Col­lage art by Me!

I get emails week after week from women who have read my book, Unla­dy­like: Resist­ing the Injus­tice of Inequal­ity in the Church. They tell me their sto­ries of how they are unrav­el­ing their iden­tity from the grip of patri­ar­chal Chris­tian­ity — not from Jesus, but from a ver­sion of faith that keeps women in second-​​class status.

There are other women I know who are not com­fort­able that I use the word oppres­sion. It’s a heavy-​​duty word. It kept pop­ping up in the writ­ing process of Unla­dy­like which wor­ried me. Maybe I’m being too harsh? Too dra­matic? Women sold in slav­ery, that’s oppres­sive. But a woman told she can’t preach? Is that oppres­sive, too?

I met up with a group of wise, older women I know. We get together every few months to sort out together the things we are reflect­ing on. We call our­selves the Patina Sis­ters.  At one gath­er­ing at my friend Jane’s house, I threw it out there as we sat around the fire pit in Jane’s gar­den. “Am I going over­board using the word oppres­sion? Is it an overstatement?”

The group lit into con­ver­sa­tion pretty quick. “No, I don’t think so. I felt oppressed when I was told in sem­i­nary I couldn’t be a pas­tor because of my girl parts,” said one woman. “And what is oppres­sion?” she con­tin­ued. “It’s when power is used against some­one to hold them back from being who they are. There are all kinds of acts of oppres­sion. Some are just more obvi­ous than others.”

We talked at length, my Patina Sis­ters and I, about the covert pres­ence of oppres­sion almost invis­i­ble in many churches we were famil­iar with. Such as the many big churches in our area that do so much good that the ban­ning of their women from the pul­pit or posi­tions of spir­i­tual author­ity seems mun­dane in com­par­i­son. It can be quite a mind shift for a woman in a social-​​justice dri­ven church to real­ize that she is being oppressed in her beloved faith tribe

How can a woman know if she is being oppressed or not? In the spirit of come­di­enne Jeff Foxworthy’s famous You Might Be a Red­neck com­edy rou­tine, I want to give you,

You Might Be an Oppressed Chris­t­ian Woman If …

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if women are blocked from pas­toral roles in your church.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you only see men in preach­ing from the pulpit.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if when you want to talk to your pas­tor about a con­cern you have, he asks to see your hus­band instead.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if your church teaches you that God cre­ated you to sub­mit to male leadership.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you think it’s ok that women sub­mit and that God cre­ated you to serve men’s leadership.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you are con­vinced that your life is not ful­filled unless you get mar­ried and have children.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you don’t trust your own opin­ions, but seek val­i­da­tion from male fig­ures to affirm your ideas.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you are con­cerned that you are self-​​centered just because you’d like to teach or preach.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you feel secret shame for want­ing to have more voice in your faith community.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if when you do speak up about equal­ity and are hushed you retreat back into your fem­i­nist closet.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you feel guilty for want­ing equal­ity with men.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you feel like a fail­ure because you are not a sub­mis­sive woman or wife.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you worry that your loud per­son­al­ity is unbe­com­ing for a woman of God.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you dumb your­self down in order to not out­shine the men in your church.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you think the Bible teaches that women are designed to serve male lead­er­ship rather than live as equal partners.

You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman if you are read­ing this and think that equal­ity is a hereti­cal doc­trine that is pol­lut­ing the church.

If you think you might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman I hope you’ll do some­thing about it. You don’t have to remain oppressed. There is a holy wind of change gust­ing up across the globe, the church included, where women are being agi­tated to shake off being less than because of their vagi­nas. It is unjust. It is oppres­sive. It is not how Jesus treated women. The way churches treat women today does not match how Jesus treated women.

I hope you’ll pass this on!

What other You might be an oppressed Chris­t­ian woman  would you add to this list?