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HOW DO RELIGIOUS BELIEFS INFLUENCE GENDER BEHAVIOR?

Credit: Lynn Byk


A 38-year-old man walked the neighborhood with his wife. Arm in arm, he posed a question about their future.


When she changed the subject and told him she was considering a change in her career path, that she was leaning toward a degree in counseling or psychology, he was surprised.

 

"Why do that? Aren't you smart enough?"


"No, silly. I've been thinking about how to help people better. I'm convinced that what an individual believes--deep down in the core--is what makes a person behave in one way or the other toward a spouse. Same thing with a parent and child. What a person has been taught in the development of personal faith may determine whether the child in their household, male or female, succeeds or fails.


I'd like to help people have healthier families, and to be honest, a person's religious beliefs affect the way he or she behaves toward others in the workplace. Religious teachings form a person's attitude on gender, not only on a work ethic. Religious beliefs may even steer a career path."


"Don't you think that behavior toward the other gender mostly depends on how big a person's ego is?" said the husband.


"Nope. Well, not necessarily. As an example, you work for nurses who supervise you, and you have no problem with women in authority. You were never taught by an overbearing religion that women can't have authority over a man. But, my father became vulnerable to a fundamentalist religion because those narrow boundaries helped him feel more secure. The emphasis on male domination fed into his need to be important."


"Your dad wouldn't have been able to work for nurses?"


"No way. 'Strange thing is, he was offered manager positions and supervisor positions throughout his career, but he always, I mean always, refused anything related to domineering others. You might have mistaken him for a team player, but he would have been one to sabotage a woman if one had been put into authority over him.


"In his religious practice, though, he constantly offered to fill teaching positions. He offered to build things and take on remodeling projects and other leadership positions. If anyone crossed him, he simply quit and sought out another place to worship."


"So, he avoided confrontation in both his career and in his religious life. How is that related to what he believed in his core?"


"In his core, he believed the world was going to hell in a hurry. I don't know how many times I heard him say that. A fundamental reason he didn't want to have anything to do with furthering his career was because all of that was going to be burned up anyway. What really mattered to him was being on the winning side.


"So as far as he was capable, he invested in his religion, but along those lines he also became more and more locked into his fundamentalist interpretations of family, a man's role, and a woman's role in life."


"Too bad he only had girls! But hey, your dad was always a congenial guy. I liked him," said the husband.


"And, I loved him, of course, but he stayed at odds with my mother who had goals of her own and talents that he didn't have. It was fine as long as she complemented his leadership, but if she objected, or wanted to discuss something that made him uncomfortable, he gritted his jaw, laid down the law, and generally kept her living within his own understanding of a woman's role."


The young lady continued, kicking the gravel at her feet, "My mom wasn't afraid of him, and her separate goal became doing what was best for the girls, according to her understanding, her good book, and her reality. Our house became split according to which parent and child bonded and which parent or child was expendable."


"Okay, I see how core values might have affected the outcome of your family." The couple stopped and looked over a shaggy field on the edge of their community. "But how could you help them now if you were a therapist at the time rather than a kid?"


"I might have stopped the attitudes which caused the anger and resentments. The confusing triangulation between my parents trying to steal the love of one of us from the other parent might never have existed.


"I think if my father's preachers and teachers had introduced him to the various women in scripture who were world changers because of God's anointing and relationship with them, this would have broadened his Biblical references and integrated them into the vision he had for his own family."


The husband squeezed his wife's hand as he thought about this. "But, really, would that have changed his core views about himself, his insecurities, and his need to be in control?"


She scratched her face. "Smell those Russian Olives? Gosh, I love when they bloom!" She put her nose in the air and breathed deeply.  "I just think that leading them both into an understanding of God's model, God's choice, and a full reading of the Bible with the female heroines would have alleviated some of his own insecurities, and given him a better appreciation for my mom's role in his life and in our family, and also, just as a woman with her own personal relationship with God. My dad might have rested more, let God be God, instead of working himself into a braided whip trying to control all of us. I actually had nothing but pity for him at the end of his life. He regarded himself as a failure. It didn't have to end that way."


Editor and outspoken crusader, Lisa Thompson posted on social media,


"Seen in the wild today:


'Do you have a biblical passage where there is a positive example of a woman leading men?"

(At first, I wondered if this was serious. But to be clear, this man seemed to truly think that there are zero positive examples of women leading men in the Bible.)

Well, let’s list a few:

Abigail

Deborah

Jael

Esther

Rahab

Ruth

Huldah

an unnamed woman who saved an entire city (2 Sam. 20:22)

(all of the above are from the OT)

Elizabeth

Anna the prophetess

Mary, the mother of Jesus

Mary Magdalene

the woman at the well (Photine)

Mary of Bethany

Dorcas

Junia

Eunice and Lois (Timothy’s mom and grandma)

Lydia

Priscilla

the four daughters of Philip who were prophetesses

(all of the above are from the NT)

Of course, neither of these lists are exhaustive, and there are many more women I could list."

 

What happens when a person elevates his or her current social situation to the height of religious doctrine?


Just because people get educated, doesn't necessarily mean they have been analytical in their intake and output of knowledge. And laypersons, though well-meaning, may be loyal, but uneducated people.


A congregation may absorb all the community's teaching and preaching as absolute truth. The fervor of maxims may apply to everything they absorb from:

  • the timing and physics of creation,

  • to the person or work having the ability to save or redeem them,

  • to the process of how things work best,

  • to what has never been addressed in their community. What is taken for granted never needs to be spoken of. People assume an entire culture based upon unspoken assumptions.


Those who want to deny the assistance that their own psychology plays in their absorbing of doctrine, theology, and behavior, are denying the reality of culture and context. Humans are complex beings.


Made in the image of God, humans have DNA, environment, generational assets, deficits, and personalities. All of these things contribute to a person's religious nature unless he or she is nurtured otherwise.


People need to keep receiving nurture and education throughout their lives, or they may get stuck in a rut that ruins their lives or the lives of those they love.


In short, students and readers must continue to analyze data in life against their core beliefs. If one thing seems to conflict with another thing, praying, researching, watching and waiting on God to reveal the truth is what I recommend.


Knock, seek and find. Fellowship with God and others who may have a different attitude or behavior will train the wild vine where it should go.


Make a concerted effort to examine a behavior or belief honestly. Write down where the puzzle begins and keep noting what is revealed in the questions and answers discovered.


- Lynn Byk, author 

The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch

Mister B:  Living with a 98-Year-Old Rocket Scientist







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