TD Jakes says society breaking down because 'we are raising up women to be men’
Megachurch Pastor T.D. Jakes suggested in a recent sermon that families are being lost in contemporary culture because “we are raising up women to be men” while subverting their femininity.
The comments made by the leader of the Dallas-based megachurch The Potter's House came during a sobering Father’s Day message billed “Real Men Pour In." The message currently has nearly 600,000 views on YouTube.
In his message, Jakes explained that there is a divine order of creation, and when men are led by women, it “breaks the divine order.”
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“Real men pour in,” Jakes said. “If Adam had not allowed Eve to pour into him, sin would have never come into the world. Sin came into the world because Adam broke the order."
“We were not designed to receive from women. Your self-esteem is compromised when you have to ask your wife for lunch money. ... And Adam, all of a sudden, has allowed the curse to come because he stopped pouring,” Jakes explained.
The Dallas pastor warned women to “be careful about pouring too much into us” because “we are designed to pour into you and you are designed to take what we pour into you and increase it and make it better.”
He acknowledged that his message goes against the dominant message in today’s culture. Still, he stressed that this disruption of God’s order destroys families.
“This breaks all the sociological order of the culture we are living in now because we are raising up women to be men. And you are not applauded for your femininity. You are applauded in the contemporary society by how tough, rough, nasty, mean, aggressive, hateful, possessive you are. And you're climbing the corporate ladder, but we are losing our families,” Jakes declared to applause.
“I know you can buy your own car; I know you can buy your own house, but until you create a need that I can pour into, I have no place in your life. So stop coming home bragging to me about how much you don't need me, and wonder why I shy away,” he continued.
“The conversation has become, 'Let’s prove to the men how dispensable they are.' And it is born out of pain ‘cause we hurt you, and betrayed you, and lied to you and cheated to you, and you came like you became out of pain. But watch what is born out of pain,” Jakes warned.
The megachurch leader urged women to hold men to a higher standard instead of trying to replace them.
“Anatomically, men pour in. Life begins when men pour in. We were designed to pour in; you were designed to preserve what is poured in,” Jakes told his female congregants. “As it is in the physical, so it is in the spiritual. We are designed to pour in.”
Jakes also urged fathers to see their roles as providing money and being present for their families.
“Pouring in is not just about money. You’re not just a father just because you send a check. There’s a difference between being a good husband and being a good father. It is possible to be better at one than you are at the other,” he explained. The pastor noted that "it is possible to be a better mother than you are a wife.”
“That’s why mothers easily aligns the children on their side because often she’s better at being a mother than a wife. And the kids become her tribe, her support system. The moment she becomes shaky concerning him, she gathers her troops,” Jakes said.
He urged mothers not to use their children against fathers to get revenge because it hurts their children.
“The court can make a man pay child support, but they can’t make him give child support because child support is not a check; it’s attention,” he said. “When you take the father’s love from the child or the father doesn’t know how to give love to the child outside of the woman, the child is damaged.”
