What Christian woman hasn’t asked at least once in her life “where are all the godly Christian men”? Strictly speaking, most churches in the Sydney Anglican Diocese will contain men, and many of them Christian. This weighty question ejected into the unanswered cosmos by roughly half of the Sydney Christian population, however, is not asking for churches where Christian men are in higher proportions. Rather, it is a plea for men who are on fire, utterly immersed in the word and positively saturated with the Living Spirit. Is this an unreasonable request? I hear you ask. Maybe, but women who read their Bibles have read some pretty heavy material written by some pretty godly men. Is it not natural that, after being encouraged, taught and converted by the voices of the ones who penned God’s word, a woman would then have some fairly high expectations for the man who would lead her in her Christian growth as a wife?
Whether you accept this excuse or not, it is a common complaint, and the very universality of it must add some credence to the legitimacy of the asking. Let us turn this on its head for a moment. Where are all the godly Christian women? If I were to list all the genuine, passion-filled, not-your-everyday Christlike Christians I know, I blush to confess that more than 75% of them would be male (albeit mostly married and mostly my father’s age). It seems that women are perhaps a little too precipitate in questioning the other sex, firm in the belief that insanely godly men are not necessarily looking for insanely godly women.
What, then? Am I dissecting and accusing my own sex? Perhaps I feel qualified in doing so as I myself fall amongst the offenders. The lack of passionate women (and I suspect men) can often be attributed to the mindset of each. How often have I looked forward to some evangelical event, some high-end Christian teacher to ‘rekindle the flames’ of my zealotry, instead of reading my Bible with perseverance and discipline as we are commanded to do? I rely on what is outside to nurture what is inside, when my own initiative is most commonly the spark that lights the wildfire.
My suspicion is that the Sydney Anglican Diocese has a whole breed of luke-warm, of zombie-Christians who, as it says in 1 Corinthians, will only be saved from the fire of the final day as one escaping through the flames. My fear is that many of the women who ask for the godly men have forgotten themselves that God gifts godliness without a Christian boyfriend or husband; that each woman is responsible for her faith, and able to spiritually grow independently of a man. Her husband is not her crutch, and her singleness does not handicap her godliness (au contraire!). Who or what is responsible for this genuinely ridiculous belief that woman needs man in order to lead her closer to God? The thing is, that she only needed one man. And He has already done the dirty work.
My answer is women. Women are responsible; both individually and as a wider sex. Answer me this – in the women’s section in Koorong, what do you see? I may be wrong here, but my romantic relationship with Jesus, or how much I feel like a princess in God’s eyes should not, necessarily, be the focus of my Christian growth. Cut to men’s section – In understanding be men (a book of doctrine), disciplines of a Godly man, how to pray with your wife… see my point? Women are not teaching women with the same biblical focus as men are teaching men. That is not to say that a woman cannot walk over to the other side of the store and pick up a Spurgeon, Stott, Calvin, Dickson, Packer. I’m saying that women’s centred teaching is, as a whole (and with exceptions), bad. In Titus we are told to teach what is in accordance with good doctrine. Is this a command only to men? I would suggest not. What I do suggest, is that a godly woman can inspire those around her in her walk, as can a godly man. That a woman’s gentle and quiet spirit that is of great worth to God is also of great worth to humanity. If more women are focussed on God, then more men may join the party. If women become the change they wish to see in men, then perhaps the lyrics “I see a near revival, stirring as we pray and seek” may actually be realised.
This is not letting men off the hook. This is reinforcing the age-old dictum – the change begins with you.
