Conservatism in the church, and women's roles

[bèlla]

We weren't taught the usual "women do this in the home" type stuff in the 1990s because we believed Jesus was coming back in 2008 (Israel's 1948 nationhood + 60 years generation = Jesus Rapture 2008!).

My parents and relatives are Christians. But our lives didn't revolve around the church. I didn't grow up hearing any of that. We were Catholic.

That was my environment; how was I to turn out any differently?

I am a product of my environment. A lot of my behavior stems from my upbringing. My parents emphasized intelligence, excellence and leadership. We were admonished for following others. They'd punish us more about that than anything else. They're responsible for my professional drive and hunger for success. It came from them.

All households provided positive examples of femininity, masculinity, and headship. But my mother's family was a different animal. They emphasized manners and breeding. Their expectations were very high. I was expected to conduct myself like a lady at all times. Even when others didn't.

I couldn't leave my place. Or there would be trouble. They impressed a deep sense of family and legacy upon me. And they kept company with people like themselves. 'Bella' comes from them. The way I respond to my companions is a direct result of their instruction.

There's a lot I didn't encounter naturally. I had to find trouble. Other things I discovered as an adult. My unwillingness to conform and aversion to group think is understandable. The men I find appealing are a lot like the men I grew up with. The older I get the more I see their etchings upon me. I reviewed all of this in adulthood. I kept the best. But some things are innate. The conditioning worked.

So why do they expect me to have turned out differently? Was I supposed to have dismissed these, disobeyed them, and ignored such 'personal experiences'?

I'm not rebellious. I like finding my own answers and drawing my own conclusions. I have to live with the consequences. I'm stubborn but I'm not stupid. I won't cast off the good to make a point or claim independence. That's silly.

My aunt used to say, you don't need to experience everything to know folly when you see it. Learn from other people's mistakes. I listen and glean. Sometimes that requires diversions. Because the bottom line is Bella's welfare. I won't compromise it.

Sometimes you to have to punt (people out) and pivot (and find a new road). I'm not devoted to anything to the degree where my destruction is a possibility with continuance. I'll shift gears. While I listened to them there were areas where I didn't follow suit because it wasn't in my best interest to do so. I come first.

If we submit, we're damned, because we're submitting to an authority that lacks truth.

Submission is not a mechanism for the dispense of wisdom or common sense. You should have both in tow in your surrender. It is impossible to yield to another without compromise if your self-esteem and regard aren't in a healthy state. You'll make mistakes and permit offenses for the sake of obedience.

All of this is as unto the Lord. If you're not plugged in and discerning the expectations in light of His precepts you'll go astray. Surrendered leadership won't transgress your person. Nor will it take offense if you disagree or need time to process the request. Because they're yielded to God.

Some lead from a place of surrender and others from a place of control. You must understand the difference before you give your obeisance. In an environment where it isn't taught you may wrongly assume they're all the same. But they aren't.

Surrendered leadership = We
Controlled leadership = I

Yours in His Service,

~Bella

 

[Sketcher]

I have to say that this particular forum has given the most thoughtful feedback overall of the forums I posted this to. It interested me that, on a conservative Christian subreddit, I received mostly negative replies. Nonetheless, there's a fundamental issue I want to address that perhaps wasn't clear enough in my original post, and which hasn't been addressed much yet: female obedience to male headship and authority in Christian families.

The point is that I've had difficulty in conservative Christian circles because of my father's teachings, many of which aren't accepted in the conservative Christian churches (though my father considers himself conservative). Knowing that the Bible expects daughters to obey fathers, and men in authority in general, this naturally creates some confusion: what to obey? Who to obey?

There are a number of movements these days in conservative Christian circles, such as the Stay At Home Daughters movement, council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood etc. that steer women away from feminism, independent thinking, and back to submissiveness. With this in mind, what's wrong with me obeying my father even if you think he's incorrect? Which Biblical principle should thus be taught more clearly or emphasized to the greater degree: obey male authorities, or obey some greater abstract truth?

A number of people have told me, obey the Bible, not your father. Your father teaches incorrect things. But he was my male authority, and to go against him would in and of itself be going against the Bible.

