Feminism

In connection with my daughter, Heather's, blog entry titled, Are You a DINKWAD?, check out these excerpts from a The New Yorker piece on the changes caused within the practice of veterinary medicine by women replacing men as vets. When I read the piece, I filed it for future use, but having had it sit dormant for a year, now, it seems time to let others find a use for it.

There are so many lessons here, including lessons on the nature of womanhood and the foolishness of a decadent society that places greater value on animals than unborn and newborn children. By the way, it was the same at the time of the Early Church when, in the midst of the decadence of the Roman Empire, church fathers exhorted believers to give more attention and money to the care of little children exposed on the slopes behind their homes than they gave to their lapdogs.

In 1962, when the (Animal Medical Clinic of New York City) moved to the Upper East Side, veterinarians were still a utilitarian breed and more than ninety percent of them were men.... Then, gradually, women began to enter vet schools. By 1975, they represented half of all students; by 2000, nearly three-quarters--and most of them wanted to treat pets.... And, as the birth rate dropped, pets came to take the place of children in some families.

Between 1980 and 2001 alone, the number of dogs and cats in the United States grew from ninety-eight million to a hundred and thirty million. Two generations ago, fathers still gave their sons sacks of kittens to drown in the river. Today, according to a recent survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, sixty-three per cent of pet owners say "I love you" to their pets every day. Eighty-three per cent refer to themselves as their pet's mom or dad.

The current director of the A.M.C., Guy Pidgeon, has lived through both halves of this history. He was born on a farm in Western Nebraska... and went to the Colorado State University veterinary school, intent on becoming a country vet.

"Then, at some point, I began to see an incredible dichotomy between agricultural and veterinary medicine," he told me. "One was driven by economics, the other by emotion."

* * *

Before I visited the A.M.C., ...I thought of the German countess Carlotta Liebenstein, who in 1991 bequeathed her eighty-million-dollar estate to her dog Gunther. Of J. Paul Getty, who refused to return from Europe when his twelve-year-old son died of a brain tumor but had a vet flown in when his dog developed cancer. When the disease proved fatal, he spent three days weeping in the dog's room.

-Burkhard Bilger, "Annals of Veterinary Medicine: The Last Meow (Organ transplants, chemotherapy, root canal-how far would you go for a pet?)," The New Yorker, September 8, 2003, pp. 47,48.

So now Slate runs a piece informing us that professional women who are hesitant to derail their high-octane careers for the sake of motherhood will be able to pay to have good eggs from their young ovaries set aside in the freezer, to be used later when they decide it's safe to take a break for (sort of) motherhood.

Several years ago David and I took part in a battle opposing a number of members of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) in their efforts to remove the sex-markings of thousands of texts of Scripture in the New International Version. At the time, the NIV was the Bible translation standard of the Bible-believing, English-speaking world, so it was the efforts to modernize this particular translation that were our focus.

Our opponents' plan was to put out an updated NIV called the NIVI in which Hebrew and Greek words such as adam, adelphoi, and aner would be denuded of their male grammatical component and thereby rendered innocuous to Westerners raised in a feminized society in which it had become gauche to make references to mixed-sex groups using any word with a male marking. 'Man' became 'humankind', 'brothers' became 'Christian friends' (NLT) or 'siblings' (NIVI), 'man' became 'person', and so on--thousands of times across the pages of Scripture.

As you'll see from the above reference to the NLT, the NIV was not the only Bible in wide use across the evangelical world being similarly updated. In an effort to update the Living Bible which was growing long-in-the-teeth, Tyndale House Publishers had hired a long list of ETS academics to produce the New Living Translation which, benefiting from millions of dollars in advertising and purchased product placement in national bookstore chains, was steadily gaining market share.

Partly because of the naturally lower expectations of accuracy the NLT inherited from its predecessor, the Living Bible; partly because the academics who had done the NLT's translation work likely expected it to be more a devotional than a study Bible; and partly because the NLT's publisher responded to expressions of concern over some of the more egregious mistranslations evident in the NLT's text with thoughtful consideration and, eventually, a number of changes to the text of the NLT's subsequent printings; the public battle was focused almost exclusively on the updated NIVI, its publisher Zondervan, and Zondervan's subsidiary (in a manner of speaking), the International Bible Society and her subordinate Bible Translation Committee.

The battle was joined with the publication March 29, 1997 of Susan Olasky's cover article, "The Stealth Bible: the Feminist Seduction of the Evangelical Church," in World magazine. For almost everyone this was the first hint of Zondervan's plans and the response was a good measure of the profound theological divisions present within the vast entrepreneurial business park named "evangelicalism."

Predictably, one side decried Olasky's divisive spirit and focused their attack on World magazine...

Let's return to a post I made a few days back, but first a reminder of the details:

Last week the Indiana Daily Student--Indiana University's campus paper, published a piece on a campus competition known as "Big Man on Campus." The piece's author wrote:

Every male on campus wants to be him, and every female on campus wishes she could date him

To which Mr. Evan Rosenberg took offense, and wrote the following letter to the editor:

Article forgets lesbian women

I was very interested in reading Maggie Bozich's front-page story ("Greeks prepare to crown new Big Man on Campus," Oct. 15, Indiana Daily Student) on Zeta Tau Alpha's research benefit event, Big Man on Campus, but she lost me with her first sentence: "Every male on campus wants to be him, and every female on campus wishes she could date him." Although I have enjoyed reading some of Ms. Bozich's other work, she let me down this time. With one innocent slogan, she silenced every lesbian woman on campus by implicitly denying her existence. Too often we remain complacent with narrow-minded interpretations of love, and by denying the existence of perspectives or orientations different from our own we unconsciously make others feel invisible, which denies them the right to express their love.

I believe Ms. Bozich meant no harm, but let this serve as a reminder of why it is so important that we are inclusive in our language. Silence can be deadly.

Evan Rosenberg, Sophomore

In posting Mr. Rosenberg's letter to the editor here, I concluded with this comment:

Surely Evan, with all his multi-cultural feminine sensitivities, will make someone a good wife husband.

In thinking more about this comment, though, I wondered whether some might take it as a cheap shot, a cynical dissing of Mr Rosenberg? In fact, it was an attempt to make a serious point to which I now return.

(Note from Tim Bayly: This paper was delivered on October 5, 1998 in Riga, Latvia, at a conference titled "Gender Theology: Questions, Problems, Perspectives," held by the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church.)

It is a great joy to be here with you and to think of how impossible this time together would have been just a few years ago. How good it is to be able to cross borders so freely--without even the necessity of a visa--and to be able to join together in fellowship and worship with you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.

But then too, I am particularly pleased to be able to speak to you on the subject of Biblical manhood and womanhood. Here it may be appropriate to insert some biographical information, but first please allow me to clarify my own vocabulary:

• 'Complement': "something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect; one of two mutually completing parts" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary).
• 'Patriarchy': literally, "father rule."
• 'Egalitarian': "a belief in human equality" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary).

So, when I refer to the different positions taken by Christians today concerning what Scripture has to say about manhood and womanhood, I will use these terms:

First, the words 'complementarian' or 'patriarchal' will be used to indicate the Church's historical position which calls for a distinction in roles between men and women in the government of the Church and home; and particularly to the necessity of men holding positions of authority.

Second, the word 'egalitarian' will be used to indicate the position held by feminists today when they call for women to hold leadership positions of authority equally with men.

Now for some personal history: Although today I myself believe in the Church's historical, patriarchal position, it was not always so. Back in 1976 when my wife and I were first married, both of us were committed egalitarians...

About a year ago, my cousin John sent me a copy of Dan Brown's best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, with a note acknowledging the book is trash, but encouraging me to read it so that I know what trash a mass of Americans are currently consuming.

When I finished reading it, I thought it would be hard to write a book that more perfectly illustrates the steep slide into gnosticism and paganism that is so obvious across the Western world, and particularly these United States. May I encourage our good readers to borrow a copy and read it? You will be much wiser in calling your friends, neighbors, and family members to repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ having spent the time to read this book, looking as through a periscope into the prejudices and delusions of modern man.

What living proof of Chesterton's foresight in pointing out, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything." Surely the millions who have bought and read The Da Vinci Code have not simply been looking for a pleasant diversion, but have sought in this work facts to justify their prejudices.

