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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Dead Horses: Headship
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
I think this marriage & household I live in works under a form of the male headship thing.
But I still haven't seen either before my own eyes or in statistics that there's any more chance for spousal abuse, man-against-woman, in "our" homes than in any other type. The mechanics of that developing and actually happening are so individual.
The FG occasionally tells a joke, something like "Yeah, I hit my wife once, and then didn't see her for two weeks. It took that long for my swelling to go down and my eyes to re-open."
Speaking as one who lives within a form of man-as-head-of-the-home, I can tell you there's some submitting going on, but it ain't all me doing it, and if beatings ever happened, it wouldn't be me meekly accepting them -- I'd give as good as I got before I left him.
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
Anselmina sighed,
quote:
Some of us have been trying to do all that, too, in the Anglican Church. But apparently, being women - whether single or married - we've still got it wrong.
What can I say.... if perseverance is part of your spiritual discipline, keep trying?
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Leetle M.
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
The article goes on to report that in about half of all cases domestic violence takes more than one year to emerge. From this I think it can be fairly inferred that in a context in which headship is preached and divorce is frowned on, there is an increased likelihood of ongoing domestic abuse of wives, compared to the general population.
The whole picture is doubtless more complex than that, but I think those stats deserve a response.
Hmmm. I'm glad you put that last sentence in. I do some work as part of my job with a charity that supports domestic abuse survivors, and I remember saying to the chair a while back, "the government say incidences are falling."
She said "well...they would say that wouldn't they?"
It's hard to comment on the Economist article because I can't link to it, but certainly according to this lady she notes a number of different reasons why reporting of domestic violence is falling. It's partly to do with police practice actually improving so assaults are recorded as plain assaults not "domestics" which used to be pushed to the bottom of the pile of importance. The line between domestic and non-domestic has also become much greyer of the last 10 years because family units have become so much more fluid.
Furthermore she thinks that the incidences are increasing in communities who are less like to report (BME communities esepcially) and partly, as we talked about it, she thought the emacipation of women was actually counter-productive to women reporting incidences of truly domestic violence because there is a greater shame factor to admitting having been in an abusively dependent relationship.
All that's kind of by the by. What is doesn't establish is that there is a link between the teaching of headship and the physical abuse, or general belittling of women. If there was any way of finding out, I'd be pretty sure that you would find that the instance of such things is much more common in society in general than it is in the church communities where headship as it has been explained here is taught.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
From this week's Economist, which I have just received, an article entitled "Have you stopped beating your wife?":
quote:
According to the British Crime Survey, domestic violence... is now less than half as common as it was in the mid-1990s...
...the most likely explanation... has to do with changes in British society.... women have become more economically independent and have started to behave in a way thattheir chances of falling victim to a violent partner are greatly reduced.
The article goes on to report that in about half of all cases domestic violence takes more than one year to emerge. From this I think it can be fairly inferred that in a context in which headship is preached and divorce is frowned on, there is an increased likelihood of ongoing domestic abuse of wives, compared to the general population.
The whole picture is doubtless more complex than that, but I think those stats deserve a response.
Well yes, complex indeed. We are talking about situations where something has gone seriously wrong, whether the view being espoused is "egalitarian" or "headship". So you suggest, on the basis of the Econ article, that violence is more likely where the marriage is long-term with a headship+anti-divorce model operating.
In response (and not necessarily disagreeing with you at every step), here are some observations:
First: The fact is that you simply cannot establish from Scripture that domestic violence is condoned under any circumstances, no matter whether you approach the question as an egalitarian or as a proponent of male headship. The problem of domestic violence is a problem of sin, not a problem of scriptural interpretation. Anyone who insists otherwise has a bigoted axe to grind, IMHO.
Second: If domestic violence occurs, the male headship+anti-divorce model would still allow for separation. I personally would encourage it, and so I believe (without having checked in a detailed way with everyone) would every person I know who teaches male headship. So I am not sure that it would be right to link earlier statistics on domestic violence with a belief in male headship.
Third: Yes, I would grant that economic independence, together with the greater ease and acceptability of divorce, means that it is prima facie more likely that where domestic violence became an issue, the person offended against (usually the woman) would leave; thus halting the immediate violence problem in its tracks. And this is a good thing (see point 2).
Fourth: It's not as simple as that, however, is it? Divorce too is linked to violence, crime, poverty and all manner of social ills; just that these negative consequences are more likely to involve people other than just the original husband and wife. eg stepfathers who beat their de factos and abuse children; children who suffer the trauma of divorce and consequent poverty, reduced educational opportunity, and so forth.
So, fifth: Just as someone might argue that there is a link of sorts between domestic violence and a distorting of the male headship + anti-divorce model; so too one could observe that there is a link of sorts between a rejecting of the male headship+ anti-divorce model, and greater divorce with the associated bad consequences.
I think I'm going to end up saying that the way we weigh the various downsides of either headship or egalitarianism, once we begin to number-crunch about likely societal outcomes, will be skewed by the prior ideological commitment that has been made. Possibly that prior commitment can be taken into account as these things are worked out; I don't want to be entirely pessimistic about being able to work things out by sociological and statistical methods.
But for me, the prior question of which model of male-female relationships is right in the eyes of God is also the more important; and I will want to be answering that by recourse to the teaching of the Bible. I remain optimistic that it is possible to discover, understand and apply what the Bible says about this important subject. I really think that pointing out abuses of the biblical pattern of headship is to damn by association and innuendo. (Not that you were necessarily doing this, Euty)
[fixed code]
[ 18. April 2005, 15:10: Message edited by: John Holding ]
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Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care
Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
The fact is that you simply cannot establish from Scripture that domestic violence is condoned under any circumstances, no matter whether you approach the question as an egalitarian or as a proponent of male headship. The problem of domestic violence is a problem of sin, not a problem of scriptural interpretation. Anyone who insists otherwise has a bigoted axe to grind,
True.
But I cannot see how you can guarantee that one party to a marriage (or any other human relationship) is subordinate or submissive to the other without at least the thread of violence.
As violence is, as you say, morally ruled out, we should be talking about equality, not submission.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
But for me, the prior question of which model of male-female relationships is right in the eyes of God is also the more important; and I will want to be answering that by recourse to the teaching of the Bible.
Welcome back! Perhaps I could ask a couple of questions – addressed to you and other conservative evangelicals.
I am unclear as to why the doctrine states that women shouldn't be in authority in the home or the church but, from my reading at least, allows women to be in authority everywhere else. Could you please explain the biblical justification for this distinction when on a plain reading it says that women should not be in authority over men full stop and that's how it has been understood for a couple of millennia?
The second question is about single women. Could you explain how they fit into the modern doctrine of headship please? It hasn't been made clear on this thread yet from a doctrinal point of view as far as I know. Should they have a male authority figure to take decisions for them?
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Weed
Posts: 519 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
But I cannot see how you can guarantee that one party to a marriage (or any other human relationship) is subordinate or submissive to the other without at least the thread of violence.
I don't think one can guarantee it; and therefore I think any submission, subordination, headship, etc. must be voluntary and freely chosen.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
But I still haven't seen either before my own eyes or in statistics that there's any more chance for spousal abuse, man-against-woman, in "our" homes than in any other type. The mechanics of that developing and actually happening are so individual.
It may be that there is no greater or lesser risk for a first instance of domestic violence in such homes -- it's been a long time since I've looked at the research data, and I'm not sure whether that question was even addressed.
However, there is a greater risk of ongoing violence if the victim (rightly or wrongly) believes any of the following:
(a) divorce is possible for a Christian only in the case of adultery; to divorce for any other reason is to sin deliberately against an explicit command of our Lord Jesus, and is completely unacceptable
(b) since God hates divorce, God also must hate people who get divorced
(c) seeking a divorce would cause you to be ostracized by the members of your church, resulting in the loss of whatever support network you may have
(d) when you made your marriage vows, you promised "for better or for worse" -- so it's worse than you thought it would be, but you acknowledged, as part of the vows, that it could be worse, so that fact is no justification for breaking the vows you made before God
(e) most problems in a marriage relationship are caused by the woman not being submissive enough; if she were more submissive, her husband would love her and treat her right
(f) if your husband repents and says he's truly sorry and asks your forgiveness, you have to forgive him and give him another chance (70 times 7 and all that)
Of these, the last two are most problematic, because the dynamics of an abusive relationship are such that submission to abuse generates more abuse, and because the abuser being sorry and asking forgiveness is part of the cycle of abuse.
But all of these things, not just the last two, make it harder for conservative Christian women who believe these things to leave their husband in the event of an initial incident of abuse. And because of the psychological damage abuse causes, each time an incident occurs, it becomes harder and harder for the woman to leave.
So, while those mechanics triggering abuse may indeed be extremely individual, the beliefs of many women in conservative churches will tend to keep them in abusive relationships longer than would otherwise be the case.
