The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: If You Can’t Explain It to Me, You’ve Got a Problem

If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble. Pope Francis link

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Questions

CBMW is unable to clearly define differences of roles between men and women.

I often say that CBMW has an Achilles Heel. They are unable to tell someone like me, who is well versed in Scripture, what I can and cannot do if I were a complementarian woman. For purposes of this post, complementarianism will sometimes be written as comp. Brownie points will be given to anyone who can come up with a better word!

I have read the books. I have even privately contacted complementarian women leaders to help me understand. The one person who I admire the most could not give me any specifics. She said "I can tell you what it look like for me and my family but not what it looks like for you and yours."

Yet, CBMW claims their mission is to delineate these differences so that I can be obedient to Scripture and my family can be healthy. I think my family is just as healthy as any other Christian family yet I don't get it. I try to be obedient to Scripture and have my good days and bad days just like any other person. They say their mission is:

The mission of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is to set forth the teachings of the Bible about the complementary differences between men and women, created equally in the image of God, because these teachings are essential for obedience to Scripture and for the health of the family and the church.

They seem to claim that if I do not see *it* and apply *it* their way, things are going to go south.

  1. The authority of Scripture is at stake.
  2. The health of the home is at stake.
  3. The health of the church is at stake.
  4. Our worship is at stake.
  5. Bible translations are at stake.
  6. The advance of the gospel is at stake.

About the only thing I understand is that women cannot be pastors and elders. But churches even apply this in weird, difficult to understand ways. In my former church, which is a member of TGC and the pastor is on the council, women were unable to collect the offering. I asked why. I was told that there was no reason they couldn't but the deacons voted against it. They refused to reconsider. So, I sat in church and watched as young boys collect the offering but mature women were not permitted to do so. Why?

Tim Challies' church does not allow women to read Scripture from the pulpit.

We consider this a teaching ministry, which means that it is a ministry reserved for men link.

So, would he have allowed Mary to speak her own words in his church? That beautiful Magnificat that starts at Luke 1:46? Why is it considered teaching if it is merely reading the words? Better yet, would he allow a woman to sing her words. Why is it different when it is sung instead of read?

I now attend a church that allows women to help with communion, read the Scriptures of the day, collect the offering and light the candles. Men do these things as well. As I watch them in their service, I struggle to see why other churches would not allow them to do this. How do men like Challies and former pastor come up with these rules and then expect for me to figure out their reasons for doing so. Everyone seems to have differing opinions on what actions put the very Bible at stake. And really, will the gospel falter because one week a woman reads Scripture? Seriously? 

CBMW cannot have it both ways. One cannot preach the limitation of functions for women and then have everyone else define the limitations in different ways. It makes little sense to those of us in the church and, for sure, those who are outside the church.

Even one of CBMW's council members, Mary Kassian, who considers herself one of the originators of comp theology had this to say.

I pointed out that though complementarians agree on the principle of complementarity, we often differ as to its application in the home and the church. I emphasized that even those involved in CBMW have a divergence of opinion as to the specifics of how to apply the principles of manhood and womanhood. – Mary Kassian

Divergence of opinions???? So, the gospel and the Bible are apparently at stake and everybody has different thoughts on the matter? Good night!

Is CBMW a church? If not, then why are there no women on the Board?

I am well versed in the NeoCalvinist view of the local church. I am sure each of those who serve on the Board would roundly deny that CBMW is a church. So, why are there no women on the Board of Directors. So, why are there no women on the Board of Directors? What is the Scriptural admonition that bars women from being present on such a board? This question needs ot be answered in some coherent fashion or it will continue to show the arbitrary gender rules and regulations of these comp men.

CBMW's stated beliefs center around the *biblical* roles of women and men in marriage and in the church. The definition is incomplete since the entire trajectory of their core beliefs page primarily centers around marriage and the church. What about single women?

The CBMW Council: Do you see a gender difference?

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Why do the women mention their roles as homemakers and wives? Did any men mention their role as husbands? I wonder what would have happened if they did not mention homemaker or wife.

But CBMW's Mary Kassian and Dorothy Patterson claim that homemaking is not an essential comp role.

Perhaps the most outspoken individual on this council is Mary Kassian who is a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is curious that she lists her role as homemaker since she had this to say a few years back.

Mary Kassian link

Homemaking as woman’s highest calling is our critical centerpiece? Hmmm. Maybe I didn’t get the memo. I found myself curious about which “proponent of the modern biblical womanhood movement” used “strong, unequivocal language” about homemaking being woman’s highest calling. And which complementarian in her right mind would even remotely assert that “the only sphere in which a woman can truly bring glory to God is in the home.” I am personally acquainted with virtually everyone at the core of the modern biblical womanhood movement. If anyone in my yard is saying this, I want to know about it. – Mary Kassian, Review of The Year of Biblical Womanhood

This statement startled The Deebs and we wrote a post about her remarks which were found in a review of Rachel Held Evans' The Year of Biblical Womanhood. We assert that her words demonstrate the inability of the comp movement to define biblical™ gender roles with any sort of consistency. I use the trademark symbol because I am convinced that there is a divergence of opinion in the comp ranks on when the Bible actually mandates.

In the following except from our above linked post, you can read Mary Kassian's attempt to prove that homemaking has nothing to do with comp. The most humorous part of her denial is when she seeks to quote Dr Dorothy Patterson, the head of the School of Homemaking at SBTS (I am not kidding.)

Begin excerpt here:


5. Mary Kassian surprisingly looks to Dorothy Patterson to help “prove” that homemaking has nothing to do with complementarianism.

A degree in homemaking?!!

It is at this point, I knew that something was amiss. She does not mention that Dr Dorothy Patterson (PhD University of South Africa) is the head of the homemaking degree at the College at Southwestern Link

“The classes are part of a homemaking concentration for a bachelor of arts in humanities degree through The College at Southwestern, the Texas seminary's undergraduate school. Three-credit-hour courses in the concentration are General Homemaking, Biblical Model for the Home and Family and The Value of a Child. Also required are seven credit hours in meal preparation and nutrition and seven hours in the design and sewing of clothing.” 

Kassian quotes Rachel Held Evans who stated that Patterson, in 1990, said

“Keeping the home is God’s assignment to the wife—even down to changing the sheets, doing the laundry, and scrubbing the floors.” (p. 23) “We need mothers who are not only family-oriented but also family-obsessed.” (p. 178)

Kassian claims to be irritated that that Rachel Held Evans used 20 year old material written by Patterson but kind of forgets” to remind her audience that CBMW republished the article in 2006 in the Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Book! “Link

Kassian says

“Mrs. Patterson told me that she would nuance the first quote by clarifying that “though she may not do these chores herself, she senses the responsibility to see that her home is kept in order.”  (Ed. note:No nuance needed back in 2006 but seems to be needed now).

Well, you betcha Patterson doesn’t scrub those floors at Pecan Manor. She has a boatload of help. So, are Kassian and Patterson implying that, if you have enough money and servants, you receive a “get out of scrubbing the floor” card? Instead Patterson can go and teach women getting their “homemaking degree” how to sew clothes while cooking meals.

Also, notice how she does not address the child-care issue at all. So, do women stay home to raise the children or can they hire that help as well? Or is this just a question to be avoided.

End excerpt here.


Patriarchy is really just another word for comp theology

In that same TWW post, Kassian goes on to *prove* that complementarianism and patriarchy are not in the same camp. Dee's mouth hung open at this statement because the President of CBMW's Board of Directors of CBMW, Owen Strachan, supports the term patriarchy on behalf of CBMW. He is also the son in law of Bruce Ware who is arguably the modern day inventor of the Eternal Subordination of the Son doctrine, which states that women shall be subordinate to men in eternity!

Begin excerpt:


6. Kassian denies that patriarchy has anything to do with complementarianism.

In my opinion, this is her most startling statement yet. In fact, she must either have her head in the sand or is deliberately spreading misinformation. I sure hope it is the former.

Kassian says

“The second woman Rachel quotes is Stacy McDonald, who wrote a book entitled, Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. McDonald is associated with the Vision Forum and the biblical patriarchy movement, so it’s clear that she isn’t representative of the core of modern evangelical complementarianism either.”

TWW reader has Facebook exchange with Kassian. Here is a link to the Facebook page.

Better yet, one of our readers sent Kassian an email challenging her statement that patriarchy and complementarianism are not the same. Kassian replied to her

My complementarian colleagues do not embrace the term"patriarchy." And like you, I am gravely concerned about some of the abuses and oppression of women arising from that ideology.

Owen Strachan (son in law of Bruce Ware and President of CBMW) link

“For millennia, followers of God have practiced what used to be called patriarchy and is now called complementarianism.” Owen Strachan, writing for CBMW.

End excerpt


So, we end our look at CBMW as confused as when we started. It has everything to do with homemaking. It has nothing to with homemaking. It restricts women in leadership in churches. It restricts women in leadership outside of churches. Women can't read Scripture out loud in the pulpit. Women can read Scripture. From what I can tell, there is little cohesiveness to this movement. However, they claim the very gospel is at stake. Perhaps this next example will add to our general confusion.

PCA: Nothing less than 100% agreement or you are out!

The pastors of the PCA are very supportive of CBMW. There is apparently no room for any doubts.

At this years' General Assembly of the PCA, we learned that nothing less than 100% agreement is allowed on issue of complementarian theology. Not 89%, not 99% but 100%, now and always. Let me make something clear. I believe that all denominations have the right, and perhaps even the obligation, to clearly state their denominational distinctives. But is the PCA naive enough to believe that no one doubts on occasion?

From what I can tell, a pastor in the midst of his ordination exams stated that he was not 100% sure of the universal prohibition on women eldership. Make sure you understand this. He didn't say he would allow women to be elders. He didn't say "Here I stand, I can do no other!" He didn't say he didn't like John Piper, John Calvin or Tim Keller. He didn't deny the essentials.

It appears the Philadelphia Presbytery, understanding that all of us at one time or another have some questions, allowed this man to be ordained. So, the General Assembly, obviously horrified,  *cited* the Philadelphia Presbytery for ordaining this man.

Complementarianism: The PCA continues to be a solidly complementarian denomination. The Committee on the Review of Presbytery Records (RPR) cited the Philadelphia Presbytery for sustaining the ordination exams of a candidate who was not “100% sure the New Testament itself teaches a universal prohibition on women eldership” (* I wrongly stated in the original post that this pastor is now moving to the RCA. He has not filed to do so and continues to be a member of the Philadelphia Presbytery. My apologies.). A minority report emerged from RPR recommending that the Assembly not cite Philadelphia with an exception of substance on this matter. The Assembly was overwhelming in its vote on this issue, rejecting the minority report by a vote of 258 in favor and 554 against.

