Matt sent me this piece this morning. He’s much better about breezing around the internet while I’m still laboring to read that long Alastair article about how we don’t need any more female superheroes. When I get done with it maybe I’ll have something to say, but probably not because it’s So Long. This one was shorter, so it wins.
Long suffering readers of this blog will know that I have a special charism for complaining about the heresy of people like Jen Hatmaker, Rachel Held Evans, and Glennon Doyle Melton–the triumvirate celebrity bad lady teachers of our age. (The male triumvirate would be Joel Osteen, Steven Furtic, and Rob Bell.) I try not to go on about it too much, but it irritates me. The whole multimillion dollar machine that produces celebrity level Christians irritates me. But when those at the top commit gross heresy and decide to chuck two thousand years of biblically grounded church teaching for the shibboleth of the day, which conveniently makes them on the one hand even more beloved by the tidal force approbation of this current culture, and on the other hand let’s them play the victim card because of people like me protesting, that irritates me even more.
The main reason for me even writing my light and fluffy, if lengthy, devotional was because I want women especially to read the Bible again. I want them not to need to bother going to the IF Gathering* and running to swallow down every new book that hits the market this year. Or, at least if they do want to read them all, I want them to be able to tell what’s wrong with them. In other words, I want, in every possible way, to push back against the tidal wave of heresy that is overtaking what has been traditionally called the Evangelical corner of the church. I occasionally combat this wave with my small pail and much screaming. Furthermore, that So Much of the error is coming in through the church, through mediocre sermon series and women’s ministries that do whatever seems right to them today, makes me all the more hysterical, just to channel my own feminine stereotype.
The lay of the land, as I see it, is a lot of sincere and overwhelmed and basically Christian women going to church every week and not being equipped to withstand anything, let alone just lead a life that makes sense and isn’t exhausting, isolated, and a weird blend of pseudo-feminism mixed with biblical womanhood that again, say it with me, Is Not Transformed By The Biblical Text.
Add in the year 2017, where we get to find out that a tragically high number of women, for very good reason, have no trust whatsoever for the average man, and it’s kind of a bleak picture.
So this writer’s estimation, that
Biblically-conservative Christian women are eager to have visible, biblically-conservative leadership by women in their churches and eager to learn from gifted, female Bible teachers whether locally or nationally. Secondly, women with the gift of teaching in conservative churches have felt underutilized/devalued and are carrying some angst, even as things may change for the better.
for me, doesn’t get to it by half. First of all, show me these biblically conservative Christian women in any great numbers who actually know their stuff and are equipped by good teaching of any kind, and I’ll climb down from my hand wringing. I know they are there, but they are by no means the majority. Go look at those appalling statistics about what average self identifying evangelicals actually believe and come back for a humble microwaved cupcake. It’s not that women necessarily need other women to teach them, it’s that there isn’t a robust sense that women need to be equipped for any particular purpose at all.
Let alone the purpose of standing tall against heresy addressed To Them and being able to preach the gospel to the world (evangelism). Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in the world the battles being waged against the women–transgenderism, the perversions of men against women in the workplace, abortion, no fault divorce, and most of all Heresy–are not so much about the men, every single one is about the women. And many men don’t really see it happening, aren’t experiencing it first hand.
Karen Swallow Prior did indeed declare on twitter that 2018 should be the year of the evangelical woman, and there have been myriad articles this year about women in the blogosphere, and under what parameters women should be teaching, and the state of women in the church, but the reason for these clarion calls is not because women need to be promoted More, it’s because they are already on the front lines of an intense war and most of them don’t have any true weapons to fight with. And so some other women, KSP and others, are deeply desirous of equipping some of those women to withstand the assault, to be reintegrated into churches that are solid and true, to be able to see and discern truth from error. And are hoping very much that a lot of men–pastors, academics, husbands, friends–will wake up to what’s happening and stop talking about the fact that they’re Women and be willing to help them withstand the relentless theological assault.
Honestly, just to circle back to that Alastair article, which I haven’t finished reading, but the push back is probably because of this singular point. The conversation is in the wrong place. It’s not what women can and should be doing, it’s the fact that they’re already being drawn away, pulled out of the church, marketed to, and instead of trying to meet that assault and stem the tide, suddenly we’re having to stop and be told that we’re women again.
Anyway, that was too long! Sorry. But this is something I think about constantly, even when I’m blogging about clothes and tea pots.
*Let’s ask ourselves, shall we, why do so many women flock to these celebrity teachers? Could it be because these women are not being fed by the local church, regardless of the sex of the pastor? It’s not the need to be Taught By Another Woman, it’s that you go home after forty five minutes of life tips strip mined from the Bible and by that point you’re willing to shell out any amount of money to get anything from anyone.
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