Valerie is a 42-year-old, single, Reformed Christian lady who lives in Baltimore. She doesn't remember a time
before she knew and loved Jesus, but she does remember accepting John Calvin into her heart in March of 2000.
Valerie is a member of Christ Reformed Evangelical Church in Annapolis.
Though her career aspiration is to be a housewife, Valerie has not yet found anyone suitable who wishes to hire
her for employment in that field (or, more properly, anyone suitable has not found her), so in the meantime she
earns her daily bread working in communications -- editing, writing, print design and website management.
A Dumb Thing I Once Said
May even have said it twice, come to think of it. And today I did happen to think of it, and cringe, and hope that it didn't stick with anyone who heard me.
About 20 years ago, when I was in college, the Baptist campus group of which I was a member was doing a study on something or other, and women's roles came up. The campus minister, though a Southern Baptist, was thoroughly liberal on this and pretty much every other issue. (I just discovered that he retired from Towson at the end of this past school year and is now interim pastor at the likemindedly loosey-goosey church where I grew up.) So the dumb thing I said was lauded rather than corrected as it ought to have been.
Before I tell you the dumb thing, let me pause to relate how profoundly grateful I am that the Lord led me out of the homogenosexism (or would that be "homogeneosexism"? I hate it when I don't even know how to spell words that I just coined!) I was trained by school and church to believe in. I still occasionally find a trace of egalitarianism that needs to be scraped off the bottom of my shoe, but I have left the feminist swamp behind, and I have come to be deeply, joyfully appreciative of the glorious differences between men and women and the glorious roles for which God has designed each sex.
Now on to the dumbness:
As I said, we were discussing women's roles, and agreeing that any differences in roles could be tossed aside in our current enlightened age, when I piped up with my brilliant insight into Titus 2. The gist of my comment was that in that passage women were exhorted to be submissive and all that rot "so that no one will speak evil of the message that comes from God" (verse 5, TEV...my guess as to what version I'd have been using at the time), therefore, we should cast aside such instructions now because to continue to follow them was bringing contempt from the world. The message was clear: the world's opinion should be the guide for the Church's behavior; the world thinks the Church's teaching on sex roles is silly; ergo the Church should ditch the sex roles and embrace egalitarianism. QED (which, being translated, means "Quite Egregiously Dumb").
First of all, as I just learned in a sermon I listened to today ("The Glory of Modesty" by Doug Wilson -- should be available at this link for another week or two), the Greek world in which Paul and Titus ministered was no stranger to female religious leadership -- the temples of Artemis/Diana, for instance, were staffed with priestesses. So there wasn't some cultural norm of Traditionally Chauvinistic Values that Paul was saying Titus should just go along with for now so as not to rock the boat. Just the opposite -- the word of God would have been blasphemed (NKJV language in verse 5) if the pagans had come to believe that Christian women were just as brazen and careless as their own women. Christian women, and particularly Christian wives, are to reflect the character of the Church as she relates to her Bridegroom. If Christian wives go around not loving their husbands and children, not being discreet, chaste, domestically oriented, morally good, and obedient to their own husbands, then the watching worldlings -- in either the first century or the twenty-first century -- will see a Church that is rebellious against her Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will despise Him.
How much more power women have than I thought we did 20 years ago! Wives in particular are witnesses to the lordship of Christ precisely by yielding to His authority through their response to the lesser authority of their husbands. They are witnesses to His glory through their loyalty to their husbands and their households. And even unmarried Christian women are likewise called to be witnesses through domesticity and chastity that He is worthy of faithful service and utter dedication.
I like being a girl. It's really not as ignoble a thing as feminism tried to teach me it was.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11:44 PM
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You should have seen my sister's face a couple of weeks ago, when he was talking about being the leader in our family. I think she thought I was married to Ghengis Khan.
(grin)
Oh, and my mom started telling me about how the woman was made from the rib; not the head so as to rule over him; and not from the foot, so as to be walked upon, but from the side, so as to be side by side, you see. (I think I heard that before, Mom)
