Growing up in an evangelical church, Rachel Held Evans heard much about living up to the standards of “biblical womanhood.”
The teachings often led to discussions about a woman’s appropriate role in life. Women were taught that a “biblical woman” stays home to raise children instead of pursuing a career and that only men are allowed to preach the word of God.
To Evans the rules seemed arbitrary, with some Scriptures followed and others ignored. For example, women were often told to submit to their husbands, a reference to Ephesians 5:22, which says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” But the command for women to cover their heads while in prayer, found in 1 Corinthians, was ignored.
“We are sort of picking out passages that support our view and sweeping others under the rug,” she said. “We treat the Bible like it’s a position paper and it’s much more than that.”
The inconsistencies frustrated her, so Evans decided to take a closer look at what the Bible has to say about women and to try to follow the biblical instructions as closely as possible for an entire year. That meant calling her husband master or lord, learning to sew and bake, growing out her hair and doing penance for gossiping.
“I really wanted to challenge this idea that the Bible prescribes a single lifestyle for all women,” Evans said. “I thought it would be a fun way to try it on for size and see what I might learn along the way and to sort of challenge the idea that any of us are living as biblical women.”
Evans shares her often humorous results in A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master (Thomas Nelson). She will discuss her book, as well as her views on faith, during a visit to First Presbyterian Church in Fort Smith today and Sunday.
The Rev. Phillip Blackburn, who co-pastors the church with his wife, Tasha, said Evans will talk about the book at 5 p.m. today and on Sunday morning she will give a short reading and participate in a question and answer session at 10 a.m.
Blackburn’s congregation is part of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., which has been ordaining women since the 1950s. So the gender equality issues Evans takes on in her book were decided long ago in the denomination. But he said in some ways, Evans’ message is one the church needs to revisit.
“I thought her book was a very contemporary look at why we do that and why it’s important in the church that women are equal to men,” Blackburn said. “Not all churches feel that way, but a lot of Christians do. … It’s nice to communicate to people out there that there is diversity in Christianity.”
Evans said she freaked out a bit knowing that she had committed to a year-long experiment, but she had the support of her husband and the many followers of her blog. Each month she took on a different virtue, including modesty, obedience, valor, purity and more.
She said trying to live up to the gold standard for biblical womanhood found in Proverbs 31 was the most challenging. The Proverbs 31 woman is one who is up at dawn to feed her husband. She keeps the house and also manages to buy goods for the home, inspect the fields, sew and weave, feed her family and make goods to sell at the market.
“I tried to actually turn that into a to-do list [of 24 items] and it was impossible to accomplish,” Evans said. “I had to make my own clothes, which involves quite a bit of sewing, and I don’t do crafts.”
Evans didn’t simply try to live up to the biblical instructions; she studied them to see what the Scriptures really intended. She discovered that a portion of Proverbs 31 is a poem celebrating all that women have accomplished, not a checklist for the ideal woman.
“So often in Christian culture we treat the Bible like it’s a big list of prescriptions, and I wanted to point out the absurdity and provide an alternative of how it’s supposed to be read, which can be complicated,” Evans said.
Evans said she learned a lot from her year-long experiment in living biblically and found the stories of women in the Bible, none of whom lived their lives the same, inspiring.
“I’m encouraged that there’s no one right way to be a woman of faith,” she said. “Faith isn’t so much about what you do but how you do it - being a person of character and honoring God in whatever vocation you find yourself. The Bible doesn’t prescribe a single lifestyle for women.”
She hopes the book challenges common assumptions not only about women, but about the Bible and the church as well.
Reaction to Evans’ book has been mixed, with some supporters loving every word, while more traditional evangelicals have found much to criticize, which she expected.
“When you’re talking about women and women’s roles and then you throw in the Bible … I came in knowing some people were really not going to like it,” Evans said. “But I’m no stranger to controversy. I’m a blogger.”
She was, however, frustrated when critics challenged her faith or said that she hated the Bible.
“I did this because I love the Bible,” she said. “I believe it is authoritative and alive and inspired by God and we need to treat it with a bit more care and not speak so carelessly about it.” First Presbyterian Church is at 116 N. 12th St. Information is online at 1pres.org or by calling (479) 783-8919. Evans blogs at rachelheldevans.com.
Religion, Pages 14 on 04/20/2013