“Everything came to a head in my mid-twenties,” she was saying. “So that’s when I finally got out.” She balanced her child on her knee as she spoke. “I want to help others get out.”
I was having tea with a daughter of patriarchy.
She told me one story after another, about her own life and the lives of others, about control and domination and refusal to allow independent thinking and for some, eventual escapes.
“So of all the ones you know who got out,” I asked, “how many are still following Christ?”
My new friend paused, figuring. “I guess three out of about thirty that I know for sure.”
Three out of thirty. Ten percent were still following Jesus.
She was one of that ten percent. She was one of the small minority who had left this system but still looked for freedom and hope and truth in the Christ who is shown in the Scriptures and through the Spirit.
I thought about the young people the parents of patriarchy used to be, when we all sat in homeschool conventions together in the 1980s and 1990s, the air crackling with the energy of hope and optimism that we would raise up a godly generation.
The homeschool conventions I attended got to be very large, with a wide range of choices for curriculum ideas.
What had happened in those intervening years? How had so many of them gone so far astray as to think oppression, manipulation, threats, and control were part of the right way to raise their children, especially their daughters, in godliness?
“My father told me so often that God works through men to reveal his will for women. My parents nailed me with it before I left home: ‘You can’t know God’s will without a father or husband. Women are too easily deceived. They cannot trust their own hearts.’ ”
I don’t mean to be saying that oppression, manipulation, threats, and control this extreme are present in every patriarchal family. . . . But it’s been the case in the majority of the ones I’ve heard about.
But the root problem . . . the root problem isn’t that oppression.
***
PART TWO is here: “To those in ‘Biblical’ Patriarchy: return to God”
***
Go here to download your free Guide, How to Enjoy the Bible Again (when you’re ready) After Spiritual Abuse (without feeling guilty or getting triggered out of your mind). You’ll receive access to both print and audio versions of the Guide (audio read by me). I’m praying it will be helpful.
As always, this is very good, Rebecca.
Quote: Women are too easily deceived.
If (IF!!) we are too easily deceived, it is because we have been indoctrinated by a cult-like group, that it’s ok for the patriarchy to control us. It’s idolatry. That’s where the deceit is.
But now we know better.
Annie, as a man I have always had difficulty with the notion that the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden was an act of high-handed rebellion and that somehow women are to blame for it all, either as temptresses or as complete airheads.
Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 120-203 A.D.) thought otherwise. As he saw it, in the encounter with the serpent Eve came off looking much better than Adam. She, at least, attempted to put up a defense but was dealt with perfidiously by the serpent. Adam, on the other hand, who was right there at Eve’s side at the time, took of the fruit and ate without thought or question.
Finally, Annie, please be assured that many men are fully in your corner in this and related matters.
I laughed out loud at “complete airheads.” Yes, there are plenty of “Christian” leaders who think of women as either airheads or feminists, without space for much in between.
Also, I love the word “perfidious.” And thank you so much for your support of abuse survivors!
The part about “if you think your idols are helping you get to the real God, they are still idols. After all that’s what all idols are” had a big impact on me as I thought about the golden calf. I remember being told that the calf was just a way of worshipping the true God.
You also pointed out the “obey God not men” and that when they clash – God is what rules – is so central to everything – and challenging.
It made me think of the young people who say “I don’t do xyz because my father/parents wouldn’t let me or don’t believe in that,” “I couldn’t be in a courtship with him/her because my parents aren’t reformed and it makes them furious.” I’ve heard that from young (homeschooled ) men – that they can’t go to college or get a job – or that they are forced to go to college or work for their parents – or that their relationship with their parents fell apart when they left their parents’ church or ate pork – or believed in non-charismatic ways or non-reformed ways or wanted to date/marry a girl who is not “Jewish minded” or ?
These are young adults whose parents have determined what their kids can/can’t do in secondary areas and then hold out their blessing, financial support and relationship with their child as blackmail to make their child do what they want.
That is emotional manipulation at best and emotional abuse in worse cases.
The thing is that by this point for most of these young adults, especially the girls, it’s not that difficult to get their compliance because the kids are trained by now not to think for themselves or to have desires – so they say “I want to do courtship,” “I want to be a stay at home daughter,” “I want to become an engineer/farmer like my dad,” etc because it is so ingrained that that is their openly choice and they wouldn’t dare cross their parents or even have different desires. In abuse/oppression you don’t have your own desires or thinking.
The kids that end up with their own ideas have been exposed to things outside the family (not isolated). It’s no wonder the diehards keep their kids from those experiences, it does spoil their plan. But for the kids it adds to the damage that is done. Their parents are their only world and that isolation and brainwashing is abuse.
Many diehard homeschool families don’t go to church because their kids get exposed to “wrong” ideas there. So they live in the wilderness and do church alone or with a couple other families (really) that they eventually have a falling out with. These patriarchal dads can’t find anyone identical to them that’s safe for their kids to play with. They can’t be friends with someone who reads Narnia books or anything except missionary biographies or watches modern movies or if their daughters wear pants etc. It’s so hard not to offend them when inviting a family over, because it’s not okay to be different. The kids are raised to view others in this self-righteous judgmental way.
Yes, I know someone who lived in the wilderness and did church alone for several years.
I made so many mistakes along these lines myself personally, with my independent Baptist background. I was always so analytical and studying the Scriptures, re-thinking so much in the way of doctrine, but when it came to outward appearance it was really hard to shed the rules, and my children paid a price for that. But one thing I was determined to do, and Tim too, and that was get them out of the house when they became adults, get them out from under us. I wanted so much to not be holding them by the shoulders as they matured as adults, and I was afraid I was going to do that if they stayed at home. (Tim wasn’t in any danger of doing that, only me, lol!)
Wow!
“Many diehard homeschool families don’t go to church because their kids get exposed to “wrong” ideas there. So they live in the wilderness and do church alone”
This was my family. Interesting to know other diehards did the same.
My father started following the patriarchy movement and eventually pulled us out of church and we did ‘home church’ in our rural town. He said he was the pastor since he was the leader of his family. I come from a large family and he also didn’t believe that we needed to have too many friends, that our siblings should be our friends.
“It’s so hard not to offend them when inviting a family over, because it’s not okay to be different.”
This too. After finally breaking free from my father’s tyrannical system, we had a huge falling out where we don’t even talk until this day. I received an email from him that I am not permitted to talk to my siblings without his consent because I don’t agree with my family. Besides throwing his family away, he also threw away friends for not agreeing with him too.
The patriarchy movement is destructive. Period. It has been years of sorting for me between what is truth and what are unbiblical teachings that just keep people in bondage.
continued . . .
There is no love for others, no freedom and no love within the family, just control. I guess it comes from that fear that we will lose our kids from our own specific ideas and that it will be a slippery slope that will lead them from God altogether. Maybe it’s even a deeper unspoken fear of them rejecting us as parents by not being just like us and that others would see that and think that we are bad parents and we would lose our peers and reputation in that cult or that our kids wouldn’t like us if they think differently about music or clothing etc., that it is a rejection of us.
I think that the doctrine of obeying earthly authorities is way overemphasized. It is true but not balanced. My kids at church heard it in every kids’ meeting (“disobey your parents only if they ask you to sin – like rob a bank”). The focus is the parents, not God, and it is said to parents “you are God to your children.” Like John Piper recently said in a blog post, and that is said to the kids too. Your parents are God to you until you are old enough – like 30 years old? Or ever?
I think the deeper reason behind why parents isolate is not trusting God to work in our kids’ lives, which goes back to the parents’ own faith and living that out, as parents, when the stakes in life feel higher. But parents have to model true faith and trust in God, even in their parenting–or especially in their parenting–if they want their children to have true faith and trust in God. The reason their kids leave the faith is the hypocrisy of their parents.
I am just at a place where I am examining everything.
Your article is thought provoking! And I pray that it is for others as well!
