Women, the Bible and the Ballot Box

Liz Shercliff and Kate Bruce on why listening to the unheard voices in the Bible might be more important this election year than ever.

***

This year, 2024, will be historic for at least one reason. Globally 2 billion people will go to the polls, more than in any previous year. 42 countries, including the UK and the USA, will choose a national leader. In 24 of the 42 countries holding elections, no woman’s name will be on the ballot paper for national leader – including in the US and UK. When women are rarely seen in the public square, when they seem little represented in the corridors of power, they seem powerless – even irrelevant to public debate. The United Nations report on women’s leadership published earlier this year tells us that at the current rate of progress it will take 130 years to achieve gender equality in the highest positions of power. This is, at least in part, because we do not hear women’s stories, we remain largely ignorant of the effects of public policy on women.

In this election year, as Christians reflect on the choices before us how might the Scriptures guide our thinking? So much of what the Bible ‘teaches’ is done not through prescription or proscription, but by inviting us to come alongside characters whose stories resonate with those of contemporary people all around the world. Stories shape us, help us, warn us, and guide us. However, many of the stories in the bible are effectively suppressed because they don’t feature in lectionaries and are rarely heard from the pulpit. Many women of the bible are effectively suppressed. The result of this is an ignorance of our heritage and the underlying assumption that women don’t matter in politics and are overlooked by God.

The women of the bible would beg to differ. Let’s allow their stories to open our eyes and ears to the stories of contemporary marginalised groups. Rather than make judgements about the poor, or the immigrant or those unable to work, or any of the other ‘others,’ let’s read their stories. The stories of Bible women enable us to get alongside those whose voices are often not heard. Let’s empathise with the foreign, female sex slave Hagar. Let’s think about how inheritance laws matter, through the stories of Zelophehad’s daughters. Let’s examine the way brutality promotes war rather than preventing it, through the story of the Levite’s concubine. Let’s consider trauma, through the story of Lot’s wife.

Readers of the Bible have access to a treasury of women’s stories, but we need to be deliberate about engaging with them.  These women stride confidently onto the stage and speak powerfully and convincingly about experiences of abuse, oppression, powerlessness, as well as their own mis-use of power.   It is time to hear their testimony about the effects of injustice, and about the outworking of toxic power. Women like Miriam, Zipporah, Bathsheba, Michal, Gomer, and Pilate’s wife all tell us, often first hand, what it is like to experience abusive power. The widow who offers her two coins to the Temple presents a telling commentary on economic issues. Read carefully in context, her story points to the rapacious greed of institutions that ‘devour widow’s houses.’ (Mark 12.40)

As the elections approach this time, this is a good moment to engage with stories, those of women who have experienced the wide ranging impacts of political, religious and economic power – our foremothers in faith who pleaded for justice in their time and might help us to plead for it now. How might aligning ourselves with these characters affect our political focus?

In Out of the Shadows Vol 2, we listen to a range of such stories and allow their themes to shape our reflection and concern, tying their stories to the lived reality of women across cultures today. In this election year, these voices matter more than ever.

***

Revd Dr Kate Bruce is an Anglican priest, working as an RAF Chaplain, with a PhD in homiletics. She is a published author with a love of written language and the spoken word, especially preaching.

Liz Shercliff is on the academic staff of the Luther King Centre, Manchester and has completed a doctorate on women's preaching.