Calvinism, the Feminist Wars, and the Vocation Trap

https://julieroys.com/aimee-byrd-cyberbullying-the-battle-over-manhood-womanhood/

I must confess I was pretty disturbed hearing about some of the comments directed at Aimee Byrd. They were out of line and some of the men who made them are especially guilty as they are office holders in the Church.

That said, I found this interview to be equally disturbing as Byrd is clearly a feminist – as is Roys – names that have both been known to me for some time. They only way they escape this charge is by what I continue to describe as 'moving the goalposts'. They can play the non-feminist card in 2020 but in 1990, let alone 1970 they would be reckoned as rank feminists and even theological liberals.

But this is only part of a larger issue of 'feminist creep' in the conservative churches. While we didn't have podcasts in the 1990's, we had radio shows and many would have considered it inappropriate for a woman to be a co-host of a show in which doctrine was discussed and taught. The passage in 1 Timothy 2 regarding women teaching was taken seriously.

But as I've written about before, this doctrine has suffered death by a thousand cuts. Since extra-Biblical ecclesiology in the Evangelical realm has greatly expanded over the past twenty-five years with the rapid proliferation of para-church ministries, there are all kinds of opportunities for women to get out there and lead and teach doctrine – to me the problem has always been the fact that they want to do this and pardon me for saying it – there's often a certain type of assertive woman that usually pursues this path.

As far as Eternal Subordination, I think they are in way over their head. If you want to get into Nicene and post-Nicene Trinitarianism then you had better invest some serious time and energy because you've waded into deep extra-Biblical and philosophically pregnant waters and the most surprising thing to some is that you start to discover just how much nuance and disagreement there really is – even within the scope and spectrum of orthodoxy. Greek and Latin fathers are often saying different things and use words in different ways. Most Protestants by default follow Rome and the Latin tradition when it comes to the Trinity. While I'm not ready to 'sign on' to the Eastern view, it's one that I lean toward and yet it's a view that some in the West (mistakenly) consider to be subordinationist. For the East, the West has always flirted with Modalism and some even understand the Western view as a kind of Quaternity in the way some theologians present it.

As I have suggested in previous writings, many assumed this issue went away decades ago. Conservatives don't have women leaders. Except now they do and yet many games are being played as women like Byrd find endless loopholes and ways to avoid the issue and claim they're still being faithful to the Scriptures – even as they openly defy them.

Faulty ecclesiologies, trends in academia, para-church organisations and cyberspace have opened the doors and there are many more like Byrd out there. They will keep pushing and at this point in order to shut them down the kind of stern measures required will undoubtedly create a backlash. It's already gone too far. Many church leaders have been asleep at the wheel – but this also marks a parallel with not only society at large but conservative Evangelicalism's other near and dear focus – politics. Growing numbers of ostensibly conservative (but really Right-wing) female politicians and FOX channel hussies (that play at being good Christian women) have planted rotten seeds that even now are bearing poisoned fruit. Dominionism just can't bear the thought of cutting its numbers in half. Career women can generate more income (which helps the movement) and such wealth garners social status and respect. These same women can influence society even as they abdicate their God-given responsibilities and the apostolic exhortations found in the New Covenant Scriptures. They think they're gaining the world but in reality are only losing their souls in the process.

I look for this issue to explode in the years to come. On the hand I was encouraged that there are still some men out there that oppose this but their conduct and their words were clearly way out of line. It's right that Byrd was removed from the podcast. She has no business there and conservative seminaries ought to purge not only female students but faculty. This is no small task as the last time I gave a couple of hours to investigation I found startling numbers of female leaders and instructors in ostensibly conservative schools – many with deep career level connections to academia, journalism and government.

Again, I'm not really that old. As a Generation X'er, I'm old enough to remember when society was quite different and certainly my upbringing was quite different from the (Millennial) kids born during the Carter-Reagan years and after. And so what I'm left wondering is – don't some of the older people remember? Have they just gone to sleep? Do they just shrug their shoulders? Do they chalk up old attitudes to mere custom – no principles being at stake?

And while I'm wont to engage in some verbal pyrotechnics, I wouldn't dream of directly engaging a woman (let alone someone's wife) in the way some of these men spoke (or wrote) to Byrd. There also used to be something called manners.

If one watches old movies or reads older books they will often encounter an older person rebuking a younger for being very 'forward'  or assertive. It was unbecoming in both the young and women. Several years ago I had a woman write to me who took issue with something I had said. She was taking the conservative high ground and rebuking me for being too friendly toward the lost and my associations. I was a liberal by her reckoning. I quickly tired of her and in the end pointed out that she was hardly conservative as it wasn't her place (as another man's wife) to write and challenge me and attempt to rebuke me. If I was a liberal then she was a feminist – or at least acting like one. It's something I've seen on many occasion – a conservative woman who openly rejects feminism and yet behaves like every inch of one. Aside from the famous examples like Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin I can immediately think of many such women I know and regularly encounter.

It's not easy in our day and I'm certainly not an adherent of Patriarchy that suggests all women must submit to all men – an erroneous view to be sure as are the Trinitarian 'subordination' analogies made by some theologians. While other women (who are not my wife or daughters) are not called upon to submit to me there is still a general 'shamefacedness' in demeanour that ought to characterise the Christian woman. A kind of modesty and unassertiveness that marks their femininity is something few women and even few Christian women today understand. Roys and Byrd certainly do not. They are not model Christian women by any long shot – at least not according to the New Testament.

As I've told my own daughters our roles contain both burdens and blessings. From the domestic standpoint it may seem a burden to stay home and blessing to leave the house every day and venture out into the world. From the bread-winning standpoint the day to day grind is often a burden and it seems a blessing to be able to stay home. Both sides have their benefits and detriments and ideally we could find other ways or return to another time when the work-day division wasn't so pronounced. But that's not the world we live in. We're called to be faithful in our context even if that means forging a path that is contrary, strange or involves great sacrifice and cost.

At the end of the day we're pilgrims and strangers. As Christian men we don't find our 'meaning' or 'identity' in our vocations. Our only vocation or calling is to be Christians. Unless we are directly involved in gospel ministry we are engaged in the mundane – engaged in work that is in the end vanity and will burn up with the passing and judgment of this age. We work to provide. It's a means not an end. The Dominionist rendering of Vocation (something embraced by both Confessionalists and Evangelicals) as a holy Kingdom task confuses cursed work in a fallen age with Gospel-Kingdom-Redemptive activity which is the realm of the Holy Spirit. It follows then that if such callings are holy and Kingdom oriented though these same people will tell women that being a housewife and mother are godly 'vocations' – there will be a degree of discontent – all the more in the context of our culture and the push for culture war and transformation. The Middle Class aspirations and values of Evangelicals and Confessionalists also make them extremely vulnerable to such influences.

A proper New Testament mindset that divorces bread winning from Christian vocation is able to understand that work is just a means not an end. Our day-to-day work is just that – work. It's not part of the Kingdom and though we engage in the work as Christians and our ethics are certainly brought to bear and faith affects all we do – or what we choose to avoid. And in that capacity motherhood and domesticity can in fact be elevated because raising children (if one understand that children are also part of the Kingdom-Church-Covenant) is in fact a gospel task and of far greater import than hooking up a hot water tank, entering figures into a ledger, repairing automobiles, or running a retail shop. These latter tasks are valid but as Christians such labours are secondary at best. They don't build the Kingdom but are part of the Common Grace order that we need to exist so that we might bear witness and glorify God in the spreading of the gospel.

At the end of the day these jobs (for that's all they are) can become great burdens and traps if we let them. We go to work and fully engage, putting forth 100% effort but then hopefully we have jobs that we can leave behind as we go home and spend real and quality time with our families, our church families and in glorifying God through worship, study of His Word and in the proclaiming of it. Undoubtedly our conduct during the day will affect our witness and has the potential to open doors but it's not our holy task, our calling as Christians. We are indeed working for the weekend or at least quitting time.

Such an understanding of vocation, time, money, Church and the Kingdom will largely protect the Church and allow it to keep its separate and distinct identity from the culture at large. Such church members will not be as easily affected by the values and ethos of the larger culture and women like Roys and Byrd will not appear in their midst. They are born of a yearning worldliness and a discontent with the Christian calling.