The scandal of the evangelical mind is rosy.
Or to put it less dramatically, there is another scandal of the evangelical mind – beyond the widely recognized one, introduced by Mark Noll’s landmark book and, rightly, a topic of conversation for 30 years since – that has not yet received the attention it requires. This is the scandal of the intellectual life of Christian women, and it only gets worse, even alongside milestones such as the election of the first female president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS).
After all, the conversation about women in HTA, while important, belongs to very few women: those in academia and, therefore, those who attend these types of conferences. But what about the vast majority of Christian women, those whose primary calling is outside the ivory tower?
It would be easy to turn this conversation into a lament about doors being closed to talented women academics who would have been excellent academics if that path had been open to them. we can consider Dorothy Sayers as a particularly famous example. He resolved his own scandal of the evangelical mind with a brilliant intellectual career outside of academia. He also found himself in a sorry situation where I felt forced choosing this career instead of motherhood.
Still, her story reminds us that at any time in world history, only a small fraction of Christian women were able to be academics. The average woman had to find a different way to love God with all her mind.
What I have not seen sufficiently recognized to date is this important reality: women, married or not, mothers or not, face a different intellectual scandal than men. Yes, God commands all of us to love Him with our minds, as well as with our hearts, souls, and strength (Luke 10:27). But this can mean something different for women than it does for men.
The reasons for these differences are particularly obvious and manifest in mothers, who may experience approximately 1,800 hours breastfeeding a baby in the first year of life: a schedule with enormous ramifications for intellectual and other pursuits. But breastfeeding mothers are not the only women whose Christian intellectual lives are bound to be different from those of men in similar circumstances. However, discussions of the “scandal of the evangelical mind” have been decidedly masculine, as have the solutions suggested.
Intellectual work has traditionally depended on a large support staff, which historically was strongly differentiated by gender. The one who did the intellectual work was the man, while those who provided the necessary support (housework and childcare, but also secretarial work and research assistance) were the women. The theologian Karl Barth, who had a wife and a live-in secretary (and probable lover), is an extreme example of this phenomenon at work. However, it is a reminder of the human costs of impressive intellectual output.
This raises the question: How might today’s evangelical women, those who are not STD card-carrying academics, pursue a fruitful and fulfilling mental life that leads us to know God more deeply? I have three recommendations to briefly make, each for a different audience and moving in concentric circle order, from the personal level to the local church and evangelical culture at large.
First, for women like me, who are hungry for an 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 whose cultivation of life of the mind has helped them. practical similarities with yours.
There is a good reason why the Inklings, that famous group of writers that included CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, continue to fascinate many of us: they allowed literary giants to influence each other’s writing, read each other’s works in progress, and generally , encourage each other. in. (Well, that 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. (Sayers, notably, was not included, although she was a contemporary, writer, and friend of Lewis.) But its success shows how much those of us who pursue creative intellectual endeavors need community to flourish. For most women, especially mothers, that community probably won’t look like Inkling gatherings. I can’t even have a coffee shop meeting with anyone that lasts more than 20 minutes. (Writing at Burger KingHowever, it is a different story; I highly recommend it).
In my case, I have not found this intellectual network locally, but it organically found me, as much as I did, through what was then called Twitter. It is there that I have connected with several other Christian homeschool moms who are readers and writers on the margins of their days.
This informal community has allowed us to celebrate each achievement with full knowledge of what it takes to complete an essay or a book with little to no childcare. It turns out that there is something uniquely encouraging about knowing that you are not alone in your intellectual pursuits.
If you are a poet or writer, look for Christian women who write about similar topics. If you are an artist, look for other Christian artists. If you are a musician, look for other Christian women who are also musicians. We may lament the disconnected nature of our lives in this 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 a theologically sound mental life. So my second piece of advice here is an exhortation to pastors: encourage the flourishing of the mental life of women in your church.
This could involve making sure there are Bible studies or other women’s book studies during regular school hours. Schedule them with your specific parishioners in mind: Is there a time when homeschool moms can attend? What about women who work nine to five, or the less predictable hours of service or medical work? What about single mothers? Prioritize offering child care.
These classes could also focus less on study and be open to women outside the congregation. In her memories, All my life knottedfamous Bible teacher Beth Moore describes using her church aerobics classes as a ministry in the early 1980s. We can be glad that the aerobics trend is dead and buried in all its spandex-clad ignominy, but we must not overlook this important point: Moore finally saw all classes she taught as a way to teach about Jesus, promoting the mental life of women along with the health of the body.
One caveat should be noted: there is a danger that such gatherings will become 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 Preschool Children (MOPS). I left school when I learned that a significant part of the time in each meeting would be dedicated to a trade. I hate crafts with every fiber of my non-crafty being, and I was disappointed that this time set aside each week, which could have been spent on something intellectual, was being spent on something decidedly non-mental.
In retrospect, I should have had a better attitude and of course socializing has its place. Still, I have heard many complaints from other women over the years about the intellectually anemic food that is too often offered in women’s groups, even women’s Bible studies. I suspect that Christian women want to engage in intellectually rigorous scholarship and debate much more than church stereotypes suggest.
This observation connects to my third and final point, which is an exhortation for a more serious cultural change: Evangelicals, like the rest of Americans today, must recognize that motherhood itself is an intellectually rigorous activity. that benefits from and, indeed, requires: a robust mental life.
Perhaps evangelical culture is suffering from the residual weight of what disgraced minister Bill Gothard reported. advice that college is a waste for women, or perhaps, in the case of Americans in general, we are under the influence of the modern professionalization of all aspects of life, including the education of children. Whatever the cause, it seems that too many Americans today consider traditional women’s activities, such as motherhood and housework, intellectually useless.
in a recent panel discussion On motherhood and creative activity, Catholic writer and editor Haley Stewart remembers being told by an academic, no less, that motherhood was nothing less than intellectual drudgery and that “a dog could take care of” Stewart’s 18-month-old son. .
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 beautifully intellectual pursuits. Not only can we teach our children what we know, but we can also cultivate daily curiosity by learning together.
Nor am I alone among Christian women (whether mothers or not, working inside and outside of those traditionally feminine activities) who long for more intellectual conversations and more theological instruction than 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 and proclaim the risen Messiah to all who have ears to hear.
Nadya Williams is the author of Cultural Christians in the early church. His next book, Priceless, has a contract with IVP Academic. She is a book review editor for Currentwhere he also edits the blog The Arena.
