Welcome to My Church!

Saints! I ain’t gwine keep you long on this Monday mernin’. I just wanted to share a memory that came back to me after I had a conversation online earlier today. Someone had shared with me that she had gone to a wedding this weekend, where as usual, sexism and simplicity (of mind) were on display.

“You are now subject to your husband!” the officiating pastor is said to have declared. “It doesn’t matter what they said at Beijing. You career comes fourth.”

He went on to add that she must never argue with her husband and that she must never deny him sex – even when he has offended her.

The woman recounting this series of events was horrified of course, and I was grateful she could not see my face contorted in laughter. Never deny your husband sex, eh? Even when you’ve got a yeast infection? Even when your underwear looks like the floor of a butchery during your special time of the month? Even when you’ve had one too many bean pies and have wicked gas and he wants to hit it from the back?

These Ghanaian pastors are, like, sooo impractical.

Of course the basis of all this advice is “scriptural”, with that scripture being based on Ephesians 5:22.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

Eh? You said what? Ephesians 5:21 says what? ”Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”? Please…no. That is contrary to the message we are preaching in Ghana. In GHANA, it is for the wife to submit and obey. She is the body. It is for the husband to be the head; and that head must be stroked, pampered, petted and fed. Is the head not where the mouth is? Com’on then! Bring it food to eat! What is this nonsense about mutual respect for each other? You are a married woman now, and your dreams/hopes/plans only have validity if I say they do.

Oh, Lawd! How I roared to myself this morning!

I asked my husband yesterday what he believes the average man’s definition of “submission” is, as far as a woman (because there are dudes who believe all women should submit to men, whether they be their husbands or not) is concerned. What constitutes a protocol of submission? Now Mr. Grant, who is ever the diplomat, first went on to make it clear that the Bible says that spouses are to submit one to another, that men have the greater responsibility to ensure the happiness and health of their households, and a litany of reasons that solidified why I married him. Is this not a man? I weep for my female counterparts who went to the altar thinking they were marrying men, only to get on the other side of “I do” and discover they were instead wed to a Baby-Pimp-Boss. You know…the guys who want you to be ever ready (and eager) to please him sexually, but relies on you to boil him water for a bath, but at the same time wants you to treat him like a deity, even in the face of his marginal competence? Oh don’t play coy. You know these couples!

Marshall asked if he was to start a church in Ghana, would his message to men be received.

“That message would not be welcome,” I said flatly. “Sure, you’d have a small following, but you would never have to invest in a large edifice or tons of seating. You’d have 8 members…10 tops.”

This made him laugh, of course. Who ever heard of a 10 member church?

The memory I wanted to share with you has to do with my Christian journey. I haven’t prayed for the sick and had anyone recover, I barely led one girl to Christ while I was in college and I don’t have many verses committed to memory. These are qualifications for being named among Christ’s disciples (not whether I choose to wear pants to work or not), so I don’t think I’ve earned the right to be called a Christian. Marshall, who is a deacon on the other hand, has earned this. It grieved him to see his wife so fallen behind, and many years ago he asked me if I could make the effort to become more ‘krife’.

I denied him that request. I know myself. He would not enjoy living with a Christian fundamentalist, krife Malaka. But what might such a woman look like? I can picture it now; I in my pink pillbox hat and ankle length skirt…and white stockings! All female preachers need white stockings…

*****MOM MODE******

Greetings, and welcome to Christ Feminist (He came to set the captives free) Church! Today, I want to talk to you faithful few about men.

Yes, men!

Some of you sisters have been causing men to fall, because you have not told them the truth about their place in Gulllld (translation: God). You have not quoted them Proverbs 6. You have not led them to Proverbs 24! You have allowed your Baby/Pimp/Boss mates to wallow in mediocrity, and now look who is suffering? You!

Today, I want to tell you about the parable of the cotton wool.

There once was a plantation owner who had vast fields of cotton. Year after year, his slaves picked the finest cotton and put them into bales. The children of the slaves picked the seeds from the tiny white buds, and they were all unhappy. The plantation owner didn’t care though. His profits doubled every year and his cotton was used to make the finest clothing for the British aristocracy.

But one planting season, he got a bad strain of cotton seed, and his cotton bolls came out grey and hardly fluffy. When the slaves tried to put them in huge bales, they would disintegrate and often blow uncontrollably all over his field. Sometimes, the wayward cotton would stray into other planter’s fields, polluting their soil. Instead of the cotton being used for fine attire for the rich, it could now only be used as sanitary napkins.

Because you sisters have not fed your husbands, boyfriends and side-guys the proper gospel, they are now that lower grade of cotton. See! See how your men have lowered themselves. They have not taken on the mantle of kingship. They see themselves as poor cotton wool, whose sole job in life is to sit between the legs of whatever woman they find themselves in the presence of.

Whores! Male whores! Did not the Lord Gullllld create you for more than this? Why are you constantly seeking moist, wet environments to perpetually dwell in? Are you sanitary cotton wool?

*******

This is why God has never placed in me a desire to preach.