“Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – one of the most excellent Christian rebuttals I have seen against the Christian idolatry of marriage and natalism, and in support of adult singleness and celibacy – from CBE’s site

“Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – one of the most excellent Christian rebuttals I have seen against the Christian idolatry of marriage and natalism, and in support of adult singleness and celibacy – from CBE’s site

(Link): “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” – from CBE site, by Carrie A. Miles

(If that link does not work, please try (Link): this one to access the article)

As I wrote in a much older posts, Christian single men need to strongly reconsider supporting gender complementarianism, if they do so already, because GC (gender complementarianism, as espoused by Christian groups such as “Council for Biblical Womanhood and Manhood” and by people such as preacher Mark Driscoll and many other male pastors, as well as entire denominations, such as Southern Bapists), discriminate against single, childless men.

These groups not only promote sexism against women, and limit women, but they do so against MEN as well, especially un-married, childless men.

Under patriarchy beliefs, or even standard GC (gender complementarian) teachings, Christian men are told that they are demanded or expected to marry, marry young, and to have lots of children, and it’s argued that the Bible itself supports those propositions (though it does not).

If men do not marry, do not marry young, and do not have children, they are told, they are in disobedience to God, breaking biblical rules, defrauding women, and are displeasing God.

Depending on the particular GC preacher or organization, men will further be told that they are not “real” men if they don’t have a career with a paycheck that enables their wife to stay at home and raise children.

If you are a man who has a wife, and she must work to help pay bills, you are considered a “man fail” by these groups.

Also depending on the particular GC preacher or church, men who are artistic, creative, sensitive (I don’t mean homosexual, all I mean are men who are not as into “manly men” stereotypes as others), men who are not into MMA or NFL, men who do not fit stereotypical he-man American pursuits and interests, are derided for being wimps and “pussified” (their word) by male, GC preachers (see this link for some examples).

If you are a conservative, Christian man and want to read opposing views to GC by other conservative Christians who interpret the Bible literally, you need to start researching Christian gender egalitarianism books and sites.

One such site is CBE, Christians for Biblical Equality.

CBE is not a group of man-hating, liberal feminists who allegorize the Bible. They are conservative Christians, and sometimes have male authors write their articles and blog posts, in addition to female authors.

The following editorial supporting adult celibates and refuting the Christian obsession with family, marriage, and procreation is from CBE. Even if you are a gender complementarian, you shouldn’t see anything, or not too much, in this that you disagree with in this article on an egalitarian site.

(Link):  “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?”

(If that link does not work, please try (Link): this one to access the article)

Here are some excerpts.

by Carrie A. Miles

On issues of the family and scripture, Christians are in a bit of a pickle. It is not always clear how our convictions about “family values” mesh with what the Bible teaches, especially the Gospels.

Jesus, for example, did not assign the great spiritual and sentimental significance to family life that many Christians do today. How then do we reconcile the expectation that all good Christians should marry with his example of lifelong celibacy?

Or our championship of family with Jesus’ warning that following him will set sibling against sibling and parent against child?

Endorsing family values poses particularly interesting issues for biblical egalitarians, since many of our fellow Bible-believers hold that these values should include a hierarchical model of marriage.

In order to understand Jesus’ attitude toward the family, we must understand that family practices in the first century were not based on emotion as they are today, but rather on material, economic interests.

In my book, The Redemption of Love,¹ I show that the family values prevalent in Jesus’ day were the economic consequences of the Fall. These family practices, now known as patriarchy, were corrupted by the human decision to have our own way and live outside of God’s abundance.

I join New Testament historian S. Scott Bartchy in arguing that rather than support patriarchy, Jesus and other New Testament writers (especially Paul) intended to over- throw it. Thus, Jesus’ teachings, which seem anti-family today, reflect his intent to dissolve the materialistic motives for family and replace them with relationships based on doing the will of God.²

…Singleness

In this passage Jesus challenged another ancient family value—the expectation that every respectable person should marry. He noted several reasons why people might choose not to marry, including the decision to devote themselves entirely to the kingdom of heaven (v. 12). Between this teaching and his own example of celibacy, Jesus made it clear that it was acceptable for godly people to remain single.This was a radical claim, since singleness had rarely been an option before. Historically, most marriages were arranged by families to further their own interests, often with little consideration for the preferences of the bride and groom.

…The Importance of Spiritual over Physical Kinship

…. Following Jesus required the renunciation of family ties based on self-centered concerns about prestige, power, and material accomplishments in order to embrace a new spiritual kinship group based on doing God’s will. By making the kingdom of heaven the source of their primary relationships, believers are redeemed from the materialism of the Fall.

…Family Responsibility

Jesus did not intend for his disciples to abandon their biological families altogether, but rather he challenged them to abandon the self-serving family structures…

… Jesus and Family Values Today

In Jesus’ context, people married in order to have children to serve and care for them. In our context, people marry and/or have children in order to have someone to love and to love us in return. This represents a major and positive shift in motives; nonetheless, the fallen impulse to use other people to fulfill self-centered needs remains.The imperative of Genesis 1:28 (“Be fruitful and increase in number”) is a blessing, not a commandment. I don’t believe that the Bible teaches a Christian obligation to marry or to have children. But if we do start our own families, Jesus taught that we have deep responsibilities to our spouse and children.

Those are just excerpts from the site. Please visit their site to read the whole article.

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Related posts:

(Link): Church Is a Family, Not an Event by K. Kandiah

(Link): Top 13 Reasons Why People Don’t Want to Get Married Any More – and Why Staying Single Makes You Happier

(Link):  Learning to See Your Single Neighbor by H. Stallcup

(Link): BreakPoint Unfortunately Pushing the False and Un-Biblical “Society Needs Marriage and the Nuclear Family” Rhetoric (and I say this as a Conservative)

(Link): Conservative Motherhood Idolaters Once Again Upset Over People Finding Mother’s Day Painful, Re: Companies Allowing People to Opt Out of Mother’s Day Ads Has Them Incensed

(Link): Critique of Federalist Editorial “There Is One Pro-Women Camp In American Politics, And It’s The Right by Elle Reynolds” – Do Federalist Magazine Members Realize There Are Single, Childless Conservative Women?

(Link):  Sexism, Protecting Women, Family Values, and Christians Placing Biological Family Above Everyone Else

(Link): Authors at The Federalist Keep Bashing Singleness in the Service of Promoting Marriage – Which Is Not Okay

(Link):  Seven Truths About Marriage You Won’t Hear in Church by F. Powell

(Link):Southern Baptist Al Mohler Intimates That Childless And Childfree Adults Are  Not Human (2019) – and He Thinks This is a Good and Biblical Worldview

(Link): Hypocrisy: Conservative Christians / Catholics Pressure Women To Feel Their Only Worth is in Becoming Mothers, But If Women Try to Use Medical Technology to Get Pregnant, the Women Are Condemned by The Same Groups

(Link): Statistics Show Single Adults Now Outnumber Married Adults in the United States (2014)

(Link):  A social psychologist reveals why so many marriages are falling apart and how to fix it (and a history of American marriage)

(Link): Federalist Magazine Staff Annoyed that Other Outlets Publish the Down Side of Motherhood and Are Requesting Sunny Motherhood Propaganda Pieces – As If Conservatives Haven’t Pushed for Motherhood Enough? The Mind Boggles

(Link):   Discipling Healthy Male/Female Relationships in the Church Part 1 by Wendy Alsup

(Link):  Ever Notice That Christians Don’t Care About or Value Singleness, Unless Jesus Christ’s Singleness and Celibacy is Doubted or Called Into Question by Scholars?

(Link):  Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family) (article)

(Link):  Why Christians Need To Stress Spiritual Family Over the Nuclear Family – People with no flesh and blood relations including Muslims who Convert to Christianity – Also: First World, White, Rich People Problems

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link) Have we made an idol of families? by A. Stirrup (copy)

(Link): Is The Church Failing Childless Women? by Diane Paddison

(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin)

(Link): A Response to the Hemingway Editorial ‘Fecundophobia’ – conservatives and Christians continue to idolize children, marriage – which is unbiblical

(Link):  Misapplication of Biblical Verses About Fertility (also mentions early marriage) – a paper by J. McKeown

(Link):  If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t

 (Link):  When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments

(Link):  Family as “The” Backbone of Society?

(Link): Christian Patriarchy Group: God Demands You Marry and Have Babies to Defeat Paganism and Satan. Singles and the Childless Worthless (in this worldview).

(Link):  Christianity Should Be Able To Work Regardless of Culture, Childed or Marital Status / Article: Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today by B. Shulte

(Link):  Why Christians Need To Divorce The Topic of Sex From “Family” and “Marriage”

(Link):  The Isolating Power of Family-Centered Language

(Link):  Are Single People the Lepers of Today’s Church? by Gina Dalfonzo

(Link):  Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link):  Singles Shaming at The Vintage church in Raleigh – Singlehood Shaming / Celibate and Virgin Shaming

(Link): The Bible Does Not Teach Christians to “Focus On The Family” – The Idolization of Family by American Christians (article)

(Link):  “Because I was single I felt second class.”-by Chandin, former Mars Hill member & single, on Mars Hill church

(Link): Pew for One: How Is the Church Responding to Growing Number of Singles?

(Link): Why Singles Belong in Church Leadership by L. Ferguson

(Link):  Are Christian Singles The New Second Class Christian? by Duke Taber

(Link):  The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Salvation By Marriage Alone – The Over Emphasis Upon Marriage (and “family”) by Conservative Christians Evangelicals Southern Baptists

(Link): Misuse of Terms Such As “Traditional Families” by Christians – Re: Kirk Cameron, Homosexual Marriage, and the 2014 Grammys

(Link):  The Changing American Family (article)

(Link): Conservative Christianity Stuck in 1950s Leave it To Beaver-ville

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link):  “Family-ing” Single Adults by D. Franck – How Churches Can Minister to Single Adults

(Link): Childfree By Choice: How Women are Redefining Tomorrow’s Family

(Link): Reviewers of Dobson’s book about parenting girls confirms it – U.S. Christians fixated on 1950s culture

(Link): Are There Any Protestant or Baptist Singles – Friendly Churches or Denominations ? / Singles Single Adult Childfree Childless Age 30 40 50 Christian

(Link): I’m Childless, Not Child-Incompetent (editorial by G. Dalfonzo) – The Christian Tendency to Worship Family, Motherhood, and Children

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian