William Lindsey 
I just finished reading Cait West's new book Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024). As the title indicates, she tells a story of growing up in a family in which her parents — with the father calling the shots — bought into the Christian patriarchy movement. And it's her story of recognizing the damage her upbringing did to her and breaking away from the world her parents constructed for her.
I'm sharing some passages from the book that struck me as insightful:
“I am calling this a movement because Christian patriarchy is an ideology that cuts across many Protestant denominations. Some might call it a cult, a high-control group ruled by hierarchy and oppression” (p. 4).
“Cover up. This was one of the first rules I learned” (p. 9).
#Christian #patriarchy #MaleEntitlement #MaleDomination #FemaleSubordination #gender #complementarianism
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Marcus Marcius Marcellus@wdlindsy "patriarchy is an ideology that cuts across many Protestant denominations"
Well, true, but this is a bit like saying "Use of a spherical object of play -- a 'ball', if you will -- is a practice that cuts across many variants of football".
@marcas Except football doesn't control the world in the direct, apodictic, and dominative way religion frequently does.
@wdlindsy However, my point was less about sport than about excessively narrow focus.
Patriarchy is absolutely a feature in many forms of Protestant Christianity. And also in non-Protestant forms of Christianity, and in non-Christian Abrahamic religions, and in non-Abrahamic religions.
@marcas I don't believe Cait West or any informed person says that patriarchy is confined either to Christianity of to Protestant Christianity. She's writing about her own personal experience growing up in a Christian Patriarchal Protestant household.