"Husband of One Wife"?

When I was a little girl, my father used to sing us a folk song which had been recorded by the Kingston Trio.  I remember the chorus went like this:

It takes a worried man
To sing a worried song
I'm worried now
But I won't be worried long

The thing about this song is this.  It never occurred to me or my father-- and I'm pretty sure it never occurred to the Kingston Trio-- that the meaning of these words included the idea that a worried woman couldn't sing a worried song.  In those days the masculine gender in the English language was the default.  It could mean just males, but unless the context indicated otherwise, it was generally assumed to mean both sexes.  The song is saying that only a worried person can sing a worried song.  The song could have used the word "person" there, but just because it says "man," doesn't mean the meaning isn't "person."  And no one, as far as I know, has ever thought otherwise.

The Greek language spoken and written by Paul and the Apostles was similar.   The Scripture 4 All Online Interlinear New Testament shows that when James wrote in Chapter 1, verse 8 of his epistle, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," he used the Greek word for "man," which is transliterated as "aner."  The ancient Greek did have a gender-neutral word which meant "person" -- "anthropos"-- and this word is often used in the New Testament.  In fact, James used this word in verse 7, immediately before:  "let not that person ("anthropos") think he shall receive anything from the Lord."  (Emphasis added.)  But in verse 8 James used the word that meant "man."  Did he mean that a double-minded woman was not unstable in all her ways?  Is it only double-minded male humans who are unstable?

It seems pretty doubtful, doesn't it?  Especially since James also used the word "anthropos" to refer to the same hypothetical double-minded person one verse before, in the same passage.

In 1 Timothy 3:1-2 a similar situation occurs.  Scripture 4 All shows that this passage begins with a gender-neutral word (here, the Greek word is "tis" meaning "someone" or "anyone"), and then goes on to use a phrase usually translated "husband of one wife" -- a masculine construction.

Here's the passage in the King James version:

This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach. . .

Notice how the King James version substitutes "man" for the gender-neutral word "tis."  In the day when the KJV was written, the masculine gender was the default, and it would not have been impossible for a reader to understand this as meaning either a man or a woman -- but it is more likely that the translators simply assumed that Paul intended what they called a "bishop" to be men-only.

Here's the same verse in the New International Version.*

Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. . .

The words translated "husband" and "wife" in these verses are the Greek words "andra" and "gunaikos," which are variants of "aner" and "gune."  That is, "man" and "woman."  The ancient Greek had no specific words for "married man" or "married woman."  They just used "man" and "woman," and the context told whether the man and woman being referred to were husband and wife.

So what is happening here is the same thing happening in James 1:7-8: a gender-neutral word for a human being in the first verse is then followed by a word meaning "man" in the second verse.

Why is it, then, that this passage in 1 Timothy is commonly believed to exclude women, while the passage in James is not?

"Well," you might answer, "the text obviously does mean 'husband of one wife,' even though the Greek didn't have those words.  And 'husband' is simply never an inclusive term, even in the King James version!"

Well, yes.  But here's the thing.  When the masculine gender is the default in a language, this means that the masculine gender is used to describe any person or group of people containing at least one man.  The feminine gender would only be used when referring to a female person or a group of people who are all female.**  So when giving the qualifications for who can belong to a group, if Paul intended men to be included, he'd have to use either gender-neutral or masculine-gendered words.  Since the Greek didn't contain our English gender-neutral word "spouse," the only way he could talk about a group containing husbands, would be to use the masculine word "man."

And here's another thing. According to New Testament/Greek scholar Philip B. Payne, the Greek term   "one woman man" was an idiomatic phrase that, interestingly enough, meant pretty much the same thing we mean by that phrase today, as used at the end of the song by Tommy Jones:

You're a one man woman
I'm a one woman man

Tommy Jones' song is about a "two-timing" man who has decided to change his ways and become a "one-woman man" in order to deserve the faithfulness of his "one-man woman."  As Payne puts it, "The closest English equivalent to “one-woman man” is 'monogamous,' and it applies to both men and women."

Is Paul actually simply saying, "If anyone wants to be an overseer, that person should be monogamous"?

I believe very strongly that this is what his original readers (Timothy first, and anyone later whom Timothy read the letter to) would have thought he meant.

New Testament/Greek scholar Marg Mowczko's important blog New Life, in her post Paul's Qualifications for Church Leaders, states:

The phrase, a one-woman man, is. . . an idiom, and there are dangers in applying it too literally. Because it is an idiomatic expression, many people have had difficulty explaining and adapting its meaning in the context of contemporary Western church culture; a culture that is vastly different to first century church culture.

If taken literally, the one-woman man requirement would rule out unmarried, widowed and divorced men, as well as women, from being church leaders; yet Paul says that being single and celibate enables people to serve God better (1 Cor 7:32-35). The real intent of this phrase is marital faithfulness in the church leader who is already married.  Emphasis added.

Mowczko also adds this about the masculine pronoun "he" which appears in these verses:

While 1 Timothy 3:1-7 . . . is completely free from masculine pronouns in the better, older Greek manuscripts, pronouns need to be added in English translations to make sense of the sentences. In English, the literary convention has been to use masculine pronouns, even if the subject matter applies to women also. . . [I]n Greek also. . . the literary convention was to use masculine pronouns when speaking about a representative person, or groups of people that included men.

So in the original text, not only is the masculine word "man" not used, but even the pronoun "he" does not appear!  It does look as if the convention of using 1 Timothy 3 to exclude women from church leadership is merely that-- a convention.

And then there's the whole issue of Phoebe.

In Romans 16:1 Paul says,  "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae."  (Emphasis added.)  A footnote to this on the Bible Gateway website adds:  "The word deacon refers here to a Christian designated to serve with the overseers/elders of the church in a variety of ways; similarly in. . . Tim. 3:8,12."

Of course, 1 Timothy 3: 8-12 is a continuation of Paul's requirements for church leadership.  Verse 12 (KJV) reads: "Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well." Emphasis added.

So if Phoebe is a deacon, and "husband of one wife" means "must be male," then the only conclusion from this is that Phoebe was man.  Which, of course, is simply not true.  Philip Payne again:

The clearest NT identification of an individual with titles associated with senior local church leadership is not a man at all, but a woman: “Phoebe deacon (διάκονος, not feminine in form, which could imply ‘servant’ or ‘deaconess,’ but masculine in form, hence ‘deacon’) of the church in Cenchrea. I ask you to received her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a leader (προστάτις ‘leader, chief,’ ‘president or presiding officer,’ ‘one who stands before,’ LSJ 1526) of many, including myself also”” (Rom 16:1-2). Since Romans was written before any surviving reference to the office of a local church “overseer,” “deacon” may have been the only officially recognized title for a local church leader at that time and/or place. If by προστάτις (“leader”) Paul identifies a church office here, then he describes Phoebe using two titles for a church office that may have been equivalent to the later-documented titles “overseer,” “elder,” and “pastor.”  

Emphasis added. 

Payne goes on to point out the translator bias in this passage:

Translations such as the NIV, which repeats the word “give her any help … for she has been a great help,” hide the fact that the Greek verb translated as “help [her]” (παραστῆτε from παρίστημι, “I help,” which combines παρά = “along side” + ἵστημι = “I stand”) is almost opposite in meaning to the word describing Phoebe as a προστάτις “one who leads,” which combines πρό = “in rank before” + ἵστημι = “I stand.” Paul’s logic is natural, “Help her in whatever matter she has need, because she is a leader of many, including myself also.” It is natural that Paul, who calls all believers to submit to one another (Eph 5:21) should himself submit to the local leadership in churches he visited. If Paul had intended to say simply that Phoebe had “helped” others, it would have been natural for him to repeat παρίστημι to make his reason parallel his request. 

Emphasis added. 

As far as I can see, the identification of Phoebe as a deacon according to the description of 1 Timothy 3:8-12 proves that "husband of one wife" cannot mean "must be a man."  And if it doesn't mean "must be a man" for deacons, the same phrase used for overseers in verses 1 and 2 cannot mean "must be a man" either.  Theologian Peter Kirk puts it like this:

[A]ccording to Romans 16:1 the woman Phoebe was a deacon, and indeed the most natural interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:11 is also a reference to women deacons. In this case, “husband of one wife” in 3:12 cannot be understood as a rule applicable everywhere allowing only men to be deacons. And as the phrase surely has the same meaning in 3:2 and Titus 1:6 these verses cannot be understood as forbidding any women from being overseers or elders; for precisely the same condition is applied to . . . [the] two types of Christian ministry.

Therefore, when Christian teachers insist that the phrase "husband of one wife" means that women can't serve as church leaders, they are mistaken.  It's high time this mistake was rectified, because the Lord Who raised up Phoebe has never changed His mind about raising up women to lead.  It is we humans who have misunderstood and hindered His work.



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*Note: the New International Version was updated in 2011, but I quote from the 1984 version here to show that the controversy over "gender-inclusiveness" in the 2011 is not at issue here.  Both versions use "anyone" for the Greek word "tis."

**Paul does, in fact, use the female-only construction "one-man woman" or "wife of one husband" in 1 Timothy 5:9 when speaking of widows to be put on a list to receive church support.  A man whose wife had died would still be able to support himself, so Paul only has in mind women whose husbands have died.  Thus he uses the feminine gendered "wife of one husband" because the group he is speaking of consists only of women. 

I've Got a Guest Post on Rachel Held Evans' Blog!

I'm deeply honored and amazed that Rachel Held Evans, whose book A Year of Biblical Womanhood I reviewed here, has posted a guest blog from me on her important and very interesting Blog.

The guest post is a condensed version of my three-part series "Is Marriage Really an Illustration of Christ and the Church?"  and appears here. 

She also very kindly recommended that her readers subscribe here, and I'm gratified (and a little overwhelmed) to see that my subscribers have increased by nearly a third in just one day.

Thanks so much to Ms. Held Evans.

Abraham, Revisionism and "Privilege Distress"

I've been reading an amazing book:  Abraham by Bruce Feiler.  As the book jacket describes it, "Abraham stands as the shared ancestor of Jews, Christians and Muslims. . . Bruce Feiler set out on a personal quest to better understand our common patriarch."  The book explores how each of these three related world faiths views its father Abraham-- where they are similar, where different, what parts of his life they stress, and why.  Feiler is Jewish, but he treats each of the three faiths with fairness and insight, uncovering commonalities and revealing along the way the shared humanity of three kinds of believers in one God.

The biggest eyeopener in this book, for me, was a trend Feiler uncovered in each of the three faiths: Abraham lived prior to Judaism, Christianity or Islam, but each group, at certain points in history, has done what it could to claim him for its own, to the exclusion of the other two.  Jewish interpreters  painted him as knowing and observing Torah long before it was even written.  Muslim interpreters claimed that Ishmael was actually the favored son and Isaac a mere interloper.  Christian interpreters claimed that Abraham knew by special revelation the gospel of Christ.  As Feiler puts it:

Abraham has been transformed so wildly by his own self-proclaimed descendants that he bears little resemblance to the portrait now left to fade in the Bible.  The biblical story itself. . . manages to convey a more general message of God's grace than. . . the portraits Abraham's supposed spiritual inheritors were busily creating. p. 154-155.

Revisionism. We humans are prone to it.  We look at history, a piece of writing or a set of facts, and we ignore what we don't want to see and overemphasize what we do want to see, in order to make our viewpoint stronger and opposing ones weaker.  Bruce Feiler interviewed Rev. Petra Heldt, head of the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Jerusalem, and came to this understanding:

"If you look at history," she told me, "each religion, at different times, for different reasons, tried to establish itself as the dominant religion.  Claiming Abraham for yourself is just one way to establish your authority." This power grab usually occurs at historical turning points, she noted.  For Jews it was after the Second Temple was destroyed and they had to buttress their sagging identity.  For Christians it was after the fall of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries, when they lost their political protection.  "It's a psychological need triggered by political circumstances.  You use your culture to establish your triumphalism because your political power may be waning.  You want to show that you've always been there.  Abraham is a great way to prove that." p. 156.

This idea rang a bell.  I immediately thought of a similar pattern that's occurring here in the United States today:  the insistence by the Christian Right that America was founded as a Christian nation. The Shades of Grace website has good examples of this argument, providing selected quotes from the Founding Fathers intended to prove that the United States has belonged to Christians and Christianity from its inception.  But a quote such as this one from John Adams:

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.

-- should be balanced by what he wrote in the Treaty of Tripoli when he was President:

As the government of the United States of America is not on any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of of Musselmen (Muslims), - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

(quoted on Democratic Underground.com)

It seems to me, when these two quotes are taken together (along with many others), that many of the Founding Fathers believed Christian principles lay behind the founding of the United States, but they did not consider the Christian religion to be America's national religion.  In fact, there has always been a tension in my country of birth between its ideal of providing a haven to people of all faiths, and its historical tendency to privilege Christianity (this due largely, I think, to the dominance of European whites in its leadership from its inception).  As David Lose put it in The Huffington Post:

[T]he United States has always been home to a multitude of faith traditions and, indeed, was imagined from the beginning to be a religious haven. . . [But] those who support the notion of a "Christian America" can convincingly argue that the de facto stance of this country has been to privilege the belief of, if not simply Christianity, at least what's often called "the Judeo-Christian tradition" because of its central place in this nation's evolution.

In fact, the more pluralistic the United States now becomes, and the more it gives a voice and a place to religious and non-religious minorities, the louder the voices seem to grow that want to make it clear that Christianity is the dominant religion in America-- the one that has "always been there," just as Feiler's book describes in the Middle East's struggles over ownership of Abraham.  "This is a Christian nation" is a way of saying, "We Christians are America; it has always belonged to us, and we can take it back."

What is the proper response to this?  Do we mock and ridicule those who want to shore up their power and influence in this way?  Does an us-against-them mentality (even in response to that mentality in others) do any good? Is just saying "they're wrong"-- even if they factually are-- helping the situation?  Bruce Feiler, exploring the roots of Abraham in the turbulent Middle East, sees another way.

I needed to believe that loving God, that being prepared to sacrifice for that belief, and that [also] believing in peace had not somehow become incomprehensible. . . We can, like Abraham, leave behind our native places-- our comfortable, even doctrinaire traditions-- and set out for an unknown location, whose dimensions may be known only to God but whose mandate is to be a place where God's blessing is promised to all. p. 215-216.  Emphasis added.

I was very interested to read this article on the "Weekly Sift" blog called The Distress of the Privileged.  It largely echoes the historical principle Rev. Heldt found in the conflict over Abraham: when a group's political power is waning-- even if as a result of a call to fairness in sharing power with other groups-- the group experiences that as a painful loss which it must try to remedy.  Ignoring the pain of others-- even of the privileged-- is unfair in itself, and counterproductive:

As the culture evolves, people who benefitted from the old ways invariably see themselves as victims of change. The world used to fit them like a glove, but it no longer does. Increasingly, they find themselves in unfamiliar situations that feel unfair or even unsafe. Their concerns used to take center stage, but now they must compete with the formerly invisible concerns of others.

If you are one of the newly-visible others, this all sounds whiny compared to the problems you face every day. It’s tempting to blast through such privileged resistance with anger and insult.

Tempting, but also, I think, a mistake. The privileged are still privileged enough to foment a counter-revolution, if their frustrated sense of entitlement hardens...

Confronting this distress is tricky, because neither acceptance nor rejection is quite right. The distress is usually very real, so rejecting it outright just marks you as closed-minded and unsympathetic. It never works to ask others for empathy without offering it back to them.

Doug Muder, the blog author, offers a different alternative to the scorn and contempt which is the most common response to the Christian Right by those it is challenging.  He says:

Ultimately, the privileged need to be won over. Their sense of justice needs to be engaged rather than beaten down. The ones who still want to be good people need to be offered hope that such an outcome is possible in this new world.

I used to be part of the Christian Right.  Many of my friends and fellow-church members still are.  And they are good people who believe in love-your-neighbor, and who do have valid things to say to and about the American political process. I don't think the answer is to shame them or treat them as the enemy, which they certainly are not.  These are people who help me when I'm in distress, who hug me when we meet, who laugh and cry and pray with me.  The answer is to do unto them as I would want done unto me-- to listen, to hear their real distress, and then to appeal to their sense of justice and their principles of Christian love.  It is possible, as Muder points out, for a privileged person like me to do this (I know, because I've been trying to do it):

[S]he could learn to be a good guy by the lights of this new society. It would be hard. [S]he’d have to give up some of [her] privileges. [S]he’d have to examine [her] habits to see which ones embody assumptions of supremacy. [S]he’d have to learn how to see the world through the eyes of others, rather than just assume that they will play their designated social roles.

Bruce Feiler ends his study of Abraham this way:

At the start of the twenty-first century, the idea that one religion was going to extinguish the others was deader than it had been in two thousand years-- and possibly ever. . . A new type of religious interaction was needed, involving not just swords, plowshares and the idea of triumph but conversation, interaction, and the idea of pluralism. . . Fourteen hundred years after the rise of Muhammad, two thousand years after the ascent of Christianity, twenty-five hundred years after the original of Judaism, and four thousand years after the birth of Abraham, the three monotheistic religions were inching towards a posture of open-- and equal-- deliberation.  This state of affairs set up a new question for the faiths to ponder: Can the children of Abraham actually coexist? p. 196, emphasis in original.

Feiler goes on to paint the last picture in the Bible from Abraham's life:

Finally, in Genesis 25, verse 7, Abraham dies . . . At Abraham's burial, his two most prominent sons, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, scions of rival nations, come together for the first time since they were rent apart nearly three-quarters of a century earlier.  The text reports their union without comment.  "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah. . . in the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites."  

But the meaning of this moment cannot be diminished.  Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life: a moment of reconciliation between his two sons, a peaceful, communal, side-by-side flicker of possibility in which they are not rivals, scions, warriors, adversaries, children, Jews, Christians, or Muslims.  They are brothers.  

The fact is that we're all human, and all prone to the weaknesses of humanity.  If some of us revise history in an attempt to strengthen our challenged assumption that our rightful place is in the center of power, this isn't anything that the rest of us aren't capable of doing, or have never done.  Jesus talked about forgiveness, about not judging one another. He talked about doing to others what we would want done to ourselves.  He talked about giving being greater than receiving.  

He talked about seeing one another as brothers and sisters, and that what we do to "the least of these" is what we do to Him. 

I think in the long run, these things will be the answer. 

My Favorite Blog Reads of 2012

I wanted to celebrate the New Year this year by turning this blog into a celebration of things other people have said in the blogosphere in the year 2012.  These are the messages that had the most impact on me in the last year; these are the things people said that made me gladdest that someone had said them.

So in no particular order, here are my favorite blog reads of 2012, with quotations from each and brief statements of my response and why I liked them.

