Summary
Oludimu Deborah reflects on the troubling entitlement and spiritual manipulation many Christian men display when women reject the idea of marrying pastors, highlighting a broader pattern of patriarchal behaviour masked as faith.
I’ve been reflecting on that P. Daniel video and the unsettling dishonesty many Christian men reveal when women express that they don’t want to marry pastors. There’s a particular kind of tone-deaf entitlement masked as spiritual devotion. When a woman says she wants no part in it, she’s quickly labelled selfish or accused of lacking surrender to God.
Yet, time and again, we’ve seen how these men think, how they treat their wives, and the weight of expectations they place on them, offering little in return but demanding endless patience, sacrifice, and understanding, all under the guise of being “anointed” or doing God’s work.
How can your wife be a medical student and take on all the house chores, and you don’t seem it fit to help until the “Holy Spirit” told you you’re wicked. Why are you waiting on a divine entity to teach you basic manners and consideration?
There’s a lot of outrage on the timeline right now, but if you look closely, most of it is coming from women. Where are the men? Why aren’t they speaking up? It only takes five to ten minutes of conversation with a man who listens exclusively to “his pastors” and their rigid interpretation of the Bible, with no nuance, no academic grounding, and no real-life context, to see the truth.
Many of these men do not view women as full human beings. There’s a clear divide: the women who are destined to burn in hell, and the women who exist solely to be virtuous, to serve, and to help a man fulfil his calling. They rarely stop to ask, “What does my wife dream of? What does she want to do with her life?” The Church has a long-standing history of reinforcing this harmful thinking through sermons, the culture it cultivates, and the people it promotes. I once heard a man say he was thinking of courting a girl. When I asked her age, he said 17. I was alarmed and tried to help him understand why that was wrong. His first response was, “Daddy G.O. married his wife at 18.” That is the depth of the problem
The Church needs to step up. It has serious work to do in retraining men and unlearning harmful ideologies. This is 2025. If the Church wants to remain relevant in the minds of young people, it must begin to adopt the ethical codes, accountability, and respect for human dignity that define forward-thinking institutions today.
