"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C. S. Lewis link
Last week, right in the middle of The Village Church dustup, Acts 29, of which Matt Chandler is the head and The Village Church is the mothership, decided to tweet the following provocative statement.
Shaking my head, I tweeted (which is, I guess, retorted)
This is a controversial statement for sure. It makes me wonder who is running the store over there. This was not the right time to release such a tweet. Chandler is involved in attempting to right a wrong decision on church discipline that led to the abuse of a woman who had been through a crisis. The Village Church also demonstrated the mishandling of a guy who has been lying for years about his sexual preferences that involves watching the abuse of young children via the internet (this included infants.)
There is reason to question that authority structure that is currently in place at TVC. Acts 29, for better or worse, is linked to TVC. They came out with a statement which is, in its essence, another discussion of authority and headship. Bad timing, men!
Bruce Ware , the guy who wrote this post, is the guy behind the Eternal Subordination of the Son (ESS) doctrine.
To get a good explanation of this doctrine, please read this post at Wade Burleson's blog, Semi Arianism Posing as Orthodoxy. Of course, Wayne Grudem is an ardent defender. Here it is in a nutshell. Jesus will always be subordinate to the Father in eternity because his role is to follow the will of the Father. This backs up the real reason that this doctrine is so essential to complementarians/patriarchs. It means that all women will be subordinate to all men in eternity. However, read the explanations yourself to see if you agree with my assessment.
Therefore, you can be sure that anything Bruce Ware writes on the Trinity or on the role of men and women will reflect this doctrine.
Playing Games
Ware goes on to deny he means what he says. Yes, I meant that as written. He states:
By claiming that complementarianism is in some senses central and primary, please notice what I am and am not here claiming. I am not saying that Scripture’s teaching on an all-male eldership in the church, or male headship and wifely submission in the home, is central and primary doctrinally.
(He reserves this for ) doctrines, that is, that impinge on the very truth of the gospel itself.
However, Google complementarianism and the gospel and you will see that the group Ware runs with does link it quite closely with the gospel. This means that one could, in good conscience, believe that this thinking is related to TVC itself.
Culture and the slippery slope
He believes that any compromise with egalitarians will lead to a desensitization of the radical call of Scripture.
First, I believe this doctrine is central strategically in upholding the Christian faith within a culture all too ready to adopt values and beliefs hostile to orthodox and evangelical conviction.
Today, instead, the primary areas in which Christianity is pressured by the culture to conform are on issues of gender and sexuality.
And surely it will not be long until ethical departures (the church yielding to feminist pressures for women’s ordination, for example) will yield even more central doctrinal departures.
But what must be clear is that to the extent that compromise on issues of biblical manhood and womanhood occurs, the church establishes a pattern of following cultural pressures and urgings against the clear and authoritative teaching of God’s written Word. When this happens, even though the compromises take place on matters which are not doctrinally central to the faith, the church becomes desensitized to Scripture’s radical call and forms instead a taste for worldly accolades.
Marriage is the way to reflect the picture of Christ and the church.
Second, in light of the revealing insight of the Apostle Paul, that marriage has been designed by God from the beginning to be a reflection of the greater and permanent union of Christ and his bride, the church (Ephesians 5.31-32), it follows that human marriage – one man and one woman in a covenant commitment for life – is of highest importance for Christians to uphold and defend
I have been a Christian for decades. Never once did I hear of anyone who got the Gospel by reflecting on Fred and Alice's marriage. In fact, I believe there is danger in putting such a heavy burden on marriage. All marriages are subject to sin. Marriages break up due to adultery, pornography, abuse, crimes, etc.
However, if we reflect on Christ's relationship to the church, we see Jesus who never fails His bride in spite of her sin. Also, since Paul never married, how would he reflect Christ and the church? He reflects the love of Christ by caring for the church. All of us: married, widowed, divorced, single, celibate, etc. can reflect Christ and the church in how we care for one another.
Once again, it is all about that ill-defined "submission" word.
Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ (Ephesians 5.24) and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5.25). In other words, it is not marriage in general that is designed to reflect Christ and the church; it is marriage of this kind – with male headship and wifely submission – that God designed to reflect this marvellous reality. We have no right to tamper with God’s design,
As we have often said at TWW, no one in the complementarian crowd has defined submission in any way that makes sense for all marriages.There should be some common features but they can't agree what those are. There is probably not one couple alive today who clearly reflects submission/headship in such a way that makes sense to our culture or even to us within the church. However, there are individuals like Mother Theresa, William Wilberforce, Ann Judson and Dr Kent Brantley that reflect the love of Christ for His people far more clearly than Fred and Alice.
It all boils down to this. Women cannot be pastors and elders and no amount of allegorizing the marriages in our congregations will make it seem like anything more. Even the complementarians disagree amongst each other what submission means. If they disagree, how do they think our culture will get a clear view of supposed clear allegory?
When I ask the question: "Could you explain how you live out complementarianism in your marriage?" I get the following answer "I don't know what it looks like for others but I know what it looks like for me." The problem is they cannot tell me what it looks like for them. I also would like to put my marriage up against any complementarian marriage and get them to tell me what is different. My guess is that they couldn't do it. And I am not complementarian. So something is wrong with the narrative.
I do believe that there is an innate suspicion that those who do not define it like the complementarian leaders do are compromising the faith. Deep down inside, I do think they believe this is a primary issue. That is why they are spending so much time on it. Those in Acts 29 churches should be prepared to hear this teaching. When you do, ask the question. "What does this complementarian lifestyle look like?" Please let us know what they say.
FIRST!
By claiming that complementarianism is in some senses central and primary, please notice what I am and am not here claiming. I am not saying that Scripture’s teaching on an all-male eldership in the church, or male headship and wifely submission in the home, is central and primary doctrinally.
For Pete’s sake, he sounds just like Doug Wilson here. Obfuscation and deliberately confusing, on purpose, so that he can claim, “That’s not what I’m saying” when he’s called on it.
Why do I find it funny? Because these guys just don’t get it?
Or my other emotion would be to cry?
Because Male Supremacy trumps EVERYTHING else.
(I wonder if this has a tie-in to the HOMOSEXUALITY(TM) taboo? Because without a strong Homosexuality taboo, Male-Supremacist cultures will be pulled in the direction of Male Homosexuality, including forced penetration as an animal dominance display.)
doublethink, comrades, doublethink.
Just throwing this one out here — why does any adult woman in her right mind agree to a marriage in which she is considered a second-class citizen for its duration? “Complimentarianism” is nothing more than a fancy name for “You do what I say,” isn’t it?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
There are more these guys who are gay than most people realize. I was surprised at how much was going on when I was at the seminary and nothing was said or done….many of these guys are living a secret lifestyle, and are married, and are pastors…I wonder how many of the wives know? Or because this is now a “business” agreement, they help hide it?
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
You are correct. IMO in their minds this perceived loss of male dominance plays right in to the ‘slippery slope’ that leads first to gay marriage and then societal acceptance of male on male rape of men and boys, like you say as a dominance display. Have some of them not already apparently become comfortable with the idea that all men are rapists at heart? And said this out loud in public?
This is not about ‘the bible says’ but is rather driven by fear. Now if one asks what is going on in some of their minds that they believe this–that gets kind of interesting speculation. I found KDs comment at 3:38 applicable here.
Here’s the latest post I did…it’s something I wanted to do for a while. Its about Richard Dawkins reading his hate email from Christians.
https://wonderingeagle.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/richard-dawkins-reads-his-hate-e-mail-from-christians-thoughts/
From the original post:
Other Christians hold conservative views and interpretations of the Bible and the faith, yet reject complementarianism.
Agreeing with or believing in gender complementarianism is really not necessary to be a Christian who holds sound doctrine. (When I realized that comp is wrong and rejected it, I didn’t morph into a liberal on other topics.)
Even out of the churches and denominations that adhere to comp views, there is still abuse and sexism that goes on among comp members.
Comp is not a cure for everything that ails churches and Christendom, so why do these guys think being comp will help secular culture?
(I can guess why they feel this way, because I used to be a complementarian and am a social conservative, so this is a rhetorical question.)
Depending on how you want to look at it (some may want to argue that changes go back before this date), American secular culture was heavily comp until maybe around the 1960s (and can still maybe be considered comp).
Most cultures default is complementarian or patriarchy.
A society being patriarchal or comp doesn’t stem the tide of cultural problems and decay, and can even foster other types of issues, such as women being trapped in abusive marriages.
The Bible says people’s hearts have to change for a society to change. People have to accept Jesus first. Churches dictating that everyone else accept complementarianism is a weak band-aid fix at most.
If comp was necessary to cause all this positive change in culture, why did Paul the apostle keep pointing to Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection? I don’t remember Paul emphasizing marriage or submission as societal solutions.
These people: i.give.up.
they are like those kids in the marketplace that Jesus talked about, refusing to hear, refusing to even think of cooperation with anyone who doesn’t agree with them to the last ioata.
I feel like i hit a saturation point last week, where i just can’t expend any more time or energy in discussing or reading about this particular set of issues. That’s partly because the people in question are.not.listening. to anyone but themselves.
Maybe it is time for me to do what Jesus asked of at least one person – to let the dead bury their dead, and move in another direction. Right now, there is much else going on and i am needing to continue my break here, I’m thinking. It is all a bit too much to have on my mind.
I wish you guys could post something hopeful. The pedophile enabler stories get very hard to read, after a while. Not suggesting you stop by any means, but a few hopeful items here and there would be helpful, and probably not just for me, but for many.
@ numo:
Iota.
Acts 29 reminds me daily why I find the church toxic in so many ways. If I were to quiz these guys with a blowtorch, I would no doubt learn I have failed the female prime directive by failing to submit to the headship of a man in marriage. It wouldn’t even matter that my very conservative father raised me to be an independent woman, even if I were to get married.
Galatians 3:28 means nothing to these guys. It is about social status, it is about economic position and it is about gender to them. They must have power over for eternity, even if they have to rewrite the essential understanding of the Godhead to do it.
Why would any woman want to go to Acts 29 heaven if all it means is that you’ll forever be second-class because of your human chromosomal makeup. I’d rather go to hell. The devil doesn’t discriminate, I hear. (And that’s only half tongue in cheek.)
The OP:
I don’t understand them on this.
The Bible only specifically calls for wifely submission to husbands. It says nothing about unmarried women, or widows or the divorced. And Jesus taught there is no marriage in heaven.
All of this meaning, there’s no gender based submission for single women, and none for married or singles, in the afterlife.
OP:
It’s not due to “feminist” pressure.
Women like me who grew up in this, (and I’m not a feminist), see the holes and contradictions in complementarianism, and that it’s not biblical.
You can’t keep pulling this, “you’re equal in worth but not in role” nonsense anymore and have me accept it as being true. You’re telling me I am second class, will always be 2nd class, all due to being born a woman. I’m not fooled anymore.
He( Ware? or some Acts 29 guy):
The Bible doesn’t really define manhood and womanhood. He seems here to be assuming that it does.
A lot of what these comp guys assume to be “biblical womanhood/manhood” is really their cultural norms or stereotypes read back into the Scripture.
I posted this on an older thread (I feel it’s pertinent):
4 Things Now Considered Manly (Were Created for Ladies Only)
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-manly-products-that-were-originally-meant-women/
Original Post said:
I have heard some complementarians say – and this is probably one of the only tenets they can all point to – is that the husband gets to make all the final choices if there is a point of contention.
So, if a married couples argue on if to move, if the husband’s job calls for it, the husband’s, “yes, we move,” trumps the wife’s “No, I don’t want to move.”
Even then, though, I’ve heard (“soft”) comps say, “but a husband should not be a tyrant and should maybe cave in to what the wife wants and take her wishes into account.”
My mother believed in this comp stuff and believed that dad had the final say so in theory. In practice, (though she did defer to my dad at times), in some major decisions, she got the final say so, like house purchases.
So, even the “husband gets final say so in marriage” rule is not always applied or not consistently.
“By claiming that complementarianism is in some senses central and primary, please notice what I am and am not here claiming. I am not saying that Scripture’s teaching on an all-male eldership in the church, or male headship and wifely submission in the home, is central and primary doctrinally.”
So what are the “some senses” that make complementarianism central and primary – but not central and primary doctrinally?
If this is true, then what is Acts29 talking about?
If this is true, then why the need for CBMW to even exist?
If this is true, then why is it talked about to no end in churches that believe in complementarianism?
If this is true, why are so many women harmed in these churches while men get pass (Root situation)?
If it is not primary and central doctrinally, then why do their actions and words say otherwise?
Dee,
Excellent post! Let’s not forget the discussion at the 2012 Together for the Gospel Conference called Complementarianism: Essentioal or Expendable?
http://t4g.org/media/2012/05/complementarianism-essential-or-expendable-2/
John Piper, Matt Chandler’s role model, explains why complementarianism is of primary importance. Russel Moore talks about complementarian marriages that are functionally egalitarian.
@ numo:
This may not be about sexual abuse, but it’s a positive story:
Sharp-Eyed California Bus Driver Saves Boy Kidnapped From Library (June 2015)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/06/bus-driver-kidnapping_n_7525136.html
Actually, I find the Acts 29 tweet very typical after a big scandal. I find the First Things article typical, too. And there will be more that talk about how important church discipline is and how comp doctrine is vital.
They are shoring up their base. They are saying, we don’t care what people say, we are biblical and we will be persecuted for it.
They are extremely one dimenstional and huge drama queens. I think our problem is that we don’t really accept that. We tend to think there is some “There, there” ….and there isn’t. They really are that pedantic and “entitled”. They are all about their priviledge and position. And church discipline/comp is the glue that holds in all in place.
They want female slaves that can’t say NO to them, or escape them.
They are the kind of men women would want to say NO to and escape.
My father loved telling me how he was the boss of my mother, he was sexually sadistic, any thinking woman with power would have left him.
The southern Baptist man that sexually terrorized me as a little girl was obsessed with female submission. I think any man that talks about female submission is sexually sadistic and should not be alone with little girls.
Jesus never talked about female submission, but a lot of sexually sadist, creepy, misogynistic men have.
Complementarianism, male headship, female submission, this is very demeaning and hurtful to me as someone that was sexually abused as a little girl by a misogynistic man. I never want to have that life again.
But these things make selfish men very happy, and these selfish, heartless men have decided that men’s feelings always trumps women and little girls feelings.
Jesus Christ never talked about, comp or female submission, and it is these things that make me not trust or respect most Christian men.
There is such a thing as a relationship between Christ and the church and there is such a thing as a relationship between a husband and a wife. There are some similarities that are possible. But the relationship between Christ and the church is not a sexual relationship. If these guys were really serious about being christlike according to this model why do they not practice celibate marriage? This has been done by some religious folks in the past including official saints so it is not a new idea. They do not do it or even suggest it for those who might do it because what motivates them is not adherence to scripture as far as it will take them; that is not what this is about. There is something else going on here, obviously. And they tell us what it is in that they keep mentioning current cultural trends in this country. Believe them, they are telling us what their motivations are, and it not about bible driven sanctity.
@ Deb:
From the page you linked to:
Would they be able to biblically response to that question?
As I said about three posts above, the Bible doesn’t explain or define manliness or womanliness.
The comps have to invent what they think it means, or juxtapose their cultural assumptions onto the text.
There Are No Biblcal Men
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/revangelical/2015/05/31/there-are-no-biblical-men.html
What would these men do if women stopped going to church, and promoting Christianity because of their selfishness?
@ K.D.:
Here is another angle to that. They tend to blow off pedophilia and accept instant repentance but blow gaskets over the “sin” of homosexuality.
Calling Dr. Jung….
Guest wrote:
Why they’d reference that there was a prophesied “falling away” and so they’re doing their faith the right way since now that they’re seeing prophecy fulfilled.
Nancy wrote:
I think their motivations are about maintaining power. They can’t be about cultural chaos because they have never shown any linkage between women having civil rights or being considered equal to men and cultural decline. Where was the magic tipping point? The vote? Equal property rights? Having a job outside the home?
The culture warrior pose is to provide cover for their real objectives. Similarly, if it were about Biblical fidelity, they would be able to produce a reasonable argument without proof-texting and what amounts to putting words in God’s mouth. They would be able to support it without resorting to demeaning the Son of God. But they can’t. However, people don’t stop to examine anything but just accept the appeal to cultural decay. That is basically what Danvers was all about.
Lydia wrote:
It is all so predictable, isn’t it? Before The Village story, there were the “shut up” posts. Then deafening silence. Now the defense of the indefensible starts. Of course they will not allow comments. I wouldn’t allow comments either if I had such a poor set of facts and texts and if there were people who know how to think instead of react to emotional appeals.
They tinker around the edges (and get it wrong as they do with their ESS nonsense) and think they are preserving the center. What they completely miss is that it is not up to them to preserve the center. Jesus has already preserved the center and everything that extends from it, and he’s done it for all eternity. That’s the beauty of his finished work on the cross and his resurrection. We get to live in this freedom yet they keep trying to shackle themselves for some reason.
And to answer their repeated misuse of Paul’s metaphor of marriage re Christ and the Church, I found some great analysis by Susanna Krizo: Don’t Lose Your Head Over Doctrine ( https://timfall.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/dont-lose-your-head-over-doctrine/ )
Once again the statement ‘women are to submit & men are to be the head’. If I’m not mistaken doesn’t that verse say ‘wives submit as Christ submits to the Father & husbands LOVE as Christ loves the church’. When did ‘husbands LOVE’ become ‘husbands LEAD’ in the way they insist? They import something they think is theologically true from other places to switch what this verse says. Let’s try that: just imagine the outcry if women constantly quoted that verse as ‘wives REPRESENT Christ as Christ does the Father, & husbands LOVE their wives as Christ loves the church’. Hello outcry.
CBMW is doing a full court press, taking their traveling medicine show to the annual meetings of the SBC & PCS
http://cbmw.org/cbmw-travel-schedule/
Beakerj wrote:
They are so indoctrinated that they are blind leading the blind. They don’t seem able to read scripture without it being twisted in their brain by what they believe.
In the infamous T4g video from 2012, Piper says he doesn’t remember what prompted the Danvers Statement in 1987. That’s funny, because it’s like he doesn’t remember the 1987 meeting of ETS that put them into a panic. That was when it became apparent that the Biblical scholarship was moving against them, and their position at the top of the hierarchy might be jeopardized. So they slapped Danvers together. It looks slapped together because it was slapped together.
Nancy wrote:
Obviously not, because one of the teachings in certain camps is that it’s not “biblical” for a wife to deny her husband. Nope. It’s not “right” for her to say no to him when he needs his physical needs satisfied. (Of course, it’s supposed to work the same way in the opposite direction (based on that scripture passage by Paul about not denying each other), but isn’t the cliche, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache”?)
And Mark Driscoll took the idea to great lengths, it seems.
Gram3 wrote:
The Vote. Obviously. See Doug Phillips for more.
Oh, wait…
Tim wrote:
Because they really are fastening the shackles on those who follow their ideas. The “big men” somehow seem to get a pass, at least until their abuses grow to the point where the secular culture notices and begins to make them an embarrassment. And even then, their buddies excuse them and put it all down to “persecution for the faith.”
I’m so sick of hearing the male supremist drivel coming out of Act29, CBMW, SBC, et. al. So forgive me for this post and the mods can remove it if I’ve crossed the line. But few women buy what they’re selling and are telling them “Don’t @!** on my back and tell me it’s raining”
Gram3 wrote:
There does not need to be a link, they think this is cultural decline. It is not necessary for female civil rights and gender equality to lead to cultural decline, it is already cultural decline in and of itself. And maybe it started with the vote. Did we not talk about this being an issue for some? And property rights of course. And the fact that the courts frequently give child custody to the mother and then make the father pay child support. Job competition from females, and sometimes female bosses on the job. And now females in the military. Just think what if they had to deal with women in the pulpit in their very own church. Human males tend to accumulate stuff and put it in a pile and then mark their territory around it, sort of metaphorically of course. But now some females have their own stuff and violate the territory markers by telling the male that it smells bad and he should hose the place down to make it smell better. Males cannot now force a female to give birth to their child unless they imprison her literally because she is in charge of who she does or does not give birth to-the technology is there and it is hers. And now the great horror is upon us-a changing attitude toward male sexuality itself with the increased acceptance of homosexuality as a life style.
And the two biggest leaders of christianity (judging from how they preach it) were celibate males. If you were a ‘real man’ would you want somebody who led his life as a celibate male to be completely equal to God the father? Besides the Muslims get multiple virgins in heaven, what does that say about christianity.
I can see why thy feel as they do. That does not mean that I agree, but I can see why they do. These changes have happened. This is mostly about women. They are not to the exclusive advantage of the male. And more change is currently happening. What more could anybody want to convince them that now is a desperate hour to act in this matter?
@ JeffT:
I bought it for too many years, sadly. To my sorrow and regret.
Our teens want nothing to do with church. I hope that they might some day want something to do with Christ, but it’s a faint hope at best. One of them rejects any mention of such things. She doesn’t even want anyone to pray for her; she finds it offensive when someone asks if they can. Though I respect her choice (is it unchristian of me not to talk of spiritual matters with her?), others hurt her further by expressing their distress at her rejection.
I wonder if these people know, and if they do, care, about the damage they are doing to the Kingdom. Every one of these stories – heck, every time they open their foolish mouths – it’s just that much easier for someone to think ‘this Christianity thing is wacko’. And it’s hard to really blame them.
They preen, and they pose, and they pontificate, and they come across like know-nothing control freaks, and fools to boot. They are doing a great evil, whether they know it or not.
The whole thing blows my mind. I read TWW day after day, week after week, and I think that these clowns have a lot to answer for. Oh, and they will…
@ refugee:
It’s just so sad that so many women that have been exposed to this poisonous doctrine have been driven from the faith entirely because it’s the only ‘Christianity’ they have been exposed to and want nothing more to do with anything called Christian.
Thank you. It’s like talking at a brick wall right now. No willingness to self examine in the TGC TVC Acts29 crowd among others and it’s just business as usual. And if a woman raises issues from the Scriptures, they definitely won’t listen. Would love them to prove me wrong but not expecting much.
@ numo:
Nancy wrote:
Yes, I agree that the changes between the sexes have happened, and I think that the changes are not all necessarily to the good for either males or females. The problem is that they draw a direct linkage between female emancipation and social chaos, and I think that the linkage they draw is not sustainable for a number of reasons. Complementarianism is an ad hoc solution to a moral panic which occurred in the 1970’s. Ad hoc solutions that are advanced as “Biblical” are not robust enough to withstand actual Biblical study and plain reason. That’s why Piper ends up looking like a babbling idiot at the end of the T4g video. He ends up saying that the Fall was the abandonment of Roles!
They can’t point to any particular tipping point because female emancipation is not the cause of social unrest. And they will not say which freedom women must give up to reclaim some social nirvana which never existed in the first place. How many cultures have much more social unrest while at the same time having a patriarchal hierarchy? The real problem is that males and females are living out the results of the Fall rather than living as one in Christ. For all their talk about gospel this and gospel that, they are stuck at a fundamentally pre-gospel point of males and females struggling with one another.
numo wrote:
I’ve been feeling down about the child sex abuse cases too; you can’t get away from them. I read one more sent to me by my husband and I just can’t handle it anymore. I’m glad it’s coming out, and I believe it needs to be exposed but there really is a grieving period in the church right now. It IS overwhelming. I don’t know if the answer is to stop talking so much as accept the realities we are facing. I guess we each have to work out what we can handle but I also don’t think we can live in a dream world like TVC or TGC. I’m thankful for TWW talking about all this, but I know I reach my saturation point on Twitter pretty fast. It’s shocking how few people really get it. I used to work with kids and I have kids and I just don’t understand people who value authority structures over the whole of Matthew 18. I do think it’s good this heartlessness is being exposed, but it sure does have a personal cost as we wake up to it.
Gram3 wrote:
I missed this. Can you elaborate?
Yep. This stuff just augments the battle of the sexes that is part of fallen mess rather than the freedom in Christ that is our equal unity in Him because of Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross.
@ Gram3:
Lydia wrote:
It was the 1987 meeting of the ETS where it became clear that evangelical non-complementarians have a good exegetical case. You can read the JETS papers at their online archive to get a sense for the state of the argument at the time.
Melody wrote:
I understand the fatigue and exhaustion and grief. Truly I do. The hope I see is that these things which were once covered up are subject to being exposed. That is very good news. Another way of thinking about it is what this would have looked like 10 years ago. Or even 5 years ago. People are talking about this because for all their denial, people get this. SGM happened before the Mars Hill implosion, and they were on offense about Mahaney. Then Driscoll. Remember the Mefferd silencing? I was so discouraged about that, but that was not the end of the story. And now we have the example of Mars Hill.
