Jason Duesing on ‘Gentlemen Theologians’ Who Would Have Handled the ESS Debate with ‘Civility and Kindness’

"I can't help but wonder that if those convinced of their brother's heterodoxy were slow to speak and sought to earn the right to criticize in private, much of the negative impact of this debate could have been avoided."

Jason Duesing

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=124546&picture=gentlemen-on-the-bench

Gentlemen on a Bench

The countdown is on…  In less than 40 days, the Evangelical Theological Society will assemble in San Antonio for its Annual Meeting.  And this year's theme – The Trinity –  is already sparking controversy.  Here is how the Letter from the Program Chair Sam Storms begins (see screen shot from page 4).  

http://www.etsjets.org/files/annual_meeting/2016_Program/Complete%20Program%20Lo_Res.pdf

On Tuesday, November 15 (the first day of the meeting), Wayne Grudem will making the following presentation (see screen shot from page 28 of ETS program).

http://www.etsjets.org/files/annual_meeting/2016_Program/Complete%20Program%20Lo_Res.pdf

That is background information for the remainder of the post.  A few days ago, Jason Duesing, who will be participating in the upcoming ETS meeting in several capacities, wrote a post entitled Where are the Gentlemen Theologians?  I found his nostalgic commentary quite interesting.  He reminisced about a time when he was an aspiring-but-not-yet PhD student.  He and a classmate traveled to Colorado Springs to attend their first ETS Meeting.  In his post, Duesing revealed the following:

There they met two of what church historian E. Brooks Holifield called “Gentlemen Theologians.”

He went on to describe the 'gentlemanly' mannerisms of a great theologian named Roger Nicole, whom he observed at breakfast one morning during the ETS gathering.  Duesing then shared the following:

When a pastor friend of mine would later give me a copy of Roger Nicole’s essay, “Polemic Theology: How to Deal with Those Who Differ from Us,” I took notice, recalling that breakfast experience. How fitting it was for a scholar of his stature to write a piece like this, for I had seen a glimpse of how he might model care for another’s words and thoughts in the same gentlemanly fashion his colleague cared for a stranger’s abandoned breakfast. This, I suspected, was a Gentlemen Theologian, and as I have read and learned more, the testimony of Roger Nicole is that he was representative of a generation of such scholars.

Observing evangelicals debate the doctrine of the Trinity over the last few months, I’ve thought about that breakfast room and the essay on polemic theology and wondered what would Roger Nicole think?

A few paragraphs later, Duesing's intentions became crystal clear.  See screen shots from his post below.

http://jgduesing.com/2016/10/03/where-are-the-gentlemen-theologians/

****************************************

http://jgduesing.com/2016/10/03/where-are-the-gentlemen-theologians/We have seen this strategy before…  Jason Duesing is Al Mohler's mouthpiece, plain and simple.  Our next step was to do a little research on Duesing.  Where have we seen his name before?  Here is his faculty profile:

Jason Duesing serves as the academic Provost and Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary [emphasis mine]. He came to MBTS after serving for more than a decade on the administrative leadership team and faculty at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. His various roles at SWBTS included assistant to the president, chief of staff in the office of the president, and most recently, vice president for strategic initiatives. Duesing also served as Southwestern Seminary’s acting provost during the 2011-12 academic year. In the classroom, he was assistant professor of Historical Theology. Duesing earned his Ph.D. in Historical Theology and Baptist Studies from Southwestern Seminary in 2008. He also holds a M.Div. from Southeastern Seminary and a B.A. in Speech Communications from Texas A&M University in College Station.

Duesing serves as a research fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on the board of directors for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, editor of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [emphasis mine], academic editor of the Midwestern Journal of Theology, and general editor for For the Church resources. He is also a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and regular contributor to Baptist Press.

So there you have it.  Duesing is earning his loyalty badge as a faculty member of the latest Southern Baptist seminary to be taken over by the Neo-Cals.  Can there be any doubt that he will really be going places with his career?

Earlier today Todd Pruitt over at Mortification of Spin wrote a response entitled What is a gentleman to do?  OR I agree with Wayne Grudem since it is pretty obvious whom Duesing was calling out.

Referring back to his post Where are the Gentlemen Theologians? Duesing wrote:

If we consider someone a brother in Christ, and come to think what they’ve written or said denies a major standard of Christian orthodoxy, then, in the spirit of civil kindness, I think first a face-to-face meeting or phone call is advisable instead of a citation of condemnation in one’s public musings.

We can't help but wonder whether Jason Duesing placed a phone call to either Todd Pruitt or Carl Trueman before publishing this post for everyone to see.  Sorry Aimee,  GENTLEMEN ONLY!  🙁

We found it interesting that Pruitt's alma mater is Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Todd went on to write:

Of keen interest to us is that Dr. Duesing draws a direct line between the call to be gentlemen theologians and the current controversy over the doctrine of the Trinity (If you need to, you can catch up HERE).

Then Todd Pruitt gets to the heart of the matter (see screen shot below).

http://www.mortificationofspin.org/mos/1517/what-is-a-gentleman-to-do-or-i-agree-with-wayne-grudem#.V_h5R9yXtFW

Perhaps the best point Pruitt made was the following (see screen shot below)

http://www.mortificationofspin.org/mos/1517/what-is-a-gentleman-to-do-or-i-agree-with-wayne-grudem#.V_h5R9yXtFW

We want to encourage you to read all of Todd Pruitt's post.  He concludes with this:

So I agree with Wayne Grudem. Someone is indeed threatening the Bible and the Trinity. And it is a good thing that there are men who are willing to enter the fray allowing others go about more gentlemanly duties.

The upcoming ETS meeting was also the focus of a recent Patheos post entitled The Layperson and ETS penned by Michelle Van Loon (a mere 'woman'). We believe the most important point in her post was the following true statement:

As a layperson, I wish I could remind conferees at gatherings like ETS that what happens at these events doesn’t stay at these events.

Getting back to Jason Duesing's 'gentlemen theologians' post, we wonder what would have happened if Martin Luther had sought to meet Pope Leo X face-to-face instead of sending his 95 Theses to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg and then nailing them to the church door in Wittenberg (as legend has it).  Definitely food for thought…

We will keep you posted on any further developments regarding ESS, ETS, etc.

The following clip is dedicated to the MoS folks who dared to challenge those with whom they disagree.

Comments

Jason Duesing on ‘Gentlemen Theologians’ Who Would Have Handled the ESS Debate with ‘Civility and Kindness’ — 432 Comments

  1. The proponents of this Semi-Arian Heresy (The Eternal [a lie] Subordination of the Son) — Wayne Grudem, Bruce Ware, Al Mohler, Owen Strachan, Mark Dever (and others) — have no one to blame for their public dressing down from a wide swath of Christendom than themselves.

    This is long overdue. Before Pruitt called them heretics, I called them heretics.

    It wasn’t Jesus’ on the cross that saved us, it was “sanctified testosterone” according to Owen Strachan and Company at their recent Council on Biblical Manhood Womanhood Conference.

    They have proudly destroyed the Southern Baptist Convention with their heretical teachings/patriarchy, a whopping 200,000 living members (including conservatives and the elderly are fed up and leaving the SBC every year, never to return), marriages have been destroyed, families, and churches…and these men want to escape unscathed, unchallenged.
    They have some kinda nerve.

    If their arguments were even logical, even Biblical, than they wouldn’t mind rigorous debate. The fact that they are un-Biblical is why they’re playing hide and seek now. Deleting comments and entire blog articles, scrubbing the internet, back-tracking.

  2. I read Todd Pruitt’s excellent post earlier, I was very impressed.

    I find it telling that Duesing only called out one side of this debate for being “ungentlemanly” though the other side has been engaging in the behavior he says he deplores as well as deception.

    They are really going all-out, no holds barred, to push this ESS BS. They really think they can invent God to be what they want him to be, they have no fear of him.

  3. siteseer wrote:

    I find it telling that Duesing only called out one side of this debate for being “ungentlemanly” though the other side has been engaging in the behavior he says he deplores as well as deception.

    Sadly, this type of narcissistic behaviour is typical within this group.

  4. siteseer wrote:

    They are really going all-out, no holds barred, to push this ESS BS. They really think they can invent God to be what they want him to be, they have no fear of him.

    A common practice of heretics in years gone by…and now.

  5. I don’t want to make more of Mr Duesing’s claims than is warranted, though he may not be alone in making them, but they’re certainly evidence that this is very much a battle. And the side he identifies with is fiercely keen to capture as much territory and prominence as it possibly can.

    As Todd Pruitt points out, Duesing is concerned only for the “ungentlemanly” conduct of one side of the debate. He doesn’t apologise for “us” but accuses “them”. So this is not a call upwards towards Christ, but an act of subterfuge and deception in a war. He wants to distract “them” into not fighting, or fighting according to more stringent rules, so that “we” are unencumbered by opposition and can strike harder and advance further.

  6. And IF people (men, whom THEY respected) had gone to Grudem, Ware, et al, quietly and privately and voiced their thoughts and objections;
    would it have made a difference?

    The Church has a motto which has protected it from much heresy, this:
    “si comprendis, non est Deus”

    Ware, Grudem, and hangers-on ignored that caveat. When men are that deep into their own egos, will they then listen with respect to their ‘gentlemanly friends’ who come to privately warn them?????

    Will they respect their friends, when they have not got it in themselves to honor the mystery of God Himself?

    I agree this is a tragedy for these men and for those who might have helped them. But we reap what we sow. Comes to mind the myth of poor Icarus who flew too near the Sun …. his man-made wings,put together with wax, failed when the wax melted, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.

    If I ‘understand’, it is not God. Why?
    Because I am a human person. And God’s ways are far above mine.

    An evangelical tragedy with overtones of Greek mythology, yes.

  7. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    As Todd Pruitt points out, Duesing is concerned only for the “ungentlemanly” conduct of one side of the debate. He doesn’t apologise for “us” but accuses “them”. So this is not a call upwards towards Christ, but an act of subterfuge and deception in a war. He wants to distract “them” into not fighting, or fighting according to more stringent rules, so that “we” are unencumbered by opposition and can strike harder and advance further.

    Duesing’s whole thing doesn’t have anything to do with theology or finding the truth. It’s a straw man.

    How about their background politicking, which is now common knowledge? What about their strategic and mostly forced takeovers of institutions and churches? What about the propaganda being posted on TGC?

    They aren’t gentlemen.

  8. It’s funny he asks what would Roger Nicole think; well for starters Dr. Nicole was an egalitarian. So why don’t we proceed from there. I knew Dr. Nicole in the last few years of his life, he was indeed a real Christian gentleman in a way that I have not seen from the defenders of ESS. I’d say a little more but I gotta go to work now

  9. I also note the fact they quote Owen, & not a church Father. They are children of the Reformation… maybe not children of the truth as once handed down. I feel like the measure for orthodoxy has become the Reformers, not those who walked with Christ or learned from those who did. The 1500 years they leave out make all the difference.

  10. Beakerj wrote:

    I also note the fact they quote Owen, & not a church Father. They are children of the Reformation… maybe not children of the truth as once handed down. I feel like the measure for orthodoxy has become the Reformers, not those who walked with Christ or learned from those who did. The 1500 years they leave out make all the difference.

    I am Catholic and cannot speak for all mainline Protestant people, of course, nor would I;
    but I have always thought that there was basic agreement on Trinitarian theory among those in western Christianity.

    A question: For the most part, do evangelical Christians believe that the Holy Trinity operates with one will? or three separate wills?

    It matters, this question, as the answer would tell me if evangelicals would find meaning in these words:

    “”For there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three resembling each other. But the three subsistences have one and the same movement. For each one of them is related as closely to the other as to itself: that is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, save those of not being begotten, of birth and of procession. But it is by thought that the difference is perceived. For we recognise one God: but only in the attributes of Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession, both in respect of cause and effect and perfection of subsistence, that is, manner of existence, do we perceive difference.”

    These are the words of Saint John of Damascus, Doctor of the Church in the 7th and 8th Centuries

  11. As soon as I read the bio for Jason Deusing, my next immediate thought was “so, another seminary has fallen.” I’m referring to falling for Calvinism. How sad. We are so close to leaving our baptist church. The last pastor followed the plan and used it as a stepping stone to a much, much, much larger church with really cushy benefits and gave no one much time to prepare. SWBS is in his background.

