The famous story tells of the minister who wrote in the margin of his notes, “Argument weak. Shout here.” Whenever anyone is unalterably attached to a position, and that position is wrong, there is always a strong temptation to shout. Moreover, the sillier a position gets, the more shouting is required to keep people from asking those pesky questions.
Egalitarianism is an unbelieving mother with many foolish sons and daughters, with one of the loudest and most foolish being feminism. In many cases, the impact of this folly is tolerable, involving (or so we think) just a few pronoun questions, and the use of Ms. in addressing letters — which actually seems like a good idea when the marital state of the recipient is unknown. But by the time we get out to those applications which are fundamentally outrageous, we find that we have completely lost our ability even to recognize what is occurring. In our public discussions of all such matters, the center of gravity has dramatically shifted. This can be seen most clearly in those areas where feminism is most evidently and unarguably wrongheaded, but even and especially in such clear areas, saying something about it can still be extraordinarily difficult. Probably the most outstanding example of such issues is the vexed question of women in combat.
The thing is actually debated seriously, and we can even find well-meaning Christians scratching their heads over it. But of course, this is not “a debatable matter.” Women going to war alongside the men is flatly excluded in a biblical worldview, and a nation defended by her women is not worthy of defense. Sadly, this issue also demonstrates plainly the disconnect in the minds of many Christians between their “religious beliefs” and what they will go along with “culturally.”
When the Bible discusses the matter of going to war, it assumes throughout that those involved will be the men. For example, when the census for war was taken, those counted were males twenty-years-old and up (Num. 1:20). When Nehemiah exhorts the men of Jerusalem to good courage, he says just what we might expect, urging them to fight for their sons, daughters and wives (Neh. 4:14). Fighting for their husbands is not mentioned.
The Bible also tells us in numerous places that women are not gifted at the kind of violence that occurs in war. A common prophetic judgment is that the warriors will begin to fight like women (Is. 19:16; Jer. 50:36-37; 51:29-30; Nah. 3:13). Now surely if it is a bad thing to have your men fight like women, we should also be able to say, mutatis mutandis, that it is a bad thing to have your women fight like women. The fact that we have all been peecee-sensitized (and are frankly all a little jumpy about me writing like this) can be seen in the fact that I must now hasten to add that these biblical comparisons are not an insult to women. Of course they are not. How is it an insult to a hammer to say it cannot tighten bolts the way a crescent wrench can? Or versa vice grips?
In Deuteronomy, we find a much overlooked prohibition of women in combat. But unlike most neglected portions of Scripture, this one never needed to be applied because it was so widely practiced in the light of nature — until quite recently. Now we apparently need to have the content of the verse spelled out. Most think of it as simply prohibiting transvestitism. “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God” (Dt. 22:5). Transvestite men certainly are condemned here, and are prohibited from dressing like a woman. But the language with regard to the women is quite different. The operative phrase in this passage is keli gabar, the gear of a warrior. A woman is not to wear the gear of a fighter. The prohibition is not of slacks, but rather of helmets and heavy rifles.
The really disturbing thing about this passage is that the practice is not rejected as out of keeping with culturally-established standards of decorum. It is rejected as an abomination — a strong word for most public policy discussions.
A friend of mine used to jog through the grounds of one of our service academies, and used to run by groups of the entering class — running whatever grueling distance was required of them. At the front were the men, with upper-classmen running alongside them, informing them in a loud voice that they were nothing but maggots, that sort of thing. It is not surprising that they did such a bad job running; maggots don’t have legs. In another group, far, far behind, were the women. They too had their upperclassmen accompanying them — but the message here was entirely different, and most affirming: “You can do it! Come on, come on!” What is wrong with this picture? The egalitarian theory we have adopted is falsifiable in principle, but we are not about to let it be falsified.
Obviously, our cultural discourse has been greatly debased. We, in the grip of a very bad idea, have thought to repeal some fundamental laws of the natural order of things. Good luck to us all, says I. Let us repeal the law of gravity to cut down on that frictional wear and tear. Let us herd cats. Let us sweep water uphill. Let us feed cheesecake to our horses.