A Report on the Conference with Elaine Storkey -- By: Phyllis Alsdurf

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 01:2 (May 1987)
Article: A Report on the Conference with Elaine Storkey
Author: Phyllis Alsdurf


A Report on the Conference with Elaine Storkey

Phyllis Alsdurf

“The problem of patriarchy in the church is the problem of male as norm,” charged British author Elaine Storkey at a recent meeting of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) in St Paul, Minnesota.

Whether in language and liturgy, structure and tradition, stereotypes of men and women, values or definitions about what constitutes knowledge, patriarchy permeates the Christian church, she observed. Actually, the church takes its cue from the secular world. We’re incorporating secular humanism, into our churches.”

Storkey, author of What’s Right with Feminism? (Eerdmans), is a spokesperson for Men Women and God, an organization affiliated with John Stott’s London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. A sociologist, philosopher, wife and mother, Storkey attempted to put some of the complex facets of the women’s movement into perspective for Christians who “remain frightened, yet challenged, by what feminists are saying today.”

Noting that 42 percent of all Americans reportedly attend church, she asked, “Where is the transforming work of the Gospel in this culture? We still allow stereotypes of the American male to be absorbed into our churches. We’ve constructed a model of leadership that depends on the qualities of the stereotyped American male—ruthless, authoritarian, aggressive. We’ve soaked in the cultural values of secular humanism to such a degree that our churches are unrecognizable.”

Storkey sees American Christians as caught up in the contradiction of trying to combine “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” with a Gospel that says whoever follows Christ must take up his cross. “You think you can have it both ways—a comfortable Christianity combined with the good life. You think materialism and healthy Christianity go hand-in-hand.”

Exploring the issue of innate differences between male and female, the way in which they together image God, Storkey looked at the perspective of the essentialists, those who see man and woman as having different generic needs and make-ups, and that of the relativists who see no differences between the sexes.

Most Christians are happy with the essentialists, she said. “Both men and women are in God’s image, but men are more in God’s image. God is more male than female. Woman is a derivative image. If we want to know what God is like, we look to men. Such a view, Storkey noted, always leads to patriarchy.

Christian relativists, on the other hand, see both male and female as in God’s image because both are human. “Sex roles are relative,” she said, “and so is sexual preference. Our sexuality is our own affair; we can write our own scripts.” Soon, ...

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