One of the indicators of the truly godly men led by the Holy Spirit in the days ahead will be this.
Can a Christian man control his righteous anger toward what ungodly women have done in this culture and not allow it to influence how he relates to his sisters in Christ?
There are some very vocal, angry Christian men who want their proverbial pound of flesh. You can feel their disdain towards women when you interact with them or read them online. It’s so obvious. They don’t care if you are a sister in Christ. In their mind and theology, your place is to shut up and go away. They are sick of women with opinions and don’t want to hear anything from a woman. They don’t care about the merits of your remarks. You simply have no place speaking to a man, especially if he decides you are correcting him (see the comments on my post Joel Webbon on Women | Vision Forum 2.0 and Patriocentricity Again).
I honestly fear for the women in many of the very Calvinist and Reformed circles. The pendulum swing the other way will be a complete overcompensation. Many of the wives, daughters, sisters, etc. in the churches and homes will bear the brunt of it.
The Vision Forum and early 2000s patriarchy movement was driven by a desire to follow God and the Bible in the midst of a sick culture. While there were some bad actors who made terrible decisions, I do think many of the men who got involved with it had good intentions in the beginning. But it spun out of control for a variety of reasons and became a huge mess.
Although the words might sound similar, the men who espouse patriarchy today have a different motivation. The men of before pointed out the evils of feminism and Marxism while offering solutions. The men today are much more locked in on the female perpetrators. Many men will assume you are a feminist perpetrator even if you are a Christian. If you aren’t sold out to patriarchy, then you are suspect. And it probably goes without saying that if you are espousing opinions in public on anything other than child-rearing and cooking, then you are probably a closet feminist and therefore the enemy.
These men are motivated by a desire to capture the culture and righteously punish those who did wrong. They will say they are doing it for the Lord, but I am doubtful that is driving some of them. In their zeal, I expect they will become ruthless. In their desire to make sure things are done the right way, they will congratulate each other that they are the ones who will do patriarchy “properly” because no one has ever done it as correctly as they will. (Isn’t it the socialists who express the same general idea?)
I sincerely hope I’m wrong. I hope wiser heads prevail. But there are some very mean and angry men who are ready to take over “in the name of Christ” as soon as they get the chance.
Avoid being under their influence in real life at all costs. If you interact with them online, have a thick skin and don’t back down. Random men on the internet have no spiritual authority over you. Their convictions regarding their understanding of certain Bible verses have no authority over you. You have the Bible and Holy Spirit.
I think this could get very, very ugly and make the previous debacle look like a picnic.
In a related topic, I’m now reading Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate.
Neither Complementarian nor Egalitarian: A Kingdom Corrective to the Evangelical Gender Debate
So far, I highly recommend it for anyone who feels that neither camp has done a good job of providing answers to the important questions. I’ll write more as I continue and finish it.
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