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Friday, September 19, 2008 The Proper Subservience of Christian Women By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM Some evangelicals are less than thrilled with Sarah Palin's new role as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. According to them, a Christian woman's proper place is in the home, raising her family and supporting her husband. While probably a minority opinion at present, such views are worthy of our attention, I think. They represent the leading edge of evangelical Christianity in America. If the Christians win their battle for American politics and culture, these views will become ever-more dominant. Women will be confined to their homes, relegated to a life of supporting husband and children. Women will not be lawyers, doctors, politicians, journalists, or entrepreneurs. They will be daughters, then wives, and then mothers. If that seems insane, just consider the following quotes collected from Christian message boards about Sarah Palin: Why is a wife and mother with five children (including a newborn with Down's syndrome) running for vice president? She has a bountiful amount of work cut out for her by the Lord sitting in her lap and around her dining room table. I can certainly respect her Christian and biblical views, but I am really amazed at Christians leaping to embrace putting a wife and mother into political office--particularly an office that will essentially make her the helpmate of the highest official in the land and practically remove her from her husband and children. Isaiah 3:12 truly applies: "As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths." I can assent to Sarah Palin's conservative views and even applaud them, but I mourn for a nation whose men have forgotten how to lead their families and their land in the way our Founders envisioned and the way God intended. A wife and mother has already been elected by God to the highest office in the land. She has her own particular husband to help, his calling to make successful, and her children to nurture and train to the glory of God. How could the vice-presidency possibly compare with a task that God has personally designed her to fill? And: The home, the family, the raising of children--it is the zenith of human accomplishment. It's a full-time job, requiring full-time attention if it's to encompass all God intended. [...] The message is "women can have it all"...and it is a lie, because they can't. The message is "men and women should have equal access to the same roles". The reality is, that's not how God created HIS universe to run. He created them male and female, and yes, by their very biological design, nature screams at our dull senses "YOU ARE DIFFERENT"! Created for different purposes, created to compliment one another in their life work. Such views are not from nowhere: they are actively developed and advocated by Christian intellectuals. For example, some critics of Palin favorable quoted Christian minister William Einwechter's 2004 essay entitled "Should Christians Support a Woman for the Office of Civil Magistrate?" It argues that a woman ought not hold any public office, based purely on scripture. Here's the opening paragraph: With more and more women entering the political sphere and running for political office, the conscientious, biblically oriented Christian is confronted with the question of whether or not he should give his support and vote to a woman. This question becomes more pressing for many when the "best candidate," i.e., the most conservative, pro-life candidate in a particular race is a woman. A number of years ago, we in Pennsylvania were confronted with this issue when an articulate, pro-life, politically conservative woman (who was also a wife and mother) ran for governor of our state. Many Christians enthusiastically supported her. But not all of us were confident that this was the right or consistent thing to do. The following essay grew out of the concern over her candidacy, and seeks to address the larger questions of the acceptability of women magistrates and the Christian's responsibility before God in regard to supporting a woman for political office. His methodology is simple: scripture reigns supreme, reason is dispensable. He writes: "In approaching this matter, we need to first understand that these questions can only be answered from Scripture. Mere human opinion or reason is not sufficient for the Christian. The Word of God is the only infallible, authoritative standard for directing us into the paths of righteousness." He considers four scriptural "arguments" against women holding political office. His primary case -- with the most far-reaching implications -- is found in the first section. Here it is, in full: 1. The Biblical Doctrine of the Headship of Man Disqualifies a Woman for Civil Office. The scriptural revelation of the creation of man and woman, and the scriptural commentary on their creation establishes the headship of the man over the woman. The text of Genesis 2:7 and 2:18-24 teaches us that man was made first, and then the woman was made to be man's helper and companion. The Bible instructs us that this order of creation was by God's design, and that it establishes the positional priority of the man over the woman in regards to authority and leadership. In setting forth the authority of the man over the woman in the context of the local church, Paul appeals to the creation order saying, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim. 2:13). In another passage, Paul states the divinely ordained order of authority and headship: "But I would have you to know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). Therefore, the Apostle Paul teaches that God has decreed that the order of authority be as follows: God-Christ-Man-Woman. Each one in this "chain of command" is under the headship (i.e., authority) of the one preceding him or her. Later on in this same text, Paul, as in 1 Timothy 2, calls upon the order of creation to show man's headship over the woman. He says, "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man" (1 Cor. 11:8-9). The Bible explicitly states that the man has headship over the woman, and that this headship is not based on cultural factors, or even the fall; rather, it is based on the created order established by God Himself. Now it is also plain in the Bible that God has ordained that the order of the headship of man must be maintained in each governing institution set up by God. There are three primary institutions established by the Lord for the ordering of human affairs. These are the family, the church, and the state. Each of these institutions has authority to govern within its appointed sphere. We could say, then, that there are three "governments" in the world: family government, church government, and state government. In each of these governments, God has commanded that men bear rule. The man has headship in the family (Eph. 5:22-24), the church (1 Tim. 2:11-14; 1 Cor. 14:34-35), and also by implication and command, in the state as well (1 Cor. 11:3; Ex. 18:21; see point 2 below). Could it be that the man has headship only in the family and the church but not in the state? No, this could not be, lest you make God the author of confusion, and have Him violate in the state the very order He established at creation and has revealed in Holy Scripture! If one is going to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the civil sphere, then to be consistent, he or she also needs to argue for the acceptability of women bearing rule in the family and the church. Now it is true that some attempt to do just that; but their denial of male headship for the family, church, and state is really a rejection of the Word of God and is a repudiation of God's created order. And it is not sufficient to contend that it is acceptable to support a woman for civil ruler when she is the best candidate, unless you are also prepared to argue that it is acceptable to advocate a woman for the office of elder because she is better suited than the available men in the church; and unless you are also prepared to say that the wife should rule over her husband if she is better equipped to lead than her husband is. Notice that his arguments do not merely concern the proper place of women in politics. He explicitly claims that men must rule over women in the family, in the church, and in politics. Yet his analysis would apply just as well to any endeavor, including business. By his principles, no woman should ever claim any authority over any man in any sphere of life, regardless of her knowledge, skills, experience, and capacities. So a woman doctor ought never order a male nurse to medicate her patient as she directs. A woman police officer cannot rightfully demand a male criminal to submit himself to lawful arrest. A woman professor cannot fail a male student for cheating over his protests. A woman business owner cannot fire a male employee for failing to show up to work on time. God has designed men and women such that men always have "positional priority" over women in "authority and leadership." That's our future -- unless we fight for rational values today. Labels: Culture, Politics, Religion Share |    E-mail Diana Hsieh     PermaLink ()    Comments (New Page)   Subscribe to NoodleFood Blog Posts via Feed Reader   via E-mail Subscribe to NoodleCast Podcasts M4A via iTunes (MP3)   via Feed Reader   via E-mail

Comments
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 0:50:03 mst Comment ID: #1 Name: Apollo E-mail: gateway8507024(at)hotmail.com I hope Objectivists get into more conflicts with conservatives like is happening right now with the abortion issue. I see many conservative bloggers(Michelle Malkin,atlasshrugs2000) post ARI Op-Eds, press releases, and letters to the editor on their blogs because they agree with Objectivists on some particular issue. I think its time to start offending these people more, not that that should be our primary goal of course. But I still see people call Ayn Rand a conservative, which makes me sick. I think its time to show these people the difference between Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 1:48:40 mst Comment ID: #2 Name: Paul Hsieh E-mail: paul(at)geekpress(dot)com URL: http://www.geekpress.com To Apollo: Once the new ARC office in Washington, DC starts running full-steam and circulating Objectivist ideas through articles, lectures, etc., I think it will be extremely clear to people that Objectivists and conservatives are not the same...
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 4:49:47 mst Comment ID: #3 Name: Cheerwino What does the Bible say about women running blogs? Surely it's in there somewhere.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 5:45:12 mst Comment ID: #4 Name: William H. Stoddard E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/ One of St. Paul's letters says that women should be silent in church. That may be relevant.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 10:21:40 mst Comment ID: #5 Name: j.d. E-mail: j.d(at)aol.com wow. they completely miss why palin isn't qualified.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 10:36:44 mst Comment ID: #6 Name: Col. Hogan E-mail: waynesdirtylab(at)yahoo.com URL: http://colhogan.blogspot.com That stuff sounds very islamic. I'd heard (and read) that islam and christianity are very alike, and the differences are largely because christianity has "mellowed" since the Renaissance period. These quotes by funny-mentalists tend to confirm that.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 11:26:11 mst Comment ID: #7 Name: h-man E-mail: h_blend(at)hotmail.com While objectivists are waiting for the perfect time, and the perfect child the breeders will inherit the earth. As commenter GC noted at another site the religious are more sustainably fertile because their attitudes are towards more shots on the goal ("no porn", "no prostitution","no homosexuality","no sodomy") More goals ("no abortions" & sometimes "no birth control") Fewer offsides calls ("no sex before marriage") And consistent teamwork ("no divorce","no adultery")