    So much of what I see these days seems to be pastoring through formulaic church growth. In other words, developing authentic relationships without the end goal of increasing pew sitters seems non-existent. Everything is purposed for numeric church growth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean discipleship is taking place. When the average lifespan for a particular baptist pastorship is 3-4 years, it most likely isn’t. And the next step is to hop up to the bigger church. It seems almost all of the seminaries either overtly encourage this career building or end up encouraging it unknowingly by plugging the big name conferences with big name preachers, guest speakers, authors, etc.

    I still ask the question, why do Calvinists even need preachers? Why would they ever even need a sermon? Why would they need discipleship? Why? If limited atonement is correct, why the need for any of it?

  12. waking up wrote:

    So much of what I see these days seems to be pastoring through formulaic church growth. In other words, developing authentic relationships without the end goal of increasing pew sitters seems non-existent. Everything is purposed for numeric church growth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean discipleship is taking place.

    I’ve spoken with a couple pastors of larger churches who say that they intentionally focus on church growth, and not discipleship. They try to couch it in terms “for the sake of the gospel”, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that church gatherings are supposed to be for the lost.

    It’s the ones in the pews that are supposed to be bringing people to Christ before they set foot in a church. But the average Christian has never grown past the baby Christian stage.

  13. Yes, Duessing is a Mohler mouthpiece. Mohler is a strange bird on ESS. I assumed he agreed with it because Grudem’s ST has been the SBTS bible for doctrine. Now he says he doesn’t subscribe to ESS.

    But hold the phone!!!! Roger Nicole was an egalitarian! And there has been nothing gentlemanly about their stand on that issue with those who disagree.

  14. I meant to add, all of this allusion toward “gentlemanly behavior,” falls flat to me. So far, in my evangelical world, I have been extremely distressed to learn that several of the pastors of churches have told women seeking support and counseling from leaving abusive husbands have been told; “Well, he has really changed and we find him repentant. You have been married to him for years and stuck by his side then, and we feel you need to stay with him through this.” (This was a personal friend who received this counseling).

    A family member, who is in an abusive relationship, went to her pastor, who is also a family friend of ours. He later told another friend working with our family member in a specific ministry that our family member was half at fault for her situation and to not have much contact with her outside of church (the family member had been corresponding with our friend with whom she is in ministry about why she was struggling to remain in the ministry).

    To me, THAT is not being a gentleman. The SBC is so backwards in regards to addictions and spousal abuse it is beyond ridiculous. Right now, I will not refer anyone I know living in an abusive relationship to any pastor in my area again and will only refer them to a professional counsellor or psychologist.

  15. “I can’t help but wonder that if those convinced of their brother’s heterodoxy were slow to speak and sought to earn the right to criticize in private, much of the negative impact of this debate could have been avoided.”
    Of course he does. Because image and $$$ are all that matter. We mustn’t air the recent unpleasantness…

  16. waking up wrote:

    Right now, I will not refer anyone I know living in an abusive relationship to any pastor in my area again and will only refer them to a professional counsellor or psychologist.

    Good for you.

    Don’t forget to add Jeff Crippen and Barbara Roberts’ blog A Cry for Justice blog to
    Christians that are dealing with domestic violence.
    https://cryingoutforjustice.com/

    And Jeff (a pastor/former cop in Oregon) and Barbara (in Australia) both have very good books on the subject of d.v. in Christian churches and families. Very helpful.

  17. ishy wrote:

    waking up wrote:
    So much of what I see these days seems to be pastoring through formulaic church growth. In other words, developing authentic relationships without the end goal of increasing pew sitters seems non-existent. Everything is purposed for numeric church growth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean discipleship is taking place.
    I’ve spoken with a couple pastors of larger churches who say that they intentionally focus on church growth, and not discipleship. They try to couch it in terms “for the sake of the gospel”, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that church gatherings are supposed to be for the lost.
    It’s the ones in the pews that are supposed to be bringing people to Christ before they set foot in a church. But the average Christian has never grown past the baby Christian stage.

    It is so strange because I’ve personally seen big banners about discipleship classes, programs, etc., but they too seem more aimed at numeric growth than personal discipleship and training to truly reach out to the lost and disciple them in turn.

  18. Velour wrote:

    waking up wrote:
    Right now, I will not refer anyone I know living in an abusive relationship to any pastor in my area again and will only refer them to a professional counsellor or psychologist.
    Good for you.
    Don’t forget to add Jeff Crippen and Barbara Roberts’ blog A Cry for Justice blog to
    Christians that are dealing with domestic violence.
    https://cryingoutforjustice.com/

    That looks awesome!
    And Jeff (a pastor/former cop in Oregon) and Barbara (in Australia) both have very good books on the subject of d.v. in Christian churches and families. Very helpful.

  19. @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Exactly. Duessing is not the first to try and reframe and deflect the real issue. My guess is Mohler has a strategy and is enlisting loyalists. This is not about winning an debate on ESS, as we know. This is about protecting reputations with the movement followers. This is Reformed vs. Reformed and they are taking it as a threat– enough to totally ignore a doctrinal debate and accuse the other side of not being gentleman. Of course, they are, as controlling arrogant authoritarians, an ungentlemanly lot.

    I have seen how they have gone after NT Wright, for example. And other Non Cal SBC profs and pastors by calling them Pelagian which means heretic in their world. And Mohler even said the signers of the Trad statement, “should be marginalized”. Mohler joked about Mahaney at victims expense at T$G. There is nothing gentlemanly about the pope of the Neo Cal movement.

  20. These men that support the ESS do not know the Holy Spirit in any way shape or form. They have sold their soul to men on this earth to keep their current position. It is beyond sad.

  21. Lydia wrote:

    @ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
    I want to know what the “negative impact” is, exactly. Mohler is still on his throne.

    Lydia: You said it correctly–Al is on his throne and worshiped by many instead of God.

  22. waking up wrote:

    It is so strange because I’ve personally seen big banners about discipleship classes, programs, etc., but they too seem more aimed at numeric growth than personal discipleship and training to truly reach out to the lost and disciple them in turn.

    Oh, most definitely! It’s all about filling those seats. I think a lot those pastors mean well and really believe they are saving souls, and they probably are, but it’s only because they aren’t teaching the church to do the work it’s supposed to be doing.

    I think that’s one reason why pastors get such acclaim nowadays. They are viewed the sole rescuers of the lost, because most Christians are lazy and don’t want to do it themselves.

  23. Duessing: “I can’t help but wonder that if those convinced of their brother’s heterodoxy were slow to speak and sought to earn the right to criticize in private, much of the negative impact of this debate could have been avoided.”

    How does one seek to “earn” the “right” to criticize in private?

    The arrogance is astounding. It is ingrained.

  24. Lydia wrote:

    Duessing: “I can’t help but wonder that if those convinced of their brother’s heterodoxy were slow to speak and sought to earn the right to criticize in private, much of the negative impact of this debate could have been avoided.”
    How does one seek to “earn” the “right” to criticize in private?
    The arrogance is astounding. It is ingrained.

    Truly, they are blind to their arrogance. If you point it out, then you are labeled as attacking God’s anointed. They cover each other’s back so well.

  25. From Duessing: “If one truly feels that their brother or sister in Christ has moved beyond substantive difference of opinion to a place of heterodoxy, then I question the wisdom of addressing that first in an instantaneous, public, and non-peer reviewed environment.

    The issue for me is not necessarily one of accuracy or need, for heterodoxy should always be addressed. The issue for me in this debate is one of public civility and kindness.”

    http://jgduesing.com/2016/10/03/where-are-the-gentlemen-theologians/

    I thought this was rich coming from a loyal captain of movement that has been telling people publicly they don’t know the “true Gospel” and are ignorant. The Stealth takeover of churches, lying about their agenda, etc, is not “gentlemanly”. Not to mention their treatment of those who are not comp and making it a salvic issue.

    There is nothing “kind” about positioning Jesus Christ as a lessor god. It has been done to shore up your human caste system, Jason.

  26. Lydia wrote:

    I thought this was rich coming from a loyal captain of movement that has been telling people publicly they don’t know the “true Gospel” and are ignorant. The Stealth takeover of churches, lying about their agenda, etc, is not “gentlemanly”. Not to mention their treatment of those who are not comp and making it a salvic issue.
    There is nothing “kind” about positioning Jesus Christ as a lessor god. It has been done to shore up your human caste system, Jason.

    Preach it, Sister Lydia!

  27. @ waking up:

    I can promise you they really are that arrogant. So….one must seek their permission to disagree with them in private. And are not gentlemen if they disagree in public.

    Do you have any idea how many pimple faced young pastors think these guys are brilliant and emulate their illogic? There are scads of them out there trained to think like this.

    He who makes the rules, wins.

  28. siteseer wrote:

    I read Todd Pruitt’s excellent post earlier, I was very impressed.

    It was well done. Particularly, he brought up the fact that Grudem has been running around accusing other people of heresy.

    Also, now that I know the author of the whiney ‘why can’t we all just be gentlemen’ article is on CBMW I can see exactly where he’s coming from.

  29. If they want to make their heresy public by writing articles and books on it, then they get criticized in public. That’s how it works. If they didn’t want to make ESS public, then they should have kept it behind closed doors.

  30. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    As Todd Pruitt points out, Duesing is concerned only for the “ungentlemanly” conduct of one side of the debate. He doesn’t apologise for “us” but accuses “them”.

    IT’s also terribly ‘ungentlemenly’ behavior.

  31. @ mot:

    Hi MOT,

    I asked you a question on the other thread, but I don’t think you’ve been over there.
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/10/06/pete-wilson-is-so-exhausted-and-burned-out-that-he-became-the-president-of-the-a-group/#comment-287946

    I just wanted to know, if you have any free time, if you could look at my ex-church’s website and documents (Statement of Faith, Bylaws, Membership Covenant) and tell me what you think.

    Note: Ex-church, Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley, was very authoritarian, NeoCalvinist, and the elder-led church changed the By-Laws and other documents over time.
    There is no congregational vote.

  32. Lydia wrote:

    But hold the phone!!!! Roger Nicole was an egalitarian!

    Wow! Maybe that’s why he was such a nice guy 🙂

  33. Lydia wrote:

    @ waking up:
    I can promise you they really are that arrogant. So….one must seek their permission to disagree with them in private. And are not gentlemen if they disagree in public.
    Do you have any idea how many pimple faced young pastors think these guys are brilliant and emulate their illogic? There are scads of them out there trained to think like this.
    He who makes the rules, wins.

    Yes, unfortunately, I can imagine as the takeover of seminaries is nearly complete in the SBC, that number will only grow…and almost all of the pimple faced young pastors who think these guys are brilliant are male. All the chosen ones have to do is write a Bible study or Sunday School study (to be forever followed afterward) and the young ones bring it into their churches and go church wide with the studies and switch over all materials to the chosen YRR authors and the indoctrination cycle begins all over again.

  34. I do not know how to quote properly. Sorry. My own replies end up in the quote. Apologies for the confusing quote font.

  35. Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

    the negative impact of this debate

    Apologies for posting so much this morning, but that one jumped out at me too.

    Negative impact = money and power lost from the CBMW/ESS guys. Right? That’s encouraging.

  36. The time for “gentlemen theologians” passed when Wayne Grudem put ESS in his Systematic Theology. At that point, it had passed from private admonition to public airing, because the Systematic Theology is used across the country by thousands of students. The book continues to be a strong seller; I checked Amazon, it’s #2,184 right now.

    Oh, and by the way, can I just say how sexist it is to talk about “gentlemen theologians”? As if women can’t do theology.

  37. waking up wrote:

    I do not know how to quote properly. Sorry. My own replies end up in the quote. Apologies for the confusing quote font.

    Just type in the white space after the quote. Or, if you are going to comment after a sentence or phrase, copy and paste the blockquotes that you see. The one at the beginning of a sentence has this symbol and the one at the end of a sentence quote has this symbol .

  38. Deana Holmes (fka mirele) wrote:

    The time for “gentlemen theologians” passed when Wayne Grudem put ESS in his Systematic Theology. At that point, it had passed from private admonition to public airing, because the Systematic Theology is used across the country by thousands of students. The book continues to be a strong seller; I checked Amazon, it’s #2,184 right now.
    Oh, and by the way, can I just say how sexist it is to talk about “gentlemen theologians”? As if women can’t do theology.

    Wait…there are so-called Christians who think women can do theology????? WHAT? Obviously, they are Christians in name only (thick sarcasm here)>

  39. Velour wrote:

    @ Velour:
    Sorry the symbols didn’t show up. Another expert will have to demonstrate it for you.

    To: Waking Up

  40. Velour wrote:

    waking up wrote:
    I do not know how to quote properly. Sorry. My own replies end up in the quote. Apologies for the confusing quote font.

    Just type in the white space after the quote. Or, if you are going to comment after a sentence or phrase, copy and paste the blockquotes that you see. The one at the beginning of a sentence has this symbol and the one at the end of a sentence quote has this symbol .

    I think I got it! Thank you!

  41. Lea wrote:

    @ Deana Holmes (fka mirele):
    BTW, someone went after a lady who is a preacher in an article the other day and went hard after her on twitter. Ridiculous. That wasn’t precisely ‘gentlemanly’ either.

    Yes. They went after Jory Micah.

    Then Kamilla, who defends the Bayley Brothers and Doug Wilson, was tweeting Dee
    that Jory’s theology was wrong (something I think about the Virgin Mary not being
    a virgin or some such nonsense accusation). These put downs of Jory from the crowd that defended Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, match-making a serial child sex offender to a young woman at church/Wilson’s Christian college, marrying them, and now they have a baby and the sex offender is attracted to his own child and must be constantly supervised.

  42. This is a little off topic, but I don’t know where else to ask. For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?

  43. Velour wrote:

    Lea wrote:
    @ Deana Holmes (fka mirele):
    BTW, someone went after a lady who is a preacher in an article the other day and went hard after her on twitter. Ridiculous. That wasn’t precisely ‘gentlemanly’ either.
    Yes. They went after Jory Micah.
    Then Kamilla, who defends the Bayley Brothers and Doug Wilson, was tweeting Dee
    that Jory’s theology was wrong (something I think about the Virgin Mary not being
    a virgin or some such nonsense accusation). These put downs of Jory from the crowd that defended Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, match-making a serial child sex offender to a young woman at church/Wilson’s Christian college, marrying them, and now they have a baby and the sex offender is attracted to his own child and must be constantly supervised.

    Again, the willful ignorance of addiction and abuse in the fundie/evangelical world is mind boggling, but far more serious, is flat out dangerous.

  44. Velour wrote:

    @ waking up:
    A+.
    You got your comment after the quote. See practice makes perfect!

    Thanks! I like good grades! LOL

  45. Lea wrote:

    BTW, someone went after a lady who is a preacher in an article the other day and went hard after her on twitter. Ridiculous. That wasn’t precisely ‘gentlemanly’ either.

    I know about that. If it’s the same person, I got blocked by him last night after I took exception to a particular social teaching of his which (IMHO) harms people. He blocked me after saying “totalitarians silence dissent.” I’ve got him penciled in for a Sunday picket; he’s the elder of a Reformed Baptist church over on the near side of Phoenix. His church has lovely sidewalks! He’s using this “totalitarians silence dissent” argument to excuse some of the most heinous anti-human talk I’ve heard in my life. I have friends who have been badly harmed by his kind of talk and it’s not totalitarianism to confront James White and his friends to tell them how horribly damaging their words are.

    I am tired, very tired, of having to talk a friend into continuing to live after she hears words like those expressed by White where her very being is called into question. Jesus would never, ever do that to a person.

  46. Ideas expressed publically get engaged with in the public sphere. That’s how it works. To request that disagreements be handled privately is to attempt to create the impression there is no public disagreement, which is probably the true goal.

    Meanwhile, a pro-ESS speaker is giving a talk about how opposition to his ideas threatens all of Christianity.

    When Paul saw that Cephas was committing what he considered an error, he opposed him to his face.

  47. Robert wrote:

    Ideas expressed publically get engaged with in the public sphere. That’s how it works. To request that disagreements be handled privately is to attempt to create the impression there is no public disagreement, which is probably the true goal

    I was thinking the same thing!
    “If you disagree with us, just keep quiet about it! How dare anyone interfere with us pushing our agenda!”

  48. This is off topic, but the video of Luther reminded me of a discussion with some friends years ago. One friend and I were talking about Luther nailing his 95 theses on the church door, and another friend who was present looked at us like we were crazy. After some conversation it became clear she thought Luther nailed “feces” on the door. When asked how she thought he was able to do that, she replied, “In baggies?”

  49. mirele wrote:

    I am tired, very tired, of having to talk a friend into continuing to live after she hears words like those expressed by White where her very being is called into question. Jesus would never, ever do that to a person.

    I think Social Media has been a window into the true hearts and minds of many of these men in ministry. And their hearts are wrong.

  50. Note: I am writing this, based on my reading of Jason Duesing’s article, “Where are the Gentlemen Theologians?” I have not yet read Todd Pruitt’s response, and may have more to say after that …

    Regarding Jason Duesing’s article, I’m not against respectful dialogue. But it appears there are unexpressed assumptions in the whole “Gentleman Theologian” argument that inevitably lead to repression of discourse — and of disciples.

    Holifield documented how a segment of clergy in antebellum America were “proponents of clerical gentility.” Spread throughout all denominations, and though often disagreeing among themselves over major and minor issues, these Gentlemen Theologians were the ones who made the decisions that shaped churches. In short, these were the ministers who gave a voice to “orthodox religious thought” (24).

    I find myself agitated at the assumption that only an elite group of highly trained scholars could be capable of rebuking their peers about perceived heterodox. And that they are to genteelly follow the path of correction laid out in Matthew 18, earning the right to be heard, approaching in private. So, while he advocates theologians observe all the gentlemanly niceties of their noble profession, what is happening outside their silo, with those directly affected by the trickle-down realities of these questionable doctrines?

    This particular case on Trinitarian beliefs erupted on the internet with some contrarian complementarians (and others) reflecting the voices of those everyday disciples who have been bearing the brunt of consequences from these misbeliefs of highly public ESS/EFS/ERAS proponents and practitioners. This was a novel development, as the painful pleas of the plebes have not exactly been heard by the theological overclass, in how CBMW-type hardcore complementarianism based in ESS/EFS/ERAS has marginalized and demonized women, and sometimes justified harsh treatment and even domestic violence.

    And yet, Mr. Duesing seems to want to have kept this all as a private, in-house polemic debate, protecting the dignity of ESS Trinitarian theologians, eschewing any indelicacies of calling out these publicthought leaders in public.

    Meanwhile, those victimized by the inherent indignities of these harmful heterodoxies will no longer play that gentlemanly game. Could it be that these past few months of open argumentation perhaps represent a trickle-up effect to the theologian level, sparked in part by disruptive discourse engaged in by survivors whose spirits had been crushed by complementarianism, and by those who are advocates and activists?

    I do not advocate violence, but do endorse dissent that is respectful as possible, non-cooperation with evil, and public spotlighting of public figures who continue to promote toxicity. So, as a final thought, I urge the men and women of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) consider this quote from John F. Kennedy and its context, the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress among the U.S. and countries Latin America, as a metaphor for their meeting and for future collaborations:

    For too long my country, the wealthiest nation in a continent which is not wealthy, failed to carry out its full responsibilities to its sister Republics. We have now accepted that responsibility. In the same way those who possess wealth and power in poor nations must accept their own responsibilities. They must lead the fight for those basic reforms which alone can preserve the fabric of their societies. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9100

    This year’s ETS theme of the Trinity gives members an opportunity to spotlight fatally flawed Trinitarian doctrines that, used as anchors for gender hierarchy, clearly do cause harm and have left many spiritually destitute. What will those in a role of academic privilege do about it?

  51. waking up wrote:

    This is a little off topic, but I don’t know where else to ask. For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?

    I would love to hear everyone’s input on this too. I have finally and definitely left – finally admitted that it’s not just a matter of finding the right Baptist church, but that the SBC as a whole now has too many things that are a hindrance to my faith and that of my children. We have attended a United Methodist church at times but have not really found a church home. It is so hard (!!!) because I grew up in the SBC, and my expectations of church are grounded in that. I’m not an outgoing person, and trying to find a new church is sort of intimidating on a social level. But there is just no room in the SBC churches in my area for someone who doesn’t revere Mohler, Piper, and (worst of all to me) Ken Ham.

    I could easily be a “done” but I really want a faith community for my children.

  52. I don’t follow Duesing’s logic on this at all? Maybe we need some examples on this – Like the “gentlemanly” way that Al Mohler addressed concerns about his friend CJ Mahanaey? No, that won’t work. How about the gentlemanly way that the Conservative Resurgence (or whatever it was called) dealt with less conservative (non-Calvinist) theologians in Baptist seminaries? No, can’t find any good examples there either. Surely there are some examples that he can show us in the SBC / CBMW crowd?

  53. caroline wrote:

    waking up wrote:
    This is a little off topic, but I don’t know where else to ask. For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?
    I would love to hear everyone’s input on this too. I have finally and definitely left – finally admitted that it’s not just a matter of finding the right Baptist church, but that the SBC as a whole now has too many things that are a hindrance to my faith and that of my children. We have attended a United Methodist church at times but have not really found a church home. It is so hard (!!!) because I grew up in the SBC, and my expectations of church are grounded in that. I’m not an outgoing person, and trying to find a new church is sort of intimidating on a social level. But there is just no room in the SBC churches in my area for someone who doesn’t revere Mohler, Piper, and (worst of all to me) Ken Ham.
    I could easily be a “done” but I really want a faith community for my children.

    I am exactly in the same situation. I realize this is not the SBC I knew as a college student.

  54. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    So this is not a call upwards towards Christ, but an act of subterfuge and deception in a war. He wants to distract “them” into not fighting, or fighting according to more stringent rules, so that “we” are unencumbered by opposition and can strike harder and advance further.

    He wants Duesign’s (i.e., Mohler’s, Ware’s, Grudem’s) rules, which they themselves have not adhered to. He is trying to set the stage. He wants people to believe that he and his colleagues are the ones who have been gentlemanly when the truth is that, behind the scenes, they have been anything but. These men are wicked. I would have nothing to do with them.

  55. Beakerj wrote:

    I feel like the measure for orthodoxy has become the Reformers, not those who walked with Christ or learned from those who did. The 1500 years they leave out make all the difference.

    Exactly! They appear to believe truth began with the Reformation like so many who call themselves reformed. It is a sad truth.

  56. @ John g:
    I co-officiated a wedding with Dr. Nicole many years ago. At the rehearsal I asked him if any are predestined to be Arminians. He replied with a smile, “Oh, no. God is not the author of sin.”

    A little humor can help at times.

  57. waking up wrote:

    This is a little off topic, but I don’t know where else to ask. For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?

    I haven’t found one yet. I move this week, so will be starting over in a new town. I plan to try different denominations and backgrounds, avoiding the SBC churches. I’m not reformed, and not charismatic, but otherwise will try a variety of churches.

    There’s a UMC church with a female pastor right near my house, so I plan to try that next Sunday. I’ve been to one of the CBF churches, and I liked the people, but didn’t really enjoy the service. I will also likely try a ELCA Lutheran. Not sure what else.

    I really have little hope that most churches are both devoted to God and to their communities. But that’s what I really want to find.

  58. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    So this is not a call upwards towards Christ, but an act of subterfuge and deception in a war. He wants to distract “them” into not fighting, or fighting according to more stringent rules, so that “we” are unencumbered by opposition and can strike harder and advance further.

    Good assessment.

  59. John g wrote:

    knew Dr. Nicole in the last few years of his life, he was indeed a real Christian gentleman in a way that I have not seen from the defenders of ESS.

    Interesting. I hope you can add more after work!

  60. Lydia wrote:

    How does one seek to “earn” the “right” to criticize in private?
    The arrogance is astounding. It is ingrained.

    Right! That is what I thought. Duesign speaks as if he and his are the “hierarchy” and others must bow to them. The language is so disturbing from men who believe they are Christian leaders.

  61. I just read Todd Pruitt’s article, “What is a gentleman to do? OR I agree with Wayne Grudem.” I appreciate his incisive response. What is there is exceptionally good — clear and accessible for a non-philosopher/theologian like myself.

    However, there is still something that feels missing from the entire discussion: the lived experiences of damage done by the hardcore complementarian doctrines and practices promoted by adherents of ESS/EFS/ERAS. I agree with Mr. Pruitt that this debate entails far more than metaphysical esoterica about the Trinity. Where there is heterodox/heresy, there will be harm. Many in the spiritual abuse survivor community have narratives that witness to that fact. I hope that members of the Evangelical Theological Society will give voice to the toxic, concrete consequences of these malignant doctrines — “ungentlemanly” as that exposure may seem. These have not been private beliefs, even though they have often led to infliction of private damage. Time for the spotlight to shine Kingdom klieg lights into that darkness, and hopefully ETS will do so with protection of all disciples in mind.

  62. caroline wrote:

    I don’t follow Duesing’s logic on this at all? Maybe we need some examples on this – Like the “gentlemanly” way that Al Mohler addressed concerns about his friend CJ Mahanaey? No, that won’t work. How about the gentlemanly way that the Conservative Resurgence (or whatever it was called) dealt with less conservative (non-Calvinist) theologians in Baptist seminaries? No, can’t find any good examples there either. Surely there are some examples that he can show us in the SBC / CBMW crowd?

    Excellent!!

  63. caroline wrote:

    … and (worst of all to me) Ken Ham.

    Ham is no friend here at TWW. If you look at the Creationism entry in the “Categories” menu you will find about 50 posts and resulting comments on topics germane to YEC.

  64. ION:

    I injured the little finger of my right (typing) hand yesterday, under bizarre circumstances.

    I put my hand into a large box of mainly-dry washing, to pull out a duvet cover. Except I missed the big space in the middle of the box and caught my hand on the edge, bending my finger back. This must be some kind of record, given that I was neither drunk nor hypoglycaemic (and TBH, I’ve never been that hypoglycaemic anyway) at the time.

    So, just finished the latest batch of concreting (around 750 kg mixed and set into our driveway) and my finger is slightly sore. I don’t want to make a big thing about it, though.

    IHTIH

  65. waking up wrote:

    Why? If limited atonement is correct, why the need for any of it?

    Because they want to show us what good Christians do so we will all understand that we are bound for hell.

  66. ION:

    Still bearing up despite my slightly sore finger.

    But, as I said, I don’t want to make a big thing about it.









    Ouch…










    I still don’t want to make a big thing about it.

  67. Christiane wrote:

    For the most part, do evangelical Christians believe that the Holy Trinity operates with one will? or three separate wills?

    One will and I absolutely love the quote.

    This whole thing got started because some of the super males wanted to prove that women will be subordinate not only in the world, but in the next. That thinking is predicated on the eternal subordination of Jesus. if Jesus is subordinate for eternity then why won’t women be subordinate for all eternity.

  68. waking up wrote:

    For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?

    I am now attending a conservative, liturgical based church. I don’t like to say which one because SEBTS is around here and I don’t want them going after me via the pastors.

  69. ION:

    Cricket: England have only managed 16 runs from the first 7 overs of their ODI against the Windies in Montego Bay. They’re going to have to pick up the run-rate if they have any plans to post a score.

    IHTIH

  70. Former CLCer wrote:

    After some conversation it became clear she thought Luther nailed “feces” on the door. When asked how she thought he was able to do that, she replied, “In baggies?”

    That is absolutely hysterical.

  71. @ Bridget:
    They have been very busy building a caste system. It is not hard to see they only believe certain academics can engage each other and even then, they set the rules for the engagement.

    This affirms what I saw years ago concerning ESS. There WERE people sounding the alarm like Cheryl Schatz who went to the trouble to make an in depth DVD about the ESS error. She caught it right away because she had a ministry to people leaving Mormonism and JW and the biggest issue for them is the Trinity. But, she is a woman and not part of the academic elite. There were many others but they did not count as credible because they were not Reformed or of the academic elite. The non clergy pew sitter will never be listened to or considered credible. They are to listen and agree what the great men teach them. That is reason enough to avoid the institution that calls itself a church.

    I went and read Michelle Van Loons post at Jesus Creed. She mentions Stan Gundrys OP about what has happened to ETS –which I read not long ago. ETS is going the way of the SBC. Controlled by stacking the committees and leaders. Not very gentlemanly or courageous.

    Btw, irony check. Roger Nicole was one of the original coordinators of Christians for Biblical Equality. And he was a big fan of Calvin. Go figure.

  72. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Did you all notice that I didn’t mention my sore finger there?

    That is how to suffer in silence – not making a big thing about it. My sore finger, that is – I don’t want to make a big thing about having a sore finger.








    Absolutely not.

  73. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    However, there is still something that feels missing from the entire discussion: the lived experiences of damage done by the hardcore complementarian doctrines and practices promoted by adherents of ESS/EFS/ERAS

    That is well said!

  74. Velour wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    Oh no, Nick.
    I hope it heals soon.

    Thanks, Velour.

    I’m holding up pretty well, I think, all things considered.

  75. Christiane wrote:

    @ ishy:
    Can you not visit the different Churches on two or three Sunday mornings each?

    I certainly could, and I might do that. Probably depends on my endurance that day.

    And… I am trying to give up caffeine on Sundays. I know it’s weird, but I kinda want to break the cycle of tolerance each week. We’ll see how that goes! 😉

  76. @ brad/futuristguy:
    I agree about what is missing. The actual people factor. How such doctrine skewed not only their view of God the Father, Jesus Christ and the ever AWOL Holy Spirit— but of their own value within the ESS caste system.

    Pruitt has to be careful, I understand that. He is a comp and as a comp has been accused by the “gentleman” from the ESS defense side of being a feminist. Those are devastating words to a comp. the ultimate insult. So comp must be defended aside from the ESS issue which misses the point of why ESS was revived by that lot in the first place!

  77. ishy wrote:

    I am trying to give up caffeine on Sundays. I know it’s weird, but I kinda want to break the cycle of tolerance each week. We’ll see how that goes!

    ISHY, I was able to get off of caffeine for a few months years ago. I bought Starbucks De-Caf beans and ground them myself and made a drip-pot of very very strong coffee (de-caf) …. I then sweetened it with no-cal sweeteners and used heavy cream in it

    It almost tasted like real coffee. Almost. Nerves were better. Slept better.

    But in time, when I thought I was out, the siren call of the caffeine monster lured me back in and I rejoined my husband’s love of fully caffeinated Columbian (so good)

    Good luck trying to escape the addiction. It can be done. One workable trick is to try half-caff for a season first.

  78. OldJohnJ wrote:

    caroline wrote:
    … and (worst of all to me) Ken Ham.
    Ham is no friend here at TWW. If you look at the Creationism entry in the “Categories” menu you will find about 50 posts and resulting comments on topics germane to YEC.

    Thanks, OldJohnJ. I need to look into that resource. I take this a little bit personally because I am on faculty at a local college in a scientific discipline. I am the evil scientist who is deceiving today’s young minds (sarcasm). There seems to be a misunderstanding around here that YEC has always been the position of the church, and that’s just not true. In fact, my undergraduate degree is from a Baptist university, and many of my professors were devoted Christians. I don’t remember a single one that would have seriously argued for YEC. Irony: My undergraduate university was the same as Al Mohler’s, and I’m only a little younger than him. So he must have at least taken and passed at least freshman science courses from those same instructors. How must he have compromised his convictions to do so?

  79. Christiane wrote:

    I was able to get off of caffeine for a few months years ago. I bought Starbucks De-Caf beans and ground them myself…

    This was probably helped by the fact that de-caffeinated kwafi isn’t totally caffeine-free.

    I must say, I share your taste in (strong) kwafi. Some people say you should be able to stand a spoon upright in kwafi. I say if you can get a spoon in, it’s not strong enough.

  80. dee wrote:

    waking up wrote:
    For those of you who have left the SBC, where do you now attend?
    I am now attending a conservative, liturgical based church. I don’t like to say which one because SEBTS is around here and I don’t want them going after me via the pastors.

    Ah…that makes sense. What you are describing is very appealing to me and yes, I know there are no perfect churches, however, I still believe there are those grounded in Christ’s salvation and love and don’t seek branding and status.

  81. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Christiane wrote:
    I was able to get off of caffeine for a few months years ago. I bought Starbucks De-Caf beans and ground them myself…
    This was probably helped by the fact that de-caffeinated kwafi isn’t totally caffeine-free.
    I must say, I share your taste in (strong) kwafi. Some people say you should be able to stand a spoon upright in kwafi. I say if you can get a spoon in, it’s not strong enough.

    I’m actually not a coffee lover, just a caffeine lover. I like herbal tea more than coffee. But I noticed I kept drinking more and more in the quest to be more alert. So I’m trying to give it up 2 days a week, taking ginseng on Saturdays, and then nothing on Sundays. I’m also going to be upping my morning workouts a bit.

  82. Jason, your desperation is showing along with your transparent double standard. Women are told that we are “contrary to” men just because we are female. We are told we are anti-Gospel if we stand in our freedom in Christ. We are told we are more easily deceived than males. We are told we are created in the derivative image of God.

    Those are not the things any gentleman would say. And there is absolutely nothing kind about that. You sound like a gong and cymbal marching band that has no love for God or people.

  83. mot wrote:

    These men that support the ESS do not know the Holy Spirit in any way shape or form. They have sold their soul to men on this earth to keep their current position. It is beyond sad.

    There was a time when I thought this was an overstatement. Then I got mugged by reality. I think there are men who are deceived but sincere. I think Jason with his B.S. in communications is not one of those. Sickening that this is what the SBC and other conservative evangelical institutions has become.

  84. caroline wrote:

    I need to look into that resource.

    Glad to have another science professional with us. I am the author of a couple of the posts under Creationism. In particular, you might enjoy “Fraud”. Also, continuing on this diversion would probably be better under the Open Discussion page.

  85. OldJohnJ wrote:

    caroline wrote:
    I need to look into that resource.
    Glad to have another science professional with us. I am the author of a couple of the posts under Creationism. In particular, you might enjoy “Fraud”. Also, continuing on this diversion would probably be better under the Open Discussion page.

    Yes, sorry for the diversion. But, honestly, it all goes together for me. Once I realized that these guys will take all sorts of disingenuous, intellectually dishonest, and spiritually bankrupt positions to maintain power and control, I see the same pattern repeating itself whether we are talking about marriage, or the Trinity, or science, or church polity, or preventing abuse. This is another example, pretending that someone has violated the rules of “gentlemanly” debate, when that actually has nothing to do with their reasons for silencing dissent.

  86. caroline wrote:

    This is another example, pretending that someone has violated the rules of “gentlemanly” debate, when that actually has nothing to do with their reasons for silencing dissent.

    Bingo.

  87. I realize that my posts must sound angry and disillusioned, and I admit that I am.

    Also, I’m having a hard time thinking rationally about all of the theological implications, with everything that’s going on with Nick’s finger.

  88. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    Time for the spotlight to shine Kingdom klieg lights into that darkness, and hopefully ETS will do so with protection of all discipes in mind.

    I think that ETS is already lost to the power seekers and the evidence for that belief is the resolutions they passed which were contrary to the original design of the ETS.

  89. @ mirele:

    I applaud you mirele, and you have my moral support. Your efforts are valiant in helping to free even more human beings from these despots.

  90. @ Velour:

    I think that complementarians have turned masculinity into an idol.

    It’s not masculinity that saved humanity, it was God becoming incarnate as a human being (gender irrelevant) and lived a sinless life.

    For publicly speaking out and disagreeing with ESS or complementarianism, that guy cited ni the original post would say you’re not being gentlemanly (or not being lady- like?) 🙂

    Some women (including complementarian ones) have chimed in to this debate on the blogs, and I noticed the guy mentioned in the OP doesn’t even mention them. No mention of ladies or being lady-like. It’s all about men and being “gentlemanly.”

  91. @ caroline:
    Lol! he also uses his amazing powers to distract with Euro
    Football scores.

    You don’t sound angry to me. You sound like a smart woman who has discovered the real stealth agenda. It’s a wake up call. It was for me, too.

  92. Gram3 wrote:

    Jason, your desperation is showing along with your transparent double standard. Women are told that we are “contrary to” men just because we are female. We are told we are anti-Gospel if we stand in our freedom in Christ. We are told we are more easily deceived than males. We are told we are created in the derivative image of God.

