The Influence of the World

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Introduction

All my life I have been influenced by what others have thought. Thinking back to my childhood, I can remember believing that everything my parents said was right and true. It was quite unsettling the first time I realized they were wrong about something. As I got older, I was more influenced by television, education, and friends. I graduated from high school and also nursing school in the sixties. Those were the years of the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and the beginnings of the modern feminist movement.

I remember when the abortion debate was raging and I hoped fervently that Roe V. Wade would pass. But what really got my attention and my heart was the lure of wanting to be someone significant. That, according to the feminists, would only happen through my education and career. To be relegated to a life of servitude to a family was to be sentenced to a life of being a "non-person. "After all, I was certainly as important as my husband-to-be! Gone were the days of "McCall's Magazines" full of articles reminding wives to vacuum under their beds and sofa cushions once a week. And gone were the wives and mothers who (almost magically) appeared in the mornings fresh with their starched cotton dresses, high heels, make up, and ruffled white aprons to begin their day of work at home. What had come in her place was a newer version of "thoroughly modern Milly" who would forever more be searching for her identity.

Betty Friedan led the search of the early sixties feminists. Her book, The Feminine Mystique, took the country by storm.¹ Women embraced her philosophies and any man in his right mind certainly wanted to become sensitive and not remain a male, chauvinist pig! What the sixties feminists wanted were equal rights and equal pay and they believed that their identity was determined by what they personally accomplished through education and career. Back then almost all pastors were men and, of course, all soldiers were men. Little girls played with doll babies and their fondest dreams were to marry and have children. Well, those were what my children call the "old days." It would be nice to think that the "new days" are better but, in truth, they're not. People are still self-focused, sinful, and have come up with new and ever-so-creative labels for the same old sin - love of self and a lack of love for God and others. Non-Christians and Christians alike are searching for their identity, their significance, their worth, their esteem, or their security. Many people, even Bible believing Christians, have been much more influenced along these man-centered/psychological lines of thinking than they would like to think. For the purposes of this article, our focus will be on the feminist philosophy that has so infiltrated our thinking that it has sown the seed of dissatisfaction in the lives of many Christian wives and mothers and has perverted the biblical roles of men and women. In order to understand how the feminist influence has affected us as Christians and how, then, our minds must be renewed to think biblically, we need to begin with some understanding of Friedan's beliefs, how she was influenced, and how her beliefs play into the "victim" mentality. Lastly, we will consider how the modern feminist movement has influenced the church and how we must change.

Background 

As I reread the book, The Feminine Mystique, for the first time in thirty plus years (and as a Christian), it was obvious to me that author Betty Friedan was searching for some sort of meaning in her life.² At the time she wrote her book, she was married with three children and writing occasional women's magazine articles, but she was yearning for something more. She concludes that her problem was seeking identity from her husband's job and his world instead of from her own identity forged from her own achievements.

Betty Friedan's beliefs were built upon previous work done by two psychologists - Abraham Maslow and Erik Erikson. Abraham Maslow studied under Sigmund Freud; Erik Erikson studied under Abraham Maslow; and Betty Friedan studied under Erik Erikson.

Abraham Maslow was one of the original signers of the "Humanist Manifesto" which brazenly declares that there is no God. He is known as the Father of Modern Psychology and is most famous for his theory of mature personality development called the "Hierarchy of Needs." Maslow believed that in order to become a mature person ("self-actualized") and thus be able to reach out and help others, you must first have your underlying needs met. Among those underlying needs were the need for significance, self-esteem, love, and security. In the Feminine Mystique, Friedan often writes of the need for significance.

The other psychologist besides Maslow who greatly influenced Friedan was Erik Erikson. Erikson's theory of personality development differed from Maslow's. His was a series of twelve crisis points in life that must be overcome before one can mature to the next level.³ One of these crisis points occurs during adolescence when the teen must rebel against his parents in order to find his own identity. This adolescent identity crisis was what happened, according to Erikson, to the young priest Martin Luther. Thus, this is the reason for Luther's rebellion against the Catholic Church. Erikson was so entrenched in his "identity crisis" beliefs that he wrote an entire book, Young Man Luther (1953),⁴ about the "crisis of the young Martin Luther, who left a Catholic monastery at the end of the middle ages to forge a new identity for himself and Western man."⁵ In the Feminine Mystique, Friedan calls Erikson "brilliant" and adapts his identity crisis teaching to her feminist philosophy.⁶

The feminist philosophy is a belief that women are not fully developed as human beings unless their identity needs are met through school or work. Women who stay home and care for their husbands and families never quite become all they can be. They deal with petty, unimportant things while the men deal with the world and important things. The women, therefore, do not really have their own identity. They are not as significant as the men are. Friedan believes their development has been arrested at a child-like state, passive and dependant. In The Feminine Mystique, she wrote

In a sense that goes beyond any one woman's life, I think this is the crisis of women growing up - a turning point from an immaturity that has been called femininity to full human identity. I think women had to suffer this crisis of identity... and have to suffer it today, simply to become fully human.⁷

Women as Victims

In the feminist literature, you read statements such as "women are being denied human dignity," "she is a non-person," "a second class citizen," "something missing in their lives," "wasting their lives by staying home," "a target and a victim of the sexual sell,"⁸ and "breeder-servanthood, position of subhuman inferiors."⁹ Painting such a sad picture of the woman's plight makes her a "victim." Somehow, she has gotten a raw deal and deserves better than this!

Being a "victim" fans the flames of rebellion. For example, at the "March for Right" in 1970, Friedan said, "This is our hour of history, we are going to take it. "Also in the 1970's, consciousness-raising groups began to encourage women to express their frustration and anger over being used by their families. Women demanded equal authority and that the men must equally share in child-care and housework. They believed whole-heartedly that it is a virtue not to let someone dominate you.

Feminist Marilyn French in her 1992 book, The War Against Women, explains where she believes the Bible errs.

The Bible was compiled in a period when patriarchy was spreading and its editors altered early materials to eradicate signs of an earlier female dominance and to make male supremacy a divine principle. Like the Iliad and the Aeneid, the Old Testament is great literature that stresses war, male dominance, and murder (of enemies more than compassion or tolerance). If it [the Bible] is God-given and without error, then its values, also God-given, are eternally right. Conservative evangelical Protestants use an inerrant Bible as a major weapon in their war to retain the separate spheres that guarantee male dominance. Women are not immune to the fundamentalist message, and the extreme right often places them in visible positions, usually in movements aimed at impeding or revoking women's rights.¹⁰

It is easy to see how those who reject the Scriptures as God-breathed and without error would also fail to grasp their obligation to God as Creator and Lord over them. For them, giving God glory is an absurd idea but fighting for their rights is a call to battle! Their battle is apparently so important to them as to justify (as French did in her book) rewriting history (e.g. the claim of earlier female dominance) to prove her point.

Friedan and the more recent feminists of our day are searching for and, at times, demanding their significance, their identity, and their rights. Their ideas are not new, though perhaps they are shrouded in modern psychological vocabulary. Sadly, it is not only the non-Christians who have embraced all or parts of these beliefs but it is also the Christians. It is obvious that those who reject the truth of the Scriptures need the gospel. But what about the Christians?

How have we been influenced and how should we change?

The Feminist Influence	How we should change
Husbands and/or pastors may be intimidated and afraid that they are being too assertive or domineering over women if they (even in love and after careful deliberation) make firm decisions.	If you are a husband or a pastor, understand that it is God's will that you lead your flock or family. This means that you should and will have to make decisions and that you will eventually give an account to the Lord over how you lead. Heb 13:17 If you are a wife or a church member, see submission to your husband or pastor as God's will for you (unless your husband or pastor asks you to sin, then God is the higher authority whom you must obey). Eph 5:22-24
Women think and say things like, "What about me?" "What about my rights?"	Instead she should be thinking and saying, "What about God?" "How can I most please Him?" "What are some practical ways that I can show love to others and thus give glory to God?" Matt 22:36-40
Submission of a wife to her husband is an outdated concept. Today, the emphasis is on "mutual submission."	Study Ephesians 5 and understand that "be subject to one another in the fear of Christ" is a general command that is explained through specific commands that we are to be submissive to those whom God has placed in authority over us - i.e., wife to husband, child to parent, and slave to master.11It is also one fruit of being "filled with the Spirit."
Women think things like, "women are not inferior to men. I have just as much right to my opinion and way as he does."	Think instead, "There is no partiality with God - whether we are male or female, we are both creatures created in the image of God. My responsibility is to offer wise advice to my husband but that doesn't mean that I always have the right to express my opinion. God knows better than anyone how I can best glorify Him." Gal 3:28

JBMW 9:2 (Fall 2004) p. 29

"I deserve better than this."	"If I got what I deserved it would be death and hell. My focus should be on what I can do to please the Lord Jesus Christ and not on myself." Rom 6:23
"Nobody is going to tell me what to do."	"Those who are in authority over me have been given that authority by God Himself. My responsibility is to see their directives as good for me or God would not permit it." Rom 8:28-29
"Can you believe that our pastor won't let my girlfriend teach the couples Sunday School class? How ridiculous. He's living in the dark ages."	"The Scriptures are clear that in the church, women are not to ‘teach or exercise authority over a man...' My pastor is right. I should support his decision." 1 Tim 2:12
"I can't take much more of this (laundry, house cleaning, kids). Nobody cares about me."	"Whether they care or not I am to work at training the children and doing my work heartily as unto the Lord. I am also to be thankful in all things for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning me." Col 3:23; 1 Thess 5:18
"What about my needs?"	"I must discern that the ‘needs' psychological theories are unbiblical. It is wrong and unbiblical to think in those self-serving terms. The only thing that I really need is forgiveness through Christ and to be placed in a right standing with God. Instead of thinking about my needs, I should think, ‘God has given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness.' How can I show love to Him? How can I please Him? What can I do to give Him glory? 2 Pet 1:3

 

Conclusion

Colossians 2:8 tells us to "see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." We have all been more influenced than perhaps we would like to believe. It is only through the empowering grace of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures that we can be "renewed in the spirit of our minds" (Col 4:23). We must study, believe, and embrace what God has told us in His Word.

Women are not victims. They are creatures created in God's image for the purpose of proclaiming His excellencies; and God, not man, is the determiner of how best, and in what role, men and women can most give him glory. Many in the Christian world are searching for their needs to be met, for their identity or significance. The feminist philosophy is one of the influences of the world. It comes from a combination of humanistic psychology and sinful, self-deceived, self-absorbed hearts. Instead of searching for our identity, we need simply to bow before God, our Creator, turn our focus from ourselves and say, "Look what God has done! He alone is worthy!"