The evidence of the corruption of the authoritarian System has been piling up for years. Since the SGM story became news, there has been Gothard and Phillips and Driscoll and now The Village. At some point, people are going to connect the dots. For those who refuse to think, there is no cure for willful stupidity.
Until the late 60’s. Affirmative action was only for white men. That is not so any more. Society has changed. White men now have to compete, and they don’t like it. They are also operating out of fear of change. Of course, not all men are like this, but the one’s that are are figuratively screaming loudly and doing what ever they can to stay in control @ Nancy:
The creeds, which generally recognized as the foundational principle of Orthodox Christianity (i.e the Mormons will not agree to them which shows they have some power to clearify differences) have been around for more than 1,000 years. The way these guys are talking, we need add another line to them about the relationship of God and Christ and by extension to Husband and wife
.. That is pretty impressive on their part…Shall we call it “The creed of the comp?” or “The creed of the Network comp”?
@ roebuck:
I do not think they can damage God’s true kingdom. Nor do i think, at this point, that they are worshipping the one true God. A god made in their own image, yes.
This is what we call in the business “doubling down”. They’re not going to give ground on this. Make it gospel, subtly first, then plainly, and you can’t back down – that’s really all there is to this.
Julie wrote:
Well, that would depend upon the particular Complementarian that you speak to. Just like there are Right-Wing Republicans and Moderate Republicans, the same goes for Complementarians.
Oh, and by the way, I read some of the articles over at the Bayly Blog for the first time yesterday. They would say that Complementarianism is just a cover for Feminism. Patriarchy, on the other hand, understands and practices “Biblical Marriage.”
@ Gram3:
I love your posts Gram3…you are a huge reason why I read here! You and my East Coast Mom!! Mom!! Looking forward to seeing you in a couple of days!! It will be a riot! Pun intended!
Darlene wrote:
Darlene, whatever possessed you? I only read them when I’m in the mood for foaming at the mouth.
Daisy wrote:
I am an Orthodox Christian and we are very conservative. Yet if I mentioned Complementarianism, people at my parish, including the priest, would look at me like a deer in headlights. In fact, I never even heard of the term until about two years ago. Even then, I have only come to understand the distinctives of Complementarianism within the last year.
I’m sure glad I left Evangelicalism before it encroached upon my marriage.
Julie wrote:
The women that I know who sincerely believe Complementarianism do so because they believe that is what the Bible teaches and they want to do what they believe God desires for them to do. They believe the men and women who tell them that, and they believe the lie that if you are not Complementarian then you are abandoning the authority of the Bible. It is inconceivable to these women and men that the Complementarian interpretation might be wrong. It just cannot be wrong. Period. Because authority. They believe that the foundational problem in society is a lack of authority. That is the line they are fed, and to depart from that is tantamount to a departure from the faith. It is that bad.
They will not even examine the texts because they are convinced a priori that only liberals or “feminists” do not believe in Complementarianism. Grudem and Piper have been selling that line from the beginning. They work in “feminist” or “feminism” whenever they can, and they misuse the term. Otherwise, we would have to go back to where a woman needed her husband’s permission to work, to hold property, and when women did not have a vote. But they cannot go there, so they try to tie the desire for equality for women to things like abortion on demand or other causes of some feminists.
It is a very sloppy way of thinking, but it appeals to the emotions, to loyalty, and to a legitimate desire to be obedient to God. The men who profit from the System prey upon these women and some men who likewise only desire to obey God.
@ Eagle:
Happy to be an encouragement to you, and I join you in your regard for the work that Dee and Deb are doing. Hope you all have a great time in Baltimore.
Leslie wrote:
Yes, I’ve noticed the fear of losing control in the Patriarchy camp by reading the comment section over at Doug Wilson’s blog, and just recently the Bayly blog. The white, Christian male is now the one who is being persecuted according to them.
@ Gram3:
Best explanation I’ve heard yet on why people follow a cherished notion they’re told they must believe concerning the Bible’s teaching rather than determining for themselves what Scripture teaches or does not teach.
Jeff Chalmers wrote:
Perhaps they can reword the Nicene Creed to include Complementarian teaching and change the name of it to The Nicene-Complementarian Creed.
Patty in Massachusetts wrote:
Because I have read references to these guys on this blog and over at Spiritual Sounding Board and finally wondered, who are they? Well….now I know! 😉
Melody wrote:
I am glad that the hidden epidemic of child sexual abuse in the conservative evangelical church is being exposed. According to insurers such as Church Mutual, the largest of insurer of churches, and attorney Richard Hammar at Church Law & Tax the Number No. 1 reason that churches get sued every year is:
Child Sexual Abuse and the problem in the Protestant church rivals or exceeds that of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, after decades of litigation, arrests, and prosecutions, has had to take action.
JeffT wrote:
their “medicine” = poison
Gram3 wrote:
That is probably the biggest reason I was a gender complementarian since youth.
As I got older, though, and re-read the Bible, I started seeing problems with the position, and it didn’t sit will with me anyhow.
There are examples of women in the Bible who did preach, lead, and teach men, and God was okay with it.
I knew that the “I forbid a woman to teach” verse, and ones like it, must not be saying what comps assume it is saying, since there are exceptions to the rule of women not being permitted to teach or lead men.
I also saw inconsistencies in how gender comps live out their beliefs. They will say women cannot lead or teach men in church, BUT, they will allow women to lead and teach grown men in other nations.
As far as the comp perspective not sitting well with me, it appeared to be sexist.
It was limiting of women, but every time I re-read the Gospels, Jesus elevated women, he treated them as intellectual equals, and with respect, not as naive, little dainty flowers, not as sexual temptresses, nor as air heads.
I think Galatians 3:28 ,and passages like that one, which talk about equality, are the over-arching filter thru which to read the Bible, not the ones that seem at first glance to ask for wifely submission.
It is so odd to me that complementarians choose to filter the entire Bible through a smaller number of passages that appear to (that do not – only appear to, when interpreted a certain way) sanction control over other people-
When the Bible goes on and on about sacrifice, willingness to give up control and station in life, helping people, God expecting Christians to refrain from showing favortism, and to refrain from being consumed with lording authority over others.
JeffT wrote:
Here, here, Jeff! At my former (comp) church, anybody with brains and temerity got “keyed” out of the church for dissenting.
So glad to be free of that drivel.
^
@JeffT,
I got “keyed out” (excommunicated/shunned) at my former church of 8+ years over my objecting to the pastors/elders giving carte blanche to the church to their friend a Megan’s List sex offender!
Muff Potter wrote:
And what is worse is that they start to believe ever-stranger things. Bruce Ware teaches that females only bear a derivative image of God because the Woman was made from the Man. Which means, I suppose that Man bears the image of God derived from dirt. Ridiculous. But they believe it. Because Piper, Grudem, Ware are the infallible teachers, though people deny that formally.
In the article by Ware that was in the Tweet, Ware says:
Of course, Ephesians says nothing like the only kind of marriage that matters is a hierarchical one. If you are in a life-long Christian marriage marked by mutual deference, respect, and love which is lived in the power of the Holy Spirit, that somehow does not display the Gospel. At which point I want to ask what gospel they are talking about.
Daisy wrote:
If that verse means “what it plainly says” then verse 15 means that women are saved by childbirth, because that is what verse 15 “plainly says.”
Verse 15 is an impossible problem for their “plainly says” hermeneutic, so they either ignore it or get creative like Kostenberger and Schreiner with their explanation that women will be saved if they keep to their roles. The fact that the Bible nowhere speaks of such roles or hierarchy is no bar to them. I mean, if you can put words in God’s mouth in Genesis in order to invent the Creation Order and you are willing to demote the Eternal Son, what is a little creative interpretation of Paul?
Guest wrote:
There’s a thought for ya! Why out West when the men folk wanted to attract women they did such unusual things as give them the vote (Wyoming, 1869).
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wyoming-grants-women-the-vote
I don’t know if this may be something of interest to Deb and Dee:
“Does Charging People to Hear the Gospel Devalue the Message of Salvation?”
(it’s a three page article)
http://www.christianpost.com/news/does-charging-people-to-hear-the-gospel-devalue-the-message-of-salvation-139140/
@ Lydia:
The 1987 JETS paper by Walter Liefield (http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/30/30-1/30-1-pp049-061_JETS.pdf)provides a good overview of some of the problems of several common complementarian interpretations of scripture. In light of the Village Church mess, the author sees part of complementarian restrictions on women spiritual teachers rooted in its threat to the authority granted the office of pastor. He also presents a very reasonable and biblical view of women’s role in ministry:
“One problem with the assumption that there is a “ministerial office” is that it obscures the fact, so widely recognized today, that Biblical ministry is not monolithic. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 teach that God has distributed his gifts and responsibilities among various people in the Church. To restrict women from ministry wholesale and without discernment of gift denies this. If ministry is by nature varied rather than monolithic, then we are obligated to consider each ministry individually to see if women qualify Biblically, rather than issuing a blanket rejection.”
I think that much of corporate/business culture is ahead of the church in putting aside cultural norms and granting responsibility based on ability, rather than gender
tone-deaf (tōn′dĕf′)
adj.
1. Unable to appreciate or understand the concerns or difficulties of others; out-of-touch.
If you have never listened to e-church, this coming Sunday’s message gives the other side to this article and lifts women up and the calling we all have. Please listen and be encouraged!
They put Complementarianism on their A list.
+
I put non-authoritarian organization and no oddball doctrines on mine.
=
Easier decision what churches to avoid.
Guest wrote:
It is not a united front, women are often the enforcers.
Does anyone know anything about Gary Yagel? He is doing a seminar at the PCA General Assembly this week, and this description sounds …?
SponsoredbyPalmerHomeforChildren
The War on Boys: What Can We Do to Help Our Sons?
SeminarSpeaker: Dr.GaryYagel, ExecutiveDirector
Forging Bonds of Brotherhood
Description:
Secular books like Boys Adrift, by Leonard Sax, The End of Men and The
Rise of Women, by Hanna Rosin, and Manning Up: How the RISE OF WOMEN Has Turned MEN INTO BOYS, by Kay Hymowitz, have identified the disturbing trend that adolescent and post-adolescent boys are not doing well in America. The church has not escaped this trend, with more sons than daughters falling away from the church in their adolescent years, much confusion over gender roles and some of our PCA sons being drawn into the gay lifestyle. The seminar puts the lens of Scripture over the problem and provides practical strategies and tools to equip dads and granddads to help their boys develop a strong, masculine identity that is rooted in Christ.
From the forging bonds website:
Dr. Gary Yagel is a specialist in men’s ministry who is known for igniting passion in men to be faithful followers of their Commander-In-Chief, Jesus Christ. In his short books and through speaking at local churches, he helps men understand biblical manhood. In an encouraging and practical way, he teaches men to be spiritual leaders at home, to meet the needs of their wives that God designed husbands to meet, to help their daughters aspire to being godly women, and to guide their sons into godly manhood.
“Second, in light of the revealing insight of the Apostle Paul, that marriage has been designed by God from the beginning to be a reflection of the greater and permanent union of Christ and his bride, the church (Ephesians 5.31-32), it follows that human marriage – one man and one woman in a covenant commitment for life – is of highest importance for Christians to uphold and defend. ”
the kool-aid is so strong that this guy actually said that the apostle paul (who was never married!) is saying that everyone has to be married, its “the highest importance!”
as if the total first i am saying that i am not saying what i actually am saying, part wasnt bad enough!
i am convinced that their mask keeps slipping no matter how they try to conceal, this group puts marriage and rules and their authority above Jesus and His death on the cross and grace that actually means what Jesus said it means.
i am so shocked that i havent even finished the article yet, are they saying that Jesus was remiss in not having a wife also? only one person i know would have the audacity to take the bible and the death of my Saviour and distort it and twist it and i am sure that he is behind all these new doctrines. now i am not telling people to just ‘dont sign anything’ now i am saying, ‘run, don’t look back, dont take anything, just leave.
actually in case anyone thinks i am going overboard with my reaction to this, i have heard at least in the Acts 29 churches i have looked into, that single men arent allowed to preach, which does indeed mean that Jesus wouldnt be welcome in their churches. And i think it is becoming obvious to more and more people that He isnt welcome to have any role of leadership and the Holy Spirit, if there at all, is quenched and they attempt to manipulate Him and well i know how that will end.
“the church becomes desensitized to Scripture’s radical call ”
as someone said on an earlier article commment, its the twinity instead of the trinity. ‘Scripture’ doesnt call anyone or lead anyone or save anyone, its church without Jesus except for occasional name dropping to get em in the door. Jesus said once
39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
41 I receive not honour from men. John 5:39-41 (KJV)
@Dee and other readers, thank you so much for all you are doing to enlighten readers on TVC and Acts 29. You have a pretty savvy readership but much of this is still news to many. Coming from the outrageousness of Gateway I saw Matt Chandler as a safe haven because:
1) He really took on Steven Furtick in that now famous Code Orange Revival sermon where he preached directly to Furtick telling him to quit narcissistically eisegeting. He did that right inside the den of lions – if you look at Furtick’s line up for that revival. Here’s a recap http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/01/breaking-news-code-orange-coverup.html I felt it was fearless and long overdue. Furtick is dangerous.
2). When no one else would do anything Matt stood up to Mark Driscoll and fired him from the organization he co-founded, after most of Driscoll’s scandals had spiraled out of control. Many other pastors and leaders resigned in frustration. But no elders would discipline or fire MD. Again Matt was fearless in doing the right thing.
If you’ve lived in a Charismatic cesspool of mega church word of faith and prosperity preaching heresy, these two actions seemed Herculean and made Matt seem like he was heaven sent. I started occasionally listening to his sermons, and while I don’t like all the yelling, and there is a lot, his doctrine was light years better than what I was used to. I’ll bet many others out there felt similarly.
Then I heard that a Chandler plant in DFW was interviewing a total Word of Faith/Charismatic couple and that made me think hmmmm. But they didn’t hire them. Then you wrote the City View Church covenant agreement article. That was another eye opener. And so it has gone the last few draining weeks. Draining because many Gateway refugees have found shelter there and I now worry for them. Please continue to explain these complex issues bearing in mind that some readers are new to figuring out this whole Acts 29 deal.
I am learning much and the insights from the more mature believers and people who’ve experienced this network is so helpful. All we can do is arm ourselves with information. It’s clear that TVC still has many strong points and they are a big draw especially for young families, which is their bread and butter. If you help the members to discern perhaps they can then use that discernment to effect positive changes. I am so thankful that so many wise folks take the time to teach here. I know many, like me, read for years prior to saying anything. It matters. People are reading. People are acting on what they read, even if you don’t hear about it. Thanks.
From Dee’s article:
“I also would like to put my marriage up against any complementarian marriage and get them to tell me what is different. My guess is that they couldn’t do it.”
i think they can but wont, well unless you are man they think thinks like them and then they sometimes do here. I have heard it explained here that the woman can work, but not in such a way that might look like she was more intelligent etc than her husband. for example there are women here that have almost finished the last quarter of college to get their masters degree. they have almost finished that one remaining quarter for over 5 years but something mysteriously always comes up and they have to put it off again.
i have heard it explained that the wife is equal but that it is the man’s Godly responsibility to monitor her electronic communications(in case she might be snared by the devil unknowingly) and report to the elders if so. i have heard it explained that the man knows how the wife should dress and how her hair should be worn to bring honor to God. I have heard it explained that men cant talk about these sort of things to their wives or other women because they would, you know, misconstrue the intent of all that leadership he is doing to keep her from unknowingly falling into the pit of hell because women always are deceived and cant think things through like men can.
so i dont think its that they cant, i think its just what is said in private at mens groups and never never in print or on you tube. And especially never around anyone that is friends or associates of those decieved femminatzi bloggers that keep bothering all those Godly men. (TM)
K.D. wrote:
When I attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the music department was riddle with them. But of course, they all had girlfriends or wives. I was young, and almost destroyed by the double lives these guys were leading! 🙁
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
in response to homophobia comment that i cant repeat but is in my opinion so totally spot on!
as usual i think you nailed it and i laughed out loud. but then i thought about their treatment over at TVC of Karen Hinkley and i wonder if they actually have emotional scars from being abused and that is why they are always reacting in fear. i think alot of them are mysoginystic and probably resulting from perceived or actual abuse from women in their lives, i think some are actually reacting to unresolved sexual abuse from men when they were children. The problem is that they are so against counseling that is not from their peers that they stay stuck in their issues for ever. if you think about it, TVC and all the gospelly croud have made an environment where if a guy was actually having issues relating to abuse in his past he couldnt safely talk about it. average joe congregant and leader has to show his manly manhood as if he is john wayne at all times or he will find himself cast downward with the wimmin folk. I think these churches are full of men that need counseling for deep issues and until they get it they will keep being hurt people that hurt people. Except of course for those that have only the intention of making a buck off of unsuspecting and vulnerable people that they can intimidate, i doubt counseling would help those types at all, they would just spin it and use faux repentance to write their newest best seller.
@ Eagle:
Ditto on Gram3 posts Eagle, although I would still consider this my favorite blog. But I do look forward to seeing her posts. It’s like . . . just truth, that I know but can’t articulate.
Something completely unrelated but cheerful, for numo: http://www.enca.com/media/video/community-come-together-save-washed-starfish. People have spent the past few days down at the beach rescuing starfish.
Tim wrote:
great article Tim,
“Sadly, these problems have actually arisen, as when preachers teach that wives must follow their husbands’ commands even if it goes against God’s word. These teachers assure the wife that her husband will bear all the responsibility for leading his wife astray. It’s as if the husband is a mediator between his wife and God. He’s not.”
and i copied this comment which is also great: Cheryl McGrath says:
May 25, 2015 at 4:13 am
“These teachers assure the wife that her husband will bear all the responsibility for leading his wife astray.” We only have to read the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 to see such teaching is not in line with what the New Testament tells us about the early church. Sapphira was held to account for her own actions. There is no suggestion in the text that she was less responsible because she had to obey her husband in the deception. She was treated as an equal. Unfortunately it didn’t turn out too well for her, as we know, but the point is Peter didn’t let her off the hook on the grounds she was being obedient to her husband who under this teaching represented Christ. She was accountable for her own decision to agree with her husband in their deception.
It’s actually Time to Declare Complementarianism Dead.
I’ve met my fair share of this thinking in my teens, and of course it was mostly boys who believed that nonsense.
If you do not concentrate on a few isolated verses, but look at the whole of the NT in context, and if you can read and understand texts, not just words, it is clear that any time when complementarianism is not opposed to the gospel is when it’s functional egalitarianism (much deplored by some of the Gospel™ glitterati).
Complementarianism has had its run, we have have watched that trainwreck with bated breath (incredulous, because we just couldn’t believe what we saw), the boys of the CBMW camp have enjoyed their time in the limelight.
But let’s face it, it’s about time to bury that smelly rotten corpse before it poisons any more wells.
numo wrote:
amen!
This looks to me like Complementarians attempting to wring too much theology out of a metaphor.
Something that bugs me is that in all of the Comp appeals to “marriage,” they consistently speak as though ancient Near Eastern marriages and modern marriages are the exact same thing. (When they most certainly are not).
The metaphor of marriage, as used in Scripture, can only truly be understood if one first understands the social, cultural, and historical context of marriage in the ancient Near East.
Just one example (because I need to try and get some sleep): women in the ancient Near East were quite dependent on the men in their lives – first, their father and later, their husband. A husband was not simply a lover – he was a benefactor who provided the very means for existence for his wife.
Today, obviously, this is not the case. Women can, and do, manage just fine without husbands. They go to school, get jobs, buy homes, etc. – all things virtually unthinkable in the Bible’s original context.
So, when the Lord calls himself a “husband” and Israel his “wife,” it is not a creepy statement about romance or sex. It is, rather, a statement primarily about dependence – the Lord is emphasizing that He is the source of provision for Israel and that, without Him, Israel would be helpless.
Does this same metaphor hold up in today’s context? Not so much. Which is why Christians should try to understand Scripture’s original context before applying it to today’s context.
Jeff Chalmers wrote:
I need not remind you that these guys do not value or practice or teach or much less recite the creeds. The actual creeds have not just fallen prey to their Jeffersonian scissors but have become that-which-will-not-even-be-mentioned in polite society.
@ Mr.H:
Thanks so much for that explanation. Context is so crucial in interpreting Scripture.
IF women can be equal in their being but subservient in their being, as complementarianism teaches, then the issue can be primary and not primary.
Also, evangelicals need to be done with slippery slope arguments. If something is bad, it’s bad because it’s bad, not because of what it may lead to.
@ LT:
Thanks so much for chiming in. When we first started blogging, we were hoping a few people would read about our concerns. It’s incredible what has happened in just over seven years.
Blessings.
Gram3 wrote:
Part 1
I still think you are seeing only part of the situation. Let me rephrase that. I do not doubt that you are totally seeing it from the aspect of the religious paradigm. I also think you have correctly assessed much of what is going on in the minds of both the leadership and some of the women who buy into complementarianism. But I think that you also need to read more economic survival issues into stuff and more politics and more racism (yes, that) and more pure raw fear/panic at some level and more self interest on the part of the women.
There is a lot of feeling among white males that life is no longer fair to them in this nation. They try to get into grad school and have to compete against diminished opportunity because of affirmative action set-asides which are there to achieve diversity. Women are part of those who are considered ‘diverse’ under certain circumstances. Actual marriage stats are down for various reasons and divorce with all its problems is extensive, women are at work and somebody else is more or less raising the few kids that there are, and dad/baby dad/sperm donor is not making enough money to buy his way to any better life for himself. And he is mad as &*@ a lot of the time.
Let me tell my/our brush up with this. My son, a middle class white guy fresh out of college with excellent grades was trying to get into law school. Now, he did get it done, so I am not just whining and making excuses. And he is successful. I feel the need to say this lest someone think that what I am about to say is sour grapes. Not so. None the less there were all these set-asides for people because of gender or race or ethnicity (diversity) that the process for my son was not just difficult but was stacked against him and ‘his kind.’ Getting into grad school is not strictly based on merit-we know that. Just think of how failing to get it done regardless of how smart you are would affect the future attitude of the one who failed to get it done. Now substitute job or promotion on the job for getting into grad school and tell me these guys are just influenced by what they want to think the bible says or just because they always wanted to be a bully when they grew up. I doubt that. And I think this is the reason that they do not listen to reason. The ultimate goal is not reason or scripture; it is trying to make life be okay for themselves.
Once more for an illustration. Young daughter who is a wizz with words, after her divorce, got on line with a couple of singles sites and struck up conversations with single/divorced men. Surprise. She ran into scads of men who were just dying to talk-to have somebody hear their side of life-to just get a chance to say it, and especially say it to some woman who had no ulterior motives but would just listen and interact. We actually contemplated starting a side business of just conversation with guys who needed to be heard, for a reasonable fee of course. Now, of course, a lot of what they said was not accurate, but it was amazingly consistent. There are droves of hurting people out there and they are not all women.
@ Nancy:
Part 2
I am talking about Joe Pewperson here. Now look at his wife. She has managed to get married in a world in which marriage is falling out of favor. She is not required to get out and fight it on the job. She is encouraged to have children. Some people actually want children–I certainly did. She has a ready built slice of the culture of like minded people ready to tell her how well she has done with her life. And she is involved in a way of thinking that discourages divorce so she has some sense of security, real or imagined. The only ‘price’ for that is that she has to learn how to ‘manage her man’ (manipulate like southern women are so good at) and has to perhaps end up with a different brand of refrigerator than she might have wanted. And all with the approval of her religious beliefs. Looks like a good deal to me for a whole lot of people. Who cares about any biblical exegesis that would even potentially take that away from her? Now, at menopause with both changing hormones and the kids up and gone she may rethink this, but right now she needs this and will not give it up without a struggle.
And the religious leadership plays to this market with these needs. Religionists (specific term) do this, just like politicians play to whatever slice of the voting public they think they can get and just like the people who write shampoo ads tell folks what they want to hear.
I am saying that as long as we see this as merely a religious problem we have misjudged it to that extent. These are basic human issues and current societal and political issues also.
sam wrote:
Except that is not what he said. He said in the quote you used that marriage as an institution is of highest importance for Christians to uphold. This is because it is a reflection of the faithfulness of Christ towards the church.
Hence it is not a means of preaching the gospel, it is at best a means of illustrating it, albeit at the human level imperfectly. Neither is anyone saying here you have to get married. If you get married, then you take on an obligation to reflect as best as you can Christ and the church.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
If you look at photos of MHC pastors like https://musingsfromunderthebus.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/four-pastors-that-have-not-repented.jpg, http://images.christianpost.com/full/61360/mark-driscoll-pastor-of-mars-hill-church-in-seattle-wash-preaches-about-the-gift-of-tongues-on-june-9-2013.jpg and http://d.christiantoday.com/en/full/28873/sutton-turner.jpg (and many others from other churches led by manly dudes), what immediately comes to mind?
The Lumberjack Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZa26_esLBE
Mr.H wrote:
Hear! Hear!
Ken wrote:
Actually, Ken, over here they are saying that you have to or at least ought to get married and the younger the better. And they are saying that refusal to marry is equivalent to being rebellious and that a person refusing to marry has failed in his/her responsibilities. Al Mohler a while back wrote all that up on his blog (which I read-this is not hearsay.) Also you must/ought to have children.
Mr.H wrote:
That’s true, but I think some folks want to keep women in that state of dependency even today and the fact that we’re not still in that state in our culture is a huge departure from the Bible, etc.
Again, it’s reading culture into Biblical interpretation. Dangerous, and a little absurd amongst those claiming to be so biblically faithful above all other.
@ Nancy:
That was excellent.
@ Kevin:
Wade Burleson believes that women should be in positions of leadership.
@ Nancy:
I was not trying to defend complementariamism let alone bad complementarianism, rather in the context of the quote sam used there was no hint of marriage being compulsory, followed by a people carrier load of kids. I don’t doubt there are some who do say this on both sides of the pond, but it would be wrong to assume that because some complementarians do this, all do.
I used to read Mohler quite a bit, but hardly at all recently. At least he does stand up for the right to life of the unborn, not a characteristic of British church leaders in public.
He might also have a point in that choosing not to have children can be a mark of not being willing to take on the responsibility of this and/or actually simply wanting two incomes to increase material possessions and wealth. Eternal adolescence. I think it fine to critique this attitude, but not to go to the other extreme and make children compulsory or assume such a critique entails this.
I think, incidentally, you made an important point in your earlier posts about what over here is known as ‘positive discrimination’, e.g. quotas for the number of women on a Board or how many ethnic policeman are recruited. The aim might be to try to dismantle what is seen as privilege that has denied them the opportunity in the past, but this flies in the face of the legislation designed to stop discrimination in the first place. You can end up replacing one injustice with another.
sam wrote:
Has it been determined that Paul was never married? I thought that the jury was still out on that one. By the time he is writing in scripture he declares himself unmarried, but I have seen difference of opinion as to whether one could make the leap from there to never having been married.
dee wrote:
I have not yet heard what Wade has to say on the subject, but since I profit from what he says I plan to check it out. However, there is an idea out there that women must be in leadership positions with the concomitant idea that those who are not are somehow lesser persons. That is troublesome to me. Wade seems reasoned and moderate however, and worth listening to.
I get so tired of people using words like “radical” and “counter-cultural” to prove that something must be in line with Biblical teaching. Some things about the Bible will sound radical to certain times and cultures and not others, so being counter-cultural does not automatically mean being right or Biblical.
And it’s almost like they’re saying that conservative gender and sexuality mores are the things that keep the Gospel radical in today’s climate. They didn’t say that directly, but it felt strongly implied to me. And that’s just stupid. People have this need to identify specific political issues that they feel must be “radical” or else the “radical” nature of the Gospel won’t be “radical” anymore, but they miss the point that THE WHOLE GOSPEL IS ALREADY RADICAL.
As my pastor says, pick one principle from the Sermon on the Mount, try living it consistently for one week, and see if it isn’t the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
Don’t hit back? Go the extra mile? Love your enemies? Don’t rely on money? Don’t worry about things? This stuff sounds incredible to human ears when you really stop and think about it, and trying to practice it quickly reminds us of our need for God’s grace to help us become more like Him.
So why people think we need to make or keep the Gospel radical is beyond me.
Nancy wrote:
I definitely think that is a very big part of the picture and is the non-theological backstory to the success of Complementarianism among some of the young people. Back in the 60’s and 70’s there was a lot of disequilibrium that produced fear. And that environment birthed this idea of Complementarianism. The disequilibrium has only become much worse, and there is perhaps even more fear today. Thus the desire for some control from somewhere to deal with it.
I am libertarian when it comes to government, and I do understand the economics of it, having raised some sons and now seeing grandsons grow up. However, I think that the way that women are blamed as a sex is incorrect because there is much more to the picture than that one aspect. The authoritarianism of government and its imposition of requirements that, IMO, go way beyond equality of opportunity, has become an end in itself and produces a lot of resentment. Plus, a generation or two ago, the best and brightest here were not competing with the best and brightest from all over the world. And we are not even talking about robotic competition and AI and all the disruption that will bring. The sheer pace of change is overwhelming to me, and if I were a young person today, I don’t know if I would cope very well.
For the women, Complementarianism offers the certainty that her husband will be responsible and will love her as Christ loves the Church. That is a huge incentive to buy in to the system. For the men, it promises their wives will not, as Matt Chandler puts it, “wear them out” but will be cooperative and submissive. For both, their is the promise that their kids will turn out right in a culture that celebrates dysfunction.
But a system cannot deliver the heart of a man to sacrifice for his wife or the heart of a woman to sacrifice for her husband. So, it is a false promise that they are relying upon to make their life good. They are selling certainty and they cannot deliver certainty. IMO, it would be far better to teach people how to live in a chaotic conditions that to promise to eliminate the chaos.
Hope that was somewhat coherent. It’s a bad brain day here.
sad observer wrote:
Not to mention that there is nothing counter-cultural about gender hierarchy.
I think the answer as to why women buy into complementarianism isn’t that hard to fathom. Many are taught it’s the Bible, and it’s easy to pull verses together to make that argument. Once you are brought up to believe something, its just normal to go with it. And you get bonus points for feeling like you are standing up for something with personal sacrifice.
EVEN THOUGH many complementarian marriages are indistinguishable from egalitarian ones.
Ironically, I’m pretty sure my wife is more submissive to me than a lot of complementarian wives I’ve observed. But of course, I’m more readily willing to admit I submit to her as well, and equally so. If one of us “leads” (and the reality is, we do have our roles and our times of leading one another), it’s because of gifting, not gender.
Mr.H wrote:
Excellent point. Marriage was primarily an economic arrangement between families. It still is in parts of the world. But Paul in Ephesians is saying that marriage was intended by God to be something much more than that. By the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can move back in that direction where marriage reflected unity between a man and a woman rather than an economic arrangement. The metaphor is not about power or authority but rather about love and devotion to one another and what that might look like in a patriarchal culture. What Paul said must have sounded unhinged to the Ephesians.
@ Gram3:
There is another aspect to this that I think comes into play. People get scandal fatigue or “negative” fatigue with all this stuff. And at some point they cannot absorb one more thing. Often these are people who have had similar experiences and paid a high price for it. They need rest and support.
This is why I think it is crucial for others who get it to stand up for abused and speak out. Another thing that happens is that the abused who are not really up for it, need people who “keep the main thing the main thing” while many are trying to deflect and reframe everything that comes of bad. They use words like “biblical”, “Gospel” and “forgiveness”.
Conversly, it is important for those who have lived out the abuse from the authoritarian and wacked out teachings to take many breaks if they need it. We all have differences and some have more of the crusading justice gene, some have the patient and steady teaching gene, etc, etc. Some are better at standing up to bullies than others. Some are better at recognizing deception. We need all types.
I am thinking that the segment of evangelicalism that is so focused on marriage/sex/fertility and dominance-submission has so eliminated from their doctrine and practice of christianity so many things that previously had been considered orthodox and traditional that they would be up the proverbial creek without this one emphasis. What else do they have with which to carve out a unique slice of the market for themselves?
And then we have to say, if that is true why did these particular people do that? Well, my take is that some of the leadership have some really strange ideas about sex to start with-never mind scripture here, just personal oddness and that this may have contributed to (a) their own intense involvement into some of the more radical comp ideas in the first place and (b) the fact that they don’t seem very able to sort out the useful from the extreme in their thinking in this area-like they have not sorted some stuff out personally for themselves. Until they do, they may be sort of stuck at this level. Broken record thinking.
This whole topic is beginning to sound like an almost perfect storm for some folks.
Nancy wrote:
That thought is out there because that’s the way the world thinks. That isn’t the way the Kingdom is, but the Complementarians/Patriarchalists have merely baptized worldly thinking, and they have carved out a place of privilege to which they are not entitled. And they have misused the Bible to do it. They should not cling to their power just like women should not lust for their power. We need to stop being a churchy version of the world and start looking more like Philippians 2, IMO.
sad observer wrote:
Is it really radical though? It’s not as if Christianity is a new revelation bursting upon the scene. It’s been the dominant religion for at least half the world for over a thousand years of human civilization. Also nonviolence, charity, vows of poverty and general niceness isn’t that uncommon. Look at the Jain faith with their commitment to nonviolence, truth telling, aversion to greed or exploitation for wealth, chastity and non-possessiveness. They’ve been around longer then Christianity by about 600 years. I guess I don’t see Christianity as all that radical, especially in a predominantly Christian culture (I’m an American).
@ sad observer:
Loved what you said about the Gospel being radical. The true Gospel will always be counter-cultural because human cultures of all kinds are made by fallen human beings. But, that is the rallying cry to gather followers. It appeals to the desire to be heroic which is basically a form of pride.
I’m not up to your Beatitude challenge. An hour of it does me in.
Gram3 wrote:
This.
I grew up in a household with complementarian parents. When I went to pre-marital counseling I was given chapter and verse to show that it was what the Bible teaches. Every church I ever went to taught it both in Sunday School and church services. If all of those teachers and preachers, some of whom I greatly respected, believed that it’s God’s way of doing things, why would I question it?
Lydia wrote:
Yes! When we are exhausted we need someone else to carry on. That is the Body being the Body.
@ LT:
I forgot all about Chandler speaking at Furtick’s church. Wow. I can see how he would come off totally different to you considering where you came from.
But you bring up another point that has been bothering me for years. I would hear similar stories from people who came to the mega’s. They came from bad church situations looking for refuge in a “good environment”.
They had no idea it was just as bad behind the stage in how the leaders viewed the pewsitters or treated one another on staff with nothing but power plays and turf wars. The main thing: it was a good and deceptive show. The stage speaker looked very humble and said some very biblely things and the worship was intense. And everyone is “oh so nice”. (Another point: Why do we think the “sermon” is so inmportant?)
These refugees unknowingly end up supporting in the new church what they abhorred in the last church simply because it is better hidden from them. They were investing themselves in a very carefully crafted environment. I guess I came to the conclusion that so much of it out there is really just carefully crafted deception designed to attract people and keep them. The love bombing, the “great humble man on stage”, the great music, the “we are the real thing”, etc.
It is very discouraging. But part of the problem is we have been convinced we have to find the right institution for Christian community/worship and by doing so many unwittingly take on the identity of the institution.
I had to go back to the blank canvas and start over. Who is Jesus and what does He mean. I came to the conclusion that Body of Christ is made up of unique individuals who remain individuals but have one thing in common: Jesus Christ. And that should be enough. I also do not believe in “Christian leaders” anymore. Only servants. That is a whole other topic on what the word “leader” refers to in the NT when speaking of Christians. It is more of “those who have gone before” as in those who have been in the trenches, so to speak. I don’t think it looks anything like how we use it today for these young perfumed princes on stages in churches.
Boyd wrote:
This is often code speak among complementarians for “marry a traditional Christian man who believes in complementarianism by the time she is 23 years old and have ten children.”
Complementarians cannot fathom women who never marry, who never have children, or ones who divorce or are widowed.
Gus wrote:
And a hearty second to your hear! hear! This is one of my biggest peeves.
Lydia wrote:
But sometimes putting the “historical” in grammatical-historical gets in the way of yielding the Right Interpretation from the text! And we simply cannot have that.
sam wrote:
Much like complementarians will jump through hoops to explain away biblical examples of women God put in charge of men (such as Deborah or Junia), they do the same with the single and childless status of Jesus and Paul.
They will say that J and P are the exceptions, that God’s norm is for most to marry.
Only a tiny portion are “called to singleness”, they say.
The Bible says nothing about if God views marriage as “the norm” for most people or not, nor does it say God “calls” people to marriage or singleness.
Most American adults today are single, so I they can no longer argue the position “God’s norm is for most to marry.” – they used to argue as such because up until last year, married couples out numbered single adults but that has now flipped.
(Not that such a view was ever in the Bible to start with.)
Complementarians explain away, or water down, 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul says it is better to stay single, marriage is too problematic, and it is better for a man not to touch a woman.
And these guys claim to take the Bible seriously and litterally! But they ignore or water down the passages that contradict their views on gender, marriage, and natalism.
Gus wrote:
I don’t see it being influential anymore. I think the internet has helped kill it.
When I had doubts about comp, I was on my own. In my teens and most of my 20s, there was no internet. I had to figure this stuff out on my own.
Now, with the internet, people can find several Christian egalitarian sites and read their refutations of complementarianism.
Nancy wrote:
We know that Paul said that he was unmarried. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he was never married. I think we could go either way on that one. JMHO.
@ Nancy:
Nancy, I believe this issue has been “cultural” since day one. Comp doctrine was, in part, a result of uppity young women. More and more were going to grad school, entering the professions, etc. And there was a sort of affirmative action thing going on for women, too, in some professions. Especially law and business. Even marketing changed because companies realized women were really influencing the family decision about what house or car to buy.
And I agree that white males (who are despised by some groups and considered guilty for existing) found themselves in a totally different world in one generation.
@ Nancy:
I’m a social conservative and former gender comp, and I think you and Gram3 are both correct.
The motives of the gender comps are mixed. It’s partly religious, partly due to fear, and partly due to practical considerations. (I also think a lot of it is driven by sexism.)
Ken wrote:
Ken, as a never married, child less, 40 something lady, I can tell you, that yes, gender comps either believe marriage is necessary to be saved or to be a good Christian, or it is very strongly implied.
They don’t care a whit about single, childless women or men. It’s all about micro managing the lives of married mothers.
And you are a failure zero of a man unless you marry and have a kid, and other comps add more stipulations to that, if you are a man, you also have to make a ton of money so that your wife stays at home and doesn’t work.
Gram3 wrote:
There used to be a way out for both men and women who wanted to pave their own path bypassing all the profession and business games. They started their own business. I went this route early on and it was a great experience if you are willing to work 80 hours a week. :o)
But that is becoming increasingly impossible with all the regulations and barriers from government. One now has to be somewhat weathly and protected to start a business that requires more than 25 employees.
Nancy wrote:
One single lady wrote a rebuttal to Mohler’s anti single bias:
Is Singleness A Sin?
http://www.crosswalk.com/11621125/
I was at Mohler’s blog once. On one of his pages, he stated with glee, (the information is incorrect, but he quoted it with much glee), that singles die sooner than married people. He was bringing this point up to scare singles into getting married and to make singleness look terrible.
Mohler and other comp Christians miss the point on this. I can’t speak for all the current 20 somethings, but the ladies over 30, 40, etc, want to get married, but there are no Christian single men to pair us up with, or, the Christian men single women cross paths with do not ask Christian single women out on dates.
Mohler and guys like him keeps assuming single women choose career over marriage, or that women hate marriage and are avoiding it, but neither is the case for many.
Even if it were the case, the Bible does not command that people get married, so he needs to show singleness respect anyhow.
Mr.H wrote:
Amen, Mr. H!
@ GovPappy:
I think gender comps often read American 1950s culture back into the Bible, but, your post got me to thinking, some of them idealize patriarchal ancient Middle Eastern culture.
They either want women to live like 1950s American housewives, or they want them to live under codes and values of Solomon and his concubines.
They don’t look past the cultural trappings of the ANE – the view it as prescriptive – or they sometimes read American cultural stuff into the text.
@ Lydia:
Nancy, I can remember the Big Blue Chip companies (back then they were the stalwarts like IBM, AT&T, etc) coming to our college campus and literally recruiting women to apply for management training jobs. Many of my female friends went that route.
Lydia wrote:
I think the “profession” that concerned Grudem and Piper the most was the theological profession. Some mainline churches were insisting that individual churches ordain women. And there were the Christian universities that were hiring female faculty. The video of Piper from T4g is very revealing of his angry attitude toward women. Vicious is a word he used, and it does appear that he fears women. He again flails around for some rationale for Complementarianism by bringing up his hypothetical kid who wants to know what it means to be a man or a woman.
@ sad observer:
I don’t know if it was on this thread or an older one, but I was talking about this.
A lot of evangelicals assume that for something to be true, it must also be totally different or unpopular with secular culture. Because gender comp is not well received among secular culture, they take this as some kind of proof that it must be of God and very true.
However, there is nothing radical or counter cultural about gender comp or patriarchy. Gender comp / pat views (men being in charge over women) are the default for many cultures over the centuries.
It only now appears radical to them because a segment of the U.S. population advocates for secular feminist ideals.
I find it obscene that American Christians are fighting to preserve sexism (otherwise known as gender complementarianism or patriarch, which was an outcome of the entrance of sin into humanity) under the mistaken notion they are doing God’s work and saving culture.
Daisy wrote:
Indeed he should. One of the things that bugs me to death are the preacher guys who rant and rave over a very few things in scripture (sometimes incorrectly) while ignoring other things in scripture. All the while intoning ‘the biiiiible sezzzz.” I have fantasies of jerking their bible out of their hand and whapping them up side the head with it.
Lydia wrote:
Which are all too often pushed by others with interests to protect. A barrier to entry is protection for those who are already in. Sometimes that means a new theological doctrine like Complementarianism, and sometimes it means something like regulatory capture like the FAA or the wind energy tyrants in Ontario who are lining their pockets. That’s OT except to the extent that the fundamental drive of fallen humans is economic, and resources are scarce in the economic sense.
Jeff S wrote:
It’s being practiced by ISIS and groups like it around the world today.
Christian gender complementarianism is a watered down version of ISIS’s gender views, so far as I am concerned.
Christian gender comps may not always treat women and girls as bad as ISIS does on an average day (sometimes they do, they really mistreat Christian women who are caught in abusive marriages), but they share some common assumptions about women and girls.
Nancy wrote:
Well, it seems like that would be a better use of a Bible than the one the proof-texters have. Not that it would make any difference to them, mind you.
@ Gram3:
It would be interesting to see the stats on women receiving MDivs at say, SBTS, through from the 70’s to early 90’s. Several of my female cousins received MDivs from there in the early 80’s. They are not liberals, either, as much of the CR defined “liberals” in our seminaries. But they found out real quick after the CR settled, they were liberals simply for being women with M.Divs.
@ Gram3:
They have spent precious spiritual capital on making Christianity an “US vs THEM” as in Male vs. Female, relgion.
@ Gus:
Fervently agree. But what to do about all the well meaning people who with the best of intentions practice it to the best of their ability?
*sigh* I know so very many of them, and they keep patiently explaining to me why it’s biblical.
Ken wrote:
Ken, this is part of taking a metaphor waaaaaay too far and totally dismissing the 1st Century cultural implications of said metaphor.
@ Nancy:
I beg to differ, Nancy, if I’m understanding the discussion properly.
In our former church, we recited one of the creeds every Sunday. (aargh, I almost typed “Lord’s day” out of habit. One of those old christianese phrases that was supposedly more god-honoring than the heathen-origin name)
They changed out the creed every few weeks, but it was still pretty much rote repetition, reading aloud together from the bulletin.
I used to be able to recite the Nicene creed from memory. I’m a little rusty now.
Gram3 wrote:
I brought this up before on older threads, but comp views on this stuff confused me on “what it means to be a woman,” -it did not clarify things.
I was a tom boy when I was a girl. I preferred wearing jeans and sneakers. I hated wearing dresses. I was never very interested in being a mother and having kids of my own.
Christian Comp views in the literature I came across, or in sermons I heard, kept painting a picture of womanhood as a woman who-
Wants to be a mother, who is a mother, is expected to be a mom one day, you should be a super feminine girly girl, you must want to wear pink frilly dresses all the time, etc.
This confused me about my gender, because I could not relate to or live up to that particular picture of womanhood the comps kept telling me was “biblical.”
I felt confused, like I must be missing the mark, that God must be unhappy with me because I was not how he wanted girls / women to be.
And why does John Piper think that I, a woman, would want to or need to look to him, a man (and one who has obvious hang ups with women), for advice on how to be a woman, a biblical one or otherwise?
Jeff S wrote:
What was that old quote? (I seem to remember reading it in a book by Heinlein.) “I try to believe three impossible things before breakfast every day.”
Nancy wrote:
🙂
refugee wrote:
Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, when the White Queen tells Alice that believing the impossible was de rigeur in her youth.
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Lydia wrote:
You will notice, too, that although singleness also illustrates the Christian’s relationship with God, that gender comps never pay any attention to it.
Jesus said there will be no marriage in the afterlife. You will be like the angels, not given in marriage.
That means that adult singles, such as yours truly, stands as a reminder to you married Christian folk right now, that one day you will not be married to a human being.
Your groom is ultimately Jesus Christ, not some guy.
Do gender comps ever bring this up? Nope, because they are oddly obsessed with earthly marriage.
Ware, Grudem, Chandler, Piper, DeYoung… All of these men are so hopelessly out of touch with reality. Amid an epidemic of child predation going on in modern churches, and multiple stories of heavy-handed leadership and abuse of authority, they choose to focus on… gender roles???
Or, to borrow a phrase from a favourite childhood TV program: “Who’s the dummy writing this show?”
@ Nancy:
So Botkin’s daughters are rebellious, by this simplistic definition you quoted?
Those poor girls.
(That was one of the disconnects at our former church. We saw the faithful, getting-ready-to-be-a-wife-and-mother, stay-at-home daughters getting older and older, and the boys they grew up with in the church, when they got old enough to marry, started going further afield (as in courting young women from other states, even on the other side of the country).)
I think I foresee some real problems ahead for people who are sitting in certain churches being trained that mindlessness is a virtue and that follow the leader is the only god-ordained path in life. I am concerned because the media keep saying that a huge employment issue is about to come upon us due to the capacities of robots to replace workers. So what are they going to do without being able to go to a job where people tell them what to do and the main issue is keep the boss happy? Start their own business? Reference here what Lydia said about that. Chickens in the back yard and a smattering of aquaponics will only go so far.
Which reminds me-my raspberries are ripe now and my tomato plants have little green tomatoes on them and my grape vine is about to give me enough fruit of the vine to intoxicate the entire community all winter. But my fig tree got severely damaged by the cold this past winter. Please let things be okay enough that I can postpone chickens one more year.
Nancy wrote:
Yes, because if you don’t, who is going to fill the church coffers with tithes in future years?
@ sad observer:
Very good point.
Nancy wrote:
And Male Dominance Uber Alles is what pulls them in the direction of Male Homosexuality and Prison Rape Dominance Displays. Because if women are domestic animal breeding stock, how else can you have sex with another PERSON? Yet that involves “making a woman out of him” or “becoming the woman”, i.e. the Submissive Penetrated instead of the Dominant Penetrator. (Which in turn fuels any Homosexuality Taboo — the fear that a more Dominant Man will use you like you use a woman.)
Years ago, radio talk host Dennis Prager caught a lot of flak from a Web essay of his, “Why Judaism Rejected Homosexuality”. His thesis was that ha-Torah redefined sex as between male and female in a long-term relationship, whereas before Torah there was only Penetrator and Penetrated (as in an animal forced-dominance display). “For these are the things which the Goyim do.”
This fits in with my take on Thomas Cahill’s “Gifts of the Jews”, which was that Torah was meant to force its people to Transcend the Animal.
Guest wrote:
Especially SEXUALLY(TM)?
Paterfamilas as Rutting Alpha Male/Herd Boss…
Guest wrote:
Just like Lysistrata, Except Christian?
Gram3 wrote:
And defining it (like everything) as Power Struggle.
Because in Power Struggle, there are only two possible end states: My boot stamping on your face or your boot stamping on mine. And the only way to avoid the second is make sure of the first. And never let up. Forever.
History is full of examples of where that leads.
Daisy wrote:
Ain’t that the truth! I don’t have time to look it up, but I seem to recall Paul saying something like, “It is better not to marry.” That verse was explained away by the comp-teaching preachers I knew, as being relative to the culture of the time. Paul was saying it was better for the people of his time, in that place, not to marry because of the persecution that was upon them or coming down the pike.
I wonder how one determines what information has to be taken within the cultural context, and what information is timeless and relevant to people today?
@ Tina:
Great point. It was VERY unusual for a Pharisee with his education not to be married in that day and time.
Peter was married and gone all the time. :o) We should assume that those men who were travelign with Jesus in Luke 8 were married and traveling with women who both unmarried and married.
Lydia wrote:
I have never seen what is mentioned in that passage explained in a comp semon. (wink)
Gus wrote:
“Oi choop down trees,
Oi skip and jump,
Oi like to press wildflowers;
OI PUT ON WIMMEN’S CLOTHING
AND ‘ANG AROUND IN BARS!”
Daisy wrote:
Chortled just now, remembering that list that went around the internet. I’m sure you remember, examples of biblical ways to get a wife? (In answer, I think, to I Kissed Dating Goodbye and all those who were claiming that courtship was the biblical method leading to biblical marriage.
Let’s see, there was Tamar, posing as a prostitute, and the men of Benjamin who kidnapped their brides to be, for starters…
@ sam:
I would love to hear a sermon from an Acts 29 church that says this. Really I would love to write a blog post about it at my own blog. Can you find me that sermon Sam?
There are real data which the complementarians should not disregard if they believe they are promoting “God’s design” about marriage. For starters, in 81% of egalitarian marriages, couples report high levels of satisfaction, compared to 18% of hierarchical marriages. Dennis J. Preato, M.Div., cites these data and more in his excellent perspective on scriptural context and meaning of “submission and authority” and healthy marriage:
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/fresh-perspective-submission-and-authority-marriage
refugee wrote:
A big error, IMO, is the implicit assumption that Paul was primarily establishing a universal pattern of how to do church and life. The result is that Paul is contradictory and nonsensical at times if viewed from that perspective. However, if we view him as primarily a pastor giving pastoral advice and counsel, even when done as an apostle, then his seemingly contradictory teachings can make sense. He was dealing with pastoral issues and applying the truth of the Gospel to very practical situations that arose in the new churches. Making Paul’s admonition to one person or group universal for all people at all time is not honoring to Paul. It is misusing what he said and, at times, misappropriating his words for uses he never intended.
Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
I have this mental image that pops up at times. It’s a brief scene from the movie Silver Streak, where gunfire is being exchanged in a train, and Richard Pryor jumps up and says, very indignantly, “Who’s in charge, here?”
Gus wrote:
I would hope so but as the world becomes more complicated and chaotic, I sincerely doubt it. Look at all the Western men and women converting to Islam. Why do we think that is? Islam is not exactly known for having a branch that sees women as equals and of the value being in God’s Image– as we have with Jesus Christ and proper interpretation of our ancient scriptures.
People tend to love rules, roles and formulas for living. That is why Systematic Theology is such a draw for Christians.
The movements toward Christian authoritarianism/comp doctrines were early adopters of the internet to build their little empires. They did not forsee the same medium bringing them down or dealing with educated articulate people who could refute their teachings. Or, that their victims have the nerve to tell of their experiences in those movements, online.
So now the tactics are in play to shut people up.
I don’t think comp is dead. I think it is doubling down and will attract new recruits. Digging in for more war, because for them, it has always been a war. Young people will always be attracted to bold movements.
@ Gram3:
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that what Paul said is not authoritative or not inspired. What I’m saying is that he was dealing with real-life application of the Gospel in various situations that came up. Universalizing a particular application is what I think is the problem. There are universal principles, but those are not the same thing as particular applications of those principles.
Daisy wrote:
Many of the Christian single men who are in their 30s and 40s want to marry a woman in her 20s because he wants to have children. I know a recently divorced Christian man who is in his mid-40s. He and his former wife were unable to have children. This guy really wants to marry a woman in her mid-20s.
@ Gram3:
So, if I’m reading your comment right (my head is fuzzy today and I wish I could go back to bed), the comp preachers actually got this one right. It was something they found inconvenient to their teaching that marriage is *the* thing, so they explained it away by pulling the “relevant to the culture and times of Paul” card.
So they did the right thing for the wrong reasons, in this instance at least.
Lydia wrote:
I have scratched my head over this many times.
I remember a girl I knew in college who was looking for rules to live her life by. I remember about the time we were graduating and going our separate ways, that she was very attracted to the Mormon church — loved their family values (things like Monday night family night), the rules for living. Earlier she had explored that branch of Judaism (is it Orthodox?) where you have separate sets of dishes for meat and dairy, and all sorts of rules to observe.
I think she was looking for safety and some kind of assurance in a chaotic world.
Daisy wrote:
True enough- though you don’t even have to go that far. Look at any average beer commercial and you’ll find male privilege is part of our culture.
The great irony about complementarianism is that it *IS* the very thing that it accuses egalitarianism of being: it is driven and influenced by the culture.
I think the exogesis regarding gender roles is not easy. There are verses that go both ways, and at the end of the day, you have to go beyond “Paul said xzy” to form a Biblical and Godly idea of how to handle gender and roles. So with that being said, it is complementarianism that more closely resembles the culture we live in, not egalitarianism.
Lydia wrote:
But I would like to use more precise language. There are certain ideas about wealth and ecclesiology that must almost certainly be present in order to build a mega-church. Without judging any one individual, I can say that I do not see how a mega-church is compatible with Jesus’ program on this earth. HOWEVER. We must be careful to note that these certain ideas can very well be present without a church ever becoming a mega! Most of the fundamentalist churches I attended had the exact same ideas about churchianity, but their obscure doctrine and/or lack of charismatic leadership meant that they were always failing.
I know I am using your comment as a launch-pad for something slightly OT (much like a complementarian sermon, in that regard), but I want all my friends here to be shrewd – just because a church is small doesn’t mean it isn’t led by a gaggle of narcissistic zeros (:wink:)
@ Jeff S:
You just reminded me of all those old car commercials, that implied that the gorgeous babe came with the right “cool” car.
@ Gram3:
But why is so much of this tied to the culture wars and the transition of the 1960’s and 1970’s? If it is that means that evangelical Christianity is nothing but a cultural reaction to cultural changes in the country. It would also mean that its not about the Gospel at all. Culture changes all the time. Look at how the American family and the role of woman changed from the 1700’s to the 1800’s to the 1900’s to today! For example on the western frontier woman had big families not because of scripture. Cholera, typhoid, and many other diseases killed a lot of people in the 1800’s on the American plains and intermountain west. You had large families for survival.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
May I add an “Amen” to that?
Been there, actually.
Although in the case of our former church, I still have the nagging suspicion that they started out with the best of intentions, still sincerely believe that what they are doing is *the* way, which is why they are so intent on everyone following that way. Their control is partly fear-based — they are going to be held to a harsher standard when the judgment rolls around. So of course they’ve *got* to get it right, and make sure everyone else gets it right (in their eyes) as well.
@ refugee:
I have a cool car. It didn’t come with any babes. And in fact, it was apparently the only thing that was a turn off to my wife when we met- haha.
But she’s gotten over it because she drives to work in it (so I can have the bigger car for the kids when she’s at work) and she has a blast 😀
@ Jeff S:
🙂
Eagle wrote:
And there was no birth control.
refugee wrote:
The full priesthood of every believer is both shocking freedom and an almost terrifying concept at the same time. It comes fairly easy to me, as a middle son out of ten kids who kind of fell through the authority cracks in some ways and had to learn to be self-sufficient quickly. I imagine it would be harder if you were used to having your life ordered for you. Freedom might just feel like chaos and directionless wandering. Legalism in all its glory steps in and becomes a savior.
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
You don’t have to tell me – we left from a tiny fundy church with like 30 people to go to a fundy church that ran a good 600+. Left that mess and almost jumped right into a fast-growing 9marx joint.
Maybe I’ve learned my lesson on discernment. Hehe.
Eagle wrote:
yes and with Westward expansion people CHOSE to build a school that also was used as a church in their settlement. Most pastors were circuit riders and not around all the time. Just think how differently people approached Christianity in freedom and choice.
There is a historical and even geographic precedent for why American Christianity was so different from Europe in so many ways.
refugee wrote:
I can only speak for myself here, but I use my internal markers of conscience and my internal moral compass both imaged from the divine to determine what’s what in the Bible.
Some would hold that I cannot trust my guts because they are ‘marred’, ‘broken’, and ‘corrupted’ by sin and that my conscience can only be informed and regulated by Scripture.
I flatly reject that paradigm now. I jettisoned it shortly after the turn of the century.
GovPappy wrote:
Totally agree.
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
Agree with this, too. The really big difference is that in mega’s all of this is hidden better for the average pew sitter. Many of them are actually attracted to the big, beautiful buildings, events, coffee shops and excellent show. Most of them came from “small” churches, btw, if you looked at the demographics from the 90’s and early 2000’s as much as could be tracked with new members. (Many people came regularly but never formally joined)
It is one reason I often say that those of us who were in them, even helping them grow, were not thinking it out to its logical “spiritual” conclusion of what it takes to become big. It is NOT a good thing. The leaders just graduated from being an Admiral in a row boat to a Destroyer. An example of the worst is From Mark Driscoll’s home group to Mars Hill. Every mega started small…. somewhere.
Jeff S wrote:
But women today have to play a part in that for it to work.
refugee wrote:
If you are a gender complementarian, your criteria for determining that is how well which ever approach supports your agenda.
@ refugee:
I think that Paul was making a practical point and not a doctrinal one. I suspect that the Complementarian preacher was saying that Paul was making an exception to an assumed universal rule of marriage. I’m saying there isn’t a rule that is universal, IMO, and that both single women and single men can honor God with their lives and can imitate Christ through the way they choose to live.
@ refugee:
P.S.
Regardless of if it’s timeless or culturally bound. I’m not sure how to articulate this…
Even if Paul’s comments on singleness were culturally bound, the fact that at any time in history God preferred singleness to marriage (and he did back in the days of 1 Cor 7), it sort of ruins the comp view that marriage is better for everyone and anyone in any age.
Marriage cannot be all that and a bag of chips and an absolute necessity for gender roles or for keeping society together, if at some point in history, God was all, “You know, in some ways being single is better and more beneficial than being married.” Which is exactly what was going in 1 Cor 7.
Gram3 wrote:
yes! You know, I have often thought about how we have had 2000 years to get it right with proper understanding passed down based on historical changes. There is quite a bit of NT scripture that does not apply practically to a 21st Century Christian living in a country of individual civil rights and the fact that a citizen IS the government. Such as reading Ephesian 5 and not realizing it was normal in that world for “arranged marriages” often to women much younger for breeding purposes and women often lived in a different corner of the home with the children. Take that into consideration when Paul is giving instructions to a husband. The man was most likely thinking…love her? I do love her. I married her, gave her protection and my name. Isn’t that love?
The most power a woman in Ephesus had was with the Temple cult.
I have pondered how much sooner we would have had major breakthroughs in areas such as equality, science and medicine if not for the power of the state church controlling people and literacy.
NT Wright made the comment once that every generation has to wrestle with scripture and do the hard work. But, many generations were simply not allowed to or they would face horrible punishment. Now, if we have a computer, we have access to all sorts of free resources for study. We really have few excuses. Even before that, in my grandmothers day, she often told her children of the Epistles, “We are reading one side of the story”.
Lydia wrote:
So he was, in a round about way, functionally single?
Which means marriage cannot be as necessary for gender roles, serving God, and whatever else gender comps say it is.
@ Lydia:
Do you not think that Paul on marriage is more rooted in the Old Testament than his contemporary culture?
I think the metaphor is still valid and relatively easy to understand, but I would certainly agree with you of the very real danger of husbands getting silly ideas about being ‘Lord’ over their wives if you press the Christ/church and husband/wife parallel too far. Wives becoming passive and evading responsibility could be a similar misunderstanding as well I suppose.
A bit of sanctified common sense ought to go a long way here!
Lydia wrote:
One of the implications I take away from that is that Peter, though he was a married guy, was celibate for weeks or months at a time.
At least we are not told he was into adultery while on the road with Jesus, so I am assuming he was not sneaking around on his wife.
Mark “I have to have sex with my wife every five minutes and every Christian husband is entitled to sex whenever and however he wants it” Driscoll would not have lasted five days on the road with Jesus, if his wife Grace had to stay behind in their home.
@ refugee:
That is amazing and encouraging. I spent approximately half a century as a baptist and never hear a word from any creed, but I did hear early on ‘why we don’t do that.’ I have been gone from that scene for quite while now, and I am almost certain that your information is newer than mine.
Eagle wrote:
I don’t think I would go that far. I do believe that evangelical Christianity has been distracted from its main mission. However, we might say the same thing about other types of Christianity, too, either now or in the past. The thing that was the distraction is different, but we just have a tendency to wander.
Evangelical Christianity predates the 70’s cultural upheaval. I just think that what we are seeing today is a reaction to that, or at least it started out that way. For me, being an evangelical means more than what I’m against but also what I’m for. I think that we have lost the positive Good News, largely because evangelicals have become very successful and prosperous in the West.
Children used to be a source of labor which was necessary to sustain the family economically. That was true for many in my parents’ generation even here in America. I think there are some who romanticize life in another era, largely because they are unacquainted with the reality of that era.
refugee wrote:
I think I remember seeing a list like that on the internet before, yes. 🙂
Daisy wrote:
I’ve heard this brought up in the UK by probably the leading ‘complementarian’, mainly in the context of death being the only unequivocal and complete end to the marriage bond (rather than divorce, of which there is an alarming amount even amongst evangelicals).
@ Eagle:
I don’t know about Acts 29, but this is common in a lot of Baptist and evangelical churches. Many churches won’t let unmarried adults even so much as teach Sunday School classes, let alone be preachers.
Did you see this:
Single and Evangelical? Good Luck Finding Work as a Pastor
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/us/22pastor.html?_r=0
Also, Mark Driscoll had a blog post up some time ago arguing against the idea that single men can or should be preachers, and all the reasons he cited were twisted Scriptures, assumptions he held, or plain stupid.
Sorry Daisy, posted before finishing. Meant to continue that the temporary nature of marriage was a good point to bring up. A bit like spiritual gifts, they are not permanent, but Christian character (the fruit) is, and this gives a clue to the relative importance of the two. Marriage is important, but it is not eternal.
@ refugee:
I don’t know anything about the Botkin daughters, but I do read Al Mohler on line.
refugee wrote:
If we are talking about the epistles, that is a particular genre that is well-recognized. So, we need to try to figure out what prompted Paul to write what he wrote. Then, we need to extract the principle that he was applying. So, for example, in some of the gender clobber verses, what are the principles which transcend all of the things which look like rules or roles? Well, I would say that the things which are transcendent are the things which mark us as being Christ-like such as humility, love, respect, considering others more important than ourselves, etc. Those character qualities will take on a different look in different cultures and different circumstances within a particular culture. Basically, all of the “one anothers” are principles for Christian living that each of us must apply using wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Eagle wrote:
And if the diseases didn’t kill, the recommended treatments or remedies may very well have hastened their demise. An 1871 medical book stated that the infant (five years old or less) mortality rate was close to 50% in England. The recommended treatment for diphtheria – give the child a drink of diluted sulphuric acid with syrup.
Lydia wrote:
I do think some people like rules and so on, but I just saw an online article about a week ago (I don’t know if I can find it again) that says women who had voluntarily joined ISIS are now trying to escape.
IIRC the article correctly, the women joined thinking ISIS would be a life of daring, adventure, and excitement.
But they were not prepared for the reality: sitting around isolated from men in buildings that lack electricity. They are not permitted out in public or to fight. They sit around all day, bored.
…and when they describe how it works for them, they describe something that looks 100% non-hierarchical by any normal measure. This is the “slap a different name on the same action” thing. When my wife went along with my preference for a car, she submitted to me. When I went along with her preference for the furniture, I delegated my authority over the furniture to her. No actual difference, but if we give it a different name, it must actually BE different.
@ Elizabeth Lee:
Middle aged men use that as an excuse, if participants at Child free blogs and forums I’ve seen are accurate.
A lot of those types of men just want to ditch the current same age wife for a trophy, 20 something wife, and they use the “I want more kids” line as an excuse.
But there is a problem with all brackets of men, ages 20 and up, all chasing women of ages 20 – 35 or 20 – 29. There are a ton of attractive single women out there who are 30, 35, 40, 45, and older, and these men could have their pick. But because many of them chase after the same demo, they will come up short handed.
On the flip side, my friends got me to sign up for dating sites, and when I state my real age on these sites, I have men ages 20 to 30 flirt with me and ask me out, occasionally some mid 30s guy, as well as guys ages 50, 60, and up.
The guys who I PREFER to date (my age, 40s) don’t seek me out as much. Guys way older or way younger chase after me.
@ Boyd:
Never heard of him, but judging by that lineup, he’s been dabbling in the fringes of the manosphere and using authors (Leonard Sax) who have been at least partially faulted by neuroscientists for overgeneralizing sex differences.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130309184946/http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003284.html
Hester wrote:
Being a complementarian sounds complicated :p
@ refugee:
American Comps I’ve read and seen usually bolster this point by saying “most people today get married.” That is how they try to prove that God prefers marriage, or expects people to marry.
Note that complementarians do not have a Bible verse that supports their position on this, no, they point to culture to make a case – irony.
That used to be true, that most U.S. people marry, but starting in 2014, studies reveal that single adults are now over 50% of the U.S. population.
Comps can guilt trip, complain, and hype marriage all they want, but the way the culture currently is, people are simply not getting married at all, or not until an older age.
Jeff S wrote:
I agree and remain amazed that complementarians keep thinking that their position is 100% biblical, with zero cultural assumptions involved!
@ Melody:
They absolutely cannot see that they are further dividing the sexes by making it sound as though we need translation aids to communicate in any deep or meaningful way. They also can’t see that they’re actually insulting everyone (including themselves) with most of their descriptions of how men’s and women’s brains supposedly work. It usually goes something like this:
“Wait a minute – you don’t think that men are emotionally stunted children with no executive functioning skills or sexual impulse control, and women are emotion-addled logical morons who can’t do any math harder than addition or handle any language except cutesy euphemisms? WHY DO YOU HATE WOMEN / MEN? GOD DECLARED OUR SEX DIFFERENCES GOOD!”
dee wrote:
…so does Wayne Grudem. 🙂 It’s the coveted position that’s carefully excluded and protected from the “permission granted” list with emphasis (usually) on ministry to women and children by female leaders.
@ Jeff S.:
Semantics are everything. But remember, if you get the semantics wrong, you’re in danger of denying both the Gospel and the Trinity.
Ken wrote:
Why would you think the Pharisees and religious leaders in Judaism were getting the OT scriptures right? Wasn’t that the problem in the first place? Do you think Saul got it right before he became Paul and had to rethink a good bit of what he was taught that was part of the heavy burden religion?
I think the converted Paul was looking at it totally different in Ephesians than his former Pharisee self would. But then WE also need to look at the cultural context Paul was in. And we often neglect to point out Pauls’s heavy use of rhetoric and metaphor. No where was he mapping the husband to Christ and the wife as, the church in roles. It is a metaphor of great love and sacrifice.
Jeff S wrote:
No, not at all. One only needs to imagine whether something would make John Piper uncomfortable in his masculinity. I suspect that, at its base, this whole movement is based on the personal issues of a few men. They have made a career on their own apparently unresolved issues, so I have to give credit where credit is due.
@ Gram3:
One of the cliches pastors/teachers use to trip up people is to say that God never changes. They use the standard OT proof text for it.
But if we read the OT carefully God definitely changes the way He interacts with groups of people to prophets, etc. The ultimate change was to come in the form of a nobody to interact with people in person.
@ Gus:
🙂
@ Nancy:
Ah, I get where you were coming from. I’m sorry to burst your bubble. This wasn’t a Baptist church, so maybe your original point stands.
Nonetheless, in that church, I’m not too sure how many people were contemplating or meditating on the creed as they recited it each week. (What is that verse about having a form of godliness? They certainly debated and hashed over the “proper” way to worship, but in the end it seemed as if they choked all the life out of it.)
Nancy wrote:
I think that most people argue from the point of view of gifting. If a woman has a gift, should the church block it since it is not a gospel™ use of their gender role?
Lydia wrote:
Here is where I read this:
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Scholarship_Decipleship.htm
here is the snippet:
“There is a deep theological point underneath all this. I believe, as an a priori, that the church will never get to the point where it has solved all the exegetical questions, understood all the theology of the New Testament, so that subsequent generations can sit back and look it up and not have to think for themselves. I have come to believe that God has so ordered things that each generation will have to wrestle afresh not just with a few details on the side but with the large questions of Jesus and the kingdom, of Paul and the faithfulness of God, of John’s view of God and the world, of Revelation’s vision of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven. If the church as a whole is not doing this, it is not growing into the wisdom it will need for its many-sided mission. And that means that though most church members will not give themselves professionally to the tasks of scholarship, they need to be part of a fellowship in which such tasks are being energetically pursued and the resultant challenges and dialogue given proper space and weight. This means – and I don’t think either the church or Christian scholars often reflect properly on this – that the task of biblical scholarship is a necessary part of the church’s life in every generation. It isn’t just that, as an unfortunate accident, we don’t quite understand the Bible yet as well as we should, but perhaps another few monographs and commentaries will do the trick. It is, rather, that each generation needs to struggle with the big questions as well as the small ones as part of its own healthy witness and worship.”
An interesting lecture all the way around.
Deb Willi wrote:
Thank you for this comment.
dee wrote:
CBE approaches this issue strictly from the viewpoint of giftedness. Not gender.
Lydia wrote:
Apt word selection in more ways than one.
Ken wrote:
I actually disagree with you. i believe that the metaphor is neither seen nor understood in any relevant way by Christians in general.
@ Daisy:
I pray they can find a way escape to freedom.
Victorious wrote:
Wayne Grudem would label Wade burleson a heretic for his views on women. 🙂
Gram3 wrote:
Alternatively, there were some who romanticized life in another era because they found it profitable and attention-getting. I think of the showman P.T. Barnum, er, Phillips, who dressed up like a WWII soldier while capitalizing on the emotional impact of WWII (an officer, I think, not a common soldier) and as a colonial at the spectacle celebrating Jamestown (again, a member of the upper class, not your common laborer).
Lydia wrote:
I heard somebody, and I think but won’t swear that it was Amy-Jill Levine on youtube, say that Paul never converted. The point being that he remained an observant Jew and a pharisee all his life and that for the Jews who believed in Jesus at that time there was no requirement to convert to anything, belief in Jesus being seen as consistent with Judaism. Mention was made in scripture of Paul taking a vow and shaving his head having to prove, I think, that he was still observant, and doing a circumcision on somebody (Timothy?). Paul did say at one point that he became as one under the law for those under the law and as one not under the law for those not under the law in order to win as many as possible-a rather confusing statement but not if he continued to be observant except when he didn’t–like who ate with whom. Anyhow, if he was not an observant Jew why was he criticized for eating with the gentiles? Anyhow, I don’t know obviously but I do think she has a point there.
@ Eagle:
I also don’t remember Paul instructing Christians to fight the culture. He told them to help each other out and spread the Gospel and don’t fall into the sins of the culture.
If Paul were around today, I just have doubts that he’d be going on Fox or CNN to argue about the Duggars one way or the other.
dee wrote:
Here’s what kills me. True Ministry is described as a call, as in a call from God. So that means that when a woman is called to ministry, the ‘no pen#%, no pulpit’ crowd dismiss that call as BS because their God forbids it so it must be that:
-the woman is lying or mentally deranged;
-the woman heard it wrong; or
– it was someone other than God doing the calling (i.e. Stan)
So these gentlemen have established themselves as Gods intermediary- whatever you think you heard from Gos is only true if they approve of what you heard. The arrogance and self-importance of it all is pathetic.
Lydia wrote:
I think women are conditioned to go along with it, to believe they are only valued for their looks and sexuality.
refugee wrote:
Man that guy loved to play dress-up! He’d think up the flimsiest ‘biblical’ reason to get himself and a bunch of other people to put on some huge dress-up event. The Titanic one killed me- I think it’s still up on Vimeo.
Nancy wrote:
Oh, my. The Botkins and their teachings were heavily promoted by the now-defunct Vision Forum. The Botkin daughters wrote a book titled So Much More in which they sang the praises of the father’s vision and the role of the stay-at-home daughter. Her job: to support her father’s vision until the lord provides a husband whose vision she is then to support.
They were still quite young when they wrote the book, but it was heavily promoted at our former church as an example of someone who was making “godly young womanhood” work, and work well.
It was the Botkins who, ironically enough, started my breaking loose. I was thinking that it was wrong to think of women as second-class citizens when we were so often assured that we were highly esteemed and therefore cared for even more carefully than the women “out” in the culture, and yet deep in my heart it felt as if I was raising my daughters as such. I had been a tomboy, growing up. I caught a lot of flack for allowing our girls to wear jeans and play (not organized) sports and not merely sit and stitch on samplers or pick berries and make jam or have tea parties or any number of appropriate feminine delights. (Pardon me if I wince, but these are not my talents — no offense to those who take joy in such things. I’m afraid I often found women in the christian homeschool movement rather tiresome company. *sigh* I’m sure I was no great shakes myself, trying to fit in as I was.)
The Botkins sisters put out a video on the great adventure of being a girl. I was so excited! Finally I was going to discover what I was missing, what would turn my faltering efforts into adventure for our girls. Only to be sharply disappointed. You see, in short, the Botkins sisters’ adventure was… staying at home and doing research in support of their brother, who was traveling in Egypt (PYRAMIDS! The SPHINX! The VALLEY of the KINGS!), filming a documentary.
It felt to me like they were being cheated! I would have felt cheated. I felt like it would be cheating my girls to have them grow up in the culture, any more than they had already. I went to my mentor. She explained, kindly and gently, that it was that old devil’s feminism from my college days, rearing its ugly head again. We just have to keep stamping out that old sin, lest it lead us astray.
But this time, the cognitive dissonance wouldn’t quit. It was the beginning of the end.
When Homeschoolers Anonymous came along, I was ready to read and understand that I’d been fed a bill of goods. (I think I just mixed my metaphors, but hopefully the meaning is clear.)
Oh, and the Botkins daughters, those pitiable poster children for the stay-at-home-daughter movement, did not marry young (as they so enthusiastically promoted), nor are they having multiple children for the kingdom (in following their father’s 500 year plan. I am not exaggerating. I bet you could google it and find something about it, even today). No, they are rapidly approaching their 30s, still living at home, unmarried, and I haven’t heard of any courtships or suitors on the horizon.
dee wrote:
A while back the issue was floated around as to what should be the position of the church when the church recognized some gifting or ability in a woman and she was not using that gift the way they thought she ought to. The particular position that I took such exception to came out of the mouth of …and I can’t remember his name. A sociologist or sociologist type preacher, religiously radical for his time, bald I think and very popular; lots of folks were impressed by him. He used the example of some woman who wanted to be a nurse but the church thought she ought to be a doctor. You can see how that would get my attention right there. Any way this (word omitted) said that the woman should be disciplined and thrown out of the church if she persisted in wanting to be a nurse. I thought, man, you never did either one and you need to zip your lip right now. What idiocy! Anyhow, the issue of what if the woman does not want to be a preacher but rather wants to be a stay home mom. Or an accountant or something. How far should the church pursue the idea of using women’s giftedness? That is the border line for me.
Wow, I pushed post comment and remembered his name-but not how to spell it. Tony Campolo. Grrr.
I almost said Cabella but that is camping equipment.
Daisy wrote:
It’s the way of the culture. You pay a price to rock the boat.
@ Jeff S:
Oh, that quote totally did not work right . . .
@ Ken:
Marriage as metaphor is kind of a crummy marriage as used by Christians today because there are never married people such as me who cannot relate to it.
You also have divorced people and widows.
Daisy wrote:
I meant “a crummy metaphor” but typed “marriage” a second time.
Daisy wrote:
I bet it could be a crummy marriage, as well. What’s that old quote about being “so heavenly minded” as to be “no earthly good”?
@ Ken:
The American comps are pushing it, though.
There is a paper or two at American comp CBMW site saying that wives will have to submit to their husbands, even in the afterlife.
And again, I note, even if that were true, where do divorced women or never-married ones such as me fit in on that stuff?
Complementarianism simply does not work for all women in all marital statues or stages of life. It only works for a very narrow demographic of women.
Nancy wrote:
I agree she has a point. Can you imagine how confusing it all was? How in the world would Gentiles have been impressed with OT scriptures except to point to the idea of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. I have often thought Paul’s taking of a Nazerite vow as very strange. But it also negates how many interpret his writing in 1 Corin 11, ironically.
Here is where I think we tend to miss it: the Jews were supposed to be the light of the world. They were supposed to be so obvious as God’s people it would cause the pagans come home to Yahweh. There was never really any exclusivity that non Jews could not belong to Yahweh. There are many warnings about being separate and not mingling because the Jews tended to take on pagan beliefs and practices.
Of course, the Jews did not cooperate but God still showed His patience and long suffering with them. Just look at the prophets. Often they are outside the Jewish “system” in the OT. The same can be said of John the Baptist as the forerunner…which is really ironic. He had nothing to do with the sacral system in Jerusalem. Even Jesus chose not to grow up there. :o)
Ken wrote:
Singleness in the here and now reminds you that you will be single when you are dead. Your spouse is Jesus.
@ Gram3:
“But a system cannot deliver the heart of a man to sacrifice for his wife or the heart of a woman to sacrifice for her husband. So, it is a false promise that they are relying upon to make their life good. They are selling certainty and they cannot deliver certainty. IMO, it would be far better to teach people how to live in a chaotic conditions that to promise to eliminate the chaos.”
++++++++++++++++
this makes me think of an episode of Naked And Afraid I just watched on Discovery
(I love that show — I learn a lot about human nature, and about how to make fire. And on some episodes, I feel I end up seeing some of the best that human nature has to offer. It inspires me. Makes me proud to be human. Certainly proud to be a woman.)
The episode I mentioned had a man and a woman who couldn’t be more different. Sparks flew, colorful language. As the 21 days went on, they realized more and more how much they needed each other to survive. As a bonus, kindness and empathy kicked in & they started caring for each other. Each of them sacrificed for the other for the other’s wellbeing and welfare. Amazing acts of selflessness.
I’ll add that in most episodes the man is very humbled and the woman is very elevated. Both feel great about themselves and about the other. Amazing mutuality.
In my observation, the episodes in which this equalizing mutuality happens the team succeeds and survives better in mind, body, soul, and in relationship than those episodes where it doesn’t happen so well.
@ Nancy:
Oh, my. Just one more example of the church trying to be the Holy Spirit to someone.
Tony Campolo said that? Really? Sheesh, and to think I enjoyed listening to him in the 80s (the church we were attending at the time had a lunchtime film series once a week. Free lunch, a video, and short discussion. Three of the series I recall were by Dobson, Campolo, somebody trendy at the time with the first name of Becky…)
Daisy wrote:
The paper says male headership will persist, even if marriages won’t. Who knows what that means. Male headship does mean more than just marriages, as it also includes church leadership; however, since neither church leadership or husbands will be issues, who knows?
Maybe it’s all about not giving driving directions in a way that a man would find threatening?
@ refugee:
Oops, it seems I misspoke. It’s not a 500 year plan, it’s a 200 year plan.
So much less presumptuous and more god-honoring.
Daisy wrote:
In my case, bad experiences made me VERY leery of “Christian single women”.
Last thing I wanted was to be “equally yoked” with a “Jesus is My REAL Boyfriend/Husband”, Church Lady-in-waiting, or Jacqueline Chick. To me, that’s the genderflip version of a Christian Courtship marriage with a Patriarchal abuser.
refugee wrote:
But still Patriarch of a 200-year Dynasty.
Paging Tywin Lannister…
Paging Tywin Lannister…
Paging Tywin Lannister…
Daisy wrote:
This is well beyond even the (California) Mormons I’ve known.
sam wrote:
I hear you both, and I know what you mean. I’m just saying they are acting as stumbling blocks in a world already full of them, and making it easier for people to just blow off Christianity…
Nancy wrote:
How about allowing the women themselves to decide? Why does the church get to make choices for adult women? They don’t nit pick usually over stuff men can and cannot do.
Off the top of my head, the only exception is that churches are pretty much as biased against umarried men as they are women, they won’t let unmarried men be preachers.
refugee wrote:
Not just “an officer”.
A specific “officer”:
GENERAL George S Patton, Jr.
(I would so much like to have steered the REAL General Patton and Douggie ESQUIRE the Cosplay Patton into the same place at the same time…)
And not just “a colonial”.
A NOBLEMAN.
Highborn, just like on Game of Thrones.
Complete with Lowborn Handmaid with Benefits.
AND THIS GUY WOULDN’T EVEN ADMIT HE WAS COSPLAYING!
Jeff S wrote:
Even in the afterlife? LOL.
dee wrote:
Is that “WayneGrudemGoWayneGrudem”?
Hester wrote:
Among Golden Age SF writers, this is called “Call a rabbit a smeerp”. (Yes, it’s still a rabbit, but if you call it a “smeerp” that makes it SF.)
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
There are some Christian males who are just as uber spiritual as some of the women, and I wouldn’t want to date one like that, either.
I’ve seen single men, in singles forums (for Christians) and on dating site profiles, sprinkle all sorts of pious- sounding nonsense around their profiles.
About how they want a woman who is “on fire for Jesus, and if she loves me more than she loves Jesus, I don’t want her. I want a woman who will read her Bible five hours a day, 5 days a week.
“My dream is to go on missions overseas, living in mud, with leeches clinging to me, handing tracts out to the natives, and the girl of my dreams wants that very thing too.”
I see comments or profiles like that from single Christian men and steer clear.
Loving Jesus and serving Jesus is fine with me, but if you sound like you will settle for nothing less than Mother Teresa and you sound too, too insanely consumed with Christianity, adios from me.
Daisy wrote:
Internet Monk had a posting on that exact subject some years ago.
The comment thread included this classic line describing it:
“SALVATION BY MARRIAGE ALONE”.
Lydia wrote:
“IN THE GRIMDARK FUTURE, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE WAR!”?
“WAAAAAAAUGH! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!”?
Why couldn’t someone have turned these guys on to Warhammer 40K instead of the Bible?
They’d do a lot less damage to the rest of us that way.
Ken wrote:
Does he have some biblical support for that teaching?
@ Mr.H:
As with Boaz and Ruth.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Back in my pre-resurgence baptist youth one idea was that single women could be active in the church as in teach SS and sing in the choir (even be a musician) testify and work with the children and youth and go to summer camp to help and be appointed by the FMB even. Everything except preach, and some of them did that on the ‘mission field.’ But single men could not because (wink wink) you just never know. The idea was that a man could get married if he wanted to but a woman had to wait until she was asked and sometimes a perfectly good woman never got asked. But a man? Nah. The single women missionaries were called ‘unclaimed blessings’ which I thought was rather offensive but nobody else seemed bothered by it.
Daisy wrote:
YES! I have the same problem, but I’m a little older than you.
Bridget wrote:
John Piper teaches this, as does Voddie Baucham. My former church taught this, leading them to tell me that if God wanted me to remarry, he could take my ex-wife at any time.
If you want to read Piper’s position paper on it, I can link it for you. The crux of it is, they believe that the “exception clause” that Jesus talks about allowing divorce means adultery during the betrothal period, and when Paul says an abandoned spouse is “no longer bound”, it doesn’t mean divorce- it means you don’t have to feel obligated to go looking.
@ Nancy:
At this point, i think most of them have cut themselves off from orthodox xtianity to the ectent that they are, in effect, part of a new religion. It uses the same words as orthodox xtianity, but its beliefs are another thing entirely.
My educated guess is that either this will die out or turn into a publicly recognized religion, a spin-off from xtianity. Like Mormonism and other new religious movements.
@ Jeff S:
Sounds like they did some real scripture whipping to get there.
numo wrote:
Oh, I had not thought about that. That is a good observation, because the trajectory of their changing is more and more tangential. At this point they would have to change so much that it would probably destroy the whole fabric of their belief system.
numo wrote:
Depends on whether all these Joseph Smith wannabes will be succeeded by a Brigham Young. Joseph Smith started a cult (which would normally have fragmented after his death); Brigham Young turned it into a self-sustaining religion.
Ken wrote:
There’s always “Divorce Italian Style”…
Bridget wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QLzthSkfM
Daisy wrote:
Wow. That’s almost an exact genderflip of all the “About Me” and “My Interests” I encountered on the female profiles of Nineties-vintage Christian Dating Services.
JUST WHAT IS IT WITH THESE GUYS/GALS?
WANNA-BE GNOSTIC PNEUMATICS, SO UBER-SPIRITUAL THEY HAVE CEASED TO BE HUMAN, OR EVEN TO EXIST AS A PHYSICAL BEING?
Daisy wrote:
I saw way too many of them from single Christian women.
I can’t remember who, but some Christian stand-up comic coined the term “Over-Saved”.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
“JUST WHAT IS IT WITH THESE GUYS/GALS?
WANNA-BE GNOSTIC PNEUMATICS, SO UBER-SPIRITUAL THEY HAVE CEASED TO BE HUMAN, OR EVEN TO EXIST AS A PHYSICAL BEING?”
+++++++++++++++++
very romantic ideas. as in, not grounded in reality.
kind of an Indiana Jones and his Marion Ravenswood fantasy (but a very accommodating Marion). Or maybe there’s some Christian book series that depicts the Christian version of this which they read in their youth, which has fueled their fantasy.
Jeff S wrote:
They think that this is placing a high value on marriage, but it is just the opposite. They are making marriage essentially a unilateral contract or an endurance contest rather than a willing union of a man and a woman who are bound by mutual and faithful exclusive love and devotion. That is the picture of marriage we get from the OT and the NT. The other idea of marriage is essentially a pagan one except that now both are bound to the arrangement rather than just the woman. They are teaching a better marriage under the Fall rather than marriage as God intended in Creation. Ironically.
Daisy wrote:
P.S. That should read “handing tracts out to the natives until they put me in the stewpot.”
__
“Telling the World About Jesus By Church Planting?”
Q: Right Mission, Right Mrssage?
hmmm…
“Jesus has called every single one of his followers to tell his story throughout the entire world in a way that results in many, many more people becoming his disciples. ” -A29
“… the best way to do this is by planting churches that plant churches so more people can know Jesus.” -A29
” We hope our boot camps help train and encourage many more people go join Jesus on his mission. ” -A29
“We want to allow a unifying, uncommon movement of God to happen through Acts 29.” -A29
“Purpose?”
“Centered on the Gospel, we desire to advance the mission of Jesus through obediently planting church-planting churches.” -A29
“Result?”
“It is our hope to see this leading to millions of lives changed by the power of the Spirit for the glory of God.” -A29
“Tool(s)?”
“As the lead guy, investing your life in a handful of guys will set the culture of your church.” -A29
“Systematic Church Planting With a handful of young guys?”
hmmm…
Acts 29 are cancerous (they don’t ‘really’ bring christ though they say they do.)
A hijack’d Christianity?
They aparrently are DNA Neo-Cal Church factories, the form of organism (Christianity) that they bring is a desdly form of ‘Neo-Calvinism’, (they have replaced Christ’s message with their very own cancerous message) the leadership is solely ‘scripturally’ men alone. Their churches are ‘born’ to reproduce. They’re ‘churches’ are born pregnant. Their people are ‘expected’ to be on board with this Mission(TM): “to share Christ’s ‘message’ by building ‘multiplying’ “churches” (TM)
“Manmade Forced Church Grow?”
huh?
“Mission?”:
You have the organism or virus : a very harmful form of Neo-Calvinism.
You have the delivery system: The Acts 29 Church Planting Network.
You have the instrument or needle : select young men 18-24 years old.
(Woman aparently, need not apply.)
“According To Code?”
What:
All this apparently for ‘the Glory Of God’ (R)
You will know them by their fruit, Jesus said?
Really Now?
(sadface)
Forget Mark Driscoll?
He is old news?
Sure thing.
-snicker-
So What DNA has Matt Chandler ‘brought’ to Acts 29?
Good question.
SKreeeeeeeeeeeeetch !
Better get da proverbial beer outa da back seat and ‘drive’ right, huh?
-grin)
hahahahahahaha
Sopy
__
Reference:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/01/14/church-planting-in-acts-29-where-are-the-women/
;~)
—
@ Nancy:
I think it is one of many strands of supposedly mainstream xtianity that diverge so much from orthodox xtianity that they really *are* something different. My own experiences with that have mostly been with NAR/Dominionist belief, thinking and practice, and I can certainly say that those folks have left the ecumenical creeds far, far behind. They might think they are xtians, but what they really practice is a dualistic, xtian-derived form of… animism.
America has given birth to lots of new religions, even though some of them have died off. I think it will probably be a place where many more come to light, though how long-lasting they will be is another thing entirely. If you look at religious history in the US in the early-mid 19th c. alone, there is just SO much that happened. And I think it will continue on that trajectory.
Gram3 wrote:
And don’t forget the Christianese Purity Culture trope that if I so much as say “Hi!” to her I Have Committed To Marry Her.
That’s even more pressure than the one-shot all-or-nothing Job Interview of a dating service date.
@ numo:
Further, I think there is a direct link between revivalism and a lot of the other religious movements that have occurred in the US. There’s something about the individualism of “decision theology” that seems to allow people to go haywire re. new “visions” (cf. Joseph Smith and similar).
The way these guys idolize fertility, “submission” and much more (including ESS) really makes me think that they are on a separatist trajectory, and have been for some time.
@ Gram3:
Nancy wrote: “However, there is an idea out there that women must be in leadership positions with the concomitant idea that those who are not are somehow lesser persons.”
Gram wrote: “That thought is out there because that’s the way the world thinks. That isn’t the way the Kingdom is…”
++++++++++++++++++++
Aside from ‘he who governs [doing so] as he who serves”, it seems to me that ‘the Kingdom’ is neutral on leadership positions. They naturally happen as people organize themselves.
As to ‘women must be in leadership positions’, I can’t see how the bible, the kingdom are anything but neutral on the subject. I think a case can be made that yes, absolutely women must be in leadership positions. Those who are skilled at it. The whole greatly benefits from diversity of perspective & approach. Speaking only in terms of gender, it seems only beneficial as well as common sense that leadership reflect both halves of the human race.
Sopwith wrote:
i.e. a Pyramid Scheme with Pastor/Founder starting out at the top of the list.
numo wrote:
Yikes. What is the better alternative to individual decisions?
__
” Lke A WasteLand?”
@ Headless Unicorn Guy
hey,
Aparrently a ‘funky’ form of neo-Calvinism has been used to direct this ‘thing’. Squares, pirmids, triangles, or what have you, this fast acting ‘virus’, is on a roll…
What is Christ’s ‘church’ really suppose to lõõk like?
hmmm…
http://www.bing.com/search?q=What+is+Christ%27s+really+suppose+to+lõõk+like%3F&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBRE&pq=what+is+christ%27s+really+suppose+to+lõõk+like%3F&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=9b4bdb171c4943f68f4512e2df7aff87
Better do your homework, huh?
(grin)
ATB
Sopy
—
@ elastigirl:
“…women must be in leadership positions…”
+++++++++++++
to continue on here, I think male advantage in civilization is clear. My view is that effort should be made to bring women in, to bring women to the fore. Towards balance. So the whole can have the benefit of what they offer in perspective, approach. I don’t believe qualifications need be compromised to do this. Having said these things, I realize this is much more complex than I make it sound.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
As we all know by now, I live in a cave, and the first time I ever heard this was from a young man who complained that dating had become so complicated. Really, I had no idea, so I asked him whatever is so complicated about going out for a Coke? Or I guess coffee nowadays. He told me there is the expectation that you wouldn’t ask a girl out if you were not already very interested in marrying her! Apparently there is now casual sex but no casual “dating.” I was astonished and so relieved I did not have to face that kind of pressure.
@ elastigirl:
I think it is difficult to make a case that women should be excluded from a position for which they are otherwise qualified. The Kingdom, as I understand it, functions along lines of giftedness which is exercised by all for the mutual good of all. The gifts are given by the Holy Spirit as he wills for the benefit of the Body as a whole. So, I would expect to find men and women doing all kinds of different things while at the same time not overvaluing the “leaders” which is what the world values. I think that is the mistake of the Corinthians and also the woman/women at Ephesus.
__
Keys To Wartburg: “Dissecting Christian Trends?”
hmmm…
Q: Hath the Wartburg Watch comment sesction evolved into a persistent ‘mob’ of ‘elderly’ women ‘dissing’ young calvinesta pastorial dudes for sport?
(grin)
Sopy
—
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
One and the same! The one who makes difficult theology easy to comprehend! Not!
dee wrote:
dee wrote:
I don’t think he would. He might strongly disagree, but to call someone a heretic is serious business.
Sopwith wrote:
LOL! The Monty Python sketch with the elderly women roughing up a group of bikers just flashed through my mind!
Bridget wrote:
Love that one! Gotta add it to my glossary!
__
JeffT
hey,
hahahahahahha
🙂
—
@ Jeff S.:
I don’t know. I remember it included a footnote strongly implying that the traditional interpretation might be wrong and marriage may in fact continue into the afterlife. Personally, it sounded to me kinda like they really wanted marriage to continue into the afterlife. Maybe that’s because deep down they realize that’s the only way they can legitimately extend male headship into the afterlife. Of course this is exactly what Mormons believe (at least about marriages sealed at a temple). But hey, I recently had a Christian claim to me that Mormons were actually Christians, after I criticized a highly weird religio-political post on his FB that was written by a Mormon and, as part of said criticism, pointed out that the guys’ Mormonism was probably affecting his reading of a few social issues and some of his definitions. So maybe gender roles are so important to some of these folks that they’d rather make themselves “Trinitarian Mormons” than change their views on the family? I wouldn’t put it past them, esp. the ones on the more patriocentric end of the spectrum (Swanson, Bayly, Sproul Jr., etc.). They’re already yammering on about multigenerational faithfulness and 200y plans. The Mormon genealogy obsession is only one or two theological tweaks away.
__
“A Bleeding Heart of Faith?”
(a story by by Kasey Van Norman)
“When we think about faith, we often reach for actions and behaviors—things we can quantify. We create a mental checklist: Have we been going to church? Have we cut back on the drinking? Have we been giving money to the church? Have we been doing our devotions?
We forget that authentic faith—the kind of faith that touches the heart of God—is not rooted in the external. It’s all about what’s happening on the inside.
People with real faith have hearts of good, rich soil. People with real faith surrender to the truth that there is absolutely nothing they can do to please God or maintain right standing before him.
People with real faith understand that as they hear and receive the Word of God, the Spirit takes over and changes their hearts.
As their hearts change, so do their behaviors.
Then what you see on the outside is only a sincere reflection of what is happening on the inside.
I once thought that satisfaction would come from some external experience.
But my greatest moments of victory, my most blissful seasons of peace, my consuming feelings of joy and contentment have never come from a big paycheck, a glass of wine, a beach vacation, a sexual experience, a relationship, or a blazing moment of success.
Nor have they come from attending church, being a “good girl,” or serving in ministry.
For me, the greatest thrill of my life has always come from the breaking and changing of my heart to look more like Christ.
Perhaps the most victorious moment in my life to date was the true realization that God works in the gut-wrenching valleys of our life.
Just as He brought the Israelites in to the wilderness to show them his mercy through manna; so He brings you and I into journeys of wandering through the wilderness to show Himself greater.
True joy and overwhelming satisfaction is found there—in the process.
In fact, the process is the point of our life all along.
For me, I sensed no greater feeling of protection, security, and identity than the moments of heaving and sweating my guts out into a trash can from the previous days chemotherapy treatment; when my heart had no one or nothing else to lean against but the love of Jesus Christ.
Undying faith is found only there—in the broken, bleeding, surrendered places of our hearts.
Great faith can only be experienced in a place of absolute dependence on Jesus.
The same can be true for you, no matter your history with faith.
Maybe you’ve been a skeptic your whole life; maybe you have danced on the borderlands between doubt and faith for years; maybe you’ve been looked the part of a faithful Christian but haven’t truly jumped in with both feet.
Wherever you find yourself, it’s not too late to embrace true faith.
(FYI: Kasey is a cancer survivor, a licensed professional counselor who has earned degrees in psychology, public speaking, counseling, and biblical studies. In 2014, Kasey was named ‘most inspiring woman of the year’ by Houston, TX and Buffalo, NY radio affiliates. She and her husband of 13 years, Justin, live in Bryan, Texas with their two children. She is the President of True Mission – a not for profit residential safe-home for minor girls rescued out of human trafficking within the US. She is also co-founder of Raven’s Way, Inc. – a not for profit online community of women who are learning to know and speak their life-story together (launching August 2015).
Kasey’s 2014 book and Bible Study: Raw Faith: What Happens When God Picks a Fight, (Full Study Series Here) has been hailed as one of the most daring and vulnerable ‘cancer narratives,’ to hit Christian literature. You can find out more about her on her website: KaseyVanNorman.org or follow her on Twitter @KaseyVanNorman.
—
This story was written Aby Sarah Frase|, on May 15th, 2015;
http://www.gotothehub.com/a-bleeding-heart-of-faith/
Further Research :
http://www.bing.com/search?q=a+bleeding+heart+of+faith&form=APIPA1
Book: “Raw Faith: What Happens When God Picks a Fight”
Kasey Van Norman (Author), Matt Chandler (Foreword), Lauren Chandler (Foreword)
http://www.amazon.com/Raw-Faith-Happens-Picks-Fight/dp/1414364784/ref=sr_1_1/190-1561496-6613206?ie=UTF8&qid=1433886913&sr=8-1&keywords=Raw+Faith%3A+What+Happens+When+God+Picks+a+Fight
🙂
—
Sopwith wrote:
Hey! Don’t call me elderly!
I’m happy to be part of this mob, though. 😀
Addendum @ Jeff S.:
I mean, really, all these guys would have to do to make the switch is:
1) Play on people’s emotions (your love is eternal, don’t you want to recognize your spouse and children in heaven, etc.)
2) Cook up with some reason the traditional interpretation that marriage is temporary is wrong – like, Christ and the church’s relationship is eternal, so yours is too, because otherwise marriage doesn’t fully and properly image the Gospel to the lost.
3) Apply pre-existing rhetoric about fighting feminism and upholding marriage to this new interpretation.
4) Hey presto, Trinitarian Mormonism.
2nd addendum @ Jeff S.:
And I absolutely know Christians personally who would be completely sold at step 1 and would swallow whole anything that followed. And if challenged on steps 2-4, their emotions from step 1 would kick in and prevent comprehension of criticism.
__
“Grasping @ Proverbial Theological Straws?”
Hester,
hey,
It’s ‘Offical’.
‘Male headship’ is now extended into the afterlife?
heh, heh, heh
What will day’ thinkz of next?
hahahahahaha
ATB
Sopy
—
Hester wrote:
He has this on his website concerning Biblical Manhood:
http://www.forgingbonds.org/study-topics/biblical-manhood/
A Biblical View of Masculinity
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to WORK it and KEEP it.” Gen. 2:15
1. “Work it” = (Heb. “avad,”) work, serve, labor, cultivate, bear fruit, produce, build, shape. Amplification: To order, build, shape the environment. “We are to called to ‘work’ whatever ‘field’ God has given us…Christian men should desire to cultivate something worthwhile for the glory of God and the well-being of their fellow man.” Richard Phillips, The Masculine Mandate. So, “work it” means to produce, to provide, to make fruitful. Adam bears fruit to provide the sustenance for his family.
2. “Keep it” = (Heb. “shamar,”) guard, protect, watch-over. Amplification: The word is used of soldiers, shepherds, priests, custodians, government officials. “This calling, to keep rounds out the masculine mandate of the Bible. A man is not only to wield the plow, but also to bear the sword. Being God’s deputy lord in the garden, Adam was not only to make it fruitful but to keep it safe.” Phillips, The Masculine Mandate. So, “to keep it” means to protect. Adam is designed to be a warrior!
3. Concerning the dance with woman. The rest of Genesis 2 gives great insight about the roles of man and woman. Adam is brought to the garden “to work it and take care of it.” Eve, however is brought to the man to be a “suitable helper” for him. His focus is the world. In some ways he stands between his family and the world—protecting them from harm from the world and equipping them to be successful in the world (Gen. 2:15, 18) Her focus is her husband and eventually her family. (Gen. 2:15, 18) Eve’s orientation in this subduing is ordering her family and home. (Prov. 31:1-31) After their sin, Adam’s punishment concerns his primary task—cultivating the garden, and Eve’s punishment concerns her primary task caring for her husband and children. (Gen. 3:16-19) This fact reinforces this basic role distinction. Note: We must avoid two extremes as we seek to understand the complimentary way in which God designed man and woman. One extreme is to say a wife belongs only in the home and should not have a job outside the home. The Proverbs 31 woman (the biblical ideal of femininity) was very economically productive and what that looks like from society to society will vary. The other extreme is to say that these different male and female creation distinctions don’t matter.
Adam is given the leadership role in the relationship. This means he is not passive but takes initiative. Christian husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves his. Like Jesus, we are called to pursue her, protect her, & provide for her. Pursuing her has two parts: Taking initiative and accepting the leadership role in the relationship of marriage.
Summary of Paired Polarities:
Masculine Orientation–To initiate, To lead, To provide, To protect
Feminine Orientation–To respond, To assist, To nurture, To beautify
How The Fall Impacts Our Masculinity (Opposite Extremes)
To initiate [becomes] selfish pursuit, using her for self-satisfaction, [or] passivity, won’t risk rejection
To lead [becomes] overly controlling, harsh [or] abdication of leadership
To provide [becomes] financial irresponsibility [or] providing material but not emotional & spiritual needs
To protect [becomes] overly protective, which stunts spiritual growth [or] protecting physically but not emotionally & spiritually
__
“Skipping To Da Happy Part?”
hmmm…
Elizabeth Lee,
hey,
hahahahahaha
“Sorry”
(sadface)
ATB
Sopy
🙂
—
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
You are funny! Never saw that one before. 🙂
JeffT wrote:
Sometimes “scripture twisting” just isn’t the right term for what is done in the name of someone’s pet doctrine. 😉
I do wonder if the timing of this tweet by Acts29 is entirely intentional.
It is possible Acts29 has been hearing questions, from women in particular, about whether child abusers are free to roam churches and harm their children, or not, given the recent revelations. It is possible that men asking questions are seen as being prompted by their wives to do so.
What better way to silence a man than to suggest his house is not in order? What better way to shush the women than to make it a submission problem, a “woman, know your place” problem? And what better way to distract from their own mess than to remind everyone that there is a doctrine for everyone to concentrate on. To subliminally suggest that people should pay no attention to the elephant in the room?
@ Boyd:
If it weren’t for this addendum, everything in his list would looked exactly like the Botkin sisters’ material, barely warmed over with different phrasing. There’s also lot of stuff in there that would essentially make it wrong for men to have “nurturing” and/or “beautifying” jobs like nursing, childcare, art, etc.
I must be the most hopelessly earthbound and simple-minded person on earth, because I just don’t conceive of my relations with the opposite sex in these terms and never have.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I have no doubt.
But, in Baptist and evangelical churches, you get docked points if you marry past the age of 30 and/or never have children, or only have one child. You can’t just marry, nope.
You gotta marry by whatever age the celebrity Christian talking heads say (usually early or mid 20s), and, you have to have more than one child.
@ Elizabeth Lee:
That was true even when I was mid-30s.
I tried two or three dating sites back then, it was the same deal. Dudes my age would rarely seek me out, but the guys much older/younger really liked me.
Then I quit the dating sites for a few years, until a friend talked me into rejoining a few again, which I did.
It’s the same thing now that I’m in my 40s. Guys older/younger dig me, but ones my age usually don’t notice me.
I read an interview once by a lady who was 50 years old who joined dating sites. She said she didn’t get many hits, until she changed her age to 40 on the sites. Then men started sending her messages all day long.
She dated a few of them. One guy, on their second date, she fessed up and told him her true age.
She said to the guy, “I used to post under my real age, but men ignored me. Does this bother you to find out I’m older than 40?”
The guy said nope, he liked her, and they continued dating.
It’s stories like that which make me wonder if some men don’t know what they want, they only THINK they do. You won’t know if you really like 40 / 50 year old women unless you actually date them and get to know them.
Daisy wrote:
Who cares what these a**hats say about anything? They are not the totality of Christendom. I don’t even consider them Christian, but who is and who isn’t Christian is an ever-popular parlor game, so let’s don’t go there.
I am going to be 60 later this month, unmarried, and no children, and as far as I’m concerned these clowns can go… take a hike. Can we just not ignore them?
__
Heather
Brilliant!
—
Jeff S wrote:
Some churches, Christian writers, and preachers do the same thing for never-married singles who want to be married, such as myself.
I read and heard constantly from Christians growing up that I should not go looking for a husband. I should only pray and wait on God, and poof!, he would send Mr. Right my way.
I’m still here, still single. You can probably guess what I think now about that kind of advice and input.
And it’s not only me. Upon reading stories from other adult singles, including one 55 year old man who had wanted to marry but never met Ms. Right, he got the same stupid advice.
‘If God wants you to have a wife, he will magically drop one into your lap, so we won’t pray for you or set you up with eligible ladies,’ he was told by 2 or 3 different churches he went to. He’s still single.
When the dating service this guy used burned to the ground (this was before the internet and dating sites), one guy at his church told him this was a sign from God that God did not want this guy taking matters into his own hands and dating / looking for a wife.
__
@ Daisy
…this is precious!
🙂
—
Lydia wrote:
Since I checked in Wikipedia as to what decision theology might be I probably know what numo means, but that is not why I am saying this. That is between you and her. However, the idea of individualism in religion is an interesting topic that we all might want to discuss over on the ODP some time. I first noticed it as a point of difference in RCIA when they kept criticizing the protestant idea of “Jesus and me.” I thought they misunderstood at the time because it seemed to be such an issue for them, but that was only partly so. However, in the process of trying to become an episcopalian I notice a distinct difference here, and it seems to overlap and be a part of what numo is apparently talking about. Anyhow, if some people are interested in the topic it could be interesting to discuss.
Basically the question is what must I do, if anything, to be saved and how does that work.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I don’t know. But I would come across the super spiritual single men once in a while.
As I’ve told you awhile ago, I also came across lots of self professing Christian men who are either vulgar on their profiles, or they talk about sex a lot on the profile and/or in their first dating site conversations with me.
Even men up into their 50s, who I would think would be old enough / mature enough to know better. I found the sex talk and crass jokes a big turn off and kind of creepy, so I stayed away from those guys too.
Gram3 wrote:
I could write ten pages about this alone, but will try to keep this short.
Christians making dating complicated has been pretty common in Christian culture since around the 1980s.
The church teaching and Christian material I was subjected to taught the same things over and over. Things like you should never meet alone, not even in a public place for a cup of coffee, because it will end in fornication (sex).
If you cannot date casually, how are you supposed to get to know the guy, how is something supposed to develop?
And other things like, Christians teach that all men are supposedly consumed with sex, they lack self control, so men and woman cannot be alone. That sort of teaching puts a damper on a man and woman going out to a coffee shop or movie for a date as well.
Around the 1990s or so, things got worse. That Harris guy wrote the ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ book, which messed up a whole other cycle of young singles.
It’s so bad now, and has been, that Christian singles don’t know what dating is for, or what it looks like.
I read some book or blog where a Christian guy said he asked a Christian woman out on a date. She got really puzzled and told him she did not understand the concept. She asked him “what is a date.”
Even if you are single and past your 30s, any time you are seen with an opposite gender single, many churches will assume you must be a romantic item.
I read a blog by one single guy who was in his 30s or 40s. His single lady friend came to visit him.
He brought her to his church as a guest. When he walked in with her to the service to sit in the pews, all the members were asking them when they were planning to marry, how long they had been dating, etc.
He said he felt very pressured and very embarrased by all the assumptions that there was romantic stuff going on (they were only platonic buddies), and his woman friend was deeply embarrassed too.
That happens to other singles in other churches. If you so much as strike up a simple, friendly conversation with another single, all the church people assume it’s romantic interest and start asking you when you plan on asking the person out.
Daisy wrote:
Um, actually, in our former church, at least one young man who had been aiming at a career not approved by the elders got talked out of those career plans. I’m sure the word biblical got thrown around during the persuading.
I don’t want to give any more details, but I can assure you that many people would have called his choice honorable, even admirable, not unbiblical.
@ Hester:
If some Christians believe that marriage is eternal, what do they do with women who like Liz Taylor who was divorced 7 or 8 times? To whom is she married? What of people who never marry in this life? I don’t see how they can map their beliefs to the afterlife.
Boyd wrote:
Except I’ve never married and never had children, so my orientation is what?
@ Daisy:
Notice that this is the exact same question that prompted Jesus to say marriage was temporary back in the day.
I don’t know exactly how Mormons answer this, though I seem to recall reading once that it has something to do with one marriage being sealed “for eternity,” as opposed to the other regular not sealed marriage being “for time.” It seems to me to be the only way to actually answer the question and still have eternal marriages – divvying marriages up into two categories, one higher and more spiritual than the other.
Though if patriocentrists did ever decide to make this shift, I doubt they would think it through that far, since they haven’t shown much of a propensity to do that up to this point. (At least not when it matters. They’ll think through the implications of bizarre random minor things out to ridiculous degrees, but basic central questions like how to allow for celibacy, they just leave hang.)
roebuck wrote:
I agree. I have been ignoring Christian views about dating and gender roles for a couple or three years now.
OTOH, I sometimes still read their views on these things in part because it’s fascinating in a macabre way.
I think maybe the only people in danger of still caring what these guys say about marriage, dating, and procreation are very sincere, naive Christians (mostly young ones, but still some into their 30s, 40s, and older) who want to do the right thing, and they believe that these talking heads are interpreting the Bible correctly. And they really want to obey God and do the Biblical thing.
Daisy wrote:
Your orientation is ‘never married and never had children’, like many others (including myself). Life is strange, but it isn’t over yet…
I’ve had a couple of women more or less propose to me, but did not feel it appropriate. And I have proposed to a woman, and been flatly turned down (ouch!). I don’t expect ever to marry, and surely I will never have children – I don’t want any child of mine to have a father older than her playmates’ grandfathers.
Life is strange, but it ain’t over just yet. Though I know it seems that way sometimes…
@ refugee & Daisy:
I think it goes either way about whether they nitpick on men. The PCA pastor I’ve posted about here before, tried to tell my dad that he needed to get a different job because he had to travel too much with his current one. (My mom put him in his place immediately.) And if systems like patriocentrism (or even the one quoted above by Boyd) are taken to their logical conclusions, they should be just as limiting for men as for women. With patriocentrists, men should be staying home leading their families and doing their part in the “home economy (i.e., no job outside the home because the evil bad Industrial Revolution introduced those). With regular comps, men should be prohibited from doing “feminine” things – basically anything involving beauty, caring, a bedside manner, and/or working with children – because most of them have taken gender stereotypes and used them to define lists of jobs for each “role.”
@ Daisy:
…and fearful people who are convinced that their relationship with their spouse/family will fall apart if they don’t follow “God’s way.”
I know one of these couples, and the mother/wife is promoting this stuff as hard as she can all over the place. The father and son are both on the autistic spectrum and she is neurotypical. She seems to have trouble understanding them, and seems to believe that:
1) all this stuff about “what men are like” will help her understand them; and
2) since her husband has had trouble holding down jobs and her son is a bit undirected post-high school, presenting them with “Biblical manhood” will get them to shape up.
Except the reality is that both of the difficulties she’s encountering, are really not that unusual when dealing with autism spectrum disorders. So she should be reading books about the autism spectrum, NOT gender stereotypes. In the meantime, she has misdiagnosed the problem and is now evangelizing Biblical gender roles. It is all fear.
Daisy wrote:
Yes. And I think that there will always be these ‘talking heads’ who arrogate authority unto themselves. And so, to me, the job seems to be to educate people, to open their eyes. Calling these freaks out on sites like TWW is vital to this, but really, people need to pre-emptively learn to see the signs of authoritarian cultish weirdness.
People who want to do the right thing, and please and serve God, seem to be so vulnerable to the predators out there. And they know it, and know how to take advantage of it. It’s heartbreaking, really, but we live in a fallen world.
@ dee
dee wrote:
Deb Willi wrote:
The American sociologist Pepper Schwartz examined egalitarian (peer) marriage versus traditional marriage. I read one of her academic articles on the topic. She’s written a number of books, including “Peer Marriage” (1994, ISBN 0-7432-5407-4) and “Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works” (1995, ISBN 0-02-874061-0).
Here’s a book review for “Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works” https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/pepper-schwartz/peer-marriage/.
Hester wrote:
There was quite a lot of joking (maybe only half-joking) at the time the Doug Phillips scandal broke, about patrio-centric men advocating for polygamy. Since one of their aims is to be fruitful and multiply as much as humanly possible, when the First Wife is worn out, a man simply adds a younger wife to continue the process.
So some were joking that Phillips was merely practicing advanced concepts in patriocentricity.
It works for the FLDS, or so Jeffers and his ilk thought. I couldn’t believe it, but I ran across people calling themselves christians who were advocating for this kind of thing.
@ refugee:
(I mean, when I googled the concept. I couldn’t believe it. But it didn’t sound like some sort of gag, it sounded like they were serious. Was it a gag?)
Hester wrote:
Good grief! What do they say about going off to war? Women (and men) have to handle life alone quite often even though they are married. These people are plain and simply illogical as far as I can tell.
elastigirl wrote:
Oh, dear. I read some awful dreck when seeking out christian book series. (Is “series” the plural of “series”?)
Beware any christian YA fantasy that touts itself as “the Christian answer to Harry Potter!”
Lydia wrote:
I can think of a number of explanations about Peter. The bible writers would not have been terribly woman-centric, so, wouldn’t the following be possible?
– Peter was a widower. His wife’s mother still had a home with him during the time of the gospels.
– Peter’s wife was alive and she was one of the women traveling with Jesus when Peter was traveling with Him.
– Peter’s wife stayed at home when Peter was traveling, minding the home fires.
@ Hester:
I think that’s pretty much where they are already…
@ Boyd:
In other words, manosphere garbage.
@ Hester:
I found the dance analogy creepy…
@ roebuck:
My feelings exactly!
numo wrote:
The ‘dance’ thing is New Agey terminology. It’s not so much creepy as meaningless.
@ Nancy:
Yes, the whole Lutheran, Anglican and RC approach is very different to what Chaplain Mike at iMonk calls the “wretched urgdncy” of revivalism and so-called decision theology. (Not my term, btw, but one i encountered at iMonk and have since seen in many other places.)
It can be hard for evangelicals to understand the idea of church without “making a decision for Christ,” and even harder to try effectively communicate what we mean by not making that central, as well as why. I honestly don’t know that i can do it, though I’ll give it some thought.
Of course, we all make millions of decidions, large and small, throughout the course of our lives, but that is *not* what I’m referring to when using the term “decision theology,” which is predicated on ideas that gained trsction during the early 19th c. and revivalism in the US, and which form a core component of evangelicalism. There’s some good matetial on this on the Wheaton College website; kind of a very brief history of US evangelicalism, with lots of things that anyone interested can explore further.
Also, this is not “between” me and any other individual who comments here. I was using a term thst i did not invent, and would only suggest that interested parties research it further.
@ numo:
Urgency. Btw, CM did not invent that term.
@ roebuck:
Nah, it’s creepy. Thabiti Anyabwile has used ballroom dancing as the basis of an extended piece on comp-ism, which was critiqued by, i believe, Dee. Should be eadily accessible in the site archives.
@ numo:
I will spell something out: liturgical churches don’t have altar calls, or revivals. It is antithetical to the beliefs and practices of pretty much all of the liturgical traditions, though i am certain that some of evangelicsl/ccharismatic churches in the Anglican Communion probably do it. But that is at leadt one very long bookbook’s-worth of history and explanation, right there.
@ Nancy:
There is, as you say, a very different emphasis on what is understood by both the body of Christ and the communion of saints within the liturgical churches. Again, this isn’t something that lends itself to blog cocomment-type discussion, since it is complicated.
But i do think that both evangelicalism and our American understanding of individualism have more in common than not.
numo wrote:
No thanks – life is too short for Thabiti Anyabwile’s thoughts on compism, or anything else. 🙂
@ Bridget:
And they deny that God blessed us with the science that led to the ability to avoid the population explosion and tamed it to mere growth, with the exception of certain sexual stars that seem to make babies about once a year or so, regardless of the weather.
@ Nancy:
It is a very interesting topic as history is involved. I have not read the wiki you refer to and many have taken “decisions for Christ” waaaay too far in silly ways. But let us not forget that when looking at history being able to publicly “make a decision” is fairly recent in view of history. Liturgical churches have their roots in the European state church where any public decisions were not necessary because it was decided for you. That does not mean they are the same way today at all. I hope no one thinks I am saying that. But before we totally dismiss a public decision let us not forget there was a time when one would be punished for daring to say out loud they believe different than the state church.
I am not against liturgical churches at all. In fact, I am drawn to them right now as evangelicalism has become a circus act to me. Yet, I cannot dismiss an “individual decision” that must have been mighty important to some people at one time.
@ Lydia:
Liturgical churches have far deeper and older roots than that. You could start with the evumenical creeds, as well as what is encompassed in a normal Sunday service in a liturgical church.
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
i think that is exactly the point Jesus was making when He told the parable of the good samaritan, that other nationalities and other people that dont believe the same way as his audience did have at times even more righteousness than those that were the keepers of the temple and knowledgable of the law. there are a couple of radical things that stick out to me about Jesus and His gospel. first as sad pointed out, is that most people he spoke to and most today arent able or interested in following His directions given at His sermon on the mount. Next radical would be that His enemies werent the Roman government but instead the very people who claimed they heard and were following God, thats where the persecution and betrayal came from, thats who delivered Him up to die. next would be that all other religions are about working our way to goodness and heaven and Jesus life and death on the cross were so we could get those things without our works, which never work anyway.
many people and many countries and especially many american ‘christians’ love to say that america was founded a christian nation and how it has been a christian nation for so many years. I strongly disagree with this. the american laws and society are clearly based on the directives of the old testament and not on the things Jesus said to do and obey. Jesus spoke often of our not fighting back against our enemies, being pacifists. Jesus demonstrated his opposition to the death penalty at the attempted stoning of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus told us at the sermon on the mount that if we are stolen from we should give them more than they wanted. this is nothing like the american system of laws. Israel has had a very different society as a nation with less crime historicaly and i believe that any country that follows the ten commandments and teachings of moses will have a pretty decent society. That does not make it a christian society though, christians were first called that because they followed Jesus and His teachings, they turned their other cheek all the way to their own deaths, many on crosses. Peter is an example of how its not in man to be able to do that on their own, pentecost is God showing how it can be possible, just like Jesus said, the things that are impossible with men are possible with God. That is radical i think.
another radical thing about christianity that is neglected by the most public churches today is that when we are weak we are strong, it is in boasting of our infirmities that the power of God rests on us, according to the apostle paul. When a christian stands up and confesses his faults and sins and imperfections and inability to do what is right and turns to the living Jesus for help, that is radical and radical things happen in his life. churches that deny these things and try to establish their own righteousness and use authority to rule members and popularity to gain members will not be radical, except in their demise.
@ roebuck:
Oh, i agree, although Dee’s critique is, imo, definitely worth a look. 🙂
the reason i thought to post my last post on what a ‘christian’ really would be is that 6,000 members of TVC did not walk out after witnessing their ‘leaders’ treatment of Karen Hinkley, they think they are being very ‘christian.’ i believe in these last days that everyone who calls themselves a ‘christian’ is being called to re-read the words of Jesus and see which ones they have decided dont apply or they have kinda twisted so they can keep their old beliefs of what Jesus requires of His followers. the demise of Israel all those times in the old testament wasnt because of the sins of those sinners over there —->
God was speaking to His own children
Eagle wrote:
its the sermon i hear at the water cooler or anytime i have a conversation with a Acts29 guy outside of other ears except his close buddies who all say it also.
sam wrote:
Hi Sam. What last days are you referring to?
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
In my experience, “these last days” is usually an indicator of Left Behind fever.
numo wrote:
The original Internet Monk did, many years ago:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/wretched-urgency-the-grace-of-god-or-hamsters-on-a-wheel
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Possibly. Cue the “Thief in the night” theme music. But maybe Sam’s referring to something else?
refugee wrote:
For that matter,
Beware anything that could be described as “Just like Fill-in-the-Blank, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
refugee wrote:
But have you read the worst of the worst?
666 by Salem Kirban, the “Eye of Argon” of Christian Apocalyptic?
roebuck wrote:
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98AJUj-qxHI
Daisy wrote:
Wasn’t there this Rabbi from Nazareth who had to field a trick question like this?
Daisy wrote:
Only in porn flicks, Daisy, only in porn flicks.
(Anyone else wonder if that’s where these MenaGAWD got the idea?)
Nancy wrote:
Nancy, I think you are right on this one. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an Evangelical church where any creed – Apostle’s or Nicene – was recited.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I don’t know what Sam meant, but the term “last days” can also refer to the entire period from the Resurrection to the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth.
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
my movie repretoir consists basicly of a couple of Lethal Weapon movies my son and I used to sit around and watch faithfully with beers in hand lol
there is some term that christians use to signfy ones belief in the last days and rapture etc. I have no idea what it is, but I am not pre-trib or post-trib, I am pan-trib. pan-trib means it will all pan out, I will let Jesus worry about that.
My comment ‘last days’ refers to my belief that the things Jesus said in the book of Matthew when asked by the disciples for signs of the end of the world are coming to pass in this generation. Matthew 24:3- Its also in Mark 13:4- and Luke 21:7-
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? Matthew 24:3
I believe the whole earth is shaking, as in:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Hebrews 12:26-27
And that it does have an end. 2 Peter 3:8-13
one of the signs i am seeing alot of is a great falling away as the bible said would happen and false teachers abounding. i have no idea when the actual end of the world will be but i am seeing enough signs that i am optimistic that it will be not much longer. i used to think God cruel for bringing the flood, but now i wonder how He can bear watching people down here hurting each other so badly and even saying that He told them to do it. I think here in america we have no concept of what it is like to be a christian in a country that is ruled by people that behead people for saying they believe in Jesus, but that we soon will lose our comfortable ability to isolate ourselves from what the rest of the world has faced for so long now. I think we will be judged for being the wealthiest most powerful nation that did not a heck of a lot for those suffering in the rest of the world. We show the world that we call ourselves a christian nation but the majority dont care much if a woman or child is abused in our churches, much less anywhere else. I think the God that hears every silent tear of every person He has created is soon going to say ‘Enough!’ just my opinion.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I hadn’t thought of that. ESS is even more freaky now.
