Book: ‘Feminine By Design’ – Married People (supposedly) Fully Reflect God – Singles Do Not (?) / When Christianity Looks More Like Islam and Less Like Christ
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–REMINDER TO MEN WHO MAY BE READING THIS POST–
As a reminder, I’d like to mention to any un-married men who may be reading this:
Arguments and teachings used by ‘biblical gender complementarians,’ who believe it is wrong for a woman to lead or teach men, and who believe that husbands are in authority over their wives, use the same arguments and pre-suppositions about a woman’s role in life, to teach that un-married men are not as fully “Christian” or as “mature” as married men are, and that un-married men are not as fully in God’s image as married men are.
This is not just a “woman’s issue.”
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–Book: FEMININE BY DESIGN, BY JOHN GARR–
I saw a male author, John. D. Garr, interviewed by a Jewish believer in Jesus on his show. I think the show is called “Jewish Voice” or “Believer’s Voice.”
The book by Garr is entitled “Feminine By Design: The God-Fashioned Woman.” Garr claims to uncover God’s true meaning for women by going back to and re-examining the Old Testament.
I do not own a copy of this book, nor have I read it, but I would like to.
I did watch the last several moments of the interview with Garr by the Jewish host, so I heard some of Garr’s views about women and what he discusses in the book.
I always get a little nervous when a male author writes about women, or opines about them, especially when he claims to be Christian (or a “believer in Jesus”) and is discussing his views about why and how he believes God created females.
In my previous post, I touched on the fact that more extreme elements of Christian conservatives (e.g., the Christian fertility cults such as “Quiverfull,” the Rconstructionists, etc) are now teaching that a lone Christian, a Christian who is un-married, does not reflect God’s image. (These views also seem to be permeating into more “normal,” less extremist Christian groups, such as the Neo-Calvinist biblical gender complementarians).
To them, an un-married man is not a man. An un-married woman is not a woman.
Both un married males and females are considered to be “less than” their married counterparts, not fully human, and not fully made in God’s image.
(More on this point in a moment.)
In this interview, Garr used terms or concepts that raised red flags of concern with me, such as “complements” or “God’s role(s) for women.”
In the portion of the interview I saw, Garr mentioned that he thinks God created women with an innate sense of modesty and beauty.
What about all the males who also have an “innate sense of beauty?” (And why is discussion of “modesty” among Christians almost always considered a female-only concern?)
As far as males appreciating beauty, or having an innate appreciation thereof, there are homo- and hetero- sexual males, both Christian and Non Christian, who appreciate sun-sets, flowers, nature, and who work as artists, photographers, interior designers, fashion designers, and sculptors and painters.
I do agree that secular culture goes way too far in dictating to American women that the “normal” or supposedly “empowering” thing to do is to behave like your average, vulgar, promiscuous, American secular male, and that this is not necessarily a good thing. I agree with Garr on that.
However, whenever a Christian man starts throwing out terms like “complementary” (as in women supposedly “complement” men, what qualities men lack, women tend to possess and vice versa), and when a religious male begins tossing out terms such as “modesty,” particularly in regards to discussion of gender, I assume he’s a “biblical gender complementarian” which is just as, if not, more dangerous than secular messages aimed at women.
At least most secular women know they can pick and choose which messages they can accept and reject from secular media.
Within Christianity, though, females are taught from a young age by Christian authors, parents, and pastors that they have no choice:
if God says to do or believe “X” in the Bible, and you are a good Christian girl who sincerely tries to please God, then you have no choice but to believe and do “X.”
–Please click on the “Read More” link to read the rest of the post–
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