I saw this conversation on Twitter and I had to screenshot it to share here. I know many of my readers aren’t on Twitter and I want you to see it. I also didn’t want it to disappear. (I’ll put the actual Twitter link in the first comment.)

So here’s what was written and I’ll write my thoughts after the screenshots.

I have a lot of thoughts about this I’m still trying to sort out but let’s look at a few off the top of my head.

(To make it clear, I’m not talking about the abusive, arrogant hyper-patriarchy types, but the Christians who sincerely believe that the Bible teaches patriarchy as normal. I’m also not out to defend or refute the finer points of that view in this post. I’m making big picture observations.)

These men who enthusiastically push biblical patriarchy have a few blind spots.

One, they fail to understand what happened before regarding these topics which I’ve already mentioned in a recent post. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it and I can already see it playing out. See this post and the comment thread. I added quite a bit this morning in the comments by way of follow-up.

• Are We Heading Toward Vision Forum 2.0 and Patriocentricity Again? 

Two, they view their sisters in Christ as their adversaries. They don’t fully realize it, but they do. They would say they don’t, but they do. They don’t realize how their dislike of feminists and the damage they have done to our culture seeps over a bit into how they view women even within the body of Christ. Also see my post about adversarial marriage counseling for an example.

• Christian Premarital Counseling That Promotes The Idea Of An Adversarial Marriage

Three, they fail to realize that it isn’t as simple as telling women to be content and happy while they stay home and raise a family because the Bible says this is what you should do. To make a major cultural shift like this requires a significant work of the Holy Spirit.

But it also requires a scaffolding of sorts to help women make this change. It’s an entire paradigm shift. Younger women are not getting the support they need to make this shift on top of all of the other once-in-a-millennium upheaval going on in our culture at the same time. What younger women are being force to grapple with as mothers and wives is truly overwhelming. To sort it out in the context of being a Christian adds even more to the situation.

The burnout and overwhelm are REAL. It’s not being addressed and it is a real problem. No wonder these women flock to the sick “Christian women” who tell them they can blow up their lives and have it so much better. No more need to make life-defining decisions for you and your children on a weekly basis. Look at all of the major “Christian” women “influencers” who live completely shipwrecked lives but are out there confidently telling Christian women how to live. Women will look for understanding from other women. If there aren’t biblical examples out there, they will find the flashy trainwrecks who will give them answers in order to make the pain go away.

It’s not as simple as telling women they need to sit in the pew next to their husband and listen to expository sermons in order to fix everything in their lives. Women are much more complex than that and it’s insulting to think that women can simply be reprogrammed to be successful Christian wives and mothers simply because someone tells them this is what the Bible says and therefore if you would just do it all of your struggles would go away. Even women with their hearts totally committed to Christ and following Scripture are going to struggle and it’s cruel to expect otherwise.

These men speak often about the fact that the Bible says the older women are to teach the younger women (but only if it is a very limited list of approved topics and a man is overseeing it). At the same time, the men are suspect of almost all the women they don’t directly control. In the end, I honestly think they don’t trust women. It’s not simply that they believe the Bible forbids certain things. They really don’t trust women. So they don’t trust the older women to help the younger women. And so the destructive cycle continues.

For all of you old-timers out there, doesn’t this sound so terribly familiar?