Dangers of Feminism
There are several ways in which Feminism has hurt Christian marriages and families and society. Feminism is deeply rooted in western thought, certainly American thought. Men and women both are influenced by it. It is an implicit assumption in TV shows and movies and children are exposed to it through the school system.
The Bible teaches that the husband is the head of the wife, and that wives are to submit to their husbands and to reverence them. Peter illustrates how a wife should obey her husband, pointing to Sarah who 'obeyed Abraham calling him lord.' Women effected by Feminism may bristle at these teaches. Some men do as well. Some Feminists have tried to reinterpret the meanings of Greek words to make the text more palatable. For example, they may try to find references to 'kephale', translated 'head' seem to mean 'source, and just ignore that more authoritarian references to the use of the word in Ancient Greek. I've even heard of a certain couple who do marriage conferences redefining 'submit' to mean 'adapt'-- of course with no support from ancient Greek.
I haven't seen anyone come up with a way to explain away the word 'obeyed' from I Peter 3, a difficult passage for feminists who want to believe scripture, too.
I've heard Ephesians 5 taught from the pulpit before. It seems like this is a typical treatment of the passage in some types of churches.
"This verse tells wives to submit to their own husbands. Well, I know we've all heard a lot of preaching about that over the years. You'll notice that the Bible has a much longer section for husbands, and they have the great responsibility to love their wives as Christ loves the church."
So the pastor kind of glosses over the part about wives submitting to husbands, mentioning it briefly, and focuses on the men, and then goes into 5 or 10 minutes on how important communication is, or some other marriage issue. The pastor mentions all those sermons everyone has heard on submission, but I'm wondering if his audience has ever heard such a thing. Maybe if they went to church in the 1950's.
That's the type of thing I've heard in church on the subject. The churches aren't really pointing out the widespread rebellion in the home as many wives rule the roost. Feminism has conditioned men to be passive and not take up their leadership role. Many women crave their husbands to lead--something innate that Feminism hasn't erased-- but Feminism has conditioned them not to submit, either. Then the woman may complain that her husband isn't leading because he isn't doing all the things she has in mind and leading the way she thinks he ought to.
Radical feminism has put forth some really poisonous ideas. Some Feminists have described marriage as if it were prostitution. No fault divorce is seen as a somewhat positive thing. Radical Feminists working in various social services can cause damage with their anti-male, anti-family thinking. Many of the homes for abused women have feminist literature. Back in the 1980's, as a teen, I had a relative who spent some time in one of these homes, not because her husband was violent, but because he went through a brief period of mental instability that scared her. I read some of the literature from there. One pamphlet argued that once a man is an abuser, he is always an abuser. Of course, women are encouraged to stay away from their abusers. Of course, this isn't consistent with Christian thinking, where God can transform and sanctify people. There are Christians who, before they became Christians, physically abused their wives, but repented and their marriages were healed.
Also, there is a study that indicated that a certain percentage of cases where a man hits his partner happen after she has hit him repeatedly over a long period of time, and he hits her on a one-off occasion. Abuse is a serious problem, and there are networks set up to help abused women. But abused men have no network to rely on and law enforcement may not take it seriously.
There is also the problem that 'abuse' is an ever-widening term. If you look at some of the domestic violence center websites, the long list of behaviors that are counted as 'abuse' include a man using 'logic' on his wife. Quoting scripture about wives submitting to their husbands is also listed among 'abusive' behaviors. This is particularly bad. No doubt this was added to the list by someone who dislikes those part of the Bible. There may be abusers who do quote scripture when it suits their ends, but so do the righteous, who seek to have marriages in accordance with God's word.
Then there are pastors who have added abuse as grounds for divorce, and even remarriage. This isn't mentioned in scripture as justification to find a new spouse. If a pastor says to leave a spouse if their is 'abuse' and the definition of 'abuse' has been expanded to include reminding a wife of what the Bible teaches wives to do, that's a sad thing. Most of us think of physical abuse when we hear 'abuse', but the definition has been widened. Pastors need to be careful how they address the issue.
One philosophy coming from radical Feminists several years ago was that all men are abusers or potential abusers. That's not a very beneficial way of thinking.
Also, some radical feminists will throw the word 'rape' around quite freely. Instead of referring to forced sex, the definition of 'rape' is expanded to include cases where a woman felt some sort of pressure to have sex, even if she agreed to it. So in a marriage, reminding a wife of her duty to give 'due benevolence' could be labeled 'rape' as happened on a recent thread.
As believers, we need to love the word of God. We also need to be wary of the so-called wisdom of this present age. We should evaluate philosophies based on the word of God and reject what opposed God's word. When we look at the Old Testament, we see that God gave many patriarchal laws, such as laws related to fathers giving daughters away in marriage, and husbands and fathers being allowed to cancel wives' and daughters' vows. The law is holy, just, and good. We also see that God wants wives to submit to their husbands and for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. We need to be careful not to reject the Lord's teaching because of some philosophy we picked up growing up. If we want to have marriages that please God, we need to follow His word.