I'd say that a permissive father, as long as he didn't encourage you to sin, was a blessing in your situation. I would call him theologically liberal from the way you described him, but that's not a big factor when answering the question of submission to him. If he's not telling you to sin, enjoy the freedom. It sounds from your example that these other men interpreted his permissiveness as telling you to sin; but highly restrictive groups don't always derive their ideas of sin from a sound interpretation of Scripture - some don't have a Scriptural justification at all.

What little I've gathered about Stay At Home Daughters is that it appears to be an over-correction of feminism. Yes, feminism does much to encourage sin and degrade the family, but having a "thou shalt not" attitude towards moving out of your parents' house while single isn't a Biblical rule, and when it comes to "adulting" it leaves the training wheels on. One of the key issues for me as a man is I want my future wife (if there's going to be one) to be respectful. I don't see how forcing a woman to stay at home would make her more respectful toward the man she marries. If anything, it would seem to cement the way her family does things like budgeting and raising children as The Way To Do Things, while the man she's supposed to submit to, her new husband, has legitimate say and leadership in these areas. If she's not respectful towards him, he's not better off than if she went away to college. If a woman is respectful and submits properly, then I would say that if she went to college, she has blessings to offer him that a woman who stayed at home and didn't pursue any post-secondary education won't have. Education and living outside of one's parents' home can give a good woman more to offer a husband.

And as for headship and submission, I will say this - headship needs to be humble and submission, while it needs to happen, should not be onerous. You're working with each other to build and maintain and grow the home. Both people should be easy to work with.

 

[Brightmoon]

Domestic violence places tell women to avoid men who insist on women being in traditional roles or who want women to be submissive. I agree with them . I think that behavior leads to coercion and violence against women . I also think that females being submissive is chimpanzee behavior and while humans are great apes, we aren’t chimps. Feminism says that women are to be respected for their intelligence, as individuals and as free agents capable of acting in their own interests . I’m a feminist ! I would never tell my daughter or any other woman or girl to obey a man simply because he’s male. As I’ve stated that is chimp behavior! I would tell her to listen ( not obey) to him IF he’s sensible and to expect the same respect from him.

 

[bèlla]

There are pros and cons of remaining at home while single. In my family, the women moved out later. My daughter lives at home. Togetherness provides an opportunity for connection and feedback. It hasn't diminished her autonomy and it allows her to experience life on a greater level.

She isn't subject to the temptations and hardships living alone may present. We view this period as preparatory and exploratory. On the one hand, she's preparing for marriage and on the other she's enjoying life. It needn't be one or the other. You can have both.

One of the principles I've impressed on her is the necessity of discovering what you want. Don't follow a script. Contemplating the life she wanted during her season of singleness was game changing. She made important discoveries about herself and the life she desired as a wife and mother. That provided a roadmap for the years ahead.

She wanted to be home. That's significantly easier to pull off before marriage and children than afterwards. You enter with things in place to make it happen. It wouldn't have crossed her to work towards that. She'd have taken a different road. That was my suggestion and know-how. And it paid off.

I believe in thinking outside the box and coloring outside the lines. There's more than one way to hit a target. The way things 'are done' isn't always the best course.

Yours in His Service,

~Bella

 

[kdm1984]

I'd say that a permissive father, as long as he didn't encourage you to sin, was a blessing in your situation. I would call him theologically liberal from the way you described him, but that's not a big factor when answering the question of submission to him. If he's not telling you to sin, enjoy the freedom. It sounds from your example that these other men interpreted his permissiveness as telling you to sin; but highly restrictive groups don't always derive their ideas of sin from a sound interpretation of Scripture - some don't have a Scriptural justification at all.

What little I've gathered about Stay At Home Daughters is that it appears to be an over-correction of feminism. Yes, feminism does much to encourage sin and degrade the family, but having a "thou shalt not" attitude towards moving out of your parents' house while single isn't a Biblical rule, and when it comes to "adulting" it leaves the training wheels on. One of the key issues for me as a man is I want my future wife (if there's going to be one) to be respectful. I don't see how forcing a woman to stay at home would make her more respectful toward the man she marries. If anything, it would seem to cement the way her family does things like budgeting and raising children as The Way To Do Things, while the man she's supposed to submit to, her new husband, has legitimate say and leadership in these areas. If she's not respectful towards him, he's not better off than if she went away to college. If a woman is respectful and submits properly, then I would say that if she went to college, she has blessings to offer him that a woman who stayed at home and didn't pursue any post-secondary education won't have. Education and living out of one's parents' home can give a good woman more to offer a husband.

