Many, many years ago (when I was young), in both elementary and high schools, courses were offered in Home Economics and Manual Training.  Home Economics was for girls and Manual Training was for boys.  Home Economics dealt with things like cooking, sewing and household management; as girls were expected to become stay-at-home wives and mothers.  Manual Training dealt with carpentry, wiring, plumbing and other things, which were exclusively the realm of men.  Schools don’t do that any more.  There may be electives in cooking or sewing in high school, but these are open to males and females.  For manual training, a student needs to go to a vocational high school.

            So girls, if you want Home Economics, plan to go to the seminary.  This fall Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth will offer such a degree for girls, to help them become adequate wives for their pastor husbands.  In fact this new academic offering is seen to be the hope of our society.  Paige Patterson, president of the seminary, told messengers at the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting in San Antonio, “ We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God’s word for the home and family.  If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.” (EthicsDaily.com  June 18,2007) 

            The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 states that women are not biblically qualified to serve a church as senior pastor.  According to Patterson’s statement, the place for women is in the home in the role of wife and mother.  The BF&M does specify that a woman should be submissive to her husband as head of the house.  This seminary course of study completes the picture.  Not only submissive, but in the home and a well-trained domestic.

            An awful lot of Baptists will not buy this picture.  Not only do they disagree with Bible interpretations which limit women from becoming all that God calls them to be, but they know the seminary and its president are woefully out of touch with reality.  A century ago Lottie Moon demonstrated what God can do with and through a woman, without a husband and outside the home.  And contemporary women are making significant contributions in all areas of the society, outside the home.  We face the real possibility that a woman could be the next president of the United States.

            Most of the families in our churches depend on two incomes to make ends meet.  The contribution of the wife often exceeds that of the husband.  In my own extended family, role reversal has been beautifully demonstrated, wherein the wife was a university professor and the husband was a stay-at-home husband who home schooled their children.  And they are both committed Christians.

            Let us hope that the Baptist Faith and Message is not further modified to require women, not only to be submissive to their husbands, but to also require them to stay at home.  Then, to be eligible to teach at seminary, one would not only need to be male, but also to have a stay-at-home wife.