Rachel Held Evans has heard enough about Biblical womanhood, and says it is time to give men the “Titus 2 treatment.”
Every evangelical woman knows what it’s like to get the Titus 2 Treatment.
This happens whenever a woman is presented with a universal statement about the “biblical” role of women in the world, which is typically extrapolated from a single biblical text without regard to literary or historical context and followed by a parenthetical string of additional unrelated and out-of-context Bible verses for support. ….
I call this the “Titus 2 Treatment” because Titus 2:5 is one of the most commonly abused passages in this regard. It’s a verse in which women are instructed to be “busy in home,” (as opposed to being idle in home, not, as some claim, as opposed to working outside of the home) and I’ve seen it cited in support of all sorts of statements about how domestic duties such as washing the dishes or doing the laundry fall exclusively to women and how mothers who have careers outside of the home are shirking their God-ordained roles.
Tongue planted firmly in cheek, Held Evans turns the tables (to mix metaphors) with a brief essay at the link above which argues that men should not work in air conditioned buildings (because God wants us to live by the sweat of our brows) should kiss each other when they greet (because various New Testament letters instruct us to do so) and should worship with upraised hands.
“In summary,” she writes, “if staying true to the Word of God means applying its instructions to women literally, without regard to their cultural contexts or original intended audiences, then faithfulness requires we do the same for men.”