Do Roles Affect Worth?
Hierarchicalists charge that egalitarians are wrong when they deny the principle that there is no necessary connection between women’s roles and their worth. This is a false charge because we do not believe there is a necessary link. School principals certainly do not have more human worth than teachers, and the idea that a white principal would have greater worth than a black teacher is simply outrageously wrong. But if we were to say that the principal role can be filled only by whites and that blacks are ineligible, then personal worth becomes extremely relevant. Why does race matter? Is the black inferior in some way? People used to argue exactly that, but the idea is abhorrent. The same goes for women: people used to argue they were inferior, too; if all women are denied particular roles just because of their gender, the very rule that creates the restriction also creates the lack of equal worth. Blacks didn’t accept discrimination rules, and women, on the whole, given a chance to think about it, don’t either.
I appreciated what you wrote over at generousorthodoxy, but didn’t want to make my comment there. My strategy is similar to what you said about your wife’s. As a young adult, I saw professional opportunities in academics that wouldn’t be available to me in the church, and so chose and continue to choose to invest my world-blessing energy in my profession, where that energy is honored, instead of fighting insecure males in the church, where my basic human equality is often not even respected. God’s kingdom is broad and wide - why waste my energy at church? Very, very sad to say, but that, for the most part, is what I think.
I didn’t write over at genorth simply b/c I don’t want to imply that I’m specifically criticizing my current church, which is a leading emergent church. I’m making a more general point.
Your site looks fantastic. Great to see a Christian college colleague blogging! Good to ‘meet’ you, if only virtually.