“Shut up, Foot”, admonished Mr. Mouth. “You are a woman. Women should be silent in the body of believers!”

Miss Foot send the pain message along to Mr. Nervous system. “I wish”, thought mr. Nervous System, “that she’d shut up. She can’t teach or have authority over a man!”

Mrs. Hand saw the problem, and wanted to pull out the thorn.

“No”, warned the rest of the body. Miss Foot is sinning by complaining like this. She should be joyful!”

The body hopped along on one foot. It affected the body’s balance and speed, but at least women members were kept in their place. And Brain could not concentrate, because of the pain. But how could he tell Mrs. Hand to give in to the sinful Miss Foot? It’s a matter of principle!

1Co 12:26  And when one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

JOY contains three letters on the matter:

>   A letter from “Minister Kenneth Emmanuel sr.” , complaining about their “underhanded feminist tactics” and how even their article photo next to the “gender hierarchy in the home” article puts the woman in the centre. According to him, he can see JOY want to put women in the centre. He attack JOY management for being all white too, although the article was written by, according to him, a black person. (Huh? Errol Naidoo is not black, neither am I – I wrote the letter Errol responded to.) He then say: “If you do not repent … you will have a lot of blood on your hands on the day of Judgment.”

JOY responds to him by saying they do not have a feminist agenda, and some of the things he quoted in his letter – prior to it being shortened for the magazine – was my words, not those of the JOY article writer.

(I actually agree with the title-loving Minister Kenneth Emmanuel sr. about one thing: To put one gender at the centre, and marginalize another, is something that should be repented before God. It is sin to twist the Bible to suppress others. Speaking of blood on people’s hands, a sense of entitlement whereby some men believe they have the divine right to rule their wives, contributes to domestic violence.)

>   Ted and Jessica Farrish wrote an intelligent letter in which they say “Genesis is not clear that men were to lead.” They rightly call patriarchy idolatry, mention that patriarchal teachings have been responsible for the death of at least two children (I seem to recall a warning about blood and hands and judgment day, from another commenter just before the Farrish couple?), and explain the meaning of head/ kephale, and mutual submission.

JOY responds to them by saying JOY appreciates their thoughts, does not advocate for patriarchy, and “we hope that our readers took away the Biblical truths we were explaining in this instance.”

(I am glad that they are against patriarchy. And I plead with JOY/ JUIG: If they are against patriarchy, they should please, please educate themselves on what ideas, promoted in JOY, comes from patriarchy – and stop promoting those. )

>   The third is a short letter by me: Head, as in “the man is head of the woman”, does not mean leader. The letter then links to my article.

JOY did not answer me.

The Afrikaans sister magazine do not have anything on the matter, although I sent my letter to them too. How will their Afrikaans readers know that women are not supposed to just accept suppression under the name of male headship?

I know that some Internet friends of mine wrote letters to JOY concerning the matter too. I did not ask them. I only linked them to the JOY article, and told of my frustrations. (Up until now,) their letters appeared neither in the magazine nor on the letter page on their website.

Please, fellow Christians, help us get the message out: God does not want one gender at the centre, and the other marginalized. The very passage that is most often twisted to get hierarchy, starts with “everyone should submit” and ends with “God is no respecter of persons.”

If marriage was symbolic of Christ and His bride, then …

>   The groom has to leave marvellous wealth and power behind, and live in squalor like the very poor bride, before asking her to marry.

>   The groom would have to accept any whore who wanted to be His bride, and regard her – from the day of marriage – as clean and never, ever, bring up her past again.

>   While accepting any whore as bride, he himself has to have a spotless past, never marred by any sin.

>   The bride will sometimes be the provider – Luke 8:3, for example.

>   The groom has to die and get raised before getting the bride.

>   The groom will trust the bride enough to go away for a long time. (The time between His ascension and his second coming, about 2000 years and counting now.)

>   We could spend everything on the most lavish wedding ceremony imaginable (second coming) – there is no tomorrow that our earthly resources have to be saved for.

>   The groom will never be selfish, and never make a bad choice.

Now a man could ask himself: Does he really want to be Christ, with his wife as the church, in such a picture? Does he want to be judged by God for not living up to all that? When we tell him that the Bible do not call marriage a picture of Christ and the church, (it is not) should he be relieved or disappointed?

That, in practice, mean that men have, at first, a wider choice of ministries available to them: Anything which is not gender-specific and reaches a cross-section of people, is only meant for men. Meanwhile, there is only two roles for women, to use all those gifts of prophesy, teaching, discernment, leadership, etc. which God, who is no respecter of persons, may give out to them: 1) Towards other women and 2) towards children.

