First? Wackiness indeed. Does the phrase “Jumping The Shark” apply here?

This is beyond crazy.

As Chris Rock has said in one of his routines, “Put the Crack Pipe down!!!’

Yup= you’re right—it is getting exponentially more whacky in here….

I think your digression “(Digression: you know who are a real male fail? Guys who are afraid to take comments on their blogs.)” actually speaks to the heart of the matter–these guys make such loud quacking and trumpetings because they ARE afraid!

Real bravery & real security for either gender is portrayed by calm assurance and calm “getting down to business”, not the continual and arrogant bragging of
We’re Bravest, We’re Blessed, We’re Men…..

Most soldiers will tell you that usually the worst cowards in battle were the same ones who did the most audible and arrogant boasting Before the battle.

Maturity is security. Maturity is being aware of other’s opinions as well as the intrinsic worth of others and tempering the discussion to reflect those facts.

Maturity doesn’t require the whole world to agree with me & doesn’t require a belligerent attempt to accomplish ‘one world thinking’.

If they didn’t have so much influence this would be hysterical.

We need a new term for the kind of theological knots Piper tied himself into there… Eagle, Nick B could you oblige? That was so bonkers I find it hard to believe I read it, & this is supposed to be John-led-only-by-infallible-scripture-Piper? 🙂

Dan from Georgia wrote:

Does the phrase “Jumping The Shark” apply here?

No, no, no. When they add a new child (or a skateboarding dog – Go Poochie!) to the list of arguers THEN it will have jumped the shark.

How “big” are these guys really? I’ve been in circles where their words were near gospel and I’ve been in circles where they are pretty unknown. I prefer the latter and am more than willing to let the crazy inmates have the asylum to themselves. (“So-and-so has a Sad about such-and-such doctrine.” Shrugs, moves on…)

So complementarianism is one of the Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith according to Platt and CBMW (the organization that only has $85,000 in annual revenue)?

Wow. Eyes rolling.

Enough with all this silliness already. These guys have absolutely no credibility whatsoever.

The more often they post these types of power-grab theories and try to support them with scripture, the more desperate they appear.

srs wrote:

Dan from Georgia wrote:

How “big” are these guys really? I’ve been in circles where their words were near gospel and I’ve been in circles where they are pretty unknown. I prefer the latter and am more than willing to let the crazy inmates have the asylum to themselves. (“So-and-so has a Sad about such-and-such doctrine.” Shrugs, moves on…)<

unfortunately These guys are very big in too many places!

To back up my statement I'll have to digress into more history and detail than usual but please bear with me…

I have been closely monitoring the entire "Christian Homeschooling" movement since nearly the beginning of the movement. I began homeschooling my children in 1983–which is just about Prehistoric in Homeschool Timelines. I also was employed as a Curriculum buyer and 'How To Homeschool" lecturer during that time.

I read the first ever printing of classics by such authors as Rushdoony, Gary North, Mary Pride, Greg Harris et al. (These are some of the Founding Fathers of the Quiverful MOvement, Christian Reconstructionism, Dominionism & more. All of these authors and movements have a very strong Complimentarian component.)

I wasn't impressed then and am not now, but the fact remains that I have seen now 2 generations of homeschooling families move their families along the same destructive pathways–hyper complimentarian-Patriarchal-Courtship-Disaster….

The impact that these bozos have had on literally millions of homeschooling families can't be overstated.

I speak only in this area as I am sure of my facts, but I'm confident they can be replicated in several different arenas of the Christian Circus.

So, I don't think we can yawn and turn away-as much as many of us would like to do.

Yup, it’s craziness. Alice in wonderland stuff, even for many evangelicals. For those outside of evangelicalism (including believers), it must seem like something from the Twilight Zone.

BTW, just to be clear, it’s unlikely that John MacArthur’s criticism of Piper, though valid, was a swipe at complementarianism. MacArthur was going after Piper because of Piper’s continuationist stance (MacArthur is a rigid cessationist), and the inconsistencies in Piper’s complementarian view were pretty much collateral damage in that little skirmish. On the issue of complementarianism per se, the two most likely agree; JMac is a pretty strict complementarian himself.

As I’ve already said in another thread after another post, anyone who thinks marriage is about power, about who has the trump card, the decisive vote, and who hast to submit to whose authority, shouldn’t be in the business of getting married at all. They have understood NOTHING about marriage.

And anyone who thinks that pastors should have power and the members of a church must submit to them has understood nothing about the message of Jesus:

(From Luke 22:) And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ 26“But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant.

Beakerj wrote:

We need a new term for the kind of theological knots Piper tied himself into there… Eagle, Nick B could you oblige?

There’s both a humorous and a serious point to make here, I think.

Joking aside, then:

Theologians have already got there, ISTM; what we’re seeing is simply legalism. If that doesn’t sound very derogatory, it’s only because we so rarely see legalism for the terrible spiritual disease that it is. We should frown on legalistic teaching like we’d frown on the dumping of high-level nuclear waste into civic water supplies. Perhaps the single greatest enemy of Paul’s ministry was the reduction of the Gospel to rules; and his comment on the growing so-called “circumcision party” (I wish those mutilators of the flesh would go the whole way, and castrate themselves) is instructive.

Paul presumably had names and faces in mind when he wrote that; I don’t wish it on John Piper per se. But if your gospel requires rules to confer righteousness, you will inevitably encounter anomalies – i.e., examples where the rules create obvious contradictions or injustices. When that happens, there are only two things you can do. One is to force the rules on people regardless, making your church exclusive and repressive. The other is to make more and more rules to fine-tune the exceptions, making your gospel ridiculous.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

So what’s the one thing we really, really need?
A book.

Very clever, very funny. 🙂

Piper’s remark that he always prayed for prophecy before he stands up to speak should give him pause… scripture says the “spirits of prophets are subject to prophets.” If there are female prophets in the church, his prophetic words would be “hupotasso” to them. 🙂

3. David Platt believes that we must defend complementarianism with our very lives for the sake of the gospel!

AKA Male Supremacy IS the Gospel?

Wouldn’t these guys be happier in Saudi or Talibani Islam? Then they could drink their Complementarianism(TM) straight on the rocks instead of watered down, with a Predestination/God’s Sovereign Will chaser. And harems of wives and handmaids instead of just one wife, just like a Biblical Patriarch — can’t forget that.

Molly245 wrote:

I speak only in this area as I am sure of my facts, but I’m confident they can be replicated in several different arenas of the Christian Circus.
So, I don’t think we can yawn and turn away-as much as many of us would like to do.

Hi!

Thank you very much for this input. It is much appreciated.

I had never heard of Piper until I had heard his name mentioned on a blog in the last couple of years.

My first response was, who IS this guy, and why is he soooo special????

He really is outside the mainstream in many ways, and likely could not hold his own in other venues.

Prayerfully, I hope that people will stop buying his books pronto, as his ego has gotten too big.

Thank you for writing,
Marie

I continue to wonder what these men are so afraid of. They seem to feel genuinely threatened by the thought of women being strong, smart, and godly. I don’t get it.

You know who are real male fails? Guys who are afraid to take comments on their blogs.

I know it’s only March, but we have to nominate that for some sort of award for 2014.

Hester wrote:

They seem to like this “sexual complementarianism” or “sexual complementarity” phrase of late. Why the need to suddenly specify sexual complementarianism? Is there some other kind we might mix it up with if we just used “complementarianism”?

Animal Forced Dominance Display:
Man On Top as Dom.
Woman On Bottom as Sub.
And Woman exists only to Service Manly Man.
“Just like a Porn loop, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”

Beakerj wrote:

We need a new term for the kind of theological knots Piper tied himself into there…

Theological BDSM?

srs wrote:

Dan from Georgia wrote:

Does the phrase “Jumping The Shark” apply here?

No, no, no. When they add a new child (or a skateboarding dog – Go Poochie!) to the list of arguers THEN it will have jumped the shark.

How “big” are these guys really? I’ve been in circles where their words were near gospel and I’ve been in circles where they are pretty unknown. I prefer the latter and am more than willing to let the crazy inmates have the asylum to themselves. (“So-and-so has a Sad about such-and-such doctrine.” Shrugs, moves on…)

I can tell you for a fact that having lived for nearly a decade in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro, that John Piper is not even a big deal locally; I attended a church that could swallow Bethlehem Baptist up about twice over. In fact, I never heard of the “prominence” of Mr. Piper until I attended a neocal church thousands of miles away, and all the young turks would almost leap with excitement when I told them I’d lived a while in the Twin Cities–something of a Mecca for them. I’m not even sure Piper was considered in the top 5 in local prominence in the Twin Cities evangelical circles I ran in–and I did get around a lot of ministries, citywide stuff, was very plugged in at the time. Piper’s only a big deal among a tiny subset of passionate young neocalvinist men, many of whom I think are a bit emotionally disturbed.

dee wrote:

LawProf wrote:

I can tell you for a fact that having lived for nearly a decade in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro, that John Piper is not even a big deal locally;

Deb and I have always wondered how Piper was viewed by the local population. Do you know if he was accepted as just an ordinary pastor or whether locals thought of him as a bit odd?

Honestly I can’t say. I was part of a ministry for about a year that met at the Bethlehem Bap campus (the old bldg.) on Fridays, I attended one of the marches around downtown Mpls that Piper would have in conjunction with another pastor or two in the late 90s (and was utterly unimpressed, it was the first time I’d ever seen Piper or heard of him, and wife and I looked at each other and said “That was all about prideful men congratulating each other on how important they were”. It was a total letdown compared with the Marches for Jesus that we’d attended, which seemed to be mainly about glorifying the Lord). Saw a Piper sermon once. Just not impressed: flat stale arrogant mediocrity. My opinion, and that was formed long before I even knew what Calvinism was or that Piper had anything to do with it.

There is the sum and substance of my knowledge of Piper. My knowledge of his reputation is from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, and frankly, there isn’t much of a local Piper reputation to speak of, at least there wasn’t then. Greg Boyd is far more prominent, North Heights Church far more, Lowell Lundstrom (who I met and didn’t particularly like much) a bigger deal. That’s just off the top of my head. It is not a Piper Town, not by a longshot.

Lin wrote:

One wonders if they would be happy living in Saudi Arabia, where women can’t even drive a car.

Ha! Not if Manal al-Sharif has anything to say about it. She was willing to go to jail for driving. Makes this bunch look like wimps. http://tinyurl.com/pgc3krl

dee wrote:

Try to pin them down on that one and you will be banging your head against the wall.

You’ve got me giggling. As a father of a 5yo and 2yo (and soon to be born baby) I’m already banging my head on the wall. 🙂 But, you are so right!

Keep on keeping on!

These guys aren’t building churches, they’re building insane asylums

Their desperation to enslave women with their heresy is frightening

@ LawProf:

the Bethlehem Bap

I know this is an abbreviation for “Baptist,” but nevertheless my totally silly first reaction to this was to picture someone getting “bapped” in the forehead. Perhaps for invading the Nativity without permission.

And with that I end my completely unimportant and useless non-contribution to this thread. 🙂

In honor of John Piper.
Out of the 100 most beautiful English words, Winsome IS NOT one of them.
http://imgur.com/gallery/81SzNem

Sorry Charlie.
(And this is my completely unimportand and useless non-contribution to this thread.
Double 🙂 )

And now I want a do-over, because in my struggle to find rhyming words, I unintentionally blamed Owen Strachan’s mother for his [French word for shower]-baggery. Mea maxima culpa.

Maybe we could say…

“Cause he thought it was beneath him to know how to do the laundry.”

@ Josh:

And the man could bring on much swagg-ery
silencing every threat of tongue wagg-ery

Let’s defend sexual complementarity with our lives and our marriages through pictures of husbands as heads and wives as helpers, loving authority — glad submission in the context of beautiful relationships

This doesn’t look like a call for martyrdom. From this section you quoted, it sounds more like defending “complementarity” in how we live out our lives as Christians and how our lives witness to the quote-gospel-quote.

Deb wrote:

A Public Service Announcement:

The registration deadline for Together for the Gospel 2014 is TODAY! If you want to hear these complementarian leaders in person, including two that have been mentioned in this post (Piper and Platt), you’ve got to sign up now!

CBMW, which is led by Owen Strachan, will be hosting a conference BEFORE the conference.

As you can see, the men making these statements are high profile leaders in the complementarian movement.

You can’t say we didn’t warn you…

PLEASE tell me someone from this blog (writers or responders) is going to this.

@ srs:

I agree Platt probably didn’t intend that to mean martyrdom, though he’s still jumping on the complementarianism-is-essential-to-correctly-preaching-the-Gospel bandwagon. Personally, I wasn’t much impressed by Platt before and this hardly comes as a surprise.

Josh wrote:

And now I want a do-over, because in my struggle to find rhyming words, I unintentionally blamed Owen Strachan’s mother for his [French word for shower]-baggery. Mea maxima culpa.

Maybe we could say…

“Cause he thought it was beneath him to know how to do the laundry.”

‘Cause he thought t’was beneath him to do the laundry.

The above might fit the meter better.

Mara wrote:

In honor of John Piper.
Out of the 100 most beautiful English words, Winsome IS NOT one of them.
http://imgur.com/gallery/81SzNem

Sorry Charlie.
(And this is my completely unimportand and useless non-contribution to this thread.
Double )

Maybe we just need a new word. Like say, instead of gospelly or winsome, we could just say something like “winspely”.

Sorry, the “winspely” comment was mine, not Mara’s. Not sure how I posted that wrong.

What these guys are teaching is not the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. It is some sort of patriarchal perversion. You can look high and low in the Gospels and you can’t see any of this. These guys took some stuff written in the Pauline letters and went whole-hog crazy with it.

Also, it became clear to me that with the idea there would be subordination in heaven that there’s one sin which has not and will not ever be forgiven. And that’s the sin of Eve. Adam’s sin can be forgiven, but Eve’s will hang over women forever.

In the 80’s when I first came across hyper-Calvinism, I decided that the “4 Spiritual Laws” of Calvinism would start with “1. God may love you and has a definite plan for your life.” After all these years, you have given me an idea for #2: “All women have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of men.” I’m with you guys, when I want an enjoyable evening read, I often come here. Thanks for all your hard work! The stuff you deal with is so gut-wrenchingly nauseating, it’s fun when you can laugh at some of it.

This seems the perfect time to post the following wonderful satire, now viewed 11 million+ times, by some very talented and funny Saudi activists: “No Woman No Drive.” Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZMbTFNp4wI

Note to Piper, Stracham, et.al: THIS IS A SATIRE. NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY. 🙂

@ Hester:

To get more Google search hits with the word "sexual".

@ Rafiki:

Totally awesome super talented guy, the song was well-done

@ Josh:

Hester wrote:
They seem to like this “sexual complementarianism” or “sexual complementarity” phrase of late.”
+++++++++++++++++

I think they just get off on it. a kind of pleasure in affirming their perception of their own virility.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

AKA Male Supremacy IS the Gospel?

It is? Nobody tells me anything !

Marie2 wrote:

 Hi! Thank you very much for this input. It is much appreciated.

I had never heard of Piper until I had heard his name mentioned on a blog in the last couple of years.

My first response was, who IS this guy, and why is he soooo special????

He really is outside the mainstream in many ways, and likely could not hold his own in other venues.

Prayerfully, I hope that people will stop buying his books pronto, as his ego has gotten too big.

I had never heard of any of them or complementarian whatever before either, until I started reading Christian news online….if not for blogs I would have thought the whole of christendom had gone Mormon, with the 7 wives in the kitchen thing.

On another note, and no I don't know his doctrinal beliefs, but Pres Jimmy Carter's latest book, just out is a major women's rights help. Also, he addresses the practice of churches keeping women under unbiblical dominance (abuse). I can't find the link right now but I saw an interview he did just the other day at a book signing and I think its going to be a wonderful book and a great help for women and men in all countries.

MOD EDIT: Quoting fixed per request of poster.

Bridget wrote:

Desperate for what would be my question?
What do they hope to gain? All the energy put into the complementarian agenda could be directed to something much more effective in helping people and possibly changing lives.

I think the question is what do they hope not to lose. the financial support of men that follow them, you know the kind of men with money, the kind of men that get off by treating people as property or servants, they often don’t care about anyone so they often have lots of money from unscrupulous business practices also. or people with such low self esteem that pastors like that are promising them power they will never have otherwise, they do everything the pastor says and then down the road they realize it was just another guy taking advantage of them, the problem is that people like that being used by men who have bibles in their hands and in a pulpit, often think they have failed God and not been swindled by lies. Trying to convince people that Jesus loves them and God’s not aiming lightning at them after they have been victims of spiritual abuse is very very hard. The devil uses condemnation but disguises it as coming from God. people in the church can never quite do everything required to get to the top or get acceptance cause the rules keep changing. complementairwhatever is very harmful to women, but it is very harmful to men also thinking they are pleasing God they abuse their wives and degrade their daughters, then they realize one day what kind of person they are…

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

AKA Male Supremacy IS the Gospel?

It is?

Well, according to some, it has always been – always since at least 1988 (Danvers Statement). So it has had a really long life as Christian orthodoxy 😉 If you ask me, it's well past its use-by date.

@ gus:

Sorry, posted this too early.

Because legalism is the opposite of gospel, isn’t? The law condemns us. That’s why we need the gospel.

Re: David Platt’s comment: “Let us defend sexual complementarity with God’s word. Let’s defend sexual complementarity with our lives and our marriages through pictures of husbands as heads and wives as helpers, loving authority — glad submission in the context of beautiful relationships — and let’s do this for the sake of the gospel in the world.”
Re: Your comment: “The Christian faith has a long history of martyrdom. Those martyrs went to their deaths proclaiming the truth of Christ’s death and Resurrection. It now appears we must also go to our deaths to defend gender roles. I, for one, will die to proclaim the truth of Christ.”

Look, I don’t agree at all with male supremacy, but you have jumped the shark to see in this Platt statement a call to martyrdom. He is simply urging those who agree with him to live their lives by what they believe. Look at the context in the sentence. “lives” is paired with “marriages”, it means your daily lives, not your death by martyrdom.

There is plenty to criticize without exaggerating and taking the comment out of context. Good grief…

Lol! I am in medical field and spell checkers are a curse sometimes. This group doesn’t seem to see the forest from the trees because just that one tree or group of trees in the forest is their focus, and the whole forest is described based on that one section. This is a concern I have with their theology. I am more of a simple biblicist than a person following any theological school. Wish it were just the Bible rather than arguments filtered through a famous theologian’s or human founder’s lens.

@ raswhiting:
While I don’t doubt that Platt would claim to have meant what you claim he meant, he chose to use the phrase “defend. . . with our lives.” This phrase is almost always used to mean actially risking one’s life. It evokes violence and martyrdom. Since Platt makes a living with his words, I assume he made this choice deliberately. Moreover, it fits the pattern of elevating gender roles to a primary doctrine, worth going to the mat to promote.

What the bleepity bleep does potential fallibility have to do with authority? Not even devoit Catholics think the pope is infallible in everything, but even when not speaking ex cathedra, he has authority. Really, I have no idea what Piper is trying to prove. He’s twisted himself into a pretzel over. . . I have no idea what.

Deebs, Beaker, NickB…..

I am thinking as to what we can call this absurdities by John Piper. He truly is the Reformed Pat Robertson. One gets *** excited to hurricanes and Piper to tornados and bridge collapses!

But in terms of what this new theological musings should be called? How about a Piperism? 😛

@ Rafiki:
Hahahaha! That got a share with my family.
I’m happy to see the Saudis taking a stand for women’s rights. If David Platt *really* wants to impress me, he should pull his Dubai shtick in Saudi Arabia.

Dee and Deb, Have you seen this?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/Challies_VisualTheology/new-calvinism-timeline.html

A visual history of the New Calvinism. Very interesting.

I just love the way it’s a movement that ‘transcends race’ because there is one black member (Anyabwile) on TGC board!!

@ SJReidhead and
@ Daisy (in no particular order!):

I’m not going to say “I know how you feel”, because none of us really knows how anybody else feels, but let me put it thus (bear with me for a paragraph or two – in particular, please keep reading past the next line!):

“Normal” people get jobs, get married and have weans. They’re easy to cater for and easy to fit into traditional churches.

OK; the “married with weans” bit I can tick – for me, it’s the “getting a job” bit that has been problematic. Despite a raft of qualifications including two degrees, one of which from Cambridge University (and yes, I mean the Cambridge University), my entire life since moving to Scotland 25 years ago has been a tooth-and-nail fight to secure even temporary paid employment. For the whole of my 20’s, I couldn’t even buy a job.

Before I moved to Scotland I went back to Cambridge to live/work for a year, and yes, I went and got a job – no problem. So there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with me or with my understanding of jobs. I don’t doubt that both of you also understand perfectly well the usual mechanics of going out and meeting people. The point is that in the last 25 years, the usual means of going out and getting jobs have not worked for me. And I suppose that, likewise, the usual means haven’t worked for you either, for reasons that have nothing to do with either of you being stupid or sinful.

