With the revelations of famous men acting badly toward women and the rise of the MeToo# movement we are having a national conversation about the causes of sexual harassment. Some have made a startling accusation that it is the “toxic” system of Christian values which is at the root of this evil behavior. The sad part is many Christians in America have been so indoctrinated by feminism that they would not even recognize that Christian values are being attacked.
In an article he wrote for Inc.com entitled “Yes, We Can Defeat Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Here Are 6 Powerful Ways to Do It” Marcel Schwantes says the fight against sexual harassment is “about deconstructing false values embedded in toxic systemic thinking”:
Do Christians believe in “toxic” and “false” values that lead to sexual harassment?“Both men and women of good conscience are fearlessly acknowledging the elephant in the room — the disturbing, age-old trend of men in power taking advantage of their status to prey on women (and other men) working below them.
Therefore, the fight is just as much about deconstructing false values embedded in toxic systemic thinking, and the thinking of sick minds. In the BBC article, Eden King exposes a root cause of sexual harassment: “A belief that women are inferior to men, the belief that men should have power over women,” and, she adds, a belief that “men should be aggressors and women should be gatekeepers.” The process of shifting mindsets doesn’t start in training rooms. King says it should begin in the earliest days of childhood education and development.”
Eden King lists these 4 values that she believes are false and Marcel Schwantes calls “toxic” ways of thinking that actually lead to the sexual harassment of women:
So let’s now examine each of these beliefs as to their whether they are true or false and whether they lead to sexual harassment or actually would help to prevent it.
“A belief that women are inferior to men”“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”
I Peter 3:7 (KJV)
Women are equal to men in their humanity as we all have the blood of Adam (both men and women). But women are not equal to men in strength and many other attributes. Women were designed to be weaker than men so that they would need men as mankind needs God. Believing women are inferior to men does not mean we do not honor women. But as the Scriptures tell us we give honor to women as the weaker vessels God designed them to be.
So, this first supposed “false value” is not false based on the Word of God. This means this value that has been held by civilizations even without the Bible for thousands of years is actually a TRUE value and a righteous value. Accepting this truth has not lead most men to prey on women, but rather it leads men to protect women.
“the belief that men should have power over women”“3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God…
10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.”
I Corinthians 11:3 & 10 (KJV)
The Bible tells that God’s order in this world is God the father is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man and man is the head of woman and that woman should have a sign of authority or a sign that there is a power over her head which is man.
Again, this second supposed “false value” is not false based on the Word of God. This means this value that has been held by civilizations even without the Bible for thousands of years is actually a TRUE value and a righteous value. Accepting this truth has not lead most men to prey on women, but rather it leads men to desire to lead women.
“men should be aggressors”“Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight”
Psalm 144:1 (KJV)
“10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, 11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; 12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.”
Deuteronomy 21:10-14 (KJV)
This third supposed “false value” is not false based on the Word of God. The Bible tells us that God has made men aggressive by nature. Man’s aggressive nature when it is used for sinful purposes can cause great destruction and evil. But when man channels his aggressive nature toward godly purposes this helps him to accomplish great things – including taking a wife.
Accepting this truth that men are aggressors or initiators in life is not something that should cause men to harass women or otherwise act badly toward them. Instead this truth that men are aggressors should lead men to channel their aggression into their work so they can be successful in their business endeavors to be able to provide a home for a future wife. It should also cause them to aggressively seek out a godly woman who wants to fulfill her God given purpose as a wife and mother.
“women should be gatekeepers”“20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
22 If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.”
Deuteronomy 22:20-22 (KJV)
Finally, this fourth supposed “false value” is not false based on the Word of God. The Bible tells us that God has in fact assigned the role of gatekeeper to women regarding their sexual purity. In the Scriptures if a woman lost her virginity before marriage it could relegate her to a life of celibacy and if she hid the loss of her virginity it could cost her life.
While we are no longer under the civil penalties of the Old Testament law – the moral law remains. God has given women a serious and lifelong task to protect their bodies and keep them only for their future or current husbands. Her husband is the only one that she may and in fact must allow through the gate to access the pleasures of her body.
Accepting this truth that women are tasked by God to be gatekeepers of their sexual purity does not excuse men from acting badly toward woman. But this is why God created woman’s sexual nature to be so different than man’s. Men are designed by God to be primarily physically driven toward sex and only secondarily relationally driven. Because of this a man can very easily have sex with a woman regardless of their relational status. But God in his perfect design of woman for man created her with a relational sexual nature that causes her to only desire to give herself to one man and one man only – her husband. She is literally built with a self-protection mechanism that protects her for her man.
ConclusionI could not agree more with Marcel Schwantes that returning to values would help to greatly reduce sexual harassment in the workplace. However, I completely disagree with him as to what values we need to return to. The values he and Eden King calls “false” and places as the root of the evils of sexual harassment are in fact the values that could greatly reduce the sexual harassment of women if we as a society returned them.
The “values” Schwantes and King believe we should return to do not find their basis in the Word of God, but rather in Second Wave Feminism and the Sexual Revolution which brought us these destructive changes to society:
The truth is, it is not Biblical values that have lead us to the sexual harassment crisis our culture finds itself in today, but rather it is the values of Second Wave Feminism and the Sexual Revolution which are the true root of the problem.
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