Here's the link to the original article:
There are two issues which require further comment:
One, there is a common assertion that the housewife is a
modern creation, born out of post-WWII suburban culture.
This is false. In addition to mentioning it in this most
recent post, it's an issue I have addressed numerous times elsewhere. The
argument is false.
Prior to industrialisation, wives most definitely worked but
they did so largely in the domestic
sphere. They worked alongside their husbands in the fields or in cottage
industries. As town life emerged during the latter phases of the Middle Ages,
wives might take on side work, doing laundry, caring for someone sick and the
like.
Again, this is not what's being discussed here. These
examples are a far cry from the modern full-time
career woman which represents a different lifestyle and a very different
arrangement for the family. This woman is not the help-meet to her husband but
an autonomous entity within the family unit, a self-head, a rival to the
authority given to the husband and father as the Scriptures testify.
Can a wife work part-time? Again, while everyone is keen to
point out that suburban housewives are a new paradigm, they are reticent to
acknowledge that women working in offices, factories and retail are in fact
something relatively new. There were exceptions of course even in pre-industrial
times, but were women working in taverns thought of highly? That's but one
example.
There are always analogies but often they are poor ones and
in other cases they are not analogies but cases of apples being compared to
oranges.
Just because a new social paradigm has taken over and seems
established doesn't mean that it's moral, acceptable or beyond reconsideration.
I will grant that suburban
housewives are something new because the suburbs themselves are a
relatively recent development. There are aspects of housewifery that changed
post-WWII, but the idea of a domestic wife and mother are ancient. To reckon
them a recent innovation is dishonest.
Is someone going to equate a woman selling cottage produced
wares or agricultural goods at the weekly market the same thing as going out
and working in an office... where she has to submit to a boss? Would it make a
difference if the boss were a woman? It might but these things are not
discussed. The modern model is simply assumed by the bulk of Evangelicals.
Additionally the cottage wares and agricultural goods are fruits of the family
economy. This is quite different from a wife and mother going out to labour for
a company which has completely different goals, timelines, loyalties and
expectations.
The modern job setting is not the same thing but I would
argue it instead accentuates Paul's point about the woman staying in the
domestic sphere that the adversary has no occasion to speak reproachfully and
that the word of God be not blasphemed. I'm sorry that modern people don't like
New Testament doctrine, but is the problem an obsolete doctrine or succumbing
to the impulses of society and effectively allowing the world to define us, how
we think and how we live?
Now, am I suggesting that women stay home, eat Bon-Bons and
watch soap operas all afternoon until it's time to go to the Tupperware party?
This is the old caricature of the suburban housewife.
Modern appliances and modern lifestyles have freed up time to
be sure. So now what is to be done with that time? It could be used wisely or
it can be squandered. To assume that profit should somehow be a factor is to
read-in a set of values not found in the New Testament. Additionally that the
woman would find 'fulfillment' in doing some kind of profit-making outside-the-home
work is not a value generated from the New Testament either but is instead a
value taught by the world. There's nothing to suggest that Christians are to
find 'fulfillment' in their work. This is a middle class concern not a
Christian one. If you happen to enjoy your work, or learn to enjoy it, then
that's wonderful but it's secondary at best. Work is a good thing and just what
work will mean in the age to come is up for debate. But this isn't the age to
come. This is the age subjected to futility, an evil age that we are called to live
and bear witness in but it's not where our hearts are nor is it where we lay up
our treasures.
In fact the very notions of 'fulfillment' in work and the
idea that 'value' is equated with 'profitability' are modern innovations born
of the individualism of the Enlightenment and the values of the capitalist era.
But of course the Western Church (broadly speaking) has drunk deeply from these
wells and has even sanctified them and thus it's no small task to get people to
even see there's an issue, let alone re-think it.
Second, am I calling for an end to women in the workplace,
for a rollback of all labour laws concerning women, and would I want all
unbelieving adult females to be housewives?
No, and anyone who thinks so hasn't bothered to read what
I've written or perhaps they're not paying attention. The Apostles nowhere
imply that we're to try and re-shape the social order. We're pilgrims and
martyrs. We reject it, bear witness against it, live differently but there's no
suggestion that we're to undertake such projects nor is it possible that such
endeavours would be successful. In fact, they will in the end destroy and redefine
the Church which is what has largely happened.
Moral universality is not absolute. Or to put it another way,
not all morals are universal. This will be deemed immediately suspect if not
heretical by some but it's because they've imbibed philosophical coherentism
rather than work through the implications of the Scriptural concept of the
Covenant.
The world is lost in sin. Their primary problem, their
primary sin is that of unbelief. They reject Christ. Until that problem is
remedied all other questions are secondary and many if not most questions are
probably moot. They need to repent. Compelling the lost to behave as Christians
is pointless. To redefine Christianity to accommodate some kind of compelled
moral but still lost-ness is the heresy of Sacral Christendom.
If a lost woman is converted, then yes, her life had better
start changing. The redeemed mind bears fruit. And indeed if she sits under and
submits to the Word, the Holy Spirit will begin to sanctify and transform her
life. As a believer she is regenerate but she's also being regenerated (or sanctified) and thus we as Christians are
called to be distinct from the world, we are held to a different and much
higher standard. Our obedience isn't meritorious and in fact it's flawed in
every way and yet it demonstrates the work of the Spirit and our Spirit-wrought
perseverance exhibits trust and obedience which are the hallmarks of saving
faith. If you doubt that, read Hebrews 11 a little more carefully.
Old Testament Israel was bound to a different ethical
framework than their lost neighbours. The neighbours were outside the covenant
and they needed to repent and become Jews. Today, we don't have to become Jews
and follow the Levitical system. And yet, the New Testament is unambiguous,
insisting we are called to be separate from the world. We are held to a
different morality and there is never any suggestion that we are to exercise
dominion over culture and compel the lost to obey the ethics of the New
Covenant. Again not only do such efforts result in a degraded redefinition of
the Covenant but of Christianity itself.
Lost women need to repent and follow Christ. Then the New
Testament will help them see that they need to abandon the world's definitions
of femininity, womanhood, success, normality and the like.
The transformation of Romans 12 will only make sense to those
who are regenerate. When speaking of regeneration, I'm not speaking of sham
Altar Call Decisionalism or some kind of dramatic emotional experience. It can
be an emotional experience for some. It was for me, but again, it will only
have viable meaning if it continues to be worked out in one's life.
Evangelicalism is rooted in a rejection of New Testament
antithesis with the world. It has confused nation and culture with the Kingdom
of God and thus effectively undermines and even negates large swathes of New
Testament teaching and ethics.