Is Industriousness Compatible with Biblical Womanhood?

Apparently there is something inherently gender-oriented about household chores, but I’m not quite sure where to draw the line. Is it the basement door? The entrance into the garage from the back of my kitchen? Perhaps it is the lawn and the shrubbery. Maybe someone can help me to understand this…

I’ve always thought of myself as a complementarian, but typically don’t advocate strongly for biblical womanhood because of its inability to speak boldly to women on the fringes. I continue to firmly hold a view that women are not to be elders in a local church, and I believe every passage of scripture that indicates that the husband is the head and the wife is his helpmeet, but how the latter plays out is not absolutely defined in scripture. I am also very weary of needing to state these things each time I discuss the logical and practical failures of the biblical womanhood movement, but I will continue to do so as necessary.

So here I am, going out on a limb I fear will break, but I am going anyway knowing I may be fully rejected by the complementarian camp I embrace. In a blogpost by Carolyn Mahaney, she writes about the disapproval she has--and scripture has--for a world where husbands and wives share the tasks of running a household. She begins the post by talking about how she wasn’t feeling well one day and turned on the Today Show as some sort of distraction. That was her first mistake, as the Today Show is co hosted by a professional career-driven female. I would think that watching that would in some way be supportive of Ann Curry’s pursuit of a career outside of the home. But I digress.

Carolyn describes in her post what the Today Show was featuring at that moment. I will let Carolyn speak for herself:

Ann Curry was interviewing two moms who recently wrote a book entitled Getting to 50/50. The point of the book is this: A woman can have a great career, a great marriage, and be a great mother—all by getting her husband to share equally in the responsibilities in the home. Thus the title, Getting to 50/50.”

These two authors were very pleasant and gracious. They were not the militant, angry type who can easily offend many. And they weren’t men bashers; in fact, they seemed to want to pursue a loving relationship with their husbands.

And yet, the premise of their book is in direct contradiction to Scripture, which assigns men and women equally important, yet different roles (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:18, 21-24; 1 Cor. 11:7-9, 1 Tim. 2:12-14).

These women believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned. They want men to take on fifty percent of the woman’s role and women to assume fifty percent of a man’s role. Their assertions fly in the face of God’s creation design and mandate—and they do it all with a smile.”

Without watching the interview that Carolyn watched, I’m forced to admit that there may have been some things stated about women and feminism that did not make it into Carolyn’s account in her blogpost. There is no fault in this. But if what Carolyn quoted is the full essence of what was communicated, I would suggest that her post demonstrates a lack of understanding of the fuller picture.

Very simply, scripture speaks of women “keeping the home” in Titus 2 and husbands as the heads in Ephesians 5, but neither passage suggests that a husband is walking outside of his role by participating in the management of the home or that she is stepping outside of her role by asking for help with household management. In fact, according to Susan Hunt, Titus 2 is not arguing necessarily that a woman never work outside of the home, but that she be “industrious” in all she does, including the home (Spiritual Mothering, Crossway Books, 1992. p. 64). A good example: The evangelical community was quick to embrace the VP nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin with the full knowledge her husband was helping at home.

One could easily come to the conclusion that 50/50 was an industrious way for these women to come alongside their husbands financially and to be a helpmeet to them in a sense other than handling the daily household chores. We live in a society where it is difficult for many families to live on a single income, and the language of “career” does not necessarily take from the priority of the family. Dependent on her personal circumstances, a woman may be wise by pursuing career-oriented employment that offers a salary structure compatible with her gifts and talents rather than a job that wears her down and makes her useless to the rest of her family because of frustration and fatigue.

If the women on the Today Show stated and believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned, I would agree that they are in error. But I disagree strongly that somehow a man and woman are abandoning those roles by sharing in the responsibilities of work and household management. To frame roles in this way places a number of families in irresolvable situations. I could cite various family scenarios that would more firmly root the husband in the home and the wife in the workplace, situations based on matters of health, job loss, and similar situations. If these were to be regarded as acceptable qualifications for how we are suppose to understand gender roles, then I would suggest that the doctrines of biblical manhood and womanhood are not as tightly wrapped up as claimed to be.

