Yes, I believe it does!

Find a healthy church and submit to its leadership.

And watch that leadership pretend they never knew you when their “leadership” causes calamity in your life.

Yes it does.
Just the same way as prosperity gospel theology attracts con artists and those who are vulnerable to them.

I wondered about this quandary when thinking about my spiritually abusive, IMO, former father-in-law. Did Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and its brand of theology create him or simply attract him? I think it was a little of both. It certainly gave him tools to more effectively screw with my head.

A HUGE problem with silence on these matters is how it enables abusers to hold onto a cloak of legitimacy as if God approves of their abusive ways (which He DOES NOT!). It breaks my heart than any domestic violence victim would be taught that God approves and supports the abuse. That’s a lie.

Loren Haas wrote:

Yes it does.
Just the same way as prosperity gospel theology attracts con artists and those who are vulnerable to them.

That is a most excellent, apt comparison right there.

Regarding the blog title:
“Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

I’d say yes. Like public fish markets attract stray cats or bread crumbs in a city park attract pigeons.

I’ve been thinking of writing a blog post about this at my Miss Daisy Flower blog. My folks were complementarians, and I was taught to believe in all it involves.

After my mother died, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. After doing some research, I figured out codependency was one of my biggest problems.

My mother was a severe codependent and taught me to be one as well. She was one due in part to being in a family where one parent was an alcoholic, but she also got the idea that God supposedly is into all that complementarianism entails.

I am not sure how much she got that from her Christian mother vs. churches she was raised in. But I got this stuff from my mother, the churches we went to, and Christian magazines and books I read growing up.

Anyway, when I began looking into codependency, I was struck by how similar it was to the stuff gender complementarians teach to women.

The two are about identical. Each belief set insists (and this is just a partial list of what they have in common): it’s wrong for a person to get her own needs met; you should be passive; having boundaries is selfish; always defer to other people, etc.

I learned from reading further (including in books about abuse) that many of those same qualities are irresistible cat nip to men who are seeking women to abuse, control, or manipulate.

I’d also like to add that

1. I too think that the majority of Christians are very ignorant about domestic violence and related topics.
And
2. The amount of victim blaming (with tinges of sexism to it) that goes on is also deeply troubling.

So many people on Christian sites that are covering this story are filled with people who are wanting to blame Naghmeh or blame women in general, or they just refuse that a preacher could be guilty of abusing his wife.

I’m seeing a lack of compassion by many of these Christians for women who are being abused by a significant other, which is very at odds with how respectful and compassionate Jesus Christ was towards women.

okrapod wrote:

@ Law Prof:
That is a seriously good comment. These people who want to be counter-cultural are letting the culture decide for them what is and is not important just like the people who try to mimic the culture.
Jesus kept saying follow me, keep my commandments, believe me and such. I think that doing that sometimes agrees with the culture and sometimes disagrees with the culture and sometimes it has noting to do with culture at all. But for sure, it does not let the culture call the shots as to what is important.

It is a good comment, so good, I won’t even post what I was going to say…

Daisy wrote:

I’d also like to add that
1. I too think that the majority of Christians are very ignorant about domestic violence and related topics.
And
2. The amount of victim blaming (with tinges of sexism to it) that goes on is also deeply troubling.

</blockquote
Two excellent points Daisy….excellent…

Nancy2 wrote:

1) What does submission transform into when it is mandated?

This is one of the things about complementarianism I don’t see how it works out.

If you wish to interpret the Bible in the manner complementarians do, the text is asking or instructing women to voluntarily submit, but I see a lot of male Christians (occasionally female, but usually male) demanding, arguing, and insisting to women on blogs (and in sermons) that women are to submit.

If you’re a Christian guy who thinks the Bible teaches this stuff, then let the Holy Spirit speak it to women as they are reading the text.

Let the Holy Spirit convict women on this score if it’s true or real. It seems to me that if you are a man, it’s not your place to “man-splain” the Bible’s ‘woman submit’ passages to women.

The other thing I don’t grasp: should a married woman refuse to submit to her husband (in the way comps teach submission), what then?

Do complementarians advocate the the husband lecture the wife, shame her, get the preacher at church to shame her, or beat her up when she refuses to submit?

This page kind of addresses that point too (under the bold faced heading on the page that reads, “Does God require that women obey men or not?”):

Control: The Reason The Gospel Coalition and CBMW Cannot Actually Condemn Spousal Abuse
http://fiddlrts.blogspot.com/2016/01/control-reason-gospel-coalition-and.html

Want to do something counter cultural? Join a cult and have every aspect of your life controlled by people with selfish motives. If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!

Daisy wrote:

If you wish to interpret the Bible in the manner complementarians do, the text is asking or instructing women to voluntarily submit, but I see a lot of male Christians (occasionally female, but usually male) demanding, arguing, and insisting to women on blogs (and in sermons) that women are to submit.
If you’re a Christian guy who thinks the Bible teaches this stuff, then let the Holy Spirit speak it to women as they are reading the text.

To me, this stuff just screams that there is NO communication between a married woman and God or the Holy Spirit. If a wife can only gracefully state her position, then she must submit to husband’s decision even if she disagrees (except when He tells her to commit an obvious sin, of course!), then the husband is God’s messenger to his wife??? God doesn’t “call” us women to use our gifts? Men determine what our gifts are, as well as when and where we may or may not use them? We are forced to put our faith in men. Do we become spiritually deaf and dumb when we get married?

Here’s a couple observations that maybe will be a little encouraging?

Maybe things are changing for the better. The fact that Naghmeh had the courage to stop, set limits, and speak up means more to me than the stupid comments I’ve seen from ignorant people.

Secondly, yes, a lot of comments are maddeningly ignorant. But maybe this is a lot of peoples’ first glimpse into these sort of issues. Maybe their eyes will be pried open just a bit and they will go on to learn and understand more. Maybe a seed has been planted that will eventually bear fruit.

I think some of these ignorant comments are also more about the person’s own cognitive dissonance as they are confronted with reality vs the image they had created of a hero in their own minds.

Stan wrote:

A few months ago I met Dee and she asked me what the 20-somethings think of gospel(TM) complementarianism, and I just didn’t know. But that’s what helped me see what it is – seeker-sensitive patriarchy.

Ooo. That is a great way to put it! That is exactly what it is. Piper takes credit for coining the word, complementarian. He even made up the spelling.

A new post is up at Phoenix Preacher / Michael Newnham. He gives this introduction — “Before we attempt to discern the things unknown, I think it would be wise to mark out what we do know” — and lists 10 points of what is known, even where questions remain. Worth a read:

http://michaelnewnham.com/?p=24544

“Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

They not only attract domestic abusers but the abusers soak up the teachings and become worse. I am now divorced after 25 years in an abusive marriage but that is exactly what happened in my own marriage. We were both involved in a legalistic para church organization before we were married, then went to several churches – all heavily complementarian – after we were married before settling down to the one we would attend for the majority of our marriage. Our marriage was in trouble from the beginning but the church only made things worse. Shortly after we we married, my husband told me that, if I ever crossed him, there would be “hair, teeth, and eyeballs all over the place” and they wouldn’t be his. Even as naive and codependent as I was back then, I was shocked and would have walked away from the relationship if I wasn’t already married. But, I was married, God hates divorce, my role was to submit, I had no where to go, and all of that, so I stayed. I didn’t know at the time that he was also a narcissist. I reached out to the pastor, who could have been in a great position to guide us newlyweds – or at least me since my husband probably wouldn’t have listened to healthy advice. But what did we get? The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice. Over the years, I watched my husband become more and more deceived and cruel. I would sit in sermons knowing he was going to take what he was hearing and use it as a weapon against me. Near the end of our marriage, he would say things that would make my head spin: “God put me in charge so I don’t need to know what you think about anything.” “As your husband, I am supposed to do whatever it takes to make you godly” (including physical abuse.) Note: “godly” is defined as “be like me”. “If you even think something different from me, you are being unsubmissive.” Someday, I’m going to compile a list of all the things he believed the Bible supported (NASV version only, though). At the time, I thought it was just him, that he was deep in deception. It wasn’t until I started reading TWW and met Dee and Deb that I realized that, sadly, there was a whole culture of people like my ex, not only in the church but leading the church, and that I wasn’t alone.

So as not to leave my story hanging, I grew up over time, dealt with my own stuff, and started setting boundaries. There were children involved and not the resources there are today so I felt I couldn’t leave. When I started telling my husband that, if he touched me or the children again, I would call 911, he took me seriously and left because “I was out of control.” I was out of control – his control! Anyway, that was 15+ years ago, I still have wounds that have not healed, and am only beginning to tell my story. I’m glad to have a safe place to put pieces of it out there. However, I am very glad Dee has 4 people in moderation right now. If any of the 4 of you in moderation are reading (and you know who you are), your comments and off topic derailments are hard to take as I’m trying to heal.

Lastly, Naghmeh is a strong, courageous, and wise woman. My heart goes out to her and the children. Naghmeh, you have done the right thing to protect your children and yourself. If there is one thing I could go back and do differently, it would be to leave much, much earlier for the sake of my children.

Uncle Dad wrote:

As has been pointed out several times, these people really don’t understand abuse. The area of abuse they most overlook is manipulation. The abusers know exactly which buttons to push to get the responses they desire. … Hmmm … sounds a bit like what passes for “preaching” in a lot of churches. Maybe that’s why so many church leaders just don’t get it.

“Under cover of Heaven’s gate
I. MANIPULATE.”
— Steve Taylor, “I Manipulate”

Owen Strachan: “In the church, woman-abusers are stringently disciplined.”

are they now.

looks like they are made pastors, Owen. And then celebrities.

Owen Strachan, i’ll be watching you closely in particular. To see how you respond to this situation.

