Feminism Defined and Compared With Scripture

Feminism is difficult to define because there are many different movements within the umbrella of feminist thought. For my purposes, feminism is the belief that men and women are equal, not only in their value as human beings, but also in their attributes. It is the belief that men and women are not different and that their roles in society should be identical.

This is simply not what Scripture teaches. Scriptures gives very clearly defined roles for the man and the women in every aspect of life: the Church, marriage, and society at large. The man is the leader and responsible to God for his family. The woman is his helper, or first mate.

Feminism assaults God's created order in all three of these domains. In the family, where it encourages women to claim equality with there husbands, not submitting to him as her leader and authority. In the Church, which it says is the most women-hating entity in history, where it urges women to claim authority and leadership positions for themselves. And in public life, where it tells girls that they are betraying womenkind if they do not put their own career over the pursuit of a family, denying that women's primary responsibility is the management of their own household. 

Now first I want to make it abundantly clear that a natural hierarchy is God's created design, and then I want to look at why we have seen such a dramatic departure from God's plan.

There's a quite a few verses that deal with this topic.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 2:18

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands...let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Eph 5:22-24; 33

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Col 3:18-19

...train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. Titus 2:4-5

Likewise [referring to subjects submitting to government and slaves submitting to masters], wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. 1 Peter 3:1-2

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 1 Tim 2:11-14

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...For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 1 Cor 11:3; 7-10

So what do we see? 4 times a wife is called to submit/be submissive/be subject to their husbands. Twice it says the man is the head of his wife. 1 Corinthians says this is so important a woman should have a symbol of a man's authority over her on her head. It also says wives should be workers at home. It says women were made for men in order to be their helpers. It says women should not teach men, because Eve was the one who was initially deceived.

And let's not forget Proverbs 31, the chapter on the "ideal woman," which describes her as hard-working, with bit of business savviness, strong, charitable, wise, and primarily occupied with the welfare of her household (making them clothes and cooking them meals). 

So Scripture then is clear. This is not an issue that is really up for debate. You either believe what Scripture teaches or not. The exegetical gymnastics that have been performed to try to make the texts mean what they clearly do not mean is hopeless and dishonest. God has commanded woman to love and submit to their husbands as an authority over them before God.

Whence then, comes feminism? What is its cause, its motive?
I am going to take a controversial stance here, even among complementarians, I believe that feminism comes from a deep seated discontent within women with being a woman, a envy of the privileges, prerogatives, or birthrights that come with being a man. It is not a result of "weak men refusing to step up" and forcing women to do take their place against their will, as so many church leaders like to say today. The blame rests squarely on woman's shoulders. It is a rebellion against God's design, against the created order, a desire to be like men. For example, The Feminine Mystique, one of the founding documents of second-wave feminism onward (basically anything after women were granted all the same legal rights as men: the right to vote, own property, etc), attacked what the author labeled as "The Feminine Mystique"—the idea that women were naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers.  She wrote, "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home." She claimed that America was filled with unfulfilled housewives and that the way to their "self-actualization" and intellectual fulfillment was through doing "meaningful work." Meaningful work to her was not raising a family and taking care of their children but working a 9 to 5 job in a corporate setting. It devalued homemaking and disrespected homemakers.

This book was wildly successful because it preyed on one of woman's natural desires, the desire to usurp man's role. This sinful tendency goes all the way back to the Fall. In Genesis 3:16 God told Eve that because she had eaten the fruit of the tree, "Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.” The word there translated desire spoke of a desire to rule over, it's used again in the very next chapter in imagery of sin lying in wait at Cain's door with a desire to rule over him. (God then told Cain that he must conquer that sin, but in the very next verse Cain murders his brother, definitely demonstrating a failure to rule over sin.) So what we see is that the very first sin was one of woman doing something outside the leadership of man and then man following her leadership. In fact, that's how God starts his condemnation of Adam, "because you have listened to the voice of your wife..." The very first sin involved a reversal of God's ordained hierarchy for marriage. 

Feminism is damaging to everyone and everything. Not just to men and society in general, but to women as well. People will only truly experience their fullest joy when they are following the pattern God has set for their lives. Women get incredible fulfillment from raising children. The maternal instinct is an incredibly strong thing. But today women spend their most fertile, attractive years in college or working at a job that will not give them what they seek. Feminism causes marriages to be bad for both people involved. The man is gradually beaten down by a disrespectful, sassy, arrogant, unsubmissive woman, and the wife is unable to respect and love a man that she does not look up to as her leader. I am going to talk about this more, Lord-willing, in a future article, but suffice to say that men and women were not only commanded to fulfill certain roles, they were designed for those roles as well, which makes perfect sense.


How then are we to respond to feminism's challenge? The answer is clear: repudiate feminism and any association with it and unabashedly proclaim Scriptural Truth on this subject just like any other.

