Holy Spirit” is more elusive. Many popular Christian books celebrate the more masculine qualities of God (especially books for men and books on ‘leadership’): God is a hero, a conqueror, a warrior, a triumphant king, and so forth.

Even so, I would be extremely hesitant about saying that God IS male; in fact, I would push further to argue that such a notion applied to God, absolutely and without qualification, is both false and misleading.

Becoming an Advocate for Women: One Man’s Journey

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Learning to be an advocate for women is difficult when you have to unlearn years of a complementarian mentality, male privilege and the effect of centuries of patriarchy.

But I believe this is what we are called to pursue.

This has been my journey. Sometimes I think it has been difficult, but what is more difficult is seeing how women are being oppressed. Every man needs to face the messiness of what it means to be egalitarian, regardless of how uncomfortable or challenging it may be.

While at times I identify myself as egalitarian, sometimes it is more useful to say I’m a recovering sexist/complementarian/patriarchist. This reminds me I’m always on a journey in pursuing equality – not only because it means liberation for women from oppressive structures, but also because it means liberation for me.

So here I share a few things I have learned in my journey about being an advocate for women.

Manhood & Masculinity: 3 Great Studies for Groups

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“I’m looking for book recommendations that are egalitarian friendly and address the subjects of manhood and masculinity. I can’t find anything and our men’s ministry leaders are asking me. Please help!! Thank you!!” B.
An interesting thing happened on the way to writing this post. Since I am not a man, I asked eight men for book suggestions and got back ZERO recommendations. Not because they don’t care about the topic, but because 1) they were not aware of any resources on this, or 2) because there has not been much interest in studying “biblical manhood” in their circles. ALL of them told me they were very interested in anything we could find! It is encouraging that manhood and masculinity are not “hot topics” in church circles that support the shared leadership of men and women in ministry and socials contexts. But there is still a need to provide resources for churches that push back against the harmful “authentic manhood” rhetoric that is popular in some Christian circles today. Here are three books that would work well for individual or group study and are written from an egalitarian perspective.

5 Myths of Male Headship

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  I sat down across the table from her. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and I was excited to catch up. She was a youth pastor, one of those with an obvious call on her life for ministry. But as I looked into her eyes, I could see she was worn out. She […]

Laying Down Male Privilege for Joy

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Like most kids, our children love their candy. A relatively rare treat in our house, every piece of candy is something to be cherished, savored, and, above all else, hidden from your siblings. I mean, God forbid your older brother finds your hidden stash of Jolly Ranchers!

I think a lot of us view power in a similar way. I’m talking about social power, like who has authority, who exercises leadership and who commands attention in a given situation. As with my kids and their candy, in our guts, we see power as something to be guarded and kept safe, under lock and key. Over the last several years I’ve been wrestling with what to do with the social power that culture gives me as a man, and my conclusion is this:

Out of reverence for Jesus, I am to release my socially-granted power so that others, particularly women, may thrive.

Surprising Men of the Old Testament

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I’ve found that the Old Testament is full of some amazing, strong women who defy stereotypes. But what about men? Did Old Testament men fill only such roles as warrior, ruler, priest or family patriarch? Did they fit the stereotype of the “manly man,” who pleases God by his tough masculine leadership, or are there gentler role models?

Malestrom: Manhood Swept Into The Currents Of A Changing World (Review & Giveaway)

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In her new book Malestrom: Manhood Swept Into The Currents Of A Changing World, Carolyn Custis James demonstrates why she is one of the most compelling theologians of the twenty-first century. With the authority and unction of a true prophet, she not only identifies one of the major issues of our day—a fallen idea of maleness—but offers biblically grounded insight for how this curse can be undone.

James explains her astute word-play-title and the premise of the book:

The malestrom is the particular ways in which the fall impacts the male of the human species—causing a man to lose himself, his identity and purpose as a man, and above all else to lose sight of God’s original vision for his sons.

We don’t have to look far to find evidence of this malestrom.

A Response to John Piper – What Does it Mean to be a Man?

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At the beginning of March one of our readers wrote in and asked this question:

“I recently watched a video regarding The Gospel Coalition’s stance on their complementarian view. In it, John Piper begins to explain that we must be able to answer children’s questions as to what it means for a boy to grow up and be a man, or for a girl to grow up into God’s model for womanhood. He states that egalitarians have never been able to answer his question. I would love to hear your response.”

This video had been making the rounds on social media, so I was familiar with what she was talking about. You see, John Piper seems to have fallen into the cultural narrative that manhood must be earned. For Piper, manhood isn’t something you simply grow into with age according to your biology. Instead, it is something you work to achieve…

Confusing “Equality” with “Sameness”: A Complementarian Misconception

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Time after time, I’ve read complementarian literature that seems to misunderstand what is meant by biblical equality for women and men. The heart of the misunderstanding appears to be a misperception of what is meant by the term “equality.” Very often, the complementarian literature I’m familiar with assumes that egalitarians are advocating for the “sameness” of men and women in the church, rather than for their equality. For example, in her book, “The Feminist Mistake,” Mary A. Kassian uses the terms “equality” and “sameness” interchangeably (p. 37). She also wrongly assumes that Christian egalitarians want women to be “just like men” (p. 38).

Proverbs 18:22 & Male Entitlement in Dating

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I used to hear this passage preached a lot at relationship conferences or those times when a pastor started a series on relationships and marriage in church on Sunday mornings. Overall, I understand the sacredness of the text and have always appreciated its context. While it’s a beautiful passage, in my experience the way it was preached has always been a little problematic to me. The subsequent teachings that followed were that men are supposed to seek out women. The words “thing” and “obtains” were generally emphasized when referring to this pursuit of women. I think the weight that has been placed on these themes preached from this text, have influenced the way men approach women in the pursuit of relationships.

Summer Links: Mask-ulinity, Male Privilege, and Ashley Judd

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We’re taking a break until September, but wanted to share a few links related to 10 Ways Male Privilege Shows Up in the Church. Several readers pointed out male privilege not only impacts women, men are also impacted in negative ways. Here are some resources that expand on this theme, including a panel discussion on masculinity featuring faculty and staff from Biola University.

In the Image of Man They Created God; Male They Created Him

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Last week Owen Strachan, prominent complementarian leader and President of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, called Rachel Held Evans‘ teaching “heresy” because she used a female pronoun to describe God in one of her posts. Oh, and he did it over Twitter, so naturally a series of Twitter conversations ensued. I personally love Twitter, […]

5 Myths About Adam and Authority: What Really Happened in the Garden?

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There are some distorted messages being taught about creation these days, in particular, that God designed men to be in authority and women to follow. Here are 5 related myths.

Paul’s Masculine and Feminine Leadership

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Some Christians believe that being a leader is a man’s role, and that it is unfeminine for women to be in leadership. These Christians dismiss female leaders mentioned in the Bible as rare exceptions and anomalies. Does the Bible teach that leadership is masculine? Or that leadership is unfeminine?

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