In his excellent book, “Why Does He Do That?” Lundy Bancroft, who pioneered treatment for domestic abusers and help for their wives, says two things are part of every abuser’s world: 1) he feels a sense of entitlement and 2) there is cultural support for mistreatment of women. The broader US culture has lots of cultural support for mistreatment of women in our entertainment industry. However, Dee, you are right, that a complementarian Christian culture could very well provide the kind of cultural support that an abuser seeks—even if unintentionally. Imagine a guy with a sense of entitlement who hears that he’s “head of the household.” Where does that line of thinking lead in that kind of person? It’s a set-up for emotional abuse, even if physical abuse does not occur. Not all emotional abusers physically abuse, but all physical abusers emotionally abuse. So Christians who are sincere complementarians need to take seriously that their rhetoric provides the cultural cover that is needed for abuse to emerge. To counter that, there would have to be a very, very strong, ongoing drumbeat of speaking out against both emotional and physical abuse. I don’t see that happening. In fact, as an example of the opposite, Mark Driscoll who was known to be a bully to his staff and others in his congregation, didn’t have everything crumble around him for his emotional abuse of others, but rather plagiarism and financial issues began the downfall. His violent words about Petry and Meyer were said to his congregation and were on video. It was not all done in the dark. His TGC buddies didn’t publicly call him out on it and in fact, the victims reported that they reached out to Piper to mediate and he wouldn’t. Driscoll was a perfect role model for abusers. And they saw him get away with it.

This situation brings to mind Janet Mefferd’s producer who resigned over the MD-as-guest-on-talk-show-and-hard-questions debacle.

in her own words, “All I can share is that there is an evangelical celebrity machine that is more powerful than anyone realizes. You may not go up against the machine. That is all. Mark Driscoll clearly plagiarized and those who could have underscored the seriousness of it and demanded accountability did not. That is the reality of the evangelical industrial complex.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2013/12/05/ingrid-schlueter-resigns-from-janet-mefferd-show-over-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-controversy

i suspect allies with influence and power are very much needed in Naghmeh’s corner.

don’t know how all this will play out…

if necessary, my hope is that Boz Tchividjian, someone with clout and influence (& with his head seemingly screwed on right!), will stand strong in Naghmeh’s corner, and speak truth to power (as endowed in his relative, if necessary).

“The grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, Tchividjian made the comments in an interview with the Christian Post. He told the website that churches are guilty of sacrificing the safety and care of abuse victims “in order to protect the reputations of individuals and institutions”.

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/billy.grahams.grandson.on.josh.duggar.and.karen.hinkley.churches.must.protect.victims.not.offenders/55221.htm

A bit off-topic, but congrats to Dee and Deb for getting a mention over at Baptist News for their work in educating folks about CJ Mahaney and his sneaking into the SBC (WW mentioned about mid-point of the article). Your hard work is starting to get some deserved recognition by others:
https://baptistnews.com/culture/social-issues/item/30879-blogger-concerned-about-controversial-pastor-s-sbc-ties

Why would anyone want another person to be submissive in such a way as to give up their own personhood; now two people mutually agreeing to serve each other sounds a bit more like a relationship based on mutual respect. Seriously I don’t understand people like Mr. Wilson I truly don’t. And the “wordsmithing” that he uses it makes you want to sand paper your eyebrows off.

How can we expect the church or a world that's watching the church to respond any better when the celebrities of the Christian culture don't give a cr#p (ed.) about child sex abuse?

“Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

I’d like to ask: Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership CREATE Domestic Abusers?”

When I was a young woman, 30-40 years ago, churches taught young men and women that the man must rule (yeah, do it with love, but rule that roost young man!). Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you. The young woman would rather die than be insulted with being called “domineering.” So she swallowed her pride, her gifts, her personality and became a shadow. She was beaten by the stigma of being labeled “domineering.” Her kind husband became stern, harsh and, eventually, angry, finding himself forced into a role of “leader” in a marriage with this stranger who once was a vibrant girl.

It created a precarious predictament for those young men and women seeking to please the Lord.

His frustration is exposed as anger. Maybe violent at times. She does not stand up for herself in fear of dominating. A cycle of abuse is born.

Two decades later, the woman no longer able to abide by the false constraints of submission, bursts forth with a crisis of spirit, upsetting the long-established marital patterns. And survival of the marriage must be renegotiated,

I do not blame the woman. Not.one.iota. Yes she bought the lie through coercion. But whether her husband chose to vent his frustration with verbal abuse, or manipulative abuse, or threat of vilence, or physical violence, those are his choices to own.

Nevertheless, perhaps the abuser was CREATED by the false teachings.

I haven’t read all of the comments, so apologies if someone has already made this point.
It seems that two undisputed facts in the Abedini story are that 1) he plead guilty to domestic assault in 2007 and 2) he was ordained in 2008. Who in their right mind wants to “submit” to a system in which that can happen? Why should I trust “church leadership” if they are vetted no better than this?

Gary W wrote:

A man who views his wife through the lens of complementarian authority has reduced her to involuntary servitude, which is to say that he has objectified her.

Complemetarianism reduces a marriage to Power Struggle and the rules of Power Struggle are in effect:

Only two possible outcomes: His boot stamping on her face or her boot stamping on his. And the only way to avoid the second is to make sure of the first. Forever. Hold the Whip or Feel the Whip, nothing in between. And comps, MRAs, PUAs, just make sure that he who has the penis is he who Holds the Whip.

Law Prof wrote:

Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.

Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?

“Fiendishly countercultural”? More like, predictably status quo.

Leslie wrote:

This is for sure a spiritual battle.

Exactly Leslie! While we fix names to folks associated with the mess in church, there is no doubt a spirit behind the flesh, driving their behavior and consequences … and that spirit ain’t holy. The enemy of the church is still active on planet earth and he uses the weaknesses of men (including those in the pulpit) to bring reproach to the name of Christ and the true Church. The multitudes in organized church don’t realize this is indeed a spiritual battle for the souls of men, and thus don’t pray as they ought – the average church member seems satisfied to live without revival and do church without God. In that environment, anything is possible … and TWW continues to report the manifestation of that anything.

Caroline wrote:

I haven’t read all of the comments, so apologies if someone has already made this point.
It seems that two undisputed facts in the Abedini story are that 1) he plead guilty to domestic assault in 2007 and 2) he was ordained in 2008. Who in their right mind wants to “submit” to a system in which that can happen? Why should I trust “church leadership” if they are vetted no better than this?

You hit the nail on the head. There is a desensitization to what is corrupt. The concepts of right and wrong are turned upside down. You are to forget, forgive and move on. But we all know real change is grueling.

Burwell Stark wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.
Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?
“Fiendishly countercultural”? More like, predictably status quo.

Both. They live to be noticed by the Mohlers and Pipers. Be a speaker at the conferences and share a stage with the greats.

@ Abigail C:

I know very well a mega church pastor who gave a sociopathic narcissist a character reference to another church simply because he was afraid of him. That reference was affirmation to the sociopath who milked it against his wife in many ways because thousands of people revered the mega church pastor.

Pastors can be your worst enemy. They can even harm people because they want to appear neutral or fair. Or they are all into cheap repentance that thugs use for the moment. In this case, the great comp pastor who preaches protection of women was just scared.

Lydia wrote:

they want to appear neutral or fair.

If they refuse to take a position in the interest of being neutral or fair, harm will ensue. Even judges, who are expected to be impartial and fair, must ultimately take sides. S/he must make decisions and enter orders. Where I live, a judge who takes too long to decide a case can have their salary withheld. Unfortunately there is very little enforcement mechanism where cowardly and opportunistic “pastors” are concerned.

Blog title:
“Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

Why yes, it really does. Another indicator:

Does Douglas Wilson Teach That Unsubmissive Women Deserve Rape?
http://www.jorymicah.com/does-douglas-wilson-teach-that-unsubmissive-women-deserve-rape/

The author’s conclusion is that no, not exactly, but he comes very close to teaching that very thing. And she quotes Wilson as saying,

I began by saying that I am on the same team with Gospel Coalition complementarianism.

I’d say she is much too kind towards Wilson in her post. I think his views about “unsubmissive” women is a distinction without a real difference.

At the end of the day, Wilson is saying that unsubmissive women can, should, or will be raped, and so they do “deserve” it, they brought it on.

It’s much like the old argument that a woman who wore a short skirt or walked alone in the city at 2 in the morning was “asking” to be raped, or deserved it. It’s the same mentality.

On another note, not all women have husbands or fathers to submit to, so Wilson leaves such women out in the cold, as she discusses in her post.

But complementarianism does attract abusers or sexists like a moth to a flame – it gives them a supposedly biblical-sounding rationalization for treating women as though they are inferior to men.

Remnant wrote:

Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you. The young woman would rather die than be insulted with being called “domineering.”

That’s one thing among several that’s always bugged me about gender complementarian teaching. It assumes all women want power or to control men. Not me.

Over my life, I’ve not been comfortable being in charge of others or being a leader. I’m an introvert and play the part of wall flower the best. I am more comfortable being a follower.

I wish gender comps would stop taking their skewed teaching about women vis a vis Eve and acting as though all women are prone to X, Y, or Z. Because not all women fit their little box of how they assume all women to be.

Gary W wrote:

Because satisfaction cannot be derived from an object one owns, the complementarian husband will begin to commit abuse out of frustration and anger. He will also begin to attempt to fill his emptiness by looking to other women.

That parallels a secular book I read on the topic of submissive women. The therapist who wrote it shared a conversation she had with a guy who likes to control women.

Her male patient said he was at a place in his life where controlling women and taking advantage of them finally left him empty.

He said he finally realized he was all alone in life, and it bothered him. He wanted a true life partner, which he realized meant a woman who would stand up to him when he was wrong or a jerk.

Some men may think at first they would be thrilled with a totally passive, submissive wife, but after awhile, they may come to realize it leaves them all alone in the relationship, in life.

There was a sci-fi movie that came out years ago that illustrated this point:
Cherry 2000:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/

The guy in that movie thought he was happy with a totally compliant, passive robot girlfriend, but when the robot broke, he ends up meeting and getting into disagreements with a real woman.

There is a real give and take in their relationship, not a fake, hollow one-way submission on the part of the woman.

*spoiler*
He falls in love with the real woman in the course of the movie and doesn’t want a robot replacement any more.

Lydia wrote:

Pastors can be your worst enemy. They can even harm people because they want to appear neutral or fair.

I’d say this is true even of rank and file Christians, the ones whose habit is to doubt victims who come foreward, like we see on these blog posts about domestic violence or child abuse.

