The Birds, The Bees, and The Plan B

Thursday, May 9, 2013 by Candi Finch

Have you seen the recent car commercial where a couple is in the car with their young son who looks like he is six or seven years old? The father is spinning a rather fantastical story about where babies come from only to have their son try to tell them that he had heard the “real story” from another boy. The father quickly changes the subject by blasting the kids’ song The Wheels on the Bus and encouraging everyone to sing along.

This commercial is pretty funny because many people can recognize how uncomfortable it could be to talk to kids about such subjects or we may even remember when we had “the talk” with our own parents. Unfortunately, because it is so uncomfortable, parents may avoid the topic, and many churches shy away from addressing the topic biblically other than essentially saying, “Don’t do it if you aren’t married!” As a result, many people do not have a God-informed view about sex, dating, marriage, and children. And, young people don’t feel comfortable going to their parents or a person from church for counsel if they find themselves in a situation they never thought they would have to face in their teen or young adult years. Somehow, we have to change this.

It is for this very reason (shame or fear of judgment) that lawmakers, some medical experts, and women’s rights groups are calling for unrestricted access to emergency contraception. A recent blog posted on The New York Times website has even encouraged parents to keep emergency contraceptives in their medicine cabinets “just in case” their teenagers need ready access to it or even parents should send it along with their college-age students when they go off to school.

I fear that emergency contraception may become the “new condom” that fathers slip their sons to keep in their wallets “just in case.” However, an emergency contraceptive is not the same thing as a condom!

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When You Just Want to Quit

Thursday, April 4, 2013 by Candi Finch

Have you ever faced a task that seemed impossible? Maybe you just don’t feel up to the journey? I am in the middle of writing my dissertation, and I have to admit there are days when I just want to throw my hands up and quit because the road ahead seems too daunting. Even though I know the Lord has called me to this work and even though most days I really love the research, there are those days where I just am weary and get easily discouraged.

I work with students who feel that way about completing their own degrees so I know I am not the only one who has those “I can’t take it anymore!” kind of days. For some of my married friends with kids, they have those days where the responsibility of raising kids seems overwhelming. Or, maybe you have been trying to witness to a loved one for many years, and you are just not seeing any results. I am not sure what you are facing, but I am willing to guess that you may have had those days where you just feel like the task is too hard or the road is too long or you are just too weary.

If you find yourself having that kind of day (or month or year), can I encourage you with some things the Lord has been showing me in His Word?

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Why Are Women Still Unhappy?

Tuesday, March 5, 2013 by Candi Finch

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a book that served as the catalyst for the second wave of feminism in America. I still remember picking up this book in college after one of my professors challenged the women in the class to consider the doors that feminism had opened for women, especially in higher education. I really did not know a lot about feminism at that point in college other than the sense that I got that many Christians considered feminism contrary to their faith. So, I started investigating the movement of secular feminism on my own and began by reading Friedan’s book. I wanted to know why this book had served as a rallying cry for so many women in my mother’s generation.

Friedan was a college-educated woman in the Leave it to Beaver era who struggled to find happiness as a suburban housewife. In trying to voice the discontent she felt and noticed in other women in her stage of life, Friedan said, “Each suburban wife struggled with it alone…She was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—‘Is this all?’”[1] Her admission resonated with many women, and women began to rise up when Friedan challenged, “We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’”[2]

In the ensuing 50 years, the culture changed dramatically both in positive and negative ways. Carolyn McCulley in her book Radical Womanhood has rightly noted that “Feminism is a given. We breathe it, we think it, watch it, read it. Whenever a concept so thoroughly permeates a culture, it’s hard to step back and notice it at work. Feminism has profoundly altered our culture’s concept of what it means to be a woman. We need to understand how this movement came about and what its goals have been because these are now our culture’s assumptions. We also need to acknowledge that there has been some good that has come out of it. There were some serious inequalities that were changed by the feminist movement. I’m grateful for the short-term gains, but the long-term consequences are profound and need to be examined in light of feminism’s worldview.”[3]

So, how exactly has the world changed since the second wave of feminism marched onto the cultural landscape and what are some of the short-term gains and long term consequences that McCulley mentions? [4]

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Is Sexy a Sin?

Thursday, February 7, 2013 by Candi Finch

“If you got it, flaunt it!” …So goes the advice to women around the world.

If you want to attract a man, you have to put yourself on display—you’ve got to be sexy. Lest I make this sound like a diatribe against secular culture, I should mention that Christians have offered me this advice too. Well-meaning but (in my opinion) misguided women have suggested that if I ever wanted to get married, I needed to “advertise” more.

I have been thinking a lot about this over the past month, and I have to admit that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to talk about this here. I worried people would think, “There is just another one of those frumpy, outdated, Christian women wishing for the good ole days of Victorian England (or whatever era was most prudish).” Let me be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with taking care of your body and wanting to look beautiful.

But “sexy”? …Let’s think about that together.

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Biblical Womanhood 101: What We Really Teach at Southwestern

Thursday, January 10, 2013 by Candi Finch

Southwestern Seminary is a great place to be a woman! We have the largest women’s programs faculty of any evangelical seminary and offer specialized concentrations and degrees at the certificate, college, masters, and doctorate levels for women preparing for ministry who want to know what the Bible says specifically about women and to women. We want to think intelligently about what God says about biblical womanhood, a concept that is often grossly misunderstood in our contemporary culture.

So, biblical womanhood—what does that really mean?

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Shady Ladies of Scripture

Tuesday, December 4, 2012 by Candi Finch

Winston Churchill once said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I am afraid that we can be guilty of this in our study of Scripture when we cherry pick the stories we study instead of looking at the whole of the God’s Word. When studying women in the Bible, I know I have often been guilty of spending my time looking at the “superwomen” (Ruth, Esther, Mary, the Proverbs 31 woman, etc.) and forget to consider the lessons to be learned from the flawed, rebellious, or downright wicked women. God has the stories of those less-than-perfect ladies in Scripture for a reason. Truth be told, there are times when we may have more in common with the women who are remembered more for their failures than we are willing to admit. We can learn some valuable lessons from these women when we ask whether there’s any “shady lady” behavior in our own lives.

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Women, Pornography, and Our Sexualized Culture

Thursday, November 8, 2012 by Candi Finch

Earlier, we discussed mainstreaming of pornography in socially acceptable mediums. Today we’re talking about how the mainstreaming of pornography and our increasingly sexualized culture is impacting girls and women.

Instead of being a gift designed by God to be enjoyed by a man and woman in a committed, marriage relationship, sex is used by our sin natures and Satan as a tool to ensnare us. Second Peter 2:19 states, “a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” Unfortunately, many people—men and women—are slaves to some form of sexual immorality. Some say that viewing or reading some form of pornography is “victimless” recreation; just a harmless diversion that is safe because it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Frankly, that’s just naïve. The first victim pornography takes down is you – you are creating an appetite in your mind for things that cause lust, which brings forth sin. (Jms. 1:14-15)

Consider the progression: when a woman spends time fantasizing about sexually explicit material, the allure can lead her to want to see it, and then lead her to acting out what she has seen. James 1:14-15 warns us, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.” We must start viewing pornography as a destructive tool used by the enemy to ensnare—the Bible warns us, “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” (Prov. 6:27).

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