And therein lies the rub. The majority of western “church” has evolved to be mass-produced and as efficient as possible. That means it has evolved to cater for those of the middle and upper classes for whom the usual approach to life has worked. They come to church with no conspicuous needs: they’re not poor or single, for instance. And they don’t struggle with taboo sins like homosexuality (boo! hiss!), which the church leaderships don’t struggle with and therefore can safely single out for condemnation. Even domestic abuse need not disturb the peace of Sunday church culture because, after all, it’s the woman’s fault: we don’t need to do anything different.

Unlike Jesus himself, this prevailing church culture has no power; only words, rules and traditions. Megachurches can easily boast about “lives being transformed by the Gospel [sic]” because they mean “lives being conformed to middle-class values”, and those lives were already largely middle-class-compatible before they came to church. Life just works for them, so the church doesn’t have to do anything special or supernatural to reach them – just the odd bit of charity or a “12 Steps” group for the druggies and alcoholics.

But people whose lives have not worked as simply, cannot be fed at traditional church. We need some kind of church that is radically different, has radically different expectations of the risen Jesus and a radically different manifestation of his power. I’m still only just beginning to get what this would be like, TBH.

burntnorton wrote:

While I don’t doubt that Platt would claim to have meant what you claim he meant, he chose to use the phrase “defend. . . with our lives.”

Yeah, I have to agree with that. I had to read that sentence twice, because my snap judgement was that he considered complementarianism a martyrdom-worthy cause. Which makes me wonder: Did he craft the sentence that way on purpose? To fan the flames of passion in his audience, while giving himself enough plausible deniability to say “that’s not at all what I meant”?

I think that sentence of Platt’s should have a disclaimer: “This sentence intentionally left vague.”

May wrote:

I just love the way it’s a movement that ‘transcends race’ because there is one black member (Anyabwile) on TGC board!!

There’s a reason South Park’s only black kid character is named “Token”.

dee wrote:

@ Rafiki:
NO WOMAN, NO DRIVE! This should be the song of the patriarchs. Woman should never be in the driver’s seat.

I remember the phrase “WOMEN DRIVERS! NO SURVIVORS!”

And all the “wimmen drivers” jokes on the Flintstones.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Nick here in the US I agree with what you are saying. Being an evangelical Christian mainly means being white, upper middle class, married and having children. If you don’t have any of those qualifications then for the most part you are not going to fit in. Before my faith crisis that consumed half of my 30’s I remember this one conversation I had with a Bible study leader at McLean Bible here in the DC area. He had just got engaged and he literally breathed a sigh of relief and told me that now that he’s engaged he’ll fit into McLean Bible better. It stunned me to hear that, but really should one be surprised?

I am largely a doubter, but I came back to Christianity after seeing the theological problems with atheism. I analyzed the different belief systems, weighed the pros and cons. Even the way I approached Christianity and made the decision to get involved with the Christian faith again is different. I approach it from a very intellectual way. For a faith system that is very emotional driven and anti-intellectual this is what will keep me out of certain camps of fundagelicalism. Let me explain and expand upon that thought.
In 2002 I graduated with an advanced degree in American History and a minor in European History from one of the best Jesuit schools in the Midwest. When I finished Marquette and was working in the business world people asked me, “what are you going to do with a History degree?” Others claimed it was useless as compared to computer science, nursing, accounting, etc… However I have come to appreciate and value that history degree for one simple reason. It gave me a lot of critical thinking skills which much of evangelicalism lacks today. Take John Piper for example who makes a great deal and speaks of his love of Jonathan Edwards. What John Piper and many Ne-Calvinists fail to do however, is speak of Edwards in the context of the historical era that which he lived. Edwards was a product of American culture and the 18th century. He was as much a product of American culture as I am a product of 21st century culture, or Nick you being a product of Scottish culture. Context is everything and it’s the context that is missing in John Piper’s theology. It’s why Piper is a terrible theologian and is an epic fail.

Going back to Edwards what I have yet to hear the Neo-Calvinists address is Edwards role in the 1735 revival. A “suicide craze” took over the congregation leading to a couple of suicides, one I believe was Jonathan Edwards own uncle. Edwards had taught such an extreme form of theology that people felt like they shouldn’t live, and it facilitated their own suicide. Now who in their right mind would bow down at the altar of Jonathan Edwards and kill themselves for the glory of God? Maybe John Piper should have worked in the Japanese military during WWII, he could have inspired people to be kamikaze pilots in the Pacific theater.

Deb wrote:

That was a great clip. If the Calvinistas were to do their own rendition, it would go something like this:

“No woman, no preach”

Not “Barefoot and pregnant”?

There is no way IMO to measure the damage this no women pastors, deacons, etc. has caused to the Southern Baptist Convention. But it is this way or there is the door from most of the leaders.

I am slowing learning how to live outside said door. Because of one choice I made related to the gender issue in the Southern Baptist world my 38 years as a Southern Baptist was changed for me by others.

@ mot:

What happened?

@ chris:

Give the no comments allowed group each a certificate of species confusion — they are more chicken than human.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.

Regardless of how these clowns attempt to set up religious empires, make up the rules as they go along and divide God’s people in the process, we do not need them and never have.
The church, as it is today, was put into place 500 years after the Apostles died.

So, what is the Lord referring to when he says, “Come out of her, My people.” ?

you know who are real male fails? Guys who are afraid to take comments on their blogs.

What’s even a bigger fail are those that accept comments but delete comments that express a contrary opinion. That’s fraud. When the only comments that are left are those of sycophants, they try to create the impression that their pronouncements are irrefutable.

mot wrote:

Because of one choice I made related to the gender issue in the Southern Baptist world my 38 years as a Southern Baptist was changed for me by others.

Hi!!!

I’m very very sorry to hear of this…I hope you are ok, and that there are people around you to give you love and comfort over this. I can’t say that I have been through the same thing, but I’m sorry when this happens…Investing in a group for a long time, and have things end this way.

@ TW:

We should probably create a TWW Hall of Fame for the wackiest ideas and statements we come across by those in the religious community. Could be a Hall of Flamers!!!

@ raswhiting:

Actually, a hetero couple are sexually complementary — tab A does complement slot B!!!!!. But SO WHAT? There is no social, religious, or other implication that necessarily flows from that. Every mammalian species has gender sexual complementarity!!!!

mot wrote:

I knew my work was done and I left for the betterment of the fellowship of the Church.
It still hurts though.

Not to say that I have been there exactly, but I totally lost the respect of some leaders, and this was before I had found these blogs, and I felt guilty for almost a year, or at least 6 months, for leaving without saying much. There are people I would have wanted to say goodbye to directly, but it would have wrecked their faith, I think, to find out the ugly truth about these “pastors” – this was not an SGM church, it was just a couple of yahoos right out of seminary who worshiped a bunch of celebrity pastors.

Someone, “LawProf” possibly, had talked about what I think of the seduction of trying to help people in leadership. I had tried to be helpful, and then realized I was being used, and just had to leave. Abruptly. Like that.

So, I am sorry to hear of your story. When you feel ready to tell it, I am sure many people here will be there to listen, and pass the kleenex as necessary.

It was a bizarre wound for me to get over – I kept thinking over and over there was something else I could have done, but now I see that there wasn’t anything.

@ Marie2:
Thanks for listening to what I shared. I pray almost daily for God to make me better from all of this and not bitter. Somedays though bitter wins the day.

An Attorney wrote:

@ dee:
Dee, he was talking about their idolatry of the Bible, making it the fourth person of the deity, and probably ranked above at least the Holy Spirit.

One day, several months ago, I was gathered with a small group at an administration meeting and an elder started to pray. He began with,”As we gather around your scripture . . .” I was saddened and disturbed to hear this coming from an elder. Later on in discussion, the importance of being a Bible preaching, Bible focused church was discussed. I asked what part/place God/Jesus Christ/Holy Spirit had in our church/gatherings. Three men tried to explain that the Word (Bible) was the same as if God was in the room with us, as the Bible is His words. I didn’t agree. I explained that I don’t worship the Bible. They went on for a bit with some silly analagies. Then one of them suddenly wanted to know how I came to be saved. He assured me he wasn’t questioning my salvation, but only wanting to hear my salvation story as he had never heard it before. (A little odd to me.) I shared a bit of my story, not feeling very inclined to do so as I really didn’t trust these men with the most precious moments of my life. We were interrupted and the subject changed. I believe they were relieved. I wondered where these men would take our small church. It hasn’t gone well in the past month.

Wow. Just wow. So I told my wife if we ever become Christian we’ll apparently have to start following our complementary roles. She laughed at me and told me I can take over managing the bills anytime (I’m awful with money and asked her to manage it early on in our relationship).

On a less silly note, this sort of stance gets me wondering; do they even want to try to evangelize to outsiders anymore?

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

On a less silly note, this sort of stance gets me wondering; do they even want to try to evangelize to outsiders anymore?

They don’t need to.
Not with the “Bedroom Evangelism” of Quiverfull.

An Attorney wrote:

@ Sabrae:
And as a result, there is no “pastoral authority”. NO ONE but Jesus himself has authority in the life of a Christian!!!!

Exactly. 🙂

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

So I told my wife if we ever become Christian we’ll apparently have to start following our complementary roles. She laughed at me and told me I can take over managing the bills anytime

🙂 I like your wife. My husband and I are Christian, but he knows this would never fly either.

@ Bridget:

There are very small boys–not even close to being a MAN.

Marie2 wrote:

Hope you are enjoying the coffee and pie being served in the moderation room, :-).

I prefer being there in the evening when the bar is open 🙂

Eagle wrote:

Why am I stuck in moderation? What triggered it?

I have asked Dee and Deb to place all your comments directly into moderation. Your days of “first” are over my fine-feathered friend. Bahahaha!

Bridget wrote:

Three men tried to explain that the Word (Bible) was the same as if God was in the room with us, as the Bible is His words. I didn’t agree. I explained that I don’t worship the Bible

I couldn’t agree with you more, Bridget. It’s one thing to read a biography about Abraham Lincoln, for example, and quite another to actually knowing him personally.

Scripture encourages us to grow in our personal relationship with Him because of what we know about Him.

May wrote:

Dee and Deb, Have you seen this?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/Challies_VisualTheology/new-calvinism-timeline.html
A visual history of the New Calvinism. Very interesting.
I just love the way it’s a movement that ‘transcends race’ because there is one black member (Anyabwile) on TGC board!!

