ROME, December 2 (C-FAM) Last Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI led an unprecedented global prayer vigil for unborn life in Rome that was repeated in countries around the world. Ten thousand faithful jammed St. Peter’s Basilica including many children who were presented to the Holy Father.
In his remarks, the pope offered support to those working in the pro-life movement. “I wish to express my thanks to all who have taken up this invitation and those who are specifically dedicated to welcoming and safeguarding human life in different situations of fragility, especially in its early days and in its early stages,” he said.
“The Church continually reiterates what was declared by the Second Vatican Council against abortion and all violations of unborn life: from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care,” said Pope Benedict.
Read it all here.
Thinking about ethics and current events (Began 1 April 2008)
Friday, December 3, 2010
Pakistan Faces Crisis from WikiLeaks
ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: Shaken by what can be described as “Cablegate”, the government on Thursday convened a meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) to deliberate on the crisis.
The meeting of the DCC, the highest defence policy-making body after the federal cabinet, will be held on Friday under Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
It will be attended by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the three services chiefs, the ministers of foreign affairs and defence and a couple of other ministers.
The WikiLeaks expose has not been cited as an item on the agenda and officially it is meant to discuss Prime Minister Gilani’s forthcoming visit to Kabul and nuclear and other related issues, but sources insist that the meeting has been convened mainly because of the storm kicked up by the leaked diplomatic communiqués and the need to evolve a joint civil-military strategy.
Although the drama is yet to unfold completely, the cables released so far have highlighted rapidly deteriorating civil-military relations, growing clout of American embassy in domestic politics and world’s concerns over the security of Pakistani nuclear arsenal.
One of the dilemmas before the DCC as it tries to work out a damage-control plan is that no-one would be sure what more revelations are expected.
But President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani appear confident that nothing more toxic is likely to come down the pike.
The prime minister has said his government is trying to prevent the (WikiLeaks) mischief from hurting core national interests.
According to sources, the prime minister and CJCSC Gen Khalid Shamim Wyne discussed the implications of the disclosures on Thursday.
The DCC is likely to reiterate that fears expressed in leaked cables about the likelihood of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists are unfounded and baseless; and that the leadership remains fully committed to maintaining the fool-proof security of the arsenal. Little debate is likely on the issue of nuclear security because of a national consensus on the matter.
But, the sources said, intense discussions were expected on depiction of civil-military relations in the classified cables leaked by the whistleblower website. The civil-military equation is critical to national politics and the picture that emerges from the disclosures is that the relationship was at its lowest ebb.
While President Zardari complained to US Vice-President Joe Biden and the then British prime minister Gordon Brown that his army chief could ‘take him out’, Gen Kayani, ahead of the March 2009 long march, disclosed to then American ambassador Anne W. Patterson that he contemplated seeking the president’s resignation and installing ANP leader Asfandyar Wali in his place.
Separately, President Zardari had told the then British foreign secretary David Miliband that his men (army officers and ISI) were keeping him unaware about critical information.
On the other and, Gen Kayani and ISI chief Gen Shuja Pasha could be found telling the American envoy that there were concerns in the military about corruption and mis-governance by the president, whom the two also accused of holding over back-channel talks with India and start of military action in Waziristan.
It is definitely worrisome that military and civilian leaders criticised each other in meetings with foreign diplomats, but more serious was the doubt expressed in another cable that both sides (the presidency and the military commanders) did not directly discuss their mistrust.
Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit has refused to comment on the leaks.
But, on Thursday afternoon there was clearly a disquiet in the Foreign Office corridors and whispers could be heard that the embarrassed leaders deserved it because they repeatedly threw to the wind their cautions against giving too much leeway to foreign diplomats, providing critical information and casually sharing their views with them.“The leaders, both civilian and military, made a mockery of themselves by engaging extensively with the American, British and other western diplomats. They exploited proclivity of our leaders to meet them,” a senior diplomat said.
The standing advice of the Foreign Office for all functionaries is that their interactions with foreign diplomats should be routed through it (the FO), which should also be consulted on the possible topics for discussions.
