When I was growing up I heard of one woman whose fame was in that she had a beard. She was the only one for a very large area. I longed to see her but was unable to though I sought to do so.

Later I was to school in Nyeri, a town where there was a bearded woman whose approach would literally put everybody anywhere she passed on a pause mode until she disappeared. At least I was able to see her.

But today that is not rare. It is actually becoming too common for comfort. The percentage of mature women sporting beards may be nearing 20%, and these are the ones who have surrendered in their battle for the concealment of the fact.

That in itself is interesting, a fact worth investigating. Yet are we interested in understanding what is happening? Do we care to know the cause? Are we concerned about the implications?

What are the causes? Are there other symptoms?

I recently read an interesting ancient medical book that led me to be more interested in this topic. By ancient I do not mean centuries old, but medical science is growing so fast that the ten years may appear like centuries. It was written in the fifties and covers the momentous discoveries of twenty five years until then.

What is used to constitute the ‘family planning’ pill? I was shocked to learn that it is not even a drug. It is simply the male hormone. A woman will on ingesting the male hormone lose her capacity to conceive, of course because a man has no ability to conceive. The book was warning of a few side effects of doing so, among them being the growth of beards and breaking of the voice.

I then thought to look at the women of today, especially the liberated. By liberated I mean those who have been freed from living the good life God ordained. These are the ones who think God and His word have gone out of fashion. Who think the commandments are foolish suggestions from a god who has no idea what life is. Who think human beings are no different from cows since both are simply biological organisms. That morals are the dictates of a killjoy, absent deity.

To them sex is a release from slavery from such a divine. It is a statement that they are their own bosses. Once they divorce themselves from the constraints of religion, they think they are at liberty to practice whatever they choose. And they do that with a relish. Then reality strikes.

They will discover, and very painfully, that sex is not simply a biological function. It has the capacity of affecting every area of one’s life. Sex has a physical, social, psychological and especially a spiritual dimension. And the breach of each has its own consequences.

But rebellion is a religion. This is because it is aimed at religion. This is because any war must necessarily be on similar grounds. And that is the reason that anyone fighting a woman or elder is treated with contempt whether he wins or loses. It is the same even on spiritual grounds. That is the reason killing witches can not eliminate witchcraft, because it can only be tackled on spiritual grounds. That also applies to many other vices. Things of a spiritual nature can only be tackled using spiritual resources.

On the physical, the body will react to all the liberality sex exposes it to with several complications. The first is that the body rebels. You see God created the body for one sexual partner. Exposing it to a myriad confuses it. The body is lowered to one of an animal, offering sex on demand, to the point of believing what I have seen some confessing, that ‘even dirty water can put out a fire’. I once witnessed this boss and his driver who on failing to get presentable prostitutes one night ferried two very haggard and dirty women to their quarters. After satisfying their lust they sent them before light so that nobody else could see the women since they had then become objects of shame. These are people and situation I actually know, only that I don’t think it prudent to give any hint on their identity. Sexual liberation lowers one to an animal, sorry that I am the one who has to say it. But I have been on the frontier districts of Kenya and have seen what it can do to those enslaved by it.

The second is that it is exposed to diseases. You see I can not be sure of quality if I am indiscriminate. I can’t hold you accountable to quality if I can’t trust myself with the same. The condom is touted as the solution but I know that even it’s most ardent advocates and users do not believe that lie. It is only that it forms a key pillar of their religion’s doctrine. They must prove that God can be outwitted. I believe that HIV is not the most disastrous of the diseases, it just forms another pillar of their doctrine, diverting attention from the sin to the consequence. It is not the only incurable STD; there are others which are even more catastrophic.

The third brings me to the topic at hand. One of the purposes of sex is procreation. It is one thing God uses to make us partners in His creation business. But the liberation we are talking about wants to promote sex without responsibility. It seeks to promote sex without accountability. We want to lower our bodies to bestial levels yet wanting to remain human in other levels. That is simply not possible. One must give in. But we refuse to reason thus and start to look for a way out.

One way we do so is simply killing the offspring that results from such bestial behavior. But then the consequences are many times dangerous. They are not also predictable.

Why not short cut the whole thing altogether? That is their reasoning. And that is the point at which they start ingesting the male hormone to stop conception altogether. Since many times it is not in a marriage relationship, they can not take regular doses of the same since they can have sex only when and where they find it. It therefore will necessitate taking larger doses of the same once they ‘quench their thirst’.

Sin being what it is will lead such a one into a vicious cycle of rebellion that she will evangelize (sorry for defaming such a word) in her struggle to make such a lifestyle (religion) acceptable to the rest. Remember recently when prostitutes were demonstrating for their rights?

Let us go to the other side and leave the social rebels aside. Let us now take the ‘progressive’. These are the ones who rationalize selfishness and look for ways of legitimatizing it. I am sure we all know about the great advances made by the family planning ‘gospel’. It is interesting to note that most of the advocates of the same don’t realize that this is a sheer contradiction of terms. How can you plan to build a house before you have any land and materials? How can you budget for a salary before you get a job? In the same way how can you teach people to plan families by advising them against getting them in the first place?

Anyway, let us assume that it is possible. Why plan the family anyway? I would think the first reason is that the children will be able to get the best from the parents. Yet what do we find? Exactly the opposite! The parents reduce the number of children so that they can then forget about them. They can then be able to work full time and delegate the duty of raising the children to another child who also needs parenting. Of course the children are malfunctioned because the parent they know is another child and the very expensive TV the parents sacrificed their parenting role to purchase.

It is a verified and proven fact that a child needs the full time availability of one parent during their formative years for normal growth. The West that fed us with the garbage of planning non existent families is coming to terms with this reality and is trying to adjust to it. Again I will say that this is another facet of the same religion.

In the same book I have mentioned I read of a time that the aristocracy was at the danger of extinction. Why? Because the medical world had broken down the ingredients of breast milk and had started manufacturing it. Of course things could not have been much better for them because they then could do away with their milk maids. But then the milk lacked one very essential ingredient they had not as yet identified and so was deficient. It was realized because children were dying at very high rates, and these were the children of the nobility, ones who were too rich and progressive to suckle their own children.

But I am going out of topic. What do the progressives bring to our debate? For their own sake they must not have children. What of all the progress and wealth the children will put a stop to? They will thus resort to ingesting the same male hormone to ‘plan’ their family. Since they are not ‘rebellious’, they will be married which will mean they will make the use of the ‘pill’ a constant companion to block the inevitable. Some will even inject the same hormone into their system.

What does this do to their bodies? Can it be seen?

Ever noticed that nowadays very few women look feminine? Have you noticed that whereas in the past the woman’s body was all curves it is now mainly trunky and bumpy, just like a man’s? Have you noticed that many women now spot things that are simply masculine? It is interesting (should I say sad?) that I see many women who are pot-bellied and others having love handles. I don’t remember seeing such women in the past.

Where are the figure eights that described the ideal woman? Where is the soft and delicate hand that would remain so even after toiling on the farm all day? You will have to look really hard to see enough samples of the same. The only difference is if you saw a pregnant or nursing woman, then you will realize that there are women out there still. You see at this time she is all feminine, with no masculine spot on her.

Ever noticed that very few women nowadays trust the beauty proceeding from their natural hair? And why not? Very few have any natural hair to write home about. They must use add-ons and wigs for their head to become lookable. Hair, what the Bible calls the glory of a woman is now almost past tense, and it is mainly with the progressive woman I have talked about. They therefore must make wigs fashionable so as to cover their deficiency. I once met a woman who had almost no hair on her head, it was as if a great famine had occurred there, and the head was not even shaved!

Ever noticed that what many call make up may actually be cover up? Have you noticed that many women literally paint their faces, even applying an under coat and fillers before the main? What shock will get to the man who is convinced to marry her when he discovers a very different face that must go to a paint factory every single morning? I have issues with a person who can not trust their natural beauty because I don’t think I can trust them also.

Nature as we know has a way of doing things. A woman’s body is prepared by nature to carry, bear and nurse a child. The fat deposits in her body serve to prepare her for such an eventuality. What will happen then if she absconds that responsibility? The body gets confused. What does it then do with all that fat? That is the reason we find it distributed haphazardly.

That is why many progressive women are failing to get married. They are not much different from the men. And I think this is the reason many men married to them fear coming home. How many times have you seen women demonstrating that their men are not fulfilling their marital duty to their wives? The reason might be simple; they have become too masculine to attract men. Just like it is a fact that homosexuality is an act of final rebellion against God, the highest position (high priest) in the religion I have mentioned, it is simply unnatural to desire the same sex. It thus means that if the hormones become too close to each other, they will simply repel. The wife may be almost as undesirable as another man.

I hope you get my point. I normally deal with the extremes so that the point can be clearer. This way we can get rid of the grays that could easily cloud our reasoning.

Do the hormones go beyond the one who takes them? Do they get to the children? That is what I fear is the cause of the demise of the female body as we knew it. Remember a girl who caused so much controversy after winning the Olympics because she was too masculine? Where did it come from? Could it be that she inherited all that manliness from her mother? Forgive my speculation.

You see in this family planning error, oops, era, one is encouraged to start taking the pill as soon as she gets a child, not later than three weeks after delivery. Does that hormone affect the child?

Could this be a part of the grand conspiracy against God? Is the ‘masculining’ of the woman one part of the enemy’s design against the family, God’s great project, and one that so clearly depicts His relationship to His creation and clearly gives a foretaste of heaven?

I will not have completed my assignment if I leave out other occurrences that clearly seem to indicate that the family as God designed it may be a thing of the past should all things proceed as they are.

Among them are the great strides of the girl child. Yet that is not what is causing alarm. What is causing it is the neglect of the boy child. We are doing great in empowering the girl child. The only problem is that we have all but forgotten there is any boy child at all. Incidentally, most of the policy makers, most of who are the progressives I have mentioned, end up with only girls. Most of the people who in the eyes of the world have made it (read have more money than they need) also produce only girls if they get any children at all. They therefore have no boy to consider since their worldview is devoid of them.

The result is that for over 30 years in our country probably no public boys’ schools have been built. In fact even the existing ones are suffering from a severe bout of neglect. This is even as girls’ schools are literally on almost every corner.

I recently visited the Kakuma Refugee Camp. I passed the road I used when I schooled at Lodwar High School. That made the point I have made so poignant. The road then was in excellent condition. It was mainly straight and level. In fact I think it was ideal for speed testing of vehicles. Using it twenty five years later I found it hard to believe it was the same road I had used. In many places there is no trace of tarmac. In other places the only evidence of it is a narrow strip between one and two feet in width. In other places we have potholes in reverse – unsightly humps. Drivers have literally made roads in the desert because the road is more impassable than the bush. I don’t think the road can be repaired. The only way is to remove the remaining tarmac and start afresh like they did to the road to Isiolo recently. That is what negligence does. And it is what has happened to the boy child.

I can hear someone shouting ‘substantiate’! Recently I took my son to select a secondary school of choice as he is clearing primary school and that is what actually made me realize that things are this bad. There are only 5 (five) boys’ provincial and district schools in Nairobi. There were actually three in the forms; the rest had to be dug up from the archives. Yet there may be more than thirty girls’ schools in the same category. And there is no comparison at all for the two sexes. The girls have plenty to choose from and they are choosing from quality schools. They boys have no choice to make; they will just have to fill the forms as a requirement.

There were about 17 technical schools which were converted to colleges. I know that because I was in two of them. All except probably two were boys’ schools and they were all national schools. One was mixed and one was a girls’ school. Who lost out when they were converted? I know there were no replacements for the same and the said colleges serve both sexes and most of the courses are skewed towards girls.

I feel as the women are crying for 1/3 representation Kenyans ought to start crying equal representation in all sectors for our nation to advance. This is especially crucial in the education sector.

Why do I say so? The first reason is that women comprise probably over 70% of our workforce. The only place they have not been able to get is the very senior levels and this is because the few men who will get past the obstacles will necessarily be not only aggressive but too good to beat.

Let me give you an assignment. Nowadays even the government is creating transparent offices. Visit just ten such offices, from government to private sector, from the NGOs to the churches and tell me how many men you will see in those offices. You may realize that 70% is actually being very polite. The other day I was reading of a survey in a newspaper that indicated that 90% of the people involved in farming in Kenya are women! And it was done by a UN body. They were fighting for greater empowerment of the women in that area.

There is this government office I have dealt with for long that has had over ten ladies and only one man until very recently when they brought two others. But they also added other women. A teacher told me that he had been the only male teacher for years in a school with about twenty teachers. He received comfort when they recently added two male teachers.

For those who use public transport you can take another assignment. Observe the percentage of each sex standing at the stages at any time. Second, board the matatus, how many men will you find there. Someone is objecting, saying that men go home later than women. Then take the very late transport and you will be more shocked because women will still be in the majority.

How many businesses are operated by women? Do you know that probably 95% of the exhibition stalls in Nairobi are operated by women? Do you realize that we have all women banks and none for men? That we have a women’s university but none for men?

The result of this is that men have lost their clout. From Genesis it is clear that the responsibility of providing and protecting the family lies squarely on the man. The woman offers the support and stability that the man needs to become the best. What will happen when we find men who are competing for a handful of high schools while the girls are literally spoilt for choice? Ever realized that many provincial girls’ schools are better that many boys’ national schools? On the same level some boys’ provincial schools just take in students with no guarantee of anything, leave alone quality.

What has happened after such a long time of slowly and quietly elevating the girl child and neglecting the boy child is that we are having so few men available for anything. That is the reality even at the village level. Many boys drop out from school not just because their parents cannot afford fees but many times because there are too few schools available making competition almost a death race. The girls, due to all the focus and emphasis on the girl child are able to ascend to the highest levels in education. This is partly a result of all the great guilt created by the advocates of the same.

Another contributing factor is the erroneous saying that has been aggressively promoted by the same advocates. ‘Educating the woman is educating the nation’. The implication is that educating the man is wasting your time since a man cannot help anybody else. Some will actually say as much. Why am I saying erroneous? Because the man is the one God has entrusted with the welfare of the family, even the society. If that held any pinch of truth we would not have any educated people at all. Most missionaries were men. In fact without very few exceptions, all missionary women were the wives of the missionaries who were very traditional (they now would be called chauvinistic) as to their roles. These were the people who brought education to us. Many teachers in the most remote and difficult areas of our country are men. In fact the most ardent advocates on the empowerment of women are men. Why? You tell me. That argument simple does not hold any water.

I know men who forwent their studies so that they could educate their wives as well as provide for their families. Then when the women acquired their degrees and got better jobs they simply walked away from their now ‘illiterate’ husbands. They are now living their lives independent of their husbands, some even marrying small boys for companionship since they simply cannot bring themselves to submit to their husband as they did when he was educating them. And I am talking about real people, people I have met in the course of my ministry. Such women will insist on the man educating ‘his’ children and providing for ‘his’ family even if she earns five times the man’s salary. How many cases do we hear along the same lines?

Even if this woman decided to stay, how easy will it be for her to submit to this husband? How will they live when the man becomes more like her chauffeur because she is a manager and the man is some assistant somewhere else? How many women do we know who have problems in their marriage when they get jobs, and not even jobs good enough to make them independent? I remember recently being told of a house girl who was ordered by madam not to put any milk in her husband’s tea because he had lost his job and so had become worthless.

I heard on radio a man claiming that his wife, a professional woman, locks him in the house so that he does not ‘escape’ to greener pastures. The only time he goes out is when they are together. And this has been going on for over a year. From the conversation I could gather there were other men going through even more inhumane acts from their wife (I wonder who now is the wife) due to the fact that she is the provider. I don’t know whether this is exaggeration but I have come in contact with a few whose situation lends credence to the confession.

The Africans have this saying that what belongs to the man belongs to the family but what belongs to the wife is personal property. That is the reality in many marriages where both partners work. That is why you will see a man with only two pairs of shoes and just the barest of wardrobe whereas the wife has filled the entire house with her clothes and shoes. You will see the wife taking the most expensive taxi as the husband queues for the most affordable. This is because they are behaving like their natures dictate and the way God created them to be. Give a normal man a million shillings and he will start thinking about investments because he was created to plan for the future. Give a normal woman the same amount and she will most likely start thinking about things that have been denied to her by her situation. I know that genetically altering the makeup of women may have altered much more than the physical and we are nowadays seeing the changes. The modern woman is a genetic variation of the traditional woman also in psychological and spiritual aspects. And that is one problem with our world today.

Thus we have an empowered woman who is also genetically more masculine. On the other side we have an emasculated man who for lack of empowerment and opportunities is more or less a village bum. How can these stay together as husband and wife? Who will be the husband and who is the wife? The wife has education; the husband simply knows how to read. The wife has connections; the husband knows the path to his workplace and back. They stay in the wife’s house and drive her company car because his position does not qualify for such privileges. Is that a marriage? How does that man live and feel?

Before you shout chauvinist let me tell you something I have observed. Most violent men in marriage are challenged men. I have not seen a man who is secure in the vital areas abusing his wife. What am I talking about? Most men will start beating their wife when they lose their job especially if the wife is working. On the other side a woman will attract abuse when she becomes spiritually more stable than the man. I know of very many instances of men who will abuse their wives because they can not be able to get them out of church. What they thought was a positive trait in a girl becomes a tragedy in the marriage.

Why is that so? The Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. One clear inference from that is that the husband spiritually guides the wife. That is where it all begins. The man must of necessity be more spiritually inclined than the wife. Then he, like Christ, can offer unchallengeable and indisputable leadership. If the man lacks spiritual authority, he is then under siege in his own house, irrespective of the millions he brings to the home. One clear example is the witchdoctors who are most pitiable yet they can get any woman they desire whether educated or not, submitting to his every whim. All because he has spiritual authority, albeit from the devil. Lack of spiritual authority is the number one problem we have with our marriages.

The second challenge is that of mental incompatibility. The man is the one entrusted with headship in that also. When he is challenged in that you can be sure that there will be no peace in the home. And that is the reason we have so many women who are so educated failing to get husbands. Many men willing to marry them will be looking to take advantage of her situation and not desiring a partner for life. They may not know it but they instinctively don’t have much faith in a successful marriage. I know of several such marriages. Many could also result in violence.

This leads to social incompatibility since we know that birds of a feather flock together. This may be the actual trigger to the violence. The wife’s crowd will be different from that of the husband where most times the husband accompanying the wife will appear like the escort to her.

The third challenge is the most visible since it is the one that we can easily put a finger on. This is material incompatibility. This is what literally drives husbands away from home, some to the other woman and others to the bottle. You see man as the provider will necessarily feel extremely inadequate as he sees the wife bringing food for the family, or even bringing more food than he does. You see the man is the head of the wife even in this respect.

We recently heard of places where schools have been closed for lack of pupils. That means that we have had a drought of children for probably fifteen years! What have the married people been doing all that time? The women were complaining that their men have deserted their homes for the bars. So it is not a case of planning non existent families. In other places the leaders are literally rewarding women who are pregnant and providing for them all the way until they raise that child. One thing you will find in such communities is that the women are much empowered. They are also fabled, to use a Kenyan phrase, to sit on their men, even beat them. How can a man fit in such a setting?

We also have heard of the same in the west. There are many countries which are literally bribing their people to get children. This is because the religion I have talked about has become so ingrained that most have literally ruled out children altogether. Other nations have resorted to offering citizenship to whomever because their populations are simply shrinking. I believe even the green card that so many people are passionate about is just one attempt at getting workers to run their industrial machine because they are having more people retiring and dying than are being born and trained.

You see, the religion of rebellious self interest is its own worst enemy. This is because it is initially aimed at organized religion, in fact primarily against Christ. It is very sad that the bulk of its proponents are people who confess to being Christian. The masculining of women has its roots in ‘Christian’ organizations, even churches. The emasculation of the man also has its origins there. By the way even the bulk of the atheists fall out of Christianity, and that because Christianity is the religion that offers free choice that can easily be abused.

Yet we forget that Christianity is the religion with the most stringent demands! It is the only religion that judges people for imagining evil; that convicts people of murder for harboring spite or hate in their hearts, and of adultery by looking with lustful eyes! Does that not include pornography?

What then? We have women that have bodies that are more masculine and men that lack any authority because they lack training or are out of touch with reality. Roles have simply been reversed, a situation that is simply untenable! God’s order has been destroyed and replaced with an order that is worse than chaos. What we call marriage is a situation of two people of ‘almost’ the same sex having a partnership. In fact in some places marriage is treated as a contract that has to be renewed after some time if the compatibility demands it.

Who loses then? I think the first loser is the woman. Since she was created to support the man, it will place extreme pressure on her to take on the role of the man however much genetically altered she may be. The second loss for her is that it will be very hard for her to get a husband, and that is clearly visible in our times. I used to wonder about Isaiah 4: 1 but do so no longer. There are so many women everywhere who are self sufficient in all things save a husband!

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach (Isaiah 4: 1)

What appeared so far fetched only a few years ago is a sad reality today. Women were taught that they could do without a man but reality is dawning on them now. They thought they could raise children alone but the crises that arise from such situations are at times catastrophic. Several research findings have shown that homosexuality results either from a home without a father or with a domineering mother (reversed roles) Men who dress and behave so feminine also come from such settings.

A woman so masculine becomes undesirable almost to a point of repelling men. I have been wondering why women are dressing less and less and exposing more and more but now realize this could be the reason. And they are exposing things that parade their femininity, their breasts, thighs, bellies etc. Mature women are dressing more and more like small girls, I think because girls are innocently feminine. That may be the reason philandering men are always pursuing small girls. Women want to attract by sight but lose out because men then equate them with male prostitutes! And they will do that even in church!

The massive breasts and huge bosoms have disappeared! You see if you want to benefit from man’s nature, you lose those distinctive traits of a woman. And that is the reason why we are hearing a lot about breast enlargement, hip enlargement and belly tightening operations nowadays.

But there are consequences which are even more severe. There are sicknesses that have exploded into the scene almost out of nowhere. There is an operation I have been hearing about so often I am getting scared. And it is common to ladies who have taken the hormone for long.

I am not an alarmist. I am just a minister who is concerned that we have been fed with so much lies that we think the truth simply doesn’t make sense.

Is there any hope at all? Of course there is. God will never lose in any battle. We are the ones to lose for going against Him. The only problem is that we will need to take extremely drastic steps to be able go turn the tide to a positive direction. We have been riding on the wrong train for so long that we not only need to change trains but actually get into a jet plane to get back to where we started. Then we can start to plan on moving in the right direction!

