Misogyny in the Church?

Over at the Da Vinci Dialogue, a new essay deals with the issue of women's roles in Christianity. In "Is Christianity Anti-Women?" Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary, presents an excellent summary of the ways in which Christian Scripture prominently (and positively) presents women. Though she doesn't really deal with Dan Brown's book in her essay, she concludes:

Conspiracy theorists will respond, I suppose, that these glimpses of women leaders in the earliest communities fade quickly from view as the decades and centuries pass. Yet these writings early on become part of the church’s canon, which recognizes the presence of these women and their work as authoritative. And the writings become part of the canon because of their constant use in the churches–a bubbling up from pew and pulpit, not because of a decree from
Constantine.

Is the church’s treatment of women what we might like? Certainly not. The same could readily be said of most of human history. But Christianity doesn’t require Dan Brown’s imagination to find
strong roles for women among its leaders.

MORE HERE
The Da Vinci Dialogue, 20.03.06