One serious concern i have regarding the Acts 29 network is how i have seen it play out here. their slogan is churches planting churches and it has crept quite nationally and internationally, this doctrine of theirs. Acts 29 churches are mostly middle-upper middle to wealthy class people and this means that there are alot of professionals in their churches. I live in a town of about 30,000 people and the Acts church here has a membership of 500+, this means i keep running into them almost everywhere in town. i was at a treatment center talking to a counselor there and was invited to that church, i was in a grocery store and was invited to that church, i was in a car lot and…got invited to that church, at the hospital….invited! it goes on and on. recently their church had a testimony sermon from a high up professional from one of the biggest manufacturing plants here, the guy had just 'got saved!' (i always wanted to talk to the guys wife and see if she is ecstatic too!) My concern is that there are people who are seeking Jesus and dont know the underlying concepts this church is teaching. That is why i am so thankful for blogs like this and watchkeep, at least people that are searching for a church to attend can really weigh out the 'doctrines' of churches, whereas in joseph smith brigham young days they really only had word of mouth to depend on.
Jeff S wrote:
These are really good points.
It makes me wonder – who exactly are the Comps arguing at? Who are they trying to convince?
Their own wives? The wives of other men? Or are they speaking to husbands?
It’s just strange. It’s like they’re aiming their arguments out into space, like shouting from the Grand Canyon, but I can’t tell who they are trying to convince. Do they even have a specific audience in mind?
refugee wrote:
Let me guess – something to do with psychology and becoming a therapist? (You don’t have to answer, obviously).
I’ll just echo what you said and say that in my old Acts 29 church, there were moderately frequent attempts to exert control over life decisions of males. (And of course females). I’ve never seen people so confident and eager to tell others what they should/shouldn’t do with their lives.
Bridget wrote:
Indeed.
I wonder what John Piper’s dear friend D.A. Carson (author of Exegetical Fallacies) would say about the exegetical gymnastics necessary to reach this position.
Seems more like eisegesis than exegesis. Start with your own personal opinion, then work backwards to find it in the text.
Bridget wrote:
Piper, Mohler et al. perform a very useful function. They are like the proverbial canaries in a mine. If they endorse it, be very careful. It’s more probable than not that it’s harmful to healthy relationships in families, churches, communities.
@ Mr.H:
I truly do wonder, too. From what I can see, D.A. Carson is a comp as well, so it would be interesting to hear his view.
@ Jeff S:
@ Mr.H:
@ Gus:
Maybe we should send a copy of Piper’s paper to DA Carson?
@ refugee:
“Beware any christian YA fantasy that touts itself as “the Christian answer to Harry Potter!””
+++++++++++++++
due to a long list of silly rules, Christian fiction kills inspiration like an antiseptic hand sanitizer kills all the bacteria, good and bad.
@ Darlene:
I have heard the Apostles Creed a time or two, but never, ever the Nicene.
In other news, I have a walking pass for today, so I’m heading to Balquhidder to climb Meall Mor, Stob a’Choin and Stob Breac. (Details available on the http://www.munromagic.com website.) Not a huge day’s walking in terms of distance covered or height climbed, but most of it is over rough and pathless terrain, so should be a good test of fitness.
The Met Office weather forecast lists the only hazard over the West Highlands as “strong sunlight” with a high risk of sunburn. Last week the major hazards were blizzards, hill fog, storm force winds and continuous heavy rain. There are hazards, and there are hazards. #Ilovescotland
__
Berean Beat: It Pays to Do A Little Research when finding the next church?
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numo wrote:
The wiki article specifically cites lutheranism as having an opinion about this. You are lutheran and I thought you would be the one to comment on the lutheran position that wiki cited, if you chose to do so. I have no idea what would be lutheran-specific so to speak nor why the wiki article mentioned that.
@ Lydia:
It is not currently about whether something is public or not-or state church or not. It is about monergism vs synergism and is most prominently seen in calvinism. The liturgical churches are not calvinist the way that calvinism is but there is more of an idea of a shift of the balance in the direction of what God does as compared to what man does than in evangelical churches. I am not a theologian here, but this is not politics or anything about what is public and what is private.
I first began to get a feel for it, and I am far from having a really good grasp, when I heard a different take on Ephesians 2: 8-9 in RCIA. It is talking about grace, faith, salvation and works. In reading the passage one has to say ‘what’ is a gift of God but not of works? Grace? Faith? Salvation? All of the above? Is it grace that God does and faith than man does and put the two together and that results in salvation? Or is faith itself a gift from God? Does faith cause or result from the gift of salvation? Thus, does man choose to believe or does he find himself believing?
It is easy to see how this basic issue would lead to significantly different religious ideas and practices. It would impact how one understands belief, for example, and the questions of what actually constitutes belief. It would impact the idea of grace and what interaction(s) between God and man may be graces, or even if the plural ‘graces’ is appropriate. It plays to infant baptism and sacraments and why/why not do these. The implications are extensive. What and how much does God do and what and how much does man do as seen in the very act of salvation itself is the bottom line, as far as I understand the issue at this time.
@ Bridget:
The context is of course divorce. The lifelong nature of marriage is seen for example in the first couple of verses of Romans 7, and 1 Cor 7 : 39 regarding widows, where death ends the marriage bond and gives the right to remarry if desired. Compare v 10 and 11 where Paul is alluding to Jesus’ rule in the gospels forbidding divorce to his followers (‘let not man put asunder’) and making all remarriage following divorce adultery as in Luke 16 : 18. If you do not admit any exceptions to this, this leaves death as the only way out of a marriage, but if you do break up, you are required to remain single.
It is a sad commentary on the state of modern evangelicalism that that the ‘rule’ is hardly ever taught, but gallons of ink have been spilled trying to establish exceptions to the rule that would permit remarriage. In the UK it is becoming all too common for remarriage to occur even amongst believers where the Matthean ‘exception clause’ could not possibly apply, and the pastoral implications of this make me glad not to be a pastor.
Hester wrote:
Yeah, it did have that. But the thrust of it used language not tied to marriage.
Bridget wrote:
I’m sure he knows their position and why. Basically, it all comes down to how you interpret a few words, and some of the words aren’t very clear. But read this part from his position paper (http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/divorce-remarriage-a-position-paper) you get an idea of what he’s thinking:
“Then I noticed something very interesting. The only other place besides Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 where Matthew uses the word porneia is in 15:19 where it is used alongside of moicheia. Therefore, the primary contextual evidence for Matthew’s usage is that he conceives of porneia as something different than adultery. Could this mean, then, that Matthew conceives of porneia in its normal sense of fornication or incest (l Corinthians 5:1) rather than adultery?”
Note the “Then I noticed . . .” part. He is dabbling here, not standing on the shoulders of others- he has come up with a *VERY* harsh theology (which he admits- note this line later: ” . . . the question about remarriage after divorce is not determined by . . . by the ease or difficulty of living as a single parent for the rest of life on earth”), and it’s based on his observations of what he’s reading and a particular way he has “solved” the mystery of a certain word usage.
Put that up against David Instone-Brewer who has made a career out of rabbinic studies and includes pages and pages of footnotes in his book “Divorce and Remarriage and the Bible”, and there really is no question. And Instone-Brewer actually does address Piper’s position in the book (though he doesn’t ascribe it to Piper specifically) and provides arguments for and against it (because that’s the kind of book it is- it considers the merits of all positions).
Piper actually called out Instone-Brewer’s view as “tragic” (that people would be allowed to divorce for abuse or neglect). That word choice shows volumes about what kind of man Piper is.
Mr.H wrote:
I think they are wrestling with try to retain an identity amidst an ungodly culture. I think they underlying desire actually isn’t bad. They want to live for God and identify with him rather than the world. This theology serves as a way for them to be “counter” to the “new ideas” of feminism and such by holding on to something they believe is a part of the faith.
I think people do this kind of thing a lot. Heck, I know *I* do it a lot. We have a lot of baggage associated with what it means to identify as a Christian. What kinds of songs we sing, what kind of building we meet in, how we talk with one another, etc. I think it’s really hard to get back to what true Christian identity is, even though Jesus and James both had some pretty strong things to say about it (how we love one another and how we treat the weak and vulnerable seem to be core identity defining characteristics of Christians) because there’s just so much we’ve grown up with, or that leaders who we trust teach.
But the problem is that complementarianism *isn’t* a “Christian identity”, and in fact, IMO it’s opposed to what the Christian identity ought to be, because it treats people in an unloving way. Which is a real shame. Imagine of all of this energy was spent on loving one another and serving the weak and vulnerable rather than trying to convince themselves (and everyone else) that complementarianism is the counter-cultural stand everything hinges on?
@ Ken:
That’s because the exceptions are very important (i.e. allowing people to escape abusers), usually ignored by conservatives, and have been demonstrated to be valid by scholarship. I agree that there are many divorces and remarriages that don’t meet the standard of adultery, abandonment or abuse, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about valid reasons for a divorce. We’re not being completely honest if we do otherwise, and not warning people who would be tempted to cheat, abandon or abuse that there are some extremely personal real-world consequences for their actions. (Note also the average evangelical doesn’t understand the difference between a divorce and an annulment, as demonstrated by TVC.)
See also Jeff S.’s comment.
JeffT wrote:
He he he. Oh & when you poke those young YRR guys with your feminist stick they quote scripture out of context with an outraged tone. Hours of fun.
Bridget wrote:
Yes, he is definitely Complementarian. IIRC it was Carson who came up with the idea that Ephesians 5:21 does not mean that the “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” does not mean that the “one another” is mutual. It is women submitting to men. One way. I don’t know if he thinks that the speaking, singing, and giving thanks is only to be done by women, too, and not by men. I wouldn’t trust Carson’s exegesis on this matter, regardless of his exegetical fallacies book, given the eisegesis he does to Ephesians 5.
Daisy wrote:
These make me laugh… honestly I have gone out with non-Christian men , who are very interested in sex & have been sexually active, who are entirely able to behave themselves. And even ‘within’ minor sexual contact they still don’t push things, preferring enthusiastic consent. How are we breeding Christian guys so socially/sexually retarded & so uninterested in consent?
Ken wrote:
This is nonsense. The very idea that Jesus could make all remarriage after a divorce adultery defies logic. Because the whole point of divorce was remarriage.
Jesus’ point here was that remarriage after an invalid (not real) divorce was invalid. You have to understand this simple, abbreviated account in context with the rest of his teaching. It would make 0 sense for him to create a blanket prohibition on remarriage while allowing for divorce in any case (which he does).
Jeff S wrote:
I haven’t read Instone-Brewer, but the thing that gets ignored in these passages is the fact that men could casually divorce their wives, and the wives had no recourse. It is similar to Malachi where we find that “God hates divorce.” It is the treachery and betrayal that God hates. The putting away for no reason at all except the husband’s displeasure. Divorce at that time was not what we consider divorce, and I think that was much ore like we would consider “abandonment.”
Piper apparently believes that there is some virtue in suffering. There are people like that, and the man has a heart of stone, judging by what he teaches on certain things. There is something there, or otherwise why would he say the things he does about abuse of women and presumably men? He loves the idea of marriage permanence more than he does the man and woman involved. That is in contrast to a love of marriage itself rather than love for the *idea* of marriage. In cases of abuse, the real marriage has already been abandoned by the abuser.
Jeff S wrote:
Exactly. The woman who was put out was to be granted a certificate so that she could be remarried. It was a merciful provision by God, due to the hardness of these men’s hearts, because an abandoned woman would otherwise be subject to either poverty if she remained unmarried or would be considered an adulteress if she remarried without a certificate.
Jeff S wrote:
I believe it is anti-Christian because it enshrines the results of the Fall as some kind of holy thing. Christ came to reconcile relationships, not to reinforce power-based relationships which are the normal state of human beings. They are calling good evil and evil good. Along with you I imagine what it would do for marriages if people were taught to always treat the husbands and wives with love and respect.
Ken wrote:
Ken, I find absolutely no incidence in scripture of a lifelong marriage to one individual.
Paul specifically states in his letters to the Corinthians that he is replying to their questions; i.e. 1 Cor. 7:1. He seemingly does not place the same prohibition on husbands in verse 39; i.e. that they are bound to their wives as long as she lives. Why? Because the practice of men putting their wives away was prevalent throughout history with no such privilege afforded to their wives regardless of how they were treated.
But Moses implemented a safeguard against leaving the divorced women without any resources and that was the certificate of divorce. It’s purpose was twofold. It permitted the divorced (put away) woman to prove that she was not an adultress and thus permitted her to remarry without being scandalized or bound.
Every time divorce is mentioned between those questioning Jesus, that legal document is mentioned. Without the certificate of divorce to prove she is legally free, she is guilty of adultery by remarrying.
But no such bondage is mentioned of husbands because previously women were not permitted to put away their husbands. The intent of both Moses, Jesus, and Paul was to curtail a prevalent practice which caused unnecessary suffering at being abandoned by their husbands. We know women were permitted to divorce their husbands according to Roman law, so that verifies the fact that Paul was answering questions in Corinthians directed to him by Jews who, by their man-made laws, bound the woman to her husband until death while no such law was imposed on her husband.
This takes into account the cultural, historical, and contextual interpretation and understanding of the topic of divorce in Romans and Corinthians as well as Jesus’ words to the Pharisees.
The certificate of divorce is of great importance and even mentioned by God Himself as proof that He was divorcing His people.
Gram3 wrote:
IB is well worth the read if you can find the time. His work is scholarly and heads and shoulders above anything Piper has written on the subject. His basic thesis, very well supported, is that when Jesus was teaching about divorce and remarriage, he was specifically addressing a particular TYPE of marriage over which there was first century controversy. ALL Jewish leaders believed in divorce for neglect, childlessness, and adultery. Where they disagreed was whether a man could divorce his wife for “any cause”. What was interesting is that those who disagreed that a man could divorce wife for “any cause” would still perform marriages after they did so, even potentially sending men wanting such a divorce to “the other side” to get one first. This is the behavior Jesus was prohibiting.
What is really interesting is that we have fragments of the arguments made by the religious leaders of the day who said word for word the same things that Jesus did, and yet we KNOW they allowed for divorce and remarriage for neglect. So for Jesus to actually mean no divorce/remarriage, he would have to use the same words, in the same context, as those folks, and yet mean something different.
Gram3 wrote:
I can’t find the link any more, but I saw him directly answer a question in a video about asceticism and he said he thought asceticism was undervalued in the church and he was a big fan of it.
That says volumes.
@ Gram3:
We were posting at the same time, so I heartily agree as evidenced in my comment which follows yours.
@ Gram3:
Excellent point on what gets ignored about divorce passages in Scripture, Gram3.
Here’s a scholarly article on this written by Dr. Craig Keener:
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/divorce-justice-issue
@ Deb Willi:
And another source on what gets ignored about divorce and abuse, written by the late Catherine Clark Kroeger,Ph.D, University of Minnesota and Adjunct Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/biblical-option-divorce
@ Ken:
My word, Ken. You just do not seem to me to have read very extensively the theological, historical, biblical, linguistic and rational approaches with which academicians (real academicians) have torn into this issue. That would be the interwoven issues of marriage, separation, divorce, death of a spouse and remarriage or not as well as how that interrelates alsowith qualifications for leadership and enrollment as a widow in the early church. I do not hear you discussing the differences in the approaches of Mark and Luke with the approach of Matthew and why that might be. Think the issue of a woman divorcing he husband and how that is mentioned one place not any other place in the gospels and what may be conclude then about why that maybe and therefore how important or not may be an omission. And the whole issue of what exactly was the OT position on these issues, including but not limited to Torah, and how did what Jesus said reinforce or replace the OT understandings, and to what extent do his words have to be understood in the light of the overall picture of Jewish belief and practice-that is, what did he think he was saying to his audience and what did they hear and does it matter.
This just goes on and on and results in lots and lots of good thinking on the subject of: when we read this or that in the NT what does that mean? I will tell you one conclusion that to me is unavoidable. Those who are the actual scholars in this area do not agree, which tells me that there is room for disagreement. So, why would God do that? Leave things not spelled out more specifically and iron-clad for us? Did he not know that a couple thousand years later people would be wrestling with this? Did he not care? If this is an ultimately crucial issue about which everybody must be absolutely correct, why did he not provide some way for us to achieve that level of precision. Especially since some folks have interpreted scripture to say that every sin will be forgiven but not the sin of divorce/remarriage-not now or in the hereafter. BTW, I have searched in vain for that passage. If anybody has chapter and verse on that please let me know. Or maybe he did leave us the Spirit and the church-both of which he mentioned, but that is another topic for another time.
Jeff S wrote:
In a legalistic system, the niceties must be observed. In that case even the ones who had the stricter rule were willing to do a workaround. That is always the case. Piper makes exceptions for things when he thinks other things are more important. Like Doug Wilson. The essence of legalism is ignoring the point of the law while doing things that make one seem to be upholding the law. I believe that Piper is legalistic about a lot of things, and his position on divorce is one of them. I wonder if Piper is actually a very sad and unhappy person and he compensates for that inner sadness with all the over-the-top words and gesticulation and the oddly inappropriate smiles which come across as smirks.
Victorious wrote:
Happens all the time to me. At least we know someone agrees with us when that happens.
@ Deb Willi:
Thank you for those references. My information came as a result of having to understand why a Bible teacher chose to “enforce” the stricter of Jesus’ teachings on the topic of divorce and remarriage while ignoring the others and while also ignoring, ironically, the Malachi passage. IMO it is always good practice to at least try to synthesize or reconcile parts of the Bible which seem contradictory, and that means studying the grammar *and* the culture into which the scriptures were spoken. That all flows from my basic assumption about the nature of inspiration, so I need to find out the reasons for the seeming contradiction between Jesus and Jesus and to resolve that if possible. Other times it is Paul seemingly contradicting Paul.
Gram3 wrote:
This is one reason I really like Instone-Brewer’s work so much. On the face of it, there seems to be a lot of contradiction in scripture on divorce and remarriage. After reading his book, it all just fits together perfectly and a single, coherent narrative. It does a lot to bolster my confidence that when scripture seems to be inconsistent, diving in deeper can provide real, satisfying answers.
@ Nancy:
There is not a single Lutheran position on this. It is complicated.
But in brief, who chose whom? Did Christ choose us? He says that he did, cf. the entiretymof “i am the vine, you are the branches” and following, and many other places besides. It is not about altar calls and “mmaking a decision for Christ,” so much as it is about responding to what he has already done. It is not dependent on our “making a decision,” but on God himself. We respond to his love, believe in what already is, and i am not elowuent enough to really explain this, i think. But if a very simple statement is ok, then: he simply is, with all that implies.
@ Nancy:
I think you’re stating it very clearly, Nancy.
@ Nancy:
I think language/semantics is very problematic here, in trying to communicate the differences between the typical evsngelical view vs. the way this is all viewed by the older traditions. And you’re right that it has nothing to do with politics or state churches; the roots of this are in xtisnity’s beginnings. But trying to read the NT through a non-“conversionism” template is too big a topic for blog comments.
__
Dear Wartburg Reader,
It is believed that ACTS 29 is more interested in its growth produce (multiplied churches) than in the local communities they are apparently created to serve.
Also, impressionable young people are beeing recruited as free labor to serve this growth machine. unfortunately, these young people, they dont realize they are being used and have vertually no voice and above all, are ‘expendable’.
Warning: This movement (Acts29) has progressively become anti-Christ in it’s actions.
PLEASE NOTE: A young person would do well to be forewarned, period.
—> Please Do Your Own Research and Thorouly Examine Any 501(c)3 Religious Organization You Choose To Associate With, Serve, or Support. Please be careful, They are not equal. If they don’t really care about You, please move on to one that does.
You dont know how important you are,
…if you are reading this , you are part of the growing 501(c)3 religious resistance, please take care how you proceed.
Please keep in mind, as a child of the living God, You were created to live forever with Jesus, don’t forget that, child of righteousness, the darkness hath no hold upon you. Please proceed with caution.
ATB
Sopy
—
__
Dear Wartburg Reader,
It is believed that ACTS 29 is more interested in its growth produce (multiplied churches) than in the local communities they are apparently created to serve.
Also, impressionable young people are beeing recruited as free labor to serve this growth machine. unfortunately, these young people, they dont realize they are being used and have vertually no voice and above all, are ‘expendable’.
Warning: This movement (Acts29) has progressively become anti-Christ in it’s actions.
PLEASE NOTE: A young person would do well to be forewarned, period.
—> Please Do Your Own Research and Thorouly Examine Any 501(c)3 Religious Organization You Choose To Associate With, Serve, or Support. Please be careful, They are not equal. If they don’t really care about You, please move on to one that does.
You dont know how important you are,
…if you are reading this , you are part of the growing 501(c)3 religious resistance, please take care how you proceed.
Please keep in mind, as a child of the living God, You were created to live forever with Jesus, don’t forget that, child of righteousness, the darkness hath no hold upon you. Please proceed with caution.
ATB
Sopy
—
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/06/08/acts-29-picks-an-inopportune-time-to-declare-complementarianism-as-a-primary-teaching/comment-page-1/#comment-200841
__
“Acts 29 Pastoral Leadership Acknowledging Mistakes Were Made?”
“I used justification of my actions & lack of time not have great empathy 4 the people whom Jesus gave me to shepherd”
http://t.co/Ktd0YY1zsX
— Former Mars Hill Church executive pastor Sutton Turner (@suttonturner) June 9, 2015
—
Jeff S wrote:
What a vile little man.
Daisy wrote:
This reminds me of a conversation I had in Dubai. One of the men commented that Westerners didn’t understand their cultural values (very true), and that no-one “forced” the women to wear anything – the men let them wear whatever they want. I replied somewhat dryly that according to Western values that was precisely the problem – men “letting” women do anything.
numo wrote:
I agree. My only concern is the speed with which the New Fundamentalists were able to take over the SBC and co-opt all their language (and not just theirs – classic Reformed Christians often express appalled disbelief at what these guys call “reformed”). I suspect that in the future, the words and labels of historic xianity might have been hijacked entirely by this false religion. And lest anyone think this is too harsh of a judgment, consider that a core group of these theological thugs have had NO PROBLEM with completely reinventing the Trinity in order to support their desired social structure (a desperate move, which I don’t think they realize everyone else understands to be…well, a desperate move).
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
Indeed. But I am not so sure it was all that rapid, because the old SBC had already cut itself off from much of what is in orthodox/traditional christianity and had even way back in my day actively taught against some ideas and practices of ortho/trad christianity. In doing this they created a void of sorts where the new fundamentalists could move in with their ideas. In some way the old SBC left people spiritually and intellectually hungry and looking for more. At about that same time in about the heart of the cultural revolution some really weird stuff from the culture began to move into baptist life and this raised a level of concern among many people. The time was ripe for something more substantive to fill the theological void and which at the same time would ‘stand against’ some of the cultural changes of the time.
In other words, I do not see the new fundamentalists (I like your term) as so much being attacked by some super bug but rather as an opportunistic infection setting up in an already rather sick situation.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I have, I have! *waves hand* I also read the companion book, 1000, about the Millennium. Cheesy pictures, wretched prose…Kirban made a huge deal about a plaque which read “things change prayer” instead of “prayer changes things” and made it into a whole sign of 666.
Then I grew up and realized the world, and the Bible, were more complex than black and white pictures in 666.
Gram3 wrote:
“It is important to maintain the appearance of the Law — especially when it’s being broken.”
— W.M. “Boss” Tweed, Gangs of New York
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I have read some dreadful Christian fiction, but not 666. None of what I read was quite as bad as “Eye of Argon.” The “many-fauceted scarlet emerald” left me speechless with laughter.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
My Dear Wormwood,
I refer you to my previous epistle on Semantics, specifically the redefinition of words into their “diabolical meanings”.
Your Ravenously Affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
Ken wrote:
There is more than one biblical, conservative way of looking at the Bible’s comments on remarriage, divorce, etc.
What God Has Joined
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/october/20.26.html
I think it’s very cruel to tell a divorced person they must live in perpetual solitude after a divorce if they want to re-marry, supposedly because they are in violation of some Bible rule.
