Do you think Christianity is misogynistic?

Yes, biblically so.

No.

Can you separate the religion from the people/leaders?

I think that the religion is probably decent and egalitarian, but it is church (writ large) leadership over the last 2000+ years that is/has/evolved to be mysogynistic.

I realize that I may be splitting hairs here.

The spirituality, the inherent Divinity, is not.

The corruption through patriarchal corruption, most definitely.

There are theologians who have explained the Trinity in terms of feminine, masculine, and beyond-personality aspects of the Cosmos.

Well, it’s fundamentally monotheistic, the mono-god is male, and it is based on earlier pantheistic religions where stories were re-told in ways to vilify the female gods of rival people, etc. So yes there are some threads that could be taken as misogynistic in the roots, as well as misogynistic elements added later.

Christianity though covers many many people and sects over the course of a lot of history. There are some that aren’t misogynistic.

Of course it is. But then again so is fundamentalist Islam and Judaism

It is passages associated with the religion, along with societies’ innate sexism that combine like Voltron to hold women down.

The ancients were patriarchal to be sure. But the early Christians were not misogynistic. Much of the practice of misogyny as it is sometimes associated with the Church came from the Greeks.
So did the Platonic notion of something perfect and higher than man.

All of the Abrahamic religions are. The parts that are kind to women are patronizing and condescending. There is no room for women to hold power, unless it is of the passive-aggressive sort. Women are assumed to be stupid, child-like, cruel, or manipulative – or a combination of these. Always in need of correction or care.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

I think that compared to other religions that existed in the region at the same time Christianity was founded, it was quite liberal minded and offered women freedoms and opportunities that they would not find in the other religions. 2000 years ago, if I wanted to feel like a strong empowered woman, Christianity would be my very first choice and it would be a very easy choice to make.

2000 years later, however, the world has changed and Christianity has not. When you compare the opportunities Christianity offers for a woman to the opportunities she’d have without the religion, there’s a vast difference in favor of not being shackled down by Christian restrictions.

BUT if you compare it only with other religions, Christianity still comes out looking pretty progressive. I’d choose Christianity over Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Hindu, several sects of Buddhism, and several other religions. But while a religion was mandatory for everyone 2000 years ago, it’s not now. And overall in general, a woman is better off without any established religion at all. There are a few exceptions, but not too many.

Oh God, yes!

I should have said that 2000 years later, the world has changed and the BIBLE has not. Certain denominations have made strides to make things better for women.

But I’m not really sure how they make their practices sound with the bible. I wish I knew what verse they reference to allow women to be ministers. Sure, women make excellent ministers and if logic and reason were the only laws churches half to live by, there’s no reason to bar them from the ministry or other leadership positions in the church.

But there are several biblical reasons not to allow women to be ministers. And I don’t know of any verses used to allow women to be ministers OR any interpretations of scripture that would negate women being forbidden from being ministers. I think it’s great that women get the opportunity to be ministers if they want to. But I don’t think a church can justify allowing them to be ministers with the bible. And that could be a theological or even a spiritual conundrum.

The Christianity I was raised with was certainly misogynistic. The women were largely homemakers and the men largely ruled the roost. The Bible was taught literally from Adam on.

Due to God’s failure decision to not update His Book for 2,000+ years, today the Bible provides justification for:
Pedophiles
White Supremacy
Flat Earthers

You name it, the Bible justifies it for someone.
“Jesus loves me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.”

Of course it is. But then again so is fundamentalist Islam and Judaism

Just the idea that Eve is responsible for original sin in this fairytale leads me to say yes to this question.

I’ve been following these many questions and posts on Christianity, etc. I haven’t posted much because I don’t have time to deal with the firestorm that erupts each time a Christian posts, so I probably won’t say much more here.

I think you’re confusing the things man does in God’s name with what God says. You’re also making God responsible (blaming him) for all those things. Everything is God’s fault because he didn’t stop these terrible people from perpetrating their crimes many times over.

It’s our job as Christians to stop evil from advancing. There are many ways to do this including prayer, witnessing, promoting laws that advance good, and sometimes even losing our own lives so that others might live. We haven’t done it perfectly or well, partly because so many Christians don’t understand their responsibility in this. That leaves relatively few of os to carry on in the fight.

Christianity also preaches that a woman is the property of her husband and that she is to let him decide for the family. This is a fundamental belief. How is that NOT misogyny?

But, @snowberry, if …“so many Christians don’t understand their responsibility in this” how are non-believers supposed to have an inkling?

I respect and defend your right to be a Christian, and I don’t see any reason you should be defensive about it. It sometimes seems like the Christians that are the most defensive understand their responsibility in this the least.
Frankly, were I a Christian, I would be hesitant to throw my lot in with the most vocal defenders here on Fluther.

To all:

I’m formulating a response, but to do it right requires time which I don’t have a lot of right now. Later, OK?

Okay.

As you like, @snowberry. Please don’t stress yourself.

“Christianity also preaches that a woman is the property of her husband and that she is to let him decide for the family.” This is a fundamental belief. How is that NOT misogyny?

@cazzie Not in the US it doesn’t! That’s against the law. However, many Christians create rules to live by that might look like that and thus dampen the freedom we find in Christ.

I understand full well what I’m talking about. I used to be in a denomination that taught something that seemed to amount to the same thing. It was very controlling, very manipulative (I’ll give you the details if you want). If my husband had treated me well it would have turned out far differently, but because he didn’t, and I was already depressed to begin with, my outlook on life was very dark indeed.

On one level I understood that his behavior was bad for me, but I had trouble sorting out truth from all the lies I was told. I stayed in that denomination for many years (partly because I was so down I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to get out).

Eventually I escaped from that life because I started listening to what God said I was instead of what my “friends” said I was. The more I did that, the clearer I thought. (If you’re interested, look up “who I am in Christ”). I finally left that church and for 2 years I didn’t attend church at all because of the gossip it would generate in my tiny town which would have made my situation worse.

By the way, my husband has come full circle along with me. He no longer mistreats me. In fact he couldn’t be more considerate or loving. But that’s another story.

Anyway my point is that yes, there are denominations that teach by rules and regulations. The people always end up looking like hypocrites because it never works out well.

I have since discovered that there is also a “golden thread” of Christianity that leads to freedom from depression, self harm, trauma of all sorts and much more. I am living proof of that. I remember it all but it doesn’t hurt anymore. In place of all that baggage I have peace and even joy because of my relationship with Jesus.

@snowberry, I’m not talking about ‘some interpretations’. I’m talking about what is actually written in the book. I’m glad your church has helped you. But the question was about ‘Christianity’ not your personal experience with it, so that is what I was referring to.

The only thing any one can do with the bible is “interpretate.”

@cazzie OK, if it’s a fundamental belief, please give me some actual teaching, because I can’t come up with it. Perhaps some curriculum that verifies what you’re talking about. And while you’re at it, please state what Christian denominations fit your definition of “fundie”. Then perhaps we can at least compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

@snowberry Here is a list of verses people use to prove that condones, encourages and demands the subjugation of women.

And here is a definition of Fundamentalist Christianity. It does not list specific denominations, but tells you what specific doctrine makes the church fundamentalist.

Now let the apple and orange sorting begin.

It isn’t any one Christian denomination that fits the definition of “fundamentalist.” It’s the individuals within whatever denomination.
A friend from HS and I went to the same church as adults. Whereas she took sermons away and beat people over the head with them, I thought about them, mused upon them, took away what sounded reasonable. She believed it ALL. She was a fundamentalist. She was also rude and judgmental .

@Dutchess_III—There are fundamentalist churches, not just individual Christians. Many of them are self proclaimed non-demoninational.

This is a list of denominations that call themselves fundamentalist or are called fundamentalists based on their own creeds or covenants.

Oh semi-relevant – there was a gospel of Mary which was removed by Romans centuries after Christ, for purposes of having more influence over the population. The treatment of Mary and Magdalene was removed, denied, and twisted to have Christianity be more patriarchal and useful for the manipulative drives of the medieval Catholic church.

I disagree on that, @Zaku. That gospel was very likely to be written by Gnostics All gnostic texts were declared heretical in 200 AD. The Gospel of Mary was just one of over fifty books excluded. Gnostic Christians were also declared heretics at this time. Anyone practicing Gnosticism was likely forced to covert to “true” orthodox Christianity upon punishment or death. By 400 AD, they were totally wiped out and historically forgotten until the late 1800s, when a few texts (including the gospel of Mary, I believe) were discovered. In the late 1940s, a huge collection of them were discovered.

The Gnostics had many unconventional beliefs, but were most likely wiped out for one specific belief. Most Orthodox Jews and Christians believe that God and man are separated because of the divine nature of God. Gnostics basically believed that humans could learn to become divine themselves. I don’t think they believed that Jesus was born as God in the flesh. They believe he became that way by learning and practicing divine knowledge. I think they believed that anyone could become divine if they followed Christ’s example and lived the way he did.

If you know much about Christianity today, you can understand why they were declared heretics. Orthodox Christians didn’t want people thinking they could save themselves from sin and grant themselves eternal life, for a number of reasons. It’s better that there be only one person who could save people from sin—and the only way to have contact with that one person was through the church. This gave the church ultimate power over life, death and eternity.

Anyway, I just don’t think Mary was a gospel removed just because people didn’t want women having more influence. It was gnostic and everything gnostic was destroyed.

As an aside, Gnosticism has been revived in modern times. It’s really interesting stuff

@keobooks In other words, massive changes to scripture have been made for political reasons. This has happened multiple times in the history of the Bible.

@dappled_leaves—oh yeah. Except for a few books that were basically a collection of “tall tales” about amazing things Jesus did without offering any spiritual teaching, almost everything banned from the bible from 200AD onward was banned for political rather than pure spiritual reasons.

It’s interesting that Revelation was the last book approved for the bible and the most heavily debated among Christian leaders. This page contains a list of all of the other apocalyptic books that were contenders to be the official “end of the world” belief. I saw a documentary that talked about the book that was the second most popular choice. I wish I could remember the name.

According to the documentary, the very end of the world was very different than in Revelation.
Basically, all the souls in heaven came to God and told him that heaven was not the joyful place they were promised. There could be no true joy in heaven while there were souls left suffering in hell. How could anyone be joyful knowing that others were eternally suffering? So God opened up the gates of hell and let all the damned souls into heaven and then hell was destroyed. Everyone who ever existed lived forever with God in eternal happiness.The end.

Yeah… That wasn’t going to last very long in the bible….

Explain to me why every little girl at bible school who learns about ‘original sin’ is not meant to feel shame about being a female?

@keobooks It’s a complicated subject, and yes there were various reasons the Gnostics were, centuries after Jesus, deemed no good by the Romans and later Catholics. Having them “deemed heretical” is part of the whole topic here.

When I mentioned controlling people, I was thinking of both the divinity in everyone, and also the mentions of reincarnation. I hear that the Roman emperor figured it would be easier to preoccupy Christians with obedience if they only thought they had one lifetime to atone for sin. Orienting towards the masculine rather than the feminine including removing accounts based on Mary and Magdalene would also tend to focus on authority.

I don’t understand what you’re saying you disagree with. We’ve both written that it was centuries after Christ that some authority-oriented Christians went about claiming to be able to “deem” other students of Jesus’ messages to be heretical and so on. I suppose you just mean to say it was about much more than patriarchy, and I don’t disagree, but I think it moved Christianity in that direction (as well as others).

While certainly not the only misogynistic religion in existence today it is certainly among the ranks of those that are. Some sects, or denominations, are worse than others and I think that, in general, the more literal their interpretation of the Bible the greater the misogyny.

This could lead some to believe that the Bible is the source of this misguided prejudice. My personal view is that this is a Chicken or the Egg causation, so to speak. The book is a literary representation of the feelings and attitudes of those who put it together in its final form. The early church leaders are the ones who cherry picked the selections; allowing only those gospels and passages that conformed to their particular world view regarding the inferiority of women and denouncing those who expressed a more Christian Egalitarianistic view. And this same tome goes on furthering these same ideas of inequality among those who follow and believe.

Paul is by far the most misogynistic writer in the Bible but perhaps this is perhaps because he is also the one who has the largest body of work that has been included. And, since there are many biblical scholars who believe that much of the writing attributed to Paul were actually written by others at a later date, it is very possible that much of the sexism also attributed to him are in fact indicative of the beliefs of those who came after him.

Pamela Eisenbaum, when speaking of Daniel Boyarin, a Jewish scholar, states that : “For Boyarin, Paul’s flaw—the confusion of equality with sameness best expressed in Gal. 3:28—becomes a pathology in Christianity. Christianity came to understand religiousness as faith in Christ which was not concretized in the kinds of prescriptions Jews followed. In other words, Christianity began to see itself as a purely spiritual religion able to encompass all the diverse peoples of the world, while it saw Judaism as inordinately preoccupied with its peculiar ways of doing things and thus devoid of the spirit. Similarly, women became associated with the material body, and men with the transcendent spirit. Thus, Boyarin argues, Paul marks the beginning of the dominant male, Christian perspective of Western culture. This perspective imagined human essence as the white civilized Christian male and viewed both women and Jews as, at best,limited kinds of persons (italics mine) farther removed from the ideal human essence and, at worst, as the particularized “other” in relation to the universal human being (in other words, the opposite of the ideal). Thus, Boyarin thinks Paul is the father of misogyny and antisemitism.”

@Zaku , the way you posted your original post with the gospel of Mary made it seem as if it were individually plucked out because it gave Mary special status and women more power in the church. I said it was one of over 50 texts that were wiped out all at once, and may have been wiped out without a second glance at the teachings in that specific book. It wasn’t any more or less controversial than the other 50 texts. They were all heretical and were all done away with together.

@cazzie Gosh, I can’t remember learning about the woman’s part in the fall of man in the Garden of Eden as a little girl.
I never remember feeling shame when I did learn about it, whenever I did.
Oh. Wait. Even as a kid I’m going, “Talking snakes? Evil apples? Nahhhh….”

@Dutchess_III My parents were old school Catholics.

OIC @cazzie.

@keobooks Oh I see, thanks.

It seems to me the perspective makes a huge difference. From the point of view of the editors and their followers, and later Christians, it can seem that there was a fundamental error or at least non-Christian-ness in everything deemed heretical. From the point of view of the earlier followers of Jesus, including the Gnostics and many others, the later-organized Christians claiming authority to say what is and isn’t valid, I imagine may seem misled in directions Jesus himself may not have condoned.

Even the apostles seemed jealous of Magdalene, both for her close relationship to Jesus, and for what seems her better grasp of his teachings. Seems to fit that later the men of the Church conveniently dismiss and interpret things in certain ways.

According to a book written by Dan Dennett and Linda LaScola, as described in this article, some (the number is uncertain) future pastors lose their faith in seminaries upon learning about scriptural history.

That can only happen if they open their minds to the possibility that what they’re reading just doesn’t jive with the common sense things they’ve learned in their lives. I imagine that particular thing only gets more common as the average person gets more and more educated.

Actually NO

• To ungodly women: yes.
• Immature milk Believers: yes
• Atheist: yes
• People-pleasing congregations: yes.

Everyone has the right to be wrong, but the misogynistic foolishness came from overactive imaginations not from the Lord.

@Hypocrisy_Central I long to hear the quotes from the bible that show how women are NOT property or to bow to the will of their husbands….

Sigh. I will try this again, but given our previous discussion @Hypocrisy_Central, I know that in your view only the faithful can truly understand the Bible. I’ve picked New Testament verses so we can dispense with whether or not the Old Testament Law is still valid.

EPHESIANS 5:22–24
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Now starting with verse 25, yes husbands must love their wives, but they do not have to submit.

Rape: “Deuteronomy 22:28–29

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her.”

You don’t think it is misogynistic and demeaning to force a woman who is raped to marry her rapist?
You don’t think it’s demeaning to be “sold” like a pig?

How about this one, where the woman gets stoned to death for “not fighting hard enough”:

Deuteronomy 22:23–24

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

I assume that what @Hypocrisy_Central is saying is that a godly woman wants to subjugate herself to a man’s will. And surely, an ungodly woman shouldn’t care what is written in the Bible, anyway. Presto: Christianity is not misogynistic.

No, no, what he is saying is that you do not understand the bible because you do not believe it.

@ragingloli, Unfortunately for @Hypocrisy_Central, the great thing about science, it is true whether you believe it or not.

@Inara27 EPHESIANS 5:22–24
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Now starting with verse 25, yes husbands must love their wives, but they do not have to submit.
OK, here we go once more, do you know the Greek word to which the English translation was derived? Since I guess you do not know or you would not even try to use that verse to prove misogamy as many feminist and ungodly people try to do. It comes from the Greek word hypotassō, which basically means to arrange or place yourself under willingly as one who joins the military knows they will willingly submit to sergeants, majors, captains, etc. the wife’s submission is willingly and voluntarily.

The next verse; which came first, the man or woman? You have a job, or had jobs; did everyone sit at the top and make decisions? What doesn’t have order? Man was created in God’s image, he was first, so he was placed in the position of being the head.

Verse 24, if a wife cannot submit to her husband willingly because God placed him there, and if he is doing his job, is no different than an order coming through a CEO through his Jr. Executives, or a manager passing on assignments through a supervisor. How can she even submit to God if she can’t follow the order He set?

Verse 25th, Get the whole thing now, it says Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,, he still has to submit to God. But he has to love her like Christ loves the church, and Christ loves the church to the point He died for it. So a man has to love his wife until his own death if need be, and all she has to do is submit willingly, she doesn’t have to give her life for her husband; seems like she got a way better deal to me.

The right context puts it all into proper perspective.

[…the great thing about science, it is true whether you believe it or not.
Sure it is, God created it, so it is true and real no matter how incorrect man tries to figure it out or think it does what it does; that is not any misfortune to me, science proves to me all the time God exist.

@Dutchess_III God bless you, you certainly keep trying. Apply that effort to obtaining wealth or whatever here, this is it, once you leave……well….you can’t amass anything.

@dappled_leaves I assume that what @Hypocrisy_Central is saying is that a godly woman wants to subjugate herself to a man’s will.
Wrong again, but God bless you as well for your tenacity….. keep trying though.

@Hypocrisy_Central
and all you have done is confirm the misogyny.

@Hypocrisy_Central my guess is that you’ve never been married. Or been around many groups of people.

@keobooks Or been around many groups of people.
Some of the greatest unions i have seen follow the construct as those of the Bible, far more than those who follow the other guy, their de facto leader.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Wrong again”

But everything that precedes this statement backs up what I wrote. You are contradicting yourself by saying that I’m wrong.

Why can’t God sacrifice a rib and send His only begotten daughter to straighten this mess out?

@ibstubro According to hieroglyphics on the platinum tablets of the new Church of Anti-Morman I just was blessed with a vision of, God did that but on another planet, where there’s a matriarchal spiritual society. They have few sports involving competing to put balls in special places, and they have inferior military technology and decided it’d be better not to split the atom, but they also have no ecological challenges, no poverty, no energy crisis, and they live in a world-wide park and it’s basically and endless musical love festival.

@Hypocrisy_Central , Let me see if I have this right. You are saying that the relationship of wife to husband is the same as a soldier to commanding officer in the military. Do you not see the inherent inequality in the relationship? The woman’s only other option is not to get married. How can this attitude be considered anything other than misogynistic? Why not have the husband be the soldier and the wife the commanding officer or, better yet, the way most modern day people see it, establish marriage as a relationship between equals?

@LostInParadise Let me see if I have this right. You are saying that the relationship of wife to husband is the same as a soldier to commanding officer in the military. Do you not see the inherent inequality in the relationship?
Nearly ALL things have an order, a pride of lions, a pack of wolves, a corporation, the military, someone is the lead and others follow. Just as we have a volunteer army here in the US, when someone enlist, they do so WILLINGLY knowing they will be subjected to the direction and orders from those above them in rank. If they did not trust those they are agreeing to be under in service for their country, they should not join. The operative word is they did so willingly, just as you enter a job willingly knowing the boss, supervisor, manager, etc. will tell you what to do, how long to take your lunch hour, what days you have to work, etc. If the man was making her do it, then there would be inequality.

@Hypocrisy_Central is not a feminist, I think we can safely say.

@Hypocrisy_Central , I know this is not going to change your mind, but there is one significant difference between the military relationship and marriage. In the military, a soldier has a chance to rise through the ranks and conceivably be above the former commanding officer. In marriage, the Christian view has the woman subservient to the man permanently, no matter who she marries. If she does not like playing second fiddle, her only other option is not to marry. That is not much of a choice.

And of course traditionally marriages were arranged by the patriarchs of the involved families, so the women had no say if or whom they married became enslaved to.
Of course, the woman does all that “willingly”, just as a store owner “willingly” gives money to the mob to not have his windows smashed in.

I just thought of another flaw in the argument. Corporate hierarchies are not the best business related analogy. A two person hierarchy does not make much sense. A better model would be a small business run as a partnership. Such businesses are not uncommon. Law firms are commonly run that way. My father started and ran a business with an equal partner. I once worked for a small software company run by two co-owners.

It reminds me of the argument by some people that slavery was good for black people.

So, what’s your point, @Hypocrisy_Central?
Humans are just a more highly evolved animal and nature determines the hierarchy?
Or that women are not fit for leadership positions in the military and business?

You eventually retire from the military. You go home from work now and then in the corporate world. You are in a marriage 24/7 with no escape until one of you dies or you get a divorce.

Also, one person always being in charge isn’t just bad for the woman, it can be bad for the couple as well. I’ve known people in marriages like this and they get several problems that would have never come up if they were more equal partners. Here are some of several.

1. Husband wants kids right away. Wife doesn’t feel ready yet. They have kids because the husband says so. Wife endures much physical discomfort (possibly more so because of a medical condition she was wanting to get fixed up before she got pregnant.). And even though it was the husband who wanted kids, the wife ends up doing almost all the care for them. And if she thinks that having a second or third kid is too much for her to take care of, it doesn’t matter. If husband wants that extra child, they will have it.

2. Wife is financially savvy. Husband is clueless but thinks that men should be in charge of the finances. Husband makes terrible choices and the whole family suffers financial hardship when they don’t have to.

3. Wife has a higher earning potential than her husband. She deliberately holds back on this because her husband would feel shame if she earned more than him. If she has a stable job that earns a lot of money and the husband is offered a transfer, they will relocate the family—even if there are no job opportunities for the wife that would earn anywhere near what she was making. So the husband earns a promotion, but the family ends up earning less overall.

I’ve seen women who had mechanical skills take their cars to a mechanic instead of fixing it themselves because they didn’t want to shame their husbands by fixing the car when he couldn’t.

I’ve been on a car trip where we drove 80 miles in the wrong direction because even though the wife had the map, the husband felt like he knew a shortcut and went the wrong way. After he finally realized he was very much in the wrong, he chewed out his wife and tried to make the whole thing her fault.

I know many Christians who say that stuff like this wouldn’t happen if the man was doing his role correctly as stated in the bible. Maybe they are right. But the problem is, if a man isn’t living by his own biblical rules, the wife is still expected to behave. The men are forgiven for not measuring up. The women are not.

Even if a man blatantly violates the laws of the bible, the church stands up for the man They may even blame the woman because she should have done something to stop it even though she’s not technically allowed to do so. A woman must always be submissive—even if her husband is a terrible leader.

As every woman knows, to keep harmony in the house, you have to take care of his ego. You have to make him think he’s as big/strong/smart as he thinks he is. Sometimes it’s just a matter of not saying anything at all.

@Dutchess_III, @keobooks OTOH, there are many times (at least in my 25+ year of married life) when I don’t have a strong opinion on something, or her opinion is so much stronger than mine on a particular topic. It is at times like this that I go with the premise “Happy wife, happy life”.

Sometimes that is true @Yetanotheruser.

@Yetanotheruser that goes both ways for us. Whoever has the stronger opinion about something “wins” it’s just the way 2people negotiate.

I rarely drop the hammer on my husband, but when I do, He Listens.

@LostInParadise In marriage, the Christian view has the woman subservient to the man permanently, no matter who she marries. If she does not like playing second fiddle, her only other option is not to marry.
One could use that methodology to say when one becomes a believer eventually they can ascend to be equal with God. Christian, or Believers can run their homes corporately, but that is not the design God made and there will be repercussion for it, even though it doesn’t manifest itself pointblank in the face of those who do it. If a woman is subjecting herself to God, then they will do as God says do inferring to His greater wisdom, and if that is having man as the head and her cover, she will do so willingly if she never rises in household rank as the man, but she would not see it as robbery not to but as obedience to God. Of course, if you have a feminist spirit you would never go as far to see that and see it incorrectly as being ”second fiddle”.

dig your hole deeper, go on.

If God exists, the difference between God and a human is vast and immeasurable. Being immortal, omnipresent and omnipotent gives you a big advantage over a puny mortal.

The difference between man and woman is some chromosomes and sex organs.

@ragingloli The dirt coming out of that massive canyon you have already dug, and getting deeper, I use to build a larger mound…..but you don’t know it, oh well, when it collapses in on you all I can do is pray.

Troglodyte?

I was thinking termite… But that’ll work too.

@keobooks And the sex organs are not even all that different. The sex chromosomes, on the other hand, are quite different, and the X is vastly superior to the Y.

If @Hypocrisy_Central ‘s take on Christianity is correct or close to ‘canon’, (and I don’t see why not, he is the most fundy of our lot, is he not?) Then I think we can safely assume that Christianity is misogynistic. But not all Christians are.

I wonder how he compares himself to the Westboro Baptist Church.
I think they are quite similar in their extremity.

Well, @ragingloli, he says he would be serving up cake to same sex couples where ‘turpentine wouldn’t wash out the taste’. That makes me wonder the lengths he’d go to.

Would you be surprised if he wore a bomb vest to a same-sex wedding?

I don’t think he’d kill himself over his cause, no. @Brian1946

@Brian1946 Would you be surprised if he wore a bomb vest to a same-sex wedding?
Whatever…..if i did that I would have no chance to talk to them about getting on the boat before the flood came. Keep trying though, be blessed and hopefully enlightened.

And may you one day realise that you believe in lies.

Yeah, if I started believing the ungodly LOL LOL

because misogyny and bigotry are so godly.

@keobooks and @cazzie, etc. Sorry, I’ve had everything from sick folks visiting to a sick dog. But I’m still here.

@keobooks said, “Even if a man blatantly violates the laws of the bible, the church stands up for the man They may even blame the woman because she should have done something to stop it even though she’s not technically allowed to do so. A woman must always be submissive—even if her husband is a terrible leader.”

Yep. I used to go to a church that fit that description. As I said in my above post (http://www.fluther.com/182170/do-you-think-christianity-is-misogynistic/#quip3123865) I knew it well. However, a wife is supposed to submit to her husband AS UNTO THE LORD. This means that if he’s not honoring God in what he does or how he treats her, she doesn’t need to obey him in that respect.

I learned this lesson the hard way: When a wife allows her husband to sin against her is not glorifying God or anyone else, and not only that, it’s teaching the kids that Christians are hypocrites which I’m sure is why so many of you hate Christians. Lots of rule oriented Christians lose on that point, and so did I as long as I followed the rules in that church. It wasn’t fun for any of us. And of course, our kids lost out the most because they had no choice in the matter.

A husband who treats his wife as Christ loved the church is a beautiful thing. To expand on this, he puts her needs and desires before his own. In turn she is not commanded to love him, but to respect him. (That’s how my husband treats me now, and you bet I respect him and I love him too, especially since he actually acts like he loves me as well!)

If a husband abuses his wife, how can she respect him? She can’t. So instead of Christianity being misogynistic, it’s actually a system of mutual submission. Yes, the husband is the head, but he certainly has learned he’d better listen to me before doing anything major. I provide valuable insight and information that enhances the decisions we make. Each partner is to treat the other well, and seek to please God in the process. (Sorry, I’m not giving references here, but I can provide them if you want.)

The problem is, that the church rarely supports a wife when she is not submitting to her husband, no matter how awful he is. If you look at the link I posted, you’ll see that a man cheated on his wife and the pastor said “he’s a man. He can’t help it. Forgive him. Also, maybe if you did more for him, he wouldn’t have to wander away.” The man cannot be blamed for cheating, because it’s the job of the wife to be so sexy and alluring all the time that he never is tempted to cheat. If a man is abusive, perhaps the woman can be s little less annoying so he’s not tempted to hit her. It goes on.

That’s the weak link. The man can totally shirk his duty and the woman will be expected to follow or lose support from the church.

^^ When a wife allows her husband to sin against her is not glorifying God or anyone else, and not only that, it’s teaching the kids that Christians are hypocrites which I’m sure is why so many of you hate Christians.
Nice to see everyone less three are not blind here.

@keobooks “That’s the weak link. The man can totally shirk his duty and the woman will be expected to follow or lose support from the church.”.

I went to that pastor and others explaining that hubby was mistreating me, but they refused to believe me. Their refusal to believe me was a sin against God. And Hubby’s mistreatment of me was also a sin against God. For a while I wept because I knew God would judge him for the way he was treating me, but then I realized that I was also sinning by allowing the cycle to continue. I was as bad as he was, and I was possibly the worst because I allowed it to continue!

Eventually Hubby confronted the pastor in that church, but he refused to even believe him. The man really was deluded, and eventually even others in that church began to see it. In the end that church disbanded, which was a bittersweet thing to me. The church was gone, but so many people were hurt because of the way it happened, and many fell away from God as a result. This is the fallout of sin. God will judge that pastor more harshly than he will judge others. We continue to pray for him that he repents.

The price for sin in this life is always misery and it comes in many forms. The price for sin in the next life is eternal separation from God. Nobody gets a free pass from sin.

