The New Eve (4 page)

Right decisions.
Every woman wants to make them, whether they are about a boyfriend, balancing work and home, raising children, a husband and marriage, a career, when to work and when not to, whom to believe and whom not to, settingpriorities, what and whom to live for, planning life, or connecting with God. These are the right choices women want to make. The question is, Where is the counsel and the guidelines that can help achieve this outcome? This is what this book,
The New Eve
, offers.

In the pages that follow, I want to set
forth five bold moves
I believe can help steer you or any woman of faith toward a more secure, satisfying, and God-honoring life. But let me also say that while these bold moves apply to women of any age or circumstance, I believe younger women in particular have the opportunity to benefit most. That's because these bold moves are much like financial investing. The sooner you get started, the greater the return.

I rejoice today that women like yourself have an unlimited canvas on which to paint their lives. Having two adult daughters of my own, Elizabeth and Rebekah, I love the new freedoms and opportunities our modern age offers. For instance, Elizabeth worked for a major consulting firm in Germany, traveled the world, and proved herself in leadership spheres formerly reserved for men. Rebekah got a master's degree, taught public school for several years, and is now an international teacher in Rwanda. But for my daughters, for you, and for women everywhere, I also desire one additional gift: the power to choose wisely. That's because wisdom has always been the balancing weight to freedom and opportunity. Wisdom is the school the first Eve failed in, but it's the one the New Eve seeks to excel in.

The View Behind the Choices You Make

W
hat drives the choices you make? Have you ever thought about that? Most of us believe we script our lives, using a highly objective reasoning process involving facts, circumstances, and personal preferences. And while to some extent that may be true, there is also another, less conscious force behind your choices.

It is your
worldview.

A worldview is the packaged past. It is the mind-set—right or wrong—you have assembled as your way of seeing and interpreting life. Call it your take on life—your selective spin rooted in deeply held convictions and beliefs, however they came about. It colors everything about you, including the way you experience life and perceive the reality around you. This is the power of a worldview.

Your worldview also shapes what you want life to be. It plots your future. It influences your plans and shapes your goals. The
mind-set you have right now—your worldview as a woman—is a significant force behind the kind of woman you are and are choosing to become. Typically, one of four female-specific world-views lies behind your choices that define your womanhood.

This is a worldview of nostalgia. It springs from a comfort with the lifestyle you grew up with and a desire to have that same lifestyle for yourself. New ideas, breakthrough opportunities, and changing social alignments are often viewed as threats to this more traditional way of life, so you quickly dismiss them, regardless of their merit. In this mind-set the past is always best.

Some women back into this worldview simply because the rapid pace of change in our world overwhelms them. Trying to chart a path in a world of confusing, ever-changing options becomes too much to handle, so they decide to stick to the well-worn ways of their upbringing. Mustering the will and wisdom to analyze alternatives and consider a better path may seem too risky or not worth the effort. And so they go with what they know.

Is that you? Is that good? Maybe, maybe not. But certainly it's easier that way. More familiar and predictable. Did Mom choose to stay at home and make that her sole aspiration? You can choose to stick with her tradition and do the same. Did Mom depend on your dad for everything? You can repeat that. Or did she rule your home and your dad? You can seek to repeat that too. Or, as is more likely in the younger generation, did Mom pitch herself into a career, devoting all her best energies to pursuits outside the home? If so, why think differently? Like mother, like daughter. It's only natural for you to be caught up in this same trajectory. Besides, most of your friends are probably running along the same line. And so you replicate. You carry on the
lifestyle you grew up in, not because it's necessarily right or best for you but because it's what you're comfortable with.

Believe it or not, reacting to a wound can become your world-view. It can mark your life so powerfully that everything about you is shaped or interpreted by its persuasion. Such a wound can come from your parents' failed marriage, your father's abuse, your mother's neglect, your parents' misplaced priorities, or a personal tragedy. As a result, this wound now serves as the primary lens through which you see your world. Unlike the traditional worldview, which esteems the past, this mind-set demands that you become different from your past, sometimes radically opposite in order to protect yourself from previous experiences.

Many women embrace this worldview. Study the background of some of the most strident modern-day feminists and you will find women choosing a lifestyle tailored to distance themselves from the pain they experienced from men, most often from the man they love most—Dad. To establish security, these women grab for power and promote a radical ideology that shields them from ever becoming vulnerable to or dependent on men again.

Andrea Dworkin is a prime example. At nine years of age, Dworkin was molested in a movie theater by an unknown male assailant. When she married, her husband assaulted her with kicks, punches, and burns. He even bashed her head against the floor so hard she was knocked unconscious. It's no surprise Dworkin became a fire-breathing feminist who saw men as worthless and urged women not to marry. “Like prostitution,” she wrote, “marriage is an institution that is extremely oppressive and dangerous for women.”
¹
Her tragic life became her worldview.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton is another example. The veritable founder of the American women's movement, Stanton was raised in an early nineteenth-century home that prized boys and looked on girls with cool indifference. The earliest memory seared into Elizabeth's mind was that of her parents expressing displeasure at the birth of her younger sister: “What a pity she's a girl!”

When Elizabeth was eleven years old, tragedy struck the family. Her elder brother, a promising college graduate and the lone jewel in the family crown, died in an accident. Seeking to ease her father's despondency, Elizabeth vowed to emulate her lost brother, especially to achieve his glories in academia. Greek would become her second language and history her passion. Since her brother's skills in the saddle once pleased her father, she would master the horse as well. Whatever her brother was, Elizabeth was driven to become to win her father's affections.

