Stefano deSvizzera is a resident of Buffalo NY and has been for fifteen years. He is an artist, teacher, intellect, philosopher, and a musician. His explorations have taken him to a variety of places within the human mind. As a philosopher and intellect he has a unique interpretation as to the nature of the world and how modern human beings can and should cope in the modern world.
Here below, is a transcript of an interview with Stefano where he and the examiner discuss feminism. He holds some surprising conclusions about the role of feminism in the world and the role of feminism in early Christianity.
Examiner: Well, here we are. I work for a online newspaper called The Examiner, so let's examine something.
Stefano: O.K.
Ex: I have read some of your writings on feminism in Christianity, especially early Christianity. And I think that a lot of people are unaware that Christianity in its day was a very radical philosophy in its ideas and teachings, but feminism is something that most people, even within the clergy don't think about or discuss at all. No one preaches any sermons about it. No one really writes about it. For most people, it is as if it doesn't exist. And then you say that Jesus was a feminist. I know for myself, I don't think of Christianity as a feminist religion. Christianity strikes me as a staid and traditional religion, so how can Christianity and Christ be feminist?
Stef: Well, I am glad you asked. These are very important topics. You are jumping around a bit, first asking about Christianity and then about Jesus himself, so we'll take a topic and start off with that and run with it.
Ex: Alright, so where do we start?
Stef: I'll start with your statement that Christianity is a staid and traditional religion. And I'll start by clarifying that statement. It is certainly true that modern Christianity tends to look backward especially what is now called the fundamentalist varieties of Christianity. But I want to answer your statement that the Christianity that we see today is not the same as the Christianity that was back then. You were actually closer to the truth when you said that Christianity was radical in its day and indeed it was.
Ex: What do you mean?
Stef: Just take a look at the content of the gospels. Jesus' basic teaching struck to the heart and core of Judaism. Jesus taught that human beings can have a personal relationship with God. That was a radical idea. People never had personal relations with gods, in any religion. God or the gods were always aloof, distant -- they were there, but always far away. And here Jesus comes along and says that human beings can have a more intimate relationship with the divine. He calls God the "Heavenly Father" and encourages people to think of God in this way.
Ex: Yes, but didn't Judaism have the notion of God as Father before Christianity?
Stef: They did, but their sense of God as Father was merely in the sense that He created us. There is the Psalm which says, "But you, O Lord are our Father. We are the work of your hands." But there is no sense of intimacy or a personal relationship here. He is just our Father, just because he bought us into being. In the Koine Greek language of the New Testament, there is more than one word that is translated into English as "child" or "son." There is the word "genos" or "yenos" from which the words "genesis", "generation", "genital" all are derived. That word has to do with bringing into being or creating. This word is applied to Jesus. When you see the expression Son of God, the usual word is "genos", and the word, "monogenos", is usually translated as "only begotten." or the "sole son" as in the "only Begotten Son of the Father." But there another word that is used and it is "houios" and this word, though it is translated as "son" or "child" carries with it the meaning of an intimate relationship. And often in the New Testament, when human beings are described as being a "son" or "child" of God, this word is used. And indeed that was a radical idea. Who ever heard that one could become intimate and have a personal relationship with God? In the Western world that was unknown. One begged and petitioned gods and goddesses but one did not have intimate personal relationships with any of them. And Judaism was no different. One know of God through the Torah and the Prophets. God gave the law to humanity, but the only people who had any sort of relationship with God were the priests and the prophets, not ordinary people. Jesus taught the law of every person and that ordinary people could see God as their personal Heavenly Father. And Jesus also taught the equality of the sexes in the relationship with God.
Ex: How so?
Stef: There is a passage in the Gospel of Thomas that is particularly relevant, and it is the last saying in that gospel where Jesus' disciples say to him, "Send Mary away from us, for it is not right for her to be here with us." or literally, "she is not worthy of life." And Jesus says, "No, look, I will lead her too, and I will send her the same spirit as that of you males. For any woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Now notice that this quotation is from a Gnostic or esoteric gospel and not from a canonical gospel. Since this gospel was written the editors who compiled our modern scriptures deliberately eliminated any reference to the equality of men and women in the scriptures.
Ex: Are there any other scriptures?
Stef: Yes, there are. There is a gospel called the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a Gnostic writing, where Jesus is said to have revealed to her some secrets of the Kingdom of God that were not revealed to his male disciples. Mary was in fact regarded as a primary disciple of Jesus. In the canonical gospels, all of Jesus' primary disciples were men, but in this gospel, there is mentioned at least one woman that was said to be a primary disciple of Jesus.
Ex: Were there others?
Stef: We are not told so, but quite probably. Take a look at even our canonical gospels. Jesus had women all over the place. Most of the time we only know their names and little else. But it seems that Jesus had an army of women followers everywhere and it is a good bet that they actually outnumbered the male disciples. Yet in our version of Christianity, women are seen, but seldom heard.
Ex: Why is this so?
Stef: It was the male oriented society of the day. The men controlled the society and the women occupied the background. It was a different world then. Keep in mind that this was in the days before we had industrialization and modern medicine. People did not have long life expectancies and so women had to begin rearing families as soon as puberty hit. They were married off early in their teenage years. Why, even Mary herself, the mother of Jesus was likely only a teenager when she conceived and bore Christ into the world.
Ex: That sort of smacks against the logic of today doesn't it. Today they tell teenagers to wait until after they are in college to have kids.
Stef: Like I said, it is a different world. Technology and industrialization have changed the lifestyle of human beings. We now have to stress education, for both men and women, and so because of the nature of the complexity of today's world, we now encourage people to wait longer before marrying and having families.
Ex: But we live longer now.