It's important for anyone in a pastoral role to be sensitive to the fact that their answer to seemingly innocuous questions can reinforce these beliefs and can push a woman who is trying to find her way out of an abusive relationship back into it. So, if a woman asks you whether she has to forgive her husband if he hurts her feelings, before you say, "yes, of course," find out exactly how her feelings were hurt, what triggered the question, and realize that she may feel that she has to defend her husband's image (or protect her own) and may minimize what's been going on in describing it to you. Asking about hurt feelings may be her way of easing into a discussion of more serious injuries (e.g., "Well, when he got mad at me the other day, he smashed the dishes I inherited from my grandmother, and then when I got upset about it, he told me that I was being selfish to put material things ahead of him. That really hurt my feelings. I don't think I was being selfish, do you?")
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
I think I'm going to end up saying that the way we weigh the various downsides of either headship or egalitarianism, once we begin to number-crunch about likely societal outcomes, will be skewed by the prior ideological commitment that has been made
As you will have noticed, it was both Leprechaun and Levor, both I would say proponents of the cons. evo view of headship, who first made assertions suggesting a link between the decline of headship as they understand it and an increase in domestic violence. It's usual practice here to provide support for such assertions. Whatever else the Economist article proves or doesn't prove, I think it demonstrates that such an assertion is right off the mark and so has no place in their argument. I can see how one might like to think that such a view and practice of headship should indeed lead to less abuse, but the fact is that no-one has produced a shred of evidence to support this view.
quote:
The fact is that you simply cannot establish from Scripture that domestic violence is condoned under any circumstances, no matter whether you approach the question as an egalitarian or as a proponent of male headship.
I think the issue is rather what happens when it occurs. I'm beginning to think the more a structure is focused on the outworking of authority within its ranks (as is the case with headship here), the less likely those who suffer at the hands of those abusing this position are to seek redress. I would not be surprised to find headship proponents willing to accept separation or divorce in theory, but the whole system is skewed against such a case coming to light in the first place. This, I believe, is partly because of the firmly held assumption (which no-one has so far been able to corroborate) that 'our folks couldn't possibly do that kind of thing', and partly because such systems tend to hush up offences by their members on the grounds that to expose them would be a "bad witnesss". (For instance, I know personally of two completely unrelated cases where the relatives of children sexually abused by other christians were discouraged in no uncertain terms from taking the case to court for this reason). The psychological and sociological pressure on a battered wife in such an environment being able to press charges do not depend solely on the official, theoretical party line.
quote:
For me, the prior question of which model of male-female relationships is right in the eyes of God is also the more important; and I will want to be answering that by recourse to the teaching of the Bible
Fair enough. I'm keen to see what you have to say to my comments on 1 Cor 11 (if you wish to add anything to what Levor and Custard. have already posted – which translation do you favour?) and 1 Tim 2:12-14 (see here).
quote:
I really think that pointing out abuses of the biblical pattern of headship is to damn by association and innuendo. (Not that you were necessarily doing this, Euty)
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif) You might like to reconsider the juxtaposition of those two sentences…
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
Lep,
I have no doubt that there are some women who not only survive but flourish under the conservative view of headship. I’d be willing to bet, though, that they flourish because the roles assigned to them/ allowed to them fit with their natural inclinations (and I’d bet that their husbands are not abusive). IIRC, most people’s greatest fear is public speaking – and if you don’t want to speak in church, being told you’re not allowed to would not be a particularly big deal. However, if you are called to public speaking, and you have a talent for it, I find it hard to believe that you’re not going to be damaged if you’re not allowed to develop that talent because of an arbitrary rule. Similarly, some people prefer being taught by people they know; I’m sure some women appreciate having everything filtered through their husband’s perspective. Some women do not.
You can’t argue that the absence of unhappy women in your church means that there’s nothing wrong with the model – chances are that the women who wanted a leadership role in church that didn’t involve looking after the children fled the church (and possibly Christianity) years ago. Of course, I have only unacceptable anecdotal evidence to support that claim. But I do think that trying to force anyone into a narrowly defined role based on assumptions about their character that are based on assumptions about gendered behavior is both moronic and damaging to all parties involved.
When some conservative evangelicals talk about headship itself, they may not sound all that different from the representatives of the Orthodox Plot. However, when you put their views in the context of everything else they say, I spy a subtle and pernicious sexism. For example (from this Dobson article):
quote:
Briefly stated, love is linked to self-esteem in women. For a man, romantic experiences with his wife are warm and enjoyable and memorable--but not necessary. For a woman, they are her lifeblood. Her confidence, her sexual response and her zest for living are often directly related to those tender moments when she feels deeply loved and appreciated by her man.
That is why flowers and candy and cards are more meaningful to her than to him. This is why she is continually trying to pull him out of the television set or the newspaper, and not vice versa. This is why the anniversary is critically important to her and why she never forgets it. That is why he had better not forget it! This need for romantic love is not some quirk or peculiarity of his wife, as some may think. This is the way women are made.
I’m sure this is decent advice for somebody. I’m sure that somewhere out there, there is a woman who appreciates having a man tell her husband to pay attention to her. I, OTOH, laughed while reading this, because the gendered assumptions are both stereotypical and very far removed from my own experience.
By defining a “woman” as someone who gets her lifeblood out of romantic experiences with her husband, he clearly indicates that single women are lacking the only thing that could give their life meaning. He then goes on to give advice that I’ve spent most of my dating life trying to counter (I’m not a big fan of candy, I think flowers belong in a garden, not on the kitchen table, I usually don’t remember anniversaries or birthdays unless someone reminds me or I’ve come to expect wrath for forgetting it, and, yes, sometimes others have had to remove the newspaper, book, or remote from my hands in order to get me to pay attention).
It’s not that hard - caring for someone involves looking after their needs, not what you assume their needs are. By setting up the strict and absolute categories of masculine and feminine that correspond to people’s biological sex, Dobson is encouraging people to measure themselves against a standard that doesn’t apply uniformly; most people contain a mixture of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits. Ignoring that reality, IMHO, sets people up for failure.
I’m willing to believe that not everyone who espouses a conservative view of headship is sexist. But I have to admit, when the conversation moves in that direction, I make sure I know where all the exits are.
Of course, because of biology, I’m inherently emotionally unstable (you can tell because I laugh and cry more easily than men), so you probably shouldn’t listen to anything I have to say.
(Is it just me, or does anyone else find it a bit surreal that Lep and Gordon appear to be arguing in favor of a conservative view of headship on the basis that no one can prove that women in those relationships are more abused and belittled than other women? I’d prefer to set my sites a bit higher than simply avoiding abuse, although I seem to spend a depressing amount of time doing just that.)
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I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Could someone explain to me what the difference is between a husband's love for his wife and a wife's love for her husband?
The love isn't difference. Think about the Trinity. The Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father. How is the Spirit different from the Father? Only in that he proceeds from the Father and not the other way around. The Father is the source of the Godhead, but the essence of the Father is not different from the essence of the Spirit.
In an analogous way, the love of the husband for his wife is not different from the love of the wife for her husband, except that it comes from the husband and not from the wife. But the husband is the source of the love in the marriage, as the Father is the source of the essence of the Godhead. The husband loves; the wife returns the love.
If that's not a difference that makes a difference to you, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
quote:
Originally posted by Paul Mason:
I'm glad, as a man, that I'm not Orthodox. I really don't get why I, because I'm a man, have a greater responsibility to love (to the point of it 'never being enough') anymore than saysay say*, gets why she would never get to have a casting vote.
The reason is that you, as the husband, are the source of the love in the marriage. If there's not enough love in the marriage, it's your job to supply more love. If that seems hard to you, that's because it is. Marriage is an ascetic labor, a podvig. No one ever said it would be easy.
Do you really think there should be a limit to your love for your wife? What should that limit be? And why?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Help! I'm agreeing with Josephine (about abuse)! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Just to prove I'm not approaching this with an ideological axe to grind, and failing any statistical research findings posted here on the part of headship proponents so far, here's a reference I found in about 2 minutes on Google:
quote:
From The Scandal of The Evangelical Conscience (which I think is being discussed on another thread)
there is accumulating evidence that theologically conservative Protestant men who attend church regularly have lower rates of domestic abuse than others.
There is a footnote to a source.
Be warned, however: I'm still Googling. And Weed, I'm hoping to find at least one authoritative headship proponent's answer to your question on single women soon.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
So Josephine - when things are bad the initiative shouldn't come from the woman? Is that what you are saying? Or is there really no difference between the responsibilities of the husband and the wife?
You see I think my wife would find it very insulting to be told that she should always wait for me to take the initiative in the area of love.
Luigi
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Here is a pretty good critique of the link from Sider's article I just posted (includes a link to some actual stats for the US).
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The reason is that you, as the husband, are the source of the love in the marriage. If there's not enough love in the marriage, it's your job to supply more love. If that seems hard to you, that's because it is. Marriage is an ascetic labor, a podvig. No one ever said it would be easy.
It just seems like a distinction without a difference to me. I feel like the man and the woman both must love as much as possible and more. Why cannot they both be the source of love? I find this confusing.
To take an example, there are many times during this ascetic discipline of marriage that the wounded party/wounding party in an ongoing dispute, either the wife or the husband, has to give up the argument and let go, in order for the other to also unstick and move on in love. In my experience, this is especially effective when the wounded party is the mover, but that makes no never mind. My point is, that there are times in a marriage when either the one or the other must be the source of a new "gust" of love in order for the marriage to putter on.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
It just seems like a distinction without a difference to me.
It may well be so in a healthy marriage.
It seems possible to me that the reason St. John Chrysostom limited a woman's responsibility to her husband was because of the relative vulnerability of women. In particular, because of the dynamics of abusive relationships, if a woman is in an abusive relationship, her attempts to be the one to "jumpstart" the relationship as it were, are likely to increase both the frequency and the severity of the abuse.
Therefore, limiting the woman's responsibility in this way may have had the intent of protecting women in unhealthy relationships.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Emma Louise
Storm in a teapot
# 3571
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Posted
Although I might not like the way Dobson has expressed his point in the article, I actually think your post **shows** that he makes a good point (albeit generalised)
Many men (like yourself) dont see the point of little gifts, cut flowers, moment sof affection.... and yet for many many woman those little moments make the world of difference and are the moments that are treasured. I know my girlfriends appreciate a hand written letter for example (not that i do it) or small gestures. BUt I know my ex prefered the momeny spent on "something sensible" or towards a larger gift later.
So I actually think Dobson pointing out to men who dont see the point - that there IS a point doing these little things is A Good Thing.
Josephine - I like the source idea that youre using so very very much. I think a woman often more naturally "gives" of herself (ok I know huge generalisatoinm, and men are from mars esque - but knowing there will be exceptions yada yada) and i think for the man to kick start now and again is a A Good Thing too. Its not saying the woman cant (As she often will...)
I often think of that passage as the man "enabling" the woman to do stuff. As in in that culture it wasnt normal for her to do things, and yet with Jesus and Paul preaching freedom, and in christ there being no male and female and all that, that men were in the privilidged position at that time of being able to enable the women to be free. Think back even 100 years - the husband still had so much power over the household, I really think Paul was saying - use it to release her. This isnt *as* applicable now.... but would have been for the last 2000 years..
Posts: 12719 | From: Enid Blyton territory. | Registered: Nov 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Weed: The second question is about single women. Could you explain how they fit into the modern doctrine of headship please? It hasn't been made clear on this thread yet from a doctrinal point of view as far as I know. Should they have a male authority figure to take decisions for them?
Weed, I've finally looked up where I thought I might find an answer to this. It was in this book:
Women in the Church – A fresh analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. This is a well-researched and for the most part graciously argued defence of the conservative objections to women in church leadership (though many here may find some of the following statements rather chilling). Although it does not address the issue of marriage directly, the term "headship" is part of its vocabulary and there are some excellent summaries of the various stances taken on both marriage and church leadership. It is commended on the back cover by such evangelical heavyweights as John Piper ("a major book… none more thorough or careful or balanced or biblical") and D.A. Carson.
Before I get to the quote in question, here for general consumption is a summary of those summaries (pp262-3 of my edition).
For "traditionalists" (a definition the authors unequivocally align themselves with), we learn that
quote:
Eve's deception either compounds or explains women's subordination (sic). Some traditionalists say women's subordination became onerous as her punishment for her role in the fall. Others say God subordinated women to men in the church because women are more prone to deception, whether due to lower intellectual capacity or less interest in disicplined intellectual pursuits.
The same contributor (Daniel Doriani) places all traditionalists somewhere along a continuum. At one end are those who hold that "Men should lead because of the divine will, period". At the other are those who begin with "the woman was deceived" and "search for confirmations of divine law in natural law". Most are said to occupy a middle ground, affirming that "God shaped the minds, proclivities and perhaps even the bodies of humans to reflect his decree".
He acknowledges that many traditionalists adopt what he calls the "Family Order/Church Order Argument", linking roles in the church to roles in the family by aligning passages such as Eph 5 with 1 T 2. He also exposes several weaknesses (from his perspective) in this rapprochement, one of which is precisely the one Weed touches on (p261):
quote:
It implicitly … permits (single women) to serve as spiritual leaders of the church
At this point we have a footnote which says:
quote:
Certain popular teachers assert that single women remain under their fathers' governance until they marry, but their thought rarely reaches print and does not seem to be influential.
So there you have it. Having thus neatly distanced himself from this anonymously held position, he leaves the question of what coherent alternative conclusions might be drawn from the "traditionalist" position unsaid.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Lep,
I have no doubt that there are some women who not only survive but flourish under the conservative view of headship. I’d be willing to bet, though, that they flourish because the roles assigned to them/ allowed to them fit with their natural inclinations (and I’d bet that their husbands are not abusive).
This has been my experience. Not to mention the fact that the less gracious of these women then lorded it over the rest of us who felt called to something different. The tyranny of the system is that it assumes that there is only "one kind of woman". If you're not called to the One Right Approved Womanly Vocation, you're called disobedient, sinful, not submitted to Christ. The women who are blessed with the "right" natural inclinations and who find it no hard work at all are constantly lecturing you on discipline when it sometimes takes all the discipline you can muster not to explode.
[ 18. April 2005, 20:49: Message edited by: Seeker963 ]
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Scholar Gypsy
Shipmate
# 7210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
Back to my single woman headship experience...when I trying to figure out if I should buy my condo, I consulted people and nobody told me what to do...but instead helped me figure out what my options were. Nobody was all "keep duchess down! Find fault with her! She sucks! We enjoy degrading her!" Instead, I feel loved and supported. It was a scary thing to buy my own place back in Dec. 2004 (sale closed though in January 2004). I felt more calm and level-headed about the whole matter since I got to talk it out. I did talk to some elders but I also talked to a lot of people in my church, plus others.
If I may ask a question, Duchesss?
Perhaps I have misunderstood something, but I honestly do not see what this searching for advice from elders (male or female) has to do with you being a single woman.
Surely it is sensible to seek wise advice from experienced elder people if you are young, single, vulnerable, don't know much about finance/cars/houses or whatever else it might be? Why is this more the case for single woman (without a 'head') than a single man, or indeed a married woman whose husband isn't much help in those matters?
Thanks,
xSx
Posts: 822 | From: Oxford | Registered: May 2004
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
This is a well-researched and for the most part graciously argued defence of the conservative objections to women in church leadership (though many here may find some of the following statements rather chilling).
(I love the phrase 'graciously argued defence. At the very least if one is arguing for the subordination of a significant representation of humankind, based on gender alone, the very least one ought to be is 'gracious'. Or is one meant to be grateful for the 'graciousness' with which one is being put into one's 'rightful' place?)
Possibly chillling. More likely predictable if based on the quotes below. What is certainly chilling is that many corners of the Church haven't yet learnt how to read into the Genesis myths the limited encultured views of the era in which they were given birth; and, imo, subsequently have not learnt how to interpret afresh the truth of God for this generation.
The book as a whole seems to be interesting, so thanks, Eutychus, for taking on the question that Weed asked. I'd been following this thread, too, to see if anything was going to be said that applied to my own situation. To do the book justice, naturally, one would have to read it to know if it actually says anything that all the other defenders of conservative traditional opinion haven't said. Judging by the quotations given, it would appear not.
I'm intrigued by this:
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Certain popular teachers assert that single women remain under their fathers' governance until they marry, but their thought rarely reaches print and does not seem to be influential.
Anyone up for a seance? I have one or two important decisions to make and need my father's 'governance' ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) .
[ 18. April 2005, 21:05: Message edited by: Anselmina ]
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Weed
Shipmate
# 4402
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Posted
Thanks, Eutychus! Plenty of food for thought there. I'd like to do some further reading and see what other shipmates have to say before I comment any further.
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
It seems possible to me that the reason St. John Chrysostom limited a woman's responsibility to her husband was because of the relative vulnerability of women. In particular, because of the dynamics of abusive relationships, if a woman is in an abusive relationship, her attempts to be the one to "jumpstart" the relationship as it were, are likely to increase both the frequency and the severity of the abuse.
Therefore, limiting the woman's responsibility in this way may have had the intent of protecting women in unhealthy relationships.
I wonder if it makes more sense in the context of his life and times when a marriage would be organised by the prospective husband and the family of the prospective wife. In those circumstances it would seem reasonable, perhaps, to limit the responsibility of the wife to responding to love shown to her rather than oblige her to love a husband who never acted in a loving way to her.
I can't see the same argument working today where you have what starts off, almost always, as a love match and which in the western tradition includes words such as "for better, for worse". It can't be an excuse for withdrawing Christian love (whether or not romantic love is still present) from a husband who through deep depression contributes nothing but negativity to a marriage, can it? Doesn't the freedom of choice that the woman exercises today in getting married alter the circumstances completely?
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Weed
Posts: 519 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
I'd been following this thread, too, to see if anything was going to be said that applied to my own situation.
On the same page (p261) he admits that
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Scarcely anyone argues that the church should give single women special ministerial prerogatives, but the church has long had an instinct for the idea
In a further footnote he says that one theologian who, rarely, makes a brief allusion to this, is E. Earle Ellis, Pauline Theology, Ministry, and Society (Grand Rapids, Erdmans, 1989, p75).
[ 18. April 2005, 21:53: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
As you will have noticed, it was both Leprechaun and Levor, both I would say proponents of the cons. evo view of headship, who first made assertions suggesting a link between the decline of headship as they understand it and an increase in domestic violence.
You will not have noticed this, because my posts did not say any such thing. I questioned the assertion that teaching and believing headship leads to an increase in domestic abuse in situations where it is taught, as my anecdotal evidence led me to an entirely different conclusion to that of many people here.
For the reasons I pointed out above, I think the statistics on which the Economist article above are based may well be suspect, and if they aren't can certainly be explained in ways that have nothing to do with headship.
I have certainly no wish to suggest that a decline in the headship view in socety at large has led to an increase in domestic violence. I would, however, agree with Levor's assertion that I'm not sure relationships between the sexes are improving for us enough to be pleased about the "progress" we have supposedly made.
Weed - I have an answer to your singleness question, but no time to post now - maybe later. Sorry!
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
So I actually think Dobson pointing out to men who dont see the point - that there IS a point doing these little things is A Good Thing.
Like I said, I’m sure that his advice is good advice for someone out there in the world. What I object to is the one-size-fits-all nature of it. It’s not that I don’t like it when Boy pays attention to me – but I want him to pay attention to me, not some abstract Real Woman (and that means he knows that I’d appreciate him getting me a cd, book, or two-dollar toy more than I’d appreciate a box of candy).
To me, it’s just common sense that being in a relationship with another human being means occasionally doing things you might not be inclined to do on your own because you know that it’s going to make the other person happy and their happiness is important to you (love makes a better verb than noun). If Dobson had encouraged husbands to ask their wives what would make them happy and then do their best to fulfill that desire, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But to me that’s very different from one man telling another man how to make his (silent) wife happy.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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Levor
Shipmate
# 5711
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I largely agree (not about the low blow, which to me seems a perfectly reasonable approach to the Scriptures, but the rest of it).
It was long bow, not low blow, Alan - I didn't think you were fighting dirty.
quote:
quote:
Actually, I think they do. There are three strands of evidence in the way the narrative works in Genesis 2-3.
Strands that don't seem to appear in the Genesis 1 version, where we are told that God created humans, male and female, in his own image. Nothing there about anything different about men and women in the sight of God.
They don't need to appear in Genesis 1. You claimed that
quote:
Interestingly the Genesis accounts don't seem to imply any subservience in the relationship between Adam and Eve. At least, not until after the Fall where God imposes such a subservient role of the woman as a penalty for her sin
If it occurs in Genesis 2, or if it occurs in the Fall narrative as anything more than an extrinsic judgement imposed upon the woman, then your thesis is incorrect.
If you want to argue something else - for example that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 are in outright contradiction rather than complementary accounts and that Genesis 1 should overrule Genesis 2-3 - then you can advance that argument. But appealing to Genesis 1 to counter something from Genesis 2-3 is
i) irrelevant to your argument as originally stated
ii) requires you to introduce an extra assertion that there is irreducible theological conflict between the chapters
quote:
quote:
1. The man is created first and the woman is created from the man, (and Paul points out, the woman is created for the man not vice versa). Man is the source of woman - a derived equality as Divine Outlaw Dwarf has suggested on the Father-Son side of the issue.
Well, creation order doesn't seem all that relevant. After all, humanity is created last - does that mean we're inferior to the rest of creation that came first? Though, of course, you first need to reconcile Genesis 1 (humanity created last) with Genesis 2 (the man created first, then the animals, then woman). Taking Genesis 2 to its logical conclusion following your argument from order, women are inferior to the cattle of the field.
Or, there's a good argument that as men are born of women that women are the source of men - does that make them superior? Of course not. The argument simply doesn't work.
I'm not sure precisely what your argument is here. I'm not arguing inferiority from creation order - and it might be a little bit sneaky to impose that on my view without establishing that as a point in its own right. It'd be like me claiming that you don't recognise differences between the genders to 'disprove' your exegesis.
I was arguing that the Bible sees some kind of order of a non-egalitarian nature from creation order. Paul argues that explicitly in 1 Tim 2:13 for gender relations. The Bible continually endorses the general motiff - sometimes by overturning it (the choice of the younger over the older by divine calling in Genesis), other times by endorsing it (the use of the category of 'firstborn', the argument for the deity of Jesus from the fact that David calls his 'son' 'Lord' in Mat 21:41-46).
That the Bible sees chronological order as significant for the structure of relationships is difficult to deny. If you want to say that the Bible is wrong at this point and that it is blindingly obvious to us that that is wrong, feel free. But again, that wasn't your original argument.
As regards the appeal to Genesis 1, to make humanity inferior to the animals, as you imply the relationship between the two accounts is not simply to crash them together. Different points are being made and so the data has a different significance in both cases.
As regards the woman being inferior to animals, I take it that that is eloquently dealt with by the very poetic picture of the woman being (in a creaturely way) homoousious with the man - made from the very stuff that makes him what he is. Animals are after their kinds. And the woman doesn't fit in that category.
quote:
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3. When the temptation account is given in chapter three there is an order of animal --> woman --> man. When the judgement account is given there is an order of God --> man --> woman --> animal.
Which is my original point, the suggestion of superiority of man over woman comes in with the account of the Fall. It relates to sin, not the original order.
Not necessarily. I'd suggest that in chapter one we start with everything being formless and void (no order, and empty), with a picture of chaotic water as the basic reality. The first three days creates order by separating things out, the next three days those basic categories established in the first three days are then filled with life.
formless and void vs order and fullness
Part of sin is found in the way it overturns both - it is an anti-creation (death) force. And so the Flood returns everything back to the primordial water, with everything obliterated under water, and all life ended.
Similarly, the order we see in the temptation narrative in chapter 3 is the unravelling of the order we see in chapter 2. The judgment oracles reimpose that order in a more harsh (for want of a better word) and cursed form. The order doesn't start in chapter 3, it starts in chapter 2.
BTW - I agree with Jospehine as to what I think I said, although it is interesting that RuthW seems to have taken it the same way. Thanks for the apology on the misreading - it wasn't necessary, but it is appreciated.
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Sorry, but bringing the Trinity into it doesn't help, IMO, because it doesn't justify assigning roles based on sex alone, whether you're going to call it "being" or "personhood".
I agree. All it establishes is that there is a kind of primacy that doesn't have to be linked to being somehow better than someone else. It eliminates what often seems to be an assumption that if I have to submit to you, and there is no way I can have that relationship reversed, then I must be ontologically inferior. It is not the case that all forms of submission involve inferiority, or that they involve inferiority if they are based in something other than abstract merit (being smarter, stronger, etc).
It doesn't establish that that is applicable to male-female relationships. That has to be argued separately.
quote:
This is an awful analogy--the implied infantalization of women is appalling. When you disagree with your parents about how you should live your life, do you defer to their judgement? Parents start out wiser, smarter, and more knowledgeable than their children, but eventually children grow up and become self-determining adults. I honor my parents, but I don't submit to them or consider them to have any kind of leadership role in my life.
It was an argument from analogy, to counter what seemed to be the dominant analogy being used, which was the CEO/head of state analogy. Of course not all bits are going to be the same. I wasn't saying that your parents have any leadership role, they don't need to for the analogy to work. But I will say that they do, nonetheless. Part of honouring parents as an adult does mean that the parent takes a senior position in the relationship. (Yes I know that doesn't always happen - there are bad relationships - I'm working from the 'rule', not the 'exception'.)
And the analogy focuses on adult relationships, not childhood ones. So there's no infantilisation of the woman. Just the reality of having parents as an adults and thinking about the nature of that relationship.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Thanks for taking the time to interact with me over 1 Cor 11:3. I was being a little tongue in cheek presuming to read Paul's tone into what is written. Your argument that we should be striving to be even more biblically based as the culture shifts away from 'plain biblical values'is somewhat compelling, but...
My point is simply that this is an important issue precisely because there is a shift going on. One side is profoundly right (at least mostly - important changes may take place during the debate that transform it), one side is disastrously wrong in a way that will destroy all or everything over time. Both sides can see that that is what is at stake.
In such a situation, a desire to not be dogmatic is the wrong approach. We have to pray, be humble, and speak and listen with the wisdom God has given us and pray that truth will win over the long haul - even if it means that we were playing for the wrong side. Even if I'm wrong and egalitarianism is the way to go, I still want to put my view forward as best as I can, because that will help clarify the issues at stake.
If it proves, in the collateral damage, that to be true to the Bible you have to go against the Bible then that's pretty important - and is going to require some dogmatism somewhere.
quote:
The problem I have is this: I don't think you can build a coherent model of headship and submission from these passages; they just aren't as clear-cut as one might like. I agree that the Bible highlights that God made man and woman different, but to what extent this should lead to different roles or submission based on appeals to the Godhead or creational principles remains in doubt for me.
For me, there's a difference between coherent and 100% precision. I think the biblical picture is fairly coherent on its own terms - we can generally agree on a fair bit of what it is saying. The points of disagreement are then as to whether it is implying an inherent inferiority of women or not (primarily) and what sort of patterns of gender relations Christians should promote today (secondarily, because a lot of the answer is derived from the answer to the primary question).
I don't pretend that I can spell out a view that comprehensively illuminates every grey zone faced in the modern world - create a modern causitry on the issue. If that's what you mean by 'coherent', I agree, it can't be done. The best I hope for is that I allow it to shape the fundamental structures of thought with which I approach the issue, and that I get the outworkings more right than wrong.
If by 'not coherent' you mean it is self-contradictory, then I think that's going to need to be established.
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in Christ,
Levor
Posts: 276 | From: Sydney | Registered: Apr 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Leprechaun, I claimed you "made assertions suggesting a link between the decline of headship as you understand it and an increase in domestic violence". That was rather too much of a shortcut, and I apologise.
Reading over all your posts on this thread, your main argument in favour of headship seems to be that it is
quote:
a doctrine that church has held for the majority of it's history
which you support because of
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family experience, and that of my friends
you go on to say
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so we're just swapping anecdotes until someone moves the conversation on a bit
In order to do this you ask for
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someone to actually prove to me, with more than a recitation of their former unfortunate experiences, that this view as practiced in conservative evangelical churches harms women, their careers, their self esteem and their personal security.
and proof that such women are
quote:
more likely to be physically abused by their husbands than in general society where a more egalitarian view of marriage is held
You set aside anecdotal evidence in favour of an appeal to statistical evidence or similar.
Quite fortuitously, I then found a report of some relevant government statistics that claim that domestic abuse is declining overall in the UK. You dispute these on the basis of anecdotal evidence. I have to say this leaves me wondering what sort of "proof" you would accept.
(Believe it or not, I'm trying to see both sides of this question, so I also went in search of some statistics supporting your view and by Googling "domestic abuse" + evangelicals I almost immediately find a link to a report doing just that (as well as a disputation of these results on methodological, not anecdotal grounds).).
So appeals to statistics appear to be a dead duck, and if my anecdotal evidence is not admissible, then neither is yours. Which brings us back to the purely doctrinal question, which to me is above all a question of hermeneutics.
Correct me if I'm wrong , but so far on this thread I've seen you express broad agreement with others in favour of headship, but I haven't seen you actually interact hermeneutically with anyone. You appear confident that the Bible, in its "plain reading", supports your view, and this is borne out by your immediate experience. The one time you asked for a clarification from me on a specific Bible passage was 1 Tim 2:12-14 when you asked me
quote:
What are you asking for Eutychus? An interpretation of this verse that allows it not to be about inferiority (which I'm sure you must have heard before)?
to which I replied here
quote:
I think it's difficult to read 1 Tim 2:12-14 in the way headship proponents do, and not come away with the feeling that woman should be submitted because she is spiritually inferior (something I have heard some people actually claim in so many words). How do you read this passage?
I'm still interested to hear how you read it.
quote:
originally posted by Levor:
For me, there's a difference between coherent and 100% precision. I think the biblical picture is fairly coherent on its own terms - we can generally agree on a fair bit of what it is saying. The points of disagreement are then as to whether it is implying an inherent inferiority of women or not (primarily)
I agree with much of what you say. But the non-egalitarian approach increasingly appears to me to be inconsistent. On the one hand, we are called to accept it because it's a sort of synthesis of what the Bible is saying, as advanced by people who claim to take hermeneutics seriously. On the other hand, as soon as one particular text is held up for analysis according to these selfsame principles, there is a sort of retreat to a "well, we must see that in the overall context of what the Bible says". This leaves me with the impression that the whole, on closer inspection, is not the sum of the parts it is claimed to be. Which is why I keep asking for verse-by-verse exegesis.
Even if we were to agree that the biblical picture is coherent on its own terms, the burning question is to what extent it should be applied today (which is why to my mind the appeal to a "Creational Principle" is a crucial part of the debate). (To me, it's like discussions about church government. I thought I had the Accurate Biblical Model all worked out, but when I actually went back and looked at all the verses I decided recently that the Bible said a lot about general principles, but left a whole load of options as to how they should be implemented).
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
You set aside anecdotal evidence in favour of an appeal to statistical evidence or similar.
Quite fortuitously, I then found a report of some relevant government statistics that claim that domestic abuse is declining overall in the UK. You dispute these on the basis of anecdotal evidence. I have to say this leaves me wondering what sort of "proof" you would accept.
Eutychus
I'm not wishing to be uncharitable, but I am beginning to wonder if you are deliberately misunderstanding what I am saying.
My "appeal to statictical evidence" was for evidence that showed incidences of domestic abuse are higher where headship is believed than when it isn't, as my experience of where it is taught and where it is not is that it is less prevalent. Your finding of the Economist article was thus, not "fortuitous" but entirely irrelevant, as I'm not sure what that has to do with religious communities where headship is or is not taught.
It was you, and possibly the Economist journalist who posited the link between the reduction in reported incidences of domestic abuse and "the emancipation of women", a link which, I pointed out, an expert in the field who I know makes no appeal to, and in fact rejects the statistics altogether. It was my fault for engaging in that discussion, (mea culpa, I thought it would be interesting) but certainly not rejecting discussion of statistics. What I am rejecting is the "obvious" link between the teaching of headship and the abuse of women that has been put forward by some here. If anyone can show that is the case, then I would love to consider it, but my feeling is that no one will be able to; but it's much easier to write off the other side of the argument if we label them all as closet wife beaters.
The fact that this is my experience doesn't prove that I am right - far from it, but it does, I think suggest some problem with the headship=abuse equation being put across here, and I was asking if anyone could actually back up that type of assertion.
quote:
You appear confident that the Bible, in its "plain reading", supports your view, and this is borne out by your immediate experience.
I'm not sure where I have said this. I thought your hermeneutical questions were being addressed much better than I would be able by other people.
quote:
I'm still interested to hear how you read it.
Very well. I read it as being abour creation order. It is not a condemnation of Eve's simplicity, or to suggest that she was more foolish than Adam, but Paul saying that the order in which God created is significant, and it was reversed in the fall, and that the people of God should seek to reflect God's original order in their life as a church.
I am quite willing to admit this interpretation depends on a previosu commitment from elsewhere in Scripture to the equality of the sexes and to creation order, but there you have it.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Levor
Shipmate
# 5711
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
As you will have noticed, it was both Leprechaun and Levor, both I would say proponents of the cons. evo view of headship, who first made assertions suggesting a link between the decline of headship as they understand it and an increase in domestic violence. It's usual practice here to provide support for such assertions.
I'm fairly sure I haven't claimed that there's been a rise in domestic violence as a result of a rejection of male headship. The closest I think I've come to addressing that issue was when I responded to the idea, that seemed to have been stated a number of times in different ways, that as there had been domestic abuse while society had a commitment to headship, that the domestic abuse was caused (not just justified, but caused) by the idea of headship and the implicit suggestion that there would be less domestic violence with an egalitarian approach.
My response, I think, was to state that my impression is that women are no less subject to violence in the West than they were 40+ years ago. Sure, I'd be interested if we could get some empirical evidence on that. But I wasn't putting forward an argument of causality, merely countering what had seemed to be a fairly regularly asserted argument in the other direction.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I agree with much of what you say. But the non-egalitarian approach increasingly appears to me to be inconsistent. On the one hand, we are called to accept it because it's a sort of synthesis of what the Bible is saying, as advanced by people who claim to take hermeneutics seriously. On the other hand, as soon as one particular text is held up for analysis according to these selfsame principles, there is a sort of retreat to a "well, we must see that in the overall context of what the Bible says". This leaves me with the impression that the whole, on closer inspection, is not the sum of the parts it is claimed to be. Which is why I keep asking for verse-by-verse exegesis.
I generally don't like the "you're not taking x seriously" argument. I'd rather just stick to whether it is likely to be true or not.
Having said that, you're going to have to give me some specifics as to the target you're shooting at. Almost everyone does exegesis by both looking at the words in context and understanding it against what they think the nature of the Bible and its message is. If you think I'm doing this in a way that lacks integrity, I'll need the details.
quote:
Even if we were to agree that the biblical picture is coherent on its own terms, the burning question is to what extent it should be applied today (which is why to my mind the appeal to a "Creational Principle" is a crucial part of the debate). (To me, it's like discussions about church government. I thought I had the Accurate Biblical Model all worked out, but when I actually went back and looked at all the verses I decided recently that the Bible said a lot about general principles, but left a whole load of options as to how they should be implemented).
I'm in general agreement - your analogy with church government is similar to what I was saying about coherent versus precise. And I wasn't saying that the question of what we do now isn't important - merely that it comes after the prior question of whether the relevant biblical material is positing a real inferiority of women.
