“Sexism,” Not “Theological Differences”
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-a-pastor-reading-the-holy-bible-8815045/
By Heather Matthews
On Sept. 23, 2024, the New York Times published an article that reported, “For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers.”[1] The article cites a study by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.[2] According to this study, 65 percent of young women do not believe that women are treated equally in the church. The article states, “For girls and young women raised to believe they can do anything men can do, this message is becoming more difficult to digest.” As a result, in recent years many young women have left the church and many are not coming back. The article continues, “For most young women who leave it’s not about any one issue . . . Rather it was a steady accumulation of negative experiences and dissonant teachings that made it difficult or impossible to stay.” With this article, the secular news media is picking up on a phenomenon that is no secret to women: The church is a place where sexism exists, even thrives.
While in the past women might have ignored these negative experiences, women today label them as sexism, no longer willing to tolerate the blatant disrespect, inequality, and abuse that are commonplace in many churches. This trend is in line with my own experiences and research on women in the church which I write about in my book, Confronting Sexism in the Church: How We Got Here and What We Can Do About It. The evangelical church has widely taught and accepted that male headship and female submission is biblical. While this belief has been common—though never unchallenged—throughout church history, it has been taught emphatically in recent decades in an attempt to mitigate the changing cultural mores around men and women. This “theology of gender roles” has been elevated to a sign of orthodoxy within complementarian sectors of the evangelical church,[3] but it is based on a selective reading and misinterpretation of Scripture and a history steeped in patriarchy, absent women’s voices and leadership.
I believe we are at a tipping point where many are now seeing and labeling the treatment of women in the church as sexism, and this sexism is driving women away from the church. They are convinced that the sexist beliefs, structures, and actions supported and defended by followers of Jesus are antithetical to the gospel and ultimately destructive. Women are unable to reconcile their basic instincts and intellectual understanding of female human dignity as created in God’s image for partnership and co-leadership with men, with the current reality for women in many churches.
Throughout most of church history, women have faced and challenged opposition, barriers, and harsh treatment in the church, even as some have supported restrictions for women in the home, church, and world on theological grounds. Many, though not all, pastors and theologians have taught in seminaries and in churches that men are created to be leaders in the church and family and that women are created to submit to the authority of men. Men and women alike have upheld these beliefs and supported limitations on women even though others throughout history have opposed them as unbiblical and sexist. Those supporting Christian patriarchy say they like women and believe that God loves women equally; they claim they are simply interpreting the Bible faithfully and living according to the Scriptures.[4] There are many well-meaning men and women who hold these views who are doing good work in the church and the world.
Yet these beliefs about the place and role of women have consequences. Not surprisingly, theological beliefs that support male headship and female submission frequently and naturally lead to the mistreatment of women. Male Christian leaders have made headlines by taunting women, covering up abuse and sexual immorality, objectifying women’s bodies, and supporting political candidates who regularly embrace misogyny. Some churches have embraced toxic masculinity and sexism, which may be a key factor in bringing men into the church but driving women away.
These consequences are evidence that patriarchy in the church is not merely a neutral theological position without human consequences.
Fundamentally, sexism always begins with an underlying belief, whether conscious or subconscious, that women are less than men.[5] The basis of patriarchal theology is that women have less authority and responsibility because it is based on the underlying beliefs that women are less reasonable, less trustworthy, less intelligent, and less capable. While many holding patriarchal theology say that women are equal in value and worth, their actions communicate something different and leave women feeling defeated and inferior. As a result of Christian sexism, women have been harmed spiritually, psychologically, and often physically. Theology is often the basis for discrimination, microagressions, and a variety of negative treatments of women which can only be labeled as sexism. Women are ignored, excluded, demeaned, objectified, infantilized, and demoted. Women are expected to keep quiet, serve the needs of men, submit to male authority, follow gendered scripts, and be content in the roles that complementarians define as acceptable. Throughout history some in the church have systematically worked to oppress women’s voices and remove women from leadership. At its worst, sexism has led to the abuse of power by men over women, harassment, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, which certainly have no place in the church or any grounding in the Bible.
Structures and relationships based on male authority and female submission are not only a matter of opinion or theological disagreement. They are also the foundations of sexism that continue to harm women and the whole church. I define as sexism any belief or practice that that diminishes a woman’s identity as fully and equally created in God’s image, restricting women on the basis of their sex from actualizing their full identity and utilizing their gifts and abilities in the home, church, and world. This is why many women through history have challenged patriarchal teachings, why they refuse to stay silent, and why they are now leaving the church. Women know that the sexism that they experience in the church is not from God because it is damaging the Imago Dei that lives inside them. Sexism is crushing to women. They feel the weight of oppression and the inability to fully live as the people that God created them to be.
Women have more power and freedom now than ever before, and they are willing to walk away from faith communities where sexism is entrenched to find places where they will be welcomed, supported, and celebrated. I reached my own breaking point about six years ago, and I am no longer willing to worship, minister, or work in churches or organizations that do not celebrate and embrace women fully. To do so would go against my core beliefs about my identity and calling.
Some may think it’s a harsh exaggeration to label women’s experiences in the church as sexism; however, I believe that only by naming sexism for what it is that we will be able to address it. If we continue to support theology that harms women, we will continue to support the status quo—and we will never truly understand the real experiences of women. This week I met a woman who told me of seven women in her department at a Christian organization who have left abusive marriages. This is the rotten fruit of sexism in the church. What was once acceptable to women is no longer acceptable.
We need to collectively reframe our understanding of women’s experiences in the church and label them as sexism. When we see women’s experiences as sexism, then we can begin to imagine a new future where the church embraces women fully.
[1] Ruth Graham, “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women,” The New York Times, September 23, 2024, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/us/young-men-religion-gen-z.html.
[2] “Young Women Are Leaving Church in Unprecedented Numbers,” The Survey Center on American Life (blog), accessed September 27, 2024, https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/young-women-are-leaving-church-in-unprecedented-numbers/.
[3] For example, see “Baptist Faith & Message 2000,” The Baptist Faith and Message, The Southern Baptist Convention, accessed January 30, 2024, https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/; see also “The Danvers Statement” The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, accessed February 6, 2023, https://cbmw.org/about/danvers-statement/.
[4] Editor’s note: For more on this topic, see Mutuality Magazine’s Translation issue from summer 2024.
[5] Gina Masequesmay, “Sexism,” in Britannica Online Encyclopedia, last updated October 15, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/sexism.
Heather Matthews an academic, a theologian and a pastor. She is the Doctor of Ministry Program Manager at Wheaton College Graduate School. Her area of expertise, women in church leadership, pulls from her professional studies and her personal experiences. Most recently, she released her first book, Confronting Sexism in the Church: How We Got Here and What We Can Do About It (IVP, August 2024). This article was first published in Christians for Biblical Equality on October 17, 2024 and is reprinted here with permission of the author.
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