Stef: Exactly. Back in the first century of the Christian era, people on average were living into their late thirties and early forties. Consider this, Jesus at around thirty three was already considered an old man. Today, most people can live more than double that.
Ex: But you say that even back then, Jesus was an egalitarian?
Stef: He might have been what you would call a proto feminist and he certainly was an egalitarian. He saw no difference between rich and poor, free and slave, Jew, Greek or Samaritan, men and women. He saw the intrinsic value of women, even as they were in the first century. Women back then were only very rarely educated. But he took the time to educate them.
Ex: Do you think he actually taught women to read and write?
Stef: I think he might have. As I noted before in some of the Gnostic gospels, Jesus was said to have imparted secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven that were not revealed to his male disciples. The women would have had to have some means of transmitting these teachings other than by word of mouth.
Ex: So you think that women actually wrote gospels and other ancient writings.?
Stef: That is certainly possible, especially in the early days of Christianity. I think that women had far, far greater influence and power than they are given credit for in the history of early Christianity. In fact, some of our Gnostic gospels may have been written by or based on documents that were written by women. But the male oriented society of the world wasn't ready for that yet. Paul of Tarsus, mandated that women be kept quiet in churches. But then keep in mind that Paul was an ex Pharisee -- a very strict order of Judaism. He mandated that women wear veils when in worship. It offended his Pharisaic sensibilities that women went about with their heads uncovered. He put a bit of Judaic conservatism into the fledgling Christianity.
Ex: But how did women then amass such influence and such power?
Stef: By being what they are, women. What is it that women do more than anything else?
Ex: I don't know.
Stef: Women are busybodies. They are talkers.
Ex: That sounds sexist.
Stef: But it's true. Women in general are naturally more talkative. I am convinced that the Christian gospel spread so fast not through the male missionary work, but through women doing what they normally do. They went into the market place and just talked to other women that they met there. Back then, women did all the shopping, so there was ample opportunity to meet, gather and talk. They did household chores together. Women would get together and help each other with the household jobs and they would talk. This is how the gospel really spread so rapidly. The canonical book of Acts focuses on the men doing the missionary work, but in the meantime, in the background, there were all these women...
Ex: But the missionary work was important, wasn't it?
Stef: Of course it was. The men were out there breaking new ground in distant lands and territories planting the seed of Christianity in areas that it had not been introduced to yet. And I think that there were some women doing missionary work too, but that was more of a male thing. So most of the time, men did the missionary work, but in the background were all these women.
Ex: They were tilling the soil in which seeds had already been planted.
Stef: Yes, but they were planting new seeds too, but they were doing it closer to home. They were the home missionaries, and that was very important to the rapid spread of Christianity. But women have yet another power that helped to spread and protect Christianity.
Ex: Protect?
Stef: Yes, protect. Did you ever wonder with so much opposition to Christianity as described in the book of Acts, why there was no wholesale persecution of Christianity until the late first century of Christianity?
Ex: Why?
Stef: The answer was allure. Women have the power of allure -- and it helped to protect Christianity in its formative years. Women were not just spreading the good word, but they were also spreading their legs.
Ex: Now wait a minute...are you saying that in early Christianity women were using sex as a means to spread Christianity? That sounds almost blasphemous.
Stef: Why not? Yes, I know, we are taught that early Christian women were supposed to be chaste and pious and all that nonsense. But let's be real. Women have always used their bodies to get what they want and to achieve specific aims. Christian women were sleeping with Roman senators. Christian women used sex to influence men all over the place. Men sometimes participated in Christian services because they were going after women. And sometimes the men actually became converts.
Ex: That sounds sexist, too.
Stef: But it's the truth. Sex sells. And it is just as true in the field of religion as it is for anything else. And why would it be any different for Christianity? Even today, though it is certainly not the model of Christian morality, and it is certainly not advocated, there are Christian women today who are spreading their legs in the name of spreading the gospel. Paul might have been saying that it was good for man not to touch a woman, but despite Paul's teaching, women were out there and they were certainly being touched.
Ex: You are certainly not going to read that in the book of Acts!
Stef: Of course not. It defies the Christian ideal. Traditional Christianity exemplifies chastity and propriety in marriage, but reality is often different than the ideal. It's just simply the truth, Christian women were using their bodies as part of proclaiming the faith. And there was also a third way, also related to sex, that women were spreading the gospel.
Ex: Children.
Stef: Absolutely. Childbearing, of course, was the exclusive domain of women, and child rearing was almost the exclusive domain of women back in ancient times. Naturally, these women would teach their children Christian ideals and beliefs in their homes.
People often underestimate the power of families and children in the growth and development of religion. Take a look at any religion which is growing and prospering. They always have lots of young people. It's the youth that will carry the religion into the future.
Ex: I was just thinking of here in Buffalo, New York. Here most churches are dying.
Stef: Well, where are the young people? Most of the young people who are from Buffalo are leaving because of the poor economy. So churches in Buffalo don't have the youth to carry them into the future. The attendance in most churches in Buffalo are mostly the middle aged and elderly and very few young people.
Ex: Well, I think there is one exception to that. There is a church that is a powerhouse and dynamic force, it is called the Chapel at Crosspoint.
Stef: I have heard of that one and have been to that one. This is a Protestant Christian church that is defying the trend of dying churches in Buffalo. They have a style that appeals to young people and they tend to attract what is left of the young people in the Buffalo area. As I recall, they have a very strong contemporary worship style with mostly contemporary music and singing and they have a young, energetic and dynamic pastor there. But they do not have only young people, but they have a very good cross section of the population, but their appeal is mostly for young people.
Ex: So there is hope!
Stef: Sure, there is always hope. And it begins with your women and your youth.
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