Month: September 2020 (Page 2 of 3)

Recently I read an article in Mere Orthodoxy with the captivating title of “American Evangelicalism isn’t patriarchal or feminized. It’s matrilineal.” The article has got me pondering the criticism of the church being feminized. I have often written about the feminization of the church.

Matrilineal is a verb referring to behavior or characteristics that are based on kinship with the mother or the female.   Anthony Bradley maintains that the Evangelical church is neither patriarchal, nor feminized, nor do they emasculate men in order to appeal to women’s sensibilities or desires.  Evangelical churches are matrilineal.

“Matrilineal societies” notes Bradley, “are centuries old systems that organize community life so that the day-to-day activities of women are placed at the center of social thriving for successive generations.”  In these societies “the outward-facing office does not determine which gender is socially dominant…..Men may hold an office, but women control the operations of community life….women are outward-facing representatives of the community.”

As a pastor, I often said without the organization of the women and their contribution, church life would suffering greatly.  So Yes, I can definitely see where life in the church can be matrilineal.   

Not only were the women the life-givers, but they were also the life sustainers.  Mothers were revered in the community.  Look at the emphasis on mother’s day in our churches and society.  Without the mothers, much of family and youth activities would not happen. “Without women and mothers, life does not happen, ” observes Bradley. 

“In reality” Bradley maintains, “many churches are simply a complemenatrian facade living a matrilineal reality.”  That is why the “felt needs” in the church often reflect the feminine life in the church.  He might be making a valid point. 

The following observation from Bradley certainly holds true from my experience. “Matrilineal societies can exist while men are placed in outward-facing leadership roles (pastor or elder), but the community’s internal life would implode without women’s authority as mothers.  Matrilineal societies are about who does what to sustain life rather than merely looking at who hold which outward facing title or role.  Without women sustaining life, the community dies no matter who has what title in a matrilineal society.”

So what does this mean for the church?  Here is Bradley’s challenge.  [We] may want to make adjustments by reframing who does what to make life work at home, church, and school so that women are freed from the burden of sustaining the family and men move from being passive to becoming actively involved in the spaces that nurture children.”

This article does not do away with the criticism of the church as being feminized, but it does help to visualize why there is such a feminine emphasis?  I would contend one word could nicely address the questions raised by the matrilineal influence in the church.  

It is the word “nurture.”  In the amplified we read in Eph. 6:4, “Fathers, do not provoke our children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; not by showing favoritism or indifference to them], but bring them up [tenderly, with lovingkindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

This passage challenges men to be nurturers. It is all about how men relate.  Larry Crabb calls out our “relational poverty.”  Men, it more than doing, thinking and organizing.  It’s about getting down to the level of our children and relating to them from the heart.  It is sharing our hearts with our wives.  May God give men the courage and grace to release what is deep in them, to bring life to others.

New research from George Barna shows, “a broad, deep gap in American political beliefs and behavior, rooted not in ideology or partisanship, but in fundamental differences in the worldview of voting-age adults being fueled by a national cultural shift away from the biblical worldview.” Barna believes, based on his research that, “The 2020 election is not about personalities, parties, or even politics. It is an election to determine the dominant worldview in America.

Barna payed particular attention to those he calls “integrated disciples.”  These are persons with a consistent biblical worldview.  The survey indicated that only 6% of those who identified as Christian had a biblical worldview.  These believers tended to hold conservative political views in greater number than adults without a biblical worldview.  

For example, they believe in the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, 95% vs. 34%, and are more deeply committed to practicing their religious faith, 98% to 57%.  These folks are two and a half times more likely to be conservative on social issues 91% vs. 34%.

What I find interesting is Barna’s contention that politics is no longer about party platforms but competing worldviews.  “Over the past 40 years Americans have gradually but consistently abandoned a range of foundational, biblical beliefs in favor of a human-centric, consensual, emotion-driven understanding of and response to the world.  That transition has been highly visible in relation to morality and political preferences.” 

Men, this reminds me of Paul’s warning to Timothy about those with “itching  ears.”  “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” ( II Tim 4:3).  

The “seismic sixties” as Os Guinness calls it, was the decade when the radical ideas first broke through into mainstream American thinking and life.  Guinness notes, “the 60’s sowed the poison seeds that are producing today’s bitter harvest.  The roots of those ideas predate the 60’s, but it was in the 60’s where they became dangerous.”

In the 1973, as a young pastor I read Os Guinness book “The Dust of Death” several times over.  It cemented my thinking to be a “Jesus person” and a pastor of “the Book.”  I never doubted my stance as I lived through those years.  As a feeling, intuitive man, I clung to my testimony of Jesus, wanting to be  credible witness for him with the Lutheran church.  But I needed help thinking my way through the changing times.  I wanted the Bible to form my worldview.

Today, having lived through the 60’s, being ordained in 1970, I am part of that 6% that Barna discovered in his research.  I survived due to the following commitments I made regarding the Word of God. 

First, Scripture is God’s inspired Word and it has the final say when it comes to faith and practice.  I had to settle that in my mind.  Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matt 24:34).   

Second,  I gladly submit my thinking to the authority of God’s Word.  If something is not clearly found in scripture I will raise a big question mark.  

Thirdly, I continue to  need guidance as I journey with Jesus through the changes and chaos that is coming.  “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” (Ps. 119:108).   

Fourthly, I need help to be an integrated follower of Jesus (in word and deed).  Scripture does that for me if I obey, “But don’t just listen to God’s word.  You must do what it says.” ( James 1:23).