John Calvin and Misogyny

It's time to examine some rotten roots

Earlier this year, I joined an online conversation on a pretty influential Christian leader’s page. His name is Denny Burk, and he’s the President of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The topic was feminism and how it’s supposedly been toxic from inception.

This is not as fringe a belief as it might seem. It’s been growing in popularity in certain sectors of the church for years, with several prominent leaders even condemning women’s right to vote as rebellion against created order.

In the conversation, I tried to respectfully invite some meaningful dialogue about why I thought true feminism is actually pretty necessary, and though I ultimately remained civil throughout the discussion, my comments were ultimately censored by Mr. Burke who informed me that they were “too accusatory.”

Throughout the thread, one man posted a series of quotes from first wave feminists to prove how unbiblical their positions were and how poisonous feminism has been from the start. I asked this man no fewer than five times if he thought women should have the right to vote. He refused to answer.

So I continued to push.

I argued that if we are going to sift through the writings of early feminists and scrutinize them with a fine tooth comb, looking for evidence of their unbiblical ideations, perhaps we should apply the same treatment to the early church fathers whose teachings shaped and informed these women’s experiences of the church. After all, the biblical standards for the conduct of church leaders is higher than it is, for everyone else, right?

Where is God’s heart for his daughters in the following statements?

“Men should not sit and listen to a woman . . . even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since it came from the mouth of a woman.”- Origen, Fragments on 1 Corinthians

“Woman is a temple built over a sewer.”- Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum

“Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned the role of helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God.” -Augstine, On the Trinity, Book XII

“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of women comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence.” -Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

“Woman should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children."“ and "If a woman grows weary and, at last, dies from child bearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing; she is there to do it." Martin Luther

“On this account, all women are born than they may acknowledge themselves as inferiot in consequence to the superiority of the male sex.” John Calvin, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 

I don't believe in cancel culture, in discarding the entirety of a person's contributions to the world on account of the worst things they ever said or did- unless you’re literally Hitler. Some people are fully reprobate.

Still, though- name any great and influential person throughout history, apart from Jesus, and if you dig hard enough, you're sure to find dirt that will discredit them: King David, Samson, even Dr. King.

That said, the Bible does not give any of its heroes a free pass on their wickedness, and neither should we. It tells the good and the bad without justifying the bad so that we can learn and grow from the mistakes of the people who came before us.

Unconfronted sin festers, grows, and, sometimes, gets passed down through the generations as orthodoxy.

As I spend the majority of my professional life advocating for broken women, I am routinely heartbroken by the misogynistic attitudes that drive so many of them from the church. It occurs to me that every word out of Beth Moore's mouth is nitpicked to the nth degree by men eager to discard her as a false prophet at the first hint of errant theology.

But I never seem to see those same men taking a fraction of that emotional energy and applying it to the heavyweights they revere. These are objectively errant, vicious statements. How might they have influenced the shaping of church doctrine? How might these attitudes still be present today? What do you think this kind of thinking teaches women about their worth in God's eyes? Do you really think this kind of chauvinism has no bearing when it comes to the creation of ideology like the feminism so much of the church loves to rail against?

Repentance is needed, but the invitation to a ministry of reconciliation is too quickly spit out as proof of Marxism or SJW infiltration of the church. A callous spirit of control, contempt, and damnable pride too often eclipses the biblical obligation to bind wounds.

Maybe instead of taking pot shots at feminism, the “biblical manhood and womanhood” crew could begin by examining the heretical views passed down in their own camp and embraced in their own thinking. I think it would be a heckuva lot more fruitful in the big picture.

Censoring those of us with the audacity to name the problem won’t make the problem go away.