Theology for Women

Many women have said to me, “Greg, men run the world.” Wow. That makes us sound pretty capable. So tell me, why would you think we could be incapable of something as simple as picking up the phone and asking you out? You seem to think at times that we’re “too shy” or we “just got out of something.” Let me remind you: Men find it satisfying to get what they want. (Particularly after a difficult day of running the world.) If we want you, we will find you.

This advice serves as the opener to a popular book entitled He’s Just Not That Into You: The No Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys. Written by Greg Behrendt, this book has become a national best-seller and the inspiration for a romantic comedy set to debut in 2009.

Its popularity is due in large part to its no nonsense approach to dating. In a world where women make excuses for the men who don’t pursue them, Behrendt saves them the time and energy of wondering. According to Behrendt, if a guy is interested he’ll make it clear–women just don’t want to accept this fact. That’s why his chapter titles possess seemingly obvious but necessary wisdom as:

He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Asking You Out

He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Calling You

He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Not Dating You

He’s Just Not That Into You If He Doesn’t Want to Marry You

…and my personal favorite…

He’s Just Not That Into You If He’s Breaking Up With You

This book has a bit of valuable truth to it. For the most part, guys are more straight-forward than women make them out to be. Women spend countless hours constructing dizzying logic about why a man didn’t call or why he doesn’t want to date her. But the truth is, when that same guy sees a women he really digs, then he’ll go for her. Even if he’s nervous or shy. Most of the time, a man’s actions are clear.

However, that is not the point of this blog.

The reason I mention this crazy dynamic between men and women is that it’s a perfect illustration of our attempt to discern God’s will. Scroll back up and read the opening paragraph again, but this time substitute the word “God” for men, and substitute “revealing His will” for asking you out. It’s essentially the same dynamic.

Just think about it–in the same way that we concoct crazy interpretations of a guy’s actions, even when they’re actually pretty clear, we create countless interpretations about God’s supposed will for our lives. But let’s be honest–both sets of interpretations are more likely a reflection of what we want to hear than a realistic assessment of the situation. And as a result, we make the process a lot harder than it needs to be.

In the same way that we agonize over understanding men, we see God’s will as a puzzle that we have to decode, a maze to find our way through. And that’s why we view the search for God’s will as a tight rope walk–if we make just the wrong step, we’ll fall off the path altogether and our lives will be ruined.

In reality, both men and God are not all that difficult to understand. If a guy doesn’t call you, it’s because he’s really not that into you. If God doesn’t give you a clear direction forward, He probably just wants you to chill out where you are. It’s not rocket science.

The real source of our confusion is often an unwillingness to accept the answer that we’re given.

Now I have to admit that my analogy does break down a bit. Sometimes men can be confusing (heck, they’re probably confused themselves a lot of the time!), but such a trait is not part of God’s character. God created the universe and reigns over it every day. He is sovereign, which means He not only desires that we fulfill His purposes, but He is more than capable of guiding us to that end.

That said, God is not going to sit in Heaven nervously biting His finger nails, hoping we follow His will for our lives. He wants us to know it, so if we ask Him, we are guaranteed to receive an answer.

But just like the dating game, it’s not always the answer we want. When God wants you to know the next step, He will make His will clear–the question is whether or not we’re willing to accept it. In the same way that we make excuses in the face of dating rejection, we do the same when God gives us an answer we don’t like.

Sometimes the answer is “wait,” other times the answer is a flat-out “no,” or sometimes the answer may be slightly different than what you were expecting. But whatever God’s will is, He’s not deliberately hiding it from you. On the contrary, He has a vested interest in making sure you know it.

As I said, the analogy isn’t perfect because men will sometimes lie to spare a woman’s feelings or avoid feeling guilty. And occasionally a guy really is too shy to ask a girl out. But with God, you can count on Him to lead you because unlike the men that Greg Behrendt’s described, God is always into you.

In the past I’ve talked a lot about the ways in which the media has objectified women and given us an unrealistic standard for which we should strive. We see this subliminal messaging in the form of emaciated models and self-destructive actresses, so while it is prevalent, it’s also easy to pinpoint.

However, not all of the media’s subliminal messages are that easy to spot. In addition to promoting the sexual anorexic look, the media sends harmful messages in a range of forms, some that you may not expect or even notice.

Rather than drive this point home with a long blog that you’re probably too stuffed with turkey to read, I will today defer to a video series entitled “Target Women.” Ladyblog summarized these videos as follows:

Via the December/January issue of Bust (actual article not online):

Do the women populating commercials nowadays—those personality-free mombots who talk about Hamburger Helper as if it were a cure for cancer—seem a little off to you? Sarah Haskins feels your pain.

But instead of motrin-momming it up, Haskins writes and stars in Daily-Show-style segments called ‘Target: Women” (on Current TV’s Infomania) that amusingly mock women’s advertising.

Haskins hones in on the messages that women are receiving, and her style of satire highlights the ways in which such advertising affects us.

What follows is “Target: Women–Yogurt Edition.” I know that sounds lame, but I seriously fell off my chair laughing, and it shows just how subtle advertising can be in its attempt to seduce female consumers:

For more great videos, check out Haskin’s video about birth control commercials, which examines the industry’s tendency to talk more about regulating your period than preventing the birth of children. I’ve never noticed that before, but I would bet there are some very intentional reasons behind it.Also check out her video on chick flicks. It highlights the degree to which romantic comedies deceive women with unrealistic expectations for dating and romance.

For more videos, you can check Haskins out on youtube. She is not a Christian so I apologize for the occasional crass comment, but her work is valuable. We must never blindly consume that which the media is feeding us. Be critical. Ask questions.

That’s what it means to be a faithful woman of God, even if you do like yogurt.

In my last post I discussed the objection that many theologians make to the figure of God as a father. This post is a continuation of that discussion as I explore a second attribute that many theologians, feminists included, prefer to ignore: the wrath of God.

One of my favorite shows on television right now is the Colbert Report. It comes on Comedy Central and it’s hilarious. It also provides at insightful look at the culture and politics that surround us . Since the show’s creation, Colbert has becomes a media icon, and for good reason.

Now to my great delight, Colbert decided to put together a Christmas special, and it’s called “A Colbert Christmas–The Greatest Gift of All!” It premiered last night and while I didn’t see all of it, what I did catch was pretty hysterical.

Throughout the Christmas special, Colbert sings about various themes involving the Christmas season and culture, and what I want to highlight here is a particular song that he performed with Elvis Costello. It was entitled, “There Are Much Worse Things to Believe In,” and it’s a critique of Christmas cynics, arguing that of all the ridiculous beliefs in the world today, a belief in Christmas is not the worst you can do. One of the “worse” beliefs that he enumerates in the song goes as follows:

Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad, believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful god.

As I said, Stephen Colbert is one of the premier commentators on culture today, which means that his perspective represents and influences a large segment of the American population.

And what is that segment saying? “We don’t want a God of wrath.”

In today’s culture, even within Christian circles, grace is in and wrath is out. In a society of tolerance, wrath is a scandal. Our culture prefers a God who looks more like Santa Claus than the God who burned Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground.

What, then, does this cultural perspective have to do with feminist theology? Well let’s begin with what the attribute of wrath means for Christian theology on the whole. A theology of wrath depicts a kind of God who implements punishment, judgment, hardship, and eventually kills his own son in what some feel is little more than infanticide.

That kind of theology can be scary, not just in eternity, but in the present.

What, then, does this mean for women?…

In a world where the Son of God endures his father’s wrath through a humiliating and excruciating death, and in a Church that calls Christians to follow that same path–such a world is perceived as being dangerous for women.

Why? Because throughout history, countless women have remained in abusive marriages and unhealthy situations from which they should have fled, instead remaining in them, all the while justifying the abuse. It was their “cross to bear” so to speak.

The logic of this mindset follows that we live in a fallen world in which sin has consequences, and we must bear those consequences, so we must press on in whatever situation we find ourselves

That said, a theology that views suffering and hardship as a natural part of a world estranged from God, and even encourages its followers to endure that suffering—such a theology is seen as unhealthy for a population that already suffers. That message is not redemptive. It offers no hope for individuals who are presently being persecuted. It only compels them to remain in their hardship.

And to some extent, I agree. A theology of suffering must be balanced with a theology of redemption and grace, or else we offer no picture of hope to a presently suffering world. Following Christ does not mean enabling abusive husbands and genocidal dictators.

But again, there is a temptation to throw out the baby with the bath water. Because this God of wrath has been used to justify persecution, unrighteous anger, and judgment, some theologians are fearful of this God. In their minds, He does not coincide with the God of love that they prefer.

With all of this in mind, why is it then crucial for women to affirm this attribute of God? If this aspect of God’s character has been used to victimize women, why must we defend it?

The first reason is that you cannot have a theology of grace without a theology of wrath. By definition, grace does not exist without wrath because there must be a punishment from which you are being delivered. Grace is the word we use to describe the mercy shown us when we deserved wrath.

So from a strictly theological perspective, this attribute is necessary.

But in addition to that, we should never think of God’s wrath as meaning little more than hardship upon hardship when what we really need is deliverance. It also means justice in a world plagued by injustice. When you endure a family or work relationship in which you experience difficulty or persecution, you do not have to despair because there will be vindication. God tells us that vengeance is His, and those who hurt you will face consequences. Either today, or in eternity.

Without God’s wrath, there is no hope that evil will be defeated. There is no guarantee that those who steal, kill and destroy will be held accountable. Without wrath, the wicked never pay.

As women, we should therefore affirm this divine attribute, not only for the sake of having holistic theology, but because it reminds us that God is not done with our circumstances. In a world where we experience persecution and suffering, we can know that God hears our cries and does not turn a blind eye to our oppressors. There is hope, and it ironically comes from the doctrine where you would least expect to find it.

So the next time you hear someone talking about the “scandal of God’s grace,” I would ask them what they think about God’s wrath. Grace is the en vogue theology of the day, but wrath is another measure. The test is whether you have a theology that incorporates both.

In these next two posts I am going to examine two attributes of God–His identity as Father and His wrath–that feminist theology has frequently considered to be in opposition with the good of women. I will attempt to explain why both premises are inherently false, as well as detrimental.

The next time you go to church and hear a sermon, listen carefully to the language that your pastor uses, particularly in reference to God. If you go to an evangelical church, it is likely you will hear the pastor refer to God as “Him” or “He.” If, on the other hand, you attend a non-evangelical church, you are more likely to hear God referred to simply as “God.”

If you find yourself listening to a preacher that qualifies under the second category, notice the hoops he will jump through to avoid using the male pronoun in reference to God. His sentences will sound semantically awkward and bulky as he makes statements like, “Then God reconciled God’s world to God’s self so that all could be in relationship to God.”

It gets a little redundant.

The reason you need to hone in on this language is that, in refusing to use male pronouns, the preacher is making a theological statement.

Today, many Christians are wary of describing God in gender specific terms, and for several reasons. The first is that it can limit our conception of God to being exclusively male. I can somewhat sympathize with this perspective. God is not male in the way we think of maleness. God encompasses both male and female attributes, so men are not somehow made to be MORE in God’s likeness than women. They simply reflect God’s character in different ways than women. This is a good point to remember.

(Though the balanced response is not to throw out God’s maleness altogether. That would be a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Scripture refers to God as being male for good reasons–we’ll get to that in a second…)

However, there is another strand of theology that rejects God’s maleness, particularly His identity as Father, and it comes specifically out of feminist theology. From this perspective, the idea of “father” has a negative connotation with many individuals, and should therefore be avoided. Many women have been abused or mistreated by their fathers, so they see the category of “father” as profoundly dangerous and frightening. And if such is the case, conceiving of God as Father will actually serve to alienate women from God if they have bad relationships with their own fathers.

In response to this problem, some feminist theologians have opted to avoid construing of God as Father. Not all of these theologians go quite as far as to completely ignore God’s role as Father, but they will still avoid referring to God in male terms. Regardless of their approach, God’s position as Father is labeled as patriarchal. It is a scandal.

This position is profoundly errant. We must always be suspicious of any theology that responds to an abuse of a doctrine by dismissing the doctrine altogether. That is not a proper or healthy response. In doing so, we miss out on the goodness that God wrote into His creation.

For example, by conceiving of God as Father, we are actually provided with the hope of correcting the mistakes of our earthly fathers. Maybe you had a horrible dad who neglected you or showed you conditional love, and as a result of that experience you are left wounded and feeling incomplete.

But the best response to this experience is not to ignore God’s role as Father. The best response is to embrace it. Maybe your earthly father didn’t love you, but you have a Heavenly Father who does! If there is a void left in your heart that you long for your earthly father to fill, you have a Heavenly Father who is waiting with arms spread wide to fill it.

Rather than dismiss the category of father, which will later serve to hinder any chance at a healthy family life, an understanding of God as Father seeks to restore our paternal conceptions. It gives us a picture of what healthy fatherhood looks like, which is particularly important as women seek healthy marriages with husbands who will care for their families.

It is for this reason that a conception of God as Father is not antithetical to the good of women. On the contrary, it is in our best interest. It gives us a standard against which we can hold the men in our lives. If you are dating a man who does not model the love and sacrifice of God, then he is not a man with whom you should yoke yourself. God as Father is therefore our best protection, a source of safety and healing in a broken world. That is why God as a male and God as a Father are doctrines we must never cast off.

I published this post a little over a year ago, but it was one of my most popular entries and I continue to hear about it today, so I thought I’d post it again for those of you who missed it. This goes out to all you single gals out there–don’t settle! Even in your friendships.

I am blessed to have a friend in my life who is not inhibited by social graces like tact. If I ever need an opinion, I can depend on him to speak hard truth into my life, generally in the most blunt form possible. Fortunately, he is almost always dead-on in his observations, which is why I go back to him again and again, regardless of the form in which his wisdom is dispensed.

For example, he recently introduced me to a term that I have since found to be both descriptive and extremely accurate. The term is “girlfriend place-holder.”

According to my friend, a lot of guys will have a female friend in their life that functions as a girlfriend in virtually every way–they talk a lot, spend a great deal of one-on-one time together, even go on pseudo-dates and act flirtatious. For all intents and purposes it would seem that the guy is interested, yet he never actually wants to commit. In fact, he never even broaches the topic of dating.

Why? Because, as my friend describes it, this girl is serving as a “girlfriend place-holder.” Though probably doing so unintentionally, some guys will keep a female friend around to hold the place of a girlfriend. In a sense, they are filling their time until they meet the girl they *really* want to date.

As my friend explained it, we all want companionship in some form or another, so even if we haven’t met Mr. or Mrs. Right just yet, many of us will find someone to meet those desires until the “real thing” comes along. And guys aren’t the only ones guilty of doing this. Girls do it just as much. Ladies, I’m sure you can think back to someone in your past, if not someone RIGHT NOW, who is serving as a boyfriend place-holder for you. He’s great because he’ll pay for things when you go out, and he’s always available if you’re bored, but you have absolutely no intention of dating him.

What is interesting about this form of guy-girl relationship is that it is deceptively intimate. Unlike blatant serial flirting in which you can easily spot the players you need to avoid, place-holding seems more real and more deep. After all, it is based upon an actual friendship, so there is more to it than simply having fun.

And that is what often keeps the “place-holders” hanging on so long–because there is depth to the relationship, they hold out hope that sooner or later the guy or girl will snap out of it: “One of these days he’s going to wake up and realize what a good thing he has right in front of him.” That sort of thing. In this way, these relationships can actually result in far greater emotional damage than shallower versions of its kind. Place-holders will more easily open up and make themselves vulnerable since they feel they can trust the other person.

This ultimately leaves the “place-holder” feeling confused and hurt, and sometimes devastated. I have a number of girl friends right now who are in this exact situation. They have a close guy friend that they spend a great deal of time with, but he just won’t commit. In fact, he won’t even bring up any sort of conversation relating to the romantic nature of their relationship. Perhaps the guy is simply afraid of commitment, but in many cases, as my guy friend explains it, these guys have no intention of dating at all. They are unintentionally using these young women as girlfriend place-holders.

