Introduction

Hold the pickles
Hold the lettuce
Special orders won’t upset us
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it your way.
Have it your way; have it your way!

 

Many of us will remember this popular fast-food jingle from the 1970s and 1980s.  If you came of age during this time, you probably also found yourself right in the middle of what is known as the modern feminist movement.  Ideas regarding sexuality, equality, and morality came of age as you did, birthed during the 1960s’ “flower power” era of your older siblings and their friends.  The last line of our fast-food jingle offers a tantalizing insight into a basic belief of those who blazed a then-unknown trail away from the traditional values of their parents and grandparents, “have it your way.”

It is precisely that mindset—having it their way—which has led the generation known as the Baby Boomers and those who came after them away from the fundamental truths of the Bible and Christianity.  This poses quite the dilemma for today’s Christian women who grew up during that time.  I know; I am one of them.  I have two older sisters, part of the Baby Boomer generation, who can only be categorized as liberal feminists.  I cut my eye-teeth on all of the feminist movement tenets.  As a young new Christian, I clung to those tenets tenaciously, especially those regarding equality and pro-choice.  But then, a funny thing happened on the way to adulthood.  I started questioning those long-held beliefs.  Not at first, mind you, and certainly not out loud (what would my sisters say!), but the mustard seed of truth planted long ago had begun to take root and grow.

As a Christian I know that the image of God, the Imago Dei, resides in me, resides in every person.  The Bible teaches us exactly this:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; … ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.[1]

What came as a surprise to me, though, was that all the while I was clinging to my liberal feminist ideals, God’s image was there, in the back corner of my mind, whispering to me, over and over and over again, “you know this is wrong.”  Which brings me to the point of this paper.  How are other Christian women of my generation (and those from the Baby Boomer generation and beyond) addressing these types of beliefs rooted within themselves?  Do they continue to cling to their feminist ideals, trying to mesh them with their Christian theology?  Do they even know or understand that the two are diametrically opposed and cannot be reconciled?

I dare say few people in the 1960s, with its overlay of Cold War realism, would have jumped on the feminist bandwagon if they had but known that what has become known as the second wave[2] of the modern feminist movement was grounded in Marxist identity politics.[3]  In point of fact, “this movement introduced for the first time elements of “personal politics”, i.e., political struggle on the plane of interpersonal relations.”[4]  Yet, that is where we must begin.

From Marxism to Feminism—A Brief History

There is an old saying, “one must know where one has come from in order to understand where one is going.”  While this saying originally applied to individuals, the same holds true in other areas of life, including the realm of beliefs.  It is necessary to know the underlying roots of the modern feminist movement before we can understand where those roots take us and, more importantly, if where they take us is really where we want to be.

As is common knowledge, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels planted the seeds of what later became known as Communism.  In 1847, Engels presented his “Principles of Communism” (a list of questions and answers) at the founding conference of the Communist League and included, among other principles:

21.        What will be the influence of communist society on the family? It will transform the relations between the sexes…and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.

* * *

25.        What will be its attitude to existing religions? All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance.[5]

In 1963, current Communist goals (total number: 45) were read into the United States Congressional Record and included, among other things:

17.        Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in the textbooks.

* * *

25.        Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26.        Present homo-sexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27.        Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28.        Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

* * *

40.        Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41.        Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.[6]

One can see already that traditional marriage, traditional family values, and traditional religion were in Marxist crosshairs from the very beginning.

The modern feminist movement is often defined as a social struggle to eliminate forms of oppression based on gender and to gain for women equal economic and social status rights, including the right to determine their own lives.  According to one site, feminist principles include, among other things:

Choice – …we respect, support and advocate for women’s individual and collective right to make our own decisions about our bodies, our families, our jobs and our lives. The right to choose is integral to the feminist pursuit of social, legal, political, economic and cultural equality for women.

Equality and Inclusion – …we apply a feminist analysis to policies, programs, practices, services and legislation to ensure they are inclusive of women and other marginalized groups. We advocate for equity practices to eliminate the barriers to inclusion, recognizing that inclusion leads to equality.[7]

These types of feminist principles were successfully highlighted by Betty Friedan in her book “The Feminine Mystique” (1963), which many attribute as being the impetus for the second wave of the feminist movement, and which significantly shaped national and world events.[8]

Some of the more radical forms of feminism focus on the concepts of patriarchy and sex class to define their positions, which look eerily similar to some of the Communist goals listed above:[9]

e.         Men are the enemy of women. Women are a sex class in that they share a common interest in freeing themselves from male oppression.

f.          The universal causes of patriarchy are considered to be:

• The exploitation of female biology by men (men can exploit women’s incapacity through pregnancy, for example).
• Marriage-based family relationships in which men control women’s behaviour.
• Heterosexual relationships.

Their solution to this exploitation was also seen in those terms:

g.         One solution to the problem of patriarchal exploitation is seen to be lesbian relationships and female support groups.

Some (e.g., Shulamith Firestone) even took it a step further and argued that “female emancipation can be achieved technologically (women being freed from childbirth and so forth).”  It must be noted here that the Marxists Internet Archive Library lists, among others feminists who adhere to Communist principles, both Friedan and Firestone in their catalogue of Marxist feminist writers.[10]

All of this is not to say that some of the wrongs women have sought to right over the years were not worthy of redress.  Take the suffragist movement, for example.  This first-wave of feminists lived in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  They focused mainly on officially mandated inequalities, such as the right to vote and property rights issues, and included a wide range of women.  To be sure, there was evidence of the elements of Communism (Mary Wollstonecraft in England, e.g., who is also listed in the Marxists Internet Archive Library) and the radicalism that became more apparent in the second wave.  But by and large, the movement was mostly comprised of moderate and conservative Christian ladies (and men) seeking to establish rights for women in the areas of higher education, inheritance, voting, health care, workplace and professions, and even with respect to their children.[11]  As noted by Nancy Pearcey:

…most of these early crusaders were definitely not feminists: They did not base their claim to work outside the home on the feminist argument that there are no important differences between men and women. Just the opposite: They accepted the doctrine that women are more loving, more sensitive, more pious—but then they argued that it was precisely those qualities that equipped them for benevolent work beyond the confines of the home.[12]

It is not a very convoluted or hidden path then which leads us from Marxism to Feminism, yet the link between the two is hardly ever mentioned or properly identified as such.  It is also easy to see how Marxist feminist thought found its way into the psyche of the modern young woman—indoctrination both at school and in church.  What we as Christian women need to ask ourselves is do we really, truly believe all of the tenets that make up Marxist Communism?  Is this the path down which we wish to travel?

A Leg to Stand On?

Now that we have a bit of a better knowledge as to where our feminist ideals originated from, we need to see where they are taking us and whether it is where we want to be.  We can do this best by looking at a couple of the tenets that have been overlayed onto traditional Christian theology: choice and equality.

A.        Pro-Choice.

According to most liberal definitions (including the definition noted earlier in this paper), feminists “advocate for women’s individual and collective right to make our own decisions about our bodies, our families, our jobs and our lives.  The right to choose is integral to the feminist pursuit of social, legal, political, economic and cultural equality for women.”  While the definition is broad-spectrum, this advocated right has pinpointed to a single issue “right,” centered around abortion.  Thus, if you are “pro-choice” you are “for” the right of a woman to have an abortion.  The stage at which such an abortion may take place is in dispute, and for our purposes here we will not delve into that topic.  So what exactly does it mean, to be pro-choice?

With the passage of Roe v. Wade in the early 1970s, women for the first time had the legal, federal right to an elective abortion.  Before this time, there were laws on most all of the state books which limited the ability of a woman to an elective abortion (usually only in cases of rape or incest).  The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade set an arbitrary period (the end of the first trimester) as the time frame within which a woman could elect to have an abortion.  As noted in an internal memorandum of Justice Blackmum, the primary author of the majority opinion: “You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical.  This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary.”[13]  The Supreme Court did note that its ruling was not an attempt to define when life began:

We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.[14]

The Court also left open the question of personhood stating that a fetus would have the same rights as a legal person if “fetus” was defined as such for purposes of the 14^th Amendment.

