Christian Faith - Marriage

This post was originally written in October of 2018. I’ve done some light editing before republishing it, but have not changed it in any substantive ways. It’s rather chilling to read it now, two and a half years later, given where we are in this country regarding men and women as well as the blatant attack on white people specifically. Could you have imagined at that time where we would be now? How will we as Christians respond to these developments?

During back to school shopping, I noticed the statement “The Future is Female” had found its way even onto two pocket folders for dutiful little middle school girls to use for their math homework. I’m certain I rolled my eyes both literally and figuratively as I stood in Meijer. The sentiment is so totally ridiculous that my response would be instinctive. But the more I’ve thought about it over the weeks since then, I realized how truly awful it is for our culture.

I honestly could not remember where the term came from so I did a Google search. An article on National Review has a look at the idea, along with a timeline. The tl;dr version is it came out of the “’70s lesbian separatist moment” on a t-shirt and was more recently revitalized by Hillary Clinton in 2017 when she burst back onto the national stage (again) after her failed presidential run. When I read the article, it came back to me that I remembered her saying it in an online video. I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at that time too and then promptly mentally blocked the association of it with her for my own mental health well-being.

The future is female is so appalling to me because it encapsulates one of the core ideas of the feminist movement that I reject. In addition to the central doctrine of abortion on demand with no limits, the feminist movement as it exists today is about the suppression (and even hatred) of men in order to elevate women. And before anyone tells me that I’m wrong, let’s consider a couple of things.

Alyssa Milano was at the Kavanaugh hearings at the invitation of Senator Dianne Feinstein. Milano was the woman with her hair in an updo and a plunging neckline who sat so she was constantly in view right over Kavanaugh’s shoulder. Watch her take on things, especially the string of thoughts she expresses starting around 3:08.

Milano says,

“And if that means men have a hard time right now, then I’m sorry. This is the way the pendulum has to shift for us to have equality and security in our country and within our societal views of what it means to be a woman.”

The problem with using the pendulum analogy is that it represents an over-compensation. When a pendulum swings from one side to the other, you are going from one extreme to the opposite extreme. One of my good friends calls it going from one ditch to the other. You’re still off the path and in a ditch in the end. You’ve simply traded one problem for another. So in Milano’s pendulum swinging world, it is apparently perfectly fine to oppress men and make them uncomfortable if it means women are elevated. Swing that pendulum and male carnage be damned.

How about this – I don’t even know what to call it. Screed? Rantings? Seriously. What is this? It’s in the Washington Post, but it reads like something that would be in a cheap women’s tabloid. You really need to read it all, but here’s the beginning of  Thanks for not raping us, all you ‘good men.’ But it’s not enough.

I yelled at my husband last night. Not pick-up-your-socks yell. Not how-could-you-ignore-that-red-light yell. This was real yelling. This was 30 minutes of from-the-gut yelling. Triggered by a small, thoughtless, dismissive, annoyed, patronizing comment. Really small. A micro-wave that triggered a hurricane. I blew. Hard and fast. And it terrified me. I’m still terrified by what I felt and what I said. I am almost 70 years old. I am a grandmother. Yet in that roiling moment, screaming at my husband as if he represented every clueless male on the planet (and I every angry woman of 2018), I announced that I hate all men and wish all men were dead. If one of my grandchildren yelled something that ridiculous, I’d have to stifle a laugh.

My husband of 50 years did not have to stifle a laugh. He took it dead seriously. He did not defend his remark, he did not defend men. He sat, hunched and hurt, and he listened. For a moment, it occurred to me to be grateful that I’m married to a man who will listen to a woman. The winds calmed ever so slightly in that moment. And then the storm surge welled up in me as I realized the pathetic impotence of nice men’s plan to rebuild the wreckage by listening to women. As my rage rushed through the streets of my mind, toppling every memory of every good thing my husband has ever done (and there are scores of memories), I said the meanest thing I’ve ever said to him: Don’t you dare sit there and sympathetically promise to change. Don’t say you will stop yourself before you blurt out some impatient, annoyed, controlling remark. No, I said, you can’t change. You are unable to change. You don’t have the skills and you won’t do it. You, I said, are one of the good men. You respect women, you believe in women, you like women, you don’t hit women or rape women or in any way abuse women. You have applauded and funded feminism for a half-century. You are one of the good men. And you cannot change. You can listen all you want, but that will not create one iota of change.

What do you say to that and the rest of her rantings? She verbally and emotionally abused her husband and then turned around and wrote about it in a national paper. If this isn’t pendulum swinging, I don’t know what is. Her pent up vitriol allows her to swing the pendulum to the other side and abuse her husband in multiple ways. Just as her husband is the stand-in for all the horrible things that have happened to her in life, so Kavanaugh was supposed to be the cathartic sacrificial animal to appease for the sins of all men.

