Husband as Head of the Wife does NOT mean Source

It is a common egalitarian argument to claim the husband being the head over the wife doesn't mean he's the leader or authority, but only source. That's simply not true. Some have apparently noticed that the word head is used for the source of a river and thought they could explain away the Biblical teaching that husbands are head over their wives by claiming it just means the husband is a head in the sense of a river's head is its source. There are multiple problems with this line of argument.

First, the original word in Greek, kephale, actually means a head, like the part of your body where your face and brain are. Figurative meanings like the head of a river are secondary and derive from the literal meaning of a head on a body.

Second, the Biblical passages in question clearly use head and body metaphors for the relationship between husband and wife, not river metaphors.

Ephesians 5:22-33
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

Note here that the analogy given is that the husband and wife are like Christ and the church. Just as Christ is the head and the church is the body of Christ, so husband is to be the head over his wife and treat her as his own body by cherishing her. So this is clearly a head/body comparison, not talking about the head of a river. Just read the context. It's clear.

Third, we see that the very text using this head metaphor clearly states that wives are to submit to their husbands. So again, we have clear contextual evidence to show us this is about submission to authority. It doesn't make any sense for Paul to be commanding wives to be sure they originate from their husbands because he's the head and she's the river. That's not what it says. The Bible says submit. This is about authority.

Fourth, the husband is not the source of his wife. My source is my parents, not my husband. The ONLY case where the husband was actually the source of his wife was Adam and Eve, but that doesn't apply to any other marriage. So it doesn't make sense for Paul to tell people in his day (or people in our day) that the husband is the source of his wife. If anything, that's way weirder than teaching that the husband is in authority over his wife. I mean, think about how weird it would be if Paul was really telling us that the husband is the origin and source of his wife in some way, like that she doesn't exist as a person until she marries and somehow originates from her husband. Creepy. I think I'll stick with the Biblical teaching, thanks.

This line of argument that head only means source and not authority is just a really bad attempt to get around the clear teaching of scripture. It has been repeated so often that people just keep passing it around, but it doesn't take a scholar to see that it doesn't fit the Biblical text.

The Bible does actually teach that husbands have authority over their wives to which the wives have a responsibility to submit. It's not an unlimited authority, obviously. Only God has unlimited authority. But an authority structure in marriage where the husband leads and the wife submits is taught in scripture.

Homosexuality Violates the Design of our Bodies

Homosexuality, at its root, says that my body tells me nothing about how I should function sexually, and that I can do what I feel like rather than fulfilling the design of my sexuality which is rooted in the biology of the human body. This treats the body as if it is inconsequential and pointless - just a shell of meat that we wear rather than part of who we are. The "true self" in this view is the soul or mind or some non-physical entity that is inhabiting our bodies. The body is viewed as separate and unconnected to the true self, to be used as we please.

This mind/body dualism is actually a very low view of the body compared to the traditional Christian view, which says the body is inherently good, created by God, and part of who we are, not just a shell we inhabit. A lot of Christians today have lost this understanding, but this has been the historic Christian view since the beginning.

This presents a powerful way to reach those struggling with homosexual desires or similar issues (like transgenderism) with a positive message that their bodies are not irrelevant to who they are, but are good and integral parts of their being. Our bodies do have a lot to show us about who we are because they exhibit features that have a design. Behaviors that fit with our design are good and behaviors that violate our design are bad - not just morally bad, but bad for us as well.

Rather than a negative message that they are evil and twisted for having same-sex desires, we can present a positive message that their bodies are good. Our design tells us how we should live.

For example, we can study the digestive system to see what it is for and how it works. But that study also shows us good ways and bad ways of treating our bodies. If we eat nutritious food, then our bodies are helped. If we eat junk food or overeat or binge and purge or starve ourselves, these violate the way our bodies are supposed to work and cause harm. We can see that anorexia and bulimia are disorders precisely because they violate the way the body is designed to work.

It is exactly the same with the sexual organs. Our bodies have a way they were designed to work. They are designed as either male or female and the sexes are designed for their sexual organs to fit together and through that action to create new life. Our desires or attractions do not trump the design of our bodies. If we treat our bodies incorrectly, it causes harm.

This is a high view of the body that treats the body as an important part of who we are and which gives us valuable clues about how we should live so that we can flourish. Note that we do not have to rely on Christian moral teaching at this point. This is an argument from natural law, which is accessible to anyone, even if they don't believe the Bible. And that makes it easier to reach those who are not Christians.

It is worth noting at this point that Christian teaching, not coincidentally, is in line with what we can see in nature. This is good evidence for the truth of Christianity. Christian morality doesn't violate our design. It fits perfectly.

For more arguments like this about the design of human bodies and human sexuality, check out my new book The Bible and Science on Gender, Sex, and Marriage.

Is Your Birth Control Abortifacient? It might be.

For pro-life women like myself, the issue of abortion is a major moral issue. Killing a human child in the womb is a moral evil that we strongly oppose. But while the very thought of having a surgical abortion is abhorrent, many of us may not know that many of the birth control options on the drugstore shelves or available at our doctor's office and touted as purely contraceptive can also kill babies. There are pro-life women who are popping a pill every day, have an implant in their arm, or are using an IUD to prevent pregnancy and may be unknowingly aborting their own children.

Which forms of birth control have this risk? The short answer is that all hormonal contraceptives currently available and all IUDs have the potential to cause early abortions by preventing a newly formed embryo from implanting in the womb. The baby then starves to death. Because there's no implantation, the woman's body never knows it was pregnant. She will never get a positive pregnancy test. She won't miss her period. But her baby died all the same.

Now, that's a very serious issue! I would certainly want to know if I were causing my children to die, and I'm sure you do too. So why isn't this commonly known? Shouldn't women be informed about all the risks?

If you ask most ob-gyns or other doctors, they will tell you that hormonal contraceptives and IUDs are purely contraceptive. They will say they don't cause abortions, and cannot do so. However, there's a very clever trick that allows them to say this. They don't count the first few days of a baby's life. Let me explain.

The evidence from science clearly shows that human life begins at fertilization. When egg and sperm join, the resulting single-celled zygote is a separate and distinct individual with all the genetic material of a complete human organism and the ability to grow and develop his or her own body into adulthood. This child is already either male or female. The hair and eye color and many other traits are already set. The zygote needs only nutrients and the right environment to enable him or her to grow, just like any other child does.

During the trip down the fallopian tube to the uterus, the zygote divides several times until it forms a small ball of cells called a blastocyst. Again, this blastocyst is a distinct human individual. The scientific terms like zygote, embryo, and blastocyst are just stages of growth that all humans go through just like infant, toddler, adolescent, or adult.

The blastocyst is the stage that implants in the womb. This process of implantation occurs from 6-12 days after fertilization. Implantation cannot occur unless there is a living human child present. It is the blastocyst that initiates implantation. The mother's uterus has a thick, highly vascular layer of tissue called the endometrium on the inside surface and the tiny blastocyst must burrow into this tissue and attach to a blood vessel to begin forming a placenta in cooperation with the mother's tissues. The placenta is the organ that gives nutrients to the baby from the mother's blood supply and produces the hormones that will tell her body that a baby is present so that she does not shed the uterine lining through menstruation and instead begins making changes to support her growing child.

Because the baby must travel down the fallopian tube and attach to the uterine lining before getting any nutrients, those first few days of life are a little rough. The egg must be large and have stores of nutrients in order to feed the growing embryo during this time period. By the time the baby gets to the uterus, he needs food. The implantation process is a time crunch to get connected in time, before precious stores of nutrients run out. 

Those first few days of life, before implantation, that baby is alive. Yet back in 1965, pregnancy was redefined to begin at implantation rather than fertilization. So there are 6-12 days when a woman's body contains her living child's body and yet modern doctors don't count her as pregnant because the baby hasn't implanted in the womb yet.

That seems misleading, right? Why would we count pregnancy as beginning at implantation rather than the creation of the child? In times past, pregnancy was synonymous with the old-fashioned term "with child." It meant a woman was carrying a child inside her. So if she's not pregnant, you would think that means there's no baby inside her. That's the way people tend to think about it. Yet with this change of definition, people have been misled to believe that there's no baby inside her during those 6-12 days before implantation.

The really startling fact about this change of definition was that it was intended to mislead people about how birth control works. You see, hormonal birth control - specifically the combination birth control pill - had just been approved for use as a contraceptive in 1960. In the 1950's, female hormones were available to treat menstrual irregularities, but not for use as a contraceptive even though it was known to work as contraception. With the advent of an effective contraceptive pill which could potentially prevent implantation also, it was argued that counting pregnancy as beginning at implantation would be helpful in encouraging the use of the new birth control pill among women. 

Even Wikipedia (not exactly known for its honesty on controversial matters) admits that this was the motivation:

"In 1959, Dr. Bent Boving suggested that the word "conception" should be associated with the process of implantation instead of fertilization. Some thought was given to possible societal consequences, as evidenced by Boving's statement that "the social advantage of being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy could depend on something so simple as a prudent habit of speech." In 1965, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) adopted Boving’s definition: "conception is the implantation of a fertilized ovum.""

Wikipedia "Beginning of pregnancy controversy" 

In short, it was considered "prudent" to tell women that the birth control pill only prevents pregnancy and not that it can end the life of a child. In order to do that, they defined pregnancy to begin at implantation so as to hide the fact that human children who had not yet been implanted could be killed by this new "contraceptive." If pregnancy has not yet begun because the baby has not implanted, then there was no abortion. Thus, preventing implantation is not counted as abortion on a technicality, due to this faulty definition of pregnancy, despite the fact that it does kill a human individual.

The potential for ending young human lives with hormonal contraceptives has been known for decades and covered up with misleading definitions. There are several other problems with hormonal contraceptives as well, but this is the most serious moral issue. The hormones in birth control make the uterus inhospitable for a baby to implant and thus can cause an early abortion by preventing implantation.

 
In fairness, this is not the main mode of action. There are three mechanisms by which hormonal birth control works. The main mechanism is to prevent ovulation. If no egg is released, there can be no conception. This mechanism is truly contraceptive by preventing conception. The secondary mechanism is to thicken cervical secretion to impede sperm motility. If sperm do not reach the egg, then no conception occurs. However, the third mechanism works as a backup in case the first two mechanisms fail (which they sometimes do). The uterine lining is thinned by the hormones and becomes less able to care for an implanting child. A thin lining means less blood flow and difficulty in connecting to a blood vessel. If an egg is released and fertilized, then the new child will usually fail to implant in the womb. The baby then starves and dies. There is no way of knowing which is happening each month for any particular woman.

Here are some secular health sites that discuss the mechanisms for hormonal birth control. It is well-known that the uterine lining is affected and may prevent implantation. In fact, one of the main beneficial effects they tout for birth control pills is that they thin the uterine lining and produce lighter periods or even none at all in some women. A thinner uterine lining means a baby cannot implant and get the nutrients he needs.

 

"The hormones in the Pill can also sometimes affect the lining of the uterus, making it difficult for an egg to attach to the wall of the uterus."
Kids Health

"Birth control pills contain synthetic hormones that work to prevent pregnancy. These hormones can stop ovulation and make it more difficult for sperm to enter your uterus. They can also alter your uterine lining, which can reduce the likelihood of implantation."

Healthline

"The pill also thickens cervical mucus so the sperm cannot reach the egg. It makes the lining of the uterus unreceptive to the implantation of a fertilized egg."

HealthyWomen

The abortifacient potential of the combination birth control pill is shared by all hormonal contraceptives because they all contain the same progestin hormone that thins the uterine lining. This includes the regular birth control pill, the mini pill, the implant, the ring, the patch, the depo shot, and hormonal IUDs. All of these have the same mechanisms. They all contain progestin. They all thin the uterine lining. They can all prevent a human embryo from implanting in the womb.

It's not just hormonal birth control that can be abortifacient though. The copper IUD (Paraguard) can also prevent implantation and thus kill children. There are two types of IUDs - hormonal and copper. The hormonal type works just like other hormonal contraceptives. The copper one is often chosen by women specifically because it doesn't have the female hormones, with their sometimes harmful side effects. Yet the abortifacient side effect remains.

The copper in the copper IUD does kill sperm as the primary mechanism, but it also inflames the lining of the uterus and makes it inhospitable to an embryo, if fertilization were to occur. It does appear that preventing fertilization occurs more often, but killing an embryo can occur on occasion. Again, we don't know how often each mechanism is occurring in any particular woman.

Take a look at these scholarly sources that verify that all IUDs can be deadly to a human embryo:

"All IUDs induce a local inflammatory reaction that disturbs the functioning of the endometrium and myometrium and changes the microenvironment of the uterine cavity. Moreover, these effects alter signaling between uterus and ovary. The entire genital tract seems affected, at least in part because of luminal transmission of fluids accumulating in the uterine lumen. Copper or progesterone-releasing IUDs may attenuate or accentuate the inflammatory response, disturb the physiology of the gametes in the female genital tract, or destroy the viability of the embryos or endometrial receptivity to implantation." (Emphasis added)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8972502/

"All intrauterine devices (IUDs) that have been tested experimentally or clinically induce a local inflammatory reaction of the endometrium whose cellular and humoral components are expressed in the tissue and the fluid filling the uterine cavity. ... In the human, the entire genital tract appears affected due to luminal transmission of the noxa that accumulates in the uterine lumen. This affects the function and viability of gametes, decreasing the rate of fertilization and lowering the chances of survival of any embryo that may be formed, before it reaches the uterus." (Emphasis added)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17531610/

Note that you have to read the fine print carefully on this issue because a lot of resources will tell you that IUDs are not abortifacient because the primary mechanism is to prevent fertilization. While it's true that the primary mechanism prevents fertilization, an occasional abortion is ignored, yet is very much an important moral issue that should be considered. They skip over that part on purpose in order to persuade women to use such devices. If you look at the scientific literature, they do admit that IUDs, including the copper one, can kill an embryo if fertilization does occur.

If we believe every human life is sacred, then we need to show that in our actions. I could never take hormonal contraceptives or use IUDs because of the risk of killing my child. There are other ways to prevent pregnancy that don't have this moral stain.

Now, it should be mentioned here that there are sometimes other uses of female hormones besides contraceptive use. The birth control pill and other female hormones are sometimes used to regulate a woman's cycle, treat PCOS, raise abnormally low estrogen levels, or similar medical uses. This is distinct from using these hormone treatments as contraception. It might be the same pill in a lot of cases, but the reason for use is very different. 

Still, these women need to be aware of the risks of causing an early child death when they use these hormonal treatments in order to make an informed decision. If the hormone treatment is needed, they may want to use a barrier method as a backup, to be sure to prevent fertilization. Or they may want to look at other options for treatment. If they're past childbearing age or otherwise infertile, this may not even be an issue for some women. But the information should be available so that they understand the risks. There's also a difference in the morality of taking a necessary medical treatment that has a small risk of causing an abortion versus taking hormonal contraceptives for their contraceptive purpose and taking on that risk of abortion when there is no medical necessity for the woman. These factors take some careful moral reasoning and should not be ignored.

There is one more objection that some will use to argue for these birth control methods. It goes like this. A large fraction - estimated from 10-40% - of human embryos will die naturally even without these birth control methods. In fact, they will even claim that since these methods prevent so many fertilization events, the total number of babies dying goes down. Yet this does not justify occasionally killing human babies. 

When deaths occur naturally, that's tragic, but we aren't responsible for them. People dying of natural causes does not make it okay to kill them, either intentionally or through negligence. When we intervene to control fertility by choosing methods which can be deadly to some babies, we are morally responsible for the outcomes in ways that don't apply to natural deaths. 

As an analogy, suppose there was a nursing home that cared for the elderly, but occasionally gave some of them a lethal injection. Yet the rest of the time, they such a great job at giving the rest of the patients excellent care that, compared to other nursing homes, their death rate was a little lower overall. Would you consider that a good facility? I would hope not. Saving some lives with great care doesn't mean they can now kill a few people. They don't have that right.

Using these abortifacient birth control methods is a similar situation with the statistics. They might prevent some natural deaths by preventing the fertilization in the first place, but they also cause deaths. And because we intervened to use the method, we are responsible for the deaths we cause.

Now, for many of you, you didn't know. You weren't intending to kill any babies. And you're probably upset that no one has told you this before. It's not right that this information is kept from women with sneaky definitions designed to conceal the truth. 

But now you know. You're now responsible for what you know and what you do with that information.

Egalitarianism is a Step Toward Acceptance of Homosexuality

Egalitarianism is the gateway drug to acceptance of homosexuality. Once you accept that men and women are interchangeable in their marriage roles, why not in the bedroom?

If men and women have no specific roles in marriage such that the woman is to have certain responsibilities because she is the female and the man is to have certain responsibilities because he is the male, then why do you need one of each sex? Some might say that you need a male and female to produce children, but fewer and fewer see any reason why marriage and children are connected. If we accept that a marriage need not be open to children, then why does the ability to create children form a requirement for marriage?

It is also very notable that every church denomination that has accepted homosexuality has first adopted egalitarianism and female pastors and they use the same arguments for both positions. If "there is no male or female in Christ" means men and women are interchangeable and have no difference in roles, but should be treated identically in every respect, then that means we can't tell the difference between men and women when it comes to what marriage is either.

The two positions are logically connected, not because egalitarianism entails acceptance for homosexuality, but because acceptance of homosexuality entails egalitarianism. If you accept homosexuality as normal and healthy, then you necessarily accept egalitarianism.

Egalitarianism is the premise that men and women are not complementary, or at least that they don't need to be - that there is no design such that men and women are fundamentally different in complementary ways. There's no requirement that a healthy relationship requires a woman who is feminine and a man who is masculine under this view. Egalitarianism claims that the man and woman can act exactly the same, with the same responsibilities as one another, or that the woman could hold the masculine roles while the man holds the feminine roles. It doesn't matter how they do it, in this view. There's no proper roles. They don't have to complement one another. A union of two sames is just as normal and good.

Homosexuality is a further step that claims even their bodies need not be male and female. But you have to accept that there is no complementary design of males and females in order to accept that a healthy relationship could include two people of the same sex. You have to start with egalitarianism in order to get to acceptance of homosexuality. Egalitarianism lowers the activation energy necessary to accept homosexuality, if you will (to use a chemistry analogy).

If you believe that males and females are complementary by design, each having attributes throughout their design that provide something the other needs and lacks, then homosexuality is dead in the water. It could not possibly be healthy or proper. But you're already a lot closer to accepting homosexuality as a valid and healthy type of relationship if you don't see any reason that men and women have a complementary design that shows us their proper roles in the relationship.

Best Banana Bread

This recipe makes the best banana bread ever! I was never a fan of banana bread until this recipe. I even won 1st prize at our local fair for this banana bread. It can be made into loaves or muffins easily, and it disappears quickly around here.

This is a great way to use up overripe bananas. If you're a mom, you know how that goes. One week you can't keep bananas in stock because the kids eat them constantly, so you buy more only to have them sit there until they turn brown because nobody wants bananas. This is how you turn those unwanted bananas into a treat they will eat.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
5-6 overripe bananas, mashed (about 2 cups)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2-3 tablespoons ground flax seed (optional)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional, but highly recommended)
4 ounces cream cheese, cut into small pieces (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir together butter and sugar until well-blended. Mix in eggs. Mash bananas and add them immediately. You don't want to mash the bananas until you're ready to add them or they will turn brown and oxidized. Also, don't mash them to death. You don't want banana soup. I use a pastry blender to mash/cut the bananas. You want small pieces and some mush. It adds to the texture and keeps it flavorful.

In a small bowl, mix together the salt, baking soda, flours, and ground flax seed (if desired). You can use all white flour, all wheat flour, or a mix of the two. I prefer half and half for the best taste and texture that is hearty without being too dense. The ground flax seed adds a mild, nutty taste and some healthy fiber and omega-3's.

Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Mix in the chopped walnuts, if you're using them. I like mine very finely chopped. Last, stir in the cream cheese pieces, if you want them. I usually don't do the cream cheese, but I have done it occasionally. 

Pour the batter into the greased pans. This recipe makes 24 standard muffins or 2 loaves (or 1 loaf and 12 muffins, if you can't decide). Bake for 30-35 minutes for muffins or 60-70 minutes for loaves. It's done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Don't under bake and, actually, a little extra baking won't hurt. I usually aim for about 35 minutes for muffins because I like to let mine get a little extra brown and toasted on top. The muffins are moist enough that this does not dry them out.

If you add the cream cheese, you'll want to store the banana bread in the fridge. Without the cream cheese, it can be covered and stored at room temperature.

I also reheat muffins in the toaster to give them a slightly toasted crust on the outside and leave them soft and moist on the inside. These warm, toasted muffins are great dipped in milk (like maybe, in a cereal bowl). The bread slices are better untoasted and warmed slightly in the microwave. If you don't add cream cheese pieces, you can still spread cream cheese on the bread when you eat it, if you want to. Enjoy!