I couldn't help but put Helen of Troy's picture in the post regarding gender difference ...


The other day when driving through my neighborhood I saw a little girl on a brightly painted scooter. Her honey colored hair was neatly in a bun, complemented with a sparkling pink headband and her matching dress caught like bursts of wind as she "scootered" toward her brother. Now her brother, quite contrary in appearance, looked like a banshee just appearing from the wild. For all I know, this may have been the case -- perhaps, this was his first meeting with civilization since birth. Rumpled dirty blond locks stuck this way and that, a billowing tee-shirt, and a smile that looked like one of a crazed warrior painted his face. I couldn't help but laugh at the opposite pair.

As of last night, 10:37 to be precise, I finished a paper for my Theology of Gender class. Having been a college student for over three years this paper should have flowed like honey. Instead, it sputtered onto the page more like crusted honey that's been in the cabinet so long it's nearly become a solid. Choosing a stance between complementarity and egalitarianism was not easy. Dismissing all the bulk of the verses and commentary, I'll put in short what I've come to:

God loves both men and women exactly the same -- complete equality. As with that, salvation is completely equal among both sexes. Still though, there is a difference between the genders. Yes, the tension in this difference is attributed to The Fall, but the difference itself, that difference is part of God's intricate plan. In different gender roles one can see distinction and separation. While at the same time, just as Eve originally came from Adam, God wills for men and women to be united as they were meant to be all along. God formed men and women separate so they can come together and unite -- this unity amidst distinction revealing so much about the nature of God Himself. Isn't it beautiful that despite gender difference God has still willed there to be oneness?

Just like the two kids on my street, girls and boys cannot help but be naturally different. And I cannot help but find a sweet comfort in the "banshee" of a little boy and the pink ballerina of the little girl, not because it's a cute example of "girlish" and "boyishness," but because it reveals the naturalness in gender difference -- a difference that God intended for much good.