Marriage is Serious

The disciples said to [Jesus], “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” Matthew 19:10

Most Christian college kids are very eager for marriage, and make no mistake, that is a good thing. We have a natural, God-given desire for sex and an intimate relationship with someone. But I think  many Christians don't understand how weighty a matter marriage is and are going into it hopelessly unprepared. After Jesus finished giving some of His standards for marriage His disciples concluded that it was better not to marry in the first place. God gave detailed instructions as to how families are to order themselves in order to best reflect His design and when we marry we have a responsibility to follow them. And in order to be able to follow His commands we have to know what He has commanded. Ephesians 5 is one place that addresses how a husband and wife should treat each other:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Eph 5:22-33

Men are to lead as Christ leads the Church, giving himself up for his wife. Women are to humbly submit in everything to the God-given authority of their husband, as the Church submits to Christ.

Interestingly enough, Paul specifically identifies the marriage covenant as analogous with the covenant between Christ and Church. To marry is to bear the image of Christ's relationship with His Church. This is no small privilege, but it's also a significant responsibility.

This is why God so hates divorce, because it breaks a union that is supposed to be inseparable.
Divorce is an unimaginable evil that separates what God had joined together. In marriage God makes the two, one. In divorce, that new one flesh is torn apart, mortally wounded.

Is Dating Biblical?

There are a few steps that one generally goes through on their path from singleness to marriage in our culture today. Firstly, one goes on dates. These are very casual and just to see if they hit it off. Once a date goes well and subsequent 2nd and 3rd dates go well they may decide they want to stop casually dating and start a committed, exclusive, romantic relationship with this person. They have now reached the boyfriend/girlfriend stage. This stage starts off fairly casual and becomes more and more serious and intimate as time goes on, just by nature of them still being together. This stage may last a long time, often multiple years. At any point during this stage something may go wrong and a breakup occurs and they both go back to square one and must start all over. From a little googling it appears that people have an average of 2 failed serious relationships in their journey towards marriage. At some point in this stage, a proposal finally occurs and the penultimate stage is reached, engagement. Engagement generally last a few months to a year or 2, though it can be both shorter and longer. And then finally at long last the two lovers are married.

So to summarize: lots of dates→a few casual relationships (<1 year)→1-3 serious relationships (Avg: 2 years for each failed relationship, 3 for the one that reaches engagement)→engagement (Avg: 1 year)→marriage.

So, ignoring casual dating and relationships that end fairly quickly, the average person who has 2 serious relationships that don't work out before finding their spouse will spend 4 years in dead end serious relationships, 3 years dating their future spouse, and another year in an engagement period before getting married. For a grand total of 8 years in serious, romantic relationships and 4 years in a relationship with their future spouse.

Now, not everyone approves of this method of reaching marriage. In Christian circles there is a courtship movement. These guys heavily emphasize the roll of the father in the courting process and also generally do not allow private 1 on 1 interaction unless in a controlled environment. They also put some pressure on both the man and the woman to decide whether they were willing to commit to each other. If after just a few months they didn't want to get married, the courtship was broken off.

Courtship does not have a good reputation and is generally thought of as outdated. Indeed, courtship was designed in and for another time period and I don't think it is the best way to go about seeking marriage. However, there are things we can learn from the courtship model, specifically the disdain for casual romantic relationships.

If they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Cor. 7:9 ESV)

Flee from sexual immorality. (1 Cor. 6:18a ESV) 

The BF/GF relationship is not biblical. Try as you might, there are simply no examples of such a situation in the Bible. However, that does not necessarily mean it is unbiblical, but at the very least, it is extra-biblical, and we should take that in to account when evaluating it.
Now a BF/GF is by definition a companion with whom one has a romantic (or, in a more overt defiance of Biblical teaching, sexual) relationship. The huge problem with this is that romance is just sexual emotion; it is always meant to lead to intimacy between a man and his wife. The difference between romantic love and brotherly love is that one is sexual and the other is not. Even where a romantic love is portrayed between 2 unmarried people in Song of Solomon, what is the result of said romance? A passionate longing to be married and consummate their relationship. Romance was never meant to be divorced from physical sex. They were always intended to go hand in hand.

The problem with the modern concept of the BF/GF relationship is that it has romance without the sex. It has sexual emotion without the physical sexual fulfillment and release of that emotion. The modern BF/GF is a relationship that is constantly getting deeper and more intimate between two people who are also physically attracted to each other (else, why would they be dating?). As such, the couple should get closer to marriage as their relationship gets deeper and more intimate. Marriage should be the goal. They should marry before they are so close to one another, so intimate, so in love, that they are in danger of following that desire into fornication.

Unfortunately, in our culture the BF/GF relationship is not treated as a transitory state where they are pursuing and considering marriage and, once they've made a decision, they either get married or break it off before they become extremely close. (Side note: a whole other huge problem with the modern BF/GF relationship is that breakups effect the couple in the same devastating ways a divorce does.) Rather, the BF/GF relationship is considered to be a completely legitimate relationship state for years on end, with only the most barely perceptible advance towards marriage. People often begin dating in high school while not intending to marry until after graduating college. That's a minimum of 5 years where they will be searching for/in a committed romantic relationship without even the possibility of marriage.

