The Greatest Threat to Feminism is Patriarchy loving SAHMs

The young woman pictured above is Madison, otherwise known as @thereservedwife.  I came across a video she did on Tik Tok and it was awesome! She talked about how she just loves to do all the cooking and cleaning in her home.  She also talked about how feminists by the hundreds come on her videos telling her how she is “wasting her life” and “setting women back decades”.  And I love how at the end of the video she tells her feminist detractors that she was engaged at 18, married at 19, pregnant at 20 and gave birth to her first child at 21.  And then to really stick it to her feminist detractors, she adds that she is pregnant with her second child and barefoot in the kitchen.

I also looked up another video where she talked about her background a bit and she mentioned that she did not go to college, had no plans to go to college, because it would have saddled her future husband with debt and would have been a waste of time because she would not be using it as a stay-at-home mom. 

In many ways this woman sounds just like my 19 year old daughter who just graduated from high school. I showed her Madison’s video and she was very encouraged and blessed by it as she has been by so many other young Christian SAHMs who are now taking a stand for God in this way.

SAHMs like Madison are a grave threat to feminism.  Why? Not just because she is a SAHM, but because she is SAHM by conviction.  She was not forced to be a SAHM, she chose the life and actually promotes the lifestyle to other women.  Not only is she an SAHM, but she also believes patriarchy is good thing.

Feminists can easily dismiss men teaching about the need for women to return to their traditional place in the home as a “self-serving” exercise.  But they cannot dismiss the myriads of young women who are now choosing the SAHM lifestyle and those who have very happy and fulfilling lives as a result.  And that is why godly women like Madison who are Bible believing SAHMs and support patriarchy are such a threat to our post feminist culture.

You can find her video here.

Career Women Are Failures in the Sight of God

When I make the bold claim, which I will support with the Bible, that career women are a failures in the sight of God I am not talking about women who are forced to work to feed their families. I am not talking about the women who tried for years without success to find a husband and simply needed to support themselves. I am not talking about women whose husband’s became disabled, died or abandoned them. In other words, I am not talking about women who did not choose to have to have a career outside the home.

I am talking about women who planned on it from the time they were teenagers.

For these women their dream was their career. And they may or may not have wanted a husband and some kids to go on the side with that career. These are the women that are utter and colossal failures in the sight of their creator whether they realize it now or not. And one day they will stand before God ashamed of the fact that they did not fulfill the purpose for which he created them.

In Galatians 1:10 the Bible says “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”. This Biblical principle should be at the forefront of our minds as Christians each and every day in the decisions we make.

Recently a young woman calling herself Shary wrote me about her concerns about being seen as a failure in the eyes of her family:

“Can’t God use certain women through their careers for His will. For example I’m going to be a freshman college student starting this fall (with the intention of becoming a doctor) after taking a gap year to work. I feel conflicted because over the past several months I have been reading your blog and you write a lot that women should strive to be keepers at home. I would like to get married and have children, but at the same time I feel like I need to go to school or else I’ll just be a huge disappointment to my family. I don’t know if this is because I’ve been conditioned to think this way all my life or for some other reason, I just feel that if I don’t go to school and become a doctor I’d be a failure.”

My Response to Shary And Other Women Facing this Conflict

Shary, you asked if God can use women through their careers for “his will”? The last part of that question is the key to finding the answer to your question. So how do we know God’s will for women? For that we need to look to the Bible.

The Bible tells us for what purpose he created women in Genesis 2:18 when it states “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him”. So, we learn from Genesis 2 that God created woman as companion and helper suitable for man. The only way she could be suitable to be man’s life companion and helper was for her to have a human nature as he had. That is why God took the woman from the man.

But what kind of companion and helper did God intend for woman to be for man? Was she intended to be his equal partner and for both of them to do the same things and go and pursue their own missions?

The answer is found in Titus 2:4-5 where the Bible states “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed”.

God created woman not as an equal partner with man to have equal rights and to pursue a career outside the home as he does. But rather, the Scriptures are explicit on this that God intended for a woman’s life focus to be on serving the needs of her husband, her children and her home.

What About the Proverbs 31 Wife?

Some Christians who want to try and get around God’s explicit command for women to be keepers at home will attempt to skirt it by pointing to passages like Proverbs 31:16 which states “She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard”. They say “See – there is a career woman in the Bible! She is a land developer”.

As Bible believing Christians, we know that the Scriptures never contradict. So, we know that there is no conflict between the Bible saying in Titus 2:5 that women are to be keepers at home and Proverbs 31:16 showing a woman buying a piece of land and farming it for food. Those who say Proverbs 31 shows a career woman are reading something into the text that is not there and also ignoring the overall theme in the passage that the focus of her life is serving her husband and his home. Does it say she spends 50 or 60 hours a week buying and farming fields? No, it does not. It says she buys “a field”. Does it say she does not bring her children to help farm the field with her? No, it does not. Does it say she leaves her children with her maidens to watch them while she pursues her career in farming? Again, no it does not.

Those who read a career woman into Proverbs 31, a woman who spends upwards of 50 hours a week pouring her energy into things outside her home, are in error. They are ignoring not only the clear command of Titus 2:5 for women to be keepers at home, but also other parts of the same passage in Proverbs 31, like verse 27 which states “She looketh well to the ways of her household…”.

It is Impossible to be a Keeper at Home and a Keeper at a Career

It is impossible, utterly impossible, for a woman to be a keeper at home and at the same time spend 50 hours a week or more giving her energy to things outside her home.

Feminism sells women this lie. And sadly, even most of our modern churches today have bought this lie. They tell women they can spend 50 hours a week outside their home “following their dreams” while having a husband and kids on the side at home. What they don’t tell them is what really happens.

They don’t tell them about the anguish many of these women feel when they have to leave their young infants with others when they know an infant needs its mother. They don’t tell them about the anguish they will feel when their home is in utter disarray because they have such little energy to keep up with it. They don’t tell them about the fights they will have with their husband over who does what. They don’t tell them about when her career moves conflict with his career. And then after handling the job, the house and the kids many career women have little energy left for their husbands. And then marriages die.

Of course, there are the women who are “without natural affection” as 2 Timothy 3:3 alludes to. These women actually care more about themselves than their children or husbands. These are the women that murder their children by aborting them for the sake of their career ambitions. If these women do have children, they have absolutely no problem dropping off their crying infants with others to pursue their selfish ambitions. They have no problem donating the vast majority of their waking hours to endeavors outside their home and giving only the scraps left of their time to their children and their husbands.

And these women are a “success” in the view of our modern humanist and feminist culture.

Conclusion

So, we just described two types of women. The first group are women who after believing the lies of feminism later come to feel remorse for the decisions that they made. But now they are trapped because they have made their economic situation dependent on their income. Then we have the second group of more sinister women who lack natural affection and have absolutely no remorse for the impact that there career takes on their husbands, their children or their homes.

Are you one of these women that lacks natural affection? Could you drop your two-month-old infant off without it bothering you a bit? Could you see the stress your career places on your home, your children and your husband and be happy with giving them only the scraps left of your time and energy each day?

But there is something even more important to consider than just the impacts of a career on your future husband, children and home.

The Scriptures tell us in 1 Corinthians 11:9 “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man”.

The following statement I make to women who are not keepers at home by their own choice and design, and not because of circumstances outside of their control.

If you as a woman are not a keeper at home (and you have no desire to be so), if the majority of your time and energy are not spent supporting your husband in his career, meeting his needs sexual and otherwise, bearing his children, caring for his children and caring for the needs of his home then your life will be a failure in the sight of the one who created you.

So, are you as a woman more concerned with being seen as a failure in the eyes of our humanist culture, your parents and friends or are you more concerned with being a failure in the eyes of God?

The last subject I want to briefly touch on is celibacy.

God’s rule for men and women is marriage and having children. His exception his celibacy. And God only calls us to celibacy “that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction” (I Corinthians 7:35). Celibacy is to be used for service to the kingdom of God, not for selfish ambitions or to avoid the risks or responsibilities of marriage and having children.

So, could a woman decide to dedicate her life to God by helping on mission fields or by being a doctor, a nurse, a school teacher or other such profession? Yes. But she needs to make sure that she is doing this for the right reasons.

See these two articles I previously wrote for more these subjects:

For what reasons does God allow celibacy?

Why does God make some women with a genius level IQ if he wants all women to be homemakers?

Are You a “What about him?” Woman?

In the Gospel of John there is an incident where John is leaning on Christ’s chest as Jesus tells his disciples about the future.  In John 21:21-22, we read “Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?  Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.

What was Jesus saying to Peter? He was saying “Don’t be concerned about what I have for him to do in his life, only be concerned about what I have for you to do in your life”.

Is your knee jerk reaction as a Christian woman, when you hear tough Biblical teaching toward women, “What about him?” Or more specifically “What about the men?” This mindset comes not from God, but rather the feminist and humanist culture you have been brought up in.  And more often than not, this response is a cover for your own conviction of sin as a woman. You feel that conviction and want to deflect as quickly as possible to the men.

If this is your reaction as a woman, you have a major spiritual defect in your thinking.    The Bible commands us as Christians And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God in Romans 12:2.

Don’t worry about the men.  Leave the men to other men and to God.  Only be concerned about what God has for you to do in this life as a woman.

God has given men and women different roles to play in this life and thus different races to run.  And one of the critical differences between the roles of men and women is that God has given men spiritual oversight and responsibility for the women in their lives.  So, men must be concerned not only with how they fulfill the role God has given them as men, but they must also be concerned with the instruction and discipline of women under their spiritual authority as well.

This same thing cannot be said for women.  Women should only be concerned with the role God has given them as women and leave the men to other men and ultimately to God.   Heed Christ’s words to Peter “what is that to thee? follow thou me.

The Global Fertility Crash

“As birthrates fall, countries will be forced to adapt or fall behind. At least two children per woman—that’s what’s needed to ensure a stable population from generation to generation. In the 1960s, the fertility rate was five live births per woman. By 2017 it had fallen to 2.43, close to that critical threshold.

Population growth is vital for the world economy. It means more workers to build homes and produce goods, more consumers to buy things and spark innovation, and more citizens to pay taxes and attract trade. While the world is expected to add more than 3 billion people by 2100, according to the United Nations, that’ll likely be the high point. Falling fertility rates and aging populations will mean serious challenges that will be felt more acutely in some places than others…

Ultimately, no country will be left untouched by demographic decline. Governments will have to think creatively about ways to manage population, whether through state-sponsored benefits or family-planning edicts or discrimination protections, or else find their own path to sustainable economic growth with ever fewer native-born workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.”

The statements above are not from some Christian blog like this one that advocates for women marrying younger and having more children.  Instead, they actually come from a recently published article entitled “The Global Fertility Crash“,  written by Andre Tartar, Hannah Recht, and Yue Qiu for Bloomberg Business Week.

The estimates always differ between various government sources around the world in certain details.  They may disagree as to how much world population growth we will see in the next century.  Some sources show we may only grow by 1 billion people or less in the next century before the world population begins to decline.  Others show the world population may peak as early as 50 years from now.

But what all the studies agree upon is this.  In countries where women get college educations and careers fertility rates plummet.  In every single one of them.  Is is a very simple equation that no one can deny.

Women + Higher Education + Career = Falling Fertility Rates

Some might say “that’s fine, the world population is too high and needs to lower”.   That actually is not true, but let’s just go with that false premise.  When the world population shrinks from 8 or 10 billion to 2 billion over the next few centuries is that OK?  What about when it drops to 1 million?  What about when it drops to 100,000?

And this ignores a fact that this Bloomberg Business Week article states that “Population growth is vital for the world economy“.  This is just basic economics folks.  Population decline leads to economic decline which then eventually leads to the fall of governments and civilizations if that decline continues.

You see when you have a problem that is causing the decline of your people at a certain point you must address that problem.  And it will be addressed one way or the other.

It is an undeniable and indisputable fact that the fertility declines we see in Westernized nations are the direct result of women living their lives for higher education and careers instead of women living for the purpose for which God created them.

God did not say he made women to pursue education and careers and whatever made them happy.  But rather the Bible tells us in the passage below what God created women for and also men:

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 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 Corinthians 11:7-9 (KJV)

God created man to image him, to live out his attributes, and thereby bring him glory.  And he created woman for man to bring man glory in her service and submission to him as man brings God glory in his service and submission to God.

It really is that simple folks.

We have lost our way as an American and Western civilization.

The Bible is crystal clear that women are called, not to higher education and careers, but rather to “marry, bear children, guide the house” (1 Timothy 5:14) and to be “keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands” (Titus 2:5).

The West Needs to Turn from Love of Self and Pleasure to Love of God

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God

2 Timothy 3:1-4(KJV)

This passage above from 2 Timothy is a perfect description of modern Western Civilization.   Our Western cultures encourage self love and rampant individualism instead of encouraging behavior that is for the best of one’s family and one’s country.  Blasphemy and children being disobedient to parents is common place.  We have unthankful and envious societies.   Mothers are without natural affection for their own unborn children and contract with doctors to murder their unborn children. Westerners are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Unless we turn from our rampant individualism and humanism and return to serving God and serving others instead of living only for ourselves our Western nations will fall.

The world has no answer to this problem of women having less children but the Bible does.  Restore women to their place in the home and restore God’s design of patriarchy which served human civilization for 6000 years before the rise of Feminism in the mid-19th century.

 

 

 

 

Is Red Pill Biblical?

In 2015, a popular Red Pill Blogger named Rollo Tomassi agreed with some traditionalist Christians that “Christianity was already Red Pill before there was a Red Pill”.  “Red Pill” refers to a  collection of theories of how human intersexual dynamics work.   The Red Pill theory has been spreading across the internet for almost two decades.  The phrase “The Red Pill”, as it is used in the Manosphere, is based upon the 1999 sci-fi movie “The Matrix” starring Keanu Reeves. In this film’s dystopian future, all of humanity has been enslaved by machines in a simulated reality known as “The Matrix” by an artificial intelligence that mankind had created long ago.

In the movie a character named Morpheus offers Neo, the movie’s main protagonist, a choice between a blue pill and a red pill in the famous quote below:

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

This Red Pill/Blue Pill paradigm was adopted by the manosphere over the past two decades to compare and contrast two different collections of theories of how human civilization should be conducted.

Even though I will be quoting from Tomassi’s blog during this series to compare and contrast Red Pill with the Bible, I want to make clear from Tomassi’s own words that he is not the inventor of Red Pill theory.

In his article entitled “The Purple Pill” , Tomassi, wrote this about the origins of the Red Pill:

“While I am humbled to be accounted as one of the Red Pill’s prominent writers I will never lay claim to having created it. The Red Pill in its truest sense belongs to the collective that has contributed to it as a whole. It belongs to the men who’ve fostered it, who’ve risked their livelihoods and families apart from it to make other men aware; it belongs to those who understand that its objectivity is what’s kept it open and honest, discussable and debatable.”

Rollo Tomassi began studying psychology and behaviorism in 2001.  His emphasis was on behaviorism and specifically behaviorism as it relates to how the human genders think and act.

He began by taking his gender centered behaviorism theories to an online forum called https://www.sosuave.com/ where he debated and discussed them with others to refine his theories.

10 years after starting his journey, in 2011, he started TheRationalMale.com blog.  His blog was an instant success becoming one of the most popular blogs in the Manosphere.  In 2013, he published his book “The Rational Male” which was essentially an edited version of his first year’s blog posts along with many questions he had from commenters and his answers to them.

This then leads us to the most important question Christians must answer about Red Pill.

Do the doctrines of the Bible, upon which Christianity was founded, agree with any part of Red Pill theory?

The answer to this question can be found in the following two statements by Tomassi.

In his article “Male Authority Provisioning vs Duty” :

“I’ve been watching Outlaw King on Netflix recently. There’s a part where the wife of Robert the Bruce says ‘Power is making decisions, and whatever course you are charting, I choose you, my husband’ It struck me that my own wife had said almost these same words to me in 2005. When I’d decided to take a job in Orlando that would uproot us from family and friends. There was no “,…but what about my friends, career, etc.?” from her and I had no hesitation to consider anything but taking the position. She said, “You are my husband, I go where you go.

How many men hold a default Frame in their marriage? Many women are reluctant to even accept their husband’s last name today. There’s a lot of bullshit reasons for this, but the core truth is that women have no confidence in their man in the long term. They don’t trust his ‘course’. There’s holding Frame, and then there’s establishing a long term Frame, a paradigm, a reality of his own, that defines a man’s authority in his marriage and family relationships. Women today still want marriage, but few want to defer to their husband’s ‘course’. They don’t trust him with her life.

And then there is this second quote from Tomassi from his article “Male Authority Be a Man” :

“There are numerous ways a feminine-primary social order removes the teeth from male authority today. First and foremost is the social pretense of blank-slate equalism. A default presumption that men and women are coequal agents in every aspect – physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual – is the cover story necessary to remove an authority that was based on the conventional differences between the sexes. To the blank-slate equalist gender is a social construct, but gender is only the starting point for a social constructionist belief set. Social constructionism is a necessary foundation upon which blank-slate equalism is built, but ultimately it’s a means of control. By denying each sex its innate differences social constructionism denies men their innate advantages and strengths. Once this became the normalized social convention it was a simple step to remove male authority…

The authority men used to claim innate legitimacy of in the past is now only legitimate when a woman wields it. Men need to retake this authority and own it as is their birthright once again.”

The sentiment that Tomassi has just stated, that a man’s authority over his wife and his children is his “birthright” and that a wife should trust her husband with the course he has plotted for them and with her very life is 100% Biblical.

The Bible agrees with Red Pill that male authority over woman is indeed the birth right of every man.  In 1 Corinthians 11:3 we read “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man” and in 1 Timothy 2:12 the Bible states that women are forbidden to “to usurp authority over the man”.   In Ephesians 5:23 we read “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church”.

I also want to return to Tomassi’s first comment about women in our modern era having no trust or confidence in their husbands. The Bible speaks to this trust women are called to:

For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.”

I Peter 3:5-6 (KJV)

The Bible calls on women to obey and be in subjection to their husbands because they trust God and his design of male headship over women.   In other words, women should trust their husbands ‘course’, to use Tomassi’s language, because they trust that God has given their husbands the ‘course’ he wishes them to follow.

So, the answer to the question of “Do the doctrines of the Bible, upon which Christianity was founded, agree with any part of Red Pill theory?” is a resounding YES!

But just because the Bible would be Red Pill in some areas does not mean it is Red Pill in all areas.

And this is what I will be exploring in this new series “Is Red Pill Biblical?”  There are a lot of different aspects of Red Pill to cover and I want to break them down into bite sized pieces so that Christians can fully understand the Red Pill Theory and where Red Pill is in agreement with a Biblical world view and where Red Pill is in conflict with a Biblical world view.

The next topic we will cover in this series is “Is Red Pill A Theory Or A Religion?

Men Should Be Attracted to Loud and Opinionated Women?

Are men wrong for finding educated, opinionated and boisterous women unattractive? And conversely, is it wrong for men to desire women that are “quiet” and “delicate”? The answer according to Paul Maxwell is a resounding “yes” to both of these questions.  And he condemns men for having these preferences toward women and admonishes such men to “grow” as in “grow up” and get with the times.  He says men need to stop being “insecure” in finding such women who are “outperforming men” in areas of education and their careers as “intimidating”.  Instead he argues that men need to rethink and change what they find valuable in women so that they will find “female strength captivatingly attractive”.

And Paul Maxwell is not some secular feminist.  In fact, he is a Christian blogger who often speaks against feminism in churches. He attempts to base his argument that men should in fact be attracted to loud and boisterous women on the Bible.  The question is, did he succeed in trying to build his argument on the Scriptures?

Below is the introduction to an article written by Paul Maxwell for DesiringGod.org entitled “Real Men Love Strong Women”:

 “I’ve heard it too many times: “A man likes a quiet woman.” “Guys don’t respond well to smart girls.” “Educated women are too intimidating to attract good men.

I understand why we believe these things. It’s a nice story. It makes sense of the success of some women to find husbands, and the failure of others. As Christians (and as humans), we feel very clever when we get to diagnose the cause and cure of singleness. “You’re too opinionated.” “You’re too boisterous.” “A woman should be small, quiet, and delicate.

Yet, it’s easy to forget in the midst of all our diagnosing: whether a woman is “intimidating” is a factor of male perception, not female personality. Do we want women to be less intimidating? That’s a question to be put to men who experience them as such, and we can only wait for such men to grow. The real question we need to ask is: Do we want women to be weak? And the answer must forever be, on the basis of Scripture, “May it never be.”

 

Maxwell tells us that when men seek women that are quiet, delicate and less educated that they are in fact seeking women that are weaker and “on the basis of Scripture” he tells us men should never be looking for these “weak” women as he calls them.

 But What Does God say about Quiet Women?

Right from the outset, Maxwell shows his disdain for men who “like a quiet woman”.  But listen to what the Scriptures below say about quiet women.

“1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;

2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:

6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

I Peter 3:1-6 (KJV)

Mr. Maxwell thinks men are wrong for placing high value on a woman having a quiet spirit.  But God says that women who have a “meek and quiet spirit” are of “great price” which would mean “great value” in his sight. So right out of the gate we can see that Mr. Maxwell has built his entire premise in direct contradiction to the explicit teachings of the Word of God.

Then to support the false opening premise of his article, Mr. Maxwell does what a lot of liberal Christians do and he engages in using examples of women doing various things in the Bible as the basis of his false belief when we have clear Scripture statements to the contrary as we have just shown above.

Strong Women Reject the Requests of Evil Men?

Maxwell tells us that “strong women expose evil men” and he give us the story of Jael in Judges 4:21 who drove a peg into the Canaanite General Sisera.   He tells us the following of Jael:

“Thank God Jael wasn’t meek and submissive and respectful toward this friend of her wayward husband. She wasn’t one to be trampled on. Strong women reject the requests of evil men.”

Does God tell women to reject the requests of evil men or does he tell women to reject evil requests from any man?  I would argue the answer is the latter.  Acts 5:29 tells us that “We ought to obey God rather than men” and 1 Timothy 5:22 tells us we are not to “be partaker of other men’s sins”.

In fact, the Bible says the opposite of what Mr. Maxwell has just said.  God actually tells women to obey the requests of evil men as long those requests are not sinful in nature.

A man who does not “obey the word” is by nature a sinful man, and could in fact be an evil man.  God tells women to submit to men who “obey not the word”.  A woman’s submission to her husband IS NOT conditioned on him being a good and obedient man to God.

Jael did not reject Sisera’s request because he was an evil man or because his request was evil but rather, she rejected his request and instead killed him because he was an enemy of her people and God wanted him to die.  The story of Jael is not a model for the normal relationship that God meant there to be between men and women, especially that of husbands and wives.

Strong Women Rebuke Good Men?

Maxwell next tells us that “Strong women rebuke good men” and he gives us the example of Abigail in I Samuel 25:39.

Maxwell states:

“David was attracted to this strong woman for her strength, for her rebuke, and for her character. Abigail made life harder for David…

Strong women rebuke good men, who need help in their weaknesses, who need someone to help them see how to be strong.”

 

NOTHING in this passage says Abigail rebuked David.  But rather she humbled herself before him constantly calling him “my lord” and then David said this of what she said to him:

“32 And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:33 And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.”

1 Samuel 25:32-33 (KJV)

Abigail did not come to David to rebuke him, but rather to humbly plead with him and to give him advice.

Strong Women Raise Believing Men

Maxwell in this section reveals how his upbringing shaped his view of the role of women.  His father was not in the picture at an early age and his mother had to raise him doing the job of two parents.  Below are a few statements he makes based on the reality that sometimes women are abandoned by their husbands and must raise children on their own:

“In an ideal world, men and women would partner together in their strength. But we live in a world where we need strong women to make men strong, because sometimes there simply are no men there to do it…

in an age when fathers often fail to bestow the gift of faith to their children, the future often hangs on the strength of women to do that gospel work.”

 

Notice Maxwell’s condescension toward men saying they “often fail in bestowing the gift of faith to their children”.   What about women who fail to be the example of a wife and mother God intended them to be? What about fathers who have to take of children whose mother’s abandon them or do not lead a life of faith before their children?

This is an example of how sometimes we cannot see past our own upbringing.  This is similar to how children who were abused growing up can tend to see most parents as potential abusers or how women who were raped or molested can tend to see all men as potential rapists and molesters.  In this same way Maxwell presents a very dark and dismal view of how men will “often fail” women and children in this world and so we should raise women to prepare for this.

According to Maxwell, in raising women to be ready for the failures of men we must raise them to expose evil men, not submit to any request by evil men (even it if not a sinful request) and also to rebuke good men.  In his view, we should raise our daughters to be loud and opinionated, rather than quiet and delicate and we should raise them to take men head on in their failings and weaknesses.

But is this really the attitude we want to put in our daughters toward men as they seek marriage?

Men Should Find Women Who Outperform Them to be Attractive?

In the conclusion of his article Maxwell makes the following statement:

We live in a time when women are outperforming men in many areas of professional and personal competency. And men have two choices: to find female strength captivatingly attractive, or to be insecure and intimidated. Real men love strong women, because God’s glory is beautiful, and “woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7).

Jesus, give men the grace to see the beauty of glorious female strength.”

 

By what standard is Maxwell saying women “are outperforming men in many areas of professional and personal competency”?

If Maxwell is referring to the fact that more women are in high school honor rolls than men, 70 percent of valedictorians are women and women now represent more than half of college and university students then he is right that women are “outperforming men”.

But does a high GPA in high school and a college degree equal “competency”?

Absolutely not. On the contrary, below are several facts that show men can be and often are more successful in their careers than women despite having lower GPA’s in high school and less representation among college graduates.

  1. Valedictorians rarely become rich and famous — and the average millionaire’s college GPA was 2.9.
  2. More than half of independent business owners do not have a college degree.
  3. New firms are overwhelmingly started by men. While women start 30% of businesses, men account for the remaining 70%. This is more than a 2 to 1 ratio.
  4. In high paid skill trade jobs like welders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and HVAC techs women make up less than 5 percent of the workers in these industries . And a shortage of skill trade workers due to pushing young people into colleges is driving skill trade wages even higher

And here is something far more important than the facts I have just laid out.

It is absolutely true that God judges a large part of a man’s competency by his ability to make an income that can provide for his wife and children.   The reason for this is because man is meant to image God in being a provider to his wife and his family.

The Scriptures tell us God calls on men to provide for the needs of their wives as Christ does his Church:

“28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church”

Ephesians 5:28-29 (KJV)

A lazy man who has no ambition or desire to work to the best of his ability to provide for his wife and family is not imaging God and is therefore not fulfilling one of the purposes for which God created him. Such a man truly is incompetent in the eyes of God.

However, from God’s perspective, a woman’s competency is not judged by her high school GPA, having a college degree or having a successful career outside her home.  Instead, the Bible tells us God judges a woman’s competency by her service to her husband, her children and the affairs of her home.

“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

1 Timothy 5:14 (KJV) 

“4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

Titus 2:4-5 (KJV)

But having showed that Maxwell’s understanding of what makes men and women competent does not match God’s view of what makes each gender competent we will now address the “strength” question. Is there a strength that Christian men should find attractive in women?

The answer is yes.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.”

Proverbs 31:25 (KJV)

But what of strength are we talking about here? The strength that is mentioned is found toward the end of Proverbs 31:

“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

Proverbs 31:30 (KJV)

The strength that men should find attractive in women is the strength of their faith which means they fear God and it shows in how they live their lives.   As men we should want to find a woman who loves God more than she loves us.  Because if she loves God more than she loves us, then she will always love us because God commands her to love us.

“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children”

Titus 2:4 (KJV)

But if a woman truly fears God, then she will also fear her husband as Ephesians 5:31 and I Peter 3:2 exhorts her to do.

“1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear [Greek Phobos].”

I Peter 3:1-2 (KJV)

“Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence [Greek Phobeo which has Phobos as its root] her husband.”

Ephesians 5:31 (KJV)

So, while there is certainly this special type of strength, a strength of character and a strength of faith which we as Christian men should admire and be attracted to in women the Bible also tells us there is a type of weakness in women that we as men are to honor and thus be attracted to as well.

“7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”

I Peter 3:7 (KJV)

We are to honor the fact that God has put our wives in a weaker vessel, thus man’s vessel is stronger.  So, the question is why did God put women in weaker vessels?

The answer is found in two New Testament passages.  The first is seen below:

“7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”

I Corinthians 11:7-9 (KJV)

Do we see anything in the above passage about “the beauty of glorious female strength” as Maxwell earlier alluded to? The answer is absolutely NOT.  It tells us that man is “the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man”.  Nothing about her glory being her strength. So how does a woman bring a man glory? She brings both God and man glory by playing the role God designed her to play in his creation which is seen in the next New Testament passage:

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church”

Ephesians 5:22-29 (KJV)

Men should and do find women that embrace their weakness in comparison to men to be attractive. Women who realize that God meant for men to lead, provide for and protect them are actually intoxicating to a lot of men.

When a woman is ashamed of or denies being weaker than a man and denies her need for man’s leadership, provision and protection this makes her unattractive to the vast majority of men.

 Why Highly Intelligent and Educated Women are Not Attractive to Men

There is nothing wrong with a wise or prudent woman.  In fact, God says these things are good qualities in a wife in the following passages:

“She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”

Proverbs 31:26 (KJV)

Nothing wrong with a prudent woman (one who exercising good judgement):

“House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the Lord.”

Proverbs 19:14 (KJV)

But a woman does not need to have a bachelor’s degree in economics or theology or medicine to be a wise woman or prudent woman.  A woman with a high school or even a junior high education could turn out to be a very wise and prudent woman from a Biblical perspective.

The reasons why most men are not attracted to highly intelligent and educated women are twofold.

The first is that the Bible tells us that men are to teach and mold their wives:

And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”

1 Corinthians 14:35 (KJV)

“1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.”

Jeremiah 18:1-6 (KJV)

Most men want a wife that is teachable and moldable. A woman that will look up to them for both spiritual and worldly knowledge.  They want a woman to reverence them as the Scriptures call on women to do and they want their woman to respect them.  And a woman who thinks she knows more than her husband will have a much harder time respecting him, this is a simple fact of life.

And this desire in men is both God given. It is not a matter of sinful pride or of a man feeling intimidated by a woman.  It is a matter of him knowing what he wants in a woman and what his mission is in life.

The second reason highly intelligent and highly educated women are unattractive to most men is because intelligent and educated women, especially in our modern feminist culture, tend to be contentious with their husbands and they often shame their husbands.

“It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.”

Proverbs 21:19 (KJV)

“A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.”

Proverbs 19:13 (KJV)

“A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.”

Proverbs 12:4 (KJV)

Conclusion

The Scriptures tell us there are some types of weakness that we should glory in and honor as seen in the passage below.

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 (KJV)

All of us as men and women of God should glory in the fact that God has designed us to need him for his leadership, provision and protection.  And women should see their God designed weakness in comparison to men and their need for men to lead them, provide for them and protect them as something to honor about themselves.  They should see the glorious part they have to play in being weaker in that they help to paint a beautiful picture of the relationship of Christ to his Church.

So, when women want to compete with men in the areas of physical strength, intelligence, leadership, provision or protection most men rightly find this type of behavior highly unattractive in women.  When a woman seeks to outperform her man in these areas or compete with him, she breaks the model of Christ of and the Church.

This is why if a woman truly wants do what God designed her to do and model the church in its relation to Christ then she should seek out a man that is more intelligent, wiser and educated than her and one who can teach her the Word of God.  One that can provide for her and protect her.

Real men are not attracted to women who will be contentious with them, shame them or rebuke them.

Real men are not attracted to women who think they must show they have no need of a man and can do it all on their own.

Real men do not seek out women that will compete with them in their ability to lead, provide for or protect their family.

Real men love women that have submissive, teachable, meek and quiet spirits.

Real men honor women who acknowledge their weakness in comparison to men and their need of a man’s strength, his teaching, his leadership, his intelligence, his provision and his protection.

The World of The Handmaid’s Tale: Not Completely Bad

HandmaidsTale

Here is the surprising truth most Christians would not want to hear.  Not everything in the world of the Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaids Tale” is unbiblical.  In fact, some of it is VERY Biblical. But the haters of Bible believing Christianity are also wrong in saying that the world of the Handmaids Tale is exactly what America would look like if our laws and society were based on the Bible.

The truth as it is in many cases, is somewhere in the middle.

The World of the Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaids Tale” takes place in a future America where the United States Government has been overthrown by a radical Christian sect calling itself “The Sons of Jacob”.  This group bases most of its teachings and beliefs in the Old Testament of the Bible.

While Atwood never gives a definite reason for it, the Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a world where nations are dying from low fertility rates.  Infertility affects both men and women.  There are some theories given at the end of the book that low fertility rates may have been caused by widespread birth control and abortion but others say it was caused from pollution and pesticides.  Some thought it was a combination of both. The fact that they have reduced technology use and only grow organic crops definitely gives credence to the pollution and pesticides being thought to be a major factor in infertility. Whatever the cause is, it is clear in the book that the infertility crisis affects the entire world and not just America.

It is apparent that the Sons of Jacob saw women’s economic independence from men as well as control over their own sexuality as a major contributing cause of the infertility crisis even if it was not the only cause.

So, it is in this world that the overthrow of the United States government by the Sons of Jacob takes place.  They kill the President, all White House staff and cabinet members as well as all members of Congress and the Supreme Court.  They suspend the US Constitution and institute a totalitarian theocratic government which is referred to as The Republic of Gilead or The Divine Republic.

In this new society women have their property seized and given to their closest male relative (husband, father or brother).  They are forbidden from working outside the home as well as reading or writing.

The social classes among women in Gilead are Wives, Econowives, Marthas, Handmaids and Unwomen.  Wives are the highest class of women, married to the highest class of men known as Commanders.  Econowives are married to either  Guardians or Economen which are the lowest social class of men in Gilead. Econowives often serve as Marthas while not all Marthas are married.  Marthas serve the Wives of the Commanders by caring for their homes (cooking and cleaning).   Some Marthas are converted to Handmaids.

And finally, we have the Handmaid class which Margaret Atwood’s book centers on.  The Handmaid class is the second to lowest class of women in Gilead with only Unwomen being lower.   Most women who are Handmaids became so by either being in a second marriage or living in a sexual relationship with a man not their first husband when the Sons of Jacob seized power. Later on other women become Handmaids by breaking the laws of Gilead.  If they were found to be infertile they were declared “Unwoman” and then sent to the Colonies.  Not much is known of the Colonies except that it seems to be a nuclear wasteland or highly polluted area because most people ending up dying after working there for a few years.

Handmaids are managed by a social class known as “Aunts” which are typically older or infertile women but they are women who are true believers in the Divine Republic and its beliefs.  They are charged with indoctrinating and preparing the Handmaids for their duties.

The Handmaid’s Tale is told from the view of a Handmaid named “Offred”.  While the Hulu series reveals her real name, Atwood’s book never does.   She is named Offred because all Handmaids are given the name of the Commander they are assigned to and her commander’s name is Fred, therefore she is called “Offred”.

The Handmaids are assigned by the government of Gilead to various Commanders. They have three chances to get pregnant with three different Commanders.  If they fail to get pregnant by the third commander, they are declared “Unwoman” and sent to the Colonies.

Gilead is a pious society, although they do have “Jezebels” which operate in brothels which are unofficially sanctioned by the government.  These brothels serve foreign diplomats who visit Gilead as well as Commanders.  The women there are infertile attractive women who were feminists or other social activists and they were given a choice between being a Jezebel or being sent to the Colonies.

In this pious society, the purpose of sex is seen only for reproduction and not for pleasure.  The men when they have sex with their handmaids are required to have their wives in the room and it is a cold and passionless experience as required by the customs of Gilead.

Going beyond the social classes we also see in the story that Gilead routinely executes abortions doctors and leaves their bodies hanging for days in the streets as a warning to others.  They also hang men or women caught engaged in any type of homosexual relationship. Homosexuals are referred to as “gender traitors”.  Gilead also hangs priests and pastors if they speak against the government’s interpretation of the Bible.

And finally, there is a scene in the book, which was also portrayed in the Hulu series as well.  In the scene, a mass wedding ceremony is staged where several men of the Guardian social class are married off to young girls most looking between 12 and 14 years of age.  Some of the men may be in their 30s or 40s.  One of the men being married to a young girl is Guardian to the Offred’s Commander.  The Commander assigned the girl to him for marriage.

While this is certainly not a complete synopsis of the story of the Handmaid’s Tale, it paints enough of a picture to tell us what Margaret Atwood’s imagined future dystopian political system looks like which is what I will be focusing in on for this review.

What is un-biblical About the Practices of the Republic of Gilead?

What follows are several things that are unbiblical about the Republic of Gilead:

  1. Only God can establish a theocracy. God established the nation of Israel through Moses and then he spoke his commands as King over Israel through his prophets until Israel finally rejected God as their direct king and asked for a human king (1 Samuel 8:5-7). Gilead was not a true theocracy established by God as Israel was.
  2. While God does not prescribe a particular form of government for all peoples in the Bible, he does tell us why he instituted civil government. Its purpose is to protect the God given rights of the people and punish those who “doeth evil” (Romans 13:4) by breaking God’s moral law which would include violating the God given rights of others.  The nation of Gilead usurped the God given authority of local church leaders (1 Peter 5:1-3) as well as the authority of men over their homes (Numbers 30, Ephesians 5:22-24, I Peter 3:1-6).
  3. The Bible does not forbid women from being educated, reading, writing, teaching or prophesying (Acts 2:17, Titus 2:3-5).
  4. The arrangement of marriage by the Gilead government was an example of a violation of the God given freedom and authority of fathers to choose whom their daughters marry (Exodus 22:16-17, Numbers 30).
  5. The passing around of handmaids between various Commanders to have children for their wives was a violation of Biblical law as well. The Bible regarded handmaids who were given by wives to their husbands as wives in the same way concubines were seen as wives.  Take for example Abraham’s concubine – Keturah (1 Chronicles 1:32) who is also referred to as his wife (Genesis 25:1).  And the Scriptures tell us that a woman is bound to her husband as long he lives (Romans 7:2-3) therefore she cannot be given to a different man while her first husband lives. The difference between “free wives” and “bond wives” (or concubines as they were called) was that a man did not have to give any inheritance rights to the children of his bond wives.  He was however, obligated to give an inheritance to the children of his free wives.  But God never allowed women to be passed around to be impregnated by different men.  A man had to make the commitment of being a husband to a woman before he could have sex with her even if she was a slave or a prisoner of war.
  6. Obviously the unofficially sanctioned “Jezebels” of Gilead who worked in brothels servicing diplomats and Commanders is also forbidden by God’s law (Leviticus 19:29, 1 Corinthians 6:15-16).
  7. The official Gilead position of sex being only for procreation and not for pleasure is unbiblical as well. The Bible commands men to satisfy themselves at all times with their wives’ bodies (Proverbs 5:18-19) and the entire book of Song of Solomon is dedicated to the pleasurable aspects of sex between a husband and wife in marriage.  The Bible even warns couples to come together often to avoid the temptation of sex outside of marriage (I Corinthians 7:2-5).
  8. The Bible does allow for the execution of those who would lead people away from the God of the Bible (Deuteronomy 13:1-11) but it does NOT allow for the execution of those who follow the God of the Bible but have different interpretations and applications of the Bible. Therefore, the execution of those such as Catholics, Baptists and other Christian leaders that were killed in the Hand’s Maids Tale for not teaching and following state mandated interpretations of the Bible was a violation of the Scriptures.

Now we will move on to practices of the nation of Gilead which actually have Biblical support.

What is Biblical About the Practices of the Republic of Gilead?

What follows are several things that are in fact Biblical about the Republic of Gilead:

  1. The sphere of Civil government is allowed by God to execute men and women for adultery and betrothed women for having sex with men other than their husband and covering it up before marriage. So, Gilead in executing people for these violations of God’s moral law was within their rights as granted by God to the Civil government (Deuteronomy 22:20-22).
  2. The sphere of Civil government is allowed by God to execute men for having sex with other men (Leviticus 20:13), therefore Gilead’s execution of men caught in homosexual relationships was allowable before God. While no punishment is prescribed for women in Lesbian relationships, the practice of Lesbian relationships is condemned by God in Romans 1:26-27. So short of the death penalty, it would be Biblically allowable for women to be punished in other ways for engaging in Lesbian relationships.
  3. The sphere of Civil government is allowed by God to execute murderers which would also include abortion doctors (Genesis 9:6, Exodus 21:12).
  4. Gilead’s practice of considering women to be the property of men is a Biblical concept. The Bible list’s a man’s wife as one of his possessions in the 10th commandment (Exodus 20:17). In the Scriptures adultery and pre-marital sex were not just considered sexual sins, but also a property crime against either the father of the virgin woman or the husband of the betrothed woman or wife (Exodus 22:16-17, Deuteronomy 22:20-22).  The problem in Gilead though is that they treated unmarried women as the property of the state which is a violation of the God given right of ownership of the father over his daughter.
  5. Gilead’s practice of disallowing women to own property and transferring their assets to their nearest male relative is a Biblical concept. In Numbers 27:1-11 we find that only men could inherit property with one exception. If there were no sons to pass their property on to then the daughters could inherit the property but only as temporary stewards of that property. They were required to seek out marriage and then in marriage the property came under the ownership of their husbands (Numbers 36:10-12).
  6. While Gilead’s practice of executing Pastors and Priests for having different interpretations and applications of the Scriptures than those of the Civil government is not allowable by God, God does allow for the general protection of the faith in punishing those who try and lead others away from the God of the Bible (Deuteronomy 13:1-11). In other words, the Civil government can protect Christianity as the faith of the nation from outside religions and moral systems such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam as well as Atheism but it has no authority within the Christian churches to enforce a state sanctioned set of interpretations and applications of the Scriptures.

What About the Infamous Wedding Scene?

Earlier I spoke about a scene from Margaret Atwood’s book that was also portrayed in the Hulu series which shows a mass wedding ceremony of several couples.  Many of the girls are very young, perhaps 12, 13 or 14 years of age and they were being married to men much older them, perhaps 10 or 20 years older or more.

The Hollywood Reporter  had the following to say about the episode as depicted in the Hulu series:

“In season two’s fifth episode, “Seeds,” which sees Elisabeth Moss’ June almost entirely buried beneath her handmaid alias Offred, Nick and other guardians are at the center of an elaborate mass wedding ceremony. Their brides, all of whom they are meeting for the first time, are children; no more than 15 years of age. According to Miller, the scene comes straight out of Margaret Atwood’s original novel, not to mention true stories about similarly disturbing arranged marriages conducted across the world.

“In the book, there’s a scene where a bunch of children are married to young guardians who they have never met before,” Miller tells THR. “It was such an intriguing part of the book. This is something that’s been discussed as happening in America and happening all over the world. It’s such a pervasive horror for these girls who are married off well before they have any agency and any way to consent. They’re walked off into this life, and it doesn’t matter who they end up with, even if it’s someone you would say is a good guy; it’s just a horrible dynamic

It was triumphant for Fred, but for me, personally, seeing these young actors come out — and some of these young women looked about 12 or 14 — and seeing them standing opposite their future husbands in this arranged marriage… men twice their age, some of them 40 or 50 years old… it was genuinely abhorrent to see,” says the actor. “It was very, very real. It’s another form of ritual and ceremony which is almost seemingly beautiful and orchestrated in this vaguely theatrical way, which belies the horror of it. When we did the first rehearsal, all of us were very affected by how unnerving and unsettling it was.”

I have already addressed the fact that the nation of Gilead was wrong in usurping the authority of father’s over their daughters.  But what if fathers willingly gave their young daughters, even those in their early teens as portrayed in arranged marriages to older men – is this a violation of Biblical morality?

The answer is a resounding NO. It is not immoral or “abhorrent” or “horrific” in the eyes of God.  The Scriptures tell us in two passages when God says a young woman is ready for marriage.

In the book of Ezekiel God portrays his marriage to Israel as an older man taking a young woman who has shown the signs of puberty as his wife:

“7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.

8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.”

Ezekiel 16:7-8 (KJV)

And in the New Testament the Apostle Paul gives us another qualification for when a girl becomes a woman and is ready to be married:

“36 But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.”

I Corinthians 7:36 (KJV)

The phrase “if she pass the flower of her age” refers to if she has had a period.

So, God’s allowable age for marriage to a woman is when she shows the signs of puberty, development of her breasts, growth of pubic hair and she has had a period.  At that point it is perfectly moral for her to be married.

And her “consent” is not required by God.  And God does not grant her the “agency” that we believe women have today. It is her father’s decision (Exodus 22:16-17).  And there is absolutely nothing unbiblical about arranged marriages (Jeremiah 29:6).  Also, it is not immoral for men much older to marry younger women.

And just for a little historical context on marriage which is sorely lacking in today’s world listen to what Rev. Dr. Eugene Weitzel stated about the Jewish view of early marriage:

 “As we noted above, the Jews clearly understood that the first command that God gave to Adam and Eve was “increase and multiply” (Gen 1:28). In fact one rabbi firmly believed that “A bachelor is not truly a man at all.” Furthermore, celibacy was looked upon as an anomaly, almost a disgrace.  Now keep in mind that Jesus Christ, a devout, practicing Jew who dearly loved his Jewish faith, grew up with this view of celibacy.  He also knew that his people believed in early marriage.  Many rabbis, even during Jesus’s time, taught that eighteen was the ideal age for marriage for a man but certainly not later than twenty-four. He knew too that girls were ready for marriage as soon as they were physically ready to conceive and bear children, which according to the law was twelve and one-half years. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was probably no more than fourteen years old when she gave birth to the Son of God.”

Weitzel, Eugene. J. (2010). I Want to Be a Husband and Father for Life and a Catholic Priest Forever. U.S.: Xilbris Corporation. p. 113

What America Can Learn from the Handmaid’s Tale

Many have come away from the Handmaid’s Tale thinking religion was the cause of the fall the United States in that story.  And it is very common today for secular humanists to claim if we just got rid of organized religion the world would be a better place.  They will point to the millions that have been killed in religious wars throughout the centuries.   But they conveniently forget to mention the millions killed by secularists like Stalin and other Communists around the world.

The actual cause of the fall of the United States in the Handmaid’s Tale is a subject that most Secular Humanists avoid like the plague.  And if you are thinking low fertility is the answer as mentioned in the Handmaid’s Tale you would only be describing a symptom of the real problem they want to avoid discussing.

The real problem that caused the collapse of the United States in the Handmaid’s Tale is the same problem that might actually cause the collapse of the United States in the not so distant future.  And that problem is the widescale abandonment of traditional gender roles which I would argue are Biblically based.

How America Abandoned Biblical Gender Roles

Before the mid-19th century the United States was in some ways like the world of Handmaid’s Tale except for the Totalitarian government and mass government executions.   America had laws against fornication, adultery and homosexuality.  Grant it, no one was executed for fornication, adultery and homosexuality but they were imprisoned for such acts.  Homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and homosexuals were put away in mental asylums.

Divorce in America was very difficult to get and thus very rare. Women had little to no rights in divorce.  When divorce did occur, the men kept the children and the property and the woman walked away with only the clothes on her back.

First wave feminism, which sprung from the abolitionist movement, aimed to give women more rights.  So, they began by fighting for child custody and property rights for women in divorce.  But their ultimate goal was woman’s suffrage which finally passed in 1919 and was ratified by the states in 1920.

James Madison had warned his wife Abigail Adams when she petitioned him to allow women to vote in the New Republic that if men gave women such rights it would bring men under the “Despotism of the Peticoat”. In other words, if men surrendered their rulership over women, eventually women would come to rule over men.

James Madison’s warning is actually foretold in the account of the fall of Adam and Eve when God told them the following:

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Genesis 3:16 (KJV)

God spoke of sin’s desire to rule over Cain in the same way he spoke a woman’s desire to rule over her husband:

“If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

Genesis 4:7 (KJV)

When we think of the Sexual Revolution, we often think of the 1960s.  But really an earlier version of the sexual revolution began in America in the late 19th-century with the new practice of “dating”.  Women threw off the ownership of the fathers and began “dating” men going out alone with men for fun.  This of course led to a spike in extra-marital sex and out of wedlock pregnancies. These numbers only continued to climb until they reached the peak of 40 percent and that was only capped because of modern birth control.

Second Wave Feminism which coincided with the Sexual Revolution aimed to destroy gender roles in America.  It was during this time that the words “sexism” and “sexist” were coined to denigrate Bible believing Christians and other Americans who believed in traditional gender roles that men and women had had since the beginning of mankind.

Over several decades the feminists and secularists exploited the US Constitution’s tolerance for non-Christian values, eventually using the force of court rulings and new laws in an attempt to obliterate the Biblically based gender roles America once had.

Feminism and their drum beat of “sexism” eventually lead to the decimation of the family unit with over 60 million divorces and over 60 million abortions.

The Sad State of Marriage and Fertility Rates in Today’s America

As a direct result of the feminist and humanist assaults on gender roles and Christian morality in America, marriage and fertility rates are at a crisis level for Millennials. Many Millennials now are very afraid of marriage or see no value in marriage.  Consider the following sobering facts.

In 1968, about 40 percent of young adults aged 18 to 24 were married and living on their own. As of 2018 that number has plummeted for this group to around 7 percent. A third of young people in the US, 24 million of those aged 18 to 34, still live with their parents.  About 9 percent of this 18 to 24 age group that does not still live with their parents cohabitates rather than marrying.

And all of these societal changes over the last century and especially the last several decades have caused America’s fertility rate to plummet.

CNN recently published an article entitled “America just had its lowest number of births in 32 years, report finds”  written by Jacqueline Howard and it states the following dark statistics about America’s falling fertility rates:

The number of births for the United States last year dropped to its lowest in about three decades, according to provisional data in a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Even though the number of births we’ve seen in 2018 is the lowest that we’ve seen in 32 years, the total fertility rate is at a record low,” said Brady Hamilton, a natality expert at the center and first author of the report…

The total fertility rate in 2018 was below what is considered the level needed for a population to replace itself: 2,100 births per 1,000 women, according to the report.

The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement for the last decade,” the authors wrote in the new report.”

It is no coincidence that the national fertility rate began to drop from the 1970s on after the Second wave feminism of the 1960s took a sledge hammer to what was left of traditional gender roles in America.

The only thing that masks our falling population numbers is legal and illegal immigration.  And that is a dirty little secret no one wants to admit.  If we stopped all immigration into this country for a decade, we would see elementary schools all over the United States closing revealing the fact that our natural born citizen women are having less and less children each year.

America Broke God’s Design of Mutual Dependency Between Men and Women

So here is why we have arrived at continual falling fertility rates each decade since the 1970s with only a few years in between where the fertility rate rose.

America came to reject God’s design of men being leaders, providers and protectors and women being caretakers of their children and their homes.  Marriage was strongly encouraged by society and sex outside of marriage and divorce were greatly frowned upon.  These values came from the common Christian heritage that most Americans had.

God’s design provided for a mutual dependency between men and women. Women because they had less rights than men and could not own property, sought out men for protection and provision.  Men were drawn to women for sex, having children and having someone to care for the domestic affairs of their home as they went out and worked in the world.

But Feminism and the Sexual Revolution that flowed from it broke this mutual dependency between men and women that God designed.  Women no longer needed men for their provision and protection.  The government offered women protection apart from marriage and women could provide for themselves and own property as men could.  Men no longer needed marriage to get sex as women would casually give it to them while dating.

And since marriage became a much risker proposition for men in that they could be financially devasted by a woman in divorce while also having less custody of their children many men opted out of seeking marriage all together.

And this is where we are in 2019 America.

But as Thomas Fuller once said “It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn” and that is so true for us as Conservative Christians in America today.

Hope Is on The Horizon for Conservative Christians While Despair Awaits Secularists

As conservative Bible believing Christians our hope is not in the Republican party (which can often disappoint us) but rather in God.   However, God works through the obedience of his children as the Scriptures tell us:

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)

And the obedience I am speaking of is for us as conservative Christians to raise our sons and daughters to fully embrace the Biblical gender roles God has designed.  And to fully accept and embrace God’s Word regarding gender roles we must utterly reject the ideologies of feminism, egalitarianism and individualism which are diametrically opposed to a Biblical world view.  We must as a culture stop thinking of only what we want as individuals, and instead focus on what God wants for us and what is best for our families, our communities and our nation.

We need to arm our children with the truth of God’s Word and the facts that are seen all around us about divorce rates, cohabitation rates and falling fertility rates.  God’s design works for stronger marriages and families and frankly it produces more children and a stronger society.

The good news for us as Conservative Christians is that we already have higher fertility rates than secularists.   Here is some not so good news for the future of secularists in America from an article in the Washington Examiner by Paul Bedard entitled “Study: Conservative baby boom will shift nation further right” :

A baby boom among conservatives could push the nation’s politics further right in the coming decades, especially since liberals aren’t having as many children, according to a new study of online dating habits of conservatives and liberals.

The study featured in a Harvard University Shorenstein Center review of recent surveys released Tuesday on how political polarization of the nation is impacting Washington’s budget talks is the first to challenge left-leaning pundits who have claimed that as the white population shrinks, the GOP will become marginalized.

Instead, the study in the authoritative journal Political Behavior, conducted by scholars from Brown and Penn State University, suggested that liberals could be the endangered species in the coming decades as conservatives, typically white, have more children than liberals. And those children, this study and others show, commonly follow the politics of their parents.”

And just in case you were wondering, more than 80 percent of all conservatives in America are Christians. So, as you can see, the rumors of the demise of conservative Christians have been greatly exaggerated.

The fact is there is nothing secularists can do about their coming demise because their ideology leads to selfish individualistic living which results in low fertility rates while conservative Christianity leads to people who care about marriage, family and God and thus much higher fertility rates.

In years past Secularists in educational institutions were able to convert many children raised in conservative homes but now that trend has changed with the information age and with conservative children seeing the damage secularism has caused to our society.

Conclusion

The Scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians 3:17 “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. The nation of Gilead in its Totalitarian form of government violated and usurped the authority and the freedoms of the family unit and the churches. It violated God’s commands allowing women to teach and prophesy by restricting women from reading, writing or teaching (except the Aunts).  It violated God’s laws by passing around women as handmaids to different Commanders thus violating the Biblical concept that a woman belongs to her first husband as long as he lives.  It violated God’s law in assigning econ-wives to men when authority over marriage belongs to the father of a woman, not the state.  And it imposed the death penalty on Christians for differences of interpretation and application of the Scriptures and this is something that is not allowed by God.

But some of the things Gilead did were not only Biblical, but they truly are an indictment of our American and Western systems of government.  While the Civil government cannot usurp the God given Christian spiritual authority and rights of Pastors, husbands or fathers it is not forbidden from protecting the Christian faith of the nation from other religions and systems of morality not founded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

Many of our founding fathers were good Christian men.  But in their efforts to prevent one Christian sect from dominating another they left the common Christian faith of the nation completely undefended and vulnerable to attacks from secularism.

America’s Constitution will need to be updated in the future to address this weakness if we are to survive as a nation.  We can protect what should be regarded as the basis for our morality as a nation, the Bible, while at the same time placing safeguards against the state intruding in the spheres of the church and the home.

The removal of the ability of women to own property and placing them back under the ownership of men is the only way we will restore the mutual dependency that God designed there to be between men and women.  Also, the removal of no-fault divorce laws and once again making divorce very difficult would help to re-secure the institution of marriage.  These changes along with the reinstating and enforcing of the fornication laws America once had would bring men back to the marriage table in droves. And America’s families and fertility rates could once again be restored.

And finally, on the subject of crime and immoral behavior. Our softness toward criminals and immoral behavior has led to the pollution of our society.  There is no fear of God or the consequences of our actions anymore in this culture.  We must restore a healthy fear of the consequences of doing evil according to God’s Law.

And where does our softness come from? It comes from the feminization of our society.  It is somewhat ironic how secular humanists claim to be all about logic and reason yet their social policies are completely based in feelings.  Secularism and all of its step children like feminism, socialism and communism are doomed to fail because they deny God’s design of human nature as well as sin’s corruption of the human.

I will leave my fellow Christian brethren with this hope from the Scriptures:

“7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. 9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.”

Psalm 37:7-9 (KJV)

Are Men Becoming Obsolete?

“The male body is becoming outdated tech” – this is the assertion of Mark Manson in his article entitled “What’s the Problem with Masculinity?”   In this article Mr. Manson uses Pablo Escobar and his own “pilgrimage” to the former Escobar estate in Columbia to try and tell us that traditional norms of masculinity are now “outdated”.

Just a forewarning to my readers – Mr. Manson really likes to use the F-word a lot.  It is even the title of one his books and it appears often in his relationship articles on his blog.

Mr. Manson states this about the origins of masculine behavior:

“Masculinity has historically been all about the three P’s: protector, provider, procreation. The more you protect, the more you provide, the more you fuck, the more of a man you are…

But this version of masculinity evolved for a particularly socially-beneficial reason — to protect us from invaders and protect the town and kill bears and stuff. We needed men to fuck a lot because something like half of your kids didn’t survive into puberty. We needed them to provide because you never knew when the next horrible winter was around the corner.”

Manson then goes on to tell us what has changed.  He states that we now live in “a cushy first world where security is more or less guaranteed” where “Violence has largely been automated or outsourced or just plain eliminated”  and “Service economies mean that women are just as capable (and perhaps even more capable) to work and earn a living than men are at most professions”.  He also says “We have like, women’s rights and equality and stuff. Fact is, we’re much more conscious and moral than we used to be. Therefore, the drawbacks of masculine aggression and dominance present not just economic liabilities, but ethical ones as well”.

Manson goes on in the article to totally denigrate historic masculinity and asks the question “Why are men such dicks? Even the word itself, “dick,” the male sex organ, refers to someone who is being rude and offensive”.  He goes on to denigrate men for being “less likely to report any injury suffered at work”, more likely to “work far longer hours, take fewer vacations and sick days” and even for being more likely to die on job.  He castigates the average man for seeing himself as nothing more than a “walking paycheck”.

He talks about men having five times the suicide rate of women (which is true).  And he further derides men for being “so emotionally incompetent without women, that getting married may statistically be the best thing a man can do to improve his longevity and mental health”.

But then Manson tells us that even when men get married, they are “woefully equipped” to handle it and he tells us why:

Women initiate more than 70% of divorces and separations with the most common cause cited as “emotional neglect” from their husbands. Those divorces also hit men the hardest: recently divorced men are more likely to suffer depression, alcoholism, mental illness, and suicide than women are.”

Now we will move on to Manson’s summary of the problem and his answer to it.

Manson’s Answer to the Problem of the Obsolescence of Historic Masculinity

Manson summarizes the problem of the obsolescence of traditional masculinity when he writes:

“The problem with the traditional masculine formula – protection, providing, procreating – is that they require men to measure their self-worth via some external, arbitrary metric. They require men to mortgage their emotional health for the sake of their physical safety. But in a cushy first world where security is more or less guaranteed, those interest payments start adding up.

Men don’t just do this to themselves though. They do it to each other. Hell, women do it as well. Educated women will complain that men are superficial and only want to date women who look like a Victoria’s Secret model. Yet ladies, how many of you are running out the door to date a janitor?

We unfairly objectify women in society for their beauty and sex appeal. Similarly, we unfairly objectify men for their professional success and aggression.”

And then Manson gives us his answer to the problem of the obsolescence of traditional masculinity:

“In the 21st century, we need to evolve our definition of masculinity. Yes, we’re still protectors and providers. And you’re damn right we want to keep pro-creating. But there need to be new internal metrics for a man’s worth as well — his honesty, his integrity, his emotional openness and ability to remain strong in the face of vulnerability.”

Let me boil this down for you, Manson is saying that men need to stop being stoic which means they need to complain when they get hurt at work, work less hours and stop seeing their value in their ability to be providers, protectors and procreators.  Sure, they can still keep doing these things, but they should not be the basis for a man’s worth.

Instead a man’s worth should be found in his emotional openness and his vulnerability. In other words, men should just learn to deal with the fact we are moving to a service economy and it is taking away their ability to be providers.  They should deal with it by having a good cry and then accepting it and moving on.

Men should learn not to be “so emotionally incompetent” that they need marriage to a woman to be mentally healthy and more successful in their jobs.  Men should be successful and emotionally secure without being married or for that matter even having a good paying job.

And if men get more in touch with their emotions and their wife’s emotions, they might be able to make the new modern gynocentric version of marriage last.  And if they happen to be one of the unlucky men who get divorce papers from their wives, they need to again open their emotions up, be vulnerable have a good cry and move on to the next woman hoping she won’t divorce them either.

A Biblical View of the Obsolescence of Traditional Masculinity

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 19:1 “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool”.  So yes, as Christians we absolutely believe that a man should place great value on his integrity.  But Mark Manson presents us with a false dichotomy that we as men can place our value in our integrity (as well as emotional openness and vulnerability) or we can place our value in being providers, protector and procreators.

Biblically speaking this is not an either-or proposition – it is both.

The Bible tells us that a man should absolutely find a great part of his value in being a procreator when it states:

“3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”

Psalm 127:3-5 (KJV)

The Bible also tells us that men should find their value in being providers and protectors for their wives and children:

“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

Ephesians 5:29 (KJV)

“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”

Proverbs 13:22 (KJV)

“Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

Psalm 144:1 (KJV)

It is God who created in man the burning desire to take a wife in marriage, have children and then lead, provide for and protect them.  It is God who put in man the strong desire to be a hard worker and to make his mark on the world outside his home.

It is absolutely true that our modern world is trying very hard to make God’s design of masculinity obsolete in every way they can.  As Bible believing Christians though we need to realize this is part of a much larger insidious plan.  The secular humanists have been using scientific and technological advancements as well as cultural changes to try and make God obsolete.

The attack on what we call “traditional masculinity” which really is just God’s design of masculinity is an attack on God himself.  The Scriptures tell us in I Corinthians 11:7 “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.  Man, the male human being, was created by God to image him and thereby bring God glory.  The Scriptures tell us that woman was created by God for man (I Corinthians 11:9) to bring glory to man.

Men are not “emotionally incompetent” for strongly desiring and needing marriage nor for placing their value in being providers and protectors.  Men cannot fulfill the purpose for which God designed them without being husbands, fathers, providers and protectors.  So, it makes perfect sense that some men would feel suicidal and without a sense of purpose if they cannot do these things.

Our modern world hates this truth.  And that is why we are seeing a cultural war over the gender roles God created in the form of transgenderism and homosexuality being forced into cultural acceptance.  Secular humanists are literally trying to annihilate the distinction between men and women as God created it.

How Christians Can Fight Secularist Attempts to Make Traditional Masculinity Obsolete

The world tells us as Bible believing Christians that we just need to conform to how things are now and get with the program. “Stop living in the past and living by the words of a 3000-year-old book” we are often told.  But if we do this and conform to our world’s eradication of masculinity and femininity as God designed it then we are betraying our Christian faith.

The Scriptures tell us in Romans 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world” and in James 4:4 that “whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God”.

The answer then for us as Christians is to fight back by refusing to conform to this wicked agenda which seeks to make God’s design of masculinity (and femininity for that matter) obsolete.

But how do we fight this cultural war? The simple answer is that we need to reverse the cultural decisions that have brought us to the point we now find ourselves at where we are actually debating if traditional masculinity should be tossed to the dustbin of history.

The two major items that have brought traditional masculinity to brink of obsolescence are feminism and automation

Work supplies man with a great amount of his purpose.  And a service economy does not provide the vast majority of men with an income that can support a family.  Only a production economy can supply men with jobs that can support a family.  Some say people just need to be educated more for the future.  That is false for two reasons.

First it assumes all men have the intelligence and aptitude for high tech jobs and learning.  That is untrue. Second as things become more and more automated, we will need even less and less techs because the machines will fix themselves.

Even the atheist Steven Hawking saw AI as threat to humanity.

So, Christians need to raise their voices about the threat of continued automation and AI advances.  We need to pass laws that outlaw further AI advances and also outlaw robotic automation in all manufacturing.  We also need to outlaw driverless cars as this will put truck drivers and man others out of work.

But we must also work to undo feminism.  We must take away the rights America has granted to women since the mid-1800s.   This means taking away women’s right to own property and limiting the ability of women to work and earn money.  It means placing restrictions on how many women may enter higher education.   In other words, it means making women completely dependent on men for their economic provision.

And it absolutely means taking away women’s right to vote.

It also means removing no fault divorce laws and restricting the allowance for divorce to only the gravest of circumstances such as physical abuse, adultery or abandonment.

When we once again secure the institution of marriage and protect the ability of all men to be able to work and earn a living and we restrict women from being independent from men then true masculinity can be restored to its rightful honored position it once held.

But then the question comes – how do we do all the things I just mentioned? They seem impossible in our current culture and political climate.  The answer is it starts with Christian fathers and mothers sitting their young people down and showing them what God’s Word says about the different reasons he designed men and women. It means teaching our sons to seek out only Christian women who want to be keepers of their homes and depend on their husbands for their provision as the church depends on Christ for its provision.

It means raising our daughters to be women whose goal in life is not education and career, but instead bringing glory to God by bringing glory to their future husbands.  It means raising daughters who want to fully dedicate their lives to serving their husbands, their children and their homes.

Here is another way to look at this.  Godly young men need to shut out feminist women.  Even if a feminist woman wants to stay at home, she will still bring great sorrow to her future husband with her daily contentions.  That means staying away from women who want college and university educations and or careers.

Godly Christian women need to work with their fathers to find a man who fully accepts his God given duty to lead them, provide for them and protect them.  A man who is not fully prepared to provide for a wife has no business even approaching a woman’s father to court her.

And yes, we need to get rid of dating and return to courtship.  We need to guard against premarital sex by re-instituting the cultural norm of a woman never being alone with a man not her blood relative or her husband.

This also means Christians need to return to having larger families.  Conservative Christians (both Protestant and Catholic) already have more children than liberal Christian or secular families do.  And this is actually what lead to a conservative resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s.  While the liberals were out partying and living it up having no kids or just one or two kids the conservatives were having 3 or 4 or 5 kids.  So, if we build on this and increase this, we can literally outbreed liberals and win at the voting box with sheer numbers.

But just having more children is not enough.  We must teach our children the Word of God and prepare them for all the false philosophies they will hear in the secular world.  We need to point out to them all the problems with a system built on individualism and how it is destructive to the family and therefore society as a whole.

Can Christian Man Marry A Woman Intending to Tame Her?

Can a Christian man marry a feminist Christian woman with the intent of taming her like Petruchio did with Katherine in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”? Or must a Christian husband always seek a woman who is submissive and believes in and follows Biblical gender roles?

Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”

Here are some excerpts from synopsis of Taming of the Shrew by www.sparknotes.com:

“In the Italian city of Padua, a rich young man named Lucentio arrives with his servants, Tranio and Biondello, to attend the local university. Lucentio is excited to begin his studies, but his priorities change when he sees Bianca, a beautiful, mild young woman with whom Lucentio instantly falls in love. There are two problems: first, Bianca already has two suitors, Gremio and Hortensio; second, Bianca’s father, a wealthy old man named Baptista Minola, has declared that no one may court Bianca until first her older sister, the vicious, ill-tempered Katherine, is married…

The Katherine problem is solved for Bianca’s suitors when Hortensio’s friend Petruchio, a brash young man from Verona, arrives in Padua to find a wife. He intends to marry a rich woman, and does not care what she is like as long as she will bring him a fortune. He agrees to marry Katherine sight unseen. The next day, he goes to Baptista’s house to meet her, and they have a tremendous duel of words. As Katherine insults Petruchio repeatedly, Petruchio tells her that he will marry her whether she agrees or not. He tells Baptista, falsely, that Katherine has consented to marry him on Sunday. Hearing this claim, Katherine is strangely silent, and the wedding is set.

On Sunday, Petruchio is late to his own wedding, leaving Katherine to fear she will become an old maid. When Petruchio arrives, he is dressed in a ridiculous outfit and rides on a broken-down horse. After the wedding, Petruchio forces Katherine to leave for his country house before the feast, telling all in earshot that she is now his property and that he may do with her as he pleases. Once they reach his country house, Petruchio continues the process of “taming” Katherine by keeping her from eating or sleeping for several days—he pretends that he loves her so much he cannot allow her to eat his inferior food or to sleep in his poorly made bed

Katherine and Petruchio soon return to Padua to visit Baptista. On the way, Petruchio forces Katherine to say that the sun is the moon and that an old man is really a beautiful young maiden. Since Katherine’s willfulness is dissipating, she agrees that all is as her husband says

At the banquet following Hortensio’s wedding to the widow, the other characters are shocked to see that Katherine seems to have been “tamed”—she obeys everything that Petruchio says and gives a long speech advocating the loyalty of wives to their husbands. When the three new husbands stage a contest to see which of their wives will obey first when summoned, everyone expects Lucentio to win. Bianca, however, sends a message back refusing to obey, while Katherine comes immediately. The others acknowledge that Petruchio has won an astonishing victory, and the happy Katherine and Petruchio leave the banquet to go to bed.”

A lot of Christians who are ignorant of history and even the Bible would say a person is wrong for marrying for economic reasons. If you believe that, I would invite you to read the story of Ruth in the Bible.  She married Boaz to redeem her mother-in-law’s husband’s family land.  We falsely have been taught today that a person must marry because they first “fall in love with a person” – that command is found nowhere in the Bible. It is wishful thinking, mostly on the part of women.   Some will say – what about Jacob? He loved Rachel so much he served seven years for her.  But again, this is not a command, it is an example. And why did he love her? Check the story – it was because of how beautiful she was.

And let’s not forget Jacob’s mother and father. What a whirlwind romance they had right? They just met each other and went into his mother’s tent had sex and became man and wife.  No long courtship, no discussion.   Isaac followed his father’s advice for him in finding a wife and Rebekah followed her father’s command for her to go back and marry Isaac.  It was that simple.

But the most important question the Taming of the Shrew presents us with is whether or not it is sinful or immoral for a Christian man to marry a rebellious woman with the intention of taming her into submission?

However, before we can answer this question, we must first answer another very important question for Christians.

Can a Christian Marry an Unbeliever?

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 the Apostle Paul gives the following command regarding Christians entering into relationships with non-believers:

“14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”

As we can see from the above Scriptures, it is clear that believers are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

This is why a Christian church has no business having an inter-faith conference with the Muslim church down the street. And it is also why a Christian man or woman can never enter into the most intimate of human relationships God ever designed which is marriage, with a non-believer.

Some Christians have falsely used 1 Corinthians 7:13-16 to say that the Apostle Paul was ok with Christians marrying non-Christians:

“13 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.

15 But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

16 For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?”

However, such an interpretation betrays the entire context of the passage which Paul states in verse 20 of this same chapter:

“Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.”

Paul is saying that if you become a believer and your spouses does not come to the faith as you have that you are to remain with them if they want to stay.  He is not saying it is ok for a Christian to purposefully marry a non-believer which would then conflict with what he said in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17.

Now that we have established this important principle of the Scriptures, we can go on to answer the question at the center of this article.

Can a Christian Man Marry a Christian Feminist Woman with the Intent to Tame Her?

Throughout the Bible God’s relationship with humanity is pictured in two different ways.  As individuals our relationship with God is pictured as a father and child relationship.  But God’s relationship with his people in the collective sense is always pictured as that of a husband to his wife.

We can see this concept shown where God pictures the nation of Israel as a treacherous wife in Jeremiah 3:20:

“Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord.”

Notice how he refers to his wife – “O house of Israel”.

Now let’s look further in this book to Jeremiah 18:1-6:

“The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.”

What do we see here? God presents the picture of a potter who had a marred, meaning it had defects.  So, he reshaped it against as a whole new vessel.  God tells Israel, his wife, that she is like that clay.  He saw defects in her and wanted to reshape her in another vessel but she would not allow him to do so.

Now let’s look to the New Testament in Ephesians 5:25-27:

“25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

There is an important parallel here between God as a husband to Israel and Christ as a husband to the Church.  How does a potter shape his clay into the form he wishes it to be? He uses water.  In the same way we as Christian husbands are told to love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her so he could wash her with “water by the word”, so she would not have “spot, or wrinkle”, so he could present her to “himself a glorious church”.

Why did God want to reshape Israel as his wife? Because she was “marred” which parallels the “spot or wrinkle” shown to us here with Christ and his wife, the Church, in the New Testament.

The point is that God is a consistent husband.  Christ is not a different kind of husband to the Church than God was to Israel.  We as Christian husbands can learn just a much from God’s example as a husband to Israel as we can learn from Christ’s example as a husband to the Church.  This is a fundamental truth that all Christian husbands must embrace.

With that being said can a Christian man marry a Christian woman whom he perceives is marred by feminist tendencies with the intention that he is going to attempt to wash her of those tendencies?

The answer based on God’s own example with both Israel and the Church is a resounding YES!

Am I recommending Men Marry Feminist Women with the Intent to Tame Them?

I have proven the case from the Scriptures that nothing in the Scriptures stops a man from marrying a woman whom he genuinely believes to be a Christian but is marred by feminism.

I made the following statement about my second wife in a post I wrote a few years ago that include my story about how I met my second wife and married her:

“While we were dating, I detected feminist tendencies in her that she had from her upbringing (her mom was a career woman as well).  Her mom even told me on one occasion that she taught her daughters to “be independent and not need a man”.  So even though my wife had become a Christian a few years before she met me, the feminism ran deep in her.  I also detected that her job as a manager might cause some friction in her commitment to our marriage and our home.

But she was so different from my first wife, and such a good Christian woman with great character that I chose to overlook some of these areas that would later come back to haunt me, naively thinking I could help her to see what God says a Christian woman’s priorities should be in regard to her husband, her children and her home.

I mentioned in that same post that my wife displayed many marks of a true believer in Christ.  She was so dedicated to seeing people saved.  She witnessed to her friends at work and relatives and she was concerned for her lost loved ones.  She went on missions’ trips with her church.  I spoke with her Pastor and some deacons at her church and saw in her a woman that had many great character traits and a passion for God.  But she was a new Christian, saved only few years before I met her.

So, I believed when I saw the feminist tendencies in her that I could just teach her and help her to learn those ways were not right.  She told me she believed the passages about submission that I showed her. But she also believed that men and women were equal and she was trying to square that with what the Bible said about submission.

I thought I could wash this feminism from her, but alas after almost 9 years of marriage much of it remains.  There has been some progress and some change but not nearly as much as I had hoped.

The question though is this – does my failure to be able to wash away my wife’s feminism with the Word of God mean that no man could do this with another woman?

The answer is no.  It is in fact possible.

In the three years since I wrote about my story with my failure to completely wash away my wife’s feminism, I have had many men write me telling they had success with their wives in this.  I have actually even had many young women write me telling me that my writings helped to convince them that feminism was wrong and they came out of it on their own before marriage.

So, what is the variable that makes for success in the taming of a feminist Christian wife?  The answer is it comes down to whether the woman will recognize this sinful thought process in her own life and then allow her husband in conjunction with the Holy Spirit to wash it from her.

In James 1:23-24 the Bible tells us about a man looking in a glass seeing his reflection:

“23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”

Now let’s apply what James is saying to a feminist Christian wife.  A man can take his wife to the spiritual mirror which is the Word of God.  He can show her the reflection of herself.  He can show her the sin of feminism all over her face.  But she must choose to humble herself before God and accept what she sees right there in the mirror.  She must then submit herself to her husband’s washing and see him as a God given instrument for sanctification in her life.

Some may argue “Well I am fine with trying to tame her before marriage, but you should not marry her until she is completely tamed of feminism”.  And I understand where that thinking comes from.   But just because something presents a lot more risk does not make it wrong.  Marriage itself is a risk.  Even marriage to a woman who seems to be a good Christian and one who fully embraces Biblical gender roles. It is simply a matter of how much risk is involved.

Is This a Change in My Position on Christian Men Marrying Feminist Women?

The answer is Yes. Throughout this ministry over the last four years I have made changes on several positions.  Really – over my entire Christian life I have made changes in my beliefs as the Lord has led me to do so.  We must never be so rigid or get to the point where God cannot change our position on something and teach us new things.

Up until now I have taught people on this blog as well as my own sons that I made a grave mistake in marrying their step mother with the intent to help her understand the errors of her feminist thinking.  I have taught young men on this blog and elsewhere that they should avoid interactions with feminist Christian women and at the first sign of feminist tendencies when dating or courting they should abandon such a woman.

If you or my sons want to follow the advice I have previously given there is no sin in following it still.  If you decide that the potential costs in this spiritual warfare to attempt to tame a feminist Christian wife is too much I completely understand and there is no sin in avoiding feminist women like the plague.

So here is my change. 

I have thought back to when I met my second wife and after I talked to all the people that knew her from her church as well as her family.  My intentions were noble.  I saw the potential in her for change.  I went into this marriage fully intent on washing her feminism away and believing she would allow me over time to do it. I believed her passion to see souls saved would result in a similar passion to conform herself as a wife to the will of God for her life. The problem was not in my intent, but in her continued unwillingness to fully yield to the Holy Spirit on this issue, so in turn she could not fully yield to me either.

If you find a woman who has the markings of a true believer in Christ as my second wife had, but this appears to be a blind spot in her life and you are intent on doing spiritual battle, even if takes the rest of your life married to her, to wash the spiritual wrinkles and spots of feminism from her then this is a noble cause. But be forewarned, this is not for the faint of heart. It could greatly affect your future children and in some cases the battle could even lead to divorce.

However, if you are marrying a feminist Christian woman with the intent that you are going to tolerate her feminism and will just give up your headship role over her then you are wrong.  As a Christian God does not allow you to surrender your position as head to your wife. So, if you know you are not willing to do battle to attempt to wash the feminism from a woman then you should not marry her.  You should only marry a woman who fully embraces Biblical gender roles before you marry her.

So here is the conclusion of the matter.  Is it a sin before God for a man to marry a Christian woman with the intent of taming her of her feminist tendencies and beliefs? The answer is no it is not a sin.

But I would leave any Christian man who intends to go into such a spiritual battle with this admonition from Christ found in Luke 14:31:

“Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?” 

Be sure before you go to war, that you count the costs that may be incurred on you in the process of that war.

Why MGTOW is an Unbiblical Philosophy

MGTOW is just one of many men’s rights groups comprising what is known as the Manosphere. MGTOW stands for “Men Going Their Own Way”. The Manosphere is comprised of several groups that share one thing in common. They all believe the rights of men in America and other western countries have been infringed upon for at least several decades and others for more than a century. Also, the vast majority of Manosphere groups believe that feminism is a problematic ideology that is eating away at the core of society and destroying Western civilization.

Where these groups begin to separate from one another is on two main issues.

The first issue which separates manosphere groups is how far back was feminism wrong? Was it from its very origins in the mid-19th century when women’s groups fought for more rights for in divorce and property rights for women? Was it when women were granted the right to vote in 1920? Or was it just from the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s where feminism dropped the equivalent of a societal nuclear bomb on traditional gender roles and sexual morality and it became a misandrist movement that openly declared war on men?

The second issue which separates manosphere groups is how men should react to the damage feminism has caused to men’s rights, sexual norms, traditional gender roles, marriage and the family. And opinions on what the solutions should be are very much impacted by the group’s view on the origins of the problem.

For instance, if a group does not view equal rights for women, including the ability of women to vote and to be economically independent of men as a foundational part of the problem they will have very different solutions to the assault on men’s rights than other groups. Another way of putting this is that some manosphere groups are only fighting for equal rights for men with women, not less rights for women.

MRAs – Men’s Rights Activists

Many MRA groups in the manosphere believe they just need to just get the societal pendulum to the center. These groups are actually big supporters of first and even second wave feminism and all the new rights these movements granted women. They believe society was unjustly biased to support male privilege and patriarchy over women before feminism came along to correct this injustice. In their view, feminism just went too far and they want to re-balance the rights between men and women and have the courts deal equally with both men and women.

Jesse Powell’s Secular Patriarchy or Traditional Family Activism

Other manosphere groups believe that feminism was flawed from its very inception and that American and Western society made a grave error in granting women economic, social and political independence from men. In their view, tearing down the system of patriarchy which was the norm throughout human history was a colossal mistake.

Even among the manosphere groups that believe feminism was flawed since its very inception in the mid-19th century, there is much diversity of opinion. Some of these groups come from a secular perspective and others come from a religious perspective.

For instance, there are atheists like Jesse Powell who are believe in and teach “secular patriarchy” and consider themselves “TFAs” or Traditional Family Activists. Jesse Powell argues that evolution shows that men are meant to lead, provide for and protect women and that the feminist revolution of the mid-19th century went against this and was doomed to failure because of the unique evolutionary design of men and women.

Mr. Powell not only decries the damage caused by feminism to Western world, but he also offers what he believes is a solution to the problem:

What society needs instead is for men to assert themselves as men and return to their roles as the guardians, protectors, and foundation of support for women so that women will be once again freed from the concerns and burdens of the man and instead be enabled to focus on giving to others of their femininity and their unique and particular strengths as women. The feminine contribution to the family and to society must be resurrected, must be revitalized, must be held up as a fundamental priority and concern of men once again.

