amanda advocates

To have babies or not have babies…. to have them at any time I choose…. to have them with or without a life partner… or freeze my eggs now so I can decide later.

A plethora of choices now has legitimacy in western countries where marriage or relationship commitment  is coming later and single women have the economic power to undergo all sorts of treatments including IVF (about £5000 for one cycle), egg freezing (£10,000) and a fertility ‘check-up’ (£400) to see how likely it is that you will get pregnant.

Young women who have sex outside a stable loving relationship seesaw between ‘Whatever you do, DON’T get pregnant’ and ‘You don’t want to miss out on having a baby”.

I have been pondering for some time how ‘free’ middle class western women really are. Sex with your boyfriend after a few dates or maybe on the first encounter is supposed to offer independence for women and commitment-free fun.

But, at the risk of sounding like some moral crusader, sex is not a no-strings-attached activity. At the very least there is emotional cost to taking that step before love and commitment. There is huge pressure to meet pornographic performance standards. And we kid ourselves if we say that an abortion is a guilt-free solution to an unwanted baby.

Fleabag, the funny, sad, shocking and touching TV series about a young woman’s encounters with men, revealed Fleabag’s insecurities.  It was clever and amazingly popular with young women. The audience presumably recognised their own self-doubts over disastrous relationships and sex.

An article in the Times in August considered the baby options for independent, career oriented women in their 30s. The writer, Sophia Money-Coutts, noted that moral choices must be made, not just economic ones and she admitted that women still have to face these decisions much more than men. Obligation-free relationships are great for men who get sex with lots of girls and never have to check their biological clock, she wrote.

So what can we say about feminism and babies and sex?

We can’t have everything we want and sometimes we need a ‘God-view’ to help sort out what is best. We make choices about career, relationships, babies, recognising that compromise will happen. And that’s OK. The claustrophobia I felt about the restrictions that a baby would bring to my life have been buried in an avalanche of love and rewarding parenthood (and now grandparenthood). But money was tight, I balanced work and family, my husband and I argued about housework and disciplining a wayward child. Sometimes I felt tired and unlovely.

Was it worth it? Yes! I can emphatically see that God guided us, provided for us (and laughed with us).

We are too me-focussed if we think we can design our perfect life of single motherhood without a support structure or without consulting extended family who may end up being our free childcare and economic life-support. Families work best with a married couple (lots of research supports this) and whilst I know a number of amazingly gifted and strong single mums, none of them deliberately chose that path. Recently, a 61 one year old woman in the USA and a 73 year old woman in India became mothers.  Should their free choice be limited by responsibility to others and by ethical concerns?

Concerns for the child and its needs to have a loving stable family are just as valid as the longing to be a mother. This is a really unpopular idea – we claim that we should be free to do whatever we want. But a God view would say we all have limits on our freedom so that we can protect others and keep communities healthy.

When we talk about freedom, we often reject the freedom of others or make judgements about their choices or circumstances. I despair that in the west, we sneer at traditional models of family happiness, seeing them as exploitive, but we fail to see that our western lifestyle of casual sex and consumer driven pleasure is corrosive too.

So back to the question about babies. We have sold ourselves short, ladies. We can have babies and love and work and LIFE, especially if we let a moral code and ethics guide us. We just can’t have it all, all the time. Sacrifice and patience are life lessons that can, surprisingly, bring personal fulfilment.

We are bombarded with so much that is weird, dangerous or fake, I thought we might need some quiet and positive stories of women and girls who are getting on with life in all its wonder and mess (back to the bad and dangerous next month).

It’s the time of year for exam results in the northern part of the world – so much pressure to achieve straight As (or maybe A*s) to get into the most prestigious courses.

Three daughters of my friends did extremely well but maybe not as well as they were dreaming. That final A* eluded them.

But these girls are all incredibly passionate about life. One was school captain, they all study music, they are involved in youth groups at church, they speak fluent German or Russian,  and they all care about politics and justice.

One woman in our prayer group, Naomi, whose children are all now in their 20s, wisely wrote, “Achievement is a fickle thing. Much better to be happy in one’s own skin, take the opportunities life presents and not be afraid.”

I don’t think that is a Bible verse, but it should be! God told Joshua, “Don’t be afraid”, Jesus told the churches in Thyatira and Philadelphia, “Hold on!”

Jesus says, “Hold on to what you have until I come…I will not impose any other burden on you.” Rev 2:24-25

When we are under pressure to crave success, high achievement, money and ….straight A’s, God reminds us through Naomi’s words that God’s opportunities are varied and strangely wonderful – we should say yes and not be afraid. Good news indeed.

My second story comes from Rwanda via Australia. My friend Nicky has been a counsellor and academic in Sydney for over 20 years, and has, through those years of faithful and Spirit led counselling, become an expert in dealing with people who have been damaged by abuse inside the Church.

Nicky’s patient defence of victims (overwhelmingly female) and mending broken lives have opened the way for her to train pastors and bishops to be aware of abuse, to deal honestly with perpetrators and work humbly with survivors.

Nicky is not welcomed by some church leaders in Australia, but she is so respected and experienced, she cannot be ignored.

How does she hold on? It can only be God.

And in God’s wonderful wisdom, Nicky has been using her skills in places like Indonesia, the Pacific and eastern Africa to heal wounds of exploitation. She was part of a training team on Biblical gender justice in Rwanda last week. The meeting was covered on national TV in a nation which is way ahead of many others in encouraging women to fully participate in public life: 61% of parliamentarians are women, as are 50% of the judiciary.

In the midst of life’s challenges, sin and pain – the ordinary ups and downs and the huge barriers – God is always quietly at work through any of us who are willing to ‘hold on’ and not be afraid. Thank you to Naomi and Nicky, and young women like Elena, Grace and Katya who inspire others to flex their muscles of bold faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lily, a pastor’s wife from Indonesia was sobbing quietly. She and her husband with their two young children have moved to an isolated part of Java to plant a new church. It is an exciting time for her husband, but she feels left out – she has to spend all her time establishing their new home and settling the children and she wonders how she will ever use her gifts in the church. Her husband is so busy he has no time to notice her sadness.

In India, Shuna is a young woman working for a Christian agency. She is growing frustrated  because she is not listened to or respected. She is expected to take notes and make the tea at meetings even though she has more training and experience than some men round the table.

How do we nurture and develop gifted women leaders across the globe? We all know that women make up 60% of the Church, yet how many women are leading to their full potential as God gifted and created them?

More and more men (and women) are asking how to develop women’s gifts and leadership in their churches.

A recent WEA/Lausanne global survey of 500 Christian female leaders identifies 5 key social and spiritual challenges facing women around the world: poverty; faith or gender-based violence; marriage and family pressures; the pressures of social media; and church teaching that women cannot preach or lead men.

These are BIG issues. Is the Church taking them seriously and making them a priority in its planning?

We will not be able to ‘solve’ all these challenges but it is vital for us to respond wisely and humbly.

One of the best things church leaders can do is LISTEN to the heart and insights of women and seek to understand what women are going through in their communities. It will make our mission work more effective and relevant.

Another step male leaders can take is to ENCOURAGE women to take up bigger and more up-front roles. This was the number 1 recommendation of women in the survey! Women achieve a lot in their workplace and in the family but in church, opportunities to contribute are more limited and they lose confidence and enthusiasm. We don’t want to miss out on all those talents and giftings.

It is vital to have men who encourage and champion women just as Jesus did.

A third thing the global survey identified that would encourage women in leadership was a need for GOOD BIBLE TEACHING about women (there are 188 named women in the Bible and many more un-named heroines like the woman at the well). Pastors tend to use male examples in their sermons (because they are comfortable with those stories) What if they talked more about women in the Bible so they can relate more to the women in their congregations. We need sound teaching on marriage, family and women’s giftedness.

Both Lily and Shuna (not their real names) had the chance to recover a fresh sense of calling at leadership meetings organised in Asia by leaders of the Women’s Commission. What vital support and guidance these meetings provide.

We have thousands of equipped and faith-filled women leading amazing ministries and helping local churches disciple families and young people. In India, women train churches in how to detect and tackle trafficking in rural villages. In South Africa and Egypt, women have started many projects in poor areas to help young women. In Myanmar, women have a special role in reaching across denominations and ethnic groups to bring unity.

