K. writes:

I’ve been a visitor to your blog for some time now, having discovered it by accident, and, for me, it’s been a cool drink of water in a cultural desert. Thank you so very much for your stand against feminism, and for Biblical womanhood. I can’t tell you how much this site, and its contributors (in the form of comments) means to me. Like most men, I’ve been pounded for most of my life with the idea that “women are superior” to men, and for the better part of my 53 years I believed it. I had a serious “awakening” several years ago, when it hit me like lightning that women, in general, can be as corrupt, licentious, and brutal as men, and that the leeway I characteristically granted to them as superior and unblemished (even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary) was the result of decades of drinking the propaganda Kool-Aid. I am what you would call an “old school gentleman.” I am hopelessly chivalrous, passionate about the woman I’ve been married to for more than 25 years, and a lover and practitioner of both poetry and the martial skills–which includes both weaponry and hand-to-hand combat.

Unfortunately, I’ve also been one of those compliant males for the better part of my life, believing that the woman knows best and as a man I should let myself be guided by the same. Even in the so-called “church,” where I was elder for nearly six years, Feminism 101 was taught as Scripture–the women of our congregation were the “prophets” and “healers” and those with the “gift of discernment” or “wisdom.” As men, we yearly, at the sermon on Father’s Day, were reminded by our male pastor that women were so much better than we mere men, and that we should follow them, as they know Christ’s way so much better than we. We were even told, in a sermon I shall never forget, that “men are from the dumpster,” and it is women who are the pure, unsullied ones, saintly in their forebearance of our crude masculinity.

Can you imagine the influence this kind of venom had on our women? And on us, as men? It is one thing to be told by society that you are no good; but to have it rammed down your throat from the so-called pulpit of God, and by one of your own (a man), then this propaganda becomes the command of God!

And no, I wasn’t from one of those openly ultra-liberal Methodist or Episcopalian denominations. We were charismatics (or Pentecostals, however you choose to call it), and had our own brand of religious matriarchy. A quick look at Pentecostal denominations today reveals a body of Christian believers awash in feminist ideology–women “apostles,” “prophets,” “pastors,” “teachers,” etc., the women all leading the men and their manhood effectively sliced away as surely as those of the Jewish captives taken away during the Babylonian captivity. A man doesn’t need to be physically castrated to become emasculated.

This has all done irreparable harm to the body of Christ and the gospel. Amazingly, by the grace of God, my faith did not suffer shipwreck. I stand in Christ, and am stronger now, Biblically, than I have ever been. Blogs like your help.

Anyway, thanks so much for your stand. I know you take heat from both women and men for your writings, and your courage and integrity are a true blessing to regular guys like me who want to be the protectors, providers, and lovers that God created us to be.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing and for this lucid and vivid description of our feminized theology. It’s bad enough that we have Oprah-ism crammed down our throats in the mainstream. But to see it infiltrate the sacred realm is the ultimate annihilation of patriarchy and civilization. It fills me with revulsion and outrage.

As a Catholic, I view the sentimentalization of our liturgy, with its glorification of self and its conscious deprecation of the divine, as a direct and inevitable result of feminism. It’s an assault on manhood, on genuine femininity, and on God. The last point bears repeating. The real object of this attack is God. Emasculating men is a means of reducing His power on earth.

While women are absolutely central to the maintenance and practice of faith, particularly in the education of children and the observance of ritual, only men can safeguard Christianity in doctrine and form. And, it rests first and foremost on doctrine and form. Once women are idolized by the Church and placed on the altar or given positions of leadership, faith no longer becomes a spiritual battle, but a place of rest and withdrawal. Women are not and never will be meant for combat. The spiritual realm is a place of combat. 

                     — Comments —

Randy B. writes:

As we AF SF guys used to say, Hooyah. Sometimes it’s better to listen to others and keep my mouth shut, but that hasn’t stopped me yet. 

Sorry to hear K.’s church has taken such a position. In our church, the ladies are not given standing for elected office. If you look at the churches where feminism has all but taken over (Lutheran, Episcopalian, and others), you find that homosexuality is not only taught as an acceptable lifestyle, but with specific honorable mention; God has taken a back seat to the rule of man, and women are quite often the “spiritual leader.” Aside from a few years, K. and I sound like kindred spirits. I spent 17 years in Tae Kwon Do (Mike Thompson), 6 in Judo (Al Secca), 6 in Aikido (variety), 10 off and in BJJ (Pedro Sauer), currently 8 and running in Hung Ga Kung Fu (Steve Thatcher); not contiguously. On the other hand I know nothing about poetry.

Lawrence Auster writes to Laura Wood:

Your commenter says he’s been pounded all his life with the idea that women are superior to men. I don’t remember ever being pounded with it. And he describes himself as a regular guy, with martial arts skills.

How could anyone, with any normal amount of spirit in him, be a part of such a congregation and swallow such a message? I mean, the message is almost the feminist equivalent of the black racist Christianity of Jeremiah Wright–men represent the principle of evil, women the principle of good. 

Laura writes:

But you have often written about the glorification of women in our culture. Are you surprised men have taken it seriously? How could you never have taken it seriously?

Lawrence replies:

I never heard it being expressed in these terms, and if it was, it either blew past me or I rejected it outright, as I always have done. I totally rejected women’s liberation even in my late teens or early 20s when it first appeared. I would walk into a women’s liberation bookstore, and the badness and falsity of it were instantly apparent, instinctively felt.

John E. writes:

Lawrence Auster writes: 

I never heard it being expressed in these terms, and if it was, it either blew past me or I rejected it outright, as I always have done. I totally rejected women’s liberation even in my late teens or early 20s when it first appeared. I would walk into a women’s liberation bookstore, and the badness and falsity of it were instantly apparent, instinctively felt.

It is good that Mr. Auster was never affected by feminist influences the way that K. was. I think it likely that most men are not as discerning as Mr. Auster. I know that I am not. It might be an exaggeration to describe my experience with feminism and its relation to religion in exactly the same way that K. does, but not by much. To recognize the feminist influence as it was happening is not something that I was shrewd enough to do. It is only after reflection on the past that I can see it was presented to me very similarly to a pounding. But even now I am not quite as certain as Mr. Auster appears to be, what among it was good and what among it should be thrown out.

Lawrence writes:

John writes: 

“But even now I am not quite as certain as Mr. Auster appears to be, what among it was good and what among [feminism] should be thrown out.” 

My answer is very simple, and has been stated several times at my site, for example:

If any idea, phrase, or attitude is derived from feminism, it is bad and ought to be avoided. Literally nothing good has come from feminism. Its influence has been wholly negative. Whatever positive gains arguably happened for women since 1960, such as greater ability to pursue a career of their choice, would have happened as a result of the general rising tide of prosperity and individual freedom. The feminist movement and ideology added nothing to this, except false ideas and destructive attitudes that have been ruinous for society.

Laura writes:

That’s right. We cannot pick and choose. Literally nothing good has come from feminism.

Randy B. writes:

Unfortunately, the only accepted components of Christianity that are promoted by the media, leftists, and those hate-filled religious organizations, are those that when abused and misinterpreted weaken Christianity. Weird huh? You know the ones: forgiveness, turning the other cheek, allowing your beliefs to be threatened, and allowing yourself to be humbled for the benefit of anyone other than you. And those components are always one-sided, kind of the way a leftist looks at free speech; you can say whatever you want as long as it agrees with them, otherwise it’s HATE SPEECH. I like Mr. Auster’s association of this feminist preaching with the good Reverend Wright, for he is the modern day Malcom X, with a smattering of white male and Christian hate that could only be generated from the bowels of hell, or a radical feminist lesbian. It kind of puts the extremes into perspective.

John E.writes:

In reply to Mr. Auster’s last comment:

I hate to summon a rehash of what has already been discussed either here or on VFR (and I have spent considerable time exploring both sites), but what exactly is feminism, so that I might reject it outright whenever I encounter it? Perhaps the difficulty I have had in discernment in the past, and even now, has nothing to do with feminist ideology.

Laura writes:

Call to mind whatever is traditionally associated with the ideal of  “father.” Then call to mind whatever you associate with the ideal of “mother.”

Feminism seeks to destroy both. 

Whatever you see that undercuts these ideals, whether in religion, business, government, popular culture, music, literature, that is feminism.

This is admittedly a simplistic definition. The alternative would require many pages.

John E. writes:

You said that your explanation was simplistic, but it seems almost circular. It seems like you are saying first that feminism is bad, and then when the question is asked, what is feminism, you are saying, “feminism is whatever is bad.”

Laura writes:

I  didn’t say whatever is bad is feminism. My definition hardly encompassed all the evils of the world. Besides, many people would say these challenges to fatherhood and motherhood, to pater and mater, are good.  So if you sense these challenges are bad, then you already have an intuition of what feminism is.  

Laura writes to Kristor:

We talked about this before. This is what I meant to say at the time:

While women are absolutely central to the maintenance and practice of faith, particularly in the education of children and the observance of ritual, only men can safeguard Christianity in doctrine and form. And, it rests first and foremost on doctrine and form. Once women are idolized by the Church and placed on the altar or given positions of leadership, faith no longer becomes a spiritual battle, but a place of rest and withdrawal. Women are not and never will be meant for combat. The spiritual realm is a place of combat.

Do you understand what I mean?

Kristor writes:

Yes. When we struggle with sin, we struggle with demons. Think of the exorcism depicted in The Exorcist. Can you imagine women priests having the physical stamina to bear up under that sort of struggle? A woman saint could manage, but most of the priests performing exorcisms are egregious sinners. They exorcise, not by virtue of their own meager saintliness, but by virtue of the apostolic power vested in them as vicars. Exorcists are exhorted constantly by their superiors to avoid direct conversation and conflict with demons at all costs; they are to rely instead upon the repetition of the ritual forms of the liturgy of exorcism, tried and true. Even then, the struggle is titanic, and exerts a tremendous physical toll upon the exorcists. Many of them have to retire from all work, permanently debilitated, after only one or two exorcisms. 

Christianity is not nice. It is a nasty, dirty, bloody, horrible business. It is war. 

It is tempting to accommodate doctrine and form to the needs of the day. But if the religion is true, the conformation must go in the other direction. That’s the whole point, right? And men are more likely to be hard-hearted and rational enough to be inflexible and punitive in the application of doctrine and form. Men are more likely to be able to say from the pulpit, with crushing authority, “If you are doing x you are going to go to Hell.” It’s just like the role of the father in punishing the children. Fathers deal in death; fathers deal with the blood and guts. It’s their job.

Laura writes:

Yes!

Thank you for clarifying my position, which is absolutely dependent on the Christian conception of evil. Evil is not something located simply in the human psyche, a perversion of the mind. It involves a dramatic encounter between supernatural and natural forces. However, I hesitate to use the word “force,” because that implies something impersonal. We are talking about supernatural intelligence, the great adversary, the fallen angel.

Kristor writes:

Exorcism is an extreme example of the basic religious transaction that occurs in any act of absolution. When the parish priest says to the boy who has confessed that he has been cross with his mother, “Ego te absolvo,” he is participating in the same formal relation as the exorcist who says to the demon, “the power of Christ compels you!” This because a little sin is a participation in the perfect, complete, uttermost sin. It is an opening of the door to permanent death; like a soldier whose inattention at watch enables one enemy spy to sneak into his camp, thereby dooming his whole nation to defeat. 