That graph must be the greatest example of what I call a Theological Circle **** .ed). I use that term when a group of people discuss, debate, or show their theological view point as a means of attention, proping up one’s self, and self gratification. Notice how they make it seem like New Calvinism took power away from the Emergent Movement, and that John Piper endorsing rap music cased it to “explode in popularity”. I’ve never seen a group of people so into themselves.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

As I heard people say in Britain (when I visited a millennia ago ), “Brilliant”.

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day about all these “You too can have the perfect Christian marriage in just 10 easy steps” books out there. We both agreed that in “normal” circumstances, as you put it, you could see improvement with quite a few of the concepts presented.

But what about the person married to someone with Borderline Personality Disorder? What about Narcissists? Compulsive Liars? Manipulators? High functioning, Christian looking sociopaths? You need stronger medicine, dare I say supernatural, God powered medicine – adminstered over possibly a lifetime of walking with Christ.

“10 easy steps” doesn’t work with brilliant, disturbed individuals.

Mr.H wrote:

Funny, in a tragic sort of way. You skillfully highlighted the absurdity of the Neo-Cal obsessive privileging of facts/knowledge/rules over person/relationship.

That is something I mentioned either on this blog or at Julie Anne’s.

I noticed many years ago, when I used to hang out or talk to Calvinist guys on their forums, that even among the ones I liked and considered internet friends, a lot of them are intellectually smug and arrogant. They place a lot of value on higher education and learning.

There is nothing wrong with education or being intellectual, but many of the Calvinists I have encountered have about turned intellectualism into an idol. They scoff and chortle at people they perceives as not being as intelligent or learned as themselves, John Calvin, or their favorite Calvinist authors.

They liked to put down IFB KJVOs for being uneducated- hicks- from- the- sticks (which perhaps they are often times, but that’s not the point), but then some of them turn around and embrace something like ‘Bible-only counseling’ and shout down psychology and psychiatry, which is, in my view, anti-intellectual.

@ Marie2:

It was in reponse to what Nick said, and a discussion of Jonathan Edwards and the lack of context that the Neo-Cals have. When your idol’s teaching results in members of your congregation committing suicide, I ask “what redeeming role does such a person play?”

SJReidhead wrote:

Ergo, I gather I am to be stuck in this single state, a social outcast, even in heaven.

I have read reviews of Christian books about marriage and singleness, and the reviewers mentioned this sort of expectation with some authors is earthly, too.

A lot of Christian authors advise adult singles in their books about dating and marriage and so on that their role is to support married Christian couples.

In yet other books, I have seen interview after interview with adult singles who said they were expected to be the free maid, butler, and baby-sitting service to married couples in their local churches.

Meanwhile, married couples in churches do not often help adult singles or think them worthy of aid and support, nor do preachers or book authors remind married couples to support and help the adult singles around them.

I guess getting married is viewed by many Christians as being the equivalent to Moses and gang making it to The Promised Land in the Old Testament.

@ mot:

Yes, I can see where it might. What a terrible story. I don’t even know what to say.

Daisy wrote:

A lot of Christian authors advise adult singles in their books about dating and marriage and so on that their role is to support married Christian couples.

This has been covered several times over at Internet Monk. I will answer by cherry-picking their best comments.

In yet other books, I have seen interview after interview with adult singles who said they were expected to be the free maid, butler, and baby-sitting service to married couples in their local churches.

Until you get married and all the Singles now have to Serve YOU. This adds additional pressure to marry so THEY Serve YOU instead of YOU having to Serve THEM.

Meanwhile, married couples in churches do not often help adult singles or think them worthy of aid and support, nor do preachers or book authors remind married couples to support and help the adult singles around them.

I’ve found through experience that Marrieds do NOT associate with Singles, Period. Either they’re too busy Focusing on Their Families or Singles have Cooties. It’s very rare as a Single to find a Married who will actually associate with you.

I guess getting married is viewed by many Christians as being the equivalent to Moses and gang making it to The Promised Land in the Old Testament.

“Then you get married and can sit at the Grown-Ups table with all the other Grown-Ups.”

Though I always snark that “Married is Christianese for Getting Laid, with all the accompanying desperation and baggage. Popping your cherry means you’re now a grown-up instead of just a kid, only that in the Christianese Bubble you have to have an accompanying ring and ceremony.” Once you look at it that way, all the craziness falls right into place. Christians are just as messed-up as everyone else, just with a different (and often opposite) set of symptoms.

Nancy wrote:

@ Daisy:
I thought they spoke in the plural. As in all women subject to all men in heaven. I don’t even want to think about the possible ramifications of that.

Well, that would fulfill a male porn fantasy — any woman, any time, just because I wanna.

dee wrote:

Seneca, this is a warning. I have friends and family who have contemplated suicide.

I have a friend who once attempted it.
And I’ve been close myself a couple times.

But to someone who’s never been there, it’s Hilarious — “Can’t You Take A Joke?”

And I remember schoolyard bullies bragging they were going to drive the geeky kid to suicide, Just Because I Can.

Daisy wrote:

I’ve felt for some time that the Christian gender complementarian teaching is similar to the once upon a time American support for racial segregation (separate but equal).

Daisy, you are not the only one to notice the parallel.

And they hype to the rafters excessive praise on women birthing babies and raising them.

That’s because she’s birthing and raising the Man’s seed. Legacy and Dynasty and His DNA and 200-year-plans and all that.

dee wrote:

I have friends and family who have contemplated suicide.

I had an uncle who did. It’s an absolute lack of love, compassion, empathy and all things that make one a Christian to be so disconnected from what it is to be human and the illnesses that befall us to believe that it is a sin. Is getting cancer or leukemia a sin? There is no difference except in the mind of the hard-hearted.

Seneca “j” Griggs. wrote:

Eagle wrote:
@ Marie2:
It was in reponse to what Nick said, and a discussion of Jonathan Edwards and the lack of context that the Neo-Cals have. When your idol’s teaching results in members of your congregation committing suicide, I ask “what redeeming role does such a person play?”
I would suggest that God will not lay someone’s decision to take their own life at Jonathan Edwards teaching. That would be another case of “God, it’s his fault that I sinned.” ( Surely taking your own life is a sin.)

Surely believing in the sovereignty of God to the point where nothing happens outside of God’s providence is laying blame for all that happens on God. This must surely grieve our Father.

Have you heard of mercy, Seneca?

I’ve seen your comments on other blogs and they don’t seem to have the same flavor as they do here at TWW. Maybe other blogs don’t post all or most of your comments.

There is another whole reason I don’t believe in their winsome complimentarian ‘gospel’. Surely, if men were meant to ‘lead’ women in this way, then they’d have superior abilities for this. Most of the complementarianism I see looks like women having to pretend they are less than they are so the ‘man’ can feel like he is more than he is. If complywhatsitsism is true why aren’t men stepping up to show themselves as worthy leaders, rather than pushing women down? Why aren’t they obviously ‘over’ these women & worthy to lead them? Then we’d see women as all they are & men as far superior to these complithingys.
It’s obviously because it’s not true. It’s all a bit Tom Cruise… can’t stand having a taller wife, so she has to wear flats & he has to wear lifts, or stand on things.
I think some of these guys are still living in the shock of 2 World Wars, coming home to find that in their absence women have filled their shoes in many many areas they were formerly considered incapable of doing. Once that truth was so blatantly displayed I think the game was up, try as they might to conceal it. My Great Aunt Lottie, who was an Anglican Missionary in Shanghai at the turn of the 20th century, came out of retirement during the 2nd World War to run a Munitions Factory… oh no, not another horrendously capable female missionary…

@ Deb:

“The Dangers of Safety” ? That sounds like an oxymoron. Jumbo Shrimp.

Albuquerque Blue wrote:

How many will really stay, even if there’s a lot of them?

I agree wholeheartedly with you….But perhaps another question, an even sadder one, is, how many of these “quivers” will vow to leave the church permanently, and never return? At least that is one of the many sad results of SGM-ville that I have heard about….

ahhhh…. in other searches I found this: parody of the modern church service. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RJBd8zE48A&feature=related I suddenly feel stupid. That is our church service. exactly.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

A lot of what you said is true there. I’d also add problems and pain.

If you are a Christian undergoing any kind of problem or pain, many American Christians – in and out of church services – will either blow you off, or hand you platitudes.

I had a lot of that after the death of someone close to me and all the years I had depression.

Since visiting blogs similar to this one, I’ve seen Christians who said they went through the same thing with local churches or Christians they knew.

Churches and American Christian culture prefer Christians who are constantly happy, upbeat, and who have no problems, troubles, or pain in life.

Daisy wrote:

Mr.H wrote:

Funny, in a tragic sort of way. You skillfully highlighted the absurdity of the Neo-Cal obsessive privileging of facts/knowledge/rules over person/relationship.

That is something I mentioned either on this blog or at Julie Anne’s.

I noticed many years ago, when I used to hang out or talk to Calvinist guys on their forums, that even among the ones I liked and considered internet friends, a lot of them are intellectually smug and arrogant. They place a lot of value on higher education and learning…They liked to put down IFB KJVOs for being uneducated- hicks- from- the- sticks .

And funny, most of the neocals I ran into were ESVOs, or nigh close to it.

@ dee: thank you for doing what needed to be done! The most recent comment that made it through was beyond awful.

@ An Attorney:

If that’s the case, they should just go out and buy a new sports car like most other men. 🙂

Eagle wrote:

@ LawProf:

I would say your analysis is spot on. I was in Campus Crusade during this time, and Crusade pushed John Piper in the upper midwest. He even spoke at the annual Crusade Christmas conference in the Minneapolis TCX event. If you look at his book “Don’t Waste Your Life”, there is a DVD of Piper giving a talk to Crusade in 2003. I actually gave it to Dee. But I knew who Piper was because Crusade pushed him. My accountability partner liked Mark Driscoll and wanted to move from Milwaukee to Seattle to be a part of Mars Hill.

But Neo-Cals know what Bethlehem Baptist is and for them its the only church in the Twin Cities. I went there once with a friend who used to attend there. That was in 2003, 2004.

I was there in 2003. Yes, it was very surprising to me that John Piper was this Big Deal thousands of miles away from Bethlehem Baptist when he wasn’t even a Big Deal down the street from Bethlehem Baptist.

I’ll bet if you polled the general population in the Twin Cities, 80% to 90% would have no name recognition of Mr. Piper whatsoever. That may be to his credit, because unlike Mr. Driscoll and the ironically-named Mr. Noble, he does not seem to cause much of a stink locally, and you don’t hear ugly abuse stories in the TC coming from Beth Bap.

When I first saw him, I thought “There’s your average harmless milktoast pastor, the doddering uncle type.” But when I got the vibe hearing him speak, seeing him in person, experienced the Piper/Beth Bap thing directly, I came to the conclusion–as did my spouse–that there was something ugly, arrogant, condescending coming off the guy–fairly reeked of it. Just didn’t want anything to do with him thereafter.