What is this “When a wife allows her husband to sin against her…”? According to the Bible, the wife is not to allow or disallow anything, only to be subservient. I don’t see any place where that can be modified to ”...unless he wants to sin against her.”

I’m still holding up that most churches don’t disband over something like this. I’ve seen churches that have been around a long time and will be around for a long time that operated like this. You can just say “Oh well, it’s the pastor’s fault…” But that doesn’t change the fact that almost all of these women are either stuck being miserable in order to stay in line with the church, or they are ostracized from possibly the only social outlet that they are allowed to have if they step out of line. It gets harder to find a new social support group as you get older.

Your situation changed. Great. It doesn’t happen like that for the majority of women in this situation. There are even women who get badly beaten or killed for “not allowing it to continue.” I’m sure the church doesn’t support the killing, but after that, it’s too late for the woman.

@Dutchess_III Do you know what “As unto the Lord” in that sentence means? If a husband were to tell his wife to worship him for example, that would be sinning against God. That’s not right, and furthermore, it doesn’t even make sense. “As unto the Lord” doesn’t give him the right to ask her to do anything that would dishonor God.

@keobooks I agree with you that many churches that don’t honor God and have been around for a long time and probably will continue as they have. Most fundamental pastors teach on Hebrews 13:7: “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” My former pastor did, and I really found it difficult to swallow his teachings when he refused to believe how I suffered at the hands of my husband (his right hand man).

If you consider your leader’s way of life and you see that the outcome of their way of life (the end result) doesn’t honor God, you really need to look for a different church with leaders who do follow God.

When I first realized this I was shocked, but the more I studied it, the more sense it made, and the more convinced I became that God was not being honored in that church. I was then responsible and free to follow God regardless of what my husband or my pastor said or did.

@snowberry “However, a wife is supposed to submit to her husband AS UNTO THE LORD. This means that if he’s not honoring God in what he does or how he treats her, she doesn’t need to obey him in that respect.”

By this logic, if the lord asked you to do something that you thought was biblically wrong (for example, to kill your son), then you should not obey. But isn’t that exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches? Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac even though that was wrong according to everything we know from the Bible. Should he have refused? Did he not need to obey?

I think the meaning of your quote is very clearly something different. To submit to someone “as unto the lord” means to submit unquestioningly and with devotion. It means exactly the opposite of what you are saying that it means.

@dappled_leaves The difference is that God told Abraham to kill his son. God, not a mere man. That’s significant. And obviously a husband is only a man.

We are also cautioned to ”...work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:3

You can bet I was very very sure before I stepped away from that church. It was not something I did on a whim. And by the way, Hubby now agrees with me that I did exactly the right thing.

@snowberry “God, not a mere man. That’s significant. And obviously a husband is only a man.”

But this is exactly my point. The husband is only a man. Yet the wife is told to submit to him as if he is her god. It is not unclear on this point.

Nope.

If only the ‘sinning’ had more defined edges and were more black and white. The Blame Game, however, is fun for both husbands and priests. Not so much for the wife or female children.

Holly smokes Bullwinkle, the misconceptions and all out muddle view of what the Bible says about husbands and wives, and it is not @snowberry that is off the reservation either. LOL

But the brain washing can be horrific. Jim Jones comes to mind. He instructed his followers to worship him. And they did.

^ If they had read their Bible closer he would not have bamboozled them into drinking the deadly Kool-aid.

edit However, there is no Jim Jones causing the misconceptions going on in this thread as of late.

I was referring to the comment (paraphrased) that if a husband tells a wife to do something that is ungodly, she can refuse. But there is a brain washing involved in many relationships.

^ That happens inside the church and out, in the church is people not reading their Bible closely, I do not know what excuse they have outside the church, as they are under no such mandate.

Well, they read it, choose what they want out of it, and go with it. In the case we’re talking about, if a man wants a woman to do something that she feels would be forbidden by God, he’ll quote verses at her, or explain “his” interpretation, until she’s confused and doesn’t trust herself any more. I mean, I can see something like that happening.
Abusers (men and women) have a way of brainwashing and confusing their victims. For some Christians, the Bible can be a weapon.

Agrees with @Dutchess_III about the weapon comment. It’s like a chainsaw in the hands of a homicidal maniac.

Here are some sciencey-truthy facts for you, @Hypocrisy_Central . https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion

^ If we are to merely play the ”numbers game”, it works. I would expect there to be less atheist in prison just as I would expect there would be less Tongans in prison; there are not that many to start with. That fact would have more teeth if the population had equal number of confessed and practicing atheist as people who claim the Christian faith.

Here is how easy it is to use the ”numbers game”, Iceland has about the same rate of gun ownership as Canada, around 30 people for each 100 heads. Yet they have almost zero homicide by firearms. We can say it is not because they are atheist that they seem so benign but the fact so many are packing. That the US has so many murders is because not enough people have weapons.

Let’s use it again; drug dealers and users should be on a list for when they move into a neighborhood because they are way more likely statistically to fall of the wagon and into their old ways than sex offenders who have overall a very low rate of recidivism. Still, I bet you would not want one living three doors down from you even with the fact of more positive numbers. Number can be manipulated depending on which playing field you want to use them on.

I should know better. Logic center is gone. Here is how easy it is to use the ”numbers game”, Iceland has about the same rate of gun ownership as Canada, around 30 people for each 100 heads. Yet they have almost zero homicide by firearms. We can say it is not because they are atheist that they seem so benign but the fact so many are packing. That the US has so many murders is because not enough people have weapons. Your comparisons have nothing to do with the point you are making. You bring up the US without providing comparative statistics. Also, it has been already proven that rate of ownership of firearms among a population does NOT correlate to numbers of violent crimes and deaths from those firearms.

When a study says a particular group is ‘underrepresented’ it means that it has been compared to the general population already and statically accounted for by use of percentages. Numbers aren’t a game unless you don’t know how to read them. In the study discussed in the article, he was refuting claims made by another researcher who was claiming that being an Athiest or Secularist or Humanist, you were more likely to be an offender. The numbers do not back up his assertion. They are NOT more likely to be offenders. Also, the other studies…..

But what that article proves isn’t that their god is horrible, but it proves that, on average, people who call themselves ‘Christian’ simply are flawed human beings and labeling yourself something doesn’t make you good, but in too many societies, people who use these labels to defend or excuse their actions get too much of a ‘free pass’.

Answer withdrawn.

@cazzie But what that article proves isn’t that their god is horrible, but it proves that, on average, people who call themselves ‘Christian’ simply are flawed human beings and labeling yourself something doesn’t make you good, but in too many societies, people who use these labels to defend or excuse their actions get too much of a ‘free pass’.
I guess that is an issue we are both slightly in agreement with, in that I know many who call themselves Christian do not act like it. There are stats all over the place (Swing a stick, you will bound to hit one in any direction) that says more than half of the US populace is Christian, I know that is a lie because of it were truth and these Christians were walking in step with the Bible, this would be a very different nation. I do not know who is sitting in the pews of the tens of thousands of churches, but they do not seem to be applying the Bible much at all in their daily walk. But just as the numbers can be padded out with Church LDS, JWs, and other religions that has a leaning to belief in God but deny Jesus His deity it doesn’t give the proper truth. Same as nations that are far less Christ leaning but are armed to the teeth but have less gun crimes, one cannot make the distinction the low gun crimes are a byproduct of the nation being ”less Christian” and more nonbelieving than because everyone is armed.

I am on Elizabeth Warren’s email list, no doubt due to some petition that I signed. I would like to share this post that she just sent out. It is ostensibly a paean of praise for her husband of many years, but I think it is also clearly meant as a way of reversing the usual stereotypical descriptions of the relationship between husband and wife.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Hello,

By the time I was 30, I thought my life was settled. Granted, not quite what I’d expected – but settled. I was a single mom with two little kids, and I’d just started teaching law in Houston. I thought I knew what my life would look like forever.

And then I met a guy named Bruce.

One summer, Mother, Daddy and Aunt Bee watched the kids so I could go to an intensive course on economics. At the end of the row in front of me, I spotted Bruce – a young professor from Massachusetts who specialized in legal history of the American Revolution. A lot of people might think that two young law professors would be drawn together because they wanted to talk about law all the time. Nope: I fell in love with Bruce because he had great legs. Really. He was gorgeous.

By lunch on that first day, I’d found out that Bruce had spent his summers through college teaching tennis, so I bounced up to him and cheerfully asked if he would give me tennis lessons. Bruce later admitted that he was sort of appalled. But he was exceptionally sweet and polite, so I set up a time to meet him on the courts after that day’s last session, never noticing his lack of enthusiasm.

Bruce and I are very different people. If I’m a hard-charging, go-to-the-mat-for-whatever-you-believe kind of person. Bruce is more of a quiet, scholarly, camping-out-in-the-archives-poring-over-an-old-legal-manuscript kind.

Years later, over a great deal of beer, Bruce confessed that I wasn’t just pretty bad at tennis, I was terrible. I was his Worst Student Ever. I hit balls everywhere: over fences, over hedges, over buildings. Once I had a weapon in my hand, I gave it everything I had.

Bruce tells his own version of the story, but I figure the details don’t really matter. Bruce loved me anyway, and I was completely crazy about him. When I proposed to him, he said yes. I bought a sundress that could double as a wedding gown, and 35 years ago today, I married Bruce.

Bruce has about a million good qualities, but I want to mention one: Throughout my career, and all the unexpected twists and turns, Bruce has been my biggest supporter. He has never once discouraged me from taking on a fight. Whenever I’ve been angry about the damage the big banks and powerful interests were doing to families all across the country, Bruce has always encouragingly asked: “So what are you going to do about it?” He’s always believed that if I wanted people to listen to my ideas, I might as well shout from the highest mountain I could find.

Without Bruce, I never would’ve undertaken most of the adventures in my life. This anniversary, I’ll celebrate living in America where everyone can marry their own Bruce – their best friend, biggest supporter, and love of their life.

Thanks for reading this mushy email. And happy anniversary, Sweetie! I love you.

Elizabeth