The Wren’s Nest, an Internet site devoted to “witch/pagan news,” has stirred up some controversy among the witch community about my recent comments on restoring Christian patriarchy. One of the witches suggested that I be reincarnated as “a barren woman” in a patriarchal system, just so I can see what it is like to be on “the bottom rung.”
What’s interesting about this to me is not that witches oppose patriarchy, or that they misunderstand what I’m talking about. What’s interesting is the fact that so many of these “witches” turn to paganism precisely because of the kind of pagan, Darwinian patriarchy Christianity stands against. One of the responders on this site, Jewel, for instance, speaks of an abusive, pedophile husband who was a professing Christian who used biblical texts to justify his infidelity and abandonment of her. She pronounces him evil, and, if her assessment of him is accurate, I agree.
In fact, that’s my point exactly. Patriarchy is not one option among many. It exists. It exists either in a harsh, pagan way in which men dominate to satisfy their own carnal interests, or it exists in a radically counter-cultural Christian way, in which men lay down their own interests to sacrificially serve and to protect women and children (Eph 5:25-33; 1 Pet 5:7). There is no matriarchy and there is no androgyny. There is the patriarchy of Christ and the patriarchy of anti-Christ.
Ironically, it the church’s reluctance to speak about such things that leaves cretins like the one Jewel describes in the shadows. A church that takes a biblical God-reflecting patriarchy seriously calls men to their responsibilities, and calls on the ecclesial community to discipline when they distort or abandon this mandate.
Let’s pray for Jewel and the other witches on the web. But let’s also listen to them. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if this woman had been in a Christian church that called on men to abandon raw power or sexual irresponsibility to reflect instead the Fatherhood of God? What if she could have turned to men, the fathers of the church, who could have protected her from a predatory man and who could have warned him with the authority of Christ himself that he is not just a cad but a blasphemer?
Maybe, just maybe, if this woman had found authentic Christian patriarchy on display among Christians, she might have turned to the glorious Kingdom of Christ instead of to a cybernetic coven of witches.
