I am new to this site, and your article was the first one I read. I must say that I truly enjoyed it, and I am delighted to know that there are other young women out there, like myself, that still believe in the now “old fashioned” view of what a woman should strive to be. My friends always laugh and call me the anti-feminist. I laugh along with them, but I truly believe that a woman’s place is in the home serving her husband and serving God.

Congratulations on your accomplisments thus far–you seem like you will be an excellent wife and mother some day.

Jess

All of my friends were beginning Etsy shops or teaching piano, but I decided to be an English tutor: what are your gifts? How will your current pursuits change once you’re married? Are you devoting your time now to sucking the industry out of these single years?

A: Be industrious.

B: Be industrious in the way that best suits you (whether it be starting an Etsy shop or tutoring form your home)

C: But above all, be industrious.

It was not my intent to elevate my particular bent above others. I believe you are confusing perspective (I am a writer with advice (I am not advising that all girls should be writers, but I am advising that there are some helpful milestones in growth and ministry).

I think you might be getting hung-up on the fact that I’m a writer who is interested in academia -please don’t hold it against me. While writing is one of my biggest passions, I’m also a big sister to five younger siblings six and under. No, I can’t crochet a single thread, but I child-rangle and keep house in the way that my mother has diligently instructed me to. One of my passions is to show young women that biblical womanhood does not have to fit into a box. If I have appeared to advocate a “repackaging {of} feminism under the guise of the modern accomplished Christian young lady,” that was not my intent.

I believe you do desire, as I do, to see Christian young women freed from the bondage of extra-biblical standard. My focus on this article was the standard that we must all be creative in the same way -your focus seems to be the standard that we must all be intellectual in the same way. Perhaps we may both want the same thing but be looking at it from two different perspectives. While I do still believe that you may have misconstrued the spirit of my post, I am very grateful for an opportunity to clarify my meaning. While I do respect you as an older woman, this is my article, and I do believe I have the right to speak up. Since I believe further comment will be fruitless, you will please, feel free to email me, but I will no longer be responding to you here.

If we are still at an impasse, I do want to leave with the point that a competent, intelligent woman (whether she is at the helm of a home-crafting industry, or the author of numerous titles) does not automatically a feminist make (a feminist is a woman who does not understand the beauty and symmetry of God’s complimentary design for men and women and seeks to prove that women and men are not only equal, but interchangeable). I believe that those adjectives -intelligent, competent -are words that need to be reclaimed by Christ-centered young women bent on cultural change in and through the home. Above all, whatever our creative bent, the focus should be not on advancing our own agenda -I no more want to see all young ladies becoming writers and teachers than I assume you want to see all of them becoming crafters -but advancing the gospel of Christ in word and deed.

The question was not about “my” family vision, but of a young lady whose family vision is opposed to Scriptures calling and to the calling of your standards of what is an accomplished young lady is. What concerns me most of all are the young ladies who are repackaging feminism under the guise of the modern accomplished Christian young lady.

The worldview I am trying to help you understand is not about a worldview of faith but the talents and the personalities required for such talents. What you are espousing are the virtues of your view of an accomplished lady by your standards for a writer. A young lady with another desire would access accomplishment of different qualities. It is your opinion under the guise of advice that concerns me when it is taken as a matter of a requirement to achieve accomplishment.

Mrs. J.

I’d like to point out, first of all, that I did not say anything was wrong with crafting (quite the contrary, actually -I said “nothing” was wrong with it). However, in your very lengthy response to this article, you actually proved my point:

You know your family’s vision

My daughter is feeling the constant pressure from other young ladies expounding the accomplished standard to improve their minds over their skills. I have been on a lot of debate teams and I will tell you it won few over to the gospel. It was the quiet life and the being home that caused more to question their own lives than all the debate teams I was ever on.

You have taken the time to learn the Word in order to defend your opinion of crafting:

The trick of the enemy is to get off on long philosophies so that the basic salvation message is lost. You will find that all arguments can be stopped by the salvation message alone, for if an individual accepts the authority of the Word they will accept the gospel. No amount of facts ever changed the minds of so many atheist or agnostic that I have encountered.

You have a worldview you are defending

The problem is, some want to analyze everything and other prefer the simplicity of life. An accomplished life is in the product that produces faithfulness, obedience and humility. An accomplished life can be a very simple one and no one has a right to say to those who choose the simplicity of life they are not accomplished.

You have a grasp of history

In times past a young man looked for a young lady who could show her skills in the home of her father with samplers, etc. Today the demand for crafts is high. One organization needs homemade handmade cards for soldiers overseas to be able to use to write home with because this is not available in the area they must serve.

You are here, proclaiming truth as you understand it (although you seem vehemently opposed to debate, you are debating with a very small portion of what I said):

This is not a competition between the “educated” secular individual full of knowledge that puffs them up and the ignorant stay-at-home wife. More times than not I have heard some great speakers state it was the simply minded child-like faith of what some would call ignorant that taught them more than all the Christian college, commentaries, etc they had.

You are proclaiming the virtues of homekeeping

Many young ladies who come to me find their family’s vision is for them to become independent career women, self-sufficient. They want to learn the advanced skills of homemaking and their family would rather spend the money for them to learn this in college than seek out an elder woman who can teach the skills. I was pushed into a career and never learned the advance skills of homemaking. My daughter is the one who is teaching me such things in my later 50’s because I never learned them.

You talk about culture changing

We have to be able to administer the Word of God rightly, what is to show a principle with biblical autonomy and what is to be for our daily lives. A contrite heart serves the Lord, not the amount of knowledge we possess.

Ma’am, I contend that you have read far too much into a few sentences of a much broader picture. And I further contend that anyone who can argue for her particular creative bent over my own with such vehemence while simultaneously bemoaning the ridiculous nature of debating, defending, and contending in general… is not a debate partner I wish to spar with.

Blessings on your day, and blessing on your family -it is an honor to be a co-laborer with you in the very diverse body of Christ, and it is an honor to walk in the paths that he has set before me.

The Salvation Army and prenatal hospital units need blankets, hats, gloves, etc. There is a list on some crochet and knitting sites of a lot more charities that need handmade items. Growing up the more skills a young lady had to make a home the desirable she was as a wife and mothers. Craft teach a lot of skill other than the product they product. If one is researching they learn a lot about society and what caused the changes in crafts.

Craft is a multi-billion dollar business and we have been able to share the gospel a lot during craft shows, at craft stores, etc. God is abundantly able to equip through His Word alone if that is what a young lady chooses, if she focus on her skills as a homemaker, it is an honorable career, crafts and all.

Growing up the craft of crocheting doilies were to cover up the worn out sofa, and the stains from the farm life. They adorned dresses worn to pieces and prolonged the life. The crafts of a homemaker were a sign of an accomplish lady and now it is distain.

Many young ladies who come to me find their family’s vision is for them to become independent career women, self-sufficient. They want to learn the advanced skills of homemaking and their family would rather spend the money for them to learn this in college than seek out an elder woman who can teach the skills. I was pushed into a career and never learned the advance skills of homemaking. My daughter is the one who is teaching me such things in my later 50’s because I never learned them.

We study the Word of God daily and learn from Him. My daughter is feeling the constant pressure from other young ladies expounding the accomplished standard to improve their minds over their skills. I have been on a lot of debate teams and I will tell you it won few over to the gospel. It was the quiet life and the being home that caused more to question their own lives than all the debate teams I was ever on.

Christ fulfilled the Levitical laws, the fathers of our faith were not able to keep them and in the book of Acts the list of what the gentiles were suppose to adhered to is made very plain. Paul warned the Jews of his day to not put that burden upon the gentiles because the Jew were did not receive salvation from it, but from Christ. The law is to point to our sin and the need of salvation and practicing some of the old laws are beneficial but not a case for losing salvation.

We have to be able to administer the Word of God rightly, what is to show a principle with biblical autonomy and what is to be for our daily lives. A contrite heart serves the Lord, not the amount of knowledge we possess.

This is not a competition between the “educated” secular individual full of knowledge that puffs them up and the ignorant stay-at-home wife. More times than not I have heard some great speakers state it was the simply minded child-like faith of what some would call ignorant that taught them more than all the Christian college, commentaries, etc they had.

The problem is, some want to analyze everything and other prefer the simplicity of life. An accomplished life is in the product that produces faithfulness, obedience and humility. An accomplished life can be a very simple one and no one has a right to say to those who choose the simplicity of life they are not accomplished.

The Bible said it is for equipping the saint it is enough for some. You know evil by knowing the righteousness of God; to know your enemy you only have to know God’s Word, the enemy is the opposite. We so often hear, “Did God really say.” It is that simple, man likes to make it more so. The Bible was so that the simplest minded could understand it but it can drown a theologian. Neither has the right to put down the other.

As a writer you have a desire to probe, this is not the talent or mindset of other talents. Can the hand say to the eye I have no need of your, or your mindset. The only thing we have learned from studying history is that man never learns from it. It is again the fear of God that changes lives and the future. Scriptures gives enough history of the depravity of humanity to warrant enough wisdom to form a worldview.

The trick of the enemy is to get off on long philosophies so that the basic salvation message is lost. You will find that all arguments can be stopped by the salvation message alone, for if an individual accepts the authority of the Word they will accept the gospel. No amount of facts ever changed the minds of so many atheist or agnostic that I have encountered. It was their association and interaction with my life that changed them. They witness the constant faith unwavering even in the midst of trials, not without complaint but raw “naked” faith.

Managing a home is full of demand to make an accomplished young lady, crafts and all. If it is enough for God it is enough for the body of Christ.
Mrs. J.

I think that the case with many daughters is that, once the Lord opens their eyes to the beauty of His design for daughterhood and family and the evils of feminism, daughters are so desperate to get as far away from any sort of feministic mindset, lifestyle, or pursuit as they can. This is a wonderful mission, but in so doing, I think many young women go all the way to the other extreme, spending their time in little to nothing besides baking cookies, sewing aprons, crocheting baby blankets, and playing the piano. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things (they are all wonderful, feminine pursuits). But when they become our only focus to the neglect of serious thinking on current events and worldviews affecting our world today, serving others, highly educating ourselves, etc., then there is a serious problem. While feminism is highly detrimental to the strength of the Church, so is a generation of young women who are not adequately educated in the things of God and events of the day in order to further Christ’s Kingdom. As much as godly, visionary young men want feminine wives who can cook well and keep a home clean, they also want (and need!) helpmeets that are competent, intelligent, dutiful, and educated to fight for the truths of the Word along side them.

Well, that’s enough from me. Anyway, just wanted to tell you how impressed I was to read your article and how refreshing it was!

Keep up the great work (I’m very much looking forward to your book!).

Blessings,
Rebekah

http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com

Thank you.

I could be mistaken, but I do believe the quote at the beginning of the article is stated by Caroline Bingley to articulate Mr. Darcy’s standards:

http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv1n08.html

I tutor from my home, once a week!

Side note (feel free to delete this): It is Miss Bennett’s standard of female accomplishment, not Mr. Darcy’s.

Do you tutor in your home, or in students’ homes?