STORY OF THE WEEK: The Lies the Church Tells Women About Male Leadership
Keeping the women in line requires a thorough indoctrination
I was deeply troubled recently when I read a Facebook post written by a young Christian woman who was advocating for male headship.
I’m astonished that there are still young women who believe God would assign equal intrinsic value to both genders yet endorse a system where one gender is seemingly required to be led, decided for, directed by, and subject to the other.
Her pastors — all men, of course — have done a marvelous job of indoctrinating her to the point of surrendering herself to the supposedly benevolent male leadership of the church and her future husband.
I just hope he is a good man — for her sake — and not the kind of man who would exploit her willingness to voluntarily place herself in the most vulnerable position in their relationship, which is one between two unequal parties.
I feel sorry for her.
I feel afraid for her, as well.
Because men who use their pulpits to convince women that they should submit unilaterally to fathers, husbands, and pastors are dangerous.
Now to the young woman’s Facebook post.
Forgive me for the long quote, but I need to include the full post here for context. Then, I’ve got a few things I’d like to say about this gormless drivel. Here is the young woman’s take on Biblical womanhood:
“Biblical womanhood is an interesting topic isn’t it? Even in most churches today, egalitarianism is pushed on young women when there’s no true grounding in scripture and does not honour God’s design of Man and Woman. They make the Bible fit in with their lives, rather than making their lives fit in with the Bible.
If you had asked me a year ago, what my views were, I would have responded with “women are able to do whatever the men are able to do”, even when I knew that was not biblical. God has grown me so much since then, in my knowledge of the word and in aligning my convictions with what is truth. While I was doing a lot of justifying to convince myself it’s right, God was refining me and teaching me what truly honours Him and that’s where the idea of biblical womanhood comes in.
In God’s word, Men and Women are equal yet have different roles. The idea of women having different roles is considered to be negative (even in churches nowadays), yet it should be seen as an honourable and beautiful act of God’s design.
What does the Bible say?
1 Corinthians 11:3 — But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
Ephesians 5:22 — Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.
The way we submit to our husbands, demonstrates the way we submit to the Lord. We show our love for Christ, by being obedient to Him.
Genesis 2:18 — Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.
‘Helper’ entails the man’s inadequacy if alone, not the woman’s inferiority (even as people wrongly suggest that). What man lacks, woman supplies.
It is a beautiful thing to be a part of a relationship that points towards harmony, intimacy in marriage, and ultimately the demonstration of how Christ loves His church.
Now, obviously I’m not married yet, and for those that are still single, and yet to be married, there are many practical ways that we can prepare. We need to allow Christ to work in our hearts, so that we may deny our fleshly desires that only lead to sin…as we are called to do.
Women of God, your hearts are deceitful.
Genesis 3:16 — …your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.
Sin reaps consequences, when sin entered the world, our desire to be led resulted in our desire to lead. Once sin entered the world, the order that was good (Christ, man, woman) was flipped (woman, man, Christ) to not be good. The closer we draw to Christ, the more He refines us and brings us closer to biblical harmony and unity.
Do you want to be someone who lives by what God says or someone who follows the rest of the world in their sin?”
A Solid Indoctrination
I firmly believe that women aren’t born with an innate desire to be led by men. When I ask my little daughter what she wants to do when she grows up, she doesn’t say, “I just want to submit my life to my husband in humble service as to the Lord.”
No.
She says, “I want to be a lawyer.”
Good for her.
But in some churches, women are taught to be submissive to men through the kind of teaching that this young woman has swallowed. But let me ask you this question: Who stands to gain the most from perpetuating this worldview? It isn’t women, is it?
The young woman who wrote this Facebook post has been thoroughly indoctrinated with a kind of thinking that doesn’t come naturally and requires all kinds of effort and justification to maintain. Let me explain a few of my objections to this young woman’s Facebook post.
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