Why would any woman want to be a Christian? If the Bible is the Word of God, inspired by God, and every word true, why would any modern, thinking woman ever darken the door of an Evangelical/Fundamentalist church?
Over the past 100 years women have continued to gain rights and privileges kept from them by men, law and social propriety. The right to vote. Equal pay for equal work. The right to use birth control. The right to have an abortion. The right to divorce. While women do not yet have equal rights and privileges in this country huge progress has been made to that end.
Why don’t women have true equal rights and privileges in America? Don’t deceive yourself into thinking they do. There are still places in our society where the signs say Men Only. (as there are signs that say White Only and Heterosexual Only)
The primary reason women are denied basic civil rights and social privileges are the teachings of the Christian Bible. While we rightly criticize the patriarchy movement, the basic tenets of the movement were common practice a hundred years ago.
Christianity teaches that women are inferior to men. The Bible calls women a weaker vessel. The Bible teaches women are to be married, keepers of the home, bearers of children, and sex partners for their husband. (unless the husband goes Old Testament and has multiple wives and concubines). Quite simply the Bible teaches that the world of women revolves around husband, food, children, and sex.
If the Bible is meant to be taken as written women have no part in the governance of society or the church. Women are relegated to teaching children, and as women age they are given the task of teaching younger women how to be a good wife.
1 Timothy 5:14 says:
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
Titus 2:2-4 says:
That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
The Bible teaches women are to keep silent in the Church:
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 1 Corinthians 14:33-35
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 1 Timothy 2:11,12
The Bible regulates how women are to dress and wear their hair:
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. I Timothy 2:9,10
But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
6For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. 1 Corinthians 11:5,6
Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. 1 Corinthians 11:13-15
The Bible teaches that women are to be in subjection to their husband:
For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. 1 Peter 4:5,6
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 11:3
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Ephesians 5:22-24
The Bible teaches that having a wife is a sure way to avoid fornication:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 1 Corinthians 7:1-3
Women were created for men:
Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 1 Corinthians 11:9
And this is just the New Testament. The Old Testament portrays women as chattel, not much different from livestock. Women should be thrilled to have all the liberties the New Testament gives them. (this is sarcasm btw)
Liberal and progressive Christians try to make all these verses go away by saying they are no longer applicable or that they must be interpreted in their historical context. Fine. Let’s do the same with Jesus. A case can be made for Jesus being no longer applicable and surely we must interpret the teachings of Christ in their historical context. Of course this would result in Jesus being more irrelevant than he already is.
Millions of women attend Christian churches that believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. The church they attend proudly claims to be a bible-believing church. Some churches follow the above mentioned verses to the letter while other churches pretend the verses are not in the Bible. The latter are bible-believers lite. If they taught all of these verses as written there would be empty houses and beds by nightfall.
Many Christian women, those not brainwashed by literalist pastors and husbands, ignore the verses I mentioned. They tend to love Jesus and say screw the rest. While this viewpoint is rationally inconsistent and contrary to the teachings of the Bible I certainly understand women doing this.
Most Christian women are not into theology. Theology is what men do. (this says women are not educationally proficient enough to “do theology”. Best to let men do the hard thinking) Women embrace Christianity and continue in the church because of the social and family connection they have with others in the church. They are willing to put up with being considered second class citizens as long as they can maintain the social and family connections. I suspect this is due to the maternal instinct that most women have.
Some Christian women realize they have been taken captive by the bible, a book that men use to dominate and control them. Remember the “hell hath no fury” line that talks about a woman scorned? Once women realize they can be free from the control and domination of men……watch out.
Many women, once free, leave Christianity altogether. Others make their peace with God and the church. If their marriage survives they adopt an egalitarian way of life. Marriage becomes a joint, a shared relationship. Gone are the religious and social strictures meant to keep women in their place.
For those who have left Christianity, how did your marriage and your relationship with your husband change?
For those who are still in the Christian church, what changes have you made to your beliefs and practices to reflect your rejection of the Bible verses above?
Perhaps you still embrace the Evangelical/Fundamentalist teaching on women. Your comments are welcome too.
I know there ARE Christian men who are overbearing to their wives, but that is not what I have seen and experienced first hand. My parents were equal partners in their marriage, and my husband and I are, also.
I was always taught that overbearing men are leaving out the most important part of that passage of scripture, that goes on to say “love your wives as Christ loved the church.” When you love that much, you are not unkind or unfair.
People who really love each other are not bogged down over who is in charge. They work as a team and each show respect and consideration to each other.
I am one of the people who believes that women were forbidden to speak in church because the women of the time were ignorant. I grew up with women speaking and teaching in church. Unfortunately, the disdain for women actually PREACHING is alive and well. I do not agree with it.
The official doctrinal position of most of the Evangelical denominations and the Southern Baptist convention, along with Muslims, Mormons, and Roman Catholics is decidedly anti-woman.
I disagree with you on the love issue. I pastored hundreds of couples who were very much in love, who took the Bible seriously, and who had male dominated marriages. This, by the way, was the norm until the last half of the 20th century. Things changed greatly after ww2.
The Bible is anti-woman. Fortunately, many Christians are better than the Bible they believe. The Bible has been used a tool to oppress women for centuries. I am glad to see that changing.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of Ron Williams’s teachings on
this subject, but it isn’t pretty at all. When I think of how I allowed myself
to be treated like a whore, like trash by that man… yeah, so I broke out a long
time ago. I finally came to terms with that break only in the last year. No way
in hell I’d ever go back… I’d rather be dipped in acid.
So unbelievably wrong. Sigh. Jesus (his revolutionary treatment of women), and the teachings of the Bible, both Old and New Testament are the foundation for equal rights in the western world. Period. Created in the image of God, that all people, regardless of their sex, race, social status, have an intrinsic worth because we are loved by God. It’s a Judeo-Christian concept, not an evolutionary concept.
Please exegete the verses in this post and summarize how the Christian church treated women for about 19 centuries. Let me be blunt. Take the rose colored glasses off.
