Popes and Feminists Quotes

“Godly marriages and their fruit of faithful children change the world. Thus, the first job of Christian parents is to evangelize and disciple their own children. Their children are their closest neighbors, the poor and needy among them, who need the gospel. Raising godly children spreads the kingdom of Christ”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“So what is there to learn from the men and women of the Reformation? For starters, the Reformers preached the Word of God and encouraged people to read it themselves. Nothing has a more powerful impact on societies than the faithful teaching and practice of God’s Word.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“As Olympia Morata said, “He gave me the mind and talent to be so on fire with love for learning that no one could keep me from it . . . . Everything is done according to His plan and purpose, and He does nothing rashly or thoughtlessly. So all these things perhaps will be for His glory and my betterment.”2”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Feminist culture can and has trickled down even to many Christian stay-at-home moms, who can be just as tempted by promises of self-fulfillment and living out their dreams. If they are staying at home with the kids as a means to that end, it’s still an idolatry of the self. As long as the ultimate goal is finding ourselves or feeling fulfilled, it doesn’t matter how we pursue it: we will always be disobeying God.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Reformers respected women for the unique capacities God gave them to be nurturers and life-givers. The Reformers’ wives embodied this theology, preaching the gospel in their own feminine but often unrecorded ways, without which the entire movement would have failed. They turned society’s view of women on its head through faithful biblical obedience.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“The women described in this book were committed to Christ. They knew Christ because they knew Scripture. Most of them were wives and mothers, as well, but they were Christians first. Thus, when they faced the loss of husbands, children, position, and material wealth, they clung “to Christ like a burr to a dress.”1 Because of this, they were fruitful even in the midst of great sorrow.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Only one worldview ever offered true progress for women and for society, and that is the biblical Christianity preached by the Reformers. The only equality women will find is through Christ. Through the death of the Son and the redemption of the cosmos, Christianity says this world will be made right again. By grace alone, the faithful will continue living the gospel until the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Prior to and even during the Reformation, the prevailing belief in Germany (if not elsewhere) was that educating women was unnecessary and could be dangerous. Intellectual pursuits might be a disadvantage to them, and learning to read might put them in contact with worldly writings.10 Those sent to the convent for an education did not always learn to read, because their teachers did not always know how to read.11 By contrast, the German Reformers pushed for universal education, and this idea eventually spread to encompass all women in the Western world. No one should be denied an education, it was argued, because who could say what person, man or woman, God would choose as an instrument for His glory?”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“To suggest that nuns left the convent only to be blindsided by a hierarchical theology that did not allow them to preach or rule over their households is anachronistic at best. They understood the doctrine of priesthood of believers to mean they could study and understand Scripture apart from the pope, and they found this truly liberating. We have no record of their dissatisfaction with their new lives or any sadness over careers lost. Our records indicate they engaged in more enterprises than most modern women. Katie Luther ran a boardinghouse and a few farms, made beer, and even became an herbalist.17 The escaped nuns we know about were well-educated women who made dangerous choices for the sake of righteousness. It is patronizing to claim they were unaware of what they were doing or that they made choices that, had they had our superior knowledge, they would never have made.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“There is no physical confinement so restricting as the doctrine that a woman has to earn her own salvation and prove her own righteousness. Abandoning the dungeons of Roman Catholicism meant no more works, no more guilt, no more penances, and no more indulgences. Grace was the greatest liberty a woman would ever have.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Olympia said, “In all these evils, we have relied on one solace—the Word of God by which we sustained ourselves and because of which I have not looked back to the fleshpots of Egypt, but preferred to seek death here, rather than enjoy all the pleasures of the world somewhere else.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Olympia offered wise advice to her friends, exhorting them to read the Bible, “Therefore seek Christ. Have no doubt: you will find Him in the books of the Old and New Testament, nor can he be found anywhere else. Pray to Him. Your labor will not be in vain.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Nothing gave her more joy than understanding her faith more fully”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Elizabeth added in a postscript something every mother can understand: “I don’t mind writing at all, if only those hungry stomachs and the small fry would give me a little time. Good night! Pray to God for us. Now I have to go to the kitchen.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“As one historian remarked, among the Reformers’ wives are “found many of the purest, most refined, and most useful women on earth,”3 and the reason this is true is because these women sacrificed themselves; they emptied themselves for others in their lives. They did not seek their own advancement; they did not grasp for legal or social “equality” with their husbands. They lived as though the spiritual equality their husbands preached meant they had just as much meaningful work to do as any man, and no time like the present for getting started.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Instead of wondering whether their works were sufficient, these new Protestants turned their focus to the myriad ways, small and large, that God had ordained throughout society to fill the earth and subdue it. The Reformers set out to build a faithful Christian culture on the bedrock of grace. And in that effort, every small task done in faith was recognized as a building block.”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Further, theologians as well as laypeople came to believe that Eve’s female descendants were temptresses, as well. Luther, on the other hand, thought Adam and Eve both sinned because of unbelief.4 Luther also believed that depicting women as sources of temptation and wickedness bordered on blasphemy.5 Women were created by God, and God’s work should not be criticized. “Thus we are: I a man, you a woman, just as God made us, to be honored and respected as Godly work. Man has no right to despise or scoff at woman’s body or character, nor has woman any right to denigrate man. Rather each should honor the appearance and body of the other as a divine good work, an achievement that is pleasing even to God Himself.”6”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism

“Reformers preached the Bible, translated it into the vernacular, encouraged everyone to read it, wrote commentaries on it, and generally revered and loved it and taught others to do the same. All over Europe, people began turning away from the Catholic Church and toward Scripture. People had become desperate for the Word of God. They clamored for the written Word translated into the vernacular and for the Word preached”
― Elise Crapuchettes, Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism