Did you read the article “Should the West Ban the Burqa? bv Phyllis Chesler this past week? The burqa is a head to toe covering worn by Muslim women due to severe restrictions on the way they dress. No hair, no body, no face is to be shown in public.
They claim that their Muslim women are sacred and should not be exposed to corrupting Western, secular mores. It wasn’t always that way. For part of all of the 20th century, many women in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Afghanistan stopped wearing the veil and wore western dress. But the radical conservatives won them over and the women lost themselves in a full-body covering.
Did you see the bigoted Westboro Baptist Church that disrupts our soldier’s funerals with hate signs? Did you notice that in their so-called church services, the women wear a head covering of some kind? The men wear no identifying covering.
Did you read the comment at the bottom of the last post: “I have noticed the slow reversal from what seemed like freedom for women in these denominations (Pentecostal) to a more restrictive stance. You would think the mentality of being free to move as the Spirit moves would be a continuum (esp. in pentecostal chruches) But, the Spirit that I seen flow in my youth has become nothing more that a trickle. The gift of Prophesy bestowed upon women was never negated (at least in the churches I attended) but leadership positions sure were.” I don’t know about this lady, but the Pentecostal women I know wear extra long denim skirts and their hair piled high on their head. Yes, even today.
The women always end up being the standard bearers of their denomination. Baptists are just as guilty of that as the other denominations, and is shown by their refusal to remove all barriers to women serving equally.
Have you read “Quiverfull, Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement” by Kathryn Joyce? Below is some quotes from that book. Read the book and you’ll know why I write.
The inside jacket cover of Quiverfull says this: “The Biblical woman wears modest, feminine dress and avoids not only sex but also dating before marriage. She doesn’t speak in church, or try to have authority over men. She doesn’t work outside the home, but within it she is its tireless center. She is a submissive wife who bolsters her husband in his role as spiritual and earthly leader of the family. She understands that it’s her job to keep him sexually satisfied at all times, and that it’s her calling as a woman to let those relations result in as many children as God wants to bless her with…Here, in direct and conscious opposition to feminist calls for gender equality and marriage equity, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship.”
On page 13, “John Piper and Wayne Grudem, both Reformed Baptist preachers and theologians, are leading members of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood (CMBW), and organization funded in 1987 with the goal of fighting feminist or egalitarian influences in the evangelical church. ..The Council, which today spreads its message through the 16,000,000 Southern Baptist Convention.” Their word is the bible at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX which adopted the Danvers Statement in October 2009.
How can I not write? Won’t you join me in this battle for women’s equality?
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Just as a side note.
There is pentecostal, as in United Pentecostal Church (UPC)… the ones that don’t let women cut their hair or wear make-up or pants, and then their are other ‘spirit-filled’ ones who might call themselves pentecostal or charismatic (although that phrase has fallen from favor).
Early on, I noted that Baptists (in general) let their women wear whatever they wanted, make-up, pants, short hair etc. but wouldn’t allow them to be leaders and the UPC were strict about what their women wore but let them teach and preach.
It amazed me then as it still does now how different groups like to make different, extra rules for their women. And the rules are all ‘biblical’ according to each group. And yet all so different. But who is right? They are all right in their own eyes. But what does God have to say about it?
And early on, making these observations, I came up with the saying.
You can learn a lot about a man by the way he treats his wife. You can learn a lot about a country by the way they treat their women. You can learn a lot about churches/denominations by the way their treat their women. And you can learn a lot about God by the way He treats His bride.
I’m learning a lot from God by the way He treats me. And it’s far and above the treatment that many men give women.
These men forget that they are part of the Bride of Christ and how God treats them and exalts them. They are making their own rules on what is proper treatment of women, their fellow heirs, and it’s based on the darkness of their own hearts, pushing women down, rather than anything that resembles the God’s Divine Nature.
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It is a way of showing their piety, which Jesus condemned. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
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In response to my quote, the women all wore dresses, no makeup, etc. But the thing that I really remember from my youth was the spritual freedom that women had. If the Holy Ghost moved on a woman to prophesy, she prophesied. If he moved on her to give a message in tongues, interpret, pray for people during the service…….she just did it, with no fear of repercussions. It was the offices in the church not the gifts that were restricted.
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I wonder what happened? Do you have any idea what brought the change?
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Well, I must first say that I attend small holiness congregations that have branched off from the COG specifically over issues like divorce and remarriage, jewlery, modest clothing, etc. which has always unfairly affected women more than men. As i stated in my reply above the women were always given liberty to use the gifts it was just the offices (which being independant there were really few offices peresay, as we had no board of elders or any men that we called deacons). But, male superiority still came through in the the ‘brethren meetings’ as they were called. This was for men only to discuss the financial aspects of the church and to vote on different ideas and issues. That has always been in place and has never changed. When I asked why women are not allowed in the business aspects of the church I was always told, ‘Thats just the way it is’. The church I currently attend got as far as voting to see if women could attend the meetings (thanks to my husband and his friend) but they were outvoted.
Issues for women were always made tense when a visiting person (usually male and usually Baptist) would comment on the improprieties of women testifying and speaking in tongues…….as women are to keep silent in the church. Not knowing or not caring that in the holiness movement women have always contributed by verbal inspiration to the services he felt compelled to speak out. I believe that the holiness movement has been moving toward a more restrictive view towards women with the acceptance of Conservative Evangelical men that have always held more traditional views about women in the home, church, ministry, in general, that influence cannot be denied. When it came to offices or leadership positions for women we have always had to take a backseat not to the ‘best man’ but ‘any man’ that would step up, qualified, gifted or not.
What I have found that as the women are silenced the Holy Ghost is grieved and departs and then men have to set up some man made structure…….because somebody has to be in charge, right?
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It has always amazed me that women are required to wear special dress or identifying marks in some cultures and denominations, while the men of that same culture or denomination are free to wear what they like, blending with society without identifying clothing or marks. It is nothing less than sexist oppression of women.
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Yes, and women of evangelical churches also wear an invisible covering – that of submission due to male headship. A Baptist church keeps its women from serving as deacons and pastors as a sign of its piety.
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I know it isn’t funny, but I’m laughing about this:
“She understands that it’s her job to keep him sexually satisfied at all times, and that it’s her calling as a woman to let those relations result in as many children as God wants to bless her with…”
Practically speaking, a man can either have a mistress of all desire, or a continually pregnant breeder. It is physically impossible for one woman to be both. Men used to solve this problem by having multiple wives and concubines. But this thing that Quiverfull expects of women? It’s never been possible, then or now.
Sorry, patriarchs. You can’t have both a baby-making factory and a sex toy. Not at one and the same time.
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That is funny. The whole book will make you sick when you realize women are buying into this male fantasy.
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True enough, Shirley. I haven’t read the book, though I really should, because I’m a regular contributor at No Longer Quivering and on the board of the Take Heart Project, a non-profit meant to help women who want to escape Quiverfull and other spiritually abusive movements (I’m not ex-Quiverfull but I am a survivor of a spiritually abusive Christian group from the 1980s).
Would you consider putting a link to Take Heart Project on your list of resources here?
http://www.takeheartproject.org/
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My pleasure. It is done.
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What a wonderful idea! I am so excited at what you are doing! I have added the Take Heart Project to the Dorcas Network, Woman Submit! and the “Moms Without Kids” blog (that one deals with custody [non-custodial] issues). I have also applied for membership in the Take Heart community.
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I can’t post any comments on Jocelyn Anderson’s blog “Womman Submit!” blog. I don’t know why. Shirley, if you have private contact with her, will you ask her to check her settings? Thanks!
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