There was cute cartoon lion image to go with this post, but sadly my image is not being uploaded. So no cute cuddly line.
Here's a couple cage rattling links written by a columnist that I very much appreciate. He's very good at asking prickly questions. The first deals with American Christian stewardship and the second asks a simple question about gender differences in sin.
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7 comments:
Gender issues? Are you sure this isn't Tina's blog?
I don't know the author / style, so maybe he's trying to write it with leading questions, but I think some conclusions were in order.
Obvious among the glaring omission: the interrelationship of 'male' and 'female' sins. It's easy to see how guys looking at Internet porn would cause lack of self-esteem in women. More interesting would be if there's a reverse relationship. I'm not sure there's not, although it's not immediately obvious. And this could be explored in-depth, but this isn't my blog, nor do I have the desire to do so immediately, I just think the author could have at least gave this a passing nod.
Other conclusion:
Female sins are no less severe than male sins. Nevermind that the wages of any sin is death. ANY sin that causes ANYONE to stumble should be treated seriously and given attention (assuming the person identifies it as sin and desires to eliminate it). Would you tell an obese man trying to eliminate fatty foods from his diet that his sin is less severe than the guys in the room struggling with pornography?
... < /my two cents>
Well, you know I read the gender link. ;)
I think there are a variety of issues all tied together in the problem the author is looking at. I like Carl's thoughts -- I wouldn't have thought to link the two gendered sets of sins.
I end up looking at the question from the assumption that women *do* struggle with things like anger, lust, and pride, among other things (and perhaps differently expressed). Why aren't these seen as particularly "female" sins? Is it that it's more okay for men to struggle with those particular areas in our culture, that women are more trained to hide how they struggle with them, that women are less okay with admitting their sin to themselves for some reason, that men are more forced to face these sins in themselves... or something else?
I don't have any answers, but I'm wondering if it has anything to do with our cultural ideas of not-sinfulness mapping mostly onto niceness and being non-offensive ... qualities that map most readily onto our ideas of femaleness. (I'll spare you the references to feminist theory I've read and should remember more clearly.)
Is it worse (or lonelier) to be a woman who openly acknowledges one of these sins? Are there any women in the Bible who openly struggle with these sins but still manage to do cool Bible people things?
Gendered differences in what it is socially acceptable to share openly about are ... interesting.
First, I agree with Carl that "female" sins are no less severe than "male" sins. Sin is sin - there are no levels.
Second, females struggle with lust, pride, and anger too, just as males deal with self-esteem issues and lack of trust. But it is less "acceptable" for women to have lust or anger issues, just as it is less "acceptable" for men to have self-esteem issues. What springs to your mind when you hear the word "lust"? Generally it's things like porn - things that involve men visually ogling women. But lust can also be reading erotic romance novels - which is definitely a female thing. What about self-esteem? You think of women asking if they look fat, or having plastic surgery. But what about the guy who works himself so hard he has a heart attack because he's trying to have the same material things a neighbor has? That can be considered a lack of self-esteem. But women aren't "supposed" to feel lust and men aren't "supposed" to lack self-esteem, so it's harder to see these sins for what they are.
I don't think there are female and male sins. I think there are sins that each gender may be more prone to, based on our biology. But each gender struggles with the same sins, just in different ways and different proportions.
Steph
Penny for al's thoughts. It's cheating to just link to it and not share your thoughts. :)
I think Steph is really smart. Your dot-connecting makes lots of sense to me.
And I want to hear Al's perspective, too. :)
Hey Alan,
I just read the article about short term missions....wow.....I am feeling even more convicted that I already felt. We are coming home in July but Brad and I have been constantly struggling with whether or not we should stay down here and continue to develop our relationships with the students.
No profound thoughts, just amusment that half a world away, I read the same articles!
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