"Unity without verity is no better than conspiracy." - John Trapp

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Closet Feminist?

There is an interesting post (short) over at the Reformation 21 blog by Carl Trueman (HT: Riddleblog)

I have to say I agree. I think that in resisting culture we often let the pendulum swing too far the other way. To go a little deeper here, Dr. Trueman's post was in response to this post by Phil Ryken. In Dr. Ryken's post he relates a story told by D. A. Carson at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology (PCRT) in Philadelphia. Dr. Carson also told the story at the PCRT in Grand Rapids:
Don Carson shared a telling anecdote from a colleague involved with the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship. Women on campus face three crushing cultural pressures: first, to get all "A's" -- a parental and in some cases personal expectation; second, to be themselves and have a good time all the time; third, to look totally hot.

Dr. Carson observed that it is little wonder that as many as 80% of college women will be clinically depressed at some point during their college years. Whatever happened, one wonders, to doing your best for the glory of God, to being who you are in Christ, and to cultivating the inner beauty of a quiet spirit, which is pleasing to God?
The answer is that is not the culture we live in, but is the culture we need to transform (in many cases starting with ourselves) with the power of the gospel. In that vein, and in response to these two posts, Rick Phillips added his own thoughts. Really, you (especially since most - who I am kidding - all four of you are male) need to read this if you have not already. Let me try to whet your appetite.
So while so much effort goes to repudiating evangelical feminism -- and to a certain extent this is unavoidable given the force of today's polemic -- it is more important and more ultimately fruitful for us to repudiate bogus evangelical masculinity.
That's the end of his introduction. Go read the whole thing. Seriously. I'm convicted and I'm not even married. Then after you're done reading that, go read this.

Labels: , ,

4 Comments:

Blogger Chris said...

I believe I read his post, and I also was convicted. My wife demands that I come to bed at the moment (and I really DO need sleep), but I'll make sure to look it over again tomorrow, to be sure I didn't miss anything. :)

1:19 AM EDT  
Blogger Even So... said...

I'm going to check it all out...

6:57 AM EDT  
Blogger Chris said...

Yes, I did read all those posts, and Rick's post, in particular, spoke loud and clear to me.

I'm not going to air my dirty laundry in public, but with my diverse interests, I am often guilty of exactly what he talked about...neglect. And this has come to a head of late in demonstrating quite clearly my recent failures in masculinity.

They posted this not a moment too soon. ;)

2:06 PM EDT  
Blogger Even So... said...

I read the stuff, outstanding...

Once a Western man "captures" a woman, he frequently stops caring about her as a person and looks on her only in terms of the goods and services she provides. This is absolute poison to a woman's soul.

Bullseye...

10:33 AM EDT  

Post a Comment

<< Home