BD #1 - Women Are The More "Spiritual" Sex

As part of my blog posting hiatus, I did a handful of blog comments. It turns out that I developed part of a post I intended in responding to this post, entitled Why Are Women Better Christians than Men?.

Garage Sale Blog Bait.

In attending a garage sale, I happened to see a book by Dr. James Dobson entitled “Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives”. The price was right (15 cents) and the opportunity to parse a number of statements representative of the founder of Focus on the Family for the blog was hard to resist, so I jumped on it. This post starts a series I’m calling “Blogging Dobson”, which will discuss the statements I found interesting within the book. It should present the fact clearly that the current representatives of Focus on the Family aren’t very far from the original tree.

As sunshinemary’s post denotes, the idea of the woman being the more “spiritual” sex is a very common one that’s lasted for a very long time. As the Christianity Today article explains, women are better Christians than men are. But we have to look at the measure they are using in their judgement. This leads into Interesting Statement #1 from the book (1):

Why do I place such importance on the involvement of men in determining the survival of a culture? Because no modern society can exceed the stability of its individual family units, and women seem more aware of that fact than their husbands. Consider the evidence. Who reads the books on family living? Eighty percent are known to be women. Who attends seminars on meaningful family life? The majority are women. Who enrolls in Bible study classes devoted to Scriptural underpinnings of the family? Women outnumber men by an incredible margin. Who listens to family radio programs and cassette tapes [My Note: this was a book written in 1980] on marriage and parenthood? Once again they are likely to be female.

We clearly see the judgment that is being placed here, and it’s pointed out in Podles as well. Women are more “spiritual” in the eyes of these people because they are more likely to consume their offerings. Women are more likely to buy the books, listen to the tapes, listen to the radio shows, attend the conferences, frequent the church meetings, and so on. In other words, they play along with the Churchian proctors. They play along with the laws that men judge other men by and support them much more vigorously than the average man. The tone of the book is nothing different than what we find online from Focus On The Family and their ilk, and nothing different than we find from any other Churchian source. Women are the ones that run the churches and push the doctrine where ever they feel like
. It is no surprise, the women are the ones being heard, and the doctrine of the personal Jesus comes to the forefront and the objective Jesus goes away (see also Isaiah 30:9-11).

What of these pastors? It should not be a surprise that they have chosen to please these women instead of pleasing God in this process. They have gone the way of the world, seeking after their own appetites and profiting by warping the word of God to please these women.

And pleasing these women has turned into a very profitable enterprise, as can be seen by walking into the average Christian book store. The doctrine has changed to suit them, and the environment has changed to suit them, so much so that it is considered effeminate in many circles to be fully involved in Churchian activities. (2) It is not surprising that everything is done to create a feminine environment in these places, since 75% of the purchases with Christian bookstores involve women. (3) Women authors also outnumber the men by about 13 to 1. (4) Christian music stations draw an audience that is 63% female. (5) K-Love, America’s largest syndicated Christian radio network, explicitly targets everything they do to females aged 18-45. (5)

It is also not surprising that given the number of women who are single or are in “loveless marriages” that the industry of the Christian “romance novel” has cropped up, (4), causing a reflection and change in doctrine towards marriage. Murrow writes (4):

But not everything is so chaste. Christian self-help books are prodding women to become lusty — toward Jesus. Many famous authors vigorously encourage women to imagine Jesus as their personal lover. One tells her readers to “develop an affair with the one and only Lover who will truly satisfy your innermost desires: Jesus Christ”. A well-known Christian author says to his female readers, “at times, Jesus will be more of a husband to you than the man of flesh that you married. And while your husband may wonderfully meet many of your needs, only the Bridegroom can and will meet all your needs.” Another offers this breathless description of God’s love: “This Someone entered your world and revealed to you that He is your true Husband. Then He dressed you in a wedding gown whiter than the whitest linen. You felt virginal again. And alive! He kissed you with grace and vowed never to leave you or forsake you. And you longed to go and be with Him.”

What is the result of these “traditional” teachings that deviate from God’s will? Most men who are not hoodwinked into Churchianity will see these things for what they are and reject the entire system since Churchianity is choked with it. Van Rooinek wrote in response to my original quoting of Dr. Dobson:

Because men —
(a) don’t need those stupid books,
(b) correctly recognize that much of what’s in the books is [bull dung], and
(c) work 14 hour days to feed their families, so they don’t have the time to read that crap.

Nearly everything I need to know about family living, I learned from my conservative but nonreligious Dad (he was raised in church, but angrily rejected it as a young man… and I’m starting to understand why.) But he never “taught” me any of it; I just WATCHED him, and copied him. And it works.

Jesus spoke to such things as well:

But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? (Matthew 15:3)

And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. (Matthew 15:6)

Jesus said these things to the Pharisees regarding their question of hand-washing. (Matthew 15:1-9) We ultimately have an environment now, where “faith in God” is measured by doing all the works. Churchianity is a work-based faith, where those who are doing the right things in the eyes of the Pastors and the Women are considered “pleasing before God”. It should not be a surprise that what was said here is true of those today.

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:7-9)

It’s not hard to suggest that the Churchian proctors and women are the Pharisees of today!

Dobson continues in writing (1):

What I’m saying is that Christian women, to a large extent, are already motivated to preserve their families. And though I hate to admit it. women often know more than their husbands about the role God ordained for men.

This is complete and utter garbage, proven false time and time again. In fact, it could be argued that Dobson’s Focus On The Family and his colleagues are contributing to the problem by their traditional false doctrine, set out to please women and not please God.

As it has been proven, women are indeed the more “spiritual” sex. But that “spirituality” is reflected in the judgement of pastors and Christian media by the fact that women are consuming their “Christian product” – in fact, they are measured in how “Godly” they are by the degree which they consume these things. Churchian spirituality is not the same as the God-honoring Holy Spirit – in fact it is a much different spirit entirely. This spirit should be avoided at all costs!

Image Source: Scanned by myself.
(1) “Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives” by Dr. James C. Dobson page 22
(2) Why Men Hate Going To Church by David Murrow page 60.
(3) ibid page 64. (4) ibid page 65. (5) ibid page 66.