Husbandry - Volume 10, Issue 3

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Gender Warriors

Douglas Wilson

The American military is currently acting the part of a weak sister. The pressure is on to bring women into combat roles. Our military is going along, in its inimitable and craven way, with this declared intention to feminize the armed forces. The military hierarchy is crushing any principled objections that might arise within the ranks. And of course, as the current drill requires, the Church stands mutely by, wondering what on earth this might all mean. Probably a sign of the end times. Indications of our cultural dissolution are legion these days, but this one ranks in the top five.

Not surprisingly, the problem can be traced back to the condition of the Christian family. Men do not understand that when they take a wife, they are to determine their subsequent duties from a careful scrutiny of the Word of God. They are not to take their orders from the spirit of the secular age. Neither are they to catch the latest feel-good wave of revival excitement which is filling up our nation's stadiums with barrel-chested panty-waists. About the only thing missing from the evangelical masculine renewal movement today would be the breast implants.

Understanding our enemy, and then fighting him, never occurs to us. Our culture can perpetrate the most monstrous outrages against nature, and we evangelicals scurry around the edges of the orgy, trying to give somebody a tract. "Too busy right now? Okay! Maybe later!" Brighten the corner where you are.

But this is not the source of the problem. Even these things are symptomatic. The broad failure of masculinity within our culture is a failure within the home, and in particular, within each home.

Masculine duties are manifold, but surely one of the central duties of a husband is to protect his wife from harm. "Remember the Lord, great and awesome, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses" (Neh. 4:14). When necessary, he does this in concert with other men who are defending their families as well. This is the divine order established by God, and only impudence disputes it.^†

This does not mean that the guys should fight when they are drafted by the collectivist state to lower the price of oil a few pennies per gallon. Rather, it means that husbands should accept as part of their central masculine identity the role of lord protector. Not only must this role be accepted, it must be felt in the bones. Christian men still fight, and many of them fight courageously and well. But almost no Christian men understand what fighting means.

A nation defended by her women is a nation no longer worth defending. When women are placed in the front line of defense, every Christian man should walk away from the cause of that nation as being beneath contempt. Taking this a step further, a nation as far gone as to think that women in combat is a viable way to go is a nation which is no longer defensible in principle—even if there remains a misguided desire to defend it. Men who understand their duties in this regard, or men who are willing to recover an understanding of their duties, should recognize that the result of all our evangelical dithering about is that the nation which we call the United States has already been lost.

This means that men should begin to think through their responsibilities regarding the next round. This statement is not made in a column on the civil magistrate, but rather as an exhortation to husbands. A man must protect his family, and in the coming years a thinking man will be looking for a good hill to defend. How might that be done? Families should begin congregating in communities where these duties are understood, and the men of those communities have every intention of fulfilling those duties.

Christian men who are in the military should get out at the first lawful opportunity and move to a community where they may defend their families instead of their current unwilling defense of the feminist agenda—which agenda appears at present to be a desire to turn the US Navy into an offshore brothel.

When God brings judgment upon a culture, that judgment is sometimes catastrophic. We sometimes debate among ourselves whether the coming judgment will be in that category or will be a divine tap on the wrist. It does not occur to us to look at what has already happened. Neither does it occur to us to consider biblically the magnitude of what we have done.

The prohibition to women in Deuteronomy 22:5 is one which blindsides us. We knew abortion and homosexuality were abominations. But here we are told, no woman shall put on "the gear of a warrior"—keli gabar. But why not? "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Dt. 22:5).

We are far gone in our commitment to these follies. A commericial for the Armed Forces can come on the television, and there we see a sweet little feminine face peering out at us from the depths of her helmet, like a lonely pea in a soup bowl. And still we sit quietly, solemn as a judge.