Watch the Hands

I have a Christian friend who knows magic. By that I mean he knows card tricks and gimmicks. Y’know, how to pull a quarter from your ear-type “magic.” And he’s quite good! Many years ago, he, some friends, and I passed a rainy afternoon on my porch while he demonstrated some of his repertoire, as well as how the tricks were done. It was all quite fascinating. But as the afternoon wore on I began to notice a common theme. Watch the hands. Why? Because sleight of hand requires distraction. Whether it’s snapping the fingers of the other hand, suddenly launching into a joke, or even pretending to flub a trick, the entire operation depends upon the magician’s ability to hide and/or divert attention away from the trick itself.

In other words, deception must occur for the “magic” to be pulled off. Now deception is a loaded term, so don’t get me wrong here. When it occurs while playing Stratego with your kids, or watching a friend perform magic tricks deception is harmless fun. But, it can be destructive—even deadly—when it’s used to smuggle false doctrine and heresy into churches. Take, for example, feminism.

Now, it’s no secret that feminism has been devastating. In fact, more than that, by this point in time its effects are very plain to see. What started as a movement promising freedom, justice, and peace has only proven to bring slavery, injustice, and ever-increasing conflict across all three spheres of our lives (state, church, and family). But, that being the case, why do so many people, including Christians, still keep buying it to greater or lesser degrees? Why? Because like a good magic trick, it lives and breathes by sleight of hand. By deception. Worse, the tricks have been performed so often and so well that most Christians don’t even realize that they’ve been bamboozled! So while Mrs. Schmidt vocally rejects, say, the turned up to 11 evil of people like Gloria Steinem, she nonetheless has no idea that she also uses the same categories, the same arguments, indeed, largely the same worldview—albeit at a much lower volume.

In sum, feminism, as with all ideologies or “-isms,” was, is, and will only ever be a utopic pipe dream. Nothing more or less than another attempt by old Adam sinners to systematically rebuild Eden by their own reason and strength. To create heaven on earth without Christ and apart from His means. And though a much deeper examination of it here is yet to come, suffice for now to say, feminism and all ideologies are an attempt to solve theological problems with political solutions . . . and therein lies the trick!

So, while we should give thanks to God through Jesus that American Christians are slowly coming to see the reality that we too have been bamboozled by various ideologies, there is also an emerging danger. That is, even as the Church in America awakens to find itself drowning in feminism, Marxism, etc., we also see more and more people leaping into the opposite ditches of overreaction. That is, properly recognizing the absolute evil but going far beyond Biblical answers. Yet, as dangerous as this is, the real irony is that we also see the same tactics being used by those falling off the other side of the horse. For example, the adherents of what I will hereafter be referring to as Twue Patwiarchy!™

Now, apart from a laughably-bad attempt at based humor, what is actually being claimed here? Long and short, that woman, in and of herself, that is in her very being, is inferior to man. Pretty simple, right? But did you catch the sleight of hand?

Turning to Genesis 1, we find this description of the creation of man and woman:

“So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.”

(Gen. 1:27, ESV)

Here we find what could be understood as a partial ontology of man and woman before their fall into sin in Genesis 3. But notice some details here. God created man, and He did so in His own image. More, man was created as male and female. So, we immediately see that not only did man not come to exist by happenstance (evolution), but even the strictly-binary nature of the sexes is a created reality. Very cool!

“Aha!” the opponents say, “See? God created man in His own image, it doesn’t say He created woman in His image! Therefore, there are ontological differences, you bigot, I mean, y-you feminist and Marxist!” And, admittedly, this would be a fair point, except for the fact that neither English, let alone Hebrew, works this way.

To the first point, the word “man” here is a synecdoche. That is just a fancy way of saying a part being used to signify the whole. For example, no one in their right mind would read every instance of “Jacob” and “Esau” to refer exclusively-and-only to the Patriarch and his brother. In fact, neither did St Paul in Romans 9. Rather, in the scriptures “Jacob” is frequently used to refer to the entirety of the Jewish people; of whom our Lord Himself is a member according to His humanity. Here in Genesis 1, Moses uses the term “man” to refer to the creatures we call “human.” Put another way, woman is not being excluded from being created in the image of God in this passage. Simple, right? But, again, did you catch the trick used by the opponents?

The argument goes like this: “Because there are ontological differences between men and women, to argue that woman was created in the image of God necessarily denies those differences. And because feminists and Marxists deny those differences, you are therefore one of them.” Seems legit, amirite? In fact, as a kid, I too became incredibly excited the first time someone gave me a three dollar bill! But I digress…

So what’s the trick? Well, there are actually a few being employed by Mahler in our brief example above, but they’re actually common to all adherents of Twue Patwiarchy!™. But, of those there are three which are so commonly employed as to be foundational to their arguments: 1, importation of extrabiblical categories; 2, equivocation; and 3, guilt by association.

