The fundamental argument for the distinct roles for man and woman is creation order. You see it in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9,
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
and 1 Timothy 2:13,
For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Male and female created God them (Genesis 1:27).
God designed men and women different and with distinct roles. The distinct roles are related to reproduction by Jesus (Luke 20:34-36) and by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 2:15). The fundamental issue of the fundamental argument is that alteration of God’s arrangement is rebellion against God’s design. God created the sexes and their roles and changing them is a strike at God as Creator. It’s a unique offense against Him, which is sometimes called an abomination. That’s also why homosexual behavior is the prime example of man’s rebellion against God (Romans 1:26-27). Ungrateful men are not thankful for their gender and role, so they rebel against it.
I want to keep this simple.
The trajectory toward same sex marriage didn’t go from happy, fulfilled heterosexual marriages straight (no pun intended) to Adam and Steve. Concessions were made that form the path to the kind of cultural acceptance where we abide today in the United States. The concessions were an end in themselves, but they also moved everything along toward even more abominable ends. God has been offended in a personal way long before a supreme acceptance of same sex marriage.
There have been moves retreating from God toward Sodom. If we really cared about God in this, then we wouldn’t be concerned just about the definition of marriage but each of the steps of regression away from Him. In other words, we can be “against” same sex marriage and not really be against it, because we’re not against what got us there in the first place. And there are steps that got us there. Various concessions have been made. You don’t get to be against quick sand, but for lots of deep, wet sand.
One step at a time, America’s churches have grown accustomed to ideas in contradiction to God’s word and the historical practice of scripture. Many churches see some of these as a bonus for the church, actually quite helpful, a move forward. Many, many mock those who stand against the concessions in support of biblical obedience. I’ve noticed the mockery being the most effective argument for them.
I’m prepared for rejection of what I’m going to write here with full conviction that it is 100% true. Again, we didn’t just get to this place. We took steps. If we’re going to change, really change, then we’ve got to be willing to be honest and stop playing around. You should consider what I’m going to write. That what I write here will be discounted or scorned is one of the reasons we’re in the place we’re in.
When Paul repented of his former lifestyle, he had to count it as dung (Philippians 3). No halfway measures would do. He couldn’t straddle his past life with his new one in Christ. The willingness to call what you’ve believed before, or how you’ve compromised, or how you were wrong, “dung,” is in the course of success. In 2 Corinthian 7:10, Paul called this a great “clearing of yourselves,” an act that comes with contrition about where you’ve been wrong. I ask you to consider that option instead of knee-jerk defense of yourself.
Before I start listing the particular concessions that led to same sex marriage, I think it would be good for you to look at the period between about 1880 and 1920 in this country, and how that major cultural moves in violation of God’s Word during that period have gotten us to where we’re at today.
The Concessions
The Woman’s Vote
A vote is authority. The history of New Testament churches doesn’t have women making the decisions of a church. If you read the federalist and anti-federalist papers, no one even breathed a hint of a woman’s vote. You’ll be hard pressed to find it in any literature in early American history. In the Bible, women are forbidden from usurping authority over a man. Now women have the power of the vote in the congregational government of churches across the United States. Women’s suffrage was ratified in 1920 shortly after men got back from World War 1. The woman’s vote in churches is a concession of churches that changed the role of women. There is no scriptural basis for women voting in the business of a church and there is plenty in the Bible against it.
Father’s Lose the Authority with their Daughters
Part of the marriage ceremony is the dad giving away his daughter. That is mocked in our culture today, and with the humanly devised dating method for obtaining a spouse (like the Gentiles, which know not God), the authority of the father has been usurped in contradiction to scripture (1 Corinthians 7:36-38). In many, if not most cases in churches, that part of the wedding proceedings really is a joke. Long ago the daughter gave her hand away and dad came along afterwards to rubber stamp it, or be in big trouble.
Women’s Pants
Almost every old commentary on Deuteronomy says the same thing about Deuteronomy 22:5 that we believe about it. Christians have believed through history that this forbids women from wearing the man’s garment and vice-verse. I title it designed gender dress distinctions. At least one article of clothing must be designated as the distinguishing item. The ones still understood as the designed gender dress distinctions are pants on men and skirts or dresses on women. We continue knowing that from looking at the symbols on the bathroom doors.
Some behavior in Deuteronomy 22:5 is an abomination. Something there is an abomination to God. For centuries we knew what that would be. When it started changing, that’s how people argued against it. The abomination began to become accepted until it became even a preference in churches. Public appearance is one way people learn sexuality. Rise in homosexuality has coincided completely parallel with the rise in women wearing pants. As skirts and dresses on women have receded, homosexuality has risen.
Churches and their leaders are now to the place where we can’t even know what Deuteronomy 22:5 is talking about, and so it can’t matter. This is how a lot of cultural teachings have gone, but this was an early one. An abomination to God is worth being very careful and very serious about. We should consider what Christians believed was an abomination to God in dress, namely women wearing pants. How could women wearing the male garment and homosexuality both be an abomination? They both attack God’s design in creation.
Women as Breadwinners
While the children are at home being raised, many women are in the workplace and often as breadwinners. This occurs in most Christian homes. Older people talk about World War 2 being a part of this one, with Rosie the Riveter taking her place on the assembly line. I’m talking about a woman not being a keeper at home, a role laid out for her in Titus 2. Several years ago, Maureen Dowd, Pulitzer Prize New York Times columnist, complained in her book, “Are Men Necessary?” The answer is becoming more and more, “No.”
Churches have aided this concession by running daycare. I know that daycare is a bigger money maker than school (schools are money losers generally). Parents pay more for daycare for young children than for school. Certain evangelical and fundamentalist churches don’t have schools, but they do have daycare. Sometimes the argument is made, “They’re going to send their kids somewhere! Why not here?!?!” It’s pragmatism and supports families in the wrong decision. Churches should take a stand on this. Don’t offer daycare. Don’t encourage women to remain outside of the home when their children should be there.
Let’s be honest. Men are afraid of women today. I’m not talking about ‘afraid of getting into a fist fight with a woman.’ As a matter of fact, unfortunately, that is how men think they can prove they are men, by beating up women. No, men are afraid of losing the good favor of women, that women will sulk and show disinterest, or that women will call men a name related to chauvinism and sort of faux ruin their reputation. “I’m not a Chauvinist! I love women’s power!” As a result, men have lost their role, which not only explains the growth of homosexual power, but also the wandering, aimless boys and their exponentially expanding ritalin prescriptions. Women have men more under their thumbs or pinkies than every before.
There have been more than just four concessions, but these are four primary ones that have been supported by churches. Today a large number of professing evangelical churches have even moved to an egalitarian belief about marriage in replacement of the biblical, historical complementarian position. Certain jobs that were never “women’s jobs” are now being dominated by women. For a long time, you’ve been able to be an officer in the military of this country, and now a combat officer. Changes are occurring everywhere, but judgment must begin in the house of God.
Amen.
Brother Kent,
Your analysis of the historical slide of this nation is correct EXCEPT for the fact that you missed the most important event concerning the English and American decline. It has to do with the final authority of the Holy King James Bible. It was attacked by apostates Westcott and Hort with the introduction of the English Revised Version (ERV) of 1881 in England and the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901 in America.
That, my brother, is the root cause of the down slide, for once you corrupt the words of God, then everything else is subject to that same corruption.
Amen, Brother Brandenburg. Several months ago I preached a message similar to what you have written here. It is Biblical.
Thanks!
Maybe others don't agree. Or they don't want to get in trouble — which is why we're in trouble.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
What if a church has a day care, none of the members of the church have their children in the daycare, the members of the church are actively discouraged from putting their children in the daycare because of the roles of men and women, but unsaved people in the community are offered the daycare so that their children can hear the Bible, the children of parents can be saved, and then the family can take their children out of daycare and have a Christian home? Is it wrong, if unsaved people are willing to pay Christians to teach the Bible to their children, while watching them during the day, to take advantage of such an opportunity?
Yes, ideally the mother would be at home, but if she isn't, or doesn't want to be, why is a Christian daycare any different from having unconverted children in a school during the daytime, or picking up children and taking them to church when the parents don't want to come (and perhaps use the opportunity of not having their children there as a church was a daycare?) Is teaching the Bible to children of unsaved parents in a Christian daycare creating or contributing to a problem, or dealing with a problem that already exists by preaching the word so that families can be saved and begin to practice Biblical gender roles? Thanks for your thoughts.
By the way, with the exception of the above question, I agree with your post 100%.
