The other day, a friend told me about a new church that's sprung up in her community. "Well, it's not really a church," she explained, funnily, and then said that they only meet on Sunday afternoons. A charismatic, handsome leader. No Sunday School for kids or grown ups, absolutely no roles for women. Women are not to speak in worship. Once a week, the men worship separately. The whole congregation works out at a local gym and boycotts certain local businesses (she didn't say what businesses). It's the kind of gathering that turns former church members - family - against each other, a son doubting his own mother's salvation, cutting off contact. People selling their homes, moving into trailers, giving the extra money away. My friend's parents went to a service, if only to see what all the fuss was about, and no one even said hello.
So much for fellowship. For welcoming strangers, or even 'angels unaware'.
I'm not against people giving away their money to those in need, but I question the wisdom of selling your home to move into an unsound structure (especially in our tornado-prone, hurricane-friendly region). I always- ALWAYS - question any faith that silences women, that views female-ness as a lack, as a not-enough-for-God. If you don't allow women to hold any position in the body of a church, that's what your belief says to me - that you believe women are less than men. It makes me sad, and I wonder out loud how any woman of my generation can make peace with with being told, you have no place here but to sit quietly. When I hear of such, it makes me want to rattle the gates, maybe start a wild rumpus, or possibly plan an insurgent sort of movement/intervention.
"Even Dave Ramsey is okay with people having house debt," I muse. Later, I tell Beaux about it on our ride home, and the whole idea makes him so upset he can't even talk about it. "How can anyone think they're doing God's work, in an atmostphere like that?" he asked.
A phrase surfaced in my mouth. "There are so many people who can't accept the scandal of grace. They want to earn it. They want to believe they're good enough - better, even, than others."
****
This story doesn't have that much to do with the other, but it's been weighing on me and I have to write it out. I feel like this whole inner debate has been consuming a lot of my mental energy, so out it must come. I want to know I'm not alone in feeling this, I want to know what you think. Even if you disagree with me.
A couple of months ago, I was in a Bible study. The chapter focused on the partnership between husband and wife, and of course this lead us into a fevered discussion. Due to the rather Baptist slant of the group, everyone was eager to share just how submit-ful of a wife she was. Sometimes, rather ruefully, and then one woman in our group confessed that she was not sure that she was ready for another baby. Still, she trusted her husband's wisdom and he felt that "they" were ready, so she was submitting to his decision. I shook my head and wondered for a second if she were channeling Michelle Duggar. A few weeks later, I heard her good news - she was pregnant - and I shook my head again, at least on the inside.
It's not that I don't trust my own husband to make good decisions for our family. I do. I have to. I choose to, many times. As, I expect, he does with me. But to hand over my own body, my God given vessel for child bearing, and say, "whatever"? Didn't women have to do that for far too long, already? Weren't we at the mercy of men for far too long, reproductively? I firmly believe in agreement when it comes to deciding how to structure your family - how many kids, when and when not to add to your numbers - if you have that luxury. I wouldn't get purposefully pregnant without my husband's express agreement. Still, I am flummoxed that in our modern age, a woman would give that right away. Her body. Her hormones, and organs, and emotional wellbeing. Scoff if you like, but carrying a baby is a big fat deal in my book. Past that, the day-to-day responsibility of caring for an infant and a toddler (in this particular case). I cannot even fathom that Beaux would presume to tell me I should carry another child if I for a single second confessed that I didn't feel ready. To do so is so far from respect - in my book. Now, he may say, "I really am ready for another baby. I wish we could have one tomorrow." That's something different, and that's something to consider. And who am I to judge? Maybe they really prayed about it. I don't know they dynamics of their marriage. But what I heard was a silencing.
This sort of 'partnership' really bothers me, down deep. Because to me, that's not partnership. Partners means equals. It doesn't mean that one person makes the decisions and the other has to accept it. And I know - I am a married woman, after all - you can't always be equals. Sometimes someone has to step in, make up the lack - and that can be either one of you. Someone may have more patience at that moment, so they deal with the howling toddler. Someone has to be the adult and organize the budget. Someone has to clean up the kitchen when they don't feel like it. That someone fluctuates - in our house - on a daily, yes, hourly basis. And sometimes you agree to disagree. For me, if I didn't have a marriage based on both of our input on major decisions - it wouldn't be a marriage I could live with. It certainly isn't the sort of marriage that I feel called to, by my Creator. And thank God it's the not the marriage my husband expects.
But it goes deeper than that, for me. Somehow, I am unable to accept the concept that I am my husband's "responsibility". I refuse to be that. God, let me be his joy, his treasure, his best friend. Sure, he provides the income so I can stay home with our kid, but I am not unable to provide for myself. For many years, I out-earned him - not that it mattered. It never mattered to us. He's also not responsible for my emotional health - that's up to me. Yes, having a family is a responsibility, but that's not quite what I mean. During that husband/wife discussion, another woman mentioned that her husband felt very strongly that he would answer to God for his family's actions. Another head shake in my soul - what am I, chattel? My children, too? Will we not be accountable for our own actions? He doesn't answer for me, he doesn't know my soul - and he knows me well. I don't need a priest for a husband! I just stomp my feet at this. I don't understand women, especially of my generation, agreeing to this. Who is telling them this is 'the right way'? It outrages me. Pull your Scripture carefully, I want to say, because I'm not a piece of property. If we haven't been freed from that concept by now, when is it going to happen?
I stomp my feet when women silence themselves. I want to know why. I want to know the internal dialogue. I want to know, and yet I think I do know. I know the Bible verses. I know the expectations in Christian circles, certainly the more conservative ones. You support your husband, you do everything in your power to help him succeed. I don't think I could be more supportive of my husband, but it stems from a true desire of my own - or maybe God has given it to me, I can't say. I know that it is authentic. I know that the guidelines in Scripture were meant to protect women in a harsher time - when they had virtually no rights. I know that yes, Paul calls for women to submit, but he also calls for men to die for their wives, like Christ died for the church. I don't know that I want that, thanks. I know Beaux would take a bullet for me or our child, but would he do it because he's commanded to? Or because he geniunely desires to do so, out of love? But it is what I expect?
Yet, once again, it goes deeper. Why do we silence ourselves, women? Why do we think we don't know enough? That what we know, in our deepest selves, is wrong? If it comes from our heart, is it impure? Is that it? It can't possibly be right, coming from a woman's lips? So many of us are lucky enough to have spouses who have our best interests at heart. It's the women who are mistreated by these ideas that hurt me.
I know I'm asking many rhetorical questions as I write this, but it's been a process for me. I've spent so many years in a different sort of congregation, where this sort of discussion would have been moot. It feels at times like I landed in an alien land, and I'm yearning to get back to Zion. Wherever that may be. It's conversations like this that let me know I was not in the right place, and I so want to be. But it makes me wonder, what are other young (or not so young) Christian wives experiencing? Are you just as confused as I am, when presented with a "Biblical" view of marriage, and the reality of your life?
