One shocker after another from Carolyn Custis James...
This post is the contribution of two men from ClearNote Church of Bloomington, Jake Mentzel and Josh Congrove. Recently, Josh successfully defended his dissertation for a doctorate in Classics here at Indiana University, and Jake is the campus pastor of ClearNote Campus Fellowship. We're grateful for their work. (TB)
* * *
Carolyn Custis James recently wrote a blog post slandering the Early Church father, Augustine. Here are her claims:
Last week, in a well-known Christian college, a Bible professor stated unequivocally to his class that "Men are created in the image of God, but women are created in the image of man." His assertion is a flat denial of what is stated plainly on page one of the Bible, but unfortunately (his claim) has long roots that can be traced back to early church fathers, including the revered St. Augustine, and has done enormous damage. I remember the first time I heard anyone say, "God created both women and men in his image." I was in my twenties, had grown up in the church, and this was news to me.
It's hard to imagine the professor in question presenting the matter as Mrs. James reports it here. Surely he misspoke, was misunderstood, or misquoted? Where is Mrs. James' source?
Moving past the anonymous report, it's even harder to conceive that woman being created in the Image of God was news to Mrs. James when she first heard it. In her twenties? Seriously? What a sheltered existence she must have had!
We grew up in conservative Baptist circles and heard this basic truth of Scripture all the time...
Not that we needed to hear it: by Mrs. James's own admission, all we had to do was read "what is stated plainly on page one of the Bible."God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Perhaps Mrs. James grew up in a church where the Bible was never read? Then again, perhaps Mrs. James is lying for rhetorical impact?
Thus far we're called to trust Mrs. James' incredible report about some anonymous professor and the teaching and preaching of her own childhood home and church. Then Mrs. James abuses Augustine, claiming him as the source of this statement: "Men are created in the image of God, but women are created in the image of man."
The context is Augustine's discussion of how the image of the Trinity does and does not relate to the image of God as found in man. In interpreting Genesis and 1Corinthians 10, Augustine's actual argument is that woman qua homo (i.e., as pertains to her human nature) is created in the image of God, but that woman qua woman (or more precisely, in her "quality" as help-meet), is not. The man, by contrast, is created in the image of God both qua homo and qua vir (i.e., as man alone). See the relevant passage below.
Augustine actually affirms woman's creation in the image of God: her nature, he says, "does not separate the woman from the image of God." Women are not "alien from this fellowship," but are "fellow-heirs of grace."
Even unbelieving scholars point to Augustine as a defender of women.
In pursuit of her own fame and glory, Mrs. James twists the Word of God and Augustine. Why, then, would anyone believe her report of the words of some anonymous professor?
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Augustine, On the Trinity (De Trinitate) (emphases mine)
Chapter 7.— How Man is the Image of God. Whether the Woman is Not Also the Image of God. How the Saying of the Apostle, that the Man is the Image of God, But the Woman is the Glory of the Man, is to Be Understood Figuratively and Mystically.
9. We ought not therefore so to understand that man is made in the image of the supreme Trinity, that is, in the image of God, as that the same image should be understood to be in three human beings; especially when the apostle says that the man is the image of God, and on that account removes the covering from his head, which he warns the woman to use, speaking thus: For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. What then shall we say to this? If the woman fills up the image of the trinity after the measure of her own person, why is the man still called that image after she has been taken out of his side? Or if even one person of a human being out of three can be called the image of God, as each person also is God in the supreme Trinity itself, why is the woman also not the image of God? For she is instructed for this very reason to cover her head, which he is forbidden to do because he is the image of God.
10. But we must notice how that which the apostle says, that not the woman but the man is the image of God, is not contrary to that which is written in Genesis, God created man: in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them: and He blessed them. For this text says that human nature itself, which is complete [only] in both sexes, was made in the image of God; and it does not separate the woman from the image of God which it signifies. For after saying that God made man in the image of God, He created him, it says, male and female: or at any rate, punctuating the words otherwise, male and female created He them. How then did the apostle tell us that the man is the image of God, and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? Unless, forsooth, according to that which I have said already, when I was treating of the nature of the human mind, that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one. . . .