I’ve ranted more than a few times about things that have upset me in 21 years of marriage. David has patiently listened as I’ve expressed my anger and frustration with different situations. But I’ve never ever ranted at him or about him. Nor would it ever cross my mind to blame him for the actions of men in general. That makes no sense. I’ve had more than a few men treat me horribly in my life, but what does that have to do with David? Nothing.

How about this one? The BBC exploring the idea that a feminist becomes pregnant and discovers she is having a boy. Now what?

Yes, this is really a thing in the feminist world.

You’re a feminist. You’re pregnant. It’s a boy. What next? 📻 https://t.co/zWVuk8SI8p

— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) September 26, 2018

This share had a screenshot of some of the highlights.

BBC, the parody of a public service broadcaster:
"You’re a feminist. You’re pregnant. It’s a boy. What next?" pic.twitter.com/WAYpyqM5xZ

— Andrea Trunzo (@Keroppo) September 29, 2018

Notice one of the paragraphs (emphasis mine):

Another mother confesses that she is conflicted – on the one hand she thinks men have had their turn at the top of society and now they should keep quiet. On the other hand, she wants her 15-year-old-son to be heard.

Yes, feminism has reached the point where feminists must decide what to do with their sons because the god of Feminism trumps the mother-son bond. A commitment to the god of Feminism makes a woman feel actually conflicted about whether or not she wants her son to be successful.

THINK ABOUT THAT.

To the best of my recollection, I’ve never called myself a feminist. I have never liked the word and I’ve never felt much kinship with women who were driven by the feminist agenda. I simply don’t fit into their paradigm, including the so-called Christian feminists. (See my post Why I’m Not a Christian Feminist (and What I Am).)

In the case of the Kavanaugh hearing and aftermath, it’s become clear what the goals of feminism currently are:

• requiring everyone to believe all women no matter what they say or claim, without further investigation of the facts
• not trusting men
• punishing all men for any real or perceived issue
• demanding that women should be able to do and say whatever they please

It’s time for men to “shut up” (to quote Democrat Senator Hirono) and do what they are told.

But according to the woman ranting in the Washington Post, I’m no longer even sure what hard-core feminists want. I’m a woman and I can’t figure out what men are supposed to do any longer.

It’s like we’ve slipped into crazyland over the past few months.

I’ve often held back writing about marriage because I have a happy Christian marriage. I’m married to a good man. Not perfect, but good. Our marriage isn’t perfect, but it is good and happy. We are blessed and thankful. I think there are things we’ve done right both as Christian singles and as a couple submitted to the Lord that have contributed to that happiness. But I’ve hesitated to write about them because it seems like everyone wants to hear about people who have horrible marriages or struggle daily in marriage and how they cope and manage with all the troubles. Note I said cope and manage, not solve or overcome. I think that’s an important distinction to notice today, especially with the proliferation of progressive “Christian” women offering highly dubious marriage advice.

However, I’ve become more and more convinced that Christians who have a happy marriage need to speak out. Not to boast or brag and tell everyone else how to do it, but because young women and young men desperately need to know that it is possible to have a happy Christian marriage. They need to know that the opposite sex is not the enemy as feminists proclaim in a steady barrage of vicious and hateful attacks against the very idea of men.

I’m genuinely saddened how often I read things written by women and men that clearly indicate they do not trust the opposite sex. There is a fundamental breakdown happening in our culture that is tragic. The rantings of women who blame men for everything and get extensive coverage everywhere in the media are not helping.

God made His creation male and female. We need each other. Elevating one above the other is outside of God’s design for this world. How that plays out in the details can be tricky at times. I believe the male-female relationship is less formulaic than some Christians do. But I do know one thing for sure.

There is no place for me as a Christian woman in the feminist’s fantasy female future where men are demonized, discarded, and deliberately thrown into the opposing ditch.

And it’s not someplace I would want to live.

(Note in March 2021 – I remember reading this when it came out and it seemed like the rantings of a crazy person. This view has now been mainstreamed in just two years.)

Addendum:

This article showed up in my Twitter feed after I completed this post. Rather than try to work it in, I’ll leave you with the link and a quote (emphasis mine).

White Women: Stop Waiting For Black Women To Save You

Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing exposed anything besides his belligerence and questionable grasp of the truth, it was that the power white men take for granted is under threat. And there are white women who will stop at nothing to protect it.

It’s time for the 47 percent who voted against Trump to collect their white sisters. We need them all to choose us, their fellow women, over the white men who hurt all of us, but who grant white women a little bit of power along the way.

It’s time for white women who are outraged, marginalized and silenced to stand up and speak out for all of our rights. I don’t say this to shame white women. I say this because unless we approach these challenges from a place of truth and courage, we will never win.

We need them to get comfortable with discomfort, to check their fellow white women when they prop up white supremacy and white male patriarchy, to sacrifice their bodies and support our work with their dollars as well as their voices. That means showing up, and showing out, but also centering and lifting up our voices and experiences. It means voting for women of color who will fight to end rape culture, white supremacy and patriarchy.

The secular culture has no answers. Christians need to pray fervently and act deliberately to save as many men and women from this destructive movement as possible.

I told several people close to me that for the first time I really feel like my site reflects who I am. I’m at peace with what I’ve created and where things are going. I’m more than at peace. I’m truly excited. Except there is one thing I have to address to be at complete peace and feel completely free. It has to do with women in the church, why I’m not a Christian feminist, and how I would describe my beliefs.

That’s why I’m writing this post. It’s a topic that people feel very strongly about and I would rather just address it head on. I don’t want someone to read a comment or something written about me somewhere and feel that I haven’t been honest. I wrote about it in Why I Closed My “A Woman’s Freedom in Christ” Website, but haven’t put it all in one post which I am doing now because most newer readers will never see it there. All I ask is that you read the entire post before you respond or click away.

So if you’ve read my site a long time none of this will be news to you. Some of you have walked through a similar journey, emailed with me about it, chatted with me in comments about it, etc. for many years.

If you are newer to my website, you may have zero idea I ever wrote extensively about this topic. I’m writing this post for the newer readers because I am compulsively honest and I want this on public record so there are no surprises or potential disappointment at some point in the future.

I’m going to try to keep this short, but please understand I’m trying to distill almost thirty years into one post.

Early Days of Christian Blogging

Way back in the early days of blogging, a Christian organization/company called Vision Forum drove so much of what happened online in the homeschool circles. I realized that something was seriously off with what they were teaching and spoke out about it on my site.

I promptly lost a lot of readers which was hard. I was basically shunned by many of the “big name” Christian and Christian homeschool bloggers. That was hard, too. A lot of early blogging was about networking, blogrolls, getting links, etc. and I was definitely deemed an unacceptable outsider because I had fallen away from the “true” path.

On the brighter side, time proved me correct when that ministry imploded in horrific fashion. So while I was sad (and angry) for all the horrible things that transpired with that organization, I also felt vindicated.

The Vision Forum thing really pushed me to study the issue of women in the church. It had been on my radar for a number of years (starting with my time on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship), but I started writing about it on my site and asking questions out loud as I tried to work it out.

I promptly lost a lot of my primarily conservative Christian readers over that, too.

A Woman’s Freedom in Christ

I eventually moved all of that content to another website called A Woman’s Freedom in Christ. I had that site for a number of years and wrote on it in fits and stops. I deleted it in 2018 and even let the domain lapse so I have no connection with it any longer. That site was where I basically thought out loud about the issues related to women in the church. I may be a multipotentiate in many ways, but this topic is one that I stayed with for literally decades because I could never get a solid answer.

There were a lot of issues that drove this.

• Being on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
• Being single until almost age thirty
• My brother (and only sibling) becoming basically an Anabaptist and requiring his wife and daughters to wear a headcovering and then cutting his family off from me and my parents for years because we did not do the same (to the point they did not acknowledge Caroline’s birth or inform my parents when they had new grandchildren) (Thankfully, even though they still practice these things, they have reconciled with us)
• Being told that my speaking to mixed groups was not empowered by the Holy Spirit, but Satan
• Watching the impact of Vision Forum on the Christian homeschooling world, especially online
• Trying to find a church that was conservative and theologically sound, but not repressive in their treatment of women and how they use their gifts
• Pastors and elders being dismissive of my earnest and legitimate questions
• Watching my alma mater (Michigan State) being excessively targeted and raked over the coals by the #metoo movement for the Nassar situation and caving in ways I thought were wrong and unfair

So this was not some “Oh, she doesn’t want to follow the clear teaching of the Scriptures and so she’s trying to make excuses to believe what she wants” kind of journey. This was every part of my life being seriously impacted by this battle within the conservative church, the homeschooling movement, my work, my ministry, and my family.

I could not escape it.

In the end, I took the site down because I no longer wanted to be associated with anything even tangentially related to Christian feminism (even though I never called myself a Christian feminist). This came down to three big issues.

Three Reasons I’m Not a Christian Feminist

One, it became clear to me that many Christian feminists despise (or even hate) men, especially white men. They really do. I cannot support or be a part of anything that elevates women over men (or men over women) because to do so is blatantly unscriptural. Men and women are both created in God’s image and have equal value and access to Him.

