The last post we talked about 2,000 years of church history, and the accusation by some, that women who claim their equality are going against sacred beliefs.
One such belief was that women must endure a painful child delivery. The Bible said God had given this curse to women in Genesis 3:16 when God said “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children.”
Medicines became available, but they were not to be used to ease the pain of childbirth. It was Eve’s fault that women had to be in so much pain and now every man’s wife must endure that same pain. The Bible said so.
Her husband was to work in the field and sweat and toil. Of course women worked right along with the men in the fields, sweating and toiling. So, in effect, women got the full curse of God. Men didn’t say a thing about that. They wanted the family fed, and so the women had to work, too. And still do.
Another such belief held by the church was that many women were witches and must be burned at the stake to save their souls. Again, in theory men could be witches, but few were ever burned at the stake.
You see, this was alright. It was just the way things were. Women were always dying. In childbirth, at the stake, by her husband’s hand.
In recent years we accept medicine to alleviate the pain of childbirth, modern hospitals save more women during childbirth, and we haven’t burned anybody at the stake recently.
But we still call women ‘witches’ whenever we spout the Spirit of Jezebel at them. And women often suffer torture and even death by men who are convinced they have male headship over their wives.
The church has a long way to go in protecting women from bigots, zealots, and other so-called Christians who seek to make themselves taller by standing on the backs of women.
Some sacred beliefs need to be challenged. Just because we have been wrong for 2,000 years doesn’t mean that we should never get it right.
I encourage you to speak out for the rights of Christian women.
Learn more at www.senecafalls2.com Seneca Falls 2 Evangelical Women’s rights Convention in Orlando, Florida, on July 24, 2010.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Hah. The same men who denied childbirth medications to women, had no hesitation in using plows, weed killers– anything they could find to help mitigate their sweat and toil in the fields.
Hypocrisy.
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It is like the attitude from Patriarchalist about Ectopic Pregnancy. Any women who ends a pregnancy is considered a murderer. In an Ectopic Pregnancy the child will not live and the mother could possibly hemmorage and die……..but, never you mind. As Martin Luther said, If they die in childbirth what of it, that is what they are for.” That mentality has been around for thousands of years and has persisted to this day. Women’s oppression is systematic and so pervasive that it appears to be ‘just the way it is’, and even the way it ought to be. So, when you question any longstanding Tradition about women you become enemy #1. You are called the ‘F’ word (feminist) a ‘Jezebel’, ‘Rebellious’ and a host of other words that are meant to be discussion stoppers. Like I said in another comment, getting them (hard comps/patris) to listen (without name calling)is one of the biggest hurdles to jump. Thier goal is to disqualify you which in turn disqualifies the message you bring……..slick.
~Ectopic Pregnancy~ undermuchgrace.com
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Somehow we have got to change this mindset. I am presently writing individual pastors to ask them to speak up for women. They do not realize that by not speaking up for women, they are perpetuating this bias (for lack of better word) against women.
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Women are definately the invisible majority. We are male defined females and often we are as blind to that fact as we are to pollution. I am so glad that there are women like you who are standing up and speaking out. Women are essentially denied the virtue of a critically thinking conscience and in it’s place we have been given the virtue of obedience to men. Total obedience belongs only to God and even that is not an unthinking compliance to an authority, or undiscriminating conformity to tradtions and customs. We are taught to relinquish and go against our own conscience all in the name of submission to men……..even God does not override our conscience.
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The comment I just received from the post “The five restrictions agains women” shows how arrogant and hateful people can be when their authority is threatened. They love their authority more than they love the body of Christ. Thank you for your comments and your support.
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