Against all common sense, Western society is actively at war with both authentic masculinity and authentic femininity. While sex distinctions may drive the “woke” cultural elites to distraction, they are a permanent feature of the human condition. Decades of trying to erase these distinctions has done nothing more than produce weak men, unhappy women, and self-destructive adolescents who can find no place for themselves in a world gone mad.
Fortunately for society as whole, and especially for parents who wish to raise healthy children, the Orthodox Church still defends human nature as created by God – encompassing both sexes equally, yet distinctly. In our currently confused and chaotic society, both young men and women are in need of attention. In this article, however, I want to focus on helping the acute crisis in young men.
First, if we want a better society with better men, we need to raise better sons. In raising my sons, I have always set expectations for them to live up to. Boys need challenges. They need a sense of accomplishment from meeting and overcoming those challenges. They need a sense of their own strength – both physically and spiritually.
Here are some of the expectations I have set for my sons, and for other boys whom I have counseled over the years:
- You will die first.
- You will eat last.
- If a grizzly bear or a pack of wolves attacks your family, you will fight them with your bare hands while your family escapes. Same for a pack of human animals. Whatever the threat – deal with it. Do not come back to us in one piece at the expense of your family. You are a warrior. You. Will. Stand.
- Your wife may be an engineer, but in the cold on a rainy night, you will be the one changing the tire on the side of the road. That is your job. Along with all the other dirty, cold, hot, miserable jobs that exist. Be thankful you did not have to give birth to the children, and just get it done.
- Get married and have children while you are young. The world will tell you to wait, but they do not have your best interests at heart.
- You are the priest of the home. Your children will not be Orthodox Christians because of your wife. They will be Orthodox Christians because you bow before Christ. The father sets the religious tone for his home. You go golfing on Sunday, your kids are lost but for the grace of God. Step up, and be the father they need.
- Love your family and always care for them first, before helping others.
- Pray with your children.
- Take your family to Church every Sunday, even the Sundays that aren’t special.
- Make sure your boys are acolytes.
- Kiss the icons. Kiss the hand of the priest. Prostate yourself before God in front of your children. He is worthy of all your devotion.
- If you don’t like my advice, if you think it is too hard a burden, then take it up with Christ. He made you a man, and this is what being a man means. You are the protector. The provider. The shield against the world. That is your calling, as well as your salvation and your joy.
- When you look for a wife, be aware that women without fathers are often badly damaged emotionally. Be careful. Remember too, that you must be present in the lives of your own daughters or you risk their emotional health. Daughters need fathers every bit as much as sons do.
- Above all, remember that Christ is your King and God. He is not your buddy. He is Lord of All Creation. You are a warrior in His earthly army – the Church Militant. Keep your mind and heart focused on Him and let His Church guide you.
Everything I have written above runs contrary to the lies pumped incessantly into our culture by those who actively want to transform human nature into something unrecognizable. It is simply a given that every expectation I set for my sons would be labeled “toxic”. There is no place for such archaic thinking in our new “gender neutral” world. Men and women are so interchangeable, in fact, that putting on a dress or getting a spiky haircut is sufficient to change a person’s gender. The insanity of all this is plain to see for anyone not held captive by an insidious, modern religion.
As a father, I am grateful to God for the help of the Orthodox Church in raising my sons. Orthodoxy is an unabashed Patriarchy. The altar is an all male space. My sons get to enter that space as acolytes. They must stand and kneel for long hours. They must learn the services intimately in order to assist the priest. Everyone is watching them as they work. They must stand before God, and all their community, each service, whether they “feel” like doing it that day or not. A duty is a duty, regardless of your emotions. There is pressure. There is pain. There is learning. There is growth. There is becoming a man.
In Church, some women are readers. Some are chanters. Women serve on the parish council, or even head it up. Women are essential to the Orthodox Faith and welcomed in practically every capacity, except at the altar. That space is reserved for men and boys. In our increasingly confused society, the Orthodox altar might be the last public space reserved exclusively for males. Small wonder that young men outside the Orthodox Church are in such a crisis.
Academics seem to dwell a lot on the topic of women’s ordination. In 25 years of Orthodoxy, I have never met an actual lay Orthodox woman who wanted to serve at the altar. My daughters, for example, want no part of it. They do not feel as if they are missing out on anything. They much prefer to sit in a pew and sing while their brothers work.
Orthodoxy has the most beautiful Churches, vestments, liturgies, and hymns of any Christian body. Orthodoxy combines all that with fasting, ascetic discipline, a commitment to holiness, love, unabashed proclamation of timeless truth, and the protection of the weak, even at the cost of one’s own mortal existence. There are many things worse than physical death. Orthodoxy is the perfect environment in which to raise boys into what one priest recently called examples of “beautiful masculinity”.
