What are the needs and issues facing women today? A brief look at several cultural issues related to gender, and women particularly, reveals the tip of the iceberg.
-In March 2007 the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking
(UN.GIFT) was created because “human trafficking is a crime of such magnitude and atrocity that it cannot be dealt with successfully by any government alone.”
- Oxfam, a research institute founded to address needs of developing countries, states that the majority of the world’s poor are women: around 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty, on less than one dollar a day, are women and girls. (Introduction to Oxfam, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/gender/introduction.htm (Accessed June 8, 2007).
-The “Faces of AIDS” webpage sponsored by the International Mission Board asks for prayer for the caregivers of those affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic because “the customs of the African culture make it difficult for women to protect themselves against AIDS. Many women are faithful to their spouse but discover they are HIV-positive since it is culturally acceptable for men to have multiple wives and many sexual partners.” (http://imb.org/AIDS/prayer.asp).
What do you do in the face of such tragedy and crisis? What kind of a response is required from concerned Believers who desire to see the Gospel affect the lives of so many in need? At New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the new MDiv/ Women’s Studies degree was created to begin educating students not only of the monolithic crises related to gender issues that exist in the world today, but also the theological and philosophical concerns that lie beneath them. Ultimately, to the end that the whole counsel of God’s Word would be considered and appreciated as to its urgency in speaking to those issues; and the relevancy of the Gospel in reconciling lost humanity to God.
Students will take courses on international women’s issues, women and Islam, women and the early church, and theology of manhood and womanhood. In order to gain clarity on the magnitude of the influence this thought has had on gender related issues, students will take a course in comparative feminist theology, where various methods and beliefs are considered and the impact they had on the theology of the proponents’ views. To the end that students are prepared to understand and appreciate nuances these views create in worldviews today.
So, when the writers of Newsweek magazine ask, “What is gender anyway?”, students will be better prepared to address such questions. Ultimately, in fact, to help them understand the broader realities related to those questions. For example, how biblical statements like, “Let Us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion” should inform and instruct twenty-first century Believers to live lives and to lead ministries that are both socially aware and biblically faithful.
The task of understanding what it means to be created in the image of God and the implications of the dominion entrusted to humanity at Creation has always been challenging. Anything related to who we are as men and women is intensely personal, therefore introducing a potential minefield of secondary and tertiary issues related to this discussion. However, in an age when meaning and significance is increasingly difficult to discern, time is of the essence in assisting future generations rediscover the beauty and the importance of human essence and existence. Helping students today recover this connection theologically and biblically is the goal of the Women’s Studies MDiv at NOBTS.
