Patriarchy Views and Even More Narrow Gender Role Views Creeping Into Already Family and Marriage Obsessed Christian Groups – Re: Mouser’s “Five Aspects” gender teachings
A somewhat recent visitor to this blog (who has an excellent blog I have linked to before, (Link): Under Much Grace, a blog which discusses spiritual abuse, unbiblical gender role teachings among Christian groups, and other issues) encouraged me to look into or make a post about this topic.
Her original post on this blog introducing the topic is located (Link): here. I will repeat her post here- this was in response to a post I did on “Focus on the Family.”
- by UnderMuchGrace
I became so disappointed in Dobson that I stopped listening to FOTF in ’94.
I was even more disappointed to find out a few years ago that the editor for one of their teen magazines recommended Mouser’s “Five Aspects” gender teachings, and since then, they started signing the laud of Voddie Baucham. He may even have a regular column in one of their publications now. I know that they’ve featured articles written by him when I last took a look a number of years ago.
If you google Mouser’s name and the Five Aspects teachings, you’ll find two links to critical reviews on my blog, and the rest of the links will take you to the Bayly Blog, CBMW, Doug Wilson’s material and the like. Bill Mouser bought the message board, the CCC forum (having something to do with complementarianism) from CBMW many years ago — back around the time when CBMW became to[o] liberal for Bayly and Mouser. (This was shortly after CBMW central and the powers controling it moved from the Bayly mentality on to Louisville/SBTS.)
I love this post, but I’d argue that FOTF is now promoting something much worse than the anachronistic 1950s lifestyle.
I love the religious freedom that we have in America, and people can be free to make choices about how they want to live. It saddens me, though, that FOTF which I once found to be a very helpful resource has taken things in this direction.
Here is a link to the critique by Under Much Grace:
(Link): Critique of Bill Mouser’s “Five Aspects” Teaching
From the Patriarchy Discussion Group on Yahoo
Here are just a few excerpts from that page (please click the link above to visit the other blog and read the rest):
- …Information posted by “Light” regarding Bill Mouser’s Five Aspects Teachings:
In this post, I’ll explain the pagan concepts that are so sneakily inserted into these so-called Biblical materials.
Mouser asserts that God is masculine and Creation is feminine. I don’t want to spend much time on the masculinity of God, since that could be a book in and of itself. Suffice it to say that if God is masculine, and not feminine, then human males are more like God than women.
… It’s most helpful to see the men’s study and the women’s study materials side by side.
According to Mouser, men should pattern their lives after the following “righteous masculine archetypes: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Christ the God/Man and the last Adam, and Created Adam, the first man.” Women should pattern their lives after the following “righteous feminine archetypes: Wisdom the first feminine, Eve the first woman, Israel the wife of God, The Virgin Mary mother of Christ, The church the bride of Christ, and Jerusalem our mother above.” (page 300)
This is quite interesting. All of the masculine archetypes are actual beings – including God. Of the six feminine archetypes, only two are real beings, and four are metaphorical constructions! None of them are God. By dividing the archetypes into two distinct groups, one that men should emulate, and one that women should emulate, this abnormal division leads us away from what the scripture actually teaches.
The Bible calls all people, men and women, to a single standard of Christlikeness. In this study, by arranging it in this manner with a separate list of archetypes divided by gender, Christlikeness is articulated as the sole domain of the man. In comparison, women are encouraged to look to ametaphor as their model of holiness. Can’t we have the real thing as our model? Or do only men get access to that?
Mouser believes that men are made more in God’s image than women are. It’s right there in black and white on page 334 in the Five Aspects bible study materials.
“Man can picture God more fully in his roles than woman can. But he can also picture Satan more fully than woman can.”
Please (Link): click here to visit the page and read the rest (Under Much Grace blog)
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Related posts, this blog:
(Link): How Christians Keep Christians Single (part 3) – Restrictive Gender Roles Taught as Biblical
Christian Pundit 