Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

by Rachel Held Evans

  According to James Dobson, women weren’t inferior to men, just created for different roles. Our ultimate calling, he said, is in the home, where we can serve God and our husbands by keeping things clean, having supper on the table at six, and, most important, making babies.

  In my own home, little was said about gender roles or hierarchy. Submission was something my mom did once in 1976, not something she did every day. (More about that later.) A freethinker in a stridently traditional religious culture, Mom often came home from church overwhelmed with yet another casserole to make, nursery to keep, or wedding shower to plan. “The only people who enjoy potlucks are men,” she used to say. “The women do all the work.”

  Despite her aversion to covered dishes, Mom never complained about her roles as a wife and mother, though she took a hiatus from her career as a schoolteacher to stay home with us when we were little. Smart, compassionate, and funny, she protected my sister and me from the pockets of legalism that surrounded us and told us we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up, no matter what anyone said. She and my father both loved the Bible, but they seemed to know instinctively that rules that left people guilt-ridden, exhausted, and confused were not really from God. I think this is one of the reasons why, despite the fact that I vote for Democrats, believe in evolution, and am no longer convinced that everyone different from me goes to hell, I don’t mind being identified as an evangelical Christian. Evangelicalism is like my religious mother tongue. I revert to it whenever I’m angry or excited or surrounded by other people who understand what I’m saying. And it’s the language in which I most often hear God’s voice on the rare occasion that it rises above the noise.

  My first encounter with “biblical womanhood” happened in college, when there were whispers around the dormitory about whether God wanted young ladies at a Christian university to run for student body president. Apparently, there were rules about such things, rules that the apostle Paul wrote down in a letter to Timothy approximately two millennia ago. Rumor had it that biblical womanhood required stepping aside to allow godly men to take the lead. This sparked a few late-night dorm room debates, as some of my classmates argued that those instructions applied only in a church setting while others noted that there weren’t a lot of godly men beating down the doors to plan our banquets and pep rallies that year. If I remember correctly, the point became moot when a woman ran uncontested.

  Over the next few years, I found myself drawn into more and more of these conversations, especially as my girlfriends and I began getting married and starting families of our own. Many were influenced by evangelical complementarianism, a movement that began as a reaction to second-wave feminism and found some of its first expressions in the writings of Edith Schaeffer (The Hidden Art of Homemaking, 1971) and Elisabeth Elliot (Let Me Be a Woman, 1976). Hailed as model wives and homemakers, these women are highly esteemed in the Reformed tradition, where the oft-repeated saying is “As many people were brought to the Lord through Mrs. Schaeffer’s cinnamon buns as through Dr. Schaeffer’s sermons.” But behind the winsome prose lies an uncompromising conviction: the virtuous woman serves primarily from the home as a submissive wife, diligent homemaker, and loving mother.

  “This is a woman’s place,” says Elliot, “and all of us need to know what our place is and to be put in it. The command of God puts us there where we belong.”

  The theological bulwark of the movement can be found in the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Led by conservative pastor John Piper and theologian Wayne Grudem, the CBMW produced two pivotal documents that extended the influence of the movement beyond the confines of the Reformed tradition: “The Danvers Statement” (published in 1988) and Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (published first in 1991 and again in 2006). The CBMW enjoyed a resounding victory when, influenced by the Danvers Statement, representatives from the sixteen-million-member Southern Baptist Convention voted to amend their statement of belief to include a declaration on family life, noting that a woman should “submit herself graciously” to her husband’s leadership.

  According to the Danvers Statement, the acceptance of feminist ideology among Christians has led to a “threat to Biblical authority as the clarity of Scripture is jeopardized and the accessibility of its meaning to ordinary people is withdrawn into the restricted realm of technical ingenuity.” The statement says that rather than following the prevailing culture, women of God should pursue “biblical womanhood.”

  Now, we evangelicals have a nasty habit of throwing the word biblical around like it’s Martin Luther’s middle name. We especially like to stick it in front of other loaded words, like economics, sexuality, politics, and marriage to create the impression that God has definitive opinions about such things, opinions that just so happen to correspond with our own. Despite insistent claims that we don’t “pick and choose” what parts of the Bible we take seriously, using the word biblical prescriptively like this almost always involves selectivity.

  After all, technically speaking, it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father (Exodus 21:7), biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28–29), biblical for her to remain silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34–35), biblical for her to cover her head (1 Corinthians 11:6), and biblical for her to be one of multiple wives (Exodus 21:10).

  This is why the notion of “biblical womanhood” so intrigued me. Could an ancient collection of sacred texts, spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own, really offer a single cohesive formula for how to be a woman? And do all the women of Scripture fit into this same mold? Must I?

  I’m the sort of person who likes to identify the things that most terrify and intrigue me in this world and plunge headlong into them like Alice down the rabbit hole. This is the reason I have trouble making small talk and sitting still, and it’s the reason I woke up one morning with a crazy idea lighting up every corner of my brain.

  What if I tried it all? What if I took “biblical womanhood” literally?

  As it turns out, there are publishers out there who will actually pay for you to jump down rabbit holes, so long as they believe said rabbit holes are marketable to the general public. So on October 1, 2010, with the support of Dan and a brave team of publishing professionals, I vowed to spend one year of my life in pursuit of true biblical womanhood.

  This quest of mine required that I study every passage of Scripture that relates to women and learn how women around the world interpret and apply these passages to their lives. In addition, I would attempt to follow as many of the Bible’s teachings regarding women as possible in my day-to-day life, sometimes taking them to their literal extreme.

  From the Old Testament to the New Testament, from Genesis to Revelation, from the Levitical code to the letters of Paul, there would be no picking and choosing. A year of biblical womanhood would mean, among other things, rising before dawn (Proverbs 31:15), submitting to my husband (Colossians 3:18), growing out my hair (1 Corinthians 11:15), making my own clothes (Proverbs 31:21–22), learning how to cook (Proverbs 31:15), covering my head in prayer (1 Corinthians 11:5), calling Dan “master” (1 Peter 3:5–6), caring for the poor (Proverbs 31:20), nurturing a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:4), and remaining ceremonially impure for the duration of my period (Leviticus 15:19–33).

  Some practices I would observe just once. Others I would try to observe all year. Each month I would focus on a different virtue—gentleness, domesticity, obedience, valor, beauty, modesty, purity, fertility, submission, justice, silence, and grace.

  Throughout the year, my “Biblical Woman’s Ten Commandments” would serve as a guide for daily living:

  1. Thou shalt submit to thy husband’s will in all things. (Genesis 3:16; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1; Ephesians 5:22; 1 Corinthians 11:3; Colossians 3:18)

  2. Thou shalt devote thyself to the duties of the home. (Proverbs 14:1; 31:10–31; 1 Timothy 5:14; Titus 2:4–5)

  3.
Thou shalt mother. (Genesis 1:28; Psalm 128:3; 1 Timothy 5:14)

  4. Thou shalt nurture a gentle and quiet spirit. (1 Peter 3:3– 4; Titus 2:3–5; 1 Timothy 3:11)

  5. Thou shalt dress modestly. (Genesis 24:65; Deuteronomy 22:5; 1 Timothy 2:8–10; 1 Peter 3:3)

  6. Thou shalt cover thy head when in prayer. (1 Corinthians 11:3–16)

  7. Thou shalt not cut thy hair. (1 Corinthians 11:15)

  8. Thou shalt not teach in church. (1 Corinthians 14:33–35; 1 Timothy 2:12)

  9. Thou shalt not gossip. (Numbers 12:1–10; Proverbs 26:20; 1 Timothy 5:13–14)

  10. Thou shalt not have authority over a man. (1 Timothy 2:12)

  I took my research way too seriously, combing through feminist, conservative, and liberal commentaries, and seeking out Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant perspectives on each issue. I spoke with modern-day women practicing ancient biblical mandates in their own lives—a polygamist, a pastor, a Quiverfull daughter, an Orthodox Jew, an Amish grandmother. I scoured the Bible, cover to cover, isolating and examining every verse I could find about mothers, daughters, widows, wives, concubines, queens, prophetesses, and prostitutes.

  Within a couple of weeks of starting the experiment, I was annoying my friends with random facts about biblical womanhood.

  Take Proverbs 31, for example. As it turns out, we have a woman to thank for the ancient acrostic poem that outlines in excruciating detail the daily activities of an excellent wife, perpetuating a three-thousand-year-old inferiority complex among just about every woman in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The poem is recorded in the Bible by King Lemuel as “an oracle his mother taught him” (V. 1 ), a fact that totally upset my plan to cast the Proverbs 31 woman as an unrealistic archetype of the misogynistic imagination.

  The Proverbs 31 woman rises before the sun each day, plans every meal, strengthens her arms, goes to the market, brings home exotic foods, runs a profitable business, dresses her husband and children, invests in real estate, cares for the poor, compliments her husband, spends hours at the loom, and burns the midnight oil, before starting it all over again the next day.

  This, according to the oracle, is what a man should look for in a wife, which of course leads me to believe that King Lemuel’s mom was the kind who didn’t actually want a daughter-in-law. (Add a shrug of the shoulders and the accent of a Jewish grandmother to “A wife of noble character who can find?” and you get what I mean.)

  However, as the leaves began to turn and day 1 of the year of biblical womanhood loomed before me, I found myself inexplicably drawn to Proverbs 31:25: “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”

  I was pretty sure I couldn’t find “strength” or “dignity” in the women’s section at Kohl’s, but when I considered the sheer absurdity of someone like me doing something like this, the best I could do was laugh at the days to come. And there was something strangely liberating about that.