You have a naive view of what the Bible says. The Bible, especially in the OT is racist and women are treated as property. Western democracy, not Christianity, is what has helped to unchain women from their male masters.
I would also take issue with the notion of God loving everyone. The Bible seems to teach that God only loves his covenant people, the elect. The Bible is replete with illustrations of God hating, judging, and killing. So much for the God of love.
I realize you want your God to be seen in a favorable light. You are going to have to chuck the Bible for that to happen. Of course, when you do that the Christian God no longer exists.
Just couldn’t resist that canard, could you?
Why is it that for centuries the church was so violent, so splintered, so anal, and now all of a sudden you want Christianity to have all the credit for all the progress in the world. I call foul. Take a look at your history, read some of the Enlightenment thinkers works, read about the women’s rights movement, then come back and tell us that for almost 2000 years the church has helped women. The leaders of the women’s rights movement were atheists, by the by.
I find it so funny how once a certain discovery is made, most Christians will say, “well, we already knew that, the Bible tells us so!” Wow, how convenient. Are you sure it’s not just because the Bible is so damn unclear on many issues that you can’t figure out something before secular, human morality figures it out?
Check your sources about the atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth century feminists. Simply not true. Perhaps not Christian according to today’s fundamentalist definitions but a long way from atheist, especially those original Seneca Falls women.
Sandra
Guess I ought to know what I’m talking about before I reply to somebody.
Yeah, you’re right. They seem to be mostly Quakers.
Sorry for my lack of research.
I know a bit about Quakers as my father was one for a while and he was an atheist. There is or was a branch of Quakers who called themselves “non-theists”. I am not sure if the Suffragettes were in this particular group of Quakers or not, but as they were definitely liberal in their thinking, I suspect they were.
Hi Margaet Ann,
I suspect that you have a liberationist biblical hermeneutic and read the bible through the eyes of a Jesus who champions the rights of those who were considered inferior by the religious establishment of the first century. I hope I am right here. I am glad you support equal rights for women. However, most Evangelicals hold to a hierarchical hermeneutic when it comes to the role of women.
These Evangelicals describe themselves as “Complementarian”. They claim that men and women are “equal” but have different roles assigned to them by God. Men are leaders in the church and in the household, So their code word means that women are really inferior. They reject marriage as a partnership and prevent women from becoming pastors, ministers and preachers who are able to lead their churches where they have the requisite gifts. Their position is based on a historical-grammatical interpretation of the bible.
A small minority of Evangelicals (such as Christians for Biblical Equality, Jim Wallis and the Sojourners community and a few others) support egalitarian marriages and leadership positions in the church based on gifting which is not gender based. However, I suspect that their liberationist hermeneutic is more consistent with neo-orthodox and liberal perspectives on the bible.
The bible is not a foundation for human rights if we see how it has been used down through most of church history. Much in the bible itself is also anti women’s rights. The churches have generally supported the status quo in most of its history and usually is only dragged into the progressive support of human rights after much resistance. For most of its history, the churches have NOT actually followed the teachings and praxis of Jesus or supported equal rights.
Shalom,
John Arhtur
There are surprisingly few women who’ve actually answered Bruce’s question thanks to the few who have sidetracked the conversation.
I was a fundy Christian submissive wife. I hated it, I hated me, and I hated all things feminine. I wished to die. I did not know I had the resources to leave since I had been ruled by fear and shame through church teachings since I was small and taught that relying on my own intelligence was sin. When I left Christianity, largely precipitated by the above verses which lead to me question other parts of the bible, my husband did too. It has been all kinds of good for our relationship. I am learning to love and respect myself, although it is not easy to undo decades of brainwashing. Our communication is better. Our sex is better. Our parenting is better.
Greek Orthodox as well.
My Fat Greek Wedding…….The man is the head, but woman is the neck, she can turn the head anyway she wants.
”
The Bible is anti-woman. Fortunately, many Christians are better than the Bible they believe. The Bible has been used a tool to oppress women for centuries. I am glad to see that changing.”
Excellent observation, Bruce. I agree. People are better than their bibles. It’s good to see progress, no matter how slow. Progress is progress.
I deconverted openly last year, it was not my intentions. The IFB church pounded into my head all during my childhood the fundamentals of the faith and the necessity of believing it convincingly for salvation. One day not giving it much though, it dawned on me, “where does it say that in the bible”? That was the beginning to the end.
My husband was concerned in the beginning but once I renounced the faith openly, he didn’t give me any grief, he allowed me to think for myself and have my non-belief, after all I had not been interested in church for many years by this time. He attends a rather liberal Independant church that doesn’t browbeat him to drag me to church and force me to be subordinate to him and the church.
The IFB cult that I attended years ago for one year, my husband had no interest in and despised the preacher an egomaniacal Hyles-Anderson graduate. After deconverting it all began to make sense to me. Our difference of beliefs does not affect our marriage to my knowledge anyway. He doesn’t get angry that I don’t participate when he prays silently for his food. We do not try to preach our beliefs to each other, after all he knows that I already know what christians believe.
I had the honors of exposing an abusive couple that attends his church who ran a faith based girls home in Mississippi for 20 years to my husband and his pastor, the ex-director of the girls home “admitted to some indiscretions” recently after months of investigating and providing some written testimonies of abuse to the pastor. My husband has a good head on his shoulders, maybe in time he will dismiss the christian beliefs too.
” For those who have left Christianity, how did your marriage and your relationship with your husband change?”
I left home to be with a boyfriend my family did not approve of when I was 18. He was Christian, but not in the sense that my family wanted him to be. We were fundamentalist and well off financially while my boyfriend came from a broken home, a rough life and was more into the Christ’s message than following the Bible to the letter. His brand of Christianity was more appealing to me because of the emotional abuse I had experienced via a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Even though I left many aspects of fundamental Christianity behind, I was still of the mindset that he was to be the head of the household and the spiritual leader. I also had this idea that his sexual pleasure was more important than my own. My goal was to please him and I didn’t much care about myself – and this didn’t seem wrong to me at the time. It was never a problem in the beginning because I was too young/naive to know who I was or what I wanted in life. I honestly didn’t know that I was supposed to want anything for myself. I was simply trying to follow the path the women around me had taken. I was ‘spiritually’ married (to have a real wedding would have been difficult since my family was aggressively against our relationship, so we settled for the idea of marriage) and planning to have kids when D and I were more stable financially and able to move out of his family’s home.