Disability and Autonomy

Suzanne McCarthy over at "BLT: Bible Literature Translation" discusses dignity and autonomy as basic human needs, and how the authority/submission relationship paradigm espoused as "biblical" by patriarchal Christians is actually dehumanizing and thus contrary to the teachings of Christ:

Today, working with children who have severe cognitive disabilities, I rejoice at the child who learns the first step of the pyramid of learning – to initiate. The child with no language must learn that he can initiate communication. This is done with pictures, accompanied by words, if and when that is possible. But here is the thing. You have to have something that the child wants badly and it has to be something that you can give him or her over and over. In my case, it is the train track. The child requests each piece, and he can also request the engine and the cars, the straight track or the curved. This is the first task of human dignity – to initiate, to want, to request, to build.

In another episode this afternoon, another child protested, “I don’t want to. Stop! I want this.” Yeah, I know, I did close that browser window and offered him something else. But, we rejoiced that he expressed his opinion, he tried to assert his autonomy. We did not view this as rebellion. It was healthy resistance. It was another aspect of being human, saying no. How important that is.

I am not unrealistic. We deal with the kicking and biting, the toileting problems, the non-compliance. But we celebrate the humanity of the child. And that is dignity, autonomy, agency, inclusion and choice. . .
Why do some Christians say that women do not have the right to those things that I work every day to provide to the child who doesn’t even have language? Why are women told that their role is to submit and respond, to be lower than the so called trainable mentally handicapped? To live without what are considered basic human rights, initiating, choosing and deciding. But no, it is only for men to initiate, choose and decide, not women. I lived that pain. I live now to prevent others from living that pain. The relationship of authority and submission, the trainer and the trainee, that is a model that once was. Man and woman, human and animal, the intellectual and the handicapped, the trainers and the trainees.

If anyone ever says that being the submissive in an authority and submission relationship is of equal human dignity, tell them to flush that thought down the toilet where it belongs. I don’t treat even the ones who can’t talk as the submissives in an authority and submission relationship. We take that child, and we teach him or her, to initiate, to resist, to choose, to raise bloody hell, but please live your life as a human being with equal human dignity.

I think this is possibly the most important thing I have read in the blogosphere this year.  To elevate a supposedly "biblical" principle of hierarchy and rule, over the real needs of the humans for whom God's revelation was intended, is to turn the gospel-- the "good news" -- into bad news for human beings.  And that means all human beings, ruler and ruled alike; male and female, adult and child.  Inasmuch as we demean any human being in the name of Christ, we demean all human beings, including ourselves.  And because Christ participates in humanity, we demean Christ too.

I Was Wrong About Being Right

Perfectnumber's blog "Tell Me Why the World is Weird" talks about how she used to understand Christianity when she was in high school:

I thought becoming a Christian was about arguing. People would debate, and then if one of them ever didn't have an answer, they'd have to change religions. And the "answers" weren't things I'd decided after thinking through everything on my own- they were from books of apologetics, written by experts who were totally infallible.

It was a very "us vs them" mentality, about arguing and needing to always be right. Actually, I guess I subconsciously thought being right was more important than being honest.

She compares this with the way she thinks about her faith now:

I don't believe that any more. I believe in actually wrestling with those questions. If God is good, why do bad things happen? Perfectnumber, take a minute to actually consider it, and understand why it's such a tough issue with so much emotion behind it. And maybe people don't need a bunch of words in the form of an argument- maybe they need my understanding and whatever compassion I can give.

And maybe it's okay for me to say I don't have an answer. Or, I have a couple thoughts but I understand if that doesn't answer it for you.

. . . I conclude that no question threatens God. Now I believe everyone has something to say, and everyone is worth listening to. And I realize more and more that I was wrong about a lot of things- and that's okay, everyone is wrong about a lot of things- but I try not to be.

And "trying not to be" means actually thinking about these questions, not being afraid of doubt. It means listening to people. It means that compassion is more important than informing others about what "the right answer" is.

I really liked this.  It reminded me of the kinds of things I was thinking about as I came out of Maranatha Campus Ministries.  It occurred to me that it was really important to me to be taken seriously, listened to and heard, and to have my point of view seriously considered and not summarily dismissed. And also that Jesus said, "whatever you want others to do for you, you do for them."  So if I wanted to be truly listened to, how could I do anything other than start to truly listen?


Why the Church Failed Me Yesterday

Chandra at the blog "Dispelled" articulates beautifully a heart-cry that encompasses the feelings of many different kinds of people who show up in churches today.  This is something I think every Christian in every church (including me!) should listen to:

Yesterday, I went to church. Yesterday, you didn’t see the tears that had caused my mascara to run. Yesterday, I needed understanding, a soft place to land my hurting heart. Yesterday, you told me that I wasn’t strong enough, that I hadn’t forgiven enough. Yesterday, I went home feeling defeated.

Yesterday, I was proud of myself for taking my girls and myself to church. It was something I wanted for all of us. Yesterday, I walked in with my hands full of two rambunctious girls who were missing the daddy they barely knew. Yesterday, I was met with cold judgment. Yesterday, I felt unwelcome. Yesterday, I heard, “Where is your husband?”

Yesterday, I went to church for the first time in years. Yesterday, no one said a word to me.Yesterday, I went to church and pulled out a cigarette. I felt the scorn of the holy ones. They don’t understand how hard it is to break the cycle of addiction.

Yesterday, I went to church.

Tomorrow I won’t be back.


This is only a selection from what she had to say.  All of it is well worth reading.

The Modesty Rules: Is a Woman Responsible for a Man's Lust?

Emily Maynard at the "Church Leaders" blog makes this common-sense distinction between lust and sexual attraction:

I propose we’ve lost sight of what lust actually is.

In fact, we have confused biological sexual attraction with lust and called it sin. This is one reason why shame is so rampant in Christian circles, why we hide rather than confess our reality, why we try to control rather than offer each other the open love and freedom of Christ: We have made into sin something that is not sin.

God created you to desire another person for affection, intimacy and relationship!

Being physically attracted to someone is not lust.

Wanting to kiss someone is not lust.

Enjoying kissing someone is not lust.

Those desires can be a catalyst for lust, but in themselves, they are morally neutral, God-created, biological and chemical reactions. Your body recognizing sexual compatibility with another person is not inherently evil.

And she counters the whole "you're causing me to stumble" dialogue with this freeing advice:

In fact, nothing you do or do not do can influence lust in someone else.

Only Jesus can lovingly confront and heal a lustful heart through the working of the Holy Spirit. You can’t change anyone, control anyone, make someone sin or not sin, and you’re only responsible for taking your own heart to Jesus.

