Jesus, Gender and The Holy Bible :: Holy Bible Essays

Jesus, Gender and The Bible   Sunday evening I attended my each week Ecumenical Christians of Oberlin meeting. This is a group of generally open-minded individuals that get unneurotic on Sundays to have dinner and discuss topics related to Christianity. Topics range from What is the res publica of God? to Pacifism Turning the Other Cheek. Our topic this Sunday was Women and the Bible.   At first I theory that we might be studying Esther or one of the many Marys - prominent women in the Bible that are unendingly mentioned whe neer the subject is brought up. I was partly change by reversal we did mention most if not all of the Marys, although we did not mention Esther. Being primarily a non-fundamentalist Christian group, we tend focus on the New Testament. I also thought that this might end up being a discussion on the women who were important to Jesus and why they were important. Once again, I was partly correct we did discuss them, but we ended up discussing much mo re than.   The first of 2 questions we considered was How does my being virile or fe manful affect my spirituality? I thought for a while and could not think of a whiz way in which it did. I often ponder how my being male affects my relationships with my biological father, the opposite sex, and society. But, before this meeting, I had never pondered how being male affected my spirituality. Most of the men in the room seemed to be in a similar state of confusion at the question. The women, however, had a more varied response. Some felt the same way I did - they had never really thought about it. A couple mentioned how being competent to give birth to another human brought them closer to God, the creator of life. several(prenominal) more mentioned sexism in the perform and how it interfered with their spirituality. This got the discussion rolling, although in a slenderly different direction from what the discussion leader had planned. We talked about how sexism in the church had affected our lives. The church often seems to push men and women into specific roles. Women are not always taken seriously, and their spiritual gifts and needs are sometimes ignored. These shortcomings, caused by members of the church as well as tradition, are calumniatory to members of both genders because they can distort peoples views of the world, the Bible, and God.