And as for headship and submission, I will say this - headship needs to be humble and submission, while it needs to happen, should not be onerous. You're working with each other to build and maintain and grow the home. Both people should be easy to work with.

Thanks for the input!

Though its adherents would try to argue that they have the "truth," I agree it does seem to be an over-correction of feminism, and yes, it can lead to a kind of infantilism. I've seen that in some of those types; I remember John Piper answering a question from a couple whose wife wasn't even allowed to use the bathroom without her husband's permission (that was too much even for Piper; he's a somewhat strict complementarian, but IIRC he doesn't go as far as the SAHD movement and the kinds of people who would have a marriage like that couple had). A couple of years ago I made a post showing how extreme reactions against feminism can make women helpless and burdensome; one guy gave a funny and lucid retort that what I described "makes even feminism sound appealing."

I've been married now for four years, engaged longer than that (known my beloved for 16 years now), and I learned that being submissive to the point of infantilism is not appealing to most men. Some of what I absorbed from the influences of these groups are tendencies that he wants me to get past, quite frankly. He tells me that he wishes I was less submissive at times, and could do more things without having to ask him or my dad's input so much. One could argue he only thinks that way because he's irreligious, but as I mentioned earlier, even my dad thinks these groups are cultic; I certainly wasn't raised that way, I only encountered people from these groups online when I was in my 20s, and it subsequently led to much confusion and lack of confidence on my part as to where my family and I should stand in these and other matters.

Suffice to say, I learned the hard way that some of these groups on the extreme end of conservative Christianity are so eager to correct feminism that they don't think about ramifications of the other extreme. If we have a daughter, husband wants her to be more independent and not get caught in the traps of thinking that these groups influenced me to have. It takes many years to "de-program" and we're still working through it.

 

[SkyWriting]

The point is that I've had difficulty in conservative Christian circles because of my father's teachings, many of which aren't accepted in the conservative Christian churches (though my father considers himself conservative). Knowing that the Bible expects daughters to obey fathers, and men in authority in general, this naturally creates some confusion: what to obey? Who to obey?

A number of people have told me, obey the Bible, not your father. Your father teaches incorrect things. But he was my male authority, and to go against him would in and of itself be going against the Bible.

Only as a child. As an adult, you move out of dad's house.
(Sorry I can't change the language of the day. I hope you don't think God is a sexist pig.)

Genesis 2:24
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

 

[Junia]

I was raised in a conservative environment and my extended family falls in the same group. But we weren't religious or Protestant. We were Christian and ethical. But we didn't impose our beliefs on others. We sought company with like-minded people.

My background played an important part in my tolerance. I don't have to agree or like anyone's behavior. I'm not their conscience or the Holy Spirit. I have no interest in doing that. I have my own ideas on women's roles. I walk within that ideal. But I wouldn't discount someone's work or contribution who fell outside those lines.

I love reading @Paidiske's feedback. She has a heart for God and that's obvious. I'll tag her in a heartbeat if I think her contribution would benefit the OP. I do the same with @bekkilyn, @Brightmoon, and @Endeavourer. I don't have to agree with everything they say. I look at the fruit and listen to their spirit. Are we testifying to the same One? Do I see His fingerprints on them? Absolutely! That's enough for me.

We can become rigidly attached to perspectives that alienate us from other believers. I think that's errant. On a practical level, we can't dismiss the impact formative years and experiences have on our mindsets later on. When you understand a person's backstory you'll see them in a different light. It helps you extend grace and compassion when you disagree.

At the end of the day, we're one in Christ. We fail to behave as siblings frequently. But we can't allow our differences to hinder the love we're called to have for one another. I don't have to agree with you to love you. That comes from God.

The journey is hard enough on its own without throwing landmines in someone's path. I don't split hairs over religion. It isn't edifying or profitable for the Kingdom. There's an ego issue in all of this. The need to be right drives these arguments. As does the want for validation.

Difference doesn't obliterate the union. So why make it a factor? I won't.

Yours in His Service,

~Bella

I

I feel the same about @Paidiske feedback

 

[Junia]

I definitely see the stamp of God on @Paidiske life and call and on the other women here in this thread!