Silly Rabbit, Trix are for Kids!
John Piper would rephrase that, “Silly women, Church is for men!”
The assumptions this video makes about women is astounding. It wouldn’t be enough to simply say, “The Bible says women can’t be in leadership, so women I think your ministry is going to be defined in some other way.” That is erroneous, but respectable at some level. Yet Piper does not say that. Instead, he tells women to pray for leadership, to pray their children into leadership, to not waste their life on soaps or feel overwhelmed at a stage in their life when they have three (or was it six?) kids under the age of six. Does Piper believe that women are good for anything except praying and popping out babies? The more kids you have, the more likely it is that at least one of them will be a boy!
Piper’s advice assumes a clearly subordinate view of women, which is lucky for him, since he happens to be a man. Women are supposed to love their leadership, and help that leadership with their gifts. Which is certainly true. But Piper does not acknowledge the submission goes both ways. He seems to think women don’t have any gifts, and would prefer to watch soaps than be involved in the church, or if they do happen to be creative and articulate, that creativity and articulateness needs to be limited to prayer. Has Piper ever actually talked to a woman?
Piper has a death-grip on control. His fear-based language is apparent when he says that there are some women-dominated churches that have driven men away. Well, maybe it shouldn’t be put at the blame of the woman (weird, does that sound familiar? “That woman you put here with me…”) but recognized as a way in which the church has conformed to the men-dominated culture. The culture was able to be dominated by men because they defined power as physical strength. Does Christianity claim the same thing? If so, if the strong are powerful, then it would make sense for men to be in leadership. Yet Christ’s gospel tends to be a gospel of reversals– the weak are strong in the picture of the church.
It is a pity that many women would be certainly fine with Piper’s assessment of them. It is the church’s role to bring women up to their full potential (the same goes for men), not subordinate them.
