The increasingly popular Love, Joy, Feminism blog featured a short post that caught my attention. Echoing Sarah Over the Moon, Libby Anne asserted that male imagery of God is idolatry. I read this opinion not because I am a loyal follower of this Patheos blog. Instead, I came across it through several feminists friends of mine who fall into the “post-evangelical,” “hip Christian,” and “post-Christian” category. Libby Anne herself professes atheism, turning her back on a severely fundamentalist upbringing. She underwent various abuses and inconsistencies with the Quiverfull movement and Reconstructionist patriarchy. Many of her fans suffered the same excesses as found in fringes of the homeschooling community. For the uninitiated, one can research the names Bill Gothard, Debi Pearl, and Doug Phillips to get an idea of the beast we’re dealing with here. These harmful positions have received criticism from liberals and conservatives alike; they rely on poor interpretations of Scripture, generally disregarding the Christian tradition and employing cult-like techniques in leadership.
Nevertheless, as LJF clearly exemplifies, the reaction against such nuttiness can be just as dangerous. Sarah observed that literal understanding of human qualities leads to idolatry instead of “an analogy that aids human understanding and breaks earthly power structures.” The LJF author warned that this “brings God down to an earthly level…In other words, patriarchy lowers God to man. The opposite is also startlingly true: patriarchy makes man into God.” She concluded,
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