The top three things I look for in a theatre trip: close harmonies, tight choreography, and smashed patriarchy. If I can have all that in an hour and a half or less, so much the better. So 'Two Man Show' by RashDash Theatre Company – a fun and poignant 75 minutes'-worth of dance- and music-driven critique of androcentrism and the inadequacy of (androcentric) language to critique it – was my ideal evening out. It also sparked a number of bloggable trains of thought...
The performance opened with a brief and rapid take on the history of patriarchy. In the paleolithic period (we were told) men and women were nomadic hunter-gatherers, equal in occupation and status. If anything, the female was revered (there is evidence of goddess worship) as the apparent source of life – the suggestion being that the link between sex and childbearing was not well understood. But this all started to change in the neolithic period, when human beings discovered agriculture and began settling in static communities. Advances in animal husbandry established the necessity of men for procreation, but at the same time rendered the position of individual men precarious, as it became clear that a small number of males sufficed (and might in fact be preferable) for the purposes of breeding. The fear engendered by this realisation, coupled with a growing consciousness of mortality, incentivised men to compete for status and longevity in the form of numerous biological descendants, and to influence familial and social institutions around this pursuit. Ideals of female chastity and faithfulness (so it goes) emerged as by-products of the new 'requirement' that each man be able to name and number his own offspring (more on that another time, if I get round to it). And organised, patriarchal religion was founded – to provide meaning in the face of fleeting existence, significance in the face of felt insecurity, and tools for manipulation in the face of resistance.
All of which was sung, chanted, and danced out with the aid of what looked like Early Learning Centre farm animals, in the space of about 10 minutes. I apologise for the comparatively prosaic nature of my, erm, prose.
The allegation that religion in general, and the 'Judeo-Christian tradition' in particular, is nothing more than an invention of the insecure and a tool of patriarchy is not a new one to me, but it is one that always (rightly) prompts a 'checking of assumptions'. Am I able to give, in the face of such logical anthropological analysis, "a reason for the hope that I have" (1 Pet 3:15) – the hope that faith in God through Jesus is something more and other than a story fabricated by men who simply want to stay in charge?
Now, there's no denying that the Bible was written down by men acclimatised to patriarchal cultures. And it's certainly true that the events it narrates (bar some at the very beginning and the very end, and some which envision heavenly scenarios) mostly play out in the setting of such cultures. But that it is not to say that it endorses patriarchy. I believe that, whilst patriarchal norms are often taken for granted without immediate critique, a Christ-centred reading of scripture as a whole ultimately exposes these norms to be inconsistent with the ideal for humankind that God reveals in Jesus. But you don't have to hold out till the New Testament for evidence of this. One story in particular sprang to mind as I was mulling over the play's accusation.
Picture the scene: the Israelites have progressed from nomadic wilderness living, under the leadership of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, to the conquest and settlement of the promised land of Canaan, under Moses' successor Joshua. For around four centuries they have cycled around the same old pattern of lawless rebellion, hardship at the hands of their enemies, and rescue and peaceful rule under a series of ad-hoc judges (drawn from different tribes, and not all male). And they've decided it's time for a change. They want what all the other nations have. They want a King, and the societal structure that goes with it – a structure that, as forecast by the prophet Samuel, sounds horribly familiar...
Potayto, potahto! I hear you exclaim. [1] Isn't that to simply exchange the tyranny of a patriarchal hierarchy for the tyranny of a male deity? Well. Here we're back to the problem that drove RashDash to dance: language, and the fact that it was formalised and written down by men, for men. Right at the very building block-level of human communication and self-expression – grammar and vocabulary – masculinity is centred and assumed universal, with females and the feminine exceptions to the norm. A conspicuous example is the reliance (by most languages) on masculine pronouns for the generic case – "mankind/man" to denote humankind, "he" to denote an individual of unspecified gender, and so on. The world and his wife have grown so accustomed to this "rule" that attempts at gender-inclusive alternatives often sound clunky and/or provoke aggravation, as I'm freshly reminded whenever I shout out "humankind" in the middle of homegroup discussions. (Admission: the gender-inclusivity of my interruptions may not be the sole causal factor behind the aggravation they provoke).