A source disclosed that the Foreign Office was being bypassed to the extent that no leader meeting foreign diplomats ever bothered, even after the meetings, to tell the department what had been discussed. “Resultantly the foreign diplomats and visiting dignitaries came to the Foreign Office only as a ritual, while substantive issues were discussed elsewhere.”
US Ambassador Cameron Munter, in his public utterances, criticised the leaks as malicious and expressed hope that they wouldn’t affect bilateral ties.
But in private conversations American diplomats defended their intense engagement with Pakistani leaders, saying it was routine diplomatic business, which they carried out openly and transparently.
From here.
The meeting of the DCC, the highest defence policy-making body after the federal cabinet, will be held on Friday under Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
It will be attended by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the three services chiefs, the ministers of foreign affairs and defence and a couple of other ministers.
The WikiLeaks expose has not been cited as an item on the agenda and officially it is meant to discuss Prime Minister Gilani’s forthcoming visit to Kabul and nuclear and other related issues, but sources insist that the meeting has been convened mainly because of the storm kicked up by the leaked diplomatic communiqués and the need to evolve a joint civil-military strategy.
Although the drama is yet to unfold completely, the cables released so far have highlighted rapidly deteriorating civil-military relations, growing clout of American embassy in domestic politics and world’s concerns over the security of Pakistani nuclear arsenal.
One of the dilemmas before the DCC as it tries to work out a damage-control plan is that no-one would be sure what more revelations are expected.
But President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani appear confident that nothing more toxic is likely to come down the pike.
The prime minister has said his government is trying to prevent the (WikiLeaks) mischief from hurting core national interests.
According to sources, the prime minister and CJCSC Gen Khalid Shamim Wyne discussed the implications of the disclosures on Thursday.
The DCC is likely to reiterate that fears expressed in leaked cables about the likelihood of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists are unfounded and baseless; and that the leadership remains fully committed to maintaining the fool-proof security of the arsenal. Little debate is likely on the issue of nuclear security because of a national consensus on the matter.
But, the sources said, intense discussions were expected on depiction of civil-military relations in the classified cables leaked by the whistleblower website. The civil-military equation is critical to national politics and the picture that emerges from the disclosures is that the relationship was at its lowest ebb.
While President Zardari complained to US Vice-President Joe Biden and the then British prime minister Gordon Brown that his army chief could ‘take him out’, Gen Kayani, ahead of the March 2009 long march, disclosed to then American ambassador Anne W. Patterson that he contemplated seeking the president’s resignation and installing ANP leader Asfandyar Wali in his place.
Separately, President Zardari had told the then British foreign secretary David Miliband that his men (army officers and ISI) were keeping him unaware about critical information.
On the other and, Gen Kayani and ISI chief Gen Shuja Pasha could be found telling the American envoy that there were concerns in the military about corruption and mis-governance by the president, whom the two also accused of holding over back-channel talks with India and start of military action in Waziristan.
It is definitely worrisome that military and civilian leaders criticised each other in meetings with foreign diplomats, but more serious was the doubt expressed in another cable that both sides (the presidency and the military commanders) did not directly discuss their mistrust.
Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit has refused to comment on the leaks.
But, on Thursday afternoon there was clearly a disquiet in the Foreign Office corridors and whispers could be heard that the embarrassed leaders deserved it because they repeatedly threw to the wind their cautions against giving too much leeway to foreign diplomats, providing critical information and casually sharing their views with them.“The leaders, both civilian and military, made a mockery of themselves by engaging extensively with the American, British and other western diplomats. They exploited proclivity of our leaders to meet them,” a senior diplomat said.
The standing advice of the Foreign Office for all functionaries is that their interactions with foreign diplomats should be routed through it (the FO), which should also be consulted on the possible topics for discussions.
A source disclosed that the Foreign Office was being bypassed to the extent that no leader meeting foreign diplomats ever bothered, even after the meetings, to tell the department what had been discussed. “Resultantly the foreign diplomats and visiting dignitaries came to the Foreign Office only as a ritual, while substantive issues were discussed elsewhere.”
US Ambassador Cameron Munter, in his public utterances, criticised the leaks as malicious and expressed hope that they wouldn’t affect bilateral ties.
But in private conversations American diplomats defended their intense engagement with Pakistani leaders, saying it was routine diplomatic business, which they carried out openly and transparently.
From here.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Narcissism to Be Removed From Manual of Mental Disorders
Narcissistic personality disorder is slated for removal from the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, to be published in 2013. So notes Charles Zanor in yesterday’s New York Times.
But for some reason, Zanor glossed over the loss of four other personality disorders in the shakeup too — Paranoid, Schizoid, Histrionic and Dependent Personality Disorders. (Schizotypal, Antisocial, Borderline, Avoidant and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorders will remain in the new revision.)
Their intended replacements?
“The Work Group recommends that [these disorders] be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits, rather than as a specific type.”
Is this a good idea?
Read it all here.
But for some reason, Zanor glossed over the loss of four other personality disorders in the shakeup too — Paranoid, Schizoid, Histrionic and Dependent Personality Disorders. (Schizotypal, Antisocial, Borderline, Avoidant and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorders will remain in the new revision.)
Their intended replacements?
“The Work Group recommends that [these disorders] be represented and diagnosed by a combination of core impairment in personality functioning and specific pathological personality traits, rather than as a specific type.”
Is this a good idea?
Read it all here.
Britain Denies Protection to Iraqi Christians
LONDON (CNS) — A British bishop has criticized his government’s policy of repatriating Iraqi Christians fleeing persecution, saying it was not true that Iraq was safe.
In a special Mass at London’s Westminster Cathedral Nov. 26, Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, England, denounced the policy. The Mass was celebrated for the victims of the Oct. 31 massacre at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Syrian Catholic Church, where 58 people died as military officials tried to end a terrorist siege.
“We know the situation of our brothers and sisters still in Iraq who wake at night frightened by the knock at the door, the unusual sound, the gunshot or the explosion, the knowledge that few if any will defend them, the constant fear and tension of not knowing what will happen next,” Bishop Kenney said in his homily.
“We who are here in England are angry when our government said ... that it was safe for people to be repatriated to Iraq,” he told a congregation drawn largely from London’s Iraqi Christian community. “You know in a way few others do how untrue that is.
“Our emotions are of deep sorrow and possibly also of anger: anger that innocent people are killed in this way, that our friends, our relations are sacrificed for, at best, short-term political gain, and, at worst, for no real reason at all, other than that they are followers of Jesus Christ.”
He said the Christian people of Iraq were dying for their faith as martyrs and that he had known personally some of those killed in anti-Christian violence in Mosul and Baghdad.
Martyrdom “is something that the Church in England and Wales understands,” said the bishop, who was forced to cancel a December trip to Iraq because of the security situation. “The Church in these countries is built on the witness of those put to death because they would not renounce their faith.”
“Today, it is not only our relations and friends whom we have come to mourn,” he said. “We have also come to honor them as people who have been killed because of their faith.”
On Nov. 22, Alistair Burt of the British Foreign Office told the BBC that the government would continue to return all Iraqi asylum-seekers to their own country.
Burt said the government considered Iraq safe for repatriation because it was no longer a war-torn country.
In October, the European Court of Human Rights wrote the British government to indicate that it opposed the policy.
The English and Welsh bishops, in a Nov. 19 statement, also urged the government “to review its treatment of asylum-seekers to ensure that those who have suffered persecution are given the protection that they deserve and to increase assistance to those Iraqis who have fled neighboring Iraq.”
In Washington, the U.S. bishops praised a House of Representatives resolution that condemned attacks on religious minorities in Iraq and called for the U.S. government to work with the Iraqi government to protect vulnerable groups. They said they especially supported development of a “comprehensive plan to improve security for religious minorities and to increase their representation in the government of Iraq and to include them in all aspects of Iraqi society.”
From here.
In a special Mass at London’s Westminster Cathedral Nov. 26, Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, England, denounced the policy. The Mass was celebrated for the victims of the Oct. 31 massacre at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Syrian Catholic Church, where 58 people died as military officials tried to end a terrorist siege.
“We know the situation of our brothers and sisters still in Iraq who wake at night frightened by the knock at the door, the unusual sound, the gunshot or the explosion, the knowledge that few if any will defend them, the constant fear and tension of not knowing what will happen next,” Bishop Kenney said in his homily.
“We who are here in England are angry when our government said ... that it was safe for people to be repatriated to Iraq,” he told a congregation drawn largely from London’s Iraqi Christian community. “You know in a way few others do how untrue that is.
“Our emotions are of deep sorrow and possibly also of anger: anger that innocent people are killed in this way, that our friends, our relations are sacrificed for, at best, short-term political gain, and, at worst, for no real reason at all, other than that they are followers of Jesus Christ.”
He said the Christian people of Iraq were dying for their faith as martyrs and that he had known personally some of those killed in anti-Christian violence in Mosul and Baghdad.
Martyrdom “is something that the Church in England and Wales understands,” said the bishop, who was forced to cancel a December trip to Iraq because of the security situation. “The Church in these countries is built on the witness of those put to death because they would not renounce their faith.”
“Today, it is not only our relations and friends whom we have come to mourn,” he said. “We have also come to honor them as people who have been killed because of their faith.”
On Nov. 22, Alistair Burt of the British Foreign Office told the BBC that the government would continue to return all Iraqi asylum-seekers to their own country.
Burt said the government considered Iraq safe for repatriation because it was no longer a war-torn country.
In October, the European Court of Human Rights wrote the British government to indicate that it opposed the policy.
The English and Welsh bishops, in a Nov. 19 statement, also urged the government “to review its treatment of asylum-seekers to ensure that those who have suffered persecution are given the protection that they deserve and to increase assistance to those Iraqis who have fled neighboring Iraq.”
In Washington, the U.S. bishops praised a House of Representatives resolution that condemned attacks on religious minorities in Iraq and called for the U.S. government to work with the Iraqi government to protect vulnerable groups. They said they especially supported development of a “comprehensive plan to improve security for religious minorities and to increase their representation in the government of Iraq and to include them in all aspects of Iraqi society.”
From here.
Are Evangelical Women Hypocrites?
Molly Worthen’s central thesis... seems to run thus: evangelical women with a gift for preaching, who claim to be “submissive” to their husbands and in favour of traditional views of gender, are hypocrites because they ostensibly reject feminism while reaping its benefits.
Dallas-based preacher Priscilla Shirer, for example, conducts a mega-ministry to women. She exercises leadership while her husband picks up at least half the tab for domestic and PA duties. All the while she insists that “the man is the head” and that there is a specific feminine way of being.
Ms Worthen is sceptical. I find Ms Worthen’s assumptions questionable. Here are some of my beefs with her.
In my reading of it, the whole essay turns on her suspicion of, if not rejection of, complementarity:
Many call themselves complementarians, signalling their belief that God ordained complementary — not identical or flexible — roles for men and women.
I suppose I am a complementarian, because, taking my cue from the science of biology, I believe, indeed I know that men and women are different. Based on common sense and lived experience (plus anthropology and sociology, which I have studied) I also believe that men and women have different strengths, and may have different, but complementary roles in life. Basically, these are the generative roles of mother and father, from which other roles (breadwinner, home-based parent…) may flow, although in different degrees and sometimes completely reversed. I do think that “complementary” includes “flexible” -- as Mrs Shirer clearly does in practice.
To critics, “complementarian” is code for sexist patriarchy, a license to keep women muzzled and homebound.
I am home by choice. Far from being muzzled, I have worked as a tutor (to my own children and others), as a freelance writer, a motivational speaker and a blogger. Indeed, how can anyone in western society be muzzled these days? If I want to say something, anything, it can be published within seconds on my blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or any of millions of online forums.
