Family values has a warm fuzzy sound, particularly on a cold February day. But it doesn’t sound so good when that is the excuse you are given as the reason the church won’t hire you when you are a 55 year old woman looking for a job caring for preschoolers in a Baptist church.
“Sorry we can’t hire you to watch our preschoolers because the senior pastor might have an issue with your husband not being involved in church.” My friend said that this is the first time she had been penalized for something that her husband does or does not do.
Family values! A loving marriage of 30 years and two grown children doesn’t count for family values, it seems. The 20 years that I have known her she has been involved in all phases of work in her church programs. But what counts is the back end of a husband sitting on a pew watching another man preach. I am not sure what kind of value that is, but I doubt that it is family values.
Family values always devalue women because they make the mother in the family submissive to the father of the family.
Two weeks ago I heard a young man tell a group that with the movement to get more men involved in church some of what we were talking about would not go over very well. Of course we were talking about women’s equality in churches.
So I asked the young man about women working in these churches as administrative assistants and financial administrators and even in the nursery. “If women are not supposed to work outside the home, who is the church supposed to hire to do their low-salary work?”
“Widows and divorcees,” he said.
So now we know the answer to how a 55 year old woman can work in a Baptist church on Sunday morning when her husband doesn’t attend church. She has got to get rid of him somehow! But what does that say about family values?
It’s time to pull the plug on this thinking! Will you join me in making real family values by valuing women and their work in church, whether or not their husbands ever set foot inside the door. Will you join me in speaking up for women’s equality because this women’s movement is every bit as important as the so-called men’s movement?
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
It goes to show you how irrational some of their viewpoints are. Some have ‘human’ values that are just plain OUT THERE!
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So-called family values always devalue women by making her submissive. I am going to update my post by adding that!
> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2013 13:15:38 +0000 > To: bwebaptist.women@live.com >
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I had no idea such nonsense was every thought of. Sheesh!
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The term ‘family values’ always made me shudder although I never really knew why. I think this post explains it.
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I know that I promote my book often, but you will find out more about so-called family matters in Dethroning Male Headship which comes out May 1, 2013.
> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2013 17:27:01 +0000 > To: bwebaptist.women@live.com >
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I’m looking forward to it, and praying it has much success.
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Thank you!
> Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 03:06:14 +0000 > To: bwebaptist.women@live.com >
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I find the idea abhorrent that men won’t get involved in church if women are equal. How small-minded and selfish these church leaders must think men are! “I’ll help out at church, but if it means I have to treat her as an equal or relate to a woman as a fellow leader, forget it.” Really?
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Kristen–Your key phrases–small-minded and selfish are apt descriptors of those that “feel” like they just can not treat a woman as an equal.
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Shirley:
This situation concerning this 55 year old woman is unbelievably wrong on every level. There was no Christianity in the thought process of not allowing this woman to work with the preschoolers. The kind of mindset that exists in so many SBC churches today towards women is one that Jesus would soundly condemn!!
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