As to the first part of your post, the preacher who gave a character reference to a known sociopath, that is creepy!

Daisy wrote:

Yes. This echoes what I was saying above. Gender complementarianism is codependency. It infantilizes teen girls and grown women, so it doesn’t do them any favors.

Infantilizes except in regards to sex.
Which sounds way too close to pseudo-pedophilia.

It does not prepare them properly to be in independent adult in the event they never marry, or their husband dies from a heart attack or divorces them or what have you.

Death or divorce, the man is gone so it’s not his problem.
“I’ll be gone by then, so That’s YOUR Problem!”

Lydia wrote:

@ Gary W:
We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

One of my writing partners is a burned-out pastor who’s barely making ends meet. The expectations of him as “Pastor(TM)” and “Reverend(TM)” have burned him out. He describes himself as “a middle-aged fat man with a bad back and bum hearing”.

I’ve only known him in relation to SF fandom, fantasy literature, and writing, so I don’t treat him as “Pastor(TM)”. And being able to interact as himself instead of “Pastor(TM)” is a real relief. I think we’re keeping him sane and grounded.

Burwell Stark wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.

Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?

“Can neither be bribed or influenced except for his personal Advancement within The Party.”
— description of a KGB Operative in an old FRP game scenario pack (TriTac’s Invasion USA, a Soviet-occupied America dystopia)

Max wrote:

Exactly Leslie! While we fix names to folks associated with the mess in church, there is no doubt a spirit behind the flesh, driving their behavior and consequences … and that spirit ain’t holy.

Before John Nelson Darby and Hal Lindsay, one of the two classic archetypes of Antichrist was The Slick Deceiver (“Anti” in the sense of “imitation of”), presenting a façade of Christian Gospelly Godliness as cover for his real agenda. Specifically targeting and corrupting the church into his own image.

Today, this archetype has been completely forgotten. Only the other archtype (The Fanatic Persecutor, the ultimate Other) remains. And these two archetypes work very well as a Beast-and-False-Prophet tag team; in fleeing the Fanatic Persecutor (The Beast), you take the Mark of the Slick Deceiver (False Prophet) for protection.

For a lot of preacher-men, the Slick Deceiver hits a little too close to home.

Lydia wrote:

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

I have always thought comp doctrine had a daddy/husband problem.

Which adds pseudo-incest to the pseudo-pedophilia.

Especially since the comp wife is expected/demanded to satisfy her comp hubby/Lord and Master’s every sexual expectation. (Including kinks, and you can develop a LOT of unrealistic kinks & expectations when being raised a boy in Comp Chrisitanese Purity Culture.)

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

Yep and yep. This mess would not be a popular as it is becoming unless there were both a financial and a sexual payoff. The guy who gets a sex slave, and especially a virgin who does not have enough information or experience to know how perverse some of his ‘needs’ are, and who at the same time gets to control all the money and all the financial decisions…what perv would not want that???

Like, what is she going to do about it? She is ignorant, brainwashed, ashamed when she does get some information but so what, because she does not have enough job skills to survive on her own-the religious philosophy has seen to that. I actually knew a case where the guy bragged about this. Publicly, so I assume he thought that his audience would admire him for it.

I am not saying that they are all like this, but I am saying that there seems to be a slice of the demographic which looks like this.

what frightens me more is HOW was it that a sheltered and beloved son of a patriarchal family get exposed to the idea that he could commit incestuous abuse and GET AWAY WITH IT ???

. . . that it happened more than once speaks for itself, and adds some weight to my question

. . . that is happened to a visiting child whose family trusted her safety in the Duggar home, speaks to how the boy was further encouraged to act out

. . . that he married a lovely Christian woman and sought out ‘relationships’ outside of his marriage and acted out in these ‘relationships’ seems a further indictment of how he was brought up to see women within his cult

I think we have to tie the SBC subordination of women to the cult of patriarchy, and we can begin to see in more depth how young Christian men can be exposed to a life where women are being observed (by the impressionable children of these patriarchal families) as something ‘less than’ a human person worthy of all dignity and respect.

Paige Patterson’s treatment of women included his treatment of Dr. Sheri Klouda, and it involved the well-being of her family which included a husband suffering from heart trouble . . .

this lack of simple Christ-like compassion has grown out of something that is NOT reflective of Christ, but seems more born out of a male-idolatry cult nurtured among Patriarchists.

Submission for everyone but the leader is counter-cultural?

Good joke.

Comment from someone at TGC: “I can’t imagine an abusive porn addict to all of a sudden have the strength of conviction to last in Iran’s worst prison for his testimony of Christ. Someone with no Christian decency in private would surely cave under such immense pressure.”

This is a strange yet not uncommon idea in Evangelicalism—that people can’t be horrible in one area while being ok in other areas.

A related idea is that there are some bad things that a US Christian church-goer would simply never do.

These ideas also disallow spousal and child abuse. “I can’t imagine…” he writes. Yeah, it is unimaginable when determined to be impossible.

@ Loren Haas:

Like!

@ Daisy:

“The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others.”
+++++++++++

is it? how do you know?
—————-

“If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity.”
++++++++++++++++++

‘balance’… do this, do that, yeah, put this there, twist that around, now bend a little, no bend a lot, lift this, lower that, stand on one foot, other knee at a 48 3/4 degree angle, head up, eyes to the left, toes pointed down right foot, toes pointed up left foot, make a fist, extend your pointer finger, now rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time….

seems to me this ‘balance’ you talk of amounts to a contortionist act. balance, indeed. (talk about disfigurement)

https://www.google.com/search?q=contortionist&biw=1280&bih=578&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ7Z3zzNnKAhVW92MKHcJPBTYQ_AUIBygC&dpr=1.5#imgrc=5cKKdkwH8X_TzM%3A

@ elastigirl:

in response to ken’s comment, not daisy’s.

I sent Dee a tweet with a link to this page (for point #4, “Post Office”).
As I told her in the tweet, swap the word “post office” for “blogging.”

4 Everyday Things That Caused Huge Panics When They Were New
http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-everyday-things-that-caused-absurd-panics/

Really, read the ‘Post Office’ part of that page and tell me if it doesn’t remind you of the complementarians who bemoan Christian women who blog, especially the ones who call out abuse in churches or by other Christians.

…and frankly, I think it is interesting that he chose the word “fiendishly” countercultural. On some level, he recognizes that “fiendish” has application here. His brain picked the word “fiendish” as a great description.

If you had to describe the ideal church, would the word “fiendish” come to mind in any sort of connection?

@ brad/futuristguy:

I like the Phoneix Preacher…he does an amazing job. I wish the world had more Michael Newhams.

@ elastigirl:

My name was tagged at the top of your post, but those quotes were by (Flag) Ken, not by me. (Just to clarify.)

Daisy wrote:

There is some clinical term for that, but I can’t remember what it was.

Let me suggest a multi-purpose clinical term for a lot of this: sick.

Patrice wrote:

These ideas also disallow spousal and child abuse. “I can’t imagine…” he writes. Yeah, it is unimaginable when determined to be impossible.

Isn’t that like on the evening TV news where the reporter has a neighbor on video saying,

“I never would have thought that my neighbor Joe was an ax murderer who had dead bodies buried under his floor boards. He was such a nice guy. He waved at me every morning as I drove off to work”

Max wrote:

Abigail C wrote:
Over the years, I watched my husband become more and more deceived and cruel.
For you complementarian men tuned into this blog, listen carefully to these words. The problem with deception is that you don’t know you are deceived because you are deceived. You have exposed your marriage and your family to an authoritarian church structure which is outside the will of God. You are walking in the flesh and not the Spirit. For the health of your marriage – for God’s sake – put your behind in your past and get out of a church which is controlling you and your destiny.

I grow more and more thankful my husband and I left an Acts29/Calvinistic/Comp church (left a couple of years ago and do not currently have a place of worship outside of our home). Actually, being the “jezebel” I am, I left first. Basically an “eat my dust” kind of action. He was not happy, and started to throw the whole, “do what I say, woman!” into my face (not that seriously but close). I told him I did not marry my father, and as a born again, saved, joint heir to the kingdom of heaven, I did not enter into a marriage to go backwards. This Lord the comps/calvs/authoritarians promote is not the Lord I’ve come to know and love.
I love my husband. We’ve been married over 10 years and have seen peaks and valleys like most others, if not more. I grew up in the UMC and he in the Church of Christ. I think part of his upbringing played into his (more than mine) easy acceptance of this Acts29/Comp/Calv teaching and church we attended for a couple of years.
My husband is not abusive in any way, shape, or form. He can have a critical nature, but he has never abused me verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually. He’s about as level-headed as they come. With that said, as I look back to those couple of years within that authoritarian church system, he started to swallow it all hook, line, and sinker and I think it was appealing to him to do so. Was his more rigid background in Church of Christ an opening door? I think perhaps. For me, growing up UMC, I think I was able to smell the false teaching quicker and more stronger than he..
I think if we would have stayed in this church system, he would not have become abusive per say..however, I do think it would’ve killed our marriage.
I like where we’re at now. Mutual love and respect and not some tipping of the scales in either gender’s favor. If marriage cannot be of mutual love and respect, I have zero desire to be married. I’d have stayed single..

okrapod wrote:

I tend to think that there are two kinds of men who might gravitate to comp doctrine. There are the preacher/proponents of it who seem to be able to turn it into cash money. Then there are those men who don’t seem to compete too well with other men but who can go home and kick the dog, take a belt to the children and slap the wife around and convince themselves that this is manly.

Bravo. My anecdotal experiences as well. It seems like the types who go there and stay there in their mindsets and doctrine are often the types who are emotionally stunted or outright disturbed, they are quite often awkward nebbishes (John Piper, Matt Chandler) or chubby wannabe bullies (Mark Driscoll, James Macdonald, Doug Wilson). None of them, of course, could hold their own in a fair fight, so they pick on the weaker members of the herd or gang up with like-minded people where they can hide behind the numbers.

They are abusers, the types whom Jesus warned us about. If only we’d listen.

