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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Joelle McNulty

Beware Of Girl Power

I've come to kind of be interested in this topic because of my mom.

I think 1 of her master's papers was on it, or she got interested while she was doing her masters in feminism and Women particularly Adventist women and She's done a lot of research on it and so she let me use some of her research for tonight.

I did a high school research paper on this once too, so I've kind of been interested in it for a while.

But we're going to take a look at the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy and see what feminism is, some historical sources, what it has, what the implications are on society today, and what we as Christian Adventist women should do about it.

And of course, being women of the word, we want to find out what the Bible says about our roles and about what God's ideal for us is, how culture impacts our society and how we should apply all this.

We all know Isaiah 8, 20, to the law and to the testimony.

If they speak not according to this word is because there's no light in them.

So pretty much if it doesn't match up, you know what to do with it.

Let's bow our heads before we get any further.

Father in heaven, Lord, this is an interesting topic, Lord.

There's also parts that touch our very core of our being, things that we've been brought up with, things that we've always been told are fine, okay, you know, whatever.

But Lord, you have an ideal for us to reach and we want to discover what that is.

I pray that you will send your spirit here to be with each heart.

And I pray that you will be with us tonight.

This is a dictionary definition from the American Heritage Dictionary the belief in the social political and economic equality of the sexes the movement organized around this belief Okay, fair enough so Should we be concerned about feminism Should Christian women be concerned about being equal with men?

Well, I kind of had a fun time last summer.

I went to Seneca Falls, New York, which is the place that the first convention for women's rights was held.

And that's kind of the birthplace where feminism started.

You know, I knew a little bit about feminism, but if you ever have a chance just driving through a road trip through New York, stop by there and you'll be surprised at what you see.

I'm not going to give the, I'm only going to give you the tip of the iceberg tonight.

We're going to talk a little bit about each 1 of them tonight.

There was first wave, second wave, and third wave feminism.

And the Seneca Falls place, whoa, the Seneca Falls place was where it started.

And I, as I was there, I noticed this wall.

This is a big bronze, I guess, plaque all the way down this really long wall, maybe to the end of Burden Hall.

And what they did, these women back in the 1800s, they kind of rewrote the Declaration of Independence to say that men and women are equal women have been repressed men have been causing women many grievances and so the women were basically just picking all these bones with guys and you would think it wouldn't go very far but it's amazing how far it has gone the question we want to ask today are when men and women supposed to be equal in everything let's get Let's look at what God has to say.

I'm reading from Conflict and Courage, page 14.

He provided an helpmeet for him, a helper corresponding to him, 1 who was fitted to be his companion who could be a 1 with him in love and sympathy Eve create evil was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam signifying that she was not to control him as the head nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal to be loved and protected by him.

A part of man, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self, showing the close union and affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation so that was the original plan yeah they were supposed to be equal she wasn't supposed to be telling him what to do but he wasn't supposed to be you know dictating her around.

However, this from third volume of Testimonies, page 484 says, "'When God created Eve, "'he designed that she should possess neither inferiority "'nor superiority to the man, "'but that in all things she should be as equal.

The holy pair were to have no interest independent of each other.

And yet each had an individuality in thinking and acting.

But after Eve's sin, as she was first in the transgression, the Lord told her that Adam should rule over her.

She was to be in subjection to her husband, and this was part of the curse.

Unto the woman he said I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception and sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.

So God kind of brings out this submission part of the relationship.

And in Ephesians 5 22 through 25 it tells us it wasn't supposed to be just man over the woman.

You know, the man is supposed to submit himself to Christ and woman is submit is supposed to submit herself to her husband as to the Lord.

Says, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

You know, we submit to Christ just as we should submit to authority.

In turn, the husband cares for his wife as Jesus cares for the church.

It's a beautiful relationship, but I'm afraid some men have taken advantage of it, women haven't followed it, but if it were followed, it would be a beautiful example of the plan of salvation and the great controversy.

Now let's kind of switch gears and look at what a contemporary of the feminist movement who looked on at it during that time, a church member, had to say about it during its early budding stages.

She said in first volume of the testimonies 421, those who feel called to join the movement in favor of women's rights, that's that women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, and the so-called dress reform, which we're going to talk about a little bit later, might as well sever all connection with the third angel's message.

I mean how harmless can a bunch of ladies getting together and saying, oh let's, you know, let's make ourselves better.

She said the spirit which attends the 1 cannot be in harmony with the other, interestingly.

The scriptures are plain upon the relations of and rights of men and women.

We just saw that, you know, wives submit yourselves to your husbands, husbands care for your wives.

So there's a discord there in the spirit.

Spiritualists have to quite an extent adopted the singular mode of dress, talking about the dress reform.

Seventh-day Adventists who believe in the restoration Of the gifts are often branded as spiritualists.

Let them adopt this costume and their influence is dead What?

You might be saying, you know spiritualism That's like talking to dead people or evil spirits that are acting like dead people.

But let's look at 2 different types of spiritualism.

That's ye shall not surely die, which was the first lie of Satan that's found in Genesis 3 So Satan says if the dead are not dead He can directly communicate with people And he did so back in the 1840s when the Fox sisters, they heard rappings and they started communicating with the dead.

And that was the birth of modern spiritualism.

And God calls that an abomination in Deuteronomy 18 9 through 14 So all this is based on Satan's First lie and remember that abomination thing.

We're coming back to that word a little bit later.

Now there's a type 2 spiritualism that you may not be aware of.

This is based on Satan's second lie, ye shall be as gods.

Now the tree of knowledge of good and evil offered forbidden wisdom and Pretty much it was the woman Arguing with God.

It was her judgment versus his judgment who's smarter in this and She believed the serpent over God.

So therefore her judgment was better than God's, right?

So pretty much she herself became her God because she listened to herself over God's commandments.

Philosophical spiritualism, which is what we're talking about right now, says that we are all gods.

Great Controversy, page 554, says that spiritualism teaches that man is the creature of progression that his destiny destiny from birth to progress even to eternity toward the Godhead So what this means is that man continually gets better and better and better and better and he eventually becomes a god.

Now most people don't go so far as to say that, but there's some other interesting parallels.

If you believe that you're going to become a god, anything becomes okay.

Great controversy goes on to say that he declares through spirits, that Satan declares through the spirits, that true knowledge places man above all law that whatever is is right that God doesn't condemn that all sins which are committed are innocent.

And interesting, love makes immoral acts okay between consenting adults in that case.

Here's another version of philosophical spiritualism.

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Beware Of Girl Power

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