Not for the faint of heart...

I'm currently reading portions of the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Piper and Grudem). I was actually all warm and cozy in bed reading when I read a quote that inspired me to get out of bed and come share it here. It's in chapter 3 (I'm pretty sure) by Raymond Ortlund, Jr. entitled "Male-Female Equality and Male Headship." (I warned you!) Anyway, it is discussing the difference between male headship (in the partnership of two spiritually equal human beings, man and woman, the man bears the primary responsibility to lead the partnership in a God-glorifying direction) and male domination (assertion of the man's will over the woman's will, heedless of her spiritual equality, her rights, and her value). I'm going to only put an excerpt here, and if you want to read it in context you can find it at http://www.cbmw.org/rbmw/rbmw.pdf.

Why then do godly people resist this teaching so energetically? One reason is

a smothering male domination asserted in the name of male headship. When truth

is abused, a rival position (in this case, feminism) that lacks logically

compelling power can take on psychologically compelling power. But male

domination is a personal moral failure, not a Biblical doctrine.

If we define ourselves out of a reaction to bad experiences, we will be

forever translating our pain in the past into new pain for ourselves and

others in the present. We must define ourselves not by personal injury, not by

fashionable hysteria, not even by personal variation and diversity, but by the

suprapersonal pattern of sexual understanding taught here in Holy Scripture.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his idea, the first sentence in the second paragraph is powerful nonetheless. Finding yourself and becoming acquainted with yourself are two concepts that are rather huge right now. It makes me wonder - has the issue of realizing you're a foreigner to yourself a new one? If not, how was it dealt with in the past? If it is a new issue, why? What has caused this self-obsessed (an arguable point, I know) fad? Anyway - that's all. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to ask for a response...but share your thoughts if you'd like -cringe-.