I forgot to mention, and I think this is an important observation. My husband is a man’s man, whatever that means and whatever that’s worth. I do think since he had a first marriage that ended in divorce, and our marriage being his second, it was appealing to be in a church system that hyper-promoted male leadership. He’s been afraid, IMO, of being a “failure” a second time around. I don’t see him as such, but I think it was appealing to have so much focus on family and manhood and male leadership and blah blah blah, as if that would’ve helped our marriage.
I also think as I look back on that time at that church, that even though these teachings were appealing to him, they exhausted him. It’s all works based. He was trying to do something against the grain of who he really was/is. It’s not only physically draining on these men and marriages, it’s emotionally and spiritually. It sucks the literal life out of these people. He was trying to be something he’s not.
We were saved from this death, thank God.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.
“I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”

Of course I take issue with the notion that beating capable of beating someone up is a sign of manliness, but even granting Mr. Driscoll the point, does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

– Is water wet?
– Is the South Pole a cold place?
– Is the Pope a Catholic?

Seriously, though, it would be very surprising if the complementarian submission to headship fantasy did not attract would-be and real domestic abusers, as well as immature men who feel insecure confronted with strong women.

It may even do more harm: push those immature men from a position where they would like to have more authority to one where they demand it, and in no uncertain terms, backed by their pastor and their church, and, of course, the bible.

If only they could read.

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. “It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Whatever the Pauline letters (seem to) say, the gospels are primary. And let no one confuse voluntary mutual submission with headship on male side and submission on the female side, enforced as a new law.

Oh, the sweet smell of authority exercised by ME!

Max wrote:

Lydia wrote:
We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.
Yes, in Scripture, early church pastors confess they are the “least of these” … yet 21st century church attempts to assign “the most” to them! Pride cometh before a fall.

We’ve been reading through Acts in family Bible time, and one thing I went on a little talk about afterwards last night to the kids, having just read Acts 5, was how those First Century leaders, by declaring themselves as such, were basically signing their own death warrants (and historical tradition, assuming it’s accurate, tells us that every last disciple died a violent death for their faith, excepting John, who died old and exiled, having suffered torture for his faith).

So calling one’s self a leader in the church simply must be taken in the context of the day–there was no real thanks for it, you were likely to be impoverished, rejected by family, imprisoned, burned alive, beheaded, thrown to animals, crucified–yet they considered it a great thing that they were considered worthy to suffer that way. And even then, “leadership” in the church was defined as doing so by example, not compulsion, in the context of mutual submission, being the last and least, because you are a leader. And when one considers what being a leader meant then, frankly, who wouldn’t want to be easily persuaded–the Koine Greek “pithos”, translated (stupidly) as “obey” in Heb 13:17–by one who is literally risking being skinned alive by declaring themselves a leader?

What a far cry from a a Christian-friendly western culture in which a scrawny 32 year old pastor with a few pimples, a backing group composed largely of twenty-something elders, and a self-proclaimed mandate from God to take authority over a 60-something widow’s personal affairs, seeks to be something big by developing a youtube following and minor celebrity status. No comparison.

Remnant wrote:

“Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

I’d like to ask: Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership CREATE Domestic Abusers?”

Thanks for asking that, Remnant. I believe we’ve got to explore how these ultimately dehumanizing beliefs, values, and actions get transferred to next generations by older individuals, younger peers, and organizational systems. That is, if we’re going to move from always trying to intervene when the doctrine has been deeply implanted, to interception of younger generations who’re at risk, and eventually to prevention so it isn’t on the radar anymore or at least gets nipped before it bears its poisonous fruit.

I don’t know that Robert Jay Lifton’s eight indicators of a “totalist”/cult-control society have been mentioned lately. He became the father of “trauma psychology,” and did his original research work in the 1950s, interviewing men and women who’d been political prisoners in China during the Cultural Revolution. (I’ve learned a lot about toxic systems by looking at how the first and second generations of Chinese children after the Communist revolution were indoctrinated, and how Mao used the Cultural Revolution a decade later to institutionalize his dehumanizing practices into and through those children.)

Here are Lifton’s titles for the criteria, and my summary of them:

1. Milieu Control – restrict what communication modes are allowed.

2. Mystical Manipulation – appeal to some higher purpose, as set by the leader or organization.

3. The Demand for Purity – require purity of thinking, that is, with a black-and-white mentality where every view our group holds is absolutely correct.

4. The Cult of Confession – use a radical level of personal confession to unburden people from their crimes (real or imagined) against the organization and realign them with its principles.

5. The “Sacred Science” – promote our moral vision as ultimate: Our way of life is the only right one.

6. Loading the Language – create code words and insider jargon that reduce complex problems to simplistic solutions, and condense categories into judgmental labels.

7. Doctrine Over Person – require people to conform to our perfect system of truth so that individuality is eradicated and sublime conformity is the sacred norm.

8. The Dispensing of Existence – exercise the “right” to decide who has the right to exist in public and who needs to be isolated or excommunicated.

If people are interested, here’s a three-part series that expands on those indicators, and also has reflection/discussion questions for survivors of spiritual abuse to process what we’ve experienced, and for organizational developers so that fewer people need to process abuse in the future.

https://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/the-hunger-games-trilogy-5a/

@ Law Prof:
Good words, LP. Your last paragraph describes several SBC-YRR church plants in my area.

Nancy2 wrote:

From what little I know, that sounds very CalveryChapel/9Marks/Acts29/YRR ish.

That’s part of the reason I think having a list of warning indicators helps us identify toxic systems. Some of those harmful beliefs and behaviors are so ingrained in a cultural or church/ministry system, that they are pretty obvious, even to a casual observer. It’s interpreting them as a interconnected system, and demonstrating how people are directly AND indirectly harmed by these systems, that gets more difficult.

Also, I think there’s a significant amount of hope for those who follow dictates and dictators because of ignorance. The light can shine in their darkness and bring out the truth. Maybe it’s not easily so hopeful for those with a seared conscience or without compassion, because they’re far less likely to see or care about the harm being done — because they are doing it in the name of Jesus.

Law Prof wrote:

Max wrote:
Lydia wrote:
We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

So calling one’s self a leader in the church simply must be taken in the context of the day–there was no real thanks for it, you were likely to be impoverished, rejected by family, imprisoned, burned alive, beheaded, thrown to animals, crucified–yet they considered it a great thing that they were considered worthy to suffer that way. And even then, “leadership” in the church was defined as doing so by example, not compulsion, in the context of mutual submission, being the last and least, because you are a leader. And when one considers what being a leader meant then, frankly, who wouldn’t want to be easily persuaded–the Koine Greek “pithos”, translated (stupidly) as “obey” in Heb 13:17–by one who is literally risking being skinned alive by declaring themselves a leader?

This.is.it. I read every passage about leaders in the Body through that lens. It was not glamorous. It was just the opposite.

Re: “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

This page says yes, that plays a role:

A Deadly Formula for Violence By Barrington H. Brennen
http://www.soencouragement.org/deadlyformula.htm

Nancy2 wrote:

Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
I don’t.

I know I have zero interest now in marrying a gender complementarian guy. This would be a big reason why.

The wife is regarded as an after-thought or an accessory to help the husband reach his goals in life, she is not seen as a person in her own right with her own dreams and goals.

(Then of course there are the guys are are abusive who use complementarianism to rationalize abuse. That’s another reason.)

Complementarians don’t really make marriage look appealing to most women.

Law Prof wrote:

Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

Interesting observation.

When Driscoll is criticized (or feels attacked), his tendency (that I’ve seen so far) is that he gives sermons, or issues blog posts or interviews, acting like a victim (though he’s the instigator), like a couple years back when he was going on about helicopters flying over his house, and someone allegedly threw rocks on his drive way.

@ Daisy:
A snippet:
Tony Evans, a motivational speaker and preacher of the gospel states, “I believe that feminists of the more aggressive persuasion are frustrated women unable to find the proper male leadership. If a woman were receiving the right kind of love and attention and LEADERSHIP, she would not want to be liberated from that.”

Oh, joy. My husband is currently reading a Tony Evans book. Maybe I should recommend he check out GTY.

Many times in the past, I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. The argument is given that if women are allowed leadership positions in the church, the men drop out, stop following the Lord, and the church gravitates to being made up of mostly women.

I could say a lot about this mindset, but I’m wondering if others have heard this excuse?

@ Melissa:

“he started to swallow it all hook, line, and sinker and I think it was appealing to him to do so”
++++++++++++++++++++++

what about it was appealing to him?

siteseer wrote:

I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart.

Christian men do not fall apart if they know who they are in Christ. Authoritarian nature is a religious expectation of men, not godly character. The problem is where you seek your identity – in a religious structure created by men or a church bought by the blood of Christ. The pursuit of one over the other leads to a completely different experience and destiny.

@ siteseer:

“Many times in the past, I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. The argument is given that if women are allowed leadership positions in the church, the men drop out, stop following the Lord, and the church gravitates to being made up of mostly women.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i haven’t heard it articulated, really, but it is my deductive reasoning.

it’s a gimmick.

ever since i heard the wonderful news of ‘headship’ explained to me for the first time, in glowing terms (wore my best ‘you must be joking’ face ever) i immediately saw it as a a gimmick. tell boys & men God wants them to be the big-man-on-campus. and give him ‘God-ordained’ power of others. a dream come true!

gives new meaning to redemption, Redeemer, and him being “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think”. even jr high!

siteseer wrote:

I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. I could say a lot about this mindset, but I’m wondering if others have heard this excuse?

This seems to be a part of the idea that the male ego is fragile and must be handled like fine china. This idea was all over the place in my youth. We were taught to pretend to be rather simple minded, and to always lose at checkers, and to constantly be playing up to the male. You great big wonderful man! That is odd, because at the same time scads of women were having their own businesses and entering professions and managing their own money and such. I got the impression that one should do both, succeed while at the same time you pretended that you were a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present. Well, maybe the alphabet but certainly not the multiplication tables, math being the man’s sphere. It was sort of a double life thing.

But yes, if the fragile male ego was not protected terrible things would ensue the worst of which was that the male would turn his back on you and go off with somebody who would massage his ego constantly. At this point the worst fate might befall you and God might send you to Darkest Africa as a missionary. I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up, nor am I abusing some substance as we speak.

