Remember when Adam said, ““The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Yep, he ate it and therein women have been blamed for man’s failures ever since, and the Danvers Statement is no exception. There are 10 Concerns and 10 Affirmations in their Danvers Statement and EVERY ONE of them blame women. “The woman made me do it.”

I have paraphrased their Concerns and Affirmations because some are so difficult to wrap your brain around, they must be spelled out.

Concern #1: Right off the bat, their first concern is that people don’t understand the complementary differences between masculinity and femininity.

My reply: Actually, there is no uncertainly and confusion regarding men and women. Culture has changed, and no culture has ever been the perfect one, certainly not 2000 years ago. When this Danvers Statement was written in 1987, women had recently been given the right to serve on juries, to have credit in their names, to buy and sell a house in their own names, to make legal decisions, and to work in what was previously male dominated fields.

These are rights we take for granted in 2026, but were denied women before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During the 20 years before the Danvers Statement was written, women had to fight their way through the courts to attain these rights that were legally theirs, and it was cases of women winning this struggle that brought on the Danvers Statement. Some churches were even ordaining women! They desired to put a stop to women advancing in the educational and religious sectors.

Note: Christian Nationalism is hell-bent on rescinding those basic American rights for women.

Concern #2: Now, their second concern, we find them crying over this so-called confusion, saying it is destroying marriage and manhood and womanhood.

Me: Oh my, that sounds awful, but wait. See what I have got to say about their tears.

My reply: They saw women attaining higher education and now, by law, they could not be denied jobs based on their gender. This caused their fear that women would forget what they saw as a “woman’s place” in the home, and under the control of their husbands. When women became supervisors over men, or held any position that gave them authority over men, the writers of the Danvers Statement decided those actions were destroying marriages.

They were worried that women who had supervised men in the workplace during the day would not be content to be submissive wives when they came home at night.

Let’s look at one more.

Concern #3 scares them of feminism! And these are the men who are supposed to chase the devil awa and they are scared to death of a little bit of feminism.

My reply: The word feminism still carries a negative reaction in the Christian and secular world. This explosive word “feminist” was used deliberately to associate abortion with egalitarians, even though many egalitarians do not approve of abortion.

They use the phrase “glad harmony” which completely ignores the fact that the Bible says nothing about “glad harmony” in marriage. The Apostle Paul stopped in the middle of his discourse in Ephesians 5 to tell husbands they should love their wives and to treat their wives like they would their own body – in other words, feed and care for her and not abuse her. Glad harmony – hardly!

This Concern #3 is the perfect description of a one-way marriage—his way. Everything she does is to support him and build him up. However, if he is the spiritual leader, it would appear that it is his job to build up and support his wife, not the other way around.

Next blog: Danvers Statement Concerns #4 and #5

Shirley Taylor Books (available on Amazon in print and on Kindle)
The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal: No Buts
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition
From Wife to Widow: What I Know Now