If these were her hopes, they were cruelly crushed. Mr. Cady was unable to see past his own grief and prejudice. “Oh, you should have been a boy!” was all the paternal tenderness he could muster.
²

Elizabeth's sense of shame and humiliation at being a girl eventually created in her a powerful counteraction. Much of her subsequent life was spent attacking this warped valuation of her parents, which she saw everywhere. Everything, including the church and the Christian faith, felt her passion and biting wrath. “The whole history of mankind,” she said, “is a history of calculated, organized tyranny over women.”
³
That's a wound speaking, not reality. But as her worldview, it powerfully shaped her life.

Today many women choose a life for themselves from woundedness. So as not to be taken advantage of, or abandoned the way Mom was, they insulate themselves from vulnerability through the power of a career. Self-sufficiency becomes their driving worldview. So as not to be dominated by a man the way
Dad did Mom, they angrily reject their church and the Bible's teaching on male headship and become hard and demanding. Or to feel safe, they find a man they can dominate. To escape the pain of their parents' marriage, some women choose to use men and shun marriage. Or they reject men altogether and seek intimacy in the company of other women. Some women try to resolve the love deficit they suffered with their fathers by giving themselves to any man who shows interest. Others become superachievers in an attempt to overcome the stigmas of poverty, racism, and other social limitations they experienced in childhood. On and on I could go, but the point is this: a woman's response to past hurts can become her primary worldview, driving many of her life choices.

The Bible speaks about this mind-set more than any other. Actually, it warns women about adopting this take on life. Paul said, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2a). That's because despite the world's momentary popularity and the power of acceptance that goes with it (which we crave), being trendy in your lifestyle and mind-set rarely has long-standing value. Its power is in the moment. Unfortunately, whatever it offers you as
in
for today is usually
out
by tomorrow. And as its shine fades, it leaves you to deal with the consequences, either nagging emptiness or the serious pain of regret. And yet this is the worldview of choice for most people. Rather than think deeply or long-term about life, it feels right to go with the flow of culture and fit in, regardless of future costs.

Few women represent this worldview better than Jane Fonda. If you are in your twenties, you may identify Fonda only with movies. But her “life du jour” spans decades. In the late ’60s during the Vietnam War, Jane teamed up with her draft-card-burning
boyfriend, Tom Hayden (whom she later married), and joined the increasingly popular antiwar movement sweeping across America at the time. She soon made a name for herself as “Hanoi Jane.” Magazine covers, newspaper headlines, TV reports—Fonda was at the forefront and in the spotlight.

Then times changed, and the war ended. So in the ’70s Fonda found a new identity. She shifted her focus and added her voice to the growing women's movement. She threw away her bra and her short-term husband and became an empowered feminist.

Then came the ’80s when fitness and the hard body took center stage. Jane once again changed with the times. She shed her business suit for a leotard. She pumped her fists for exercise rather than protest and starred in
Jane Fonda's Workout
, the top-grossing video of all time.

But times changed again. You can't be a hard body forever. Besides, in the roaring ’90s rich was the new in. And one of the richest men on the planet was Ted Turner with his CNN empire. So Jane followed the moment yet again and set off in a new direction. “Once again I seemed to have become someone new because” of a man,” she would later say of her relationship with Turner.
⁴

By decade's end Turner was gone, along with the greed that had swept through the ’90s. With the stock-market crash, religion was now on the rise, especially the evangelical kind. And so as if on cue, Jane morphed with the times. In the late ’90s it was reported she had found Jesus. Christians rejoiced. Unfortunately Turner made it clear he would have no part of a born-again Jane, so a divorce quickly ensued.

But Jane's evolution continued. By early 2005 she had come full circle and was protesting war again, this time America's involvement in Iraq. So where will she be next year? Who knows? But you can probably bet her life will center on whatever's popular at the moment.

Now I know Jane is an extreme example of this worldview. But I've seen worldliness do strange things to many people-Christian women included. This mind-set unleashes a deadly malignancy that undermines and compromises the purpose-driven life Christian women like yourself are meant to live. Without regular intake of God's Word to counteract this, your life will more than likely default back to worldly conformity. The magnetism of living for whatever's in is that seductive.

I chose this title rather than “Biblical Worldview” for a reason. Certainly not to discount the Bible. The New Eve worldview
is biblical
, but it is also
specific to women.
Women who embrace this worldview actively shape their lives around the Bible's gender-specific applications. In doing so, they become women who are more than “Christian” in name only. They go beyond being mere churchgoers who claim faith but whose choices, values, and lifestyles more closely reflect the nonbiblical worldviews previously discussed.

A New Eve takes God's Word seriously not just at church but in the everyday walk of life. She lets the Bible answer the big questions every woman needs to face. Questions like: What does it mean to be a woman? What should be my priorities as a woman? How do I balance my life? How do I avoid regrets? How do I please God? New Eves don't merely ask such questions. They find specific and practical answers and use them to color their choices, determine their life direction, and measure their progress. These answers become a fixed mind-set that builds for them a unique, fulfilling femininity void of many of the excesses and regrets that mark other worldviews.

Of course, you may be asking, Can a significant and satisfying twenty-first-century womanhood really be defined from
Scripture? One that can apply to
all
women and yet not be guilty of cookie-cutter sameness that presses everyone into a common mold? One that will stay fresh even as you grow older? One that can guide you to the best in life? The answer is yes.

In the chapters that follow, you'll find five bold moves drawn from the Bible that help you, as a woman, define for yourself the best life possible. They are:

• Live from the inside out.
  
• Adopt a biblical definition of womanhood.
  
• Embrace a big-picture perspective on life.
  
• Live with the end in mind.
  
• Use wisdom with a man.