First, keep in mind that “ontology” is found nowhere in the Bible. Rather, ontology is a philosophical category (you may read more about it here), attempting to answer what things are. For example, what is a human? What is a man? What is a woman? And while the scriptures certainly do much to answer these questions, they do not do so using philosophical methods nor categories (sorry, not sorry!). Instead, we have to import ontology into the Scriptures in order to arrive at ontological conclusions. And while this is not an inherently sinful exercise, think of anti-infanticide arguments regarding personhood, importing anything into the Bible is a practice that is ripe for abuse; for example, think of “intersectional readings” of the scriptures, where power, privilege, and oppression are read-into various texts.

After extrabiblical categories, next is equivocation, or the opponents’ sloppy use of squishy language. This is a big one. Though endemic to social media, Twitter especially, calling one or more things by the same name is actually a feature of human communication. But, when conveying important ideas, and especially when we are handling the Word of God, it is important to make every effort to be as clear as possible. However, as demonstrated by feminist propaganda, a lack of clarity is often intentionally employed as a kind of cloaking device. Squishy, sloppy language, gussied up with $0.50 words to hide the venom beneath. It’s similar to putting a heartworm pill into a small bit of cheese before giving it to your dog. By swallowing the lovely bit of people food, Lassie is often unaware of the fact that she is also being medicated. Yet, the adherents of Twue Patwiarchy!™ employ the same technique.

To continue running with our above example, the opponents’ use of “ontology” or “ontological” is designed to serve as a cloaking device. Let me explain. Men and women are different. Boys and girls are not the same. A human male can no more give birth than a human female can produce semen. What’s more, these differences are created by God, and as the curses in Genesis 3 demonstrate, humanity’s fall into sin has not erased, or even blurred them. So, you can say that men and women are ontologically different. What’s more, I don’t need to be a biologist to know that no amount of surgery, hormone replacement, or aFfIrMaTiVe CaRe can change that.

However, what if I were to tell you that because of these ontological differences, there must be a superior sex and an inferior sex? Among other things, I would hope that you would detect the fact that I’m assuming the conclusion. At the very least, among Christians, I would hope that someone would pipe up asking, “By what standard?” In other words, I have added the categories of superior and inferior into my use of the term ontological. That is, I have chained the differences between the sexes (objective reality) to a value judgment concerning these differences (subjective assessment). But this is where the sleight of hand comes in.

What if I were to make the same statement, “because of these ontological differences…”, but do so while using squishy, sloppy language? I don’t know, perhaps something like, “Women are ontologically inferior to men.” Without sufficient context and with no explanation, the reader is forced to assume that Mahler either: has no idea what ontology is, or that the reader-himself must be ignorant of what it actually means. In other words, Mahler has quietly imported one or more additions to the term. Think Orwell’s “double speak.” Neo-Marxist propaganda operates using the same principles. “Equality” does not mean equality, “justice” does not mean justice, and so forth. Long and short, the opponents leverage the reader’s/hearer’s assumption that everyone’s using the same definitions when in fact they are not. The result and the goal is long-term conditioning—the subversion and eventual substitution of the good, true, and beautiful for the evil, false, and ugly (like Nazism). Which brings me neatly along to my final point.

Guilt by association is the last of these main three tricks used by both Twue Patwiarchy!™ and their feminist/Marxist “opponents” (more on that another time, but just know they’re not as opposed to one another as they reee-about). Now, while this is an informal fallacy and thus better explained by Witch Hunter, it is nonetheless an important part of their sleight of hand repertoire. To the point, when someone pushes back regarding their extrabiblical categories, their equivocations, whatever, both of groups habitually do not turn to clarify, let alone defend their nonsense. Rather, fascinatingly, both jump to the accusation that whoever is pushing back is “Akshually” part of the very problems they’re so valiantly toiling to correct (and, of course, to save you from!). The trick here should be obvious when the cork board with blue hair cries, “You don’t believe in white privilege? What’re you, a Nazi?!” Or, when a glowbug of a lolcow smugly replies, “Denial of the ontological inferiority of women makes you a Marxist.” Long and short, because Nazies deny white privilege therefore everyone who also denies it is a Nazi; and because Marxists deny the inferiority of women therefore anyone else who denies it must be a Marxist. It’s the grown up equivalent of calling someone a doodoo head because you don’t like one of their friends.

In conclusion, just as the early 20th century rise of various socialisms saw a concurrent rise in various fascisms, we shouldn’t be surprised by the fact that in the U.S. the rise of “woke-ism” (which is neo-socialism) also corresponds to a rise in neo-fascism. Yet, for our purposes here, keep in mind that both propagate and control using the same techniques; both spread their message and police their ranks in the same way, deception. Just as the magician uses deception to hide his tricks, so also do both feminists and Twue Patwiarchy!™ use sleight of hand to hide what they’re doing. Twue Patwiarchy!™ is no more a strong Christian response to feminism than was Judah’s reliance on Egypt as a response to Assyria (and then Babylon).

So until next time, watch the hands!