I get that the worldview of secular feminism is an assault on the Christian worldview and that it perpetrates great evils in our society. The days are, indeed, evil in this respect. But to frame the sharing of responsibilities of the home, which certainly do include financial responsibilities, within the context of secular feminism’s assault of God and the family is somewhat short-sighted.

Announcement; New blog - Et elle.com

I tend not to discuss evolution at Flash Point, but this is certainly worth noting. Be sure to check out Et elle, et al. which recently evolved from what use to be known as Intellectuelle.com. Formerly a blog of female voices, Et elle, et al is about the human voice. Be watching for the male writers who join the conversations on faith and culture from a human perspective. Yours truly will also be contributing there occasionally on topics related to women's ministry, bioethics, politics, culture, etc. No topic....well almost no topic...is off limits!

Women's Ministry: Spiritual Anemia Requires Spiritual Meat

Recently, I wrote a piece for the GFL blog that was titled "Does 'Complementarian' Equal Anemic Women's Ministry?" I'm thrilled with the comments it has received and the encouragement it has provided to women who want to bring a certain degree seriousness to their call to ministry. I cannot count the times that I meet women who, with me, joyfully identify with the complementarian perspective, but wonder how they can bring more meat to the table of women's ministry when it is overflowing with so much dessert. The answer to that question is going to depend on the kind of support that exists in the local church and the willingness to work together toward the same purpose and goal that is God-centered and gospel-driven.

I was honored to discover that the folks at the Council for Biblical Manhood & Womanhood thought my commentary had a sense of good "direction," but I'm sad that they responded to an article that simply was not the one I wrote. If you have not read my commentary, please read it before you continue reading here. In fact, read Brent Nelson's as well, then come back.

Welcome back!

In What Makes for a Strong Women's Ministry?, Brett Nelson writes that my commentary "wafts an air of chronological snobbery" in response to this statement I make in the GFL commentary:

These are women who want to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate, to mentor and minister to other women, who want to play a significant role in Christian education, but also want to escape the culture of women’s ministry that they inherited from their grandmothers.

I am unclear how this is "chronological snobbery," and Brent Nelson is unclear as well, because he follows up my statement with his own question.

what is it about their grandmothers' culture of women's ministry that must be escaped from just because it was two generations back?

He rightly states that every generation has their blind spots, and that every generation has something to teach each other. I couldn't agree more! But my own commentary does provide an answer his question. As you have already read, I point out many examples of fluff n' stuff we have inherited from previous generations of women's ministry that are becoming obstacles to discipleship and in developing future women's leaders. Perhaps it was short-sided of me to not pay tribute to the legacy of women from the past, but that wasn't the purpose of the commentary. Brent Nelson is right to point out that it hasn't all been fluff n' stuff, but he commits a logical error by suggesting the desire for escape is based on ageism.

In developing his argument, Brent Nelson asks yet another rhetorical question,

Are those who reject their grandmothers' kind of women's ministry sure of what they reject?

Well, that was the point of my commentary, and it was long enough and specific enough for that detail to be located by the reader. Yes, we are sure! We, the silent critical mass mentioned at the beginning of my commentary, reject the fluff n' stuff that inhibits discipleship and takes up our time in needless event planning. I certainly should offer a caveat here, not all event planning is needless and many of the activities serve as instruments for discipleship. It is when women's ministry becomes event-driven and programmatically set in stone that we lose opportunities for discipleship and actually keep women away. But then again, that was detailed in my commentary.

In something of an answer to his own rhetorical questions, Brent Nelson rightly states that

some who led women's ministries in the 1950's may have lived the scriptural ideals of ‘self-control, purity, working in the home and submission to their own husbands' far better than some today.

Agreed.

The real danger here is not my disappointment with the fluff n' stuff of women's ministry, but the belief that there is little wrong with the intensity of the traditions that have been inherited, the poor examples of biblical interpretation offered by some women's ministry leaders, the weak materials marketed by Christian publishers who know that women represent a large majority of church attendance, the self-esteem/self-centered therapeutic methodology that is said to be God-centered, and the unwillingness to see women's ministry for the significant role it can play in the advancement of God's Kingdom. But then again, if women's ministry is primarily about fellowship with discipleship flowing out of that, then perhaps my view that it can play a role in advancing God's Kingdom is unwarranted.

'Today's Spiritual Giants Wear Lipstick'

Producing solid, intelligent written works often requires a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Well maybe not blood, but the process can be excruciating. Well-argued positions require facts and sometimes a wealth of understanding across multiple disciplines. Solid research and an acquisition of data with an ability to creatively communicate the results in a way that grabs the attention of the reader is a skill that takes time to develop. I'm still learning. Never is the regular use of broad sweeping generalizations or a tone of condescension considered acceptable among skilled writers, especially in the fellowship of evangelical writing and scholarship. And while I do not consider myself a scholar of any sort at this point in my life, I continue to practice the art of writing, always trying to pair readability with a high level of integrity.

So when I read books like How Women Help Men Find God, I well up inside with so much frustration because I can not believe that an otherwise intelligent person would write in this way. The title of this book seems harmless enough, appearing to be something every self-respecting Christian woman should own. But the level of disrespect this work has for women makes it impossible for any woman to respect herself any less.

How Women Help Men Find God is by the same author of Why Men Hate Going to Church. In How Women Help Men Find God, he builds on his perspective of the so-called feminization of the church and offers ways to reverse the trend.

There are several issues I have with this book that I hope to address in this post.
1. The condescending comments towards woman.
2. The overuse of generalizations and stereotypes.
3. The categorical errors.
4. The misunderstood problem.

The condescension and stereotypical views of gender begin on page one. Describing his first experience under the hood of a car, he writes

I had no idea this crazy tangle of wires, belts, and hoses even existed, much less made the car move. In the next few chapters, we will be looking under the hood of churchgoing. (Yes, I realize this is a guy type of analogy, I'm already training you to think like one of us.)

On page one of this book, Murrow is already trying to argue for some sort of polar-oppositeness, that women can't possibly be interested in cars or the type of thinking involved in this activity. I have known women all of my life who understand automotive needs with the ability to care for them on their own. Murrow definitely loses points with this statement, but I'll chalk it up to his having merely a casual view of femininity and masculinity, certainly not one informed by any theological research.

Speaking of the gender gap in today's church (60% who attend are women with only 10% of churches with an ongoing mens ministry, page 5) he writes,

No other religion suffers the huge gender gap Christianity does. In fact, Islam seems to have a bumper crop of men. So did the early church. In Bible days, men were the spiritual giants. Today's spiritual giants wear lipstick and eyeshadow. (p. 6)

Writing with a complete lack of appreciation for the fact that so many women are attending church, he drops the f(eminine) bomb, somehow thinking he is saying something substantive about women in the church today. Though my reading skills are limited to the English language, I have read some of the most difficult academic monographs in the disciplines of theology and philosophy, and yet I can't figure out what Murrow's point is regarding the lipstick and eyeshadow. In philosophy, we generally regard such comments as a fallacy. In this case, we can't even tell which fallacy it is. And regarding Islam, they also seem to have a "bumper crop of men" willing to blow themselves up and kill others in the process.

Murrow is also concerned with the hymn that are missing from the church pews (though even the pews are missing these days - not sure if women are to blame for that.) I share his dismay in this regard as many hymns are so rich and full of robust theological truths with timeless melodies and beautiful arrangements. But whose fault is it that these hymns are rarely sung during today's worship? And is he even correct that men better identify with them? Discussing his own longings for a masculine experience, he states:

My church was a soft and accepting place that was busy erasing men from hymns, liturgy, and Scripture. (p. 9)

Many of today's praise and worship songs are fine-tuned to the female heart. Some of these choruses make Jesus sound like our heavenly prom date. The concept of falling in love with Jesus may not bother women, but it feels weird to guys....You have a treasure chest of masculine music gathering dust on the shelf. It's called a hymnal, and within its pages you'll find rich veins of masculine expression, such as "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "Rise Up, O Men of God," and "Onward Christian Soldiers." I encourage you to sing these hymns as written, before they are gender-neutralized. (p. 92)

I can't be the only person that finds this alarming. And certainly there must be Christian men who are bothered by this sort of narrow-minded gender stereotyping. While Murrow very cautiously never points blame at women for the issues he is identifying throughout this book, he fails to see where the problem actually resides. The seeker movement is responsible for many of the failings in the contemporary church, seeking to bring an experience of entertainment to the chairs (again, the pews are gone), not working nearly as hard at making disciples. His corrective is really to perpetuate the seeker-driven mentality by changing the target population to men.