I entered that relationship thinking of myself as weak, fragile and pure — and I saw nothing wrong with that! D was a good guy and didn’t take blatant advantage of that, but he came to love that idea of me – the ‘me’ I presented. He really didn’t change a lot during the course of our 4 year relationship – he’s always been a good but simple guy – but my dreams, goals, desires, and view of life had all changed immensely. I guess I was finally getting to know myself.
I give him credit for trying to be supportive, but it just didn’t seem like he could genuinely accept a lot of the changes. I think he liked being my shield and my protector too much. He sometimes seemed willing to learn a new role, but I felt it was only to keep from losing me. I had also, at this point, grown weary of his ideas about spirituality and God. What had initially drawn me to his perspective of life and God began to weird me out the further I came out of my own shell and the more I learned.
I am now with someone who honestly wants an equal partnership – and that is how we entered this. I’ve never felt more liberated in an a relationship and I honestly think it’s the lack of religion’s hold on us combined with our willingness to be honest about our desires. I feel people tend to have trouble being honest with themselves as it is and that religion tends to perpetuate this problem. At least, this is what’s true in my own experience.
My take on the whole Bible & Women thing is that the book not being a holy one, the “rules” for females were written by men. The primitive men who wrote the Bible stance on women used the acceptable cultural issues of the day. Using such earthly, inhuman values in the 21st century is despicable, to say the least.
I think this has a deeper socio-psychological (-sexual?) component than just with Christianity. Women are more religious than men, period. Across all cultures, across time. I think it might be latching on to something that goes much deeper than how much the rules of a religion belittle a woman.
It does, many women often find some sort of hope and healing through whatever spiritual path they know and accept (predominately via their upbringing) to help them cope with abuse, stressfull situations, problems, etc., The faith is much harder to depart from when dependant on a god they understand to get them through difficult situations which is why prayer is so effective…not as much as having them answered but the strong faith in that however god answers them offers peace of mind. I have found when dealing with a big problem the thought of praying enter my mind out of habit, something I have to mentally process to discard that idea as a nonbeliever and then being pissed for a moment that I have no other way of mentally copeing except dealing with the problem head on like usual anyway. So I find myself talking to myself instead of god like the old days, well not much different, better to talk to myself than talking to an unresponsive ceiling. Either way talking to a god, a friend or yourself brings some mental clarity to any given problem.
This is the most historically ignorant trash I’ve ever read Bruce. I congratulate you because I’ve seen some doosies over the years….
“Christianity has gotten a bad rap from people who have not done their homework,” says retired Illinois College sociology professor Alvin J. Schmidt, author of the recent book “Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization.” “In what countries have women lacked freedom?” he says. “Where Christianity is not present, especially in the Middle East. Were it not for Christianity, Gloria Steinem would still be walking about in a veil.” Presbyterian authors the Rev. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe say in their book “What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?” that had the event never happened, the “gaping hole” in civilization “would be a canyon about the size of a continent.” Christianity’s immediate effects were to bring an end to infant exposure (where unwanted children were left out in the elements to freeze or die of thirst), gladiator contests, cannibalism and abortion..
Such logic causes Mr. Schmidt to see red. “Have these people ever read the Koran?” he asks. “I have read it with a fine-toothed comb more than once. Islam was founded by the sword. Muhammad took part in 66 battles and sold women and children into slavery. All this is documented. “To present Islam as a peaceful religion is to have your head in the sand. Jihad is right out of the Koran. The Christians who took part in the Crusades never cited any verse out of the New Testament backing what they did. But the Muslims who practice violence do cite the Koran.” Christianity was considered radically pro-woman at the time of its founding, he says. “Christ was never quoted as saying anything demeaning or derogatory to women. Women in Greek days could hardly leave their homes. When her husband had guests over, she was not even allowed to sit in the same room. Their status was extremely low among the Romans, where the father of the family had the power of life and death, even over his wife. “In [the Gospel of] John, Chapter Four, Jesus was asked what he was doing talking to a woman in public, as you only talked with prostitutes in public. When he taught Mary and Martha in Luke 10, that was a behavior you did not do with women. “Christianity also nullified polygamy, as Jesus made it clear a man has one wife. If a Greek man was walking about outside with a woman, that was his mistress, not his wife. Christianity also made it clear widows were to be taken care of.” Link
By all means Bruce, feel free to point out any part that is historically incorrect.
Awaiting replies….
Glad I could make your list.
Interesting…all I did was quote the Bible. Do these mean what they say? Please do exegete these verses for me.
Your world in one of Christians vs. Muslims. A world where Christianity is good and the Muslim religion is bad. Both religions have contributed positively to the world and both religions have murdered, raped, pillaged, and destroyed.
The focus of this postwas what the Bible says about women. Based on what the Bible says why would any woman want to be a Christian?
Bruce, you left out atheism which has killed more than than any of the other 2 by far.
The focus of this postwas what the Bible says about women
Which is why I found it interesting, although not unexpected, the Tristan changed the topic to the Crusades.
Do I really have to tell you that Hitler was not an atheist? Do I really have to tell you that it was not atheism that caused the bloodshed but rather a thirst for power and domination?
Surely, you aren’t trying to play a game of moral equivalence? It matters not how much blood has been shed by atheists. After all, according to your worldview, what could we atheists do but shed blood and destroy the world. Your religions purports to follow after the Prince of Peace. Your Jesus was a pacifist who said turn the other cheek. Looking at the history of the Christian church I am hard pressed to find where the Church took seriously the peace commands of Christ. Even now Christian America wages war, killing thousands and thousands of people.
BTW, my post was about what the Bible SAYS. You are the one who drug this thread down a xenophobic rabbit hole. How about trying to interact with what I actually wrote. Please do try and explain away the clear teachings of the Christian Bible.