The picture of available ministries looks like this:

I made the last block bigger on purpose, as most churches have more recipients of ministry involved here, which includes the Sunday morning sermon.

Now, assuming the church has an equal number of men and women who want to get involved, and each get involved where he/she is called to, involvement would look like this:

For  the sake of this argument, I called complementarians right. I assumed no woman was called to teach a mixed gender group, or a group of men. Therefore all the women are in the first two boxes. But God never restricted men from doing those, so I will put some men in these boxes too.

Now, you may notice a very interesting thing: There is  a much bigger women’s ministry and children’s ministry than men’s ministry. Why? Because God gifts women equally much, and her gifts for building up the church are used solely there.

With a bigger women’s ministry than men’s ministry, women will be reached better. This would mean that more women than men are effectively discipled. It would mean more women in church.

Also notice the children’s ministry block. Of course, a boy in Sunday School will get the impression that the church is feminized. Almost all his Sunday School teachers are women! And the unchurched man will see the church has an abundance of ministries to women and none/ few that reach out to him.

What can be done to solve the problem?

I can see these potential solutions:

1)      Deny that God gave gifts to all to build up the congregation. Say God gave gifts mostly/ only to men. Or that women’s gifts should not build up the congregation. That will equalize the picture:

But it would solve the problem by contracting, not expanding the work of the church.

2)      Eliminate any group-specific ministries, and make the church “family integrated.” That will eliminate anything where those “weak”, “easily misled” women could use their equally big gifts:

Once again, this decreases what the church does, and how effectively it uses gifts. Half of the congregation’s gifts still are not used to build the congregation.

3)      Allow women to use their gifts as widely as men, and preach so that they know their gifts are as many and as varied:

a)      Patriarchy

b)      Feminism

The average American evangelical will probably think that one is a no-brainer. And the home-schooled, large-family, submit-to-your-husband crowd even more so.

Here are two of a myriad of people who disagree:

Patriarchal societies are part of the problem of altered sex ratios, female infanticide and foeticide. This needs to be acknowledged and changed. – K. S. Jacob in TheHindu

Gita Aravamudan uses the tools of investigative reporting to expose the imperatives that drive this horrific phenomenon (of killing and aborting daughters). She unravels an appalling story of deeply embedded and destructive patriarchal beliefs… – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

I think that, if you take both words in the broadest sense, K. S. Jacob is right. It is poor countries with very definite and hierarchal gender roles (patriarchy in the broad sense), like India and China, that have the highest abortion numbers. Near-equal gender rights (feminism in the broad sense) often overlaps with a smaller, wealthy country with a much smaller number of abortions.

I agree that the American ideology of Christian Patriarchy probably do not increase the abortion rate, at least in their own midst. But neither does egalitarian Christianity.

This is an unjust accusation:

Some modern-day feminists fought for abortion rights.

Egalitarians are feminists.

Ergo, if you are pro-life, oppose egalitarianism.

About as unjust as this one will be:

Patriarchal societies often have a much higher abortion number than non-patriarchal societies. In fact, some of them, most notably India and China, is infamous for sex-selective abortions.

Complementarians are patriarchal.

Ergo, if you are pro-life, oppose complementarianism.

But I do not see anyone forwarding the latter. Egalitarians are probably too honest for such dirty, underhanded tricks.

————–

(Edit, 11 Feb.: Realizing how unreliable abortion statistics from some countries are, I worded my comment in a less sweeping way. )

Here, Eric Pazdziora explains 1 Peter 3:7:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

No, God is not patriarchal in what is really said there. Read Eric’s piece, and you will understand.

This word picture is beautiful. (The picture is not mine. If I could find who originally said it, I would have attributed it):

When hearing “the weaker vessel”, think of a strong mechanical hand, handling a valuable crystal glass so delicately that the glass don’t break or slip from its hand.

“It’s the feel of a great, majestic God who is by His redeeming work in Christ inclining men to humble Christ-exalting initiatives and inclining women to come alongside those men with joyful support, intelligent helpfulness, and fruitful partnership in the work.” – John Piper

Okay, to recap: Men, so say Piper, should not merely lead in a way someone else may have led before, but come up with “humble Christ-exalting initiatives.” The man who comes up with this “Christ-exalting initiative” can have no “joyful support” or “intelligent helpfulness” from another man, but only from women. 