Let me hasten that even in this chaos there is a remnant, there always is. There are men out there who, though emasculated in all ways have that vital connection with God that gives them authority, real spiritual authority. They, like Enoch are men who walk with God. He may have dropped out of primary school but you just need to sit with him, even with all your degrees to realize that he has the word of God and demeanor of a father to you.

I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts (Psalm 119:99, 100)

There are women out there who have not stained their garments. The reason they are not visible is that they are so hidden in Christ that you have to be so close to Him to find them.

And this is where I need to highlight another strategy of the devil. He seeks to keep the two groups as far apart as possible, offering short cuts that will block that godly offspring. Many people are aware that many ministers are married to the wrong wives. You will notice that men who were on fire for God are married to spiritual extinguishers! The devil knows that the only way to contain your fire is yoking you with someone just damp enough.

How does that happen? Many times it is the elder women, especially women of means who are entrusted with the project. They will seek far and wide to get just the girl to contain your fire. That is why it is sometimes difficult to connect the past testimony of some preachers to their present status. Some who were very simple earlier have become mazes. Some who were known for their ministry to the disadvantaged now minister only to the rich. Some who were content with ministry have become ‘ministry’ business executives (I call them spiritual brokers). And all that because of the woman they married. Ask around and you will discover that it all started with a few mamas making the connection ever so subtly.

The first thing we ought to do is start to be radical again. If I got married to an extinguisher, let me get up so much fire that she will have to explode if she doesn’t flee. Elijah had the same experience where the fire licked up the fire and the soil. There is no short cut. I am sure these men are so frustrated. Imagine realizing that your message has changed because of the woman you married? Imagine you have to preach about money instead of transformed lives all because you can’t risk offending mama? She is chasing people who can challenge you to the higher standard from the church but you appear incapable of doing anything! She is breaking ministries apart but you just pretend you don’t know it. Your children are becoming rebels and you are unable to do anything because of her. If that is not frustration, then give me another dictionary. Some just wish death on themselves because they can’t see a way out. The fire must be started again and that is not negotiable.

On the other side is this woman who was supposed to give you the godly offspring. She is frustrated because she has waited and waited and you who were to come became strategically unequally yoked. Since she probably didn’t know it was you, the devil may have also yoked her to another extinguisher or she decided that God was too important to sacrifice for anything, marriage included.

Once we get our fires up again, even higher than they were then, I believe God will give us a solution to all this chaos. But it has to be radical, giving it all up to obey God.

What are some of the causes?

Most of the families labeled successful rarely get boys as I have mentioned earlier. As a result the few boys, many times only one, are pampered and spoilt. The whole family will look at this sole heir as the only person worthy of their focused attention. They will never be disciplined because the only boy must be a good boy, and this especially so with the mothers and aunties, sometimes even sisters. A thief will be protected by his mother at all costs, especially if he is an only son. I don’t know the background of Eli’s family but it is very likely that the two boys were the only ones he had and their mother must have defended them aggressively when complaints were made against them. They might also have come quite late for the couple because when Eli died he was ninety eight and his daughter in law was still bearing children which meant the sons were at most in their mid forties. As a result even their father was probably rebuked by his wife for thinking evil thoughts about her ‘good boys’. A single mother will protect her ‘security’ with her life if need be.

They will be severely disadvantaged when they get into the world. This is because they will find a world that treats them as just any other person. They don’t get any preferential treatment. In fact they will get into the wrong side of the society when they live the way they had lived their whole life. Their small ‘mistakes’ will be treated as crimes. This shock may impair their lives permanently.

The same boy will be overprotected. The family will want to shield their ‘boy’ from anything that can threaten his life, from bad company to lack. Anything that may pose a threat, however slight, will be fought instantly and most decisively. The boy will therefore grow up in a cocoon, never having experienced what normal children go through. As a result of this the same boy will simply never know what life outside his cocoon looks like. He will have no interaction with the world, unless it has been sanitized on his behalf. These are the children who think that the world is their family and friends.

A person found a butterfly struggling to break through the cocoon and had pity on it and broke open the cocoon. Interesting enough the butterfly died soon after. It was then that he realized that the struggle to break through is a necessary thing for the growth of the muscles. This is what overprotecting these boys leads to. He grows up without a spine. He does not know how to make decisions because all were made for his protection. In my growing up I got to observe that it was girls from very protective families who normally got pregnant in teenage. This was because one day they must get out, and woe to you if they met someone ready to take advantage of their naivety, which is what normally, happened.

A man is by nature a fighter. That is his divine assignment. He was created to provide for and protect his family. He must therefore train his muscles for that assignment most of his life. Denying him the exercise of that kills his drive, his fighting spirit. He then becomes like the butterfly I have talked about. And that is why you find such protected boys perishing in the wayside almost immediately they get into the world. They can’t resist drugs because they were never allowed to see that side of the world. They don’t know how to respond to the advances of the ‘girls’ because they never knew that there was any other world apart from their cocoon like experience.

Get that boy to a campus and he gets into a major shock. He can drink when and where he wants. He can choose whether to do assignments or not. He can attend classes at will and nobody will question him. He can take any girl he is able to be convinced by to bed without drawing any stares. To him such a world existed only in the movies and dreams and now it is at his fingertips. If he is slow in making decisions he finds enough ‘friends’ who will make them for him. And he is not in the marketplace yet!

These are the men who will throw tantrums at anyone around them since that was the method they used to control the world around them earlier. These are the kind who will threaten to burn their house thinking that everybody will go down with them. They will think that even being alive is a great favor to everybody since that is what they were raised believing. They will resign at a whim because they believe that ‘baby boy’ is totally indispensable.

That may be the reason most only sons turn out hopelessly useless, especially when they were born after girls. They are good only for drinking and wasting their inheritance with the leisure they were accustomed to as they grew up. The parents discover that the discipline they feared to inflict when the lad was tender for fear of injuring his ego is immensely ineffectual when he is a grown up. He will, like Africans say, depend on the world for discipline and we know that such discipline has no love element in it. Many will die prematurely by the police bullet or mob justice since the parents will always defend their son by all means, many times using corruption to cover up the offense of their ‘innocent and harmless boy’.

The other boy is one who has sunk into despair because of all the focus on the girl child. He tried to fight and gave up because nobody was on his side. He just decided to let things be. What with all the propaganda of girls being better than men? He will find nobody fighting for him or siding with him especially when it involves the girl. He loses the fighting spirit and falls into despondency. Since there are no opportunities even if he works so hard, unless he is the top of the cream, why not simply give up?

Yet it is in marriage that lack of muscle shows very clearly. The first will throw tantrums at his wife and children because he believes they are there to answer to his every whim. He will many times batter the wife and not feel any guilt because ‘baby boy is always right’ sunk into his subconscious. He can’t become a father figure because he still needs parenting and the wife is not able to do it because he still insists he is the boss, a CEO in diapers. And that is the tragedy of most of their marriages.

The latter gave up fighting and will therefore leave the family for mama to run. He was raised to believe that too. He won’t mind being ‘her majesty’s’ chauffer and cook. He will leave all the decisions to her. It is a pity that he can not bear children for her! But he will be so frustrated. Imagine a caged cheetah! He was made to run and fight but due to upbringing failed to exercise his muscles. He will be looking at the outside with longing but not think there is anything he can do about it. Remember the story of an eagle raised by a hen? That is what this man will look like in life and marriage. No wonder he gives up and heads for the bottle and the other woman, because the devil has prepared her adequately to make him feel like the lion and in this way take full advantage of him.

Very few may even see the need to attempt marriage at all unless they are ‘forced’ into it. You see their entry into life was met with such a shock they never even imagined existed. How then do they entertain marriage which they know is a tall order from their observation? Many raised by single mothers were incessantly ‘shown’ that marriage was not a necessity. Those from unstable marriages came to dread getting into such a ‘curse’. And as we have said this boy already has realized that he has no spine or muscle to take on the world even on simpler assignments.

One key contributor of all this is the lack of the father figure. There are simply very few of the same around. You see discipline is the forte of the man. Some mothers like mine were very good but I think it is that grace was poured on her because her husband had deserted her. Yet they are still in the minority and even rarer still in this age and time. But I also had enough issues to deal with in my teenage which I think were due to the absence of a present father. Even being raised in a loving and Christian family and committing my life to Christ at nine was not enough insurance against the challenges of teenage without a supportive (probably just present) father.

Well, my father was not physically far away as most would assume. We lived in the same compound, but he was with another woman. I never saw him take on any responsibilities of a father for me as I was growing up. I never saw him in my mother’s house all my life. In fact the first time I saw my father enter my mother’s house is when I came to introduce my wife to be. I was twenty nine.

Most of my elder siblings have traumatic tales to tell about their experiences with a step mother in the same compound and the open biases from our father towards the ‘other’ children. Well, I never experienced that. By that time I started noticing anything our first born had a job and my father, being jobless, could not dare offend the goose that laid the golden egg. So my mother was spared open mistreatment.

What was the result of an absent father to me? I became rebellious. So much so that anywhere I went I almost became the epitome of the same. I hated laws and structures with a passion and did not conceal it to anybody. The only thing that protected me from being expelled anywhere was that I was very good with academics, without any effort. In primary school I always was the first in the noise makers list, even when I was absent in the morning! The only difference would be that I would not have my name with many times. They used to make a list like this; they write the list and then indicate the severity of the same. Figure this; Gituma X 10. I think there was one time I was X 100!

I was a daredevil and craved places that posed a threat to my life. Once there was talk of a leopard in a certain bush around home. I always passed there late in the night to see it. There is another place that was dreaded for thuggery. In fact it has a nick name a place people get lost. I passed there countless times to see how people got lost. Most times I arrived home very late, at times even after 2 am. Many times I would visit places even twenty kilometers from home, have a nice time until they were ready to go to sleep, then I would insist on going back home. I am sure people at home were always stressed because many times they saw me in the morning. But you see I was a man according to our culture and in charge of my life. Any talk about changing my life was not even responded to, even considered.

Teenage rebellion for me went past anything I have ever heard of. Machakos Technical was a school with almost no rules, but I broke them anyway. Nyeri Technical was like a detention camp, but nobody could hold me. I came in and went out the way I wanted. And I never lost any case except one they fixed on me. I was a terror to the prefects and teachers alike. In fact most teachers thought I would beat them and very few talked with me without other teachers around. And I was very small then.

Lodwar High School also didn’t appear to have any rules, and especially for the A level students, but I broke them anyway. So much so that the headmaster, who was a Catholic father or brother, made me an offer - He asked me to choose any school I wanted and he will get me a transfer to that school. When I refused he was so incensed that he promised to expel me when I reported back.

But God then intervened in two ways. I first had an encounter with God. Calling it rededication is probably tame by the standards of most. But the experience transformed me completely. Then when I went back to school I found that the headmaster had gone back to Ireland. I had actually refused to go back to school for fear. A couple then started discipling me. That is what turned the direction of my life.

One thing I will say with so much humility is that even in all that rebellion God’s hand must have been so heavy upon my life. I was the baddest of the rebels but where their badness may have been due to drugs I never even once attempted. I have never smoked or even tasted beer. I remember once ferrying a roll of bhang for a friend because I couldn’t be inspected. But I never once thought to ‘taste’ what my friends were experiencing. My life was even ‘higher’ without drugs. With the exception of a few months in form five, I never once stopped going to the Christian Union and singing in the choir (though I was expelled from the choir in Nyeri Technical when I made a fool of the choir master). Many friends quipped that if Christianity was as exciting as my sample showed it was not a bad idea at all. I now know from experience that it is even more fun when we walk with The Lord.

What about the boy without a father at all? What about the one raised by a single mother? I am not talking about widows or victims of rape because I am convinced that there is enough grace for her situation because it is not a choice she made. By this I will exclude the ones who conveniently ‘lose’ their husbands, and they are many. I know of one who proudly confessed to have actually prayed her husband to death.

Abuse a woman and the law will take very drastic actions against you. Report being abused and you will be treated as the idiot of the town. I was told of this man who was consistently beaten and bitten by his wife because he could not bring himself to hit her. When things became too much (she had attempted to stab him) he thought to go to report to the police. But his wife had gone ahead of him to report being beaten by him. If it was not for a friend in the police station who knew of his case and leaked the report, the man could have been jailed for being beaten by his wife! He had to flee from the fabrication and the marriage.

Ever noticed that in the past only boys were killed in warfare? Killing a woman was taboo.

And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live (Exodus 1:16)

Why was that? A man was the bearer of the continuity of the tribe. A woman can be transplanted from tribe to tribe seamlessly. That is why the absence of men is a clear indicator of the decline of the concerned society.

And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor (Numbers 25:5)

Wickedness affects men more than women. This does not mean that God overlooks the sins of the women. It is just that a woman is hid in her husband and thus her sins are the responsibility of the husband. Let me give a few examples of the same;-

Moses must have circumcised his first born son before consulting his wife. This is because she refused the second son to undergo the mutilation. Yet who was being killed for the same?

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision (Exodus 4:24 - 26)

Eli’s sons went overboard in their ministry. Eli tried to stop them but it seems their mother thought her boys were fine. Yet who was judged, even dying for the fault? In fact we don’t even know the name of his wife and we can be safe to assume that she did not face judgment.

Ahab may have been totally unaware of what his wife had done in acquiring Naboth’s vineyard. Yet who was judged?

And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine (1Kings 21:19)

One thing you will notice as you study the scriptures is that judgment was always confined to the men, who pisseth on a wall.

I know you expect me to pick an example from the African culture and I won’t disappoint you. Ever realized that curses move with men? That the woman is free just by being married to another clan? In our culture there is this clan that has their daughters condemned to be second wives. I investigated and realized that it was a curse placed on them by a very bitter daughter. That is for another day. Anyway, if you got one of them as a first wife you will die for the severest of the same. And that is not a taboo because I know of a few instances of the occurrence. Yet when she gets married as a second wife her children will be free from their curse, yet the men from the family will produce daughters condemned to that curse continually.

A clear example from the Bible is that of Ruth. Moabites were never to be admitted to Israel, even to the tenth generation. Yet she joined the mainstream immediately she followed Naomi.

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever (Deuteronomy 23:3)

Another example is Rahab the harlot. Being a prostitute her sentence was death by stoning, yet we find her joining Israel immediately.

I am convinced that it is in the devil’s interest to kill the boy child, first spiritually, to make the world ripe for the antichrist. How? When a society has emasculated the man, or elevated the woman above him or even put her at par with him, it simply does not have any order because they do not have authority. This creates a vacuum that looks for anything to fill. Disorder cries for order of any kind, and the devil just needs to raise a dictator, because a dictator has unchallenged authority, for people to run to him for security.

People cry for democracy but desire domination by whoever appears sure of their destiny. That was how Osama controlled the world. That was how Hitler and Stalin were able to get followers. They seemed to know where they were going and everybody agreed to go with them.

And it is for the same reason we are seeing the world looking for any reason to eliminate any strong leader by any means, especially by calling him a dictator. You will notice that they will first try to raise an insurrection and fund it. But then they will realize that the leader has enough followers who are willing to die for him for what they know him to be. They then ‘support’ the rebels and take on the job of removing the ‘dictator’. And of course there must be some spoils of war for them to take any interest. Why have they never taken interest on Somali for over twenty years yet they must remove Gbagbo and Gaddaffi from power so quickly? But we must realize that there must be no strong leaders before the antichrist is enthroned. They must necessarily be leaders who have been installed and thus in the employ of foreign masters (the new world order) and not their populace.

But it is starting at the home by first emasculating the leader of the home from his infancy. Then when he grows up he does not know what responsibility is, absconding it to the woman whose ‘desire shall be over your husband’ (Genesis 3: 16) which means she will seek to usurp his authority that he does not even know he has. You see God’s response for a woman’s desire to rule over the man is to order him to rule over her. That is the reality in the spiritual realm.

By the way emasculation literally means castration. In blunt terms it is unmanning a man. In the olden days kings castrated men who were to be entrusted with extreme loyalty because they then could pose no threat since they had no seed to strategize for. They could be entrusted with all the women of the court because they were not much different from them. They could not pollute the royal seed and so were trusted completely. Remember Hegai of Esther’s time?

Remember that these eunuchs were the ones entrusted with preparing the virgins for the king. That meant massaging them, even dressing them to make them presentable for the king. They worked on the girls in their nudity. The only thing they couldn’t do to the women of the court (it was a harem) was sleep with them since that was the only thing that had been taken from them. They couldn’t be taken to war since they lived for the present as they had no future to look forward to. But that present was so good as to make the future a mirage that meant nothing to them.

Are these men? Or maybe they are psychological and spiritual eunuchs? I am shocked when I see a man proudly walking with his almost naked wife, even to church. I see some of those women and wonder how a man can leave the house with a woman so dressed. You will see some with their breasts almost falling off and others having skirts so short that you can see all you want if you are interested. Do their husbands think like men? That is a tragedy. It is only that I now realize that they may be eunuchs, even if only psychological and spiritual. This means they won’t mind someone lusting after their wife, maybe even sleeping with her.

I was recently listening to a station I detest yet it is the one most matatus tune into. I heard something that made my ears go farther than the tingling the prophets talked about. Two men confessed that their wives brought in another man into the house in their presence, and even took him to their bedroom. What will bring a man that low? The only reason I can think is that they don’t have any muscles. They may have been brought up by a single mother who detested men and was proud of it. In fact some ladies called and said that if a man hurts a woman, she will take it out on any other man that comes along. Imagine such a bitter woman bringing up a boy since she will be taking out on another man? Whether that is true or not is not the issue. I had also heard of the same thing earlier but then it concerned economics and even the man was not at home and would appear to ‘penalize’ the intruder.

The words the Bible uses about adultery are very interesting. You shall not discover your brother’s nakedness (or that of any other person). I think discovering begins with seeing then goes to coveting. Is it in order to allow other men to visually discover your nakedness? You see a wife is like the outer garment of her husband. She is his PR to the world. It is not surprising that her inappropriateness is directly attached to her husband.

When I was growing up we were severely warned against looking at the nakedness of a mature woman or else we would become blind. This made us run away from situations that could expose us to such an eventuality. And that nakedness was not anywhere close to what we see even in church nowadays. I wonder whether I could be as bold as to warn my children thus. What with all their ‘aunties’ who dress badly and don’t even know how to sit respectably? That is unless I want them to be like the ‘bleeding Pharisees’ who closed their eyes to avoid looking at temptation. But even then it would be a tall order. I might as well tell them to pray for blindness.

How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.(Jeremiah 31:22)

Look at a few other translations of the clause, a woman shall compass a man.

A woman shall encompass a man. (ASV)

A woman changed into a man. (BBE)

A woman shall enclose a man. (MKJV)

A woman protects a man. (RSV)

Is this addressing the topic at hand?

Rites of Passage

Another contributing factor in the emasculation of the boy child is the initiation into manhood. We also have the parallel in the girl child as she has also lost the opportunity to be prepared adequately for marriage and motherhood. Most have only focused on the circumcision alone and think it was the one thing that will magically convert a boy to a man. On the other side they have fought the same as far as it concerns the girl. I am not a proponent of circumcision for girls but feel very strongly that we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater as is commonly said. We have thrown out the negative and not sought out a replacement for the positive.

What was the purpose of the initiation in the past? We will look at a few reasons. Circumcision is what got a young man or woman into the process. It was not the main one; it was the initial one, the entry point and the one that left a mark. Some did not use circumcision as they either circumcised earlier or did not circumcise at all. To some tribes it was the culmination of a long life of training, more like the University of the Tribe. No other training was as intense or as focused as the initiation.

We will look at a few purposes and aims of the process.

1. Sacrificial – this is the reason it was done by the river so that the initiates’ blood flowed with the water joining the boy’s spirit with the spirit of the tribe. In some tribes even today a boy will have to be flown even from abroad so that they will be circumcised at the ‘right’ place and in the right season. The circumcision grounds are shrines of sort. I was recently at a place most of their forests have been cleared yet the circumcision grounds have not been touched. That is the reason the circumciser was highly valued spiritually. Though the operation itself is simple, communities do not have many circumcisers. In some he is a guarded secret to much of the community. In others during the season he literally walks with body guards. He is the link to the spiritual connection to the spirits of the tribe. People who shared the ‘knife’ were actually closer than even family. The graduation itself was a major celebration even with gifts for the initiates.

2. Communal – this released the boy from the parents as a preparation for him to join the tribe as a warrior. He was not initiated in secret. The whole community participated. And that was the reason it was done in its season. One just couldn’t circumcise their son anyhow or anytime. Even when a crisis was involved (for example when an uninitiated boy impregnated a girl that had to be corrected or it became an abomination) it was the responsibility of the tribal leadership to make the decision.

3. Military Training – this was the preparation ground since the initiates after ‘graduating’ would be the next team of tribal army. This is the reason the initiation process took between one and three months. In most tribes it took place in the forest, to some it is so even now. Though not done in the forest today, the Meru will have the initiate’s house far from all the others in the compound, then ring it with an impenetrable fence and none but the initiated can get anywhere near the ‘base’. Education has made that impractical reducing the time requirement. Lack of much cohesion in the community has also reduced most of the must do and must learn activities involved. It has also made the same more of a personal responsibility for the parent involved. In the past it also involved training in the drills of war. It was the time the boy learnt the authority structures of the tribe. They learnt from fighting to political science during that time. The Maasai, Rendille and Pokot do that to this day. They also learnt tribal leadership and the art of negotiating with other tribes. This would prepare them for the eldership positions they would occupy as they grew older.

4. Maturity – this was the last formal training by the tribe. It therefore prepared them for marriage and family. That was the arena for sex education. This is the reason many nowadays start being sexually active after the process especially after the cultural structures and boundaries have weakened. And this is the reason in places the process is close to what it was sexual experimentation is very rife after initiation. I remember during my time a lot of the conversations were of sexually suggestive and very shocking language nature, which I guess is a carry over from the past from consulting with a few older friends from other communities. Some tribes even today will advise the initiates to engage in sex as a cleansing ritual of sorts. Without the restraints of the past, sexual experimentation almost becomes a given. This also results from the exhilaration from release from the restraints of the parents. This was some sort of shock treatment welcome to the real world outside the protection of parents. As such the initiate was being prepared to handle the challenges of the outside world devoid of ‘domination’ of the parents. But then there were structures and boundaries in existence. There were limitations on the interaction of the sexes. The initiate was taught how to relate with his peers, his mothers and grandmothers with utmost respect. There was diet that was inconsistent with his new status. There were taboos on some conduct and these were the restrictions on the initiate then. That was the training for discipline that was not subject to the fear of the cane.

5. Release to the World – this formally released him from being the responsibility of his parents as far as discipline was concerned. Any breach after that was the responsibility of the tribal structures through the age group hierarchy. I remember when I was small that there were some circumcised boys who had been ‘demoted’ from being men and their misery was evident to all. They could not be with the boys because they had been 'cut’, yet they were disqualified from joining the men! I was a small boy then and was not able to know the breach that necessitated such a sentence. The parent had no hand in the discipline of his now ‘mature’ son. He could not apply any type of punishment on him because he was a man in his own capacity. From a lot of observation I noticed that many who were initiated while in primary school from such communities rarely continued with school. In fact it was a challenge for many to continue with school. Just imagine you are in a situation where even your father can not reprimand you when a woman teacher who might be just a girl has to beat you in front of other ‘children’! It will be a disgrace. That is the reason such may have had major problems even with mixed high schools. I for a fact know that most of the boys in our family almost dropped out of school and it took a miracle for them to continue. I was one of them. I know of some who left school because they were circumcised in the ‘wrong’ way and so were subjected to extreme intimidation and ostracism. I remember it took a very long time to adjust to showering with the ‘uncut’ when I went to Lodwar High School because due to the heat, the shower was one big hall with a sprinkler system of sorts. It was torture to me for a long time.

Lack of that could be the reason we find men in their thirties, some who are married and earning good salaries insist on continuing to stay with their parents. It could be the reason we find men getting married to women their mother’s and grandmother’s age. It could also be the reason many men fear to get married since they lack that preparation and therefore lack the muscle to even consider marriage. Some are content to be married to women who are more husband than the man.

It is worth noting that part of the assignment God gave Adam after the fall was a battle with nature to be able to provide for his family. Denying him the battle by either overprotecting or underexposing him to the challenges lowers him and kills his drive. And no wonder so many of them are wasting their lives in the liquor dens. Of course we know about the cheap ones because of the damage they cause, but there are others which are ‘acceptable’ yet are as detrimental to the man’s spirit as those others are to his body.

Is there anything we can do about this? I think there is. This by taking the process from the wholesale most are making it to a more personal and interactive process. When we take it from a money making venture to investing in our young men and women. When we tailor the rites of passage for impacting very strong values on our young men instead of just giving them time to heal. I know some running rites of passage take even over a thousand initiates at one time and don’t invest much in the instruction. I wonder what kind of learning can occur in such a forum. We should make use of the elders since they were the ones who foresaw the whole process and instruction in the past. This is because though a younger man might have all the information, an old man comes with authority gained from experience.

I believe the process should prepare a young person to deal with issues from homosexuality to drugs to violence they will encounter in the schools. They ought to be prepared successfully tackle pornography and sexual experimentation. It should go as far as preparing them to deal with leisure and idleness they will come across in the process of their growing up. By the end of the process they should have learnt to be responsible and independent since they will be expected to be more in charge of their lives. I believe they ought to be prepared to handle joblessness and job seeking, even know how to handle a job and a salary, not to mention marriage and family.

It goes without mention that there were some negative aspects of initiation. These we ought to carefully deal with so that we don’t ruin a good thing by carrying out the program of the past wholesale or discarding it altogether. We therefore need to prepare something that we will be proud to pass down to our children.

Rites of passage were times of intense instruction, not convalescing holiday away from a hospital. Removing that kind of instruction makes it a hospital away from hospital.

Contraceptive Used in Africa May Double Risk of H.I.V.

The New York Times By PAM BELLUCK Published: October 04, 2011

The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women will become infected with H.I.V., according to a large study published Monday. And when it is used by H.I.V.-positive women, their male partners are twice as likely to become infected than if the women had used no contraception. The findings potentially present an alarming quandary for women in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of them suffer injuries, bleeding, infections and even death in childbirth from unintended pregnancies. Finding affordable and convenient contraceptives is a pressing goal for international health authorities. But many countries where pregnancy rates are highest are also ravaged by H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. So the evidence suggesting that the injectable contraceptive has biological properties that may make women and men more vulnerable to H.I.V. infection is particularly troubling. Injectable hormones are very popular. About 12 million women between the ages of 15 and 49 in sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 6 percent of all women in that age group, use them. In the United States, it is 1.2 million, or 3 percent of women using contraception. While the study involved only African women, scientists said biological effects would probably be the same for all women. But they emphasized that concern was greatest in Africa because the risk of H.I.V. transmission from heterosexual sex was so much higher there than elsewhere."The best contraception today is injectable hormonal contraception because you don't need a doctor, it's long-lasting, it enables women to control timing and spacing of birth without a lot of fuss and travel," said Isobel Coleman, director of the women and foreign policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands."

The study, which several experts said added significant heft to previous research while still having some limitations, has prompted the World Health Organization to convene a meeting in January to consider if evidence is now strong enough to advise women that the method may increase their risk of getting or transmitting H.I.V. "We are going to be re-evaluating W.H.O.'s clinical recommendations on contraceptive use," said Mary Lyn Gaffield, an epidemiologist in the World Health Organization's department of reproductive health and research. Before the meeting, scientists will review research concerning hormonal contraceptives and women's risk of acquiring H.I.V., transmitting it to men, and the possibility (not examined in the new study) that hormonal contraceptives accelerate H.I.V.'s severity in infected women. "We want to make sure that we warn when there is a real need to warn, but at the same time we don't want to come up with a hasty judgment that would have far-reaching severe consequences for the sexual and reproductive health of women," she said. "This is a very difficult dilemma." The study, led by researchers at the University of Washington and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, involved 3,800 couples in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In each couple, either the man or the woman was already infected with H.I.V. Researchers followed most couples for two years, had them report their contraception methods, and tracked whether the uninfected partner contracted H.I.V. from the infected partner, said Dr. Jared Baeten, an author and an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist. The research was presented at an international AIDS conference this summer, but has now gained traction, scientists said, with publication in a major peer-reviewed journal.

The manufacturer of the branded version of the injectable, Depo-Provera, is Pfizer, which declined to comment on the study, saying officials had not yet read it. The study's authors said the injectables used by the African women were probably generic versions. The study found that women using hormonal contraception became infected at a rate of 6.61 per 100 person-years, compared with 3.78 for those not using that method. Transmission of H.I.V. to men occurred at a rate of 2.61 per 100 person-years for women using hormonal contraception compared with 1.51 for those who did not. While at least two other rigorous studies have found that injectable contraceptives increase the risk of women's acquiring H.I.V., the new research has some strengths over previous work, said Charles Morrison, senior director of clinical sciences at FHI 360, a nonprofit organization whose work includes researching the intersection of family planning and H.I.V. Those strengths include the fact that researchers followed couples and were therefore able to track transmission of H.I.V. to both men and women. Dr. Morrison said only one other less rigorous study had looked at whether hormonal contraception increased the risk of infected women's transmitting the virus to men. "This is a good study, and I think it does add some important evidence," said Dr. Morrison, who wrote a commentary accompanying the Lancet article. Although the study has limitations, including its use of data not originally intended to determine the link between contraceptive use and H.I.V., "I think this does raise the suspicion" that injectable contraceptives could increase transmission risk, he said. Why that would occur is unclear. The researchers recorded condom use, essentially excluding the possibility that increased infection occurred because couples using contraceptives were less likely to use condoms.

