Desiring God, Complementarianism, God’s Design, Femininity
-by Kathi
Remember how Greg Morse at Desiring God took a trip to Disney World? Did he return home with happy memories spent with his family? Who knows, because we are left to digest his lamentations of men who spoke with lisps and soft mannerisms, men who were effeminent, and strong women (of which we spent time discussing here).
Surprise! It seems that we were all misunderstanding Greg Morse. Honestly, I’m getting tired of being told I misunderstand anything John Piper or the folks at DG talk about. I think I understand pretty clearly the intent behind the words, and Greg Morse isn’t proving any differently.
In his recent article, If God Gives Me a Daughter, Greg states that he listened to some Christian women he respects share their “confusion” over his article. These confused women seem to want to know what he thinks about biblical femininity. He then states that women are not less valuable then men, it’s acceptable for a woman to be industrious and productive, men do need women, and we should celebrate strong women in the Bible.
This may be what leaves people confused and trying to understand what Mr. Morse and DG has said in other articles: there are biblical references to strong women and they should be celebrated. All of this sounds good, but then Morse finishes out the article with:
Some women of the world tempt our daughters to see the cultivation of the home as a career failure, motherhood as a backup plan, and submission to a husband as unquestionably intolerable. The spirit of the age tempts them to trade gentleness for roughness, refinement for crudeness, diversity for homogeny. Even their awesome ability to give life to new humans has been despised as a burden, rather than prized as the unsurpassed glory it is. In serpentine fashion, God’s design is questioned into unbelief and tragic rebellion.
And…
Bearing our similarities and differences is about God (Genesis 1:27), and the re-sharing of the gospel through different relationships like marriage and the church (Ephesians 5:22–33). We do not just happen to have different roles based on arbitrary cultural preferences. God made us fearfully and wonderfully different. Equal before our Lord (Galatians 3:28), complementary in representing him in the world.
Greg Morse can talk all he wants about how it’s acceptable to have a strong woman such as Jael, a bold woman such as Abigail, or a woman who risks her life such as Esther. It all sounds good, right? In the end, Greg Morse is writing at Desiring God who defines the primary purpose of a woman (biblical femininity), especially wives (of which all, except one, of Greg Morse’s examples are) is to submit to men. Not only submit to men, but to “honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts,” and submit to the authority of men who oversee the church.
If Greg Morse thinks that there is a different purpose for women, then he should not be writing at Desiring God. But he doesn’t, and therefore, we are not “confused” women. We fully understand the intent and purpose behind his writing.
Spiritual Sounding Board 
Morse is hawking some specific beliefs and just like any other salesman, one wants to discern when he is blowing smoke and when he is not. The most important thing to see is that one does NOT have to buy what he’s selling, even when he thinks (his interpretation of) Scripture supports it.
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You understand him perfectly, of course. You just don’t agree. Many people like to act as if when you don’t agree, you must have ‘misunderstood’ because they have enormous egos and believe themselves to be always correct. Bah.
People like morse try to impose homogeny on women because they believe they should only be allowed one type of expression as a woman. Everything else belongs to men. Refinement and Crudeness are not gendered, they are learned. We can all be gentle at times and rough at times. If it were really ‘gods design’ for women and men to only display a tiny number of traits naturally, it would happen naturally without force and it just doesn’t. Women are diverse, as are men. Many types of behavior are normal and laudable.
I have no patience for this limiting of women.
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But not to men. Not in church. Not in this life.
Pass.
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“Greg Morse Thinks We All Misunderstood”
Oh, I understand just fine.
I am an ex-complementarian. I was a complementarian from youth all the way to my mid-30s, when I finally rejected it once for all.
I also realize that complementarianism runs on a continuum, from “soft” comp to “hard” comp.
(So I recognize that not all comps agree with all other comps on every issue. There are other complementarians out there who would also think that Morse is incorrect or off his rocker over some of his gender view points.)
I don’t misunderstand Morse’s gendered viewpoint at all, I just disagree with it.
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Speaking of Greg Morse:
_Captain Marvel Earns More Than One Billion At the Box Office World Wide, to the Chagrin of Complementarians and Sexists_
_Hello, Complementarian Greg Morse of Desiring God Site: Actress Says (Vintage) Disney Films Made Her Question Her Sexuality When She Was a Kid_
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Re:
“…and [Greg Morse thinks] we should celebrate strong women in the Bible [but only after he was confronted by numerous people about all the strong women in the Bible].”
Okay, so he’s saying now that women should celebrate or acknowledge strong women in the Bible.
But not real-life ones, such as women who work as police officers or who serve in combat or non-combat positions in our military.
But not fictional ones, such as Carol Danvers in the movie “Captain Marvel.”
Part of the point of his anti-Captain Marvel essay at Desiring God was to express discomfort (or anger / annoyance / regret), that women are allowed to serve in combat positions in real life, or that women are shown saving all people, men, and women, in a movie about superheros.
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This is all rooted in the idea that women are somehow defective because God made them women!!
When Katherine Bushnell was on the front lines of fighting human trafficking she wrote about how difficult it was to change laws that protected street thugs and pimps because of the deeply rooted mentality that society didn’t care if women suffered because somehow women were defective anyway and didn’t deserve the ability to make personal choices (ie adults not having to have guardians)
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Quoting Morse:
— start —
Some women of the world tempt our daughters to see the cultivation of the home as a career failure, motherhood as a backup plan, and submission to a husband as unquestionably intolerable.
The spirit of the age tempts them to trade gentleness for roughness, refinement for crudeness, diversity for homogeny.
Even their awesome ability to give life to new humans has been despised as a burden, rather than prized as the unsurpassed glory it is. In serpentine fashion, God’s design is questioned into unbelief and tragic rebellion.
— end —
First of all, I dispute the frequency of how often that occurs. I think complementarians hype it and exaggerate it.
From what I’ve seen, most feminists do not shame women who choose to be mothers.
Every group has its extremists, so yes, there are some women who will shame or criticize other women for choosing to become stay at home wives and mothers.
But most importantly, complementarians do the exact opposite, what Morse is doing: they try to convince women that a woman’s only purpose or divine calling in life is to be a wife and a mother.
I’ve never married, and I’ve never had children, and I’m getting closer and closer to the age of 50.
Complementarians like that make women such as me, who are never-married (or divorced or widowed), or who are child-free or childless, feel like we do not matter, that we are trash, or that we have failed God in some way.
Where the extremists among feminists may criticize women for being mothers without careers, Christian gender complementarians go the equally opposite, insulting, and sexist direction, and tell us that all women should be wives and mothers.
Women get shamed and judged by both sides, no matter what we choose to do, or how our lives end up.
Complementarians write many articles and blog posts telling us women that we should not work as police officers, join the military, and we should not attend college and get college educations.
Some complementarians also tell women that women should not choose to stay single, and we should not choose to be child-free.
(Some of us women end up single and childless by circumstance, not by choice, something that complementarians seldom recognize.)
When complementarians are not ignoring women who don’t follow the Gender Complementarian life script for women (get married and have a kid – and being ignored can also be insulting), they are shaming, insulting, or instilling guilt-trips into women.
(continued in part 2)
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(part 2)
Quoting Morse:
— start —
Some women of the world tempt our daughters to see the cultivation of the home as a career failure, motherhood as a backup plan, and submission to a husband as unquestionably intolerable.
The spirit of the age tempts them to trade gentleness for roughness, refinement for crudeness, diversity for homogeny.
Even their awesome ability to give life to new humans has been despised as a burden, rather than prized as the unsurpassed glory it is. In serpentine fashion, God’s design is questioned into unbelief and tragic rebellion.
— end —
Muslims also ask and demand that married women “submit to their husbands.”
Submission is taught by complementarians as “a husband should rule over his wife,” when God said in that Bible that such a state was a result of the Fall and not His intent.
It’s an authoritarian posture that the Bible actually rejects, not supports. The male headship model also enables domestic violence.
Complementarians actually demand homogeny from women and from girls. They allow for no individuality among girls and among women.
Many complementarians teach there is only one proper way to be a girl, or only one proper way to be a woman, and any girl or women who deviates from that is supposedly in error.
(One example of that. On my Daisy blog:
_Christian School Complains Eight-Year-Old Girl Isn’t Girly Enough – They Shame, Reject Christian Tom Boys_)
Complementarians demand or propagandize that God created all women to be sweet, submissive, non-confrontational doormats at all times, who should only marry and have children.
Women are falsely taught under complementarianism that some qualities and traits are “masculine” or “feminine.”
Being assertive is considered in complementarianism (and in secular culture) to be a “masculine” characteristic, so, if a woman happens to act assertively, she will be accused of “trying to be like a man,” or will be said of, “not following God’s design for women,” or it will be said that such as woman, “is not feminine enough.”
Complementarianism does not permit for much difference between women.
(continued in part 3)
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(part 3)
As to this:
(quoting Morse):
“Even their [women’s] awesome ability to give life to new humans has been despised as a burden,”
Women can and do die because of child birth, even in the USA in the year 2019.
Some women never experience a maternal urge at all, or not much of one (that would include me).
First of all, if I had a kid, it would have to be after marriage, not before. I never found a compatible partner to marry. I’m not going to have a kid while single, Morse can forget that.
I’m stilling seeing studies in the year 2019 that say that women (even ones who have jobs outside the home) are still stuck with most child-care and housework responsibilities.
I just saw an article the other day about _“birth rape,”_ where women face non-consensual, intrusive procedures during child-birth itself, from doctors.
(Other women disagree with this term and prefer the phrase “Birth Trauma.”)
Some women get fired or laid off if they get pregnant. Or their career gets side-tracked in some other fashion if they become pregnant.
Some women don’t want to juggle raising a baby along with holding a 9 to 5 job, and not all husbands earn enough on a solo pay check to support a wife and a kid.
In light of all that, I don’t blame a woman who chooses not to have children. It’s not Morse’s place to dictate to women how they live their lives.
Also, is he going to ever criticize MEN who choose not to become fathers? What of all the child-free men out there who don’t want kids? I seldom see complementarians criticize men who forgo fatherhood.
Not that I think Christians or anyone else should sit in judgement on if or why some do not have children, men or women, but I notice this whole thing about being married and having children is almost always directed at women.
Men and their choices are left alone in these discussions. They are permitted to be “life long bachelors.”
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It saddens me that Christian women feel obligated to say that Morse was “confusing”. He is very clear on what exact box he wants to put women in.
By selling the complementarian version of gender roles, he’s selling inferiority. There is NO WAY around it.
A man who feels called by the Holy Spirit to be a pastor is told to pursue that calling. A woman who feels called by the Holy Spirit to be a pastor is told that she is clearly wrong. Thus, women cannot be considered spiritually equal. Only men can sense calling.
I could understand how women would be confused about how gender roles are presented. For example, complementarians want to imagine that men are innately gifted with the ability to “lead” their wives. However, when men aren’t gifted, then these complementarians say that they aren’t being trained, but training and gifting are different. So, then the burden is placed on the wives to somehow act in a way that trains their husbands to lead without actually training them, because actually training them is somehow unscriptural. And, then there are all these contradictions about, for example, how do you “follow” a husband who is unable to “lead”?
Then you get into intriguing situations where the husband recognizes that he has specific failures – maybe he can’t deal with discipline in the moment – and he “delegates” that to his wife, but then the church says that somehow the husband is shirking his responsibility by making his wife do his job.
Then, to be a bit more complete, you get into these ironic situations where the doctrine says one thing, but they really don’t like it. For example, having a woman “preach” at a college chapel service because she’s attained that certain level within complementarian circles, but then having to have her not behind a pulpit (I’m sure the Apostle Paul spoke authoritatively only from behind the appropriate pulpit).
The problem is that you can never “win” against these guys because they can always back around their logical circle.
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Quoting Morse:
— start —
Bearing our similarities and differences is about God (Genesis 1:27), and the re-sharing of the gospel through different relationships like marriage and the church (Ephesians 5:22–33).
We do not just happen to have different roles based on arbitrary cultural preferences.
God made us fearfully and wonderfully different. Equal before our Lord (Galatians 3:28), complementary in representing him in the world.
— end —
Who says that only a married partnership paints a picture of representing God or of complementarianism (that seems to be what he’s suggesting, I know other complementarians often do this)?
I remain a woman and therefore distinct from a biological man, even if I never marry and never have a child.
I already represent God, even if I never marry and never submit to a man, because in Genesis, it says that God created woman in His image, (not just the man).
One’s marital status does not define or change one’s standing in God, or if one represents God or not.
Further, Morse’s Lord and Savior and the main founder of his religious faith, Christianity, never married and never had children.
Is Jesus of Nazareth not an accurate or good representation of a man or not a good reflection of God, just because he remained single and never procreated?
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Morse said,
“God made us fearfully and wonderfully different. ”
And the way God created me _does not fit with the complementarian ideas_ of what it means to be a woman.
I don’t meet all the complementarian checklist boxes of what a woman is “supposed to” be.
Additionally, I’m not the only one _who doesn’t fit the complementarian gender stereotypes_ (and have no interest in doing so, either).
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@Daisy, “From what I’ve seen, most feminists do not shame women who choose to be mothers.”
I watched “Mona Lisa Smile” and was disappointed that the feminist lead character could not accept when one of her brightest students wanted to be a stay-at-home wife. I think a lot of what the movie was trying to say was good, but I don’t think it’s a requirement for every ‘gifted’ woman to shatter some glass ceiling.
As to the “curse” – I think it’s clear that they are applying historical revisionism to say that the curse is somehow the woman’s rebellion rather than the man’s rule. It would break the parallel with the ground. It would be like saying that the curse of the ground is Adam’s working the ground, not the production of thorns and thistles.
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Regarding Mark’s ‘April 8, 2019 at 1:17 PM’ post.
Depending on what type of complementarian we’re talking about-
When confronted with how sexist, un-biblical, and/or obnoxious their complementarian blog posts or opinions are, some complementarians, like Morse, will try to back-pedal.
Overt sexism doesn’t sell as well, or as easily, as it used to, so complementarians have to water it down and sugar coat it, or write follow-up posts trying to reassure us that gosh golly, they really do think that women are equal in value to men!!
(Other sexist guys just double down when confronted on their sexism, though, such as Mark Driscoll for a long time, and Doug Wilson.)
I sort of addressed all this in this post on my Daisy blog in this post:
_The Shifting Goal Posts of Complementarianism Show How Bankrupt It Is_
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Mark said,
— start —
And, then there are all these contradictions about, for example, how do you “follow” a husband who is unable to “lead”?
— end —
My ex fiance was dumb as a box of rocks. Had I married that dude, he would have led me right off a cliff, but I’m not a lemming who is going to follow that train wreck.
Not all men are competent leaders, some (in all seriousness) have brain damage from injuries and are incapable of leading, and some men are not comfortable in a leader role.
Complementarians don’t usually address those types of men who don’t fit their gender stereotypes.
(I have a post on my blog about that as well. I linked to it above in another comment.)
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Morse is the one here shaming women for not becoming mothers, actually, saying it is ‘despised as a burden’. What difference is it to him, he doesn’t have to have any babies. It is indisputably a huge, potentially life threatening physical burden.
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That is one movie, Mark, and one character in it. I haven’t seen the movie so I cannot comment on it specifically, but it hardly shows the opinion of all. Regardless, disappointment that a person deeply talented in…something (?)…would not use that talent in a specific way is not necessarily about feminism or even gender. If you met a deeply talented artist who buried that talent and refused to use it, instead preferring accounting for stability mightn’t you be disappointed if you were their teacher? I can see that easily. That doesn’t mean you would be right or wrong, it is simply an emotion.
What is key to feminism is that women be allowed to make their own choices. This might include creating a world where more options are truly available.
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I think this falls easily into the broader argumentation of authoritarianism. In authoritarianism, we are taught that we are naturally weak and foolish sinners. We are taught that we are easily misled and misdirected. Then we are spoon-fed Gothardesque examples of different people in similar situations and how for person X, the right step was A, and for person Y, the right step was B, and that was only discerned through the pastor and spiritual leaders’ special insight.
So, in other words, the victims of authoritarianism are purposely confused and told that they are weak and inadequate, such that they will accept those who claim to have superior gifts and intellect. Thus it is not surprising that Morse, with a straight face, will say that he was misunderstood. That’s clearly gaslighting to make sure that his victims distrust their own understanding.
It is also eerily similar to separate, but equal, where women are sent to the unrefrigerated water fountain at the back of the store, told that they can’t eat at the same deli counter as men, but then are told that they are “spiritually equal”. Do these men honestly think that God pours out his Spirit on “all flesh”, only to then cruelly tell half of that flesh that actually opening his gifts is sinful?
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Lea said,
“Morse is the one here shaming women for not becoming mothers, actually, saying it is ‘despised as a burden’. What difference is it to him, he doesn’t have to have any babies. It is indisputably a huge, potentially life threatening physical burden.”
Oh, absolutely, and I made note of it in my post above.
Morse is just doing the opposite of the extremist feminists he was complaining about, which is no better.
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Lea said,
That is one movie, Mark, and one character in it. I haven’t seen the movie so I cannot comment on it specifically, but it hardly shows the opinion of all.
Regardless, disappointment that a person deeply talented in…something (?)…would not use that talent in a specific way is not necessarily about feminism or even gender.
— end quote–
I did see the movie Mark mentioned, I saw the movie once a couple of years ago.
I mostly found it very boring.
From what I recall of the movie, it was set in the 1950s or ’60s, when gender role expectations were ten times more oppressive and restrictive than they are now.
IIRC, there were two or three women students in the movie, not just one.
I cannot recall if these were high school aged students or college aged. Anyway.
I think one of the lady students did marry and start having kids and skipped a career.
A teacher of these young ladies was trying to convince one of the other ones to stick with school or to get a career (the young lady was contemplating marrying right away and not go to college or get a career).
It’s sad that women were expected to choose one or the other.
Some Women, especially famous ones, get tired of journalists asking them how they “do it all.”
Such women have noted that Men never get the questions about how they balance jobs with parenthood.
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From Christian Headlines site:
_Moms Are Influencing Children for Christ. Dads? Not So Much, Survey Finds by M. Foust_
From Wordgazer’s Words blog:
_Fathers’ Influence on Children’s Church Attendance: What Does this Study Actually Show?_
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5 point Calvinists, like everybody writing for “Desiring God”, always claim to be misunderstood. That is because their theology is so unplatable that they must obfuscate in order not to be considered the skunk at the party.
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I think Greg Morse might actually become a strong man if he humbled himself and acknowledged a wife’s role in kicking her husband squarely in the seat of the pants. Or would he rather be screamed at by a wife who called him “husband of blood”? Biblical precedent for that. Until such time, he will continue to be a particularly weak, insecure, thin-skinned little boy who whines about all those (obviously weak-minded) women who just can’t grasp the brilliance of his Desiring God articles.
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Loren, “5 point Calvinists” – I think it is more where that line of theology has gone. What probably makes it compelling for authoritarian and abusive churches is that no theology ever developed around abuse. So, submission is simply obedience to any command that does not cause you to sin. Many of the other Reformed traditions escaped that darkness. The five points can be taught in a way that doesn’t dehumanize us, but for these types, it becomes a vehicle to trap victims in spiritual abuse.
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@Loren Haas, “5 point calvinists , like everybody writing for “Desiring God,” always claim to be misunderstood. That is because their theology is so unpalatable that they must obfuscate in order not to be considered the skunk at the party.”
Amen Loren! The fortresses these men have built are based on lies, brick by brick, mortar by mortar. And when their towers of licorice Scriptural teachings coming crumbling down, and are no longer relevant in the lives of us average folks, then we are led to believe (by their lying mouths) that we “misunderstand them?” Seriously?
Is Greg Morse so much more superiorly intelligent, that we cannot even begin to “understand” his great importance amongst us? Hmmmm……I’m thinking the word “narcissist” here.
If Abigail were living today, I wonder how GM would “counsel her” in her behavioral patterns with Nabal and David. GM’s belief system lines up more with Nabal (which means “fool”) than David’s as far as I’m concerned.
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Yes, unfortunately, the sort of response I’ve seen with “real-world” Biblical examples like that is to throw up their hands and say something to the effect of, well, they were better off sinning. I think once the theology gets so far detached from the clear right and wrong in the Bible, it’s time to throw it out.
Here’s another example. The birth of Samson in Judges 13. God appears, not to the man, but to his wife, and tells her everything she needs to know to raise Samson. It is an answer to the husband’s prayer that he appears again, and tell the husband, basically, your wife needs to do what I told her. This passage alone disproves pretty much all of the theological underpinnings of authoritarianism.
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Mark, please say it isn’t so (blatant sarcasm here), that our LORD would even speak to a woman without the presence of her husband, and instruct her without the “covering” of her husband. Should not the husband have sat in on that important conversation so that at least he could criticize and correct her every step of the way, in the event she “fell away” from the Almighty’s curriculum???
I wonder how Lydia’s life is translated in the “complementarian” mindset of the apostate church system?
Come to think of it……I wonder if these “theological men” are offended, bitter, and angry, that women are even mentioned in our Holy Scriptures at all?
I am so incredibly thankful, humbled, and yet, built up in my faith in Jesus Christ, that years ago, I listened to the Holy Spirit and got the yikes out of the false teachings of complementarianism, for it was shipwrecking my faith.
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That’s just the one-eighty flip of the comps.
To comps, the only thing a woman is good for is a stay-at-home widdle wifey.
To the MLS lead character, the one thing a woman Cannot Possibly Be is a stay-at-home wife. There are extreme feminists like that out there, funhouse-mirror reflections of the comps.
And after enough time passes, which is which? The original or the funhouse-mirror reflection?
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I only brought that up because it was put there deliberately. I don’t know if they meant to make the character more human by portray her as being uncaring and overly aggressive, whether they were trying to make a statement that women should avoid traditional roles, or whether they simply thought it would add to the tension… who knows?
I thought it odd in grad school that they often used movies to explain different leadership styles and their effects. The professors felt that the movie writers had done significant research in creating the leading roles, that the actors worked hard to understand the whole person, and that overall, the movies were worth discussing as they related to the subject matter.
But… that’s why I would cite a lead character’s viewpoint as being more weighty than just picking random examples.
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Mark – I saw Mona Lisa’s Smile some time ago, and was rather surprised that it was balanced. For all the breaking glass ceiling stuff it made the point that it is not wrong to want traditional family life or at least there are those who will freely choose this. Unusual for a Holywood film. Perhaps I ought to watch it again.
I can’t speak for the States, but on the other side of the Pond there is a significant minority who consider having a family a lifestyle choice, and I think it is denigrated in favour of having a career and material possessions. Hardly surprising in a society that worships mammon. It’s those who do take on the work and responsibility (and hopefully joy) of having children who will have supplied those who look after them in their dotage!
I was also surprised at Morse saying quoted above Equal before our Lord (Galatians 3:28), , since this oft quoted verse says ‘there is no male of female … we are all one in Christ Jesus’. Not the same thing, and I would have expected him to be a bit more careful.
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KAS, I think it’s possible that their approach was more to create these situations and let people decide on the outcome. The movie has been called “The Dead Poets Society for Women” and I think, like DPS, there is a person who seems set up to anachronistically wake these people up from their cultural stupor, but also like DPS, I think they want to engage the audience to find the best solution for themselves.
In DPS, when the student commits suicide, I think we’re left to question if “carpe diem” is really the best advice, and whether this student was truly backed into a corner where death was preferable to his lot in life. I think in a similar way, it’s possible that in MLS the anachronistic female lead is somewhat a caricature of the feminist movement, so that we can find a middle ground between forcing women to be stay-at-home-wives and forcing them into careers, and perhaps the most poignant part is the brilliant student saying “[the domestic life] is what I WANT.”
I think there are those people who are called to deep sacrifice for the gain of others, but I think they are specifically gifted and called towards that end. I don’t think it’s right, for example, to tell an abused wife that she must accept a life of deep sacrifice by staying with her unfaithful husband. I think that there are women who are specifically gifted and called to minister in that way to their abusive husbands, but I don’t think the church can choose the small percentage who are and make them a box that all wives should be shoved in. Imagine a sermon series on Paul that says, if we don’t all become itinerant missionaries then we are disobeying God, because that’s what Paul did. It would be more “Biblical” for a pastor to do that w/r/t Paul, since there is no example of a Christian wife being successful in converting her pagan husband. Paul merely mentions it, and it’s possibly hyperbole (husband being won without a word).
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Re: KAS’ post.
When KAS says a movie is “balanced,” he is referring, (note), to a movie that confirms what HE thinks women should do – marry and have kids.
So of course he likes a movie where a women tells another woman to stop pressuring her to go after a career and hold off on marriage.
Of course you approve of a movie with a movie that feeds your bias, KAS.
How about the 80s movie “Working Girl,” which shows a single woman blazing her own trial in the world of work?
You probably don’t care for that one, or any movie that shows it’s okay for a woman to decide to live her life outside the SAHM (stay at home wife mother) paradigm.
I say this as a conservative myself, but one who actually reads what feminists say for themselves:
The majority of Feminists are not opposed to women choosing to be stay at home wives and mothers.
It is a stereotype and mischaracterization to present all feminists as being anti-motherhood, man-hating harpies.
Most feminists are simply saying allow women to make choices for themselves as what to do with their lives, and when they make their choice, don’t condemn or judge them for it.
The vast majority of Feminists are not opposed to women wanting to be stay at home wives and mothers.
Many feminists are themselves married with children.
The church shames, guilt trips, or criticizes women such as myself who never marry and who never have children – whether it’s by choice or by cirumstance, matters not, Christians criticize all women who don’t marry and don’t have kids.
You, KAS, mock women such as myself, on previous threads in months past, by cracking stereotyped jokes that women such as myself are sadly spinster types who own 89 cats.
(You did in fact do that, don’t make me find the link to prove it. And yes, I have that obnoxious post of yours eternally bookmarked, because you’ve denied having said that when it was brought up before.)
Christians and conservatives do not permit women to have choice.
They don’t permit women to choose to NOT have kids or to remain single.
They repeatedly tell women that our only purpose or “godly calling” is to marry and become a broodmare.
That is very condescending and dehumanizing.
Regarding Galatians 3.29
_Women in Ministry: Galatians 3:28
_
_GALATIANS 3:28: OUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST & IN THE CHURCH_
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her own trial – “Her own TRAIL”
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Mark said,
— start quote —
I think that there are women who are specifically gifted and called to minister in that way to their abusive husbands, but I don’t think the church can choose the small percentage who are and make them a box that all wives should be shoved in. Imagine a sermon series on Paul that says, if we don’t all become itinerant missionaries then we are disobeying God, because that’s what Paul did.
— end —
That reminds me.
A few years ago, when Mark Driscoll was still in Seattle with his cult (Mars Hill church0, and he had a blog associated with that cult (church), he had this blog post (which I think is now gone), where he gave the most obnoxious commentary about adult singles.
One of the things Driscoll did was to tell singles that if they are single past age 30, their only “godly” option or acceptable way to live life, is to live like New Testament Paul,
which meant, adult singles must go off on their own in some remote part of the war torn or jungled world to preach the Gospel to non-Christians.
He was saying if you are single past 30 (this view is typical of Christians and very incorrect), that God “called” you to singleness
(again, this is a false teaching- God does not “call” anyone to singleness, your marital status is a matter of circumstance or personal choice)…
And (so Driscoll surmised),
God wants or expects all singles to live in horrible discomfort, to live out in the remote forest eating twigs, being exposed to dangerous snakes and bears, and risking death and disease to give Gospel tracts to the indigenous heathen.
However.
The Bible does not say God thrusts singleness upon any one, and God does not have only one acceptable way for singles to live life.
Driscoll was kind of arguing that only single adults are to risk life and limb to tell the world about Jesus, but not people who are married with children. God calls the married to a life of ease.
God calls Mark Driscoll (who is married with five or six kids) to a life of middle class, American comfort, to only preach at a local church to civilized Americans twice a week, but to spend the rest of his week in a Recliner watching sporting events on Television.
It’s only the single adults who have been charged with visiting foreign, backwards lands that have no hotels or running water or other modern conveniences.
The Bible says all are called to preach the Gospel, even in remote areas, and that means married adults who have children. Sharing the Gospel in dangerous areas while living in a mud hut with no TV and no water is not for singles only.
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Mark said,
— start quote —
I think that there are women who are specifically gifted and called to minister in that way to their abusive husbands, but I don’t think the church can choose the small percentage who are and make them a box that all wives should be shoved in.
— end —
I am not sure I agree that God expects or calls any woman to live and stay with an abuser to “win” him over.
Ditto on men or children.
I don’t think God calls or expects anyone, male or female, adult or child, to stay with an abuser, to role model good living and win them over.
I spent my life taking a crap ton of emotional/ verbal abuse off co-workers, friends, and family – and I don’t give one iota about their eternal destiny. It’s not up to me to “win them over” or get them to change the error of their ways.
If you read books and articles about abusers (including the verbally abusive), you will find that they cannot be changed.
The victim can never, ever, get the abuser to stop the abuse. It’s something only the abuser can do- he or she has got to decide for him or herself to turn over a new leaf.
It’s similar to drug and alcohol addiction – no amount of loving behavior or enabling is going to get a drinker to stop drinking.
They have to admit they have a drinking problem then get their rear end into some kind of treatment program. Same deal with abusers.
Abusers often won’t admit to being abusers, or they don’t consider their behavior abusive.
No amount of prayer or lovey dovey behavior from the target can get the abuser to change.
For many years I was a loving, sweet, devout Christian who always acted so super loving every time my big sister bit my head off and cussed me out (she is a verbal abuser.).
I thought my loving actions and demeanor and “godly” response to the sister’s anger would mellow her out. Never did.
Finally realized after studying abusive relationship dynamics there is nothing I can do to change her, all I could do is Limit contact with her to save my mental health, so that is what I did.
And it’s been a huge relief not being screamed at her monthly in E-Mails or in Phone calls.
All those years of me being sweet and Godly towards my sister did not get her to change and be polite and loving back to me. I had to take action – I had to cut her out of my life.
So any woman reading this who is being abused, when you see someone saying there’s an itty bitty percentage of women called by God to stay with their abuser to “change” the abuser and “win” him to God,
that is not so.
Please don’t feel you must stay in a marriage, friendship, or working relationship with an abusive spouse, friend, sibling, or whomever.
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Found this as I was googling Greg Morse, trying to find his email address due to a recent article of his that incensed me. I’d never read him before, but in an article about the “lost art of male and female” he says that femininity is raising children and submitting to one’s husband. What about those of us who do not marry or bear children? If anyone knows how to contact him, please share! There was nothing listed on DG.
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Welcome, Anna!
Isn’t it interesting that you can’t find contact info for anyone on DG? I did some digging and found an email address for DG: email@desiringgod.org Who knows if you’ll get anywhere with that.
I wrote a few other articles on Greg Morse if you’re interested:
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2019/03/13/greg-morse-at-desiring-god-laments-strong-women/
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2020/03/07/the-latest-from-greg-morse-being-nice-isnt-enough/
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2020/06/08/the-problem-with-greg-morses-view-of-women-and-wives/
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