August 26th, A Big Win for Women
A hundred years ago, on August 26th, women won the right to vote. The right to vote is a big deal. It’s voice. It’s agency. It’s representation.
We tend to mark movements by giving them a beginning and end date, like saying the Protestant Reformation started when Martin Luther’s nailed his ninety-five theses on the Whittenburg door in 1517. It’s nice to have a time and place, but we all know it’s not an accurate picture of the when, how, or where of movements.
On August 26th, we’ll celebrate women’s right to vote, fully aware that the suffrage movement was in motion long before that date. For example, we know the first women’s rights convention was held in a church in Seneca Falls back in 1848. Many evangelicals might be surprised to learn Christ-followers planted the roots of the feminist movement(s).
In my circles of Christianity, feminist or feminism is a dirty word. Often when I talk with male leaders about the role of women in the Church, they dropped the “F-bomb” (Feminist!) into the conversation. They’ve been taught that feminism is a threat to Christianity. It’s always interesting to see their expressions when I suggest that feminism started in a Church in upstate NY. Then I proceed to share a bit of their Christian heritage.
“Back in 1848, Christian women and men gathered at a Wesleyan Chapel and declared women should have the right to vote, own property, receive their paycheck (at that time the husband’s received the woman’s paycheck), to divorce (at that time only men could divorce their wife), and have custody of their children (only men received custody of the kids).” I usually end by asking, “Surely, you believe women should have these rights, right?” Women not having them seems almost ridiculous, at least to us Americans. But it wasn’t absurd that they didn’t have those rights back then, nor is “ridiculous” that many women don’t have those rights today around the globe. With all the progress we’ve made for women, it is still perilous to be a woman or girl in this world today.
I’ve learned in the years I’ve been working to reshape our view of women that change happens slowly over the long haul, and it does not walk in a straight line.
I’m mindful that the Israelites lived as slaves in Egypt for 400-plus years before God birthed them into a nation. We can look to our own country, slaves were brought to the shores in 1619, Slaves were declared free in 1863, but it wasn’t a straight shot to freedom was it? No, we had the Jim Crow laws and the Civil Rights movement, and here we are in 2020, experiencing the realities of racial inequities that continue to exist.
Adele Logan Alexander
“One of the things that you see in many movements is that there is sort of a simplistic assumption that we must avoid, which is that progress moves forward in straight lines. And boy, does it ever not go in straight lines. It twists back, it doubles over itself. And it crosses many categories, such as economics, gender, and race. That’s something that we may forget, and perhaps it goes against Dr. Martin Luther King’s precept that the arc of justice always bends forward.”
Can I get an AMEN from my sisters?
And that is true not only of movements in society at large but also for the Church. The inequality, injustice, and violence against women has been and continues to be a blight on the Christian Church.
Over the years, a stream of women has come to me seeking to advise on how to navigate “the women’s issue” in their faith communities. These educated, Jesus loving women, simply want to give everything they’ve got to serving Jesus and his Church but find they run into all kinds of walls solely because they are female. I’ve often heard women explain, “they have been overused and under-utilized.” These weary warriors show up in my office when they are at their whit end.
My job is to help them stay in the game – for Jesus’ sake! One of the things I share with women is they must understand their times. In 1 Chronicles 12:33, we read: “And the children of Issachar, who were men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do...”
About this passage, Dr. Dan Haydan writes: “The word understanding is the Hebrew word binah, which means ‘to have insight or to act with prudence.’ According to Strong’s Concordance, it comes from a root verb that means to separate something mentally and distinguish its parts. The word reflects the presence of intelligence and wisdom, even cunning and skill, in the process. In other words, this is not just an understanding of the facts but also a skillful analysis of what something truly means.”
Then I remind them that God is moving. No doubt about it. He’s raising the issue of what’s been happening and is happening to his women worldwide. But we are in the middle of a movement, nowhere near the end of it. Movement’s towards shalom take time, hundreds of years. We must understand those times and know how we fit into them.
At this time in God’s movement, I see change. But we have a long way to go until God brings full shalom. I suspect I’ll die before I see women functioning as full partners in the blessed alliance. My daughter might witness it, but I doubt I will. I’m not trying to be morbid or cynical; it’s just the reality of the times.
And I’d be dishonest if I didn’t say, sometimes I forget that. I grow weary. Just this past month, I sat with a male pastor who wanted to discuss women in leadership. I have to be honest; I wasn’t very patient with his questions. I found myself thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me we are still having THAT discussion?” I think some of my impatience has to do with living in a pandemic, but I’m also tired of not seeing much progress, realizing that what Kate Bushnell battled back in the 1800s is still a battle in 2020. I tire. And I doubt. I look at my work and wonder if it’s having any impact. It’s hard to see the needle of a movement - move. I have to remind myself that although we credit leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton with the Suffrage Movement, a movement only moves because it’s carried on the shoulders of thousands of unnamed, unrecorded, women and men. Every person’s contribution adds up.
When Adele was asked about who else needed to credit with the Suffrage movement, she said,
“I would say it is not one person nor one event, but the scarcely recorded efforts of anonymous women of all races, educational and economic levels who, for decades, talked with neighbors, held meetings, challenged their fathers, sons, husbands, and employers — often putting themselves in physical and economic jeopardy to do so. They are the unknown heroes of the movement.”
Gosh, don’t we need to be reminded of that truth? That our part, whether small or large, public or private, matters!
As I ponder this history celebration for women, I’m reminded again, “Jackie, understand your times and trust in Jesus’ timing. I will lean into God’s Word, which says: “Still, the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3 ESV)
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! (Psalm 27:14)
There’s peace in knowing I’m not in charge but rather a tiny piece in God’s colossal story.
May we women of Issachar have the peace Jesus left us with. (John 14:27)
With that said, let’s get back to what we can do while we wait. After all, Galatians 6:9 says: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (ESV).