It would be pleasant to think that any criticism of this work coming from a liberal media outlet might indicate a decline in the work's influence, but I think not. Rather, the very anti-clericalism and hatred of authority at the book's heart...

Today the full text of Today's New International Version (TNIV) was released to the public. As Zondervan and the International Bible Society take this book to market, remember this new product represents an intentional breaking of their word by both Zondervan and the International Bible Society. Christians ought to keep their word, especially in matters related to His Word.

Remember, also, that this Bible is intentionally inaccurate, unfaithfully rendering thousands of passages in such a way as to obscure or remove the meaning the Holy Spirit inspired. The two clearest manifestations of this unfaithfulness appear in texts where the essential patriarchy of God's created order and the persecution of Jesus Christ by "the Jews" are, both, explicitly communicated by the original Hebrew and Greek text.

The motives of Zondervan and IBS are clear: they wish to protect God from charges of sexism and anti-Semitism. (Here's material related to the sex markings and here's material related to the persecution of Jesus by "the Jews.")

The cost is also clear: those paid to do this work are shrinking from declaring the whole counsel of God and therefore have blood on their hands:

(The Apostle Paul said) "And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God" (Acts 20:25-27).

Here are two passages that demonstrate...

Experience teaches that a man who denies God's Word in one area can't be trusted elsewhere. Thus, the puzzling affection of many in the Reformed community for N. T. Wright's views on, inter alia, justification, despite his denial of Scripture's fundamental anthropological teaching on manhood and womanhood....

Wright is a feminist not out of egalitarian but superioritarian principle. He just knows more than those who hold to Scripture's plain teaching. Why can't people see what's obvious, he asks? It's the same approach he takes to justification. Just read the text. Do the exegesis. Don't be a bloody-minded American. Do you want to be thought a fundamentalist?

Thanks to Andrew Dionne for this audio link of Wright addressing the Christians for Biblical Equality annual conference the summer of 2004.

Until now I'd never considered Wright kin to Gilbert Bilezikian, but that's what they are--twits separated at birth.

A reader asks: "If you, Mary Lee, and your children are opening Christmas presents, and you hand Heather a box which contains three copies of Out of My Mind: the Best of Joe Bayly, and you say to Heather, "Please share the presents in this box with your brothers," who would you be asking Heather to share the presents with?"

To which I answer: Concerning usage in my family, whether or not Heather, Heidi, Michal, Hannah, and our latest addition, Sarah, would understand themselves to be included when I spoke of "brothers" would depend upon the context, wouldn't it? Similarly in Scripture, they would know from the context. And where the context didn't make it clear, I want them left with the question God put into the text. How dare anyone rob them of the question the Holy Spirit desired them to ask! Ambiguity itself is inspired.

Yes, I make a habit of teaching the adopted sons of God living in my household (as well as the members of our church) the priceless treasure they have in that sonship, and I carry out this instruction by calling them "sons of God" and "brothers in Christ." Not always, but often enough for them to learn the Christian truths there embedded.

But remember, it's not my usage under debate, but the usage of the Holy Spirit. The question being asked is whether the Holy Spirit is to be allowed to call the human race 'adam' in Hebrew; whether the Holy Spirit is to be allowed to call the people of God "sons" in Hebrew and "brothers" in Greek; and so on.

You answer that you will not allow the Holy Spirit this usage because it places obstructions in the path of seekers; I answer that I will allow the Holy Spirit this usage because this habit of speech teaches God's sons about the nature of the universe--namely that God our Father has been pleased to order it under father-rule. That in that one man, Adam, we all die. And consequently, that the Holy Spirit calls the race "adam," not "human beings" or "mortals."

It's really so simple.

On the work of translation, Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote, "Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much as possible and moves the writer toward the reader." Is it really necessary for me to say the obvious: that when the book in question is the Word of God I believe in "leaving the Writer alone as much as possible and moving the reader toward the Writer."

How many of us have ever heard the word 'propitiation' used outside of a church context? No, it's as churchey as words come, isn't it?

Yet the logic of those arguing against the generic use of 'man' and 'brother' would demand that we move the Writer of Scripture as far towards the readers as possible, relegating 'propitiation' to the dustheap of history...

