It doesn’t take much cultural awareness nowadays to realize that a “house-wife” or “home-maker” is on the lowest rung of the social ladder today, as far as societal values go. To be called a home-maker today is certainly not a badge of honor. People still refer to “motherhood” with some sense of nostalgia, but in actual fact it is no longer held in high esteem.

Meanwhile we’re reaping all the dire results of such an attitude: unattended children, increase in day-care centers with their cost to the public, increased juvenile delinquency, higher than usual unemployment and, last but not least, the rising abortion rate with all its devastating ramifications. One of the up-coming things now is the after-school-care of children whose mothers are at work. And the public is expected to pay for that, too. Of course, we must be sensitive to the needs of our society and be willing to lend a helping hand. But we should first get at the roots of these problems, rather than treating symptoms.

While I’m writing this we’re undergoing a nurses’ strike in Alberta. One of the striking nurses, in trying to gain sympathy from the public said: You should realize that when we come home from work we have tired husbands and cranky kids waiting for us. Our work isn’t done with a shift at the hospital. To which I am inclined to reply: Why didn’t you stay home in the first place? You knew what you were getting into when you entered the nursing profession. What’s more important: home and family, or that extra paycheck? I can sympathize with the old man who rolled down his car window to say to the picketing nurses: “Why don’t you go home and do something constructive like cleaning the house?”

Mothers in my congregation have told me that when they were in the hospital having their third, fourth or fifth(!) baby, there was consternation and at times thinly veiled ridicule among the staff and other patients. Some women said the only reason they were having a third baby was because the first two were either both boys or girls, and they decided to try once more for one of the opposite sex. But this was it!

That’s the kind of society we’re living in. A society where God’s ordinances are being increasingly flaunted and ridiculed. But such is to be expected in a society which is ignorant of God’s Word or chooses to reject it. What is infinitely more sad, however, is that we find more and more of this attitude in the church, including the CRC. While one has a right to expect opposition to such a worldly trend, we find accommodation, being conformed to the world instead of being transformed by the renewal of our minds.

Even the editor of The Banner is jumping on the bandwagon of late. In an editorial, “Mothers & Daughters,” (Feb. 15 issue) he says, “I thought that I should tell the church to accept a new situation with respect to the place of women in the homes, in society, and in the congregations.” The occasion which prompted the editorial was a campus worship service where “a woman was the liturgist.” He goes on to say:

There are many women at Calvin. They are taught competence, confidence, and equality. . . . We cannot refuse tomorrow what we are ordering today. We cannot expect women to unlearn when they marry what they are now being taught.

Actually, he says, most of us have accepted the new patterns already, “except for the consistory room.”

Well, there you have it. That doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Though it does leave a lot to be desired. Though the editor says that “their field of service must be more spacious than that which kept most of their mothers happy,” he doesn’t go on to say what that should be. One is left in the dark though the reference to the consistory room is obvious. No, I’m not saying that all was perfect in the past. Some of our women and mothers may have been unduly restricted in the past. But what is this “new pattern” that the editor is calling for? Instead of making a strong biblical plea for mothers to remain home as long as they have children, and to consider home-making as one of the most important (if not the most important) callings today, Kuyvenhoven actually gives a good boost to his “liberated” sisters in Grand Rapids. And that coming from a Banner editor in 1982! When everyone can see what is happening to our homes, and as a result, our society, today. I simply cannot understand that kind of writing today in a Reformed magazine.

I would like to ask too: What are these women at Calvin being taught? Is what they are being taught the norm? Or could it possibly be completely wrong? Not a word about that either. As if it’s just the most natural thing in the world that what our students are taught is good and must be implemented in society. I beg to differ! Our institutions of learning are in no way sacrosanct, and we don’t necessarily have to swallow everything that comes from there.

I would like to suggest that The Banner editor write with a bit more discrimination hereafter. After all, he’s supposed to give biblical leadership to the church.