In recent decades, Christianity has been accused of promoting a patriarchal society and oppressing women. Its founders supposedly designed the religion to do these things. It has also been criticized because the founding Christians did not oppose slavery. It feels ridiculous to even address these allegations, but I keep hearing them come up again and again, not just from atheists but from progressive Christians as well. When bad ideas start to infiltrate the culture, they can’t simply be laughed off. They need to be addressed.
Was Christianity specifically designed to keep women down? To best answer this, we need to consider why men have dominated society throughout human history. The main reason is that, until recently, women were not capable of surviving on their own. Until recently, most jobs involved hard manual labor (i.e. farming, construction) which women are not suited for. But even if a woman could find a job, the fact that there was no birth control meant that sustained employment would always be elusive. All this meant that women were heavily dependent on men for their survival. They needed men not just to provide for them but to protect them, given how lawless and barbaric the world of the past was compared to today. As a result, it should hardly be surprising that men wielded most of the power. In addition, human beings have always associated leadership with strength, and since men are the physically stronger sex, it is only natural that both men and women tend to turn to men for leadership. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that the patriarchal structure of society is not a social construct but simply a product of human nature.
Considering this, before we ask whether the Christian founders designed a religion to oppress women, we should ask why they would have even felt the need to create such a religion. It’s not like there was some rising feminist movement during those times that threatened the dominance of men. What did the Christian men of the first century have to fear from women? Was not the brutal, crushing rule of the Roman Empire a far greater concern?
The idea that Christianity is rooted in sexism is really just laughable. There is nothing in Jesus’s teachings that indicates he believed women should be oppressed. He said that you should treat others the way you would wish to be treated. How would anyone discern from this that women should be put down? Now, Jesus did not call for “equality” between men and women, but such a command would have been silly given the nature of society in biblical times. What most critics point to is 1 Timothy 2:12 in which Paul mandates that only men should be clergy, but his decision was not rooted in sexism. Instead, it was based on the reality that men tend to be better suited for leadership roles than women. When women have been allowed to become ministers, the result has been a feminization of the church service and a deep decline in church attendance. Paul was simply advocating for what would best strengthen the church and help it grow and prosper.
“But it wasn’t fair to exclude women from the church leadership!” cry the critics.
What would have been truly unfair would have been to compromise the effectiveness of the church and to reduce people’s chances of attaining salvation just for the sake of “equality.”
And if you look at the early church, it is clear that it greatly benefited women. Roman society highly valued boys, so much so that baby girls were often thrown in the garbage and left to die. This infanticide was greatly opposed by the early Christians, and they eventually were successful in ending the practice. The result was that girls and women were held in much greater esteem by society. The church also took care of widows who otherwise struggled to survive since there were so few jobs available for women. It was not uncommon for a woman to join the church and then bring her husband into it later. Does this sound like a religion that was designed to oppress women?
Many have also criticized the early Christian church because it did not condemn slavery. But it is important to understand that Christianity was never a political movement. Therefore, social reform was never its primary concern. Rather, its primary concern is helping people attain salvation so they will go to heaven. Its focus has always been on the next world, not this one.
Another thing to consider is that the early Christians were very few in number, certainly too few to have been able to change any aspect of the political order. Therefore, taking a hard political stance against slavery would have been a futile gesture at best.
Yet Christianity did indirectly challenge slavery with its teachings that you should love your neighbor and treat others as you would wish to be treated. As these teachings began to spread and take hold in the Western world, it became increasingly harder for people to justify slavery as an institution. Also, consider what Paul said in Galatians 5:1:
Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Does this sound like someone who believed that people should be enslaved? Paul has been criticized for saying that slaves should obey their masters, but this falls in line with what Jesus taught about the importance of serving others, that he who is last will be first. Therefore, by serving their masters faithfully, slaves could also serve God. For slaves who had no hope of escape, this offered them purpose and meaning for their lives. It was certainly better than telling them to embrace bitterness and hatred.
Paul also said that slaves should be treated justly, and if they have the opportunity to gain freedom, they should take it. However, their primary focus should be on serving Christ, for it is in Christ that one finds true freedom.
