Men and Women: From Different Planets or the Shared Image of God?

In his chapter on "Gender Identity" Miroslav Volf states "Though turning inward and bolstering the identity of each gender can be important as a strategy, it is mistaken as a goal in and of itself.  For one, more often than not an exclusive concern with one's identity generates pernicious ideologies of superiority (though men, who in the past always and everywhere thought of themselves as superior, should not be bothered too much about the occasional rhetoric of female superiority).  More important, the turn inward misses the very character of gender identities....Men's identity is not and cannot be only men's affair, just as women's identity is not and cannot be only women's affair."

Those thoughts, expressed by Volf, ring true with me.  It seems to me that if what Volf says is the case, then a permanent or fixed segregation of genders or a segregated gender intimacy (except within marriage) in society or church in the long run, is counterproductive to the new creation.  We have to grasp not only the significance of created genders in the image of God, but we have to grasp what gender identity means in the new creation where "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female."  A sharp demarcation of genders in math, map reading, leadership, friendship or ministry seems out of sync in God's new creation. 

This is a post that looks to Storkey's  union, sameness, and complementarity paradigms while keeping an eye on her difference paradigm.  In other words, from where I am situated, we need a thicker understanding of gender intimacy, than the men are from Mars and women from Venus model in our culture and in our churches.  This would apply to marriages, cross gender friendships and cross gender pastoral ministry, as well as cross gender partnership in the gospel.

This post is about intimacy, men, women, and prayer.  I want to give a few choice quotes from Eugene Peterson in his book Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work.  Don't let the title discourage you from reading this book or this chapter, if you are not in formal pastoral ministry.

On Intimacy:

"Pastoral conversations are conversations between persons seeking intimacy."

"the pastor (Dan interjects: husband, wife, friend, brother in Christ, sister in Christ, co-worker) is party to conversations in which he or she and others are seeking to overcome the barriers of division, coolness, or indifference--to get into the other, to discover the truth of the other, to probe meaning of the other."

"The pastoral implications of these passages (Song of Solomon) are extensive; for every person in every parish is involved in the desires and the difficulties of intimacy."  Peterson is clear here he just doesn't intend sexual intimacy between husband and wife; he lists several ordinary common relationships.  Then he states, "In every encounter there is the desire for closeness--the need to break through the defenses of sin, the need to be in touch with the another."

"Intimacy is not a vague mystic merging into the world-soul; it is personal and particular joining with a specific other."

"Intimacy is, both in love and faith, full of tensions."

On Prayer:

"Anything less or other than prayer fails to deal with either the ultimacy of the desires or the complexity of the difficulties.  Prayer with and for persons centers the desire in God and puts the difficulties in perspective under God."

"In prayer the desires are not talked about, they are expressed to God.  In prayer the difficulties are not analyzed and studied, they are worked through with God."

Pay attention to this one: "The actual details of intimate needs and relational realities become the stuff of prayer...Intimacy is not an abstraction but a personalization."

These are great observations; from my experience, they are productive ones.  I get many hits from people googling for Larry Crabb's The Papa Prayer.   Evangelicals, post-evangelicals,  Christians, we all are interested in connecting with God in prayer.  We all men and women are wired to experience intimacy with God in prayer. We also may I suggest, are wired to experience gender intimacy on earth.  That's missional; it's unanticipated and unsought for, if you follow the men are from Mars and women from Venus logic.   However, if we are missional in our relationships between men and women we connect with God and with the other gender in prayer that is formational and missional, not gender-absorbed or a privatized spirituality.  Missional and intimacy are not antithetical to each other.

Ponder this next observation from Peterson.  Take it in slowly:

"The language of sexual passion put to the use of prayer shows the intensity, the near violence, that goes into whole and intimate relationships."

On listening:

Here is where, I maintain, and Peterson maintains, both genders have it within them to practice and grow into: the virtue of listening.

"By listening attentively to a person's dreams, desires, and longings, and by sharing passionately a person's struggles, painful frustrations, and difficulties, (Dan interjects: I suggest if we get this we can really make great strides in gender reconciliation in cross gender friendships, marriages, partnerships, etc.)  significance is given to them." 

"There is no clear line separating the conversations that a pastor (and those of you who I have prayed with know this) has with people and the continuation of those conversations in prayer."

Wendy Wright has some sense of this when she writes "Such friendships can be signs that, as St. Paul says, 'in Christ there is neither male nor female,' not in the sense that one's God-given sexuality is erased but that the sexes are not necessarily divided against each other but rather gathered up together in their full distinctiveness and brought to God."

One of my disappointments in reading feminist Mary E. Hunt's Fierce Tenderness: A Feminist Theology of Friendship or Janice G. Raymond's A Passion For Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection, is not their relational passion, but their essentialist orientation like passionate relationship or intimacy is not possible with men.

A cross gender prayer intimacy may be the stuff that forms cross gender friendships, partnerships, healthy marriages, and cross gender ministry that astonishes those who are stuck in the men are from Mars and women from Venus universe of relating. 

 

 

 

Comments

[Jen O]

Great post! I'd love to hear you "think out loud" more about how this can look in larger ministry. I think the implications are pretty clear (and profound) for close relationships (marriage, friendships, etc). But how does it shape the way a pastor preaches to and leads a church of 400? What could that look like?

[Dana Ames]

Don't think I've mentioned to you yet "The Holy Longing" by Ronald Rolheiser (RC priest!). The book is a discussion of desire (yes, he actually talks about it, and without casting it as totally negative...) and Christian spirituality. His chapter on the spirituality of sexuality stands alongside Volf for me, and would be a good read with Peterson. There is much good in the rest of it, too.

Dana

[Dan]

Dana,

Thanks for the tip! I was unaware of thos book!

[Dan]

Hi Jen O,

Thank you. I'm not sure what you are asking. Do you mean the public nature of praying or something different?

[Molly]

Wow. This is an excellent post. I especially liked this quote,

____________
""By listening attentively to a person's dreams, desires, and longings, and by sharing passionately a person's struggles, painful frustrations, and difficulties, (Dan interjects: I suggest if we get this we can really make great strides in gender reconciliation in cross gender friendships, marriages, partnerships, etc.) significance is given to them."
__________

That is so true... So many times we "hear" but fail to actually LISTEN. I had not thought before of the act of LISTENING implying that one thinks the speaker to be of value and his/her words therefore of significance.

Well said.

[Dan]

Thank you Molly, and thanks for visiting! You're welcome to come back!