And the vicar of Christ who celebrates the mass is standing for Christ, not only as priest, but as sacrificial victim. He participates in all the roles Christ typified. The priest is first born of the congregation, first into the breach. He is, that is to say, first to expose his being to the excoriating glory of God the Father, that will destroy whatever is impure. He is the first to risk death by approaching the altar. Woe betide the priest, or the communicant, who takes upon him the Name while still in a state of vanity and uncleanness. And woe betide the shepherd who fails in his duty to his sheep. 

So when the parish confessor absolves the petty sins of his little sheep, he is exerting the whole power of Christ. It is greater and more terrible than the power of any demon. If exorcisms are hard, so are absolutions. The stakes in either ritual are enormous. The parish confessor is the watchman. He may neither slumber nor sleep. He may not allow any sin to pass. It is a hard and dreadful business to punish a boy for being cross with his mother. Nothing less will do. 

Men are psychologically fitted for this dirty job; women, not so much. Women are, God bless em, more likely than not to sympathize with the little boy, and even find fault with the mother. While recognizing and accounting for the sinfulness of the boy’s mother, men are more likely to confront the boy with the facts of his plain filial duty. 

The sympathy of mothers is possible only because of the sternness of fathers. It is the latter that opens ontological room – cosmic slack, surplus of safety – for the former. 

And none of this is to cheat women of a privilege. Being the bad cop all the time is a lousy job. Being the stern, duteous, disciplined father is hard. Men get to do that job for the same reason they deal with the garbage, the cat barf and the dead bodies, and the machine guns. The dirtiest, hardest, most dangerous and unpleasant jobs are for men. That’s why men are priests.

Laura writes:

Well, I wouldn’t say it’s only a dirty job, anymore than I would say fatherhood or being a soldier are only dirty jobs.

No, holiness and valor are incomparable rewards. A priest is hardly a victim. A soldier cut down early in life is not simply a victim.

Kristor writes:

Part of the problem here is that we think these days of a victim as someone upon whom a disaster has been inflicted willy nilly, as e.g. the victim of a crime. There is nothing noble in such victims; they are only to be pitied. But there is a huge difference between such a helpless victim of disaster, and a victim who has accepted the office by an act of obedient will, and submitted himself to a sacrifice, or to martyrdom. Willing victims have achieved the very pinnacle of nobility, and glory. 

Glory. Love that word. When a thing is glorious, it glows. On a glorious day, everything sparkles, everything is imbued with light. It is the light of stars, every bit of it, no matter how many billions of years it has been mewed up in matter; so that everything is revealed as an adventure of starlight. 

Cyprian Pop writes:

Kristor writes, “[…] They exorcise, not by virtue of their own meager saintliness, but by virtue of the apostolic power vested in them as vicars. […]”.

I beg to differ.

Exorcism is a sacramental, a ritual which somewhat depends on the worth of the celebrant (not only his worth, of course, but God’s mercy), unlike the seven sacraments (baptism, confession of sins, …), which confer grace irrespective of celebrant’s sinfulness. So their own saintliness matters a lot. For this reason the Catholic bishop chooses carefully the exorcists (there are few in an eparchy).

Kristor writes:

Cyprian Pop is right on form, wrong on substance. The exorcist’s virtue – including his masculine virtue of physical stamina – does of course matter to the efficacy with which he carries out the rite. This was the point of my argument, which was that men are by nature more likely to be effective exorcists than women; virtue is Latin for “strength.” Nevertheless, the priest exorcises, not on account of his own virtues, however great they may be, but on account of his priestly authority as vicar of Christ to bind and loose upon earth. The bishop doesn’t send the most virtuous man to exorcise, he send the most virtuous man who is a priest. The power that ultimately binds and looses is Christ’s; the vicar is an angel and agent of that power, and the greater his innate virtues, the more excellent his agency, and the more efficaciously the power of Christ is brought to bear.

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