The progestin in injectable contraceptives appears to have a physiological effect, scientists said. Renee Heffron, an epidemiologist and co-author of the study, said research examining whether the hormone changes genital tissue or vaginal mucous had been inconclusive. Studies in macaques found that progestin thins vaginal tissue, she said, "but studies among women didn't show the same amount of thinning." It could be that progestin causes "immunologic changes in the vagina and cervix" or could increase the H.I.V.'s "ability to replicate," Dr. Morrison said. At one point, the researchers measured the concentration of H.I.V. in infected women's genital fluid, finding "there was more H.I.V. in the genital fluid of those using hormonal contraception than those who aren't," Dr. Baeten said, a possible reason men might have increased risk of infection from hormonal contraceptive users. Those women "don't have more H.I.V. in their blood," he said. The researchers also found that oral contraceptives appeared to increase risk of H.I.V. infection and transmission, but the number of pill users in the study was too small to be considered statistically significant, the authors said. Previous research on the pill has been more mixed than with injectables, which could have a greater impact because they involve a strong dose meant to last for three months, Dr. Baeten said. In another troubling finding, results from the same study, published separately, showed that pregnancy also doubled the risk of women's contracting H.l.V. and of infected women's transmitting it to men. That may partly be due to increased unprotected sex, but could also relate to hormones, researchers said.

But there are no simple solutions, the authors acknowledge. Any warning against such a popular contraceptive method may not only increase complications from pregnancy but increase H.I.V. transmission, too, since pregnancy itself may raise a woman's risk of H.I.V. infection. First, the researchers and others say, greater emphasis should be placed on condom use along with hormonal methods. Some experts, like Dr. Morrison, favor a randomized controlled trial for more definitive proof, but others question how to "randomize women who may have strong preferences about their contraception," he added. Dr. Ludo Lavreys, an epidemiologist who led one of the first studies to link injectable contraceptives to increased H.I.V. risk, said intrauterine devices, implants and other methods should be explored and expanded. "Before you stop" recommending injectables, he said, "you have to offer them something else."

Christ’s Love for the Church vs. Romantic Love

It is a saddening fact that most Christians look to the world to understand God. When this happens, we are sure to get a distorted view of reality because the world is in rebellion against its creator. When this happens, we can be sure of one result, confusion.

What is love? The world talks of love as a fluffy and spineless feeling that is looking for release in sex or other emotional and psychological high. It is a purely self-seeking engagement. Remove sex from the equation and the world is bewildered because that simply can’t be love. Replace feelings with decisions and you might be talking about something else altogether. Remove romantic endearments with discipline and you may as well be speaking about hate.

Yet the Bible talks about love in marriage like the love between Christ and the church. Is there sex involved? No. Does He love us because he ‘feels’ us? No. He made a decision to love us so that He can save us. Does he pamper us as He becomes all romantic? Nothing can be farther from the truth. He loves us to change us.

One reason many Christian marriages are falling apart so frequently these days is, I believe, we are reading the wrong script as we enter into and seek to remain in marriage. And we know the world, being in enmity with God, is not interested in the success of the marriage institution. On the contrary, it is directly opposed to it since a good marriage clearly portrays God.

As I have always said from the observation of history, look at any society that has a distorted view of marriage and you will find a society that is confused about heaven. Take any society that has a distorted view of marriage and you will find a society that is literally falling apart. Take any society that trivializes marriage and you are sure to find a society wrestling with the reality of heaven. You see marriage is the closest picture we can get of heaven.

Any study of Christian marriage that does not seek to clearly understand the relationship between Christ and the church is actually a study that is doomed to fail even before it starts. Seeking to understand the relationship of a husband to his wife and vice versa without understanding the workings of the church of Christ is simply a waste of time, probably even worse because it gives the wrong targets to aim at.

Seeking to understand the workings of a female brain that does not connect to the different phases of Israel’s history may be psychologically sound but spiritually spurious.

I am convinced that the greatest error the church fell into was the teaching that there is equal partnership in marriage. That part of man’s responsibility is to enhance the wife, even to the point of sharing his authority with her. Does Christ share his authority with the church as an equal opportunity partnership? Doesn’t each have their role to play? Is Christ’s authority open to question by the church?

God severally referred to His relationship to Israel as a marriage. That is why any leaning towards idolatry was addressed as adultery. In Ezekiel we see very graphic detail of Judah’s idolatry given as the strayings of a very adulterous wife. Someone who has been fed with the modern counseling about marriage may wonder what is wrong with God. But is that where the problem really is?

Whose idea was it for the institution of marriage? Is it the social scientists’? Who are we to trust when there is a conflict between the designer and an observer? How wise would we be to take a Toyota car to a Chevrolet manufacturer for spares, even repairs?

I want us to look at several verses that address the marriage relationship in the scriptures and compare them with what social scientists talk about marriage.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. (Eph 5: 22 - 24)

That is a very controversial passage in our times. It is simply impractical to some, especially Christians. How can the wife be subject to her husband in everything? What about her democratic space? What about her enhancement and progression? Is the Bible not becoming openly chauvinistic? But I think the right question to ask is; how does Christ relate with the church? You see, since the marriage is a picture of heaven, it is imperative to get an accurate picture of the same. Remember what Moses was commanded, … look (make sure) that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount. (Exodus 25:40)

Any other pattern will be unreliable since marriage was God’s idea in the first place.

If a woman also vow a vow unto the LORD, and bind herself by a bond … (Numbers 30:3)

… if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul; And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard it: then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand. But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard it; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul, of none effect: and the LORD shall forgive her (Numbers 30: 6 - 8)

A very strange verse for our times, times where it is the women who bind and loose even their husbands. Times which have women as pastors holding sway over marriages. Yet what does the Bible say about this? Do you notice that a woman’s commitment to God is subject to the approval of her husband? And this is from God Himself. A woman is enhanced by her submission to her husband. She discovers herself as she submits to him.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church (1Corinthians 14:34, 35)

What does this say about the spirituality of the man? Is it the reality on the ground? How possible is it for her to ask her husband if he is disconnected to the spiritual, thinking it is the domain of the woman? I am sure we know that many men think that prayer is the domain of the woman. Many will just let ‘mama’ lead family devotions. Is that the picture we get from the scriptures? Does Christ let the church determine the spiritual direction of the union? Is Christ subject to the church?

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered (1Peter 3:7)

Whose prayers are being considered here? Do we have a woman’s prayers subject to such a caveat? What does this indicate if not that a man should be the one in the marriage known for his prayerfulness and spiritual leanings? Were there any women priests? Or do we think that God forgot that women can also become spiritual? Wasn’t He the one who created them? Is it then in order for us to delegate our responsibility to them when God did not give us that allowance?

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. (1Peter 3:1 - 6)

What evangelistic tool is being given to women over their unbelieving husbands? Is that what we see? Why then don’t we see it? Is such advice even considered in marital counseling? Have we heard of women who come to cast out demons from a husband they chose when they realize the mistake (I call it sin) they made by walking by sight? And I am talking mainly about the sight of his purse or family status.

Submission is the number one quality for a woman. It is the single most precious trait that will draw the love of any man, whether saved or not. An animal of a man is tamed by a very submissive wife. That is the plain teaching of scripture. That is the reason many maids are able to overthrow their wife, especially if the wife is working because she has been able to humbly endure all humiliation, especially if the mistress is the rough type. Another thing that shows the attractiveness of a woman who is submissive is that many times a son of the home will most likely want to marry her even against custom, especially if the girl is young. This could also be the reason men who have lived in town their whole lives will insist on going to their ancestral place to look for a wife.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

How spiritual is it for a woman to submit to her husband? Is it right? Under what circumstances is she to submit? Are there any conditions for the same? What does ‘it is fit in the Lord’ mean? My understanding is that God is pleased when a wife is in submission to her husband. What about when she is not submissive?

Nurturing the Shoot

Wednesday 20 February 2013

TPF

Sunday 10 February 2013

Genetically Modified Woman vs. Emasculated Boy Child

Christ’s Love for the Church vs. Romantic Love

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