I’m asking you to pause and think about this issue differently than you may have encountered it before, especially if you grew up with the Modesty Rules on your side.

If anyone tells you that you are responsible for the hearts or minds or actions of any men or women, particularly with your clothing choices, don’t accept it!

Jesus Himself taught that it is not just looking, but looking "in order to lust," according to the actual Greek text of Matthew 5:28.  The Greek words there indicate choice and decision, not simple attraction.  And Jesus placed the responsibility squarely on the one doing the lusting, not on the one being lusted after. Ms. Maynard is quite right that we should do the same.

Modesty, Body Policing and Rape Culture: Connecting the Dots

Along the same lines, Sierra, who is one of the regular contributors at "No Longer Quivering" (a collaborative blog written in resistance to the patriarchy/Quiverfull movement), writes as follows:

Definition: The “modesty doctrine” is the belief that women need to cover their bodies to prevent men from being attracted to them, because sexual attraction is lust that leads to sin and death for both. The modesty doctrine is not the same as wearing conservative clothing. You can do the latter without believing the former. The modesty doctrine is found in fundamentalist Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with milder echoes in mainstream Western culture. . .

The hyper-vigilance of fundamentalist men and women to root out “immodesty” conceals a hatred of female sexuality: secondary sex characteristics should not be visible except in approved circumstances. The system is designed to ensure that the only time a man is “turned on” by a woman is when he is allowed to act on his urges: in the marital bed. In other words, if a woman’s body is visible, it ought to be available for sex. Although I don’t think many men think this consciously, the idea crops up in misogynist rhetoric all the time. “Immodest” women are “asking for it,” or it’s “false advertising” if a woman in a short skirt won’t go home with you, or (in the terms of the Christian patriarchy movement) a woman “defrauds” a man (literally, deprives him of a right or property) by allowing herself to be attractive in a situation wherein sex with her is illicit or unwanted.

The modesty doctrine frames this idea in terms of clothing to preserve the veneer that women are somehow to blame for this, and that there’s something they can do about it. There isn’t. . . 

The woman does not have any agency in this model of male sexuality. What she wants or doesn’t want is either erased or subordinated to what he wants or can’t have. The relationship is between the man, her body, and the law (monogamy). Similarly, entire facets of male sexuality are written out. Men are not allowed to see themselves as objects of desire, to consider themselves attractive or to enjoy the idea of sex with an initiating woman.

Emphases and links in original.

I believe that this blog post, though confrontational, is something that very much needs to be said.  By putting the responsibility for men's lust on women, Christians are, whether they want to or not, perpetuating a thing called "rape culture"-- defined as  "'a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women … a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent' ( Buchwald et al. 1993 : v). An earlier definition was offered by Herman (1984) , who characterized the US as a rape culture because the image of heterosexual sex is based on a model of aggressive male and passive female."   

And this mentality hurts both women and men.

Why Does God Allow It? (Also see Theodicy: The Problem of Pain and Short Lives by the same author)

The Newtown shooting caused a lot of Christians to ask "why?" and I found most of the responses to be fairly self-righteous and unhelpful.  However, Metacrock over at the "Doxa" blog said some things that I thought were wise, helpful, and compassionate:

[T]he best time to think about such things and to ask "why does God allow this" is not right after the tragedy strikes but when one is safe and happy and there's no tragedy on the horizon. That way we can think in a rational and detached manner about it.

During the tragedy when we are grieving and outraged, this school shooting was a total outrage, is not the time to ask the question and expect an intellectual answer. During such a time we have to blame God because we have to blame reality. Reality is what it is and we can't change it. When those things strike that we can't stand all we can do is blame the basis of reality for ordering things in such a manner.

But the question of evil in the light of belief in God does have to be asked, and even though there are no fully satisfying answers, Metacrock comes closer to anyone else in his theory, which he calls "the Soteriological Drama." As defined in his foundational post "Theodicy: The Problem of Pain and Short Lives":

Soteriology means the study of salvation. I am saying there's a drama, not entertainment but the kind of real drama one finds in life, concerning the pursuit of salvation. God has designed a search into the process because it is only by searching that we learn to internalize the values of the good. . . God wants a heart felt response which is internationalized value system that comes through the search for existential answers; that search is phenomenological; introspective, internal, not amenable to ordinary demonstrative evidence.

And in "Why Does God Allow It?" he elaborates:

God wants us to have free will so we will have a moral universe. Moral universe doesn't necessarily mean one in which nothing immoral ever happens, but one in which free moral agents willing choose the good. . . The reason it's important to allow moral decision making is because it's part of growth. God could make a world of robots who never disobey but that would not be a moral universe, because they would not be free moral agents, there would be no moral decision making. Through moral decisions we internalize the values of the good. To make moral decisions we must seek truth and answers to major questions all of which requires more internalizing of values. So the real bottom line of what God seems to want in creation is a universe in which free moral agents grow in their heart's choices of good over evil and in which they come to be wise, progressive, adult, mature citizens of the kingdom. The price God pays for that is the world has to be screwed up.

When my speechless pain over the Newtown shootings began to abate, I again found the idea of a God who wants us to grow in moral maturity, even if it means allowing bad things to happen, very comforting, and I think it makes a lot of sense. 

The Inconvenient Truth About Mental Health and Gun Control

The Newtown school shooting also raised issues of gun control in the United States, and the problem of access to guns by the mentally ill.  Along those lines, Kristen at the "Rage Against the Minivan" blog suggests:

We can change our gun laws to make sure that only mentally competent people can own a gun.

Would this be challenging? Yes. Would it require people to pay more out of pocket to obtain a gun? It would. Might I have to pay some more taxes for this? Yep, but I’m willing. If I have to take a test to prove my ability to safely operate a motor vehicle, it only makes sense that we would apply the same criteria to gun possession in our country. It’s the best way to rule out people with mental health issues that are highly correlated with antisocial and violent behavior.

Here are some ways that we could do that, while maintaining 2nd amendment rights for a majority of the population.

She goes on to list some common-sense measures, like requiring references as part of gun-ownership applications, and selling guns with lockboxes as a required part of the sale.  I found this to be a balanced, common-sense approach that refrains from falling into the false dichotomy that the U.S.'s only two choices are to either allow all guns, or forbid all guns. 

Christmas and the Status Quo in Churches

Wade Burleson at "Istoria Ministries Blog points out:

I sometimes hear evangelicals condemn churches and pastors for being accommodating to culture in their ministries. . . I propose in this post that the adoption of cultural mores and norms to communicate the message of Jesus Christ is precisely what the inspired Scriptures mandate we Christians should be doing. . . 

It is what Paul did in Acts 17:19-30. He went where the people of his culture gathered. He learned what the people of his culture liked. He met people in their comfort zone, and then he delivered to the people of his culture the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.

The apostle wisely made the distinction between cultural traditions and gospel truth. . .

In love for the people of Athens, Paul stood on Mars Hill and quoted pagan poets (like Aratus). But before he could quote the pagans, he had to read them. Paul walked with comfort and ease among the philosophers of Athens. He conversed with them on their turf, in their language, and with a singular purpose. Paul met the pagans of Greece on their playing field in order to give them Christ. 

Christians throughout the ages have adopted cultural norms to communicate Christ.

Pastor Burleson goes on to explain that just because Christmas is set on the date of a pagan holiday is no reason for Christians to refuse to celebrate it:

Christians, don't be afraid to change. Don't be afraid to take cultural norms and adopt them as your own in order to share Christ. The celebration of Christmas ought to be an annual reminder to us that Christians throughout the ages have adopted pagan customs as their own to give the message of Jesus Christ to a people comfortable in their culture.

I couldn't agree more, and this applies in many other areas as well, such as Christian marriages.  Most things having to do with human-to-human relations are products of passing cultural norms.  It was not the intention of the Bible's authors to set their cultural practices in stone.  As long as we uphold love and righteousness, changing things like marital customs (from male authority to full equality) will help spread the gospel, whereas holding women to the customs of the first-century world manifestly hinders it.

So those are my favorite blog posts for the year.  I know not all my readers will agree with everything that was said-- and certainly many of these bloggers would not agree with one another about many things!  But these posts can make us all think, and that's always a good thing. 

In Defense of Santa Claus

I remember going to see Santa Claus when I was a little kid.  Back then, large corporations (like the one my dad worked for) liked to use their money for more than lining their CEOs' pockets.  Santa would land in the company parking lot in a big helicopter, and all the children would be ushered inside to tell him what we wanted for Christmas, as he sat in a big sleigh surrounded with boxes and boxes of presents.  Every child received a very nice toy based on age and gender.  One present in particular I'll never forget: a toy dwarf's cottage from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, complete with seven little toy dwarfs and Snow White herself!  I was thrilled.

As Christmas drew near, our excitement and anticipation increased.  My father had a set of sleigh bells, and on Christmas Eve he'd go outside in the dark and jingle them, yelling "Ho, ho, ho!"  We kids would squeal and run for our beds, where we'd hear the thudding of reindeer hoofs on the ceiling over our heads (it was Dad again, pounding across the deck with a couple of long poles).  One year Dad even made a trail of ashy bootprints from the fireplace to the Christmas tree.  I don't remember whether he actually helped Mom clean that up or not. . .

But the main thing I remember about Christmas in those days was magic and wonder.  The miraculous hung close to our young lives, ready to break out at any moment.  Somewhere out there was a jolly, kind old man who wanted to give us toys just because he loved children.  My parents didn't play up the "you have to be good" thing all that much.  Santa's gifts were gifts of love.  For most of my childhood my parents were not Christians, but as I think back now, I realize that Santa was my first compelling illustration of a benevolent, supernatural father, and his gift-giving showed me my first clear picture of grace.

I didn't write any blog posts this Christmas, but I did read a few.  And there was one I read that I felt I had to respond to now, before we all take down our trees and put our stockings away.

I understood and respected the decision of Jen Hatmaker in her blog post The Christmas Conundrum to turn from consumerism and materialism at Christmas, but I couldn't help feeling a little sad as I read these words:

We've pulled out of the Santa charade. Our newest kids are 5 and 8, preparing for their first Christmas in America, and we're just not doing it, yall. Maybe because we've spent the last four years trying to unravel the mess we've presented to our other kids all these years, but hear me say it: We are giving Christmas back to Jesus. Not a corner of it; all of it.

There is no fake benefactor this year my kids can petition to get more stuff. Because honestly? For a five-year-old, how can Jesus compete with Santa? Our children don't have spiritual perspective; when faced with the choice of allegience, they have a baby in a manger, or they can get a jolly, twinkling, flying character who will bring them presents. This is going to be an easy choice for them. My friend Andrew, who identifies himself as a member of the "non-believer corner" put it this way:

"I always thought it was strange how Christians will tell me they have this giant and awesome truth they know is true deep in their soul and want to share with me, but when 12/25 comes around they lie to their own progeny because, apparently, that giant, liberating, and awesomely simple truth is somehow just not enough. It may be a good narrative, but it needs a little something to give it some panache."

As importantly, it sets this tone for Christmas: Be good and you'll get stuff, which becomes so deeply seeded, undoing that position is almost impossible. When we teach our children to understand Christmas through this lens, then tell them at nine-years-old: "Never mind! It's all fake! Oh, and stop being so selfish because Christmas is about Jesus"...we shouldn't be surprised when our kids stage a mutiny and ask to move in with Grandma. Young parents, this is so much easier to do right the first time rather than try to undo later. Give your kids the gift of a Christmas obsessed with Jesus - and no other - when they are little, and it will be their truth all their lives.

Ms. Hatmaker must do as she believes is best for her own kids, and for all I know this may be what is best for her own kids-- but I cannot take her view.  Though Santa is often equated with materialism and greed, he isn't synonymous with those things.  And I can't imagine Santa as I understood him as a child, ever wanting to usurp Christmas from Jesus or compete with Him for affection.

When I grew old enough to stop believing in Santa, I had already stopped believing in God. My parents began telling us that both were myths.  But when I came to understand that all the jingle bells and reindeer hoofbeats were a show my parents had put on for us, I wasn't angry with them.  I was grateful-- and sad.  Grateful that they'd given me a few glorious years to believe in wonders.  Sad that there was no magic, no miracles; that the world was just a mundane place where nothing ever happened without a reasonable explanation.  That Jesus in the manger was a pretty story Mom had told us when we were little, but he was really just a man like any other man.  That the North Pole was just a magnetic spot in an empty sea of ice.

I still liked getting presents on Christmas, and I liked being with my family.  But after I stopped believing, Christmas was empty.  Sure there was love, and family, and giving-- but lovely as those things were, they were still just part of the mundane world.  The magic was all gone.  I needed to learn to be content with the mundane, because that's all there was or would ever be.

Or so I thought.

When I met Jesus at the age of 15, the miraculous came back.  Christmas was suddenly more than magic-- it was holy.  Christmas Eve became the focal point of remembering, every year, how God drew near, and even nearer, the earth-- so near that all at once God was one of earth's creatures.

God.  With us.  

Emmanuel.

Joy. 

And Santa as a picture of joyous, extravagant giving in celebration of that.

A few years later I became caught up in the new legalism that was sweeping evangelical communities.  Christmas as most people celebrated it was whitewashed paganism. Santa was just a big fat lie parents told their kids-- a lie that encouraged greed and materialism.  If we really loved God, we should focus on Jesus exclusively, and celebrate His birthday alone.

Christian parents should shield their children from Santa.  Santa was the enemy.

But I grew older.  I began to learn to recognize and turn away from legalism in my Christianity.  And then I had kids of my own.

I never exactly told my daughter whether Santa was real or not.  But when she was two years old, she told me that he was.

And remembering magic and wonder and miracle in my own childhood, I just didn't have the heart to tell her no.

So we let our children believe in Santa and Jesus.  And believe me, this was a matter of letting, not making.  Believing was in their nature.  They were born with wonder in their eyes.

Early on my own parents sent their grandchildren a toy Santa Claus house to play with, and at my request, they also sent a toy manger scene.  (My mom had become a Christian again by that point, and I believe my dad eventually did too, though believing was something that never did come easy to him.)  My children played with the two things together.  They liked to have Santa come into the manger scene to say hello to Jesus.  My daughter even had him kiss the Baby in the manger.  It was very sweet.

We didn't turn Santa into an idol of materialism.  The kids believed that Santa filled their stockings and gave them three or four additional presents every year.  The rest of the presents under the tree were from their family and friends.  We told the children that Santa gives children presents because he loves children, and he loves children because Jesus loves them.  That gift-giving-- even extravagant gift-giving-- is appropriate and right as a celebration of God's great, excessively extravagant gift of His Son to us.  That loving generosity and humble gratitude are an honor to the season and the One who is its center.

Santa, too, can be holy.

There was no competition in my children's eyes between Jesus and Santa.  There was no "choice of allegiance."  Every year on Christmas Eve we would read the Bible story and The Night Before Christmas together.  We still do.  Afterwards we light candles and sing carols.  As they have grown older, my kids no longer request songs about Santa.  They want to sing songs about the birth of Christ.

Magic has opened the path to miracle.  Santa has pointed them to the Father, and Christmas to Christ.

You see, I don't agree with Ms. Hatmaker that children have no spiritual perspective.  I don't believe there is, or need be, a dichotomy between the spiritual and material.  The key is simply to love people, use things, and worship God-- and not to get any of those three mixed up. God made the material world and said that it was good.  Children, like adults, are made of matter and spirit.   Both are good, and God desires us to worship Him with our whole selves.  And any good thing in the material world can be of use in spiritual worship, whether it be an altar, a cross, a kneeling bench-- or a tree, twinkling lights and candles.

And a jolly, fat man in a red suit can give us a glimpse into the father heart of God.

We only have to let Christmas work its miracle within us.

Taking a Break for Christmas

To all my readers:  A very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and I hope any other celebration you undertake will be joyous and fun!

Last December I had just started blogging and still had a number of previously completed essays that I could put up.  This year that reserve is depleted, and I must compose a new piece every week.  I'm loving blogging--  but I'm also a mom of two and a full-time paralegal, and I need every spare minute between now and the holiday to get ready for it!

So I'm taking some time off.  But I'd like to leave you with these beautiful words about Mary, mother of Christ, from Rachel Held Evans' book A Year of Biblical Womanhood:

She is what made Jesus both fully God and fully man, her womb the place where heaven and earth meld into one.  At the heart of Mary's worthiness is her obedience, not to a man, not to a culture, not even to a cause or a religion, but to the creative work of God who lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things. . . 

One need not be a saint, or even a mother, to become a bearer of God.  One needs only to obey.  The divine resides in all of us, but it is our choice to magnify it or diminish it, to ignore it or to surrender to its lead.  p. 72


I wish you, in this holiday season-- so appropriately set at winter solstice, when in the midst of darkness the light comes-- an encounter with the living God.

Thank you all for reading.  I'll be back when the presents are opened!

"Men Must Be Spiritual Leaders" - Real Life Consequences

"The man should be the spiritual leader of the home."  That is the standard teaching of most Protestant, evangelical churches.  The Open Bible website has a whole page of Scriptures which apparently support this-- many of which I have addressed elsewhere on this blog.  I believe this teaching springs from a misunderstanding of the historical-cultural assumptions which the writers would have shared with the original readers, which we in modern Western culture are not necessarily privy to.

But the idea remains pervasive that God has decreed that men are meant to be spiritual leaders, and women to be spiritual followers of their men, from the moment they get married.  Some say that God designed men and women this way; others say that He simply decreed this for unknown reasons, and who are we to question?  But if we believe that God is holy, just and good, then we must believe that God's decree and/or design is somehow good for both men and women.

All men and all women.  Or at least every man or woman who feels no call to celibacy and who desires to be married.

Christianity Today's website for Christian women, Her-meneutics, recently ran a blog post by Marlena Graves on this very issue:  "He's Just Not a Spiritual Leader" and Other Christian Dating Myths.  The author's main point was that this teaching was being misunderstood, so that women were refusing to marry men whom they did not perceive as spiritual leaders:

Some time ago in the school cafeteria, we ran into a young woman we knew well. Shawn and I had counseled her and her boyfriend the year prior. I asked her about their relationship. “I broke up with him a month or so ago,” she said sheepishly. Shawn and I tried to veil our shock.

A few minutes later, I asked her why. “He’s just not a spiritual leader,” she answered. After we parted ways, Shawn turned to me and said, “I can’t help wondering how many otherwise beautiful relationships have ended due to misconceptions about spiritual leadership.”

As we processed the news and recalled some of our conversations with the couple, we remembered her saying that he had a patient nature, was intelligent, a hard worker, and of peaceful demeanor, complementing her quite well. But she also mentioned that he rarely initiated prayer or Bible study. For her, in the end, not initiating in those areas was a deal-breaker. . . . 

It seems that initiating prayer, Bible study, and other similar devotional activities is a litmus test for male spiritual leadership in some branches of the American church. And the common complaint by women on our campus is that men are failing in spiritual leadership; they aren’t passing the litmus test. They aren’t initiating.

