I think a lot of our national conversation of feminism has presumed a Christendom substrata of male respect for women and a Christian resistance to use the power they have. It is like knowing that Gandhi could only do what he did in the British Empire. It would have never worked in Stalinist USSR. Well that Christendom substrata is being dismantled and feminists are going to be horrified at what they will confront. If you thought we’ve been seeing the “war of the sexes” before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just read history. You can find how these things play out. Harems, concubines, sex slaves. Stuff that now is in books, movies and illegal corners of society. The Republican presidential candidate owns the Ms. Universe pageant and treated contestants kind of like a harem in his younger days. Read a bio of Howard Hughes. Trump is running against Hillary. This battle is about to be played out in the polls and unfortunately a lot of other important things, like nuclear weapons are on the table along with our culture war.
I think what this leave space for is an appreciation of Christianity and its self-deference. True secularism really can’t decide how women should be treated because there really isn’t a consistent platform for “should”. “Should” is just custom and habit in the words of David Hume.
So hold on boys and girls because things are going to get a whole lot more bumpy. I also suspect churches and Christian communities are going to be safe harbors from the storm.
Well I haven’t seen the FB context here, and full disclosure, I’m a man, but wouldn’t women prefer actually having power in society in order to directly resist and restrain such abuses, rather than be powerlessly dependent on the faux refuge of subjugation masquerading as paternalistic “protection”? Isn’t that what makes it fitting to have a female oppose Trump? For centuries of Christendom, there was no protection from being legally considered property or from abusive or adulterous husbands. No one will pine for those as the good old days. Secularistic/Enlightement notions of individual rights go way too far, but historically I might put their overall track record of curtailing abuses against most other societies, including Christendom’s.
Or did Christendom lay the foundation for greater societal respect, rights and power given to women?
I suspect that the society we assume today and in many ways aspire towards depends on foundations we are already undermining. This is Wolterstorff’s thesis with respect to human rights. Women should have rights, power, status because they are image bearers. “humanism” is just a secularized version of “image bearing” as homo-sapien privilege.
If you look at Red Pill culture, at Elliot Rodgers and what he appropriated (I’m not trying to dismiss or diminish the role his mental illness played in that tragedy) we begin to see that men, in a secular context without the imago dei will begin to act in ways of rational self-interest, and this will get ugly. Why shouldn’t men behave in a way that affords them a competitive advantage to getting what they want?
Gandhi needed the British Empire and was a product of it. He relied upon it in order to have his revolution. What happens when that empire is no longer the backdrop. I suspect that is where we are heading and we see the first fruits of it in Donald v Hillary.
So what do you (or Wolterstorff) do with Christendom societies that had rank injustice: between Constantine and Locke, what benefit did the marginalized enjoy by being under Christendom as opposed to a society that did not somewhere/somehow harbor a theology of human worth? A worse fate compared with an infelicitous one? (Not trying to be cheeky, just curious.)
An alternate or related question I would have is: was the full worth of, for instance, females as image-bearers restrained for centuries because of Xndom, in spite of it, or (my guess) some of both?
Questions of value when it comes to evaluating human beings are extremely difficult. The imago dei gives us a platform for equality, but equality is far more tricky than that. We are all equal in some respects and extraordinarily unequal in others. I recommend Lewis’ essay on equality. Equality makes good medicine but bad food. http://www.tlchrist.info/cs_lewis.htm
Should in justice surprise us? Justice should be more surprising given what we know about ourselves. The fact that we can point out injustice in others is the most basic fact about our depravity. We are dealers in logs and specks. We as a society have decided that justice can be found in equality but that is facile. We should have learned that as children when wise parents didn’t treat us as equals, and we couldn’t divide the piece of cake or the bowl of ice cream fairly. We are full of ourselves imagining that we can find justice in words and practice backed by law. This was all tried in Israel. Isn’t this part of the point of the OT?
Now we think we will get it right with a better law. Forgive me for being skeptical.
I wouldn’t necessarily hold up equality as a virtue by itself. Historically I’m just wrestling with the Constantinian alignment of Christianity with empire. I’ve been uncomfortable with it ever since the 4th century 🙂 It’s hard for me to explain or rationalize the alignment theologically…
Christianity and empire is an important topic, but fortunately one that the Bible is absolutely rich in. See my post on the DoCD. https://paulvanderklay.me/2016/05/26/where-i-think-the-doctrine-of-christian-discovery-report-fails-the-crc/
ok thanks
OK, Christendom as an ally of Enlightenment “rights” and as an enemy of Enlightenment self-sovereignty, simultaneously, is really interesting. Is Wolterstorff’s book on justice the best for that?
Still, relics of cultural sexism and theologies of submission in many churches make them seem to me unlikely to be considered “safe harbors” for many women anytime soon.
Take a look at this. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/03/02/the-paucity-of-secularism/
Good stuff, thanks.
I remember seeing a critical review of the book when it came out, this might have been it: http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=solidarity
Also here http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2011/09/09/ten-years-later-nicholas-wolterstorff/9481/