Neither
Feminism nor Patriarchy
but Jesus Christ crucified
By Viola Larson and
There
is a beautiful Welsh hymn, “Here is Love,” written by William Rees and Robert
Lowry, whose opening lines are:
Here is love, vast as the ocean
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
We are
particularly drawn to the third verse:
Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
It is a
fact, that as Christians, in whatever work we do, we must seek only the glory
of Jesus Christ. When he is replaced as the center of our purposes the good we
seek will begin to crumble and in some cases we may even draw evil rather than
good to our efforts. Such seems to be the prevailing problem with the Office of
Women’s Advocacy.
Shaya
S. Gregory, the Young Adult Intern for OWA ( Office of Women’s
Advocacy) has written a small article titled “Maternal Murder.”1 The article is about the vulnerability
of pregnant women, such as Laci Peterson, to violence and murder by their
husbands and boyfriends. Using new statistics and studies, law enforcement
agencies, health centers and others have found that the second largest causes of
death in pregnant women is murder by someone close to them. These horrific
findings are important information to focus on for any women’s advocacy group.
From the standpoint of those who follow Jesus the solutions they offer are also
important.
But instead of offering solutions connected with the good news of
God’s great gift in Jesus Christ, Gregory pulls up some of the more egregious
positions of radical feminism. First she dwells on what she sees as the foundational
cause of such murders, “the de rigueur [necessary
or compulsory] patriarchal attitudes
rampant in American society.” (It will
be necessary in this article to understand that radical feminists believe that
part of patriarchy’s vileness is the effort to dismantle the right to abortion.
Gregory subtly shows her point of view on abortion by the phrase she uses to
describe the victims as “women who have made the conscious decision to become
mothers”. The hand of God in creating the gift of life within the womb is
completely outside the picture. It is the woman who determines when she will
become pregnant---a bitter surprise to the many infertile women who long to
become pregnant!)
Gregory
does correctly state that “History has shown that dehumanization is the first
step towards excusing cruel, inhumane and degrading acts towards another human
being.” However, she then goes on to put
the blame on “patriarchy.” She writes “Patriarchy has the ability to normalize
and incite misogyny. Patriarchy thereby makes countless women susceptible to a
tragic demise similar to that of Laci and Jessie [
One of
Gregory’s solutions then is to: Encourage
your congregations, presbyteries and synods to create councils on justice for
women to dismantle patriarchy at their respective level of the Church.
(Bold print ours.)
Still
not really understanding the more probable foundational reason for the horrible
murders of mothers with unborn children, Gregory highlights a web site which
she states will help her readers to, “learn more about the vulnerabilities
pregnant women face.”
The web
site is the National Advocate for Pregnant Women (NAPW). The staff at this unhelpful
site advocates against the protection of the late term unborn, against the
Unborn Victims of Violence Act and against laws that would protect babies in
the womb whose mothers are drug addicts. The group NAPW is supposedly helpful
for pregnant women since, “61 percent of women who have abortions are already
mothers, and another 24 percent will go on to become mothers.”2
Another
detail about this group is that among the groups sponsoring a recent conference
for them were Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Center for
Reproductive Rights, Abortion Access Project and Sistersong Women of Color
Reproductive Health Collective.”3
Therefore
it seems that for Gregory the curtailment of patriarchy as well as the right to
an abortion are the two main solutions for stopping the murder of pregnant
women by their violent husbands and boyfriends. But are these the real foundational
problems?
Gregory
actually framed the problem with truthfulness when she wrote, “History has
shown that dehumanization is the first step towards excusing cruel, inhumane
and degrading acts towards another human being.” So, according to radical
feminists, babies in the womb are not really human and society in general is
being taught that it is okay to treat the unborn, even when they are viable,
cruelly and inhumanely. “It’s not a baby, it’s a blob of tissue!” “It’s not a
baby, it’s a fetus!” And the next step in that awful discourse, evidently in
the minds of some men, is to connect mothers to what both some men and radical
feminists consider simply un-human flesh.
This is
no excuse for the men who, vile and despicable, murder both the women they
should love and kill the children given by God. But, the solution is not to
hold Church courts about patriarchy or to advocate for abortion. The main
solution is to uphold the sacredness of all life. Other solutions are to
advocate for programs that aid mothers and children, to advocate for real and
truthful programs and organizations that help pregnant women, and to provide
Christian shelters for women threatened by violence.
What if
every PC(USA) church were to dedicate and decorate one room in one family’s
home as an available home for a pregnant woman in need? What if every
congregation began to build a fund for medical care for pregnant women without
insurance? Or to retain a lawyer to assist in arranging an adoption plan ? Or
to support a single mom for her baby’s first year? Would those solutions not
give women hopeful, safe, life-giving options?
It is
at the cross where women and men and unborn babies find their worth in the
Savior’s eyes. His incomprehensible love for human life demonstrated in his
death by crucifixion seals forever our value as something more than flesh. Above
all else, any women’s advocacy group which seeks to use the name Christian must
bow before the Lord of life, presenting his gracious love and sacrifice as an
example of proper advocacy. As the second verse of the hymn insists:
On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the flood gates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.
This article is
a cooperative effort between Voices of Orthodox
Women (VOW) and Presbyterians Pro-Life
(PPL)
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Allison
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