Back to Bite Us

As with any humanistic philosophy, Feminism and the Bible are starkly at odds. A woman can be both Feminist and Christian, but she will not be much good in either role.

As it permeated Western society, one of the ways Feminism has been most effective in creeping into our churches has been its claims to reasonableness, fairness and equality, all of which at least purport to be somewhat-Christian values. Claims are one thing, but the motive behind making them is very much another. In going back to do a little research on the history of the movement, I find myself fascinated by the “tells” the early Feminist writers gave us about their own true character and beliefs. The motivating force behind the philosophy was evident to any discerning person from its very beginning, regardless of its professed aspirations.

Feminism’s earliest promoters wore their shameless opposition to God right on their sleeves.

Seven Printings in Six Months

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a mid- to late-19th century writer and activist most famous for being the prime mover behind the bestselling The Woman’s Bible, in which, among other female writers, she worked her way through scripture commenting critically and sarcastically. Complaining that the female Greek and Hebrew experts she sought to enhance her project’s scholarly influence (of whom there were fewer in 1895) were unwilling to provide accredited help to her project or to attach their names to it, she carried on without them.

I had never heard of the book, but The Woman’s Bible received seven printings in six months and was translated into several other languages, effectively disseminating the Feminist message to the world in an era when educated readers were more numerous.

Stanton correctly intuited that to effectively disrupt the fabric of any society dependent on even the most insubstantial association with the word of God, it was necessary to discredit scripture in the eyes of those most superficially attached to it. Churchgoers without living connections to the Head of the Church. Women who thought themselves Christian without any regular or intimate interaction with the word of God.

What’s interesting to me is Stanton’s candor about the faith. She is absolutely blatant in her disdain for it. She hadn’t the slightest concern that her patsies and targets might see through her.

A Few Prime Quotes

A few prime quotes from Stanton’s introduction:

“Why is it more audacious to review Moses than Blackstone, the Jewish code of laws, than the English system of jurisprudence? Women have compelled their legislators in every state in this Union to so modify their statutes for women that the old common law is now almost a dead letter. Why not compel Bishops and Revising Committees to modify their creeds and dogmas?”

Well, for one, the English system of jurisprudence was not divinely inspired. Not a strong start. But it gets worse. She goes on to attack inspiration explicitly:

“When you express your aversion, based on a blind feeling of reverence in which reason has no control, to the revision of the Scriptures, you do but echo Cowper, who, when asked to read Paine’s Rights of Man, exclaimed ‘No man shall convince me that I am improperly governed while I feel the contrary.’ ’’

Oh yes. Men opposed to her project were not only against fairness and equality; they were also flying in the face of reason, enslaved to their own prejudices and personal impressions.

A Masterwork of Understatement

Finally, this masterwork of understatement describes Stanton’s own views about the scripture. Self-awareness is remarkably absent:

“The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible.”

Inspiration was a minor point to Stanton. She certainly seemed to view her own departure from orthodoxy as insubstantial and un-noteworthy. She thought female Bible scholars ought to see the merits in what she was doing and climb aboard en masse. In this, she was either oblivious or crafty: she painted the experts who did not enthusiastically embrace her deconstruction of scripture as fearful rather than appalled or discerning.

But the claim that God has spoken once for all in the pages of the Bible is not only fundamental to its popularity and influence over the centuries, it’s the only thing that makes it worth reading at all. If God did not speak to the Jewish fathers by the prophets “at many times and in many ways”, as Hebrews claims and, most critically, if he did not speak “in Son” as it also says, then the Christian faith is a fable just as urgently in need of deconstruction as Stanton insisted, perhaps more so.

An Underwhelming Response

Sadly, rather than recognizing the dangers inherent in Stanton’s project and responding to them with appropriate gravity, churchmen of the day simply dismissed it, probably failing to anticipate its eventual impact on society. Stanton writes:

“One correspondent conjures us to suspend the work, as it is ‘ridiculous’ for ‘women to attempt the revision of the Scriptures.’ I wonder if any man wrote to the late revising committee of Divines to stop their work on the ground that it was ridiculous for men to revise the Bible.”

Of course, Stanton completely glosses over the stark differences between the two sets of “revisers”: one attempting to modernize the English translation of the Bible to more effectively communicate to a new generation the timeless truth it contained; the other determined to impose their own ideas on it by any means necessary. But mocking her did not dissuade her from her efforts. If anything, it added fuel to the fire.

The Woman’s Bible has been forgotten by most, but its long-term effects on generations were pervasive and tragic, ruining many lives. One wonders what might have happened if, instead of playing around with and patronizing the ‘uppity wimmin’, well-reputed Bible scholars of the day had taken the threat seriously and responded with everything they had in their comparatively-formidible arsenal of truth.

One also wonders what similar nascent atrocities we’re overlooking, mocking and downplaying in our own culture that stand to do major damage downstream. The things we don’t deal with today invariably come back to bite us at the worst possible moment.