It’s Sunday morning, folks, and the Southern Baptists are out there in the world going to their place of worship. I cannot tell you how many southerners I have known over the years that grew up as Baptists, decided the religion was screaming bonkers, and then became Methodists, Lutherans, Wiccans, you name it. Even to this day I get reports from a friend in Texas about the latest Baptist cult where the goal is to homeschool everyone and the pastor runs a Snapchat account with photos of underage girls.
In Missouri today, Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark of Missouri’s Malden First General Baptist Church told the flock — the women, that is, the men are perfect, apparently — that they needed to look good for their husbands. And he flashed a photo of Melania Trump on the wall behind him. The Hill:
“Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic, epic trophy wife of all time like Melania Trump. I’m not saying that at all,” Clark said as a photo of Trump was displayed on screen. “Most women can’t be trophy wives, but you know, maybe you’re a participation trophy. I don’t know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that. Amen! Not everybody looks like that. But you don’t need to look like a butch either.”
Clark also implored the congregation to understand that a man needs to have a beautiful wife at his side.
“Ladies, it’s the way God made us. It’s the way we are. Men are going to look. He made us to look. You want them to be looking at you. Don’t let yourself go,” Clark said.
I think the one who should worry about going is this preacher. His performance was not greeted with enthusiasm. One of the women in his flock put up a clip of the sermon on social media, with the comment, “He objectifies women, antagonizes them, and practices sexism, all while acting like it’s hip or cool.”
This was certainly what it was to grow up female when I was born in the 50’s. You were an accessory, so you had best be an ornamental one. And your first, last and only duty in this world was to please a man. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that this is coming from a pulpit in the year 2021.
And of course the turnaround is, “Men, if you want your woman to look like an epic trophy wife, you’d best work a couple of extra jobs so that she can have whatever plastic surgery she needs, and get to the spa twice daily like Melania, and play tennis the rest of the time. You can do that, right?”
I remember the ’50s and ’60s: hose, heels, girdles, and bras that bore no relationship to the breasts they were supposed to support. And um, makeup. Still like pretty things, BUT the hoops we had to jump through! And don’t get me going on crinoline
(scratchy, poofy) slips.
Those were bad times. And shoes were frequently stupid as well. Not designed for comfort or utility like nowadays.
Apparently, men can look the way God made them but not so much for women. Astounding.
Statements like that make me appreciate William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell that much more.
Why do people listen to these type of religious fools. He sees value in women only based on looks. Such a bad example for young boys who will grow up and struggle building a healthy relationship with women.
Welcome to a typical Sunday in my part of the world, folks. Southern Baptists were the ones who looked the other way when it came to what my old man was doing to my family. This sermon? Par the goddamn course.
I was forced to attend Southern Baptist Churches while growing up. When I married a Catholic I was disowned for a long time.
When I joined the church at the age of eleven our pastor was an educated and kind man that compared faith in God to the faith you have in a chair when you sit down. He left a year later and was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. This was back before the right wing took over the church. Baptist pushed to end prayer in school and had no real qualms with abortion.
The next preacher lamented from the pulpit the fact that they had police at the school to protect black children in the first days of desegregation. I doubt many thought this was horrible. I was 15 or so and will never forget what he said. The scary thing is, they are 10 times worse today.
Somewhere in that sermon did he ever get around to admonishing men?