In which fundamentalism rears its ugly dinosaur-ignoring head ...

(Above: a handy cartoon for Republican politicians for when they think of lapsing into Talibanism).


Just when you think religious fundamentalists can't manage any darker way to tarnish their brand and their image, along come the Taliban and take a pot-shot at a 14 year old girl, on the basis that her desire that women be educated is an obscenity.

Someone needs to explain the meaning of obscenity to them.

It's not the stuff the pond cares to dwell on - how to be light about sickness - but it's a handy reminder that domestic fundamentalists are of a different order, thankfully because over the last few centuries, secularism has helped take the poison from the fang, the sting from the tail.

Which is as good a segue to the local Sydney Anglican fundamentalists, and poor old Michael Jensen attempting to cope with women in Christian Blogmatics 20: Then there were two ...

How does he do it? Why by delving back in Genesis and Adam and Eve, and the old reliable mythologies that involves. The hapless Jensen attempts to dance lightly around the difficulties:

... the union of marriage (2:24) and Adam’s exclamation of delight (‘bone of my bones’) is a sign of what she is, with him. The two are capable of union because they are, at the profound level of their biological existence, the same. Their offspring are likewise an expression of their union, not simply the work of one or other. The generativity of human being is through the union of male and female. 

Phew that's a relief. We wouldn't want to get involved in any contemplation of the way the long absent lord also indulged in hermaphroditism.

Next thing you know we'd be off in the difficult terrain of the more recent terms, intersexuality, androgyny, transexuality, and so forth and etc. And what are we to make of parthenogenesis and god mating with a woman to produce offspring by way of a virgin birth?

Sssh, nothing. She might have been a whiz clock-maker, but let's not point out how talk of the main theme leads us to forget some of Her more interesting variations. Back to the charming simplicity of Genesis:

This points to, third, their mutual dependence through their difference. Adam is simply incomplete as a creature without his counterpart, whose difference of body makes him as a creature fruitful. His individual wholeness is disrupted by the lack of a ‘suitable’ or ‘fit’ helper. 

Oh dear, that word "helper" is ringing some alarm bells. How to wriggle off the hook?

The parade of the animals before Adam serves to underscore Eve’s rightness as the companion of Adam. She is other to him, and he to her: this is not simply a fact of being another individual, but of being a different bodily expression of the same kind of being. They simply cannot do without the other.

Except of course if Adam decides to hook up with Adam and Eve decides to hang out with Eve, as She seems to have allowed in Her plan for the cosmos, since all but the most rampant of fundamentalists might disapprove of, but surely would acknowledge the reality of homosexuality in the world (how can they get around the 'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal? Depravity? Perverted penguins? Or just penguins doing what She conjured up as a lifestyle?)

But back to that difficult word "helper" since it's almost as tricky as the word "submit":

We should take great care here: the word ‘helper’ does not imply that she is simply his personal assistant. After all, the word for ‘helper’ is also used of God in different contexts (see Ex 18:4). That she comes from Adam’s rib and thence from his side (not his head or his foot) indicates her place alongside him. This is not a version of Batman and Robin. Neither does the giving of Eve her name parallel Adam’s naming of the animals as an expression of a like dominion over her. 

Yes Batman and Robin would sound a bit too much like penguins at play.

Even so, Jensen is sounding a tad heretical, at least if you happen to read the handy SBS advice for Wardens and Parish Councillors (available in pdf form so you can pin it to the toilet wall and point your wife to it every so often):

The teaching of the creation narratives is that when God created mankind in his own image, he created them male and female (Gen. 1:27). In the narrative of Genesis 1 the question of the relationship between men and women is not specifically addressed. The emphasis is on the relationship between humanity and God (male and female together functioning as the image of God) and humanity and the rest of creation (male and female together exercising dominion). However, in Genesis 2:18-25 the relationship of men and women to one another is specifically portrayed within the context of those other relationships. The female is formed after the male to be "a help corresponding to him" (2:18 RSV "a helper fit for him"). The point is often made that the priority of the male in this narrative does not indicate his superiority: indeed, his inadequacy apart from the woman is emphasized. On the other hand, it appears from the narrative that an ordered relationship is indicated. The man names his wife, implying a special responsibility for her. It would not be possible to exchange the man for the woman in this narrative without changing the presentation significantly. We therefore contend that a difference between men and women in function and responsibility is taught here before the fall narrative of Genesis 3. This suggestion of a difference in the relationship between men and women is not a contradiction of the teaching of Genesis 1 about men and women together being created "in the image of God" and together exercising dominion over creation.

Indeed an ordered relationship is established. Men first, women second, and none of these vain idle chatterers able to turn into priests. (This is also handy advice when you want to explain why women should do the dishes, the ironing and the cooking).

So how does Jensen get himself off the hook? Why by doing a little cherry-picking, and where's the harm in cherry-picking? So let's cherry pick:

When Paul says "it is shameful for a woman to speak in church", he must be understood in the light of v.34b: "they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as even the law says". The speaking in view constituted some sort of exercise of authority and was therefore "inconsistent with the subordinate or submissive role which Paul believed women should play in the assembled church body."15 Against those who propose Genesis 3:16 as the Scriptural basis for Paul's assertion here, it is much more likely that the reference is to the creation narratives of Genesis 1:26ff.; 2:21ff., on which the Apostle has based the argument of 11:3ff. Once again it is possible to perceive that behind his condemnation of certain first-century practices there lies an apparent concern to promote relationships between men and women that are consistent with the order of creation.

Dang it, no way around it. Eve's just a spare rib hanging around, and it's a damn shame if she natters on in church. So let's do that wriggle:

We are struck instead in this story by the extraordinary mutuality and co-operation of the picture. Here is Adam’s right companion for his great task on the earth. 

Let's not ask what that great task (for men) might be? Warfare, violence, abuse of the planet and its creatures? Adam's made great progress.

Women and men need each far more, then, then fish and bicycles. Of course, Irina Dunn was noting that the logic of one gender needing the other was usually pointed in the direction of women needing men and not the other way around. And Henry Higgins likewise errs.

Jensen is of course referencing Irina Dunn's phrase about men fish and bicycles (see the Phrase Finder here) but perhaps he should have noted the equally useful phrase, which is that women don't need to submit to Sydney Anglicans in the same way that fish don't need swimming lessons (or bike-riding classes, come to think of it).

What's most extraordinary, absolutely astonishing, is to still find someone, anyone, construing modern relationships according to the myths and fairy tales of Genesis, as if that starter book were a decent guide to the way the world was created, the way women and men came into being, or offers any other useful kind of insight into the way the world has come to understand science, society, culture and relationships.

What about the dinosaurs?

If fairy stories are useful in determining male and female relationships, we may as well make a study of the courtship and marriage of Santa and Ms Clause.

Never mind, the Sydney Anglicans have bigger fish to fry. After heated debate, there's a move on to sell Bishopscourt - how painful that must be, what a diminution - and it seems the Jensenite oligopoly might finally be crumbling with Archbishop Peter Jensen delivering his final Presidential Address, including these fine words:

"We gave ourselves a big goal, to reach at least 10% of the population in 10 years" Dr Jensen reported that the last decade had been one of blessing. "The 10% has been a blessing: we are constantly reminded to pray, as only the Lord can move like that; he has kept before us the big goal of reaching the whole population; He has changed our mind-set about evangelism and church ministry. He has yet to give us 10% of the population..."

Seems like She might have taken a view on angry Sydney Anglicans getting to ten per cent ... by letting think male attitudes to women should still be based on the quaint story of Adam and Eve.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Catholics and Archbishop Pell continue in their own wars. There's all sorts of fuss and denials going down, as can be read in Child abuse inquiry told cover-ups hinder justice, and dozens of other press reports in which Police slam Catholic Church (you can read the Victoria Police submission here in pdf form).

It makes Pell's recent meditation on Norcia for the Sunday Terror seem bizarre and weird:

Until the Reformation hundreds of Benedictine monasteries were scattered over Europe, and in the Dark Ages they were often the only centres of serious learning, medicine and regular help for the poor. Some see their great estates built up over the decades as the forerunners of capitalism. 
 This powerful presence has passed, but the monasteries remain oases of peace, urging prayer and work, in a wider community that is increasingly disordered and unhappy.

Would that be the increasingly disordered and unhappy world of Victorian Catholics unhappy with the Church's response to its child abuse crisis?

What is it with mediaevalists, thinking there was some golden age, ruined by the Reformation? Is Pell on some mental retreat from the world?

Yep, at a time when the Catholic church is indulging in a bout of embarrassing medieval voodoo (Melburnians queue to see Jesuit relic), not many people think the hierarchy has been serious, about serious issues which demand more than the insights available from geeking at a touring claw ...

Would anyone vote differently to the way they voted in this poll back in July in The Age, here?

Okay, let's lighten the mood thanks to this random Tumblr image:

That's as good a cue as any for Regina Spektor singing about god, as sure a way to upset some men as talking about fish and bicycles. 

All the same, no one's laughing about the fate of a fourteen year old girl in Pakistan, whether killed by a drone or by mad Taliban mullahs: