That Jezebel Spirit
Or, pulling the trusty old soapbox out of storage
Hi friends,
Well, it turns out there is an old familiar accusation on the prowl.1 And so I have dug out my trusty old soapbox, wiped off the dust, and crawled on up because uggghhhhhh.
“Jezebel spirit.”
Your mileage may vary but for me, growing up in third-wave charismatic churches, this was the silver bullet of patriarchy, the guaranteed way to silence or sideline or shame women: just accuse her of having a Jezebel Spirit. Lord knows I’ve had that label thrown my way more than a few times.2
And here we are again. Seriously, guys? Still? After all these years? We’re still here? I’d laugh if I wasn’t so exhausted by it or if I didn’t know that this kind of language carries real life consequences for all of us. One would have hoped that we’ve learned enough in the ensuing decades but alas, biblical misinterpretation for the purposes of patriarchy is a resilient principality still in power.
Queen Jezebel of the Old Testament was a warning to women in my circles. This label was the death knell for any woman in our faith circles, carrying the accusations and implications of female bitterness, manipulation, emasculation, power, idol-worship, hyper sexuality. People who make the accusation are intentionally conjuring up layers upon layers of pet feminine ‘sins’ encapsulated in one ancient queen’s story.
When a woman in the church betrayed the slightest bit of leadership or gifting or calling, let alone agency or disobedience or independence, it became the quickest way to silence that woman in question. Just accuse her of a Jezebel spirit. It’s also a nice churchy way of blaming women for the sins of men during times of adultery or unfaithfulness or temptation. Never mind that it isn’t even in the Bible.
She has a Jezebel spirit.
Bury her at the whisper of it, she’s done, the final verdict, the final silencing for many a legitimate woman of God. And it’s a three-for-one bonus because not only does it silence the woman in question, it serves as a warning to the other women who are watching and it emboldens misogyny within the Church, which carries devastating consequences in actual lives and for the Gospel. It creates a culture of fear. And it’s a quick and easy label to slap onto complicated issues around accountability, duty of care, discipleship, and systemic marginalization.
Not only does it shut you up, it shuts up the women around you and it emboldens the sinful urges of patriarchy within the church. Worst of all, it does so under the guise of being biblical or holy which is another layer of profanity.
Now, listen, I’d done enough work by now to know that the ways that the traditional patriarchal readings frame ancient Queen Jezebel is not exactly it, to say the least.3 As Dr. Wilda C. Gafney writes in Womanist Midrash, “Jezebel is perhaps the most infamous Israelite queen… Jezebel’s biblical name has become a byword for women of a certain type: assertive, aggressive, sexualized, allegedly promiscuous. In some contexts, her name is synonymous with women who wear makeup, red lipstick,4 red anything. Black women have been regularly constructed as Jezebels and castigated for that construction, the elements of which have very little to do with the biblical narrative.”5
A number of theologians have done work on the particulars of the story, including its history of racialized trauma as well as the ways Jezebel’s story been misused or even misread in order to keep women in line. So the way you were taught to read the story may not be the whole story. But at the end of the day, we all know these bros6 are rarely interested in the biblical frameworks and contextualizations and social implications of how we got there, let alone engaging with what Dr. Gafney refers to as “interrogating the biases of the Bible.”7
That’s because accusing a woman of a Jezebel spirit is a trusty accusation and reliable sword. If they feel like a woman is getting too powerful or vocal or unable to control, it’s the secret weapon. If they feel nervous about the slippage of authority or someone noticing the emperor has no clothes, oh, it works. It shames and warns, silences and rebukes all at once.8
They enjoy using the weapon too much to question how it got into their hands.
And so it does exactly what it’s meant to do.
Inspire fear in women. Rebuke women. Act as a short-hand for silencing women. Put you in your place. Actually, scratch that: it’s not meant to put you in your place. It’s meant to put you in the place they imagine for you, a submissive posture, a silent role, a ‘nice girl’ place and then to keep you there. Witness the cottage industry of sermons and books around the dangers of a Jezebel spirits. Funnily enough, not too many words spilled about the Ahab spirit... Accusing anyone of a Jezebel spirit is usually meant to keep you small, obedient, and easily controlled. Deploying the accusation of a Jezebel spirit is meant to berate you for daring to lift your head. It admonishes you for asking questions or challenging authority. It’s meant to correct your behaviour because you, you have stepped out of their line. It’s the ace in the hole. They’ll call you a Jezebel when they’ve run out of road, confident in their trump card.
Plus it always serves as a nice distraction tactic, doesn’t it? Accusing women of witchcraft and demonic spirits is such an easy way to re-direct attention from abuse scandals, subsequent cover-ups, the hunger for power, the money machine that backs it all, and shared complicity, isn’t it?
Did I say that part out loud?
Listen, you can’t out-rebuke a charismatic who came of age in the the absolute bonkers climate of the Satanic panic in the 80s, my friends. Don’t come accusing me of spirits or demons. As Taylor Swift would say, you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum that raised me.