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 12:01:34 mst Comment ID: #8 Name: Corgi E-mail: sff.corgi(at)gmail.com URL: http://sff-corgi.livejournal.com Col. Hogan, I'm hardly Objectivist myself, but I've a friend who is, who pointed me at this article. See, I went to high school with people like this and it quite literally nearly drove me mad. One more year, I would have cracked, I'm certain of it. It did, however, firm up a lot of my positions in my own mind and make me argumentative *grin*. Your comment about it sounding like extremist Islam is apt - remember, the Muslims call both Christians and Jews 'People of the Book', indicating their root siblinghood in the history and culture of the region. They're all Semitic. If you lump their shared values together, Semitic religion influences probably more than half the world's population, if not a greater proportion. Makes it even more of a shame that there isn't better understanding between the 'Christian' and 'Muslim' nations, but the Crusades are the scab the extremists pick at, even now. (I need to find some good arguments against St. Paul. Troublemaking sexist swine.) Ms. Hsieh, I salute you for braving those forums. I would have ended up a twitchy mess if I had gone myself.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 13:04:39 mst Comment ID: #9 Name: Renee Katz E-mail: reneekatz(at)gmail.com URL: http://adventuresinexistence.blogspot.com It is hard to start taking these people seriously when you can just laugh at them.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 14:16:16 mst Comment ID: #10 Name: Andrew Dalton E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com h-man: Demographic determinism is very much in fashion today ("Eurabia" and so on), but I'm not buying it. Ideas are not infallibly transmitted from parent to child. While it is true that--all else being equal--parents have a large influence on the worldview that their children will grow up to have, the general culture has a large influence as well. In fact, it can easily swamp the effects of parents' beliefs. And any individual child has the free will to reject the ideas of his parents. The rapid spread of Christianity during the late Roman Empire was *not* caused by any prolific breeding by a previous generation of devout Christians. The same goes for the rising interest in science across Europe during the Renaissance, or the surge in Leftism during the 1960s in the USA. Each of these changes involved *ideas* spreading. Differential fertility rates were not important. We Objectivists are interested in changing the culture, particularly the universities. We'll leave the faddish demographic theories for the conservatives to wring their hands over.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 14:55:21 mst Comment ID: #11 Name: OistPostGrad E-mail: ttcrunch(at)lycos.net "We'll leave the faddish demographic theories for the conservatives to wring their hands over." Demographic based theories dominate the Conservative movement. They serve as the basis for the *number one* concern amongst Conservatives, even more important to most of them than abortion; and that is immigration. Conservatives oppose immigration so much, especial Hispanic immigration, because they feel that with more Hispanic immigrants, America will no longer be a white majority nation. They look on Europe in the same way. Europe is the way it is not primarily because of the ideas they embrace but because they have allowed mass immigration of Muslims according to Conservatives. This fixation on demographics is very much a version of determinism. But this is no surprise as determinism in so many variants absolutely saturates our culture. The Left hates free will because they see it as incompatible with science and the Right, while nominally defending it, destroys free will because free will is totally incompatible with an omnipotent, omniscient God. Objectivists are the only ones truly defending free will and thus rejecting determinism.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 16:08:50 mst Comment ID: #12 Name: Robert Speirs E-mail: robspe43(at)gmail.com Didn't Ayn Rand say that a woman would never want to be President? So she might not approve of Palin either. But she would never agree that a woman who did want to be President should give up that ambition for religious reasons.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 17:58:48 mst Comment ID: #13 Name: Jim May E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com "Demographic based theories dominate the Conservative movement." "Demographic theories" in this context is a fusion of two aspects of determinism -- genetic and cultural. The first (of which racism is a species) focusses on genes, the second focusses on the culture into which you are born. (The Left's "repudiation" of racism consists in substituting culture for genetics as the determining factor *without changing anything else*.) You can see this premise everywhere, any time a person insists on seeking their identity in "heritage" of any sort. All of them stand in direct opposition to the Objectivist principle of individual self-authorship ("Man is a being of self-made soul" -- Ayn Rand), and a key "escape" from the moral responsibility thereof.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 20:30:12 mst Comment ID: #14 Name: William H. Stoddard E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/ Corgi, A sad thing about Islam is that they had a shot at enlightenment. In much of the Middle Ages, the Muslim regions were more civilized than Christian Europe: They valued the knowledge of the ancient world and worked to extend it, and they had functioning markets and long-distance trade when much of Europe lived in squalor. And in the later Middle Ages, there was a branch of Islam called the Mutazili whose basic doctrine (at least according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) was that reason and the Quran could not conflict; if you read the Quran and it said something contrary to reason, you must have misunderstood it, because reason could not be wrong. They were still theists, of course, but so were many Enlightenment thinkers in Europe a few centuries later; and a theist who believes in the value and autonomy of reason has taken a big step in the right direction. Unhappily, they lost out to the Sunni, who were devoted to the exact text of the Quran, plus the Hadiths or traditional stories about what Muhammad had said, and had little tolerance for rational debateā€"and often have little tolerance for it today. The frightening thing is that it's possible for an entire civilization to abandon reason in this way. Which makes the antirational tendencies in our own time scarier.