1]The Bible is
consistently antifeminist. In fact, if you wanted to write a consistent
manifesto on the evils and foolishness of feminism all you would have to do is
take a series of quotes from the Bible and you could make your case. It is not
the primary teaching of the Bible, but it is an important aspect to the
Scriptures. The Bible is a patriarchal text and feminism is explicitly anti-patriarchal,
hence it is not an accident that the Bible is consistently antifeminist.
Take this wedding
Psalm for instance. We read in Psalm 45,
“10
Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and
your father's house, 11 and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your
lord, bow to him. 12 The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the
richest of the people” (Psalm 45:10-12).
“Forget your
people and your father’s house.” This is the same command given to Adam in
Genesis 2:24. To leave and cleave. The bride is leaving her old identity, her
old family, her old allegiances, to form a new one with her husband. This is a
complete and total transfer of loyalty. She is to "forget"—not
in the sense of never remembering, but in the sense of no longer being
primarily defined by—her past. She is the now the wife of a man, she now is to
base her identity around that, and not around her home of origin. This is as
antifeminist as you can get.
Why should
she do this? "and the king will desire your beauty." (v.11).
Her new identity is found in her husband’s desire for her. His delight in her
is what now defines her. This is a picture of the gospel. We are called to
leave our old life, our old master (sin), and our old identity, and to find our
new identity in Christ’s desire for us. He desires his bride. He delights in
his people. Remember marriage is a picture of Christ’s love for the church, hence
there is a model in that for our marriages to look towards.
Then comes
the charge: "Since he is your lord, bow to him." (v.11).
There it is. The verse that makes modern people squirm. Submission. The word
"bow" here is the same idea as submission. It is an acknowledgment of
his leadership and lordship. This is not a popular idea today. But we have to
ask, why is it here? Is it so the king can dominate her? No. Look at the
context. It is surrounded by beauty, desire, and honor. Her submission is a
response to his love and his leadership. It
is her part in the dance. By defaulting to her husband she increased the
possibility for unity in the marriage. Marriage is not meant to be combat, feminists
would make it that though. Rather submission to her husband allows the woman to
reflect Christ in the relationship.
This is
exactly the pattern we see in the New Testament: "Wives, submit to your
own husbands, as to the Lord" (Eph 5:22). And why? Because the husband is
charged to love his wife "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her" (Eph 5:25). The husband’s job is to use all of his strength, all
of his majesty, all of his victory, for the good of his wife, to make her holy
and beautiful (Eph 5:26-27). When a husband leads like that,
submission is not a burden; it is a joy and a privilege. It is like the church
submitting to Christ.
This is a
picture of Christian marriage but however you frame it this will offend
feminists. This is because of what feminism is, it is an antichrist philosophy.
Here is something from another work I am currently putting together,
“When
you recognize that equality is not a biblical
position you recognize that the scriptures cannot have been the driving
force for feminism. Feminism is, in reality, inherently about power and
domination not equality, but it frames itself as a quest for equality, and is
understood by many, whether progressive or conservative, to be as such. But
even if it were truly about equality the Scriptures cannot be the impetus for
this movement, because the scriptures are not concerned with equality. This
becomes especially clear when you look at the explicit teaching on this issue
from the Bible.
Feminism says
women should lead society, the Bible says a society led by women is
cursed, Isaiah 3:12 - “12 My people—infants are their oppressors, and women
rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up
the course of your paths.”
Feminism says
the home should not have a head, and if it does, it need not be the man. The
Bible says, “22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he
made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at
last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:22-23). In the ancient world,
where this was written, naming is a sign of authority and pre-eminence. The one
who leads, the one who has authority, is the one who can name. But if that is
not clear enough, then the Bible also says is, “5 For this is how the
holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their
own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (1 Peter 3:5-6).
Feminism says women
should teach and assume authority over men, the Bible says, “11 Let a
woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to
teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (1
Timothy 2:11-12). Or Paul’s last work, “2 You then, my child, be strengthened
by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the
presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach
others also” (2 Timothy 2:1-2).
Feminism says that
gender is a construct and that men and women are interchangeable, and some say
that marriage is an oppressive institution. Jesus tells us, “4 He
answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made
them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and
his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”
(Matthew 19:4-5). The Bible not only affirms the goodness of marriage, and the
reality of the male and female genders, it also highlights gender differences.
For example, 1 Corinthians 16:13 – “13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith,
act like men, be strong.” Or Jeremiah 48:41 – “…The cities shall be taken and
the strongholds seized. The heart of the warriors of Moab shall be in that day
like the heart of a woman in her birth pains…”
So,
not only is the Bible not concerned with equality it also rejects the pillars
of feminism at every point. Someone might respond and say, but feminism is
about justice, is the Bible against justice? No, the Bible taught the West to
defend the weak, and to do what is right, the Bible defined what justice meant
in the West for centuries, and still effects our understanding of fairness,
openness and equity today. Feminism undermines those Scriptures, and therefore
is a force for wickedness because it redefines justice…indeed, that is what all
social justice is, a redefinition of justice. Justice needs no qualifier, only
application.
That someone can read these passages
we have looked and say that the Bible is consistent with feminism is completely
against reason. In fact, even some of the first wave, or so-called evangelical,
feminists saw how these passages conflicted with their ideology. Which is
embarrassing, because modern “evangelical” feminists say the Bible is
consistent with their ideology, whereas the original “evangelical” feminists
confidently said that it was not. Rather than face this, and conform their
version of Christianity to the Bible’s teachings, they simply decided to brush
this teaching aside,
“While woman's subordination is taught
as a Scriptural doctrine, the most devout and learned biblical scholars of the
present day admit that the Bible has suffered many interpolations in the course
of the centuries. Some of these have doubtless occurred through efforts to
render certain passages clearer, while others have been forged with direct
intention to deceive. Disraeli says that the early English editions contain
6,000 errors, which were constantly introduced, and passages interpolated for
sectarian purposes, or to sustain new creeds. Sometimes, indeed, they were
added for the purpose of destroying all Scriptural authority by the suppression
of texts. The Church Union says of the present translation, that there are more
than 7,000 variations from the received Hebrew text, and more than 150,000 from
the received Greek text…
…Amid this vast discrepancy in regard
to the truth of the Scriptures themselves; with no Hebrew manuscript older than
the twelfth century; with no Greek one older than the fourth; with the
acknowledgment by scholars of 7,000 errors in the Old Testament, and 150,000 in
the New; with assurance that these interpolations and changes have been made by
men in the interest of creeds, we may well believe that the portions of the
Bible quoted against woman's equality are but interpolations of an unscrupulous
priesthood, for the purpose of holding her in subjection to man.”[2]
The source of this quote is The Complete History of the Suffragette Movement written
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other famous feminists. There are several false
assumptions and leaps of logic in these two paragraphs, which we may deal with
in another article. But for today’s purpose, I just want you to observe that
this early feminist is outright rejecting the Bible’s teaching on male and
female distinctiveness. They are not seeking to uphold it in anyway, and
therefore one should ask: Was this really a movement that was precipitated by
Christianity?”
One of the reasons why the modern church has gone so far off the rails is because it has sought to align itself with explicitly antichrist philosophies. Feminism is one of the most poisonous examples of that.
[1] I
am not saying the woman in Revelation 17-18 is feminism. I am just saying the imagery
is striking isn’t it?
[2]
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (et. al.) 2017, The Complete History of the
Suffragette Movement - All 6 Books in One Edition) The Battle for the Equal
Rights: 1848-1922, Musaicum Books. Kindle Edition. Chapter 15.
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