Martha Peace and Mother Jones

It’s not a bad article, but not a great one. I am referring to the article by Kathryn Joyce that recently appeared in Mother Jones (“Purpose Driven-Driven Wife”).

Kathryn appears to have attended an event hosted at the First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, Georgia. As a professing Christian who does some occasional public speaking, I understand that my audience is mixed: folks who know why they are there, folks who do not know why they are there, and folks who are there doing research for an article. Joyce is writing a review of a cultural event that she might otherwise not attend (but I don’t know for sure). As such, something like a “Women of Purpose” series taught at a massive Baptist church in the heart of the South may be a bit . . . weird. I mean, I cannot for a moment see my wife registering for an event like this. So Joyce, with steely resolve and her finger on a voice-recorder, marches into a very strange setting indeed. What courage!

It might’ve been more helpful, however, if Joyce had first taken stock of her setting. These are, by and large, Christian people who have come to hear another Christian person speak about marriage. Christians are a Bible people. And the Bible has a lot to say about marriage. Joyce tries to capture this by quoting “Ephesians” (it is 5.24 by the way), and interjecting statements like “the Lord’s system is righteous, . . .” and “accepting God’s intentions.” But this is really not the best effort at making clear that these people are gathered around a ‘belief’ or ‘presupposition’ or ‘philosophical framework’ or ‘worldview’ or whatever that illustrates exactly what they mean. Yes, they believe that a wife is to submit to her husband, but what Joyce has missed is that this conclusion came to them because they first believed that they are to submit to God, the Bible, His Son, etc.

This isn’t too nuanced to escape notice. But it has escaped Joyce. Joyce started the article with great fairness and, generally, pretty good journalistic instinct. I’m not a journalist, but it seems like a pretty good presentation of a strange event (hey, “garden-printed blazers” are just not something you see everyday!). And her article connects Martha Peace to folks like John MacArthur, John Piper, Albert Mohler, Bruce Ware, and Rick Warren, which is legitimate and reasonable, and Martha would, I am sure, happily approve. I even appreciate the concluding paragraph in which Joyce quotes Peace with, “God has already ordered your steps and has a perfect plan to accomplish his will in your life.” I know that to some this sounds corny, but Peace really believes this, and Joyce (in my mind) is ending on a good note.

But Joyce shows no evidence of having understood why these women are here in the first place. Prior to any conclusions that they may have come to regarding marriage, they believed in God and His Bible. In fact, the very experience that they participated in that Georgian edifice happened because they believe that they are submitting to God and His Bible. They have not “reach[ed] this austere conviction via shared women’s study.” They are not united by a desire to make a “radical leap.” They are not extensions of a “mentoring tradition.” They are not knit together by a revolt against the “‘corrupting’ influence of feminism on the wider culture.”

To be sure, it would seem to me that one thing this weird event certainly is not, is a ‘consciousness raising group’ which exists because of “common complaints as part of a larger pattern of oppression.” Gloria Steinem (I am mystified why her name would make even make it into such an article) was engaged in a movement that saw its germination in rebellion (which is what Martha Peace teaches). Protofeminism (Joyce’s phrase) is rebellion with its root, basis, germination, foundation, birth, etc., in a conscious and tactical program. Steinem submitted to a program which, incidentally, she had a great deal of influence upon. But the people at Martha’s Atlanta gig are not submitting to a human-born program with personalities and Unions and Magazines and Foundations. They believe that they are submitting to God and His Bible. If you are sympathetic, that makes them mores secure and substantial. If you are not sympathetic, that makes them, well, a lot scarier than a mere movement.