Weary of the Theory

Well everyone, time for a post on my Worldly Monk Theology Blog. I want to share an article that is the best writing about feminism that I have read. It has to do with Mary, which also is a topic that sometimes is not thought about that well. 

https://comment.org/the-marian-gift-of-dependence/

 

In addition to sharing that article, I will add my own belated and minimal contribution to the whole wave of feminist theory. The thing I suggest is relevant is the church as Jesus’s girlfriend.  Basically, the church’s survival and advancement, success and work over hundreds of years. It is very much a story of a sci-fi heroine who also fights alongside the ultimate Lord of hosts. The captain of all the armies in heaven, plus his beautiful girlfriend who also defeats all the monsters and enemies.  All of them. Not a single lash of Satan triumphs against the church.

 

When I was taught some Presbyterian theology a long time ago, which is the Tulip acronym, there is a mention of “perseverance of the saints.” I think it refers to the fact that the church will be found faithful.  I always doubted it because I was such a failure and being so overwhelmed by other people’s sinful culture at a horrible bookstore retail job. I just knew I would not do well on Judgement day, so I wondered in my mind why they couldn’t get it right and say “preservation of the saints,” at least to emphasize God’s mercy. But it is perseverance.  And I did accept that and not argue. 

 

But now I see it, what a fighter and winner the church is.  How it comes through for people with strength and love.  And how it is opposed so cruelly and captured at times when all seems lost.  Literally, when all seem lost. 

 

But it doesn’t just get saved, it rolls along with its righteousness from God within and is instructed to be “worthy of the calling."

 

So I think that some good feminism might be rooted in not just that truth but the reality itself, the nature of God and his people, and those who find their way with that kind of dedication are doing so as a likely participation in what is the ultimate universal triumph of good over evil.

 

Personally I think that is a very relevant example for someone like me to suddenly mention after years of weak singleness and a lack of engagement in the sometimes “fruitless” discussions about working mothers, or the south’s faulty, shameful, incessant nagging for people to look prettier so they could be righteous through marriage instead of Jesus’s blood.