12. For, as not only most true reason but also the authority of the apostle himself declares, man was not made in the image of God according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational mind. For the thought is a debased and empty one, which holds God to be circumscribed and limited by the lineaments of bodily members. But further, does not the same blessed apostle say, Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created after God; and in another place more clearly, Putting off the old man, he says, with his deeds; put on the new man, which is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him? If, then, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and he is the new man who is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him; no one can doubt, that man was made after the image of Him that created him, not according to the body, nor indiscriminately according to any part of the mind, but according to the rational mind, wherein the knowledge of God can exist. And it is according to this renewal, also, that we are made sons of God by the baptism of Christ; and putting on the new man, certainly put on Christ through faith. Who is there, then, who will hold women to be alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus? Pray, have faithful women then lost their bodily sex? But because they are there renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind. Why, then, is the man on that account not bound to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, while the woman is bound to do so, because she is the glory of the man; as though the woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which spirit is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him who created him? But because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it was possible rightly to represent under her bodily covering that part of thereason which is diverted to the government of temporal things; so that the image of God may remain on that side of the mind of man on which it cleaves to the beholding or the consulting of the eternal reasons of things; and this, it is clear, not men only, but also women have.
Augustine, On the Trinity 12.7: 9–12, trans. Hadden, PNF 3 (Buffalo, NY)
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Oh come now, if somebody wants to make a biblical case that women aren't created in the image of God, the proof-text would be the very one you quoted above, Genesis 1:27. It says, plain as day, that "in the image of God created he HIM" (I'm quoting the KJV since that's what I was raised on, but the meaning is the same in whichever translation you're using). It then goes on to say, "male and female created he them," which is nothing more than a simple statement that God created both men and women. But the only part in the entire verse that talks about being made in God's image explicitly limits it to say that in God's image he created HIM.
Not saying there aren't other biblical passages that could be cited in favor of women being image-bearers; just that the one you used actually disproves your point.
Jake and Josh,
I am sure you know Mrs. James was challenged for a source on her "well known seminary professor" clai
Not so surprisingly, she was not forthcoming with a name.
The only quibble I have is with the post title. I don't find this sort of thing shocking at all, especially from her. Scandalous, bug not shocking. Instead the phrase, "tired old canard"'comes to mind.
Kamilla
Yikes! Must be time for bed. Typos are multiplying.
NI,
'him' is a masculine generic in that context, as the following line 'male and female he created them' makes clear. Thus women are included as being made in the image of God along with men.
p.s. it actually says this in point 10 of the Augustine quotation above.
The interesting thing to consider is why someone would want to essentially pick a fight with either scripture or Augustine.
henrybish, if "him" is a masculine generic that includes both males and females, then why does the next part use "them"? Why not use "him" in both clauses, or "them" in both clauses? The fact that "him" is used in one clause and "them" in the next at least suggests that different meanings were intended.
NI,
The first clause is inclusive because it emphasizes the unity, the second is distinctive because it emphasizes diversity. God gives us both and it's right that both should be emphasized in turn.
Furthermore, there's a similar, but more subtle, description of the divine nature in this passage. God says "let us create man in our own image," and then later "he created . . . ."
NI,
I would suggest you read the Augustine quote...Augustine understood the passage rightly. In fact, If one follows your suggestion consistently, the absurdity becomes obvious. Why? The suggestion would be that the Bible teaches women aren't human.
Craig, Michael and Henry, what you have shown is that there is an argument for interpreting the passage in the way that you do. You have not shown that others who interpret the passage differently to say that women are not made in the image of God -- Orthodox Jews, for example -- have no case. And the real underlying problem that sola scriptura fails to address is that this passage, like much of the rest of the Bible, is wide open to interpretation, a evidenced by all the different interpretations of many different passages. This is not a situation in which a contrary interpretation requires dissembling or spinning; this is a case in which there is honest scholarship is on both sides of the issue.
You ultimately pick an interpretation that fits in with your world view, as do others who believe in women's ordination, gay marriage, dispensational theology or premillenial eschatology. And I really wish that people on all sides of these issues would stop pretending otherwise.
OK, I'm probably banned now.
For example, just look at what happened to the church and racism. For centuries, most churches understood that the Bible clearly and unequivocally required racial segregation and taught that Blacks were inferior. Then when society changed and racism was no longer acceptable, the church did a 180 degree flip so fast some people got whiplash, and now states with just as much clarity that the Bible teaches racial equality. Well, if it's that clear, how did one side or the other get it so wrong for so long?
Watch the same thing to happen with the anti-gay passages just as soon as society shifts on that one too.
