Adventures in Mercy & Lady Lydia

Molly Alley or Molleth being the good Christian woman that she is, did not reveal the name of who was lambasting her on her views in her blog - Adventures in Mercy.

In an article on her blog, Molly instead of focusing on this anonymous person's atrocious comments choose the higher path of where she might have failed.

Of course, we having no such uber-Christian convictions, feel she was talking about none other than our Lady Lydia.

What happened? 

The history:

I am a part of an email group made up of mothers of many young children and have been for many years. It’s a Christian group and, for the most part, fairly conservative–at least, the vocal ones are. Since I have five young children, a resource like this group can be nice, even though five kids is a fairly small family there. Usually, life with my “small” family keeps me too busy to even bother to read through the email digest, but every so often I will, and, once in a while, I will write a post to send in.

(Hint: Molly was a former member and contributer to the Ladies Against Feminism site.)

Recently, this group was talking about how adult children, especially daughters, are Biblically commanded to stay home until and/or if they become married. Mothers were being encouraged to train their daughters that way, etc, and to beware the dangerous world of feminism. So I wrote a post of polite dissent, using many passages of Scripture to explain my position and mentioning some of the many women in Scripture who did not “home-keep,” such as the women who travelled with Jesus, or Phoebe, who Paul had deliver the letter to the Romans.

Many women emailed me to tell me thank you, to let me know that the group has many who are not ultra-conservative and that it’s nice to hear dissenting voices. (I’m glad for those who speak up—they’re brave, in that sort of forum, and needed).

And then enter our Lady Lydia:

But one woman emailed me more than a few times, letting me know, in that lovely “righteous anger” that we Christians can use so well, that because I disagreed with her position, I was obviously not a student of God’s Word, was relativistic, my words were poisonous and she wouldn’t read them (though she must have read enough to let me know how horrifically wrong I was), and that I obviously didn’t believe Scripture at all.

Lydia hates people who disagree with her, but being a Pastor's wife she condescendingly tells them she'll pray for them:

She closed her final letters, of course, by letting me know she’d be praying for me—you know, that warm “Christian” way of sticking a knife in your rib—and, well, that was that.

What bothered me was the complete lack of logic employed in her responses. She couldn’t hear anything I said—and, for that matter, didn’t appear to be trying to. She’d formed her interpretational grid and it was water-tight. Not only was it infallible, but it had to be protected: it was dangerous to even listen to any other arguments. 

Lydia's usual lack of logic and resort to emotional drama:

She wrote claiming she wanted conversation and asking me to answer a few questions, but it turned out conversation was the last thing we had. People can’t have a conversation when one side has their fingers in their ears and then, despite the fact that they openly tell you they will not listen to the answers you gave to their questions, proceed to tell you exactly what you think and why, resorting to personal jabs while doing so.

Urgh. It got me thinking about how dumb we all can be. I was on the receiving end of a wildly whacking combatant (though I didn’t even want a fight!).