The small minded men in Church leadership that we covered between April 22nd through May 2nd are not confined to the Single Story. Since all three of them have huge platforms and far reaching ministries, they are able to tell many, many stories that make up their lives and their understanding of God and the universe.
I am aware of their many stories and am not capable of reducing them down to a single story if I ever wanted to.
But these men have taken their large ministries and influence and have used their clout (power) to reduce me and other women down to a Single Story.
They have also tried to take away the true voices of women and replaced them with a fake, plastic, CBMW approved voice that doesn't let on that there is anything more than the Single Story of Womanhood.
Voice and the Single Story are not the same things, but they are related. Having a voice is having the ability to speak for yourself and tell your many stories. The small minded men of Piper, Driscoll, and Grudem have big voices and tell many stories all the while using their pulpit and their platform to rob women of authentic voice and to reduce women down to different versions of the same story.
If you recall Driscoll feels very free to define a woman's voice and feels free to be the author of her story as we noted earlier. When talking about how women should be "...his voice becomes soft and gentle as he says that the woman who is quiet and non-assertive, who wouldn’t even ask for that position, she is the one that would be best in that position [of leadership]." (From April 29th post and Freedom4Captives blog)
Piper, if you recall, is the one who, in the book, "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood," cautions women on how to address men so that their 'Manhood' isn't threatened. He tells women that when a man asks a woman for directions, she must alter her voice so that she appears submissive to him while giving him those directions.
Piper is also the guy the wants to define sweet for women and how a woman should respond to her husband when he is pressuring her to join him in gross sin. He gives her a fake, non-authentic voice and he writes a Single Story for her when he says she should respond with:
"Honey, I want so much to follow you as my leader. God calls me to do that and I would love to do that. It would be sweet to me if I could enjoy your leadership. But if you ask me to do this, require this of me, then I can't. I can't go there." (quoted from 2/21/11 post "Men Defining Sweet for Women". )
Small minded men have the privilege of speaking in their own, authentic voice and telling many many stories about themselves, relationships, life, God, and the universe. But rather than allow women to have their own voice and their own stories, they use their power and influence to take away the woman's true voice and reduce her down to a Single Story.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Yuck. I knew I despised The Pied Piper. I'm not a fan of Strawberry Boy either. His Reformed Theology irritates me.
Strawberry Boy?
Is that Driscoll?
How did he ever get that nickname?
I have to confess, Big D is one of my favorite whipping boys of the reform movement. How can you help it? He makes himself a lightning rod with all the unbelievable things that come out of his mouth.
My first intro to him was concerning his series on Song of Solomon and how he either redefines the story of the bride to say something she is totally not saying or takes it away altogether and hands it over to the bridegroom.
The #1 selling brand of strawberries is the Driscoll brand.
Ooohhh!
I should have known that. I just bought some the other day.
Duh.
I once gave feedback to a Piper-influenced pastor who counseled me, that I felt that he was prone to put words in my mouth (which changed the direction of the conversation). He replied that such a technique was necessary, when a counselee is unable to articulate something, then the counselor must do it for them. No repentence whatsoever.
So, yeah.
Mara, are you taking suggestions for more big-hearted Christian men? Because I want to nominate all the guys at the ECA forum, and Trevor and many of the guys at the CBE Scroll. (I would mention the big-hearted Christian gals too, but well, they're not men!)
I have a post scheduled to publish on Monday that gives just one example of a big-hearted man to contrast with this post.
But yeah, definitly! The men at CBE Scroll and the men at the ECA Forum are all incredible, plus the five I mentioned on my Strong men series a week or two back including the guy commenting above.
We ladies need to spend time fellowshiping with big-hearted men who know how to make space for our voices and who know how to defend our right and need to tell our many stories.
We don't need clueless men putting words in our mouths. They are more interested in their stuctures and ideas of the way things should be that in our realities. They work earnestly to hide from the realities that their doctrines produce and they don't want to deal with the fact that their ideals are spiritually bankrupt and destructive to the very relationships they claim to help.
Post a Comment