Classical Christian femininity in a post-truth world
What is my “homemaker’s manifesto," anyway?
Earlier this week, someone asked me on Instagram if I had an actual “homemaker’s manifesto.”
This is a good question, of course! And the simple answer was that this Substack publication is itself the manifesto. However…
This is about so much more than homemaking, at least in the sense that we think of homemaking as housework, childcare, and cooking.
First of all, the fact that these tasks have come to be seen as menial and even degrading to women is itself a deeply ideological and spiritual attack on femininity.
And so, what began as a desire to simply communicate why many women feel such a draw to return to what we consider to be more traditional roles for women has turned into a much deeper exploration of the very nature of womanhood in the Christian worldview.
The reason homemaking matters is because wives and mothers matter, and wives and mothers matter because women matter, and women matter because human beings matter.
The two most important things we know about humanity are that we were made male and female and made in God’s image.
In an era when this chief characteristic of the human species — binary sex — has been politicized by ideological tyrants, it is more important than ever to highlight this fundamental truth.
You’ve heard the expression, “a woman makes a house a home.”
We tend to think of this expression as simply meaning that women decorate, tidy, and bring atmosphere and personality to a dwelling.
I believe it has a much bigger application, however. Long before I came to the Lord, I aspired to do nonprofit work in many of the nations that had been ravaged by the conflict between First World nation-building and tyrannical Marxist ideology.
I remember when it struck me that it was women, in particular, that formed communities.
It’s hard to think of a group of men as a community. An army, a team, a work crew, a band of criminals, a force to be reckoned with; groups of men can be many things, but they simply aren’t communities. They aren’t families.
Men deeply desire and need women.
This is not mere whimsical fancy; it’s rock-solid, fundamental biblical truth.
It was not good for Adam to dwell alone.
We may affectionately call our canine companions “man’s best friend,” yet at the inception of man’s existence a suitable companion for Adam could not be found among the beasts of the field.
Only woman could serve this purpose, and for this she was created from Adam, her source, her husband, the head to her body, the purpose for her existence, and, as we would later see in the man of Jesus Christ, her devoted lord, covering, and king.
This little publication of mine previously professed to explore “womanhood, worldview, and classical femininity beyond ‘trad,’” and the reason for this is that the “trad” movement, while something I fully support in many ways, is a woefully surface-level look at the far deeper truth we all seek to connect with when we respond to our instinctive desire to pursue harmony in marriages, families, homes, and communities.
It's not mere tradition that matters.
It’s not even biology.
It’s creation. What we were made for — union with God in Christ and one another.
When we begin this journey on the wrong foot, by seeking to change our behavior and living arrangements without fundamentally realigning out thoughts and understanding of who we are with God’s eternally higher perspective, this is when we see things often go so very wrong.
In a way, I feel like I am re-launching my exploration into Christ-centered femininity with a fresh perspective that I have, all the same, had from the beginning.
The moment I realized the value of homemaking was the moment God began to draw me into the woman I was to become in Christ, and I keep returning to homemaking — the sacred, mysterious, timeless art of turning houses into homes and people into communities — as the heartbeat of His work in my life.
So, I wanted to share with you all seven points of classical Christian femininity that I hope to use in the future to help women reconnect to their design and grow and thrive in their marriages, homes, and lives.
We can view these as steps we can take to restore femininity as well as grow in our marriages and relationships, so I plan on expanding this into an interactive resource to help women. For now, please enjoy this prototype guide: