[Vision2020] Women in Authority and Leadership!

[Paul Rumelhart]

heirdoug,

There really is nothing I can say in opposition to Doug's argument, 
since I have to throw out his entire premise.  The Bible is, as far as 
I'm aware, just a work of fiction and/or a hopeful description of how 
some people a couple of thousand of years ago or more wished the world 
worked, mixed with some sound advice here and there and probably not a 
little politicizing.  Trying to figure out how some primitive societies 
would view women in a modern military doesn't really interest me.  It 
doesn't take in to account anything that has happened since that 
particular book was forever frozen in stone.  The entire way a war is 
fought is fundamentally different today.  We don't have people with 
swords and spears where brute strength matters as the major way in which 
a war is fought anymore.  Wars are now fought at a distance, with 
technology for the most part.  At least in this country.  Does the sex 
of the person flying the plane have anything to do with the devastation 
the bomb it just dropped will have?  Even in the infantry, it's 
basically gun against gun.  Women can fire a gun as easily as a man 
can.  Perhaps they are not suited to the special forces, but given some 
of the women I've known I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few are.  It 
is true that women are weaker, generally speaking, than men.  That is 
why "fighting like a woman" is to be considered a bad thing when sheer 
strength can decide the battle.  That is rarely the case today.  
Unfortunately, the Bible is frozen and cannot be updated to modern 
times.  The words God had to say to get His point across to one 
particular culture in one particular time have to be the only words over 
spoken on the topic.

So, biblically, I don't have an argument.  What's more, I don't really 
care - just as you presumably don't care much what the ancient Mayans 
had to say on the topic.  Morally, I find nothing at all wrong with 
women who want to sacrifice themselves to a cause like this.  In my 
view, the inner spirit is what counts, not the exact type of genitals or 
the number of appendages one has.  Societally is about the only place I 
can see that it might be detrimental at all.  Having both parents go to 
war is obviously unworkable if there are young children involved.  There 
is also a large amount of misogyny in the military today, women are 
forced to undergo a much harder time of it than a man is.  Yet there are 
obvious answers to these problems that society can evolve around - 
assuming that it isn't stuck in a world that thinks it's two thousand 
years ago.

Also, I really shouldn't be calling your Christian walk into question 
because I am not qualified to do so.  Just as you have little right to 
call my spiritist/pagan/(whatever I am) walk into question.  However, 
even if your path is not my path, I hope you walk it well.

Paul


heirdoug at netscape.net wrote:
> Paul,
>
>
>
> I didn't think that your comment was too snarky. You have every right 
> to call my Christian walk into question. I would just ask you to do so 
> with what the Bible says being a Christian is all about and not what 
> others say a Christian is.
>
> I am not slamming the capabilities of women in the military. I am just 
> questioning the moral, Biblical and societal reason for having women 
> in harms way so that the enemy can take advantage of situation. Pastor 
> Wilson made some comments about this topic just this last month. I 
> will copy it in its intirity so you don't have to go looking for it.
>
> lemeno what you think. Doug!
>
>
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>
>
> Let Us Feed Cheesecake to our Horses
>
> Topic: Old Table Talk Articles
>
> The famous story tells of the minister who wrote in the margin of his 
> notes, "Argument weak. Shout here." Whenever anyone is unalterably 
> attached to a position, and that position is wrong, there is always a 
> strong temptation to shout. Moreover, the sillier a position gets, the 
> more shouting is required to keep people from asking those pesky 
> questions.
>
> Egalitarianism is an unbelieving mother with many foolish sons and 
> daughters, with one of the loudest and most foolish being feminism. In 
> many cases, the impact of this folly is tolerable, involving (or so we 
> think) just a few pronoun questions, and the use of Ms. in addressing 
> letters -- which actually seems like a good idea when the marital 
> state of the recipient is unknown. But by the time we get out to those 
> applications which are fundamentally outrageous, we find that we have 
> completely lost our ability even to recognize what is occurring. In 
> our public discussions of all such matters, the center of gravity has 
> dramatically shifted. This can be seen most clearly in those areas 
> where feminism is most evidently and unarguably wrongheaded, but even 
> and especially in such clear areas, saying something about it can 
> still be extraordinarily difficult. Probably the most outstanding 
> example of such issues is the vexed question of women in combat.
>
> The thing is actually debated seriously, and we can even find 
> well-meaning Christians scratching their heads over it. But of course, 
> this is not "a debatable matter." Women going to war alongside the men 
> is flatly excluded in a biblical worldview, and a nation defended by 
> her women is not worthy of defense. Sadly, this issue also 
> demonstrates plainly the disconnect in the minds of many Christians 
> between their "religious beliefs" and what they will go along with 
> "culturally."
>
> When the Bible discusses the matter of going to war, it assumes 
> throughout that those involved will be the men. For example, when the 
> census for war was taken, those counted were males twenty-years-old 
> and up (Num. 1:20). When Nehemiah exhorts the men of Jerusalem to good 
> courage, he says just what we might expect, urging them to fight for 
> their sons, daughters and wives (Neh. 4:14). Fighting for their 
> husbands is not mentioned.
>
> The Bible also tells us in numerous places that women are not gifted 
> at the kind of violence that occurs in war. A common prophetic 
> judgment is that the warriors will begin to fight like women (Is. 
> 19:16; Jer. 50:36-37; 51:29-30; Nah. 3:13). Now surely if it is a bad 
> thing to have your men fight like women, we should also be able to 
> say, mutatis mutandis, that it is a bad thing to have your women fight 
> like women. The fact that we have all been peecee-sensitized (and are 
> frankly all a little jumpy about me writing like this) can be seen in 
> the fact that I must now hasten to add that these biblical comparisons 
> are not an insult to women. Of course they are not. How is it an 
> insult to a hammer to say it cannot tighten bolts the way a crescent 
> wrench can? Or versa vice grips?
>
> In Deuteronomy, we find a much overlooked prohibition of women in 
> combat. But unlike most neglected portions of Scripture, this one 
> never needed to be applied because it was so widely practiced in the 
> light of nature -- until quite recently. Now we apparently need to 
> have the content of the verse spelled out. Most think of it as simply 
> prohibiting transvestitism. "A woman shall not wear anything that 
> pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all 
> who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God" (Dt. 22:5). 
> Transvestite men certainly are condemned here, and are prohibited from 
> dressing like a woman. But the language with regard to the women is 
> quite different. The operative phrase in this passage is keli gabar, 
> the gear of a warrior. A woman is not to wear the gear of a fighter. 
> The prohibition is not of slacks, but rather of helmets and heavy rifles.
>
> The really disturbing thing about this passage is that the practice is 
> not rejected as out of keeping with culturally-established standards 
> of decorum. It is rejected as an abomination -- a strong word for most 
> public policy discussions.
>
> A friend of mine used to jog through the grounds of one of our service 
> academies, and used to run by groups of the entering class -- running 
> whatever grueling distance was required of them. At the front were the 
> men, with upper-classmen running alongside them, informing them in a 
> loud voice that they were nothing but maggots, that sort of thing. It 
> is not surprising that they did such a bad job running; maggots don’t 
> have legs. In another group, far, far behind, were the women. They too 
> had their upperclassmen accompanying them -- but the message here was 
> entirely different, and most affirming: "You can do it! Come on, come 
> on!" What is wrong with this picture? The egalitarian theory we have 
> adopted is falsifiable in principle, but we are not about to let it be 
> falsified.
>
> Obviously, our cultural discourse has been greatly debased. We, in the 
> grip of a very bad idea, have thought to repeal some fundamental laws 
> of the natural order of things. Good luck to us all, says I. Let us 
> repeal the law of gravity to cut down on that frictional wear and 
> tear. Let us herd cats. Let us sweep water uphill. Let us feed 
> cheesecake to our horses.
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