For me, there were issues from my own past that I hadn’t worked through. I had fears that I wasn’t aware of in the least. Ugh. I’m guessing this might be the problem with a number of people in patriarchy–if I had joined it the way I wanted to, it would have added those extra layers to the fundamentalist legalism that I was already practicing without really understanding what I was doing. Ultimately, a robust understanding of the New Covenant and what Christ has actually accomplished for us and who we are in Christ is the answer to all of these confusions.
So looking forward to Part 2! Another aspect of patriarchy is the man’s desire to control which is of course ultimately removing Jesus Christ from the throne. Some patriarchy followers may genuinely believe what they believe because they think it’s what God wants, but I think for many (or most) it’s the deep desire, whether conscious or subconscious, to control.
Oh, and as I was cleaning out my attic the other day I came across two Vision Forum patriarchy DVD’s my mother gave me: ‘The Return of the Daughters’ and ‘What is Femininity?’. Of course, I wasn’t thrilled to receive them as gifts years ago, but watched them and well, if you feel like getting mad, you should definitely watch them! ‘The Return of the Daughters’ was about daughters returning from their “selfish” snd “feministic” ways, such as attending college, so that they could work for their fathers (until they were married off to someone their fathers approved of). I think it was the Botkin girls that went as far as making sure to wear clothing in their father’s favorite colors to please him…as if he was their husband!
Yes, the idolatry of the man and the man wanting to be treated as god has seemed to some like the most basic problem, but the first problem is *leaving* the true God.
I think that these things can start out as wanting to do what God wants. For me, when I gave my husband the very first issue of Patriarch magazine and asked if we could subscribe and be part of this big thing, my hope was to learn to be a good submissive wife. (I didn’t want to become like some controlling women I had known.) At the base, though, as I said in another comment, were fears and other yucky issues that I didn’t recognize and hadn’t dealt with at all. So over time those things can morph more and more in a bad direction.
Yes, I’d be very interested to watch “Return of the Daughters” and “What is Femininity?” I never have watched them and feel like my education is incomplete. 🙂
You are right because in order to want to be in control of everything, you have to leave God first.
Does Patriarch magazine still exist? I would probably would find a lot of triggering/angering things in there, but it would be interesting to read as well.
I think many join movements such as these for a reason such as yours: to become a submissive wife, or a godly leader, etc. So many people are searching hard to find the *it* movement/religion/answers, thinking they will be given the right answers to be the person they’re supposed to be. I think it’s much more simple than people are making it
though; all of those answers are right in the Bible and followers and leaders are making it much more complicated than it really is!
Here’s info about Patriarch magazine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_(magazine)
And yes, I agree. My own journey of understanding of the freedom and joy and focused energy that’s available in Christ has been a long road with a lot of untwisting that needed to be done, but it’s been worth it to find the beautiful simplicity that is in Jesus Christ alone!
Just this year I have realized how much patriarchy stuff I had been exposed to and assimilated. Even though I only had a peripheral association with such thing the crud did seep in a mess with me and my views about family, marriage and even God.
Keep up the good writing work about exposing this kind of crud
I’m so sorry, and I pray that your healing and freedom will be speedy. A similar thing happened to me, I’m sorry to say, though my influence was from a different “stream,” independent Baptist. I didn’t understand how much I had assimilated and continued to hold on to, primarily because of fear of man.
WOW. Thank you so, so much for writing this.
Thank you for your comment, Eleanor. I think of you often and hope you’re doing well.
Well aren’t you a breath of fresh air.
While I was not saddled with Patriarchy growing up, my experience at church was horrifying . That is another subject altogether.
I did get drawn into homeschooling in Canada. From what I can recall in those mid 90’s, was the appeal of wholesomeness. They made it look Godly. They made it look superior to public or Christian schooling.
What I found interesting was that as soon as you made that decision to home school all of a sudden we were apart of an elite group. All of a sudden it made us better parents. It made us more spiritual parents. All of this was hidden in idealism. Hidden in hope. Hidden in faith.
As I look back I can almost feel the air of arrogant pride creeping in my thoughts.I valued my children so much I was not going to allow their heads to be filled up with worldly ideas, notions.etc.
My kids would be wholesome , godly. I had control of my kids, not the school system.
One of the very first conferences we went to was put on by Gregg Harris. He made it sound so good. We bought his season of life cassette tape series.
Patriarchy really wasn’t a “thing” back then in Canada.
I cannot fully recollect what curriculum ushered it in but, I do recall words like “Classical Education”
or Vision Forums stuff. Abeka. MathUSee stuff like that. Train up a Child, Honey for your Childs Heart…..and junk like that.
I find all the literature, teaching, and the endorsing of programs much like a used car salesman. The product he pitches is new,shiny, it will surely give you safe, secure, ride that will pave your way to success as you drive off into the sunset.
Homeschooling appeared to be a Godly approach but it was a trap for those people to get caught up into a movement which then branched out to so many different teachings . It actually bred a whole new era of rogue wanna be preachers/teachers/ and who knows who else to influence parents far more negatively than any public school.
To be honest I hated school passionately as a kid. And when my kids were school age I hated it equally as much. So my plan was to make learning fun. All I was interested in was fun.
Thank goodness for that!!!! I think I saved my kids and family from so much heartache and sorrow.
Homeschooling didn’t last long. We moved excessively. My kids were at home for portions of time.Some time was spent at Catholic Schools…which was a fantastic experience or just plain old public school.
Each of my children spent at least 4 years each at home for various reasons. But all ended school in high school and graduated.
I think part of the problem with Patriarchy is the misunderstanding of the Old Covenant vs the New Covenant and our understanding that we are New Covenant Christians and what does that really mean?
It became easy with the onslaught on these rogue teachers to become deceived into things. Instead of reading scripture, allowing the HS to speak to us we allowed other deceptive teaching in our lives to lead us astray. We took their word for it. We let others be our watchman. We took their interpretation of scripture and put it above the Bible.
It still is happening in all walks of Christianity. There is always a new Jesus, and a new Christ,a new phenomena. People getting carried away by every wind of doctrine.
The funny thing is this wayward doctrine has never really changed. The tactics of Satan are the same, his usage of twisting scripture is the same.
Patriarchy was the mainstay of the Roman Empire. People creating their own doctrines and bringing them into the church.
I kind of laugh and my husband thinks I am too extreme, but in my personal belief system I really think this “quiverfull’ movement is nothing more than another form of worshiping fertility. People through out the ages have worshiped fertility goddesses.
Why not become your own fertility Goddess? Why not worship the womb? It’s worshiping the created rather than the creator.
“Blessings” have become nothing more than the fruit of this idolatry . Anyhow those are my own thoughts .”Purity” has become another form of Idolatry.
And in patriarchy sex has become another god. I won’t go down that path of thinking on here but in my mind it is nothing more than sexual perversion you would have found in Rome. Just wrapped up neat and tidy in a “Godly” marriage.
Thanks for letting me ramble on…..and thank you for posting. I had spent the day trying to unravel a prominent bloggers theology, and her ungodly way of dealing with people who didn’t fall in line with her thinking. It is heartbreaking , sad, grievous , and frustrating. So finding this here was quite refreshing.
I have such happy memories about homeschooling. (I retired from 24 years of it in January of 2015.) Yes, there were tears for sure, but overall my memories are truly happy ones. My children, all adults now, say they wish some things had been different, but I think they understand that no parent is going to do child-raising perfectly. I think that among the four of them, they have mostly happy memories too.
I remember Gregg Harris’s Seasons of Life seminar—I borrowed it from a friend when I was in my mid-thirties and listened to it while I cleaned up the kitchen in the evenings. I found it really helpful, since I wanted to “do it all” and all at once, but I had (for some reason) never really thought about the timeline of life. The season I’m in now, that of mentoring, became one I was willing to wait for because of that seminar.
Your thoughts about the fertility cult are intriguing. It’s a sure thing that their desire to increase exponentially mimics the Muslims in a fleshly attempt to take over the world for Christianity by brute force, which I talk about on this post: https://heresthejoy.com/2013/12/for-shame-beautiful-botkins/ I remember hearing a fellow homeschooler saying that wanting to have more children was a “godly desire.” I recoiled, thinking “That might be a godly desire, but it might not be. It might be a desire born of peer pressure or pride.”
You said, “I think part of the problem with Patriarchy is the misunderstanding of the Old Covenant vs the New Covenant and our understanding that we are New Covenant Christians and what does that really mean?” I believe you nailed it here. I talk quite a lot about our New Covenant identity on this blog—that’s even one of my Categories—and I believe many of those in Patriarchy have no real understanding of the difference.
young lady, don’t you think patriarchy is the biblical teaching? What do you do when you find this in your bible, do have rip out those pages? I would,.
No I don’t think any teaching is Biblical that puts anything at the center of anyone’s life other than Jesus Christ. And thanks for calling me young. 🙂
Patriarchy has to be sewn into scripture except where it is mentioned as part of the old testament culture. There is no patriarchy in the new covenant.
patriarchy, like camels, deserts, togas, roman rule, are part of the backdrop (history) of the bible, not the point of it. –just like slaverym, rape and murder are in the bible it does not mean that is what god wants us to do or act like.
I wish we wouldn’t let the world steal the word patriarch. The Bible always uses it in a positive sense, so using it to mean something other than the fathers of the faith, especially using it negatively, is problematic for receiving sound doctrine from scripture. I fully agree with you about what you’re arguing against. I just wish we wouldn’t join the world in calling it patriarchy.
But it was the people who started the movement themselves who called it patriarchy. I didn’t intend to be joining “the world” (not sure how you’re defining that, tbh) in calling it patriarchy, but trying to use the name they gave themselves. “The world” didn’t steal it, unless you’re calling the group themselves “the world.”
“Patriarch” as a biblical term to name people like David and Abraham is legitimate–as I recall, they were the only ones called patriarchs, and that was one or two thousand years after they lived, so by that time they had earned titles of distinction. These people have not.
Wow. I never cease to be surprised at fundamentalists (and I was raised as one!). I’ve only heard it used disparagingly in recent years. I was confused by it about 10 years ago when I was in a certain BJU related forum of which Camille Lewis was sort of the den mother. She was slamming “the patriarchy” and I was like, what, you don’t like Abraham? lol
Christian patriarchy as a movement, or as it’s sometimes called “Biblical patriarchy,” started only in 1991, so that could be why you missed it, especially if you were in a different stream of fundamentalism. The patriarchy stream believes very strongly in homeschooling, so if you went to public school or Christian school you wouldn’t have heard much about it. They also tend in general to be Reformed rather than IFB (which focused more on Christian schools), so that would be another distinction. Different streams.
it actually goes back a little further to the late 70s-early 80s under the teaching of bill gothard -IBLP- where he outlined in detail how women should act/live/be under their husband’s rule, etc, though it was not called that.
Thank you for helping me to more fully understand the inner workings and roots of Patriarchal Christianity. The Lord has chiseled out (painfully in most cases) a recognition that Patriarchal Christianity is rampant and actively seeking the “little ones to deceive”! Having been involved with numerous narcissistic people (including a father, brother, sister & a handful of men in supposed Christian relationships), The Lord has taught me so many things and brought me to a number of epiphanies. My epiphany of late has illuminated the “marriage” of narcissists and the Patriarchal based church. The circular critical swirling of a narcissist seeking power & finding it beautifully cemented & encouraged in patriarchal Christianity is a match made in hell. Patriarchal Christianity feeds narcissism by affirming the self (male) superiority & self absorption. This is all predicated on and fed by the “pathetic, feeble & disobedient” women that God wants the man to “Wash with the (man’s interpretation of) the Word”! (And the feeble, weak and sinful women fit perfectly into his actual narcissistic hatred of women!)
And when he runs into a halfway intelligent woman, that actually knows scripture…he puts on his Sunday Best portrayal of a loving Christian man seeking to “attain” the kind of woman he deserves! All is well UNTIL, her faith, knowledge of The Word (in its entirety) and understanding of narcissism with a well-honed radar for lies & distortion combine to hold a pretty convincing mirror up to them, showing them who they really are.
BAM! When the truth would normally “set a believer free”, for the Narc, the gloves come off as they try to climb atop their superior precipice again by hurling every “Jezebel”, “Harlot”, “Disobedient” term at you like a salad shooter, only stopping to put on the “Christ-like mask”, spewing vapid compliments to distract and glean absolution……. while he reloads for round two, three, four….
It is so clearly a replacement of God and I applaud all you do to enlighten the lost and dissuade the perpetrators!
Thank you for these thoughts, Andrea. I’m so sorry for what you’ve endured, but thankful for the clarity the Lord has given you.
And don’t forget the accusation of “feminist.” That’s always right in there too.
A number of years ago our church motto was “committed to Godly families,” which kind of bothered me for the reasons you stated. Thankfully our Pastor changed it to “committed to Christ.” I think he saw that as important Godly families are, they are not what we should worship and make the center of our lives. He said if we make Christ the center then we will be committed to Godly families and love them as we should.
YES!
Speaking as a man, I find that my back spontaneously ‘goes up’ when I encounter those people (usually men) with very strong views on ‘women’s submission.’
Indeed, many years ago I heard a pastor compare the husband/wife relationship to a mother (God) with two sons in the military. One son was a general (husband), the other was a private (wife). The pastor emphasized that though the mother loved both sons equally, there was a definite chain of command in the here and now.
In other words, the relationship between husband and wife is analogous to that of a general to a private. Needless to say, that church did not become my spiritual home.
This website appears to be aimed primarily at a female audience, but please remember that most men (and there is an exception to the rule here) are fully in your corner in the issues discussed here.
I once heard a female lawyer express her very strong opinion that most men are outraged at the thought of violence against a woman, and this is especially true in the case of sexual violence.
Why so many evangelical men are the exception to the rule here is a complete mystery to me.
Thank you for your comment, Mark. I do have mostly a female audience, but that’s for a couple of reasons (at least): For one thing, more women than men experience abuse, so as a general rule they are more aware of it and often more passionate about it. Also, more women than men are inclined to be willing to listen to a woman who is teaching, especially in the world that is my “mission field,” fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and those who have been harmed by those who claim that title.
You said “most men . . . are fully in your corner in the issues discussed here.” I hope you’re right, but I haven’t seen that to be true. Several men are faithful supporters of my work, but they are definitely in the minority. Especially when it comes to husbands who support their wives who are suffering the effects of childhood sexual abuse, they are quite rare. I wish it weren’t so.
i am so sorry about patriarchy causing those women to become atheist—the proof that patriarchy is not god’s will should be evident in that there are so many rules for women to follow and the types of rules and how they are to be followed and the serverity of punishment for wives who disobey vary from group to group….and now the groups that allow for a “disobedient” wife to be spanked because god “spanked” israel when they went astray (actually god did much much more than spank israel) . but if these are truly christians and the message is that christ took our sins upon himself, then it follows that the husband should spank himself for his wife’s disobedience not her …..but in treality, there is no such thing as a disobedient wife. disobedient children yes, but not wives. —it is a good thing many are waking up to the reality of god’s truth and how we must reach out to those women who have been emotiionally abused into not wanting to have anything to do with god.
and yet those who really need to hear this, those who still believe patriachy is god’s design will never see this. if they do , their husbands might have to spank them. and that alone is why i have labeled patriarchy as not of God. there is no end to the rules that come out of it, most aimed at how women should act. and now domestic discipline has crept into the church as god’s will. tragic beyond compare.
Under patriarchal or complementarian teaching a loving christian man will continue to be a loving christian man towards wife family and others.
Under patriarchal or complementarian teachings an abusive man uses scripture to justify his abuse towards wife, family and others.
Under egalitarian or mutual teachings a loving christian man will continue to be a loving christian man towards wife family and others.
Under egalitarian or mutual teachings an abusive man has no excuses ! The door that justifies his abuse towards wife family and others is SHUT!
This blog post was edited into a chapter of Untwisting Scriptures #2, Patriarchy and Authority. Many have seen it there and they say the Lord has used it to help them find freedom.