This is driven by a couple of posts by Morticia and SSM. There are some caveats that need to be expressed:
- We are all fallen and evil. None of us is perfect. So all this has to be taken as an attempt to describe how churchly women ar.
- The image is not the reality. BF said this best in the comments: “I went to a Catholic School. The biggest slutty headcases weren’t the delinquents cutting class and smoking in the parking lot – they were the “good girls” going on mission trips and leading prayer groups and food drives.”
- We need to therefore look at actions, not words. We are told to judge each other by the fruit in our lives — do we cause good or ill to happen?
And I need to make it clear that I am not here talking about the pathologically disturbed. That is a completely separate tutorial. So let’s consider these people in order of perceived holiness.
The pre-redeemed. She may call herself a Christian atheist or a Christian pagan. She generally wants an egalitarian relationship, cannot see any reason to restrict her sexuality… but often she lives a quite modest life, doing good, creating art, helping others. She does not see herself has holy or righteous, but as human. Reads the Guardian, has greenpeace stickers, has been vegan or thought about being so. Lives in the choir or the orchestra: attends liberal churches that have good art programmes and choirs.
The evil girl. This woman does not see that she rejoices in evil, but that bad things happen to her and they are not really her fauilt. She’s hurting, and that emotion needs to be shared. This self lie — that others are as bad or worse and what she does is OK — means that she can imitate people who are good. In fact, she can look remarkably good, sane, and desirable. However, the main weapon she uses is not her creativity but her sexuality: she can and will go from despair (generally relating to a lack of success in a plan) to predatory within 12 hours. For her, women are the enemy because they compete with her for her pray. Within the church she dresses better than her secular compatriot, and can imitate the other women, but she cannot hide the bodies she has left behind.
The Average Christian Girl. To quote Morticia
ASG wants good things for herself and good things for others. She will choose (perceived) good things for herself over good things for others if one must be done at the expense of the other, but if she can help it she tries to do things that are good for herself and others. When she does act selfishly, she usually feels an inkling of guilt..though will probably rationalize it away.
This woman makes up the bulk of the Churchian population. She does believe that she is special, a child of the King, and she will be redeemed. She follows the same feminist paths as her pre-redeemed sister. But she pays more attention to the people around her. But she will not move towards radical obedience.
The Radical Christian Girl. This girl takes the Bible seriously. She will submit to her husband, because that is what the bible says. She frets about wearing head dresses and part of her frets about being pure. She often needs considerable guidance from older sisters to allow herself to not be guilty about her emotions and desires. If Catholic, she has memorized the lectionary: if Protestant, she is involved in those mission trips and prayer groups without a second motive. The most common type of this woman was raised in the Church, is fervent in her faith, has been protected by her father then husband, and finds any discussion about divorce, cruelty or politics within the church distressing.
Most women move between being average and radical. Most women would like to be more obedient and submissive — but they slide into the ways of the world, which have now been feminist based for two generations. What many Christian girls were like two generations ago, before the feminist consensus, but now a vanishing breed, unlike the last group.
The SuperRedeemedGirl. She is a born again saint. She is either an actual virgin or has not had intercourse for so long she might as well be one (married or single). She looks down her nose at everyone. She considers radical girls of doubtful value and all others as slatterns. She generally causes pain and is hurt if you mention it because controlling others is what she should do, since she is so superior.
She demands to be on a pedestal. Her priest goes and hides at the local pentecostal pastors place when he knows she will visit (and the pentecostal, on hearing her name, opens his booze cabinet). She knows more about God than God. Almost every man, in her opinion, is unworthy. And Christ is female.
I hate to say this. Ladies, but this is not taught to men — even though this is obvious, obvious to women. BF describes what she was taught well... (and she is quite right to have ignored this)
Christians usually offered the most unhelpful advice.
I’m pretty sure I’ve done the exact opposite of everything most Christians have advised me to do.
I married my husband [I can count on my two hands the number of Christians who supported my engagement]. I waited until marriage [ditto]. I’m having a baby [instead of waiting until I graduate college to get pregnant].
…I think Christians just like to use Jesus to legitimize their own sh!tty advice. It sounds classier than “I saw it on Oprah…” or “I read it in Cosmopolitan”.
Deti took Morticia’s comment and made a fairly correct comment about what men are taught:
Here is the difference between a an overtly evil girl (OVG) and your average selfish girl (ASG). You know, Mort, that’s actually not a bad explanation. Too bad it comes 30 odd years too late for many of the men here. that would have been nice info to have as a junior high schooler.
Here’s what young boys and young men are told: There are very, very few OVGs. They really exist only on daytime and evening soaps; and only on the cheerleading squad. There are very few ASGs too. These are the dumb and stupid girls, and you won’t be around them. Any girl who has two parents living at home is an RG. Any girl who belongs to a church or has been to a church in the past 10 years is an RG.
The old tells do not work. There have always been evil men in the church, and men who women find unattractive. However, if we teach this, we will offend the pre-redeemed, the evil girl, and the super-redeemed girl. The minority (who are generally bullied by the others) of women would be silent, and in the functionally congregational system most churches work on the person saying this would be outvoted.
But I’m not a pastor, I’m a blogger.
.
