You may remember a few weeks ago that Michael Farris, chairman of Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), published a white paper entitled “A Line in the Sand,” in which he rejected and condemned so-called “Biblical patriarchy.” This caused a big dustup in the homeschool community, for a variety of reasons that I don’t have room to cover in this post (see here at Love Joy Feminism for a summary). Today, I want to explore only one of the concepts that was widely discussed in the fallout from Farris’ paper: the question of whether patriocentricity teaches that all women must submit to all men. Continue reading
Tag Archives: gender
So Much More, p. 15-22 – Part 2: Goin’ to the Chapel
Gloria Steinem, founding editor of Ms. Magazine and one of the mothers of the feminist movement, stated, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
Even many women who have rejected more extreme feminism feel this way.
Even independent women who acknowledge men’s usefulness and who plan to
get married or be somehow involved with men “someday” are held captive to
the idea that men are optional and can be put off until later. Many women feel
they are too busy doing their important work to involve any male input and in-
volvement in their lives. To these women, men are just a distraction.But God created men to be more than just optional lifestyle accessories. He cre-
ated women to be dependent on them, in a good way.
If you’re like me, you read the above and immediately asked, “Wait, are they saying all women are required to get married?” Continue reading
So Much More, p. 15-22 – Part 1: Father God
So did you guess that the title of this post was an intentional play on words, before even reading the post? Yes? Good. Then you grasp one of the foundational concepts of stay-at-home daughterhood (SAHD): that the line between human fathers and the Divine is murky at best.
Don’t believe me? First, review some previous SAHD material here and here. Highlights of the show include Doug Phillips issuing an “altar call” for girls to turn their hearts to their fathers, and Anna Sofia Botkin claiming that girls can take their fathers’ names in vain. Second, stay tuned, because there’s a whole boatload of bizarre headed your way that might make you change your mind. Continue reading
So Much More, p. 1-13 – Part 3: The Black-and-White Cookie
Remember this post, where I compared the views of the National Center for Family-Integrated Churches (NCFIC) to a black-and-white cookie? This is also, I think, one of the underlying problems behind So Much More (and really, all of patriocentricity) – black-and-white, all-or-nothing, extreme thinking. Here’s a perfect example (emphasis A&E’s): Continue reading
So Much More, p. 1-13 – Part 2: A Blast from the Past
Having covered the severe lack of definitions in the first chapter of So Much More, let’s move on to examining recurring themes from the Vision Forum lectures I’ve been critiquing for the past year and a half. First up is Doug Phillips’ real “holy trinity” – principles, patterns and precepts – which I discussed in my very first Big Box post, How to Think Like a Christian: Continue reading
Manly Friendships – Part 1: Covenant Central (TBB)
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what the Big Box is all about.
At long last, Lent and Holy Week are over, and that means Hester and the Big Box are back, this time with Manly Friendships by Doug Phillips. But before we get started on that, let’s have a “blast from the past” and review Phillips’ foundational material, which I first covered last March when I critiqued his lecture Manliness. Continue reading
Christian Modesty (TBB)
The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what the Big Box is all about.
There are a few topics on which any anti-patriocentric blogger will eventually be obligated to comment, because they are such a prominent part of patriarchal culture. Courtship, militant fecundity, submission – you probably know the lineup if you’ve been reading in this corner of the blogosphere for any significant amount of time. Modesty is one of those topics.
To be honest, Jeff Pollard’s Christian Modesty was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. The first half of the lecture actually contained some decent advice – for instance, the idea that you can focus so much on purely external matters that you develop a holier-than-thou attitude. Not just patriarchal culture, but also many megachurches and their smaller spinoffs and wannabes would do well to reduce their focus on externals (are you cool enough?). That being said, however, we do encounter a familiar and predictable set of contradictions and tensions, which I’ll explore in the rest of this post. Continue reading