JD, why would you call Bruce historically ignorant and then quote someone who says:
“The Christians who took part in the Crusades never cited any verse out of the New Testament backing what they did.”
???
I mean, if you even took a minute to Goolge the Crusades you will find that the Holy wars were BLESSED by the Pope… who cites St. Augustine of Hippos reasoning for strategic war based expansion of Christianity, as detailed in his treatise The City of God, as one of the motivators for Crusades. That book is FULL of quotes from the New Testament. It would be a lie to claim the Pope did not refer to the NT when he, in fact, refers to a text specifically because it makes use of the NT providing a valid scriptural basis for spreading Christianity by the sword.
I’m not even going to quote mine it, because it would so embarrass you. Just go read it for yourself.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_City_of_God
Meanwhile, there were many various types of Crusades. The campaigns conducted between 1100 and 1600 were specifically based off of Biblical reasons!!! Anyone who denies this would, in point of fact, be historically ignorant with this regard.
The person you quoted denies this. And since you use him to deny it, so do you.
Oops!
You and the author need to read up on your history a bit and look up: The Albigensian Crusades, the Aragonese Crusades, the Reconquista and Northern Crusades. These weren’t Crusades about territorial disputes, but rather, they were specifically about stamping out heresy. Haha. Heresy. Which is ONLY a concern of those who have BIBLICAL motivated reasoning to, well, try and create a religious orthodoxy which conforms to scripture.
Additionally, Pope Urban II frequently invoked the name of Jesus Christ, the central NT figure, for the justification of the war.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_II
ALSO…
What Bruce said. What does this historical ignorance have to do with what the Bible teaches about the unfair treatment of women? That was his point. It helps to stay on topic, and keep your points concise and make them relevant. I’m just saying, failing to do that and then turn around only to call somebody ignorant seems, to me, to be hypocritical in the extreme.
Oh TristanVic, that was way too awesome.
It had to be said. I hate people calling other people ignorant for no reason.
If I’m going to call someone ignorant, well then, I hope I can back that up. This is just a case of a loud mouth Xian failing to back up his claims and showing, like most Christians, they will resort to Ad Hominem attacks before they will take the time to educate themselves.
And I REALLY hate that.
What bothered me is that he didn’t even bother to interact with what I wrote. Of course I know why….kinda hard to dispute what the Bible plainly says. Damn inconvenient book for Christians.
.
That said, he went off on a tangent and you just interacted with him on the tangent he chose. (and I really appreciate you doing that) His reading of history is laughable but quite common among Christians. We owe every good thing we have to the Christian god, the thinking goes. While I think Christianity certainly has had cultural influence ( good and bad), there are many factors that must be considered when we look at the progress of women in the world.
Besides, what about now? It seems many Christians want to undo much of the progress women have made over much of the 20th century. Who is standing in the way of women now? Who is standing in the way of much of the progress in American culture?
Youre not going to embarrass me? really?
I wonder if I even have to point out that being blessed by Pope Urban and City of God ! = quoting the New Testament!
You’re embarrassing yourself by pretending there is no casual link between faith and faith based acts. Of course the Crusaders went to battle for beliefs they derived from scripture, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a deemed a “Holy war.”
At any rate, all I did was show the Pope had NT reasons for going to war, even though he was only taking those reasons from another person. The very fact the Pope endorsed the reasons, and even quoted them as the very reasons he went to war, makes your last statement irrelevant.
Thanks for playing though.
Let me get this straight…
A. On a thread owhich the topic is the alleged repression of women by Christianity, you suddenly change the topic to the Crusades.
B. Whe the author I quote CLEARLY stated ‘The Christians who took part in the Crusades never cited any verse out of the New Testament backing what they did’ you then cite an extra-biblical source (City of God) and of all people, Pope Urban who last I checked, was not even considered an early church father, nevermind an apostolic NT figure.
C. Several entries into this thread, you have yet to cite one single NT verse that was utilized by Christians who took part in the Crusades. And
D. I’m embarrassing myself?
Really?
This is almost as mind-numbingly stuopid as writing an umpteen paragraph screed excoriating the Bible for talking about talking snakes when the Bible makes no such claim.
Wait a minute…
Oh TristanVic, that was way too awesome
If by ‘awesome’ you mean ‘factually bankrupt’, then I concur.
JDCurtis
Well, until you take some courses in argumentation, informal fallacies, and logic I wouldn’t actually expect you to understand where you went wrong.
First, I should state that I am not trying to be elitist. It is just obvious that you are making novice mistakes with regard to the dialectic. Especially when you go and introduce an off topic quote and then blame me for changing the topic when I’m simply following the tangent you introduced in the first place.
Second, I effectively showed that the entire reason there was a Holy crusade at all was due to the beliefs inspired and derived from the NT. Minus their scriptural beliefs, it stems to reason that there wouldn’t have been any Holy wars at all. This is where a course in logic would have helped you.
I don’t need to provide quotes by early Xian crusaders because the entire reason there was a crusade to begin with was because of the beliefs Xians had developed based on scripture.
I proved this by showing the quote about there being no crusaders who quoted the NT to be entirely irrelevant. Without writing out the predicate math, mind you. But it would have been at least this obvious if you had
understood the logic behind the reasoning (i.e., the Predicate Calculus).
I thereby effectively mooted the point you used to claim that Bruce was
historically ignorant, and revealed your penchant to make erroneous
accusations and then support them with erroneous information–which also
happened to be completely irrelevant, in this case.
The rest of your follow up accusations all fit within the camp of informal
fallacies and I fail to see how they benefit the discussion. But feel free
to keep making them, because that in and of itself is proof that you have
no real argument.
Finally, it needs to be pointed out that if you choose to use second hand
sources to justify your claims, then you might not want to dismiss
others who use second hand sources to justify theirs, especially when
theirs are at least pertinent to the argument they are trying to make.
But this only goes to show you don’t have a handle on the basics of
argumentation–almost as if you never were part of a debate team in school
or never passes your basic introductory philosophy courses at college–so I
won’t harp on the issue, since I suspect in revealing the faults of your
reasoning you would only see it as a personal attack (although it couldn’t hurt
to take a critical thinking class or two).
