Bernadine generally posts lots of pick me nonsense, because 90% of the time there’s nay a Scripture in sight backing a single thing she says rendering it nonsense.
By pick-me, I don’t mean women who want to be loved. Many of these SAHwifey influencers claim those criticizing pick-mes are criticizing women who want to generally be in a relationship, or get married, both of which no one is criticizing. Like 95% of humans wants to be in a relationship. A pick-me is a woman who vies for male attention/general praise by putting others (usually women) down in order to do achieve that. It’s not that these pick-mes want a relationship, but their means of gaining one involves being generally shady towards and criticizing women who don’t behave the way they do, or like the things they like.
Anyway apparently peak Biblical masculinity = not liking anime and video games. I suppose she prefers men partake in activities like watching football and posting constantly on social media about Harry Styles outfits? Ya know, all the extremely masculine activities Jesus and His twelve disciples participated in when they weren’t busy being stoned, whipped, and imprisoned.
Everything else aside, this post insinuates feminine, Christian women couldn’t possibly like video games or anime themselves which as a gamer who loves anime an cottage core that is actually what I find deeply offensive. Last year I played Spiderman, Horizon Forbidden West, and Jedi: Fallen Order. I re-watched HunterxHunter, and watched Chainsaw Man and Attack On Titan. I enjoy anime and video games, and most importantly I love Jesus. Many of my friends enjoy anime and/or video games and go to church every week, pray, read their Bibles, fast, and sing on their worship teams. And on Wednesdays we wear pink.
Now, I’m not saying Christians should go out and watch, or play, any old thing (I wouldn’t rec. Chainsaw Man tbh lol). However, there’s no difference between spending an hour playing video games each day vs. spending an hour on social media, or watching TV. Gaming is a hobby. Biblically, “everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial,” which is the attitude Christians should adopt when considering what activities to participate in, or not (barring anything that’s explicitly forbidden in the Bible).
I’ve come to accept social media is all about clickbait and whatnot to get people’s attention and Bernadine does go into a bit further detail on what she means and it’s like 10% deeper than this screenshot. That said, I don’t like seeing “Christians” post low-effort content that lacks any Scripture anywhere. Ya know, the part that makes it Christian and not just an opinion.
As Christians, our opinions should be formed by the Bible, not tradition, not cultural concepts of femininity and masculinity, but by the Word of God. Many of these influencers like Bernadine have large Christian followings of young people, so spouting off inane takes like these are only going to result in a bunch of young Christian girls thinking their partners aren’t masculine enough because they play Mario Cart, which is stupid.
The question isn’t whether or not anime and video games are inherently unmasculine, it’s whether or not those things are hindering one’s walk with God, or not. If you find yourself constantly skipping out on social events, time with family, or time with God to play video games, then yeah you gotta a problem.
However, playing video games as time permits isn’t unmasculine and Biblically this falls under the “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” umbrella.
Somehow, I got sucked into the black vortex that is Christian Domestic Discipline. Given my proclivity for wickedness, naturally I was intrigued and instead of blogging or doing literally anything productive, I spent all night reading about this…
Anyway, the rabbit hole led me to this dude, whom gave a decent answer to this question which is why I decided to highlight despite not being anyone relevant.
However, it got me thinking generally – why are Christian men marrying women whom they disagree with on just about everythingthat this is even an issue?
Christians generally put an inordinate amount of emphasis on the verse “wives submit to your husbands” whilst arguably the more important commandment, that husbands lay down their lives for their wives, is viewed as an after thought or even optional despite the fact it’s the other way around (given Biblically men are leaders and thus should be leading in terms of Christ-like behavior).
We have one Lord, Jesus Christ, whom we are to obey unquestioningly. Husbands are little more than leaders, or heads of their homes. A true leader leads by example, thus a husband should be exemplifying the fruits of the spirit (kindness, patience, gentleness, self-control, etc.) more than his family because that’s how the Bible commands Christians generally live. Furthermore, both Christian men and women should be submitted to God, so while there may be some arguments and differences that occur within a marriage as we’re all trash human, ultimately if both spouses are submitted to God, they have the same mission, to serve God, serve one another in love, and spread the gospel, and thus shouldn’t be clashing greatly over any issues.
However, the men posing this question are probably not talking about things like, “I want to pray every morning with my wife, but she’s always on her phone – how do I tell her she needs to spend more time with God?, or “I feel like God is calling me to take this job searching for the disease-riddled carcasses of polar bears in Antarctica, but my wife doesn’t want to live on a boat or near penguins for the next 20 years with our 4 kids.” There’s an insidious insinuation here because anyone asking this question is most likely referring to things the wife is not comfortable doing probably for valid reasons, which calls into question their own intentions in asking. A husband is the leader because he is to lead his wife and family closer to Christ, not force them to obey his carnal whims.
That stupid umbrella picture…
Is generally a poor metaphor and seems to ignore the fact that a.) allegiance to Christ and God’s word comes before obedience to a husband b.) men are also to take care of children also c.) there’s nothing that forbids women from providing for the family either. In fact, the Proverbs 31 woman is praised for being financially independent and using her skills and knowledge to benefit her family.
Furthermore, scripture goes out of the way to point out that bodily neither the husband nor wife belong to themselves, but to each other, “the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.“
It’s interesting so many feminine, Christian influencers hyper focus on submission and not the fact men are called to lay down their lives for their wives, putting aside their desires and needs. The issue of submission wouldn’t be the cesspool it currently is in the Church if Christian husbands focused more on leading by loving their wives as Christ loved his church and displaying the behavior they want their families to emulate. Never did Christ say, “how do I get Christians to obey me?” so why do men think they can even ask this in all seriousness, being far lesser than God? Rather, Jesus demonstrated His love and people were naturally drawn to follow Him because what they saw was a humble, compassionate, servant dedicated to the works of God.
Anyway, my homie 5th Kingdom gave the proper, Biblical answer which is there’s nothing a husband can do to make his wife obey except to, ya know, obey scripture themselves and love them as Christ loved the church, being willing to die for them and loving them as their own bodies.
Anyway – it’s sort of funny he randomly brings up 1st Peter where it says Sarah obeyed her husband Abraham, which is ironic because Sarah may have called Abraham Lord, but God told Abraham “[w]hatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” There are also other woman, like the Shunammite woman or Abigail, who did what God wanted them to do without consulting their husbands first. Clearly, Biblical submission isn’t blind unquestioning obedience, nor does it strip women of their voice or authority.
Rather than focusing on non-issues like this, Christian men ought to ask themselves why they can hardly stand the site of literal children’s knees and shoulders at summer camp? Why did the church have a #metoo movement so prevalent it created a #churchtoo? Why is it I can Google “pastor” and “children” and no doubt, I’ll get a couple of news articles about yet another male pastor arrested for sexually assaulting a child? We are called to be holy as God is holy. Not to be like the rest of the world.
Christians ought to be sober-minded and alert, and to most importantly read your Bible daily. We are all called to emulate Christ, who was patient, gentle, exhibited self-control, and was compassionate towards the weak. A Christ who invited women to sit at his feet and not worry about house work. A Christ who did not expect anything in return when he sacrificed Himself, laying down his life even for those who didn’t love Him.
Being able to maintain your character and adhere to Biblical values even when others around you are not, be they men or women, is the mark of a true leader and the pinnacle of Biblical masculinity.
Was gonna blog about this when it was actually relevant but… anyway TL;DR: Utah Pastor Brian_Sauve is triggered women have bodies and sometimes post pictures of them online (even while pregnant), the sight of which is too much for his Christian flesh to handle.
So why is Pastor Brian following women who are posting bikini pics online?
Second, of all the issues in the world pertaining to women he could, as a man speak up against, such as the prevalence of domestic abuse in the church and elsewhere, sexual assault/harassment so widespread in the church alone it created a #churchtoo movement, rape, human trafficking… it’s bikini pics this guy decides to be righteously upset about. I’m sure the fact women have breasts (that God Himself gave us) would definitely top the Lord’s “what am I flipping tables over today?” list.
Tellingly, Utah Pastor Brian quotes nay a scripture anywhere because the Bible never instructs women to cover up over a man’s lack of self-control. Rather, lust is an issue of the heart, not an issue of what one wears, and Jesus said, “[a]nd if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell,” (Matthew 5:29, KJV).
Scripturally (and I assume as a Christian pastor, he has read and believes in the Bible), if Pastor Brian Sauvé can’t handle seeing women in bikinis, he should gouge his own eyes out. Or perhaps less violently, stop going online. Get rid of a smartphone, personal computer, and social media, and like maybe stop following women online who post these sort of pictures? Living a Christian life often requires radically changing the way one lives – just look at how Jesus lived. Yet swaths of Christian men seem to believe in a gospel that says there’s no need to pursue holiness and cultivate discipline in themselves, or radically alter and inconvenience their lifestyles in order to live a Christian life, particularly in the area of male sexuality.
But this is simply untrue. Christian men are more than conquerors and nothing is impossible with Christ. Furthermore, Timothy entreats men to “treat younger women as sisters with all purity” but only if they’re covered from the neck up and Galatians says to put down your flesh and walk in the spirtexcept in the area of male sexuality. Believing men are incapable of leading as the Bible commands diminishes the confidence God has in a man’s ability to lead in all areas, including that of self-control and self-discipline.
There’s nothing inherently sexual about the female body anyway. In Genesis, it was only after sin that Adam and Eve realized they were naked. Modesty standards vary widely across cultures and have changed throughout history – even today, in certain places only prostitutes wear sleeveless shirts.
Brian’s wife in a sleeveless shirt (obviously not calling her a prostitute)
Society has so oversexualized the female body, men can scarcely look at young women (because I doubt Brian cares if 80 year old Grandmas post bathing suit pictures online) any longer without lust, even when that woman isn’t doing anything particularly sexual. Disturbingly, Christian men seem to struggle in this area even more than their secular counterparts, which should be a giant red flag over how successful purity culture has been. Modesty rules are like putting a Band-Aid over gangrene. No matter how much gauze one uses, there’s still a dying, rotten limb under there that needs to be cut off. Brian’s attitude here, while at first glance seems harmless enough and even reasonable for Christians, insidiously reflects the church’s attitude overall. A church that has been unwillingly to deal with lust from a spiritual perspective, shifting the blame on women, and even children, when men fail to have self-control around them.
Now, lest anyone actually read my blog and call me a heathen, there is something in not intentionally causing others to stumble and that can apply to how one dresses. Paul in 1 Corinthians 8 talks about eating idol meat sold at the markets. To some, this meat is cheap hamburger, so they feast and are #blessed. To others, weak in their faith, it makes them think of sacrificing to idols and they should avoid eating it entirely. Paul goes on to say that a Christian who eats this meat and causes his brother to stumble, is sinning against God and therefore Paul would never use his freedom in such a way (and neither should we).
But the caveat here is these idol meat eaters are weak Christians and Brian is a pastor. Someone so weak in their faith that the mere sight of a woman’s stomach leads him astray really ought to not be leading any church, anywhere, in any part of the world. Like every other day some pastor is caught in some form of sexual sin ranging from cheating to child abuse. And no wonder when we keep putting men still battling their flesh so badly they can’t even look at midriffs online up on pulpits, directly in the path of all sorts of spiritual attacks. Self-control is evidence of a walk with God and certainly every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit should be cut down and thrown into the fire, or at the very least not propped on a stage every Sunday.
Certainly, as Christian women we should be sympathetic towards Christian men navigating today’s hypersexualized world, remembering that our bodies are temples and also the internet is forever. However, women are not responsible for men’s sexual purity, nor is there a Biblical basis to demand women hide themselves because men are physical/lustful/visual/etc. First and foremost, we do all for the glory of God not man. Also, I have hormones and think men are hot, yet I don’t see him advocating men stop posting topless pics of their abs online to help my virgin self remain pure.
On a serious note, this attitude sets men up to believe they’re victims of their mindsets and biology, helpless to do anything except hope they never see cleavage not belonging to their wife in their lifetimes. It diminishes a man’s ability to remain pure within themselves for themselves, but we know that God would not task men with the burden of leadership if they were truly incapable of leading in all areas. Following Christ often requires radical change and even discomfort, something men like Brian rarely advocate for. Those seeking true freedom should be willing to inconvenience themselves to live as Jesus did, setting aside their desires and picking up their own crosses. Men are fully capable of leading in areas of purity, patience, and self-control. Believing otherwise is not believing the very Bible upon which Brian’s faith is built upon.
Anyway, Brian went on some tangent I couldn’t be bothered to read fully, where he said “Christian, you are no longer totally depraved.”
True.
Men are Christ’s workmanship, tasked with spiritual authority and are fully capable of walking in purity without the help of women. This isn’t some poisonous, feminist, anti-patriarchy agenda or whatever he’s whining about, this is straight from the Bible.
Christians ought to be sober minded and alert, and especially aware of what the Bible really says so we’re not swayed by those posting hot takes on social media for retweets. Turn to the Word of God, not wannabe Christian influencers. Test everything with scripture, not culture, tradition, or opinions.
At the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a bikini, taking a belly pic of your growing child, or wearing leggings. The female body isn’t something women should be ashamed of, nor a thing that needs to be covered up and hidden out of fear because God has not called us to a spirit of fear. As women, we are created in the image of God with much care, thought, intention, and beauty and if God found something inherently sinful about how He created us, He would’ve covered us with fur or crocodile skin. So whatever you wear, wear it for the glory of God not man. And if that happens to help your brothers in Christ not stumble, *thumbs up*.
ARayOfDawn 