Thursday, Brian Nichols, the fugitive who went on a killing spree in Atlanta, is found with two shivs in his shoes at his rape trial. Friday, a solitary 49-year-old female sheriff's deputy guards him as he changes into civilian clothes for his trial. He overpowers her, takes her gun and shoots her. She's slight. He's over six feet tall and 200 muscled pounds.

Insanity. Feminist theory brought face-to-face with reality.

But heading right back for the hair of the dog that bit them, what do the authorities do when he surrenders today?

No ones fooled, Atlanta law enforcement. Though you show him off in a female FBI agent's grasp, she looks frightened--as well she should be--and he looks in control.

How much would you give for this woman's life if those men weren't there in the background?

The following questions were posted to the comments section of our sister "World" magazine blog, Stealth Bible: TNIV. Here is my own response.

So what then do you make of (John Doe), one of the most vocal opponents of the TNIV, who taught at (such and such seminary) for years, and only recently moved from there to (another seminary), not out of opposition to (his prior seminary's) handling of these issues, but rather because of (personal reasons)? Did he (and others like him) who teach at schools that permit women to gain "ordination-track" MDiv's demonstrate lack of zeal and sound judgment by continuing on at (his former seminary for so long)?

Should we now shun all schools that allow women to gain ordination-track MDiv's, and those who teach at them, even though they are complementarian? Should complementarians who are looking for teaching positions in the evangelical academy teach only at those schools who won't permit women to earn ordination-track MDivs? I doubt that Dallas Seminary and Reformed Theological Seminary can house all of them on their faculties...

Since there are many complementarians who believe it is proper to maintain collegial relations with those who promote the heresy of feminism, let's depersonalize the issue and not limit our discussion to any particular individual. The man you've mentioned is one among many.

The nub of your question is the degree to which I believe there ought to be some separation between those who hold to the biblical doctrine of sexuality and those who reject and attack that doctrine. You raise the question in the context of academic institutions but I think the prior place to consider and resolve this question is the Church of the Living God referred to by the Holy Spirit as "the pillar and support" of God's Truth.

Men who are elders (or whatever they may be called in any given polity) ought to be disciplined for rejecting the plain teaching of Scripture...

Dad used to think it marvelously ironic that creationist Wheaton College was the recipient of a magnificently-preserved ice age mastodon dug from the clay pits of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He took glee in pointing out the mastodon in its full, standing-in-a-diorama-in-Wheaton's-science-building splendor to visitors from out of town.

In the same way, this sad tale rises above the level of mundane lesbian jealousy with the recent inclusion of a chapter by the attempted murderess in an anthology on Discovering Biblical Equality published by InterVarsity Press.

Ironically, Judy Brown's Alford plea conviction for the attempted murder of Rev. Ted Smart came nearly a year prior to IVP's late 2004/early 2005 publication of Discovering Biblical Equality containing her contribution titled, "God, Gender and Biblical Metaphor."

The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities provides this description of Discovering Biblical Equality,

The full-scale complementarian critique of evangelical feminism, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, has gone unanswered for well over a decade. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothius, with the able assistance of Gordon D. Fee, have worked to redress this lacuna by assembling a team of twenty-six evangelical egalitarians to produce Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy....

While the essays seek to promote the egalitarian point of view and to critique the hierarchical point of view, they do so with charity and respect, and work to promote dialogue, all the while encouraging all to celebrate God-given gender complementarity. Among many contentions, the book's authors hold that the affirmation of egalitarianism need not deny the complementarity of male and female and that affirmation of the complementarity of the sexes need not imply a hierarchical relation between them.

For more on the connection with IVP read here and here.

Salem Commonwealth Attorney Fred King says of the crime: "This is the most unusual case we have ever handled."

IVP has now withdrawn Discovering Biblical Equality from distribution saying it will release the book without the chapter by Judy Brown later this year.

Apparently, though IVP can see the occasional tree, it's blind to the forest. And to think that Dad was a founder of IVP....

A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. -Deuteronomy 22:5

The craziness started when sex morphed into gender and the distinctions between men and women went from the hard reality of body parts to the soft fiction of social constructs. Back in the old days, a baby was born and the doctor or nurse took a quick look and said either "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!"