Given all the people today who claim to feel oppressed (despite living in a free society), this is a teaching that we would be wise to remember.
Was Christianity specifically designed to keep women down? To best answer this, we need to consider why men have dominated society throughout human history. The main reason is that, until recently, women were not capable of surviving on their own. Until recently, most jobs involved hard manual labor (i.e. farming, construction) which women are not suited for. But even if a woman could find a job, the fact that there was no birth control meant that sustained employment would always be elusive. All this meant that women were heavily dependent on men for their survival. They needed men not just to provide for them but to protect them, given how lawless and barbaric the world of the past was compared to today. As a result, it should hardly be surprising that men wielded most of the power. In addition, human beings have always associated leadership with strength, and since men are the physically stronger sex, it is only natural that both men and women tend to turn to men for leadership. Therefore, we can reasonably conclude that the patriarchal structure of society is not a social construct but simply a product of human nature.
Considering this, before we ask whether the Christian founders designed a religion to oppress women, we should ask why they would have even felt the need to create such a religion. It’s not like there was some rising feminist movement during those times that threatened the dominance of men. What did the Christian men of the first century have to fear from women? Was not the brutal, crushing rule of the Roman Empire a far greater concern?
The idea that Christianity is rooted in sexism is really just laughable. There is nothing in Jesus’s teachings that indicates he believed women should be oppressed. He said that you should treat others the way you would wish to be treated. How would anyone discern from this that women should be put down? Now, Jesus did not call for “equality” between men and women, but such a command would have been silly given the nature of society in biblical times. What most critics point to is 1 Timothy 2:12 in which Paul mandates that only men should be clergy, but his decision was not rooted in sexism. Instead, it was based on the reality that men tend to be better suited for leadership roles than women. When women have been allowed to become ministers, the result has been a feminization of the church service and a deep decline in church attendance. Paul was simply advocating for what would best strengthen the church and help it grow and prosper.
“But it wasn’t fair to exclude women from the church leadership!” cry the critics.
What would have been truly unfair would have been to compromise the effectiveness of the church and to reduce people’s chances of attaining salvation just for the sake of “equality.”
And if you look at the early church, it is clear that it greatly benefited women. Roman society highly valued boys, so much so that baby girls were often thrown in the garbage and left to die. This infanticide was greatly opposed by the early Christians, and they eventually were successful in ending the practice. The result was that girls and women were held in much greater esteem by society. The church also took care of widows who otherwise struggled to survive since there were so few jobs available for women. It was not uncommon for a woman to join the church and then bring her husband into it later. Does this sound like a religion that was designed to oppress women?
Many have also criticized the early Christian church because it did not condemn slavery. But it is important to understand that Christianity was never a political movement. Therefore, social reform was never its primary concern. Rather, its primary concern is helping people attain salvation so they will go to heaven. Its focus has always been on the next world, not this one.
Another thing to consider is that the early Christians were very few in number, certainly too few to have been able to change any aspect of the political order. Therefore, taking a hard political stance against slavery would have been a futile gesture at best.
Yet Christianity did indirectly challenge slavery with its teachings that you should love your neighbor and treat others as you would wish to be treated. As these teachings began to spread and take hold in the Western world, it became increasingly harder for people to justify slavery as an institution. Also, consider what Paul said in Galatians 5:1:
Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Does this sound like someone who believed that people should be enslaved? Paul has been criticized for saying that slaves should obey their masters, but this falls in line with what Jesus taught about the importance of serving others, that he who is last will be first. Therefore, by serving their masters faithfully, slaves could also serve God. For slaves who had no hope of escape, this offered them purpose and meaning for their lives. It was certainly better than telling them to embrace bitterness and hatred.
Paul also said that slaves should be treated justly, and if they have the opportunity to gain freedom, they should take it. However, their primary focus should be on serving Christ, for it is in Christ that one finds true freedom.
Given all the people today who claim to feel oppressed (despite living in a free society), this is a teaching that we would be wise to remember.