Orthodox is also highly attractive to men searching for all of the things above in a world that provides none of them. Orthodox priests all over the country are reporting that not only is Church attendance up overall, but many of the new people showing up are young men, by themselves, with no previous Christian background. These young men want to learn how to be real men, and so have turned to the Orthodox Church to find out how. This trend has even led one priest, Fr. Hans Jacobse, to found an organization called the St. Paisios Brotherhood to assist in mentoring and helping these young men.
When interacting with young men who have found Orthodoxy, one is immediately struck by how most want a life that previous generations would have taken for granted – a loving wife, children, a job, a home, a community, and a relationship with God. All the world having slipped into insanity around us, these traditional desires are now “counter cultural”. Within the Orthodox Church, these young men find their aspirations reinforced rather than mocked. It is no wonder more are coming to Orthodoxy by the day.
We should rejoice that Orthodoxy offers a haven for lost and troubled young men, and a source of help to those struggling to be good fathers. But we must also acknowledge that we could be doing some things better. Here are three things, as we close out this article, that we should work on as we raise our young men and attract ever more:
- Some of our young people complain they can’t find anyone to marry. Some parishes have too many young men. Some too many young women. Sometimes, a young person is the only single member of his/her parish. How can the Church, sprawling across a continent and broken into jurisdictions, help young Orthodox Christians marry within the Church? There are always young people lamenting on social media that they are looking for genuine Orthodox Christian marriage, but can’t find it. While monasticism is a good and holy vocation, it is not for everyone. Is there anything we can do to help young Orthodox Christians find each other?
- American Orthodoxy needs to do a better job of equipping Orthodox Christians to explain and defend Patriarchy. The Orthodox Church is a Patriarchy, and will never be organized any other way. But why is that? Why are clergy all male? Why does Patriarchy exist? How does Patriarchy defend women, children, and the vulnerable? Why are women and children happier in a Patriarchal society than in the current cultural chaos spawned by feminism? Our society has successfully equated “Patriarchy” with the systematic abuse and oppression of women. In truth, the opposite is the case. It is the absence of protective fathers and husbands that jeopardizes women, not their presence.
- Closely related to the previous point, Orthodox must deal with the Fifth Column within our ranks. There are “Orthodox” clerics and academics who openly embrace toxic feminism, Gender Theory, homosexuality, promiscuity, abortion, anti-natalism, and other perversions that have destroyed our society. We have covered quite a number of them in this category about Leftist infiltration of the Orthodox Church. These revolutionaries are funded by big money, and often occupy Church sinecures. Too few of us are speaking out about such pernicious influence. We cannot allow struggling men, and women, to get the wrong impression about the Holy Orthodox Church and believe it is the same as the world they are rejecting.
Men are in crisis. They need what only the Orthodox Church, as the fullness of the Christian Faith, can provide. They will keep coming, and we must be ready to receive them, bind up their wounds, and teach them how to be as God intended. We have to do all that, even as we raise our own sons to be faithful warriors for Christ in world that tries to crush their very souls.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America
I left a severely left-leaning Lutheran denomination in 2019, I feel I’ve been wandering the wilderness ever since. This article has me thinking and researching, thanks for your post.
I believe that Women are far too vocal and assertive in many Orthodox Churches.
This sets the wrong tone- especially the young men.
Every single Christian, man and woman, is called to be a spiritual warrior for Christ, and an ambassador in His kingdom. St. Paul instructs us to put on the armor of God and scripture is very clear about the warfare we fight as followers of Christ. “12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Also – scripture tells us of our spiritual gifts – that we are all given according to God’s purpose for our lives. A woman’s role in the Orthodox Chruch needs to adequately and fully support all the gifts that God gives her to fulfill her role as His child, His disciple, and as a kingdom ambassador. Following our Savior and being His servant is not a gender issue. Nor is it a patriarchal or matriarchal issue. What we need to do is defend the faith. We must hunger for God’s Holy Word, learn His Holy Word, and strive to live God’s Holy Word,
“The priest of the home” is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If you truly believe that women are to be spared all suffering and adversity in life or will be spared because they are protected by a strong man, then you sorely and sadly have not read scripture or the lives of the saints and martyrs nor taken a deep dive into the faith walk of countless Christian women and Orthodox women – who have served in ways that not only test their faith but embolden, remake, remold, and transform them for God’s purpose. I did not serve overseas at an orphanage because I needed to be protected by a man from suffering. Nor have I done prison ministry to male prisoners because I needed protection from a man. Nor did I serve at an Orthodox Christian camp because I needed protection from a man. Women are not helpless creatures – who cannot withstand suffering – they were designed by God to give birth. That speaks for itself. The faith walk includes suffering, pain, sinfulness, and repentance, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation. This are not “gender” issues. These are deeply Christian issues.
Please do not confuse political, social, and cultural issues and debates with the faith walk. Whether one is liberal or conservative. As has been said either we are Orthodox or we are not Orthodox. Everything else falls into its rightful place.