A man's worst nightmare is to become completely disabled, utterly dependent on others. A woman's worst fear is to be abandoned, left alone, and unloved. (p. 29)

Even if he provided stats to support this statement, I'm not sure I would embrace statement anyway. Of course, someone will argue that this is simply how men and women are wired, how could I argue with that? Without nuance, I find the statement simply condescending. He uses a fictitious "Sam & Sally" as a way of explaining this statement.

When Sam and Sally go to church, they hear a message like this: you need to give control of your life to God and enter into a personal relationship with the one who will never leave you or forsake you. For Sam to embrace this message, he would have to face his deepest fear--loss of control. But for Sally, the gospel means she'll never have to face her fear--she'll never be unloved. Who's getting the more attractive offer?

The teaching of the "personal relationship with Jesus" is something I've blogged about in the past and it is not without its problems. But this appears to be a case where Murrow elevates a sociological understanding of gender over matters of Scripture.

To conclude my thoughts at this point, allow me to share a final quote:

If we want to engage all persons, our churches should speak with a masculine accent....In this chapter, we identified the many currents that push our churches toward feminine values, expression, and reputation. If we want to avoid being swept downstream, we need to keep pushing toward the masculine. (p. 24-25)

Are we really going to view the church experience in terms of gender stereotyping? Does Murrow think that offending women is worth the corrective he suggests? And isn't he actually emasculating the men who don't fit into his paradigm of masculinity? These are all questions that need to be taken very seriously by those who are promoting this idea of the feminized church. As a complementarian woman, I am terribly disturbed by this high school approach to a problem that ultimately transcends gender. This is a human problem rooted in human arrogance. Treating the symptoms will not find a cure. That's been the problem with the seeker movement, it makes no sense to compound the problem.

How Women Help Men Find God is dependent upon gender stereotypes and fails to take into account the relative nature of femininity and masculinity that is cultivated by culture. I'd like to be able to enjoy being a Christian woman without my femininity defined for me by Christian men abiding by cultural stereotypes. Scripture provides my understanding of femininity, an area that certainly deserves more theological engagement in order to provide a more normative understanding of manhood and womanhood, especially from a reformed perspective.

Male = Masculine, Female = Feminine? PART 1

The title of this post might cause you to think that I'm in favor of a relativistic view of gender, that perhaps I see no difference between male and female. To put that notion to rest, let me say that I believe the opposite is true. There are obvious physical and biological differences that cannot be viewed relativistically or regarded as cultural constructs. For example, females, naturally, have the capacity for pregnancy, males do not. In the news recently, there was a story about a pregnant person living as a man, but this person is not male, she is female. The capacity of the body to function in particular ways points directly to maleness and femaleness. Even surgery, an attempt to be stripped of certain physical characteristics that are evidence of the maleness or femaleness, doesn't change the sex of said person. In the pursuit of transgenderedness, a male cannot contain the natural reproductive system of a female. The male, unsatisfied with his maleness, cannot fully conquer his gender.

Now that I've addressed what God in nature has fixed as male and female, my question is, is what is naturally male automatically masculine? Similarly, is what is naturally female automatically feminine? While I don't believe the physical/biological categories can ever be viewed relativistically or simply discarded, I believe we have a problem with the terms masculine and feminine. I believe in trying to define male and female through masculine and feminine we run into problems, even from a theological perspective.

The etymology of the word feminine dates back to the 14th century and finds its meaning in the Greek term thele, meaning nipple as it relates to function. I find satisfaction in understanding feminine in terms of a fixed anatomy with fixed function as these are absolute ways of understanding the distinction between feminine and masculine, even through every surgical attempt a person might pursue.

What I see happening within evangelical Christianity is an attempt to define feminine in terms of culturally influenced likes and dislikes that are far from fixed. While it is common for boys to like sports, it is not fixed by nature that only boys will like baseball. While it is common for girls to like cooking with mom, it is not fixed by nature that only girls would enjoy this activity. What is fixed by nature is that the cultural mandate to fill the earth requires both male and female, and that each has a distinctly different role in this act of recreating. The capacity to function in these ways is, where I believe, femininity and masculinity resides.

At this point, I haven't entirely answered the question, the title of this post. Look for part 2 shortly.