So I'm reading this book called

Jesus Feminist.

And I am surprised by the feelings coming up to the surface of my heart and the memories that are flooding my mind.

Christian feminism is nothing new to me.

I kind of lived and breathed it for many years of my life.

Anything feminist theology I could find I would devour.

I'm pretty sure it's the only thing I have ever truly studied.

This morning, after reading a chapter of Jesus Feminist and having tears rolling down my face, I asked Jesus why this matters to me so much.

And because He is so kind, I was reminded of when my pursuit of equality in the church began.

Once upon a time I went to a church with a husband and wife that were joint pastors and I loved her preaching more than his.  This was the first time I had ever heard of a women being a preacher and given the same position of leadership in the church as a man.

Then we moved to Edmonton.

And I started working in a coffee shop with the most 

amazing Sikh boss.

I loved her.

And her husband and brother were ass-holes.

They treated her horribly.

At the same coffee shop, I worked with a girl that went to a church where women were kept under the thumb of men.  They were not valued as equals.  She had been adopted as an older child into a strict Christian family and she was wrestling with being a good Christian.  Her church put a premium on not cutting a woman's hair ever and that they always wear a skirt.  I made assumptions about other things that her version of Christianity would deem important.

We did not know what to make of each other.

Also at this time, I was taking a class at North American Baptist college about monotheistic religions.  As part of this class we went to a Sikh temple and a Muslim mosque.  I was struck with how the women were treated.  As visitors to each of these places of worship, we were treated very kindly.  However, as a woman in the mosque and the temple, it was not difficult to notice I was not considered equal to the men.  In the temple I was relegated to the back of the room and the men were at the front.  At the mosque, all the women were put in a small upstairs room with no windows and the imam was on the overhead speakers. The message was loud and clear to me.

Women are not equal those places.

I started to question how my Christian church experience was different.

If Jesus was real then how women were treated needed to look different.  Because if Christianity treated women the same as every other religion, than it was no better than being a Sikh or a Muslim.

Finding my equality in Christianity was a matter of 

following Jesus or not.

Re-reading that sentence makes me cry.

I think it's so sad that I was so unsure of my place in the kingdom of heaven as a woman that I was willing to walk away from my faith if I could not find anything that said I mattered to Jesus the same as a man.

I took a lot of flack for diving so heavy into feminist theology and I often was very defensive and aggressive because of the un-willingness for other Christians to engage in talking about women in the church.

They were obviously wrong and needed to be corrected!!!

Yeah.

I have mellowed a lot.

At some point I got tired of fighting

(Hallelujah and all the angels rejoiced)

and I made a quiet peace with what the church was and that the best I could ever do was always go to a church where women were given some place of leadership.

I have made my peace that I just won't talk about 
Christian feminism with most people 

because they really don't care 

or 

they really do care that I am really wrong.

This beautiful little book is a 

"warm waterfall washing over my wounds"

Because I love feminist theology 
and 
the beauty it holds.

I have not owned that for some time now.

I have wanted to read this book for months.

True confession,
I took it out this week to "stir the pot" at Thanksgiving.

Because sometimes I can be a total shit.

Obviously God redeems bad behaviour because this book is hitting me deeply and I was not expecting that.

Until next time,
Rachelle