But as far as a TC reputation, there was none I ever heard of. At the time the TC was the home of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn (later moved away), KTIS–the first ever Christian radio station, some prominent Christian colleges and seminaries, mega churches a good sight bigger than Beth Bap, churches with national prominence that sponsor national events.

There was a lot of stuff going on, and my wife and I were plugged in about as much as we could be, and I never heard John Piper come up in conversation once, not that I can remember.

@ Seneca “j” Griggs.:
You’ve written a lot of rude things on this site, but this takes the cake! I know what it’s like to be suicidally depressed and I can tell you from personal experience that your thinking gets extremely scrambled.

Until you’ve been in the place of psychic pain of those of us who have been there, you really should not say a word more about whether God considers suicide a sin. To reiterate, you don’t know what it’s about and you sure as **** can’t judge.

Seneca “j” Griggs. wrote:

I would suggest that God will not lay someone’s decision to take their own life at Jonathan Edwards teaching.

Ultimately, it may be that one person’s choice and responsibility, but, someone else could have played a role in it, much like the many teens we hear about today who commit suicide after enduring months of bullying by classmates.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

I’ve found through experience that Marrieds do NOT associate with Singles, Period. Either they’re too busy Focusing on Their Families or Singles have Cooties. It’s very rare as a Single to find a Married who will actually associate with you.

Another reason is many married people assume all singles are randy, have loose morals, and out to have affairs with their spouses. Which we are not.

If I had a nickel for every news report I see of married (married!!) preachers getting caught using, or selling, explicit child material, having affairs, visiting prostitutes, and hitting on women not their wives, I’d be filthy rich.

HUG said,

“Then you get married and can sit at the Grown-Ups table with all the other Grown-Ups.”

You know those books reviews I wrote about above? One of them had excerpts from one Christian book for adult singles, and it actually pretty much used that very analogy, sadly.

It told Christian singles reading the book that married Christian couples get to sit with other marrieds in a fancy banquet hall, they got to sit down at fancy tables with table clothes, china plates, silver ware, etc.

But being single means you are standing alone in a hall outside at a long buffet table, taking your paper plate along with you, with your plastic spork, and you have to eat standing up.

You may serve the marrieds by bringing them re-fills of their tea or whatever, but you won’t get to sit at the fancy table yourself until you get married.

This book was trying to be helpful to singles, but based on the excerpts I saw, it was terribly condescending and made singlehood sound like a second class way of being.

The message conveyed in books such as that is that you will only arrive and be permitted to sit at the Adult Table when and if you marry.

Eagle wrote:

@ LawProf:

One of my friends went to Bethel and studied under Greg Boyd. He likes Greg Boyd. John Piper had this pure hatred of Greg Boyd and treid to get him fired from Bethel.

I knew about Boyd’s (in my opinion) odd view of Open Theism when I lived there (but I still consider him fundamentally orthodox), but I had no notion of Piper’s hatred of him for it. But had I known of it, I, like most evangelicals living in the TC at the time, would have thought “So the flea wishes to challenge the elephant?”

Bit of an exaggeration perhaps (and honestly I do not value being a Big Thing in Christendom at all, I consider it primarily a dangerous thing), but truly such were the relative Twin Cities reputations of Mr. Piper and Mr. Boyd in my recollection. One can only speculate at the thought process of the powers that be at Bethel as Mr. Piper laid his allegations at their feet: “So, because this creaky, supercilious nonentity doesn’t like our most famous professor–the one who’s the head pastor of the fastest-growing local megachurch, the dynamic lecturer with degrees (with honors) from Yale and Princeton, the one beloved by students and colleagues, the one responsible for much of our national reputation–we’re supposed to fire him? Will someone please show Mr. Piper the door?”

@ Eagle:
I’ll second your idea of the new term “mormonization of Christianity”. I was blind to the similarities until I started spending time in Mormon central. I stand out like a sore thumb out there due to my inability to keep my mouth shut and be sweet. 🙂

Point of historical interest:

The first recorded instance of interweb trolling is believed to be one in which a scientist started a discussion on a fantasy role-playing forum which he suspected would become heated and which he hoped to encourage as such. Specifically, he posed the question: who would win in a fight between Gandalf and The Emperor From Star Wars? Both (fictitious!) characters soon gained their own camps of supporters and the flame war between these two groups became more and more vitriolic. Which was the whole point of the post. The scientist himself, of course, had absolutely no interest in either Middle-earth or Star Wars.

Unfortunately, I can no longer find the source where I first read this. In fact, if you google “internet troll gandalf emperor” one of the top 10 posts is the comment on TWW in which I said this last year… oh dear, oh dear. Thus are urban myths born.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Both (fictitious!) characters soon gained their own camps of supporters and the flame war between these two groups became more and more vitriolic. Which was the whole point of the post. The scientist himself, of course, had absolutely no interest in either Middle-earth or Star Wars.

He just threw a rock into the hornets’ nest and ran?

dee wrote:

PS I am also tiring of their “club” words: audacious, dangerous, etc. They sound like secret agents as opposed to simple pastors.

James Bond Wanna-bes.

(Check the “Heathen Critique” blog out sometime — it’s a chapter-by-chapter deconstruction of various works of bad Christianese fiction. Jerry Jenkins of Left Behind fame gets snarked on a regular basis over there. Most of the guy’s stuff reads like BAD James Bond/Tom Clancy fanfic, Utterly Perfect Author Self-Inserts and all. The guy must be Ian Fleming in his own mind.)

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

Yes, except as he was protected by a hornet-proof screen of anonymity, he didn’t need to run – he just sat and watched.

JeffT wrote:
<blockquoteWee Johnny Piper runs through the town
Uptown, downtown in his night gown
Rapping at the windows, crying through the dell
Are the women all submissive, or else you’ll go to hell

LOL!

Seneca “j” Griggs. wrote:

I would suggest that God will not lay someone’s decision to take their own life at Jonathan Edwards teaching. That would be another case of “God, it’s his fault that I sinned.” ( Surely taking your own life is a sin.)

Two things.

1) ““Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!” – Matthew 18:6-7 NKJV

2) I know, from personal experience, that suicide is not necessarily a sin (the intent of the heart in it would be the factor). There are far worse things that are an affront to love and life than choosing, in a moment (or longer) of severe mental distress, to take the only exit you can see. Is it the best? No. Is it what God prefers? Certainly not. Is it a ‘mortal’ sin? Absolutely not.

This attitude is at the heart of spiritual abuse. Leaders – preachers – not taking responsibility for the affect their words and actions have on the people they have set themselves over. Per the above quote from Jesus, those who are responsible for contributing to the stumbling/falling of a child of God will have to answer for it one way or another. That is a very sobering thing and should give anyone who thinks they want to be ‘in charge’ of God’s people reason to pause and consider….

Dee and Deb,

It has been quite some time since I have participated on these forums, and I am hesitant to post anything now, but I feel the need to share the following for the sake of clarity and context.

I have stated on here before that I have a lot of respect for David Platt and the church he pastors in Birmingham. I know many people personally who do not and many of you on this forum do not care for him. That is ok, but I would like to share my perspective.

I agree with raswhiting and say that I do NOT think Platt meant that we need to “martyr” our lives for Comp doctrine. Rather, I think the context shows he is saying we need to “defend” Comp doctrine with our lives by living it out THROUGH our marriages, NOT by sacrificing our lives for it.

Deb, you said this earlier:

“Sorry, but Platt is a sensationalist trying to rally the troops. And ‘complementarianism’ is the most important tenet of this crowd.”

A sensationalist of what? If you are saying he is a sensationalist for Evangelism, for people to OBEY God when he calls people to the far corners of the Earth where the unreached people groups are…then I would wholeheartedly agree with you. And yes, if being a “troop” means sharing Christ to this world, then I want to be part of that.

Maybe I am missing something, but when did it become wrong-taboo, to be courageous enough to follow what God has called us to do, even if it means that we will not be safe? (That was a big point in “Radical”) Maybe I am missing something, but isn’t Platt saying Jesus is worth the risk we should take in following Him, even if following him means losing everything? (Another point in Radical)

You say that complementarianism is the most important tenet of this crowd…I just don’t see this with Platt. Platt adheres to comp doctrine, preaches it, and considers it important to the way (in his view) God designed marriage to be, but I do not see this being his MOST important tenet…Nope..Not at all.

To prove my point—I went and listened to his sermon he preached at Southern Seminary. I read the article y’all posted, but I wanted to actually hear what the sermon was about. Sure enough, he only spends a little over 5 minutes talking about Comp marriage.

He says this:

“Let’s defend sexual comp with God’s word. Let’s defend sexual comp with our lives and our marriages through pictures of husbands as heads and wives as helpers loving authority glad submission in the context of beautiful relationships and let’s do this for the sake of the gospel in the world”

(Maybe I am missing something again, but is he not saying we should defend comp with our lives and marriages THROUGH what the husband and wife does? Again, I don’t see martydom here..)

And he says this:

“Today’s cultural climate presents a huge opportunity for gospel witnesses. Spiritual darkness engulfs the picture of marriage in our culture. Spiritual light will shine all the brighter in a picture of a husband who lays down his life for his wife and a wife who joyfully follows her husband’s loving leadership. God’s design for marriage is far more breathtaking and satisfying than anything we can create on our own.”

Yes–He teaches comp doctrine (which ironically my wife and I do not follow–we are more Egalitarian), but then he spends the next 10-15 minutes talking about this:

“We work for justice in the world as we speak about the justice of God in the world”

His topics to discuss…Christians working to end poverty and horrendous things like sex trafficking in the world. Then he talks about the unreached people groups of the world.

Among all of this, his sermon also discusses the problems relating to abortion, sexual immorality, etc. My point, he does not spend 50 minutes harping on Complementarianism. No. He spends 50 minutes describing a multitude of things that I believe you would find a hard time NOT finding in scripture.

Do I agree with his stance on marriage? No, not exactly. But I think he has a right to teach this based on what he interprets from scripture. Just like any of us have the right to teach what we interpret.

Platt may cross the line at times by turning comp doctrine into a bigger issue than it is (I still don’t see him making as big of a deal as other pastors), but I still appreciate the fact that he calls Christians to recognize the importance of reaching the lost, standing up for injustice in our world, and most importantly–He actually practices what he preaches. (As you ladies have written about before).

His rhetoric is radical, but when the context of his rhetoric is calling people to wake up from a slumber of comfort and actually DO something with our faith…I am thankful for pastors like Platt.

mirele FKA Southwestern Discomfort wrote:

Also, it became clear to me that with the idea there would be subordination in heaven that there’s one sin which has not and will not ever be forgiven. And that’s the sin of Eve. Adam’s sin can be forgiven, but Eve’s will hang over women forever.

Hon, they don’t believe that this has anything to do with Eve’s sin. They believe (as Calvin believed) that women were created from the very beginning as inferior. One of the things I remember well from research for a paper I wrote, comparing and contrasting Calvin and Luther, in my first year of seminary at Duke.
And one of the reasons for my thorough dislike of Calvin (and a sneaking liking for Luther, who learned how to love from Katie von Bora!)

David Platt has never allowed a woman in his pulpit. He has stated publicly that he respects the role of a woman, and a woman is better than a man…. At being a woman.

I respect his view and also happen to agree with him. It is not politically correct. But you can look at the downfall of our nation…it all started with women preachers.

@ Daisy:
But to drive it they need to put the seat up where the little ladies put it, so to speak, and that can be very demeaning. Better to have a driver paid by the church, doncha know.

I really have been unable to take Strachan seriously in anyway since his screed against Sesame Street. What did Sesame Street do that was so blasphemous in his view? Apparently, one of their muppet characters who is gendered male was shown playing with a doll, and according to Strachan’s theology, it’s a sin for a male puppet to play with a doll… or something weird and twisted like that.

Andrew,

I hear you on this one. I too am bothered by Platt’s silence on this matter. I have not written him off over it, but I do wonder/question why he would remain completely silent.

Is he silent to be protective of Mahaney? Possibly…I think it could also be because these things are still in the realm of “allegations”…and he is afraid to break the silence on an allegation issue of cover up.

Either way, I think he is wrong here. I feel he should speak up on this issue–mainly because there are plenty of red flags that should result in a statement or two by the neo-cals. I still see a lot of credibility in other things he stands upon/does.

Dee,

I agree the gospel is not dependent on a certain view of marriage. His whole sermon was not just about marriage, but other ways we live for the “sake of the Gospel” such as standing up for injustice in the world, flee sexual immorality, etc.

I don’t think fleeing sexual immorality alone or feeding the poor will necessarily bring people to the point of embracing the Gospel–but I do think it brings credibility to the world to show we love/live like Jesus. I think Platt’s understanding of complementarian marriage is to ultimately love each other the way God intended in our marriages, which points to the love of Christ-which ultimately points to the Good News of Christ… (At least that is what I think is his understanding).

As far as being practical in what that means, he didn’t say in this sermon. He DID say that a husband should lay his life down for his wife and a wife joyfully follows her husband’s leadership. That’s about as practical as he got.

Again, I don’t agree with his position on marriage, but I DO agree that if my wife and I are loving in our marriage, we remain faithful to each other, we serve one another, then we will represent Christ IN our marriage. I would hope that the love my wife and I demonstrate to each other will ultimately give us an opportunity to point others to Jesus who saved us. (We love/sacrifice for each other like this because Jesus love/sacrificed for us). I contend (much like Platt) that a loving marriage is not the only “good fruit” that should come out of our faith for the sake of the Gospel–many other things should come too.

I read the piece on Platt and Chan before–and I appreciated you highlighting some things that they have done.

Will have to go back and read the article on Dubai later when I have time to process all of it—If it involves Lifeway, I am not suprised… Lifeway’s marketing tactics are incredibly shameless at times. Although Platt’s books are channeled through Lifeway, I am not so sure he would have direct influence over their marketing schemes. Of course, I have no earthly idea how that works. He could have been the main one to draft the statement surrounding the simulcast. If so, it was definitely misleading, and takes away from the central message his book “Follow Me” was trying to convey.

David Platt makes a living with words. I believe he meant what he said and he honestly does think that complementarianism is part of the Gospel.

I’m not sure which is the worse heresy among these comps: the Eternal Subordination of the Son or needing to defend sexual complementarity (whaaa?) with our lives. I’m going to go with the latter as being at least original, as ESS is just a tiresome old retread of Arianism.

Not that I have any say about heresy these days since I’m outside the fold, but I did want to note the sheer novelty of Platt’s argument.

@ dee:

Don’t forget the Jerry Falwell Tinky Winky purse tiff. That was similar. It brought me a few laughs back when it happened.

Tinky Winky controversy

[Falwell] warned parents that Tinky Winky could be a covert homosexual symbol.

…. Ken Viselman of Itsy-Bitsy Entertainment, who distributed the show in the USA, commented, “He’s [Tinky Winky] not gay. He’s not straight. He’s just a character in a children’s series.”

nmgirl wrote:

It is so interesting that this topic of depression came up today. I did a speech today about people with with depression who have inspired me over the last 40 years since i was diagnosed.

You have probably already heard it or seen it, but the Warrens have been in the news a lot this past week. Their church has been doing a series of conferences or something about mental health.

I know a lot of Christians do not like Warren’s theology, but I think he and his wife are correct about mental health, that Christians need to step up more and stop shaming Christians who have depression or something.

Rick Warren: Churches Must Do More to Address Mental Illness

Daniel barrick wrote:

David Platt has never allowed a woman in his pulpit. He has stated publicly that he respects the role of a woman, and a woman is better than a man…. At being a woman.
I respect his view and also happen to agree with him. It is not politically correct. But you can look at the downfall of our nation…it all started with women preachers.

Not to go too far down the road of philosophies of gender and sex, but what exactly is “being a woman”? Is it having a body that has the biological capacities of the female sex? Does it include some base level “maternal instinct”? Does it require physical weakness and diminutiveness? Does it mean being bad at reading maps? Does it mean being able to do a perfect winged eyeliner? Does it require squealing at the sight of a mouse or spider? What’s the list of required attributes of being a woman (or of being a man)?

One more observation:

When men try to point out that women are not as smart or wise as men, given to their emotions and gullible, they can come up with many examples to try and prove their point. But the truth is that many girls are raised to do little, stunting their growth in areas, thereby making it easier to come up with such examples.

I believe that being a wife, mother, and homemaker can be wonderful! I also believe that choosing to work can be wonderful, too. Either route a woman chooses, there will always be some areas that are well developed and some areas that are lacking. We just can’t do it all. But when the culture, or belief system, calls for women to be subservient, the women tend to be underdeveloped in some glaring areas. The men then interpret that as the women being weaker, less wise, more gullible, etc…

Katie wrote:

But when the culture, or belief system, calls for women to be subservient, the women tend to be underdeveloped in some glaring areas. The men then interpret that as the women being weaker, less wise, more gullible, etc…

Exactly. The fundamentalists who see women as the weaker vessel (and let’s face it, the CBMW crowd are all fundamentalists, just more modern-looking than the typical IFB crowd) do everything in their power to keep it that way.

And most women of comparable education (or even with a lot less education) can run rings around their arguments – so they have every reason.

As the Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) said:

“An intelligent woman has millions of born enemies – all the stupid men.”

@ Leonard Watson:
@ Daniel barrick:

Are these the same person with different names, or are they just blogging in the same basement?

Either way, they’re obviously just ‘avin a larf. And that, too, is a statistical fact.

Yes, Leonard the Troll, that wasn’t even close to being plausible. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

@ Leonard Watson:
@ Daniel barrick:

Are these the same person with different names, or are they just blogging in the same basement?

Either way, they’re obviously just ‘avin a larf. And that, too, is a statistical fact.

The same teenage kid (or pack of them), egging each other on. This one from Leonard the Obvious Troll is my favorite, actually funny.

@ mirele FKA Southwestern Discomfort:

Their worst mistake is in making a demigod of a heretic (Calvin).

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Er… would either Deebs or GBTC be so kind as to insert a [/blockquote] at the end of “He will redeem my soul in peace” in that post? I seem to have forgotten the forward-slash…

Thanks… (red-faced graphic)

Katie wrote:

I believe that being a wife, mother, and homemaker can be wonderful! I also believe that choosing to work can be wonderful, too. Either route a woman chooses, there will always be some areas that are well developed and some areas that are lacking. We just can’t do it all.

Katie, I love what you say in your comments. If I had the space I would be saying “yes” to this and “yes” to that. But what you say here seems to imply that women must choose between work and motherhood. In my life I did both, rather in the public eye, and with a significant degree of success. The worst opposition and ugliness I faced was from other women who thought that women should not do both. But I had grown up at a time and in a culture when women “did it all” basically all the time. So I just thought that those saying that it could not be done were just (not saying word leading to moderation) or else held a belief system which was destructive and perhaps even evil in its attitude toward women.

History is replete with times and societies in which there were other expectations of women and other behaviors from women than what we see today in the US, and especially what we see in the southern US and most especially in what we see in calvinist evangelicalism. The most recent of those times, for the whole nation, was during WWII. And the most recent from a subculture standpoint would be the Irish catholic women of my childhood who had large families and were also out and making it happen in whatever way they could. ( My own grandmother was similar to this, except for being baptist.) And today we have the ongoing example of first generation immigrant women who continue to do this, some with even a poor fluency in English. To say “can’t” is not a statement which can be shown to be true. Now to say “should not” might be a religious statement, and that is entirely a different thing which would have to be defended on religious grounds alone.

Sometimes this “can not / should not” is used by the more affluent women to be one more way to put down the less affluent women in the never ending snotty games that women play. Notice that some of the women who declare their inability to function effectively and simultaneously in both worlds also have hired household help who somehow are able to do both. What is wrong with this picture? It is caste and class in the US. And it is ( another omitted word). And, yes, for those who want to see racism in almost everything, there is an element of “racism” here especially if you include the intermediate skin color of the new immigrant women.

Katie, you did not say this, but I want to include it in my statement here. One is not “chosen” by being white and upper middle class and fertile.

Daniel barrick wrote:

But you can look at the downfall of our nation…it all started with women preachers.

Behold.
Another man who hates women and doesn’t understand the Bible. The world seems full of them.

AFA women preachers, listen up lil’ Daniel:

Fact: Women Preachers have been alive, well, and active since the beginning of this nation.

(I know, Nick, just another wean who rings the bell and runs. Still, why would he do it if he liked women, actually understood the Bible and had a grasp on American history?)

@ Leonard Watson:

There is at least one place here (a rather large Presby church) in with the look that you describe is thought to mean that one is “authentic” or something, especially the jeans (and if they are tight enough to facilitate the growth of fungus). And at the local SBC mega that look was significantly gaining ground among the young married-with-kids. Except, of course there had to be a blond pony tail at the baptist place.

But. Leonard, if you are actually afraid that your wife could not or would not efficiently and with ease handel some misdirected sexual advance from either a lesbian female or a heterosexual male then you do indeed have something to worry about. I thought all of us learned how to do that by about age, oh, 11 or 12. You might want to look at your own situation at home and see why you think she might be susceptible to someone else’s sexual advances.

Correction: it is a false that medieval theologians questioned if women had souls. But it is a fact misogyny exists.

dee wrote:

@ LawProf:
Fascinating. I, too, have never particularly enjoyed Piper’s preaching style. For a long time, I thought it was a genetic defect or something. Now, I know that I just don’t agree with him on many occasions.

I don’t know, Dee. I think there is something “off” IRT Piper. My husband and I were introduced to Piper in 2009 or so and enjoyed what he had to say on Twitter/Facebook and such. It quickly went downhill, though, when the rare occasions of my husband texting me “Did you see what Piper put on Facebook? WTheck is he saying?” and my nervous jokes of “I think Piper is smoking something” became rather common. We both declared the guy a nut and haven’t taken him seriously since.

@ Daisy:
LOL of the day!

Marie2 wrote:

Albuquerque Blue wrote:
How many will really stay, even if there’s a lot of them?
I agree wholeheartedly with you….But perhaps another question, an even sadder one, is, how many of these “quivers” will vow to leave the church permanently, and never return? At least that is one of the many sad results of SGM-ville that I have heard about….

Marie2 – I am the oldest of nine and began to be homeschooled in the 80’s when it was hard to do so (think threats from officials and the like). My parents, though never involved in ATI and such, were heavily influence by Howard Phillips and Mary Pride and all of the things that came along with those folks. Thankfully, my parents threw away many of those ideas when I was a teen. However, here I am, with my own “quiver” and I am this close to leaving the church. It is hard to grow up one way, and hear Calvinist theology the majority of your life, to discover that you do not agree with what you were raised to believe. It throws you for a loop.

I honestly believe many of the children in the homeschool/quiverfull movement will leave. It is a toxic environment to be in.

@ Beakerj:

… sprays coffee all over desk…

@ dee:

So once you “do due”, you can “do do” on the troll! Sorry, could not resist.

dee wrote:

I did not do due diligence

Thirty-three certified thistle-sifters successfully threshed six thirsty thistles.

And all because they failed to do due diligence.

Oh, goody, another list of what biblical womanhood is. And, as usual, the only part that couldn’t alsp be said about manhood is submission to one’s husband and not being a pastor. Why bother with the rest. Genders are different! Really. It’s just that the only difference is that women are supposed to submit because genders are different because. . . .

And O forgot the link. Here it is http://www.biblicalwoman.com/2014/03/27/the-biblical-woman-statement/

@ burntnorton:
Here we go round the Mulberry Bush, the Mulberry Bush, the Mulberry Bush…

Don’t they have such dizzying intellects? It’s like where do you get on, and how can hop off lol

For anyone here who believes in ESS could you please steer me to the verses that actually say that Jesus obeys the Father and for that matter can anyone point out verses that say that Jesus obeyed the Father when He walked the earth in His human form. This discussion has inspired me to look for them just like I had to look for verses that actually tell men to lead, rule or be head of their wives.
Thanks

dee wrote:

For many marriages, it ends up in “I make the decisions and you make the brownies. See. we both have equal worth roles.”

Dee, isn’t that the truth? In fact, in a dictionary, that would be an apt definition!

Katie wrote:

ut when the culture, or belief system, calls for women to be subservient, the women tend to be underdeveloped in some glaring areas. The men then interpret that as the women being weaker, less wise, more gullible, etc…

I skimmed over a web page by a gender complementarian a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember the site or who it was by, but there were the most curious comments in it by the male who wrote it.

He was coaching Christian men to be leaders and the usual rigmarole, but some of his comments about Christian women bothered me. On this page, he scolded Christian women for being too passive, and he had similar complaints.

Christian gender complementarianism advises or rewards Christian girls and women for being really passive, coy, unassertive, but then some of these male gender comps turn around and blame and criticize women for being too passive, coy, and unassertive! You can’t win in their system no matter what you do.

@ Daisy:
Heads, I win; tails, you lose, and don’t forget, it’s always the woman’s fault.

@ Patti:

Start with the article on arianism in wikipedia. It has a lot of information as well as some primary scripture references and covers the subsequent debates well, in my opinion, but I am not a church historian or a theologian.

But If you are going to be either for it or against it you are right in my ball park when you say “show me.” There has been far too little argumentation on the part of the ESS people aimed at the general public. If they want to convince me they will have to show me also.

@ Daisy:

It is not just the gender comps. It is men in general. Mostly they don’t know what they want, and mostly they take what they can get. Just like women.

@ dee:
My thought on Adam and Eve, is that Adam didn’t HAVE to eat the apple. He also had a choice.

burntnorton wrote:

Oh, goody, another list of what biblical womanhood is

I thought the following was good. It talks about how gender complementarians mangle “biblical manhood” and make “biblical manhood” an issue.

It does talk about “biblical womanhood” a little bit, too.

“Be a Man” – Christianity and Gender Mystiques

Daisy wrote:

about how gender complementarians has gotten

I meant,
“about how gender complementarians usually ignore singles has gotten… “

dee wrote:

@ Win:
Welcome to TWW.
These guys are playing a game that is a mix of Candy Land and Dungeons and Dragons. They make all sorts of chivalrous statements about “laying down their lives” for their wives. Isn’t that nice?

Except in the real world, if has little to do with slaying dragons to the death. It has to do with who makes the decisions from day to day: money, children, etc. That is where real life resides and that is where these guys who think they are patriarchs screw up.

For many marriages, it ends up in “I make the decisions and you make the brownies. See. we both have equal worth roles.”

There’s a fellow here locally, a patriarch (a very patriarchal one, by the way) who I had the extreme displeasure of encountering at that cultic church I’ve told TWW about that was led by two former SGM leaders, one of whom was him; I’ve referred to him elsewhere as The Enforcer. Anyway, his Stockholm Syndrome wife once told my Strong Willed “Jezebel” wife “My husband is so good, he makes all decisions for me” (according to my incredulous wife this extended to everything: menus, when she was allowed out of the house, all financial, all child-rearing, all everything–essentially she was treated like a small child).

Now to the point: in addition to being a domineering husband, he was also into showy displays of “chivalry”, and he has taught his five young sons, some of whom are teens, to do likewise. They speak and facebook excessively about being true gentlemen, knights in shining armor, they would with great flourish lay coat in puddle before lady. They’ve managed to convince a few of the teenage girls around, the sheltered types, of their great goodness. The interesting thing is this goodness does not prevent them from being full scale bullies, they refer to teenage girls (who do not acknowledge their goodness) with amazingly vile terms, they mock and ridicule small children, same for grown adults. They do this in ways that tend to run under the radar, however. If any of you are old enough to remember, it’s something like Eddie Haskell (with a demonic bent) from the old Leave It To Beaver show.

@ Paula:

Do you think it may center around 1 Cor 15:27-28?

@ Nancy:

I read some books that touched on some of these topics, and that is true. Some men think they know what they want, but when they get it, they find it’s not so appealing.

A couple of the books I had talked about male clients who admitted to behaving like selfish, sexist swine because they liked toying with women and being in control.

But, these therapists said, after years of this, these men said they realized they don’t want it after all… they are bored and lonely in the relationship, having all the power and control over the woman they are dating or married to. They say they want a woman to stand up to them and not be their doormat. They say they want a true equal, not silly putty they can squish around however they please.

I also mentioned a Sci Fi movie that discussed this issue on an older thread. It is called Cherry 2000.

The guy in that movie thinks he wants the perfect woman (who is a robot – literally), but after it breaks down, and he has to spend time with a real women (who sometimes argues with him and gives him a hard time), he falls in love with the real woman and decides he doesn’t want the robot replacement after all.

BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

@ burntnorton:
Have you also seen the True Woman(TM) Manifesto?
http://www.truewoman.com/assets/files/TW_Manifesto.pdf

BTDT- I actually signed that way back when. Last year I remembered that my name was in that silly thing and I emailed to ask them to take it off. They were quite gracious about it and did as I asked, but they were gosh-darned confused!

The reasons a weak, insecure man would support this kind of nonsense are not hard to imagine–what floors me is that any woman with a lick of self-esteem would go along with it. Is making them the King of the House the only way to motivate men to be invested in their marriage and family? What a sad statement on manhood.

burntnorton wrote:

And O forgot the link. Here it is http://www.biblicalwoman.com/2014/03/27/the-biblical-woman-statement/

I will never understand where they get this from ” We believe that marriage was created by God as a covenant between one man and one woman for the purpose of communicating the relationship between God Himself and His people. . . ”

Where do we find that marriage was created to show the relationship between God and His people? We see numerous times that God talked in terms of marriage in order to illustrate the relationship between God and Israel, but it is never said that the whole reason for marriage was for this reason?

Hester wrote:

On a sadder note, I did once have a Calvary Chapel friend seriously claim that I should be ready to get hit on a lot as a church organist because of “all those lesbian ministers” in liberal mainline churches. I LOLed so hard.

Well, on the other hand, you probably don’t have to worry too much about the male organists hitting on you…

Father, forgive me for I have stereotyped… again. 😮

@ No More Perfect:

If the symbolic nature of marriage is so important, I wonder why Jesus did not cite this when He discussed marriage and divorce. It is not like He was silent on the subject of marriage. But he does not seem to have been aware of the immense importance of the symbolism between marriage on the one hand and His own relationship with His Father on the other hand. There does not seem to be one word, either, about dominance and submission in His discussion of marriage and divorce. But He does seem to talk about biology. What on earth? Well, maybe He just did not know, you think?

@ Nancy:

Or, why didn’t Jesus show us the importance of marriage in displaying the Biblical Gospel to the world by getting married himself?

Nancy wrote:

@ No More Perfect:
If the symbolic nature of marriage is so important, I wonder why Jesus did not cite this when He discussed marriage and divorce. It is not like He was silent on the subject of marriage. But he does not seem to have been aware of the immense importance of the symbolism between marriage on the one hand and His own relationship with His Father on the other hand. There does not seem to be one word, either, about dominance and submission in His discussion of marriage and divorce. But He does seem to talk about biology. What on earth? Well, maybe He just did not know, you think?

I am starting to think that these people may not really understand Who Jesus is and why He is so important! It seems to me that the life of a Christian would be so much fuller if one strove to be like Jesus and less like the people who claim to speak for Him.

@ No More Perfect: because it is an analogy… But these folks don’t do “subtle.”

@ No More Perfect:

Also, I have heard them say that there was no way Jesus could cover everything and that people weren’t ready for all the info and that’s why He had to go and send the Holy Spirit to speak through Paul and Peter to tell everyone those greater things that He wanted to tell them but that the weren’t ready for.

That is how they use this verse.

John 16:12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

This is how they account for Jesus not addressing it. They say that compism is (one of) the truth that the Holy Spirit guided the Apostles into and that’s why we should place the (comp approved) writings of Paul to individual churches on the same level of importance as everything that came out of the mouth of Jesus. But then, there are other things the Paul wrote that they want to relegate to the culture of the day. And yes, the Comps are lords and keepers over which things we take as gospel and which things we take as for that time.

@ numo:

Yes. Good observation.

Ken wrote:

surely rather than husband and wife it would be seen in the relationship between an adult son and his father. This would likely be seen in a deference and respect of the son towards his father, both of whom otherwise would be viewed as equal adults.

…I don’t think ESS supports complementarianism, but I also don’t think a biblically accurate doctrine of the trinity should be sacrificed on the altar of egalitarianism either.

Are you saying “equal but different” here? Because we shouldn’t forget that Jesus made Himself “a little lower” for a while. Heb. 2:9 It was not a permanent subservient position but a temporary sacrifice for a specific purpose. He is, after all, God. He said when we see Him, we see the Father. John 14:9

It’s the perfect example of total unity, equality, and purpose.

@ Mark:
Correction. There was one such person who wrote this

http://www.womenpriests.org/latin/valens.asp

@ Daisy:

There are a lot of straight, married male preachers who hit on women in their congregations.

True. It also didn’t seem to occur to her how completely creepy it would be for a 50+yo pastor (of either gender) to be hitting on the 23yo organist.

@ Josh:

Well, on the other hand, you probably don’t have to worry too much about the male organists hitting on you…

Yes, you are stereotyping again because all the male organists I know are straight (most of them married w/kids). 😉

dee wrote:

@ Seeker:
Although I disagree with you on his characterization of the gospel© of complementarianism, let me throw you a bone.

http://bcaskins.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/contrasting-elephant-rooms-james-macdonald-mark-driscoll-t-d-jakes-and-david-platt/

How weird, I just watched the elephant Room with MacDonald, Driscoll and Platt just this morning.

It wasn’t a debate at all. It was a tackle by a couple of offensive linemen (and yes, offensive had a double meaning here).

I take issue with complementarianism, and I truth stretching is dangerous for all of us. But dang, the contrast between MacDriscoll and Platt was amazing.

Interesting side note: I’m obsessed with studying body language. James MacDonald exhibited anxiety the *second* it was mentioned that David Platt’s father was a financial auditor. Didn’t stop physically displaying until they were past that subject.

Dee,

Thanks for the link.. Platt has flaws and I think his teaching on Comp Doctrine are part of those flaws. I am going to listen to his series on biblical manhood and womanhood that someone linked above to try to get a better grasp on his position on marriage—never listened to his whole series.

My wife and I functionally come away with an egalitarian marriage, although I myself have a hard time understanding the context behind some things said in scripture. Even in light of the cultural differences of the ancient world.. Some points seem to point in the direction that comps teach—Although I find it hard to believe if Comp’s truly live out what they teach or are practically egalitarian in their relationships..

In spite of his flaws, I have great respect for Platt’s position on the Great Commission and justice for the poor/least of these. I firmly believe the Holy Spirit worked through Platt’s teachings to restore a passion in me for the unreached/least of these/poor around the world. And with the link you posted, he has certainly experienced his critics for practicing what he preached in his life and church.

Hester wrote:

Ah the joys/travails of working toward an AGO degree equivalency.

I suspect my plodding progress towards mastery of Rachmaninov’s Bb Minor prelude (by no means his most difficult) would entertain you; but not necessarily in a good way… 🙂

Who Knew? wrote:

The reasons a weak, insecure man would support this kind of nonsense are not hard to imagine–what floors me is that any woman with a lick of self-esteem would go along with it. Is making them the King of the House the only way to motivate men to be invested in their marriage and family? What a sad statement on manhood.

The world is full of people who want simple answers to life and for others to make the “hard” decisions. It’s easy to get from this position to allowing someone else to run your life.

@ JeffT:

Also note that Dorothy Patterson and Mary Mohler both have cushy teaching jobs at their husbands’ seminaries under the Wife of Big Shot (WoBS) exception to the CBMW rules.

JeffT wrote:

More from the Male Superiority Wacky Factory reported by ABP:
http://www.abpnews.com/faith/theology/item/28519-seminary-website-lists-aspects-of-biblical-womanhood#.Uz1u9_ldWSr
Not to be outdone by SBTS and Al “No Penis, No Pulpit” Mohler, and SEBTS and Paige “Stained Glass Graven Image” Patterson, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary joined in the campaign to convince women that slavery to a husband is good thing, by establishing a new website “Biblical Woman” at
http://www.biblicalwoman.com/
In case you don’t get what a “biblical woman” is, the main page is helpful by posting a picture of a woman in the kitchen with a stack of folded towels and an iron. What you can’t see are the chains attached to her legs confining her to that life.
It sure seems obvious that there is a concerted public effort by those of the fragile male ego set subjugate women to rescue their ‘manhood’.

Ah, and how helpful that it has tips on how to keep me thin and beautiful healthy. http://www.biblicalwoman.com/tag/health/ Because we all know that true gospelly wives make sure they defy biology and keep themselves looking the same as they did when they were 19.

@ JeffT:

I saw a great picture/drawing of one of those stepford type women doing housework in heels and coiffed hair and an huge smile. Something from the 40s or 50s. She was cleaning the bathroom in an ad for this or that cleanser. The caption read: ” A spotless bathroom is the sign of a wasted life.”

Nancy wrote:

” A spotless bathroom is the sign of a wasted life.”

🙂
Anyone else remember “The Good Wife’s Guide?”
http://www.j-walk.com/other/goodwife/images/goodwifeguide.gif

Nancy wrote:

But think about this. If there were no females on the planet who were willing to cower and “submit” in the comp understanding of that, would all the men throw up their hands and just swear off women?

Like that’s ever gonna happen.
There are American men who have sworn off American woman and have gone the mail order bride route because American women don’t know their place. But those nice, submissive Asian women do.

You could say the same thing about porn. There will always be vulnerable women (girls) who will get trapped in that system. And it is even less respectable than comp/patriarchy.

(was going to say porn was more sick and vile than compism, then I remembered patriarchy and domestic discipline and had to rethink that.)

Mara wrote:

There are American men who have sworn off American woman and have gone the mail order bride route because American women don’t know their place. But those nice, submissive Asian women do.

Here is an interesting tidbit from our “china collection” of odds and ends which my daughter picked up on one of her trips to China to adopt her girls. A Chinese saying is that the good life consists of Chinese food, American money and a Japanese wife (because the are believed to be submissive.) What does that tell you about Chinese women? And did you know that some of the most successful church planters in the Chinese underground house church movement are women evangelists? Got that from that missiology book I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. And then I read in some online regular news source not too long ago that some Japanese men are giving up on marriage partly, according to the story, because Japanese women are giving up on the submissive thing too much. Be interesting to see how that turns out.

@ Nancy:
It was an eye opener for me to read that Katherine Bushnell actually witnessed the Chinese Bible translators purposely mistranslate scripture to keep their Christian women subjugated.

One last observation:

Trueman’s post above was writer *after* he attended T4G 2012, where one of the breakout sessions discussed how complementarianism was essential to the gospel.

So no, Trueman hasn’t taken a stand on Mahaney, totally disappointing. But yes, he has taken a stand on this gender role madness, not to mention taking on the celebrity pastor culture.

I think there are some in that Reformed camp that, while certainly like myself are far from perfect, let me take a much needed breath knowing that God is still moving in people’s hearts, however far from the goal we may still be.

Every time I see Owen Strachan’s name, I think of that lady from Throw Mama From The Train and her screaming, “Owen! Owen! Owen!”
Owen Loves His Mama

No More Perfect wrote:

Thanks God for good husbands!

A point often missed by comp preachers is that the church is not a simpering, infantile plaything. To pull out just a few familiar scrippies:

As the Father sent me, so I send you…

and

… what I have, I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazarteth: Walk!

and

Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

If a preacher believes he is elevated and special, but his only real ability is in crafting a fine (“anointed”) lecture, then he will naturally infantilise the rest of the church, so that their role is to sit at his feet on a Sunday morning and do his bidding. They must be less than him, in other words. In that culture, you can understand how a man’s pride can become so inflated that he comes to believe the church depends on a few like him. If “his” church is a helpless dependant, it’s not a big step to believing that a woman too is a helpless (but “equal”!!!) dependant.

Thank God for the thousands of faithful, un-famous, unsung preachers around the world who understand that Jesus regards his bride rather differently.

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

Er – no, I’ve no idea where “Nazarteth” is… oops.

…about 70 miles north of Bethleharm… 🙂

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

If “his” church is a helpless dependant, it’s not a big step to believing that a woman too is a helpless (but “equal”!!!) dependant.

And it is not a big step to believing, if the analogy of Christ and the church holds, that Jesus is an egomaniacal tyrant in relation to the church. Thus, the enemy has an attack on both women and Christ.

Victorious wrote:

Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Er – no, I’ve no idea where “Nazarteth” is… oops.
…about 70 miles north of Bethleharm…

Snort!

Robin wrote:

It’s been a while since I have commented here but I would like to respond. I find it dismaying that the complementarian voices speak of the truth of Christ only in the context of gender roles within marriage. I am aware that marriage is HUGE within Christendom because Jesus describes the church as his bride thus marriage seems to be quite symbolic for a myriad of reasons. (For this reason, I think it would be difficult to describe homosexual marriage as a legitimate form of Christian marriage but, that may be something to speak of in another post.) However, in the 1st century and the years that followed people were being martyred in truly unspeakable ways because they would not bow down to an earthly power proclaiming said power to be “Lord.” In other words, they were proclaiming that Jesus was in fact God and they knew that because after he was killed he got back up a few days later and walked, ate, and talked with lots and lots of people. No one as far as I have ever read was martyred because he or she proclaimed that the man was the head of the household. In fact in the 1st century Roman Empire world, the notion that the man was anything other than in control would have been laughable. Maybe you might have been murdered if you said that you and your wife had equal say in all matters. (Who knows) However, fast forward to today and I bet there are a few Muslim women out there who have some really nice stories of how they were abused due to not “submitting” properly.

A.M.E.N!!!

No More Perfect wrote:

Because we all know that true gospelly wives make sure they defy biology and keep themselves looking the same as they did when they were 19.

Didn’t Voddie Beaucham go on record as saying that wives get Old and that’s why God gives a man daughters?