From the same group behind the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention that adopted this article of faith: “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
Good Lord! Here are some highlights:
Baptist Seminary Launching Homemaking Program, AP
Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.
It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.
Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and “clothing construction,” three hours of general homemaking, three hours on “the value of a child,” and three hours on the “biblical model for the home and family.” . . .
Seminary officials say the main focus of the courses is on hospitality in the home – teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook. Women also study children’s spiritual, physical and emotional development. . . .
“We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God’s word for the home and the family,” Patterson said at the denomination’s annual meeting in June. “If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.” . . .
A description of the homemaking program on the seminary’s Web site says it “endeavors to prepare women to model the characteristics of the godly woman as outlined in Scripture.
–Kathleen A. Bergin
Wow. Although this doesn’t sound that different from some of the proponents of single-sex education who advocate wholly different styles of teaching boys and girls in sex-segregated classrooms. Boys should learn about trucks and hunters; girls should learn about cooking and emotions. It’s hard to believe this stuff is still out there, but it is. (It’s part of my current research about one of the narratives behind the recent Title IX change expanding single-sex educational opportunities.)
is this a choice or a required course for women to be included in the denomination?
Why on earth would one go to a theological seminary to learn how to cook? I mean, I wouldn’t go to chef school to study divinity (well, unless you mean the fudge…).