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the questions. The Bible obviously doesn't say anything about daycare, so we're talking about application of the passages here, and what will encourage biblical behavior. The daycare is not a separating issue with us. I see it as a trend, an opportunity to act in a way that will support the right position. There are a lot of programs in churches that are viewed as evangelistic, seeing them as helping in evangelism, that are in fact not. For instance, let's say that a church had a weekly bingo and when the people came to play, none of which were church members, they preached the gospel to those non church members? The bingo is seen as an evangelistic program. The Bible doesn't say there's anything with bingo, like it doesn't say there's anything wrong with daycare. Both are applications of scripture. It's a matter of regulating the evangelism with scripture, so that God gets the glory from it — if anyone glory, let him glory in the Lord. I'm saying daycare as a strategy, especially knowing what it's all about, does not bring glory to God.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
In my understanding bingo involves gambling, so it would not be a parallel example. in the daycare, unsaved people are turning their children over to saved people so that the saved people can teach them the Bible and Christianity. It would seem to me like a great thing if all the unsaved people in the world turned their children over to saved people so that the saved people could teach them the Bible. That the unsaved people would even pay the saved people to do this seems like an extra treat. At this point I'm not convinced that such a situation is comparable to employing extra scriptural promotion and marketing techniques, rather than being an application of biblical commands to preach and teach the Word to everybody. Thanks for the thought-provoking comments. Soli Deo gloria.
Hi Thomas,
What I've said doesn't seem to be connecting in your argument for churches operating daycare. By the way, I don't know if the church of which you are a member has a daycare, and only one church came to mind, a local new-evangelical church. Arguments against gambling are based on application of biblical principle as is this one. This one, I believe, might be stronger, only insofar that mothers not fulfilling their roles is worse than a gambling game such as bingo.
I already intimated 1 Cor 1-3 and God getting the glory in the method of evangelism. I also think of Matt 5:16 and 1 Peter 2:12, both which say that "good works" are a means of evangelism. If something is not moral, putting your toddler child in daycare, it seems that this would not be a good work. Should saved people encourage unsaved people to disobey scripture as a means of evangelism? Is a mother disobeying the Bible by putting her child in daycare? I encourage you to answer those questions.
Everyone,
Someone for awhile has published anonymous comments, criticizing posts that I make. Usually they're mocking. That alone isn't enough for me not to publish, but he's also anonymous, and if someone is going to mock, we have to have his name.
However, he wrote a comment that interested me in replying. I said in a comment that daycare wasn't a separating issue, and he mocked that this was so, so inconsistent. I think it is a worthy point to comment about. The post wasn't about separation or what is a separating issue, but I think it is worth talking about.
It is true that daycare may be a separating issue, so I wasn't correct on that. Separating issues are not always simple, but I do believe we are consistent. First, I don't know of a church that we fellowship with that has daycare, so we're talking about hypothetical separation. Daycare itself is a knotty issue, and our church, I don't believe, would choose to separate over it, all other things considered. Why? The kind of argument Thomas is using above. The problem is mothers not being keepers at home. Some mothers may use daycare who are keepers at home. I'm arguing against daycare in general, not specific use of it. I'm not writing this because we've ever used it. Our church doesn't have a daycare even though it would be easy to run one. We have the property, the buildings, the space, the people, to fulfill the regulations and make money off of this. We could view it as a ministry like Thomas is talking about above, to get an opportunity to preach to the parents. But I don't want to encourage wrong. Caring for kids isn't wrong — that's why it isn't a separating issue. It doesn't mean the moms are not keepers at home, doesn't have to mean that. I'm not going to check out everyone's daycare to see if theirs is legitimate. So I say it isn't a separating issue — in that way. That's a lot to explain, but it is how I see the issue.