For those of you keeping score at home, TV has thus far…
A. On a thread which the topic is the alleged repression of women by Christianity, hr suddenly changes the topic to the Crusades.
B. Whe the author I quote CLEARLY stated ‘The Christians who took part in the Crusades never cited any verse out of the New Testament backing what they did’ he then cites an extra-biblical source (City of God) and of all people, conjures up the spectar of Pope Urban who last I checked, was not even considered an early church father, nevermind an apostolic NT figure.
C. Several entries into this thread, he has yet to cite one single NT verse that was utilized by Christians who took part in the Crusades
D. He equates his quote mining by siezing upon exactly one sentence out of a 19 sentence quotation I posted with me somehow ‘posting an off topic quote’.
E. TV implies I should study ‘argumentation, informal fallacies, and logic’ yet he does not produce a single example of any fallacy I have committed (logical or otherwise) to bolster his advice that I should study them.
F. TV asserts a 2nd time that he has ‘conclusively’ shown the New Testament was behind the Crusades by playing bait-and-switch with the terms ‘New Testament quotes’ as the cited author claimed with something as fuzzy and ill-defined as ‘beliefs inspired and derived from the NT’ and umpteen entries into this thread he STILL hasn’t cited a single NT verse to support his (thus far discredited) hypothesis>.
G. TV makes the wildly untrue claim that he has ‘effectively mooted the point you used to claim that Bruce was historically ignorant’ and in fact has yet to even address a single, specific claim put forward in the above, quoted article.
H. TV apparently has a problem with so-called ‘second hand sources’, yet he cannot refute anything and has not even (as of yet) done so in the slightest. (Unless you somehow equate the terms ‘addressing specific points raised’ with ‘changing the subject’ that is).
If Tristan feels that any of the above is untrue, he is welcome to point out which point(s) he disagrees with, however I would ask that he do so without changing the topic or making any further completely unfounded assertions.
At Beziers Arnaud Amalric quoted a paraphrase of 2 Timothy 2:19 (from the NT) as confirmed by the Christian writer according to the Cistercian writer Casesar of Heisterbach.
All it takes is one, right?
I could have quoted Ralphus “The Black” Niger’s speaches to the Crusaders on the battle field, but since it only really takes one.
You’re welcome BTW.
Tristan now changes the definition of the term ‘Crusades’ from ‘any of the military expeditions undertaken by the Christians of Europe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims’ to ‘inter-nicene fighting between competeing religious groups in France’. Bravo!
Tristan is welcome to provide a supporting link to support his ‘Ralphus “The Black” Niger’ reference given that typing the words [Ralphus The Black Niger crusades] into a common search engine yields absolutely nothing useful to the discussion.
Beziers was the staging ground for the Crusaders before they went to war. Remember, the majority of the Crusaders were from modern day Germany and France. Before the soldiers disembarked for the war, they
would receive customary religious services, including the motivational sermons of Church preachers. Then they were blessed and sent off to war.
The quote I provided was from one of those Crusader preachers preaching to the Crusaders.
Sigh.
Now it just seems like I am wasting knowledge on you.
Why was France the chosen base of operations? Probably geography, but also probably because of the spread of the Muslims into France is what triggered the cultural backlash which lead to the mobilization of the Christian nations.
The political side was primed. Now all they needed was a scriptural excuse to go to war.
Now where did they get that idea from I wonder?
See above explication of Urban II.
Anyone who draws a moral equivalence between our western christian based culture and Islamic culture is a relativistic fool. Western Civilization, wort’s and all has done more for the rights of humans then any other culture, and yes humanists and atheists have made massive contributions for the better. I am not afraid to defend it.
Send your wife, or 20 year old daughter to live in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, even Indonesia. You name it. I would rather send mine to Australia, France, Israel, Holland, Belgium, New Zealand, Ireland etc.
Watch, they’ll cite a reference that Holland and Belgium are largely irreligious and then forget centuries of Christian culture on the continent known up until recently as ‘Christiandom’.
Hey JD,
You have had your say. Many readers of this blog do not agree with your view of history, Christianity and the like. That’s just how it is,
If you want to claim Christendom then by all means do so. I, for one, think the Jesus of the Bible would like say to Christendom, depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you.
You must have the Thomas Jefferson version of a history book.
Do you ever stop to think that maybe it is CHRISTIANITY that has made them irreligious? What does modern Christianity have to offer the world? Whatever it may or may not have been in the past, modern Christianity has little to nothing to offer the world. Outside of a ticket ot heaven, what does Christianity offer the world?
To those who are Christian, it offers social connection and gives them answers to questions concerning the end of life and life after death. However, as more and more people are finding out, it offers little to nothing concerning life in the here and now. To me it seems like a big money making scam. People give their money and life in hopes of a home in Heaven some day. If they ever see that they are being conned the game is over.
Christianity has had 2000 years to make it case. Time is up. People like you sound like the owners of the Titanic, swearing that the ship is safe and sound, while it rolls over into the dark sea.
Ah yes, the sweet sweet wisdom of T Paul. How I’ve missed it.
Aye JD, the Koran is a sexist, homophobic, slave endorsing, violent book. And, so is the Bible!
What’s your point?
I find it hilarious when fundamentalists do linguistic acrobatics to make words like “submission” and “male headship” mean something other than what they mean. I’ve heard fundamentalist men claim that “male headship” is all about a man “serving” his wife, and that a woman’s “submission” to her husband actually means “respect.” (Remember when Michele Bachmann used that line?)
It’s all bull, of course. Fundamentalists can play fast and loose with word definitions, but sexism is sexism. At the end of the day, all this “male headship” nonsense robs women of power and dignity. Let’s ditch patriarchy and treat women like human beings.
Perhaps someone should start a support group for Christian women in the Southern U.S to help them realize that they have self worth and do not need authoritarian males (fathers or husbands) dictating their lives to them. Men have “Promise keepers” so perhaps the women’s group could be called “Promise breakers”.
I live in the Southern U.S., and I can confirm that some women in the south still fall into a subservient role, some more than others. Many still believe in a literal interpretation of the bible and don’t understand that the bible was written by men for men during a primitive time, and that books of the bible where chosen and translated by men to serve their own agendas. I’ve given up trying to debate the issue with the brainwashed.
Man oh man, did it EVER affect my Marriage; it practically
destroyed it. But not in the way one might think.
Well Bruce, suffice to say, you’ve raised some very interesting points here to say the least. The last time we talked about women’s rights, I almost got kicked out of your blog. So I’m going to tread here really carefully.
Bruce, I can understand how people can see the Bible as anti-feminist/woman. You’ve pointed out some classical problem verses that seem to relegate women to a position of subservience to men.
My take on this is that it is not the Bible itself that is anti-feminine, but the culture prevalent at that time. As I’ve mentioned in another post, NOBODY took women’s and children’s rights seriously until only about the latter half of the 18th century. And I think its rather unfair to put the blame solely on Scripture for that being the case.
Let’s face it: men and women were born with different attributes. Those attributes are meant for certain functions unique to our gender. Man was not born to bear children, much the same way tha a woman was not meant to carry semen and the biological means with which to impregnate another woman.
Current studies are also showing that it is not only our biology that is different, but our psychology as well. Men are naturally more aggressive and foward looking, well suited to their historical role as leaders and protectors. Women on the other hand, are generally more patient and present oriented, making them great managers and nurturers. Do any of these psychological attributes make one superior to the other? I don’t think so. Rather, these attributes make it clear that we have specific roles to play that the other cannot.
Furthermore, these differences are not meant to be competitive, but COMPLEMENTARY. The most obvious example is of course reproduction. Biological reproduction, unaided by science, cannot occur between two persons of the same sex.
Men and women may not be equal in attributes, but they are both ESSENTIAL beings that cannot live without the other. They are meant to become and act as one unit.
The Bible recognizes this, as early as the Book of Genesis:
“So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.” – (Genesis 1:27, NLT)
Neither man, nor woman alone represent the perfection of God. BOTH of them together make for the image of perfection.One last point I’d like to make is that I think that many of us underestimate the high value that the Bible places on women.
Women are much, MUCH more powerful than many of us think. They are so powerful in fact, that they can literally start and end wars.
We men like to act like we have power over women. But the truth of the matter is that it is the women who have the power over US.
Do you want to know what happens when this power is misused? Why, just look at how women are used to manipulate men into becoming mindless consumers.
There is not a day that goes by that I am not bombarded with sexually charged images of women enticing me to buy into a product or service. The illusion being that if I buy into the product, I am somehow getting intimate with the woman advertising it, and also confirming my manhood in the process.
A woman, who uses her sexuality to seduce and manipulate in exchange for profit is nothing more than a prostitute. I believe that a woman is made for more nobler purposes than that, much the same way that we men are made for more nobler purposes than to become willing lackeys in an abusive system that seeks to expoit women for profit.
Men are known to do crazy things for a woman. The Bible takes note of such occasions. The most famous of all being the story of Samson and Delilah. Samson, with all of his vaunted physical strength, is reduced to a subservient lackey who threw away his God-ordained power and responsibility to protect his people in exchange for Delilah’s favors.
Remember Helen of Troy? How many Greeks died because of the “Face that launched a thousand ships”?
And last, but definitely not the least (at least for me as a Christian), we are told that Satan himself used Eve to tempt Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, which led to the downfall of humanity.
Oh, women are powerful all right. They are so powerful, they can cause the rise and fall of empires, make or break homes, ensure the success and cause the breakdown of generations of families. They literally have the power over life and death.
That is why I believe the Bible takes great pains to remind BOTH men and women of the dangers of their powers being misused. Women are NOT meant to be prostitutes. Men are NOT meant to be lackeys to prostitution. They are meant to behave in accordance with the purpose for which they were made: as partners working in tandem for the promotion and protection of LIFE. They were NOT meant to be used as tools for the destruction of life.
“The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” – (John 10:10 NLT)So my message to the women is this:So my message to the women is this:
Blessed are you daughters of Eve.
Blessed are you if you are treated as the least in this world, for in God’s kingdom, it is the least who are the greatest.
Blessed are you for your meekness, for it is you who will inherit the Earth.
Blessed are you for refusing to have your bodies used as tools for destruction, for you will be called Mothers of all who live.
Blessed are you when you persevere in raising your family, for your children will grow up to crush the Serpent under their heels.
And finally, blessed are you, for it is through you that the Savior was born so that salvation might come to those who seek it.
Mabuhay ang mga kababaihan!
I’m actually quite stoned right now, and whattya know, you almost made sense. Except for the majority part where you sounded like a raving lunatic.
I’d stay away from that grass if I were you then.
Hi Christopher,
You say that women have “power over men”. Well it depends on how you define power. Sociologist, Max Weber defined power as the ability to influence others regardless of their will. There is economic power, political power, social power and religious power. As Karl Marx put it, who controls the dominant means of production? i.e land, natural resources, technology, capital goods and labour power? Who controls the dominant means of mental production and communication? i.e. Newspapers, television, radio, the educational institutions, and the religious institutions etc?
I am sure that it is not women. They are disproportionally under-represented in the distribution of power in modern capitalist societies and in the churches. Though they may have more power than they used to have in the ancient, medieval and early modern worlds, they still do not have equality in the political, economic, social and religious institutions that are dominant in modern society. The Catholic Church and most Protestant Evangelical churches still do not have women in the leadership roles of priests or pastors nor as bishops or elders. There is a greater proprtion of women in politics and business with some leadership roles than in the churches, even though this is still fairly small.
Personally, I do not attribute this disparity to complementary roles. The distribution of intelligence is a bell shaped curve and there are no significant differences between the sexes. Management styles (leadership styles) vary among managers and there is no impediment to women becoming managers based on style of leadership. So although women and men may have some natural differences and be complementary in this sense, I do not think they differ in ability to lead nations, churches, businesses or educational institutions.
Shalom,
John Arthur
Hello John Arthur!
