The “Faith” of an Abuser and Wallop Your Woman?

“To those who abuse: the sin is yours, the crime is yours, and the shame is yours. To those who protect the perpetrators: blaming the victims only masks the evil within, making you as guilty as those who abuse. Stand up for the innocent or go down with the rest.” ― Flora Jessop, Church of Lies link

41yiNrQRjVL._AA160_While discussing the response of the church to pedophilia, TWW received a comment from a reader that said something to the effect of :

I am proud to serve a God who will keep on forgiving a pedophile who keeps on sinning,  time and time again, for his sins.

This is what I love about blogging. We can question beliefs and statements that make the rounds in the Christian community. One of our readers, speaking for what I believe were many, retorted (paraphrased):

Don't you think that a real Christian, who is a pedophile, might take steps to insure that he does not molest as opposed to molesting them over and over?

Moving into a controversial area, Jeff Crippen and Anna Wood in A Cry For Justice: How the Evil of Domestic Abuse Hides in Your Church link raise the question that many of us fear to ask. 

Is the abuser really a Christian?

Matthew 7:1-2 link

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Many Christians, myself included, believe that this verse is to be applied especially in the area of salvation. Who is, and is not saved, is a matter that is way above above my pay grade and I am content to leave it in the hands of the Father. However, in certain situations, it may be advisable to question the salvation of an individual and Crippen/Wood lead us through their thinking 

The question that they raise is profound and difficult. There are many people who would claim that a serial abuser can be considered a new creation in Christ while still abusing. Crippen wishes to challenge that assumption.

He points to 2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV) link

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

This is his interpretation of this verse as applied to a domestic abuser:

While every Christian can certainly hurt, mistreat, or be insensitive to another person, and more frequently than we think, it is impossible for a Christian to be what we define as an abuser in this book. That is to say, Scripture makes it plain that a person whose very mentality and habitual practice is that of entitlement, power, control, and justification, does not know Christ, nor does Christ know him. (p.241)

In the book, he describes Thomas, an abuser who was given much help and counseling over years. His church was involved in the process as were counselors. Yet, he continued in the same patterns of abuse at home. Other patterns of abuse with others, outside his home, became evident over time. In fact, Thomas serves as a poster boy for the comment by the reader at the top of this post. He was forgiven time and time again; he received all sorts of intervention; and he never changed. So, is he a Christian?

Christian or sociopath?

In a footnote (P.242), Crippen points the reader to two books by George Simon that he believes are helpful in understanding a man like Thomas. 

  • In Sheep's Clothing link
  • Character Disturbance link

These books are geared to understanding the sociopath/psychopath. This essentially boils down to: "You can't understand them. They are simply bad." A sociopath (or antisocial personality disorder) can be defined as link

The main characteristic of a sociopath is a disregard for the rights of others. Sociopaths are also unable to conform to what society defines as a normal personality. Antisocial tendencies are a big part of the sociopath’s personality. This pattern usually comes into evidence around the age of 15. If it is not treated, it can develop into adulthood.

Visible symptoms include physical aggression and the inability to hold down a steady job. The sociopath also finds it hard to sustain relationships and shows a lack of regret in his or her actions. A major personality behavior trait is the violation of the rights of others. This can appear as a disregard for the physical or sexual wellbeing of another.

Conning the church

Crippen believes that our ignorance on what constitutes a Christian may lead us to overlook an abuser in our midst. A woman who was terribly abused described it this way. (P.245)

Sitting in many a church pew, serving on many a committee, supposedly leading within many a home, are these workers of darkness: the classic raging, ravenous wolves in harmless sheep's clothing. And they will do almost anything to keep from being found out.

Crippen warns us about the goal of the abuser.

… to destroy people who wish only to love them or to trust them, seems to be one of the ultimate acts of achievement for them. That, and of  course, hiding all evidence of the act from others. This they are quite good at, quite good at, indeed. They are, in fact, so good at hiding their desire to control and destroy from others that, should the occasion arise in which they are accused of an act of destruction or abuse, they easily laugh, shrug it off, and leave both their accuser, and all who are observing, shaking their heads and wondering, if what they thought was real, ever actually happened at all.

In fact, Deb and I are aware of a serial pedophile, now serving time, who conned the pastors in a church. He learned that a teen was going to report an incident. He went to the pastors first and jovially told them that there was some silly locker room humor going on at an event. He made it sound insignificant, joking about it. He even offered to resign. However, he had conned them so well that they laughed it off and told the family of the teen that he was "misreading" what was going on. He wasn't. This abuser went on to horribly molest a number of kids with impunity until he was caught outside the church.

Recognizing patterns of the abuser

Although the abuser is an expert at conning uninformed individuals, Crippen and Wood assure the reader that there are some common signs of an abusive personality that can be observed by even a non-professional. Here are just a few. (PP.246-249) Please consult the book for a full list. 

  • Unbelievable exaggerations:  In order to convince others that he (the abuser) is the victim,  he may invent facts about his victim that are bizarre. (My wife is always trying to pick up guys).
  • Distorting reality or rewriting history: Even if you have no memory of such an event, he may be so convincing that you begin to doubt your own memory.
  • Immature reactions: he may throw a temper tantrum if his dinner is 5 minutes late.
  • Use of pornography
  • Demands forgiveness and seeks pity
  • Unusually compelling charm

The authors provide an extensive list of questions that they have found, when used in their entirety, effective in "smoking out" the abuser (PP. 249-251). A few examples include:

  • Does God command your wife to obey you?
  • What would cause a man hit his wife?
  • How should children show respect to their father?

Could a stupid Christian fad attract abusers?

There are certain "trends" in the Christian community that TWW believes might attract an abuser. The self described Christian Domestic Discipline movement is one of these trends.The Huffington Post reported on this here.

When a follower of the Christian Domestic Discipline movement decides what to hit his God-fearing wife with, research is important. A hairbrush, for example, is "excellent for achieving the desired sting" but can break easily. Alternatively, a ping pong paddle is quiet and sturdy but may not sting as much as is required to get the message across.

For those of you, like me, who have never heard of this "biblical" teaching, do not fear. There is a helpful document called Beginning Domestic Discipline here. Here are some quotes. This is NOT a joke. However, it might attract Mark Driscoll devotees.

You’re probably feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and even a little bit scared. But, even with those uneasy feelings dancing in your heart, you’re also probably feeling a lot of excitement and anticipation. Domestic discipline has the potential to positively impact your relationship and domestic discipline has the potential to positively impact your home. Domestic discipline also has the potential to bring an elevated level of joy and happiness in your life and we’re sure you cannot wait to get started. 

Here is the table of contents. Remember, this is for use by husbands on their adult wives.

  • Introduction
  • What is Domestic Discipline? Getting Your Partner on Board Head of the Household Emotions Submissive Partner Emotions Lecturing
  • Removing Privileges Corner Time
  • Bedroom Time Reinforcement
  • The First Spanking 
  • Beginner Spankings
  • Spanking Implements
  • Spanking Positions
  • Over or Under the Clothes Frequently Asked Questions Ready to Get Started? 

What are the claimed advantages to flogging "the little woman"?

It brings a couple closer together physically, emotionally, and spiritually. For someone that has never practiced domestic discipline, this probably sounds ridiculous. However, the entire concept of domestic discipline requires a lot of honesty, trust, communication, and love that slowly but surely brings you and your partner closer and closer together on many different levels.

It greatly reduces conflict/arguments in a relationship. A lot of couples (who don't practice domestic discipline) argue about things such as children, money, work, time management, among several other things. However, when domestic discipline is a part of a relationship, it reduces those arguments by giving both partners a different avenue in which to express themselves. For example, if the HoH has an issue with how much the submissive partner is spending, the HoH simply punishes the submissive partner for it rather than yelling/arguing/etc. with them about it. This gives the HoH a sense of relief that the problem has been addressed and corrected (hopefully), and it gives the submissive partner a sense of forgiveness. It also makes the submissive partner feel as though the head of the household is with her in fixing the problem, not against her.

It creates a more structured and consistent environment in the home and relationship.

It improves and stabilizes the relationship, it defines roles in each partner, and it ends any "power struggle” that may exist in the relationship. 

There appears to be an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance in this movement. While reading a number of articles, I came across a "Domestic Discipline" blog called Leah's Life link. Here is what she said about her failed "Domestic Discipline" first marriage. I do not think it is a stretch to conclude she was in an abusive marriage.

In September of 2010, my husband left me. 

For those of you who've read Christian Domestic Discipline 101, you'll remember I said that CDD is NOT a cure for a bad marriage, and I'm sad to say that, indeed, it was not a cure for mine. 

My husband had some other issues that I believe are deep seated mental problems, but we won't go into that. Suffice it to say that I did everything I could to save the marriage but it failed regardless. 

I spent the first year healing. 

Here is where gets both scary and sad. She has now found a new man whom she intends to marry. Here is what she says about him.

The second year… well… 😀 I am happy to say I have met someone new… someone I think many of you would like. He is a good-hearted, tough-as-nails redneck that wears his dominance like a second skin, and he has asked me to marry him in the fall! 

I know this is fast since many of you are just learning that my marriage failed, but I hope you'll remember that it has been two years since my ex-husband left me (and believe me, he did it in the cruelest of ways). 

I hope you'll be able to look past my failed marriage and journey with me into this new relationship with quite literally the man of my dreams. I have a lot of joy and hope, mingled with fears and doubts. I am self-conscious and wonder since he could have any woman he wants, why would he choose me? 

And no… he does not know about Christian Domestic Discipline. He doesn't know who I am or what is the subject of my books. 

BUT I believe he would take to it like a duck to water once I get the courage to tell him about it. 

And… (PS-Did you know that one of the signs of an abuser is cruelty to animals that starts in their youth?)

I learned that day that he was an avid fisherman who loved to spearfish.  He had more deer horns on his wall than anybody I'd ever met, and out in his woodworking shop he had a large set of tusks that he told me came from a wild boar he killed when he was 13 years old.  Quite a few snake skins out there, too.  And a picture of him holding up a fat rattlesnake that reached to his feet…eek!  He hinted a little bit about gator hunting but I didn't get those stories until later.  Anyway, you get the picture.

Yes, Leah, we get the picture. You need help.

This poor woman, who has already been treated cruelly at the hands of her first husband, continues to believe in the sanctity of spanking and looks for it in her second marriage. She has published a book called  The Invention of Spanking which is available on Amazon link.

Can anyone picture any church proposing such a travesty? Unfortunately, I can.

On Friday, I plan to discuss how a church should deal with an abuser. In the meantime, I am interested in our readers' thoughts on the self-proclaimed Christian faith of an abuser.

Lydia's Corner: 1 Kings 19:1-21 Acts 12:1-23 Psalm 136:1-26 Proverbs 17:14-15
 

Comments

The “Faith” of an Abuser and Wallop Your Woman? — 246 Comments

  1. I remember stumbling upon this concept a little while ago now, & looked at some of those pages & blogs. Oh, to take those clicks back! What bothered me most was the fact that it was clearly not mutual or even consensual a lot of the time – I left a comment after a small discussion by 2 women about how to get their husbands to stop spanking them when they had period pain & it felt really bad. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, that a ‘loving’ husband would have to be persuaded not to hurt a woman already in pain. Just bizarre & RIPE for abuse.

  2. “It also makes the submissive partner feel as though the head of the household is with her in fixing the problem, not against her.”

    Haaaaaaaahahahaahahahaha.

    Yes, the best way to show your partner that you are going to face problems together is definitely NOT: sitting and discussing the issue like two reasonable adult humans, going to couples therapy, seeking advice from trustworthy sources, prayer, trying to see the other person’s point of view, and practicing empathy. The BEST, most productive and mature way to face problems together is for the physically strongest member of the team to actually hurt their partner whenever there is a transgression — I mean, disagreement. This definitely, absolutely will not cause any emotional damage, and it for sure will not cause the “submissive partner” to withdraw from the team mentally, emotionally, and physically, because she fears punishment which may be doled out arbitrarily.

    I just cannot with this.

  3. I wrote a blog of the Christian Discipline movement this past week and I am still just a little shocked that people do this( I guess I shouldn’t be.)….Heck, we even spoke a little in one of our segments on our Thursday evening radio program.

  4. First regarding the spanking thing. I seriously believe this was invented by some twisted religious ‘Christians’ to give a veneer of acceptance to their S&M preferences/hangups. Probably written by the sadists…..

    As to the salvation of abusers, this is something I think about often with my mother. I was, in fact, just discussing it with my cousin this weekend. The bottom line is, I have no idea what kind of things go on between her and God. Up until the last few years, I would never have even questioned it becaus she showed outward sign that our denomination said was evidence….so…..matthew 7 now comes to mind, as well as the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13.

    The pleasure I have seen her take in causing pain and ‘winning’ by any means, including calling the police and telling them her little sister was threatening to hurt her….because her sister had told her she was mean.

    The part that makes it hard to reconcile in my mind is that look of gleeful satisfaction when she has put someone in their place. I often give her to God and pray that if there is a way, help her….

  5. After a little searching around Amazon from the link, I find it interesting that all of the book suggestions that follow in the “What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?” are mostly erotica books. A few are even erotica books that have Christian characters that practice domestic discipline. So, are Christians buying these erotica books to support their domestic discipline lifestyle?

  6. @ Jeannette Altes:
    These posts on domestic abuse have caused me to revisit in my memory some very unpleasant experiences from my childhood. When I googled “surviving a NPD mother,” I was surprised at the results. Read some of the comments left on this post: http://www.narcissisticmother.com/surviving-a-narcissistic-mother#
    It’s a relief to know I’m not the only one in this position.

    My Mother’s salvation is between her and God. But I will continue to set the necessary boundaries to protect myself until otherwise indicated. I think that would require some genuine “fruit” on my mother’s part that she no longer intends to inflict intentional harm.

  7. OK. So this:

    However, the entire concept of domestic discipline requires a lot of honesty, trust, communication, and love that slowly but surely brings you and your partner closer and closer together on many different levels.

    is followed by this:

    For example, if the HoH has an issue with how much the submissive partner is spending, the HoH simply punishes the submissive partner for it rather than yelling/arguing/etc. with them about it.

    Does anybody else see a contradiction here?

  8. Christian domestic discipline definitely seems a lot like sado-masochism to me, and it goes back to the question of who is and isn’t a Christian. I can’t imagine how a truly Christian man or woman could engage in a practice like this.

  9. Some months ago, a few people commented on Christian Domestic Discipline on a thread here on TWW. One commenter advised, for those of us who were curious enough to google it, to have some bleach for our brains handy. She wasn’t kidding. It was one of the few times I wished I’d never read about something.

    I think it’s sick. It should be considered domestic abuse when the woman objects to it.

  10. @ BeenThereDoneThat:
    I haven’t read at that one, although it looks good. My initial realization came from two thing (links below) a document that described my mother and a blog called Narcissts Suck. They don’t like when we set boundaries and with mine, it is either her way or no way. She will not compromise…in fact when asked to back up a little, she escalates.

    http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/characteristics-of-narcissistic-mothers.html (I can’t speak to the content of the rest of the site not having lookedk, but this article was helpful.)

    http://www.narcissists-suck.blogspot.com/ )Anna doesn’t post much antmore as she das processed through it, but she leaves the site up for others to get insight from.)

  11. But, even with those uneasy feelings dancing in your heart

    Does anybody else use the word “dancing” to describe uneasy feelings like “anxious, overwhelmed, and even a little bit scared”? If I’m going use a word for the effect anxiety, fear, and being overwhelmed have on me it would probably be something a bit less, oh, celebratory than “dancing.” Is that just me?

  12. I knew people who were involved in an earlier iteration of “domestic discipline,” back in the early 80s.

    and you know… I haven’t read all of the above post, Dee, nor clicked on any links. There are some things I would rather not know anything about.

  13. @ numo: Can you imagine being a woman who thought she must be disciplined in this way? It sounds self loathing to me.

  14. @ Jeannette Altes:

    Yeah. There is just everything wrong with this. The thinking is pathological.

    I notice they leave out the avenue of expression for the victim, er, submissive party, er wife when they said this:

    it reduces those arguments by giving both partners a different avenue in which to express themselves.

    What is the sub’s/wife’s “different” avenue in which to express herself? I missed the “both” part. Seriously. Because they don’t say. And what are these “different avenues”? He “expresses himself” by hitting her instead of talking with her? That is merely “different”? This is some sort of improvement because it cuts down on arguments?

    Oh! I guess so because then:

    It improves and stabilizes the relationship, it defines roles in each partner, and it ends any “power struggle” that may exist in the relationship.

    No kidding! I’m sure it does!

    This is just too much. 🙁

    Someone please tell me this is being done in a tiny little corner somewhere and the church is not losing its collective mind. 🙁

  15. OK guys, yeah, we have some S&M going on. We also have some borderline internet porn…which is really what these CDD sites are.

  16. That, and of course, hiding all evidence of the act from others. This they are quite good at, quite good at, indeed. They are, in fact, so good at hiding their desire to control and destroy from others that, should the occasion arise in which they are accused of an act of destruction or abuse, they easily laugh, shrug it off, and leave both their accuser, and all who are observing, shaking their heads and wondering, if what they thought was real, ever actually happened at all.

    SUCCESSFUL SOCIOPATHS ARE MASTERS OF CAMOUFLAGE AND MISDIRECTION; IF THEY WEREN’T, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN EXPOSED AND CAUGHT LONG AGO. WE ONLY HEAR ABOUT THE ONES WHO SLIPPED UP.

    “For Satan himself can transform himself into an Angel of Light.”

  17. There are certain “trends” in the Christian community that TWW believes might attract an abuser. The self described Christian Domestic Discipline movement is one of these trends.

    Shades of Fifty Shades of Grey!

    (Either that or its Victorian-era predecessor, “erotic flagellation”.)

    I shall let Blazing Saddles speak for me:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ce-zC_n8E

  18. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Some months ago, a few people commented on Christian Domestic Discipline on a thread here on TWW. One commenter advised, for those of us who were curious enough to google it, to have some bleach for our brains handy. She wasn’t kidding. It was one of the few times I wished I’d never read about something.

    “I wish I had never heard…
    I wish I had never seen…
    Ia, Ia, Cthulhu, Fthagn…”

  19. Why is it that it’s always the lady in the relationship that gets the discipline and not the guy? If the guy were getting whacked for not doing his job, I wonder if this would even be on the radar of fringe Christianity.

  20. In fact, Deb and I are aware of a serial pedophile, now serving time, who conned the pastors in a church. He learned that a teen was going to report an incident. He went to the pastors first and jovially told them that there was some silly locker room humor going on at an event. He made it sound insignificant, joking about it. He even offered to resign. However, he had conned them so well that they laughed it off and told the family of the teen that he was “misreading” what was going on. He wasn’t. This abuser went on to horribly molest a number of kids with impunity until he was caught outside the church.

    Pedos don’t only “groom” their victims. This is a textbook example of a pedo grooming adult third parties to get them onto his side as allies and discredit the victim in advance.

    “Go ahead and squeal, tattletale. Nobody will EVER believe you.”

  21. There is nothing “Christian” about his CDD trash. It is the perversion of evil people who desire power and control and it is devilish. Let’s call it DDD (demonic…). Does anyone really believe that once physical assault in the name of discipline begins that it isn’t going to increase in intensity? After, all the one administering it is plainly just a S&M pervert. What do we suppose the Lord Jesus Christ thinks of His Name being tagged onto this. Oh man, there is a Real Whuppin’ comin’ on that Day.

  22. 70 millions plus copies of “Fifty Shades of Gray” ( Women’s erotica ) have been sold.

    I don’t think it’s the men buying the book.

    It’s the women.

  23. Here is Leah Kelly’s most recent blogpost, an add for the book that Dee mentions: http://leah-kelley.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-invention-of-spanking.html

    Leah writes: “Just released!!! The Invention of Spanking is a story about Adam and Eve and their struggle to live in peace after their ejection from the Garden.

    How do you think Adam will deal with Eve’s strong will and sharp tongue?” [End of quote]

    This seems like some kind of pornography.

    And it turns out that Leah married the “redneck” in July of last year: http://leah-kelley.blogspot.com/2012/07/july-12-2012.html

  24. Anybody else here tired of Zo’s comments? They don’t seem to contribute anything meaningful to discussions but only to inflame and annoy.

  25. I was talking with some not christian friends about 50 Shades who had read the book and done research, unlike me, and they said that BDSM is supposed to be done from a place of trust, equality and dignity where each party willingly engage and disengage in stuff (news to me). The book is so controversial because it put BDSM in the limelight and featured an abusive relationship (one way power). Part of me wishes people that think this domestic discipline, spousal abuse and Pearls teaching are OK and no big deal would get some perspective. On the other hand how many sweet, docile churple/sheeple want have this sort of info floating through their memories. This combination of bizarre practices and violence is really toxic when paired with a one way “Godly” power dynamic.

  26. dee wrote:

    @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas: I have you on my radar, Zo. Be careful…

    Really –

    Wartburg appears to have its own rigid orthodoxy

  27. @ Mandy: It is about time to say good-bye. We now have a way that we notify the offending person. We link to Il Divo’s stellar performance of said piece.

    Somehow, I get the feeling we may have dealt with Zo before.

  28. Jeff

    I sued to say that, as a former public health nurse, that nothing would surprise me. I continue to be surprised by what masquerades as “christian” these days. I tried to tie in DDD (as you put it) to your book tha illuminates the problems of how churches deal with abuse. I plan to do at least one more (and maybe two more) posts based on your wonderful book. Thank you for giving the Christian world such a great resource.

  29. Wasn’t Voddie Baucham on board with this sort of thing awhile back? Or at least a partial endorsement of the practice?

  30. @ dee: Indeed – I believe you have. zo sounds awfully familiar…

    As for the DD thing, I *think* that the people I knew were into something far less extreme… but I have no way of knowing, really, and would rather not, in any case.

  31. dee wrote:

    Thank you for giving the Christian world such a great resource.

    And thank you Dee and all TWW staff for helping us get the word out on this subject. To date we just keep putting any book royalties (our first check was $149! Ha!) back into buying more books to distribute to pastors and counselors and so on. So our whole goal is to scream this message far and wide about what is happening in so many churches. And really the very same dynamic is happening whether it be domestic abuse or sexual abuse or spiritual abuse – the stuff we see coming to light such as in the SGM debacle. So we are all fighting the very same enemy.

    I wanted to add a note here for everyone concerning how Reformed theology/Calvinism has played into all of this at least in my life and experience. I was raised up and trained in what we call dispensational theology. It is a big subject, so I won’t delve deeply into it here – but this is the theology of John MacArthur for example (though he to his credit has taken on some of the more radical errors in that camp), and of many independent Bible churches. This theology is in marked contrast to Reformed theology. And one of the sharpest differences relates directly to the very question and subject of your present installment here in reviewing our book – namely, the doctrine of salvation (soteriology). In the old Scofield Bible camp for instance, a person is saved by faith alone in Christ alone, but one could still be “carnal.” That is to say, some dispensationalists such as Charles Ryrie maintained that a person could continue to walk in sin, habitually, never yielding obedience to the Lordship of Christ, and still be a genuine Christian. This is what I was taught back at Multnomah Bible College and Seminary years back. In other words an ABUSER could indeed be a Christian, even though he retained this mentality of entitlement to control and power and use all kinds of wicked tactics on his victims.

    But in the early 2000’s as I preached through the book of Romans, with the help of books by Lloyd-Jones and R.C. Sproul and others, I came to finally understand the incredible truth that when Christ grants us faith and repentance and we are regenerated, we REALLY ARE new creations in Him! That there WILL be fruit evidencing that change. That when John says in 1 John that if any man hates his brother, then his claim to love God is a lie – then that man is no Christian, John means exactly what he says and we don’t have to go running off to find some strained explanation.

    This, you see, changed everything in my theology. It showed me what was wrong with most churches – that they are filled with unregenerate people and that they are places where evil can hide. And it opened up the Bible to me. I had made sense of mathematics and science and even philosophy in many ways during my university studies, but the Bible never made real, overall, “big-picture” sense to me until I understood that Christ’s work in us is real and that when He says that His people love one another, He means just that.

    This is the Reformed Theology that I know. So much of what is floating around out there in churches and books that claim to belong to the same theology I believe, I simply don’t recognize it. When a person walks in evil and only mouths repentance, and demands that others accept him back into the fold, it is very obvious to me what God’s Word says about such a person. As many of you here at TWW call them – “The Calvinistas” – well, I empathize because so many of the things I see coming out of these camps are soooo, pathetically wrong. But it was Reformed theology that gave me the light and compass to see my way through this whole abuse business and enable me to say – “that man is evil. He may look like an angel of light, but he is from below.” And in the end, we have been able to put the wicked man out of our church and protect the victims he has been oppressing.

  32. “But the cowards, unbelievers, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars—their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Rev 21:8)

    “Sexually immoral.” I believe this is talking about people who consistently, and without repentance, practice these sins. In other words, unbelievers. So I think that it’s unlikely that a serial abuser is a believer.

  33. Justin L. wrote:

    I was talking with some not christian friends … they said that BDSM is supposed to be done from a place of trust, equality and dignity where each party willingly engage and disengage in stuff (news to me).

    Justin, that is the THEORY, the story they tell non-BDSM people. But I have talked online – and asked penetrating questions – of many BDSM people. And read their blogs and other writings to see if it match their responses to me.

    My conclusion is that it is not about consenting to things both enjoy – subs often experience negative emotions, pain and discomfort that they do not enjoy, both during scenes and afterwards.
    For example, they often allow punishments beating that they do not enjoy (punishment beatings are different from fun beatings), when they did not do anything objectively wrong. Commonly, they are punished for things like forgetting to call the dom by the exalted nickname he wants to be called by.

    They seem to “consent” to things they neither enjoy not deserve because of who they are and the type of relationship they are in. They do not feel able/willing to say “no” to these negative things. I realize they “consent”, but to say the consent of someone whose personality/ relationship dynamics makes her unable to say no to discomfort and injustice and verbal breaking down is adequate; to say this consent is enough to justify any discomfort/ injustice/ verbal abuse the dom gives, is simply to have no sympathy with her weakness.

    I actually sometimes showed them a face and shoulders photo of a bitterly crying, tied up women and asked them what they think of it. They said it is okay, as long as she consents. She is clearly unhappy. She allows (I assume it she is allowing it) what makes her really unhappy. And her partner probably enjoys her crying, and say it is not wrong to make her that unhappy because she consents – she does not care about herself and accept these things, so he does not have to care about her either and can continue making her unhappy.

    Despite the claims to the outside world, the reality is people who allow truly negative things they do not like(often because they are too submissive), coupled with partners who like giving negative things (often sadists).

    The language they use to “explain” these things to me is often cognitive dissonance: “He likes to cause me pain, but he will never hurt a fly.” “We are in a mutually respectful relationship (on her blog she explain a recent occasion when she was utterly devastated, because he called her a mere [semen receptacle – crude word], and she wants to be more to him.)” “But I like to be forced to do things I do not like.” Cognitive dissonance is common among abuse victims.

  34. Why is my previous comment awaiting moderation? It contains no links or abuse? It mentions abusive behaviour and speak against it?

  35. Habitual abusers lie in wait for their next opportunity. Satan does too. Jesus told some religious leaders that their father was the devil because they were acting like the devil. Just saying..

  36. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    dee wrote:

    @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas: I have you on my radar, Zo. Be careful…

    Really –

    Wartburg appears to have its own rigid orthodoxy

    It’s called meaningful & reasonable discourse Zo. You’re right that women buy those books. I suspect you have junped to the wrong conclusion about why or you couldn’t have made this comment.

  37. @ Jeff Crippen:
    To be fair, the Baptists seem to be all over the map on theology. Mennonites, Pentecostals, etc. are also non-Reformed/non-Calvinist but they would expect (and often demand) to see a personal transformation in a person who claims to be a follower of Christ.

    For me, it is Acts 19 that explains it best:
    While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’
    They answered, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’
    3 So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’
    ‘John’s baptism,’ they replied.
    4 Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ 5 On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues[b] and prophesied.

    Long before I knew what Calvinism was specifically, I was jarred by the way our new College age group pastor was going on and on about repentance. We had had the most amazing Collage Group Pastors. The place had been filled with the Holy Spirit, people had been healed, began prophesying, and many people’s faith and desire for God just burst to life. The two pastors then graduated from Seminary and moved on to their own Churches. This new guy didn’t get it. He was nice enough, but obsessed with repenting to have any sort of Holy Spirit experience. I am not saying we shouldn’t repent. Notice, however, how unconcerned Paul is with the Ephesian’s repentance. He just brushes off John’s repentance preaching as not the real thing. This is probably really jarring for a Calvinist to hear, but if you need repentance to get to God (as in all the time, grovelling away, etc.) – you need the Holy Spirit. Oh, it will convict you. In live time (in those days, I just couldn’t do something snarky to a girl that was, well, a trying personality – the Holy Spirit’s presence would be gone like a snap). If I said something nasty about her, I couldn’t stand it. No one needed to make me repent, the price of even going there was too much to bare. So, here was the new Collage Pastor all gung ho that we all sit around and repent and we thought, OK, and then afterwards, the Pastor ended the session (it was at a retreat). We were just confused. We thought, OK, now let’s get to the Prophesying, praying over one another, etc. And the guy tried to close down the prayer time.

    Did I also add he had a huge authority problem. We said, well, we will just keep praying, and he was really upset?!? He constantly wanted to switch all events to socializing. He honestly thought sitting around repenting was the sum of a prayer session. We were completely disappointed in him. We wanted to keep going and he thought he could just tell us that was it and we would meekly tow his line. Needless to say, it didn’t go very well after that. We just met on our own and prayed the way we wanted to. We weren’t opposed to him wanting to do a weird (to us) repentance session, it was just that the Spiritual place we all came from was so far beyond having to sit around quietly and confess our sins. Since the Spirit was pretty much convicting us if we even attempted to do something unloving in live time, a session like that was sort of too little to late for most of us.

    Sure, the powerful encounters didn’t last forever, these things never do. I moved away for work, as did most of the other attenders. But, to this day, that Acts 19 story was my story with Calvinism. Yeah, repentance after the fact is a good thing, but something is seriously broken if that is the sum of your relationship with God.

    Now, you might argue there is more to Calvinism. Would it upset you if I told you people can be filled with the Holy Spirit just by saying they believe in Christ and not even repenting yet? A Hell’s Angel couple came to a home group once and that happened. The girlfriend just prayed to accept Jesus (hadn’t even got around to any sort of repentance – as Vineyardites back in the 90s just didn’t do that sort of Roman’s road prayer stuff) and BOOM, began prophesying. It freaked out her Hell’s Angel boyfriend so much he said he believed and then BAM, him too. Now, they were Hell’s Angels (are they in the US too?), so, clearly, they had some repenting to do (yeah, we all do, I get it), but it wasn’t a requirement to being filled with the Spirit – besides, it is the Spirit that will convict (conveniently beforehand), so, getting the Spirit, not this or that second rate theology (pretty much all theology is second to the Power of the Presence of the Holy Sprit in my view) is what really motivates change and growth. The problem is, how to keep walking in that Spiritual state when life gets in the way (time, busyness, kids, etc. all make the Powerful Encounters few and far between). But Paul is endorsing this view when he encounters these believers. First, Did you receive the Holy Sprit? not, Did you receive the right teachings, Did you pray the right Prayer, etc. Also, note once these men receive the Holy Spirit, the transformation is sudden and powerful. In Pentecostal circles they think all Holy Spirit encounters need to have tongues. My experience in the Vineyard was it was usually prophesy that showed the Spirit’s presence. Either way, these men are powerfully transformed. They would have no hang ups about how to discipline their wives, they would just pray for/with her. They wouldn’t be spouting this or that guy’s way to understand God – God is right in them, why argue about which understanding is correct – they are all wrong if the Spirit isn’t powerfully present.

    So, according to Paul, the question isn’t “are they even Christian” – that’s tribalism, really, the question is: Do they have the Holy Spirit? – That answer is probably easier, as it isn’t really about salvation, but about life in the here and now.

    OK, long rant, but I just don’t think one form of theology is vastly better then another if people following all of those teachings are still beating their wives.

  38. Zo was kind enough to comment on my own blog also; we all have our own house rules which may look like rigid orthodoxy to anybody whose chosen style they cramp. I still maintain his comment is potentially the start of a useful discussion.

    But back to some of the above questions (with a slight change of order):

    1) Does God command your wife to obey you?
    2) How should children show respect to their father?
    3) What would cause a man hit his wife?

    1) Sigh… it’s the statements that are variations on actual scriptures that are the most dangerously deceptive.
    2) Exactly the way children always have: By copying the way he respects them, of course. Sadly, that’s how the cycle of abuse is perpetuated.
    3) Well, you might say “a violent epileptic seizure, or some other event that disrupted his motor nervous system”, but I ken fine that’s not what we mean by “hit” here. I can think of some causes, though.

    a) He might have been brought up badly (for want of a better phrase) and really not know any other way to relate. That doesn’t make it any less serious, nor mean that he gets let off. It does mean, however, that his behaviour is not pathological or addictive and therefore rather than repeatedly show empty and self-serving remorse he can, and will, stop. This does happen with formerly violent offenders (male and female).
    b) He might be a battered husband who finally snaps after years of emotional and even physical abuse. UK law has, on rare occasions, allowed the so-called “battered woman defence” even to a spouse who uses a weapon against her/his abusive husband/wife (the Wiki article, whilst sobering, is instructive). Even here, it still doesn’t mean his actions aren’t serious or that he gets let off. He still must learn to take proper responsibility/control for his life and relationships so that he doesn’t just drift into another abusive relationship and snap again.
    c) He might be a cruel, calculating *** who doesn’t want to live any other way than through dominating and controlling others. In which case, vulnerable people need protecting from him any which way.

  39. @ Val: a really good account. The real deal, as I think you were implying, is not tongues per se or prophesy per se, but a transformed life. Which, as Paul famously sets out in 1 Cor 13, will be hallmarked above all by love.

    I think you’ve highlighted a grave and ongoing mistake that we all too frequently make, which is to think that a person’s having God’s love poured out in their heart is somehow less miraculous, and/or less dependent on a supernatural act of God, than their being raised from the dead or instantly and permanently healed of terminal cancer.

  40. P.S. Deebs/GBTC – apologies for the number of links I put in my last post, which will presumably have sent it into moderation. I wasn’t paying attention there.

  41. @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas:

    Hey Zo,

    I notice you never did answer my question to you on the other domestic abuse thread. Maybe you didn’t see it? I’ll ask again in bold so you’re less likely to miss it.

    Zo, do you believe domestic abuse is wrong and should be condemned as such?

  42. Alonzo is right about 50 Shades of Grey (that women appear to be the biggest buyers of the book), but so is Justin L (that the sort of behaviour described therein is consensual). There’s a difference between roleplaying and sexual fantasy (which often is just that, and bears no relation – hopefully! – to what one would want in real life) and abuse.

  43. Still blows my mind that this book has sold 70 million plus copies. It is not well written to boot. Lots of “Christian”, church attending ladies have bought this book. What does it say about them?

  44. Zo

    It says as much about them as it does men in the church who use pornography. Some even use child pornography. So cut the one way critique on this matter now.

  45. anonymous

    I want him to answer that question as well. I believe there is a reason that he won’t answer you.

  46. Rob wrote:

    really what these CDD sites are.

    I am not so sure about that. I saw some that obviously were but not Leah’s site. I actually do believe there are people out there who believe this sort of abuse is biblical.

  47. Jeff Crippen wrote:

    So much of what is floating around out there in churches and books that claim to belong to the same theology I believe, I simply don’t recognize it. When a person walks in evil and only mouths repentance, and demands that others accept him back into the fold,

    One only has to look at the T4G and TGC statements to understand that the Reformed Big Dogs don’t even require repentance to be accepted into the fold.

  48. @ Retha: We are using a listing of words that will pull comment out of the pack. Many times, that word will not be a problem but, if used in other contexts, it can. You have done nothing wrong. Please bear with us.

  49. anonymous wrote:

    @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas:
    Hey Zo,
    I notice you never did answer my question to you on the other domestic abuse thread. Maybe you didn’t see it? I’ll ask again in bold so you’re less likely to miss it.
    Zo, do you believe domestic abuse is wrong and should be condemned as such?

    Sorry Anon – did not notice the previous question. Would you mind giving me your understanding of “domestic abuse.” It Seems to me it can range from allegations of battering/assault to “my spouse makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  50. @Dee – I get it. That post talks about horrible things and I am not surprised if it has more than one censored type of word.

  51. And here is a prequel post that led up to the DD post that I was involved in.
    DD is based in porn, violent porn, and nothing less. The attitude of some men in the ‘supposed’ church is nothing short of pornographic and DD is a means by which they can ‘sanctify’ their sin and make it acceptable in some circles.

    http://denimjumpers2bluejeans.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/the-porn-factor-and-its-relation-to-the-treatment-of-women/

    Hopefully I can stop by and participate in this a bit more rather than doing these couple of drive bys.

  52. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Still blows my mind that this book has sold 70 million plus copies. It is not well written to boot. Lots of “Christian”, church attending ladies have bought this book. What does it say about them?

    What does it say about them?
    “CRAZY IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY!”

  53. dee wrote:

    anonymous

    I want him to answer that question as well. I believe there is a reason that he won’t answer you.

    It does make you wonder. Being that it is in bold only one short comment above the one he responded to, it’s highly unlikely he hasn’t seen it. I’m not sure why it is a hard question to answer yes to or why he would not want to make that clear, especially when he is saying things he knows are not well received here.

    Hmm…..

  54. Retha wrote:

    They seem to “consent” to things they neither enjoy not deserve because of who they are and the type of relationship they are in. They do not feel able/willing to say “no” to these negative things.

    “Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks!”
    — snarky saying in local fandom in the Eighties

    “It’s not pain, it’s SENSATION!”
    — “Cenobitch”, a really sicko Hellraiser fangirl from the Eighties

    I say again, CRAZY IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY.

  55. anonymous wrote:

    dee wrote:

    anonymous

    I want him to answer that question as well. I believe there is a reason that he won’t answer you.

    It does make you wonder. Being that it is in bold only one short comment above the one he responded to, it’s highly unlikely he hasn’t seen it. I’m not sure why it is a hard question to answer yes to or why he would not want to make that clear, especially when he is saying things he knows are not well received here.

    Hmm…..

    He ignored me on another thread. But that is the same pattern I experienced with “certain other” commenters that followed the same patterns as Zo.

    Zo does seem to have read the book along with the millions of others, including “Christian church attending ladies,” unless he found a way to critique the book’s writing without reading it 🙂

  56. anonymous wrote:

    Does anybody else use the word “dancing” to describe uneasy feelings like “anxious, overwhelmed, and even a little bit scared”? If I’m going use a word for the effect anxiety, fear, and being overwhelmed have on me it would probably be something a bit less, oh, celebratory than “dancing.” Is that just me?

    My first thought when i read this was it sounds a awful lot like sexual excitement and anticipation.

  57. This is so hard for me. I brought this up on previous thread, about the female abuser in our extended family. She professes the Christian faith. I’ve resolved a bit in my mind that perhaps she is genuinely blind to reality and how she hurts her husband. Maybe even mental illness (like borderline personality). I’ve observed her use Christianity to validate her own “victim status” and essentially enable her blindness. At the end of the day she refuses any sort of counseling or third party input. Anyone who questions her is an enemy.

    I just DON’T. KNOW. about her salvation. I think she wants to believe. I also think she is blind to who she actually is. Is there hope? Is her abusiveness willful and manipulative or is it beyond her own reason and control?? It is so sad. Dear Jesus, help.

  58. @ Kristin:

    I struggle with this as well, Kristin. If someone is possibly mentally ill in some way, and causing pain to others, yet claims to be a Christian, what is our response to them as a Christian? We have to protect those that they might harm, yes? But their eternal state is beyond anything I could judge.

  59. Why would Jesus call it the GOOD news of the Kingdom of God if it were possible that after all He had done through His life, death and resurrection and His sending forth the Holy Spirit to indwell His people, some of the citizens of His Kingdom would still enjoy abusing others? Is it reasonable to believe they are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ and are therefore Christians? I don’t think so.

  60. Zo

    I am concerned by your answer. Your response could appears to indicate that you are obfuscating. And the question that would arise is “Why?” You sound suspiciously like a former commenter named Jimmy. Your writing style and wording are almost identical. If you are Jimmy or Son of Jimmy, I am a bit concerned given your past behavior. Please try a little harder. You can define abuse in the way that you wish and then answer the question.

  61. A) Hooray for “Jimmy” whoever he is if he thinks like me.
    B) Run as far and as fast as you can from physical batterers.
    C) Reading previous comments, my definition and your definition of “domestic abuse” just might have som major differences. Specially when you get into the whole “emotional abuse” schtick.

    Currently I be reading an excellent book by Dr. Helen Smith, “MEN ON STRIKE.” I think it’s a game changer.

    http://menonstrikereviews.blogspot.com/

  62. nmgirl wrote:

    anonymous wrote:

    Does anybody else use the word “dancing” to describe uneasy feelings like “anxious, overwhelmed, and even a little bit scared”? If I’m going use a word for the effect anxiety, fear, and being overwhelmed have on me it would probably be something a bit less, oh, celebratory than “dancing.” Is that just me?

    My first thought when i read this was it sounds a awful lot like sexual excitement and anticipation.

    Sounds like she’s “into Pain” (nudge nudge wink wink)…

    I can just see some guy who’s into smacking women around pointing to this as justification that “They Really Want It! It Turns Them On!”

    Again, “Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks!” plus “Ooooo! My Soulmate! He’s so (gasp) EXCITING!” equals KINK. Even if you give the Kink a Christianese coat of paint.

  63. @ anonymous:
    I didn’t read as far as Dee’s reply when I commented. What Dee said works too. What is your definition of domestic abuse? By your definition, is domestic abuse wrong and should it be condemned?

    However, personally, I am interested in your view on the definition of DA put forth by Crippen, Roberts, and Dee and Deb.

  64. Mara wrote:

    And here is a prequel post that led up to the DD post that I was involved in.
    DD is based in porn, violent porn, and nothing less. The attitude of some men in the ‘supposed’ church is nothing short of pornographic and DD is a means by which they can ‘sanctify’ their sin and make it acceptable in some circles.

    Just like the Visions(TM) of one Bee Jay Driscoll? (“I *SEE* THINGS…”) I’ve long maintained those are just his officially-nonexistent sexual fantasies coming out in a pulpit-acceptable form.

    I wonder if there’s any connection with Christianese Purity Culture. Specifically, the tactic of promising Purity Culture boys barn-burning fulfilling-every-fantasy dynamite married sex 24/7/365 as a bribe to save themselves for marriage. Thing is, it’s literally impossible to NOT be exposed to some sort of porn culture, and the fantasies just grow and build without any reality check. Especially because Purity(TM) also includes NOT mixing with any RL females; the only women they’ve “been around” are the ones in the porn leakage.

  65. The “sinners prayer” or “salvation prayer”, which is a modern-day invention of the last century or so, is, to use the words of C.S. Lewis “a great cataract of nonsense.”

    Having said that, if you believe “once saved, always saved” and that salvation is merely a profession of faith in Jesus’ completed work on the cross, then there is no eternal penalty for sin, because Jesus has declared you righteous, once and for all time. (Charles Stanley, Billy Graham). While it may disgust you, but you must accept even the non-repentant child/wife abuser as “saved.”

    {I do not agree with this position, but it IS the logical conclusion to this teaching.}

  66. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Still blows my mind that this book has sold 70 million plus copies. It is not well written to boot. Lots of “Christian”, church attending ladies have bought this book. What does it say about them?

    I have never read the book, nor descriptions about it personally. I noticed that you said it wasn’t well written. I assume by that you have read it – so why are questioning what it says about them?

  67. Hi all,

    I’m a long time reader and first time comment-er. I really appreciate this website’s challenge to the Reformed Blogging Machine, especially when it comes to the SGM lawsuit.

    I just wanted to point out that the document at the Beginning Domestic Discipline link does not seem to be “Christian” at all. It does not make any reference to Jesus, church, the Bible, etc. I just point this out because this post seems to characterize it as though it were someone’s distorted “Christian” way of doing things.

    Please don’t hear me criticizing the post as a whole – this is not my intention. I am so glad that TWW is unafraid to compassionately cover difficult topics, and except for what I mention above, I agree with the coverage of this topic.

  68. I just want to chime in on an aspect of the “Abusers Aren’t Christians” stuff from Jeff’s book. I think he does a great job of explaining why this is so; however, I think there’s a potential downside to this in the way it affects victims. Namely, we do not want to put an abuse victim in the position of having to judge her abuser as a non-Christian in order for her to to feel it’s OK for her to seek safety. I think doing so can easily create a larger-than-necessary burden for a victim. It’s difficult enough for a victim to admit the behavior she is experiencing is unacceptable, but to add to this the notion that by leaving she is judging her husband as hell-bound could easily add another emotional hurdle.

    I know for me, this notion that by divorcing I was rendering a judgement against my ex wife was one of the most difficult things. I don’t want to believe that she is not a real Christian. I want good things for her in the end. So in my head I come back to “treat her as an unbeliever”, which is easier for me to swallow than saying “she’s not a Christian”. I just emotionally struggle to say the latter.

    I don’t disagree with Jeff C, but on this journey it’s been one of the more difficult truths to apply to myself (and he and Barbara have been really gracious at helping me work through this) and it’s certainly taken some time. But that takeaway is that I think that telling an abused wife that her abuser is not a Christian might not always be the encouragement we might think it is.

    I wrote a post on this topic, for any who are interested.

    http://cryingoutforjustice.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/treating-an-abuser-as-a-non-believer/

  69. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    anonymous wrote:
    @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas:
    Hey Zo,
    I notice you never did answer my question to you on the other domestic abuse thread. Maybe you didn’t see it? I’ll ask again in bold so you’re less likely to miss it.
    Zo, do you believe domestic abuse is wrong and should be condemned as such?
    Sorry Anon – did not notice the previous question. Would you mind giving me your understanding of “domestic abuse.” It Seems to me it can range from allegations of battering/assault to “my spouse makes me feel uncomfortable.”

    What is your definition? I mean what a strange question considering the writings of the last couple of articles here. It should be pretty plain.

    I mean generally if someone says – my spouse makes me feel uncomfortable – the next question would be how they do that. That isn’t an allegation – its a statement. Its also an open ended statement that needs clarification. I have never seen it used as an allegation EVER. I have been studying abuse for years and years, and that type of thing has never come up…ever!

    I have seen that type of comment followed up some equally silly statement stating ‘they yelled at me…its abuse’. Its normally brought up to minimize forms of verbal and emotional abuse – which basically are different forms of bullying if people need a simplistic way of putting it.

    When definitions are given – they again ignore the definition and the pattern of behavior – and again use their example: ‘they yelled at me…its abuse’. Its a form of diversion, and conversations with such individuals honestly never accomplish much. I mean even a child can figure out the difference is once explained to them. Some pretend they don’t grasp concepts that children are capable of, and it pretty much just shows their intent. It wasn’t fact finding or understanding. I guess they just like to argue for the sake of arguing.

    Anyone that truly wants to understand what the definition of domestic violence or domestic abuse is? There are resources out there that make the concept pretty easy to understand if they have an open mind.

    I don’t understand the denial myself. Its mind boggling. It destroys lifes of men, women and children. It tears at their very souls, and people still insist they can’t grasp the definition. It just breaks your heart.

  70. @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas:

    From Amazon blurb about “Men on Strike”:

    “….men…are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers.”

    Ahahahahahahah

    (and that is a rational hoot)

  71. “But, even with those uneasy feelings dancing in your heart, you’re also probably feeling a lot of excitement and anticipation”

    You know….just gonna throw this out there….could it be any more obvious that a lot of people probably gravitate towards this because they get off on spankings but believe that sub/dom sexual practices are dirty and worldly, making this is their only outlet for those feelings?

    I’M JUST SAYING.

  72. Nicholas wrote:

    Leah writes: “Just released!!! The Invention of Spanking is a story about Adam and Eve and their struggle to live in peace after their ejection from the Garden.

    How do you think Adam will deal with Eve’s strong will and sharp tongue?” [End of quote]

    This seems like some kind of pornography.

    I just laughed out loud for about a minute when I read this. Not because CDD is a funny subject. But because, as I just observed, it could not get ANY MORE OBVIOUS that these people are just trying to find an outlet for fetishes and desire for porn! I’m serious. They might as well be wearing signs.

    On the other hand, I’m sure that a great many people are attracted for another reason….because they like to dominate, whether sexually or otherwise.

  73. Patrice wrote:

    From Amazon blurb about “Men on Strike”:

    “….men…are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers.”

    Was there any more incentive to be “responsible fathers, husbands and providers” in an era when women were not welcome or able to leave you if you were not, as they were not educated to cope alone? Or was that an era when men were even more welcome to be irresponsible and abusive husbands and fathers?

  74. Retha wrote:

    Was there any more incentive to be “responsible fathers, husbands and providers” in an era when women were not welcome or able to leave you if you were not, as they were not educated to cope alone? Or was that an era when men were even more welcome to be irresponsible and abusive husbands and fathers?

    Retha, you’re South African. Remember the Afrikaans word “Baaskaap” (sp?), on-steroids predecessor of “Apartheid”? Did Baaskaap give Boers/Afrikaaners incentive to be “responsible bosses” in “an era of black and white” or just justification to throw their weight around HARD against their inferiors? Why should the same attitude be any different when applied to male/female relations?

    Because that’s what happens when you define a relationship — ANY relationship — in terms of Power Struggle. Dom & Sub, Top & Bottom.

  75. sad observer wrote:

    You know….just gonna throw this out there….could it be any more obvious that a lot of people probably gravitate towards this because they get off on spankings but believe that sub/dom sexual practices are dirty and worldly, making this is their only outlet for those feelings?

    I have cited Bee Jay Driscoll’s “visions” and Song of Songs/Book of Esther sermons as the only outlet permitted that Celebrity uber-Christian for his sexual fantasies. If it’s a Vision from God(TM) or Commandment of God(TM) or Word of God(TM), how can it be Dirty or Worldly?

    “Because people are people, and the world is filled with tricks and twistiness yet undreamed of.”
    — one of The Whole Earth Catalogs

  76. Mark wrote:

    The “sinners prayer” or “salvation prayer”, which is a modern-day invention of the last century or so, is, to use the words of C.S. Lewis “a great cataract of nonsense.”

    As well as being a direct knockoff of the Catholic “Act of Contrition” prayer.

  77. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel?

    hmmm…

    When the Lord doth delay, the evil person will play? When justice is slow, the people travail?

    Huh?

    What did Jesus say about da bad folks gettin in ta His plaze? 

    Isn’t Jesus waiting for somethin’ ?

    …a footstool, perhaps?

    (sadface)

    Sopy

  78. @ Retha:
    Yup. As I see it, the male (and this is almost exclusively a white male whine) has been subject to the same economic and social slings & arrows as all other humans in western culture. Because of it, and adding that women have made a modicum of headway towards full-human status, and also adding that the world is increasingly ethnically/racially interspersed, they’ve had to give over a bit more than the rest. Oh noes!!

    It is always difficult to have to give up things. It is! Some (white) males have been ok with it, recognizing that they’ve been granted illegitimate superior status for a long time. They are courageous and respectable. I am grateful for their clarity and empathy.

    But there are those few who think they deserved their superior status and feel intensely the slight waning of their still-remaining higher position. And it HURTS. Therefore, “lack of incentive!” This is dishonest and cowardly. (And yes, there are always a few females who will also spout the rhetoric, as eg author of this book.)

    The Amazon blurb also said: “But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?” Perhaps because they are human just like the rest of us, no more no less? Perhaps because life is not easy for most humans, but remains rewarding for those who take courage, keep honest, and govern by love, shoulder to shoulder?

    Why would anyone think that “lack of societal incentives” is a valid reason for a person to be (or not to be) ethical? That is the question.

    Heading off the humbug…

  79. @ HUG:
    I assume your question was rhetorical. Mine was actually more or less rhetorical too – unless someone comes up with good evidence to argue for the other side.

  80. Patrice wrote:

    Why would anyone think that “lack of societal incentives” is a valid reason for a person to be (or not to be) ethical?

    What you said. Your whole post, not just these words. I don’t believe life offers the average male who complain there is “a lack of societal incentives” any less incentive to be decent, responsible human beings than it does me.

  81. Funny…my dad reads Helen Smith’s blog pretty consistently. She’s how I found out about the men’s rights stuff in the first place. I was sorta interested in the topic until I followed some of the links on related men’s rights sites and read the comments. Judging by a lot of the commenters, apparently the solution to misandry is misogyny. (Note: I’m not saying Helen Smith is a misogynist, but a lot of the commenters on men’s rights sites seem to be, mostly of the “my wife took all my money in the divorce so WIMMIN SUCK!” variety.)

    Perhaps some of you remember me sharing with Brad the Futurist about one of these sites a few months ago. The commenters on the (disgusting and misogynistic) article – which was about how women of the future will have to “shape up” or else men will ignore them in favor of super-realistic, high-tech porn (which kinda says it all right there, really) – refused to answer a critical comment until they found out whether the commenter was a man or a woman. It was obvious that if the commenter was a man, they would actually try to answer his questions, but if he/she was a woman, the response would be “UR A WOMAN U DON’T GET IT SHUT UP!!!!!!”

    BTW, Zo, emotional abuse is a real thing. To deny this is to claim that no one can ever injure/scar/traumatize someone unless they harm them physically. Take, for instance, a kid who is maliciously locked in a dark closet by his brother and is so traumatized for whatever reason that he is afraid of the dark for the rest of his life. His brother didn’t lay a hand on him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt him. And this is just a one-time incident that makes a big impression, not a pattern of abusive behavior.

  82. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    As well as being a direct knockoff of the Catholic “Act of Contrition” prayer.

    Not to mention all the speculative scenarios circulating about Hitler’s death bed “conversion” (had he not blown the back of his skull out with a pistol), or even Charles Manson coming to “know the Lord”. Lewis was right to chuck it into the dust bin of fanciful twaddle.

  83. @ Val: In answer to your question about the Hell’s Angels, afaik, they began in the US. There are plenty of them, along with rival biker gangs.

  84. Hannah Thomas wrote:

    Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:
    Still blows my mind that this book has sold 70 million plus copies. It is not well written to boot. Lots of “Christian”, church attending ladies have bought this book. What does it say about them?

    I have never read the book, nor descriptions about it personally. I noticed that you said it wasn’t well written. I assume by that you have read it – so why are questioning what it says about them?

    I didn’t actually read the book; there is a book – written for guys – that summarizes the plot and the bad writing. It was pretty funny. After reading this send up of 50 Shades, I had no desire to ever read the real thing.

  85. Injun Joe wrote:

    Not to mention all the speculative scenarios circulating about Hitler’s death bed “conversion” (had he not blown the back of his skull out with a pistol), or even Charles Manson coming to “know the Lord”.

    I have never heard the A.H. one put forth as anything other than hypothetical speculation intended to present the mercy of God.

  86. Hester wrote:

    Funny…my dad reads Helen Smith’s blog pretty consistently. She’s how I found out about the men’s rights stuff in the first place. I was sorta interested in the topic until I followed some of the links on related men’s rights sites and read the comments. Judging by a lot of the commenters, apparently the solution to misandry is misogyny

    My guess is a lot of these “Men’s Rights” and “Men’s Movement” types are guys who got burned bad by women in their experience (such as in a bad divorce) and flipped one-eighty into payback. (I know I’ve been burned by females in the past.) Can’t use the B-word here on WWW, but it does describe what I’m getting at.

  87. Man Alive I took a look at the men on strike site. Sigh. Its okay for men to have sex, but not okay for him to be responsible if they get preggers. Nope. He is doing the rational thing by walking away, because he is being FORCED into fatherhood. (eye roll) He can’t be all that ‘on strike’ if he is willing to have sex to begin with. On strike means having nothing to do with the women after all. Talk about wanting it both ways. Wow!

  88. Hester wrote:

    …the (disgusting and misogynistic) article – which was about how women of the future will have to “shape up” or else men will ignore them in favor of super-realistic, high-tech porn (which kinda says it all right there, really)…

    “The last invention in human history will be the holodeck.”
    — Dilbert

    Extreme, but plausible. I’ve seen something similar happen in Furry Fandom and I understand why. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been able to empathize more with fictional characters than RL people, and when the fictional character is a Perfect Fantasy Fulfillment (whether Perfect Pornstar image or Sparkling Hawt Vampire)…

    But the “shape up”… That’s just another demand that RL women fulfill My Pornstar Fantasy. Like the unrealistic assumptions Christianese Purity Culture puts on married sex (at least when bribing boys to stay virgins until marriage).

    Despite taking heat myself for falling head-over-heels with various non-human fictional characters, a deliberately-unrealistic fantasy is actually less damaging than a real-world human fantasy. I know a white lioness or cobra in a white dress or Goth ferret or Twilight Sparkle will NOT show up at my doorstep IRL. (Or if you’re a Trekkie, whether the Enterprise will beam you up on one of their periodic time-travel jaunts.) But a Perfect Fantasy of fantasy human people in a realistic or real-world setting (like a high school just like yours in Forks, WA) removes that safety distance between reality and fantasy and makes it easier for the fantasy to take over.

  89. Hannah Thomas wrote:

    Its okay for men to have sex, but not okay for him to be responsible if they get preggers. Nope. He is doing the rational thing by walking away, because he is being FORCED into fatherhood. (eye roll)

    No, Mister Real Man “forced” himself when he didn’t keep his pants zipped. Either that or the stork brings babies just like in Forties cartoons.

  90. Hester wrote:

    Judging by a lot of the commenters, apparently the solution to misandry is misogyny.

    I think this is such a wise comment. Why does it have to be a win/lose power struggle all the time? Is that really, deep down, the aim of men, to win?

  91. @ Kristin: re the (female, though this is a broader question) abuser in your family who professes Christian faith. You’re right in saying that it’s a tricky one… incidentally, Jeff S (there being two Jeff’s in on this discussion!) made a good point, which I guess you’ll have read too.

    Lesley and I, a while back, befriended an elderly lady locally that we met at a midweek housegroup-like gathering. We spent a vast amount of time on her, before belatedly waking up to the fact that her profession of Christian faith was just a ruse to convince us that we should be favouring her with our time and effort. She was continually snide and disrespectful to me especially, was (we subsequently discovered) constantly gossiping about us even though she was enraged at the thought that anyone should talk about her. For over a year, while we thought we were progressing towards something that might equate to genuine fellowship, she was merely milking us for company and attention. As soon as we began to address her behaviour and speech directly, she dismissed us as “satanic” and told all our mutual acquaintances (not many, as she’d already alienated most of them) that she “needed to give us space to sort out our marriage”.

    I could go on… the point is that she assiduously presented a front of being Christian. She went on and on about being “full gospel”, the “shed blood of Jesus” and how she was “believing the Lord for healing” of a chronic mobility problem. She even prayed in tongues – i.e., just about exactly two minutes into every prayer meeting, she made her only contribution, which was to recite the same string of syllables as always without interpreting it or in any way building anyone else up. She is, to my knowledge, still drifting from church to church, refusing to submit to anything or anyone, or serve anything. You might get the impression that I regret my own stupidity in not actually testing her fruitfulness (or lack of it) much earlier. You’d be right.

    If I can in any way encourage you here, it would be by pointing out that the oft-quoted-out-of-context scrippie about not judging others is immediately followed by “don’t throw your pearls to the pigs”. We are to know someone by their fruit, and if they cannot produce “fruit that accompanies salvation” then we don’t need to be afraid to draw the relevant conclusion. It’s not as though we are personally consigning them to the lake of fire – we just can’t accept them as fellow-believers.

  92. Re: emotional abuse. Lundy Bancroft (author of Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Angry and Controlling Men) says some relevant things in a talk he gave:

    Abuse is about tyranny and the ability to create fear and intimidation. Abusers believe they have the right to create fear and intimidation.

    The problem is with the abuser’s mentality: his values and attitudes.

    He believes in his right to rule. He’s going to control her in all kinds of ways, most of which do not involve violence.

    He sees himself a superior to his partner and believes he is entitled to a relationship that works completely on his terms.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STQk-dRPQeE

    This is the talk but it might not be this video the quote is in. This is vid 1 of 6 for this talk (which was fascinating, BTW).

  93. @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Yes, exactly, an obvious outworking of the Spirit in someone’s life should be, but often isn’t, the hallmark of a Christ follower. So, Mother Teresa’s incredible energy and dedication to the rejects of society was an outworking of her 3 hour daily prayer sessions. If she had just prayed for three hours her whole life and remained a headmistress of a posh Calcutta school ignoring the growing poverty around her (brought on by the Indian/Pakistan divide during independence), would any recognize her power was from God. As it was, that frail old lady did more work in a day then most, me included, do in a lifetime for the ones society has rejected. But, she managed because she dedicated 3 hours each day to prayer, and publicly stated she couldn’t do what she did without her time with God.

  94. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Mark wrote:
    The “sinners prayer” or “salvation prayer”, which is a modern-day invention of the last century or so, is, to use the words of C.S. Lewis “a great cataract of nonsense.”
    As well as being a direct knockoff of the Catholic “Act of Contrition” prayer.

    Oh if they were the same thing!

  95. Hannah Thomas wrote:

    I have seen that type of comment followed up some equally silly statement stating ‘they yelled at me…its abuse’. Its normally brought up to minimize forms of verbal and emotional abuse – which basically are different forms of bullying if people need a simplistic way of putting it.
    When definitions are given – they again ignore the definition and the pattern of behavior – and again use their example: ‘they yelled at me…its abuse’.

    Hannah,

    Here’s Lundy Bancroft again on yelling:

    “It’s true that almost everyone does yell at one point or another in a relationship, and most people, male or female, call their partners a name from time to time, interrupt, or act selfish or insensitive. These behaviors are hurtful and worthy of criticism, but they aren’t all abuse, and they don’t all have the same psychological effects abuse does. At the same time, all of these behaviors are abusive when they are part of a pattern of abuse. Being yelled at by a respectful partner feels bad, but it doesn’t cause the same chilled, ugly atmosphere that an abuser’s yells do.” (Italics his, bold mine) From page 123 of Why Does He Do That?

    He totally backs you up on this. I agree too. I have been around an abuser when he was yelling at his wife (now ex, thank God) and it was definitely not the same as common yelling.

  96. Mandy wrote:

    Anybody else here tired of Zo’s comments? They don’t seem to contribute anything meaningful to discussions but only to inflame and annoy.

    Hear, hear

    He’s just trolled nonstop ever since he first appeared.

    If you go to some of the commentator’s blogs (Like Nick’s) you will find that he even follows through to them to troll on their blogs too.

    By the way, I like “Son of Jimmy”… maybe we could spice it up with some resurrection puns…

  97. @ HUG:

    “My guess is a lot of these ‘Men’s Rights’ and ‘Men’s Movement’ types are guys who got burned bad by women in their experience (such as in a bad divorce) and flipped one-eighty into payback.”

    Ooooooh yeah. I’d say at least 50% of commenters on some sites. The overall point of such threads seems to be swapping stories about what their “psychob****” (actual term) did to them, and not in a “I need to work through this” kind of way. I mean, some of the women probably were actually unstable – but let’s just say I’d be interested to see what an expert at spotting “abuser code” would say after a look at the comments.

    Per the abuse thing, I get that some men’s rights people are legitimately concerned that people know women can be abusers too (which many don’t). But that has to be balanced against the statistical fact that most spousal abuse is man-on-woman. When the zeal for warning people about abusive women turns into unwarranted skepticism about abusive men (which it seems to often), a line’s been crossed. And in my experience, sites like ACFJ that warn primarily about abusive men do not act this way about female abusers. (Also the rampant denials of huge parts of the definition of “abuse” is never a good sign.) I would never counsel a man who had been abused by his wife to visit a men’s rights site.

    I wish now I had saved the link to that article. It was just so over the top ridiculous…I think it probably went a little beyond men’s rights into the author’s personal crazy. He also made some weird claim that only a certain percentage of men would be mating in the future because they’re the only ones suave/smart enough to pick up women, who are apparently “hypergamous” and will always mate with the most powerful male in the room. He seemed to be a rather out-there member of this group.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_community

  98. CDD is wrong on so many levels. Since the fall men have had a fear of being dominated by women. Any real man loves his wife and would never strike her. Ever.

  99. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
    Goth ferret
    – a phrase that, up until now, I had always taken to be oxymoronic!

    There’s a story behind those two words, Nick.

    About six years ago, I collaborated on an SF novelette with my regular writing partner, a burned-out preacher-man in rural Pennsylvania. Said novelette, “Mask of the Ferret”, was pubbed in the small-press anthology “Infinite Space, Infinite God.” A couple years later, we expanded it into a full-length novel (not so much space-opera as of characters who live in a space-opera universe) that’s still looking for publication.

    My author’s page (under my real name), telling of how a Goth ferret came to be:
    http://isigsf.com/kenpick.html
    My writing partner’s author’s page at the same site:
    http://isigsf.com/alanloewen.html
    (He has to use a pseudonym to avoid “unpleasantness” with his congregation.)

  100. Jeff Crippen wrote:

    . . . one of the sharpest differences relates directly to the very question and subject of your present installment here in reviewing our book – namely, the doctrine of salvation (soteriology). In the old Scofield Bible camp for instance, a person is saved by faith alone in Christ alone, but one could still be “carnal.” That is to say, some dispensationalists such as Charles Ryrie maintained that a person could continue to walk in sin, habitually, never yielding obedience to the Lordship of Christ, and still be a genuine Christian. This is what I was taught back at Multnomah Bible College and Seminary years back. In other words an ABUSER could indeed be a Christian, even though he retained this mentality of entitlement to control and power and use all kinds of wicked tactics on his victims.

    I don’t know if this is the same thing, but when I was growing up in the Baptist church, I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.

  101. Tina wrote:

    I don’t know if this is the same thing, but when I was growing up in the Baptist church, I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.

    There are all manner of bizzaro teachings out there and each and every proponent of the same can “prove” it with Scripture.

  102. Huck wrote:

    Tina wrote:
    I don’t know if this is the same thing, but when I was growing up in the Baptist church, I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.
    There are all manner of bizzaro teachings out there and each and every proponent of the same can “prove” it with Scripture.

    Do NOT get me started!!!! Although I still consider myself a Christian, that is the number ONE frustration I have with Christianity right now, and what some people just don’t seem to get: that every “Christian” group believes that 1) they are the only ones who have the truth, or 2) others may have the truth but “we’re better”–and every.single.thing. they believe can be “proved” by Scripture. Since Christians are supposed to take the Bible as their authority, and many of these beliefs contradict each other, how in the world are you supposed to figure out who’s telling the truth?

  103. Tina wrote:

    Since Christians are supposed to take the Bible as their authority, and many of these beliefs contradict each other, how in the world are you supposed to figure out who’s telling the truth?

    Amen.

