Thomas, you surprised me. When I got to the end of your letter, I was expecting you to say ‘no more!’
I had an epiphany Sunday while studying “The Ways of God” by Henry Blackabee in Sunday School. The story touched on the fall of Nebuchadnezzar and his seven years of madness and his eating grass. The comment was made that “pride goeth before the fall.”
Our Southern Baptist leaders are setting our men up for a fall.
I had wondered why Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, decided to adopt the Danvers Statement. It became clear to me this weekend as I read about Quiverfull. They are telling our boys and men to be lords over their wives and children. They say a woman’s place is in the home with a multitude of children, baking cookies and letting the men rule the home and the church.
And this is where I have a problem. I don’t know just how far church members in the SBC will go before they say enough is enough. There will be some who will wholeheartedly subscribe to this quiverfull lunacy. Just as there are Amish, Mennonites, Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FDLS), Muslims, and a host of other outlandish religious groups, there are already some families living the quiverfull theology. If this keeps up, it won’t be long before we can count the SBC as one of those outlandish groups. Many will wake up and leave the SBC.
But they have not awakened yet. Most men and women worshipping in our churches are ignorant of what the leadership is trying to push down our throats. Men buy into the submission as being their right, and women go along with it because they truly hope that the man will be in tune with God’s will, as it is touted that they will be. They are not looking at the consequences, just as the Chinese failed to see the long-term consequences of one child (male) system.
Our men are not gods. It is dangerous to give anyone or group so much power. It is human nature to abuse the limits of power. Women and children are in danger because of this apotheosizing of men into male headship. God will not honor this. Jesus himself cautioned against ‘lording’ it over others as the Gentiles did.
Thank you, Thomas, for this opportunity to discuss this with you.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Submission is to be voluntary, and yet when it is claimed as a right it is more coercion.
The push for the ‘right’ of men? I’m speaking of the attitude here more than anything. To often people pretend that it isn’t there.
There will always be good men, and everyone knows this. The good men don’t approach this issue as a ‘right’. CBMW uses the word ‘rights’ as a selfish concept all the time.
When you have pastors that approach things as ‘rights’, and yet the backbone organization states ‘rights’ are selfish? You cause confusion.
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How right you are!
Very good point. If the men have rights and that is OK, then why isn’t it OK for women to desire their rights?
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There is wisdom in the old saying, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
If men don’t think something would be good for the gander, what makes them think it would be good for the goose?
What makes them think the ganders deserve ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ that the geese should never consider for themselves?
They sacrifice the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” on the alter of male privilege. It is as though the golden rule is null and void when it comes to gender.
Things that men would never submit to, they demand it of women, saying their very salvation is in jeopardy if women don’t comply.
They really do pervert the gospel and try to bring in worldly riches and privileges in on the back of a camel through the eye of a needle. These privileges don’t belong in the Kingdom of God. But men are determined, even hellbent, on bringing them on in with them.
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You hit the nail on the head with “saying their very salvation is in jeopardy if women don’t comply.” We don’t want to admit that, but many women seen to believe that is so.
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It is always the way for the privileged group to tell the non-privileged group that they ought to be contented with a position the privileged group has never had to accept. It’s as if they think, in the parable where Jesus talks about taking the lowest place at a banquet, that they themselves are exempt from doing so, while preaching loudly to those accustomed to the lowest places that they need to follow Jesus’ teaching and not seek anything higher. But Jesus used that parable to illustrate that “the last shall be first, and the first last,” not that “we all should stay in our places and not make waves.”
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