In Nepal, women are setting up groups in each state so they can help local communities respond to needs, not out of charity, but because God wants us “to do justice and love mercy” (Micah 6:8).

These ministries are not a side activity of the Church – they are key integral mission strategies. Churches can only benefit when they listen to women, champion their gifting, pray together and welcome women as equals in the Kingdom.

The full results of the survey are being analysed over the next month and there will be more helpful recommendations coming – look out for them – it is the voice of over half the Church.

 

I’m fascinated and appalled by the way many people still like to stereotype women and girls as either pure goodness or immoral seductress.

In a rape trial last week in Ireland, the defence barrister (a woman) asked the teenage victim to hold up her lace underpants worn on the night of the attack. The implication for the jury was that any girl who wore underwear like that was asking for trouble. The man was found not guilty (though I cannot know how important that part of the evidence was in the jury’s mind).

Story tellers in Hollywood Westerns used to draw the same simplistic picture – women on the frontiers of white settlement were either virtuous wives and homemakers bringing civilising values or bold bar girls with revealing clothes and little virtue.

 

In ‘Stagecoach’, a classic John Wayne and John Ford Western, the stereotypes are certainly there: the doc who drinks too much and the sanctimonious women of the Virtue League. But the coach passengers include Dallas, a girl of ‘easy virtue’ (their male clients are never described like that!) with a good heart. Wayne’s character, Ringo Kid, is drawn to her lack of hypocrisy and they fall in love. The ‘moral’ characters evoke little sympathy.

Maybe we need to allow for more Dallas models in our Barbie collections.

 

Wives in British colonial settings also carried the flame for moral rectitude and civilised values: in the face of challenging cultures where western men had affairs with local girls, British memsaabs were charged with upholding Victorian values. That meant church values too.

Australian historian Anne Summers summed up the colonial mindset in Australia with a wonderful phrase – women were either ‘damned whores or God’s police’. She argued that colonisation reduced 19th-century women settlers to one of two narrow roles: virtuous wives and mothers, “God’s police” who made sure colonists did not get drunk or gamble; or the transgressive “damned whores” who answered the repressed needs of men, in a colony where females were in short supply.

Bible commentators do the same thing – put the Bible’s women into one of 2 columns – very good or very bad.

Jezebel is ‘very bad’, so is Potiphar’s wife, so is Herod’s wife. And it’s mostly to do with sexual sin – these women tempt men to sinful behaviour. Eve is described as a temptress and blamed for causing Adam to sin.

On the ‘very good’ side we have young women who are usually described as beautiful, like Ruth, Esther or Mary.

I think this is why Billy Graham’s ‘rule’ about not meeting with women in private has been taken up so enthusiastically by a new generation – we still see women as unbalanced tempters and men as victims.

Billy Graham was a famous figure who I am sure attracted all sorts of needy people who wanted his attention – men and women. He was travelling a lot, away from his circle of support. He also knew that the media would pounce on any whiff of indiscretion.

I do not criticise his way of dealing with the issue of temptation but somehow now, we leave the man’s response out of the equation as if they do not have intelligence and strength to deal with vulnerable men and women.

(Well maybe they don’t, considering the huge number of cases of male leaders who have abused their power and influence over young lives)

We all have to get better at acknowledging the whole spectrum of behaviour of women. We don’t want to see women as static romantic heroines of chivalry but we don’t want the opposite either. Women are loving, nurturing, strong, brave, impetuous, emotional, intellectual, frail…..the list goes on.

It worries me that in these days of hate-filled discourse, there is a revival of idealising ‘traditional’ roles, and putting a soft glow on the complementarian idea that women are sort-of-equal, but just not equal enough to lead or teach.

Some women and men are totally happy to be homemakers, family builders and supporters of others. If that is their gifting and desire, fantastic.

But for those who are called and gifted to be teachers, preachers and leaders, we should not be vilified, and random Bible verses should not be quoted to imply that we are rebellious. The ‘blame women’ thread in contemporary commentary needs to stop.