It’s very easy to spout this stuff off, but if you find yourself single again and lonely, let’s see how long you would support the “no remarriage rule, unless death was a factor to ending previous marriage.” I don’t see any mercy in this kind of teaching.
You’re wanting to uphold the letter of the law (at least as it has been interpreted by you) rather than extend mercy to a person who is in a difficult position.
For the record, I’ve never married. If or when I do, and should I divorce, I would totally consider remarriage, remarry if I found a suitable second guy, and not feel the least bit guilty about it.
Beakerj wrote:
I have found, depending on the context, Non-Christians can be easier to be around or talk to about any subject. I’m not surprised that this carries over to dating.
Non-Christian men will actually approach women (includnig Christians) and ask them out on dates. Christian men? No.
Most Christians come with a ton of baggage and hang ups about dating, marriage, and sex, which Christian culture itself has created.
There are too many expectations, rules, and weird ideas about gender roles among Christians (thanks to gender comp teachings), for two unmarried Christians to navigate dating and romantic relationships.
Nancy wrote:
Nancy, I did not communicate well at all. I take a very long view of church history and there are many practices and traditions today that are from the state church. Even in how we think about the process of salvation.
For me, contrasting “decisionism” and “liturgal” was key in where I was coming from. I am not against practices and traditions because they are voluntary today and everyone has the freedom to make their biblical case. But I also think it is ok to discuss what is tradition that was passed down from church state mentality. Ex; I do not believe the sacraments are a means to grace but I also have no problem with those that do.
For the last ten years or so there has been a constant theme from the Neo Cal movement that decisionism is bad. That is shallow and no from God. And while it might be the catalyst that produces Brigham Youngs, I will defend it as a “right” because of our Constitution and the Founders being well aware of the disaster of state religions. So, yes, for some it is political. (I am also not sure how a “decision” cannot be “responding” to the Holy Spirit but many YRR have told me it cannot work that way) I also believe arguments can be made that it has produced some good. I see many denominations that sprung up in the US as a good thing and part of what freedom of thought brings.
Because of the 1000 years of a state church in Europe and the practices and traditions passed down, it is harder to separate the political from the purely spiritual in what means what. Even prayer books were political as was infant baptism.
I am simply defending the “idea” of decisionism as I have for the last 10 years with the neo Cals. Do I think it is abused? Of course. But I shudder at the alternative from history. If you had told me 10 years ago the IRS would be forcing me to prove I have bought health insurance, I would have told you that you were nuts. If you would have told me that Baptist churches would have membership covenants that were LEGAL documents that you must sign to join, I would have said, it will never happen. They love freedom of conscience too much. Boy have I been wrong.
Jeff S wrote:
I’m not disagreeing with you here, I just wanted to use your comment as a jumping off point for something related I’ve read about and noticed.
If someone divorces and wants to stay single, that’s okay and fine too.
But in spite of people such as Ken, who say all remarriage is bad (expect in cases of death), there is another slice of evangelicalism that pressures divorcees to remarry, one reason being that being single is thought to be second class or wrong.
Christian authors who wrote a book about Christian singleness I read said they scoured a Christian book store for books about singleness.
But all they found were books on how to get married, how to stay married, and how to remarry after you divorce. It’s as though Christians cannot conceive of singleness, or anyone being single, and it’s viewed as not being okay to stay single after a divorce.
Most streams of Christianity have a big problem with being biased against singleness. They push marriage (or remarriage) on to people.
I respect either choice a person makes on this. If you divorce and want to stay single, that is great. If you want to remarry, that is great too.
Gram3 wrote:
Precisely.
I said this already above, but Christian gender comp is, in a way, nothing new, and certainly not counter-cultural, as they think it is.
I know the term (gender comp) was dreamed up some time in the 1970s or 80s, or whatever, but the premises and assumptions of it is as old as dirt, that men should rule women.
And, Christian gender comp is a watered down version of ISIS’ views of women.
Julie Anne did a post a few months ago at her blog by some Christian guy (can’t remember who, but I think he was a gender comp or patriarchalist) who actually was saying that Christians should imitate some extremist Muslim group, concerning their beliefs about marriage or women.
It goes to show that some of the ideas that gender comp people promote are similar to what non-Christian, wholly misogynist groups, promote and practice.
I thought Christians were to be an example for others to follow, not taking cues from the unsaved on relationships and other matters.
@ Jeff S:
I cannot agree more. Instone Brewer is a real Hebrew Scholar who lays it all out and puts Piper to shame. I think he has been such a gentleman concerning Piper’s words against his scholarship.
And scholarship is key to this issue. People who have done some homework on Piper/Grudem scholarship will come away shocked at how they have literally edited works to make them fit their agenda, left out crucial quotations from the same ancient works that refute their agenda, etc. It is pretty shocking. But very few ever question and those that do are not in the right Christian celebrity academic circles. These men have made a joke of scholarship and academia. Same for guys like Bruce Ware.
Gram3 wrote:
I might have to steal this. I hope to be as articulate one day. this is exactly it.
It is selling the sins of the fall as virtue. It is insidious.
My goodness me. I tried to narrow my comment on divorce down to the question posed by Bridget as to only death ending the marriage bond – as there is no marriage in heaven as mentioned by Daisy. No more than that.
I think I have read more on the subject of divorce and remarriage than any other single subject in the bible. There are enough views to blow your mind if you are not careful. It is a subject I have changed my mind on over the years. From previously thinking there were exceptions that permitted remarriage after divorce, I have become a late and somewhat reluctant holder of the ‘indissolubilist’ view of marriage – not so much divorcees are ‘still married in God’s sight’ as clearly they are not, but that there is no right to remarriage after divorce. This is regardless of whether the wife or the husband initiates the divorce.
This was in part because the effect of the teachers of exceptions (such as immorality or dessertion) whom I certainly respected in practice ran a coach and horses through the ‘rule’ Jesus gave as found in Luke 16. Jay Adams is one such. Roger Price my favourite bible teacher was another.
I appreciate the power of the arguments in favour of a right to remarry where ‘immorality’ has occurred (less so with dissertion) as I used to think that myself, but no longer remain convinced of this right. This view can be held in a good conscience, and I always respect others’ consciences if they are clearly trying to find the will of God.
It strikes me there are two main difficulties with this issue. One is coming to a definitive conclusion as to what the NT teaching on marriage and divorce is, and no-one pretends this is a simple issue that does not require careful thought.
The other is obeying what is taught, and I reckon this is more often the problem. The doctrine of (re)marriage in the NT runs counter to our modern culture like little else does. There is the very obvious argument about condemning an innocent party to a life of singleness they may not want. This is why getting at the text must come first, or there is the danger of succumbing to wanting to make people happy rather than righteous.
If you get it wrong, you may be guilty either of placing a burden (singleness) on believers that God does not or you may be party to a adulterous subsequent marriage. As I said, who would want to be pastor with issues like this to have to deal with. Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren …
Jeff S wrote:
So Piper is against what the Bible says?
The Bible says on this matter (Colossians 2):
20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as,
21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”
22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)– in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?…
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
I have been spending some time talking with and reading some of older SBTS academics who left during the CR. the difference in their thinking/approach is so vast I can hardly catch my breath. It really brought home to me how fast the SBC (and subtly) went Fundy in both Neo Cal and IBF traditions. (Everyone makes the CR out to be about positions on social issues but that is over simplifying it to a ridiculous degree, IMO. It was about power over thought)
It happened even faster from 1990’s to today. The key was gaining control of the entities and that has been on speed dial trajectory since 2000. Mohler, won, btw. Gain control of the entities and you have more control of the pulpits because it encompasses training pastors to the materials used in churches.
That is a far cry from soul competency, freedom of conscience and the Priesthood of believer. (Mohler insisted an S be added to that in the BFM2000 because all believers must be under the “bible”. And guess who gets to interpret it for them?)
I liken to the difference between listening to some of these pre CR scholars and post CR “scholars” as the difference between an NT Wright and a Bruce Ware. That is how vast it is.
For people like Mohler and his loyalists, it is not about greater understanding or learning, it is about indoctrination.
@ Gram3 & Lydia:
I may have to steal these too!
elastigirl wrote:
This one is silver elastigirl. Grant me permission to quote you in future?
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
There is no way I will defend Christianity based upon its history.
I will defend Jesus Christ, however, even though He does not need defending. None of it is His fault. It certainly was not His intention for a redeemed people.
My guess is that most of the “practicing” ones were killed. Perhaps many of those are listed in Martyrs Mirror. Some listed without names, just the incident of drownings and executions. Eat your Wheaties. Christian history is an evil bloody mess.
Daisy wrote:
I think the control issues are on a trajectory never seen before as mainstream and accepted. It scares me to death for my kids who are being raised to think for themselves and question everything….politely of course. :o)
Lydia wrote:
I do not understand why people think that Piper and Grudem are such scholars. They clearly are intelligent, but their reasoning is so obviously faulty and the eisegesis. Oy, the eisegesis, it makes my head hurt.
Lydia wrote:
I heard Kostenberger is at NOBTS now. It has begun there, I suppose.
Daisy wrote:
Definitely. To be clear, I was talking about in the cultural context in which Jesus was speaking. Being single was definitely a huge liability for a woman, and most women would not have stayed single for very long.
Gram3 wrote:
Oh Great. Kelly the Pres is Paige Patterson’s brother in law. I think the Patterson wing is about the new “unity” and forgetting what has passed over the last 10 years or so…it is better for power and position to be so. To me, Patterson is the IBF wing of the SBC.
Jeff S wrote:
It most likely meant poverty unless she was a widow with means. If childless, she would have been vulnerable as she got older. There is a very practical reason that traditional and agrarian cultures favor male children.
I think people forget to think about the realities of life in the non-modern West where women have some options. Or like the Pipers and Grudems, they willfully ignore those realities.
Daisy wrote:
Yep. I can only assume he believes that Colossians had a specific form of asceticism in view rather than asceticism in general.
Jeff S wrote:
In that time and culture, it was, but Christianity made being single for a lifetime a viable, doable option.
Lydia wrote:
Hmmm. I guess I assumed that Patterson and Mohler had made a political agreement some time ago. Live and let live so that each can maintain their own power. That is my explanation for how Patterson got away with the Muslim student incident. Mohler overlooked that and Patterson overlooked the SGM Pastor’s College agreement with SBTS. I think Mohler has the better end of it over the long haul since the young guys are so infatuated with him.
@ Elizabeth Lee:
No wonder!
@ Lydia:
I think I have figured this out. You and I are talking about this from two different angles. You are talking about the motivations of the leadership. I am talking about why did the pew persons grab on to what the leadership was offering. And I am also talking about what we currently hear today from those who buy into the system.
For example, you have said that you liked what the academics were saying before the resurgence. I am saying that the masses were not academics, and it was not the academics who occupied the pulpits. You are saying that for the leadership it was about power and not the culture. I am saying that for those of us trying to raise children during all that time it was all about the culture and we would have followed just about anything and anybody to deal with some of it. You are talking about ‘soul competency’ and ‘freedom of conscience’ and ‘priesthood of the believer’ but no way was that stressed during my day where and when I was. I never heard the term soul competency before TWW. I was taught that the uninformed conscience could not be trusted and one must always check with scripture. And the only way I heard priesthood of the believer was to explain why the catholics had priests and we did not. You are looking at things from the viewpoint of an insider. I am looking at it from the back pew of the church. And I am talking mostly about Walnut Street and Crescent Hill with grandparents at Victory Memorial. This was not exactly East Armpit, KY.
The message that got through to me was ‘get saved’ and then ‘go tell other people how to get saved’ and that was about it. That and let’s do something about darkest Africa. I got into some stuff a little more mostly because I was kind of odd and because my father was proficient in both greek and hebrew (enough certainly for a layman) and he and I argued a lot about stuff. The rest of my crowd did not give a hoot much beyond get saved and darkest Africa and is it okay to dance if you don’t touch bodies while you do it. Until our world fell apart, and (personal example) First Baptist of where I was working at the time had a youth director who kept taking the youth to X rated movies and I gathered up my younguns and went another path when things could not be solved at First and Only.
I think the neo-fundamentalists correctly read the masses and knew what would sell and put that on the market. That does not mean I agree with them, only that I think they have been relatively successful with a certain segment of the market.
Sopwith wrote:
Turner has his final Mars Hill installment up. Seems the primary issues were disagreements about forgiveness in the leadership culture. “In trying to obey, we are challenged with when and how to forgive. Do we forgive unconditionally, even when it seems the one who sinned against us hasn’t yet repented? Do we forgive only once we have begun to see the fruit of repentance? These questions came to a head and were at the crucial center of the last days of Mars Hill Church, and many leaders strongly disagreed on the answers. This post explores how varied our answers to these questions can be, even according to the Scriptures.
As a leader and pastor of a church, you need to understand what type of culture exists in your church leadership. And though it may seem that all should agree on the essential natures of sin, repentance, and forgiveness, slight differences during the good times turn into massive chasms when crisis comes.”
No reflection upon whether or not the whole Acts-29-style system may have been to blame (nor upon whether or not his former job of “executive pastor” may have been bitter, unbiblical or ungospelly– just a shortage of winsome-ness. And as for Pastor Mark– he’s taught Sutton TONS of great stuff — no problem there!
http://investyourgifts.com/a-helpful-guide-to-cultural-unity-leadership-culture-part-3/
(btw– from the picture up top, looks more like cultural uniformity than cultural unity)
@ Dave A A:
“Do we forgive unconditionally, even when it seems the one who sinned against us hasn’t yet repented? Do we forgive only once we have begun to see the fruit of repentance? These questions came to a head and were at the crucial center of the last days of Mars Hill Church, and many leaders strongly disagreed on the answers.” Sutton Turner 06/10/15
Translation— “I wanted to “forgive” Mark immediately — meaning put him back in the pulpit immediately after his 6 weeks off. Other guys wantsd him to go through some draconian “restoration pkan” before he got back in the pulpit (ie before they’d “forgive” him). We quit! But we forgive them!”
@ Nancy:
and i am not referring to any of that, since I have zero connections with the SBC and any kind of Calvinism or fundyism.
Good post today, over at iMonk, on some of the things I was trying to say, and some related topics: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/57117
Jeff S wrote:
Here is a link to a summary of Instone-Brewer’s view. It is his article in Christianity Today in 2007. Very well written.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/october/20.26.html
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
agreed.
@ Nancy:
I think that Wiki article was written by a member of the LCMS (Missouri Synod) or WELS (Wisconsin Synod). There are *many* Lutheran synods, in this country and around the world. They are especially active, it seems, in speaking against “decision theology,” and some are outright contemptuous about it. I don’t like that.
The thing is, just because a church has “Lutheran” in its name does not mean that there is a uniform set of beliefs and practices per other churches/synods that call themselves Lutheran. There is no single Lutheran denom – in fact, the WELS will not allow members of other synods to take communion in their churches, and is pretty fundy-ish. (Participating in the Boy Scouts is a big no-no, because that organization has non-sectarian prayers, which the WELS cannot abide.) The LCMS is also inerrantist and closed communion, although there are degrees. I’m from the ELCA, which came about from a merger of several small synods, back in the early 70s. We are often painted as “liberal,” though in truth, there are lots of very conservative ELCA congregations.
Think of the label as being somewhat analogous to the big tent approach of the Anglican Communion (which is incredibly diverse), but without the Archbishop of Canterbury et. al. – thus, there is no central organization for people/churches that i.d. as Lutheran. Am not sure that ever could happen, actually.
So, “It’s complicated” probably best describes the run of interpretation and belief re. “decision theology” in Lutheran circles. I can only speak for myself, not for the people who wrote the Wiki article, or anyone else, for that matter.
@ numo:
o”They” in graph 1 was about the WELS and LCMS specifically.
@ Hester:
Well, Mormons who have been through all the Temple ceremonies (initiations) actually are in a different category to what Mormons themselves refer to as typical “Jack Mormons.”
Of course, the priesthood in Mormonism is for men only, which is yet another current controversy within the mainstream LDS church.
@ numo:
Thanks for the link. Good article. The quote from Luther was very nearly the same thing they said in RCIA to be the catholic position. In unofficial but long standing baptist thinking as I experienced it back when (are those enough qualifiers to get me off some hook?) there was a differentiation between people who had some testimony of a crisis conversion experience on the one hand and those who grew up in the church and did not have a crisis story to tell. The latter people were considered inferior in some ways, and there was always the possibility that they were not really saved. I fell into the latter group of course. I was so delighted when I found folks who had a paradigm that I fit into. I had felt kind of like a dodo bird hatched in a nest which had both little ducks and also had of course the ‘ugly duckling’ destined for fabulosity but which had nothing for me. Just them and that danged UD.
BTW, what he says about Paul is what I mentioned earlier somewhere about the idea that Paul was not converted from and to as we think about it today. Man alive I do love the information on the net.
@ Nancy:
You mentioned Amy-Jill Levine way upthread, right? About Paul?
I agree – I do not think he “converted” to anything, but saw Jesus as messiah. A pharisee to the end of his days, and (as you mentioned) one who even took a Nazirite vow (the not cutting his hair, which, btw, is why Rastafarian men do not cut their hair!)
I am afraid that the way the NT reads to us allows for little nuance in understanding the different theological schools of Jesus’ day, let alone Judaism as a whole – I so wish John’s Gospel did not keep referring to everyone who did not believe in Jesus as “the Jews” (since they were all Jewish) and can’t help wondering if that is a redaction made once the church was primarily gentile.
Btw, what do you mean by “UD”? Undifferentiated?
also… I have a rather dramatic “conversion” story myself, but the thing is, I have not been thinking of it as “conversion” per se for quite a few years now. I was taught about Jesus in Sunday school and at home, and when I was a young child, I felt like he was close by. As time went on, things changed, but if I had a “conversion experience,” it must have happened very early in my life. (I can even remember one of the elderly women who taught our preschool SS class telling us that we could talk to Jesus and be close to him… along with all of the standard things about him loving children plus being the good shepherd, which was/is a big thing with Lutherans re. kids.)
But, as you know, for lots of us in the liturgical denoms, things start at baptism (or even earlier, I would argue, because who knows except God?) In any case, I can remember meeting people who felt like they had known God all of their lives, but who also felt that there were times when they drew closer to him, back when I was in my late teens-early 20s and a bit torn between my understanding of following Jesus (as understood in both Lutheran and Catholic circles) and the evangelical “conversion” narratives that were also very much part of my life at the time. I wonder if the whole “conversion” thing is just a matter of perspective, really.
@ numo:
I did mean to say that I think only *some* of the Pharisees and Saducees were being addressed in Jesus’ critical statements about them – and those were the ones who were in charge, respectively, at synagogues and at the temple. I do not think that he meant all of them by any means, since we seem to have inherited, among other things, the Pharisees’ idea of individual synagogues – but we use a different name for them. 😉
@ numo:
I can’t imagine that all of the Pharisees who were in charge of things were bad or hypocritical, ditto for the Saducees, though the latter gets complicated, since they were the custodians of the temple as well as priests there.
Nancy wrote:
I think that’s because Luther was a Catholic, even though the RCC excommunicated him. His idea was to literally reform the RCC, never to break away from it. Religious and civil authorities were the ones who severed the ties, but that didn’t stop him from considering himself Catholic in belief and practice.
@ Nancy:
Remember, though, that there was a dispute about whether gentiles who believed in Christ should go through formal conversion to Judaism, early on.
@ Sopwith:
‘Born pregnant’ brings back memories of tribbles.
And look at the parallels. Cute, fuzzy, soothing with their trilling, multiplying at an alarming rate, consuming as many available resources as they can take in…
The always focus on the SUB, but never on the MISSION.
Hmmm. Wonder why.
Van wrote:
Because they’re the DOMs, of course.
Hester wrote:
That became official when The Mormon(TM) won the 2012 GOP Primaries and got the nomination. (After a primary season of God’s Anointed Choice after God’s Anointed Choice crashing and burning to the chorus of “Not the Mormon! Not the Mormon! Not the Mormon!”)
After the General Election reinstated the Obamanation of Desolation (hee hee) for Four More Years, presumably Mormons went back to being “just a cult”.
@ sam:
Thanks for answering my question Sam. I appreciate learning about your beliefs.
Daisy wrote:
Christian author Carol Kent wrote in one of her books that a publisher who was considering publishing one of her books told her, we believe very strongly in the family and we want to know why you only have one child.
What that publisher didn’t know was that she’d had a miscarriage and lost a second child.
What *I* would like to know is, what makes it “anti-family” to only have one child?
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Bwaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa!
Gram3 wrote:
Wow – I had not heard that about Carson’s take on Eph. 5. Pretty horrendous, if true. Unfortunately for him, the guy who wrote Exegetical Fallacies, can’t claim ignorance. So it’s got to be a case of, as you say, eisegesis. Talk about projecting personal issues onto the biblical text!
Bridget wrote:
Ha!
I would seriously love to hear Carson honestly critique Piper’s theology. From what I hear, Carson has quite the reputation at Trinity for being harsh and exacting in the courses he teaches. Would he apply the same standards to Piper’s work as he does to the poor seminary students that he terrorizes?
Bridget wrote:
Also, I’ll just leave this here:
http://fakecarson.blogspot.com/
Mr.H wrote:
Too funny!
@ Muff Potter:
I consider it a compliment, especially coming from such a wordsmith as yourself.
K.D., which seminary was this?
K.D. wrote:
Lydia wrote:
I have to point out that either of my cats could easily put Piper to shame.
Instone-Brewer is no doubt an excellent scholar, whom I have no intention of disparaging, but really a small cactus puts Piper to shame. The man seems to live to be mean-spirited, & idiotic at the same time.
__
“Upon Dis Studabaker, I Shall Build Ma Church?”
hmmm…
@ refugee
🙂
****
Ref,
hey,
I am very concerned for the communities that host Acts 29 501(c)3 Christian ‘Church’ Organizations, today. The ‘organization’ & and their ‘objectives’, always comes first. In this regard, Acts 29 is acting more like a virus than a healing balm, salve or healing ointment.
(sadface)
My Jesus sayz if He be lifted up, He will draw ALL to himself.
When is the last time that the leadership of Acts 29, invited Jesus to the table?
ATB
Sopy
—
JeffT wrote:
Cosplay fan who wouldn’t admit to it.
__
“What Is The Gospel Of Calvinism?”
hmmm…
1. God is sovereign over all. (God controls and oversees everything)
2. Man is completely dead in trespass and sin, therefore can do nothing to save himself.
3. However, God sent his Son to save the ‘elect’, those that God has ‘chosen’ to save.
4. Man has absoutely no say in the matter.
5. If you are one of the ‘elect’, God will extend irresistible grace to you and save you.
6. Because you are of the ‘elect’, God will grant you perseverance as to be saved.
7. Because God has chosen some to be damned and spend eternity in Hell, be thankful that as one of the elect, (if your are chosen by God to be so) that in His sovereignty, he has chosen you for His glory. Amen!
8. According to Calvinism, if you are of the elect, you have nothing to worry about.
9. If, per-chance, you are not chose by God to be one of the elect, it is nothing personal, John Calvin has written that God is glorified in such actions.
10. God sent His Son to save some, good luck, if you are fortunate enough to be of their number.
This is the gospel according to John Calvin.
ATB 🙂
Sopy
—
__
What Is The Heart Of The True Biblical Gospel?
hmmm…
1. We are accountable to the God who created us.
2. We have All sinned against that God and will be judged.
3. But God has acted in Jesus Christ His Son to save us.
4. We take hold of that salvation by repenting from sin and having faith in what Jesus has done for us on the cross.
Believe on the Lord Jesus, God’s dear Son and be You saved?
huh?
God so loved You that He gave His only Son, that if you will believe in Him, You shall not perish but have everlasting life. – John 3:16 (adapted)
“All those who call upon the Lord, shall be saved.”
This is the gospel as presented in the New Testament.
ATB
Sopy
—
It looks like this: TVC saying men and women are different and posses different qualities but are equal in worth and in the eyes of the lord BUT they choose to have an all male elder board, believe husbands make all the major decisions in the home, make remarks to female members like “let’s serve our men”, say men should be he spiritual leaders in the home and church. They hold the scripture on which paul remarks on women’s roles of highest importance YET choose to ignore the most important part of scripture, go and make disciples of all nations, the great commission. Their suppression of women in the church and home hurts the ultimate commandment we get from the lord, other than to love one another. that’s when churches get in trouble, when they embrace a part a scripture so heavily that it ultimately harms the whole purpose of the Christian life. The TVC has done this with women’s roles as well and the churches role in membership.
I’m so sorry you feel that way about Christian men and have had bad experiences! I grew up in a home where my parents were partners in marriage and as a women I’ve always felt loved by my father and encouraged. Not all Christian men are like that! I know the kind you talk about but there are good ones! 🙂
I wish you well! Guest wrote: