by Kelly Pelton (written 09 Feb 2021)

The young female psyche is harmed by your church doublespeak,
your gaslighting denial of gender partiality,
misrepresenting your unjust practices as the Lord's will
to girls who have no confidence to question authority.

You persuade them to distrust their moral intuition,
your hermeneutics grounded in Jewish, Greek, and Roman
patriarchy, unbeknownst to them, you religious elite;
you make them each feel cheated that they were born a woman.

You quote, "the heart is deceitful above all things" to dissuade
them from questioning your worldly gender hierarchy;
who's to say the female heart is any more deceitful 
than males bent on protecting their empire of patriarchy?

God's healing and freeing from such dishonest role playing
takes decades, enabling His daughters to see through the lies
and to call out the church on its worldly priorities;
control through deception and intimidation never flies

in a kingdom where no one is to scramble to be first,
where all are to use their gifts to edify all believers,
where Jesus reigns instead of fearful insecurity,
where we all are children, not competitive achievers.