Faith, Family & Freedom: Part 8‏ of 21

Good day friends!

Welcome back.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language defines religion as "a set of beliefs." Webster's New World Dictionary defines religion as "a system of belief." The word belief is defined as "opinions and thoughts upon which people base their actions." Since an individual's worldview is the foundation of his or her values, and these values form the basis for behavior, it is clear that if you are alive and have a collections of beliefs, then you have a religion.  Therefore, all issues are in some way religious or sacred.

Many individuals in the educational establishment who once called themselves "religious humanists" are adamant that their readers, followers, peers and colleagues stop calling it "religious humanism." Why? Because they fear that such an admission will cause the courts to reject their religion, which currently not only receives a free pass in America's schools and universities but also receives federal funding. The complete understanding of this issue by Americans is the only way our nation will remain free and not become subject to a tyrant or dictator who believes that the "religion of force" makes right the survival of the fittest.     

In this segment we will learn about the woman who is famed as the "founder of feminism" and has played a critical role in the destruction of the wonder and beauty of womanhood, so masterfully created by God...

"Faith, Family & Freedom: Our American Values Under Fire"

Betty Friedan

(1921-2006)

If “tolerance” is the core value of political correctness, feminism is its most cherished cause, and the implications of our cultural devotion to feminism are monstrous. Feminism is not about equal rights for women but about the feminization of the American male, an ideology that is anti-family and anti-father – and virtually guaranteed to bring about the wholesale destruction of the American family. Among the champions of feminism have been Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and most assuredly, Betty Friedan. Friedan was co-founder of the National Organization of Women (NOW), one of America’s most radical feminist organizations.

The Frankfurt School staff knew that “Even a partial breakdown of parental authority in the family might tend to increase the readiness of a coming generation to accept social change.”

Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, could be described as the Feminist Manifesto. Released in 1963, it was a major force behind the 1970’s explosion of the radical feminist agenda. Like many of the people in this series, Friedan was an atheist who embraced Marxism.  Before she published The Feminine Mystique, Friedan had spent years in Marxist-inspired agitation on behalf of mistreated lower-class workers – and the abstractness of her analysis was fundamentally Marxist. She had been a Marxist since her college days at Smith in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. In the years after, she belonged to, worked for, or wrote positively about a string of leftist organizations and publications – including the Popular Front, the Federated Press, UE News, Congress of American Women, and Jewish Life – that had significant Communist membership or Soviet sympathies. Knowing that the call to revolution in The Feminine Mystique would be damaged if it was associated with the call to revolution in the Communist Manifesto, Friedan hid her radical past.

Thanks largely to Betty Friedan, feminists claim women do not like strong-willed men who have convictions and the courage of those convictions to loving lead their families. Reality suggests otherwise, however. Most women I speak with want exactly that. One consequence of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden was that the woman will challenge the man for leadership (Genesis 3:16). This does not mean that women really want it – even if they think they do – because if a woman takes the leadership position, she ultimately doesn’t find it satisfying and usually ends up discontent with her man. What women really want in a marriage is the protection, provision, and servant leadership of a loving husband. Whether people admit it or not, it is evident that there are God-ordained roles for men and for women – each complementing the other. This is what makes a great marriage great – the different and sometimes opposite but complementary gifts, abilities, insight, and interests of each spouse.

The feminist agenda is simply that Friedan and friends do not want women to find fulfillment in being wives and mothers. Feminists are really dictators who want to leave women no choice but to follow a humanist, politically correct lifestyle.

Phyllis Schlafly, a Washington University Law School-educated lawyer, describes in an article titled, “The Feminists Continue Their War Against Men,” how feminist leaders feel about motherhood:

In 1970, Gloria Steinem told the Senate Judiciary Committee it is a “myth” to believe “that children must have full-time mothers… The truth is most American children seem to be suffering from too much mother, and too little father. Part of the program of Women’s Liberation is a return of fathers to their children. If laws permit women equal work and pay opportunities, men will then be relieved of their role as sole breadwinner.” Articulating vintage feminism in the 1974 Harvard Educational review, Hilary Clinton wrote despairingly about wives who are in “a dependency relationship” which, she said, is akin to “slavery and the Indian reservation system.”

The bottom line is that feminism has been a tool of the humanists to destroy the family. Leading humanist Paul Kurtz said, “Humanism and feminism are inextricably interwoven.” Humanists and Communists have sought the destruction of the American family because they know that, for America, the family has been the instrument for passing on Christian values and a Biblical worldview – the source and foundation of our freedoms and Constitutional Republic.

With the help of the feminist movement in the late 1960’s, divorce laws were also liberated. The resulting drastic increase in divorce began to break down the strength, respect, and permanency of the marriage covenant in the civil arena. No-fault divorce made separation fast and allowed couples to split up without admitting fault or accepting responsibility. Divorce and illegitimacy has undercut the institution of the family. What was to be the incubator for creating and nurturing self-governed offspring who would safeguard the republic is now relatively in shambles.

The postmodern belief that “freedom” is the right to do whatever works for you and makes you happy, has actually destroyed our great country. Our founders saw freedom and the right to life, liberty and property as a by-product of fulfilling one’s responsibility to Divine laws. They did not believe in rights without responsibility.

To be fair, we cannot lay all of this trouble at the feet of the humanists or Betty Friedan and her radical gang of gals. The American people must own some of the responsibility. With the rise of divorce and illegitimacy among heterosexuals – even within the church – we have weakened the commitment that marriage is about producing offspring. To that extent, we have played right into the hands of the homosexual community that uses the high divorce and illegitimacy rates to say marriage has nothing to do with the barring of children and so homosexual marriages should be legally recognized.

Friedan and the cultural Marxists have used the civil law, courts, and the media to destroy the family, fathers, and make possible the rise of the welfare nanny state. The break-up of the family has been the leading cause of generational poverty and the permanent underclass. This chaos is being used by the radical left to convince the American people that we need more government and more intrusion into the family. Sadly, the Church in America is doing little to stop it…

Sources:

Phyllis Schlafly, “Why Women are Unhappy,” The Schlafly Report, June, 2009

Phyllis Schlafly, “The Feminists Continue Their War Against Men,” 2009

“Moms: Is It Easier Being a Single Mom? Many Moms Think So,” Desert News, July 4, 2009

Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of “The Feminine Mystique”: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism, (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998)

Brannon Howse, Grave Influence (Worldview Publishing, 2009)

Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.  For we are each responsible for our own conduct. - Galatians 6: 4-5

Blessings on your success! 
Shane <><

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