Suppose that God is not male. Suppose that God is neither male nor female; suppose that male and female together were created in God's image. You know, like it says in the Bible (Gen 1:27). Suppose that the customary assignment of masculine pronouns to God is a product of linguistic androcentrism, and the consequent dearth of adequate gender-neutral/inclusive vocabulary. And now explore scripture's many names and pictures of God, and find out that they are wonderfully various:
Whatever 'rule' God wants to have over us, then, is not a 'male' one. Nor is it characterised by the sort of tyranny that a man-made God might be expected to exercise. The God that the Bible reveals is a God Who self-empties, willingly becoming a 'tribal deity' for ancient Israel and a human baby for the world [3]; a God Who takes the nature of a servant, "being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:7); Who "becomes obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:8). The rule of God looks like mercy; it looks like the scattering of the proud, the bringing down of rulers, the lifting of the humble; it looks like the filling of the hungry, the sending away of the rich (Lk 1:50-53).
Human beings, from before we can remember, have chosen otherwise. We have rejected the rule of Love, in whose eyes we are all one (in value, in brokenness, and in redeemability), in favour of a perpetual struggle for supremacy over each another – a struggle in which men have long held the upper hand over women; in which white people have diminished and exploited people of colour; in which homophobia and heteronormativity and ablism and classism have excluded many from full social, economic, political and cultural participation and recognition; in which rich people and nations have increased their advantage by plundering poor people and nations. The invite to follow Jesus is, at least in part, an invite to exchange these structures of injustice for a royal reign that transcends geographical boundaries (Lk 17:20-21) and upends human ideas of superiority (see, e.g., Mt 5:1-11, Jas 2:1-7, Mk 9:33-37, Mt 19:23-24). For those who have been complicit in reproducing oppression (knowingly or otherwise) God's rule means repentance and surrender of privilege (Lk 11:39-41, Jas 2:1-13); for those who have been on the receiving end of oppression, God's rule means strength to persevere and a concrete hope for now-and-not-yet justice (Lk 4:16-21). For diverse individuals in community together it means living out the reality of being 'one' (Gal 3:28); seeking always the advantage of others (Phil 2:3-4), in flagrant disregard of the logic of the struggle for supremacy, so that God's rule – without the need for forceful imposition – begins to infect and subvert the destructive human hierarchies that prevail outside that rule. [4]
At least, I think it means that. I feel like it's supposed to mean that. But it's not hard to see – looking at church history, and current affairs, and some pulpits ... and yeah, probably, the stubborn unsurrender of my own heart – where RashDash (/ the world) have got the impression that it means something distinctly not that. And I don't honestly have the words, although I throw enough of them around. Perhaps I need to learn to dance...
[1] It's certainly easier to say it than to write it down.
[2] Brueggemann, in an interview with Krista Tippet for On Being, 2011; via Maggi Dawn, Naming God: Inclusive and Expansive Language, 2011.
[3] Before you rush to protest but that baby was male, it is thought-provoking to reflect on the difficulty of meaningfully modelling self-surrender from a societally-determined position of female subjugation. "The essence of servanthood is that it is possible only for liberated persons, not people in servitude. [...] His ability to be liberator does not reside in his maleness, but, on the contrary, in the fact that he has renounced this system of domination and seeks to embody in his person the new humanity of service and mutual empowerment." (Rosemary Radford Ruether, Christology and Feminism: Can a Male Saviour Save Women? 1981).
[4] To say that not all things are under God's royal reign, which extends to those who willingly make themselves subjects (compare, e.g., 2 Cor 4:4, Eph 2:2 with 1 Pet:2:9-10), is not to say that anything is outside of God's sovereignty (e.g. Ps 115:3, Eph 1:19-23).
[Thumbnail image cc from Viktor Vasnetsov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons].
The performance opened with a brief and rapid take on the history of patriarchy. In the paleolithic period (we were told) men and women were nomadic hunter-gatherers, equal in occupation and status. If anything, the female was revered (there is evidence of goddess worship) as the apparent source of life – the suggestion being that the link between sex and childbearing was not well understood. But this all started to change in the neolithic period, when human beings discovered agriculture and began settling in static communities. Advances in animal husbandry established the necessity of men for procreation, but at the same time rendered the position of individual men precarious, as it became clear that a small number of males sufficed (and might in fact be preferable) for the purposes of breeding. The fear engendered by this realisation, coupled with a growing consciousness of mortality, incentivised men to compete for status and longevity in the form of numerous biological descendants, and to influence familial and social institutions around this pursuit. Ideals of female chastity and faithfulness (so it goes) emerged as by-products of the new 'requirement' that each man be able to name and number his own offspring (more on that another time, if I get round to it). And organised, patriarchal religion was founded – to provide meaning in the face of fleeting existence, significance in the face of felt insecurity, and tools for manipulation in the face of resistance.