Now fathers and mothers wait with hearts a-thumping for their child to report back from college. Dutifully submitting him to the twistings and moldings of the academy (and paying twenty-five to forty thousand dollars a year for the privilege), Dad and Mom can never be quite certain where their child will end up. Things aren't clarified until he has had a a few years of polymorphous perversity, has heard all his options, has been hit on by every segment of the gender continuum, and one day shows up back home with his partner of choice.

Sex has been abandoned, and gender is a social construct that maximizes that idol of Western culture--choice. So now we've traded in man and woman for man-loving woman, woman-loving man, man-loving woman locked up in man's body, woman-loving man locked up in woman's body, man-loving man locked up in woman's body, woman-loving woman locked up in man's body; and so on. Far from the simple on-off of the sex switch, the gender switch is never simply on or off; it's bright or dim or somewhere--anywhere--in between.

And so absurdities multiply.

Wesleyan College:
Connnecticut's Wesleyan College is trying out a "gender-blind" dorm policy.

University of California:
The Financial Times reports that the University of California is considering covering drugs and surgery for her students to change their sex...

While pursuing the M.Div. at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I took four courses from Roger Nicole, including his seminar on the Atonement. Dr. Nicole was a feminist even then (1980-1983), and we had our arguments over his dismissal of Scripture's commands. Yet at that point his feminist commitments extended only to the Church, the advocacy of women pastors and elders, and many of us felt this advocacy was more a function of his baptistic polity and almost-denial of ordination than some deep ideological commitment to feminism. At the time he still did not equivocate on the command of God's Word that the husband is to be the head of the wife. But this inconsistency never led us to feel that Dr. Nicole was essentially stable on this doctrine. Which is greater, the Church or the home?

Skip forward seventeen years or so, to the 1998 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. There I was privileged to renew my relationship with Dr. Nicole. Imagine my lack of surprise upon finding out that Dr. Nicole had moved in his commitments--and not towards honoring God and His Word, but rather toward Eleanor Smeal, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, "The New York Times," Gilbert Bilezikian, Simone de Beauvoir, Wheaton College, Hillary Clinton, and "Christianity Today."

Dr. Nicole now denied the authority in marriage of the husband...

My nephew, Chris Taylor, passed along this photo. He comments:

I got a kick out of seeing this billboard every day when I went in to work up in Chicago. It kind of fits with Dennis Rodman's exclamation when prompted for his response to the female referee that threw him out on a personal foul, "She's the man!"

On a certain day in 1983, only months before graduating from seminary, I was browsing the new arrivals shelf of our seminary's library and came across a feminist tract just published under the auspices of the Women in Church and Society Committee of the World Council of Churches. Flipping through its pages, it all seemed the normal feminist claptrap to me. Then I came to the appendices and discovered a gem--correspondence between Henrietta Visser 't Hooft and Karl Barth concerning the Scripture's teaching on the relationship between the sexes.

In all my reading on this subject in the intervening years, I've never run across a single reference to this correspondence. It's time to stop hoarding it and share it with our good readers. So with no further ado, here is an exchange between Karl Barth and Henrietta Visser 't Hooft, wife of the first General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Willem Adolph Visser 't Hooft.

Most fascinating in this exchange is Barth's statement:

For instance, a great many Christians in Germany today object to the fact that Christ was a Jew. Time will show whether their objections are salutary. And women can object to the fact that the Bible says that "man is the woman's head." Time will show whether it is good to reverse this disposition or (as you would like to do) to neutralize it.

Have I piqued your interest?...

Only a deaf, dumb, and blind man could be ignorant of the battle today over the meaning and purpose of sexuality, particularly with reference to authority in the Church, home, and society. I decline to say the meaning and purpose of "gender" because gender is a weasel-word used in our culture to indicate that no man is simply a man or woman, but rather an individual whose personality and gifts place him at some point on the continuum of gender-identity. And of course, that continuum is infinitely long and complex. So to exchange the biological determinism of 'sex' for the sociological continuum of 'gender' is to support, if ever so slightly, the sexual anarchy that surrounds us and to give each person the freedom to choose a place to stand, rather than simply to acknowledge where God has placed him and learn to stand there with dignity and purpose.

If others want to make a bow to the new revolution, that's their business. For myself, when I speak of the teaching of Scripture on manhood and womanhood I will use the word 'sex' precisely so that those reading or listening think of specific sexual body parts and intercourse and fertility and reproduction and the blessing of children and so on. I want them to be forced away from sociological thoughts, to biological ones. Happens enough every other moment of our day, doesn't it?

Those squeamish about such points being written on the blog of two PCA pastors aren't likely as squeamish about the endless parade of even more graphic biological markings that flow across their television screen, their magazine pages, and their CNNSI.com web pages, right? I hope you get my point.

Anyhow, speaking of the meaning and purpose of sex (or sexual differentiation, if you prefer), here's a piece I'd buried on my hard drive, but had called to my attention again this week by my nephew, Chris. It's by B. B. Warfield, the late nineteenth/early twentieth century professor of theology at Princeton Seminary.

If you took the time to read our earlier post by Karl Barth, you'll be amazed at how closely these two titans of vastly different positions on the inspiration of Scripture, Warfield (inerrancy) and Barth (neo-orthodoxy), stand on the teachings of Scripture concerning sexuality. Pay particular attention to Warfield's last couple of sentences. They are echoed so closely by several of Barth's statements that one wonders whether Barth isn't quoting Warfield?

One final comment before Warfield's piece. After reading this piece, our good readers may well better understand why David and I are not content with the methods used by many today in defending Scripture's teaching on sexuality. Place Warfield's exegesis and application of the texts next to many books and articles written today and we are reminded of the effeminacy of our day. Note well the manliness of leadership and the complete absence of equivocation when Warfield engaged in contending for the Faith.

May God again restore to the women of His Church...

Apparently men and women are identical until it really counts, then the ground rules change and "Vive la difference!" So when does it really count?

First, the difference continues to matter to the eye. The advertising industry alone proves everyone loves a pretty woman--and if push comes to shove, even an unpretty woman. Forced to make a choice between a plain Jane and a pretty man, most everyone would choose the plain Jane. Woman is pretty and pretty is woman--that's how most of us see it, hence the generalization "the fairer sex."

Second, apparently the difference still matters with money. Here's an article showing the non-profit world keeps close tabs on the difference between men and women in giving habits. Among other things, we learn women now control more than half the wealth in these United States (and that percentage is only growing).

A friend in the UK just wrote:

I heard on the radio this morning that a recently published report says that women in the UK will own 2/3rds of the country's wealth within 20 years. Women are just under 1/2 now, but with better education more women are now employed than men (is that possible!! I think for sure that was what they said!). Also, women tend to live alone more than men (hence they will own more homes) and since they live longer, they tend to inherit the family's wealth.

The article also tells us women now head more than half of all charitable foundations, that they are motivated to give by different things than motivate men, and that they give more generously than men.

The sex God has blessed to carry, give birth to, and nurse little babies gives more than men--not exactly rocket science, is it?

Vive la difference!

Cletus Huckleberry just E-mailed a link to his blog where he's posted a rant (his word) on this story about a Croatian football player, Goran Granic, who, after converting to Roman Catholicism, no longer commits intentional fouls. It's agreed that his change in play has hurt the team and Mr. Huckleberry is disgusted that Mr. Granic's faith has unmanned him. Mr. Huckleberry goes on to lament the feminization of the Roman Catholic church, seeing Mr. Granic as a perfect example of all that has caused it.

The rant's main theme is easy listening for me, but I'm not sure I agree with the main point in connection with Mr. Granic's quite practical confession of faith. Here's a comment I posted on the blog:

This is a great story... Problem is, I'm not sure I agree with you.

My son, Taylor, plays soccer, also, and here are a couple things we talk over "in Christ." Since at least half his games are played on the Lord's Day, should we continue to disallow him from participating in those games--you know, Chariots of Fire and all that.

Second, when the occasional team sends young girls along, should he and his teammates treat the girls exactly the way they treat the boys, being just as physical? Inevitably, all the boys on their team naturally go soft on the girls and the coach tells them at half time that they can't do that. But what would you say to your son?