Being the type of person who often questions things, I wondered how many people are truthful when they claim to believe something 100%? Do they never have a doubt? Is a momentary doubt enough to disqualify one from the pastorate? How many people are pastors who lied about their 100% belief? Even worse, how does one define comp theology to the pastors taking the test? It appears the CBMW council members can't do it, so why do they expect anyone else to understand it 100%. 

It appears that I was not the only one who questioned this decision. However, most of those who disagreed did so by asserting that they believed women should be elders.

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Although I do believe than women can be elders, that wasn't my chief concern in this situation. It was the insistence of *nary a doubt or you are out* position. Doubt is a part of faith. The greatest growth in my faith is when I was presented with some evidence that caused me to doubt the canon.  However, I am proactive. I decided to find answers for my questions and my doubts. My faith grew by leaps and bounds. In fact, it is the very act of wrestling with doubt which has strengthened my faith. Even at the CBMW promoting The Gospel™Coalition, I put the word "doubt" into the search engine and came up with 491 entries! 

So, I am left with this. I don't understand the practical application of comp theology and I don't think the CBMW crowd does either. If I don't understand it, I can assure CBMW that few people in the church or outside the church get it either. Yet, for some reason, the gospel is at stake. Go figure.

Comments

The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: If You Can’t Explain It to Me, You’ve Got a Problem — 731 Comments

  1. Ivan wrote:

    If it were a matriarchal society, he probably would have used the analogy with the wife instead of the husband, right?

    Yes, IMO he would have. I think the way we keep the Christ/Church analogy relevant is the same way we keep the rest of the instructions in the Bible relevant. We discern the principle being taught and we teach that principle, but we don’t necessarily import the same application because our cultural circumstances are different. I think the failure to do this makes people think that the Bible is irrelevant to their lives. It is always relevant to teach Kingdom living which is living like Paul describes life in the Spirit in the rest of Ephesians. If you read the clobber verses in light of the rest of Ephesians it’s more apparent what the main point is. We are in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, and we need to look and live like the One whose name we claim.

  2. @ Ivan:
    I am curious about that as well. If head can more correctly be interpreted as “source” (and I’m fairly well convinced it does), what does that mean? How does that relationship play out?

  3. @ GovPappy:
    Why the “head/body” analogy? I would think the simple “body” analogy would be sufficient to get the point across. We are the Body of Christ. That makes perfect sense to me. The head part has me scratching mine some days.

  4. Ivan wrote:

    The feminist movement has also had a deep impact on our culture (I’m not making any judgement on the feminist movement here). So the question is how do we keep the Christ-church analogy relevant for marriages today?

    Some of the early feminists were Christians just like some of the early abolitionists were Christians, and they believed that because they saw the big picture and did not universalize particular instructions. To the extent that some women may look down upon males as being inferior to females, then we need to instruct our girls and women that males, as a class, are not brutes or however they are being maligned, just like females, as a class, are not castrating Jezebels. If women are in a position of relative power, then they need to exercise any power they have in the same way that Christ exercises his power. When we belong to Christ, any power we have should be under his control and authority and used to benefit others rather than using them.

  5. Gram3 wrote:

    I think the way we keep the Christ/Church analogy relevant is the same way we keep the rest of the instructions in the Bible relevant. We discern the principle being taught and we teach that principle, but we don’t necessarily import the same application because our cultural circumstances are different.

    So in a dysfunctional relationship where the wife has become too dominating (or manipulating) over the husband, we would tell her to remember that she is to love her husband just as Christ loved the church. And the husband is to be told to submit to his wife just as the church submits to Christ (as the source of the church’s growth and nourishment).

    BTW, Michael Bird, a complementarian NT scholar who nevertheless supports women’s ordination on Biblical grounds, affirms that kephale can mean source under certain contexts.

    That being said, how would a wife submit to her husband as the source in everything?

  6. @ GovPappy:
    Which instance of the analogy do you mean? If you mean 1 Corinthians, I think Paul is making a straightforward observation. Christ came from God, Man came from Christ (as we learn from John 1) and Woman comes from Man. In addition, the woman received all that she had from a man–her father, husband, male relative–and she also received her identity from him. We in the church receive our identity from Christ and receive all that we have from him. IMO, we cannot understand the “chain of command” clobber verse without considering Paul’s summation of his argument: Woman came from Man, Man comes from Woman, but all come from God, so we need to stop fussing about who came from whom and what that means, because it doesn’t mean anything in God’s economy.

  7. @ Gram3:
    In addition, many Biblical scholars have pointed out that if Paul was intending to show a chain-of-command, he would have placed the relations in the order of Father-Son, Son-Man, Man-Woman except he doesn’t. He places Father-Son last. Interestingly, both comps and egals agree that Woman is the glory of Man refers to woman serving man. Comps just read a hierarchical relationship into it (of course there may be much more nuanced comp readings out there).

  8. Ivan wrote:

    That being said, how would a wife submit to her husband as the source in everything?

    Again, I would go back to what that would have meant in context. If a man is sacrificing himself for my benefit as his wife, I need to have a cooperative spirit and not be difficult and seek my own way. Put another way, I should have a submissive spirit and seek to serve others, and in particular the one who is serving me! Likewise, a husband should have a deferential attitude toward his wife because he desires to serve her. It isn’t a role thing of one being the Authoritative Leader and the other being the Submissive Servant. It is about both being mutually submissive servant-hearted and deferential out of love for one another in the pursuit of unity in the Spirit. Our submission and self-sacrifice is motivated by love and a desire for unity rather than motivated by fulfilling some role or other.

  9. Ivan wrote:

    both comps and egals agree that Woman is the glory of Man refers to woman serving man.

    I don’t know about that. In my conversations with women from the Middle East, it is apparent to me that the ideas which come from a shame/honor paradigm permeate the Biblical record. I believe that a woman certainly was the glory or shame of her man, whether that was her father or her husband or her brother. An honorable woman brought great glory and honor to her husband and her family. Or she might bring great shame. So, in the context of 1 Corinthians, I believe that Paul was teaching the women that they have the authority to cover or uncover their own heads, but they must exercise that authority so as not to bring shame on their head. He was teaching them to act wisely instead of arguing over do I cover or not? I learned from my Middle Eastern friends that a woman does not need to cover her hair in the presence of her close male relatives or even close family friends who are considered like brothers. This may have produced some cultural ambiguity when churches were meeting in homes but where there might be newcomers who the women did not know well. Are the men in the church assembly “brothers” such that I can uncover my hair, or are they not brothers in which case I need to cover my hair out of respect for my family and my husband.

  10. @ Gram3:
    In God’s economy, we are all of equal value, and Jesus paid the price. We are equally redeemed. That’s the bottom line.

  11. @ Ivan:
    Ivan wrote:

    Comps just read a hierarchical relationship into it (of course there may be much more nuanced comp readings out there).

    I’ve spent considerable time immersed in Patriarchal/Complementarian thinking, and I have never seen this nuanced by them. In fact, they pretend that there is Eternal Father-Eternal Son language when actually Paul says that God is the head of Christ, not the Father is the head of Christ. And Christ refers to the Incarnate Son, not the Son prior to his Incarnation where he took on a human nature. It doesn’t work for their system, but, again, it sounds plausible if someone is already primed to see it.

  12. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    In God’s economy, we are all of equal value, and Jesus paid the price. We are equally redeemed. That’s the bottom line.

    Yes, we are, and yes, it is.

  13. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    It’s nothing of the kind. And I should know, because I’m male, and I both think and wish.

    Nick I didn’t mean all males only those who believe in ‘submission in the afterlife’. If you do not believe this then I am sorry but if you do, then in my honest opinion, this belief is nothing more than ‘wishful thinking’.

  14. @ Ivan:
    Ivan,
    I was 99.9 percent sure of full egalitarianism until my daughter asked me one question which tipped the scale to 100 per cent for me. She asked where in the Bible is there a command directly to men to lead. I couldn’t find one. That led me into digging deep into the headship dilemma until I clearly understood it. It helps to study it in full context without the words that translators have added for supposed clarity. Then your “eyes” will be opened.

  15. Nancy2 wrote:

    Okay, I’m going to try again. My ipad is going crazy. It has a mind of it’s own, kinda like a woman. Ya know????
    Today at my SBC church in rural southern Kentucky:
    <<< Today's Sunday school lesson:
    I Kings chapter 20 —- Jezebel. Before he closed, our teacher has a few comments he felt compelled to make. He said that the husband is the head of his household, and it is the wife's Biblical duty to submit humbly to the husband and obey him. He said that all churches have "Jezebels". He told the men that if any of them has a wife who is a "Jezebel", he needs to do whatever he has to to get her in line and get her soul saved. He said that if a husband has to use a boot to get his wife to straighten up, so be it.
    Today's sermon (Guest preacher from Nashville, TN):
    The preacher made several comments on interpreting the Bible. He said that modern interpretations are sinful heresies and they are just done to justify personal opinions.
    My translation: Ladies, we are just robots, made to be reprogrammed into whatever a man wants at any given time. Men serve God, women serve men. (Note to self: If my husband ever uses a boot to get control of me, he’s gonna need a whole lot more than just a new pair of boots. If he ever uses a boot on me, the church will probably have to “discipline” me, quite severely.) I drove like a maniac coming home. My husband and I still haven't spoken to one another. If this is what he calls a house of God, he can have it.
    I’m a “DONE”.

    Nancy, has this church taught similar things about women in the past? What was the reaction of other women in the church, or didn’t you stay afterward to chat with any of them? This is a serious matter because what this preacher fella was effectively teaching is that domestic abuse is acceptable and, in fact, necessary under certain conditions. If I were you, I would not go back to that church again. That sermon was laying the ground work for permissible wife abuse. Flee that place and proclaim your freedom in Christ!

  16. @ Nancy2

    ‘he told the men that if any of them has a wife who is a “Jezebel”, he needs to do whatever he has to to get her in line and get her soul saved. He said that if a husband has to use a boot to get his wife to straighten up, so be it’.

    In Australia domestic violence is against the law. Is it against the law in southern Kentucky? If it is you should report this person to the police for advocating that people break the law.

  17. @ Ivan:

    The analogy is that Christ gave up everything for the church. He left heaven, became human, lived on earth, died a horrible and ignominious death, etc., for us, the church. And a husband who follows Christ should also love his wife enough to give up all for her, including life itself. That is the analogy. And it totally mitigates against any form of abuse.

  18. Gram3 wrote:

    Ivan wrote:
    That being said, how would a wife submit to her husband as the source in everything?
    Again, I would go back to what that would have meant in context. If a man is sacrificing himself for my benefit as his wife, I need to have a cooperative spirit and not be difficult and seek my own way. Put another way, I should have a submissive spirit and seek to serve others, and in particular the one who is serving me! Likewise, a husband should have a deferential attitude toward his wife because he desires to serve her. It isn’t a role thing of one being the Authoritative Leader and the other being the Submissive Servant. It is about both being mutually submissive servant-hearted and deferential out of love for one another in the pursuit of unity in the Spirit. Our submission and self-sacrifice is motivated by love and a desire for unity rather than motivated by fulfilling some role or other.

    I heard a podcast recently by the late Daisy and TL Osborn, talking about how they worked through having an egalitarian marriage, starting back in the 60’s. For them, it looked like challenging what they’d always done because of gender, and switching things up to see what they actually enjoyed doing and what worked for them personally as a couple. The example they used was driving. TL always drove. They switched it up and Daisy drove for awhile, found she didn’t like it, so they switched back. The beauty of an egalitarian marriage is that it looks different for everyone, based one each couple’s individual strengths, weaknesses, personality quirks, relational styles etc. We allow for these organic freedoms in our friendships and other relationships, why not our marriages?

    PS. If any of you are ever in the Tulsa area, TL and Daisy’s daughter LaDonna teaches a monthly class in their very egalitarian church. So encouraging.

  19. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Ivan:
    Ivan wrote:

    Comps just read a hierarchical relationship into it (of course there may be much more nuanced comp readings out there).

    I’ve spent considerable time immersed in Patriarchal/Complementarian thinking, and I have never seen this nuanced by them. In fact, they pretend that there is Eternal Father-Eternal Son language when actually Paul says that God is the head of Christ, not the Father is the head of Christ. And Christ refers to the Incarnate Son, not the Son prior to his Incarnation where he took on a human nature. It doesn’t work for their system, but, again, it sounds plausible if someone is already primed to see it.

    “Already primed to see it.”

    And there you have it.

  20. GovPappy wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    I was thinking of Ephesians 5.

    OK, then what Arce said just above and what I said at 12:08 would be my response. Arce gave the interpretation and I gave an application. The head is the part which supplied everything necessary for life in that culture. They did not know about the central nervous system, so the “head” being the boss would not have made sense unless people think Paul was providing a lesson in neurology. But, of course, the Patriarchs need for head to mean boss, so it automagically does mean boss even though it did not mean boss when Paul wrote it.

  21. @ rhondajeannie:
    Domestic violence is illegal here, too. But often it goes unreported.

    We have only been going to our current church for 1 1/2 years, so there is still much I don’t know about the people. It is the 4th SBC church that I have belonged to, and it is the strictest on women. An educated adult female is not allowed to speak in the adult Sunday school classes or at business meetings, but 9-year-old boys can lead prayer and preach from the pulpit!!! From what I have seen, many of the men are very condescending towards women. One of the men makes fun of my husband because I am the one who usually drives to church!
    I don’t believe women should tithe. We are not true members, anyway.
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!

  22. Might I recommend to any confused reader the Five Aspects of Woman/Man course by Barbara Mouser/William Mouser. These studies explain beautifully and biblically the details of complimentarianism. No confusion with this study, it’s all scripturally backed! To my knowledge this can only be purchased at 5aspects.org.

  23. Gram3 wrote:

    I’ve spent considerable time immersed in Patriarchal/Complementarian thinking, and I have never seen this nuanced by them. In fact, they pretend that there is Eternal Father-Eternal Son language when actually Paul says that God is the head of Christ, not the Father is the head of Christ. And Christ refers to the Incarnate Son, not the Son prior to his Incarnation where he took on a human nature. It doesn’t work for their system, but, again, it sounds plausible if someone is already primed to see it.

    Can you explain how Christ only refers to the Incarnate Son and not the Son prior to his Incarnation? Still, if it is God-Christ and not Eternal Father-Eternal Son, then ESS breaks down.

    I’ve read the arguments for kephale meaning source in 1 Corinthians 11. I have to say that it is very compelling and makes a lot of sense.

  24. Gram3 wrote:

    I think there are some Calvinists who would agree that certain types of “Calvinists” are preaching another gospel.

    No doubt. In fact, I think it’s difficult for people to agree on exactly what “The Gospel” is. Everyone talks about it, but no one ever clearly defines it.

    I think there IS warrant to talk about a “false Gospel” sometimes. People who preach that you must do xyz works to be saved if a false Gospel. People who preach that if you are not materially blessed then you do not have saving faith is a false Gospel. This is an important distinction because the heart of the Gospel, that we have peace with God through faith, not works, is fundamental.

    I have a real problem with Calvinists who make Penal Substitutionary Atonement a fundamental part of the Gospel (and a lot of them do). While I believe in PSA, I do not think that believing it is part of what saves us. I think I would be hard pressed to think of anything not found in Peter’s first sermon in the book of Acts that could be part of the fundamental Gospel. That is, I can’t imagine the sermon that evoked the largest percentage growth in the history of the church leaving out a fundamental piece of the Gospel, or that that piece wouldn’t have been recorded by Luke.

    So the fundamentals for the Gospel, as I see it, are and admission of sinfulness, repentance, and a dependence on Jesus. Whether you believe that repentance comes by your own free will or must be enabled by the Holy Spirit, that sounds like an intramural debate to me. I’m not saying it isn’t a serious or important question, but it’s still outside of the core of “the Gospel”.

    Charging people with believing a false Gospel is a very strong thing, and it’s an accusation we should use very carefully. Yes, Calvinists do this a lot, and it angers me, but I don’t like it when non-Calvinists do it either. But to believe a false Gospel is to be deceived in the worst way- that ultimately we would think that we can achieve holiness without repentance, through works, or in some other way than faith in Jesus.

  25. Sopwith wrote:

    Please be patient with yourself.

    🙁

    I’ve spent years working through my beliefs, and years to come I’ll work on it. I’m not a child.

    All I want is for us to be able to agree to disagree without insulting one another. I’m asking for peace. I do not like being accused of believing in a “false Gospel” because you and I disagree on a non-essential piece of doctrine.

  26. @ Sopwith:

    Let me try to be clear, because I feel I’ve been miscommunication and I want you to understand.

    If find your words to be hurtful, and I want to make you aware of that. If you feel strongly enough about what you believe that you are OK with it being taken that way, then I will say no more and move on. I’m a big boy and if I can handle hurtful things from John Piper, I can handle it from commenters on TWW.

    However, I don’t want to pass by without letting you know that people like me read what you say and it can hurt us or turn us away. If you don’t know how people like me feel when they read your words, you can’t address it in the future.

    I’m not looking for a fight or for you to explain why I am wrong and you are right. It’s just that I learned through experience that I need to stand up for myself and tell people when they are saying or doing hurtful things. To do so gives others the chance to further reflect on what they are saying to decide if the hurt is worth it (not all hurt is harmful, so sometimes indeed you have to say things that hurt), or if it is better to reconsider. That ball is in your court and I’ll do my best to leave it here. The main point is, if you don’t know that there are people like me who can be hurt (and potentially people like me two years ago who would, while they came looking for support, end up running away screaming because they don’t want to get out of one hurtful situation only to get into another), I want to make you aware of it. There are Calvinists who hurt too.

  27. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ rhondajeannie:
    Domestic violence is illegal here, too. But often it goes unreported.
    We have only been going to our current church for 1 1/2 years, so there is still much I don’t know about the people. It is the 4th SBC church that I have belonged to, and it is the strictest on women. An educated adult female is not allowed to speak in the adult Sunday school classes or at business meetings, but 9-year-old boys can lead prayer and preach from the pulpit!!! From what I have seen, many of the men are very condescending towards women. One of the men makes fun of my husband because I am the one who usually drives to church!
    I don’t believe women should tithe. We are not true members, anyway.
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!

    Forgive me for asking these questions. Are women allowed to vote at church meetings at this SBC church? Reason I ask this question is because most SBC churches allow women suffrage within the church. You aren’t allowed to lead prayer. What attracted you and your husband to this church one and a half years ago? Are there other evangelical churches in your area other than SBC? Reason I am asking is because there are some areas of South where the SBC is practically the only church, so you could be going to a more strict church if you leave your present church. I attended a church where a woman was teaching Sunday school with mixed sexes. I was surprised because her husband attended Criswell seminary under Patterson. Women can pray in this church. Criswell allowed women to pray in church. Criswell allowed his wife to teach a wonderful mixed Sunday School class. This new generation is following the maxim of becoming more conservative in some ways than previous generations. Man makes fun of you driving car to church? Maybe this mans ideal is Saudi Arabia as far as women driving cars?

  28. Ivan wrote:

    I’ve read the arguments for kephale meaning source in 1 Corinthians 11. I have to say that it is very compelling and makes a lot of sense.

    Another thing to keep in mind.

    Ephesians is written very specifically to the church in Ephesus.
    Not saying we cannot glean vast amounts for ourselves today because there is much in there that is eternal and should speak to all people for all times.
    But the problem with studying time-and-place-specific letters is that, at least in some places, they are speaking directly to those to whom they are written, their culture, their time, their group think.

    In Ephesians 5, Paul was very specifically addressing the culture of the day in which the husband was absolutely the undisputed head in every sense of the word, as in leader, source, etc.

    But know that when addressing the 1st century patriarch and his family, Paul sets everything on its head by directing the entitled to empty himself, like Christ, and serve through love. Never once did Paul tell the established family patriarch to lead. Keep in mind that patriarchy was so embedded in their culture that Paul HAD to use extra words and examples for the patriarch to start letting go of some of his entitlement and to, instead, take on the attitude of Christ towards his wife.

    This is something we are all called to do. It is harder for some than others. Think of the camel going through the eye of the needle. The entitled have to take off the packs of their riches of entitlement and get on their knees like everybody else in order to enter.

    Patriarchy and compism are sly moves by men to smuggle their worldly entitlement into the Kingdom of God where it does not belong. They build their houses on the sand of the traditions of men rather than on the Rock of Jesus Christ who said:

    Matthew 20:25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. 26 It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

    There is no footnote in this verse that says it doesn’t apply to male/female, husband/wife relationships. The insistence of female submission opposes the words of Jesus Christ.

  29. The idea that Calvin actually burned Servetus on the stake is a misrepresentation of the real Calvin. Calvin in fact advocated that Servetus be beheaded, not burned, and he got called out for being too soft because of that. Not that Calvin can be excused for wanting Servetus killed.

    Calvin’s Geneva was actually considered a women’s paradise for it’s time because men were punished harshly for beating their wives (I got that from my European history textbook. It’s a secular one so no propaganda there). He was also an advocate for the poor and marginalized believe it or not. I think too many of our ideas of Calvin are based more on myth than fact.

    BTW, Calvin scholar J. Todd Billings, who is no neocal, notes that once his students actually started reading Calvin they started loving him (and these students had a distaste for Calvin before they actually started reading him).

  30. I have witnessed views from confessional Lutherans and Calvinists that I am perceiving here. I am more of a Biblicist. Luther or Calvin of Wesley were great teachers, but they weren’t divinely inspired or inerrant. What is a Christian is my question, not if I follow some form of systematic theology. I may follow some form of systematic theology and not even be aware of it, but does it matter at the end of the day?

  31. Ivan wrote:

    The idea that Calvin actually burned Servetus on the stake is a misrepresentation of the real Calvin. Calvin in fact advocated that Servetus be beheaded, not burned, and he got called out for being too soft because of that. Not that Calvin can be excused for wanting Servetus killed.

    It reminds me of The Three Stooges. When Curly was asked why he chose to be burned instead of beheaded he answered, “Better a hot steak than a cold chop. Nyuck, nyuck.”

    On a more serious note, I am happy to hear one professor had a good experience by having his students read Calvin. I didn’t enjoy reading him. He seemed pretty darned hard nosed about things.

    Calvin was an ordinary man who did some terrible things in his life. In Geneva, they were into witches being tried and condemned. One child was executed for striking his parents. I am glad to hear he was nice to women who were getting beat by their husbands. However, he could turn around and go after the Anabaptists with a vengeance.

    Here’s my deal. If people wish to follow Calvin’s theology on predestination, etc. so be it. But do not present a man who is almost Jesus. he wasn’t and there is plenty written about his faults. For a man who seemed to know God quite well (or so I have been told) he sure was into executions and superstition. Witches? Really? (PS I grew up in Salem, Mass so i get the witches thing.)

  32. @ Ivan: “Christ” is the Greek for “Messiah” or “Anointed One” which speaks to his incarnation as the God-Man with a human nature fully submitted to and subordinate to God. If Paul had intended to refer to the Eternal Son being in an eternally subordinate role, I think he would have made that clear. But he didn’t.

  33. Brooke wrote:

    Might I recommend to any confused reader the Five Aspects of Woman/Man course by Barbara Mouser/William Mouser. These studies explain beautifully and biblically the details of complimentarianism. No confusion with this study, it’s all scripturally backed! To my knowledge this can only be purchased at 5aspects.org.

    Please tell us you are not serious. I recommend that people read “Father” Bill for themselves and judge for themselves if he is “biblical” or not. I say not.

  34. Brooke wrote:

    These studies explain beautifully and biblically the details of complimentarianism. No confusion with this study, it’s all scripturally backed!

    If it were so simple to explain complementarianism with Scripture, why do you think that many people, like myself, who study Scripture, read books and listen to sermons have a hard time understanding gender roles? Do I just need to read the right book? Also, there are many theologians who know the Bible and can quote Scripture in contact who disagree with comp theology. Could it be that the Bible is not as clear on this subject as some think?

    Also, I a, highly suspicious of any book that is not freely available on Amazon, etc. Putting books in such venues allow for a free sharing of ideas.

  35. @ dee:
    Agreed. Calvin was merely an ordinary man of his times, not some sort of god. I just wanted to provide a corrective to what appears to me to be a one-sided portrait of him.

  36. @ Jeff S:
    I personally know Calvinists (and I count myself as one, albeit a nonconfessional one who strongly holds to the concept of a universal atonement) who seem to emphasize God’s holiness to the point where God’s love is completely ignored. So they would speak of God as being perfectly just in damning us to hell for all eternity but being merciful and gracious enough to instead having Christ be punished in our place. IMHO, that makes God seem more like a tyrant who does things on a whim instead of a loving God who would do everything to save us because he loved us first.

  37. Gram3 wrote:

    Please tell us you are not serious. I recommend that people read “Father” Bill for themselves and judge for themselves if he is “biblical” or not. I say not.

    Read the core beliefs. That as enough. Not.

  38. Ivan wrote:

    So they would speak of God as being perfectly just in damning us to hell for all eternity but being merciful and gracious enough to instead having Christ be punished in our place.

    Their reasoning goes like this: God, as Creator and Sovereign, can do as he wishes without creatures having standing to question him, even if he creates some merely to condemn them for his glory. Therefore, they conclude, that is what he does and, further, if he does not operate in that way, then he is abdicating his sovereignty to man and is forfeiting glory. Their supposedly neat scarf is missing some stitches and has some big holes to which they are oblivious.

    As you point out, there is so much more to God than raw power and might. But these men have another form of power religion, and the god they conceive fits within that system. I think their view of love is every bit as deficient as those who conceive of love purely sentimentally. Love is powerful.

    As you point out, God’s sovereignty and might is not everything about God. The fact that he would become man and suffer for us, living by his own rules, tells us that he is not a capricious and vindictive god like the pagan ones.

  39. Ivan wrote:

    I just don’t know how we would preach the Christ-church analogy for our situation today. While we’re still male-dominated we are much more egalitarian now and any husband who acted like an ancient Greek household head towards his wife would probably be looked down upon. The feminist movement has also had a deep impact on our culture (I’m not making any judgement on the feminist movement here). So the question is how do we keep the Christ-church analogy relevant for marriages today?

    Hi, Ivan. I know you’re in conversation with a lot of people, but something occurred to me that I’d like to share with you.

    When Paul touches on “Christ and the church” in this passage, it reminds me of Jesus’ prayer for His disciples before heading to the cross. He prayed that all his followers would be united to each other and to Him, just as Jesus was in unity with the Father: “…that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me…”

    Paul also quotes from Genesis in that passage, reminding the believers in Ephesus that a man and his wife are to be “one flesh”. This again deals with the unity the should exist between spouses.

    I think that this is one way to apply this Ephesians 5 to our time. It’s not about lazily “mapping” Christ to the husband or the church to the wife (although some of the other verses seem to suggest that). I see it as a reminder to a husband (back then) to think of his wife not as chattel or breeding stock, but as someone who has become intimately united to him. And it’s a reminder to us today to not take our relationships with our spouses lightly, or assume that a marriage will work without effort. Jesus died by torture to make it possible for us to have unity with Him and His Father. Likewise, those who are married need to make sacrifices to achieve the kind of oneness Paul calls on them to have: a oneness like that between Christ and His church, between a head and its body, and between Jesus and the Father.

    To me, that concept of unity is the key, rather than imposing any kind of authority structure. Any thoughts? (If so I’ll have to get to them later. Off to bed.)

  40. dee wrote:

    why do you think that many people, like myself, who study Scripture, read books and listen to sermons have a hard time understanding gender roles

    I think a lot of the problem is the baggage we all have. We don’t see what’s there because we don’t want to or it would disagree with our favourite bible teacher or we’ve been or seen people hurt by the use or misuse of a doctrine etc etc.

    The word complementarian conjures up patriarchy to some people, whereas egalitarianism conjures up – in my case visions of Rachel Held Evans. (Don’t ask, then no-one will get upset at the reply.) So I could never call myself egalitarian even though I agree in part with what some egalitarians say.

    The use of these wretched words as labels obscures the fact that there is a continuum of views, and some of a ‘moderate’ persuasion on either side might have more in common with each other than the extremes of either view.

  41. @ Brooke:
    You mean their interpretation of scripture. I have heard the name but only in conjunction with patriarchy. I recommend reading outside that bubble as there are some very compelling scholars who are mutualists.

  42. @ Ivan:
    They need to read more. Start with the Geneva Council Book of Minutes. A lot of rewriting of history when it comes to Calvin. In fact the burning of Servetus was premeditated by Calvin years before and there is a letter to prove it.

  43. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ rhondajeannie:
    Domestic violence is illegal here, too. But often it goes unreported.
    We have only been going to our current church for 1 1/2 years, so there is still much I don’t know about the people. It is the 4th SBC church that I have belonged to, and it is the strictest on women. An educated adult female is not allowed to speak in the adult Sunday school classes or at business meetings, but 9-year-old boys can lead prayer and preach from the pulpit!!! From what I have seen, many of the men are very condescending towards women. One of the men makes fun of my husband because I am the one who usually drives to church!
    I don’t believe women should tithe. We are not true members, anyway.
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!

    Nancy, that sounds grim. Can you change to a different, more egalitarian church?

  44. Daisy wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Regarding the creation order. I’m still skimming my way down a thread on another forum about this topic, and someone reminded everyone that the creation account is described twice, and done so differently.
    In the first telling, man and woman are apparently created simultaneously, not man first and woman second.
    From Gen 1:
    Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
    27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.
    God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
    I thought that was an interesting. observation.
    I also note from that portion that both the man and woman were to rule over creation – it does not say that falls to man only, or that man had authority over the woman.

    Yes, I have wondered about this passage many times. Because there seems to be an apparent contradiction, or perhaps not apparent. What is it? Is woman created in the image of man, for man? Or, is it as this passage says, both are created in the image of God? How can both be true at the same time? Of course, if we take our cue from those who subscribe to a hierarchy of order, then this passage, since it comes FIRST in Genesis, is the overriding passage.

    I have a deep interest in all of this gender complementarianism, having once believed this way, although I didn’t call it by that name. It seems like Patriarchy (and for me this is the same difference as comp) is on the rise within Evangelicalism. Women are even being told to take verbal abuse from their husbands (whether they are Christians or not) and that somehow they will *win them over without a word.* If there are children in the home, this sort of teaching is detrimental, even dangerous to their welfare. How in the world does a wife submitting to abuse set a good example for the children? This makes no sense whatsoever. If any of the readers are unfamiliar with a blog called “Always Learning,” go over there and take a look at the absurdity of what this woman, Lori Alexander, and her husband are teaching women. Thanks to Julie Anne at SSB, I just discovered this blog. One of the most recent postings from July 25 titled, “Never Abdicate Your Throne said this:

    “Women write me who say they are upset with their husbands for using foul language and watching shows that they don’t feel are appropriate for their children to watch. What is a wife to do in this situation? I recently wrote this on my “Always Learning” Facebook page: “If you are married to a man who uses foul language and watches bad TV shows, yet you are submissive to him, show him respect, love him,n aren’t critical of him, warm, loving, generous, and kind; who do you think your children are going to be attracted to; the world and its ways or Jesus? This, my sisters in Christ, is how you sanctify your home.”

    SAY WHAT? You’ve got to be kidding! So, the children watching their Daddy abuse their Mommy and Mommy taking it with a smile and acting like she loves being abuse is gonna draw them to Jesus? Seriously? I think anyone with a thinking mind would conclude that those children are going to learn some very bad behavior. The daughters will learn that its ok to suffer abuse, thereby enabling their husbands to be bullies. And the sons will learn that its ok to abuse women, and will look for women that fit the bill. What if the husband is screaming and cursing at the children? Lori’s got the answer. Just shut up and be kind. Hey, fix him his favorite meal. What if the husband is watching porn in front of the children? Hey, just shut up and give him more sex. After all, he probably is watching porn because the wife isn’t satisfying him in bed. So it’s the wife’s fault. By the way, everything is the wife’s fault on that blog. Very dangerous ideas over there.

    Here’s the link: http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/

  45. lydia wrote:

    That is Father Bill! I forgot!!!

    Yes, indeedy. That’s why I call it Five Aspects of Are You Kidding Me? I’m sure if my parents had raised me differently I might put it a little differently, but I shall honor my raisin’ and leave it at that. People really should read “Father” Bill to understand what this topic is really about.

  46. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Daisy:
    I can’t affirm that the Man and the Woman were created simultaneously because I don’t think the account in Genesis 1 tells us that. If I’m going to complain about the Comps reading stuff into the text, then I need to try to avoid doing that as well. It merely says that God decided to create humanity in his image and he created one male and the other female and that he gave both of them an undifferentiated dominion over non-human creation, and he gave both of them an undifferentiated Father’s blessing, a detail which would have been quite significant in the patriarchal cultures of the Bible. IMO, the accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are, dare I say, complementary, and each should be read in light of the other.

    Except that the Patriarchalists (I know, not a word, but I’ll invent it), say that women are not created in the image of God, but in the image of man. And this text in Gen. 1 says just the opposite. And, I’m wondering if they don’t also teach that only men have dominion over non-human creation. Not sure about this last one. But the first assertion I know is thinking among this Patriachy (Pat from now on)/Comp crowd.

  47. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ okrapod:
    In the King James Thomas Nelson Study Bible, it says in I TIm. 2:15 that “the woman ‘shall be saved’ from having no role or significance in the local church. Her primary role is that of childbearing and raising children……..”
    When I combine that with I Cor. 14:34-35, ” Let your women keep silence in the churches …….. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” …..
    it give me an obvious opportunity to twist scripture and ask, “Is a woman even supposed to go to church?”

    The problem with that Thomas Nelson Study Bible quote is that women in the O.T. already thought their significance was tied up with child bearing. No children meant shame and embarrassment. So, the New Covenant comes along and nothing changes according to the Pats/Comps. Women’s worth is only tied to raising children. And by the way, I think raising children is an honorable calling. But the problem with this sort of thinking among Pats/Comps, is that it shuts out an entire class of women – those who remain single, those who are unable to have children, those who choose not to have children for whatever reasons. And this particular class of women is of a larger percentage today than ever. My daughter, who is in her 30’s, is not yet married and may very well never be married.

  48. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ Victorious:
    Our Sunday school teacher made the “Jezebel” remarks. I was appalled at all of the “amens” that accompanied his remarks!!!

    Was it all the men that mouthed the “amens” or did some of the *submissive* wives, not willing to be called Jezebels, mouth *amen* as well? Man, there is just no way I could have been quiet in that room. They would have deemed me a Jezebel and tossed me out!

  49. An Attorney wrote:

    @ Nancy2:
    Find another church. You have a right not to be lied to in church about the meaning of scripture. And the amens mean that there are a lot of people in the class that need to go back to bible interpretation 001. Get out before you open your mouth and they put you in “discipline”.

    An Attorney, I think it might be past that point regarding discipline. If Nancy leaves now, it will most likely be connected to the Jezebel teaching. Hey, I got an idea. Maybe all the women who refuse to accept abuse should stage a demonstration right in front of the church with placards in bold letters: “THIS CHURCH TEACHES THAT HUSBANDS HAVE A GOD-GIVEN RIGHT TO ABUSE THEIR WIVES!” Imagine the attention that would bring to the neighborhood. By the way, was the sermon recorded? I’m guessing probably not. 😉

  50. Darlene wrote:

    Except that the Patriarchalists (I know, not a word, but I’ll invent it), say that women are not created in the image of God, but in the image of man.

    I think among certain strains of Reconstructionists, women are viewed as needing an intermediary other than Christ to be her “covering.” That was also Gothard’s view. I can’t remember what I’ve heard them say about the origin of the image of God in women. The Ware/Grudem/Piper/Dever school says that the woman’s imaging of God is derivative from the male and that the woman is the man’s glory while the man is God’s glory. Needless to say, I think they are seriously wrong about all of this.

  51. Max wrote:

    Sopwith wrote:
    Has Patterson changed his tune?
    Yes. And so has Dr. Frank Page, President and Chief Executive Officer, Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention. Author of “Trouble With The Tulip: A Closer Examination of The Five Points of Calvinism,” Dr. Page was once a strong voice attempting to halt the proliferation of New Calvinism within SBC. SBC’s non-Calvinist leadership no longer sound the alarm; they have surrendered to the movement. They, instead, call for unity … but can two distinctly different theologies of God’s plan of salvation really co-exist in a single denomination? Within a few short years, the SBC will be largely Calvinized. Evangelism and mission of a once-great denomination will never be the same again.

    And the question would be: Why have they surrendered? How does it benefit them to do so? Is it the large number of Neo-Cals adding to the membership of the SBC, which makes it look like the SBC is growing? Is money connected to this growth, which somehow benefits the leaders? If I had been a member of the SBC, and Calvinism infiltrated its ranks, I would have been outta there. Neo-Cals have an agenda – it’s called sheep stealing. Convert all those Biblically illiterate Christians to Calvinism. That is their mission field. After convincing them of the TULIP, the next step is convince them of Patriarchy and call it a primary doctrine that directly effects one’s salvation.

  52. Nancy2 wrote:

    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!

    Nancy I will pray that God will open your husbands eye’s to the ‘untruth’ in these Churches. And I will pray for God’s guidance on both of your lives so that it will be the Holy Spirit, not your husband, that leads you to the Church where Jesus would have you worship.

  53. Darlene wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    @ Victorious:
    Our Sunday school teacher made the “Jezebel” remarks. I was appalled at all of the “amens” that accompanied his remarks!!!
    Was it all the men that mouthed the “amens” or did some of the *submissive* wives, not willing to be called Jezebels, mouth *amen* as well? Man, there is just no way I could have been quiet in that room. They would have deemed me a Jezebel and tossed me out!

    One submissive wife said amen. She happens to be a preacher’s daughter!

  54. rhondajeannie wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!
    Nancy I will pray that God will open your husbands eye’s to the ‘untruth’ in these Churches. And I will pray for God’s guidance on both of your lives so that it will be the Holy Spirit, not your husband, that leads you to the Church where Jesus would have you worship.

    Thank you, and bless you , Rhonda. I can’t see me staying at this church, even if leaving it destroys what’s left of our marriage.

  55. I just posted a reply to Lori Alexander at her blog, “Always Learning” encouraging women to put up with profanity and verbal abuse by a non-Christian husband. I wonder if she will post my comment.

  56. Nancy2 wrote:

    rhondajeannie wrote:
    Nancy2 wrote:
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!
    Nancy I will pray that God will open your husbands eye’s to the ‘untruth’ in these Churches. And I will pray for God’s guidance on both of your lives so that it will be the Holy Spirit, not your husband, that leads you to the Church where Jesus would have you worship.
    Thank you, and bless you , Rhonda. I can’t see me staying at this church, even if leaving it destroys what’s left of our marriage.

    Rhonda, I would encourage you to stand firm and not go back to that church. That misogynist teaching is toxic and you will be setting yourself up to be bullied and abused in the name of God. You can’t control what your husband will do, but you still have the freedom to do what is right. Abuse cannot be justified simply because the name of God is attached to it. That is what Lori Alexander’s blog is all about; accepting abuse in the name of God and Christianity. Every time a woman allows herself to be bullied or demeaned, she is suppressing the Spirit of truth, and her person will be adversely affected. Eventually the women in that church will learn to suppress any resistance at such a twisted teaching, and thereby make themselves open to being bullied and abused, further enabling their bully husbands to continue in the cycle of abuse. At that stage, it is much harder to leave.

  57. Darlene wrote:

    Rhonda, I would encourage you to stand firm and not go back to that church.

    Hi Darlene, I was actually responding to Nancy2 however your comments, except for the one about my husband, is highly appropriate for my experience with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. I have two blog posts on this site about my experience which still continues – lawyer to lawyer. I am not going back as an adherent but I am certainly going back to see people held accountable for their actions. This includes the Minister, an Elder, the Church Auditor and three board members.

    All who read this comment please pray for me as I finally have ‘a voice’. I am not doing this for me as I no longer attend a Presbyterian Church but I am doing this for all the women who have been hurt by the Presbyterian Church of Australia which has very close ties to the CBMW.

    Here is a link to my first blog post:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/02/27/mrs-rhonda-j-aubert-vs-the-presbyterian-church-of-australia-a-case-study/

  58. Mark wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    @ rhondajeannie:
    Domestic violence is illegal here, too. But often it goes unreported.
    We have only been going to our current church for 1 1/2 years, so there is still much I don’t know about the people. It is the 4th SBC church that I have belonged to, and it is the strictest on women. An educated adult female is not allowed to speak in the adult Sunday school classes or at business meetings, but 9-year-old boys can lead prayer and preach from the pulpit!!! From what I have seen, many of the men are very condescending towards women. One of the men makes fun of my husband because I am the one who usually drives to church!
    I don’t believe women should tithe. We are not true members, anyway.
    I’m worried that my husband will decide to move on to an even more neo-cal or fundamental church!
    Forgive me for asking these questions. Are women allowed to vote at church meetings at this SBC church? Reason I ask this question is because most SBC churches allow women suffrage within the church. You aren’t allowed to lead prayer. What attracted you and your husband to this church one and a half years ago? Are there other evangelical churches in your area other than SBC? Reason I am asking is because there are some areas of South where the SBC is practically the only church, so you could be going to a more strict church if you leave your present church. I attended a church where a woman was teaching Sunday school with mixed sexes. I was surprised because her husband attended Criswell seminary under Patterson. Women can pray in this church. Criswell allowed women to pray in church. Criswell allowed his wife to teach a wonderful mixed Sunday School class. This new generation is following the maxim of becoming more conservative in some ways than previous generations. Man makes fun of you driving car to church? Maybe this mans ideal is Saudi Arabia as far as women driving cars?

    I am a Kentuckian. It is SBC baptist or nothin’. My husband chose this church. Women are allowed to vote, but not speak, in business meetings. Before the “business” meetings, there is a men’s meeting — that’s where the church business is really done. Women can’t pray, or even read a Bible verse aloud.

    Hey, do any of you know where a girl can buy a burka in southern Kentucky or northern Tennessee??? Say, within a 75 mi radius of Ft. Campbell. I’ll put on a burka and go back to that Sunday school class for shock effect!

  59. @ Nancy2:
    Oh my, that is way to funny. You have a gift, a sense of humor. I hope your husband realizes you are a lucky man. As you search for churches, you might be surprised, evenAlso don’t be afraid of trying an African American church.

  60. Sorry my iPad sent the message before I checked my grammar. I really wrote some bad grammar. Your husband is a lucky man, and don’t be afraid to try some churches that cross the racial divide. You will get fed at these churches. I have been fed at these churches and I am SBC by background. God bless you!

  61. Darlene wrote:

    And by the way, I think raising children is an honorable calling. But the problem with this sort of thinking among Pats/Comps, is that it shuts out an entire class of women – those who remain single, those who are unable to have children, those who choose not to have children for whatever reasons. And this particular class of women is of a larger percentage today than ever. My daughter, who is in her 30’s, is not yet married and may very well never be married.

    Yep. I had thought I’d be married, but I still find myself single in my 40s. I’ve never married.

    Never had kids (I’m celibate). There is no room for women such as myself in complementarianism.

    They are all about wives and mothers, even though the New Testament says very positive things about staying or being single.

  62. Mark wrote:

    Sorry my iPad sent the message before I checked my grammar. I really wrote some bad grammar. Your husband is a lucky man, and don’t be afraid to try some churches that cross the racial divide. You will get fed at these churches. I have been fed at these churches and I am SBC by background. God bless you!

    Thank you! I used to be a grades 7-12 math teacher. I’ve also tutored some college math students. And, I’ve taken a couple of courses at a Bible college. But at this church, I feel like a domesticated animal!
    As far as having been I fed: Mark, darlin’, you must be confused. At SBC churches, men do the feeding and the women are the ones getting fed! The CBMW said so!

  63. Nancy2 wrote:

    Mark wrote:
    Sorry my iPad sent the message before I checked my grammar. I really wrote some bad grammar. Your husband is a lucky man, and don’t be afraid to try some churches that cross the racial divide. You will get fed at these churches. I have been fed at these churches and I am SBC by background. God bless you!
    Thank you! I used to be a grades 7-12 math teacher. I’ve also tutored some college math students. And, I’ve taken a couple of courses at a Bible college. But at this church, I feel like a domesticated animal!
    As far as having been I fed: Mark, darlin’, you must be confused. At SBC churches, men do the feeding and the women are the ones getting fed! The CBMW said so!

    Except for potluck!

    Do what you have to do for your sanity.

  64. Jeff S wrote:

    I do not like being accused of believing in a “false Gospel” because you and I disagree on a non-essential piece of doctrine.

    On the flip side, I was told by a 20 year old punk Bible school student (3 of my 5 kids are older than that and I had “supervised” him on a high school mission trip 4 years ago) that I ascribe to the semi-Pelagian heresy of Universalism for failing to recognize that Calvinism’s Limited Atonement = True Christianity.

  65. Nancy2 wrote:

    I am a Kentuckian. It is SBC baptist or nothin’. My husband chose this church. Women are allowed to vote, but not speak, in business meetings. Before the “business” meetings, there is a men’s meeting — that’s where the church business is really done. Women can’t pray, or even read a Bible verse aloud.

    Hey, do any of you know where a girl can buy a burka in southern Kentucky or northern Tennessee??? Say, within a 75 mi radius of Ft. Campbell. I’ll put on a burka and go back to that Sunday school class for shock effect!

    Several conservative Christian men that I know, who go to churches in Europe (one has been an elder for more than 40 years), have said that they don’t know what has become of American Christianity because it has more in common now with radical Islam’s teachings than with our freedom in Christ (including women’s freedom in Christ).

  66. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Ivan:
    I don’t know how old you are and whether you predate this now-universal-in-the-conservative-church notion of “roles.” But if you can think about *relationships* rather than *roles* I think you may start to see things in a different light. Christ is re-ordering all of our relationships along Kingdom lines, but we are not called to overthrow things. We are to be transformed, and in so doing, our relationships will be transformed and our culture will be transformed. Like leaven and not like lightning. The Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and the other religious types were all about proper execution of “roles” but Jesus had a lot to say to them about role-playing. I think Jesus wants us to be real and authentic imitators of him and not mimics of other men. Or women. That is what I’ve seen way too much of. Men who mimic their mentors/heroes and parrot their talking points. It is scary when you see it up close.

    I think there should be Christian role-playing for Comp. gamers who are frustrated with Feminism. They could role play being the Servant/Leader/Master to a Submissive Wife. They could even design the kind of woman they want down to hair color, body type, voice, etc. This way they could work out their frustrations, especially if they are living with a non-Comp wife who they consider to be rebellious.

  67. Velour wrote:

    Several conservative Christian men that I know, who go to churches in Europe (one has been an elder for more than 40 years), have said that they don’t know what has become of American Christianity because it has more in common now with radical Islam’s teachings than with our freedom in Christ (including women’s freedom in Christ).

    Food for thought:
    http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2015/jul/25/handful-chattanoogbaptists-visit-local-mosque/316424/
    “Several of the visitors, who asked that their church not be identified because not everyone was in agreement with them visiting, said they were struck by how similar the [Islamic] service was to the Christian messages they are used to hearing.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/woman-journey-from-chattanooga-to-isis#.wmDlewyxJ
    What is it about this woman’s “Evangelical” upbringing that made it so easy for her wholeheartedly embrace radical Islam and follow an unknown man halfway across the world?

  68. rhondajeannie wrote:

    @ Nancy2
    ‘he told the men that if any of them has a wife who is a “Jezebel”, he needs to do whatever he has to to get her in line and get her soul saved. He said that if a husband has to use a boot to get his wife to straighten up, so be it’.
    In Australia domestic violence is against the law. Is it against the law in southern Kentucky? If it is you should report this person to the police for advocating that people break the law.

    Just saw this comment right now. Right on, Rhonda! That’s why I asked if the teaching was taped. If not, they could do the ole soft-shoe and pretend that they didn’t really say that. Or, that really wasn’t what they meant.

  69. Darlene wrote:

    That’s why I asked if the teaching was taped. If not, they could do the ole soft-shoe and pretend that they didn’t really say that. Or, that really wasn’t what they meant.

    I know what that one is like. It wasn’t really ‘fraudulent behaviour’ it was just an administration procedural infraction. And I am to believe this because I am a women. However, I am also a professional bookkeeper and they put everything in writing.

  70. muzjik wrote:

    Jeff S wrote:
    I was told by a 20 year old punk Bible school student (3 of my 5 kids are older than that and I had “supervised” him on a high school mission trip 4 years ago) that I ascribe to the semi-Pelagian heresy of Universalism for failing to recognize that Calvinism’s Limited Atonement = True Christianity.

    I would ask him “what planet are you from?” I doubt he could even explain what he was accusing you of? I see much arrogance from this neo Calvinist sect. Neo Calvinists all want to fix what isn’t broken and reinvent the wheel. 3 of 5 SBC seminaries are now controlled by Neocalvinists. I know a young one who intends to study at one of these Calvinist seminaries. I want to tell him “please don’t” and direct him to the two that aren’t yet under Calvinist control. I don’t quite know how to tell someone I think they are making a terrible mistake. And when they get out of seminary they have been indoctrinated into a cult and spout insults from another planet. Ugh!

  71. rhondajeannie wrote:

    Darlene wrote:
    Rhonda, I would encourage you to stand firm and not go back to that church.
    Hi Darlene, I was actually responding to Nancy2 however your comments, except for the one about my husband, is highly appropriate for my experience with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. I have two blog posts on this site about my experience which still continues – lawyer to lawyer. I am not going back as an adherent but I am certainly going back to see people held accountable for their actions. This includes the Minister, an Elder, the Church Auditor and three board members.
    All who read this comment please pray for me as I finally have ‘a voice’. I am not doing this for me as I no longer attend a Presbyterian Church but I am doing this for all the women who have been hurt by the Presbyterian Church of Australia which has very close ties to the CBMW.
    Here is a link to my first blog post:
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/02/27/mrs-rhonda-j-aubert-vs-the-presbyterian-church-of-australia-a-case-study/

    Rhonda, I just read Part I here on TWW. Could you give me a link for Part II?

  72. Except for potluck!

    Yeah, My broccoli salad, blackberry cobbler, and vanilla-gingered carrots always go over big. My husband jokingly tries to take credit, so I tell him to share his recipes with everyone!

    We have a potluck (homecoming) dinner this Sunday. Gotta think about that one. There are people there whom I do love, but some others seem to put a black cloud over everything.

  73. Okay, no earthquakes ….. No atomic bombs exploding Kentucky tonight.

    I told my husband that I am not going back into that “Jezebel” classroom. He didn’t say anything. (On the way home from church, I was doing 70mph in a 55mph on curvy, hilly country roads — he knew!).
    He’s known for a while that I’m not happy at that church. There are some great people there that I would hate to leave. But, there are just too many bad apples in the mix. My mouth is going to get the best of me yet around those bad apples. I had to bite my tongue Sunday to keep from asking that teacher if he wanted to be buried with his boots on!
    The Sunday school classes are not taped. I wish they were …. I’d get a copy and play it for the entire church just so I could see what the reactions were!

    I flatly confronted my husband about the John Piper book.
    I started by looking him squarely in the eye and asking him if he is a neo-cal. He was in shock that I would ask such a question. He wanted to know where I got the idea, so I told him a little bit about The Pied Piper. He had absolutely no knowledge about Piper. He said he just bought the book because one of his classmates from the Bible college recommended it to him. An under the radar neo-cal, maybe? Good thing my retired Special Forces husband had a hardheaded, redneck wife that won’t be subjugated!

    We need TWW to keep plodding away to get information out about people like Piper, Grudem, Driscoll, etc!!!! GO DEEBS!

  74. Nancy2 wrote:

    Okay, no earthquakes ….. No atomic bombs exploding Kentucky tonight.
    I told my husband that I am not going back into that “Jezebel” classroom. He didn’t say anything. (On the way home from church, I was doing 70mph in a 55mph on curvy, hilly country roads — he knew!).
    He’s known for a while that I’m not happy at that church. There are some great people there that I would hate to leave. But, there are just too many bad apples in the mix. My mouth is going to get the best of me yet around those bad apples. I had to bite my tongue Sunday to keep from asking that teacher if he wanted to be buried with his boots on!
    The Sunday school classes are not taped. I wish they were …. I’d get a copy and play it for the entire church just so I could see what the reactions were!
    I flatly confronted my husband about the John Piper book.
    I started by looking him squarely in the eye and asking him if he is a neo-cal. He was in shock that I would ask such a question. He wanted to know where I got the idea, so I told him a little bit about The Pied Piper. He had absolutely no knowledge about Piper. He said he just bought the book because one of his classmates from the Bible college recommended it to him. An under the radar neo-cal, maybe? Good thing my retired Special Forces husband had a hardheaded, redneck wife that won’t be subjugated!
    We need TWW to keep plodding away to get information out about people like Piper, Grudem, Driscoll, etc!!!! GO DEEBS!

    Hooray! Be sure to do a lot of background investigation before you get involved in another church. Call the church and talk to the pastor. Ask if they believe in Comp/Pat. That way you can weed out a lot of churches in advance.

  75. @ Darlene:
    Gen. 2:22. And the rib, from which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her to the man.
    I’ve brought my nieces and a few other kids to church several times, but that doesn’t make them property of the church.

    I’d like to add that: in Gen. 2:19, it says that God brought all of the animals to Adam “to see what he would call them”. In Gen. 2:22, God brought the woman to the man. In Gen. 2:23, the man names the woman. Nowhere does it say that God brought the woman to the man “to see what he would call” her. Either that instruction was carried over from the animals, Adam assumed it carried over, or Adam just took it upon himself to name her.

  76. Darlene wrote:

    Hooray! Be sure to do a lot of background investigation before you get involved in another church. Call the church and talk to the pastor. Ask if they believe in Comp/Pat. That way you can weed out a lot of churches in advance.

    The pastor who just retired from this church has only been there for 4 years. This pastor had intended to retire when this church hired him as interim pastor. Both his and his wife’s families and my family go way back. They are good people. My husband thought the church would be … well … like the pastor and his family. But that is most definitely not always the case. They are searching for a new pastor now.

    Next time, I will talk to the pastor AND the deacons. I’ll take a notepad with a list of questions. If they won’t talk to a woman, or if I don’t like what they have to say or the way they say it, I’m movin’ on.

  77. @ Nancy2:
    My take is that the man recognises her as human, like he is, and his female counterpart, like he had seen with the animals, rather than actually naming her. We are told he names her Eve only after they have been expelled from the Garden.

  78. Nancy2 wrote:

    I am a Kentuckian. It is SBC baptist or nothin’.

    Whoa now. I am originally from KY but not from your area of KY and back in the day and where we were women certainly did participate in business meetings and do a whole lot of other church stuff. And there are other options than baptist in KY. I say this because there has been some negative comment about KY in the past on this blog by various people which was not accurate or fair. Your KY and my KY may well have been different, but let’s not just bad mouth KY.

  79. Nancy2 wrote:

    I am a Kentuckian. It is SBC baptist or nothin’.

    There are Baptist churches in Kentucky that used to be SBC but when the SBC went toward CBMW, etc., chose to affiliate with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, where most of the churches have a traditional Baptist theology and polity. There is a Kentucky state CBF organization and they can possibly help with finding a Baptist church more likely not be be patriarchalist. http://www.kybf.org/partner-churches/

  80. @ Arce:
    And some are dually aligned, as in maintaining a relationship with the SBC and SBC-related state organization while also aligning with the CBF.

  81. @ Serving Kids In Japan:
    That makes sense. I guess what you’re getting at is that the main point of the passage is unity, not who is analogous to Christ and who is analogous to the church. And with the concept of unity, you get a portrait of the Gospel where husband and wife serve each other to the point of even dying for each other just like how Christ died for us. I will still need to think of the egal interpretation more. My own instincts are egal so I’m hoping to think of this issue in a non-biased manner. But it does seem that I can be egal even with Eph 5. I’m already somewhat convinced by egal interpretations of Gen 1-3, 1 Cor 11, and 1 Tim 2 so perhaps I’m already on the way to becoming an egal. As a side note, I don’t understand where comps get the idea that 1 Cor 14:34-35 is about judging prophecy when nothing in the passage implies that.

    That does raise an interesting issue. I’ve seen many people point out that healthy egal marriages and healthy comp marriages actually end up looking similar if not the same (egals can of course question if comps are really being consistent with their principles). I guess what is common for these marriages is a unity between husband and wife (and no subjugation of the wife in the comp marriage). I do think one can nuance the comp concept of headship so that no subjugation of the wife is implied. But hey, I’m a single male (with no prospect for marriage anytime soon) so what do I know?

  82. Ivan wrote:

    I guess what you’re getting at is that the main point of the passage is unity, not who is analogous to Christ and who is analogous to the church.

    The analogy gets too broadly drawn, and that’s where we get into trouble. The topic Paul was addressing was not who is in authority over whom. He was addressing what life in the Spirit looks like. Also consider the cultural context of the Ephesian church and what their likely mindset would be. Women did not submit to males in Ephesus. Marriage was an economic arrangement and not one of love. So, how likely would it be for a husband in Ephesus to truly love and care for his wife in the way that Christ loves and cares for his church? How likely would it be for a woman steeped in the female supremacy cult at Ephesus to think about yielding to her husband?

    I do not think it is possible to nuance “headship” teaching as it is taught today. The premise is that God ordained two separate classes of human beings. The “headship” teaching, aside from being contrived, divides males and females and discourages them from relying on the Holy Spirit to seek unity between them. It enshrines and elevates the effects of the Fall in that men are encouraged to rule over their wives and are taught that their wives by nature wish to dominate them. The women are taught that men are either shirkers or brutes who would not behave reasonably without the System being enforced on them. There is no place for the Holy Spirit because the System has supplanted him in the lives of husbands and wives. The teaching is rotten at its core, and as many have observed, it is a bitter root that defiles many. Its leaves do not need to be trimmed; the bitter root needs to be dug out and burned.

    The idea is not to turn from one system to another system like egalitarianism. The idea is to return to what God designed in the beginning, in the actual texts rather than in the fanciful eisegesis and illogical “reasoning” of the Comps. The idea is to restore both the Kingdom of Christ over his church rather than the Kingdom of men that we see currently and also to restore the honor to the Holy Spirit who is the one who works in us to be conformed to the image of Christ and so to be in unity with one another.

  83. okrapod wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    I am a Kentuckian. It is SBC baptist or nothin’.
    Whoa now. I am originally from KY but not from your area of KY and back in the day and where we were women certainly did participate in business meetings and do a whole lot of other church stuff. And there are other options than baptist in KY. I say this because there has been some negative comment about KY in the past on this blog by various people which was not accurate or fair. Your KY and my KY may well have been different, but let’s not just bad mouth KY.

    I’m not bad mouthing Kentucky. (Actually, I guess I’m badmouthing the misogynists that control the churches in my area.) I live in Todd County … very rural. I was raised in baptist churches. I don’t know of any Baptist church within 50 miles of here that does not belong to the SBC. We do have Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Pentecostal within 30 miles. I loved the church I belonged to when I was between the ages of 14 and 20. But they hired a new pastor who brought in men who changed things — sound familiar???

    There is one church that I loved, only 8 miles from my house. Women are actually treated like humans there, and not some inferior subo-species. We left there in 2011 because my husband didn’t like one of the men there! …..then another church, and now another church. My husband was saved in 2004. He didn’t really start getting into Bible study and serving God until late 2009. He is just beginning to understand that no matter where you go, houses of God included, there are going to be at least one misguided idiot to deal with. Instead of working to correct existing problems, he is trying to find the perfect church, and that won’t exist until Jesus splits the eastern sky. At any rate, the church that is 8 miles from here has hired a new pastor since we left it, so I don’t know what it’s like there now.

    In 2011, my husband and I attended a 3 day church planter conference in Louisville, headed by Richard Land. I was one of 2 women who attended. We were excluded from all discussions and participation in team projects.

  84. muzjik wrote:

    On the flip side, I was told by a 20 year old punk Bible school student (3 of my 5 kids are older than that and I had “supervised” him on a high school mission trip 4 years ago) that I ascribe to the semi-Pelagian heresy of Universalism for failing to recognize that Calvinism’s Limited Atonement = True Christianity.

    Inner Party youth doubleplusduckspeak INGSOC?

  85. Nancy2 wrote:

    Darlene wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    @ Victorious:
    Our Sunday school teacher made the “Jezebel” remarks. I was appalled at all of the “amens” that accompanied his remarks!!!
    Was it all the men that mouthed the “amens” or did some of the *submissive* wives, not willing to be called Jezebels, mouth *amen* as well? Man, there is just no way I could have been quiet in that room. They would have deemed me a Jezebel and tossed me out!

    One submissive wife said amen. She happens to be a preacher’s daughter!

    Sounds like she was very well trained.
    “Speak!”
    “BARK! BARK!”
    “Good girl!”

  86. muzjik wrote:

    On the flip side, I was told by a 20 year old punk Bible school student (3 of my 5 kids are older than that and I had “supervised” him on a high school mission trip 4 years ago) that I ascribe to the semi-Pelagian heresy of Universalism for failing to recognize that Calvinism’s Limited Atonement = True Christianity.

    After doing my homework on Pelagius, I’m convinced that he got a bad rap by Augustine and the other big-whigs of his time. I found that his thinking parallels my own in many ways but not all.

  87. Darlene wrote:

    Nancy2, what about a Nazarene church? I saw some listings of them in Todd County.

    Yes, I forgot …. There is one about 10 miles from me. BTW, our current church is almost 15 miles away!

  88. @ Nancy2:
    They are historically Arminian/Wesleyan denomination but use the same caution you would with an SBC church because Neo Calvinism is showing up in unusual places.

  89. Muff Potter wrote:

    After doing my homework on Pelagius, I’m convinced that he got a bad rap by Augustine and the other big-whigs of his time. I found that his thinking parallels my own in many ways but not all.

    Me too. However, most of what we know about Pelagius comes from his detractors and what they wrote about his beliefs. People got in big trouble if they read him so most of his stuff was destroyed. So to make him the heretic boogeyman based upon the word of guys like Augustine is unfair and we should know better now. And the only reason I know any of this is because the YRR kept calling me a Pelagian heretic so I had to find out as much as I could about the guy. :o)

  90. Gram3 wrote:

    The idea is not to turn from one system to another system like egalitarianism.

    Exactly. We are to look to giftedness for functions within the Body . Not gender roles. Not authority for either gender.

  91. @ Nancy2:

    Gee whiz, Nancy2! I have never been in an SBC church that bad in my life. I am out of the SBC now but even my last church had women voting, deacons and running the business meetings. I don’t expect it to last now that the YRR has power.

    And I have a burqua brought back to me from Afghanistan about 8 years ago and given to me as a tongue in cheek Christmas present. It is the full deal complete with a threaded grid for your eyes. Have you ever tried to play The Ministers Cat with a full burqa on? :o)

  92. Lydia wrote:

    @ Nancy2:
    Gee whiz, Nancy2! I have never been in an SBC church that bad in my life. I am out of the SBC now but even my last church had women voting, deacons and running the business meetings. I don’t expect it to last now that the YRR has power.
    And I have a burqua brought back to me from Afghanistan about 8 years ago and given to me as a tongue in cheek Christmas present. It is the full deal complete with a threaded grid for your eyes. Have you ever tried to play The Ministers Cat with a full burqa on? :o)

    This is THE worst SBC church I’ve seen. My husband loves it, but he can’t see it through a woman’s eyes. Women can vote — meaning we can silently raise our hands when the man on the floor gives us permission to do so. The “Men’s Meeting” is the real business meeting. The “Business Meeting” is just a farce to keep within the church covenant. They have a “Women’s” Sunday school class, but a man teaches that!