This idea that if the male ego is offended at church he will leave the church seems like the same idea in different application. It looks like society has move on a bit but the church has not.

And let me say that there are some really great guys out there who are not fragile like that.

okrapod wrote:

We were taught to pretend to be rather simple minded, and to always lose at checkers, and to constantly be playing up to the male. You great big wonderful man! That is odd, because at the same time scads of women were having their own businesses and entering professions and managing their own money and such. I got the impression that one should do both, succeed while at the same time you pretended that you were a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present.

I am a former kid genius with an IQ somewhere around 160. You think I could stand being married to “a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present”? It would be even more lonely than my current hardcore single state.

And a couple years ago over at Slacktivist, I mentioned something similar in how the ideal Christianese girl IS a devout ditz. I said that hard times were ahead, and a woman who was too dumb to recite the alphabet and always deferred to Milord Husband was a liability instead of an asset when things got rough (and it looked like “Winter is Coming, John Snow”. When Winter comes, you need someone who can not only take care of themselves, but who’s got your back.

okrapod wrote:

But yes, if the fragile male ego was not protected terrible things would ensue the worst of which was that the male would turn his back on you and go off with somebody who would massage his ego constantly.

Funny, Okrapod, I was taught much the same things about women. Except that to a woman, Sex and only SEX was what massaged their ego and if you didn’t give it to them they’d leave you.

At this point the worst fate might befall you and God might send you to Darkest Africa as a missionary.

Handing out Gospel tracts as the natives put you into the stewpot (Oooga Booga!) was THE Prestige Posting for some reason; anything less and you were one of the Lukewarms whom God Would Spew Out of His Mouth.

Sounds like you had the same reaction to that High and Lonely Destiny as I did. What happened to the Jewish idea of “Just Live Your Life”?

I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up, nor am I abusing some substance as we speak.

No you’re not. Not only are such things documented, there’s a little quote attributed to Mark Twain: “The difference between fiction and reality is fiction has to make sense.” And it’s corollary “You think I could make up s**t like that?”

The discussion is not getting to the point of why there is Complementarians and such in the church.

How the Wisdom of God Healed Man
On Christian Doctrine -Augustine, Ch. 13

–“The disease was brought in through a woman’s corrupted soul: the remedy came through a woman’s virgin body.”–

1. The woman was to blame, and this is not the same understanding of sin as given to us in the Scriptures.

–“He was born of a woman to deliver us who fell through a woman:”—

2. This is a lie. Sin entered the world through Adam.

–“He came as a man to save us who are men, as a mortal to save us who are mortals, by death to save us who were dead. And those who can follow out the matter more fully, who are not hurried on by the necessity of carrying out a set undertaking, will find many other points of instruction in considering the remedies, whether opposites or likes, employed in the medicine of Christianity.”–

3. Here you will see a male centric understanding of salvation. This also is a blatant misrepresentation of salvation. Christianity is not a medicine.

The doctrines that Augustine laid down are not separate but part of a seamless package including submission to spiritual teachers. One can not receive this “medicine” without physicians. It would have to be dispensed through teachers, and the medicine is a teaching ABOUT the Scriptures not the Scriptures themselves.

Today’s Neo-Calvinist are not 1700 years removed from these doctrines at all. Augustine is sort of the grandfather to the movement. Calvin was a direct follower / disciple of Augustine and looked to him for confirmation of his (Calvin’s) Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Daisy wrote:

Interesting observation.
When Driscoll is criticized (or feels attacked), his tendency (that I’ve seen so far) is that he gives sermons, or issues blog posts or interviews, acting like a victim (though he’s the instigator), like a couple years back when he was going on about helicopters flying over his house, and someone allegedly threw rocks on his drive way.

I simply want to see or hear of a single circumstance in which he has stood up to anyone when the numbers surrounding him weren’t overwhelmingly in his favor. I know him based on public record to be a man who talked of breaking elders’ noses from the pulpit, who chuckled as he spoke of the bodies–and he hoped to God there would be more–crushed underneath the wheels of the Mars Hill “bus”.

I also know of him, based on public record, to be a man who, when faced with the very discipline he had demanded that others submit to, immediately ran three or four states away and refused to face a soul. I know him to be one who, when he crashed the Strange Fire conference and was asked to leave by a physically imposing security man, immediately left the premises after a ham-fisted attempt to play nice and “bro” the security guard, then immediately went to social media and tweeted the outright lie that said guard had confiscated his book. I know him to be a man who, when bunkered down in his gated compound, lied to a single reporter with the temerity to ring his gate bell and politely request an interview: “Not here, dude” (or words to that effect).

So, Mr. Driscoll talks big of violence, but when faced even with discipline for his own sins or a simple request from a reporter, he runs, hides, lies and plays aggrieved victim.

I can fathom the manipulations of one with a severe personality disorder and no conscience to anchor them, what I cannot fathom is the mindset of the loyal follower, who brags about their tough guy pastor out of one side of their mouth, then defends the poor beleagured victim on the other. How do they reconcile these?

Pulitzer winners tie domestic abuse to Christianity by David Roach, April 2015
http://bpnews.net/44613/pulitzer-winners-tie-domestic-abuse-to-christianity

Snippets:

At least two articles in the Post and Courier’s seven-part winning series suggested that the traditional Christian belief in male headship of the family is among the causes of domestic violence without distinguishing between the “belief that men are totally dominant” — as one source in part three of the series put it — and the more mainstream evangelical teaching that husbands and wives are of equal worth but have complementary roles in the family.

… The Post and Courier series’ first article, which noted that a woman in South Carolina dies every 12 days from injuries sustained through domestic violence, suggested a link between domestic abuse in the state and the complementarian view of gender.

Even provided the qualifier comps often give, that “women are equal in value” – in practical terms, it doesn’t really matter; gender complementarian views are still promoting a view of women as being lesser.

Gender comp still provides a cover for men who want to abuse their wives, and the system teaches women to stay with their abuser, as

1. divorce is almost always forbidden and
2. The burden is put on the abused spouse (usually the wife) by gender comps to keep the marriage together, because the wife is thought to be some kind of sanctifier who can win the husband to Christ or get him to turn over a new leaf.

Daisy wrote:

Those are my observations of the guy as well. He talks a big manly man talk, but when push comes to shove, he takes his ball home crying.

That is the typical pattern of a four to six year old boy. Nay, I take it back, my four year old talks big, but he’ll also swing his little fists when challenged. It takes a real bully to be a real coward.

Doctrine of headship a distortion of the gospel message of mutual love and respect
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/doctrine-of-headship-a-distortion-of-the-gospel-message-of-mutual-love-and-respect-20150226-13q2xc.html

The church should be a haven from domestic violence but power imbalances remain for many worshippers badly affected by abusive relationships.

Patriciamc wrote:

Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss. As a single woman, I have to be very careful with Christian men because I don’t want to date a comp. I want a good, strong man instead.

Well put.

Patriciamc wrote:

Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss.

I sometimes wonder if some of these YRR pastors and elders had domineering mothers … and New Calvinism is a way at getting back at mom through their wives and other women they can control in their churches. Whatever the reason, there has to be some sort of mental quirk in the mix, because it’s sure driving me crazy!

Law Prof wrote:

does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

“ARMORBEARERS! BEAT HIM UP!”

Law Prof wrote:

It was not that they were naturally dumb, but that was what was valued in that church: women who measured at least and 8 on the 1 to 10 scale who had no intellectual curiosity at all.

i.e. Bimbos with plastic surgery & silicone.

Max wrote:

I sometimes wonder if some of these YRR pastors and elders had domineering mothers …

Possible, though the types I encountered often have abusive and/or alcoholic fathers and weak mothers. But of course, that’s just my anecdotal experience.

Well first of all, the answer to the title is, “Of Course.” I don’t say that out of emotion, or because it “rings true”. I say that because there are dozens (probably more) of quality psychology journals out there outlining this very thing.

However, I am more concerned with the tweets outlined above. I could get into the logical flaws and intellectual suicide represented in some of these sentiments, but in all honesty, no one expects anything intelligent to come out of Owen Strachan’s mouth. No, my concern is the rather ham-fisted and completely undisguised use of propaganda. Of course, CBMW is little more than a propaganda engine, so I kind of expect it, but there is something that makes my skin crawl when I people who claim to be real, true believers. This is not Christianity.

Anyway, back to the query at the top of the article. Does comp doctrine attract abusers? Not necessarily. Some men are born beasts and abuse women far away from any religious environment and have no desire whatsoever to become ‘churchy’. But on the other hand, and as one commenter has pointed out upthread, if it’s a latent trait already resident, there’s a good chance that comp doctrine will exacerbate it and make it become virulent.

@ Melissa:
I sat in an Oregon Conservative Baptist congregation for too many years and heard repeated references by the then pastor to “the Laaydies!! Gawd blessem!!”(gag!!”

@ Daisy:
Thanks for the reference–that was a great article!!

I’ve been confused by TWW’s reporting and the commenters on this topic. It seems like folks are using it as a wedge to attack Calvinists rather than abusers, which I find strange because I thought Saeed Abedini was a Calvary Chapel guy. Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing? What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?

I hope that Naghmeh Abedini is able to stand against what is clearly immense pressure from the celebrity Christian culture and I also hope she has enough support and encouragement from people within the Church who believe her.

anewproblem wrote:

Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing?

I would have said that a few years ago. I think now that there are many things in CC that are other than they appear.

Daisy wrote:

Patriciamc wrote:
Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.
I have a couple of ideas.
I was raised with this stuff. So, you have Christian women who were taught to believe all this complementarian stuff is biblical and what God expects of you from the time they were girls. You want to please God, so you go along with it. That’s one reason.
The other reason – which can be related to that first one (an outcome of it), but doesn’t have to be:
If you’re afraid to live alone or make it on your own, the idea of living with a husband and him providing safety, security, and taking care of you can alleviate a lot of anxiety.

Good points. My parents didn’t discuss it, but they acted egalitarian. We were Methodists but attended a PCA church, so I was exposed to this nonsense in middle and high school. I was wise enough not to fall for it, but my friends did. They were raised in families that taught gender roles. Oh, and the boys in the youth group were extreme jerks because they were told they were the leaders and we mere girls were the followers.

Law Prof wrote:

I can fathom the manipulations of one with a severe personality disorder and no conscience to anchor them, what I cannot fathom is the mindset of the loyal follower, who brags about their tough guy pastor out of one side of their mouth, then defends the poor beleagured victim on the other. How do they reconcile these?

This is what has my brain bending into a pretzel.
I can understand why people follow the phony prosperity teachers- there is always the promise of a payback if they give enough, so their own greed is awakened and fed.

But why do people follow those who abuse them, and why do they follow the likes of Driscoll? or Perry Noble? or Doug Wilson? or Davey Blackburn??

Lydia wrote:

We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

I find the American Evangelistic Association conferring the title “pastor” to Abedini interesting. From my estimation AEA hands out pastor licenses but without much accountability so it appears ready made for abuse. Why the need to be called a pastor unless you are desiring some authority from the title? What better organization than AEA, it apparently doesn’t check out their candidates before granting them the title, then doesn’t provide oversight. The “pastor” then has authority but not accountability. Have I mentioned I’m tired of men grasping after that title?

I think TWW should crank up a similar diploma mill and hand out pastor certificates so we can go toe to toe with these guys. The only problem it would be like having to go over to the dark side to battle Darth Vader. Still it would be fun to have my very own framed “pastor” license to hang on my office wall. I could then command the respect of my colleagues, it would be hilarious.

One of the great aspects of technology was the Gutenberg press made the production of indulgences such a low cost commodity that the church stopped issuing them because they could no longer make money off them. If we flood the world with “pastor licenses” we could similarly devalue title pastor to such a degree these guys would have to go back to being servants or take up a useful trade. Who knows we might even re-discover the priesthood of all believers.

Nancy2 wrote:

told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”

Can you imagine Jesus saying anything remotely like that?

Nancy2 wrote:

The clincher for me was when my Sunday school teacher went on his “Woman submit”/”Jezebel” rant — told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”

Good Lord! No, that's not strong enough. Let's try WT#! (ed.)

This is way, way, waaaayyyy off subject, but JOEL OLSTEEN was on The Late Show tonight. He brought one of his books with him. How that for Gospelly Glitterati?

I think my parent’s marriage was like that. (They believed in traditional gender roles).

My mother looked to my father for everything. He was the provider and took care of most big decisions (though she sometimes got final say so on big purchases). There was stability and security in that set up for my mother. My father bore most of the responsibility and stress.

I think that’s why the complementarian type of marriage may appeal to some women.@ Daisy:
I do think that your Father assuming his responsibilities, the stresses,etc is way different than the coddled male “male supremist” ego babies that “kick her in the a## (ed.) if you need to” that is more in line with what is out of whack what is being taught in some churches.

@ siteseer:

“I remember seeing a book at the Christian bookstore called “Husbands, Please Lead Us!” …

It occurs to me that the complementarian teachings were being brought out and some women were frustrated because their husbands were not picking it up. They thought they had a mandate to submit and obey and were frustrated with husbands who had no desire to rule and demand??

Seems like the church has created the opposite problem now. What brought about the change?”
+++++++++++++++++++

someone put that in print? and put their name to it? i think i’m going to be sick.

about these supposed mandates to submit and to lead… it would seem that one party’s ability to sin or not sin is completely dependent on the other party.

if I actually gave a rat’sass about any of this, it would also mean that the other person’s ability to sin or not sin depends on me. i am responsible for his ability to sin/not sin, and he is responsible for my ability to sin/not sin.

that’s just weird. isn’t it?

Nancy2 wrote:

@ Nancy2:
Should say:
3) Yes, Jesus was falsely accused. He was also abused. So, who is being compared to Jesus, Fishy Person?

the same thing I was wondering….

Muff Potter wrote:

Yours relies on a strict mechanical reductionism in which all the gear teeth must mesh perfectly so to speak, a paradigm that I’ve argued here and elsewhere is not much more than 40-45 years old and almost exclusively American in origin.

I really would be interested if you could explain this to me in a couple of sentences if you’ve got time, I don’t understand what you are getting at!

I got my idea of balance in the late 70’s from Dick Lucas in London, and Anglican in the John Stott mold, who would often bring out the balance of the NT. Word and Spirit, mercy and judgment etc. The apostle Paul was often at pains to keep a balance. We all have a liberty as Christians balanced with not using such liberty if it causes others to stumble, that kind of thing.

I reacted against such ‘balance’ in a later anti-evangelical phase, thinking it was a euphemism for being lukewarm, but have since come to see the wisdom of it again.

nathan priddis wrote:

anewproblem wrote:
Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing?
I would have said that a few years ago. I think now that there are many things in CC that are other than they appear.

It might be like some Megas I am familiar with who claim free will but are structured and operate in a non free will mode.

anewproblem wrote:

What am I missing?

The connections are not in ‘the outfit’ but in the similar ideas when it comes to male/female relations. Thus, what I said about the secular culture of my youth. There is nothing there about some ‘outfit’ but a lot there of the ideas incorporated in complementarianism which is itself championed by neo-cal churches and neo-cal big wigs. We have not yet talked about ‘the south’ and some of it’s peculiarities regarding male/female interaction, but there are also strong similarities there.

Ideas may have a stronghold is some outfits, but they are pesky things which tend to escape their cages and infest the larger environment.

@ okrapod:

In my opinion, the church has got to address the issue of human sexuality in all its functions and malfunctions. This bit of ‘have I got a bible verse for you’ played out against a secular culture which also has veered off the track when it comes to human sexuality is just not working.

We have to accept that ‘the facts’ are not always what we want them to be, but pretending otherwise does not solve anything.

siteseer wrote:

I can understand why people follow the phony prosperity teachers- there is always the promise of a payback if they give enough, so their own greed is awakened and fed.
But why do people follow those who abuse them, and why do they follow the likes of Driscoll? or Perry Noble? or Doug Wilson? or Davey Blackburn??

They must be giving them something they want. And it might just be abuse. Masochism is a real disorder, it is not always sexual in nature–think of the flagellants.

Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

Anyhoo, it’s sad because what was healthy marriage pre-Christianity is now not going so well because the husband is now trying to be something different and the wife is adjusting to the new pardigm. How sad that a couple turns to faith in Jesus and now instead of growing closer and in joy together, there is conflict born out of stupid teachings in their church.

Wow that church sounds divisive. Isn’t it funny, too, because anyone who’d question their tactics in light of the damage they’re apparently doing to Christian relationships would surely be labelled “divisive”, jezebel”, etc.

@ Nancy2:
The other connection is that CBMW went Neo Cal a long time ago. People forget it was the Bayly brothers early on then over to Al Mohler.

It can be done but it is much harder to be free will in a serious manner and authoritarian at the same time. It takes structure in place with no voting. ( cos the gals can vote)

dee wrote:

Christina wrote:

. If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!

For a thoughtful love offering, I would be happy to set up a cult.

I will happily supply the clergy from amongst my cats! (They both think they’re perfect in every way. I will also supply the $$$ for their ordinations–I’ve done it with another one. Easily done.)

Abigail C wrote:

The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice.

Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

To all the DV apologists: many forms of domestic violence go far beyond sins to be repented of. Many forms are criminal and have consequences.

BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

I had wondered that too. Accessory to unlawful restraint or inciting violence?

okrapod wrote:

It has been said that for women who have been taught or have come to believe that sex is dirty/wrong/sin or even not God’s best compared to being a nun or going off to Darkest Africa, the duty to submit can over-ride everything and they can allow themselves to participate in actual (gasp) sexual activity. Because God told them to submit. It relieves them of the guilt and puts the burden on husband and God.

Good points.

okrapod wrote:

the duty to submit can over-ride everything and they can allow themselves to participate in actual (gasp) sexual activity. Because God told them to submit.

“Lie back, close your eyes, and think of England.”

“Our Duty to The Party.”

@ okrapod:

That’s a big BINGO there okrapod. I am of pretty much the same opinion. I have seen any and all meaningful discussions of human sexuality get shut down with a clobber verse or two, or three. No dissent, no discussion, cuz’ it sez so right here in scripsher…

This was published recently on CBE, and it seems pertinent to this thread:

Breaking the Silence: The Implications of Rape Culture for the Body of Christ by Rachel Elizabeth Asproth
http://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/breaking-silence-implications-rape-culture-body-christ

I think what that some of what the author writes about rape can also be applied to spiritual abuse and domestic violence among Christians.

Snippets:

I want to be very clear, I am not talking about the majority of complementarian Christians. Many are wonderful people, and they’re also my brothers and sisters in Christ.

But stories don’t lie. A “biblically-justified” power differential between men and women is always dangerous. And I think my critique of patriarchal theology is fair considering the significant amount of recent sexual abuse scandals.

I believe that patriarchal culture enables the abuse of women. This doesn’t mean abuse always happens. But patriarchy makes this abuse possible, and arguably, far more likely.

BC wrote:

I do think that your Father assuming his responsibilities, the stresses,etc is way different than the coddled male “male supremist” ego babies that “kick her in the a## (ed.) if you need to” that is more in line with what is out of whack what is being taught in some churches.

There are different consequences of gender comp and different ways it manifests. I guess maybe I didn’t convey that well enough in that post or other ones I’ve made.

Something I’ve tried explaining before to Flag Ken is that just because some forms of gender comp appears at first glance nicer doesn’t mean it is beneficial to the wife.

My mother was not a fully independent adult. She relied way too much on my father. My father was not just a husband to her but a kind of daddy-figure. My mother was an anxious, timid person. Instead of learning to be assertive and stand up for herself and navigate life on her own, she looked to my dad.

There was a tad of low key verbal abuse by my father to my mother. My mother rarely stood up to him. That was due in part to her belief in traditional gender roles (and other factors were at play).

Even the warm, soft, fuzzy variety of gender comp harms and stunts women. It takes away some of their agency and kind of turns them into little girls who are trapped in adult bodies.

Soft, warm, friendly, smiley face gender comp is much like secular, benevolent sexism.

