Yes, no, it’s complicated. Early Christianity did push back against some masculine norms of the time. For example, Jesus saying that you should only divorce in cases of cheating was a help for women at the time. Men were divorcing their wives for whatever reason and leaving them destitute. However, now it’s flipped around by fundamentalist churches to say that’s the rule for all time, and that means women can’t leave an abusive husband. So what was intended as help for women is now a harm.
1 Corinthians 14:34,35 (“women should remain silent in churches”) was probably stuck in there later on. The passage around it reads more naturally without it. From verse 26 on, it has an egalitarian outlook in saying that anyone who feels inspired should be allowed to stand up and speak their mind until someone else has an inspiration. Then it hits verse 34, and suddenly it’s “but not women”.
And it’s interesting that a fundamentalist church might not approve women to even speak in church, citing this scripture as the reason, but not running their service in any other way that passage says.
Still interesting though, having grown up in that environment, hearing about how it was shaped over time and questioning some of the batshit crazy bits is very useful.
I’m not in this comment thread elsewhere, just found the analysis useful
Yes, no, it’s complicated. Early Christianity did push back against some masculine norms of the time. For example, Jesus saying that you should only divorce in cases of cheating was a help for women at the time. Men were divorcing their wives for whatever reason and leaving them destitute. However, now it’s flipped around by fundamentalist churches to say that’s the rule for all time, and that means women can’t leave an abusive husband. So what was intended as help for women is now a harm.
1 Corinthians 14:34,35 (“women should remain silent in churches”) was probably stuck in there later on. The passage around it reads more naturally without it. From verse 26 on, it has an egalitarian outlook in saying that anyone who feels inspired should be allowed to stand up and speak their mind until someone else has an inspiration. Then it hits verse 34, and suddenly it’s “but not women”.
And it’s interesting that a fundamentalist church might not approve women to even speak in church, citing this scripture as the reason, but not running their service in any other way that passage says.
Btw, he was talking about Life of Brian.
Still interesting though, having grown up in that environment, hearing about how it was shaped over time and questioning some of the batshit crazy bits is very useful.
I’m not in this comment thread elsewhere, just found the analysis useful