Owen Strachan Goes Full Feminist

The church is starting to acknowledge the fact that more young men are in church than young women. Despite the fact that most megachurches are geared towards women, this has not countered the cultural trend. One foreseeable outcome of this will be Big Eva leaders pushing feminism in order to win back young women to the church. But the reality is, as long as the church is pro-life, it’s hard to imagine the church “winning” single women, generally speaking, with marketing campaigns or rebranding complementarianism.

Enter Owen Strachan, who might be ahead of the curve on Big Eva’s response, to defend first wave feminism.

No, we won’t be repealing the 19th amendment. Thanks though!

It’s sad that some women are veering hard left in their voting patterns, but the Bible in no way forbids women from voting. It’s a gray area. I’m glad for adult women to vote, and I’ll defend this ability.

The fact of the matter is, women have always veered liberal in their voting patterns. Today, this is exacerbated by women staying single longer. Getting married makes one more conservative, but if marriage is protracted, then so too are natural maturities.

Owen Strachan makes a biblical claim about the Bible not speaking to the issue. But in several ways it does. For instance, when a census is taken, either men are counted or military-aged men are counted. Additionally, elders at the gate wielded considerable local authority. This is an aristocratic local governance that could be either democratic or oligarchic in nature. But the Old Testament law is not exhaustive on how local governance was conducted.

Perhaps, it appears as a gray area now, but the original suffragettes did not see it that way. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote The Women’s Bible in 1895 as a polemic against Scripture’s authority and inspiration in order to justify women’s “liberation.” If that sounds like communist gobblygook, consider that Christians viewed the suffrage movement with great suspicion. Moreover, the 19th Amendment was passed in what’s called the Progressive Amendments (16-19). All of these other Amendments are bad and were passed by the same people. It’s not as though they were one for four on good ideas.

To make matters worse, Owen Strachan would resemble Stanton’s messaging for liberation:

The husband has no call from any New Testament text to bind or determine the vote of his wife. His headship must be carefully understood; he does not rule his wife like a peon, but rather “nourishes and cherishes” her like a self-sacrificing leader (Eph. 5:29).

Owen Strach teaches that wives can defy their husband in the civil arena, which runs afoul of Scripture and common sense. While in theory, we can debate whether a husband can mandate his wife wear a red dress every day, the idea that the civil arena falls into a gray area is beyond retarded given that elections have serious consequences. If a husband cannot dictate his wife’s vote, then what authority does he have?

While Owen Strachan is arguing that a unified household at the ballot box is potentially tyrannical, he focuses on the self-sacrificing role of a husband, which is utterly uncontradicted by a husband’s authority to dictate how his wife votes. Meanwhile, “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.” is the preceding verse to Paul’s instruction to “love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church.” It logically does not follow that a ballot box is an exception to Paul’s (and Peter’s) instructions to wives, barring compulsion to sin.

Owen Strachan’s position is untenable and runs counter to God’s order in the same way the original suffragette arguments did. Owen Strachan went full feminist. Never go full feminist.