All of which was sung, chanted, and danced out with the aid of what looked like Early Learning Centre farm animals, in the space of about 10 minutes. I apologise for the comparatively prosaic nature of my, erm, prose.
The allegation that religion in general, and the 'Judeo-Christian tradition' in particular, is nothing more than an invention of the insecure and a tool of patriarchy is not a new one to me, but it is one that always (rightly) prompts a 'checking of assumptions'. Am I able to give, in the face of such logical anthropological analysis, "a reason for the hope that I have" (1 Pet 3:15) – the hope that faith in God through Jesus is something more and other than a story fabricated by men who simply want to stay in charge?
Now, there's no denying that the Bible was written down by men acclimatised to patriarchal cultures. And it's certainly true that the events it narrates (bar some at the very beginning and the very end, and some which envision heavenly scenarios) mostly play out in the setting of such cultures. But that it is not to say that it endorses patriarchy. I believe that, whilst patriarchal norms are often taken for granted without immediate critique, a Christ-centred reading of scripture as a whole ultimately exposes these norms to be inconsistent with the ideal for humankind that God reveals in Jesus. But you don't have to hold out till the New Testament for evidence of this. One story in particular sprang to mind as I was mulling over the play's accusation.
Picture the scene: the Israelites have progressed from nomadic wilderness living, under the leadership of Moses, Aaron and Miriam, to the conquest and settlement of the promised land of Canaan, under Moses' successor Joshua. For around four centuries they have cycled around the same old pattern of lawless rebellion, hardship at the hands of their enemies, and rescue and peaceful rule under a series of ad-hoc judges (drawn from different tribes, and not all male). And they've decided it's time for a change. They want what all the other nations have. They want a King, and the societal structure that goes with it – a structure that, as forecast by the prophet Samuel, sounds horribly familiar...
But when they said, ‘Give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.’
Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: he will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plough his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we shall be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.’
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king.’ (1 Sam 8:6-22, NIV)Of course, I'm not at all suggesting that before Israel became a Kingdom it wasn't patriarchal: a random dip or two into any of the first 8 books of the Bible should be enough to discount that possibility. But I am suggesting that, whilst "there is no authority except that which God has established" (Rom 13:1), yet this passage positions (patriarchal) human power structures as, by nature, of our own invention. God grants Israel what they ask for – tyrannical, exploitative, war-mongering hierarchy – with the expectation that they (and we) live obedient lives within the framework they (we) have chosen. But it isn't God's desire for people; God's desire is that people submit to God's rule.
Potayto, potahto! I hear you exclaim. [1] Isn't that to simply exchange the tyranny of a patriarchal hierarchy for the tyranny of a male deity? Well. Here we're back to the problem that drove RashDash to dance: language, and the fact that it was formalised and written down by men, for men. Right at the very building block-level of human communication and self-expression – grammar and vocabulary – masculinity is centred and assumed universal, with females and the feminine exceptions to the norm. A conspicuous example is the reliance (by most languages) on masculine pronouns for the generic case – "mankind/man" to denote humankind, "he" to denote an individual of unspecified gender, and so on. The world and his wife have grown so accustomed to this "rule" that attempts at gender-inclusive alternatives often sound clunky and/or provoke aggravation, as I'm freshly reminded whenever I shout out "humankind" in the middle of homegroup discussions. (Admission: the gender-inclusivity of my interruptions may not be the sole causal factor behind the aggravation they provoke).
