Don't worry, ladies; it's a fake!

Perhaps it's a good time to introduce you to a few sites I consult on a regular basis. Whenever I receive one of those astonishing e mail stories, the first thing I do is check it out at Truth or fiction.com. While not as complete as Snopes.com, it is maintained by Christians with a great deal of integrity, and I can be pretty sure that it has been well researched. In the case of the article, "Good Wife's Guide, it was even debunked on Wikipedia, which has (in spite of its critics) become a highly eclectic source of information on just about anything. The thing I appreciate about Wikipedia is that it is so juried and reviewed that it will tell you in a superimposed textbox if some article contains biased language or cannot be verified by outside sources. One of my favorite terms from Wikipedia is "weasel words," which means a claim that the writer could "weasel out of," if pressed, but is nevertheless not objective or verifiable.

I recommend these sites to someone almost every week. In the case of the sermon illustration, it certainly was not relevant whether such an article ever appeared or not, and I wouldn't have known (or cared) whether it had actually been published. I only happened to discover the origin of this story because I was searching the web for information about the magazine which it supposedly came from, in order to write today's blog. But because Christians are looked upon as gullible and naive by the general population, it behooves us not to pass on such e mails without checking them out first.

None of this detracts, of course from the fact that most wives in the 1950's did hold to these ideals, nor does it take away from the value of the story as a sermon illustration. And one can still find books written for Christian wives today which say some of these same things. The notion of a loving relationship between a wife and husband, where both truly seek to serve each other in a biblical manner, is anathema to radical feminists and false egalitarans of all stripes.

When I look around Dove Mountain Church on Sundays, I am thankful that we have marriages in all stages of development, from newlyweds to octagenarians. The story of the courtship of Don and Sharon Jensen which was in our latest missions newsleter was an inspiration to all of us. And we should appreciate Pastor Allen's teaching (from Paul) on a topic which is still so needed in today's society.