Overall, I think that daycare is bad. I get why it happens. I get why churches have said, "I think we'll do this and use it for the Lord," like all sorts of different practices today, without thinking through enough what daycare itself is all about. We shouldn't think that it's OK.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
I'm not clear why teaching children on Monday-Saturday in a daycare when parents don't want to hear the Word is different from teaching
children on the Lord's Day and bringing them to church when the
parents don't come, or teaching the children of unsaved people in a
school. In both the Christian school and the church cases, the
parents are sinning–I don't see why the church is endorsing the sin
in either situation. I view the daycare for little kids like a
Christian school pre-K. The daycare does not allure worldly lust like
a Hyles TV giveaway to come on the bus. It openly says that it is
Christian and wants to be training children in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. A mother is disobeying Scripture by not
coming to church, and she is disobeying Scripture if she wants to get
rid of her kids so she can do whatever she wants and disobey Titus 2,
but providing Biblical teaching to the children of disobedient unsaved
people is not disobedience to Scripture. If there is a big difference
between picking up the kids for church when the parents sin by not
coming and the parents sin by using the church like a free daycare on
Sunday while their kids are gone, and between a Christian daycare and
a Christian school where parents "get" to be rid of their children
during the daytime, I admit there is a disconnect–I don't see it.
The church is to help orphans, the fatherless, etc., and giving the
children of parents who refuse to raise them in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord what the parents refuse to give looks to me to
be totally Scriptural. I'm glad that we can talk it through, though,
and that we both want to honor the Lord with what we do for His
glory–and that we'll both have perfect understanding when we are with
the Lord.
Thomas,
I'm writing just to clarify. The problem isn't in caring for children. I wrote that in the above comment. The problem is in providing something for women that they are required by scripture to be doing themselves. Why would we give them another avenue to do something the Bible says they are to do?
I don't think the same thing for school. School isn't daycare. It isn't a means by which women can take a different role than what God requires for them. You seem to be sort of trying to miss this when it seems patently obvious. School has been around for awhile. Daycare has not. When daycare began, it related to mothers being outside the home as a part of the changing role of the woman in culture. Why would a church go ahead and mimic this aspect, invented by the world for an unbiblical reason? You are saying evangelism. The Hyles give-away might be less bad as an evangelistic "tool."
I'm not going to have a discussion about school, because it's off topic. It's fine to talk about, but it isn't the same thing as daycare.
You arguing that since the mother isn't saved and is disobeying in lots of other ways, then it is justified that we help her disobey in this one other way, so that we can see her kids get saved. I think it's possible that it will "work" in the short term, but it doesn't glorify the Lord and in the long run, it will be destructive as unscriptural things always are. I don't believe you answered my two questions in the previous comment, unless the answer was, "They're sinning anyway, so what difference does it make if they sin more." Do you see it as a curious evangelistic tool to encourage more sinning as a means of evangelism?
You mention caring for orphans, etc. "Caring" for someone is always a biblical thing. You don't care more when you do something unbiblical. The Hyles promotions care more for children than we do, according to them. And relative to them, we don't care for children. I say that illustratively. They don't actually care more. The ideas of "care" and "help" and even "good" are often subjective, sentimental, and false.
This article backs up your argument well – that marriage was redefined a long time ago and the fruit is just being reaped now. He links in no-fault divorce as well:
The church accepted, by and large, the logic of no fault divorce. At least, nobody seemed to think that it was quite the apocalyptic moment presented by gay marriage. Why? My guess is that there was simply no real yuck factor involved. And if two people who had 'fallen out of love' (whatever that means) wanted to go back and start all over again, that seemed not 'yucky' but an aesthetically pleasing outcome in a world ruled by sentiment and truncated notions of personal satisfaction. The yuck factor – or lack of it – serves to cloud our thinking on too many issues.
The argument for gay marriage proceeds on the basis of a logic which society, and sadly many churches, accepted long ago. Do not fret about when marriage will be redefined. It was. Quite some time back.
http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2013/03/the-yuck-factor.php
This is fantastic!
Man you people are plum crazy, sexist articles like this make me sooo glad i'm not a christian. Makes me want to run far away from it and fast. Religious people have a severely warped sense of reality.
Hi Amanda,
First, you should be a Christian, because biblical Christianity is the truth. It's sort of like gravity in that you might not like it, but if you step over a cliff, it won't change whether you like it or not. This is God's world and He wrote the rules. You're going to have to do better than mockery.
The one with a warped sense of reality is someone who doesn't understand things how they really are. What is real is that men and women are different. Sexism, as I know it, says that one sex is superior to another. I don't believe that. I think that the men and women are inherently equal, which is what the Bible teaches. However, they are different, designed for different purposes. When each fulfill their designed purpose society functions at its best. They are not fulfilling those functions ironically because the male role has been deemed superior by people like yourself. And since neither are fulfilling their roles, everything is increasingly more messed up today, testifying of the truth of what I'm saying.