GLP wrote a post arguing that feminism is a direct result of Christianity. The comments have offered good refutations, including some by our own Will S., but I wanted to elucidate on what I view as the fatal flaw in GLP’s argument. Like the meaning of the word ‘is,’ we’re about to get caught up in semantics, but with a few tautologies thrown in for fun.
Christianity came before and fed into female-centrism. It wasn’t the other way around. It is incorrect to only blame feminism for the recession of masculinity and patriarchy in both society as a whole and the church in particular. Because Christianity holds both men and women to the same moral standards, –especially as it pertains to sex – Christianity would naturally be a precursor to the female pedestalization that many MRA-ish decry. Christianity, in my eyes, greased the wheels for feminism.
The word that GLP is looking for is not Christianity, it’s churchianity.
Churchianity
1. (pejorative) Any practices of Christianity that are viewed as placing a larger emphasis on the habits of church life or the institutional traditions of the church than on theology and spiritual teachings; The quality of being too church-focused.
In other words, Jesus ain’t the reason for our present tumultuous and discordant season.
GLP correctly points out that men left churches when teachings were watered down to accommodate women; he incorrectly identities the source of the law and teachings. As he is a nonbeliever, we at Patriactionary will forgive him for citing terrestrial concerns and biology as the source.
Churches are concerned with weekly attendance, the coffers, reputation, community acceptance, and the like; God is concerned with different matters. The former may seek to soften the truth so the widows and single moms keep tithing; the latter remains a sharp edge. Our biological impulses do not matter. It is our ability to rise above our animal impulses, to control them and behave as men, that matters.
Christianity is not a soft and feminine path. Fealty and adherence are decidedly hard. Churchianity, on the other hand, is concerned with real estate and architecture. It is a focus on optics, aesthetics.
In short, GLP argues that the Kingdom of Caesar is too rapt with the Kingdom of Caesar, while pretending to be rapt with the Kingdom of God, and that it does a poor job of understanding itself. That is a true argument. It is also an argument that has very little to do with Christianity save that it flows from a focus that has very little to do with Christianity.