  October: Gentleness

  * * *

  Girl Gone Mild

  Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

  —1 PETER 3:3–4

  TO DO THIS MONTH:

  □ Cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit, even during football games (1 Peter 3:3–4)

  □ Kick the gossip habit (1 Timothy 5:12–13)

  □ Take an etiquette lesson (Proverbs 11:22)

  □ Practice contemplative prayer (Psalm 131)

  □ Make a “swearing jar” for behaviors that mimic the “contentious woman” of Proverbs (Proverbs 21:19; 19:13; 27:15 NKJV)

  □ Do penance on the rooftop for acts of contention (Proverbs 21:9)

  My first mistake was to start the experiment in the middle of football season. First Peter 3:4 describes a godly woman as having a “gentle and quiet spirit,” but if you’ve spent more than five minutes south of the Mason-Dixon during the month of October, you know that there’s nothing gentle or quiet about the way a Southern woman watches college football.

  I grew up in the great state of Alabama, which journalist Warren St. John deems “the worst place on earth to acquire a healthy perspective on the importance of spectator sports.” In Alabama, the third most important question after “What is your name?” and “Where do you go to church?” is “Alabama or Auburn?” So soon after I learned to identify myself as a nondenominational, Bible-believing Christian named Rachel, I learned to identify myself as an Alabama fan. My little sister and I knew what intentional grounding was before we’d acquired the dexterity to play with Barbie dolls, and as kids we liked to imitate my mother, who had the habit of willing an Alabama running back down the field by moving closer and closer to the TV set the longer he stayed on his feet. By the time he danced into the end zone, the whole family—Mom, Dad, Amanda, and I—would be huddled together around the TV, screaming our heads off, nervously looking for any yellow flags on the field.

  Now exiled together in Tennessee, where Volunteer Orange looks good on no one, we gather every Saturday afternoon at my parents’ house down the street to wear our colors, yell at the TV, and consume inordinate amounts of meat. It’s a tradition that my husband, Dan, married into a bit unwittingly, but has come to love, primarily on account of Mom’s pulled pork roast.

  I think Dan may have been a little caught off guard the first time he realized that something about the autumnal equinox transformed his wife into a raving lunatic for three and a half hours each week and that eleven guys running around on a football field in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, could directly affect his sex life. But he’s grown into the role, and now every autumn we both look forward to Saturday afternoons at the Held house—windows opened to the crisp, cool air, the scent of dry leaves mingling with wafts of slow roasted pork, the dull roar of crowd noise humming from the TV. And this particular October was especially significant because Alabama was defending its national title on Mom and Dad’s brand-new, high-definition, 42-inch TV.

  “This is going to suck,” I said as we approached their front door on game day, leaves crackling under our feet.

  “Yup. It’s going to be awesome,” Dan responded without really hearing me.

  “Well, maybe for you, but screaming at the TV doesn’t exactly constitute a gentle and quiet spirit,” I said. “I’m going to have to bottle all my fandom up inside. No yelling at the refs. No snarky remarks about the cheerleaders. No cheering or booing. It’s so stifling.”

  “Yeah, you’re really suffering for Jesus on this one, Rach,” Dan teased.

  I managed to get through the first few games of the season in relative calm, with a few exceptions the day Bama lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks (and Steve Spurrier, of all people) in a 35-21 upset.

  That particular game we happened to watch at my sister’s house in Nashville and afterwards went to Rotier’s downtown to sulk over burgers, sweet potato fries, and country music.

  I remembered to cover my head before the blessing, in keeping with my sixth commandment (“Thou shalt cover thy head when in prayer”). It seems the upside to starting a project like this in October is that hoodies serve as nice, inconspicuous head coverings. You can observe 1 Corinthians 11 at every meal and church service and folks just think you’re cold, not a religious freak. Same goes for scarves, knit hats, and head-warmers.

  “But aren’t you supposed to pray without ceasing?” Amanda asked, ever the Sunday school star, even at twenty-six.

  “Yeah, maybe you should keep your head covered at all times,” Dan piped in.

  “Well, I might try doing that in March when I focus on modesty,” I said, “or maybe when I visit Lancaster.”

  I had this thing planned out, I swear, but sometimes it seemed like nobody believed me.

  “You should observe kosher,” they said. “You ought to visit a convent,” they said. “You need to have a baby,”
they said. “You gotta get yourself a rabbi,” they said.

  I was pretty sure that rabbis didn’t operate on a work-for-hire basis, and the baby thing had been settled by Dan right away.

  “We’re not having a kid as part of an experiment,” he said. “No way.” But the voices that seemed the loudest came from my blog, where readers responded in record numbers to my announcement about the project.

  “This is going to be epic!”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “My stomach just knotted in anxiety for you.”

  “Way to make a mockery of God’s Word.”

  “A. J. Jacobs already did this, you know.”

  “I think you’re out of your mind, but then, most creative people are.”

  You would think that after three years of blogging, I’d have developed some kind of virtual superpower that involved freakishly thick skin, but scrolling through the comments sent my confidence lurching up and down so violently I felt seasick. The influx of praise and criticism made me doubt myself, and the next thing I knew I was under the covers at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, crying about how hard it is to be a writer. (In addition to being “out of our minds,” creative people can be a bit moody . . . )