How We Conflated the Love of Christ With the Love of Women

Some thoughts on romance, love and the difference between the two

“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.” Ephesians 4:25

I once met a man who I consider to be truly a Godly man. He was as passionate as anyone I’ve ever met about his faith, and equally as knowledgeable about scripture. He lived and breathed the word of God. There was nothing fake about him. At one point I heard him say, and I am paraphrasing here, that he would have nothing to do with any church that allowed women into the pulpit. Nor would he tolerate a church with women elders, deacons or that allowed women to teach bible studies to men.

Then he said something else remarkably interesting. He praised his devoutly Christian wife for her love, support, and counsel in his efforts to discern God’s will in his life but added that if what she said ever conflicted with what he honestly thought was God’s will that he hoped he didn’t listen to her.

The inflection he put on the word hope was the tell.

For the first time in anything he said, it hinted at hesitation. There was, even if slight, an uncertainty in it, a reticence that spoke to the possibility that he might be swayed to her way of thinking, even over what he believed was God’s will.

While it did not lesson my respect and admiration for him at all, that moment spoke to a problem that in its worst form has spread like cancer though the modern church. That would be the unholy elevation of woman above man when no such thing exists in the eyes of God. Of course, that imbalance between the sexes is on full display in secular life. It is pasted across the screens of our media, infects our educational system from grade school to grad school, and has fully coopted our politics. It also blazes through the pulpits and pews of most modern churches.

How did this happen, we ask. How did women’s opinions and values come to supersede those of men?

To answer that, we need to take the deeper look at the social contract between men and women. I’ll first turn to Peter Wright of gynocentrism.com, who posted the following interaction he had with Bing AI.

Question: “What did C. S. Lewis mean by referring to romantic love as "the feudalization of love"?”

Answer: “C. S. Lewis used the term “the feudalization of love” to describe the phenomenon of applying the feudal contract between lords and vassals to the relationship between lovers. He argued that this idea originated in the medieval courts of love, where noblewomen imposed a set of rules and obligations on their suitors, such as fidelity, obedience, service, and devotion. Lewis criticized this concept as a distortion of true love, which he defined as a matter of will and not of feelings. He believed that the feudalization of love elevated romantic love to a divine status and made it a source of pride and vanity. He also warned that it could lead to idolatry, tyranny, and exploitation. Lewis advocated for a more balanced and realistic view of love, based on the Christian understanding of agape, or selfless love.”

Lewis was right. The template for romantic love, the kind of love most commonly serving as the foundation for modern marriage, is a bastardized rip off of the feudal contract that once bound vassals in service to their royal masters. This happened in the 12^th century owing largely to the concerted efforts of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France, and England. Eleanor promoted the romantic relationship model by commissioning troubadours and poets who extolled the virtues of courtly (romantic) love through poetry and song. She also used her presence as Queen in French and English courts, which were the cultural centers of the time, to disseminate the romantic model.

The model, while appealing to humans for reasons I’ll go into later, has a dark and disastrous underbelly. In short, it elevates women to the state of royalty, or even deity, and relegates men to the status of mere subject. The hierarchy is unambiguous. Just as kings lorded over feudal tenants and vassals, so women, by the dictates of romantic chivalry, became elevated over men.

Christian men are commanded by scripture to practice a selfless, enduring love that mirrors the love Christ had for the church (Ephesians 5:25-33). That kind of love, known as agape, has nothing to do with romance. And it certainly has nothing to do with deference to women. But the two have become destructively conflated. The impact of this is impossible to overstate. The advent of codified romantic love lags behind only the Resurrection of Jesus and the Reformation in its impact on society. And it has resulted in a destructive imbalance of power between the sexes that plagues them to this very day. It led directly to the idolatry, tyranny, and exploitation that C.S. Lewis feared.

Where men once kneeled before kings to pledge their swords (and lives) to his service, they now kneel before women, bearing gold and jewels, pledging fealty with the earnestness of a loyal vassal (or one of the wisemen?). The greater the value of the gold and jewels, the more elevated the status of the woman and the vainer she is prone to become. More important than this ritual homage is the narrative that underscores it. The man, on his knees, bribing a woman for acceptance, is an archetypal image plastered on the wall of every human being’s unconscious mind. You can see it acted out in the psychodrama of modern man’s obsequious fawning over women as he bows and scrapes for their approval with more enthusiasm than he ever has seeking the approval of God. And you can see it in women’s overall acceptance of this as the normal and correct state of male-female relations. It’s plainly evident across the social spectrum, including in the modern church.

Now, at this point you may just be saying, “Wait a minute. Isn’t the traditional image of a marriage proposal just representative of man’s commitment and willingness to provide for her materially, as is dictated by scripture? Paul, surely you are making too much of this image thing!

It’s a valid question, worth exploring. True enough, we see the idea confirmed in 1 Timothy 5:8 “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

But here’s the problem. Romantic love, at its core, is much more about worshipping women than providing for them. Modern man doesn’t just see himself as a protector, he sees himself as a shining knight on a white stallion, ready to slay any and all dragons, even on behalf of morally repugnant women. He doesn’t just see himself as a provider. If he wants a woman’s approval, he needs to be a man of real means, driving an expensive car, pockets stuffed with money to squander on her and no inhibitions about doing so. And the real kicker about the romantic contract is that women need not bring anything save their overly esteemed selves to the relationship. If you haven’t noticed any of this, I suggest an easy explanation. The blindness men have to the disparity is one of the ironclad clauses of the romantic contract. If seeing something interferes with executing the contract, if it interferes with the worship of women, then you just don’t see it.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Currently, I am reading an absolutely stellar book, “How to Worship a King” by Zach Neese. Not only is it bursting with wisdom and clarity, but it is also a powerful indictment of the apostacy of the modern church. On page 55 he uses the example of an engagement ring as a metaphorical symbol of sacrifice that a man offers to demonstrate love. He writes as follows:

“Take the engagement ring for example. How does a woman announce to her friends that she is engaged? Does she email them, tweet, call, Facebook? Does she say anything at all? No. She walks into the room with a sideways smile, her hand preceding her. Her friends, instinctively recognizing her posture, respond to this universal cue by gasping, oohing, and aahing, with hand-covered mouths. They gather about with outstretched hands to touch and admire the ring. The ring!”

Later, he writes:

“They want to know whether she is valuable enough for him to spend six months eating nothing but ramen noodles, riding a bike to work, rewearing [sic] three-day-old laundry, scrimping, saving and sacrificing in order to buy a ring that somehow reflects how empty life would be without the woman he loves.”

Neese uses this example of selflessness, an unchristian, romantic example, to illustrate the worshipful approach to God. Surprisingly, and inconsistent with the rest of the book, he never questions whether the man would spend six months eating nothing but ramen noodles, riding a bike to work, rewearing three-day-old laundry, scrimping, saving, and sacrificing in order to demonstrate his love of God! The man’s romantic ethos, in which he suffers and sacrifices for something as frivolous as a vastly overpriced bit of compressed carbon, is never questioned. Nor is the woman’s rampant vanity.

Remember, if it interferes with the worship of women, then you just don’t see it.

Earlier, I mentioned how this was an easy sell to human beings. Indeed, it couldn’t be easier. You can chalk it up to human biology. Our life in the flesh is a tricky one. When we meet someone that we’re powerfully attracted to, we enter a state of infatuation. Infatuation is a neurochemical onslaught; a flood of oxytocin and a host of other neurochemicals saturates the brain, promoting a sense of bonding, trust and intimacy that is in no way predicated on really knowing the other person. It’s a state of fantasy, and of insanity, where objectivity, reason, discernment, and often personal values, go out the window. It’s a time in life that people make poor decisions, one of them commonly being to marry a person you don’t know through lived experience.

A man in the infatuated state is vulnerable, an easy mark for crazy ideas, primary among them is the romantic code. It gives him a blueprint that his neurochemical addled brain will quickly and blindly follow. Put her above me? No problem! Squander hard-earned money to satisfy even her most selfish whims? Absolutely! And if anyone has a problem with that, I’ll gladly don my armor and meet him on the field of battle!

This is not the kind of love Christ has for the church. And that armor is not the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Not even close. Indeed, it’s not even love of any kind. It’s just mindless indulgence in the flesh, pure and simple.

And so, what is Christ’s love for the church? The Pauline Epistles clearly document God’s love for the church, including His chastisement, sometimes quite sternly, of the church where it erred. Yes, Christ loved the church, but He was not infatuated. His discernment was never compromised. Nor should yours.

Today, we have many more churches flying rainbow and trans flags than we do churches who follow scriptural guidance on marriage. The sappy, sycophantic fawning and deference to women plagues nearly all of them. That’s not just a coincidence, but that’s another essay.

Finally, we have another name for the romantic model. It’s called sin. The bible teaches us clearly. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Gen. 1:27

There is no scriptural evidence I can find that puts woman over man, or in terms of value, man over woman. We are commanded to separate roles but have equal value in the eyes of God. Therefore, is it not sinful to elevate one’s value over the other? Is it not in defiance of God’s will? The world, not our heavenly Father, has created the worship of woman. And men, in their sinful nature, have bent the knee in compliance. We have men kneeling before women when they should be kneeling only before The Cross.

As men, we need to find our way out of this surrender to the flesh. We must embrace a way forward, but also strangely a way back – back to the protective values of our past culture, to Christ and His divine will; to hold fast to our values like Odysseus – willingly tied to the ship’s mast in order to resist the Siren’s call.

One of the best things we can do now is to teach and support each other as brothers in Christ, holding fast to the word of God, and our discernment in His wisdom in all our affairs. I urge you to pass this message along to young Christian men as the opportunity arises. They won’t be learning any of it in Sunday School. That much is certain.

With that I close this first offering in my writings on biblical manhood. I hope that you might find it useful. But as always, I pray first and foremost that if you have not, you would open your heart to Jesus Christ, that you would accept Him as your personal savior, repent of your sins, and choose to follow Him for all the days of your life.

Peace.