Notre Dame Philosophy Professor Reflects the Zeitgeist

The love of a mother is no more or less important than the love of a father. We all know this. But then, in general, mothers should be under no greater burden than fathers to abandon their callings for the sake of their children. The asymmetry in our responses to working mothers and fathers, then, suggests that other factors are in play. In an evangelical protestant context, the context I have in view here, there is good reason to suspect that these other factors include a tendency to devalue the gifts and contributions of women particularly in positions of teaching and leadership

Michael Rea
Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

The above is culled from here,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rea/mothers-in-ministry_b_8760590.html

Why, instead of the conclusion that Dr. Rea draws in his last sentence above, don’t we conclude that the reason Evangelical Protestants don’t want women in social order leadership is,

1.) The Scriptures forbid it.

2.) We so value women and their role in hearth and home that we don’t want to treat them like roses used as kindling to start a fire by turning them into ecclesiastical versions of “Rosie the Riverter?”

It is a fallacy to think that all because women are not treated like men therefore women are devalued in their gifts and contributions.

3.) We understand and affirm that men and women were not created to be interchangeable cogs as if both sexes were created to do the same thing.

Overall I would say it is Dr. Rea, and people like him, who are devaluing the gifts and contributions of women. It is people like Dr. Rea who are taking from children their Mothers who are to be the leaders and teachers of the most impressionable in our social order.

As a young lady, stay at home Mom, friend of mind said, in discussion about this article,

“With ‘men’ like Dr. Rea, who needs women to run for church office? We already have them!”

(And believe me when I tell you that this young lady, I’m quoting above, could run circles around any three Woman Pastors combined, you might want to name, in terms of giftedness in leadership and teaching.)

Finally, note the methodological way that the Left works here. Suggesting that men and women are interchangeable is put into such noble and glowing words and sentiments, while at the same time, the idea that women are distinct from men is made to look cruel and mean. The appeal to emotion is made with the consequence that the rational is bypassed. This is a common methodological tool of the unholy Left.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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