Under coverture women’s role as women was upheld in both culture and law. The beginning of the feminist revolution can be dated back to the initial reforms that worked to undo the principles of coverture; namely the Custody of Infants Act of 1839 and the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870. TFAs wish to repeal the feminist revolution in its entirety and return to a period of stable and healthy relations between the sexes such as existed in the era of coverture.”

So, in his view the answer to fighting the damage feminism has caused to the family unit and Western civilization is to go back to the very beginnings of feminism in the mid-19th century and remove it at is very roots. That means removing women’s right to vote, property rights and child custody rights in divorce. This would force women’s complete dependence on men as had it been for this history of mankind throughout the world.

Rollo Tomassi’s “The Red Pill” or TRP

Other secularists like Rollo Tomassi at RationalMale.com take a different approach. He does not oppose women’s right to vote, property rights for women or even their right to abortion, but he does think that the ideology of feminism is at odds with human evolution and he does not buy into the false blank slate theory that all of our behavior comes from our environment. He rejects the crazy idea that you can educate away basic male and female behavioral traits.

Rollo Tomassi has made a career of his own take on “The Red Pill” which uses the 1999 movie “Matrix” to illustrate how men need to be awakened to what is actually happening around them. In the Matrix movie the mentor character Morpheus offers Neo, the main Protagonist a choice between a red pill and a blue pill. If he takes the red pill, he will be awakened to the false reality he has been living in and shown what the world actually looks like. If he takes the blue pill, he can go back to the fantasy world he has been living in his whole life. But if he does stay in that world, he will continue to be what he has been since his birth, a slave to the Matrix system. He can only be free by taking the red pill and waking up to the harsh real world around him. It will be a harder world, and he will have to fight against the system he used to serve as a slave, but he would be free.

I actually love the Matrix Trilogy and own them all on Blu Ray. I watch them a couple times a year with my sons. I think there are many life lessons that can be learned from them and I actually think the red pill/blue pill is an excellent analogy to how we are brought up in our culture to view our world. I would even use the red pill/blue pill analogy to teach people that there is a spiritual world that is beyond this physical world that we can see and touch.

But unlike Jesse Powell, Rollo Tomassi does not see the answer to the problem of “feminine primacy” in Western culture as a need to completely rollback all gains of feminism since the mid-19th century. Mr. Tomassi is not really looking at long term political solutions to the problem of feminism, but rather he is more interested in helping men to “game” the current feminine dominated culture to fulfill their “masculine imperative”. The masculine imperative in his view is for a man to have sex with as many women as possible. In essence, men are programmed to be polygamous, or most specifically polygynous. Women on the other hand are hypergamous by nature, meaning they seek the best man with which to mate based on his genetics and his ability to provide for and protect them. This is why women are most naturally attracted to muscular, good looking men who have a lot of money.

One of the most important concepts Mr. Tomassi teaches men in their efforts to “game women” is the “Cardinal Rule of Relationships: In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least”. By this he teaches men that the more they act like they need a woman, especially for sex, the more power she takes in the relationship and ultimately the less attractive he becomes to her.

And no introduction to the Red Pill ideology would be complete without the mention of alpha men, beta men and the concept of “Frame”. In his book “The Rational Male — Positive Masculinity” Tomassi writes:

“The sexual alphaness of a male towards a female is exhibited by her wanting to please him, and the sexual betaness of a male is exhibited by him needing to please her.

And on the subject of “Frame” Tomassi wrote the following in his article on RationalMale.com entitled “Hypergamy Knows Best”:

“One of the most basic Red Pill principles I’ve stressed since I began writing is the importance of Frame. The dynamic of Frame stretches into many aspects of a man’s life, but in a strictly intergender sense this applies to men establishing a positive dominance in their relationships with women. In a dating context of non-exclusivity (plate spinning) this means, as a man, you have a solid reality into which that woman wants to be included in. Holding Frame is not about force, or coercion, it’s about attraction and desire and a genuine want on the part of a woman to be considered for inclusion into that man’s reality.

Being allowed into a man’s dominant, confident Frame should be a compliment to that woman’s self-perception. It should be a prize she seeks.”

So here is a summary of what Tomassi is saying in these two statements. Men have a choice. They can be the beta male our post-feminist culture wants them to be. That means as a man you center your life on pleasing the women around you. If you are a beta male, your entire strategy in dating and eventually marriage is to make your wife happy each and every day. You will sacrifice your career, your sexual needs and anything else that is required in order to make her happy.

Alpha males are the polar opposite. The best summary of an Alpha male is man who absolutely and unequivocally does not care about what others think of him. He literally does what he wants to whether it is popular or not.

As an example, a beta male would ask his wife or girlfriend permission to go out with his friends on a given evening. The alpha male would tell his wife he was going out and not give her the option of a veto. Tomassi and other Red Pill philosophers have pointed to many studies which show women going after the “bad boy”, i.e. the guy who could care less about what anyone thinks of what he does. For instance, it is extremely common for a woman to be married to Mr. Nice Guy and then have an affair with Mr. Bad Boy who lives next store. The Mr. Nice Guy could work the 9 to 5 job and provide well for his wife and children. The Mr. Nice Guy could come home after work and help with the kids and even cook dinner. Mr. Nice Guy even takes his wife on regular weekly dates and even takes her on romantic trips a couple times a year. But instead his wife finds herself attracted to Mr. Bad Guy next store who is covered in tattoos, rides a Harley, would never want kids and has an endless string of bimbos coming in and out of his house.

This is because two of the driving forces that evoke what Tomassi calls “genuine” verses “negotiated” sexual desire in women are men that give off the allure of danger or excitement. Mr. Nice Guy is both safe and unexciting therefore his wife will most likely have no genuine desire to have sex with him and the most he can ever hope for is “transactional” or “negotiated” sex where he does things for her and then she gives him sex as a reward.

Another driver of genuine sexual desire in women, according to Tomassi, is fear or dread. Its not fear in the sense that she is afraid the man will hurt her if she does not have sex with him. It is not even fear that he might take away things like money or other things he supplies her with. This type of fear or dread as he refers to it is when a woman sees other women are interested in her man. It is really a jealous type of fear where she worries if she does not sexually please him, he will find what he wants elsewhere with these other women that want him.

And these are just some of the many techniques that Mr. Tomassi teaches men in order to stoke “genuine desire” for sex from women toward them. While he does talk about other masculine issues besides sex, his teachings could basically boil down to “How men can get laid both before and after marriage in a post-feminist world.” With teachings like these, it is not surprising that Mr. Tomassi has one of the largest followings in the Manosphere.

One of my many projects I have had in the works is to do an in-depth comparison of the doctrines of Biblical gender roles verses Red Pill ideology. I will say up front as a preview that Red Pill ideology is not all wrong from a Christian perspective. In fact, many observations of Red Pill ideology are backed up by the Bible.

But one of the big differences between Red Pill ideology and Biblical gender roles is that Red Pill just tells you what the differences are between men and women, it does not do a lot of explaining as to why those differences are there.

The only “why” you get from Red Pill for the differences between men and women is based on the evolutionary need to reproduce for the continuation of the species. Mr. Tomassi’s Red Pill ideology teaches that men have polygamous natures which causes them seek to sow their seed with as many women as possible. On the other hand, Tomassi teaches that women have hypergamous natures which causes them to be more selective and thus they seek out the most genetically superior males who can provide for and protect them and their children thus giving their offspring the best chance for survival.

The Bible actually shows that God made men with polygamous natures and it regulates polygamy and even blesses polygamy. So, in this area of man’s sexual nature the Bible would be in complete agreement with Red Pill ideology. The Bible would also agree with the fact that women have hypergamous natures but under Biblical laws women were not allowed to fully act on those hypergamous natures. While it is true that women often married for economic or political means, the fact is historically women had little to no choice in whom they married. Their fathers or other male relatives like uncles or brothers would decide who women married. Only widowed or divorced women had a choice in whom they married.

Also, before the sexual revolution which coincided with the second wave feminism of the 1960s, sex outside of marriage was the rarity and not the norm as it is today. Prior to the sexual revolution, a woman’s virginity was her most prized possession held and protected for marriage. So, the whole Red Pill ideology of cracking “the code of how to get laid” was meaningless for having sex with the vast majority of women. Prior to the advent of dating in the early 20th century and then the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the way a man got laid was to get married. And the way a man got married was to get a job, show he could provide and then earn the permission of the father, uncle or brother of the girl he wanted to marry. In many older cultures a man did not just earn the father’s permission with his character or by showing he could provide, but he also earned that permission by paying for the woman.

In other words, since the creation of mankind right up until the advent of mid-19th century feminist movements, women were considered the property of men. There were two primary ways men acquired women. They would take women as part of the spoils of war from the tribes or nations they conquered or among their own tribe or nation they would purchase women from their fathers or other male relatives.

So, when we look at the history of male/female relationship dynamics, a lot of what Red Pill ideology teaches only applies if a man fully accepts and just wants to “game” our post-feminist and post-sexual revolution culture to fulfill his own personnel desires for pleasure.

However, if you are trying to follow the Biblical model of gender roles some parts of Red Pill ideology will work within a Biblical framework but other parts of it will have to be discarded.

Now that we have talked about MRAs, Secular Patriarchists and Red Pill teachings from the manosphere we will now dive into MGTOWs.

What MGTOWs Believe

Here is the definition of MGTOW from mgtow.com’s “About” page:

M.G.T.O.W – Men Going Their Own Way is a statement of self-ownership, where the modern man preserves and protects his own sovereignty above all else. It is the manifestation of one word: “No”. Ejecting silly preconceptions and cultural definitions of what a “man” is. Looking to no one else for social cues. Refusing to bow, serve and kneel for the opportunity to be treated like a disposable utility. And, living according to his own best interests in a world which would rather he didn’t.”

https://www.mgtow.com/about/

On mgtow.com’s “Manosphere” page they explain what happiness looks like to a man:

Happiness is a man who protects and cares for his family, goes forth and conquers, gives of himself for a greater cause, and ensures his legacy – because that’s what he was made to do. He doesn’t fear resistance, turbulence, or commitment, because his masculine frame turns resistance into rise, finds sustenance in turbulent waters, and relies on the steadfast roots of commitment to provide stability for himself and safety for those he vowed to protect.

But today’s men are encouraged to meet resistance head on while being shamed for expecting lift. They’re told to “man up” and tough it out through turbulent waters while being called misogynists for expecting sustenance. They’re shamed into putting down roots in infertile hypergamous soil that offers no support, then are financially ruined and separated from their children when they cannot weather the storm…

The women they encounter demand attention, loyalty, resources and undue privilege, while offering very little in return. The natural hypergamous nature that once served them well in their quest to secure the best possible mate is now a sustained lifestyle bringing an endless pursuit of bigger and better. The average young woman today is less concerned about the number of quality men who would commit to her than she is about the number of men who retweet a photo of her breasts.

Young men today attend churches with pastors who demand they “man up” and support the church and its female parishioners, but that same church does nothing to cultivate an environment that encourages feminine strength. Sunday after Sunday they listen as the same Bible used to preemptively absolve women of all past, current and future transgressions is used to condemn men…

Men haven’t lost their need to find happiness by providing, protecting, sacrificing and conquering; we’ve simply discovered that providing for the modern feminist, working like a dog to protect a family that can be taken away at a moment’s notice, or risking our lives to conquer resources for some ungrateful women who claims she can do it on her own is an empty way to live. We haven’t changed the mission; we’ve changed the method. We now provide for ourselves and our immediate families, protect our interests, make selective sacrifices when the situation warrants, and conquer mountains of poon.

https://www.mgtow.com/manosphere/

On the subject of sex mgtow.com gives this answer in their “Frequently Asked Questions” (https://www.mgtow.com/faq/) section:

“Do MGTOW have sex? Or are you all virgins who don’t get any.

You know who’s not getting any?

Boyfriends and husbands.

Sex is a worthless commodity that grows on trees. Any man who has enjoyed his fair share would know that. It’s available to any man, anywhere, for less effort, money and time than anyone would have you believe. If it’s that important to a man, he can order it like pizza. Right now. Even if the modern man has only 3 lovers in his entire life, he is enjoying more trim than his own grandfather – who was socially expected to marry her first. The value of western vagina has plummeted to $0.

A significant number of MGTOW are fathers. Guess how that happened.”

And finally on the subject of marriage mgtow.com gives this answer in their “Frequently Asked Questions” section:

Can you be married and a MGHOW?

There has been some deliberation on this, but the short answer is “no”.

While it’s certainly possible that a man may have married 20 years ago, and recently became self-aware of the very precarious legal position he finds himself in today . . . this would be the only real way he could consider adopting a MGTOW lifestyle if he were contemplating divorce.

Cohabitation and the signing of a marriage contract eliminates any possibility that he has a true 100% agency over the outcome of his marriage and future. With 72%+ of divorces solely initiated by women (the number is much higher because she can still passively initiate while making it look like his idea) his kids, house, cars, freedom and ultimate destiny no longer belong to him exclusively. No matter how much he wants his marriage to work, he can’t legally control the outcome and can be totally devastated by the divorce. Divorce is a huge, billion-dollar industry deliberately designed to transfer his wealth and freedom to her, leaving him with little or no recourse – even if he were totally faithful and she had 50 affairs since the wedding.

Save a male and stop a wedding™ is an unregistered trademark of MGTOW.com

Now that we have shown what MGTOWs believe straight from the horse’s mouth we will take a look at some things that MGTOWs teach that are in fact true.

What is Right About MGTOW?

From a Christian and Biblical perspective most of the groups in the Manosphere have some elements of truth in their philosophies. MRAs are correct in stating that courts and our legal system are biased in helping women and sticking it to men especially as it relates to divorce and child custody issues. Red Pill teachers like Rollo Tomassi are right that sex is a major driving force in any man’s life if he is being honest with himself. Tomassi is also right about men being polygamous by nature and women being hypergamous by nature. And MGTOWs are right about a few things as well.

MGTOWs Are Right About Happiness Drivers for Men

Mgtow.com stated “Happiness is a man who protects and cares for his family, goes forth and conquers, gives of himself for a greater cause, and ensures his legacy – because that’s what he was made to do.” That is absolutely a true and Biblical statement. Men are absolutely driven to create a legacy for themselves both in the children that will carry on their name and in the mark they leave on the world outside their home whether it is in their conquest of the worlds of business, politics, the arts, philosophy, science, medicine, sports or a host of other areas.

A simpler way to say this is that men have a built-in desire to be the hero both in their individual homes and to a larger audience outside their homes.

In Ecclesiastes 7:1 the Bible says A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth”. We read in Proverbs 13:22 that A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just”.

In Proverbs 3:13 the Bible saysHappy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding”. And in Psalm 127:3-5 the Scriptures state:

“3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”

So, leaving behind a good and honorable name, an inheritance for one’s children and their grandchildren, learning and finding wisdom and understanding and having children were all meant by God to be sources of happiness for men.

MGTOW is absolutely right that one of the driving forces in a man’s life and one that is meant to bring him happiness is his legacy both in how he provided for and protected his family and how he left his mark on the world. As Bible believing Christians, we believe this is part of God’s design in man.

MGTOW is Absolutely Right About the Riskiness of Marriage for Men

Before the rise of feminism, a man could securely enter into marriage with a woman knowing she would be faithful to him for life. He could confidently set out to build his legacy with his wife and children at his side.

MGTOW is absolutely right that the modern feminist mindset has decimated the institution of marriage for men. They are right that around 70 percent of divorces are filed by women. They also right that the courts are biased toward women and that men can literally loose half or more of everything they have and be left with seeing their children much less than the mother does.

MGTOW is also right from a secularist perspective that in our post-feminist world a man does not need to marry to have sex. A man can get all the sex he wants whether through paying for it or using Red Pill gaming and pickup artist techniques. And it is absolutely true that many women freely give out sex to lure men into marriage and then once marriage comes, they stop having sex or only use it as a reward technique to keep their husbands in subservience to them.

MGTOW is Absolutely Right That Men Ought Not to Surrender Their Autonomy to Women

MGTOW is also right that for many men who do stay married, the only way they keep their wives from divorcing them is to surrender their autonomy to their wives. In other words, they must become full on beta husbands in order to avoid divorce.

The Bible tells us it is a shame when women or children rule over men:

“As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” – Isaiah 3:12

In the New Testament we read a direct command from God that women are not to take authority over men:

“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” – 1 Timothy 2:12

Now that we have discussed what is right about MGTOW we must now warn Christian men as to what is wrong about MGTOW.

What is Wrong About MGTOW?

From a Christian perspective there are several core teachings of MGTOW that directly contradict the teachings of the Word of God.

MGTOW Misses Sex as a Primary Driver for Men

While MGTOW and Red Pill share much in common in their ideology one of the large differences between them is on the issue of sex. MGTOW sees a man’s legacy as his primary driver of happiness in life where Red Pill sees a man’s sexual fulfillment as his primary driver in life. The truth is that that BOTH the building of a legacy through providing for and protecting one’s family and a man’s life’s work as well as his sexual fulfillment were meant by God to be primary driving factors of a man’s happiness in life.

The Scriptures tell us the following in Proverbs 5:15-18:

“15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”

Contrary to the teachings of MGTOW and Red Pill, God did not intend for men to find happiness in only their legacy or in meaningless sex with strange women. He did not mean for any man to share a woman with other men. He meant for a woman to belong to one man for her entire life and that she would never be sexually touched by another man as long as her husband lived. In other words, God meant for men to find sexual fulfillment in marriage with their wife, not outside of marriage with strange women.

God made man’s sexual drive so strong that he compares it to water and calls it a need in a man’s life. And the well to meet that need was meant to be his wife. Many MGTOWs deny sex is even a real need for a man and they advocate “Going Monk”. But other MGTOWs and the Red Pill folks while acknowledging sex as a true need in men teach men that they can fulfill this need with whorish women that give their bodies to many men.

MGTOW and Red Pill Miss the Most Important Driver for Men

Why did God plant both a strong desire for men to play the hero and build legacies both inside and outside their homes? Why did God plant such a strong sexual desire in men for the beauty and sexual pleasure of women? And really why did God create women with the power to give men such pleasure both visually and physically?

This is where much of the Manosphere won’t be able to give you an answer. But the Bible has a clear answer for this and it is found in the Apostle Paul’s divine commentary on the Genesis account in his first epistle to the Corinthian church:

“7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” – I Corinthians 11:7-9

Man was created by God to bring him glory by imaging him. That is his primary directive and his purpose in life.

By “image” we mean “to display”. Man was designed by God to display his nature and his attributes. God is strong, so he made man strong. God is aggressive, jealous and competitive. So, he made man aggressive, jealous and competitive. God is a worker, a builder and a conqueror. So, he made man to be a worker, a builder and a conqueror. God wants to lead, provide for and protect his people. So, he created man to desire to be a leader, provider and protector for his wife and children. God wants to leave his mark on this world and so to he designed man to want to leave his mark on it as well.

Lastly contrary to what many Christians believe about God, the Bible tells us God is a lover of pleasure and beauty. In Revelation 4:11 we read that all of creation was created for God’s pleasure:

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Psalm 45:10-11 has been widely recognized by many Christian scholars as prophecy of Christ and his Church:

“10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; 11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

These passages I have just mentioned prove that God does seek out and enjoy pleasure and beauty and this is why men are hardwired by God to do just the same in regard to the beauty and pleasure that women can offer them.

So, if man was created by God to display or literally live out his attributes than why did God create woman? The passage I gave above from I Corinthians 11:9 gives us the answer to this question. God created woman for man. Period.

That means every part of a woman’s being, every part of her psychological and physiological makeup was created for man’s benefit and more specifically to help him live out the attributes of God. God created man strong, so man needed someone weaker to protect. That is why God made woman “the weaker vessel” as I Peter 3:7 tells us. Man needed someone to bear his legacies in the form of his children, care for them and care for the domestic needs of his home. That is why the Apostle Paul gives women this command in 1 Timothy 5:14:

“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

As Christian men we must accept that our drive to have a legacy and to have sex for that matter were given to us cause us to image God with our lives.

MGTOW Denies Man’s Need for Female Companionship

MGTOWs encourage men to divorce themselves from the concept of female companionship. Sure, they will say if you need to have sex, go game a woman or find a prostitute. But we are not talking about sex here. We are talking about companionship. God said in Genesis 2:18:

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”

In Malachi 2:14 the Scriptures state:

“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.”

So, as we can see from the Bible, God did not just create woman for man’s for sexual pleasure, to be the mother of his children and the caretaker of his home. He also created her to be his companion throughout his life. He said it is not good for man to be alone. And he did not create another man to solve that problem. He created a woman.

God created woman for man to be his greatest cheerleader. He created her to cheer him in his victories and comfort him in his defeats. That is why the Scriptures tell us in Proverbs 12:4 that “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones”. This is also why I Corinthians 11:7 states that woman is “the glory of man”.

MGTOW Promotes a Spirit of Fear in Men

As I said previously, I do not deny the we in western civilization are living in a feminine centric world. While women point to men still occupying the majority of top CEO positions, they neglect to point out that that the majority of middle management positions in companies are now held by women (except in technology companies). They also neglect the fact that women dominate colleges and universities. In most churches, even those led my men, women dominate and influence the teachings and direction of the church.

I do not deny that our courts are highly slanted toward women especially in divorce and child custody and marital property division decisions. The state literally incentives women to divorce their husbands.

Yes, this makes marriage a far riskier proposition for men than it has ever been in the history of mankind. And it is for these reasons that a core teaching and requirement to consider one’s self an MGTOW is to swear off marriage completely. This sets MGTOW apart from the ideologies of Red Pill and Secular Patriarchy and most importantly the Biblical principles regarding gender roles and marriage.

But let’s put the marriage risk into perspective. Statistics in recent years show marriages failing at a little less than 50 percent now. But let’s just round it up to 50 percent. Then we know that of that 50 percent of marriages ending, 70 percent of those marriages were ended by the woman. That means if you are a man you have a 35 percent chance that if you marry a woman, she will divorce you.

Now some might argue that the chance of divorce would go up higher if you did not become the beta man that many wives want their husbands to be. But we can offset that risk increase by men being choosier with the women they marry.

The are three ways this can be offset the risk that a man’s future wife will demand that he become a beta husband in order to save the marriage from the threat of divorce.

  1. Search out and marry a Red Pill American or western woman.
  2. Search out and marry a woman raised in another country that still has traditional gender roles and has not been poisoned by feminism.
  3. Search out an American woman who was raised in a conservative Christian home and that fully embraced male headship and Biblical gender roles as well as strict views on divorce.

Now as a Christian I would say we should only marry a Christian so even the first two women would have to be Christians. But for secular folks on the manosphere, the first two would still help to highly mitigate the chances of the divorce.

So, this is why if a man is careful in how he chooses his wife I believe the 35 percent chance of divorce is a dependable number. It may be far less if you find the right woman.

I want to encourage every man who as bought into the MGTOW spirit of fear to meditate on this passage of Scripture day and night and ask God remove the fear of marriage from your heart:

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

7 Reasons that Christian Men Should Embrace Marriage and Reject MGTOW

I want leave MGTOW Christians with these reasons for marriage to combat all the MGTOW reasons against marriage.

You should marry because…

  1. God commanded marriage in his first command to “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).
  2. God says that “is better to marry than to burn” with sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:9).
  3. God only allows celibacy for those who have this special gift for undivided service to God (I Corinthians 7:7). The Bible does not allow celibacy for selfish reasons for fearful reasons regarding marriage.
  4. You cannot fully live out your purpose to image God without being a husband and father (I Corinthians 11:7).
  5. Married men are more successful and make more money than all other groups (single men, single women and married women (Proverbs 18:22).
  6. While a bad wife can cause great misery to a man, a good wife can bring great pleasure and happiness to his life. If you have a 65 percent chance of finding true joy and happiness in marriage as God designed it to be why would you not seize on this? (Proverbs 29:25)
  7. Even if you fall into that 35 of men whose wives divorce them your children from that marriage can remain a source of joy and happiness for the remainder of your life (Psalm 127:3-5)

I want to zoom on point number five above about married men being more successful than single men, single women or married women.

Quentin Fottrell wrote an article entitled “Married men earn more than everyone else (including single men)” for marketwatch.com where he made the following observations based on historic earnings data:

The wages of married men far surpass those of all of those groups. They exceed $80,000 per year by their peak earning years, while all the other groups barely graze $50,000 per year, according to data from the University of Minnesota and IPUMS-USA, a database of individual responses from the U.S. Census Bureau.”

While the world laments that married men still excel all other groups in their earnings this does not surprise me at all. It is a fulfillment of God’s Word:

“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” – Proverbs 18:22

There was a commenter on another blog that said something like this – “Women are like hand grenades for men. You just have to hope when you marry one, they won’t explode and destroy your life”.

But this is what God has to say about marriage and against the whoremongering that is encouraged by MGTOW ideology as well as Red Pill ideology:

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” – Hebrews 13:4

A Final Word to Christian Fathers

As a father to my sons I could have fully embraced the MGTOW ideology. My first wife had two affairs on me with her ex-boyfriend.  When we got divorced, she took me for half of everything I had and I was saddled with a huge child support payment (we had five children together in that marriage). It was one of the hardest times of my life.

I did go through a brief period of depression and then bitterness and anger. But my relationship with God was too important to me to allow that bitterness to fester and destroy any joy I had left in my life. So, I gave my hurts to God and decided to move forward and risk marriage again. A little over a year after my divorce I married my second wife. And I made sure she was very different than my first wife.

As any of my readers know, it is very true that my second wife was very different than my first wife. But that just meant I would have a whole new set of challenges with my second wife that I did not have with my first wife. But in the end God has preserved us despite the trials and I came to thank God for my trials because some wonderful things came of them. I have five beautiful children, two of whom are now working adults, from my first marriage. I treasure the relationship I have with them and I am so excited about the prospect of my first grandchildren hopefully in the next few years.

God also taught me through the breakup of my first marriage that even though I thought we were following Biblical gender roles I really was behaving much like a beta husband trying to please my wife and not confronting her sinful attitudes as I should have.  As a result of my first divorce I became a much stronger man, became more grounded in my faith. I also realized that I could not live to please my wife and try to make her happy as that was a violation of of what I knew marriage was about.  Marriage is about seeking holiness, not happiness.  But happiness can come as a result of seeking holiness.

That meant I would no longer go out of my way to make sure my future wife was never upset or angry at me.   I would do what I thought was right whether she agreed or not.  She would not be the center of my world as I had often made my first wife. But instead caring for her physical and spiritual needs (as opposed to her wants) would be seen as only one part of the mission God had given me as a man.

I also thank God for the trials in my second marriage. My second wife’s feminist upbringing and her bucking of Biblical gender roles prompted me to start this ministry back in 2014. Over the last four years I have had over 6.5 million views and have been able to help many people each week via emails, comments and articles I have written.

If you are a Christian father reading this that has taught MGTOW ideology to you sons and discouraged them from marriage I pray you will repent of this. It is one thing to encourage your sons to wait for marriage until they are financially prepared to care for a wife and children and then to choose a wife very carefully. But it is a very different thing to completely discourage your son from God’s institution of marriage no matter how much feminism has poisoned our culture.