I am loving this discussion, the story was interesting, but the commentary at the end was more interesting to me. I think the fact that many women "claim husbands in the name of Jesus" more so than men speaks to two phenomenon that take place in the faith world- (1)the hopes and desires of people become intertwined with what those people perceive as the will of God. Consequently when these desires do not come to pass, the people then begin to either question the validity of God or their own faith in God. (2) Many times,what we define as God's will is actually just a societal norm, and in this case, the expectation that women, to find self worth, ought to be married. Men, on the other hand, only have to be men in order to find worth in this society. The onus is not to get married, but to dominate women, through sex, buying them, or having many of them.
If we, people of faith, are really honest with ourselves, we sometimes find ourselves doing the exact same things that these women do, believe that what we want is what God wants for us. What this actually does is leads us to a form of idolatry (worship of the self). Submission really can't be about claiming anything, rather, it should be about learning,growing, and accepting what is, and that is the will of God.
As an aside, these testimonies about women being so desperate to find men that they claim men in God's name speaks to several things; bad theology, these women simply affirming a patriarchal societal norm that women need men to be "blessed by God", and the willingness of "people of God (prophets and such)" to use these hopes and dreams of people to assert some kind of power and moral authority over people ( going to the prophetess, the pastors telling people God will give you "the desires of your heart" etc.). To combat all of this, our churches need to become places of theology,where people come and think critically about the issues of God, faith, purpose, and culture. Now, our churches seem to be teaching us a form of self worship in that God is here to be our Genie in the sky so to speak, giving us everything we want if we believe enough and have faith enough to "plant a seed" with our offerings
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Blackwatch!!!!!!