Hi Jackie,
In all that you have contributed in service, nobody would take issue. Until your works along with everybody else’s works are tried with fire at the judgement seat, no one can judge the value of what you have done. If it is wood, hay, and stubble, you will suffer loss of reward but not of salvation (necessarily). If it is gold, silver, precious stones—purified by suffering—there is reward. And we all will rejoice with you in that.
There is only one opinion of you that matters, not mine, not any bishop or priest: His! And only the hearing of 6 words matter for all of us, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Without that, there is only weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
You only get on shot at life, figure out what counts and what does not.
In reality, just being a woman has a level of suffering many men cannot understand—unless married for extended period of time—when momma aint happy, nobody happy. Being bound to the cycles of the moon, I cannot fathom—have no desire to do so. Then when menopause sets in, we men are just looking for a place to hide until it’s over with as if some giant bomb went off (ok, I exaggerate at bit, but not much).
Lucidly then—“Oh, Woman thou art”—your inherent weakness is your greatest strength. A wife’s calling is to hold her husband steady without controlling him through the trials of raising a family—and any other purpose he might have in life— and your rock solid steadiness is developed by the years of having to hold steady when the hormones are pushing you back and forth between the extreme emotions of the reproductive cycle. When the field is plowed and cleansed by the shedding of blood, only then it is ready for the seed. And every time you get plowed under, your ability to hold steady gets stronger and stronger.
There is no “helpless creature” in that. In fact: the created order defines “Woman” as the “help meet”. Ok, let’s parse that: the concept of “help[er]—never “helpless”— is identical with how the Holy Spirit is defined in the New Testament as the “Paraclete”—one who comes alongside to walk with, to assist, and even strengthen. Notably, wisdom is overwhelmingly cast in the feminine in Holy Writ. A wife’s gifting is to speak and channel the wisdom of God as a “paraclete” to her husband without ruling over him; yes, mam, you are the grand vizier. “Meet” in the Hebrew infers total equality. Just like the Holy Trinity, there is hierarchy of administration and equality of Divine Nature.
Any woman who seeks to compete with, show up, or redefine being a woman in the context with what men do and are, are in reality stepping down from her cherished position; she is trashing womanhood. Any man who protects a woman, knows his duty to protect valued things, like the security guard protecting the Mona Lisa. We only guard precious things. When women seek out the roles of men, it is like taking the Mona Lisa and using it for a snow shovel. For men, his value is in what he does (the porter), for “woman” it is in what she is (the portal) reflecting the beauty of God from the heart. Too much “performance orientation” by fathers on their daughters, produces confused women who never find their true identity; not enough for boys creates marshmallow men.
Having said all that, Jackie: I think you are reading into the article things that are not there. Obviously, the submission articulated is in the home environment where somebody has to be the default veto power—anything with two heads (if one is not covered) is a monster and should be relegated back to the book of Revelation until tossed into the lake of fire.
John Lee,
Thank you for your response that took much thought and reflection. However, once again, you are framing the faith walk of a woman predicated upon your assumption that every woman follows the path of wife, helpmate, mother, homemaker. Sir, with all due respect, scripture and our God allows for a multitude of callings for women. Not all women marry. Not all have children. “When women seek out the roles of men, it is like taking the Mona Lisa and using it for a snow shovel.” Did you really say this? God uses us all for His divine purpose, here on earth and in eternity. The doors are open, and they have been for quite some time, for women to use all their God given gifts. Do you consider being a teacher, surgeon, astronaut, chef, musician, actress, police officer, firefighter, politician, judge, attorney, head-of-state, dentist, professor, and on and on to be “the roles of men?” Thank the Lord Marie Curie did not agree with this statement. Nor Mother Teresa. Nor Queen Elizabeth. Nor did my parents, memory eternal. Lives of selfless service and developing our gifts are not dictated by one’s sex – there are dictated by one’s courage. You did not qualify here. I am not “reading” into anything other than reading your words. Once again, you end your comment with a women’s role in the home. Also, I did not mention my service as a running resume but as an example of the gifts that God gives us to use for His glory. I know very well who is the final judge and the words I long to hear. However – I am in relationship with the Lord right here and right now, every day and in every breath. I do not contest God’s Holy Word. I hunger for His Holy Word. I only think that you have so focused and pardon my bluntness “fixated” on one role of women that you have failed to see the myriad of ways God has gifted women, uses women, and their varied roles that are not restricted to being a wife, mother, and again homemaker. With all due respect, that you decided to focus on a woman’s physicality and menstrual cycle and menopause as evidence of her “suffering” and in turn that being the cause of irritation or suffering for her spouse – just supports my argument. The suffering of which I speak is spiritual suffering – the suffering that remakes, remolds, and burns us in the fire of God’s love and purification. Psalm 66:10-12. Please I beseech you, open your heart and eyes – there is so much more to womanhood than the particular path you seem to think is the only one to God. The only one that honors God. Single woman and monastics would certainly beg to differ. I fully realize that it is very confusing, intimidating, and threatening that the world is changing so rapidly – that the established roles have been turned upside down – that there are so many new “identities.” That women can become men and men can become women and now “transhuman” is on the horizon. Yet “God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). I focus on my God and His plan and purpose for my life – Jeremiah 29:11. I do not compete with men, nor do I compete with women. I am running this race till the end, and each of us will stand before God at the final judgment based on our race, our journey – not on the “competition.” Nor does any woman need to be lectured to on their “womanhood.” Anymore, then I need to lecture you on your “manhood.” I am a child of God, disciple of Christ, and ambassador in His kingdom. I know my identity. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139-13-14). We are whole beings. Spirit made flesh. I hope that you are able to move past the “physical”, the earthly, the political, social, and cultural wars that the darkness wants to enmesh you and trap you and distract you and steal your peace – John 10:10 – and instead see that though men and women differ from each other in many ways – these differences are in the flesh. Spirit seeks the eternal. So must we.
Greetings Jackie – The article wasn’t about women at all, or their roles. It was about raising boys into good men. This was one quote about women:
Not even wives who design rocket engines want to change a tire in the middle of the night in the cold and the rain. Or plow a field. Or do any number of dirty, dangerous, horrible, disgusting jobs. That is my role. That is what my sons need to be prepared to do. That is not about the role of the woman, that is the role of the man.
There was this:
Fatherless daughter syndrome is quite real and quite damaging. Nothing about the role of women, rather advice that a fatherless daughter could be a challenging relationship, and do not produce one. Give your daughters every bit as much attention as your sons.
The one real comment in this article about the role of women is this:
This is simply a fact. There is no female ordination in Orthodoxy. You have done some very impressive ministries, but even so, ordination is not in your future. As for the Father being the priest in the home, that is something heard in catechism and in multiple sermons. It is not a new concept. It refers to the role of the Father as the leader of his home church in prayer, and the need for him to treat the home church as his ministry.
Really, your whole series of comments are perplexing. As we said, the article is about raising sons and not about raising daughters or the role of women in society (with some comments as noted above, but not at all the focus). You stated you don’t need a man to protect you. Fine, but what are we to tell our sons? “Don’t worry about protecting your family. Let your wife face off against danger so she can emulate a saint? Just lay around the house and let your wife be the breadwinner. Let her work her fingers to the bone while you play video games.”
Of course we are not going to tell our sons that. We are going to tell our sons that if they have wives and families, their job is to protect them at all costs. You don’t want a man to protect you? Sure. Your life is your own set of choices. We are raising our sons under the assumption they will be married (some already are) and will be blessed with children. Not one married woman we have ever known wants to “protect” her husband and family because the father is a lazy, good for nothing coward. The man-boys out there either can’t find serious relationships, or can’t keep them, and they are awful Christians to boot.
So this entire article wasn’t about you at all. Or any other woman for that matter. Or the choices that any woman makes. Those of us that have raised daughters could write an article on that. And maybe one of us (mother or father) should tackle that issue. Girls are definitely in crisis as well, just look at the transgenderism contagion. Just nobody has stepped forward with one yet.
On the other hand, if you ever wanted to contribute one or more articles about the ministry experiences you have had, they would definitely be welcome! Thanks for reading.
Thank you for responding. My initial comment was in regard to the title: “‘Raising Warriors for Christ.” Given that I backed up my comment that we are all spiritual warriors for Christ with the words of St. Paul – from Corinthians – not sure how my comments can be seen as “perplexing.” I also backed up many of my other insights with God’s Word. I mean no disrespect – but you make a lot of broad and sweeping generalizations that are not only false they do not apply in not only the “modern” world but the world of history. “Not even wives who design rocket engines want to change a tire in the middle of the night in the cold and the rain. Or plow a field. Or do any number of dirty, dangerous, horrible, disgusting jobs. That is my role. That is what my sons need to be prepared to do. That is not about the role of the woman, that is the role of the man.” Sir – this is boldly false. Women do change tires – they are car mechanics, and they not only own but run farms. They do the “dirty” work – they have for millennia. They run orphanages – do prison work – serve in the most dire even dangerous conditions the world over. We are all called to “emulate the saints.” Men and women. We have the same Light of the Holy Spirit given to them – the same Light given to the apostles. Because you have your own way of living and seeing the world does not mean it is either fair or judicious or even Christian to apply it and speak for others. You know very well there are once again varied roles for women in our world and by choice as well. I am Orthodox Christian, and I am also Bible based – please cite where in scripture the father or husband is called the “priest” of the home. Priest is a very specific title given through ordination – and calling – not poetics. Anything can be said in “sermons” – we all fall short of God’s glory. If you found my words perplexing – please pray on your use of language. No woman – no human being wants to be compared to an inanimate object. Women are not a valuable painting to be protected and cherished and have value placed on them. It is not for you nor any man to place “value” on a woman. God sent His son to pay the ultimate price on our lives. He is the one who assigns us infinite value as His child. No woman of faith wants to be “worshipped”. We worship God and only God. We are precious in His sight and dearly loved. Be careful of putting anyone on a pedestal – pedestals get knocked over. You speak of marriage – Christ is the Head of the marriage and the Head of the household. The Orthodox sacrament of marriage is of the two to Christ. Three are in the marriage. To say that an article about raising boys to be good fathers and husbands is not about women as well is nonsensical. When the article speaks to all the ways they are being prepared to have a marriage to a woman. We actually agree in many ways that you perhaps do not see. However, perhaps I was meant to comment and have this conversation – because in your sincere and well-intentioned efforts to raise faithful Christian sons – you do not need to simultaneously limit – deny – nor dismiss – the varied, wonderful, and powerful ways that woman contribute to not only their homes, relationships, churches, but to the world. We should be speaking “power and life” over each other – lifting each other up in the spirit – not making sweeping proclamations over peoples’ lives when only God knows the great “plans He has for us.”
Again, as John Lee pointed out, you are reading way more into the article than we think you should. Your interpretation, for example, that we advocate putting women on a pedestal is not at all what the article is about. Protecting and worshipping are two totally different things. You have your opinion on what was said. We published it, of course, and it is clear that we must agree on some points. However, it is also clear that we either have some disagreements or simply do not understand each other.
The article only mentioned one role – serving at the altar, that is blocked for women. If one of our sons happens to marry a girl who wants to run a farm on her own (some of us were raised on farms which our mothers did not work) or be a prison guard or do other such dirty, potentially dangerous things, then far be it from us to try and stop true happiness. It will not be the most common arrangement between spouses to be sure. As you well know, if you have lived more than a decade or two on this Earth.
The idea of the father as the priest of the home builds on historical and Biblical principles such as, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22-24).” Are you saying the husband and father is not the spiritual head of the home?
This is from the Orthodox Wedding service:
Would you prefer that we rewrite the piece and instead of “priest of the home” we use “head of the home”? Would that be a clearer and more precise use of language?
Further, saying we want to raise boys to be men who are Spiritual Warriors for Christ does not mean girls cannot be. The article is not addressing the raising of daughters. Did you miss this part:
– Both sexes equally, yet distinctly – is the exact quote. We could be mistaken, but we read your comments as specifically attempting to deny differences between the sexes and in the ways you raise the two. It is precisely this desire of modern society to erase those differences, to make the sexes interchangeable, that has resulted in our current morass and led to the crisis in which so many men find themselves. Boys are not girls, and the way you raise them is different if you want a strong, capable, honorable man at the end of the process.
Not all women are the same. Not all men are the same. But broad traits are still broadly expressed. No one is calling for legal impediments to females finding employment of their choice. However, there are way more female school teachers than there are female mechanics. More female RN’s than female combat Marines. There are valid reasons why this situation exists that are grounded in the God-created differences between the sexes. This differentials persist even though modern society is actually built around encouraging female mechanics, engineers, mathematicians, combat marines, etc. There are more women in college than men, but still fewer in engineering.
Women have issues, but men are in full blown crisis due to modern society being actively at war with the very concept of masculinity. We may be wrong, but your posts seem to be arguments taken directly from modern culture that are identical to what put us in this cultural mess to being with.
We will simply have to disagree where we disagree.
Hi again Jackie,
Oh, ok, so you are not married (probably a good thing), please disregard everything I said, it’s not for you anyway; please accept my apologies. Let’s move on to other things.
In your list of over achieving women I would take issue with Queen Elizabeth II, the one that just passed, if that’s who you mean. The only thing notable with QE II was that whatever it was that she did—which was nothing—she did it longer than any other monarch; 70 Xs zero is still zero.
Now if you want to see a real woman of leadership, go back to Elizabeth the first (I). Here is how it went down. After Henry the VIII pulled the British jurisdiction out of Rome, he had no male heir blaming a curse for marrying a relative with the popes blessing. Marrying again, under the newly formed Anglican church, she bore a feeble heir who soon died after being enthroned. When first daughter Bloody Mary took over she pulled the British Church back to Rome slaying scores of Anglican clergy. When she soon died, the second daughter of Henry, QEI took over launching England into being the world’s first superpower since Rome with the most powerful navy the world had ever seen. By dodging the Catholics on one side and the Puritans on the other, she drove the British Church down the middle establishing an independent identity that was not Roman Catholic and Not Puritan; to be called the Via Media. By mandating the use of the Book of Common Prayer in all churches she standardized the English language around the world setting Britain as the most profuse producer of literature the world has ever seen. And America is Britain’s child, the genius of America comes largely from Britain; common law etc, etc. Now that’s a woman who changed the world.
