Asking the question “how should men and women relate to one another in church?”

We’re mulling over a life-group discussion/workshop type thing tackling the question about how men and women relate to each other in church, how should we think of one another, how should we speak to one another, how should we treat and interact with one another. I’m also planning some linked articles on the subject and this looks like being the first of 4.

Mainly, with some Biblical framing, the aim of the evening will be to give people space to share their own experiences, what is life like for them, what interactions do the experience thinking about what happens in the community and in the workplace, online etc and then what happens in church? Is their experience positive, healthy, good, edifying, encouraging or the opposite. Is it different in church than in wider society and is that for better or for worse.  Then, what, especially with reference to God’s Word should they be able to expect?

I threw out the comment for additional comment on twitter because I wanted to see how a wider audience responded to it.  There have already been some helpful, moving and challenging comments and at some point, with contributor’s permission I’m hoping to pull those reactions together into an article. At the same time, I got some push back on the question itself.

One person asked why I was framing the question in gender terms at all, shouldn’t we simply be talking about how we treat and relate to each other as human beings?  That’s a helpful challenge. Another person thought that the question in effect presumed a conclude that it was putting men first and therefore that we were going to be pushing male superiority.  I thought it might be helpful to flesh out my brief response to those questions here.

First, I suspect that there will be an element of the answer to the question that aligns with the answer that the first questioner points to. How should a man relate to a woman in the church and how should she relate to him? Well, in exactly the same way that they relate to others of their own gender, with respect, love, honour, value, friendship, concern as to a co-heir in Christ, another human being made in the image of Christ.

However, I framed the question with reference to gender for two reasons. The first is that this is simply how the question arose.  When we pause to do topical type stuff like this in a life group setting, it’s not because we fancy an intellectual debate, the questions tend to be based on concretely expressed concerns. So, this particular concern has been raised in a gender focused way. 

This links a little to the second objection/concern. All I can do is assure the questioner that there isn’t such a set conclusion as they seem to be imagining.  Our church family would never let us get away with that.  If I started in the question by asking about how men should relate to women, it’s partly because that’s where the concern has so often been raised, especially from women. Indeed, it is as much a reaction to the kind of culture where we hear a lot from men about how women should behave for the sake of men, the “don’t wear yoga pants” and “be ready and available to be a wife”  kind of stuff. 

Going back to the framing around inter-gender relationships, there was a further reason for framing the question this way.  We could have a happy and brief discussion about how we should treat one another generally but I wonder whether that would give space for deeper, honest, rawer even conversation.  The reality is that we do come together as gendered people and that is a positive but it also means that we do come with different stories and experience.

For example, a man and a woman both go out separately for a walk during the pandemic lockdown, guess which one gets wolf whistled, has vans and cars slow down by them and is propositioned?  You’re right, it’s not the man.  And so the reality is that we as men do not know what that experience is like, nor do we immediately see how other experiences might seem and feel very similar to that.

Or to give another example, the other day I had a frankly bizarre exchange on twitter. A person responded to a question I asked in discussion with indignant rage, how dare I speak to someone of his authority, position and expertise in that kind of way?  Then his followers joined in. Noone wanted to engage with my comment, just to tell me I was presumptive, ignorant, stupid and oddly from one “a blood drinker” for even to presume to speak to this person rather than simply listening and absorbing their wisdom.  He seemed to revel in this and to be encouraging their reaction. In social media speak it’s referred to as “inviting the pile on.”  Now for me it was no big deal. Further, it is pretty rare for me to experience that kind of thing online or in person and the example there was pretty mild.  However, for a lot of people who happen not to be white/middle-class/male, that kind of experience and far more extreme is the norm online.  Sadly I suspect it’s not just an online thing to. 

I wanted to frame the conversation in a way that would encourage people to talk in concrete terms about their experiences and encourage further reflection on what life should be like in Christ.  By moving from the general to the specific, I think we can encourage that and indeed I suspect that I have been getting answers back that I wouldn’t have if I’d kept it generalised.