>For example, just look at what happened to the church and racism. For centuries, most churches understood that the Bible clearly and unequivocally required racial segregation and taught that Blacks were inferior.
You know if you want to come on here and strike a pose of intellectual sophistication you should avoid howlers like this. The position of the southern church in that regard stood in stark contrast to the historic position and practice of the church. To argue that the southern church was normative in that regard is to simply call down derision on one's self.
BTW the southern church was able to practice error because it abandoned the Reformational principles of scriptural interpretation, not because of them.
NI said: "You ultimately pick an interpretation that fits in with your world view...And I really wish that people on all sides of these issues would stop pretending otherwise..."
and
NI said: "Watch the same thing to happen with the anti-gay passages just as soon as society shifts on that one too."
Is interpretation subject to the individual's interpretation, or society's? NI doesn't seem to know...
Augustine makes the point that there is unity with man (human nature), and diversity as God has created them (those possessing the nature of man) male and female...that man's nature is at a unity with a plurality of expression reflects the Trinity.
NI, the sophist, shifts the discussion to epistemology and is caught between the horns of a dilemma:
individualism and collectivism.
On the one hand, he says you can't be certain of your interpretation because other individuals come up with other interpretations...on the other hand, you can't trust your interpretation because your interpretation is subject to society...so there is a consistency, I guess:
You can't trust your interpretation.
But dog-gone it, NI is an individual and a part of society, which means: NI can't trust his own interpretation.
I'd like to thank NI for his transparency and honesty. By your own testimony, you shouldn't be trusted.
Dear NI,
Those talking to you have identified themselves; why not you? Really, what's the difficulty with telling people your name?
Sincerely,
One thing worth mentioning here is that NI is the product of a society that chose--with the complicity of Evangelical Bible publishers and their cosseted academics and the neutered Bibles they conspired to foist on the People of God--to rid itself of the male inclusive. So now, NI is at sea wondering how on earth "man" could include woman?
Thus he's incapable of understanding Scripture at a place where proper understanding depends upon the reader knowing God named the race, both man and woman, "adam."
Honestly, if Zondervan and Tyndale House are going to neuter the Bible, they need to go all the way. Ideological conformity must have the strength of its conviction. Halfway measures leave everyone confused.
Which is to say, use the NASB. Other versions (even the ESV) have been corrupted by femspeak. We must stop allowing the world to gag the Bible and learn again what men for centuries understood, that the Bible instructs the world.
Finally, NI needs to show us where Orthodox Jews deny that woman bears the Image of God. The best he can do is trot out a few exceptions that only prove the rule that all men have always understood that, in Genesis 1:26,27 'adam' includes man and woman.
Love,
NI, instead of anonymously filling the internets with uneducated commentary about a verse that's pretty clear, maybe boning up on your grammar might be more your speed? In Genesis 1:27, the first phrase matches a singular noun with a singular article, and the second phrase matches a plural subject with a plural article.
It's not terribly complicated, and if you take a look at your Hebrew, I believe you'll find that there are two ways of saying "them" as well, and that the form used in that verse is the masculine.
It would seem that the evangelical feminists find themselves at the same place, more or less, where the King James Only types find themselves; refusing to take a look at the original languages because it would make their heads explode, because it clearly doesn't say what they would like.
In no particular order:
1. The idea that the American South had the monopoly on using Scripture to teach racism is simply wrong (though the South may have had a worse case of it). Slave ships were chartered by the Catholic church "in the name of the Most Holy Trinity." Several European churches took the same position -- Swedish, Norwegian and German Lutherans, for example -- and I know from personal experience that it was not an uncommon teaching among the Plymouth Brethren in an earlier era either. I would not go so far as to say that the church monolithically was racist, but to make it a Southern problem is just wrong.
2. At least some Orthodox Jews (not sure if it's monolithic or not), who I would wager are more familiar with the original Hebrew than most here, do not allow women to worship with the men precisely because they do not believe women are made in the image of God.
3. On the larger issue, take any position on any doctrine that you like, and I will make a biblical case for the opposite. You know, without my having to tell you, that this can be done. That's why there is no agreement among Christians (including Christians who devote large amounts of time to studying the Bible) on issues like infant vs. credo baptism, baptism by immersion vs. by sprinkling, pre-, post- or a-millenial eschatology, or covenant vs. dispensational theology (and that's before we even get to social issues). They don't understand how you can possibly find biblical authority for your position any more than you can understand how they can find biblical authority for theirs.
4. As for whether it's an individual vs. collective interpretation, that, too, is wide open to interpretation. Argue whichever you like and I'll show you the biblical case for the other.
5. Finally, I use the handle NI (which stands for "nobody of importance") rather than my real name because even without using my real name I count five ad hominems in the responses to my posts thus far. It doesn't matter who I am; I could be your pastor, your wife, your neighbor, or someone who just happened here while surfing the internet; ideas stand or fall on their own regardless of who proffers them. The whold point of exchanging ideas is to be able to exchange them freely and without personally becoming an issue.
As to point #3 - just because some folks call a Cosmoplitan a martini doesn't make it one. Just as not all interpretations of Holy Scripture are of equal validity.
As to point #4 - I humbly suggest you take Bert's advice and pick up a good basic grammar text. After that you might nit want to play with matches for a while. In your shoes I'd be a bit more concerned about straw men than ad hominens.
>>The idea that the American South had the monopoly on using Scripture to teach racism is simply wrong (though the South may have had a worse case of it).
They are the primary example.
>>Slave ships were chartered by the Catholic church "in the name of the Most Holy Trinity." Several European churches took the same position -- Swedish, Norwegian and German Lutherans, for example
How is chartering a ship a "position"? Did these churches actually teach the inferiority of Blacks? Finding sinful practice within the church doesn't get you any points.
>> -- and I know from personal experience that it was not an uncommon teaching among the Plymouth Brethren in an earlier era either. I would not go so far as to say that the church monolithically was racist, but to make it a Southern problem is just wrong.
Which brings us back to our original point. Even if everything you said was precisely correct and the conclusions you draw are correct you are trying to describe something as normative while your examples cover post-Enlightenment Christianity and not even close to all of that.
NI,
Anonymity on the internet is making you less honest, not more honest. If you were my pastor, my wife, my neighbor or someone I knew in person, you would have to actually take responsibility for your words and their consequences. As it stands now, your anonymity only protects your pride, and emboldens you to say foolish and useless things, opposing wisdom and sound doctrine, while having the audacity to say that you're not personally involved, that the arguments stand on their own.
Bunk.
You're not a courageous whistleblower bringing down a vast conspiracy or an upright individual rooting out corruption-- you're just some anonymous person stirring up strife.
Though I am citing my own previous contribution to this forum, it's worth noting that Mrs. James is either using or creating a convenient lie. It's a common tactic used by religious feminists (including NI above).
I wrote a letter to my daughter Geneva when she was an undergraduate five years ago, directing her attention to another fellow's dismantling of a very common convenient lie about Aquinas, to wit that he taught that women were defective males. I shared this letter with Pr. Tim, who posted it to this blog here:
http://www.baylyblog.com/2006/10/feminists_usefu.html
It's important to understand that NI's central point is not about feminism, but about God and His Word. After all, NI states that we may "take any position on any doctrine that you like, and I will make a biblical case for the opposite." His main goal is to cast doubt that God has actually spoken, or, alternatively, to accuse God of giving NI a stone when he asked for a loaf (Matt. 7:9). It's the normal postmodern unbelief.
Correct me if I'm wrong, NI, but doesn't that get to the heart of it?
To which I answer: God is true and every man a liar. He has been kind to us in giving us His word, and you are shaking your fist at Him for it.
Every man will die and then face the judgement (Heb. 9:27), and that includes you, NI. If there are things in Scripture that you don't understand, don't accuse God for them! Don't accuse God of wrongdoing to you; He doesn't owe you anything. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
The Holy Spirit says:
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. - 2 Timothy 4:1-2
Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. - 2 Timothy 1:14
These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. - Titus 2:15
But NI says:
>> 3. On the larger issue, take any position on any doctrine that you like, and I will make a biblical case for the opposite. You know, without my having to tell you, that this can be done.
NI says there's no way to exhort and reprove with all authority, because one case is as good as another.
NI says no one can know for sure what the treasure is so there's no way to guard it.
NI is opposing and fighting against God. Repent, NI! Why will you be destroyed?
'Tis the season for Augustine-slandering it seems:
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/07/much_ado_about_mark_driscoll.html
Kamilla
Mrs. James has just contributed a guest post to the blog of the perkiest of blasphemers,
http://rachelheldevans.com/women-gospels-carolyn-custis-james
The Fab Four Women of the Gospels.
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