If you do not think I understand over achieving women take a look at those I (we) raised:
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/news/2021-best-undergraduate-professors-aimee-barbeau-university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-gies-college-of-business/
This she does with three boys. Her husband is a theology professor at Wheaton. Husband and wife educators forming the next generation.
Before marriage this is her achievements:
1. During home high school she operated her own piano studio with at least a dozen students; made money at it she did.
2. Winning the national merit scholarship, she went full ride to Oral Roberts University graduating five majors honors in all, including mathematics. Cost me $300 for room stuff.
3. Full academic scholarship for masters at Tulsa, U. costs me nothing.
4. Full academic scholarship to George Town University in a doctorate political program that only takes four (4) students per year. Harder to get than the Rhodes. Again, cost dad nothing except hours of prayer and fasting.
Interestingly, her occupation as professor is way below her education, but some sacrifices are made to be mom.
As for my youngest daughter; she was tuition and books scholarshiped (no grants or loans) to University Colorado Colorado Springs, lived at home. I paid the outrageous fee for parking pass and gassed her car. She graduated double major top (#1) student in both majors.
During high school she ran track, went to state finals 3 of 4 years all in the 100m, 200m, 400m coached by guess who……. Me! She is now the Matuska at Elevation of the Cross Sacramento, CA, mother of 3 kids—full time mother by choice.
If you tell my daughters, “You go girl! Go for it!” they would probably just laugh at you because they have been-there/ done-that exceeded every male peer in sight and it’s all really quite boring now. When my youngest married and moved out, she destroyed a box full of track medals, ribbons and awards because all of a sudden it was useless baggage in light of her real goal in life, get married, raise children. For them fun is taking the toddlers to the park, chasing them around laughing and giggling until their diapers fall off. Do you really want to see a woman sprint? Find one chasing her naked toddler.
For me, the highlight of liturgy is watching a toddler jailbreak across the nave looking back to see how far mom is behind. What really makes me laugh is when the toddler makes quick stops at the icon stands to venerate, while on the run. In my heart of hearts, I’m totally disconnected with the liturgy, rooting for the toddler hoping he/she makes the sprint a marathon (me pious? Forget it). Another great sight is during the homily; the altar boys come out and sit Indian style on the floor. Out of an otherwise still crowd of people their younger sisters run up and plop themselves in brothers lap, eyes beaming with joy. Making me smile, I can’t hear a word the priest says.
I have visited Orthodox churches where there were no children. I’ll looking around the place asking if they put birth control in the communion cup or what. Down deep I feel a sickening feeling knowing that in a decade or two, this beautiful temple building will make a nice restaurant.
Orthodox moms are so complete in their callings, they have no need to save the world, occupy public office, cure cancer, split atoms, heal the sick or even raise the dead. Raising children, supporting their husbands is all it takes to hear “well done, good and faithful servant…”
So, what do I know about over achieving women? I know that many overachieving women have great big holes in their hearts, because in reality, they have been impregnated with somebody else’s political agenda totally foreign to their feminine instincts. With that, they never find God’s purpose for them. They cannot just live; they have to be ever marching forward promoting solutions for whatever chafes their hide at the moment. Want to be free? Let it go!
Ok, ok, does anybody remember the Proverbs 31 woman? (the only possible biblical text written by a woman channeled by her son King Lemuel). Get this, she ran the whole family business—and raise the children— buying and selling land—and loved doing so— while her husband drank beer with the boys down at the pub (my mistake, it was the gates of the city, or a pub on the edge of town it was, I think?). Life is not fair, it was never meant to be, but it can be fulfilling when finally figuring out what really matters and just staying in that lane.
In my view; with all the forces of our culture, the technocracy, and even bad legislation tearing mothers from their homes where they normally do what nobody else on earth can—raise children—it would behoove us to give honor where honor is due. My children are highly successful because my wife and I made the decision to forgo buying a house so she could stay out of the work force and home school. It work beyond my expectations. By the way: my son is in the top 20 lawyers in his field—political civil rights and redistricting—and he is not even 40; has 6 kids (quiver full? probably not). He is a partner in one of the top Washington D.C law firms that handle things related to politics. He has argued cases before multiple state supreme courts and has written briefs for SCOTUS. See: https://www.bakerlaw.com/RichardBRaile
As a father I only knew one thing, my job was making others successful starting with my own kids; it’s how Jesus did it; He never started the Church but forged the men that did. Their success was His success. Fathering and mother work according to the law of increase. Do you really want to change the world for the better, get married, have children and invest in them.
With all due respect, I really think I know what I am talking about when I speak about successful women—and men. And I have the fruit to prove it. With their success and the ability to set the priorities, life is good for me.
Warm regards, John Lee
I am interested on the opinion of Orthodox churches which do not allow women to be readers, chanters, or numerous other capacities. Is there a degree of non-equality at which the restrictions on women become offensive? Or does anything go and each church is allowed to determine its own level at which to restrict women’s roles?
So as contributors to this site, we can speak for the Churches with which we have direct experience. So in the Greek Archdiocese, we have experienced female chanters, choir directors, board members, board presidents, Sunday school teachers. In the OCA, same. Antiochian same. In Antiochian Western Rite, the laity read a lot of lessons from the Old Testament and the Epistles, and that includes women.
Roles like this would most likely be decided, one would assume, by either the local bishop over the parish or the synod.
So should I understand your answer to mean that there is no level at which a church could restrict women’s roles that would be offensive?
As the spectrum of Orthodox churches go, yours are quite liberal in this regard. My own and many others are far more conservative. I’m interested to know if you agree with the liberal position, since in the essay it appears to be used for rhetorical benefit, and see issues in the conservative position.
Would simply say that reading / chanting / leading the choir is done in all our parishes by women and we see no issue with it.
Thank-you, Nicholas!! Would you kindly consider a similar focus on the BINOS (Bishops In Name Only) who are a disgrace to Christ and His Church and His Saints and Martyrs? They, like the RINOS who are a disgrace to the forefathers of these great United States, are wittingly or unwittingly collaborating with Satan to destroy America. GOD BLESS.
[…] Ways to raise strong men and families in the Orthodox Church, https://orthodoxreflections.com/raising-warriors-for-christ/ […]
I found this blog over a year ago, and I have loved it because of its sane view of the covid narrative. My own OCA parish was mostly sane, too, but I know that many Orthodox churches have not been. I am new to Orthodoxy, baptized and chrismated on Theophany of 2021 at the age of 66, having begun my Orthodox journey in the fall of 2018. I came from a radical feminist and far left Mainline Protestant background. I made this radical change in theology and politics out of a sense of exhaustion at how wrong all the well-intentioned goals of the left had turned out.
However, lately I have realized this Orthodox path is not working out for me. I don’t believe in obedience, and I have zero tolerance for patriarchy. This article crystalizes what is wrong with Orthodoxy at its core. I knew what I was getting into, and I believed that I could do it because I had seen the horrors of feminist extremes and changing everything at a whim and taking an “anything goes” kind of attitude. I thought I wanted the largely unchanging ancient and apostolic Church as an antidote. Sadly, I now find I do not.
I believe that equality of the sexes is one of the most important moral principles. I believe that neither sex should be deprived of any office in the church. It is especially offensive to me that women and girls are not allowed in the altar area. There is rarely a service in which I do not seethe throughout part of it, looking at the iconostasis and the all-male servers and clergy and thinking of the injustice of this. I have never believed a husband should be the head of the wife and the family, and certainly not the automatic spiritual head. Spouses should be equal partners, women should not take their husbands’ names, and children should not take their fathers’ names. Women should be able to be servers, readers, deacons, priests, and bishops. Neither the Bible nor Church tradition is without cultural prejudices, and there is no way I can accept that God ever commanded a hierarchy of the sexes.
I am sorry that my first comment here is a complaint. I have enjoyed and agreed with the overwhelming majority of posts, especially from Nicholas. I think that most of this post on the importance of raising sons is positive. It is only the parts that make an unequal comparison of males and females that I object to. I am grateful for the voice of Orthodox Reflections, and I do understand why you all want to kept this tradition intact. I will always respect the Orthodox Church despite my strong disagreements. I am very sad now that I realize I have to leave. And because all of the theologically liberal churches in my area still have insane covid policies, I will not be able to be part of any church for the foreseeable future.
Greetings Karen,
I am an Orthodox Christian man converted from a non-denominational background. I’m saddened by your comments, as they speak of a mindset held by my now ex-wife, who could never accept my faith despite the goodness and virtue that she could see in it. I see in your post an internal contradiction. At the same time you reject the insanity of liberalization in churches, you cannot accept the “antidote”. With no malice in my heart or anger , I would like to offer another way of viewing this issue of equality. Can we accept the Biblical view of the sexes, in which men and women are of equal value in God’s eyes, with special roles and duties? Simple as that. Equality does not have to denote sameness. Our differences are the glory of the sexual complementarity that God created. God help you to soften your heart to the wisdom in the way the Orthodox Church honors this difference.
Hi Karen,
First let me say that I appreciate and respect your honesty concerning your egalitarian stance in the area of Church leadership and other various roles. I would like to ask if would you make the argument that the gender roles laid out in the scriptures such as (Eph 5; Titus 2; I Pet 3, I Tim 3. etc.) are timeless truths or just simply cultural norms–sitz im leben–at that time of the writings?
Secondly, you obviously have good discernment regarding the regrettable and rather embarrassing response of many of our Orthodox clergy and laity to the Covid19 virus. I would only ask before you abandon the Orthodox faith consider the results of the idea of egalitarianism as you discovered “how wrong all the well-intentioned goals of the left had turned out.”
In my view all of these post-modern and secular humanist issues we are grappling with today such as sex, gender, race and now medical scientism have a commonality. That commonality is an assault on God given natural rights and God’s natural order for society. I will attempt to contrast below what I mean:
God made male and female-Modernity says that gender is a social construct and is different than your sex “assigned” at birth.
God gave us faces to express emotions and the means to breathe freely- Modernity says that we are all bags of toxic waste and need to avoid one another unless our faces are covered thus restricting our natural breathing and making us unrecognizable to our fellow human being.
Lastly, I would submit that if we think about deeply God made man to be the giver and woman to be the receiver. It is certainly true that males don’t always assume that role as they should but what I’m really trying to emphasize is the fact that when we as human beings want to insert our own will and ideals upon something that God in His perfection has ordained, the end result will never be optimal!
Hi Karen. I can confess to everything you said as describing me many years ago. I was angry about being female, being the weak, the stupid, the unimportant, seeing success as being male, proving I could be male in my thinking, thinking female could be successful only to the extent it imitated male and competed with male, and frankly dominated male. That was before the Holy Theotokos gradually touched my mind and I realized how different my thinking was from hers. In other words, how different my thinking was from that of the woman who God literally occupied. The pinnacle of humanity is the Theotokos. She is worthy of imitation and devotion. She will teach you what her Son and our God actually loves to see. Then the only question will be, can you do it. If I may recommend to you a book “The Life of the Virgin Mary, The Theotokos” published by Holy Apostles Convent. This book compiles everything Tradition and the Church know about her. God’s peace to you.
Thanks for reading. You did go through a huge, huge change. You are still new to the Faith, and came into the Church at a quite rocky time in our culture. Please do not make any decisions about your future in the Orthodox Church because of a blog post. Please consult with your own priest or other spiritual father. Orthodoxy is not an online religion.
Obedience to the Church is, of course, extremely important. If you were looking for the Apostolic Faith, were you not looking to be obedient to it? What do you define as obedience that bothers you right now? We can readily imagine that you saw feminist horrors, so how would you see Orthodoxy changing in a way that does not descend into those same horrors? What does “patriarchy” mean to you? You have zero tolerance for it, but what is it that you have zero tolerance for? Does equality of the sexes mean that they are interchangeable in all respects as many feminists have alleged? We are currently experiencing men dressed as women invading traditional female spaces such as sports and even female prisons. The results are disastrous. Are women and men the same in all respects? Can equality still allow for sex-based differences? In your Orthodox Church, no doubt, you will see icons of the Theotokos. Other than the Trinity, no one is equal to her. The Orthodox Church elevates a woman over all other mortals. Yet, still, the Orthodox Church affirms sex-based roles. Is the Church wrong in this, or is absolute “equality” that denies differences between men and women a real source of problems in our society.
This whole statement seems strange. You have seen how ordaining women in feminist churches has led to massive changes in faith, practice, and morals. You have seen how the importation of feminist ideals has driven away men, and harmed the development of boys into men. As you said, you’ve seen the horrors. Why do you want the Orthodox to repeat those horrors? If you seethe through the services, have you discussed this with your priest? When discussing clerical roles, keep in mind there is no such thing as a right to be a priest or deacon, for example. These are callings, and the recruitment into these roles is at God’s discretion. While you may consider an injustice, what about the Orthodox women who do not? Are they wrong? We have female contributors to this site who will be the first to disagree, especially mothers of sons, that the current situation is any kind of injustice. Including women with high educational attainment. So this is an area to give some thought to what is the purpose served by changing the status quo, is should a change something the Church could even authorize given the clarity of Tradition, and what would the likely effects be (given what we have seen elsewhere such as in the Episcopal Church).
The comments on taking the husband’s and father’s name are somewhat perplexing. They are commonly accepted social conventions that indicate the foundation of a new family and new home. How do you expect our society to function under conditions of such cultural anarchy? Especially since the vast majority of women follow these conventions both willingly and even enthusiastically, how would you ever affect this change?
Thank you! No problem on the complaint, your opinion is welcome. Thank you for saying the part on the raising of sons was positive.
In the article, Nicholas said this:
Equally, yet distinctly. Does equality mean identical? Can there be roles and opportunities reserved for women while others for men, yet both sexes are equal before the law, responsible for their own salvation, equally allowed to pursue owning property, and the like? Please talk to your priest before leaving the faith. Pray also, especially for the guidance of the Theotokos.
Thank you for such an excellent article Nicholas. Your readers may also be interested in two related YouTube videos by Prager U with the following titles:
1. Why God is a He
2. Are fathers necessary?
Thank you! I think the videos you recommend are
https://youtu.be/6YXzywDWc1k
And
https://youtu.be/daS69gf0Tzc
Truly oustanding!