And since there is such a clear difference between the helping people (leaders have male genitals, helpers do not.) and the lead person, nobody could ever start by following and get groomed for leadership. And no male leader could ever take a break, or go on holiday, because none of those who usually follow him could take the lead in his absence.

In practical terms, one leader could lead a lot of people. In almost any project, more followers than leaders is required. If men should not take the role of follower, if it the church indirectly call a following male – one who participate in a project without leading – unmasculine, there will be room for very few men in church.

And what about the church outsider, the unconverted man or backslider who comes back to God? Should he start leading the day of his conversion? On the one hand, that could damage the body of Christ with very immature leadership.

On the other hand, this man could come back to church and not start leading right away – and hear (indirectly) that he is a woman for not leading. But the church simply have no place for him to lead. He may disappear from church again, rather than having no purpose, or “acting like a woman” and support other men’s initiatives.

When “leader” and “follower” is set in stone, the church moves very slowly.

When "leader" and "follower" is set in stone, the church moves very slowly

A question posed to me on another blog (I was defending that Christians should hold the Bible in high regard) was:

What about the possibility that patriarchal cultural views slipped into the Bible? The Bible is full of things that is impossible for a loving God (if he exist) to say.

I think that we often read patriarchy into the Bible when God did not intend it, or fail to see the patriarchal bend of Bible characters as theirs and not God’s.

As a case in point, here is the story of Zelophehad’s daughters. (Numbers 27)

Here is the common version:

God made a rule that only males could inherit. (How patriarchal of Him!) Then some young women whose father died came to Him. Mahlah and her sisters, Zelophehad’s daughters, asked if they could inherit.

Although Moses know God already ruled against them, he took their case to God. In Mahlah et. al vs. God, God as judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff. (Why did he not make fair rules from the beginning?)

And He decreed girls could, in future, be second in line for their father’s inheritance, but boys should get favored. (Again, that would be patriarchal!)

Here is apparently the more accurate, measured by the Bible, version:

God wanted to divide the newly acquired land between the Israelites. So He ordered that everyone should be counted by father. (26:2) This command is not about inheritance laws in general, but about practical rulings for dividing the land.

In fact, God make no rule, anywhere in the Bible, saying only males should/could inherit. It just isn’t there. (I will withdraw this statement if anyone points out such a rule to me.)

They listed the people by father. (26:3-51)

God said to give land to each family: Large pieces for large families, small pieces for small families. (26:53-56)

Mahlah and her sisters came to Moses: God said to list people by father and give land accordingly, but their father was dead! Would these orphans go uncounted, and not get land, even shared with family, anywhere? Or would the five of them get counted with some cousin or uncle’s family, and enlarge the land he will get by the large-piece-of-land-for-large-family rule?

Anyway, they wanted what God already said (26:2&53-56) in his general instructions: To be listed by their father, and inherit land for the Zelophehad family.

This paragraph is speculative, but these unmarried girls were probably teenagers or younger. It is very unlikely that five adult women would be unmarried in Ancient Near East society. I think that not just their portion of land, but also their independence may have been on trail: If five unmarried girls could get their own land, they could probably live on it. Without a father or guardian in sight? Their not needing a guardian is alluded to in “They could marry whom they think best.” (36:6) Usually, the father/ guardian gave girls in marriage.

Whether it was independence or just inheritance at stake, the patriarchal society did not want to give these unmarried (strike one) orphan (strike two) females (strike three) what God said all Israel could have.

I could just imagine a stiff-necked Israelite leader saying: “God did make this general rule of giving to each family, listed by their father, but this can’t count for unmarried orphan girls! How could these waifs handle land ownership? Moses, take this back to God. I’m sure He did not mean this rule should count for girls!”

Even Moses was not sure how he should rule, and took it back to God.

The court case was Israelite rule enforcers vs. God, Mahlah, et al.  God ruled for these orphan girls – They should get their land. His justice, giving to each family a share, goes for fatherless girls too.

He then made what seems to be the only rule pertaining to inheritance in general:

Numbers 27:8 If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

Note that He did not say, sons first, daughters second. He said that if you are so inclined as to favor someone over your daughter as your heir, he forbids you from it being anyone except your son.. (God in the Bible never forbade people from favoring one of their sons over his brothers either, so I am unsurprised that he does not forbid favoring a son over a daughter.)

Where is the patriarchy in this story?

It is in the attitude of those who did not want to give Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah their piece of land. It is in the eye of the reader who assume God was unjust towards women, and had to change His rules for these daughters to get anything. Like in many other allegedly patriarchal stories in the Bible, God did not endorse human patriarchy here.

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, a writer for CBMW: “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, …

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36 As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”

38 And Philip answered him: You being an eunuch stands in the way, because you would not fulfil your Biblical Manhood role. If people like you  are allowed in the church, it will increase gender role confusion, and may even lead to greater acceptance of homosexuality.

- From GRIME (Gender Role IMplementation Edition) Bible

I (Daughter’s Name)’s Father, choose before to God to war for my daughter’s purity. I acknowledge myself as the authority and protector of my daughter’s virginity, and pledge to be a man of integrity as I lead, guide, and pray over my daughter and her virginity – as the High Priest of my home.

For Virgins

I (Name) pledge my purity to my father, my future/husband and my Creator. I recognize that virginity is my most precious gift to offer to my future husband. I will not engage in sexual activity of any kind before marriage but will keep my thought and my body pure as a very special present for the one I marry.

For Secondary Virgins (those who have engaged in promiscuous behavior) and wish to recommit themselves to lives of purity)

I (Name) re–pledge my purity to my father, my future/husband and my Creator. I now recognize that virginity is my most precious gift to offer my future husband. I deeply regret and will never again engage in sexual activity of any kind before marriage but will keep my thought and my body pure as a very special present for the one I marry.

 – Wording of the pledge signed at purity balls.

Just to make sure you understand me right, I will tell more of myself than I usually find necessary. I am a few years past 30, and a virgin. I find it wrong in God’s eyes to sleep with a man who is not my spouse. Someone like me should probably be the heartiest endorser of purity balls, right?

Wrong.

No, because:

1) Purity balls worsen what they try to solve:

The idea behind purity balls is that a girl’s need for a man to affirm her worth and beauty, drives girls to sleeping with boyfriends. That is very much true. And then, so say the proponents, the solution is to get another man – her daddy – to affirm her worth and beauty, so that she would not try to get it from a boyfriend.

The message of purity balls is: You will be appreciated for your outward appearance, but for now, enjoy these compliments only from daddy and no other males. Your worth lies in how men perceive you, and for now, ask dad what he will perceive as good, and no other guys.  Your hymen is the most important thing you can give a man. For now, don’t give it. But the reason you shouldn’t give it is so you can give it (to the man you marry).

The emphasis here is confirming exactly all the beliefs that cause girls to get sexually active. If, instead, you showed the girl that her value does not lie in what men think of her, but in a God that designed her in His image, with gifts and talents to use, she could focus on developing everything that God wants her to be.

Sadly, in the patriarchal mindset of some purity ball proponents, women only exist for men. Their “God-given role,” say these groups, is housekeeping, child-raising, and obeying a husband. For that reason, purity ball organizers cannot tell girls to live out their God-given gifts instead of focusing on men.

2) Purity balls do not focus on character:

It is relatively easy to keep a girl a virgin until adulthood. It could be done by the simple act of locking her in a tower. Or keeping her at home, schooling her at home, and not leaving her out of your sight, which is a more publically acceptable equivalent.

But this does not create a woman with values, who can teach her children values, who can be a strong support with, and for, her man, who could be trusted. Character could only be developed in a world of free will, where girls and boys are taught what is right, and why it is right. God himself did not make us robots, but gave us free will.

God wants her to do right on all terrains of life, not just the sexual, out of love for Him and other people. He wants her to live in love towards Him and her neighbors whether she marry or not, whether her marriage is happy or not. Virginity without character and Christian (neighborly) love is nothing.

3) Purity balls are man-ian, not Christ-ian:

Incidentally, God’s desire for all Christians – male and female – to lead a sexually pure life, and men’s desire for a pure/ faithful wife, overlaps here. Therefore, the man-centered fathers could take their daughters to a ball where man’s desire for a pure wife God’s desire for her life will be celebrated.

If this was really about God’s will, purity events for boys would have been just as popular. God’s desire is pure men and women, and these events do not celebrate that.

4) Purity pledges are unbiblical

Mat 5:34-37  But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:  Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Jas 5:12  But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Pledging things before God? How anti-Christian!

5) Purity balls promote ideas like “a daughter’s heart belongs to her father until she gets a husband”:

Do I even need to comment on that? Eeeeeewwww.

6) The purity ball topic is, in my opinion,  inappropriate for little girls

In today’s sex-saturated world, it is essential to teach your children early to handle sexual topics. But it is not an appropriate thing to dwell on with a six- or nine- year old girl. It seems, to my mind, inappropriate to take little girls to events celebrating a topic they hardly could fathom. Plus, the presence of little children make some reasons to choose abstinence (what guys really think of gals who sleep around, STD’s, etc.) impossible to discuss honestly with the teenagers and young women.

7) The fairytale message of purity balls is a lie.

Marriages are imperfect institutions because two imperfect humans enter into it. Girls who learn that by keeping pure/ being

Real life marriages are no fairytale...

submissive/ whatever, she will have a fairytale marriage, are being lied to. Even princess Diana, who married an actual crown prince as an alleged virgin, had no fairytale marriage.

Several studies found that hierarchal marriages are much unhappier, with more spousal abuse. Considering that the movements that see the father as High Priest of the home promotes hierarchal marriages, it does not bode well for these girls.

8) Purity pledges put fathers and husbands above God

Look at the girl’s pledge wording again: Fathers first, husbands second, Creator last. Then it is the future husband again for two sentences: Her virginity is his sealed gift. Take two words (“before God”) from the father’s pledge, and three from the virgin’s (“and my Creator”) and God is not part of it at all. (This is why I call it God-on-the-back-seat religion.)

9) Self-respect is not mentioned once in the purity pledge.

I am a Christian, and I mention self??? Yes. After all, one of the two great Commandments is to love others as you love yourself. You need to love yourself right to love others right.

This pledge does not mention the effect that giving yourself sexually to a man, then being dumped, has on the girl emotionally. It does not mention what men think of women who sleep around. It does not mention health issues. If I told a girl to wait (and I have, in youth work) I would certainly focus on the girl herself as much as on other humans. After all, she is the one who live in that body 24/7.

10) The pledge is an uninformed and forced promise

Many of these girls do not understand what they promise, and the possible consequences. Even the older girls are often home-schooled and so isolated that they have no idea what normal relationships work like in the 21 century.

Moreover, she often has hardly any choice in the matter. Everyone in the worlds of some of these girls pressures her to make this pledge, would treat her as a slut if she does not, and would later blame her if she does not keep it.

11) Fathers are not High Priests of homes

Unlike what the pledge claim, fathers are not High Priests (capital letters in the pledge, not mine!) of their homes. Neither the Old nor the New Testament call the man the High Priest of the home. In fact, the New Testament acknowledges only one high priest in Christianity – Jesus Christ, who made reconciliation for our sins (Heb 2:17). Do the men who pledge to be High Priest for their family say Jesus is not good enough? Or that they, the High Priests (with capital H and P) of the order of Purity Balls, are higher than the high priest of the order of Melchisedec (Heb 6:20), whose priesthood is spelled without capitals?

12) Pledges promotes guilt

Some studies showed very little, if any, difference between purity pledged teens and other teens in terms of sexual behavior. A girl who breaks a pledge before God may feel very much guilty about it. Guilt about that which is against God’s will is acceptable (and should be sorted out in prayer with a forgiving God). Guilty feeling before God for breaking a pledge her father made her take – against what the Bible say of pledges  -  is not.

And suppose one of these little girls is molested among the way, would she not feel even guiltier than the next little girl? After all, she got the message that she was supposed to protect this – and she did not. Thoughtlessly causing her to feel guilt for what is not her fault is tragic.

13) Purity balls promotes control by another

The fruit of the Spirit is self-control – making wise choices, not driven by your own passions but by the spirit, for yourself and your Christian walk. The message of the purity balls are man-control: Do as your father say until you start doing as your husband say. It replaces, not just in sexual choices but in everything, the control by the self, and indirectly by God’s spirit, into human hands. The father at the purity ball say that he cannot trust God with his daughter’s life, but has to make choices for her himself. Christ is not a sufficient high priest – he needs to step in.

In conclusion, a wise father will protect his daughter from making vows she does not understand, and which God does not want her to make. He will protect his little girl from giving her heart to anyone inappropriate – and know he himself is as inappropriate an owner of her heart as can be. He will teach her about a loving God, a self-image by being made directly in the image of that God, and wise choices. He will trust and pray that God himself will lead her as he gradually lets her go into adulthood, to make choices without him.

After all, there is a reason why the Old Testament word referring to teenagers – na’ar/narah* – closely relate to “shaken off.” Shaking a teen off to gradually make her own decisions is the appropriate thing to do.

 ————————————————————–

*According to scholar Samuel Martin, in “Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Comfort Me: Christians and the Spanking Controversy”. The word is used twice in the Bible for younger children (Moses and Samuel), but in those cases the children were shaken off much earlier.