{"id":5019,"date":"2009-06-12T06:14:11","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T06:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html"},"modified":"2009-06-12T06:14:11","modified_gmt":"2009-06-12T06:14:11","slug":"friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html","title":{"rendered":"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following post is one of our “Friday is for Friends” posts written by friends of the Jesus Creed blog. Today’s post is by Rachel Held Evans, and you can read more about her at her blog<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

\"RachelEvans.jpg\"<\/span>Growing up in the conservative evangelical
\nsubculture, I spent a lot of years trying desperately to achieve what
\nis commonly referred to as “biblical womanhood”–an elusive spiritual
\nstandard hailed by my pastors and professors as the best way to please
\nGod and honor my husband. The Bible contained everything I needed to
\nknow about my role as a woman, I was told. It provided the final word
\non how I was to behave in the home, in church, and in society,
\nregardless of what voices from the prevailing culture might say.  <\/span>“Biblical
\nwomanhood” gave me and my friends an ideal for which to strive, a
\ncalling to which to respond, and a label by which to praise or
\ncriticize.
\n <\/span>There was just one problem: None of us agreed on exactly what “biblical womanhood” was.
  <\/span><\/p>\n

Some used Proverbs 31 as their standard. Others
\nused the letters of Paul. Among those who used the letters of Paul,
\nsome tried to apply all of his admonitions (by remaining silent in
\nchurch and avoiding all leadership positions), but most only applied
\nsome (by participating in church leadership, but not as pastors or
\npreachers).\n<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

<!–
\ndocument.write('\"TwitThis\"<\/a>‘);
\n\/\/–><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

 <\/span>As I began to think more
\ncritically about the Bible and the culture in which it was written, I
\nrealized that the concept of “biblical womanhood” posed some serious
\nproblems. Technically speaking, it was “biblical” for women to be
\nconsidered property (Exodus 20:17), to cover their heads (1 Corinthians
\n11:5), to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28), and to stand by as
\ntheir husbands took more wives. 
\n<\/span>Yet no one in my circle suggested that these biblical realities
\nconstituted “biblical womanhood.” To imply that there was a single
\n“biblical” approach to womanhood (or marriage or family) required some
\nserious picking and choosing. Using the Bible as an adjective, it
\nseemed, was misleading. <\/p>\n

I suppose that’s why, these days, I tend to
\nbristle whenever I attend a conference in which lectures are entitled
\n“The Biblical View of Courtship” or “A Biblical Approach to the
\nEnvironment.” Sticking the word “biblical” in front of a noun like
\n“manhood” or “womanhood” or “economics” or “stewardship” or “politics”
\nadds an element of gravitas to one’s argument, but it diminishes the
\nvariety and complexity of the very words of Scripture one seeks to
\nelevate. 
\n<\/span>It implies that the Bible’s cacophony of voices can be reduced
\nto single tone, its rich stories and characters summarized in a single
\nline, its paradox and contradiction ignored or brushed aside.
\n <\/span>It suggests that just one interpretation exists…or that the speaker’s interpretation is the only one that counts.\n<\/p>\n

We often use the Bible as an adjective without
\neven thinking about it. For years, I bragged about having a “biblical
\nworldview,” without regard to the massive assumptions such a statement
\nmakes about the Bible’s cultural context as well as my own. I’ve
\nnoticed that my Episcopal friends get a little uncomfortable whenever
\nsomeone refers to evangelicalism as “biblical Christianity,” implying
\nthat other traditions do not take Scripture seriously. In debates
\nbetween young earth creationists and theistic evolutionists, I’ve heard
\npeople from both sides claim a “biblical view of creation.” And in a
\nheated discussion about state-sponsored welfare the other day, I found
\nmyself blurting out, “Well, I prefer to take the biblical approach to
\npoverty, the one in which we always care for our poor.” Oops.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not advocating a complete retirement of
\nthe word “biblical.” (It’s obviously a useful term for describing
\ncertain courses of study.) I’m just suggesting we apply more caution in
\nhow we use it. I find it helps to ask myself, “Am I using the Bible to
\nend a conversation or to begin one?” or better yet, “Am I really trying
\nto align myself with the Bible or am I trying to align the Bible with
\nme?”
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve found that such an approach makes talking about womanhood a bit more challenging, but infinitely more enjoyable.\n<\/p>\n

In what ways do you see the word “biblical”
\nmisused? When do you think it is appropriate, and when do you think it
\nis inappropriate?
\n <\/span>Let me know what you think, Jesus Creeders! <\/p>\n

[Rachel Held Evans is a writer from Dayton,
\nTennessee, home of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Her book, a
\nspiritual memoir, is tentatively titled “Evolving in Monkey Town” and
\nwill be published by Zondervan. She blogs at
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.rachelheldevans.com<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following post is one of our “Friday is for Friends” posts written by friends of the Jesus Creed blog. Today’s post is by Rachel Held Evans, and you can read more about her at her blog. Growing up in the conservative evangelical subculture, I spent a lot of years trying desperately to achieve what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\nFriday is for Friends: Rachel Evans - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following post is one of our “Friday is for Friends” posts written by friends of the Jesus Creed blog. Today’s post is by Rachel Held Evans, and you can read more about her at her blog. Growing up in the conservative evangelical subculture, I spent a lot of years trying desperately to achieve what…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-12T06:14:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/RachelEvans.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans - Jesus Creed","og_description":"The following post is one of our “Friday is for Friends” posts written by friends of the Jesus Creed blog. Today’s post is by Rachel Held Evans, and you can read more about her at her blog. Growing up in the conservative evangelical subculture, I spent a lot of years trying desperately to achieve what…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2009-06-12T06:14:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/RachelEvans.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html","name":"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/RachelEvans.jpg","datePublished":"2009-06-12T06:14:11+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-12T06:14:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/RachelEvans.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/imgs\/RachelEvans.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/06\/friday-is-for-friends-rachel-e.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Friday is for Friends: Rachel Evans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}