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
Back to theology. I believe that the whole theology of gender roles really does presuppose the idea that God creates men with a wonderful assortment of abilities, talents and interests, but that he creates women with only the talent and interest to be a wife, mother children and make a home. Those women and girls who do not have these interests are labelled sinful and rebellious and it is often the women who do have these interests who will Lord it over them, being quite aggressive in labelling the "rebellious" women as sinful.
I agree that I often sense that kind of subchristian/misogony trying to justify itself by appeal to the sort of principles being outlined here. For what it is worth, my wife went through theological College with me for the full 4 years, and is looking into postgraduate study. I don't think that we are somehow doing something against the kind of principles that Josephine and others have been arguing for (and by the way Josephine - I felt like getting a choir in as a cheering squad for the post on 'if there's not enough love in the marriage, the husband has to put more love in. Love it!)
quote:
Furthermore, no matter what anyone says in this context about women being "equal but different", the fact is that I grew up believing that I was an incompleted man in the eyes of God. I was able to be punished by God and by men as if I had adult responsibility, but I was not able to build anything as if I had adult abilities - for indeed, in the eyes of the church I did not. I was a woman, perhaps a bit more mature than a child, but certainly not the responsible adult that males were. None of this was The Official Theology, but if you tell a female child that she must submit to men all her life, she will certainly grow up thinking that she is not whole in some way.
I don't think anyone wants to justify or encourage for others what you experienced, Seeker. I certainly don't - and I'm very ruthless on anything that smacks of it in the contexts that I'm in.
But the impression might have been caused not by the simple fact of submission, but by the reasons given for it - grounding it in the idea that a woman is an incompleted man.
quote:
Now anyone want to come to another forum with me where a "gentleman" has just said that God can use anyone to speak his word once, but he wouldn't want his children to be taught by a donkey?
I think I know the argument, and I don't think it is trying to compare a woman to a donkey. It is an attempt to state that God is free to act as he will - even to rebuke a prophet through a dumb ass. But we don't use that to justify putting donkeys into pulpits as though normal practice should be derived from God's free act.
Part of my conversion occured through reading some of the most ridiculous pre-millenial conspiracy stuff I've ever encountered. But I don't encourage the use of it in evangelism.
But that's not to excuse however badly or hurtfully he stated that argument.
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
I think that the reason I don't buy the idea of a "right application of male headship" (with apologies to The Plot), is that I don't think one can set up a structure that says "This group always wins by virtue of their biology" and that "That group always submits by virtue of their biology" and honestly believe that there won't be a number of people in the "winners" group who don't try to abuse it.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm beginning to think the more a structure is focused on the outworking of authority within its ranks (as is the case with headship here), the less likely those who suffer at the hands of those abusing this position are to seek redress. I would not be surprised to find headship proponents willing to accept separation or divorce in theory, but the whole system is skewed against such a case coming to light in the first place. This, I believe, is partly because of the firmly held assumption (which no-one has so far been able to corroborate) that 'our folks couldn't possibly do that kind of thing', and partly because such systems tend to hush up offences by their members on the grounds that to expose them would be a "bad witnesss". (For instance, I know personally of two completely unrelated cases where the relatives of children sexually abused by other christians were discouraged in no uncertain terms from taking the case to court for this reason). The psychological and sociological pressure on a battered wife in such an environment being able to press charges do not depend solely on the official, theoretical party line.
I think there's been a few examples of this kind of argument. My concern again, is that it isn't really an argument against headship per se. It is an argument against all kinds of authority, expressing the kind of Western cultural logic that makes many of us (me included) deeply suspicious of any kind of authority.
We tend to be very aware of how easily power can be abused and so strive to limit the power people can have, if not opt for 'flat' relational structures altogether. But while the Bible is quite aware of the abuses that come with power, it tends to endorse hierarchical relationships rather than tear them down.
So I'd be keen to hear from Shipmates wanting to run this argument as to whether their concern about headship at this point is just an expression of their wider concern about authority in general.
It also seems to me, that one of the consequences of this suspicion of power, has been to encourage individualism and the right of the individual to choose their relationships on their own terms - a general prioritising of friendship over family that seems to be a feature of contemporary life.
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Just because you have a penis? That is exactly the sort of silliness that this headship thing lends itself towards. Why should the situation exist whereby two single people successfully run their own lives without having someone else make the decisions, they then get married and one of them suddenly becomes incapable of doing that? If a woman is capable of being her own "head" on her own, what changes when she gets married? Absolutely nothing.
And I suppose you're going to argue that we don't need leadership of any kind in the church either Alan? After all, a Christian could do it all on their own if they were on a Desert Island? So why do they need a leader when they are part of a Church?
The difference in marriage is that they move from being two individual people to two people in relationship. And when people move into relationships, they stop acting as a group of isolated individuals and start acting as an entity that has its own properties and order.
The Bible portrays very strong women, and very competent women. Proverbs 31 holds out an ideal women that is about as talented and tough minded and capable of flourishing outside the home as one could get. The women of Proverbs 31 could obviously cope quite well 'without a man'.
But if two people come into a relationship, then that relationship takes on an order that governs the relational entity that they have become: whether church, friends, married, master-slave whatever. Some are 'flat', some are 'hierarchical', and some kinds of 'hierarchy' differ from others. And not every kind of 'hierarchy' is based on 'merit'.
The question is what sort of order should exist in a marriage (or church).
Your argument here, in my opinion, reflects the tendency of contemporary egalitarianism to promote individualism - cutting us off from one another by making the autonomous individual the most basic reality and giving little 'ontology' to the relationships that we enter into.
I think I can function fine by myself. But at church and at College I submit to the leadership of others in that context of relationships. Why should marriage be any different?
Why should the fact that both were able to function fine without the other then mean that marriage is simply "friendship + sex"?
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in Christ,
Levor
Posts: 276 | From: Sydney | Registered: Apr 2004
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Gracie
Shipmate
# 3870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Levor:
...But if two people come into a relationship, then that relationship takes on an order that governs the relational entity that they have become: whether church, friends, married, master-slave whatever. Some are 'flat', some are 'hierarchical', and some kinds of 'hierarchy' differ from others. And not every kind of 'hierarchy' is based on 'merit'.
The question is what sort of order should exist in a marriage (or church).
I think this touches on some of my own personal ill-ease with the way headship is practised (and sometimes even taught) in a lot of the conservative evangelical settings I've been in.
The way I see it, is that if my husband has headship it is for the marriage, and that if church leaders have headship it is for the church. That does not give them the right to make arbitrary decisions for all areas of my life. So while I'm willing to take my husband's advice on which job to accept, for example, I would not expect him to take the final decision on things pertaining to my personal life.
I believe that I still exist as a person, as does my husband, and that our relationship exists as a third entity. I lot has been said on this thread about abuse, but equating it almost exclusively with physical abuse or violence. I think that just as much psychological damage is done to women by the suggestion, explicit or implicit, that they are either incapable of or unentitled to independent thought. This in effect removes their very existence as human beings.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
Posts: 1090 | From: En lieu sûr | Registered: Dec 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
(For instance, I know personally of two completely unrelated cases where the relatives of children sexually abused by other christians were discouraged in no uncertain terms from taking the case to court for this reason).
Faced with a minister who gave that advice, one would have to choose between justice and mercy. Justice would be hitting the man hard enough that he didn't get up in a hurry, mercy would be exposing him as a collaborator in sexual abuse, so that he could be removed from any position of responsibility in the church.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Levor
Shipmate
# 5711
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracie:
The way I see it, is that if my husband has headship it is for the marriage, and that if church leaders have headship it is for the church. That does not give them the right to make arbitrary decisions for all areas of my life. So while I'm willing to take my husband's advice on which job to accept, for example, I would not expect him to take the final decision on things pertaining to my personal life.
I think here, I'd be more interested in leaving couples (and cultures) free to nail down the specifics within the broad guidelines. Some couples might work better with more direct involvement from the husband in the wife's personal life (Gordo's observation that his wife would have liked him to be more directive about her occupational choice) others with more freedom. That's one where I wouldn't want to legislate any particular way, simply troubleshoot on a case by case basis. Some couples might need more breathing room, some might need a bit less.
I think a lot of conservative evangelicals can be too controlling at the moment - but I think that is because of the normal (but wrong) reactionary tendency to overcompensate in the other direction.
quote:
I believe that I still exist as a person, as does my husband, and that our relationship exists as a third entity. I lot has been said on this thread about abuse, but equating it almost exclusively with physical abuse or violence. I think that just as much psychological damage is done to women by the suggestion, explicit or implicit, that they are either incapable of or unentitled to independent thought. This in effect removes their very existence as human beings.
Ah. Wasn't trying to encourage that. I agree that there are three things - two people and a relationship - and each is real.
I agree too about the problem of the abuse you are talking about - for me it is the opposite of what Ephesians 5 is talking about (presenting the wife as spotless etc.) ==> it is making her into something less rather than encouraging her growth into being something more.