Up until the 1960s, when the use of ultra sound screenings became de rigueur, medical knowledge as to the development of an infant in utero (i.e., a fetus) was what we today would consider “hit and miss”.[15]  Even in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was ruled on, ultra sound images were of a poor gray-scale two dimensional quality at best, technology being in its infancy relatively speaking.[16]  Medicine, however, has—as the saying goes—come a long way (baby!) since then.[17]  Today, 3-D and even 4-D ultrasounds are available and have quickly become the “ultrasounds of choice” for many practitioners and parents-to-be.[18]  The new and improved images allow one to see width, height, and depth of images (3-D) and fetal movement (4-D).[19]

According to Operation Rescue:[20]

• There are approximately 1.21 million abortions in America each year
• There has been a steady decline in abortions since 1980[21]
• The U.S. has the highest abortion rate (19.4 per 1,000) of any western industrialized nation
• Less than 1% of all abortions take place because of rape and/or incest
• 88.7% of all abortions take place by the twelfth week of pregnancy

At the going rate of $350-$900 per abortion in the first trimester,[22] Planned Parenthood, the major player in the pro-choice movement, rakes in $423,500,000 annually on first trimester abortions alone.[23]  The above statistics bear this out.  Further, this does not include monies made on the other various and sundry services they provide (e.g., vaccines, screenings, birth control pills).[24]  Planned Parenthood is a multi-million (perhaps billion) dollar per year corporate giant industry.

Also according to statistics, human sex ratios are almost equal.[25]  Further, what is known as the “total fertility rate at replacement” means that a woman must give birth to 2.33 children (who survive to adulthood) over her lifetime just to maintain a zero growth rate of population world-wide:[26]

Rates above two children indicate populations growing in size and whose median age is declining. …Rates below two children indicate populations decreasing in size and growing older.[27]

Current statistics show that the United States rate is 2.06 (est. 2010),[28] making the U.S. a declining, older nation.

Utilizing the statistical information provided above, if we go from 1980 (giving a 7-year cushion for the aftermath of Roe v. Wade to shake out) through 2007 (the year the above statistics on abortion is used by Operation Rescue) and multiply those 27 years by the number of babies aborted (which for our purposes we will round off to 1.0 million babies each year, see statistics above), that means 27 million people who would otherwise be alive today (barring death by other means) are not.  The correlation between the declining U.S. populace and the number of abortions carried out each year cannot be denied.

Another fact that cannot be denied is that it takes people to grow a nation, to grow an economy.  People who are out in the work force, making a living, and putting their hard-earned money back into their economy.  These same people who, in the U.S., would pay for and support the growing, older population—Baby Boomers who are just now entering the retirement stream (Medicare, Social Security, etc.).  It is sad and ironic that the majority of the very people who have been so vocally supportive of “pro choice” now find themselves facing the very real possibility of not being able to enjoy their retirement years:

Because the baby-boom generation is so much bigger than succeeding generations, the ratio of people in the retirement years, 65 and older, to those in the working years, 20 to 64, will rise from 20.6% in 2005 to 35.5% in 2030, according to the Census Bureau. That will put a strain on any retirement system that depends on contributions from current workers, as Social Security does, to pay the benefits of current retirees.[29]

 

…given the government’s projected population growth and current labor force participation rates — and assuming no major changes in immigration — there will be about 9.1 million additional workers over the same time period. Taking into account multiple job holders, the total number of jobs expected to be filled is 9.6 million.[30]

 

…subtracting the projected number of filled jobs from the expected number of new jobs results in a range of 5 million to 5.7 million vacant jobs. However, using projected labor force participation rates – baby boomers are not expected to retire at as high a rate as earlier cohorts of older workers — there would be 3.3 million to 4 million vacant jobs, according to the report.[31]

 

Perhaps that is why there is such a big push for inclusion of aliens into the U.S. work force, but that is another topic for another time.

Regardless of which side of the worldview fence (Christian or secular) one comes down on, given all the information at one’s finger-tips, including the scintilla of information provided here, how can anyone still possibly think being “pro-choice” is a good thing?  But let’s take a moment now to look at this issue from each worldview side—the secular feminist side and the traditional Christian side.

(i)        Secular feminist side.

Going back to Planned Parenthood for a moment, it is important to note that from its very beginning, abortion was foundational to its existence.  In 1921 a young woman by the name of Margaret Sanger,[32] an avowed atheist and socialist, founded the American Birth Control League[33] in New York City.  Among the organization’s aims, Ms. Sanger listed the following:

• Research: To collect the findings of scientists, concerning the relation of reckless breeding to the evils of delinquency, defect and dependence.
• Sterilization of the insane and mentally retarded and the encouragement of this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him incapable of producing children.
• Education: The program of education includes: The enlightenment of the public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of thought and opinion–teachers, ministers, editors and writers to the moral and scientific soundness of the principles of Birth Control and the imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and racial progress.
• Political and Legislative: To enlist the support and cooperation of legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, increase the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the establishment of a policy of national health and strength.
• Organization: To send into the various States of the Union field workers to enlist the support and arouse the interest of the masses, to the importance of Birth Control so that laws may be changed and the establishment of clinics made possible in every State. [34]

It is easy to see the influence of Ms. Sanger’s atheistic and socialistic beliefs in these few listed goals, and it is from this root-stock that Planned Parenthood has grown.

Looking closer now at our feminist definition for “choice” from earlier in this paper, there are some conclusions which can naturally be drawn: (a) women have an individual and collective right; (b) women make their own decisions; (c) their bodies, their families, their jobs, and their lives belong to women alone; (d) the right to choose is integral to the feminist position; (e) social equality, legal equality, political equality, economic equality, and cultural equality are synonymous with the equality of women; and (f) decision and choice are equivalent.

Taking each of these conclusions in its turn then, let us put forth some slightly different observations:

(a)        Women may have an individual right and women may have a collective right, but there is no such thing as an individual and collective right (notice the singular reference).  The two (individual vs. collective) can and usually are mutually exclusive.  Take, for example, the current issues playing out in national politics: states rights vs. federal government rights.[35]  The individual right of the state is in direct opposition to the collective right of the federal government.  By the same token, the individual right of a woman, which may be in direct opposition to the perceived collective right of women, for the feminist becomes a point of treachery which must be attacked and demonized for the collective good.[36]

(b)        If women make their own decisions, how does that position impact those around them, who live with them, work with them, socialize with them, etc.?  Each and every decision a woman makes impacts someone.[37]  No one is an island and to assert otherwise is disingenuous at best.

(c)        As with making her own decisions, a woman’s life is not lived in a vacuum; no one’s is.  How a woman lives her life, performs her job, relates to her family, or uses her own body impacts not only her but those around.  Actions do have consequences.  It can and should be argued that a woman is not chattel or some sex slave to be used merely for the sexual gratification of a man; however, this does not release the woman from responsibility either.  Today, with all the various forms of birth control options available to women, many women instead use abortion as “birth control”.[38]  This is selfish and irresponsible on the woman’s part.  Later, when they decide “the time is right” to have children, they then find they are unable to carry a child to term due to “cervical damage and uterine lesions”.[39]  This is selfish and irresponsible on the medical community’s part, and a sad end-note on a life lived in a vacuum.

(d)        Every person has rights; it is unalienable.[40]  The feminist position, however, in actuality gives a woman no right whatsoever.  She either tows the feminist line or faces the consequences.[41]  Pro choice is in reality, no choice.[42]

(e)        The topic of equality is discussed in more detail below.  But for now, let us consider a quote from a 2004 popular animated movie, The Incredibles: “And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers.  Everyone can be super!  And when everyone’s super—no one will be.”[43]

(f)         Are decision and choice equivalent?  According to Merriam-Webster Online, the answer is yes.[44]  To make a decision, to decide, is a determination or course of action arrived at after consideration of evidence.  To make a choice, to choose, is to act freely on something after consideration of a number of options; to have a preference for; to decide.  Yet as is evidenced by the information already provided here, a woman’s choice or decision must be in lock-step with the feminist position.  This smacks a little too much of The Stepford Wives[45] or, going back into history a bit, the Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany.[46]

In concluding our consideration of the secular feminist worldview, the following current facts are worth mentioning:

1)         Planned Parenthood, as noted above the major player in the pro-choice movement, currently provides information at their clinics, which contradicts “some of the world’s leading medical journals in an apparent effort to convince a potential patient to have an abortion.”[47]  Further, new medical evidence continues to shed light on the physical, mental, and emotional damage done to women who have abortions,[48] including (a) increased rates of breast cancer; (b) increased mental distress, anxiety, guilt and shame (particularly in teenagers, who make up approximately 20% of all abortions performed in the U.S.); and (c) future physical and reproductive issues.

2)         Despite vast strides having been made in the world of medicine since the 1960s and Roe v. Wade, the feminist community is today actively waging war against the ability of a woman to be fully informed before going forward with an abortion.[49]  And their disdain for those who are seeking to bring full disclosure to women?  “Read my lips: Elections have consequences.  You lost.  Go away.”[50]

3)         An abortion is a medical surgical procedure.  With any other medical procedure—be it knee, gall bladder, appendix, etc.—full disclosure is provided to the patient as to what will happen during the procedure, including showing pictures of the procedure in question, but not with an abortion.  Why is that?  Perhaps because of this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.[51]  The 3D picture above on the left is of an unborn baby at just past 10 weeks; the one on the right is of an unborn baby at 20 weeks.  According to statistics, 99% of all abortions in the U.S. happen before the 20^th week.[52]

(ii)       Traditional Christian side.

Turning now to the traditional Christian worldview, let us take a fresh look, knowing what we now know, at how a Christian woman’s feminist ideals mesh with her Christian theology.

As noted earlier, as Christians we know that the image of God resides in us, but what about our image in God?  Does our image reside in Him?  The answer, of course, is yes.  Christ took on human form when he came and was born of Mary; perfect humanity, perfect divinity.[53]  All this as Christians we know.  But have you ever wondered about what was going on inside of Mary’s womb when she was carrying the Christ child?  Think about it.

Was the “Word became flesh” both human and divine while in utero or did Mary give birth to a human child who was, at the very moment of his birth, taken over by a Divine Being?  If one thinks the latter, one would be mistaken.

To say that Christ was anything but fully human and fully divine in the womb results in heresy: either of the Nestorian variety (Christ had only one nature—human) or the Monophysite variety (Christ had only one nature—divine).  Both of these heresies were condemned by the Church in the fifth century; nothing has changed since then.  Even if you said, “Okay, Christ had two natures in the womb but only one will,” you still would be traipsing into heresy—this one, known as Monotheletism, was also condemned by the Church in the seventh century, and if you say that Jesus was merely a special creation of God, made for a man’s salvation, then you have fallen all the way into Arianism, which the Church considers to be the most serious of all time.

In other words, taking any of the above positions with respect to what Christ was in utero (or at any other point in time for that matter) breaks the Incarnation.  Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine from the moment of his conception.

To further help us get our brain wrapped around this fact, let us consider the story of how Mary conceived and her trip to visit her cousin, Elizabeth.  When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive a child by the Holy Ghost, he also told her that her cousin, Elizabeth was six months pregnant.  Mary then went to Elizabeth and immediately upon her arrival Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Ghost, blesses Mary and “the fruit of your womb” and then asks, “But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”  Mary then stayed with Elizabeth about three months before returning home.[54]  We can assume, as was the custom of the time that Mary stayed through the birth of Elizabeth’s son, John.  That being the case and accepting a plain reading of the text, Mary would only have been a few days pregnant at the time of her arrival at Elizabeth’s house.  The six-month babe within Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost,[55] recognized the just days-old babe within Mary, who was the Incarnate Christ, and leaped with the joy.  Any question about “when human life begins” finds its answer in the womb of Mary and the pre-born Jesus.

B.        Equality.

It is time to consider the second feminist tenet that Christian women typically overlay onto their traditional Christian theology—equality.  We already know from our brief history lesson on Marxism that the modern feminist movement uses the Marxist principles of Identity Politics[56] to establish a social struggle for women in order to gain perceived equality in the areas of policies, programs, practices, services, and legislation.

As we did with choice, some conclusions can naturally be drawn with a closer look at our feminist definition for “equality”: (a) women are a marginalized group; (b) barriers to inclusion are eliminated through what is termed “equity practices”; and (c) inclusion leads to equality.  As before, we will take each of these conclusions in its turn and set forth some slightly different observations.

(a)        Are U.S. women as a group actually marginalized?  According to a December 9, 2009 UNESCA Working Group paper:

The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Reaching the marginalized, … defines marginalization as “a form of acute and persistent disadvantage rooted in underlying social inequalities”.  Some examples of the [marginalized] are girls and women, hard-to-reach groups such as indigenous people and ethnic minorities, poor households, people living in informal settlements, individuals with disabilities, rural populations, nomadic populations those affected by armed conflict and HIV and AIDS, and street and working children.[57]

The CIET Organization defines marginalized groups as “Some of the most disadvantaged people in the world [living] in geographically or socially isolated small groups with little access to services or opportunities of any kind.”[58]  Merriam-Webster defines marginalized as “to regulate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group.”[59]

Based on these various definitions, it can be said with good certainty that U.S women as a group are anything but marginalized.

(b)        If anyone can provide a good definition for “equity practice” as it pertains to the feminist movement, this author will buy him (or her, we must be equal, you know) a cup of coffee.  All searches for this phrase resulted in either dead-ends (i.e., no definition found) or pages of information on private equity and private equity practices (which are financial terms and strategies).  How can a group advocate for something that has no definition?  Beats me.  Perhaps the better avenue is to look at the phrase “barriers to inclusion” and their elimination.

Going back for a moment to the founding principles of the feminist movement, we find that Marx and Engels had very specific ideas about which barriers should be eliminated from society: (a) competition; (b) private property ownership; and (c) class differences.[60]  To this list by the early 1960s was added the elimination of (d) cultural standards of morality; (e) the family as an institution; (f) the parent/child bond; and (g) the revealed truth of God’s Word.[61]

It takes only a cursory review of any news site, on-line or on TV, to know that almost every single one of these barriers has been eliminated from the U.S. landscape, with the possible exception of private property ownership, and with the recent government takeover of the auto and banking industries, inroads into that venue has begun in earnest.  The only barrier that will not be eliminated will be class differences.  There will always be those who “have” and those who “have not,” even the Soviet Union found that out during its 70+ year foray into the principles of Marx and Engels.[62]  Just as no one is an island, neither is everyone equal.

(c)        Returning now to Merriam-Webster, we see that inclusion is defined as “a relation between two classes that exists when all members of the first are also members of the second.”[63]  Let us consider that for a moment.  According to the feminist movement, women are a marginalized group, but a marginalized group from what larger group?  The answer would have to be the group known as humans, and humans are located all over the planet; to be marginalized from such a group one would have to live someplace like on the Moon…or Venus.  Thus, as before, it can be said with good certainty that women are not excluded from the human race.

What about equality?  The feminist position is that inclusion leads to equality.  But does it really?  Utilizing Merriam-Webster again, equality is defined as “the quality or state of being equal.”[64]  And what does equal mean?  Again to Merriam-Webster we see that to be equal is to be “of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another,” or equivalent in “quality, nature, or status.”  It can also mean “not showing variation in appearance, structure, or proportion.”  Yet not only do statistics abound on how men and women differ in measure, quantity, and number,[65] simply looking at a man and woman standing next to each other, sans clothes, it becomes patently obvious that their appearance, structure, and proportion are very much different from each other.

Therefore, this argument as well, that inclusion leads to equality, fails to hold water.

Liberal Christian feminists, however, have moved the flags as it were, focusing almost exclusively on two issues: (a) women’s ordination and (b) the full inclusion of the homosexual community into every aspect of the Church’s life.  The entirety of Christendom has found it nearly impossible to reach consensus on these two topics; and this author believe she is unequal to the task to address them herself.  She, however, make one over-arching statement: Since these liberal Christian feminists are women who would believe in the right of a woman to have an abortion, they deny the Incarnation of Christ, have thereby stepped fully into heresy, and can no longer be considered Christian or part of the Church.  As such, they must be treated as the heathens and publicans they know themselves to be.

Conclusion

At the beginning of this paper, three questions were asked: (1) How are other Christian women of my generation (and those from the Baby Boomer generation and beyond) addressing these types of beliefs rooted within themselves?  (2) Do they continue to cling to their feminist ideals, trying to mesh them with their Christian theology?  (3) Do they even know or understand that the two are diametrically opposed and cannot be reconciled?  It would be difficult for any Christian woman, after a thorough reading of this work, not to know or understand that whatever liberal feminist ideals she may hold can never be reconciled to her traditional Christian theology.  It would be equally difficult for her to continue to cling to them or try to mesh them with that theology.  The two are mutually exclusive and unequal in their stances.

Which brings us to the first question.  For many, it will be a most difficult question to answer, as some were liberal feminists before they came to their traditional Christian position, which means they, more likely than not, were once one of those abortion statistics.[66]  To them, I would remind of the love and forgiveness found at the foot of the Cross and in the congregation of the faithful.[67]

The secularist feminist movement is correct, but not in the way they ever would have imagined.  True choice, true equality and inclusion can be had, but it is only through the redemptive work of Christ Jesus and God’s adoption of those who are called His own, that it can ever take place.

 

Bibliography

The Holy Bible, New King James Version.

Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, last visited August 1, 2010.

Marxist Internet Archives, http://www.marxists.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Congressional Record—Appendix, pp. A34-A35, January 10,1963, http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm#Documention, last visited July 22, 2010.

Skousen, W. Cleon, The Naked Communist, The Ensign Publishing Company, Salt Lake City, Utah (November 1961).

DAWN Ontario, http://dawn.thot.net/feminism.html, last visited July 22, 2010.

Sociology Central, http://www.sociology.org.uk/, last visited July 22, 2010.

Pearcey, Nancy, Total Truth, Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois (2004).

Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society, “Conception and Birth,” http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Ch-Co/Conception-and-Birth.html, last visited July 26, 2010.

Woo, Dr. Joseph, A Short History of the development of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ob-ultrasound.net, http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/history2.html, last visited July 28, 2010.

The Endowment for Human Development, http://www.ehd.org/index.php, last visited July 28, 2010.

Dimmick, Kathy, 3D Ultrasounds—Taking Pictures of Your Unborn Baby, Family Magazine Group (online), http://www.familymagazinegroup.com/fertility/ story_3D+Ultrasounds.html, last visited July 28, 2010.

Operation Rescue Organization, http://www.operationrescue.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Planned Parenthood Organization, http://www.plannedparenthood.org/index.htm, last visited July 28, 2010.

CIA Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html, last visited July 28, 2010.

Jubak, Jim, Retirement Crisis: From Bad to Worse, MSN Money Central, http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/RetirementCrisisFromBadToWorse.aspx, last visited July 29, 2010.

Mantell, Ruth, Worker shortage coming as population ages: Report, Market Watch, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/worker-shortage-coming-as-population-ages-report-2010-03-22, last visited July 29, 2010.

Fox News Online, http://www.foxnews.com/, last visited July 31, 2010.

Tenth Amendment Center, http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/, lasted visited July 31, 2010.

The Fox Nation Online, http://www.thefoxnation.com/, last visited July 31, 2010.

Life News, http://www.lifenews.com/, last visited July 31, 2010.

Associated Content, http://www.associatedcontent.com/, last visited July 31, 2010.

Zelda Lily, Feminism in a Bra, http://zeldalily.com/, last visited July 31, 2010.

Marcus, Lloyd, Radical Feminism’s Attack on Manhood in America, American Thinker http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/radical_feminisms_attack_on_ma.html, last visited August 1, 2010.

Daily Mail Online, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/, last visited August 1, 2010.

ABC News Online, http://abcnews.go.com/, last visited August 1, 2010.

U.S. History Online, The Declaration of Independence, http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Various feminist websites, http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/05/12/actually-attacking-women-is-hurting-women/, http://www.fourthwavewoman.com/2009/11/are-feminists-attacking-twilight-or-authors-faith/, http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/women-activists-still-attacking-the-tebow/, http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/weekly/aa090600a.htm, all last visited August 1, 2010.

Memorable Quotes from The Incredibles, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/quotes, last visited August 1, 2010.

Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.merriam-webster.com/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Unruh, Bob, Abortionist gets medical “facts” wrong, http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=181541, World Net Daily, last visited August 1, 2010.

Strahan, Thomas W., Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/air/air_vol15no1_20001.html, reprinted with permission on Life Issues.Net, last visited August 1, 2010.

National Organization of Women, http://www.now.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Erbe, Bonnie, Antiabortion Fanatics’ New Invasive Attack: The Forced Ultrasound, US News Online, http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/erbe /2009/2/12/antiabortion-fanatics-new-invasive-attack-the-forced-ultrasound.html, last visited August 1, 2010.

The Endowment for Human Development, http://www.ehd.org/index.php, last visited August 1, 2010.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html, last visited August 1, 2010.

UNESCO website, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/, last visited August 1, 2010.

CIET, http://www.ciet.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.

Cold War Museum, http://www.coldwar.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.

United Nations Statistics Division, http://unstats.un.org/, last visited August 1, 2010.