One of the central idolatrous ideologies of our day is feminism. Although it is just one of the hydra heads (the monster being egalitarianism), it is nevertheless one of the most important hydra heads. This is because God created us male and female, and our sexual identity is right at the center of the image of God in us. Therefore, even though egalitarianism is the general error, when the error is applied to something as important as sexual identity, the results can be disastrous. Apply egalitarianism to something like money, and you get the inequities and incompetencies of socialism. Apply egalitarianism to sexual identity and you get Michael Jackson.
So feminism is the one of idols of the day that must be toppled, an idol that must come down. Every faithful Christian must oppose feminism, root and branch.
But unfortunately, many traditionalist Christians have assumed that feminism can be effectively opposed with something that might be called “not feminism.” A moment’s reflection should reveal the problem here. There are many things that are “not feminism” that are also “not biblical.” Take the Saudi view of women for just one example. Take rape for another.
Feminism is actually a Trinitarian heresy, but unfortunately many of the Christian world’s “not feminism” reactions are equally heretical. Within the triune Godhead, we learn that authority and submission on the one hand, and equality on the other, are ultimately harmonious. At the point of ultimate reality, the Son of God is begotten by the Father and submits to His will. At the same time, Paul tells us in Philippians that Jesus did not consider His equality with God something to be grasped. Consequently, for the Trinitarian Christian, submission and equality together are not examples of trying to square the circle.
Our gender heretics feel like they have to pick one or the other. The feminists choose equality and so they think they must reject submission. The “masculinists” choose submission and so they think they have to reject equality. The feminists are modalists, who think that all the persons of the Godhead are the same, morphing into one another, depending on the circumstances. Whenever we hear of sex change operations, we should understand it as an idolatrous attempt to mimic a false understanding of god. Psalm 115 makes it very clear that we become like what we worship.
The so-called traditionalists are Arians, believing that if Jesus Christ was submissive to his Father, He must therefore be created, and ontologically inferior to the Father. This is why Unitarian cultures (like the Muslim world) are so readily hostile to women, and contemptuous of them. And this is also why any “Christianized” form of contempt for women is evidence of a functional Unitarianism in our midst. It is not enough for our answer to feminism to be “anything but feminism.” Sabellianism is not Arianism, but they are both heretical.
I love you, Douglas Wilson!
I see this…mostly. But the analogy breaks down in that we are at enmity with one another. The war of the sexes.. There’s both that darn fall involved and weakness involved that isn’t in the Trinity, even Pre-Fall. So man was created weak and looks to woman–bc it isn’t good to be alone–and woman was created weaker and looks to the serpent more easily.
So I get you in part. I’m sure I’ll look stupid for posting if you respond. Just working this out myself…
Wait a second: “At the point of ultimate reality, the Son of God is begotten by the Father and submits to His will.” Does the clause “At the point of ultimate reality, the Son of God submits to the will of God the Father” entail Subordinationism? I think both by nature and willingly. It’s by nature not unnatural. Not out of requirement or forced subordination but out of same way the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and does likewise. Paraphrasing. Jesus doesn’t do anything he doesn’t see or say anything he doesn’t hear His Father say.… Read more »
“Feminism is actually a Trinitarian heresy, but unfortunately many of the Christian world’s “not feminism” reactions are equally heretical.”
That’s something I suppose, but I still have to quibble. Feminism for the most part is a secular activity meaning heresy against a doctrine and a God you don’t believe in, is just not the same thing as claiming His name and engaging in heresy.
Feminism could fizzle out, it could eat it’s own and be done in a blaze of glory, but it is being fueled and perpetuated by the behavior of those masculinists.