女性主义与教会Feminism and the Church

作者: Rev. Lane Keister   翻译:  骆鸿铭

http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/feminism-and-the-church/

http://peddrluo.blog.163.com/blog/static/1948013122011769400788/

第五颗狼牙是女性主义（feminism）。我明白，这个帖子是非常“政治不正确”的，但是该说的还是要说。另一个必须说的警告是教会在回应女性主义时，不可诋毁神给女性的恩赐，也要积极寻找女性可以在适当的场合使用他们的恩赐的方法。有时候在保守的教会中，对女性的态度着重在女人不能做什么上面，而不是鼓励女性做她们能做的。

The fifth tooth of the wolf is feminism. This post will be very politically incorrect, I realize, but it must be said. The other caveat I would issue here is that the church, in reacting against feminism, should not denigrate the gifts God has given to women, and should be actively looking for ways in which women can use their gifts in proper settings. Sometimes it seems as if the attitude towards women in conservative churches is more focused on what women cannot do, as opposed to encouraging women to do what they should do.

这里也要给另一个警告：不是所有的女性主义都是同一个样子。例如，不是所有的女性主义者都全部同意Sittema所描述的。在这些问题上，当然有不同的意见。除了这些警告以外，无疑地，Sittema所描述的，对教会来说的确是非常危险的。

One other caveat should be given here, and that is that not all forms of feminism are the same. Not all feminists, for instance, would agree with every point of Sittema’s description. There is definitely a range of opinions on these matters. All these caveats aside, there is no doubt that the feminism Sittema describes is very dangerous to the church.

以下是Sittema从杜布森（James Dobson）对联合国第四次世界女性会议的分析，这似乎相当能代表主流的女性主义。对我们这些习惯于比较良善、温柔的女性主义形式的人来说，这会让我们感到吃惊。但这是他们的议题：1. 婚姻是女性的敌人，因为男人就定义来说是压迫者。 2. 家庭要为女人遭受暴力负责。 3. 婴孩的性别是从出生就强加在他们身上的，而不是出自生物性（即：这完全是社会的建构，因此是一种压迫）。 4 “妻子，丈夫，儿子，女儿，姐妹，兄弟”等等语言，必须改成“双亲，配偶，孩子，家庭成员”等等。 5. 政府需要立法，命令家庭的责任要50/50均分，军队也一样。 6. 堕胎是所有女人的权利。 7. 同性恋的议题和女性主义是相伴同行的，因为它要重新定义传统的角色和性别。 8. 所有父系社会的宗教都必须加以压制。 9. 圣经压制女性，不让她们和男人一样承担教导的角色，所以圣经就是没有权威的。如果圣经没有提到现代女性的经验，那么它在这点上就不具有权威。 10. 传统的基督教教义需要被重新定义，包括人论，神论，罪论，救赎论和基督论，要更受女性欢迎。

Here are the points that Sittema summarizes from James Dobson’s analysis of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. In other words, this appears to be fairly mainline feminism. For those of us used to kinder, gentler forms of feminism, this may come as something of a shock. But this is their agenda: 1. Marriage is the enemy for women, since men are by definition oppressors. 2. The family is to blame for violence suffered by women. 3. The sex of a baby is something imposed on them from birth, and is not biological (i.e., it is entirely a social construct, and is therefore oppressive). 4. The language of “wife, husband, son, daughter, sister, brother,” etc. must be changed to “parent, spouse, child, and sibling.” 5. The government needs to mandate that household responsibilities be divided 50/50, and so must the military also. 6. Abortion is a mandated right for all women. 7. The homosexual agenda walks hand in hand with feminism in its redefinition of traditional roles and sex. 8. All patriarchal religions must be oppressed. 9. The Bible is not authoritative when it oppresses women by forbidding teaching roles to them over men. If the Bible does not speak to modern women’s experience, then it has no authority there. 10. Traditional Christian doctrines need to be redefined, including the doctrine of man, God, sin, redemption, and Christology, to be more favorable to women.

我们很快可以看到，首先，我们许多人认为的比较“极端”的女性主义，其实更加是主流。这是世界女性主义会议的内容。One can quickly see, first of all, that what many of us would regard as “radical” feminism is actually more mainstream. This is what the world council on feminism has said.

其次，我们可以看到，如果照女性主义的办法，圣经的权威就完全被破坏了。我在女性主义当中，见过两种对圣经的看法。第一种是否认圣经的权威。这实际上是比较诚实取向。另一个取向（特别是对提摩太前书第二章这类的经文）是“解释”这段经文，让它们的意思实际上与圣经所说的相反。这是所谓的“福音派女性主义”所做的，他们仍想坚持圣经的权威。如同Ligon Duncan说过的，如果有人可以让“我不许女人讲道，也不许她辖管男人”，去指“我容许女人讲道或辖管男人”，那么，我们就可以让圣经赞同任何我们想要说的事。Second of all, one can see that if feminism has its way, then the Bible’s authority will be completely undermined. I have seen two approaches to the Bible in feminism. The first approach is to deny the Bible’s authority. This is actually the more honest approach. The other approach (especially with passages such as 1 Timothy 2) is to “interpret” the passage to make it mean pretty much the opposite of what it actually says. This is done by the so-called “evangelical feminists,” who still want to cling to the authority of the Bible. As Ligon Duncan said, if one can make “I do not permit a women to teach or have authority over a man” to mean “I do permit a women to teach or have authority over a man,” then one can make the Bible say absolutely anything.

Sittema建议教会里有四种方法对抗女性主义： 1. 教导圣经性别关系的模式。 2. 不要反应过度。 我们必须谨记，有各种不同的看法。即使有人会说上述10点中的一点，也不意味着他们相信全部。 3. 在教会里使用女性和她们的恩赐。他引用了值得背诵的名言：“异端是教会没有付清的帐”（cults are the unpaid debts of the church）。如果教会能鼓励女性在适当的场合使用她们的恩赐，发挥她们的能力，那么女性主义就不会有太多空间在教会里推销他们的看法。 4. 在教会中尊重婚姻，家庭和母亲的身份。让教会明白，圣经如何称赞这些事情，而这些是对女人何等崇高的呼召。我会加上第5点，对那些真的曾经被男性伤害/虐待过的女性，要有更多的同情心。这是绝对不能被宽容的，即使我们对“虐待”的定义和女性主义者不同。例如，我们不能说让男人在教会里担任长老和执事是对女性的虐待。但是口头上或身体上虐待女性，的确会发生，我们对这种虐待绝不可手软，只因为我们要对抗女性主义。

Sittema suggests four ways of fighting feminism in the church: 1. Teach the Biblical model of gender relationships. 2. Don’t over-react. We must remember that there are a range of views. Just because someone might say something like one of the above 10 points doesn’t mean that they believe all of them. 3. Use women and their gifts in the church. He quotes the memorable dictum “cults are the unpaid debts of the church.” If the church were to encourage women to use their gifts to the best of their ability, and in the right setting, then feminism would not have much room to make inroads into our churches. 4. Honor marriage, family, and motherhood within the church. Show the church how much the Bible praises these things, and what a high calling these are for women. I would add 5. Be sympathetic towards women who really have been abused by men. This should never be tolerated, even though our definitions of “abuse” will be different from the feminists’ definition. We would not regard keeping men as elders and deacons in the church as a form of abusing women, for instance. But verbal and physical abuse of women does happen, and we should never become soft on such abuse just because we’re reacting against feminism.