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We are all familiar with the way feminism has undermined the integrity of the family, leaving many women feeling guilty, or at least defensive, if they choose to stay at home to be housewives. What is generally given less attention, however, is the way Christian motherhood has suffered grievously from within the ranks of the church. I am not referring to direct theological challenges from Christian teachers who think women ought to farm their children off to day care or go and pursue careers. That is just feminism in evangelical packaging and is easy enough to spot, though sadly that mentality is rampant even in the church.
What is more difficult to discern, however, are the multitudinous ways that the individualistic and dispensational theological paradigms have indirectly contributed to many Christian mothers abandoning their primary vocation. An entire evangelical culture has sprung up over the last two hundred and fifty years which sees salvation purely in terms of going to heaven when you die, with no understanding of the need to build a Christian civilization here on the earth that will last for thousands of years. Worse still, many Christians believe that the institutions and culture of Christendom are a Constantinian innovation and hardly a worthy goal for the 21st century church.
Failing to
understand God’s purposes covenantally, we would prefer to wait to be ‘raptured’ away from the earth, working to get as many people saved in the meantime, than to seek God’s promised blessings on the thousands of descendents that come from those who love him. As a result, the concept of family and child-rearing has suffered grievously. Not seeing ourselves as links in a golden chain, both receiving and transmitting the traditions of the covenant community to the next generation, we fail to pour ourselves into our children in the way that we could. (As an aside, this relates to why I am against the ‘conversion experience’ model for children of believers, a topic I deal with
here.)
Because of our failure to invest in the next generation, our children are falling away right left and centre, giving credence to the second edition of the Confession of Faith, presented to Parliament in 1658, which includes these words: “Wherever thou goest thou wilt hear men crying out of bad children – whereas indeed the source must be sought a little higher, ‘its bad parents – that make bad children -, and we cannot blame so much their untowardness as our own negligence of their education.”
The education we should seek to give our children, and which is central for successfully transmitting the faith to the next generation, is more than just the education of correct ideas. It is not enough to simply convey to our children the sense that Christianity is true. Neither is it enough to give them a Christian worldview that interconnects all knowledge into a Biblical philosophy. These are both necessary endeavours, but they are not sufficient. We must also strive to convey to our children the beauty of the Christian faith. If we are to be successful in transmitting our religion, we must show the next generation that the truth is lovely. Many Christian young people have willingly walked away from a faith they knew to be true because they were enticed by the illusory attractiveness of idols; but few people ever abandoned a faith they believed to be both true and beautiful.
But here’s the catch. In order for parents to show their children that the faith is lovely, they must be there to successfully model it. If a mother farms her children off to daycare so she can find fulfillment in pursuing a career, if the father comes home from work and takes more interest in his newspaper than his kids, if the parents use the television as a baby sitter whenever they are tired, if the parents are always grumbling or bickering and never promoting an atmosphere of joy, if the parents send their children off to be educated by the local priests of Baal, then we cannot be surprised when the children grow up to reject the faith their parents purported to follow.
This being the case, fathers and mothers need encouragement to focus on the primary mission field God has given them: their own children. That is why I so appreciated Stacy McDonald and Jannie Chancey’s book, Passionate Housewives Desperate for God: Fresh Vision for the Hopeful Homemaker. In an age when mothers are constantly being pressured to abandoned their God-appointed mission field, McDonald and Chancey give much needed hope and encouragement.
I was half expecting the book to be extremist after Karen Campbell left a comment on another book review of mine, claiming that Passionate Housewives typified the spiritually abusive “patriarchy movement,” echoing comments in her earlier review where she alleged that the book advocated a “patriocentric lifestyle that is merely idolatry rather than genuine Biblical Christianity.” So dangerous is the book, in fact, that Campbell recommends that if any husband sees his wife with a copy of the book in her hand, he should take it immediately to the pastor and elders of their church!
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you folks, but if you’re looking for another juicy instance of wife abuse to add to the alleged crimes of “Patriarchy”, you won’t find it in Passionate Housewives. What you will find, however, is an extremely realistic picture of a mother’s calling. It is realistic because the authors acknowledge that staying at home to be a housewife is hard, hard work. But it is the hard work of a missionary, not the hard work of a squirrel in a cage spinning his wheels but ultimately going nowhere. The authors echo the words of Chesterton who, when confronted with the complaint that home-making is narrow and demeaning for women, replied:
woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. . . . when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. . . . If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman d
rudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun a Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes, and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.
Passionate Housewives is just as realistic as Chesterton was: being a wife and mother is laborious. But it is also glorious. The Biblical advice offered in the book comes from mothers who have experienced all the struggles and difficulties associated with raising a large family and who reject the picture perfect portrait images offered by perfectionists. I mention this as a necessary antidote to the rather curious comment about Stacy’s views that
Kevin Johnson left on
my review of Quivering Daughters, alleging that Stacy fell into the camp of the “Victorian ideal currently touted in Vision Forum and other circles.” (Interesting how people were trying to argue with me about this book before I had even read reviewed it!) Again, sorry to disappoint anyone, but there is no Victorian idealism in
Passionate Housewives. (Anyone who has read Stacy’s recent post ‘
Gender, Morality and Modesty’ will see just how strange the epithet ‘Victorianism’ is when applied to her writings.). Again, one of the things that Esther (my wife) and I both appreciated about the book was just how realistic a portrait it present. Indeed, the authors spend just as much time trying to release women from the clutches of perfectionism as they do warning women about the bondage of feminism.
There were a number of other reasons why I heartily recommend the book. Very briefly:
- The book has the emphasis I articulated above on inculturating our children in an atmosphere of loveliness (p. 35).
- Throughout the book the authors encourage mothers to take their eyes off themselves (“me-ology” as they call it) – something that all of us can learn from whatever our vocation.
- The book is infused with an understanding of the Protestant work ethic, whereby all labour can be seen as being done to the glory of God (chapter 3).
- In seeking Biblical justification for urging mothers to be home-makers, the authors go beyond a few isolated proof texts to root their argument in the larger creation narrative, appealing to the dominion mandate and its continued application in New Testament culture (pp. 31-34 & 43)
- The authors argue, as I have suggested myself, that radical feminism is actually anti-feminine (chapter 7).
- The authors write in a personal, engaging style, alternating between solid Biblical teaching and personal anecdotes.
Postscript
I would have ended the review there, but I must make one last point or I may have a bunch of angry comments from readers. Although I agree with McDonald and Chancey that “The text of Scripture is straightforward and unequivocal: a woman’s duties are to be home-centered, and if we spurn this directive we cause God’s Word to be blasphemed” I do not hold (and I’m sure McDonald and Chancey would agree with me here) that this always means a woman must be in the home. Consider that a father’s duties are to be family-centered, but that does not mean that he will always be in the home. On the contrary, in order to best serve his family, a man will usually be away from the home most of the time. Similarly, I can imagine situations where the best way that a mother can serve her children is not to be at home with them. For example, a single mother may only be able to support her family by getting work outside the home, or a married couple may be in an economic situation whereby they can only feed their children if for both parents work. In Stacy’s chapter, ‘Embracing Your Sacred Calling’, she does acknowledge that some women are forced to seek employment outside the home (p. 29). But the real question is what is motivating the mother to seek employment? Is she doing it to better serve her children, or to seek her own fulfilment? The important question is not whether the woman is at home with her children but whether she is serving them wherever she has to be. Consider a few other examples. If the parents believe that the best way to serve their children’s education needs is to delegate some duties to a local Christian school (as I have in fact done with one of our children), then for a good portion of the day the mother will not be at home with her children. Or if I apprentice one of my sons every afternoon to a worker in the church to learn a trade, then again his mother will not be at home with him for a good portion of time. Similarly, there may be times when a tired housewife needs her husband to create opportunities for her to get out of the house without her children in order that she may return to better serve her children. In all such situations, the focus, responsibility and calling of both the parents remains centered around their children even if the application of this calling necessarily involves chunks of time when the mother is not at home with the child. That is why I so appreciated Stacy’s comment in her article ‘
Do Working Women Blaspheme God’s Name?’ that “You can’t take a small portion of a general truth and try to turn it into a black and white rule…God is sovereign and so many factors are involved in each woman’s life; there’s no way in the world anyone should make such a blanket judgment.”
To buy this book on Amazon, click here.
7:52 pm on September 4th, 2010
Thank you so much for the excellent review of Passionate Housewives! It was so refreshing to see someone not only “get” what we were trying to say, but to also expound upon it so powerfully! I especially appreciated what you said here:
“An entire evangelical culture has sprung up over the last two hundred and fifty years which sees salvation purely in terms of going to heaven when you die, with no understanding of the need to build a Christian civilization here on the earth that will last for thousands of years.”
Amen!!!! A perfect example of why theology matters!
and this…
“Many Christian young people have willingly walked away from a faith they knew to be true because they were enticed by the illusory attractiveness of idols; but few people ever abandoned a faith they believed to be both true and beautiful.”
“True and beautiful” – Exactly! Excellent point! Thank you for wording it so well!
Thank you again for taking the time to read and review our book. After having been misrepresented by several antagonists over the last few years, your review was overwhelmingly satisfying.
2:04 pm on September 6th, 2010
[...] CLICK HERE to read Robin’s entire review of Passionate Housewives. [...]
11:48 pm on October 8th, 2010
Very nice post.