The hierarchical relationship and the nature of the trinity

Feminism: a call for women all around the world to claim their rights as humans, in spite of the sex they were born. In my Christian circles, feminism is a bit more of a hush-hush topic. With certain people, it is proclaimed to the mountain tops. With other, mention it and you might die from the angry stares. Perhaps what those around me don’t hear is my opinion on the whole “feminism” thing. To be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with the whole ordeal. First-wave feminism – good. Seems to want equal rights for mankind, male and female alike. According to the Bible, man and woman were made in God’s image, so it seems only fair that they be treated with the right amount of respect.

Equal opportunities – mostly tick. I believe man and woman have the right to many of the same jobs. But this is where its get’s tricky. Amongst my denomination of reformed Presbyterian, the whole idea of woman leadership in the church is generally frowned upon. We have a woman’s worker at my church, but that about as far as it will go. In fact, there seems to be differences of opinion on who can pray at the pulpit, or read scripture when it comes to women up front. For many of you reading, this whole idea might be foreign. I believe it is quite biblical. God created man to be head over the household. It’s almost a representation of Christ being head of the church. In much the same way, man was created to have leadership over the body of Christ (aka. The church).

For woman readers, I expect you to be quite resistant to my opinion. If I wasn’t so used to this idea, then I probably would be to. However, remember that if you are a Christian, the Bible already calls out your resistance in Genesis chapter 3. It says that our desire will be for our husbands and they will rule over us. We will try and fight back. But remember, just because you see it as unfair, does not mean that God’s system is not right. Remember that though we are Christians, we are still marred by sin. God’s rules and laws are much greater than our own.

And right now you are probably thinking “How the heck does this tie in with the title of this blog post?”. Well, I am so glad you asked, because it is perhaps the greatest piece of evidence I can use to summarise my opinion on feminism. If you are a Christian, you will know about the trinity: the godhead, where there are three persons in one God. These are the Father God, Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Note that they are all God, but there are different persons. Why are there different persons you might ask. Well, they each carry out some sort of role – but none is more important than the other. No job or role is perceived greater or lesser. Each person of the trinity is equally God carrying out a role of God.

Notice our similarity to this trinity model. We are all fully human. However, there are two genders – male and female. God assigned different roles, which reflect the model of the trinity that he lives in. Male nor female is more important as we are both human (which is why I think that equal rights are essential). However, males carry a role of leadership and females have a role of submission. Our problem is that we don’t see our role as valuable and determine to thwart any sort of control males may have.

But that is not how we were designed.

Truth be told, there are many cases where women can have a leadership role, and are very capable to do so. Some men never step up to the role. But I believe what is most important pull from this is that though there is a hierarchy of male and then female (much like the trinity) we struggle to comprehend that both roles are important. Genesis 3 shows us that mankind sinned, and so the perfect system God designed was rejected by us.

Perhaps what our greatest comfort can be in spite of the tension found in the feminist movement is that if we follow the biblical example of male and female, we might be reflecting the perfect system that God had designed right from the beginning of the world. Christian, let us live like God, rather than the world.