Make the rest of us want to vomit, apparently. Here’s the premise: Single Christian Girl goes to college, is wildly disillusioned because even at her good Christian school the kids are sleeping around and doing drugs. She comes home, regretting ever have left Daddy’s domicile in the first place. Back at home, she realizes that her big mistake was letting anyone other than her father or her husband rule over her. She gets married, realizes what a silly mistake her autonomy was, and now gives her advice to the other Christian ladies. (As a sidenote Single Christian Girl is now editor of Ladies Against Feminism). Prepare yourselves.
Unfortunately, too many modern Christians look everywhere else for answers before turning to the Word (just look at all the “Christian” psychology and counseling books in Christian bookstores). This problem is particularly acute with Christian women, since feminism has slowly but surely crept into the church and stolen our hearts while we were not feeding them with God’s precepts and commands. So many families believe that a young woman, like a young man, is “free and independent” at age 18 or age 21 and should leave home to strike out on her own. This is in total opposition to God’s teachings.
Ya hear that? Women are not free and independent.
By the time I graduated, I was disillusioned and thoroughly brainwashed into thinking I was going to have to fend for myself in the world.
Brainwashed into thinking that she might have to fend for herself? The horror!
His Word is true and pure, and we cannot go wrong if we follow Him! Starting in the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy), we see that God made woman for man. As much as the feminists hate the idea, it is true. Conversely, man was made to protect, cherish and nourish the woman. Men who are not doing that and are not loving their wives as Christ loved the church are covenant-breakers. Women who refuse to stay home and obey their fathers or husbands are also covenant-breakers. They are inverting God’s created order, which is God-Man-Woman-Animals.
Emphasis, obviously, is mine.
Moving on to the books of the law, we see in the case laws (these are the laws which tell us how to live the ten commandments) that God puts a daughter under her father’s protection. He is to help her to remain pure until marriage. He is to guard her from all the “Mr. Wrongs” in the world while she waits for Mr. Right.
The idea, then, is that your hymen gets passed from Dad to Hubby. A nice exchange of goods. How romantic.
Your father is your covenantal head. He is your covering. Christ is over him, and you are under both. My husband, in the same manner, is my covering. I am protected as long as I remain under his authority. Modern women chafe at the command that wives “obey their husbands,” because they want to maintain their own autonomy. This is incompatible with the Christian worldview. “He who would be greatest among you must be servant of all!” When we step out from under our coverings and try to do things “independently,” we deserve whatever happens to us (financial struggles, family arguments, failed marriages, disobedient children, etc.).
Autonomy is incompatible with the Christian worldview. Wow. I wonder what Mother Teresa would have said to that? She seemed fairly autonomous and all…
When the woman is out of her place, particularly if she is loud and strident about it, she is harming the name of the Lord. This should cause us to think seriously about what we do as daughters and wives.
I must really make the Baby Jesus cry.
So what does the single girl do? Scripture tells us that sons leave, but daughters are given. Daughters do not go out into the world to seek their place in it. They are to serve at home and sit in discipleship at the feet of older women and their own parents. Only older, “true” widows who have lived godly lives are given authority to maintain their own households, but younger widows are to return to their father’s house until they marry again (if ever—see Leviticus 22:13). Unmarried girls are to remain virtuous and to serve their father’s household.
Uh huh…
Daughters need to be taught how to add to the riches of their father’s household as a preparation for enriching their own future homes. If a daughter is not called to marry (the Lord gives her no desire to do so), she should serve in her parents’ home or help other Christian families in theirs (like the servant girls in Proverbs 31 or like Dorcas). She should never venture out from under her father’s authority and protection.
So if you can’t be a servant to your husband, be a servant to your father or another family.
A single woman belongs in a home, under a godly authority. As “medieval” or backward as it may sound, she should not go away to college for an education (or leave her God-given authorities for any reason except the few outlined in the Bible).
Stay at home, be illiterate and give up all personal autonomy to whatever man is in your life. Sounds heavenly.
Young women who are widowed are not to support themselves, but are to return home (Lev. 22:12), remarry (I Tim. 5:14) or receive their support from the church (I Tim. 5:16; James 1:27). There is never, ever a situation where a young, single woman will have to support herself if she is part of a God-honoring family or church. If she finds no support, it is a judgment on the family and the church, and she needs to seek help from godly brothers and sisters in Christ.
Right. So if your husband dies and leaves you destitute, and no one is around to support your ass, it’s the church’s fault. Don’t get a job, don’t try and be self-sufficient, don’t try and pick yourself up — go beg your brothers and sisters in Christ to feed you. And what of all the other homeless people sleeping on the Church’s steps?
In an article I recently read about these same issues, I found a statement that stood out glaringly to me. The author wrote, “I am not saying all women should avoid college. What I am saying is, for the vast majority, God has called women to serve in the home.” I disagree strongly. God does not rule by majority. He does not say, “teach most of the younger women to be keepers at home….” His standards are absolute, and to depart from them is to invite disaster (not that He is waiting to hit us with bolts of lightning or wrathful fire and brimstone—don’t misunderstand me—but when we depart from His ordained path, we can expect to pay the natural consequences). Women who go out into the workforce are “open game” and always lose—they are either defeated and subdued by the men with whom they compete, or their femininity is destroyed by their competition with other men and they are “consolidated” into the world of the working male.
Working women “always lose”? I dunno… not to be judgmental here, but it’s someone else who’s sounding like the big loser to me.
Let me just add in here that this shouldn’t be interpreted as me thinking that all (or even most) Christians think this way, or that choosing to be a stay-at-home mom is a sign of surrender to patriarchal authority. What irritates me about this article isn’t the choices that this woman makes, but the fact that she feels to need to say that everyone else has to make these same choices, lest they be a great big burnin-in-Hell sinner. I’m willing to bet that most women who choose to stay home don’t do it because they’re eager to submit to their husbands; I’ll also bet that they still consider themselves autonomous, independent human beings who make the best choices for themselves. I’m simply not a big fan of any argument that goes, “All women should…” and then dictates a particular, narrow lifestyle choice.
via Marian, who I do hope will get back to blogging sometime soon!