Today I am pleased to introduce you to author and pastor Rutledge “Rut” Etheridge, assistant professor of Biblical studies at Geneva College and the author of God Breathed: Connecting Through Scripture to God, Others, the Natural World, and Yourself (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant, August 2019 – it officially releases one week from today, on August 30!). Today Pastor Rut will be sharing with us an adaptation of chapter 6 from his new book. Of this book, Aimee Byrd wrote,
“It is difficult to find good books targeted for a young adult reading audience. They are usually dumbed-down, trying too hard to connect, or cheesy. And yet this is often the time of life when people have serious and meaningful questions about the Christian faith. Rut offers us a “Schaeffer-esque” blend of philosophy, theology, and apologetics that connects with the questions about God that Christians and unbelievers alike wrestle with in our current cultural context. He takes his audience seriously and points them to something (Someone) altogether delightful. I will be giving this one away!”
I hope you enjoy this little taste from Pastor Rut’s book and consider ordering your own copy today!
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Pop culture is presently focused from all angles on promoting feminism, trying to write a proper future largely by understanding the past as “her story.” The effort gains moral momentum from the rise of misogynists to high political power and their being outed in a film industry that’s long been silent about their abusive behavior. So let’s stick with the theme of femininity for a bit as we continue to think about art, stories, and humanness.
Emma Watson felt the need to amp up the feminist street cred of Belle in Beauty and the Beast, as Belle and her father, a properly enlightened man better than his times, struggle against toxically masculine bigots . . . Watson definitely wanted her Belle to ring—sorry—more true to contemporary feminist sensibilities. She thought progressivism was in the character’s DNA. Interesting idea. And it raises a crucial question not often heard in the sound and fury of radical efforts to reboot real life as well as fiction. What gives us the right to say what’s truly “progressive” in our recasting, and sometimes redefining, of characters?
Who decides what proper femininity looks and sounds and thinks like? And aren’t these [previously discussed] forced anachronisms at least a little insulting to the characters (and their creators)? At what point do we disrespect the unique personality and even the personhood of the characters we try to recast in our image? If we want to preach (post)modern politics and its god, the tyrannous phantasm of the autonomous self, why not just write a new “tale as old as time”?
It can be thrilling to see a new actor take on an old role, but that role establishes boundaries beyond which the actor cannot roam without becoming another character altogether. For anything to remain what it is, its boundaries must be respected. But we’re all about breaking boundaries, which ultimately leads to breaking ourselves and our stories down to the point where there’s nothing true still standing, and nothing meaningful to say.
Intelligence, compassion, bravery, and lethality do not discriminate according to sex. That truth can be powerfully and honestly proclaimed in new, well-told stories as well as respectful, rather than reproachful, treatments of beloved, timeless tales of the past. The Force Awakens—and even better, Rogue One—just told compelling stories having female leads without having to make a fuss about it. One film critic wrote that Awakens was “quietly history making” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, December 16, 2015). Maybe in terms of American cinema that’s true. The Hollywood industry is rarely as egalitarian, and hardly ever as feminist, as it commands its audience to be.
But when it comes to promoting powerful female leads, God’s story beats any Hollywood script. The Bible’s been cutting edge on that point for nearly two thousand years.
At the very beginning of human history, and on the very first page of Scripture, God stipulates the essential equality of men and women. As we’ve thought about, God made both male and female humans in his image. This means, to use the fancy philosophical term, that women are the “ontological” equals of men. The Bible provides the best, and really the only true, consistent and lasting basis for an understanding of humanity (anthropology) that honors females as they should be honored, respecting their differences from males but letting us know immediately that the differences between the sexes are not matters of essential worth, dignity, and value. Pretty good for a book often considered to be the misogynist’s field guide to life.
Scripture tells of women as respected rulers of nations, as saviors and assassins, prophets and teachers, and most significantly, of one particular woman as the mother of God [see endnote in book].
God-incarnate’s first relationship with mankind was with a woman. Mary carries God in her womb, holds God in her arms, and leads God by his hand. Her soul is pierced three decades later as she watches her divine son dying on the cross, fulfilling the purpose for which she brought him into the world.
Popular Christian commentary on current controversial topics can feel artificial, and thus awkward: “The Bible is totally relevant to today’s culture! It has strong female characters, too!” I get it. But isn’t the Bible’s straightforward presentation of its understanding of humanity and its practical application to life more genuine than Hollywood’s subtly condescending and ironically man-praising efforts? Misogynist ignorance is better confronted by absolute truth than by contrived fiction.
Some of Christ’s closest and most significant followers were women.
John tells us that Jesus, who expresses God’s heart perfectly, chose a woman named Mary as the first image-bearer to see and talk with him following his resurrection (John 20:11 and following). In fact, Scripture features the testimony of Mary and other women as part of its case that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. If the authors of the New Testament were lying about a living Jesus, they would never have included the testimony of women in their accounts. In those days, the words of women had no public credibility. Their testimony wasn’t even admissible in court. Undaunted, the biblical authors defied convention and the principles of contemporary jurisprudence in their witness to the risen Christ. They kept these women’s eyewitness accounts front and center, not to make a sociopolitical point so much as to just tell what happened, regardless of who will be offended at the message, or the messengers.
Although the gospel writers weren’t trying to be social revolutionaries, their happily highlighting the significance of women as Jesus’s disciples did make a revolutionary social statement. In a day of utter and sometimes brutal patriarchy, the Bible stands out as respecting, honoring, and featuring women in some of its pivotal passages. This is a window into how Scripture effects, and has affected, good social change in the story of humanity.
*Adapted by the author from God Breathed © 2019 Crown & Covenant Publications. Used by permission. All rights reserved.*
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Pastor Rutledge “Rut” Etheridge is assistant professor of Biblical studies at Geneva College and the author of God Breathed: Connecting Through Scripture to God, Others, the Natural World, and Yourself (which officially releases one week from today, on August 30!). Prior to this, Rut taught high school and pastored a church. He holds a B.S. in Bible and philosophy as well as an MDiv, and is currently pursuing PhD studies in theology. Rut speaks frequently at youth retreats and theology conferences, and he and his wife, Evelyn, have five children. He loves music, the ocean, martial arts (he’s a blackbelt in Gosoku-ryu karate), basketball, coffee, and more coffee. You can follow along with him on Facebook.
