Ignoring God's design. . .

The push to erase distinctions between male and female expressly violate God's own creative design.  When in the beginning He made them male and female, this was not some small detail irrelevant to His work.  God was ordering His creation by design -- male and female are not choices or preferences but the very pattern embedded within all of creation but most especially in man.  

Under feminism the questions began to be raised about the distinctions between male and female and the presumption laid forth that these were artificial distinctions, forced upon women by a patriarchal hegemony.  The goal of the movement was not quite as simple as equal pay for equal work or voting rights or equal access before the law or within the marketplace.  It became evident as the movement matured that this was about erasing those distinctions and the greatest impediment to this was reproduction.  Once there was a birth control pill to prevent pregnancy and a legal framework of abortion rights to end a pregnancy, the real implications of this movement were revealed.  Feminism cast off once for all God's order and put marriage and childbearing on notice that these were merely a woman's choice but a demeaning one which constrained the freedom she should have to pursue her own interests.  However, no one could have foreseen back in the 1960s and 1970s that being a woman would become a difficult question to answer or that it might merely be a feeling within and a gender choice for the moment.  That is what has upset the apple cart and placed the goals of feminism in conflict with the gender fluid movement that has made being a woman merely a feeling or a choice.

This conflict only shows how foolish the original premise was.  Male and female are not interchangeable.  The ludicrous side show of biological males competing against biological females in sports reveals the flaw in the original idea.  Men and women are not interchangeable nor are their particular characteristics the same in home, work, or life.  Of course, it did not take long for some churches to jump on this and ignore the Biblical framework for the pastoral office in order to impose this false but tempting ideal that equal meant the same upon ordination.  Even those who shy away from the same sex marriage and gender blurriness we see now are not ready to give up on the Achilles' heel of the feminist position.  Now we find ourselves in the extreme position of labeling anyone who says that there are distinctions between the sexes that are profound and important as misogynist or guilty of hate speech.  It is offensive to most folks, even Christians, to suggest that each sex is made for the other and for a relationship characterized by interdependence, complementarity within a hierarchy, and yet equality.  Yet the other side of the coin which would test the waters of this Biblical order has proven equally as foolish -- men and women are equal competitors when it comes to sports.

Now we find ourselves in the wake of terrorists who did not harm women and children as the oft described collateral damage but who targeted these in their war against Israel.  What is strange is how silent the liberals are in singling out these victims as signs of the inhumanity of the terrorists.  Instead, some have simply shrugged their shoulders over these victims -- but these are the same people who would have cried out in horror had the atrocities been foisted upon the Palestinians by Israel!  My point here is not political but how the culture wars of feminism and gender have also made women and, in particular, children victims and no longer protected.  The same point could be made by many of the attacks by the Russians in the Ukraine.  The erosion of the Biblical order has come at a cost -- to marriage, to children, and, especially, to women.  And it happened in part by those who insisted this was to aid women!

We are only now learning that God's order, while certainly a victim of sin's corruption in some ways, was established not to enslave but to free so that male and female, as He created them, they would be in liberty to fulfill their vocations.  All of this seems foreign to us today because we presume not only that we know fully what God intended but especially that we know better than God about the wisdom of His intent.  Those who are captive to the Word and will of God know that while we dare not presume we know all that God knows, we are safest and most secure when we know at least what He has revealed.  I am sure that I do not get all the implications of God's decision to make them male and female but I am also pretty sure that I know that this order was not to enslave or dominate but flowed from His merciful purpose in love, to protect, and to fulfill.  Today it is likely we will hear even Christians admit that they do not get what God was trying to do but, sadly, it is often accompanied with the rejection of what they do know of His purpose from His Word.  Somebody is a fool.  Either it is God or we are the fools.  I will leave it to you to render an opinion on which one is the dolt.