Terry Breathing Grace tipped me off about this great video blog by Sheila Gregoire of To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. Sheila has commented on this site from time to time, and has also referenced this blog in her own posts here and here. One thing which strikes me about Sheila’s work is how incredibly gentle she is in her pro marriage message to Christian women. At first I thought she was only lukewarm on the topic of marriage, but after further consideration I am convinced that she is accurately assessing the nature of her audience. What she considers “harsh” I would consider walking on eggshells. But as I said I think she has accurately gaged her target audience. Christian women as a group are not used to being told they have any obligations. Ever. Even obligations resulting from a sacred promise they made in the church in front of God and everyone they know. This simply isn’t the way of the modern Christian church*.
But this isn’t Sheila’s fault. She is trying to strengthen Christian women’s commitment to marriage and has to work with reality. As a near lone voice amongst Christians she is doing an incredible job. This is an uphill battle, especially since Christian women have discovered the 11th commandment:
Thou shalt be true to thyself
Here is another video blog she did, which may be the one which generated the letters she mentioned in the video above:
*I know it often isn’t fair to make blanket accusations, so I’ll offer a caveat; if your congregation is actually different, I would love to help you tell the world about it! Keep in mind I’m not talking about churches which speak like Christ but act like Oprah. Those are a dime a dozen. I’m talking about a church which actually believes the bible so much they are willing to take action, and even make women uncomfortable with the idea of not keeping their sacred promise. And I’m not talking about lecturing men on keeping their promises as a response to women not keeping theirs either. I’m also not talking about a church which tries to find legalistic ways to claim they are different without doing anything which might make sinners uncomfortable. Yeah, sorry for getting your hopes up. I know I just excluded 99.99999% of Christian congregations. But on the bright side, I hear most churches have good news to share on the topics of offerings, new members, and the number of missionaries they have sponsored. Plus I hear the choir and the pot lucks are great! So while God’s plan for the family may not be important enough for your congregation to take real action on, at least you have the other things! Besides, I’m sure the millions of kids being put through the meat grinder will get over it some day. When they do, perhaps they can join the church and sing in the choir, or bring something tasty to the pot luck!