Conservative Bible teachers like Shirer have built a new paradigm for feminine preaching, an ingenious blend of traditional revivalism, modern therapeutic culture and the gabby intimacy of Oprah. This is the biblical-womanhood-industrial complex: a self-conscious alternative to secular feminism that preaches wifely submission while co-opting some feminist ideas to nurture women like Shirer to take the lead, within limits.
“Co-opted feminist ideas”? What idea did feminism ever promote (besides the bogus contention that abortion is a human right) that was truly innovative or unique to feminism? Concepts such as co-operation, mutual respect, justice, equality, feminine strength? These ideals hearken back somewhat further than the bra-burning 1970s—perhaps even to the teachings of a certain radical New Testament rabbi, who defended women against the prejudices of his time and warned men that even looking lustfully at a woman was a violation of her dignity -- and their own.
So Ms Worthen gets it exactly backward when she writes:
The only way to defeat secular feminism was to assimilate it. Conservative evangelicals stressed women's equal merit and urged men to lead by servanthood and sacrifice, like Christ himself.
To repeat: when men (and women) are behaving in a reasonable, loving, mutually respectful and supportive fashion, they are assimilating the teachings of Jesus Christ, not secular feminism.
It’s pretty clear that Ms Worthen doesn’t care for the style of ministry that people like Mrs Shirer provide, but style is not the issue here; the issue is sexual difference, and what it means in practice:
Liberal critics of Shirer’s theology don’t mind the weeping or the titillating language. What troubles them is the suggestion that women are intrinsically different from men and therefore destined to live a different — and subordinate — Christian life.
Women are intrinsically different from men, but it does not “therefore” logically follow that we are in any way “destined” to anything. The choice of “subordinate” in this sentence is clever but misleading. It is liberally (and literally) used all over the essay to evoke an illegitimate use of (male) power. But there is nothing essentially wrong with subordination -- don’t we all live with it in some form on a daily basis? Who doesn’t have a boss, a teacher, a professor, an editor or a project manager in his or her life?
The same applies in Christian life. Believers consider themselves subordinate to God, and if we belong to a denomination of any kind, we generally subordinate ourselves to church authority. But church authority represents the service Christ renders his members, and this is what Ms Worthen, though she acknowledges the idea, really fails to understand.
However, you don’t have to be a believer to accept the practicality of having an order of authority in the home. Many women can testify that it’s pretty easy to be subordinate to a husband who gives his wife and family love, respect, and every kind of support.
My husband is the head of our family; we believe it’s the best way to avoid serious conflict. We make most decisions jointly, because we do complement each other in knowledge, experience, and temperaments. But if we ever come up against a life-altering decision (careers, moving, so forth), the final decision is his. In my opinion, submitting to his decision is preferable to marital separation, not that the latter is very likely. He’s a good man; we have a good marriage. He has never yet made a decision I couldn’t live with.
In fact, the essay reveals that many women long for as much:
At the same time, “a lot of women would like a sort of benign patriarchy,” Hill said. “Women are tired of having to make a living for themselves, doing everything for themselves.”
Ms. Worthen seems to take offense that “Shirer describes her connection with God in ways she says reflect ‘a feminine heart’.” And she finds a Christian feminist who disagrees with that too:
“There is a sense in which their identity as a Christian is tied to first not who they are in Jesus as a human being, but their gender,” says Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, an organization that takes an egalitarian stance toward men and women. In Haddad’s view, “In Scripture, it’s your humanity” that matters.
Oh? Is that why we have feminist-oriented “women’s spirituality” retreats, feminist goddess worship, and feminist women’s studies courses in every university all over the western world? Because it’s only our humanity that matters? Hypocrisy indeed. If you are a feminist, you are allowed to possess a uniquely female way of understanding. If you are a traditional woman and you think men and women are hard-wired a certain way, you are stupid and oppressed.
“Biblical womanhood” is a tightrope walk between the fiats of old-time religion and the facts of modern culture, and evangelicals themselves do not know where it might lead.
