What is in Kelvin's Head?

Was Jesus nice to women?

28/03/2014

I’ve been thinking about that gospel reading that we had on Sunday all week.

Here at St Mary’s I read the central part of the reading, the dialogue with the woman at the well as a dialogue between my voice and that of a female member of the congregation. You learn new things by the way you perform scripture. I found myself feeling more uncomfortable reading the words of Jesus to a woman who was standing there responding than I would had I just read the whole of the gospel out in my own voice.

‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’
‘I have no husband.’
‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’

How did it feel to be on the receiving end of that?

It made me wonder whether again whether Jesus was nice to women and how I can know.

There is a view that is fairly common that Jesus was better than most men at the time because he spoke to women and the culture he lived in was not one in which women and men could normally converse. This is a relatively common reading of Jesus’s dealings with women, particularly by liberals.

I would parrot that view were it not for a conference I went on a few years ago when a feminist orthodox Jewish scholar made the case that this is an antisemitic reading of scripture and that Jewish culture then as now was one in which men and women could converse, do business and make friends. Imagining a world which is particularly negative for women and placing an imagined Jesus in the middle of it who seems to have more liberal values is a way of denegrating the culture and sociological surroundings that he had.

That gospel reading does provide some fuel for this negative reading of Jewish culture of the time with the line:

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’

However, one can counter that by saying – well, John’s gospel is the most uneasy of the gospels when it comes to affirming the Jewish tradition that Jesus came out of. Perhaps this is an early Christian slur against Jewish life alongside a lot of other negative language about “the Jews” in that gospel.

It often strikes me that we want to believe in a Jesus who was nice and who by implication will like us and like our own mores, presumptions and even peccadillos.

Scripture doesn’t always help us to maintain that view.

Was Jesus nice to women? Can you answer this in the affirmative without denegrating the culture he came from?

And for a side discussion – what are the issues around giving this picture to children to illustrate the tale?

Jesus, women

7 responses to “Have you no scriptural basis though?”

Jackson

15/02/2012

Hello,
If this blog were a talk radio show, I would say something like â€˜long time listener, first time callerâ€™. I found this article very interesting and the role of the Bible in the 21st century is something that many people are hesitant to enter meaningful discussion about. Being brought up in an Evangelical tradition I was taught to hold the Bible in very high regard. However Iâ€™ve come to realise in recent years that Scripture, Tradition and Reason is the only tenable way to approach oneâ€™s faith. Old teachings do run deep, though, and the question needs to be asked, when is it appropriate to look to the scriptures as a source of authority? The flagrant abuse of the Bible to further dogmatic agendas is undoubtedly a source of frustration to many Christians, but what do we do when reason seems to lead to a stalemate? A prime example will be when Margot MacDonald eventually revives her End of Life Assistance Bill. Many Christians in Scotland will be lobbying against and undoubtedly no small number for. Now scripture and tradition would affirm the sanctity of life, but that wonâ€™t stop quite a few people allowing their opinions to be moulded seemingly by reason alone. Meanwhile there will be a great many caught in the middle of very persuasive arguments, struggling to make up their minds while desperately looking for something authoritative to cut through the confusion. Are we too scared of fundamentalism to look to the Bible for guidance in such scenarios?
Cheers!

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Neil Oliver

15/02/2012

Kelvin, I’m fascinated by your blog posts this week and encouranged that your statements make such sense to me and my view of my faith and the world. Great stuff.

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Helen

16/02/2012

I too have followed your blog this week with interest and have found that it has encouraged my broadening faith, stimulated by St Mary’s. Thanks for the effort and thought you have applied. Dont be too hard on Evangelicals though.

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1. kelvin
  
  16/02/2012
  
  Being an Evangelical taught me so much of what I know…
  
  Reply
Akma » On Miracles

17/02/2012

[…] that the BIble holds a primary place of reference for Christian life (and I acknowledge that my boss doesnâ€™t*, in the sense I propose here), one ought to have something to say about the prminence of […]

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Brother David

21/02/2012

Being an Anglican educated in a United Methodist seminary, my stool has four pegs; scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

I have enjoyed these fireside chats good Padre.

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Melissa Holloway

28/02/2012

This reminds me of a funny conversation I had with my 20 yr old son – we found ourselves discussing whether or not Kelvin was an evangelical?!!

He had taken a university course on Evangelicalism in America and I suspect it was taught by a (perhaps undercover) evangelical. Seems that one of the ideas that my son came away with was that being evangelical was more a way of doing things – an idea that we did indeed hear from Kelvin – that one has the good news and is eager for the world to know.

Of course my argument was that evangelicals do have to believe certain things, that I remember realizing I wasn’t an evangelical anymore when I couldn’t believe that there was a certain group of people, however they were defined, for whom hell was reserved. I feel there are parts of the movement that are just not benign.

But anyways, it is remarkable that someone somehow trying to put evangelicalism in the best light caused him to conclude that Kelvin fit the bill.

I think in the end we came up with the conclusion that Kelvin is able to hold a distinct theological vision in a perhaps evangelical way, having taken the best from his roots. I hope I won the day.

The whole conversation felt a little like the Twilight Zone.

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