The scandal of the evangelical spirit is rosy.
Or, to put it less dramatically, there is another scandal of the evangelical spirit – beyond the widely recognized one introduced by Mark Noll’s landmark book and rightly the subject of conversation for 30 years since…which has not yet received the attention it deserves. This is the scandal of the intellectual life of Christian women, and it only gets worse, even on the occasion of significant events like the election of the first female president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS).
After all, the debate about women at ETS, while important, concerns very few women – those in academia and, therefore, those who attend this type of conference. But what about the vast majority of Christian women, those whose primary vocation lies outside the ivory tower?
It would be easy to turn this conversation into a lament about closed doors to talented academics who would have made excellent academics if that path had been open to them. One can consider Dorothy Sayers as a particularly famous example. She resolved her own scandal of the evangelical mind through a brilliant intellectual career outside academia. She also found herself in a dismal situation where she I felt forced choose this career rather than motherhood.
Yet her story reminds us that at any time in world history, only a tiny fraction of Christian women could become academics. The average woman had to find a different way to love God with all her spirit.
What I have not seen sufficiently recognized until now is this important reality: women, married or not, mothers or not, face a different intellectual scandal than men. Yes, God commands us all to love Him with our spirit as well as our heart, soul and strength (Luke 10:27). But it can mean something different for women and men.
The reasons for these differences are particularly salient and embodied for mothers, who may spend approximately 1,800 hours breastfeeding a baby during its first year of life – a program which has enormous consequences on one’s intellectual and other activities. But nursing mothers are not the only women whose Christian intellectual lives will certainly differ from those of men living in otherwise similar circumstances. However, the discussions on the “scandal of the evangelical spirit” have been resolutely masculine, as have the solutions proposed.
Intellectual work traditionally relies on a large, historically highly gendered support staff. Those who did the intellectual work were men, while those who provided the necessary support – housework and childcare, but also secretarial work and research assistance – were women. The theologian Karl Barth, who had a wife and a secretary at home (and probably mistress), is an extreme example of this phenomenon at work. It nevertheless reminds us of the human cost of an impressive intellectual production.
This begs the question: How might today’s evangelical women, those who are not ETS card holders, pursue a fruitful and satisfying mental life that leads us to know God more deeply? I have three recommendations to make in brief, each aimed at a different audience and moving in order of concentric circles, from the personal level to the local church to the evangelical culture as a whole.
First, for women like me, who crave intellectual community but are not part of traditional academia, perhaps the most important advice I can give is this: find a network of like-minded Christian women. ideas and whose culture of mental life will have practical similarities with yours.
There’s a good reason why the Inklings, the famous group of writers that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, continue to fascinate so many of us: they allowed literary giants to influence each other’s writing, reading works in progress and, in general, encouraging each other. on. (Well, the last part was true most of the time, at least, except when Tolkien hated Lewis’s Narnia books.)
Of course, the Inklings were a group of male academics who met at a local pub. (The Sayers, in particular, was not included, even though she was a contemporary, writer, and friend of Lewis.) But their success shows how much those of us who pursue creative intellectual endeavors need community to flourish. For most women, especially mothers, such a community will probably not resemble the gatherings of the Inklings. I can’t even arrange a meeting at a coffee shop with anyone for more than 20 minutes. (Write at Burger KingHowever, that’s another story – I highly recommend it.)
In my case, I didn’t find this intellectual network locally, but it found me organically, just as much as I found it, through what was then called Twitter. It was there that I connected with several other Christian homeschool moms who are readers and writers on the margins of their time.
This informal community allowed us to celebrate each accomplishment with full knowledge of what it takes to complete an essay or book with little or no childcare. It turns out there’s something particularly encouraging about knowing that you’re not alone in your intellectual pursuits.
If you are a poet or writer, find Christian women who write on similar topics. If you are an artist, find other female Christian artists. If you are a musician, find other Christian women who are also musicians. We may lament the disconnected nature of our lives in the digital age, but even canned fruit is better than nothing.
However, women should not be solely responsible for cultivating these networks and structures necessary for the pursuit of a theologically sound life of spirit. And so my second piece of advice here is an exhortation to pastors: encourage the flourishing mental lives of women in your church.
This might include ensuring that there are Bible or other book studies for women during regular class times. Plan them with your specific congregants in mind: Is there a time when homeschool moms can attend? What about women who work nine to five hours – or less predictable hours of service or medical work? What about single mothers? Prioritize the provision of child care services.
These classes could also be less academically focused and open to women outside the congregation. In his memoirs, My whole life tied upfamed women’s Bible teacher Beth Moore describes using her church aerobics classes as a ministry in the early 1980s. We can rejoice that the aerobics trend is dead and buried in all its Lycra-clad ignominy , but we must not neglect this important point: Moore ultimately saw all classes she taught to teach Jesus, advancing the mental lives of women as well as the health of the body.
A word of caution is in order: such gatherings risk becoming primarily social occasions. Half a dozen years ago, when my second child was a baby, I wanted to join a local chapter of Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS). I gave up after learning that a significant portion of the time in each meeting would be spent on a craft. I hate crafting with every fiber of my non-crafty being, and I was disappointed that this time set aside each week, which could have been devoted to something intellectual, was devoted to something decidedly not not of the mind.
In retrospect, I should have had a better attitude, and of course, socializing has its place. Yet I have heard many complaints from other women over the years about the intellectually anemic fare that is too often offered in women’s groups, even in women’s Bible studies. I suspect that Christian women want to engage in intellectually rigorous study and discussion much more than ecclesiastical stereotypes suggest.
This observation speaks to my third and final point, which is an exhortation for a more serious cultural shift: evangelicals, like the rest of Americans today, must recognize that motherhood itself is an intellectually rigorous activity that benefits – and, in reality, requires – a robust life of the spirit.
Perhaps evangelical culture is suffering from the residual weight of the reported remarks of disgraced minister Bill Gothard. advice that college is wasted on women, or perhaps, among Americans in general, we are under the influence of the modern professionalization of all aspects of life, including child rearing. Whatever the cause, it seems that too many Americans today find traditional women’s activities, such as motherhood and housework, intellectually worthless.
In a recent round table On motherhood and creative activity, Catholic writer and editor Haley Stewart recalls hearing—from an academic, no less—that motherhood was nothing less than an intellectual chore and that “a dog could take care of” Stewart’s 18-month-old baby.
As a homeschooling mom with a PhD, I disagree. And I’m not alone among mothers with advanced degrees who view parenting and, in some cases, homeschooling as magnificently intellectual pursuits. Not only can we teach our children what we know, but we also cultivate their daily curiosity by learning together.
Nor am I alone among Christian women – whether mothers or not, working both within and outside of these traditionally feminine activities – who are hungry for more intellectual conversations and more theological teaching than what is readily available. Ultimately, we are all theologians, still called to do what the women at the tomb were called to do in Mark 16: go out and proclaim the resurrected Messiah to all who have ears to hear.
Nadya Williams is the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church. His next book, Invaluable, is under contract with IVP Academic. She is the book reviews editor for Currentwhere she also edits the blog The Arena.
