When I read blogs written by Christian feminists, one feeling I get is that the church needs to shut up, to stop talking to women, and to start listening to women. Because to be perfectly honest, the advice the church gives women is terrible, and it’s usually (though not always) given by men, is terrible. In this post we look at advice that women should stop whining and get married already.
The problem is that you can’t go telling people that abortion is ten times worse than the Holocaust without the chance that at least a few people will really take that to heart and act on it. It’s almost certainly the case that Sproul Jr. didn’t call for violence against those who provide abortion services, but it’s also almost certainly the case that his inflammatory rhetoric stirred up one of his audience, Benjamin Curell, to violence.
When I saw this image I thought of a recent article in Prodigal magazine. It was called “The Lost Art of Servanthood (A Letter to My Feminist Sisters).” It hit on all of these same points, arguing that if Christ calls his followers to be servants, fighting for equality should be out of the picture. And thinking about this, I realized that there are two Christian doctrines that can easily stand in the way of any attempt to reach equality or justice—servanthood, and suffering.
I just read an Answers in Genesis article whose argument is so simple and elegant I can’t believe I hadn’t heard it before. Namely, the article explains why it suddenly seems like there are gay people all over, when this wasn’t the case in the past—and it does so by bringing together the perfect conservative bogeyman of gay marriage, abortion, and the removal of school prayer. I have to admit it—I was impressed by the ingenuity.
One response to the stories of pain and abuse being aired at Homeschoolers Anonymous is that the problem isn’t homeschooling, it’s fundamentalism. Or, the problem isn’t homeschooling, it’s abusive parents. But I’m not buying it. The idea that homeschooling is this totally unrelated thing and not a key factor that is complicit in creating abusive and oppressive situations is ludicrous. Allowing fundamentalist or abusive parents to homeschool their children is like giving an alcoholic a key to the liquor store.
Remember how little Lydia Schatz, disciplined to death by her parents, was adopted from Liberia? This wasn’t an abnormality. It was actually kind of a thing in quiverfull homeschooling families. I knew this growing up, because I noticed the trend in quiverfull publication Above Rubies, which my family began subscribing to sometime in the 1990s. We’re now hearing just what became of those children—and it’s not pretty.
Ron Paul has announced a new homeschool curriculum based on the history of liberty and the truth of free market economics. His director of curriculum development is Gary North, a Christian Reconstructionist who believes the civil government should enforce Old Testament Law and institute public stoning for offenders. Am I the only one who sees the contradictions here?
Supporters of patriarchal gender roles and hierarchical marriage relationships often argue that feminists want to pit men and women against each other, but what they don’t realize is that by turning marriage into a relationship based on dominance and submission, they are the ones pitting men and women against each other. In seeking equality, feminism envisions relationships built not on dominance and submission but rather on communication and cooperation.
My parents didn’t allow Harry Potter books in the house, but read both Narnia and the Lord of the Rings aloud to us. My parents didn’t let us watch Power Rangers because, demons, I guess, but were a-okay with us watching Star Wars and Star Trek. As a reader recently asked, isn’t this inconsistent? Well yes, yes it is. Let me see if I can hash out a few of the factors involved here and offer some explanation.
Look, if evangelicals want to pretend they’re all nice and caring and you “love the sinner but hate the sin,” fine. As long as they work against LGBTQ rights, I won’t take them seriously, but whatever. But I really don’t see how someone like Kelly can pretend that she’s really oh so nice and loving and then quote—on the issue of homosexuality, no less—from Rushdoony. Rushdoony didn’t talk about loving gays. He talked about killing gays.
In the end, I honestly don’t think evangelicals can come to accept marriage equality until they deal with their antifeminism problem. After all, until they can make peace with feminism their belief that women are wired to change diapers while men are wired to leave for work will keep them arguing that gays and lesbians should not be allowed to marry because children need a mother and a father.
This evening I went to a marriage equality rally outside of my town’s courthouse. The first speaker was the pastor of one of a local Christian church. She started her address by saying that she wants to challenge the common conception that being Christian meant being anti-gay. I agree with her on the importance of challenging this conception, an think that it’s extremely important not to let the Christian Right control the narrative.
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