The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn Friendly [benevolent sexism]
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/benevolent-sexism/

@ elastigirl:

Your post and quote of the other one jogged my memory. I saw an interesting discussion just a few days ago (can’t remember where) whose participants were saying that gender complementarians confuse leadership with participation or being responsible.

In other words, when women complain that their husband is not taking out the trash when he should, not spending time with the kids, not initiating Bible reading and whatever – these women are really saying their husband is not participating, he is shirking responsibility.

Those women are not saying that he needs to “lead.”

Still someone else in that thread made a good point, that when women take the trash out, spend time with the kids, do house work, and initiate Bible reading (all activities that are identical to what some men do or what the women wish the husband would do), complementarians do not refer to it as “leading” but in some other term.

All the sudden if a husband does the identical work to what the wife is doing, he gets labels slapped on to it (or to himself), such as “capable leader,” “priest of the home,” or whatever.

Lydia wrote:

I have thought it is much like any other authoritarian system like Islam or Mormonism.

Speaking of which (I forgot to add this to my last post).

This page reminds me of Christianity (not just in regards to child abuse, but domestic violence and spiritual abuse):

Mormon statement on child abuse: Move along, folks; we don’t have a problem by Jana Riess
http://janariess.religionnews.com/2016/02/02/mormon-statement-on-child-abuse-move-along-folks-we-dont-have-a-problem/

Snippet:

No, Mormons are not leading the charge here.
It’s disappointing that an LDS statement would make sweeping and self-aggrandizing generalizations to the effect that “child abuse by clergy may be a problem in other religions, but it’s never a problem with us, no sir! And if it were, our church has the absolute best practices and policies in place for addressing it.”

This so reminds me of CBMW and other complementarian groups or people who make these blog posts or tweets saying how tough gender comps are on dealing with domestic abuse.

@ Daisy:
Ah, so claiming a 12 year old girl as a “spiritual wife” is not child abuse/molestation and a Mormon leader who does that should not be convicted?
Well, I guess we have been educated.

Ken wrote:

but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.

Suffice it to say Ken, and in my opinion, the only thing the Bible ‘teaches’ is to acknowledge the Creator, be thankful to Him, and to not do that which is hateful to one’s self to others. The rest (Scripture) is just commentary.

Daisy wrote:

@ Patriciamc:
Yes, I went through something like that on one job I had. The boss was mean to everyone, but even several co-workers (who approached me separately over a year’s time) noticed she had it in for me more than others.
I don’t know for sure what drove her (the bully boss) to pick me as her top target, but I suspect part of it is that I seldom defended myself or fought back, I was very passive, quiet.
Also, she knew I could see through her mask (I had to become a good and fast people reader at a young age to avoid bullies as best I could because my mother forbid me to fight back) and I could quickly see her for what she really was. Not that I told her, but she sensed it. I think that’s another reason she targeted me more than others.
But most abusers/ bullies like the easiest prey, as a general rule. Not all of them are like that, but from my research on domestic violence, kid on kid bullying, workplace abuse, that is usually the case.

Interesting! My case was very similar except the boss was a 60-something VP of HR who screened out black candidates (yes he did). He had a need to be worshipped and adored, which his favorites did to his face, then laughed at him behind his back. He also liked the loud and brash people, I guess the ones who stood up for themselves. I was always very respectful to him, but I thought he was a fool. Like you, I never fought back because I was trying to be respectful. Everyone else liked me, so his dislike was unreasonable – but he did know I was a Christian, snd he was heard making fun of Christians. I guess to a bully like him, I was low hanging fruit. Oh well. He didn’t know that other VPs called him a buffoon.

Friend wrote:

Mother and daughters viewed themselves as submissive little helpmeets. But the whole family, males and females alike, battled to save white Christian America from a whole grab-bag of evils. They campaigned for George Wallace, fought fluoridation, insisted the moon landing was fake, viewed marijuana as a gateway drug to communism, etc., etc., etc., etc.

i.e. CONSPIRACY A-GO-GO.
With side helpings of White Supremacy and John Birch.

Ken wrote:

but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.

A problem with that is that christianity has been arguing for centuries and centuries as to just exactly what the bible teaches on all sorts of things, and some of the best minds in theology have disagreed in the past and even now on major issues, not forgetting that whole denominations disagree.

So before one comes to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme there has to be some determination as to just what it might be that the bible actually teaches. At which point, and if he wants to feel that he has a grip on it, poor old John Doe has to decide whom to believe, and John does not have the background to be assured that he has picked his chosen authority wisely.

Before somebody says, ‘but the Holy Spirit will tell him” apparently not or else there would not be so many different understandings of scripture and even Peter would not have said that some of Paul’s stuff was hard to understand. Unless we say that the Spirit tells one person one thing and somebody else another that argument just does not fly.

okrapod wrote:

Unless we say that the Spirit tells one person one thing and somebody else another that argument just does not fly.

I read somewhere that if God tells you one thing and tells me the opposite, maybe God wants you and me to talk.

Problem is, so many of our fellow Christians tell us not to talk, or to listen… we’re just supposed to yell our perfect and righteous truth, which is taught in only one building for an hour or two on Sunday mornings.

Q. Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

A. Depends. In dysfunctional complementarian fellowships, yes and is also a breeding ground for creating them. For biblically-grounded complentarianism (that takes Eph 5:25 to heart), no, I don’t believe so.

In a nutshell, I live by Eph 5:25. I counsel husbands by Eph 5:25. A wonderfully simple but profoundly deep metaphor. Jesus’ relationship to His bride is the PERFECT example for us husbands.

* Disclaimer: I’m a complementarian and I understand that there are some/many who believe that all complementarianism is dysfunctional. 🙂

Friend wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
My valedictorian wife, who did her graduate work in the hard sciences and put me through law school as her dependent while on the FT faculty at a Pac 12 university, certainly did not fit in at our neocalvinist church.
Your wife sounds marvelous, and I wish I knew her.

She’s absolutely the bomb.

@ WillysJeepMan:
Do they squirm when you call them brides? Don’t forget Eph 5:21!!!

Comp ideology attracts abusers, just like extreme patriarchy seems to attract men with s#x addictions/perversions. Is it any big surprise the Gothard has now been shown to be a perv, abusing young women with his creepy attentions and touching? The teaching made it so easy. Don’t question the men, especially the Supreme Leader. Be a nice girl and don’t complain or think for yourself.

Or how about that disgraceful, hypocrite Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, who used his Nanny (another young women taught to submit and obey the Supreme Leader) to get his jollies. Or what about Josh Duggar? How is it that a young man who grew up in that “pure” environment, grew up to be so s#x obsessed? When women are taught to be lesser beings and objects, you may have this sort of abuse occur. You also make the forbidden enticing, when you’re that obsessed with never showing any skin, even in mundane ways.

Ideology paves the way for many abuses. Sadly, those entrenched can’t see it. In the wake of The Duggar Scandal, Jim Bob’s response was more rules and legalism. I recall a blog post where he wrote about protecting your family from the worldly culture–movies, tv, devices, etc. Now, I agree with that to a point, but it would never occur to Jim Bob that his son grew up with those rules strongly in place, so the cause and response isn’t more rules and obsessiveness with them. How sad they can’t connect the dots and see that when you don’t allow women any self-direction–telling them what to think, what to do, with their only gift being housework and making babies, not allowing them to get a job or go to college, therein lies the problem. Would Josh have embraced adultery and p#rn addiction if he knew his wife had options, and could leave his pathetic tail? The Duggars and their like can’t admit that they’ve given their whole existence to something false. Further, they can’t admit they fell for a snake oil salesman, Bill Gothard. No one wants to believe they were deceived.

elastigirl wrote:

one night the husband does the dishes. he is lauded for ‘leading my wife through helping with the dishes’. the next night the wife does the dishes. it is an act of submission (although it goes unrecognized, of course). same dishes, same dish soap, same apron.

. . . and most of them don’t see how absurd it is to call it leadership jist because of body parts. It sure seems to make some of them boys feel important and pious. And that speaks volumes.

I realized this morning that not only has the pastor of my presumably mainstream Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod lamented both “disobedient” AND “rebellious” wives from the pulpit, but he recently in a sermon interpreted the Bible to forbid divorce except – possibly! – where young children are in physical peril – possibly!
I’ve said before, I’ve gotta get out of there. But I don’t want to join any congregation that doesn’t have a woman in ordained ministry.
Fast becoming a “done.”

Daisy wrote:

Nancy2 wrote:
Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
I don’t.
I know I have zero interest now in marrying a gender complementarian guy. This would be a big reason why.
The wife is regarded as an after-thought or an accessory to help the husband reach his goals in life, she is not seen as a person in her own right with her own dreams and goals.
(Then of course there are the guys are are abusive who use complementarianism to rationalize abuse. That’s another reason.)
Complementarians don’t really make marriage look appealing to most women.

I never have been attracted to complementarian girls/women and I grew up where it was taught (maybe not as hardcore) as to me they seemed “fake”. I have always preferred not only intelligent (with opinions) but strong women, somebody who can help me be better – not someone for me to control, and never bought into if as the man you don’t take control – you aren’t just a slacker and shirking leadership. Which I find odd, as I have always drifted to leadership in sports efforts (key positions as well as team captain), as well as professional (leadership positions as well as owning a business employing 25 people) – so I don’t get it myself.

It isn’t just in the church – I also notice this having worked with active and retired military and made the observation that many had married wives from another culture who were extremely submissive (also the observation of how the guys were in general) – I think guys who are weaker are more apt to prefer submissive women.

Law Prof wrote:

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.
“I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”
Of course I take issue with the notion that beating capable of beating someone up is a sign of manliness, but even granting Mr. Driscoll the point, does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

Well you know what Old Granny Hawkins said about guys like driscoll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHM4AL7LdU

@ Bridget:
Christ and the apostles as The Ultimate Boys’ Club.

@ Nancy2:
Hee hee.

I have seen many a normal guy get involved in comp churches and change. I saw this big time in comp mega single groups where they went to meet nice women instesd of bars. The women are just as bad. They all believed the teaching. They were accepted in the group. And I am talking 20-35 year olds.

Don’t ever think that groupthink doesnt have profound influrnce. It does.

