Guest Blogger: GridBlog for International Women’s Day
let’s put our hands together and welcome guest blogger Jim Henderson of Off The Map as he adds his thoughts to the Women’s Day blogfest…
If Men Were Mothers
If men had to endure (even one time) what their mothers went through to bring them into the world (a.k.a. give birth) Mothers Day would have been declared a national holiday 100 years ago. Bands would march, politicians would attend and the men/moms would be feted beyond recognition and the children’s birthdays would be about the moms not the kids. Kids would ritually remember to thank their men/moms for the pain they went through to bring them into the world.
The world is mostly screwed up because men run it. We are about power, competition and winning. We don’t like to process stuff and our feelings get hurt very easily but we have learned to repress and pay back those who mess with us. Because we have never had a baby pass through our body and into the world life isn’t as valuable to us as it is to women. I propose that we ask women to lead for the next few hundred years and see if they end up as screwed up as we are. I don’t think it could get any worse and am pretty sure more people would be alive in the end than if men were running the world (into the ground).
I’m pretty sure God must be a woman. Women are more patient, kinder and for the most part more authentic human beings than men are. Maybe he/she is androgynous and doesn’t care about sex- which would certainly make he/she more woman than man.
I love Jesus and he seemed to like and respect women. They felt safe and honored by him to be sure and there didn’t seem to be any Pharisee- girls in the Jesus story.
When young inexperienced Christian leaders like Mark Driscoll expose their frustration by being publicly overt about controlling women it will always be proved to be about personal insecurity. All of his minimizing “what he really means” not with standing – In the public market place of ideas if you live by the sword you die by it.
Now hold on a minute. I hate to crash your little fantasy, but you haven’t spent much time at a women’s college have you?
I grew up on and in later years worked on the campus of a womans university as the child of a woman professor who taught only women and worked with very few men at a women’s college. I have seen what it is like when women run the show. Its exactly the same as the co-ed predominately male run university I attended and worked at. I have seen women professors and administrators be just as powerhungry, competitive, nasty and victory oriented as men. Not to mention the vitriol that can come from the women students towards a professor they don’t like. I can tell you that women are just as capable of issueing a death threat over getting failed in a class as a man. Thats why my mom got an answering machine back when they first came out.
Does this mean that men should just run the show as it has been run because nothing will change? NO. Power corrupts, no matter who holds it because we are not God. We are all sinners and we all, male and female, fall short of the glory of God. The world is screwed up because people are screwed up. The only way out of the pain and suffering that we experience as human beings is through Jesus.
That is the teaching of Driscoll and Mars Hill.
As an aside:
So 10 years in the trenches as a pastor who loves Jesus, preaches Jesus and only really ever talks about Jesus is considered inexperienced? What are the criteria for being considered experienced?
Yes - 10 years is still inexperienced
I think you are young and male and so won’t get my point of view
What you are saying about women being capable of screwing up is more than obvious- the only problem is that you are a white young male who is saying it - you are accustomed to being in power and obviously don’t want to lose it -
Of course we are all sinners and want to escape reality - that is not the issue
One- you assume I am white
Two- you assume I am young
Three- You are making moral judgements about someone that you do not know. Thats twice in the same day. This seems to be a bad habit you picked up somewhere.
I am the most powerless guy on the planet. Everything I have came from Christ and he will give it and take it away as needed. I have no problem loosing power, cause I am here as a servant.
Now, that we have that settled, I need to ask you to not be a weazel-jackass and squirm out of the argument that you started. That’s what weak men that hurt and take advantage of women do. Put your roofies away and stick to your guns, don’t say the point you made this morning is not the issue. You are slandering my church and at least 1000 god loving christians and I won’t hear of it.
No, I think the issue WAS as you said that establishing a matriarchy for 100 years would make a better world, and I called you on your BS. In response you call me young and white and ignore the fact that my personal experience flys directly in the face of what you said. So if establishing a matriarchy to illustrate that the pain of the world in general and women in specific is the result of men being in power is not the issue of your post, what was it?
Jim,
Thanks for being willing to take one for the team. I’m not sure I agree with you on everything, but I do think that letting power rest in the hands of one gender over another (one race over another, etc.) is not a good idea.
As for you, Aaron, mind your manners. Your attitude and willingness to resort to sarcasm and name-calling makes your arguments moot. Not cool to attack someone so vehemently on their blog.
You are right Phyllis. I think I took Jim’s flippant and dismissive response to my response a little too personally as I was opening up about where I came from and my perspective. I really can’t be mad at him for somthing that is probably the result of the impersonal nature of the internet. I did not really come here to be liked or cool. I won’t apologise for my sarcasm. Its a valid rhetorical device used even by the apostles and the greatest of orators, Cicero. And I am sure Jim can take it. But I will apologise for the name calling and insinuating things about Jim, after all I don’t know him, and for all I know he could have been having a bad day.
Jim, I hope you accept my apology. I can get a little gung-ho somtimes, especially when I feel that someone guts me after I open up. I see your point about women having differnt natures than men and I agree that the good side of that nature needs celebration. And in a way I do agree that the problems of the world are the fault of men. Because since the begining we as men have collectively shirked our responsibility. Both men and women are image bearers of God and I think that means we all can share his strength . Its just different sides of the same cross. In the end only Jesus is the answer.
jim,
are we having fun yet?
i love you. thanks for releasing power and control so i can stand in my own power and open doors for other women.
thanks for always being willing to learn from this young upstart and thanks for teaching me things from another perspective and generation.
you’re not a jackass…you’re my brother.
love,
rachelle
Aaron
You are a good person- I appreciate your passion.
I mean what I say but I simply don’t have time to explain
I am taking advantage of my relationship with Rachelle
Just to be clear - it is highly unlikely that either of us would change much due to a elongated conversation
If you really want some fun check out www.otmatheist.com