Now I think it’s pretty obvious that this kind of relationship is not honoring to the “place-holder” involved, so if you can think of someone in your life who plays that role, then you should seriously consider cutting it off. Even if you are both using each other, and neither person necessarily has the upper hand, you are still not treating them as the brother and sister in Christ that they are. And more importantly, if you think a guy or girl might be treating YOU as a place-holder, then get out of that relationship, and fast! That is NOT how God intended you to be treated–you are to be loved and desired extravagantly, so anyone who makes you feel inadequate or unworthy of love is falling way short of that mark.

In addition to all that, if you have a friend who is treating someone as a place-holder, call them out! Guys, don’t let your friends treat girls that way–if you look the other way when your friends do this, then you are no better than they are since you clearly don’t respect your sister enough to stand up for her. And ladies, the same goes for you. No guy deserves to be strung along, so hold your friends accountable on their behalf.

And finally, don’t forget to reflect on why it is you need a place-holder in the first place. God is always sufficient, so if He hasn’t provided you with a spouse yet, He is still more than enough for you to be content. At the end of the day, that is the key issue here, so be sure not to cover it up with a girlfriend or boyfriend place-holder. Place-holding is little more than the symptom of a dissatisfied heart.

I’m at UNCG right now in the middle of a crazy day so I don’t have much time to write, but I just heard a story this morning that I thought was pretty cool.

Currently at UNCG, there is a student who is finishing her degree as she fulfills her lifelong goal to be a nurse. She is set to graduate in May. She is also 71 years old.

What strikes me about this woman is that she plans to START a whole new career after she graduates. She’s not just seeking the degree–it’s not like one of those “bucket list” goals, like climbing Mt. Everest  or sky diving or getting a tattoo. Those are all one time accomplishments that you complete and then it’s over. They don’t really change the direction of your life or require anything of you in the long-term. This women, on the other hand, is altering the entire direction of her life up to this point and starting anew. In her 70’s!

It is individuals like her who remind us that it’s never to late to stop, alter your course, and start using your life for its created purpose.

And this especially goes out to those of you who are in your twenties and think your life track is already set–if you think that you can’t live a radical life for God because you already went to college and got such-and-such degree and your parents are expecting you to be a lawyer or a doctor and your husband is expecting you to provide him with the American dream, white-picket fence life with 2.5 kids and a dog….and the list goes on.

If all of your circumstances seem like too much to overcome, if your life trajectory is too firmly set to move off course, just remember grandma over here at UNCG, sitting in her classes next to 18 year olds with nose rings and who probably think she’s just confused and got lost and wandered in there on accident.

It is NEVER too late to pursue God. It is NEVER too late to live the life God really designed for you. Any other excuse is just a cop out.

For many women, the idea of trusting a man TOTALLY in marriage is a scary thing. It’s not that their husbands aren’t trustworthy or that they don’t trust their husbands in some things. But the idea of submitting when you think you’re in the right, or when something really life-changing is on the line? That can be hard.

And that’s why so many women find themselves wrestling with a tendency to take control. Stasi Eldredge describes this battle in her book, Captivating. She gets to the heart of this ever-raging struggle as she writes:

“Aren’t your deepest worries and heartaches relational–aren’t they connected to someone? Even when things are good, is your vast capacity for intimacy ever filled in a lasting way? There is an emptiness in us that we continually try to feed. And can’t you see how much you need to have things under control–whether it’s a project or a ministry or a marriage? Are you comfortable trusting your well-being to someone else? And haven’t you felt…your vulnerability as a woman to be a liability? Most women hate their vulnerability….Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves, and control our worlds to have some sense of security.”

Control is a major issue that women struggle to surrender in marriage, but as Eldredge points out, this is not a problem that begins in marriage. It begins long before.

Submission is a discipline that you must work on cultivating now, as a single woman. Think about it this way…

It really is no wonder that the transition from the single life to married life can be so rocky–they generally encompass two completely different mindsets! As a single woman, you learn to be independent and look out for yourself. But then you get married and you’re supposed to let someone else take care of you.

You go from being independent to dependent. What was once a virtue becomes a vice. A practice that once guarded your lifestyle can now sabotage your lifestyle. What are we to make of this discrepancy?

The problem here is that the predominant mindset of single women today is in direct conflict with the Christian life. The idea that single women are somehow independent and must fend for themselves is a mindset that conflicts with the sovereignty of God. If we profess Christ, then there is no independent. There is no “fend for yourself.” And there is no “I am in control.”

On the contrary, it is God who is in control. God takes care of you. To be Christian is to be dependent on Him.

An unhealthy independence is easy to hide when you’re on your own, but it quickly becomes apparent when your life is intertwined with another. It is a mindset that short-circuits your ability to trust others because it is founded upon a trust in yourself alone. That said, if you have thoroughly ingrained in your heart and mind a spirit of independence, then you set yourself up for failure in all relationships, not the least of which is your relationship with God.

With all of this in mind, an inability to trust a husband in marriage is not necessarily a marital problem. It is a spiritual one. It comes from years and years of not trusting God to provide and take care of you. When you live in the knowledge that God is in control, it takes a lot of pressure off of trusting others. A trust in God makes all other forms of trust possible.

So if you are single now, begin the hard work of learning submission–submission to God. Regardless of whether or not you get married one day, this is a discipline that will factor into your job, your church, and your family relationships. It is the difference between relating to others in fear, or relating to others in freedom.

That is a struggle that every woman must face and fight, no matter her marital status.

I know I spend a lot of time talking about theology and ethics and philosophy on here, and sometimes I’m afraid that some of you get a little bored, which is why I was delighted to find out that I’m not alone in my Christian nerdiness!

This past summer an author named Wendy Alsup published a book called “Practical Theology for Women.” Wendy is the Deacon in charge of Women’s Theology and Training at Mark Driscoll’s church in Seattle, and on her own blog she says of herself, “I am a wife and mom who happens to like math and theology as well.”

Except for the math part, I think we were destined to be friends.

To read a great review of Wendy’s new book, click here. It really revs me up to read it.

Also be sure to check out Wendy’s blog, which you can find here.

It is discoveries like these that signal to me the Holy Spirit is on the move. It is the dawn of a new age for women’s ministry!

I don’t know about you, but for many years when I would attend Christian conferences, I avoided the women’s break-out sessions like the plague.

(And just to be clear, I am speaking to women right now. If you’re reading this and you’re a guy, then I really hope you avoided the women’s break-out sessions. That would be weird if you didn’t.)

The reason I was so deliberate in not attending was two-fold: One, I was fairly certain I already knew what they were gonna say. Something about submission or modesty. Two, I hated being defined by my womanhood. I wanted to attend sessions that taught me how to be a better Christian first, and a woman second.

In my mind, women’s ministry equated with a mushy, emotional, let’s-all-hug kind of theology. Some of it was helpful, but after awhile you’d heard it all and it was time to move on. I’d gotten all the mush that I needed for one lifetime.

Well since that season of my life, I’ve re-evaluated my stance, but not because I’ve come to embrace the emotion-driven theology that I once spurned. I have not. I still hate it, and I have to fight every fiber in my being that resists it—sometimes women really do need a good cry or an old fashioned hug fest. I need to accept this.

But the real reason I’ve come to value women’s ministry anew is that it is our best tool for equipping women within the Church. Yes, our pastors can do this and male leaders are able to teach us, but women will never know what it means to be a woman in leadership if some of us don’t step up and set an example with our lives.

For generations, the vision cast for women has been painfully small. Not all of us have realized our full potential in serving the Kingdom of God because we don’t even know what that really looks like. It’s not often that we’ve heard female preachers teach with power and authority, and there aren’t a lot evangelical women with doctorates in theology. We’ve seen men do these things many times, but not women.

It’s not that women are too stupid to study theology, or that we aren’t capable of teaching. It’s that we didn’t even know that we could. That is the climate that we younger women are coming out of. Only in very recent years have the number of women in seminaries come to equal that of men.

The issue here is not the rights of women. Don’t hear me as preaching some sort of she-woman empowerment message. That is not my agenda. The reason we should be educating ourselves and pushing ourselves in the study of God is because GOD DESERVES NO LESS! Mediocrity has no place in His Church. Women who are content with the status quo, you will not find your place here. We must consistently challenge ourselves to grow and learn and teach so that we can pursue God more fully and cast a vision for other to do so as well.

But this kind of vision cannot come from men. Why? Because men are not women. In the same way that I can’t exemplify to the men in my ministry what it means to be a godly, male leader, men cannot exemplify to women what it means to be a godly, female leader. Men can teach us many things about Christ and Christian discipleship, but how that plays out in a specifically female context is best taught by women. That’s why Scripture advises women to teach other women in Titus 2.

We need women to step up and do that job.

Yes, women’s ministry does matter. It matters a lot. We are waging a spiritual battle for the glory of God, and we must all be as equipped as possible if we are to fight this good fight. We must be pushing each other and challenging one another to grow and be stronger and dream big dreams. God requires this of women just as much as he requires it of men, not for the sake of women, but for the sake of His name. So until we are maximizing our gifts and abilities, it is not ourselves who are being robbed, but God.

That, ladies, is why women’s ministry matters. And that is where women’s ministry is going.

Forty years ago Pope Paul VI released a statement on contraception that, looking back, was stunningly prophetic.

The essay, entitled Humanae Vitae (”Of Human Life”), was written at a time in American history when contraceptive pills were becoming very popular. Women across the country were celebrating their newfound freedom as the history of American sexuality turned a new page.

The Catholic Church, however, was singing a different tune. Unlike the many women who rejoiced over the changing cultural tides, the Pope raised a voice of concern–a concern that we can now see was completely warranted.

Although the Catholic Church’s position on contraception has been debated among Christians (Catholics put a heavy priority on the procreative purpose of sex,whereas many other Christians do not), there is one point on which the Pope was completely right.

If only we’d listened.

What follows is an excerpt from Humanae Vitae in which Pope Paul VI projects the cultural implications of contraception. His predictions could not have been more accurate, and I have posted this today because of the profound impact it has had for women since:

Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Did you get that?

FORTY YEARS AGO, Pope Paul VI predicted the exact situation that we find ourselves in today. He warned that the practice of hormonal contraception would divorce the responsibility of sex from the act of sex. He also feared that, as a result of this divorce, men would no longer need to guard the sanctity of sex, thereby leading them to treat women and sex in a recklessly casual way.

And his fears came true.

Sex without consequences. That is what the contraceptive revolution bought our country. And what do you think happens when we cheapen the price of a costly good? We no longer value it quite so highly.

Pope Paul VI was exactly right.

So while the contraceptive pill seemed like a gateway to women’s freedom and a means for valuing the female life even more, it instead devalued women, giving men the freedom to use them for sexual gratification without weighing the implications of their actions.

Now I write all of this not as a diatribe against the practice of contraception, but to caution us about considering the ideological impacts of the decisions we make. Just because science develops a solution to making our lives easier or providing us with a convenient short-cut does not mean we should embrace it.

Whenever we seek to relieve ourselves of divinely placed forms of accountability and responsibility, we forget that God created those measures for our own protection. Sex is about more than just procreation, but the fact that sexual intercourse leads to the birth of a new human life should cause us to approach the act of sex soberly and reverently.

While the contraceptive pill can’t take all the blame for the objectification of women and the number of absent fathers in our nation, it certainly played its own part. In a consumer-driven culture that wants what it wants right now, we have taken a thousand tiny steps in the wrong direction, and those tiny steps add up to a society that has wandered horribly off the path of truth.

No, the contraceptive pill is not, in itself, an evil, but blank-check contraceptive practices do not coincide well with a Scriptural view on marriage, family and sex. It is time we start examining why. I hope you will ask yourself that question.