The Gospel According to Woman

Armstrong traces the whole history of Christianity as women have taken it, and also "the gospel for women" as male church leaders have presented it. I was most fascinated by her accounts of conflicting versions of women's religious vocation in medieval and early modern times. Because, as Armstrong explains, nuns were fairly free to pursue their own spiritual goals within convent walls. But as for playing any role in the outside world, they were generally no freer than inmates of a Middle Eastern harem. Within such externally enforced limits, what achievements did religious women hope for? Were they creating ideal communities to heal the world, or basically hiding from worldly sin? -- "What was a virgin to do inside this fortress which saw enemies everywhere?" (p. 166.) What task was she to accomplish, besides remaining chaste? Armstrong compares the vocations of Margaret Mary Alacoque, and Teresa of Avila. Both women faced similar externally enforced restrictions on their lives. Margaret Mary accepted those restrictions in faithful submission, feeling them necessary for her soul's discipline. For her, a nun's highest goal was the complete sacrifice of her own self, leading to total compliance with a higher will. And this obviously passed for orthodoxy in many religious orders. With this understanding she embarked on a career of self-inflicted suffering, for which she later received official approval as a saint. Teresa of Avila, on the other hand, viewed such pious self-hatred as a mental illness. In Teresa we find a pre-modern nun who chafed at her bonds of enclosure. Though she stood for a strict religious discipline, she also felt that this involved a life of travel, teaching, and controversy. For, Teresa the requirements of self-denial and social isolation did less to protect her chastity, than to protect the world from her own loving hands. Between these different views, Armstrong shows the gradual trend of religious women toward Teresa of Avila's attitude. Within a century after Teresa's death, religious women all over Europe were breaking out of their cloisters to serve, heal, and teach, in vocations beyond chastity that changed the world. Even long before that, Armstrong traces a shift among religious women, from a goal of world- and self-denial, to one of using the nunneries as pro-female communities, to support an exploration of women's' highest potential. In Hidegard of Bingen's Benedictine convent, the nuns put aside the traditional self-effacing garments of symbolic poverty. Hildegard urged her nuns to dress in beautiful robes, wear sparkling jewels, and treat each other as divine beings, like goddesses. Why, Armstrong asks, can this still strike us as totally unreligious? For Hildegard it was the deepest piety, and greatest love for the other as the self.

Armstrong traces the whole history of Christianity as women have taken it, and also "the gospel for women" as male church leaders have presented it. I was most fascinated by her accounts of conflicting versions of women's religious vocation in medieval and early modern times. Because, as Armstrong explains, nuns were fairly free to pursue their own spiritual goals within convent walls. But as for playing any role in the outside world, they were generally no freer than inmates of a Middle Eastern harem. Within such externally enforced limits, what achievements did religious women hope for? Were they creating ideal communities to heal the world, or basically hiding from worldly sin? -- "What was a virgin to do inside this fortress which saw enemies everywhere?" (p. 166.) What task was she to accomplish, besides remaining chaste? Armstrong compares the vocations of Margaret Mary Alacoque, and Teresa of Avila. Both women faced similar externally enforced restrictions on their lives. Margaret Mary accepted those restrictions in faithful submission, feeling them necessary for her soul's discipline. For her, a nun's highest goal was the complete sacrifice of her own self, leading to total compliance with a higher will. And this obviously passed for orthodoxy in many religious orders. With this understanding she embarked on a career of self-inflicted suffering, for which she later received official approval as a saint. Teresa of Avila, on the other hand, viewed such pious self-hatred as a mental illness. In Teresa we find a pre-modern nun who chafed at her bonds of enclosure. Though she stood for a strict religious discipline, she also felt that this involved a life of travel, teaching, and controversy. For, Teresa the requirements of self-denial and social isolation did less to protect her chastity, than to protect the world from her own loving hands. Between these different views, Armstrong shows the gradual trend of religious women toward Teresa of Avila's attitude. Within a century after Teresa's death, religious women all over Europe were breaking out of their cloisters to serve, heal, and teach, in vocations beyond chastity that changed the world. Even long before that, Armstrong traces a shift among religious women, from a goal of world- and self-denial, to one of using the nunneries as pro-female communities, to support an exploration of women's' highest potential. In Hidegard of Bingen's Benedictine convent, the nuns put aside the traditional self-effacing garments of symbolic poverty. Hildegard urged her nuns to dress in beautiful robes, wear sparkling jewels, and treat each other as divine beings, like goddesses. Why, Armstrong asks, can this still strike us as totally unreligious? For Hildegard it was the deepest piety, and greatest love for the other as the self. -author of Correcting Jesus

but readers should use their own common sense and knowledge of history as they consider the message that the author trys to present in some cases. She is obviously knowledgeable in this field and I consider her books an excellent source. But I reject some of her opinions, particularly her statement that "in this century, women have managed to change things for the better, and they owe this achievement in large part to their Christian heritage, though they may be unaware ot this". I reject it because it is completely false. Women have obtained all of their rights; to vote, to own property, to keep their inheritance after marriage and freedom from physical abuse at the hands of their own husbands, not with the help of the church/clergy, but inspite of it. The church and clergy fought them every step of the way on every issue and was nothing but an impedement as they have been through out history in many aspects of civil and human rights. True there were some people of faith who advocated for civil rights and womens sufferage. But for the most part, aside from their faith, they were simply 'humanists' and some agnostics, who with or without religion, had human intelligence and a genuine concern for humanity.If 'intelligent' human beings hadn't made sacrifices and fought the clergy, women would still be second rate citizens who are chattel property of their husbands, to do with what they please, and denied so-called 'artificial'methods of contraception. Civilized people would still be afflicted with small pox,(as they opposed the vaccine at one time), we'd still be kowtowing to some Pope insisting that the earth was 'flat'(rejecting Galileo)in fear of being persecuted. If not for human 'intelligence' and 'reason', we'de still be Stone Age people, squatting in the dust, picking fleas off each other, as they have been in Afghanistan under fundamentalist rule there. The elements of humanism, have been the true moral compass for guiding both religion and humanity out of barbarity and inequality.

It's most unfortunant that this important work is out of print! Karen Armstrong is obviously a master of both history and theology to have explored the plight of women in such a clear easy read. Her treatment of Christianity's historical roots for relegating women to second class status makes it understandable why even now, women's struggle to gain recognition as equal to their male counterparts is still ongoing.

Karen Armstrong's book "The Gospel according to woman" is an extremely well-written account of the Christian Church's attitude to, and lack of respect for, women. It certainly explains why women are still struggling to be accepted as equals by their male peers in the Church even in the 21st century, literally hundreds of years since the establishment of Christianity.