 Is it any wonder that so many Christian couples today are struggling with remaining chaste until marriage? According to a CNN article, approximately 80% of self-identifying evangelicals do not wait until marriage. Now, that is "self-identifying evangelicals," so there is probably a significant percentage of Christians-In-Name-Only here, but even taking that into account, there is still a huge percentage of Christians who have fallen into sexual sin at least once. There are many committed Christians who planned on waiting until marriage but finally fell into sin after resisting months or even years of ever increasing ungratified sexual desire. It is incredibly difficult to resist this temptation in the moment, that's why Paul said to flee from sexual immorality, not stand and fight it, and certainly not court it from a distance in the form of an emotional affair with a BF/GF where the emotional intimacy has long since past the point where sex is the natural result.

So what is the Christian man who desires marriage or "burns with passion" to do? The answer is simpler than you think: get married. There's no need to follow all the rules of the old-fashioned courtship method, rather, as you begin dating a girl, frame the relationship around the idea that you are pursuing and considering marriage, and if, after a few months to a year, you don't want to marry her, cut her loose and try again.

Righteous Anger

I am teaching this Sunday from Matthew 21 where Jesus enters Jerusalem and then cleanses the temple. The story of Jesus cleansing the temple particularly sticks out to me. Jesus had already cleansed the temple once at the start of His 3 year earthly ministry (John 2:13-22), and now in the last week of His ministry on earth, He does it again. Why?
It reveals the zeal Jesus had for the honor of the Father. He became angry, and legitimately so, because of the disdain the Jewish leaders had shown for His Father's name. In the incident recorded in John 2 it even says he made a whip with which to drive out the moneychangers. Jesus was angry that God had been so dishonored because of his reverence for the holiness of God.
Jesus was furious. His words to those working there, "It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers," are not intended to spare feelings. They are an outpouring of righteous indignation because God had been wronged.
The thing I find most interesting about this is how different it is from how He responds when His rights are illegitimately taken away, when He is beaten, forced to carry His own cross, and ultimately murdered. He did not cling to His own rights, but freely gave them up as He knew that that was ultimately what He was there to accomplish.

And that is exactly how we need to live, not insisting upon our own rights yet never willing to allow God's name to be trampled upon.

Biblical Inerrancy

It is abundantly clear to me that a Christianity stripped of its belief in an infallible, inerrant Bible is no Christianity at all. If you reject any part of Scripture, you must either admit that God was wrong, God lied, or that at least some parts of Scripture are not God-breathed. But in so doing, you destroy the entire foundation upon which Christianity is based.

The Rich Young Ruler

I occasionally teach the seniors' (as in old people, not high school/college seniors) Sunday School class and recently we started studying the book of Matthew. Matthew is filled with miracles Jesus performed, sermons He delivered, and parables He taught. Perhaps my favorite parts of the Bible are Jesus' parables. I just love reading them. They're unique in the way they reveal truth and make you think. I always have a feeling of solemn awe about me when I have finished meditating upon one for awhile. Jesus truly was the greatest teacher in history.
In Matthew 20, Jesus tells the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. In this story, a vineyard owner hires some day laborers to come and work in his vineyard for a day. He goes out around 6:00 AM and hires some day laborers standing in the marketplace, agreeing to pay them 1 denarius (a days wage at that time) for the day. Again, at 9:00 AM he goes back and finds more day laborers who no one had hired and hires them to come back and work in his vineyard. He goes again at 12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, even 5:00 PM (the work day was twelve hours, lasting from 6:00 AM till 6:00 PM) and hires those who are standing there desperate for work.
At the end of the day, he goes to pay them, starting with those hired last, and pays them each 1 denarius. When those hired first came, they thought they would get more, since he had payed those who only worked one hour an entire denarius, but they too only received 1 denarius. They were then angry, and grumbled at the owner for paying them no more than those who only worked one hour. But the vineyard owner replied, "I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?...I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?"
The vineyard owner had paid them what they had agreed upon, he had not done anything underhanded. Sure, what he did was not "fair", but he had no obligation to be fair. It was his money to do with as he wished, and if he chose to pay those who worked less the same as those who worked more, that was his right as long as he paid those who worked a full day the agreed upon amount.
Jesus used this parable to picture the Christian's life, death, and eternal reward. Those who were hired first are those who were born again at a young age. Those hired at 5:00 PM are those who are saved on their deathbeds. In this parable we see the marvelous truth that Heaven is just as much for the thief saved on the cross as for man raised in the church. Everyone who calls upon the name of Lord for salvation will be saved. As long as you still draw breath you are still capable of receiving forgiveness and grace.
We also see the beautiful reality that is God's sovereignty. The vineyard owner was under no obligation to pay those who worked less than a day a full day's wage. He did so solely out of his own generosity. Likewise, God was under no external obligation to provide a way of salvation for sinful, rebellious, fallen mankind, He did so only because of His loving kindness.
Praise be to God for His grace and mercy, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.