As I’ve been preparing to republish a large archive of posts about women in the body of Christ this week, I came across one that is a collection of quotes about women from Christian leaders throughout history. Some go back to what we call the early church fathers. Others are from this century. And then there is everything in-between.

Here’s a recent one that was provided as a statement made in a Christian conference in the twenty-first century.

You would not let an eleven-year-old child stand up in a meeting and talk. Then why should you allow a woman to speak in a meeting?

Wouldn’t you love to be married to that man or be his daughter?

The full quote from which I took the post title is this.

On this account all women are born, that they may acknowledge themselves inferior in consequence of the superiority of the male sex.

The source is John Calvin’s Commentary on Corinthians. You can search it up for yourself.

I expect many Christians would react by claiming no one talks like that today. Even the most conservative men wouldn’t use terms like inferior and superior when referring to men and women in the body of Christ and marriage.

Are you sure?

Go to this video. I’m not embedding it and I’m not even willing to link to it directly. You’ll have to close the spaces I put in the link below. But there is a growing segment of Reformed and Calvinistic men who believe and teach that this type of language about women is both necessary and biblical.

https://youtu.be/ 4Tn2aRfRPWk

Spoiler alert. It’s the same pastor who tells his wife what she can read and his children when they should go to the bathroom. See my post Vision Forum 2.0 and Patriocentricity Again | Joel Webbon on Women. Is he a household name? No. But he has a growing following on social media and it’s clear he definitely aspires to being one of the main leaders in Reformed circles as the older leaders retire and die off.