Third, is a foul really only the sportsmanlike choice of a penalty toward the greater good of winning? Somehow, I see a sliding tackle from behind as not being in the same league as grabbing a player and holding on in the last seconds of a basketball game.

(That said), I completely agree with all your sub-points, just maybe not with your main illustration.

So what do y'all think about this and related questions?

My daughter, Michal Crum, sent along this link of the top twenty questions people take to Scripture at the web site, Bible Answers. She points out that some of the answers are quite good, but others aren't.

Speaking of bad answers, my heart aches for men and women growing up today without seeing or being taught the truth and beauty of sexuality as Scripture reveals it to us. And the church has much to answer for in this regard, having done everything possible to hide this aspect of biblical truth lest it scandalize seekers. But of course, the true reason we hide this light under the bushel is not our love for seekers, but our self-love. The greatest resistance to biblical sexuality, both purity and patriarchy, is not from unbelievers, but those inside the church.

Pastors may be silent partially because of the fear of offending non-Christians, but the main reason for our silence is the punishment we'd take at the hands of our leaders and their wives if we were to teach and preach the commands of God. This page, then, is a perfect example of the unfaithfulness of the church and her leaders in our time. May God lead us to repentance.

Here's my early Christmas present to all those who claim faith in Jesus Christ but deny the plain teaching of Scripture, that God Himself has ordained that man should lead (1Timothy 2:13). When the very Word of God fails to convince, maybe it doesn't matter what we try next. So hey, how about the dance studio? This, then, from a site called Lloydian Dance: Ten Reasons Why Men Lead and Women Follow. Merry Christmas!

Interesting post by Christopher Atwood commenting on what he believes to be the universally more religious nature of women than men.

Honestly, my gut feeling is not that women universally tend to greater religiosity than men, but that wherever religion is deficient, idolatrous or false women will predominate among its observers.

True religion is utterly appealing to men: witness, the masculinity of the Old and New Testaments. Nor is there any indication in Scripture that women were more religious than men in Judaism or New Testament Christianity.

What is interesting to note from Josephus is the accusation that the Pharisees were especially popular with Jewish women. Embarrassing as that passage in 1 Timothy about Adam not being deceived may ring in the ears of modern Evangelicals, perhaps it has something to do with the trend Christopher Atwood notes.

Betty Friedan, the author of one of the seminal feminist works of the twentieth century, The Feminine Mystique, has died. She was 85 years old. Born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, Friedan grew up in a home where her father was a jeweler and her mother had given up a gig as a newspaper journalist to become a housewife. Friedan reported that her mother was conflicted about this change and took it out on her husband:

(My mother) cut down my father because she had no place to channel her terrific energies, a typical female disorder that I call impotent rage...

Friedan went on to Smith College where she did quite well, then married and had two children. At work, when she asked for maternity leave to bear her second child, she was fired. A few years later, she wrote The Feminine Mystique.

Later in life, Friedan lamented the fixation on lesbianism which was endemic to the more radical side of the feminist movement, saying:

I wrote a whole book objecting to the definition of women only in sexual relation to men. I would not exchange that for a definition of women only in sexual relation to women...

Friedan defended the family from feminist attacks and was obviously sympathetic to men, as well as to women who loved men as their sons, fathers, and husbands. At times, this angered her sisters-in-arms.

On the negative side, she helped found the National Abortion Rights Action League, the organization largely responsible for creating a climate in these United States in which the Supreme Court could legalize mothers paying doctors to kill their unborn children. Friedan also was the founding president of the National Organization of Women.

Quite endearingly, Friedan recently said, "...women as a special separate interest group are not my concern any more.'' We hope her concern turned to Her Maker and the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The wife of Dr. Frank A. James III, current president of Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando), ordinarily would be known as Mrs. Frank James. Or, if one were on friendly terms with her, some variation of "Carolyn," "Carol," or "Custis" may be used. For some reason, though, Mrs. James is known as "Carolyn Custis James."

Now you may resent my pointing out the obvious, but no one thinks of her husband, Frank, when people say "Carolyn Custis James." Is that a problem?

Well, no. We all know who she is.

Speaking of which, my mother always preferred to receive letters addressed to "Mrs. Joseph T. Bayly." That was the title of honor back in the old days before women became warriors.