It takes a strong confident personality to disagree with the “group” out loud. But it sounded so biblical and who really studies it in depth?. That is what we pay the celeb on stage to do for us. Sigh

@ Martha:
Sounds very misogynistic. Hope he doesn’t drag your congregation into WELS. WELS won’t even let women vote in congregational elections or hold church offices. Sorry for your experience,

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

John Birch

Awestruck that you identified the playbook. 🙂

BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

Patriciamc wrote:

I had wondered that too. Accessory to unlawful restraint or inciting violence

It took me a long time to recognize that what my husband was doing to me was illegal. It never crossed my mind that what this pastor did might be illegal. That probably means at least one other situatution falls into the same category. It took courage to post but the comments are helpful.

Patriciamc wrote:

… in fact it seems like we agree with each other. Regardless, I still stand by my point…

… and I, by mine, but certainly I think you’re right: we almost certainly do agree with each other! I think our comments are complementary – that is to say, they address different but equally important aspects of a situation.

(The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

(The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)

Over on the latest thread I have begun ranting about red neck values and behavior. Permit me to point out that what you have said here is a good description of one aspect of classic red neck stuff. That is exactly one of their major techniques in a lot of areas, not just about women.

BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

Abigail C wrote:
The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice.
Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.
To all the DV apologists: many forms of domestic violence go far beyond sins to be repented of. Many forms are criminal and have consequences.

I don’t know which state you’re referring to, but what your husband did was criminal; it’s generally called wrongful imprisonment and battery. Yes, the pastor would be criminally liable also.

Lydia wrote:

@ WillysJeepMan:
Do they squirm when you call them brides? Don’t forget Eph 5:21!!!

LOL No, I don’t forget that verse either.

My view is that any “authority” given to anyone by the Lord isn’t actually “authority” but “responsibility” of stewardship… because that authority remains with the Lord Himself.

In my ministries, a domestic abuser may be initially attracted by the “complementarian” elements… but as soon as they discover that it is “Biblically-grounded” they run away. They find out that the Biblical definition of their role doesn’t give them “cover” for their abuse, but calls them out on it.

Proper follow-up occurs, reporting to authorities, getting counsel for the wives and children, as well as helping find safe places to live all happen as appropriate and as needed.

Here is a response from the Anglican bishop to the article on child abuse I posted above:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2016/02/bishop-of-chichester-statement-following-article-in-brighton-argus.aspx

@ WillysJeepMan:
I prefer the “blessed alliance” interpretation that comes from Genesis in that they are to subdue the earth together. To me, any sort of caste system of responsibilty/stewardship is the same thing just a different name way to sell being on top..

@ A.Stacy:

😯 They start the indoctrination young.

It reminds me of…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyenRCJ_4Ww

Daisy wrote:

I’m glad the news there is education the public.

I meant educating

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.

This articulation is a gem.

One might put it another way. We all know the scribsher in which Paul states that “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Indeed, I recall hearing a podcast by Marq Driskle in which he phrased the disputed punctuation of 1 Corinthians 14 as “as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. Women should remain silent in the churches”. Interestingly, of course, Mars Hill was never comfortable with completely silencing women, so he got out of that one thus: ALL means ALL, but it’s not talking about all women, just ungodly feminist women. So ALL means ALL, but women doesn’t mean women and silent doesn’t mean silent.

Clearly then, this “equal in value but separate in role” applies not just to men and women, but to different words in a given verse of scribsher. There are:
 scribshers we want to obey directly, and
 scribshers we do NOT want to obey directly.

Now, those scribshers in the second category – the ones we don’t intend to obey directly – are precious, precious scribshers. We affirm them as inspired portions of the Infallible Word Of God. We greatly esteem and honour them, and they are equal in value to those scribshers commanding us, for instance, not to kill or be gay. But of course, that doesnt mean we have to obey them. Those scribshers are ‘t don’t have to obey them because they are equal in value but separate in role.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Delightful comment, but let me add something. In American English usage (I am being careful because I don’t know what you all do) we do use words like ‘all’ and ‘everything’ and ‘everybody’ to mean not every specific unit on the planet but only to mean ‘all/ everybody/ everything to whom this applies.’ In other words not with some mathematical precision but rather as broad and inclusive terms.

So when Paul says ‘all’ he would of necessity mean ‘all that I know about’ or else even possibly ‘all those congregations that I have started or taught and which follow my teachings’, knowing as we do that there were disputes between Paul and Jerusalem and knowing that any supposition on our part that we know what all those disputes were would itself be based on the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of scripture. This can get like trying to run through a briar patch.

So why do I care about all/ everything/ everybody. Well, for example the Noah’s flood story. There were floods, but not the whole planet at one time. And the people of that day did not even know what the whole planet actually was in any detail, so either the expansive terms if taken with precision go to proving that scripture cannot be trusted to tell the truth, or else we need to think differently about expansive terms, even those used in myth on the one hand or admonition on the other hand.

Back to 1 Cor 14 in which Paul goes on to say ‘as the law directs’ so he did mean those congregations which adhered to ‘the law.’ But this is Paul and he does not preach the law, so why assume that in this case he meant to extend ‘the law’ to some comprehensive all/ 100% or people on the planet in this particular statement? And if he did mean that, then we really do have to re-examine the relationship between Paul and the law/grace arguments and the Jew/Gentile arguments. Danged old briar patch again.

But maybe that is not what you were saying and I missed the point. I do get what you said about MD, and he is not the brightest bulb on the christmas tree and I am totally with you there. But I do think that the clear meaning of this text is not that clear.

@ Law Prof:

Indeed, and that is quite the point.

okrapod wrote:

In other words not with some mathematical precision but rather as broad and inclusive terms.

Always important to be aware of the variable’s domain, especially when it occurs in the denominator of a rational function.

@ okrapod:

Nah, they’re getting better.
The doc suggested prozac, but I’m afeared’ them internals will only make it worse.

@ Muff Potter:

chuckle

traci94 wrote:

When I read that tweet,”find a healthy church and submit to it’s leadership” I had flashbacks of being back in Crossway/SGM!! Yes, I do think complementarian mandates of submission and male leadership can attract abusers and often do. You mentioned somewhere in this post to avoid churches that put an undue emphasis on this stuff, and I couldn’t agree more. At Crossway, the pastors preached this stuff ad nauseam; I mean, they really hammered it in, as well as submission to leadership!

If anyone has to preach on it, it usually means they’re the sort of jerks who have to mention it to get anyone, even the most credulous, to do it. If I’m leading by godly example, serving truly, seeking the lowest positions, putting my neck on the line to save others from doing so, doing the thankless tasks rather than the tasks that promoting me, so that others don’t have to be bothered with such thankless tasks, if I am seeking to lead by example alone rather than compulsion and lording it over others, then under no circumstances should I have to say one danged word about submission to leadership, because people will very naturally want to be working alongside one who’s doing that stuff.

Problem is, the sort of people who hammer those things have to do so because no one would ever want to follow their lead otherwise, so they have to lie, like the fools and blind guides they are, to compel people to follow them. They’d be better off if they just shut their mouths and served others, then the judgment for them when the Lord comes would not be so great. But, they just can’t stop playing the “submit to me” card–as the Bible says, “a dog always returns to its vomit.”

okrapod wrote:

But maybe that is not what you were saying and I missed the point.

I probably over-egged it with references to Driskle, but I was really only poking a bit of fun at the “equal in value” fallacy. As in, the scribshers I can’t be bothered with are Different In Role But Equal In Value. That way I can live exactly how I please while still insisting that everything I do is scribsheral.

Incidentally, I propose the acronym DREV for “different roles, equal value” – I did try to get DRIVEL* out of it but it’s getting late over here. Hence, the DREV Fallacy.

IHTIH

* “Different Roles? I Value Ewww, Ladies!” … but I’m clutching at straws there.

@ OldJohnJ:

You and Muff need to talk to each other because I have no idea what either of you is saying.

Do you have these attacks often is what doctors say to patients when they present with symptoms which seem to come out of nowhere (an attack) when one has been symptom free before the episode. An asthma attack, for example. I was referring to his sudden outburst of esoteric declarations when he had previously seemed quite sane.

I might have asked him if he was speaking in tongues, but I thought I would stay away from that topic and stick with doctor talk. I was kidding him and he kidded me back.

But I still have no clue as to what is going on here.

I just submitted this at http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-complementarian-manifesto-against-domestic-abuse . It is in moderation and it’s likely they won’t publish it. Disqus (their platform) is really tough on people who include links in their comments, and I’ve had a bad run with Disqus as a result). Plus TGC is likely to hate my comment.

“Complementarians ought to be the most outspoken people against abuse. And we ought to keep watch most closely over our own churches to prevent it.” — I fully agree.

Since 2010 I have been calling on CBMW to review and recalibrate their Statement on Abuse.
They have continued to ignore my call. They shun me. Why?

http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2012/11/28/critique-of-cbmws-statement-on-abuse/

Nancy2 wrote:

If you think they are speaking in tongues, now, just ask them about conic sections and differential functions!

I’ll leave the last word on this thread to Muff, if he hasn’t already made it.

Muff Potter wrote:

they call it Coprolalia

You are skating awfully close to disability discrimination. I am being serious now-game time over for me. There is no way to extrapolate what I said into some derogatory comment about Tourette’s. I was thinking more about some smart mouth kid in some classroom who was being disruptive. Obviously my diversionary tactic from your original comment did not work.

Peace. Spread it around.

@ okrapod:

Sorry if you took offense. My last comment was in no way meant to be derogatory, just friendly banter.

Law Prof wrote:

But, they just can’t stop playing the “submit to me” card–as the Bible says, “a dog always returns to its vomit.”

“The dog returns to his vomit,
The sow returns to the mire,
And the burnt fool’s bandaged finger
Wobbles back into the fire…”
— Rudyard Kipling, “Gods of the Copybook Headings”

okrapod wrote:

How they convince anybody that they are being counter cultural is one of the biggest con jobs on the planet right now.

Oh, that is SO on point, I just wanted to say thank you! I’ve been thinking that for years now and while I’m sure others have made this observation, it’s nice to read someone else making it.