  104. Regarding emotional abuse vs physical abuse- in MOST cases (not all), the lasting effects from abuse are emotional, not physical. If only the physical were important, then most physical abuse could be overcome in a few months or years. Wounds can mend and be healed unless they are severe. But the lasting damage that is done is emotional in nature. A physically assaulted woman is damaged not because of physical wounds that never heal, but because of lasting emotional wounds. ALL abuse is emotional abuse. Whether it comes in the form of a punch or threatening words, the damage done is very real.

    And another thing- why the church of all institutions would draw this kind of a line (physical is real abuse, emotional is not) is beyond me. If there is any body of people that should understand that the REAL, ULTIMATE issues people have are not physical, but spiritual and emotional, it is the church. Every week I hear sermons about my spiritual (and therefore emotional) health. The issues addressed in Christianity are almost entirely within the emotional realm. Why on earth would we tell people that the state of their souls (something non-physical that no one can see) is the most important issue they will ever face, and yet say the only kind of pain that matters is physical?

    Finally, what is the fear? That women (and men like me) are going to start making up stories of emotional abuse so that they can get divorced? Why bother? If people want to make up stories in order to justify what they plan to do anyway, let God handle them. The only issue is when people start making up stories in order to abuse others (get child custody, bigger alimony payments, etc), but at the end of the day, that can be addressed by people who know what to look for. The genuine victim isn’t looking to control- she is looking for peace.

    I didn’t need to make up a story to get divorced. If I’d wanted to, I could have. It’s very easy in this day and age. But it mattered to me because I love Jesus and I want to honer him in the choices I make in my life. People who are truly trying to love Jesus aren’t going to be casually throwing the “abuse” word around. I STILL hesitate to use that word for my own situation (preferring “neglect”). By the time a victim gets around to using the word “abuse”, she’s already gone through more internal conflict than non-victims will ever know. People need to stop adding to the conflict and come along side victims. That is what Jesus would do.

  105. Tina wrote:

    I don’t know if this is the same thing, but when I was growing up in the Baptist church, I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.

    Yes, Tina, that is exactly the same thing I was talking about. Good example. The Bible does not present the Christian as a person in whose life Christ is not King. This doesn’t mean we are perfect and sinless, but it does mean that the Christian genuinely loves Christ, has knelt before Him, and owned Him as Lord.

  106. Tina wrote:

    I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.

    Did you also learn that with pictures with little circles: the one is a circle with a simple chair (just an “h” made of straight lines)inside with a cross (representing Jesus) on the seat, and elsewhere beside the throne an “I” to represent the self. And then a circle with I on the chair/throne in the circle and the cross (Jesus)beside, and a third with I on the throne and the cross outside the circle.

  107. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    If you go to some of the commentator’s blogs (Like Nick’s) you will find that he even follows through to them to troll on their blogs too.

    Not complaining – I don’t get many comments!

    🙂

  108. Besides the SGM stuff, this CDD poppycock has to be one the sickest things I’ve heard in a long time… Disgusting. Totally baffled at how some can so blatantly call evil good and still keep a straight face.

    I could think of many more things to say but you’ve already done a pretty good job with your comments, so I’ll leave it at that.

  109. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    My guess is a lot of these “Men’s Rights” and “Men’s Movement” types are guys who got burned bad by women

    Yeah my guess, too. The ravening Men’s Movement parallels those women who’ve been burned bad and went extreme feminist. Pot, meet kettle.

  110. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    JustSomeGuy wrote:
    If you go to some of the commentator’s blogs (Like Nick’s) you will find that he even follows through to them to troll on their blogs too.
    Not complaining – I don’t get many comments!

    Some people are so concerned that all comments agree on a topic that they’ll even attempt to get comments from a different take disallowed and then follow up by trying to make sure that the commentor not holding to the “party line” is thrown off other blogs as well. Aye Carumba. Some people really, really hate diversity.

  111. Jeff S wrote:

    Why on earth would we tell people that the state of their souls (something non-physical that no one can see) is the most important issue they will ever face, and yet say the only kind of pain that matters is physical?

    Excellent comment, Jeff.

    This is a good point. It makes me think of a kind of backward or inverted gnosticism.

  112. @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas:
    I’m not sure whom you mean by “some people”. I can only suppose that you are referring to JustSomeGuy’s observation of your comment on my blog. Obviously his comment here made no attempt to get you thrown off my blog, and I can assure you he has made no such approach to me privately either. The only person who could get you banned from my blog is yourself.

    There is certainly an archetype on the blogsphere – which you seem, Zo, to be doing your level best to fit – that actively and pre-emptively tries to stir up animosity and strife and then characterises any and all responses, whether gracious or in like kind, as an attack.

    You are, however, quite correct in saying that some people despise diversity. Indeed, in my admittedly limited acquaintance with your online persona, I have never once seen you welcome or speak well of an opinion contrary to your own.

    The closest I’ve seen to a one-party-state on the blogsphere was at Mars Hill when Fiscal very briefly opened the church website to questions regarding the Petrie/Meyer affair, then objected in faux-“mature” terms to the fact that people actually asked real questions. Some abusers occupy strong positions of power, others don’t.

  113. Jared wrote:

    I just wanted to point out that the document at the Beginning Domestic Discipline link does not seem to be “Christian” at all. It does not make any reference to Jesus, church, the Bible, etc

    I am so sorry that your comment was held so long before it was approved. I am not sure what happened since I checked for pending comments mid afternoon, supposedly after the time this comment am in. Just wanted to let you know it wasn’t your fault.
    As for the lack of mention of Christian things in that documents, just wait until you see some documents on Mars Hill that we plan to post today! It is absolutely astonishing. My guess is that some of these CDD kooks are as Christian as Mars Hill when it comes to certain assertions!
    Again, I am sorry for the delay on your comment.

  114. @ Nick Bulbeck: I have attempted to be kind to Zo who has gone by other names in the blogosphere and on this blog. His name is Jimmy (and used to be Seneca Griggs) and he was put in time out by this blog for two weeks awhile back. I was hoping he would learn to moderate his comments. I figured he decided not to return.

    Well, he waited and came back under a new name. Unfortunately he did not change his demeanor one bit. I figured out who he was because his comments sounded so similar to Jimmy’s that my radar came on. A couple of other readers figured it out as well. This is not a speculation. I have proof. However, when I alluded to it, Zo said he did not know Jimmy which means he is deliberately lying.

    Therefore, I have had it. Zo/Jimmy/Seneca is banned until he shows me that he can actually empathize with people.

  115. @ Alonzo “Zo” Thomas: We love diversity, not abuse-a word that I know you despise. You especially despise anything to do with emotional abuse. i suspect it may be because you struggle with that in your own life.

    Until you can attempt to express some love, it is time to say good-bye. All of your comments will be held in a pending folder. If I see some changes in your approach, you will be welcomed back.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHBkxTnMhXY

  116. Tina wrote:

    Huck wrote:
    Tina wrote:
    I don’t know if this is the same thing, but when I was growing up in the Baptist church, I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.
    There are all manner of bizzaro teachings out there and each and every proponent of the same can “prove” it with Scripture.
    Do NOT get me started!!!! Although I still consider myself a Christian, that is the number ONE frustration I have with Christianity right now, and what some people just don’t seem to get: that every “Christian” group believes that 1) they are the only ones who have the truth, or 2) others may have the truth but “we’re better”–and every.single.thing. they believe can be “proved” by Scripture. Since Christians are supposed to take the Bible as their authority, and many of these beliefs contradict each other, how in the world are you supposed to figure out who’s telling the truth?

    But that’s the thing. They aren’t lying when they say those positions are proven by scripture.

    And that is precisely because you can prove ANYTHING with scripture.

  117. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Nick Bulbeck wrote:
    JustSomeGuy wrote:
    If you go to some of the commentator’s blogs (Like Nick’s) you will find that he even follows through to them to troll on their blogs too.
    Not complaining – I don’t get many comments!
    Some people are so concerned that all comments agree on a topic that they’ll even attempt to get comments from a different take disallowed and then follow up by trying to make sure that the commentor not holding to the “party line” is thrown off other blogs as well. Aye Carumba. Some people really, really hate diversity.

    Funny that you only seem to reply directly to the comments that say you’re a troll.

  118. @ dee:
    W00t. When I read this post yesterday, I thought about Mars Hill and how DD as well as “Men on Strike” were entwined with its presentations.

    You two rock!

  119. JustSomeGuy wrote:

    And that is precisely because you can prove ANYTHING with scripture.

    Yes. In the opposite direction, connected with current news, here’s Cardinal de Richelieu:

    “If you give me six lines written by the most innocent of men, I can find something in them which will hang him.”

    Written words are malleable. I’m glad that the “Word of God” is Christ and that when he left, the Holy Spirit came in his place. And the HS works inside of us, at the place where our biases and prejudices lie.

  120. Wow, that Jimmy really loves us, doesn’t he? I am currently finding this entire episode hilarious, in that he so clearly gave himself away. I hope you are well Jimmy, possibly trolling is not the career choice for you.

  121. @ Rob:
    I believe that a few are not including Leah’s site. But most are. I forced myself to look at a bunch of them. Sadly I do believe some women think they deserve to be hit.

    Driscoll should love this trend

  122. I am inclined to think that, yes, some of this DD stuff is because of the sexual desires of partners who participate. I am more inclined, however, to think that it really stems from men who call themselves Christian who really just want some sort of “Biblical” reason to beat their wives.

    The Bible has been used, and will continue to be used, as a means to manipulate and abuse by those who look for it. It is beyond sad that our churches, leaders and congregations, are not more discerning but follow like ignorant sheep. Of course, seeing all this happen, it gives me greater reason to teach my children to be discerning and to know how to spot false thinking and abuse in the Christian culture.

  123. Moderated Comments

    First off, no one would like moderation to go away than me. But it’s not going to happen as we have some people who can’t play nice. We are constantly adjusting our rules to allow as much through as possible.

    But asking about moderation just derails the comments. Trust me on this. We’ll see a moderated comment long before we see the comment about a moderated comment.

    If your comment is moderated just let it lie. As soon as we get out of the necessary, wake up from our overnight sleep, get done with dinner, or come home from church or the ball game, we’ll see the comments are release them as appropriate. And at time we’ll even clear them during a lull in the game. 🙂 During a typical day I’ll check for moderated comments every 1/2 hour to hour. And Dee and Deb are on it also.

    And a final note that seems to come up all the time. We will NOT tell why any comment is moderated. That will just allow the folks who do not play nice beat the system.

  124. dee wrote:

    Therefore, I have had it. Zo/Jimmy/Seneca is banned until he shows me that he can actually empathize with people.

    Or until he sneaks back in under a fourth name.

  125. Tina wrote:

    Since Christians are supposed to take the Bible as their authority, and many of these beliefs contradict each other, how in the world are you supposed to figure out who’s telling the truth?

    Nothing like hearing two “truths” that completely contradict each other “proven” by the same chapter-and-verse proof texts. That’s the point where you start wondering if it’s all BS.

  126. Hester wrote:

    He also made some weird claim that only a certain percentage of men would be mating in the future because they’re the only ones suave/smart enough to pick up women, who are apparently “hypergamous” and will always mate with the most powerful male in the room. He seemed to be a rather out-there member of this group.

    That’s animal herd-harem behavior, where the Alpha Male claims ALL the females for his harem and drives away, kills off, or forces submission from all the other males who now have to do without.

  127. dude wrote:

    This is beating your wife repackaged.Whether fist or pattle its beating your wife, sick.

    Only this time it’s Beating Your Wife for Jeesus(TM).

    “In Jesus’ Name, Amen” is the standard Evangelical rote formula for ending a prayer. Does it surprise you that somebody tried to apply that formula to wife-beating and/or spanking kink? And apparently succeeded?

  128. Two comments: The whole idea of wife spanking is just sick. It smacks (pun intended) of being about S&M, not anything Biblical.

    And second: Just because a guy is into hunting and fishing from an early age does not at all equate to the type of cruelty to animals shown by those that become abusers. Not a fair comparison.

  129. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Hester wrote:
    He also made some weird claim that only a certain percentage of men would be mating in the future because they’re the only ones suave/smart enough to pick up women, who are apparently “hypergamous” and will always mate with the most powerful male in the room. He seemed to be a rather out-there member of this group.
    That’s animal herd-harem behavior, where the Alpha Male claims ALL the females for his harem and drives away, kills off, or forces submission from all the other males who now have to do without.

  130. Sorry, I hit “post” too soon. I wanted to comment on Hester’s point about animal-herd harem behavior. We certainly see that in the FLDS (Warren Jeffs, et.al.), and maybe this is paranoid of me, but isn’t there a similar dynamic going on in the “stay-at-home-daughter” movement, in which many daughters stay home to serve Daddy forever?

  131. Tina wrote:

    Since Christians are supposed to take the Bible as their authority, and many of these beliefs contradict each other, how in the world are you supposed to figure out who’s telling the truth?

    You might want to google up Katharine Bushnell. She was a medical doctor and top notch self-taught Hebrew and Greek scholar (but….gasp!… she was a woman!) She was also a social activist in the tradition of all the great 19th cent. reformers. In my home state of Wisconsin, she was instrumental in putting an end to the sex-slavery trade in the logging country.

    She had this to say in her treatise God’s Word to Women:

    “If we find even in the Bible anything that confuses our sense of right and wrong, that seems to us less exalted and pure than the character of God should be: if after the most patient thought and prayerful pondering it still retains that aspect, then we must not bow down to it as God’s revelation to us, since it does not meet the need of the earlier and more sacred revelation He has given us in our spirit and conscience which testify of Him”

  132. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Nothing like hearing two “truths” that completely contradict each other “proven” by the same chapter-and-verse proof texts. That’s the point where you start wondering if it’s all BS.

    Yes, that plus all the shenanigans from “churches” that are shown on TWW and other sites, plus my own experience, I’ve made the Nones grow!

  133. The whole wife spanking thing (why aren’t the wives being encouraged to spank the husbands?*) is creepy, and adding the religious veneer to it makes it creepier still.

    *(If some Christians are going to be creepy, it should be an equal opportunity creep out).

    I think Paul says something in the NT about yes, you have liberty in Christ, but do not abuse it.

    Paul also advises (does he not?) don’t do weird stuff in public or around Non Christians that makes Non-Christians think badly of the faith.

    Paul, IIRC, also says some stuff is shameful to talk about in public, so shut your yap about it.

    He also says that just because you “can” do something doesn’t mean that you “should,” or that if you do, don’t brag about whatever it is, lest it messes up some other Christian’s faith.

    IMHO, wife spanking definitely falls under one or more of the above parameters.

    If you are a married Christian couple participating in spousal spanking (I am assuming this is 100% consensual behavior on both parties), just keep it to yourself. Don’t blog about it (to advance it) or write books about it.

    Just because ‘such and such’ a thing is technically lawful does not mean it is beneficial to the body of Christ or should be done, or whatever that verse says.

  134. Some of the other aspects of this discussion remind me of the Lordship Salvation debate.

    This guy blogs about it a lot (he is against Lordship Salvation):
    Ex Preacher Man Blog

    It is troubling to see someone who claims to follow Christ, and they might appear genuine, and you later find out they are kicking puppies for fun every day.

    You do wonder if/whether that puppy kicking person really is a Christian at all, but the flip side of that bothers me too, that is, some Christians then invent stuff like “Lordship salvation.”

    Lordship Salvation makes being a Christian into a works-based lifestyle, which isn’t good, either. I think some Christians want some instant, easy, fool- proof way to tell if someone is the real thing, or a false convert, and LS falls under that.

    The Bible says even after someone comes to Christ that he or she will occasionally still sin (Rom 7:15, 1 John 1:8).

    OTOH, Christ said there will be false converts (Mark chatper 4) and wolves in sheeps clothing. The Bible gives tips on how to spot them.

    Christ also said you can tell the true apart from the false in the ‘by their fruit you will know them for a good tree give good fruit, a bad tree bad’ passage.

    Other epistles by Paul acknowledges that some people say they are Christian, and rather than getting hung up on the issue of ‘is this person really saved or not?,’ Paul seems to lean on just dealing with the behavior itself and not the condition of the person’s soul.

    If a guy says he is a Christian, but he’s guilty of committing whatever sin, and he won’t repent, then Paul says, you deal with it by kicking that guy out of the community of believers for such and such an amount of time, or what have you.

    Or, (to paraphrase), “if a guy says he is a believer, but does “X,” then with such a one do not even eat.” (1 Corinthians 5:11)

    Paul doesn’t say to sit around trying to figure out if Brother Ralph is truly a Christian or not, but that if Ralph is acting contrary to established Christian ethics, kick him out. (If my memory serves me.)

    I would like to think that if someone is truly saved, he/she will not do things like rape or murder people, but isn’t there a passage in the NT which alludes this is possible, only God will not put up with it, that is, that person will remained saved, but God will take their physical life?

    And look at that married couple in Acts Chapter 5 (Ananias, Sapphira). After they each lied about the price of the field, the Holy Spirit killed them both.

    I think I may have heard a preacher once explain that Ananias and his wife were not Christians to begin with, though.

    I think he based this on the fact that the text describes them as “a man and his wife,” whereas in the rest of NT, where a Christian is being discussed, the text will say, “now a certain believer blah blah blah…”

    The OP (original post), says,
    “However, it might attract Mark Driscoll devotees.”

    If y’all had not mentioned Driscoll, I would have. This spousal- spanking kookiness seems right up his alley. 😆

    (Side tangent here. The conservative Christian world will tolerate male preachers who peddle this odd ball, sexual kinkiness from the pulpit on a regular basis, but any normal Christian woman (even one without seminary training) would do a more competent job at preaching than guys such as Driscoll. I find this so ironic.)

  135. (My post right above this one is in moderation queue.)

    Quote by Leah,

    He had more deer horns on his wall than anybody I’d ever met, and out in his woodworking shop he had a large set of tusks that he told me came from a wild boar he killed when he was 13 years old.

    I am a huge animal lover and am opposed to hunting. Having said that, I come from a long line of red neck, good ol country boys, who love to hunt. (Some hunt coons, some deer.)

    One of these hunter guys was not a Christian, was an alcoholic, and beat on other family members (this guy died years ago). Ironically, he treated his hunting dogs like gold but treated his own children like crud, pretty much.

    Yet others (including some females) love to go deer hunting yearly. They will post photos of dead deer they shot on their Facebook pages, where I have to see the photos. 🙁

    The adults in that family even encourage their teen daughters to shoot and kill deer, which they do 🙁

    Other than the deer shooting, these are decent people.

    One of the deer shooter families I’m related to adopted the little son (under age five, I think) of another cousin who is in and out of jail all the time, who has had like 199,776 kids by 956 different women.

    As far as I can tell, they are good, loving parents to the adopted kid. They treat him as one of their own, and they already had two or three kids of their own.

    But it is true that people who torture animals and kill them (and not in a normal hunting situation, but kill them for twisted kicks and fun) do tend to be abusive to people, or have a geranium in the cranium. Even the FBI is privy to this.

    If you read material about serial killers, it almost always says, “and the serial killer enjoyed torturing or killing animals when he was younger.”

  136. Daisy wrote:

    (why aren’t the wives being encouraged to spank the husbands?*)

    I know you’re being rhetorical but I want to say this anyway. The whole point is that the wife is to be dominated by the husband. There is no equal opportunity anything. Hence “it ends any power struggles that may exist in the relationship.” There are no power struggles where it is understood that one party has all the power and is entitled to enforce his will through “discipline.” Patriarchal doctrine being what it is, I’m surprised this isn’t more wide spread, frankly. I certainly see nothing in Patriarchy that would protect against it. Rather, “C”DD seems to be a logical extension of Patriarchy.

  137. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    70 millions plus copies of “Fifty Shades of Gray” ( Women’s erotica ) have been sold.
    I don’t think it’s the men buying the book.
    It’s the women.

    I don’t know if Zo has been banned from the blog, and I’m not totally sure what he was getting at here, but, rather than reading something negative into his comments (and he probably did mean something negative), he is actually confirming something here that I’ve been saying all along.

    I do think there is a lot of abuse of women by men (physical, sexual, verbal). That is true, and I don’t support any of that.

    However, I’ve brought up before how there are weird, inaccurate views in American Christendom (and even among Non Christians) about women and sex, including the beliefs that women don’t like sex at all, and only men are “visually oriented.”

    I hear and see those points raised frequently by preachers in sermons about gender and marriage, and by male and female Christian authors who write about marriage and dating in Christian books and blogs.

    It may be true that some women don’t care for sex or don’t want it as frequently as most men do, and so on and so forth, but there are misunderstandings, or false portrayals, of female sexuality in Christian circles.

    The end result is that Christian men get inaccurate views from preachers on topics such as, how they (the men) look to women is not important, and women are told their looks matter an awful lot.

    So, Christian men can be fat and unattractive, but still think they deserve an attractive Christian woman to date or marry.

    The Christian women are told to stay pretty all the time, and not expect to get a good- looking guy, just be happy that the guy is “spiritual” or a “good provider.” (Women do care about a man’s looks, not just if he is “spiritual” or not.)

    Another result of these weird Christian views on sex and gender:

    Married women are pressured by preachers to perform sexually for their husbands all the time (because sex is so, so, so important to all men, and men want sex all the time).

    And, any time the man wants it, the wife should perform, and what the woman wants sexually does not matter (since women supposedly don’t even like sex; they only want “emotional intimacy”).

    When it’s been reported in the news that online porn usage among women has increased the last several years (we’re not talking literature, such as erotica or romance novels, but full- blown sex scenes on video), some conservative Christian males go into shock over this.

    It’s because in Christianity, there’s this parody that only men like sex and enjoy looking at physically attractive members of the opposite sex.

    Such Christians are not, IMO, comfortable with acknowledging that (Christian) women are also sexual and like looking at good- looking nude (or even good looking clothed) males.

    Christian women are supposed to only think about Jesus, Bible devotions, and baking bread for African orphans.

    I really think it makes Christians uncomfortable to think of a Christian woman day-dreaming about a shirtless Channing Tatum (movie actor) because she finds the guy attractive.

    Maybe this is due in part to some kind of unfair expectation that women be the more noble, pure gender, and men are just expected to be pigs, so it’s not shocking if you hear that men like looking at dirty photos or at sexy people.

    Zo at least realizes women have sex drives and are interested in sex, which is more than I can say for most “Focus on the Family,” Mark Driscolls, Pat Robertsons, or other such types of Christians.

    BTW, in all the book excerpts I’ve seen by Driscoll, or reviews of his sermons, he only discusses how women can please their man in bed.

    Driscoll talks about what sort of things men like sexually from women (Driscoll of course projects his personal sexual preferences on to all men; he assumes all men want X in bed because that is what he enjoys).

    I’ve never seen Driscoll explain to men in the audience what women enjoy or prefer sexually. Probably because Driscoll has bought into the false belief that women do not like sex at all.

  138. With all due respect, this whole thread, discussing some goofy personal perversions of a blogger who heads up a tiny, tiny minority of fellow perverts, seems to be a distraction from the real BIG issues that TWW has been addressing of late. I understand why the world would be focusing on this, as they try to blow up some of the silliest things into big news stories on slow news days – especially something that can be used to make Christians look bad. Let’s not get sucked into that ploy.

    >rant over<

  139. People that are into this DD just need to be honest, and say they like fetishes. That’s all it is, and attempting to interject their faith into it? Nice try.

  140. anonymous wrote:

    Patriarchal doctrine being what it is, I’m surprised this isn’t more wide spread, frankly. I certainly see nothing in Patriarchy that would protect against it. Rather, “C”DD seems to be a logical extension of Patriarchy.

    On a web site for women who used to be in patriarchy (No Longer Quivering) they mentioned “C”DD in their weekly link round-up with words like “the rest of the world suddenly also found out about Christian domestic discipline. Yawn.”

    That, and a few other things, tell me it is not rare in patriarchy, they just don’t advertise it widely.

  141. (About two – three of my posts above this one are sitting in moderation queue. I hope this post goes through first time!)

    Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Still blows my mind that this book has sold 70 million plus copies. It is not well written to boot. Lots of “Christian”, church attending ladies have bought this book. What does it say about them?

    That they’re interested in sex, probably? (Unless the male lead in the book is depicted as being a tough- yet- sensitive Prince Charming type, with a nice body to boot, that could have something to do with it – a lot of women are looking for a human man – and preferably hot too- to be a savior figure to them, rather than looking to God Himself for this role).

    Kudos to you for noting that Christian women have libidos. I mean that sincerely and not in a snarky way.

    I’ve not read the ’50 Shades of Grey’ book myself.

  142. Patricia in MA wrote:

    …but isn’t there a similar dynamic going on in the “stay-at-home-daughter” movement, in which many daughters stay home to serve Daddy forever?

    Like Craster’s Keep near the Wall in northern Westeros?
    (My roomie got me hooked on Game of Thrones…)

  143. @ Hanna: It is a lot worse than that. People are being told this is the Christian thing to do, they should do it even if they do not want to. That makes it very abusive, not merely giving in to weird fetishes. (Not that giving in to fetishes like dom/sub is healthy, but this is saying “God wants you to do it” and “If you are a good Christian, you will do it.”

  144. Daisy wrote:

    (Unless the male lead in the book is depicted as being a tough- yet- sensitive Prince Charming type, with a nice body to boot, that could have something to do with it – a lot of women are looking for a human man – and preferably hot too- to be a savior figure to them, rather than looking to God Himself for this role).

    Well, there IS a rumor that 50 Shades started out as a Twilight fanfic…

  145. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Sorry Anon – did not notice the previous question. Would you mind giving me your understanding of “domestic abuse.” It Seems to me it can range from allegations of battering/assault to “my spouse makes me feel uncomfortable.”

    The fact that you have to have it spelled out like that, and that it appears as though verbal / emotional abuse is being downplayed by you as “making the spouse feel uncomfortable” speaks volumes.

    Maybe you could define for us what you consider spousal abuse, emotional/ verbal abuse, with concrete examples, and what, in your view (with an example or two) what constitutes a situation or action that might be discomfort as opposed to full blown abuse?

    And can I say, even something that would qualify as ‘discomfort,’ as opposed to outright abuse, can still be very bad.

    If you truly love your spouse and doing “discomforting thing X” bothers her, or hurts her feelings, you, as a caring spouse, would stop doing “X.”

  146. linda wrote:

    And second: Just because a guy is into hunting and fishing from an early age does not at all equate to the type of cruelty to animals shown by those that become abusers. Not a fair comparison.

    While a cruel man might go into hunting for the thrill of killing, once you get outside the big cities on the coasts Hunting culture is actually fairly widespread in rural flyover country. I’ve known a few hunters myself; most of them would qualify as “Rednecks” to the Metrosexual Yuppie culture I SHOULD be immersed in due to my age, status, and income, but you know what?

    I like hanging out with rural redneck types. They’re direct. They’re REAL. You piss ’em off and they’ll call you out right then and there with fists instead of sending a process server coming to your door a couple weeks later with the everything-you’ve-got lawsuit.

  147. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    C) Reading previous comments, my definition and your definition of “domestic abuse” just might have som major differences. Specially when you get into the whole “emotional abuse” schtick.
    Currently I be reading an excellent book by Dr. Helen Smith, “MEN ON STRIKE.”

    There really is such a thing as emotional abuse.

    Sometimes men emotionally abuse women, and sometimes women emotionally abuse men. And it happens in marriages, in friendships, in dating, on the job, and parents- to- children.

    Often, females emotionally abuse other females, since we are taught to repress overt displays of anger, aggression, or even assertiveness (females are taught to refrain from physical blows – we are taught to be catty, mean, and to socially ostracize other women).

    The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

    Same author also wrote:
    “The Emotionally Abused Woman: Overcoming Destructive Patterns and Reclaiming Yourself”

  148. Hester wrote:

    Judging by a lot of the commenters, apparently the solution to misandry is misogyny. (Note: I’m not saying Helen Smith is a misogynist, but a lot of the commenters on men’s rights sites seem to be, mostly of the “my wife took all my money in the divorce so WIMMIN SUCK!” variety.)

    That has been my experience too, when visiting such blogs, or even blogs or articles about divorce and Christians.

    The “Christian” men in the comment sections leave some of the most hateful, sexist comments.

    They really hate all women, every where, just because their ex wife, in their estimation, did them wrong.

    I came across blogs like that before while looking up content about Christians and singleness.

    I’ve seen Non Christian men act like that online, but it’s always more shocking when the hatred towards the entire female gender is coming from men who claim to believe in Jesus, read their Bibles, and attend church weekly.

  149. Hannah Thomas wrote:

    He is doing the rational thing by walking away, because he is being FORCED into fatherhood. (eye roll) He can’t be all that ‘on strike’ if he is willing to have sex to begin with. On strike means having nothing to do with the women after all. Talk about wanting it both ways. Wow!

    Let me help you with the eye roll thing (it’s the word “roll” between colons):

    🙄 🙄 🙄

    (I agree with your post, btw.)

  150. TedS. wrote:

    With all due respect, this whole thread, discussing some goofy personal perversions of a blogger who heads up a tiny, tiny minority of fellow perverts, seems to be a distraction from the real BIG issues that TWW has been addressing of late. I understand why the world would be focusing on this, as they try to blow up some of the silliest things into big news stories on slow news days – especially something that can be used to make Christians look bad. Let’s not get sucked into that ploy.

    With like respect, though I agree that on the surface this may seem like a discussion of a minority issue compared to the very big ones that TWW has been addressing, but it is my personal opinion that this can very easily become a big issue in the future. What if one the of “big dogs” picks up on this idea? Will this trickle it’s way into the mainstream churches? Will every church on the corner be doing a sermon series on spousal discipline? Though the idea may be among a small minority now, I feel that it is important to know these trends, no matter how small or trivial they may seem, so that IF they ever make it onto the big scene, we know about them and can identify them.

  151. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Women also get the “if you wait til marriage you will have awesome sex” propaganda, sometimes with a twist, like, “and, the guy you marry will be really sensitive / financially stable, too.”

    We ladies also get (implied or stated out-right in sermons and Christian books on dating etc):

    “If you remain a virgin, you will get married [by age 25 – 35].

    Here I am, a good girl in my early 40s, and still husband-less, so you can imagine what I think of those lines and promises now.

    If it cheers you up at all… a lot of women don’t dig Sparkly Vampire Guy.

    I think the only females who dug Ed Cullen were under the age of 17.

    Check this picture out:
    Male Sex Symbols: Then And Now, What the heck happened?
    (1980s Indiana Jones vs 2009 Ed Cullen)

  152. Retha wrote:

    That, and a few other things, tell me it is not rare in patriarchy, they just don’t advertise it widely.

    Huh! Now, why do you suppose that might be?

  153. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    I agreed with the rest of your post, I wanted to focus just briefly on this:

    She even prayed in tongues – i.e., just about exactly two minutes into every prayer meeting, she made her only contribution, which was to recite the same string of syllables as always without interpreting it or in any way building anyone else up.

    As someone who was raised Southern Baptist, I was always pretty open about the tongues speaking stuff, where as most Southern Baptists seem pretty dang opposed altogether.

    Speaking in tongues never happened to me personally, which makes me have doubts about it, and I was never against the concept.

    I don’t know if tongues speaking is for Christians today or not.

    But any time I have heard people (Pentecostals and Charismatics, usually) speak in tongues, on television, and once in person at a church service I went to (at a non denomination church), it always sounds like this:

    Ahhh ram a dong shama longa ding dong
    doo wop, doo wop
    ah mama mama, oh shoo lee loo loo

    That is what raises doubts in my mind, not any theological arguments for or against, that anytime I hear someone “speak in tongues” it sounds like a bad 1950s American doo wop rock and roll song refrain/chorus.

    Then there is the Bing Crosy variation of “speaking in tongues” which sounds more like:

    Shoo bee dooby doo,
    Shooby dooby doo,
    dooby dobby doo doo
    va voom voom shooby dooby doo…

    If the Holy Spirit is going to talk through people, I have reservations that He’s going to sound like a 1950s doo wop singer, or a bad Frank Sinatra or Crosby impression.

    Also, the Bible says you are not to speak in tongues unless there is someone in the room who can translate for everyone else.

    Anytime I hear people say,
    “Oh womp a boo bop, bop a boo bop, rama lama shama ding dong,”
    there is never, ever anyone who jumps up in the service to translate.

  154. Alonzo “Zo” Thomas wrote:

    Some people really, really hate diversity.

    There’s a difference between expressing genuine differences of opinion and someone who simply likes stirring up the pot – and who enjoys that he or she is riling others up. You come across as more a pot stirrer.

    I don’t agree with everyone on this blog about everything either, but I don’t try to intentionally poke them on their hot button topics or argue just to argue, provoke, or get a reaction.

    I sometimes drop out of disagreements here if someone else seems really offended or perturbed by my views/comments on something, depending on what it is.

    I’m not on this blog to argue anyway. I more enjoy chatting with people who are like-minded as opposed to squabbling with people who don’t share my views.

  155. @ Daisy: I do believe tongues is for today, but leaving that point aside for a moment, some of our favourite “specimen messages in tongues” back in the day included:

    Shicaymona Honda
    Ahlavva Lahga
    Ohhhh fora shandi
    Ahkikka mashinzona Calagassita

    They’re probably funnier if you’re familiar with the UK english expressions they’re aping, but it’s worth a try.

    I used to get into trouble for being frivolous. But there are few things sadder than charismatic believers who can’t occasionally laugh at themselves… I’ve heard the weirdest noises from people speaking in tongues, I can tell you. One lassie sounded like Tweaky out of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but speeded up. I don’t even know how to do that.

    A wee snippet from The Life of Brian should do to finish off with!

  156. @ linda:

    Another thing too is that the speaking thing encourages people to think of grown women as being little girls.

    American Christian culture is already pretty bad about treating adult women as though they are infants, under codependency teachings, which are billed as being gender complementarianism or as “biblical gender roles.”

  157. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    (and you quoted linda about this)

    I mentioned this in a long post several posts above this one (that is in mod queue, with a couple others that have not been published yet), that I don’t like animal hunting myself, but, I am related to some hunters, and they are decent people, other than the deer hunting.

  158. Daisy wrote:

    But any time I have heard people (Pentecostals and Charismatics, usually) speak in tongues, on television, and once in person at a church service I went to (at a non denomination church), it always sounds like this:

    Ahhh ram a dong shama longa ding dong
    doo wop, doo wop
    ah mama mama, oh shoo lee loo loo

    That is what raises doubts in my mind, not any theological arguments for or against, that anytime I hear someone “speak in tongues” it sounds like a bad 1950s American doo wop rock and roll song refrain/chorus.

    Ooooo, Eeeee, Oooooo Ah Ah
    Ting Tang, Walla-walla Bing-bang
    Ooooo Eeeee Oooooo Ah Ah
    Ting Tang Walla-walla Bing-bang?

    Actually, I’ve heard it described as “sounding like scat-singing in Hebrew”, as a lot of the times I’ve heard tonguing, I could pick out the occasional Hebrew word like “Shekinah” or “Adonai” but that was it.

    Another blogger at a now-defunct blog called it “Ronda Khonda Shonda…”

    All I can say for sure is “I don’t do it myself.” When I was on the fringe of the Holy Rollers, I was the only one to choose “Wisdom” instead of “Tongues Tongues Tongues Tongues Tongues” when they popped the question. And I’ve seen “I Tongue and YOU DON’T” used as yet another weapon in Christianese One-Upmanship.

  159. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I used to get into trouble for being frivolous. But there are few things sadder than charismatic believers who can’t occasionally laugh at themselves…

    Nick, True Believers are genetically incapable of laughing at themselves. Too wrapped up in The Cause.

  160. Lola wrote:

    Though the idea may be among a small minority now, I feel that it is important to know these trends, no matter how small or trivial they may seem, so that IF they ever make it onto the big scene, we know about them and can identify them.

    I think the spanking thing may be an overall part of the disturbing sexualization of churches and of Christians.

    One preacher put a stripper pole in his church on a Sunday morning, and another one said he would not rule out hiring actual strippers coming to his church on a Sunday morning service and performing, if it meant attracting un-saved men.

    The Bible says you are to draw men (and women) via the cross of Christ, not by naked women on stripper poles.

    Preacher installs stripper pole at church

    Pastor Mike Scruggs of White Oak, Ohio admits he’s anything but your traditional pulpit preacher. Scruggs had on display a stripper pole and a bed complete with candy and roses.

  161. Retha wrote:

    Tina wrote:
    I learned that one could be saved with Christ on the throne of your life, one could be saved with “self” on the throne of your life, or one could be lost.
    Did you also learn that with pictures with little circles: the one is a circle with a simple chair (just an “h” made of straight lines)inside with a cross (representing Jesus) on the seat, and elsewhere beside the throne an “I” to represent the self. And then a circle with I on the chair/throne in the circle and the cross (Jesus)beside, and a third with I on the throne and the cross outside the circle.

    I don’t remember the crosses and the circles, but I remember the chairs: one had the “saved (Christ)”, and IIRC, a little crown on the throne; one had “saved (self)” and I don’t remember what was on the throne there; and one had “lost”, and again, I don’t remember what was there.

  162. Daisy wrote:

    I am related to some hunters, and they are decent people, other than the deer hunting.

    There’s a deer-hunting based comedy (both live stage and small-budget movie) written by and starring Jeff Daniels titled “Escanaba in da Moonlight”, based on the deer-hunting culture of “Da U.P.”, i.e. rural Northern Michigan. In that culture, “bagging your first buck” is a rite of passage into manhood (it shows you can provide for your family in a pinch), and Jeff Daniels plays “a buckless Yooper” who at 47 is “lookin’ at da wrong end of da record books” and whose antics to bag da buck get stranger and more desperate the longer the time at his family’s “deer camp”. It’s definitely lowbrow humor, but I like it. I think it’s available on DVD and in ten-minute segments on YouTube.

    Here’s Daniels’ accompanying ballad, “Ballad of the Buckless Yooper”:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPEoVhFH3Ok

  163. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I did wonder. A lot of women I know are into speaking, and they don’t seem at all odd.

    Then you would differ from a lot of Christian guys in America who think women speaking is odd. And bad. And wrong. And women should never, ever speak, especially never in church, and never about theology! 🙂

    (A woman asking “who would like a cup of coffee?” in the church kitchen might be acceptable to most men here.)

  164. Daisy wrote:

    I think the spanking thing may be an overall part of the disturbing sexualization of churches and of Christians.
    One preacher put a stripper pole in his church on a Sunday morning, and another one said he would not rule out hiring actual strippers coming to his church on a Sunday morning service and performing, if it meant attracting un-saved men.

    I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:
    CHRISTIANS ARE JUST AS SCREWED-UP SEXUALLY AS EVERYONE ELSE, JUST IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION.

  165. Daisy wrote:

    Shoo bee dooby doo,
    Shooby dooby doo,
    dooby dobby doo doo
    va voom voom shooby dooby doo…

    If the Holy Spirit is going to talk through people, I have reservations that He’s going to sound like a 1950s doo wop singer, or a bad Frank Sinatra or Crosby impression.

    No, that’s not a bad Crosby impression. You never heard my late father trying to do a Crosby impression. Now THAT was truly PAINFUL to listen to….

  166. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I could pick out the occasional Hebrew word like “Shekinah” or “Adonai” but that was it.

    I have heard a small number of Word of Faith, Neo Pentecostal types on TBN and Day Star drop in the occasional Hebrew sounding word, yes.

    But I usually hear something such as,
    ‘Rama lama ahh shama longa ding dong.”

    And I either 🙄 or I 😆

    I swear the usual “speaking in tongues” I hear reminds me of some of the non-sense lyrics in…
    John Travolta & Olivia Newton John – ‘We Go Together’ 1978 (‘Grease’)

  167. Daisy wrote:

    If it cheers you up at all… a lot of women don’t dig Sparkly Vampire Guy.
    I think the only females who dug Ed Cullen were under the age of 17.

    You never heard of “Twimoms”, have you?

    Fifty- and Sixty-something Sparkling Eddie fangirls. Truly scary.

    And then there was Sparkling Eddie’s Number-one Fangirl, Stephanie Myers herself.

  168. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    I had not heard of that before.

    Some of my family who are into deer hunting are women. They raised their teen daughters to participate in this too.

    As a big animal lover, I don’t like hunting and am dismayed to see their dead deer photos on my Facebook feed, but every deer season, there they are.

  169. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:
    CHRISTIANS ARE JUST AS SCREWED-UP SEXUALLY AS EVERYONE ELSE, JUST IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION.

    While I do believe that the spanking phenomenon may be a guise for abusive men to abuse their wives and cover it up, I also kind of agree with another individual higher up this page who says he (or she?) suspects there are some Christians who are just into this kinky stuff but feel too ashamed to admit it, because they feel it’s “dirty,” so they dress it up in Bible talk to make it sound holy and proper.

    I think there are a lot of Christians (real or nominal) who are like that… they are smuggling in, or parading, all sorts of questionable, racy, or saucy stuff into church services, Christian books, etc, and trying to dress it up as being biblical to pass it off as being normal.

    And some of it may even be okay – not necessarily un-, anti-, or pro- biblical, but it should probably not be brought out into the public, or excessively, positively blogged about by the people who practice it.

    If you are a married Christian couple who gets turned on by the husband dressing as Bat Man and the wife dressing as Lois Lane, or whatever your thing is, I suppose that’s all fine and dandy.

    But you don’t need to announce it at church, or on every other blog page, or write a book about it, or tell other Christians to have a great marriage they simply must do the Bat Man and Lois thing too, because it works for you.

  170. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Mmm hmm, yep, I’ve heard of them, but mostly the 40 somethings (ladies in my age range) lusting after Wolf Guy, the one who never wore a shirt in the Twilight movies. His name escapes me at the moment.

    I think I was in my mid or late 30s when the first Twilight movie came out, but most of the articles said the ladies who had crushes on 20 something Wolf Guy were in their 40s at the time.

    I’m just as icked out by older women going after much younger men, as I am when the genders are reversed.

  171. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    have you come across an English christian writer called Adrian Plass?

    Incredibly funny though Adrian is (and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him), his best book is A Smile on the Face of God. A book that often had me in tears. Just bought another copy of it off Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. Well worth it. 🙂

  172. TedS. wrote:

    heads up a tiny, tiny minority of fellow perverts, seems to be a distraction from the real BIG issues that TWW has been addressing of late

    When I write a post, especially when reviewing a book, I like to throw in some side things that interest me that might pertain to the post.

    In this particular instance, i addressed Crippen’s thoughts on the salvation of a serial abuser. I added some thing like history of an abuser and some question to ask an abuser. I saw the item on CDD on The Huffington Post and it was getting lots of comments. I, too, thought it was a disguise for sexual perversion. However, I became convinced that there are actually a few people who believe that disciplining your wife is biblical and are not using it as a cover for perversion.

    So, I took the history of the woman, Leah, showed she had been previously abused by an ex and was now choosing the same sort of man to marry once again. I added a bit of his history, as printed on her blog, that raised some red flags that fit in with our discussion on abuse. I believe, after reading her stuff, that she is at high risk for abuse.

    The other day, I tied Patrick Stewart, who is not a Christian as far as i know, into the mix for people to see see his good work with the hopes that those in churches might wonder why the church does not do as much for the issue of domestic abuse.

    It always is fascinating to me to see which direction a discussion progresses. I thought that there would be far more debate on the “Is he, or isn’t he, a Christian?” angle.

  173. @ TedS.:
    Agreed–and still one can see some overlap with mainstream patriarchy. They quote the same Bible verses and even the same extra-biblical terms. For example, I first found the CDD website by searching something like “husband neither a dictator nor doormat”– a phrase popular with a TGC fellow and repeated verbatim by CDD.
    To step down the back-alley a bit, I would like to quibble over just one word on the CDD home page. Only the Alpha Male can *give* this special kind of *love*. But who is the recipient?
    They say, “CDD is practised between a man and a woman. In MOST (my caps) cases, it is practised between a husband and a wife.” What about the OTHER cases? Who gets to *enjoy* all the bea…er…lovings then? Hmm….I presume they mean between Alpha Male and a sexual partner: sister-wife, concubine, slave, fiancée, girlfriend, ex, friend-with-benefits, one-night-stand, mistress, fellow-swinger, prostitute. But they MAY cast a wider net: mother, grandmother, sister, in-law, outlaw (if the Alpha Male is in Law Enforcement), platonic roommate, employee, student, stay-at home-adult-daughter, and, if the Alpha Male is a pastor—–parishioner!

  174. Daisy wrote:

    If you are a married Christian couple who gets turned on by the husband dressing as Bat Man and the wife dressing as Lois Lane, or whatever your thing is, I suppose that’s all fine and dandy.
    But you don’t need to announce it at church, or on every other blog page, or write a book about it, or tell other Christians to have a great marriage they simply must do the Bat Man and Lois thing too, because it works for you.

    I believe that’s an application of a favorite Sixties expression and the title/chorus of this song from my grsde-school days:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnxXZtCBRlE

  175. Daisy wrote:

    Mmm hmm, yep, I’ve heard of them, but mostly the 40 somethings (ladies in my age range) lusting after Wolf Guy, the one who never wore a shirt in the Twilight movies. His name escapes me at the moment.

    Ever heard of the Twitter-length review of Twilight?
    “Author self-insert can’t decide between bestiality or necrophilia.”
    (Yes, I hate Sparkling Eddie. For all those writers whose agent or publisher threw there manuscript back in their face with “It’ll never sell. Write a Vampire Romance instead.”)

  176. dee wrote:

    I thought that there would be far more debate on the “Is he, or isn’t he, a Christian?” angle.

    I discussed it in a very long post above that is still sitting in moderation.

    Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Apostle Paul telling Christians to judge if a self professing believer was really saved or not, he just instructed them, that if ‘Sister Bertha’ was living in unrepentant sin to discipline her.

    I guess you’re just supposed to worry more about a person’s behavior, rather than the state of the person’s soul at that point?

  177. I was not even looking for anything about spanking when I came across this:

    Christians Believe Falsely Pat Robertson Said ‘Wives Must Be Spanked’

    The fact that so many Christians would believe Robertson said such a thing may indicate, and they did believe he really said it, (and, as the author concluded), it’s time for him to retire, if you can’t tell his serious comments apart from satire anymore.

    This headline is for real (it is not satire):

    Pat Robertson: Marine training was easy for me, ‘but I’m not a lady’

    It’s absolutely breathtaking how he manages to be sexist without even trying to be.

  178. dee wrote:

    I thought that there would be far more debate on the “Is he, or isn’t he, a Christian?” angle.

    Perhaps folks are very uncomfortable with it. At least that is my experience with it. They take some proof text verses and apply that it is a sin to make any judgements at all. I think Jeff Crippen nails it on this issue. I do think there is much in scripture that backs up his take on it from all of 1 John to Hebrews 10, Jude, etc.

    when we detect a pattern (walking in the dark) we should take great care and even take precautions when there is no pattern but also no serious remorse. Getting caught is not an indicator of godly grief over sin.

    I am not convinced that Jesus hung on the cross so we believers could stay in continual sin against others while masquerading as his followers because of “grace”. I do not think that is the definition of grace. I don’t buy that a person can have the indwelling Holy Spirit while raping a child, for example.

    I think we DO need to talk about these things and discuss what “bearing fruit” means and might look like. It seems today many think it means getting converts or something like that. Growing churches, attending church, etc.

    What is a true believer like as a person? Sounds like a good topic to me.

  179. @ Anon 1:

    Sometimes these conversations about if someone is really saved or not, in light of someone who says they are saved but keeps living in sin, covers the same territory as “Lordship Salvation” debates. (I mentioned that in my long post that is in moderation above.)
    Lordship Salvation page on Wiki

  180. Oh jeez. I stumbled upon CDD several years ago. From what I could find back then (and I did look it up extensively to see if it was actually a thing…ick), it was mostly some thin veneer to hide behind a BDSM fetish. Lots of stories about spankings written by women for supposed “naughty” things. I even stumbled upon a few CDD stores selling spanking devices (leather paddles) and garments (shorts with holes to leave the buttocks bare).

    I don’t care if a couple wishes to engage in mutual BDSM, but to call it something like CDD gives me the creeps, not to mention in lends creedence to people who find abuse to be justified.

    Excuse me while I go try to rinse my mind out now. Ugh.

  181. Dave A A wrote:

    still one can see some overlap with mainstream patriarchy.

    About the CDD/ patriarchy thing, I used to visit a blog that belonged to a male “Christian” patriarchy supporter. At the start, it looked like a Christian blog with mostly Christian commenters.
    I once mentioned I am still single, which led to a new thread with advice for me on finding a man. One commenter said I should advertise on the Internet for a man who will give me a “taken in hand” marriage. She then gave me a link to what taken in hand mean – DD. She never had the slightest reason to suspect that I am into any kink/perversion of that nature. She just believed this is the sort of relationship that I should have. And no commenter on there contradicted her…

  182. As an amended aside, I think it’s important to state that I personally do not care what is done between to consenting, married adults in the bedroom. As Daisy mentioned, if a husband and wife want to dress up as comic book characters, more power to them. I don’t really want to hear about it in church, or at a dinner party, but if it works for you all, great.

    I do think that part of CDD has to do with what other people have mentioned; some people may like kink and feel ashamed. Hence, they try to dress it up as “biblical.” Unfortunately, it just paves the way for an abusive husband to latch onto the idea of beating his wife as his godly duty. Kinda makes me ill and a whole lot of angry.

    I sat through a sermon series on sex and marriage a couple of years ago. It wasn’t Driscoll’esque, thankfully. The pastor did state that in his opinion, anything was fair game provided that 1) one spouse wasn’t pressuring the other into something they felt uncomfortable with, and 2) it didn’t involve adding another person into the mix (be it pornography, voyeurism, an actual other person, etc).

    Anyway. The danger in CDD is that it does legitimize spousal abuse by coating it with a paint of bible verses. THAT is what upsets me and gives me an unsettled feeling. The idea that Christ and God’s word could be used to give an abuser an excuse for hitting his wife is unnerving. It has nothing to do with marital sexual activity. It’s the premise behind the abuse being “biblical.”

  183. @ Daisy: Where i grew up (and now live), hunting is the norm – and frankly, if there was no deer season, the population would likely spike (as it has in the past) and we would end up with a lot of deer dying of starvation because there wouldn’t be any decent browse left for them in the wintertime.

    Part of conservation – and ensuring the health of the species – is, unfortunately, related to the annual cull during deer season. I’m not opposed to hunting (I would learn to kill and dress animals if necessary for survival, but would prefer to “hunt” wild animals and birds with a telephoto lens). You see, my state no longer has a balanced predator-prey population in the wild, so that’s why humans end up doing some of the work.

    Are there bad hunters? Yes, without question. However, the hunters in my family were conservationists first, and I know that my father and grandfather went mainly for the chance to be out in the woods. My grandfather knew a great deal about local animals and bird species – we have some game reserves close by and he saw some unusual mutations among deer herds that he was spotting (not hunting). His willingness to take me on hikes in the mountains and explain things about how local species lived id a great deal to awaken my own love for the woodsy parts of my state (and in general) and the wild species – furred and feathered – that live there.

    I should add that nobody in my family ever shot any animal or bird that they would not eat – in other words, they didn’t hunt many of the species that others do. And in fairness, I will also note that I love a good venison roast and have even eaten a tad of bear (it was old and not very tasty).

    But you would never, EVER catch me out hunting wild rabbits!!!

    And Daisy, I can understand your aversion to hunting, but I think there are other valid perspectives on this. I hope I haven’t offended you here, but I felt it might be a good counterpoint.

    Also… if someone is a bad hunter (who just likes to go out and shoot things, and/or has no feeling for the species they’re hunting), then they lose all credibility in my eyes… not only that, my state’s Game Commission has more than a few penalties for those who are caught hunting in illegal and/or irresponsible ways. there are laws.

  184. @ Headless Unicorn Guy: It’s not confined to the UP by any means! Lots of this kind of culture in the mi-Atlantic states as well. (I should know; I grew up in a place where it’s the norm.)

    What’s really weird, to my mind, are the huge chain saw-made “sculptures” of bears and the like that some people out here in the country seem intent on making and putting on their lawns. Have yet to see a single one that really looked like the animal they were trying to depict. To be fair, more than a few locals roll their eyes at that kind of thing. 😉

  185. The Widow Douglas wrote:

    “If we find even in the Bible anything that confuses our sense of right and wrong, that seems to us less exalted and pure than the character of God should be: if after the most patient thought and prayerful pondering it still retains that aspect, then we must not bow down to it as God’s revelation to us, since it does not meet the need of the earlier and more sacred revelation He has given us in our spirit and conscience which testify of Him”

    Thank you for this wonderful Katharine Bushnell quote. 🙂

  186. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    Then there is always Lisa Gerrard’s song from Gladiator:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bnTyuvHSTs

    She said her language came to her as a child, but she is not part of any church/organization, beautiful anyway.

    Not being Pentecostal I would want some evidence tongues is really real. For me, it was being given a tongue-sentence in Korean when an exchange student was visiting (who had really wanted to pray but was embarrassed about his English, so God gave me a Korean sentence – with no knowledge the Korean student was struggling with what to do, until afterwards – that was my needed proof to believe it was actually a Spiritual gift). Since then, I have never been able to pray in the foreign language of another person/place, but then, I never do pray in tongues out loud because I am not sure about the translation of it.

    HUG, doesn’t the Bible say that tongues is the least of all gifts? I always thought tongues was a sign you were passed over for the better stuff – but then, that was my Vineyard prophesy-obsessed denomination. Tongues was barely on the radar. Of course, people claim all kinds of visions are “from God” and it can get as whacky as tongues can. But in both instances, I have seen some (not much, mind you) evidence that God is really at work. The problem is, what to do with all the times the evidence of God’s power is not at work – that is the problem I have with the Bible in general. It highlights the times God comes crashing in making old women pregnant, the dead raised, the enemy army confused, etc. But, if we lined them all up chronologically, most of the recorded movements of God are few and far between. Generations would pass and no miraculous events would happen. Jesus/Acts/Early Church is an exception, chronologically.

    I wonder if the people were drawn into CJ’s church because they had come from the late 80s-early 90s Charismatic/Revival culture and were trying to find a place where the Holy Spirit was powerful -I don’t know much about CJ Mahaney’s early church plant, but it seems it was much more charismatic and many events I read about in the lawsuit (celebration, etc.) sound like things that would have drawn the more revival seeking conference-cruising crowd of the 90s. As that movement faded (at least where I lived), there would have been less places to find that sort of experience. It would have made people overlook things if it were the only evangelical-charismatic church around.

  187. Daisy wrote:

    The fact that so many Christians would believe Robertson said such a thing may indicate, and they did believe he really said it, (and, as the author concluded), it’s time for him to retire, if you can’t tell his serious comments apart from satire anymore.

    I first heard that opinion several years ago on the Web. That Robertson was showing signs of losing it from age.

    However, he’s a CELEBRITY M-o-G and NOBODY tells a CELEBRITY anything except what the CELEBRITY wants to hear.

    This headline is for real (it is not satire):
    Pat Robertson: Marine training was easy for me, ‘but I’m not a lady’
    It’s absolutely breathtaking how he manages to be sexist without even trying to be.

    “That’s Pat!” (H/T to Saturday Night Live)

  188. numo wrote:

    What’s really weird, to my mind, are the huge chain saw-made “sculptures” of bears and the like that some people out here in the country seem intent on making and putting on their lawns. Have yet to see a single one that really looked like the animal they were trying to depict. To be fair, more than a few locals roll their eyes at that kind of thing.

    I think I can top the chainmail sculptures. Two years ago while driving Route 15 in Southern PA, I ran across someone with a REPLICA TIGER I TANK on his lawn. Full-size, in proper late-war three-color camouflage and markings. Never got close enough to see the unit badges on the fenders. Driving that same stretch the year later, the Tiger was gone.

  189. Val wrote:

    HUG, doesn’t the Bible say that tongues is the least of all gifts? I always thought tongues was a sign you were passed over for the better stuff – but then, that was my Vineyard prophesy-obsessed denomination. Tongues was barely on the radar.

    I don’t know. Where I was the charismatics all went after TONGUES TONGUES TONGUES TONGUES TONGUES. If you didn’t have a “private prayer language”, you weren’t really Saved. And it was always TONGUES TONGUES TONGUES.

    Of course, people claim all kinds of visions are “from God” and it can get as whacky as tongues can.

    I’m in an denomination where “Mary Channeling” is the characteristic way to flake out. Makes you wish St Mary would actually appear and slap some sense into some of these “Visionaries”.

  190. Retha wrote:

    I used to visit a blog that belonged to a male “Christian” patriarchy supporter. At the start, it looked like a Christian blog with mostly Christian commenters.

    I once mentioned I am still single, which led to a new thread with advice for me on finding a man. One commenter said I should advertise on the Internet for a man who will give me a “taken in hand” marriage. She then gave me a link to what taken in hand mean – DD. She never had the slightest reason to suspect that I am into any kink/perversion of that nature. She just believed this is the sort of relationship that I should have. And no commenter on there contradicted her…

    I think you stumbled on a “stealth kink” blog. Where that kink was Normal(TM).

    And as for the Comp/Patrio connection, “ME MAN! ME WANNA SMACK WOMAN! WOMAN, SUBMIT!” is a very plausible combination.

    According to one friend who claims knowledge of these sort of things, various flavors of BDSM are “the characteristically British kink” and have been since Victorian times. (You know, that Godly Golden Age before the 1950s?) Which led to a filk of a YouTube stand-up comic video the same friend showed me:

    “KINK OF ENGLAND!”

    Come to think of it, wasn’t that woman who wrote 50 Shades British?
    Again, “KINK OF ENGLAND!”

  191. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    LOL! If only God, Jesus or Mary would come around once in a while to set us all straight and focus back on him and his Kingdom spiritual life would be so much easier! It would also take some of the proclaimed spiritual authority out of some of the Big-Wig’s sails.

    I am thinking of Mary coming back like Samuel was able to do with Saul and the Witch (and he told Saul off). Apparently, those who have passed on seem to be able to reunite with earth???? Never did figure that one out, I assume she would be present in the Cloud of Witnesses the NT refers to.

  192. Dis wrote:

    As Daisy mentioned, if a husband and wife want to dress up as comic book characters, more power to them. I don’t really want to hear about it in church, or at a dinner party,

    What’s really funny is I’m sure there are some Christians married couples who are into that sort of thing, but they feel bad about it, as though it’s naughty, so instead of Bat Man and Wonder Woman, they probably role play as Moses and Abigail or Abraham as Sarah or David and Bathsheba. 😆

  193. @ Daisy: Have you seen the episode of GCB where one of the characters and her husband role-play as Adam and Eve? (complete with really silly costumes.)

    I have NO doubts whatsoever that they were poking fun at something that’s an actual thing, down there in the Texas Bible Belt.

  194. Retha wrote:

    One commenter said I should advertise on the Internet for a man who will give me a “taken in hand” marriage. She then gave me a link to what taken in hand mean – DD.

    “Taken in hand”– such a quaint phrase! I just searched for where they got it but couldn’t find a clue. Maybe Victorian, as someome thinks Queen Vickie herself got “taken in hand”… The phrase is in my King James Version but not remotely related to paddles– rather to pens as folks began to write down the gospel…

  195. Deb, Dee, everybody?

    I discovered CDD popping up in a comment thread on this TWW posting from last October:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/10/04/owen-strachan-gods-glory-is-diminished-by-male-fails/
    The CDD comments start filtering in about 3/4 of the way down the comment thread. Including one brain-bleach mention about the medical safety of washing your wife’s mouth out with soap. Buck these horseapples, I’m going back to Ponyville.

  196. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Don’t go blaming us, HUG.

    But we will hold you accountable for The Spice Girls(*). 🙂

    But you did give the world The Beatles, so we’ll try to overlook that.
    ————–
    (*Actually, I like jogging to one or two of their songs.)

  197. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I think you stumbled on a “stealth kink” blog. Where that kink was Normal(TM).
    And as for the Comp/Patrio connection, “ME MAN! ME WANNA SMACK WOMAN! WOMAN, SUBMIT!” is a very plausible combination.

    The latter explanation rather than the former.
    Vox Popoli was not so much a kink (I wish people did not use that word for both perfectly harmless quirks like a love of women’s shoes and for depravity like enjoying to hurt, humiliate and control) site as a misogyny site, where “Christian” patriarchy and the “men’s rights movement” was endorsed.
    But I had to spend some time there to find out how truly, intolerably hateful most of the “Christian” attitudes there were.
    The only good thing I can say of that site is, in running away from those attitudes I found egalitarianism, and egalitarianism made me both more Christian and indirectly more feminine.

  198. Retha Faurie wrote:

    Vox Popoli

    I have been to that blog – if you mean this one (using the blog’s Atheism tag – VOX POPOLI).

    The author does a pretty good job, IMO, dealing with atheist arguments, but his views, and those of most of his visitors, is steeped in sexism. I had to stop visiting due to that and a few other reasons.

    I would expect self- professing Christian men to treat women with a lot more respect, but at the Vox blog they do not, and they seem to have a very narrow view of what is biblical or appropriate for a women to do.

    If you’re not a stay at home mom type of woman, they frown on that, or assume if you are not a SAHM, you must of course be a raging feminist who hates men.

    There is no middle ground there, like much else of Christendom. I am a never- married woman who never had kids over age 40 – I don’t fit in among most Christians due to those facts.

    And no, I am not a blazing, secular feminists who hates men, nor did I choose career over marriage. I wanted to get married.

    At the Vox blog (like Rev. Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill), they even ridicule men who don’t live up to their views of what constitutes a manly, macho he-men. If a guy is not, in their view, a manly man, they refer to them derogatorily as “betas” or the tough guys as “alphas,” if I recall correctly.

    Also, while that Vox blog did attract some rude atheists, it seemed that even the milder atheists who commented there were treated poorly by Vox and his every day posters, which I thought was pretty bad of them.

    Even if your apologetics are outstanding, you can still “lose” the debate by turning off an atheist with your condescending or rude behavior.

  199. Thank you, Retha, for sharing how you came to appreciate a wholesome and biblical view of gender equality through understanding how egalitarian principles can lift both women and men in their calling in Christ. Extoling the benefits of mutuality in the home and in the church are so needed!

  200. In checking out some links regarding how disturbing the whole idea of DD is, I came across a post and a comment that was posted a few years ago but is so pertinent to the topic here. Kristen posted this comment Sept. 13, 2010 on a post by Lewis.

    “Jane, thank you for that beautiful story. And for sharing your revelation about sacrifice leading to life. I wholeheartedly agree, and this is a very good answer to those who would say Christianity must be wrong because its emphasis on sacrifice is inherently abusive.

    One thing sacrifice was NEVER meant to be about in a Christian relationship, is one party doing all the sacrificing while the other does all the taking. “Let someone treat you as badly as they want, because it will increase your Christian character” is the same as saying to the abuser, “go ahead and sin that grace may abound”–about which Paul retorted, “May it never be!” Self-sacrifice was never meant to be about enabling another’s sin. It is supposed to be about love–and love does NOT rejoice in unrighteousness. The loving thing to do when someone is sinning against you is to confront them, or if that would be dangerous–to flee.

    Patriarchalism and DD are both about a man setting himself up as a god to a woman. She is accountable to him, but he has no accountability to her. She is to give herself TO his power, not FOR his good. It’s idolatry of the worst kind.

    The thing about DD is that it takes Patriarchalism to its most logical conclusion. Authority always comes with a means to enforce that authority. Bosses can fire employees, teachers can suspend students, and church elders can excommunicate members. But the Bible says nothing whatsoever about men being allowed any means of enforcing their supposed authority over their wives. Rather than concluding that this probably means no actual authority is being conferred by the Bible to husbands, patriarchalists look for some means of enforcing husbandly authority. Most of them resort to calling in the church if the wife will not submit (though this is actually invoking church authority and has nothing to do with husband authority). But DD takes it one step further and gives husband’s themselves the power to enforce their authority. This is logical–but what it definitely is not, is Scriptural.”

    From: http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.ca/2010/09/many-dysfunctional-faces-of-domestic.html

  201. Daisy wrote:

    At the Vox blog (like Rev. Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill), they even ridicule men who don’t live up to their views of what constitutes a manly, macho he-men. If a guy is not, in their view, a manly man, they refer to them derogatorily as “betas” or the tough guys as “alphas,” if I recall correctly.

    Isn’t that a term used in describing ANIMALS’ Dominance Heirarchies?

  202. Daisy wrote:

    …so instead of Bat Man and Wonder Woman, they probably role play as Moses and Abigail or Abraham as Sarah or David and Bathsheba.

    “Just like Erotic Cosplay, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”

    (Despite the rumors, one type of cosplay you will NOT see used erotically is Fursuiting. A good fursuit is just too expensive to risk, and the heat buildup inside the suit is pretty severe BEFORE factoring in any physical exertion beyond walking around.)

  203. Barb Orlowski wrote:

    Patriarchalism and DD are both about a man setting himself up as a god to a woman. She is accountable to him, but he has no accountability to her. She is to give herself TO his power, not FOR his good. It’s idolatry of the worst kind.

    This is a great assessment.

  204. A look at their perverted website. So obnoxious!! With soft and subtle sounding words they beguile married couples. By mixing gender perversion with sexual perversion and then calling it all good and biblical, you have a slime-filled belief system from the bowels of hell parading as godly and Christian. Grossly nauseating. Something to take a stand against!

  205. Daisy- you seemingly linked to a newer blog by the same blogger. (Or perhaps a blog with all the blog content imported from the old one, I don’t care enough to look.) That is exactly the people I speak of.

    The biggest thing I learned there is that patriarchy-supporting males should not be trusted to rule anything, never mind their wives and children.

    Barb Orlowski wrote:

    Patriarchalism and DD are both about a man setting himself up as a god to a woman. She is accountable to him, but he has no accountability to her. She is to give herself TO his power, not FOR his good. It’s idolatry of the worst kind.

    Amen!

  206. Retha and All,
    One thing I learned along the way was that if churches and Christian groups did not get ‘the woman thing right’ in the church, that is, believe and incorporate the gender equality teachings from the NT, then it was highly predictable that they did not get other things right either!

    How groups treat women is crucial to how people ‘do church’ well and have a stable family.

  207. Barb Orlowski wrote:

    Retha and All,
    One thing I learned along the way was that if churches and Christian groups did not get ‘the woman thing right’ in the church, that is, believe and incorporate the gender equality teachings from the NT, then it was highly predictable that they did not get other things right either!
    How groups treat women is crucial to how people ‘do church’ well and have a stable family.

    Barbara,

    This is so very true. I am currently attending (not exactly by choice at this point, but that is a long story) a church where most of the leadership has been influenced by Patriarchal type authors/Celebs (Piper, etc.) without actually embracing that doctrine to any large degree. Nevertheless, I have learned in my time there that if there is a position on pretty nearly anything, they will almost certainly land on the wrong side of it, and sometimes they find the most “creative” ways to “defend” it I have ever encountered, particularly in the area of divorce for abuse.

  208. This is a site with an off beat sense of humor. I interpret this as them making fun of sexist ideas of keeping a woman in line:
    BluntCard on Spanking

    (That page I linked to is “clean.” But if you click around and look at their other images, some of them do contain profanity.)