Thank you for your comments. I agree with your definition of power. Power is indeed the ability to influence others regardless of their will. There is both soft power and hard power. Power that is apparent, and power that is latent and/or hidden.
And while I also agree with you that historically, women have had a disproportionate share of power in most human societies, I still believe that women have had more power that we have been led to realize.
I don’t think that it was meant as a joke when the phrase “Behind every great man is a great woman” was first popularized.
Women DO have power. As do men. The issue I was getting at is not the lack of power, but the proper use of it.
And I also conditionally agree with you that our genders should not limit us in the roles we happen to find ourselves in. My kudos goes to all the single women who have had to fulfill the role of both father and mother to their children. My position is that this is a situation that should not be sought after, but rather rigorously avoided. A child NEEDS BOTH parents. Behavioral and psychological studies are proving this.
My country the Philippines is experiencing this first hand. We have about 10 million of our nationals working overseas as professionals and non-professionals. Both men and women. Most of them sacrifice their time to be with their spouses and children in exchange for being able to provide for them financially.
But we have not been able to count the social costs until recently. Many of these families end up broken. Their children become unruly or deviant due to lack of proper parenting. And all that money that our overseas Filipinos are sending back to their families from overseas? Well, they end up being spent on superficial stuff, because the children are not properly taught how to handle money. They end up growing taking money for granted. Worse, they end up taking their parents (and authority in general) for granted.
Finally, I should be the last to say that women cannot be leaders. After all, the Philippines has gone through TWO women presidents already. The FIRST ever in the region to ever have done so. We would have remained the ONLY one if it weren’t for Aung San Suu Kyii (whom our government and people have always supported). We look forward to what she will do for her people in Myanmar.
Shalom aleikhem,
Chris Aro
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your clarification on a number of points.
You raise the issue of hard and soft power. I take soft power to be the latent power to which you refer and I would not deny that it exists. But do women just want latent power? After all, you can have latent power in a highly unequal society, but be denied human rights. Is it not equal rights that women want? Is this not what we all want? After all, who wants to be exploited due to inequalities in the distribution of power? Perhaps some do, but is it just?
The Catholic Church talks about social justice in some of its papal encyclicals but keeps women from the priesthood. Even though many Catholic women might not want to be priests, some do. Is it just social policy for the Church to deny them this right where they might have the appropriate gifts?
Shalom,
John Arthur
Hello again John!
Thank you again for responding!
I agree with you that women’s rights, even in our so-called modern age leaves much to be desired. But now that you’ve mentioned it, how about childrens’ rights? How about racial rights? How about the rights of the poor and underpriviledged? How about the rights of the uneducated?
How come less than five percent of the world’s population controls more than 25 percent of the world’s resources? How come only the rich and powerful seem to be living more luxuriously while the rest of the world wallows under the poverty line? How come they have so much influence and lobbying power to dictate government policies? How come, despite all the warning signs given, they refuse to be satisfied and still continue to monopolize and squeeze every last bit of resource our planet has to the detriment of humankind as a whole?
This is not just an issue of rights. It is the issue of the human condition itself. Something that Scripture is trying hard to address, I believe.
As for the policies of the Catholic Church, I’m afraid I’m not overly familiar with their reasons for continuing to deny women into the priesthood. Although I’m born Roman Catholic, I’ve long moved from Catholicism in favor of atheism. And in turn, I’ve moved from atheism in favor of Liberal Christianity.
If I were to hazard a guess however, I would say that it is a matter of practicality. Most of the world’s societies are still patriarchal in nature. It would be hard to get the laity to follow a religious leader whom they do not respect, due to a patriarchal upbringing. As sexist as that sounds, it is just reflective of the truth of our current condition.
But in my opinion, that is not any more strange than the fact that the largest democracy in the world has yet to elect a female president into office.
Aleikhem Shalom,
Chris Aro
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for your furthur comments. i find myself in substantial agreement with what you have said in this response. A liberationist might say yes to all you wrote above and that we should do all in our power to struggle against social injustice wherever it is found.
“Pursue justice and champion the oppressed”.
Shalom,
John Arthur
Amen to that my friend.
“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?” – Isaiah 10:1-3 NIV
My apologies. It seems I have made an error. India is currently the world’s largest democracy, and they have indeed elected a female president into office: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_India.
If I might ask an off-topic question: what are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chance of becoming the first female US President?
What do you mean “Men and women may not be equal in attributes,”? You are just perpetuating the problem by saying such things. (i.e. Men are superior, but women have some attributes, although not as many, that are also essential). I hate when men comment on this issue because they have no idea what it is like to be a Christian woman. NO IDEA. Do you know what it feels like to be told that the fall of the human race is your gender’s fault? Or to open the bible & have almost none of it be about you? Yes, there are a few women, but there is no denying that 95% of the Bible is completely about men. When I open the Bible I feel forgotten. And then you go on to talk about women’s “POWER” which is in line with biblical principals. What, men are so weak and led by their sex drive that they can’t ignore a beautiful woman & use the inner strength that God gave them to make the right decision? Women don’t WANT that kind of power. We want to be respected for our minds, our unique thoughts & ideas, our creativity, our leadership. We only resort to this kind of perverted “power” because we are so marginalized everywhere else. Also: I think it is way out of line to compare women in suggestive ads with prostitutes. A prostitute has sex for money. Period. These women may be dressing a little too suggestively, but by no means do you have a right to call them prostitutes. And although God did create men and women to be complimentary, I compare being a man or a women to being a horse’s head or a horse’s rear end. Both are necessary, but which would you rather be? The women are the horse’s rear end. And it is easy for men to say “we each have specific roles,” & “blessed is He who is treated as the least” (i.e. women), because you are a man, and you have no restrictions, and can do whatever you wish as long as it is in line with God’s principals, and you will never be the least in your marriage relationship. Please don’t comment on the HURT a women experiences by being a Christian again, because you just have no idea.
I cannot speak first hand since I am a male. However, my wife reconciles her deep Christianit beliefs with the NT verses you cite by saying such verses were meant for women at that time. They simply don’t appy to modern times. So there should not be any wifely submission or serving toward her husband.
I don’t know why, but I just had a hankerin to listen to “Gotta Serve Somebody” by Bob Dylan.
From my experience, there are planty of christian women out there who have lived in a christian bubble and continue to raise their own children overly protected ”in the Lord” because they have deluded self righteous pride thinking they are Right, that they are saved and those worldly women are not.
Also, I believe some women do deisre to be christian because it is easier to be submissive and give the man the responsibility than to take it for themselves. I have seen this first-hand all my life. Christian women giving their power to their men so all they have to do is pop out babies, cook dinner and clean the toilet instead of using their brains to think and engage in the world.
Which is why education can be so powerful for young women, if they can get past their fundie parents to get ahold of some books at the library that are not church sanctioned, open up their little worlds.
Like I said, from experience.
I would like to point out that modern secular society has done a very good job of putting women ‘in their place’. Pornography makes women (and men) mere objects of lust, meaning you stop seeing the person as a human being but more of an object that you can pleasure yourself with. The modern idea of a beautiful woman is basically Barbie… which in reality is impossible to achieve, many women are trying to accomplish the insane look with plastic surgery, anorexia, bulimia, etc. The fashion industry celebrates size ’0′ and the ‘heroine look’.
Then there is birth control. I realize that this will make your head spin, but bear with me for just a moment. Birth control was designed and offered as a way to help couples control when they will or will not have a child… I realize that, however that aside, birth control is yet another way to objectify a human being. A woman in her natural state has the ability to perform something miraculous, she can carry a baby in her womb, and give birth to a child. However society sees children as an inconvenient repercussion of having sex. Society sees sex as a self gratifying way to get pleasure, which objectifies both partners in the act. You are no longer accepted for all that you are, instead you are allowing your body to be used. In all reality there are between 5-7 days in a given month that it is possible for a woman to become pregnant. However, that was not good enough for society… they wanted to be sexually available at all times.
Women still get paid less then men, they have to pay more for health insurance, typically there are more single mom’s than single dads (because you wouldn’t want dad to have to deal with his child), and there are plenty of secular men who still see the child as the woman’s problem not theirs. There is still plenty of physical and mental abuse of women among the secular crowd, as well as rape.
All of this comes in great contrast to my Roman Catholic marriage where I submit myself to my husband, who, by the way, loves me as he loves himself (look up the rest of that verse in Ephesians to see what I mean). All the Biblical verses you listed above are taken out of context and without any real understanding to what they mean. And contrary to what you stated, I am very well aware of each of them. I have a clear understanding of what they mean, and I would argue that (at least from a Roman Catholic viewpoint) Christianity is very pro-woman.
You ask why would a woman want to be a Christian? I counter why wouldn’t they? The secular world has devalued women to where they are only judged as to how “sexy” and desirable to men they are. That’s a trap, but alas nothing new. Even in Biblical times women were viewed in a similar way. They really had no rights then as we take for granted today. Christ with is crucifixion and Resurrection set us all from the slavery of the world. Women are liberated in Christ. In the Scriptures in Galatian 3:28 it says,”There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
In Christianity, men are NOT automatically the “boss” of women. However, in marriage, there is an order designed by God to help make things run smoother. The man is the head of the family. It doesn’t mean he gets to be an autocrat. They are to work TOGETHER! Yes, the wife has duties to the husband, but also the husband has duties to the wife. What is the husband’s duty to the wife? You can read that in Ephesians 5:25-33 “25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” The bottom line here, male or female, if you are a Christian….we are to love, respect, and honor each other but most love, respect and honor God. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Far better than the “me first” culture we currently live in. That’s just slavery.
Also, I’ve done more than my share of readings on women and spirituality. Most of that stuff written by disgruntled people who don’t truly believe in the Truth of Scripture and Holy Tradition. They are leading women down the primrose path and into lives of debauchery and sin under the guise of ‘enlightenment.’ Also, most of the women I’ve met who are atheists tend to be deeply unhappy and bitter people. So, ask me again why would women want to be Christian? Again I say, why wouldn’t we want to be with the other junk out there that brings us down? Plus why should women be excluded from God’s love and mercy. Is that only for men? Now THAT is sexist.
at sixty i have come to the conclusion that all religion is manmade to serve men not GOD.i love GOD and JESUS is my savior,but i do not believe the bible is the word of GOD, after all king james said let us write a book in which we all can agree! im sure no women were included in these discussuions. can you imagine a woman listening to a pedophile telling you that you shouldn,t use contraception!and tele evangelist just using GOD to make a buck!
Thanks for commenting, Roxanne.
Christianity views marriage as a master/slave relationship. And guess who is the slave? Also, bible seems to have a hierarchy of humans. God is first, men are second, and then…at the bottom of the barrel…women. Do christitan women think that bible god loves them? Why, it was this God who made them the low rung on the totem pole. And since women are soooo low, they must shut-up. After all, they mustn’t have anything worthwhile to say. And they are so looow in the hierarchy of life. Oh, and God is so offended by the female head-and I mean literal head-that they must cover it. Best not let God get offended by such a low head. So, if you are a woman, and are christian (not all, but some Christians-some have evolved, but others have not) you must be a permanent slave if you get married, and you must shut-up. Oh yea, you are not in god’s image, only men’s. And you should treat your husband/head/master like God. Oh, I could go on and on, but I am so tired. I realize that some women like for a man to make all their decisions, and choose to give up their freedom for their “head”/master, and that’s okay. But really, doesn’t everyone want freedom. Rights and privileges. The bible wants to take women’s freedom, rights, and privileges away. What are wives compared to in the bible-oh, yea…slaves. I see slavery still exists in some fundamental christian home.
Sadly, I think you are right. The most difficult thing for Polly and I is her actually understanding that we no longer have that type of marriage. She loves her new found freedom but sometimes it scares her and she reverts to how things you used to be. It has been a huge transition for us to move from the classic complementarian view of marriage to an egalitarian view.
In many ways our “relationship” is the same as before BUT the reasons for it are much different.