Oh my, that sounds so dire. Where might it lead? Possibly to some people having more satisfying marriages? Possibly to women finding ways to minister in the church community—ways that satisfy themselves (and their peers) but not the official credo of feminism, which necessarily, inevitably wants so much more? Possibly to a drop in popular support for state-funded feminism and its plethora of perennially useless publications and programs? Gaia forbid.
Yes, women have been and continue to be oppressed –and worse—across times, places and cultures. But I think Molly Worthen of the New York Times is looking for oppression in all the wrong places. Modern secular feminists should get over their angst at seeing happily married, contemporary, suburban, evangelical housewives—even the ones who minister to packed auditoriums of cheering fans -- and spend their pent-up energy on something truly horrifying: female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child brides, stoning for adultery, sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, lack of decent maternal medical care, limited educational opportunities, dress codes that prohibit women from feeling sunlight on their faces…
Finally and fundamentally, the NYT essay seems to be flawed, because one cannot apply the ideas and values of secular feminism (or secular humanism) to how the church—any church—operates. You’re talking about approaching things from radically different perspectives. I wonder why Ms Worthen bothered with this exercise. She must be really concerned about those crowds of women who choose to listen to Priscilla Shirer. Women exercising choice in their lives: who knew that could be so offensive to feminists?
From here.
Dallas-based preacher Priscilla Shirer, for example, conducts a mega-ministry to women. She exercises leadership while her husband picks up at least half the tab for domestic and PA duties. All the while she insists that “the man is the head” and that there is a specific feminine way of being.
Ms Worthen is sceptical. I find Ms Worthen’s assumptions questionable. Here are some of my beefs with her.
In my reading of it, the whole essay turns on her suspicion of, if not rejection of, complementarity:
Many call themselves complementarians, signalling their belief that God ordained complementary — not identical or flexible — roles for men and women.
I suppose I am a complementarian, because, taking my cue from the science of biology, I believe, indeed I know that men and women are different. Based on common sense and lived experience (plus anthropology and sociology, which I have studied) I also believe that men and women have different strengths, and may have different, but complementary roles in life. Basically, these are the generative roles of mother and father, from which other roles (breadwinner, home-based parent…) may flow, although in different degrees and sometimes completely reversed. I do think that “complementary” includes “flexible” -- as Mrs Shirer clearly does in practice.
To critics, “complementarian” is code for sexist patriarchy, a license to keep women muzzled and homebound.
I am home by choice. Far from being muzzled, I have worked as a tutor (to my own children and others), as a freelance writer, a motivational speaker and a blogger. Indeed, how can anyone in western society be muzzled these days? If I want to say something, anything, it can be published within seconds on my blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or any of millions of online forums.
Conservative Bible teachers like Shirer have built a new paradigm for feminine preaching, an ingenious blend of traditional revivalism, modern therapeutic culture and the gabby intimacy of Oprah. This is the biblical-womanhood-industrial complex: a self-conscious alternative to secular feminism that preaches wifely submission while co-opting some feminist ideas to nurture women like Shirer to take the lead, within limits.
“Co-opted feminist ideas”? What idea did feminism ever promote (besides the bogus contention that abortion is a human right) that was truly innovative or unique to feminism? Concepts such as co-operation, mutual respect, justice, equality, feminine strength? These ideals hearken back somewhat further than the bra-burning 1970s—perhaps even to the teachings of a certain radical New Testament rabbi, who defended women against the prejudices of his time and warned men that even looking lustfully at a woman was a violation of her dignity -- and their own.
So Ms Worthen gets it exactly backward when she writes:
The only way to defeat secular feminism was to assimilate it. Conservative evangelicals stressed women's equal merit and urged men to lead by servanthood and sacrifice, like Christ himself.
To repeat: when men (and women) are behaving in a reasonable, loving, mutually respectful and supportive fashion, they are assimilating the teachings of Jesus Christ, not secular feminism.
It’s pretty clear that Ms Worthen doesn’t care for the style of ministry that people like Mrs Shirer provide, but style is not the issue here; the issue is sexual difference, and what it means in practice:
Liberal critics of Shirer’s theology don’t mind the weeping or the titillating language. What troubles them is the suggestion that women are intrinsically different from men and therefore destined to live a different — and subordinate — Christian life.
Women are intrinsically different from men, but it does not “therefore” logically follow that we are in any way “destined” to anything. The choice of “subordinate” in this sentence is clever but misleading. It is liberally (and literally) used all over the essay to evoke an illegitimate use of (male) power. But there is nothing essentially wrong with subordination -- don’t we all live with it in some form on a daily basis? Who doesn’t have a boss, a teacher, a professor, an editor or a project manager in his or her life?
The same applies in Christian life. Believers consider themselves subordinate to God, and if we belong to a denomination of any kind, we generally subordinate ourselves to church authority. But church authority represents the service Christ renders his members, and this is what Ms Worthen, though she acknowledges the idea, really fails to understand.
However, you don’t have to be a believer to accept the practicality of having an order of authority in the home. Many women can testify that it’s pretty easy to be subordinate to a husband who gives his wife and family love, respect, and every kind of support.
My husband is the head of our family; we believe it’s the best way to avoid serious conflict. We make most decisions jointly, because we do complement each other in knowledge, experience, and temperaments. But if we ever come up against a life-altering decision (careers, moving, so forth), the final decision is his. In my opinion, submitting to his decision is preferable to marital separation, not that the latter is very likely. He’s a good man; we have a good marriage. He has never yet made a decision I couldn’t live with.
In fact, the essay reveals that many women long for as much:
At the same time, “a lot of women would like a sort of benign patriarchy,” Hill said. “Women are tired of having to make a living for themselves, doing everything for themselves.”
Ms. Worthen seems to take offense that “Shirer describes her connection with God in ways she says reflect ‘a feminine heart’.” And she finds a Christian feminist who disagrees with that too:
“There is a sense in which their identity as a Christian is tied to first not who they are in Jesus as a human being, but their gender,” says Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality, an organization that takes an egalitarian stance toward men and women. In Haddad’s view, “In Scripture, it’s your humanity” that matters.
Oh? Is that why we have feminist-oriented “women’s spirituality” retreats, feminist goddess worship, and feminist women’s studies courses in every university all over the western world? Because it’s only our humanity that matters? Hypocrisy indeed. If you are a feminist, you are allowed to possess a uniquely female way of understanding. If you are a traditional woman and you think men and women are hard-wired a certain way, you are stupid and oppressed.
“Biblical womanhood” is a tightrope walk between the fiats of old-time religion and the facts of modern culture, and evangelicals themselves do not know where it might lead.
Oh my, that sounds so dire. Where might it lead? Possibly to some people having more satisfying marriages? Possibly to women finding ways to minister in the church community—ways that satisfy themselves (and their peers) but not the official credo of feminism, which necessarily, inevitably wants so much more? Possibly to a drop in popular support for state-funded feminism and its plethora of perennially useless publications and programs? Gaia forbid.
Yes, women have been and continue to be oppressed –and worse—across times, places and cultures. But I think Molly Worthen of the New York Times is looking for oppression in all the wrong places. Modern secular feminists should get over their angst at seeing happily married, contemporary, suburban, evangelical housewives—even the ones who minister to packed auditoriums of cheering fans -- and spend their pent-up energy on something truly horrifying: female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child brides, stoning for adultery, sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, lack of decent maternal medical care, limited educational opportunities, dress codes that prohibit women from feeling sunlight on their faces…
Finally and fundamentally, the NYT essay seems to be flawed, because one cannot apply the ideas and values of secular feminism (or secular humanism) to how the church—any church—operates. You’re talking about approaching things from radically different perspectives. I wonder why Ms Worthen bothered with this exercise. She must be really concerned about those crowds of women who choose to listen to Priscilla Shirer. Women exercising choice in their lives: who knew that could be so offensive to feminists?
From here.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Quote of the Week - John Wesley
"Ought not a Minister to have, first, a good understanding, a clear apprehension, a sound judgment, and a capacityof reasoning with some closeness?" --John Wesley
WikiLeaks Cause Tension Among Muslim Countries
WASHINGTON, Nov 29: US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reflect an increase in oil-rich Arab nations` interest and influence in Pakistan, with some Arab rulers offering frank, and often unfavourable, remarks about Pakistani leaders.
A cable sent from the US Embassy in the UAE in July 2009, quotes Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, calling President Asif Ali Zardari “dirty but not dangerous”.
He also calls former prime minister Nawaz Sharif “dangerous but not dirty”. “This is Pakistan,” he adds disparagingly, claiming that Mr Sharif, although the main opposition leader in Pakistan, could not be trusted to honour his promises.
Another cable, already highlighted by the Pakistani media, shows Saudi King Abdullah speaking scathingly about President Zardari. He calls the president the greatest obstacle to Pakistan`s progress. “When the head is rotten,” it quotes him as saying, “it affects the whole body”.
Mr Zardari`s office responded by saying the president regards the king as an “elder brother”. “The so-called leaks are no more than an attempt to create misperceptions between two important and brotherly Muslim countries,” his spokesman Farhatullah Babar told journalists.
Another cable says that the UAE crown prince, who is also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and its de facto defence chief, strongly supported the US decision to sell F-16 aircraft to Islamabad to keep a balance of power between India and Pakistan.
This particular cable quotes Prince Mohammed as telling US officials that while the Indians had and would continue to balk at the decision, the region needed Pakistan to stay strong. Besides, he continued, the F-16 decision would not tip the military balance between India and Pakistan.
Another cable from the US Embassy in the UAE shows how Pakistan became a focus of attention during US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen`s visit to Abu Dhabi in February 2010.
The cable sent on Feb 9 says that the UAE has taken a leading role in the Friends of Pakistan initiative and has provided about $800 million in assistance in recent years.
The cable notes that the Al Nahyan family had a longstanding relationship with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and this has transitioned to support for her husband, but the UAE “stays in touch with all elements on the Pakistani scene, including former president Pervez Musharraf”.
Prince Mohammed “will be very interested in your dialogue with Gen Kayani,” the cable tells Admiral Mullen.
END
From here.
A cable sent from the US Embassy in the UAE in July 2009, quotes Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, calling President Asif Ali Zardari “dirty but not dangerous”.
He also calls former prime minister Nawaz Sharif “dangerous but not dirty”. “This is Pakistan,” he adds disparagingly, claiming that Mr Sharif, although the main opposition leader in Pakistan, could not be trusted to honour his promises.
Another cable, already highlighted by the Pakistani media, shows Saudi King Abdullah speaking scathingly about President Zardari. He calls the president the greatest obstacle to Pakistan`s progress. “When the head is rotten,” it quotes him as saying, “it affects the whole body”.
Mr Zardari`s office responded by saying the president regards the king as an “elder brother”. “The so-called leaks are no more than an attempt to create misperceptions between two important and brotherly Muslim countries,” his spokesman Farhatullah Babar told journalists.
Another cable says that the UAE crown prince, who is also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and its de facto defence chief, strongly supported the US decision to sell F-16 aircraft to Islamabad to keep a balance of power between India and Pakistan.
This particular cable quotes Prince Mohammed as telling US officials that while the Indians had and would continue to balk at the decision, the region needed Pakistan to stay strong. Besides, he continued, the F-16 decision would not tip the military balance between India and Pakistan.
Another cable from the US Embassy in the UAE shows how Pakistan became a focus of attention during US military chief Admiral Mike Mullen`s visit to Abu Dhabi in February 2010.
The cable sent on Feb 9 says that the UAE has taken a leading role in the Friends of Pakistan initiative and has provided about $800 million in assistance in recent years.
The cable notes that the Al Nahyan family had a longstanding relationship with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and this has transitioned to support for her husband, but the UAE “stays in touch with all elements on the Pakistani scene, including former president Pervez Musharraf”.
Prince Mohammed “will be very interested in your dialogue with Gen Kayani,” the cable tells Admiral Mullen.
END
From here.
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