HOW ARE WE to deal with the evil of sexism in the church and society? I believe Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s insight that there is no way of eradicating sexism from society unless it is eradicated from the church first is still valid, for the institutional church has a powerful influence in shaping society’s perception of reality. If it is perceived in the language, teaching, and behavior of the institutional churches ... that God is imaged only as male, then society has received religion’s example and approval of its oppression of women.
As I ponder this question, I am reminded of the nonviolent resistance of Gandhi in India and of Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States. A scene from the movie Gandhi is particularly meaningful to me. It is the scene in which all day long waves and waves of Indians marched toward the salt mines and were brutally beaten back by the British soldiers. The Indians offered no physical resistance and were carried away to be cared for by their wives and children. At the end of the day, a U.S. newspaper reporter rushes to a telephone to report the story of the nonviolent resistance. He begins it by saying, “Today England lost India. Today England lost its moral credibility in India.” ... What was going on is at the heart of nonviolent resistance, that is, the naming of the unholy, the exposing of evil. ... What nonviolent resistance does is reveal the immorality of an oppressive system.
This article originally appeared in the July 1987 issue of Sojourners. Read the full article in the archives.
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