Two, I was very uncomfortable with my blog posts being shared in some Christian feminist and egalitarian Facebook groups and the like. It seemed to me that those groups were increasingly populated by radical “Christian” feminists who tried to place a veneer of Christianity or the Bible on top of unbiblical views to make them acceptable. To be sure, there were some outstanding and thoroughly biblical egalitarians in those groups who I had grown to respect and would often link to in my research. But the solid research and scholarship was becoming increasingly drowned out by the radical feminists who were pushing intersectionality in exponentially rapid fashion. I didn’t want to have my name as a member of such a group and I didn’t want anything I wrote to be shared there. I did not want to spend my time arguing with people about these topics and things were developing so quickly at this point in our culture ( a few years ago) that I couldn’t even keep up with the woke terminology, etc. to respond to what was going on even though it was clear to me that it was wrong.

Three, I could not continue to immerse myself in the angry and sometimes even vile rhetoric that was increasingly taking over these groups. Some of it was due to hurting women lashing out verbally. I understand that some women have been very wronged and hurt by men and the church. I don’t deny that in the least. But as I wrote about in A Wise Woman Builds Her Home and The Life Lessons of Warren Wiersbe, Rachel Held Evans, and Those Falling Away by Deconstructing Their Faith, there is a line women cross and then all bets are off regarding how far astray from the historic Christian faith they will go. For my own mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being I had to walk away from the anger, negativity, and vitriol.

None of the Labels Work for Me

Shortly before I took A Woman’s Freedom in Christ down, I had settled on the term conservative biblical egalitarian to describe myself and to purposefully distance myself from the radical Christian feminists. I didn’t love the label, but gave it to myself because it was the only thing I could come up with that came close to where I was in my struggle. I wanted to label myself before someone else labeled me.

At this point, I don’t call myself a complementarian even though I believe God created men and women and they are designed to complement each other. That term has way too much baggage associated with it now.

I don’t call myself an egalitarian either. Even with the “conservative biblical” in front of it, I still wasn’t comfortable putting the label of “egalitarian” on myself because it, too, has a lot of baggage.

The truth of the matter is I could never find anyone who could answer all my questions sufficiently enough that I could end up in one camp or the other. I agree with the complementarians on some things and I agree with the egalitarians on some things.

I find it distressing when there aren’t women serving as deacons in a church because I am convinced it is biblical, but I honestly don’t believe I would want to be in a church with a woman as the head pastor.

I think we do church all wrong (which is an entire additional subject that ties into all this) and that’s part of why this issue of women using their gifts is more complicated than it has to be.

So that’s where I am on this. I believe in the authority of Scripture. I believe God created men and women to complement each other. Overall, I’m conservative theologically and very much a traditionalist by default.

I believe that some of the leading complementarians have made some really big mistakes and done a lot of damage to Christian churches and families.

I also believe that there are some very strong arguments for a more egalitarian interpretation of the Scriptures where it concerns women using their spiritual gifts in the Body of Christ. But they can’t answer all of the questions and provide me with an airtight explanation.

The truth is neither view is completely defensible from the Scriptures and history and that’s why it has been such a struggle for me.

My Thirty Year Journey in One Post

So that’s my story. I feel better sharing it and having it all out in the open. It would be easier in some ways not to bring it up because I’m sure some of you will be disappointed to read this. You might even think it doesn’t fit with so much of what I write about on my site about women in the home, etc.

Welcome to my world. All thirty years of it.

I’m a conservative, thinking, gifted, traditional, home-focused, homeschooling, happily married woman who asks too many questions to “fit in” completely. That’s just who I am. And I honestly like who I am.

On the flip side, I’m guessing maybe a few of you will be encouraged by what you read here. I hope so.

The thing that matters to me is that I am truthful and honest. So I’ve put this out there as a record of who I am and what I believe. That way no one has to wonder or be surprised if something comes up in the future. I don’t plan on writing about this because I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve made peace with the fact that I will never get a satisfactory answer. That’s why I took the site down and let the domain ownership lapse. As far as I’m concerned, that season of my life is over. I’ve moved on and am much more interested in supporting women in their homes, families, marriage, homeschooling, parenting, etc.

(Although I confess I struggle with the idea of writing about marriage due to my inability to fall neatly into one camp or the other. I haven’t figured out how to do that which is why I’ve only written a few posts about marriage and none specifically about my marriage in detail. I have lots to say, but I’m not sure it is worth it when there are so many other topics I can talk about. It seems like no matter what I write about marriage will offend either the complementarians or the egalitarians. LOL!)

In any case, onward we go toward creating our cozy lives of peace, understanding, joy, beauty, and faith!