Amanda Marcotte has a Friend in Jesus

Earlier this week, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog resigned her position in John Edwards' presidential campaign as a result of the controversy over her feminist criticism of Christianity. Marcotte certainly was critical. A couple of days after Edwards' initial decision not to fire her for anti-Catholic comments, Marcotte wrote in her blog that "the Christian version of the virgin birth is generally interpreted as super-patriarchal, where god is viewed as so powerful he can impregnate without befouling himself by touching a woman, and women are nothing but vessels."

There's no doubt that the language of Luke is pretty patriarchal even if it doesn't conceive of Mary or other women "as nothing but vessels."

"And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus . . . The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God."(New Oxford Annotated Bible, Luke 1: 31-35)

But Marcotte misses out on a big part of the Jesus story. Patriarchy gave birth to Jesus (doesn't it give birth to us all), but Jesus was also an uncompromising, relentless, and violent enemy of patriarchy among men. Even a bigger enemy of patriarchy than Amanda Marcotte.

And that's why the men of ancient Judea killed Jesus!

In fact, one of the keys to understanding the doctrine of Jesus is that he valued the most despised women more than any kind of patriarch.

This can be seen in Luke's account of Jesus' visit to the house of a Pharisee named Simon. As Jesus sat down to his meal, a woman “which was a sinner” came into the house with a box of expensive alabaster ointment, stood behind Jesus weeping, “and began to wash his feet with tears.” Then, the woman wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair before kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Simon responded to this extraordinary scene by wondering why Jesus would let such a woman touch him. But Jesus would have none of this and he quickly let Simon know that he had more respect for the sinful woman than Simon himself.

"Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but he hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment."[i]

For Jesus, there was much more value in the woman's (sexual) sinning than Simon's piety. Because of the weight of her many sins, the woman had a corresponding need for forgiveness. Consequently, she “loved much” and showed that love through her service of washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiping his feet with her hair, and then kissing and anointing his feet. For Jesus, this is how love showed itself most forcefully--in a willingness to subordinate oneself to God and others. The woman's overpowering need for forgiveness recalls the first of the blessings in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew: “blessed are the poor in spirit.” Her “tainted” reputation as a sinner corresponds with the crucial dictum that the “last shall come first and the first shall come last.” Finally, washing another's feet was the model that Jesus adapted when showing his love for humanity in John’s account of the Last Supper. Of all the figures, Jesus encountered in his ministry, this sinning woman was the one that Jesus embodied most in his own conduct.[ii]

To the contrary, there was much in Simon’s conduct that was repugnant to Jesus and his doctrine. Not feeling the weight of sins like adultery and not being burdened by a need for forgiveness, Simon had little love for Jesus. “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” Instead, Simon was focused on the issue of reputation. Because the woman had a reputation as a sinner and therefore would have been seen as “unclean,” Simon seemed to believe that she should not have been allowed into the presence of a holy man like Jesus. From the perspective of Jesus, however, this concern for reputation revealed Simon as engaging in public display rather than a manifestation of sincere piety in his observation of the Law. The same was the case for the Pharisees in general. “But all their works they do for to be seen by men; they . . . love the uppermost rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues and greetings in the markets, and to be called Rabbi, Rabbi.” For Jesus, this kind of social prestige was damnable. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets." (Luke 6:26)

The Pharisees were widely respected as interpreters of the Torah and pious men among the Jewish people. But Jeus damned this respectability. Referring to the Pharisees in Luke, Jesus stated that “ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” Thus, the role of the Pharisees as the authoritative interpreters of the Law among the Jewish people, their efforts to enforce religious prescriptions on the population as a whole, their influence on the management of Temple ritual, and other indications of their respectability made them “unclean” (or abominable) in a way that was worse than the sinful woman who Simon wanted removed from his house. The woman’s sins could be redeemed but Simon’s sense of self-satisfied authority made him impervious to the kind of faith that Jesus demanded and was thus beyond redemption. In fact, everything Simon and other Pharisees did to build their reputations was tainted with a sinfulness that was greater any transgressions against the Mosaic law. Seeking to justify themselves “before men,” their education in the Law, following of ritual prescriptions, carrying the Torah, and wearing of special robes all served to take them farther from any kind of sanctity or spiritual cleanliness. From the point of view of Jesus, Simon was a monster of presumption, an “abomination in the sight of God.” It was because of this presumption that Simon the Pharisee could not love Jesus in the manner of the woman with the alabaster ointment. As a result, Jesus did not forgive his lack of love like he forgave the woman. [iii]

Jesus did not forgive patriarchy.

That's why Amanda Marcotte has a friend in Jesus.


[i]Luke 7: 44-46, The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with Psalms and Proverbs, Commonly known as the Authorized (King James Version), National Publishing, 1968. All subsequent New Testament citations from same edition.
[ii]Matthew 5:3; Matthew 23: 11-12; John 13: 4-5.
[iii]Matthew 23: 5-7; Luke 6: 25; Luke 7:47. In Luke 18, Jesus makes a similar comparison between a Pharisee and a tax collector. For popularity of Pharisees, see Timothy A. Friedrichsen, The Temple, a Pharisee, a Tax Collector, and the Kingdom of God,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Spring2005, Vol. 124, Issue 1, 109-110.
[iv]For efforts by the Pharisees to extent dietary prescriptions, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees.