How misogyny distorts the gospel, and why we are preaching on the Women of Christmas.

Misogyny and Christmas Don’t Mix

Every year our church enters Advent, remembering the beauty of the Christmas story but this year we are doing it intentionally. We are looking closely at the Women of Christmas, especially the women found in the genealogy of Jesus.

“There is no misogyny in Christmas, and there is no Christmas at all without women.”

Before we meet Joseph, before shepherds hear angels, before wise men kneel, before there is a manger, a star, or a silent night, there are women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Mary, Elizabeth, Anna. The Christmas story doesn’t just include women, it depends on them.

A Word About My Perspective

I want to be clear: the words in this blog are not coming from someone who wants to remove the differences God designed in men and women. I myself live a traditional life: my wife stays at home, investing herself in our home and our church. I believe this is a real privilege and blessing, but I do not believe it is the only way a home should work. In our ministry, men and women often gather in separate spaces. We believe God calls men to serve by taking responsibility and leading in their homes, and that qualified men should be selected from each household to serve as elders or overseers in the church.

“One of the ways our culture is confused and lost is by denying the differences and uniqueness of men and women.”

But traditional roles do not justify misogyny. God made men and women with equal dignity. Yes, He made us differently, but He intends for men and women to work together, to complement each other, and to depend on each other in every area of life, ministry, and service. Any teaching that diminishes women or excuses mistreatment is incompatible with God’s design and incompatible with Christmas itself.

Why We Need to Say This Out Loud

Sadly, some Christian voices today distort God’s design and dishonor women. Over the past two decades, a movement of hyper-masculine teaching has emerged, loud, aggressive, and dismissive of women. Two prominent examples are Doug Wilson and Mark Driscoll.

Why Certain Voices Must Be Marked and Avoided

Doug Wilson: Household and Sexual Discipline

Wilson has written that if a wife “rebels” by failing to do the dishes after a meal, “after every meal before anything else is done,” the husband should gently remind her. If she continues in “rebellion,” he is instructed to call the elders of the church for a “pastoral visit.” In some reported cases, women were disciplined by the church for not keeping house or for not being sexually available, effectively treating household service and sexual submission as enforceable obligations.

This model distorts the nature of marriage because a healthy marriage is not a parent and child relationship. It is a dance between equals, a partnership in which each spouse moves in response to the other. Even if the husband leads, he leads like Christ, laying down his life, loving sacrificially, seeking the good of his wife. The wife follows because she chooses to, not because she is coerced, disciplined, or reduced to a role of mere obedience.

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21)

Wilson’s theology, which frames sex as male conquest and female surrender, combines with these household doctrines to create a culture of coercion and objectification. Women are treated as property, service-providers, and sexual objects rather than full image-bearers of God. He writes that sexual relations involve a man “penetrating, conquering, colonizing, planting,” while the woman “receives, surrenders, accepts.” This reduces intimacy to a ritual of domination rather than mutual love and covenant.

Mark Driscoll: Sex as Duty and Male Dominance

Driscoll has described women in crude, objectifying terms, likening them to “penis homes,” reducing their value to sexual utility for men. He taught that wives are obligated to perform sexual acts on demand, including oral sex, as a demonstration of obedience. He has blamed women for marital issues stemming from their past sexual history or perceived “hidden sins,” treating them as spiritually suspect.

“Women are systematically objectified, disciplined, and silenced in these teachings.”

Driscoll’s teaching frames sex and obedience as power tools, conditioning women to serve male desire rather than inviting mutual covenantal love. Combined with Wilson’s household rules, this creates a culture in which women are reduced to objects instead of image-bearers.

“Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.” – Romans 16:17

Why This Happens: The Struggles Many Men Face

This rise of misogyny in churches, online spaces, and political rhetoric doesn’t emerge out of nowhere. It stems from a very real breakdown among many men: social isolation, economic instability, despair, addiction, and identity loss. Recent data illustrate the severity of that crisis:

• In 2020–2021, men in the U.S. died of drug overdoses at a rate roughly 2–3 times greater than women. Overdose mortality for synthetic opioids like fentanyl was about 29.0 deaths per 100,000 men, compared to 11.1 per 100,000 women.
• Overdose deaths have contributed significantly to a reduction in life expectancy and years-of-life lost nationally.
• Although there was a modest rebound in 2023, men’s life expectancy remains lower than women’s at 75.8 years versus 81.1 years and remains significantly impacted by deaths of despair including overdose, suicide, and addiction-related causes.

On top of all this, there has been a catastrophic 91% rise in the use of pornography since 2000, training generations not to honor but to objectify women, literally rewiring our brains and sterilizing our ability for true intimacy.

This doesn’t excuse misogyny. But it helps explain why in the face of failure, fear, loss, and crisis some men may seek to reassert identity and control by dominating women. The gospel offers a different way: not domination but redemption, not coercion but dignity, not despair but hope. Our struggle is not men against women, it is a spiritual battle, “not against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil” (Ephesians 6:12). Men and women are fellow image-bearers, called to co-labor. Misogyny is a false and short cut solution, the gospel provides the true path forward.

God Made Humanity in His Image — Male and Female

From the very beginning, God made humanity in His own image:

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26)

Men and women are distinct, but both are essential to reflecting God’s image. All these texts could have used other language, a purely masculine metaphor, a generic metaphor, or militaristic imagery. But to accurately reflect all of who God is, the biblical writers included feminine imagery. The image of God is incomplete with men only or women only.

Paul understood this so well that he used the tender imagery of a nursing mother to describe his ministry:

“We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7)

He could have chosen any number of metaphors, a soldier, a shepherd, a teacher, but a nursing mother captured best the care, tenderness, and relational devotion he sought to convey.

Jesus Himself, the Son of God, repeatedly used maternal imagery to describe His care for His people. Over Jerusalem, He lamented:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Matthew 23:37)

And the Old Testament often describes God as a nursing mother, remembering and sustaining His people:

“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem” (Isaiah 66:13)

The point is clear: God does not operate solely in the language of power, domination, or aggression. The care of men and women together, reflecting His image fully, is central to His plan. The struggle is not men versus women, but men alone, or women alone. Only together do we reflect the full image of God, living out the gospel in all its relational, nurturing, and redemptive power.

Christmas Declares the Opposite Story

Christmas begins with heaven honoring a woman. The archangel Gabriel greets Mary:

“Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” (Luke 1:28, 42)

Mary is not diminished, dismissed, or silenced. She is blessed. She is entrusted. She is essential. If heaven begins the gospel story this way, then misogyny has no place in our homes, our churches, or our hearts.

The Women of Christmas

The genealogy and story of Jesus are full of women whose lives display courage, faith, and indispensability:

• Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, women whose actions shape God’s plan in bold, unexpected ways
• Elizabeth and Anna, women whose devotion and prayer prepare the way for God’s salvation
• Mary, the favored woman, entrusted with the Incarnation itself

“Women are not ancillary to God’s plan. They are co-workers, vital participants, and full bearers of God’s image.”

Christmas reminds us that women are essential. Any teaching that diminishes them is incompatible with the gospel.

Even Beyond the Church

Some might say, “I don’t know anyone who talks like Driscoll or Wilson.”

But misogyny saturates our culture. We have seen leaders normalize contempt for women, from “Shut up, piggy” to “When you’re famous, you can do anything.” This is not fringe, it is mainstream. If we don’t actively resist misogyny, we absorb it silently. Christmas reminds us to resist it boldly, because God honors women, and so must we.

Let’s honor the women of Christmas and the women in our lives.

Christmas declares a radical truth. God honors women, entrusts them with His plan, and calls men and women to serve together in dignity, mutual respect, and love.

A faithful church is a community where women are seen, heard, and blessed. And a culture shaped by misogyny, whether in the church or the world, must be marked, avoided, and confronted.

In our church, we also believe that the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2) means that God has now given permission for anyone He has gifted to minister, men and women alike. God’s Spirit does not discriminate by gender. He equips all His people for service in His kingdom.

“Without women, there is no Christmas, and without honoring them and all God created us to be, we’ve disorted the gospel itself.”