‘We’re confusing 1950s culture with the teaching of Scripture’

I can appreciate that much of modern feminism is about women have the power to choose, but choosing a life short of equality strikes me as troubling. The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for example, is offering courses on homemaking — in which women are taught that “men make decisions; women make dinner.”

This fall, the internationally known seminary — a century-old training ground for Southern Baptists — began reinforcing those traditional gender roles with college classes in homemaking. The academic program, open only to women, includes lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies. Philosophical courses such as “Biblical Model for the Home and Family” teach that God expects wives to graciously submit to their husbands’ leadership. A model house, to be completed by next fall, will allow women to get credit toward bachelor’s degrees by learning how to set tables, sew buttons and sustain lively dinnertime conversation. It all sounds wonderful to sophomore Emily Felts, 19, who signed up as soon as she arrived on campus this fall. Several relatives have told Felts that she’s selling herself short. They want her to become a lawyer, and she agrees she’d make a good one. But that’s not what she wants to do with her life…. “My created purpose as a woman is to be a helper,” Felts said firmly. “This is a college education that I can use.”

That’s one small step for a woman; one giant leap backwards for modern gender roles and family structure.



More moderate Southern Baptists disagree, and counter with their own biblical references. When Jesus dined at the home of two sisters, he praised Mary, who spent the evening studying his teachings, above Martha, who did chores. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul writes that “there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ.” “We’re confusing 1950s culture with the teaching of Scripture,” said Wade Burleson, a Southern Baptist pastor in Oklahoma. “I nowhere see where the Lord Jesus places limitations on the role of women in our culture.”

Alas, students who sign up for the courses don’t see it that way.

Home-schooled by her mother, Felts is poised, articulate and unfailingly polite; she calls her elders “ma’am” and expresses surprise with a genteel “goodness!” She commutes to college from her family’s Fort Worth home, so she has plenty of opportunity to work on her helper skills. She’s sewing a pink-and-brown polka-dot dress for herself. She dusts, mops and vacuums. She often makes dinner for her family: Noodles from scratch, or quiche with a homemade crust. Does she enjoy these tasks? Except for vacuuming, absolutely, Felts said. And if she didn’t? “It really doesn’t matter what I think,” Felts said. “It matters what the Bible says.”

Wow.