Suppose that God is not male. Suppose that God is neither male nor female; suppose that male and female together were created in God's image. You know, like it says in the Bible (Gen 1:27). Suppose that the customary assignment of masculine pronouns to God is a product of linguistic androcentrism, and the consequent dearth of adequate gender-neutral/inclusive vocabulary. And now explore scripture's many names and pictures of God, and find out that they are wonderfully various:
...helper, Lord, servant and friend; compassionate father, a mother who breastfeeds her children and knits, a tigress, a mother hen, a shepherd, a rock and a tower, a shield and a defence, a landowner, a housekeeper, a baker of bread, a mighty ruler and a powerless infant, the light that lightens the world, and the darkness that is above all light; the God who is both love and wisdom, and at the same time the God whose name, however close we try to get to it, will always elude us. (Maggi Dawn, Naming God: Inclusive and Expansive Language, 2011)Maggi Dawn argues that we need all of these names and pictures – "more metaphors gives more access to God," she quotes Walter Brueggemann in saying [2]; conversely, a reduction of metaphors inclines us towards idolatry, along with (I suggest) a false elevation of masculinity.
Whatever 'rule' God wants to have over us, then, is not a 'male' one. Nor is it characterised by the sort of tyranny that a man-made God might be expected to exercise. The God that the Bible reveals is a God Who self-empties, willingly becoming a 'tribal deity' for ancient Israel and a human baby for the world [3]; a God Who takes the nature of a servant, "being made in human likeness" (Phil 2:7); Who "becomes obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:8). The rule of God looks like mercy; it looks like the scattering of the proud, the bringing down of rulers, the lifting of the humble; it looks like the filling of the hungry, the sending away of the rich (Lk 1:50-53).
Human beings, from before we can remember, have chosen otherwise. We have rejected the rule of Love, in whose eyes we are all one (in value, in brokenness, and in redeemability), in favour of a perpetual struggle for supremacy over each another – a struggle in which men have long held the upper hand over women; in which white people have diminished and exploited people of colour; in which homophobia and heteronormativity and ablism and classism have excluded many from full social, economic, political and cultural participation and recognition; in which rich people and nations have increased their advantage by plundering poor people and nations. The invite to follow Jesus is, at least in part, an invite to exchange these structures of injustice for a royal reign that transcends geographical boundaries (Lk 17:20-21) and upends human ideas of superiority (see, e.g., Mt 5:1-11, Jas 2:1-7, Mk 9:33-37, Mt 19:23-24). For those who have been complicit in reproducing oppression (knowingly or otherwise) God's rule means repentance and surrender of privilege (Lk 11:39-41, Jas 2:1-13); for those who have been on the receiving end of oppression, God's rule means strength to persevere and a concrete hope for now-and-not-yet justice (Lk 4:16-21). For diverse individuals in community together it means living out the reality of being 'one' (Gal 3:28); seeking always the advantage of others (Phil 2:3-4), in flagrant disregard of the logic of the struggle for supremacy, so that God's rule – without the need for forceful imposition – begins to infect and subvert the destructive human hierarchies that prevail outside that rule. [4]
At least, I think it means that. I feel like it's supposed to mean that. But it's not hard to see – looking at church history, and current affairs, and some pulpits ... and yeah, probably, the stubborn unsurrender of my own heart – where RashDash (/ the world) have got the impression that it means something distinctly not that. And I don't honestly have the words, although I throw enough of them around. Perhaps I need to learn to dance...
[1] It's certainly easier to say it than to write it down.
[2] Brueggemann, in an interview with Krista Tippet for On Being, 2011; via Maggi Dawn, Naming God: Inclusive and Expansive Language, 2011.
[3] Before you rush to protest but that baby was male, it is thought-provoking to reflect on the difficulty of meaningfully modelling self-surrender from a societally-determined position of female subjugation. "The essence of servanthood is that it is possible only for liberated persons, not people in servitude. [...] His ability to be liberator does not reside in his maleness, but, on the contrary, in the fact that he has renounced this system of domination and seeks to embody in his person the new humanity of service and mutual empowerment." (Rosemary Radford Ruether, Christology and Feminism: Can a Male Saviour Save Women? 1981).
[4] To say that not all things are under God's royal reign, which extends to those who willingly make themselves subjects (compare, e.g., 2 Cor 4:4, Eph 2:2 with 1 Pet:2:9-10), is not to say that anything is outside of God's sovereignty (e.g. Ps 115:3, Eph 1:19-23).
[Thumbnail image cc from Viktor Vasnetsov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons].
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