Marlena Graves goes on to explain that spiritual leadership isn't just about initiating prayer and Bible study; that men can be spiritual leaders without showing any of the characteristics traditionally associated with spiritual leadership.  And she goes on to give a new definition for spiritual leadership:

I started wondering about all the godly men who may have other spiritual gifts—just not the ones traditionally considered “male” spiritual gifts. For example, what about men who have the gift of mercy or hospitality or service or encouragement, and who are full of the fruits of the Spirit? Do we devalue them simply because they’re not at the helm or out in front but rather operating alongside their partner? Is initiating devotional activities within a relationship really what it means to lead? . . .

A spiritual leader is someone who is full of the Holy Spirit—someone who evidences the fruits of the Spirit in increasing measure. Some women prefer that their partners initiate prayer and Bible study. Of course, they’re free to have such preferences, and even to believe that such initiation is a “male” spiritual gift. But we, as the larger Christian community, should find ways to recognize the men who don’t initiate devotional activities and yet model Christlike leadership because they display the fruits of the Spirit.  
Emphasis added.

The problem, of course, is that given this definition, any Christian who is being led by the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit, is automatically a spiritual leader.  And women can and do bear the fruit of the Spirit just as much as men do.   Marlena Graves seems to me to simply be redefining "spiritual leader" so that it will fit any man, just so that any man can be called that. 

When I got engaged to my husband, I too thought he should be my spiritual leader, and it troubled me that he showed very little evidence of being one.  I prayed to the Lord about it, and I received the reassuring impression that Jeff was everything I needed him to be, and not to worry about the rest.  So I went ahead and married him. 

But as we relaxed in my uncle's cabin on our honeymoon, I wanted very much for my new spiritual leader to lead Bible study and prayer-- so I asked him to.  Very reluctantly, he complied.  It felt-- well, it felt sort of fake.  But since the Bible said he was now my spiritual leader, I believed that leading me was exactly what he should be doing. 

So I found myself in the ludicrous position of trying to make him lead. 

Needless to say, it didn't go very well.  Fortunately for our marriage, I decided this was ok, that he just wasn't that kind of spiritual leader, and I backed off on the leading-Bible-study thing.  We were both much more comfortable.

Today, almost 25 years later, I asked Jeff to look back on that time and explain what he was feeling then.  Here's what he said:

"I'm not a take-charge kind of guy.  I knew I was supposed to be your spiritual leader, and I also knew I really wasn't.  And that made me feel stupid and inadequate.  I didn't want to initiate Bible studies, because I couldn't be your teacher.  I had been a Christian two years, and you had been a Christian for almost 10 years.  I wasn't going to disrespect all your experience, learning and knowledge by going on pretending I was leading you, which was all it was-- just pretending."

The Her-meneutics blog post shows that I'm not the first woman, or the last, to go through verbal gymnastics to make an interpretation of Scripture-- in terms of male "headship"-- fit the actual facts. Any adult Christian can be spiritual leader of his or her children. But for one Christian adult always to be the one to lead the other Christian adult in every marriage-- regardless of knowledge, experience, gifts, or years in Christ-- now seems to me to be an arbitrary and difficult box to force married couples into.

For Retha, the blog author at Biblical Personhood, the consequences of this teaching were also very negative.  In her post What "the man should be the spiritual leader" did to me, she explains:

I believed a Christian woman only belong with a man who can lead her spiritually. Any other kind of man cannot be the will of God for the life of a Christian woman. In practical terms, that would be a man who knows more of Christianity and love Jesus more than I do. . . .

Needless to say, any man who started to give a slight indication that he likes me, I judged on whether he could lead me, spiritually and otherwise. The few men who did give spiritual leading in my life was already married, and gave spiritual leading to many. The men who showed an interest in me? I simply showed no interest in return. How could I, because I, as a dedicated believer, thought that if he cannot lead me spiritually, the relationship cannot be the will of God?

Laugh if you want. They say many people have an unrealistic view of marriage. “Spiritual leadership” is part of the unrealistic expectations of many Christian women.

Well, I don’t complain about my time of believing that. Knowing God is great- with or without a man. But on age 36, not only a virgin but someone who never had a boyfriend, I looked at the Bible again . . .

Retha also came upon a redefinition of "spiritual leadership" in terms of loving one's family, expressing that love often, praying with one's spouse and family, being an active participant in church, and being strong but gentle.  Her response? 

But then, a woman who loves her husband and children, expresses that love often, prays with and for her family, is an active participant in her church, etc., who is strong, but gentle-- is an equally good thing!  For some reason they call it “spiritual leadership” when a man does it, but not when a woman does it. Why not???

After I sworn off the ridiculously unbiblical “man should be the spiritual leader” idea at age 36, I had my first boyfriend last year – at age 37. This was also a man who could not be my spiritual leader, but it did not matter. Even though the relationship did not work out, it is still a beautiful memory.

Perhaps I will still have a husband some day. Perhaps it is too late. But dammit, I wish nobody ever told me the rubbish of “the man should be the spiritual leader!” I could have been married, with children. I always liked children a lot. And now that I don’t think men fall horribly short of a leadership standard God sets for them, I find I like men a lot more for what they are. 
Emphasis in original.

Being single is a beautiful way to serve Christ, and I know God will lead Retha in whatever future path He has for her.  But how painful this was for her!  -- and I can't help thinking about what this idea also did to the men she met in her earlier years, who were trying to find a spouse but were considered to be failing a spiritual mark: a mark that they simply weren't designed to achieve. How easy for a man to lose confidence in his manhood, when he is given this false idea of what manhood is!  How many good Christian men, men who desire to be husbands and fathers, have found themselves in this boat? 

The truth is that there are only two ways to respond to this teaching.  One is to define "spiritual leader" in the usual way, and find that many men fall short.  The other is to redefine "spiritual leader" so that it can fit any man-- which also means it can fit any Christian, woman or man, who is sincere in his or her faith.  

With regards to the first response, only those who find that their natural personalities already fit the box they are being stuffed into, will find it really works for them.  And with regards to the second-- many people, like my husband and I, will eventually realize that the over-broad definition is really just a way of pretending.

If spiritual leadership of the home really is God's design and/or decree for men who are meant to be married, then why is it not good for all such men?  Why is it not good for all women?  Doesn't a good tree bear good fruit?

Maybe the problem is that it never was a good tree, and it was not planted by God, but by human tradition and human misunderstanding.  Maybe God's desire is that each man and each woman be who they were created to be-- whether spiritual leaders or not.