The caveat I would put is that while the independence of each person needs to be preserved (which is a great point that I'll try and keep in mind if I ever speak on this issue), the 'one flesh' nature of the relationship does suggest that the sphere of absolutely independent operation is smaller than for most (all?) other relationships. The two become one in some sense. But that's just a qualifier to a broad endorsement of your point here.
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in Christ,
Levor
Posts: 276 | From: Sydney | Registered: Apr 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I have certainly no wish to suggest that a decline in the headship view in socety at large has led to an increase in domestic violence.
In this country that violence has certainly decreased over the last couple of generations. Even if we think things haven't got better recently they undoubtably have over a longer period.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gracie
Shipmate
# 3870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Levor:
I think here, I'd be more interested in leaving couples (and cultures) free to nail down the specifics within the broad guidelines. Some couples might work better with more direct involvement from the husband in the wife's personal life (Gordo's observation that his wife would have liked him to be more directive about her occupational choice) others with more freedom. That's one where I wouldn't want to legislate any particular way, simply troubleshoot on a case by case basis. Some couples might need more breathing room, some might need a bit less.
I'm not arguing about the husband's involvement, Levor, but about who get's the final decision in my personal life. It's interesting that you made reference to Gordon's lack of involvement in his wife's decision to back up your point, as I hadn't remembered it in the same way. So I went back and looked and this is what I found:
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon
When Mrs Cheng was working out whether to study law, landscape architecture, history, or carpentry, or simply to get a clerical job, she would’ve preferred if I’d said something a bit more than “well they’d all be good, and you could do any of them”
Not being in Mrs Cheng's shoes, but from what is written, I'd concluded (and still do) that what she was lamenting was exactly his lack of involvement, comment, input, but not necessarily lack of directiveness. Getting someone's opinion, is not the same thing as wanting them to take the decision.
quote:
Originally posted by Levor
I agree too about the problem of the abuse you are talking about - for me it is the opposite of what Ephesians 5 is talking about (presenting the wife as spotless etc.) ==> it is making her into something less rather than encouraging her growth into being something more.
The caveat I would put is that while the independence of each person needs to be preserved (which is a great point that I'll try and keep in mind if I ever speak on this issue), the 'one flesh' nature of the relationship does suggest that the sphere of absolutely independent operation is smaller than for most (all?) other relationships. The two become one in some sense. But that's just a qualifier to a broad endorsement of your point here.
The question is, in what sense do the two become one. I think that conservative evangelical teaching, can lead to a sort of annexation, which means the two become one by the wife ceasing to exist, and 'eaten up' by her husband.
It's obviously though that if I'm married my possibilities for independent operation are going to be less than if I'm single, and all the more so if I have children. In the same way, if I have a job, I have constraints on my time which mean that I can't do certain things just when I might like to. This however does not give my boss the right to interfere with my private or family life - his or her authority is limited to my employment.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
Posts: 1090 | From: En lieu sûr | Registered: Dec 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Levor:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I largely agree (not about the low blow, which to me seems a perfectly reasonable approach to the Scriptures, but the rest of it).
It was long bow, not low blow, Alan - I didn't think you were fighting dirty.
Sorry about that. I read it as "low blow", even though that wasn't what you wrote ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) (though, I must say, I'm not sure what the phrase 'long bow' means in this context, I always thought of it as an archery weapon.)
quote:
If you want to argue something else - for example that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 are in outright contradiction rather than complementary accounts and that Genesis 1 should overrule Genesis 2-3 - then you can advance that argument. But appealing to Genesis 1 to counter something from Genesis 2-3 is
i) irrelevant to your argument as originally stated
ii) requires you to introduce an extra assertion that there is irreducible theological conflict between the chapters
Actually, you are right in that my original statement was unclear, in that I made reference to "Adam and Eve" when I meant the creation of humanity as expressed in both Genesis 1 and 2. The use of "Adam and Eve" could easily be mistaken as a reference to Genesis 2 only, which I didn't want to make.
I don't believe in an "irreducible theological conflict" between the chapters, I do believe they are complementary descriptions of the same theological truth. But, if one takes them as being actual descriptions of Creation (especially regarding the temporal order of creation events) then they naturally do conflict. My main point was, therefore, that the temporal order of events (what was created first) is a very shaky ground to build an argument for order in human relationships (eg: man was created first, therefore man is superior to woman - "superior" in the sense often used by the advocates of headship on this thread, ie: not implying women are inferior).
quote:
That the Bible sees chronological order as significant for the structure of relationships is difficult to deny. If you want to say that the Bible is wrong at this point and that it is blindingly obvious to us that that is wrong, feel free. But again, that wasn't your original argument.
Well, my clearly poorly explained original argument, as I just tried to say above, is that it's actually easy to deny that "the Bible sees chronological order as significant for the structure of relationships", in a large part because that chronological order doesn't clearly appear in the Scriptural texts in the first place. I know Paul appeals to such an order, but it is in a passage that is notoriously difficult to understand.
I'm not claiming the Bible is wrong. The interpretations some people have of the Bible, on the other hand, may well be wrong (and, my interpretations are no different from anyone else re: potential for being wrong).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Levor:
And I suppose you're going to argue that we don't need leadership of any kind in the church either Alan? After all, a Christian could do it all on their own if they were on a Desert Island? So why do they need a leader when they are part of a Church?
No, I'm not arguing against churches having some form of leadership - though I agree that if a Christian was on their own then they could still do it all (though that wouldn't be an ideal situation as community is a strong element in the Christian faith). I do think the "one person ultimately running everything" model of church leadership is seriously flawed - at heart I'm most definitely a Congregationalist where the body ultimately running everything is the gathered church, which delegates authority to suitably qualified individuals and groups.
The analogy to marriage would be that the "head" of the marriage is both partners together, who together seek the will of Christ for their marriage, and together delegate authority downwards to one partner or the other according to ability. Which means I agree wholeheartedly with this
quote:
The difference in marriage is that they move from being two individual people to two people in relationship. And when people move into relationships, they stop acting as a group of isolated individuals and start acting as an entity that has its own properties and order.
Though I suspect we disagree about the properties and order that such a relationship has.
quote:
Your argument here, in my opinion, reflects the tendency of contemporary egalitarianism to promote individualism - cutting us off from one another by making the autonomous individual the most basic reality and giving little 'ontology' to the relationships that we enter into.
I hope I have just dispelled any feeling you have that I'm promoting individualism. I'm promoting a different kind of community to either individualistic "friends + sex" or the heirarchical structure of much conservative evangelical teaching on headship (within the church or marriage).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
What's more, having now attended churches my whole life that taught headship in terms of church leadership and marriage, I can categorically say that "stay at home motherhood" was not the norm. Even amongst women of my mother's generation (now in her 60's) in cultural backwater Northern Ireland, most of the women my mum's age worked, and took less maternity leave than anyone is entitled to nowadays. I can't actually think of a woman in my church now who has a child who doesn't work.
"Stay at home motherhood" has never been the norm. Apart from a small minority of wealthy families, it has simply never been an option for families. There was a short period when middle class families in large parts of western Europe, the US and similar countries, had sufficient income for the housewife model to develop and become seen as an ideal (though in many cases I think it was an ideal that would demonstrate that the family had "made it" in the same way as a new car or nice garden does).
I think, more important than the pure stats of "how many mothers work" (which for much of human history would be "all of them") is the question of would it be seen as OK if the wife earned more than her husband, whether it would be acceptable for the husband to take a part time job to stay at home changing nappies while his wife worked long hours and so on.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracie:
The question is, in what sense do the two become one. I think that conservative evangelical teaching, can lead to a sort of annexation, which means the two become one by the wife ceasing to exist, and 'eaten up' by her husband.
If you accept the principal of "lex orandi, lex credendi," you can see this happening in a rite that is a common feature of conservative evangelical wedding services -- the "unity candle." In this rite, of course, the bride and groom each have a candle, and together they light a single, larger candle, then put out their own candles. The self is extinguised because of the relationship.
This rite has always made me uncomfortable, and even more so since I became Orthodox, and began paying more attention to what various rites were saying and doing. If your approach to theology is heavily liturgical, as ours is, you always ask what a particular rite is saying. And I don't like what this one says!
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Gracie
Shipmate
# 3870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
If you accept the principal of "lex orandi, lex credendi," you can see this happening in a rite that is a common feature of conservative evangelical wedding services -- the "unity candle." In this rite, of course, the bride and groom each have a candle, and together they light a single, larger candle, then put out their own candles. The self is extinguised because of the relationship.
This rite has always made me uncomfortable, and even more so since I became Orthodox, and began paying more attention to what various rites were saying and doing. If your approach to theology is heavily liturgical, as ours is, you always ask what a particular rite is saying. And I don't like what this one says!
Yeeks. I've never heard of the principal of "lex orandi, lex credendi", though from my very stale Latin I would guess that it has something to do with hearing the law and believing the law - is it anything more specific?
I have never heard of the "unity candle" either. Is that something specifically American? My part of conservative evangelicalism is very un- and antiritualistic. However the extinguishing of self is exactly what I'm arguing against, which I think is implicit in many conservative evangelical views of headship.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
Posts: 1090 | From: En lieu sûr | Registered: Dec 2002
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracie:
I've never heard of the principal of "lex orandi, lex credendi", though from my very stale Latin I would guess that it has something to do with hearing the law and believing the law - is it anything more specific?
Orandi, in this case, is prayer. So "lex orandi, lex credendi" means "the rule of prayer is the rule of belief," or "what you pray is what you believe." Your beliefs are both formed and revealed in your prayers (including both personal prayers and corporate services).
quote:
I have never heard of the "unity candle" either. Is that something specifically American?
It could be. I really don't know anything about what's typical in UK weddings, but unity candles are quite common here.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
quote:
I have never heard of the "unity candle" either. Is that something specifically American?
It could be. I really don't know anything about what's typical in UK weddings, but unity candles are quite common here.
They aren't common here. And, certainly the worst excesses of the smultzy overly-sentimental unity candles that you can purchase in the US don't seem to have made it over here. We discussed the lighting of a unity candle as part of our wedding service (we wanted to incorporate some elements of American culture into the wedding), but decided to go for a much simpler lighting of a single candle to signify the new beginning that was our life together and the light of Christ that was at the centre of that new life together. We didn't have the two candles that then got extinguished - precisely because the symbolism of snuffing out the old life is so obvious.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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scoticanus
Shipmate
# 5140
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Posted
Alan Cresswell wrote:
quote:
I think, more important than the pure stats of "how many mothers work" (which for much of human history would be "all of them") is the question of would it be seen as OK if the wife earned more than her husband, whether it would be acceptable for the husband to take a part time job to stay at home changing nappies while his wife worked long hours and so on.
I know a couple of instances of this. It used to take a huge amount of courage on the man's part. (I remember one being referred to as a "waster" by his mother-in-law, despite the arrangement's being freely chosen by wife and husband together and being obviously right for them as individuals.)
My hope is that society will continue to change, so that people in a marriage will increasingly be free to do what suits them best as individuals, and what suits their children best, rather than being compelled to do what society and prejudice expects of them.
Posts: 491 | From: Edinburgh, Scotland | Registered: Nov 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I think, more important than the pure stats of "how many mothers work" (which for much of human history would be "all of them") is the question of would it be seen as OK if the wife earned more than her husband, whether it would be acceptable for the husband to take a part time job to stay at home changing nappies while his wife worked long hours and so on.
Well yes, I knew and still know several of these types too. Some of the church leaders I know who teach headship most strongly have wives who are GPs or lawyers and obviously earn far more than them, and one I know has recently rearranged his working hours to look after their baby so his wife can go back to work, precisely for that reason.
I think whether women work or not is a pretty poor barometer too, but I was responding to Eutychus's statement that where headship is taught "stay at home motherhood is the norm."
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I was responding to Eutychus's statement that where headship is taught "stay at home motherhood is the norm."
Oi! What I said was
quote:
I think the people I heard preach on this over the last decade would make such allowances, but if you were to look around the church movements they represented, career women would I think feel very marginalised: the norm is stay-at-home wives.
which was not the generalisation you are making it out to be, but was most definitely true in the circles I was moving in. And yes, I think it was an outworking of their theology on this point.
I subsequently said
quote:
in my previous context I think the maxim applied in John Grisham's The Firm was applicable: "(we're) not against wives working ... we encourage children", which translated into women pursuing careers or taking up studies again being looked at very askance and even openly mocked.
Which is my anecdotal evidence ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think the people I heard preach on this over the last decade would make such allowances, but if you were to look around the church movements they represented, career women would I think feel very marginalised: the norm is stay-at-home wives.
The Assemblies of God churches I used to attend had women's groups, which met mid-morning on weekdays. While there were many, many women in those churches who worked, the timing of the women's group meetings did in fact marginalize us in the life of those congregations.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think the people I heard preach on this over the last decade would make such allowances, but if you were to look around the church movements they represented, career women would I think feel very marginalised: the norm is stay-at-home wives.
The Assemblies of God churches I used to attend had women's groups, which met mid-morning on weekdays. While there were many, many women in those churches who worked, the timing of the women's group meetings did in fact marginalize us in the life of those congregations.
Even in "liberal" communities the so-called mothers' groups tend to meet at times that indicate their conviction about what mothers are expected to be doing -- staying home. It makes me spit nails, as a person whose job is key to the family economy. Anyway, my "mothers' group" meets itinerantly at Cassion's wine bar or similar such place after the kids are in bed, and includes more than just mothers.
Alan has pretty much got my take on it -- in my view the marriage creates a new relationship that is definitively not just sex and friendship, but requires mutual submission of equals in order to further that relationship. Headship (except perhaps from the Orthodox point of view which is mystical and doesn't appear mean "husband in charge", so I'm not qualified to comment on it) is just not necessary in such an ordered relationship, with Christ at the center.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
"Stay at home motherhood" has never been the norm. Apart from a small minority of wealthy families, it has simply never been an option for families. There was a short period when middle class families in large parts of western Europe, the US and similar countries, had sufficient income for the housewife model to develop and become seen as an ideal
I'd just like to second that.
The mythical ancient time when women never worked for money is like that mythical time "when people had servants". Their people may have had servants, my people were servants. And most of those servants were women.
The housewife role was perhaps available to most mothers in wealthy Western European and North American countries between about the 1880s and 1960s - but even then not to all. And both World Wars sent millions of women back to employment.
What seems to many people like the traditional family role of women in the family is just the way their grandmothers live. But their grandmothers probably didn't. And their grandmothers almost certainly didn't. More likely to be howking potatoes than pressing flowers.
[ 19. April 2005, 17:45: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The Assemblies of God churches I used to attend had women's groups, which met mid-morning on weekdays. While there were many, many women in those churches who worked, the timing of the women's group meetings did in fact marginalize us in the life of those congregations.
Yes - this may just have been though that those mothers who were of the "stay at home" variety wanted a group they could actually attend, rather than a considered policy decision.
Of course, if there was no alternative offered, that would be bad.
Eutychus - yes it is irritating being misquoted isn't it?
Seriously, sorry about that.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The Assemblies of God churches I used to attend had women's groups, which met mid-morning on weekdays. While there were many, many women in those churches who worked, the timing of the women's group meetings did in fact marginalize us in the life of those congregations.
Yes - this may just have been though that those mothers who were of the "stay at home" variety wanted a group they could actually attend, rather than a considered policy decision.
Are you suggesting that stay-at-home moms find it more difficult to get out in the evenings than other women? Why would that be?
quote:
Of course, if there was no alternative offered, that would be bad.
There were no alternatives offered. It was bad.
At my current parish, the women's group meets on the weekends, when nearly all of us can be there. There is a support group for stay-at-home moms, which meets during the day. That's no problem for me at all.
But when the congregation's women's group, the one that is supposed to be for all the women, meets at a time when a large proportion of the women can't come, it's a bad thing.
Eutychus - yes it is irritating being misquoted isn't it?
Seriously, sorry about that. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Levor:
My concern again, is that it isn't really an argument against headship per se. It is an argument against all kinds of authority, expressing the kind of Western cultural logic that makes many of us (me included) deeply suspicious of any kind of authority.
We tend to be very aware of how easily power can be abused and so strive to limit the power people can have, if not opt for 'flat' relational structures altogether. But while the Bible is quite aware of the abuses that come with power, it tends to endorse hierarchical relationships rather than tear them down.
So I'd be keen to hear from Shipmates wanting to run this argument as to whether their concern about headship at this point is just an expression of their wider concern about authority in general.
I’m not concerned about authority in general. I’m concerned about specific instances of arbitrary authority.
quote:
The difference in marriage is that they move from being two individual people to two people in relationship. And when people move into relationships, they stop acting as a group of isolated individuals and start acting as an entity that has its own properties and order.
<snip>
But if two people come into a relationship, then that relationship takes on an order that governs the relational entity that they have become: whether church, friends, married, master-slave whatever. Some are 'flat', some are 'hierarchical', and some kinds of 'hierarchy' differ from others. And not every kind of 'hierarchy' is based on 'merit'.
This is interesting to me, because I’m not sure I have a similar frame of reference, and I’m having trouble getting this to make any sense. How do people ‘stop acting as a group of isolated individuals’? Doesn’t their participation in a group mean that they’re not isolated individuals?
And what is ‘hierarchy’ based on if not ‘merit’? And why?
quote:
Why should the fact that both were able to function fine without the other then mean that marriage is simply "friendship + sex"?
How does a rejection of the con evo notion of headship necessarily lead to the view that marriage is simply “friendship + sex”? I reject the idea that biology determines my strengths and weaknesses. That has nothing to do with my views on the sanctity of marriage. (And no, I’m not married, but I spend a lot of time thinking about this precisely because I’m not currently prepared to rearrange my priorities to make Boy the second most central riddle in my life).
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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