    I’d have to have a pair of pants on beneath the burqua, just to be decent! Oh yeah, and a pocket knife in the pants pocket!

    I’m thinking about going with a suit instead of a burqua. I have very short hair already, and I can steal a tie from my husband. I also have a pair of high-heeled, very pointy-toed boots that I can wear with my suit.

  93. @ Nancy2:

    Another church you might find that is more open to women participating is the Disciples — Christian Church. We know at least one woman who is the senior pastor at a Disciples of Christ church, also known as the Christian Church.

  94. @ Nancy2:
    Nancy2, I prefer women who have opinions and feelings more than the idealized step ford wives. This should be viewed as much of an insult, like Jezebel. It seems this is becoming the ideal, to the detriment of evangelicalism.

    I come from a family of strong, independent women and am the better for it. I think it is wonderful if women choose the awesome job of homemaker. Just don’t take away their voice please. And don’t take away their choice of a vocation if they so desire. If I were to look for a model in the human realm, I would turn to St. Jerome, AJ Gordon, and Roger Nicole. These men loved women, and valued their voice.

  95. @ Mark:

    Stepford wife …. Never! A person can’t be reprogrammed, like a computer hard drive, and survive! (Well, unless they still do lobotomies.). But that’s what a lot of these comp/pat men expect from women. My husband changed a lot after he retired from the military. He became one of those men after we had been married for 16 years. We went through a stage when he tried to turn me into the stereotypical SBC “preacher’s wife”. ( It didn’t take — we almost went our separate ways.). We changed churches 4 times …. Each time to a church that was more restrictive with women. I hope my husband is coming out of that comp/pat trance, but only time will tell.

    I can’t teach full time anymore, but I am still at my best when I’m working with teenagers and young adults, whether it’s teaching mathematics or God’s word. (I love math! It’s my favorite subject! I think it’s Gods favorite subject, too! Why else would there be a book in the Bible called “Numbers”!!! Heh, it always worked on the kids at the Christian school.). When I teach, I really don’t even think about the sex of my students. Who cares which ones are boys and which ones are girls, as long as they behave and learn!

    I have no “gifts” that are of any use at our current church, unless you count cooking for fellowship meals!
    I’m going to see if women are allowed to participate in the “Women’s” class, or if it’s just another “learn in silence and subjection” class. Just keeping a seat warm is killing me! Here lately, I’ve been skipping church quite a bit — not good. I may have to find another church, with or without my husband.

    Thank you for website pamphlet. Tomorrow, I’m going to see if I can download it or print it out!
    And thank you to everyone for the suggestions!

  96. Nancy2 wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    They have a “Women’s” Sunday school class, but a man teaches that!

    It must be because they don’t want the womenfolk being alone with each other. Can’t trust them females. Never know what they might cook up without a man present.

  97. Darlene wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    Lydia wrote:
    They have a “Women’s” Sunday school class, but a man teaches that!
    It must be because they don’t want the womenfolk being alone with each other. Can’t trust them females. Never know what they might cook up without a man present.

    Yeah, a woman teacher might twist scripture, like the men have room to talk!

  98. @ Darlene:

    In most SBC churches, there was a WMU, Women’s Missionary Union, group, all female. It was the major fund-raising arm for missions through two mission offerings. A Lottie Moon Christmas offering for foreign missions (named after a single SBC woman missionary to China around the turn of the century past; and the Annie Armstrong offering for home missions, named after Moon’s friend who supported her work and also was busy helping plant churches in the U.S.

    My mom was the state WMU president in the early ’60s. Traveled in her home state and adjacent states, conducting training, speaking before conferences and conventions of women. It was an independent organization of local church women, local inter-church (county level) organizations, state-level and national level organizations, all democratically elected leadership, promoting missions work.

    In recent times, their has been a movement to replace WMU with “women’s ministries” under the control of the pastors/staff of the church, rather than independent and democratic. And the SBC has basically taken over the two mission offerings.

    Where I grew up, it was considered a mission field for SBC. And the WMU was basically the group that organized to help start new churches in areas were SBC churches were few and far between. Holding two week vacation bible schools in areas sometimes as far away from home as more than an hour’s drive. Hosting college student summer missionaries in their homes. Attending a week of revival meetings in the target areas. At least one every summer, and usually two, in addition to the one in their home church.

    In many parts of the country, had it not been for dedicated women leading the way, there would not have been an SBC church!

  99. @ Arce:

    That push for the SBC to take over the WMU has been going on for 30+ years, now. The SBC is not only taking over the offerings, it is also controlling how much of that money is allowed to the WMU.
    Our church has a WMU. The ladies meet, pray, pass out magazines, and give offerings once a month. That money goes to the SBC. They also get together once a year to make pillowslip dresses for orphan girls in Africa. I have two sewing machines, but count me out. Let the men do the work since they want control and credit. If they want to fan out their peacock feathers and boast about what the SBC is doing in mission fields, let them earn the right, and not ride piggy back on the women that give the money and do the work!

    SBC = Southern Boys Club

  100. Nancy2 wrote:

    @ Arce:
    That push for the SBC to take over the WMU has been going on for 30+ years, now. The SBC is not only taking over the offerings, it is also controlling how much of that money is allowed to the WMU.

    Spreading the Word of Calvin (and building those Furtick Mansions) is expensive.

  101. Nancy2 wrote:

    SBC = Southern Boys Club

    60 years ago, wouldn’t a “Southern Boys Club” be marching around a burning cross wearing bedsheets?

  102. Mark wrote:

    If I were to look for a model in the human realm, I would turn to St. Jerome, AJ Gordon, and Roger Nicole. These men loved women, and valued their voice.

    Though St Jerome was said to be quite a character — the type who could walk into a room and antagonize everyone there within a minute or two. I heard the reason his bishop assigned him to translate the Bible into contemporary Latin was as much to keep him out of trouble as anything else.

  103. Nancy2 wrote:

    I can’t teach full time anymore, but I am still at my best when I’m working with teenagers and young adults, whether it’s teaching mathematics or God’s word. (I love math! It’s my favorite subject! I think it’s Gods favorite subject, too! Why else would there be a book in the Bible called “Numbers”!!! Heh, it always worked on the kids at the Christian school.). When I teach, I really don’t even think about the sex of my students. Who cares which ones are boys and which ones are girls, as long as they behave and learn!

    Loving Math is a gift from God! Teaching Math to high school students means you get an extra crown in heaven. :o)

    A few years back, some churches in the area teamed up with the public school system to provide volunteers to help kids with Math, etc. Of course Math was the biggest need. I wanted to involve my kids but they were not in public schools. The churches were great about welcoming us anyway. A retired engineer worked with them on Math and he was awesome. He even offered to work with them during the summer which we accepted. See, to me, that is a tiny part of the kingdom at work with real helps and using gifts wisely.

  104. Nancy2 wrote:

    They have a “Women’s” Sunday school class, but a man teaches that!

    A lot of churches won’t allow adult singles to teach adult singles classes. They get married people to do it.

  105. @ May:
    Wow, Nancy. Sounds as if you ought to have your husband bind your wrists in front of you with thick, theatrical rope, and put a gag in your mouth when you get out of your car in the church parking lot, and you can walk into church together and see what (if any) effect you have on the others there.

    Sort of a silent protest, illustrating the way things stand at that church.

    Puts me in mind of some of the things God had Jeremiah do, as object lessons.

  106. Gram3 wrote:

    Their reasoning goes like this: God, as Creator and Sovereign, can do as he wishes without creatures having standing to question him, even if he creates some merely to condemn them for his glory. Therefore, they conclude, that is what he does and, further, if he does not operate in that way, then he is abdicating his sovereignty to man and is forfeiting glory. Their supposedly neat scarf is missing some stitches and has some big holes to which they are oblivious.

    As you point out, there is so much more to God than raw power and might. But these men have another form of power religion, and the god they conceive fits within that system.

    This is the view of god that drove our teens away from the faith. They want nothing to do with the bible, or church, or christianity, or most christians, for that matter.

  107. Gram3 wrote:

    Ivan wrote:

    So they would speak of God as being perfectly just in damning us to hell for all eternity but being merciful and gracious enough to instead having Christ be punished in our place.

    Their reasoning goes like this: God, as Creator and Sovereign, can do as he wishes without creatures having standing to question him, even if he creates some merely to condemn them for his glory. Therefore, they conclude, that is what he does and, further, if he does not operate in that way, then he is abdicating his sovereignty to man and is forfeiting glory. Their supposedly neat scarf is missing some stitches and has some big holes to which they are oblivious.

    And what really breaks my heart is that my dh still believes this, and takes comfort, even, in this teaching. So very merciful and gracious, you know. Our response *ought* to be gratitude.

  108. refugee wrote:

    And what really breaks my heart is that my dh still believes this, and takes comfort, even, in this teaching. So very merciful and gracious, you know. Our response *ought* to be gratitude.

    I believe our response should be gratitude and I believe that a creature does not have standing to accuse the Creator. I do not believe that the God of Abraham delights in torturing his creations or that it brings him glory. At all. That is a pagan god, not the God who became a man to suffer and die for me and my sin. That kind of a God is so worthy of glory and gratitude and love and devotion. The other kind of god produces fear. Since he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father, I think that tells us what we need to know.

  109. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    SBC = Southern Boys Club
    60 years ago, wouldn’t a “Southern Boys Club” be marching around a burning cross wearing bedsheets?

    They lost that battle.

  110. refugee wrote:

    @ May:
    Wow, Nancy. Sounds as if you ought to have your husband bind your wrists in front of you with thick, theatrical rope, and put a gag in your mouth when you get out of your car in the church parking lot, and you can walk into church together and see what (if any) effect you have on the others there.
    Sort of a silent protest, illustrating the way things stand at that church.
    Puts me in mind of some of the things God had Jeremiah do, as object lessons.

    Collar and leash? I can borrow a rabies tag from one of the dogs. My husband can say things like, “heel, sit, stay, fetch …”

  111. Daisy wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    They have a “Women’s” Sunday school class, but a man teaches that!
    A lot of churches won’t allow adult singles to teach adult singles classes. They get married people to do it.

    For Salvation comes through Marriage Alone…

  112. Jeff S wrote:

    Whether you believe that repentance comes by your own free will or must be enabled by the Holy Spirit, that sounds like an intramural debate to me. I’m not saying it isn’t a serious or important question, but it’s still outside of the core of “the Gospel”

    That is not really the debate. Free willers also believe the Holy Spirit draws and convicts. The problem is response. Calvin taught we are totally unable to respond. Dead means totally unable. We elect have to be forced. And we were chosen before the world was created, Adam sinned or we were even born. It is all a done deal and we have no volition in the process at all.