Naturally Violet objected to my post the other day “The Church Impotent, the feminization of Christianity.” I wasn’t going to reply but a couple of things must be addressed and the rest, well comic fodder for my bent sense of humor.
First she accuses, “This accounts for some Christians around the world getting conflicting advice from the Bible and from private discussions with the god God in their own heads.”
Well now, hold up. I wrote a review of Leon Podles book. I wasn’t receiving a Divine revelation or even commenting on the bible. Also, I have never gotten conflicting advice from the Bible that runs contrary to anything God has told me. Never. I sometimes say God is a God of order and simplicity, not confusion and contradiction. God does not play mind games and try to confuse people.
Ironically Violet seems to perceive anything masculine in a negative context and attempts to use the Sermon on the Mount as evidence that Jesus Christ Himself insists on a more feminine faith. She has completely erased the part about chasing money lenders out of the temple with a whip, eluding capture, or the courage it might take to willingly die in the most tortuous manner possible for the sins of mankind. I realize we often portray Jesus Christ as the epitome of grace and mercy, as the Lamb, but that is only part of the story. He is also the Lion of the tribe of Judah, leading a rather rag tag bunch of disciples, fishermen and the like. That’s going to be a decidedly masculine situation, as we see again during His return.
Violet’s last paragraph made me laugh however, and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but she has the feminine listed as these totally moral and spiritual qualities.
“Now we can understand now why the Christian god God would hate to have a church that was feminised! I mean, yuck. In terms of shallow stereotypical gender descriptions, what exactly would that mean? Nurturing, caring, humble, welcoming, inclusive, merciful, loving. Sort of like that horrible mistranslation in the first erroneous Service on the Mount.”
Nurturing, caring, humble, welcoming, inclusive, merciful, loving. I found it fascinating because none of those qualities are innately moral at all. I mean one can be nurturing someone’s….eating disorder. Their addiction. Their low self-esteem. Oh yes, the feminine likes to do that, too.
“Caring,” I once knew a woman who cared, so, so much, she stabbed this guy in the leg like 8 times. That was her explanation too, I just cared so, so much. “Humble” is good, humble is awesome, except when a mass of Barbary pirates are about to storm the castle and behead everyone. At that point, humble may be the wrong response, especially if people are under your care. “Welcoming” is good, except whom exactly are we welcoming? The pirates that want to behead everyone? Oh, please do come in for tea!
“Inclusive?” Like pedophiles and rapists should be made to feel welcome and encouraged in their life style choices?
“Merciful and loving” are great things, but even those as feminine qualities can leave the realm of all reason and morality. In modern times, we do equate love with morality, so I love my triple tall pumpkin spice latte means it, even as an inanimate object, is good and moral, and anybody or anything that comes between me and my latte is now evil and immoral.
Not even “love” in the hands of humans can be labeled “moral.” Like that woman who stabbed her boyfriend 8 times…becasue she loved him, so, so much.
If you assume the qualities that we label “feminine” are spiritually superior to the qualities we label “masculine” then you are lost indeed and building and entire belief system on a deception, on one not rooted in reality. In my post the other day, I spoke of power and authority as more masculine qualities, but I was thinking of masculine in a positive context, as in the power and authority of Jesus Christ, the love and provision of the Father.
The Sermon on the Mount does not contradict those qualities at all, it simply turns our human hierarchies on their head. One definition of meek for example, is to be “enduring injury with patience and without resentment.” That’s a quality that takes a great deal of courage and strength. Those who are quick to take offense are not exhibiting masculine characteristics at all. To hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, these are not qualities one can say contradict the masculine,either. So clearly the Sermon on the Mount is not evidence of Christ preaching a feminine faith.
Somewhat comical here too, I’ve never met a single believer that didn’t embrace the masculine, the concept of God the Father, and I’ve never met a single non-believer who didn’t believe faith was supposed to be feminized, who didn’t insist on “God the mother” while at the same time insisting on God the non-existent. Violet is no different, for all her belief in the alleged spiritual superiority of the feminine, she herself rejects her own feminine God.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
She wasn’t reacting to you so much as the incongruence between what she imagines a Christian should be and what she imagines they actually are.
Both of her mental images are likely badly distorted but not entirely wrong.
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Or what the Bible says and Insanity preaches, to be more succinct. I probably wouldn’t give her such a hard time if she hadn’t supported the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. When she says the Christian church should show more power and authority I do worry where that kind of attitude could lead.
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Distinctions:
1) Per the NT the church has authority over its members. Matthew, for example, has long sections that are basically 1st century cannon law. The purpose of that authority is to conserve the gospel.
2) The content of Christian teaching however implies a rejection of the desire for authority. Nothing in the NT suggests the church should have authority over non-believers.
3) Any religion (or anti-religion) by nature has an impact on culture, either subverting or creating cultural norms.
4) How the church manages being in a culturally ascendant position while at the same time refusing the temptations of power is, historically, a constant source of tension.
But of course being a believer and an American I am ignorant of history, so what do I know.
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“Also, I have never gotten conflicting advice from the Bible that runs contrary to anything God has told me. Never.”
While that may be true for you, the reality I saw all the time as a pastor was that people did INDEED conclude that an action was God’s will for them even when it clearly contradicted the Bible. I have had people cheating on their husbands with another man, ask for prayer because that other man was going to go back to his wife, who thought it was God’s will they be together. She wanted me to to pray that god would give the man wisdom to see He wants them together.
On that particular one, Violet scores a point. I could go on and on and on on this one. It is a perception problem, not an actual one. The problem lies in the “God has told me” part. No, God didn’t tell you to clearly contradict something he laid out in the Bible.
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@jim
Just an observation and a suggestion. There are many ‘gods,’ which collectively cannot count to three or tie their shoes, and have not as much as created a doughnut, let lone a blade of grass. Then there is God, who created all things, and who alone has no competitors.
He is worthy of capitalization, an upper case G if you will, as opposed to the subtle little g used daily by the godless, suggesting THE God, is one of many gods. If words mean things, it may be a good idea to note the distinction. Your keypad works, as you do selectively use caps, or is this perhaps a Freudian slip…………
Just an observation. There is no need to supply ammunition for the guns of the godless. God is not a god. Period.
@insanitybytes22
Great follow up post, indeed the mounted sermon is neither masculine or feminine, but truthful. It pleases God when male and female delight in his word and act upon it. The lion and the lamb are excellent thoughts, being both a male lamb and a female lion, and vice versa.
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Colorstorm, I still don’t know how to go into my comments on other posts and correct my typos. So once it is posted I can’t take it back.
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I understand jim. In your reply here though, it stood out. Would not have mentioned it, but it does appear to be frequent.
No sense in fueling a non existent fire or aiding the excuses of godlessness by our lack of detail.
You must agree, even if by mistake, god is not God, and the fact that we can say so without heads tolling is a good thing.
But we both agree that this post here is once more awesome.
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I’m quite sure it does happen somewhere, but it’s not exactly fair and reasonable for Violet to make that accusation in this case or to take it a step farther and accuse me of misinterpreting to bible.
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I agree with that. Violet lumped you in with all Christians. I was just responding to your “It never happens.” Of course, it happens. It happens daily and regularly all over the world. People think God (see Colorstorm?) tells them to do something that contradicts the Bible. That fault for this falls on our leadership and the poor way they disciple new believers, not on real contradictions between what God says in his word and what some people think God literally speaks to them.
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“Nurturing, caring, humble, welcoming, inclusive, merciful, loving.”
I usually avoid this entire conversation, but feel compelled to ask just why masculinity and the things listed above are necessarily exclusive of each other? Maybe we don’t nurture so good, but the rest? Those traits are certainly not restricted to femininity.
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I would agree with you, Wally.
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I completely agree with you Wally. My secondary point was perhaps too subtle for Insanity, but I made reference to her “shallow stereotypical gender descriptions” – I found them absurd, but to make my point about authority and power not being in line with the teachings of Jesus for his people, I ran with the notion that these mean anything.
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Hey Violet, sorry been meaning to respond all day and been otherwise indisposed.
Not really wanting to debate this, as that is pretty much a waste of time.
I only have one thing to say.
The idea that God’s churches, or Christianity itself, exist without any manifestation of power and authority is simply absurd from the get go.
Power, authority, submission of different sorts(I AM NOT just referring to male female roles her, so chill) are a constant theme in The Bible starting with the one who formed the church Himself, Jesus Christ.
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To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:1-3)
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That’s a great passage Violet, and a great example for church leaders to follow. It in no way erases the idea of authority in the church.
We aren’t that far from each other here by the way. I don’t believe in statutory or legal ecclesiastical authority in the church either. No central authority has power over any church, and no man or woman has statuatory authority over any other believer. I think we agree on that.
Yet, authority in the church abounds. How, you say? Let me illustrate if I may.
My pastor has no legal authority over me at all, but I submit to his wisdom and calling.
The deacons? They have zero authority, but much experience and knowledge I defer to.
I teach a class of teens. They submit to my role as teacher and adult when they are under me.
I teach a class of adults. They submit to my leadership if the class.
I get taught by other adults. When they teach I submit to their authority to keep order in that class and to teach me.
Now I will shock you for sure. When I am in our choir? I submit to the expertise of our Choir Director, a woman.
When it is Vacation Bible School time, I submit to our Director, again, a woman.
Authority makes things work, Violet; it’s not a curse word. It it by authority that the world functions without descending into chaos.
Yes, there is authority in the church, taught and modeled by Jesus.
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Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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last I checked God chose a woman, humble at that, to be the very vessel in which to carry the Salvation of all man and woman kind….
He chose her heart to be the storage of all things as this child grew to be a man…
and it was her heart which was to be pricked and pierced as the marker for all of our hearts as she carried His sufferings while He carried our sufferings…
And was it not Joseph who “manned up” as it were to be the ultimate demonstration of nurturing, caring and protectiveness—as he took on the child to be his own and cared for both mother and child with ferocity ….
The ultimate examples of partnering …both feminine and masculine…
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“Ironically Violet seems to perceive anything masculine in a negative context and attempts to use the Sermon on the Mount as evidence that Jesus Christ Himself insists on a more feminine faith. ”
Just to clarify, again, that I was questioning your conclusion where you suggest that these perceived ‘masculine traits’ of power and authority are needed in the Christian church. Following the teachings of Jesus, he encourages meekness, humility, service, and early churches were specifically told to lead by example and not lord it over people. I think a church that displays power and authority is at odds with what I read in the New Testament.
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Well first off, power and authority has nothing to do with “lording it over others,” AKA, abuse. Our culture’s inability to understand that has a great deal to do with what ails us.
Second of all, you despise the church, therefore your desire to see the church feminized and therefore rendered impotent, kind of makes Leon Podles point. Sadly there are even many people within the church who would agree with you. What happens however, is that eventually we wind up with an impotent church, spiritually powerless, lacking the authority of Christ, because it has grown so fearful of it’s own power. An impotent church in decline would certainly please many atheists, but it does not line up with what I believe, which are Christ’s words, “upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
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“Nurturing, caring, humble, welcoming, inclusive, merciful, loving.” I chuckled at that too. Certainly groups of women have been known to be just that, but it quite often falls out quite differently. Women (again, usually in groups) have rather a capacity to be described rather opposite to this descriptor, or I haven’t met many women.
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I hear you. Women can be quite awesome sometimes….or not 🙂
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Good take down or the start of it =)
I like this part: “If you assume the qualities that we label “feminine” are spiritually superior to the qualities we label “masculine” then you are lost indeed and building and entire belief system on a deception, on one not rooted in reality. “
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