[From the editors: One of the benefits of Gender Blog is meeting Christ-exalting, Gospel-centered Christian bloggers. Today, we are happy to introduce another such friend, Kim Schmidt. Kim is a pastor's wife and mother to two boys. She blogs at Fill This House. Be sure to stop by and check out her work. ]

Sometimes my sons and I bring home a library book that we later discover "doesn't please God." The book then goes back into our blue canvas library bag until we can return it.

This week, we had one such book, called Pirate Girl, by Cornelia Funke.

It's the story of the fierce pirates of the Horrible Haddock. All are men, given to drunkenness and carousing. They get overtaken by Barbarous Bertha and her band of all women pirates. Bertha and her crew conquer the men and sentence them to a life of scrubbing decks, peeling vegetables, and polishing Bertha's shoes.

I explained to my two young sons, "This book does not please God. It's trying to teach us that women should be more like men and men should be more like women. But God teaches us that He made men and women different, and that's a good thing."

That was sufficient explanation for my 4-year-old and 2-year-old. But the book still had me thinking. Scrubbing decks, peeling vegetables, and polishing shoes? In Pirate Girl, these tasks are punishment. They are repressive duties, fit only for slaves.

The book keeps coming back to my mind because, in our home, I peel the potatoes and I scrub the floors. I don't polish shoes, but I do polish bath fixtures and mirrors!

In a feminist worldview, these tasks are only a worthy occupation if one gets paid for the labor. I do these tasks, plus an endless list of other household jobs, without pay. I want my sons to know that the work I do is neither punishment nor oppression, and that my time and abilities would not be better spent elsewhere.

I do these things out of devotion to my family, that they would have a peaceful, nourishing, well-ordered home. And I do these tasks out of devotion to my Lord, for the Bible portrays the quiet, hidden service of women in the home as beautiful and valuable, and as an important means to the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Father God, give us discerning eyes and ears, that we may catch worldly messages and snuff them out before they take root in our children's hearts. Lord, may my service in my home be a fragrant offering to you. Give me a heart of joy and thanksgiving, that you have given me so much work to do! May my daily work be a blessing to my husband and children, and be a testimony of your saving grace in my life.

To care about women's issues is to move beyond biology and reproduction. Women want more than that. At least that is what Kathleen Parker believes. In her recent syndicated column, Parker asserts that to isolate women voters strictly to the abortion debate is to cheat women out of their real concerns these days - job security and the economy. There is a heated debate going on surrounding the Virginia Governor's race. One candidate is pro-life and has written on the familial effects of women working outside of the home. The other candidate is pro-choice and is using his opponent's previous writings to try and sway women voters away from this "anti-women's issues candidate." Parker sees the latter as being out of touch with the 20^th century woman, because in her assessment today's woman cares far less about her right to an abortion than previous voters revealed. She says that women have moved on from abortion as a women's issue, and in her eyes that is progress.

This has nothing to do with politics, political affiliations, or even the Virginia gubernatorial race. Rather, her argument has everything to do with the modern woman and how she thinks. It has everything to do with the biblical woman and how she will respond to a culture that views progress as "moving on" from the killing of the unborn.

Some on the left say Parker is giving up on women by saying that women care about more than just reproductive rights when they step into the voting booth. Some on the conservative side say she is giving up on the unborn by "moving beyond" the abortion issue and viewing that move as progress. Some on either side might be grateful that she said something. But what do her assertions say about today's woman?

Parker suggests that using abortion rights to target women is "patronizing" and it assumes "that women's interests are limited to their biology." In other words, we care about more than what is going on inside the womb. In her article, Parker cites a Lifetime survey as saying that women voters in the 2008 election cared more about job security and the economy than abortion. She states that biology is not enough when talking about women's issues, because frankly women care about the same things that men care about -their careers and money. Even though biology is not the only thing that defines us as human beings, what would we be if we weren't able to say that in some way our biological makeup as male and female is what makes us created in the Divine image? To care about women's issues is to say that biology is saying something about who we are and who we are created to be. Our biology is what gives us the God ordained desire to be life-givers. And for so long biology is what led women to say "it's my body, I can make the choice."

God gives His people a very different understanding of women's issues. To be a godly woman is to love life and seek to protect and nurture it. Eve was named by God and was called the "Mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20). The Hebrew midwives risked their lives to save even the weakest ones of their society (Hebrews 1:17). Mary, the mother of Jesus, bore the shame of a child out of wedlock to give birth to the Savior (Luke 1). Women who have been bought by the blood of Christ never get over the call and the joy of being life-givers. It is not an issue to be lobbied for; it is obedience to our Creator.

When childbearing and child killing are no longer on the radar screen for women, a profound statement has been made about womanhood. Women have historically been the defenders of children, but not anymore. Feminism has bred the lie that not only is it my body to do with as I please, but when I have won that battle I will move on to something better and more provocative. As women who love the truth, and love women, we must be there to pick up the pieces when the lie turns to bitterness in their mouths. And we also must be able to say to a confused culture that biology matters, and so do the little ones. Biblical women never move on from being life givers, because child nurturing, saving, bearing, and loving is not an issue to be discarded in the sake of progression. It is a way of life.

[The following excerpt is from Mary Kassian's book The Feminist Mistake, published by Crossway. It is available as for download here.]

One difficulty in discussing the relationship of Christianity to feminism lies in the definition of feminism. Many Christians view feminism as an ideology that merely promotes the genuine dignity and worth of women. If this were true, feminism would definitely be compatible with Christianity, for the Bible does teach that women and men are of equal value in God's sight, co-created as bearers of God's image. But the philosophy of feminism adds a subtle, almost indiscernible twist to the basic biblical truth of woman's worth. Feminism asserts that woman's worth is of such a nature that it gives her the right to discern, judge, and govern that truth herself. It infuses women with the idea that God's teaching about the role of women must line up with their own perception and definition of equality and/or liberation. Feminism does not present itself as an outright affront to the Bible, but it nevertheless contains an insidious distortion that erodes the authority of Scripture. Acceptance of the feminist thesis may not drastically alter one's initial beliefs, but if followed, it will naturally and logically lead to an end miles away from the Christianity of the Bible.

In my email inbox was a link to an article on the newly published book Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict by Irene Vilar. Halfway through the article is a picture of the book cover. The design is a sketch of a slender woman's torso and at the center of the torso is the title, author, and 15 tick marks. We've all seen tick marks used in movies by prisoners to signify every year they've been incarcerated or something similar. Only this time, they are meant to signify how many abortions Irene Vilar has had - 15.

The memoir is her attempt to explain her addiction. The article summarizes:

The attractive one-time academic prodigy attended a boarding school in New Hampshire and was accepted into a New York University when she was only 15. A year later, she fell in love and married a 50-year-old Latin American literature professor, who she says was opposed to having children. She claims he bragged that his relationships never lasted more than five years and told that having children killed sexual desire. In response, Mrs Vilar said she rebelled by 'forgetting' to take her birth control pills.

Vilar claims that she had the abortions to keep her husband, yet being pregnant made her excited. She likened herself to a "druggie." She wanted to stop every time. Interestingly, her struggle to stop was not because she felt it was a moral failure, but rather, because such actions "let the woman's movement down." For Vilar, abortion was contraception. Now a mother, Vilar understands the "weight of the privilege we have in exercising our right to choose."

I do not want to equate this behavior to the woman who has had an abortion out of fear or through a regrettable series of events. Both are dreadfully sinful and those involved should repent, but Mrs. Vilar's case is peculiarly tragic. Her story is an explicit picture of what is sinfully evil in the pro-abortion movement. Her rebellion is not against her husband. She has chosen to act in the place of the Creator by ending the lives of her 15. The abortion movement wants to put in the hands of creatures what is only rightfully in the hands of our Creator. This is a sign post for darkened and foolish hearts that have exchanged the glory of God our Creator for the glory of ourselves.

Some will read this as a good thing gone bad. Some will read this as an expression of freedom. Everyone should read this story and shudder. The publishers can pretty this memoir up with a chic book cover and rejoice in a woman's choice, but Vilar's actions were sinister, barbaric, and serial.

[This article originally appeared on Dr. Mohler's blog on October 14, 2009.]

Literary critic Lionel Trilling once referred to "the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet." In reality, almost all literature is political in some sense. Oddly enough, the most explicitly subversive literature is often presented to the very youngest among us -- our children. Far too many parents seem not to notice.

In "The Defiant Ones," a recent essay published in the New Yorker, Daniel Zalewski argues that picture books for children now reflect a world turned upside down in terms of the relationship between parent and child. As he explains, in the newest picture books for children, the kids are solidly in charge.

In this sense, the books we read to our children reflect the cultural values of our age. Inescapably, these narratives for children reveal far more than a storyline. Indeed, the books tell us more than we may want to know about the tenor of our times.

And Zalewski explains:

Like the novel or the sitcom, the picture book records shifts in domestic life: newspaper-burrowing fathers have been replaced by eager, if bumbling, diaper-changers. Similarly, the stern disciplinarians of the past-in Robert McCloskey books, parents instruct children not to cry-have largely vanished. The parents in today's stories suffer the same diminution in authority felt by the parents reading them aloud (an hour past bedtime). The typical adult in a contemporary picture book is harried and befuddled, scurrying to fulfill a child's wishes and then hesitantly drawing the line.

Zalewski's insight into the revelatory character of books for children is truly important. As he knows, today's parents have indeed experienced a "diminution in authority" that is unprecedented in human history. Increasingly, it is children who have the upper hand in the power equation. Parents, who have been drinking deeply from the wells of contemporary secular parenting advice, have largely become passive facilitators in the lives of their children.

As Zalewski argues, today's young parents "learn that there are many things they must never do to their willful young child: spank, scold, bestow frequent praise, criticize, plead, withhold affection, take away toys, 'model' angry emotions, intimidate, bargain, nag." In other words, "nearly all forms of discipline appear morally suspect."

Modern "experts" like Alfie Kohn now go so far as to argue that rewarding children for good behavior is virtually as injurious to the child as punishing children for negative behavior. Arguing against what he calls "conditional parenting," Kohn came out against everything from the "time out" to positive reinforcement. Writing recently in The New York Times, Kohn asserted:

Conditional parenting isn't limited to old-school authoritarians. Some people who wouldn't dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call "time out." Conversely, "positive reinforcement" teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a "good job."

Today's parents, advised by the likes of Alfie Kohn, are themselves the children and grandchildren of a generation raised by parents who abandoned traditional parenting for the advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock. The war against parental authority gained momentum throughout the 20th century. Now, today's children are often virtually undisciplined -- their parents having abandoned the central role of disciplinarian due to distraction, ideological intimidation, cultural pressure, or sheer confusion.

In his essay, Zalewski reviewed some of the most popular of the picture books released in recent years. In these books, "the default temperament of the child is bratty." Indeed, the brattiness of the children depicted in these books is often "so zesty and creative that the behavioral transgressions take on the quality of art." Parents are presented as frustrated, bewildered, and concerned -- but clearly not in charge.

It was not always so. As Zalewski observes, "The parents in picture books used to be tougher." Parents used to set the rules, and children were expected to obey. Disobedient children were corrected and (gasp!) even punished. The new literature for children presents a world in which parents are more likely to obey their children.

Indeed, in today's world "nearly all forms of discipline appear morally suspect." Do parents have any clue that it is the lack of discipline that is far more likely to harm a child?

Today's Christian parents must push hard against the prevailing secular wisdom if they are to be faithful. The Bible makes clear (and simple observation affirms) that children desperately need discipline from their parents. Furthermore, the Bible reveals that the faithful and wise parent disciplines, teaches, corrects, chastens, rewards, and punishes the child as a demonstration of true love and parental responsibility.

Furthermore, the Bible straightforwardly presents a model of the family in which the parents possess an authority over their children that is nonnegotiable and essential for the health and happiness of the entire family. Indeed, the faithful parent is the one who rightly exercises and fulfills that authority. In our current cultural context, there are few collisions more direct and determinative than that between the secular and biblical conceptions of the role of parents.

Once again, we are reminded that books matter. In this case, Daniel Zalewski's essay reminds us that books intended for the very youngest matter very much. The picture books we put in front of our children help frame their expectation and understanding of their place in life and in the family. Today's parents must look carefully at the books they put before the eyes of their children. Some of the most subversive literature in the land is designed to put children -- and not parents -- firmly in charge.