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 20:56:58 mst Comment ID: #15 Name: Adrian Hester William Stoddard: "And in the later Middle Ages, there was a branch of Islam called the Mutazili whose basic doctrine (at least according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) was that reason and the Quran could not conflict; if you read the Quran and it said something contrary to reason, you must have misunderstood it, because reason could not be wrong...Unhappily, they lost out to the Sunni, who were devoted to the exact text of the Quran, plus the Hadiths or traditional stories about what Muhammad had said, and had little tolerance for rational debate..." From what I know of Islamic philosophy, this is not quite correct. First, Mu'tazila (Mu'tazili is the adjective form, I think) flourished in the earlier Middle Ages, before about 1000, and Sunnism congealed as a sort of codified mainstream of Islamic thought at the end of that period. Second, Mu'tazila was more theological than philosophical; the philosophers (who practiced falsafa, from Greek) were more likely to take positions likely to shock Muslim sensibilities, while Mu'tazili thinkers tended more to try to reconcile the Qur'an and Greek philosophy. Both, however, were opposed by the traditionalists, who won out, especially after al-Ghazali. Mu'tazila didn't disappear after about 1000, but it wasn't very important after that. But that doesn't change the fact that your essential point is quite correct.
	Friday, September 19, 2008 at 21:38:27 mst Comment ID: #16 Name: William H. Stoddard E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/ Adrian, Thank you for the corrections. I was going by the Britannica's summary; it appears that you know the period in more depth than I do. The attempt to reconcile the Quran and Greek philosophy of course contained fatal contradictions. But it was a step forward, in that it granted a measure of autonomy to Greek philosophy and more broadly to reason, comparable to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and to the ideas of many Enlightenment philosophers. Indeed, from what I've read, it appears that Aquinas was influenced by the example of Muslim Aristotelians, and of Maimonides, who played a comparable role in Jewish thought. A philosophy that combines reason and faith is flawed, just as a mixed economy is flawed; but it's superior to exclusive reliance on faith, just as a mixed economy is better than collectivism. And it may open the way to a quest for something better. I find it sad that that door was slammed shut so decisively in Islam.
	Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 20:33:42 mst Comment ID: #17 Name: Anthony Mirvish E-mail: amirvish(at)hotmail.com Equal rights for the sexes (based on a common humanity and capacity for rationality) does not imply they are broadly interchangeable or identical. Many of the early suffragettes and feminists held very different views on abortion and other hot topics than do their modern counterparts. Their primary focus politically, beyond, obtaining the vote, was to eliminate laws that arbitrarily treated women differently. It seems illogical to maintain that every "is" implies an "ought" or that every fact has value significance and then exempt relevant biological facts from such principles. It is also illogical to make policy based on exceptions. The choice on this type of issue is not between bin Laden's (or the most extreme Evangelical Christian) view of women and that of Gloria Steinem.
	Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 20:43:29 mst Comment ID: #18 Name: Andrew Dalton E-mail: andrew.s.dalton(at)gmail.com URL: http://witchdoctorrepellent.blogspot.com Anthony: How is that relevant to Diana's post? What policy do you advocate based on "relevant biological facts"?
	Monday, October 20, 2008 at 12:45:53 mst Comment ID: #19 Name: trisha I am an evanglical Christian. This philosphy is NOT leading edge Christianity. Stop watching main stream anti-Christian trash and get into the real heart of the church. Hunt down blogs by leading Christian women-not just the few extremes. Our church has a female pastor and our denomination emphatically supports women in leadership. Check out the United Methodist Church, the Covenant Church of America, Vineyard USA ( which took a really difficult stand on women in leadership), the ECLA, and so many more. Also, I am just not sure where you get so of this junk about Christians and conservatives-it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The "born-again" conservative Christians I know are involved in helping the poor, prison ministries, prison relased-half way shelters, teen mom's assistance, tutoring in inner cities, feeding endless meals at homeless shelters, stocking multiple food pantries, having homeless shelters in their churches every week, addiction help, and of course, the billions of dollars they send every year to relief for the hungry all over the world. I do not judge every athiest by Hitler so do not judge every Christian by fallen leaders. If Christians did not give and support all the assistance programs, the US would crumple under the weight of the burden that is now carried by the church.I am issuing each of you a challenge-find a small to midsize church in your neighborhood. See how people really lives their lives. You may not agree with everything that is preached but you will find people who truly love their neighbors as themselves and live out their lives in humility and honesty.
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