What Enslaves Us?

This week my dear friend Crystal at Serving God and Family shared a paper with me she wrote for a history class about the Amistad trials. Reading about how the actions of the slaves on Amistad and the trials that followed began to pave the way for the abolition of slavery started to spark some thoughts in my head.

There are many different forms of slavery that have existed throughout history. In the case of the Amistad slaves, they were forced into slavery. People also used to work as indentured servants, where they would work for an appointed amount of time. It seems the oldest form of slavery, and the worst, is our own to sin. We are born into a sinful world, and our hearts are wicked from youth (Genesis 8). The Bible tells us we are slaves to our sinful nature (Galatians 4), and it is God who pulls us off the path of death (Psalm 68:20).

We are all slaves to something, because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). One thing that I keep somewhat up to date on is feminism in society today. I'm what you would call an anti-feminist, and pro-biblical womanhood. I believe in traditional family hierarchy and values, and I feel some righteous anger when people take what God has created and twist it until it's unrecognizable.

For many women, they are slaves to feminism and what the secular humanistic culture tells them to be. We see everywhere images of what the "perfect" woman is- successful career, beautiful, educated, independent. It seems as if women are set on career tracks as soon as they can walk these days. We are told that to be worth something we must get out and fend for ourselves, do what makes us happy- often at the expense of others.

The ideal our society holds for women is not the biblical ideal. The Bible holds the woman in very high esteem as a creation of God- not because of where she went to school or what job she holds. The biblical ideal is a family in harmony, where the father is the primary provider and the mother cares for the home and children. Today, we are so focused on ourselves that we throw what the Bible says out, and instead replace it with egalitarian and feminist views. Suddenly the authors of the Bible are viewed as oppressive males, and what they write is unreliable because it doesn't fit into what feels good for us.

We fall on our knees and worship the god of self, without a second thought about forsaking the one true God who created us. We gladly run into the bondage of sin, and we enjoy it. We justify the lack of dedication to our families with the need to provide for them. We justify the lack of affection for our husbands by their lack of provision that requires us to help out, or the fatigue that is a result of putting time in outside the home. We justify the lack of time we spend in Bible study, prayer, and worship with similar excuses.

Maybe we daughters of God Most High should take a lesson from the slaves who were so passionate about their freedom and break free from the chains of feminism that hold us back from true biblical womanhood. We need to give our worries to the Lord and realize that He is sovereign and the only one we should strive to glorify is Him.