    You left out the part about Jesus being subordinate to the Father. When you add up salvation for only the elect and Jesus’ eternal subordination (just like the eternal subordination of we lowly wimmen folk) ……. well, Jesus must not be all that!

  93. caroline wrote:

    I realize that my posts must sound angry and disillusioned, and I admit that I am.
    Also, I’m having a hard time thinking rationally about all of the theological implications, with everything that’s going on with Nick’s finger.

    Caroline, Welcome to the club. It’s ok. Really.

    Yes, when one part of the body of Christ hurts, we all hurt. I’m all of the way across The Pond from Scotland (where Nick lives), and a pebble (continental United States), in sunny California and I felt Nick’s pain too. Since Nick isn’t here in the U.S., we should really proceed to our local candy shop for a free chocolate sample in his honor.

  94. caroline wrote:

    their reasons for silencing dissent.

    If you have good arguments and good evidence, then a vigorous discussion is a good thing. If you have neither good arguments nor good evidence, then the Shut Up argument looks pretty good.

  95. Gram3 wrote:

    mot wrote:

    These men that support the ESS do not know the Holy Spirit in any way shape or form. They have sold their soul to men on this earth to keep their current position. It is beyond sad.

    There was a time when I thought this was an overstatement. Then I got mugged by reality. I think there are men who are deceived but sincere. I think Jason with his B.S. in communications is not one of those. Sickening that this is what the SBC and other conservative evangelical institutions has become.

    These men and their views about women have destroyed the SBC.

  96. Velour wrote:

    Since Nick isn’t here in the U.S., we should really proceed to our local candy shop for a free chocolate sample in his honour.

    This is a splendid idea, Velour, and a wonderful opportunity to live out your faith in a very practical way.

  97. caroline wrote:

    Also, I’m having a hard time thinking rationally about all of the theological implications, with everything that’s going on with Nick’s finger.

    It is tough, certainly, but I suppose one must remember that there is always someone worse off than oneself (hard as that can be to imagine sometimes).








    …ooyah…

  98. Nancy2 wrote:

    well, Jesus must not be all that!

    At my most recent former church, Jesus was hardly ever mentioned. “The Cross” was mentioned quite a lot along with “The Gospel” which was usually linked to Authority which was their real gospel.

  99. The New Calvinist movement hangs in the balance on the ESS issue and what the “gentlemen theologians” decide to do in San Antonio with Grudem’s spin on the Trinity. This is a BIG deal! The good doctor Mohler, himself, places the Trinity 3-in-1 as an essential doctrine in his theological triage as something all Christians ‘must’ agree on. If this is historic Trinity’s last stand in the minds of mere men, it is appropriate that the battle be near the Alamo in San Antonio! If Grudem gets a thumbs down on his radical views, the New Calvinist big boys will scramble to get some distance from him. As a theo-politician, Mohler took a neutral view on this initially and will hear no evil, see no evil if things start going south on ESS. If Grudem and ESS get a green light on the subordination of Jesus (God help us), the rest of Christendom will see just how powerful the new reformation and its leaders are. As for me and my house, we will hold our ground that Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth – the Father gave it to Him.

  100. caroline wrote:

    I realise that my posts must sound angry and disillusioned, and I admit that I am.

    … frivolity aside for a moment, there’s nothing on which more ridicule is heaped by certain subsets of the “church” than anger and disillusionment. And there a few things less wrong than being angry and disillusioned at the depth of the professing church’s refusal to live up to what it’s professing about.

    The comments of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 23 could very easily be portrayed as “angry and disillusioned”. I think, nevertheless, they are not to be lightly dismissed.

  101. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Duesing is concerned only for the “ungentlemanly” conduct of one side of the debate

    The searing of the mind is evidence of how powerful New Calvinist indoctrination is to those who feed on it day in and day out. This is time for Duesing to get some big brownie points in the eyes of the New Calvinist icons he idolizes. No one has accused the New Calvinists of being “gentlemen” in their militant and aggressive takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

  102. Christiane wrote:

    I have always thought that there was basic agreement on Trinitarian theory among those in western Christianity

    There has been … until the New Calvinists showed up!

  103. I just want to share “an old legal saw” that lots of people seem to like:

    “If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, call the other guy a scoundrel.”

    Old Legal Saw

    P.S. – people have asked if I know who specifically said the above. I do not but have seen it referenced as an “old legal saw” enough to think that that attribution is sufficient.

  104. Lydia wrote:

    Duessing is a Mohler mouthpiece

    One of several mouthpieces that the good doctor has positioned in leadership roles at several SBC entities. I may not agree with his theology, but I’ll give him this … Mohler is a brilliant strategist; he has darn near pulled off Calvinization of the largest Protestant denomination in America with hardly a whimper from millions of SBC’s non-Calvinists!

  105. Honestly, Wayne Grudem sounds like a drama queen with this statement.

    “Why a Denial of the Son’s Eternal Submission Threatens Both the Trinity and the Bible.”

    Really, the Trinity and the bible are threatened? Wayne Grudem has a small concept of the Trinity if he believes they are threatened without the concept of eternal submission by Jesus.

    He is throwing out a big fear factor with that title. I believe it is called fear mongering. Politicians are great at it.

  106. ishy wrote:

    It’s the ones in the pews that are supposed to be bringing people to Christ before they set foot in a church. But the average Christian has never grown past the baby Christian stage.

    Agreed. The saints are supposed to be equipped to do the work of the ministry. Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a part. The modern organized church does not resemble the early church, nor heed the Great Commission as it ought.

  107. Is it civial and gentilmany for the YRR/neoCal crew to say I am not as pure in belief, and in the case of 9Marixts, might not be able to take communion with them if I do not follow their exact docturine? What was Mohler’s quote, “where will they go” if not to his flavor of Christiainit to find true teaching??

  108. ishy wrote:

    So I’m trying to give it up 2 days a week, taking ginseng on Saturdays, and then nothing on Sundays. I’m also going to be upping my morning workouts a bit.

    sounds like a plan
    ….. as for this old girl, I’m starting back at the Y soon easing into using the weight equipment, and of course, the therapy pool which is heavenly

  109. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    It is tough, certainly, but I suppose one must remember that there is always someone worse off than oneself (hard as that can be to imagine sometimes).

    (Giggle!). Ah, Nick. You shoulda been a preacher man!

    …ooyah…

  110. I have always found it interesting that preachers from the pulpit can say all sorts of negative things about other flavors of Christianity, and especially all of those “secular humanist”, but they can not take a little heat themselves… If you can not take the heat, get out of the frying pan!

  111. Bridget wrote:

    “Why a Denial of the Son’s Eternal Submission Threatens Both the Trinity and the Bible.”

    more like his own credibility as a famous (?) theologian in his small bubble will be tarnished if he can’t pull his fear-thing off at this conference

    he sounds desperate

  112. Bridget wrote:

    Honestly, Wayne Grudem sounds like a drama queen with this statement.

    “Why a Denial of the Son’s Eternal Submission Threatens Both the Trinity and the Bible.”

    Really, the Trinity and the bible are threatened? Wayne Grudem has a small concept of the Trinity if he believes they are threatened without the concept of eternal submission by Jesus.

    He is throwing out a big fear factor with that title. I believe it is called fear mongering. Politicians are great at it.

    I was once told by a Sunday School Teacher that since I did not believe that a woman could be a preacher I did not believe the Bible. At that time I was the pastor of this SBC church. This eventually led to my leaving this church family that I loved dearly. These people like the Sunday School teacher–they do not take prisoners.

  113. Max wrote:

    This is time for Duesing to get some big brownie points in the eyes of the New Calvinist icons he idolizes. No one has accused the New Calvinists of being “gentlemen” in their militant and aggressive takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

    I dunno. It seems to me like this could backfire big time. I’m sure we’re not the only ones rolling our eyes, knowing it’s a big fact lie.

  114. Max wrote:

    Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth – the Father gave it to Him.

    Oooooooh! There’s a fine argument to put before the Complementarians/Contras. If the Father gave Jesus, His subordinate all authority, shouldn’t Comps/Contras follow suit and give all authority to their subordinate wimmenfolk?

  115. “I have always thought that there was basic agreement on Trinitarian theory among those in western Christianity”

    I think that the basic concept of the Trinity, as we broadly know it today, has been essentially unified since Peter Lombard’s The Sentences was approved by the 4th Lateran Council in 1215.

    However, interpreting the subtle aspects of the Trinity appears to still go on in scholarly circles, respecting both Protestants and Roman Catholics, to this day.

    What’s a little strange to me is the current suggestion that theologians should be gentlemen. I’m in the process of reading some of the original works of Augustine, Calvin, and Luther. I can assure people that all three men were pretty grouchy most of the time and that Luther wrote outright hate mail to Pope Leo the X, who was actually a pretty nice guy as far as medieval Popes go.

    Also, the conservative theologian D.A. Carson says that Matthew 18 only applies to private issues you’re having with individuals in your Church, not documents and opinions you publish publicly.

    http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/editorial-on-abusing-matthew-18

    😉

    Thanks. Janna

  116. Daisy wrote:

    ishy wrote:
    How about their background politicking, which is now common knowledge?
    Alarms in ETS about a Complementarian Conspiracy
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/09/16/alarms-in-ets-about-a-complementarian-conspiracy/

    That’s exactly what I was referring to. They’re trying to kick out anyone that disagrees with them, while pretending they’re all about “gentlemenly” debate.

    They’re using the tactics of politicans to rule the ETS.

  117. @ waking up:

    Most Christian advice in regards to domestic violence (the sort that holds the abused partner partially responsible or tells the abused to stay and pray and submit some more) is useless and worthless.

    Most Christian advice in regards to other topics is pretty worthless, too, such as in regards to PTSD, anxiety, and depression.

  118. Lydia wrote:

    This is about protecting reputations with the movement followers … they are, as controlling arrogant authoritarians, an ungentlemanly lot

    God resists the proud … pride cometh before a fall. Sooner or later, the King moves in the affairs of men for the Kingdom’s sake. If not now, when?

  119. Nancy2 wrote:

    If the Father gave Jesus, His subordinate all authority, shouldn’t Comps/Contras follow suit and give all authority to their subordinate wimmenfolk?

    Ouch!

    I’m going to use that argument on someone some day.

  120. Velour wrote:

    Don’t forget to add Jeff Crippen and Barbara Roberts’ blog A Cry for Justice blog to
    Christians that are dealing with domestic violence.

    All in all, that blog is a good resource, but, unfortunately, they consider mention of codependency in the context of Domestic Violence as being ‘victim-blaming’ (which it really is not) and won’t allow comments which discuss that topic to stand at their site.

    I was brought up by a very codependent mother – which she was in part due to having been an abuse survivor, and that was her interpretation of the Bible.

    My mother in turn raised me to be codependent, which is what made me vulnerable to being bullied and used by people from my childhood into adulthood.

    Learning about codependency and how to escape it can be a very valuable tool for not falling for abusers and for giving them the brush off once you spot the red flags they give off (if they have any); that has been the case for me.

  121. Bridget wrote:

    Honestly, Wayne Grudem sounds like a drama queen with this statement.
    “Why a Denial of the Son’s Eternal Submission Threatens Both the Trinity and the Bible.”
    Really, the Trinity and the bible are threatened? Wayne Grudem has a small concept of the Trinity if he believes they are threatened without the concept of eternal submission by Jesus.

    Really. Who actually has the power to threaten the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit??? What kind of “threat” are they talking about here? Do they think people who do not share their beliefs actually threaten the existence/survival of the Trinity? What kind of god do they worship?

  122. Lydia wrote:

    How does one seek to “earn” the “right” to criticize in private?

    I don’t understand his point anyway, because aren’t these types of guys usually promoting a Matthew 18 process of approaching someone in private if they have a disagreement?

    Even that view does not make a lot of sense.

    If You are reading a book or blog post by author ‘Joe Smith,’ and you disagree with what Joe Smith wrote, why can you not post a rebuttal on your blog, in public, or in a book?

    Why do you have to track down Joe’s phone number to debate him in private?

  123. caroline wrote:

    I realize that my posts must sound angry and disillusioned, and I admit that I am.

    It’s a good and healthy response to the wrong teachings of the reformation. They got some things right, but also made some big mistakes. The cure could be the writings of the early church. They had their own problems, but they allowed vigorous discussion and true differences of opinion on many issues.

  124. Deana Holmes (fka mirele) wrote:

    Oh, and by the way, can I just say how sexist it is to talk about “gentlemen theologians”? As if women can’t do theology.

    Yes, thank you. I sort of brought that up in a post I did above, too.

    They keep going on and on about “gentlemanly” thi-s and- that, when there are also women involved in the debate (women who are complementarian and Non-Complementarian).

  125. Daisy wrote:

    Why do you have to track down Joe’s phone number to debate him in private?

    Because Joe might be able to silent you and your dissenting view … or offer you a seat at the table in the coming kingdom.

  126. Daisy wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    How does one seek to “earn” the “right” to criticize in private?
    I don’t understand his point anyway, because aren’t these types of guys usually promoting a Matthew 18 process of approaching someone in private if they have a disagreement?
    Even that view does not make a lot of sense.

    They view that system as effective for controlling the actions of their congregations, so since they are the Elect of Christianity, then they are in charge of everyone in ETS as well.

    It’s both a silencing tactic, and an assertion their authority over ETS.

  127. Daisy wrote:

    They keep going on and on about “gentlemanly” thi-s and- that, when there are also women involved in the debate (women who are complementarian and Non-Complementarian).

    They’ve been making quite a big fuss over women speaking at ETS, because they are “teaching men”. They’ve been trying to stack the committees both for control over the discussion, and to remove women from any speaking and journal slots.

  128. Nancy2 wrote:

    shouldn’t Comps/Contras follow suit and give all authority to their subordinate wimmenfolk?

    I realize that things can be twisted a bit to draw an extrapolation from Jesus to women in this regard. However, we need to stick with Scripture on this which says “Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me'” (Matthew 28:18). But, let’s don’t take the text out of context – the passage goes on to say “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share equal position and authority in the life of a Christian … we were baptized with that truth.

  129. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    However, there is still something that feels missing from the entire discussion: the lived experiences of damage done by the hardcore complementarian doctrines and practices promoted by adherents of ESS/EFS/ERAS. I agree with Mr. Pruitt that this debate entails far more than metaphysical esoterica about the Trinity. Where there is heterodox/heresy, there will be harm. Many in the spiritual abuse survivor community have narratives that witness to that fact. I hope that members of the Evangelical Theological Society will give voice to the toxic, concrete consequences of these malignant doctrines — “ungentlemanly” as that exposure may seem.

    I did a blog post or two about this on my Miss Daisy Blog.

    A lot of complementarians don’t seem to want to acknowledge that their teachings can and do have real-life, negative impact on people.

    When Ruth Tucker wrote in her book of how complementarianism partially (or totally?) informed her first husband’s abuse of her (under the complementarian “male headship” teachings and such), some complementarians, such as Tim Challies, brushed off her experiences with all this. He even encouraged complementarians not to bother reading her book.

    At least complementarian Aimee Byrd wrote back in response that was the wrong attitude, that complementarians absolutely do need to be aware of how their teachings are hurting people.

    I guess this all boils down to some Christians stubbornly putting doctrine above people.

  130. ishy wrote:

    It seems to me like this could backfire big time.

    It will boil out to who carries the day with the best debate in San Antonio. Debating is not preaching the Gospel, by the way. However, I have a feeling that the Body of Christ (the real one) will keep moving forward with truth while theologians fuss about jots and tittles until the cows come home. It’s been that way for 2,000 years; I can’t see the mission changing now, except more religious aberrations will spread before the end of the age comes down around us.

  131. Lydia wrote:

    This affirms what I saw years ago concerning ESS. There WERE people sounding the alarm like Cheryl Schatz who went to the trouble to make an in depth DVD about the ESS error. She caught it right away because she had a ministry to people leaving Mormonism and JW and the biggest issue for them is the Trinity. But, she is a woman and not part of the academic elite

    Maybe this is slightly off track per your post, but I’m wondering why more Christian women don’t just use a pen name online when releasing material, or use their initials?

    I’ve read and heard for years that due to implicit or explicit sexism, that women should hide their gender – for example, when applying for a job and mailing in a resume’, use your initial for your first name, so the recipient has no way of knowing your gender.

    Over a year ago, I read an article by a woman (I think she worked as a scientist), let’s call her “Mary Jones,” (I forget what her name was), who was having a hard time getting her work published in journals when she sent it in under her real names, first and last.

    Her husband refused to believe her at first that her suspicion was that it was based on sexism.

    He doubted her until she started submitting her work under first initial last name, as in “M. Jones.”

    Lo and behold, the journals started publishing her work when it was sent in as “M. Jones” but never as “Mary Jones.”

    Maybe if Christian women writing on theological topics did the same thing online or in published books, they’d get a hearing from the complementarian men?

  132. Daisy wrote:

    Maybe if Christian women writing on theological topics did the same thing online or in published books, they’d get a hearing from the complementarian men?

    what a good idea for a project 🙂

  133. OldJohnJ wrote:

    Ham is no friend here at TWW. If you look at the Creationism entry in the “Categories” menu you will find about 50 posts and resulting comments on topics germane to YEC.

    This is off topic a bit. I have never followed Ken Ham or his doings but I did hear Henry Morris speak many, many years ago and I’m wondering, did he have the same issues? The talk he gave was fascinating as I recall. He spoke about the days of creation in Genesis and how the first created things represent space, time, energy, matter. I don’t remember anything egregiously wrong in his talk but I was young. Just curious.

  134. Gram3 wrote:

    Jason, your desperation is showing along with your transparent double standard. Women are told that we are “contrary to” men just because we are female.

    We are told we are anti-Gospel if we stand in our freedom in Christ. We are told we are more easily deceived than males. We are told we are created in the derivative image of God.

    Those are not the things any gentleman would say. And there is absolutely nothing kind about that. You sound like a gong and cymbal marching band that has no love for God or people.

    I agree with what all you said there, but it got me to thinking on other things.

    If their interpretation is that God intended or designed women to be in opposition to men, why do these complementarian men want to fight against that?

    If a woman is defiant to men, she’s only doing what God supposedly designed her to do, according to complementarian interpretation.

    And what is their proposed solution to that defiance, beat women and give them black eyes until they submit to male authority?

    Jesus said not to lord authority over each other, and he did not advocate physical violence and coercion to force people to follow his teachings. He made Peter put away his sword in the garden.

  135. Max wrote:

    I realize that things can be twisted a bit to draw an extrapolation from Jesus to women in this regard. However, we need to stick with Scripture on this which says “Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me’” (Matthew 28:18). But, let’s don’t take the text out of context – the passage goes on to say “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share equal position and authority in the life of a Christian … we were baptized with that truth

    Agreed! And when Jesus made that statement, he was speaking to all – men, women, black, white, red, and yellow, etc.
    But, sometimes I just like yanking chains – I would use that idea on authority just to irk the “hill to die on” comps/pats!

  136. ishy wrote:

    They’ve been trying to stack the committees both for control over the discussion, and to remove women from any speaking and journal slots.

    Oh yes, I’ve read about that. I was looking for the link but can’t remember where I read about it, maybe on the CBE site?

  137. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    caroline wrote:
    I realise that my posts must sound angry and disillusioned, and I admit that I am.
    … frivolity aside for a moment, there’s nothing on which more ridicule is heaped by certain subsets of the “church” than anger and disillusionment. And there a few things less wrong than being angry and disillusioned at the depth of the professing church’s refusal to live up to what it’s professing about.
    The comments of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 23 could very easily be portrayed as “angry and disillusioned”. I think, nevertheless, they are not to be lightly dismissed.

    Nick – Thank you for these words. They are sincerely appreciated.

  138. @ nathan priddis:

    That was a cute dog photo.

    When this guy talks about “gentlemanly debate” I picture a bunch of guys sitting around in Victoria-era type suits, with monocles, top hats, sipping tea with pinky- finger extended, and even if American, talking in vaguely British accents.

    Like so:
    “Why I say, Stanley, I say, I simply must disagree quite vehemently with your interpretation of Genesis 3:16, old boy!”
    *takes sip of tea*

  139. @ siteseer:

    I don’t think women should HAVE to hide their gender to get jobs and so forth, but it may be a sad fact of reality that doing so can make things easier on them.

    I saw a guy who works for some big company (Apple? or whatever company) got in trouble last week for suggesting women do this very thing.

    A lot of women went online to scream and yell at him that they should not have to post under fake names or use initials.

    I kind of agree with those women and see their point to a degree, but the fact remains, there are some folks who may not take your resume’ or idea seriously if you submit your work under an obviously-sounding feminine name.

    I can’t find a link to that news story, but I did find this in my collection of links:
    If Women Assume Fake Names They Do Better on Math Tests
    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/if-women-assume-fake-names-they-do-better-on-math-tests-6390944/?no-ist

    There was yet another study done awhile back where it was shown that teachers grade math tests based on gender bias. They would give girls lower scores than boys even if other things were equal. One site carrying that story is the “Jezebel” site, with the headline:
    “Girls Outscore Boys on Math Tests, Unless Teachers See Their Names”

  140. dee wrote:

    Do you have any idea where he lives? Does he live in an elite community in the Phoenix area?

    Answer: if the Maricopa County Tax Assessor’s web site is correct, he owns an older home in a near west Phoenix neighborhood in between I-17 and the border with Glendale. It is absolutely not a gated community. If he’s making money, it’s not being poured into his housing.

  141. Daisy wrote:

    Like so:
    “Why I say, Stanley, I say, I simply must disagree quite vehemently with your interpretation of Genesis 3:16, old boy!”
    *takes sip of tea*

    One of my many feelings of inadequacy in life is not being able to do a British accent of any kind. I would even settle for typing with a British accent. But no..nothing.

  142. Daisy wrote:

    ishy wrote:
    They’ve been trying to stack the committees both for control over the discussion, and to remove women from any speaking and journal slots.
    Oh yes, I’ve read about that. I was looking for the link but can’t remember where I read about it, maybe on the CBE site?

    Mcknight has had a few others, including this one:
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/11/23/women-at-evangelical-theological-society/

    And CBE’s:
    http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/question-mark-over-my-head

  143. @ Daisy:
    We used to tell people this all the time in seeker Megas. The problem, we knew, was that they were never going to get Joe on the phone or even get close enough to him to ask. It’s a ruse. And it often works if you are really really nice when you give them the run around.

  144. @ Daisy:
    In the early days of blogging I knew some women who adopted male pen names just so the could comment on pastor blogs and be taken seriously.

  145. Max wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    This is about protecting reputations with the movement followers … they are, as controlling arrogant authoritarians, an ungentlemanly lot
    God resists the proud … pride cometh before a fall. Sooner or later, the King moves in the affairs of men for the Kingdom’s sake. If not now, when?

    Right now, it’s up to us to resist them. :o)

  146. Daisy wrote:

    Maybe this is slightly off track per your post, but I’m wondering why more Christian women don’t just use a pen name online when releasing material, or use their initials?

    Christian publishing is big on associating the face with the name. And unless a woman is publishing fluffy fiction or inspirational books, it’s quite hard to get published.

    I use a unisex-ish pen name for my secular fiction, and probably will do so for the Christian novel I’m writing. But I will be self publishing it, and so avoiding the requirements (and politics) of the Christian publishing industry.

  147. Daisy wrote:

    I did a blog post about Ham once. I think the guy is sometimes misunderstood.

    Ken Ham Unequivocally States on TV Program that a Belief in YEC is NOT Necessary to Be a Christian

    Sorry, Daisy, that’s simply untrue. Here’s a more recent article from the conservative CNS News.

    Christian evangelist Ken Ham, whose organization built the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter, said that Christians who accept evolution and the idea that the Earth is millions of years old are following “the pagan religion of this age,” which is an “attempt to explain life without God.”

    *snip*

    Commenting on a new book about some Christian evangelicals who believe in Darwinian evolution, Ham said, “I want people to understand something: When it comes to people like Tim Keller [a Presbyterian pastor], I’m not questioning people’s salvation because it’s not a salvation issue per se – it’s an authority issue.”

    “That’s what we need to understand,” said Ham. “It really is an authority issue. And once you start questioning the first part of the Bible — and I’ll guarantee that people like Tim Keller and others, when it comes down to it, the bottom line is they believe in millions of years.”

    http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/evangelist-ken-ham-christians-accepting-darwinian-evolution-follow-pagan

  148. “Getting back to Jason Duesing’s ‘gentlemen theologians’ post, we wonder what would have happened if Martin Luther had sought to meet Pope Leo X face-to-face instead of sending his 95 Theses to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg and then nailing them to the church door in Wittenberg (as legend has it).”
    +++++++++++++++++

    this came to mind, regarding Janet Mefferd challenging Mark Driscoll on plagiarism. Ingrid Schluetter, her producer says,

    “I was a part-time, topic producer for Janet Mefferd until yesterday when I resigned over this situation. 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.”

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

    she goes on to say,

    “…truth tellers face multiple pressure sources these days. I hosted a radio show for 23 years and know from experience how Big Publishing protects its celebrities. Anything but fawning adulation for those who come on your show (a gift of free air time for the author/publisher by the way) is not taken well.

    Like Dr. Carl Trueman so aptly asked yesterday in his column at Reformation 21, does honest journalism have any role to play in evangelicalism now? (It was rhetorical.) My own take on that question is, no, it does not. The moment hard questions are asked, the negative focus goes on the questioner, not the celebrity, when there is something that needs scrutiny. Those who have the temerity to call out a celebrity have tremendous courage.
    ————————-

    ‘Protecting its celebrities’ is not limited to the realm of Big Publishing. evangelical power conglomerates have every reason to protect their power and revenue. Money and power in christian culture aren’t hard to spot.

  149. I haven’t read all the comments but I can see why ESS is gaining traction. The Trinity doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
    God is three but really one. God sent his son, which is really himself to die for us but prays to himself in the garden before he’s crucified. And there’s a holy spirit which is also God but not God. But Christianity is a monotheism because they’re all really the same deity.

    ESS provides a pat answer. People like pat, easy to understand concepts. With the added bonus that you can share that easy answer.

  150. Thank you ladies, for covering this. Everyone needs to keep the pressure on these guys. ETS 2016 will probably be the most interesting meeting in many years. Maybe someone will live blog it or at least post on social media during and after.

  151. i don’t consider Wayne Grudem or his patriarchal cohorts to have behaved as “gentleman theologians”. More like instigators if not flame throwers. Of course it’s done with what is considered ‘the right tone’. instigating and flame throwing with a sweet smile.

    From Wayne Grudem’s Personal Reflections on the History of CBMW and The State of The Gender Debate:

    But there remain some challenges, and I would encourage younger pastors and scholars who support CBMW in the following ways:

    1) Play offense and not just defense. ETS is an excellent place for many young scholars to do that,…

    3)Try somehow to ensure that institutions and organizations have some public accountability on this issue—that their constituencies know what is going on—and that there is a price to be paid for adopting evangelical feminist policies and positions. I’m concerned about future trends where an institution can become more and more egalitarian and there is no public price to pay, no public accountability to its supporters or members.

    http://archive.is/myiDq#selection-1101.5-1101.435
    ————–

    Seems to me Wayne Grudem is inciting a kind of war here, albeit with a kind & pleasant demeanor. hard for me to see his suggestions as being compatible with this ‘gentleman theologian’ thing.

    indeed, look at what has happened:

    In her article entitled “A Question Mark Over My Head — Experiences of Women ETS Members at the 2014 ETS Annual Meeting”, Emily Louise Zimbrick-Rogers describes the following:

    “David Howard, a complementarian professor of Old Testament at Bethel Seminary and the 2003 ETS president, explained that the nominating committee process has become “somewhat of a coordinated effort” and “somewhat more politicized.”45

    Dan Treier, a systematic theology professor at Wheaton who describes himself as egalitarian in some respects and soft complementarian in others, said, “Not only has there been an attempt to keep women off the board, but there has been an attempt to stack the board with complementarian males and to keep egalitarian males out of the picture.”

    Another male complementarian who has been in leadership explained what he saw at play: “There are very strong complementarian forces that prevent women from getting on the nominating committee. . . . This subculture, this machine, is working at full force. These people want to control it.”

  152. ION:

    The Windies are 25 without loss after 7 overs, chasing 150 to win. I say “chasing” – “strolling after” would be a better way of putting it. The required run-rate is exactly 3 and they’re ahead of it already with all wickets in hand.










    My finger’s still a bit sore… but I don’t want to make a big thing of it.






    IHTIH

  153. @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Nick,

    Was it you who said on another comment, weeks ago, that you have Diabetes?
    If that was you, have you been seen for this injury? It’s my understanding from friends who are Diabetics that they have to be very careful with any injury.

  154. One thing I remember from John Piper’s weird gun article from a year ago was that he devoted a paragraph on why it was OK for him to criticize Falwell because of his standing and how he did it in the proper way. That’s just SOP for the gospel-centered bunch.

    While I do have more respect for Trueman and Byrd, I hope Todd Pruitt is continuing to learn from much more than a taste of his own concern trolling medicine.

    I’ve been watching this insane Notre Dame/NC State game in Raleigh. That’s an unbelievable downpour, and I’m Gulf Coast raised. Stay dry, y’all.

  155. Daisy wrote:

    Learning about codependency and how to escape it can be a very valuable tool for not falling for abusers and for giving them the brush off once you spot the red flags they give off (if they have any); that has been the case for me.

    I’m with you, Daisy. It’s important for people to know about the boundary problems caused by Codependency. I hope they will change their stance over there.

  156. @ Beakerj:

    Just wondering… I have sent 2 emails to you since you last wrote me – did you get them? I haven’t heard from you. Please let me know.

    D.

  157. dee wrote:

    Do you have any idea where he lives? Does he live in an elite community in the Phoenix area?

    mirele wrote:

    he owns an older home in a near west Phoenix neighborhood

    That’s James White? What about Grudem though.

  158. elastigirl wrote:

    (Wayne Grudem): “Try somehow to ensure that institutions and organizations have some public accountability on this issue—that their constituencies know what is going on—and that there is a price to be paid for adopting evangelical feminist policies and positions. I’m concerned about future trends where an institution can become more and more egalitarian and there is no public price to pay, no public accountability to its supporters or members.”

    I wish Wayne Grudem could be forced to experience living as a female for the rest of his life. He is so out of touch, he does not realize his words are knives and they are cutting real human beings.

  159. Yes, I’d love to see Wayne Grudem learn to understand being female as Pat Moore learned to understand life as an elderly person:.

    For nearly three and a half years, beginning in May 1979, she made it her business to know by posing as an octogenarian. An industrial designer with a degree from Rochester Institute of Technology, she had always been interested in the problems of older people. When her marriage to a fashion photographer broke up in 1978, she plunged into the study of old age, acquiring master’s degrees in gerontology and psychology at Columbia University. Meanwhile a conversation at a New York City cocktail party with makeup artist Barbara Kelly led to her role as an 85-year-old woman.

    http://people.com/archive/designer-pat-moore-learned-about-old-age-the-hard-way-she-turned-herself-into-an-85-year-old-vol-23-no-25/

    He wouldn’t last a day.

  160. Yes, this is a clever way to try to silence one’s opponents. I also wonder if the ESS crowd is sending this message – “Let’s not involve the pew peons in this discussion. Let’s just keep it among us “men of God.'” After all, why would they want average Christians to know that they are trying to lower Jesus in order to elevate themselves and promote complementarian “theology?” If it was a different heresy (e.g., “Christ was only a great prophet and teacher”), would they be so anxious to keep things quiet and confine the discussion to “gentlemen theologians?” Doubtful. (Sorry if someone already mentioned this point. I haven’t had a chance to read all of the comments.)

  161. siteseer wrote:

    I wish Wayne Grudem could be forced to experience living as a female for the rest of his life. He is so out of touch, he does not realize his words are knives and they are cutting real human beings.

    And how Grudem & Company’s hateful beliefs cut God too.

  162. @ Velour:

    Yes, I do have Type 1, but no, I am (for – allegedly – humorous effect) greatly exaggerating the significance of a slightly sore finger. There’s no particular reason for me to be wary of injuries, though possibly people who’ve a long history of diabetes with moderate to poor control may suffer from the cumulative effects of widespread circulatory problems that would make injuries slow to heal.

  163. siteseer wrote:

    Yes, I’d love to see Wayne Grudem learn to understand being female as Pat Moore learned to understand life as an elderly person:.

    With Parkinson’s Disease, Grudem may actually experience how it feels to be considered inferior, incompetent, and less of a person as the disease progresses. I would say it serves him right, but I wouldn’t wish PD on anybody………can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.

  164. Lydia wrote:

    Right now, it’s up to us to resist them.

    I resemble that remark! I’m humbled to be a member of the Calvinista Resistance.

  165. Lydia wrote:

    This affirms what I saw years ago concerning ESS. There WERE people sounding the alarm like Cheryl Schatz who went to the trouble to make an in depth DVD about the ESS error. She caught it right away because she had a ministry to people leaving Mormonism and JW and the biggest issue for them is the Trinity. But, she is a woman and not part of the academic elite.

    Schatz can think rings around those nabobs!

  166. Nancy2 wrote:

    he was speaking to all – men, women, black, white, red, and yellow, etc.

    The Body of Christ knows no boundaries of race, class or gender. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

    Nancy2 wrote:

    the “hill to die on”

    There is only one hill for a Christian to die on … the same one that Jesus’ died on! “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:22).

    I have listened to a LOT of New Calvinist sermons over the past 10 years, and I have yet to hear an YRR “lead pastor” preach on that verse! Their message is so different and strange to the Gospel of Christ.

  167. Nancy2 wrote:

    With Parkinson’s Disease, Grudem may actually experience how it feels to be considered inferior, incompetent, and less of a person as the disease progresses. I would say it serves him right, but I wouldn’t wish PD on anybody………can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.

    I know what you mean. My mother-in-law had Parkinson’s, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone

    a good dose of humility, yes;
    but gosh, that poor old foolish man, suffering? no,no

  168. Beakerj wrote:

    Speaking as one with an impeccable English accent my heart goes out to you

    I trust you feel the same for this poor old sod Beaks.

  169. @ dainca:
    Hi Dana, I’ve received one & was about to reply this weekend, I’m feeling quite a lot better & am back at work almost full time so am really weary around those hours. Huge big thankyous & sorriest for you bothering to worry.

  170. Muff Potter wrote:

    Beakerj wrote:

    Speaking as one with an impeccable English accent my heart goes out to you

    I trust you feel the same for this poor old sod Beaks.

    Absolutely Muff, & more than prepared to prank call any friends at TWW who would enjoy my dulcet tones 🙂

  171. Nancy2 wrote:

    I would say it serves him right, but I wouldn’t wish PD on anybody………can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.

    Agreed.

  172. I have been a lurker here for many months, following with interest the ESS debates, issues with authoritarianism, etc. But I feel like I need to defend the Reformed tradition a bit. My husband just graduated from a seminary in the Reformed Church of America, which is decidedly egalitarian (if I had wanted to go to seminary, I could have gone for free!), decidedly pro NT Wright (or Tom, as we like to call him), NOT YEC, etc. So when you all talked about these Calvinists, I wonder, is this mostly a southern/Baptist thing? I am located in Michigan.

  173. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    However, there is still something that feels missing from the entire discussion: the lived experiences of damage done by the hardcore complementarian doctrines and practices promoted by adherents of ESS/EFS/ERAS.

    Pruitt is still a complimentarian (although I think he said he wants to call it something else) so there is only so far he is willing to go.

  174. caroline wrote:

    There seems to be a misunderstanding around here that YEC has always been the position of the church, and that’s just not true.

    No, I never thought that. I think I mentioned the other day when people started talking about a 6k earth I honestly thought that was people slamming normal (non-cultish) christians for being anti-science…not actual christians being anti-science.

  175. Christiane wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    tried to sort out “IHTIH’, however the only thing I could come up with was ‘it hurts, though, it hurts’
    how did I do?

    I hope this is helpful 😉

  176. Kris wrote:

    So when you all talked about these Calvinists, I wonder, is this mostly a southern/Baptist thing?

    I’m in California’s Silicon Valley. My ex-church (abusive, authoritarian, comp promoting, Young Earth Creation) was a church plant started by the senior pastor who was a graduate of John MacAthur’s The Master’s Seminary. The families that planted the church had been at a Baptist church in Silicon Valley, before my time.

    Young, Restless and Reformed in my understanding runs through John MacArthur’s graduates as well as the stealth take-over of the Southern Baptists.

  177. @ waking up:

    “I still ask the question, why do Calvinists even need preachers? Why would they ever even need a sermon? Why would they need discipleship? Why? If limited atonement is correct, why the need for any of it?”
    ++++++++++++++

    to feed the foodchain of the evangelical industrial complex

  178. @ Kris:
    Hi Kris! Welcome. It is probably SBC (ala Ernest Reisinger’s “Quiet Revolution) and some strains of Presbyterianism. Add in the Reformed Charismatic wing of Grudem and Mahaney. The cessationist McArthur, too. Driscoll until it all collapsed.

    Their doctrine is authoritarianism with an emphasis on building a Reformed Industrial Complex.

    Others might be able to explain it better. I suspect Reformed can mean as many variations as the word, Baptist!

  179. Lea wrote:

    Pruitt is still a complimentarian (although I think he said he wants to call it something else) so there is only so far he is willing to go

    Yes, however, Aimee Byrd, another of the bloggers at Mortification of Spin was very specific in calling out how ESS had been misused and calling out CBMW leaders to take responsibility. I believe she considers herself a (moderate) complementarian as well.

    Here’s some of what she had to say in her forthright and challenging article of August 11, 2016, “What Denny Burk Could Do.”

    I am currently reading Rusty Reno’s The Idea of a Christian Society, and am making huge connections on why Burk’s conclusion here is so damaging. It’s why I have been speaking up all along. Reno makes a case for how the lower class society, or underclass, is picking up the tab for what he calls the “nonjudgmentalism” moral consensus of the upper class. This is exactly what I see happening within the new Calvinist evangelicalism. It doesn’t hurt Denny Burk or Albert Mohler to endorse these books teaching ESS or ERAS, to affirm the orthodoxy of Grudem, Strachan, and Ware’s teaching on the Trinity and complementarianism, and to continue to headline together at conferences. But I see who picks up the tab for this irresponsibility, and it is the regular church-going people who are trying to honor God in their singleness, or as wives and husbands.

    I have seen it in my own experiences, and I am seeing in all the emails I am getting from women who can’t use a word like career, lest it sound too ambitious; women who have no voice in their church, because the men are the leaders who make all the valuable input; women who are stuck in ministries that teach “True Womanhood,” yet are considered divisive to point out heretical teaching on the Trinity in their book study (even after pointing out a statement that the Trinity consists of “individual and distinct beings”); women who are frustrated because they do not fit into the “biblical womanhood” box of nursery duty and pot lucks and feel marginalized in their own church; and women who have expressed their conflict of desiring to be “good complementarians” while wanting to cry when they read some of the material from CBMW. Worse, I hear from women who are in and who have come out of abusive situations under this kind of irresponsible teaching. I’m not surprised that they end up questioning it all. When our loudest and highest paid complementarian voices advocate such a poor theology and environment for women, Christians want to reject complementarianism.

    […]

    You can’t continue to endorse unorthodox doctrine on the Trinity as a model for manhood and womanhood and be healthy. You can’t ignore the voices of many and be healthy. You can’t go on Twitter saying we want scalps, are accusers of the brethren, and are closet feminists because we have legitimate concerns about the content of their teaching and be healthy. I am tired of the throat clearing posts that include wonderful statements against abuse and promoting loving leadership from the same people who refuse to directly address, retract, and correct teaching that fuels abuse from their own men. It isn’t right.

    I would love to see CBMW clean house and actually be the leaders they write about sometimes, I really would. But I am not going to accept a veneer of concern without real change. At this point it appears that all the proponents of ESS will still be people of influence there. No one from CBMW has made a statement retracting the teaching on ESS/ERAS/EFS, rather they continue even in Strachan’s resignation announcement to promote his book that teaches it. They continue to assure us that it is orthodox. And none of Ware or Grudem’s writings on it have been retracted either. They are all leaders there still. Nor has there been any explanation or apology for the Sanctified Testosterone teaching or Soap Bubble Submission (although that particular post has disappeared). Nothing. All of that teaching needs to be retracted, with apologies at this point, for CBMW to have any credit in my book. Denny Burk could lead the way in doing that.

    http://www.alliancenet.org/mos/housewife-theologian/what-denny-burk-could-do-0#.V_lmiX-a19M

  180. @ Deana Holmes (fka mirele):

    Thanks for the info!

    Yes, Dr. Grudem’s address is listed as a matter of public record in many places that can be accessed on the internet.

    According to Zillow, the 3500+ sq. ft. home he occupies has 4 bedrooms, 3 parking spaces, and a pool. It’s probably not in a gated community yet those sound like some pretty cool digs for a theology professor!

  181. @ brad/futuristguy:
    I think she makes some beautiful and much needed points. And I am thrilled someone from the comp camp is speaking up. What is frustrating to me is the idea we even need something like CMBW in theBody of Christ. Why? To what end? There is no such thing as “biblical” manhood or womanhood. There are only saints who come in two sexes but all shapes, sizes and ethnicities. (Or for Neo Cals, worms)

    To think men like Grudem and Burk (who I doubt is an independent thinker, in the first place) would retract and apologize is like hoping for a field of unicorns. It sounds nice but totally unrealistic. Even if they did, based on past behaviors, I would be looking for the real agenda. :o)

    To publicly leave the comp fold means one will be labeled. And it can be brutal. Todd is still a comp and look at how he was treated. Yet, Lots of comps are in name only (Russ Moore knew this and called them wimps) because making a break from it doctrinally is suicide if you have any official standing at all or just want to be accepted.

    It is time that ended. There are deeply spiritual and even conservative mutualists who have studied scripture in depth and pleaded with Christ for wisdom on this contentious issue. There is absolutely no prescription in scripture for a patriarchal society unless you change word meanings out of their context and enjoy contradictions. There is only one reason that doctrine exists: caste. A totally non Jesus view of humans.

    It is sad. The people who would stand with them publicly on ESS are, for the most part Non Calvinists, and many are mutualists.

  182. Lea wrote:

    caroline wrote:

    There seems to be a misunderstanding around here that YEC has always been the position of the church, and that’s just not true.

    No, I never thought that. I think I mentioned the other day when people started talking about a 6k earth I honestly thought that was people slamming normal (non-cultish) christians for being anti-science…not actual christians being anti-science.

    Oh I just realized that wasn’t stated very well on my part. When I said “around here” I didn’t mean on TWW. I meant in my Deep South, conservative Christian, red-blooded ‘Merican hometown.

  183. Kris wrote:

    when you all talked about these Calvinists, I wonder, is this mostly a southern/Baptist thing?

    It’s a “New” Calvinist thing! It’s not restricted to Southern Baptists, but the Southern Baptist Convention is particularly infested with them right now. It sounds like y’all are reformed classical Calvinists. There is a world of difference in “New” vs. “Old” Calvinism; TWW has no quarrel with the latter.

  184. @ Kris:
    As someone who was raised in the Orthodox Reformed tradition (Christian Reformed Church and Orthodox Presbyterian Church) I know where you’re coming from, Kris.

    From what I can tell this so-named Neo-Calvinist concept/movement has only been around for 15-20 years and most of its adherents appear to be affiliated with Baptist groups and Churches rather than traditional Reformed Churches and movements. Unlike traditional Calvinists, this bunch has no problem with both flaunting and mis-using wealth, in my experience, which is part of the reason they get so much attention.

    In my view, Neo-Calvinism is an embarrassment to Calvinism on a micro level and Christianity on a macro level. As such, it should really be called “extremely weird and offensive Calvinism.” 😉

    I don’t know how someone can call himself/herself a Baptist Calvinist who doesn’t believe in infant baptism or traditional Reformed forms of Church polity, which are congregationalist, not authoritarian, in nature.

    For the past couple hundred years or so, at least. I do concede that Calvin himself was an autocrat while noting that Calvin’s promotion of education and literacy enabled less extreme forms of his theology to prevail in the long-term.

  185. @ Kris:

    I’m an old school presbyterian now, so I don’t think these issues are necessarily related to being reformed.

  186. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    Yes, however, Aimee Byrd, another of the bloggers at Mortification of Spin was very specific in calling out how ESS had been misused and calling out CBMW leaders to take responsibility.

    Yes, and I think even Pruitt has said they take it too far.

    But neither of them are willing to get to the root and say comp is bad doctrine. They just say it goes too far. I feel like Aimee is so so close! Man its frustrating to read her sometimes. You want to say ‘just reject it utterly. Egalitarian is not so bad’ 🙂 But she’s not there. To get there would equate to basically being shunned by the entire comp/neo reformed world, I think.

  187. “To get there would equate to basically being shunned by the entire comp/neo reformed world, I think”
    +++++++++++++

    i would equate this to leaving a dark, dingy, stinky, insect-ridden place where you can’t trust your two-faced neighbors and relocating to a chalet on a green grassy hillside in the Swiss Alps.

  188. @ Lea:

    True that there would likely be serious/severe consequences for leaving the complementarian camp. However, I know from my own experience that there are times when something sparks a rather radical and quick paradigm shift, while other times it’s a very long haul process. For instance, it took me three years before I finally got it about why survivor bloggers like Dee and Deb and some others were saying, “The issue is not legalism, it’s authoritarianism.”

    And gender, being so knit into the core of our humanity, is also a core doctrine for many. It isn’t one that seems to be quick on the flip-the-script scale. There is the possibility that there is a lot of “bounded choice” going on that keeps the orbit around that doctrine going from internal pressure — let alone the external pressure of censure, shunning, etc., you know you’d receive if you left the hardcore complementarian camp.

    There’s a helpful description and illustration of “bounded choice” on Spiritual Sounding Board, at this guest post by Cindy Kunsman.

    https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2014/06/05/elephants-and-sgas-everywhere-coming-to-terms-with-homeschoolings-pitfalls/

  189. elastigirl wrote:

    “To get there would equate to basically being shunned by the entire comp/neo reformed world, I think”
    +++++++++++++
    i would equate this to leaving a dark, dingy, stinky, insect-ridden place where you can’t trust your two-faced neighbors and relocating to a chalet on a green grassy hillside in the Swiss Alps.

    You made me laugh so hard!

  190. Lydia wrote:

    I suspect Reformed can mean as many variations as the word, Baptist!

    Indeed! I tallied up the number of distinct Baptist groups one time – I found 18 different flavors. As a long-time “Southern” Baptist and survivor of numerous SBC theological battles over this and that, I find comfort in knowing that there will be no Baptists or Calvinists in Heaven … only Christians! Paradise has no room for “isms” hatched in the minds of mere men. Christ came to redeem and work through individuals, not institutions. It’s always been about relationship, not religion. I hope I live long enough to see organized religion’s funeral preached! The teachings and traditions of men have choked the spiritual life out of far too many good people!

  191. Lea wrote:

    To get there would equate to basically being shunned by the entire comp/neo reformed world, I think.

    No doubt it would be very rough for her or the other confessional complementarians because they would make everyone mad. I don’t think that fear of shunning is what keeps Aimee from becoming a mutualist, though. I think it is a deep conviction that confessionalists have about the tradition of the confessions and also the “plain reading” of the clobber verses. Speaking only for myself, it took some pretty big jolts for me to even consider that the clobber verses have been misinterpreted. I cannot honestly say I would have ever considered it but for those severe shocks to my comfy little world. That is why the Bent Tree Bible journey to mutualism resonated with me.

  192. Gram3 wrote:

    I think it is a deep conviction that confessionalists have about the tradition of the confessions and also the “plain reading” of the clobber verses.

    brad/futuristguy wrote:

    here is the possibility that there is a lot of “bounded choice” going on that keeps the orbit around that doctrine going from internal pressure

    I think these are good points. I don’t know Aimee, but I feel like she would probably be willing to accept censure if she felt she was right? At least that’s the sense I get. I don’t mean to accuse her of consciously choosing the easier path, because I don’t think that’s what she’s doing. But sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to go to a place because we know there would be consequences. If you identify yourself as something, whether it be a religious persuasion, a political party, etc…if you are deeply enmeshed with the group, and don’t just hold that as some changeable part of self like a neighborhood you live in…that can be hard to change. And some of these folks have built their world, their careers, around a belief really, whether it be reformed, or comp, or evangelical. That would be a hard thing to change and I think you would want to be very, very convinced.

  193. Regarding the (self-described) “Gentleman Theologians”:

    ASK ANY COMMONER, PEASANT, OR SERF ABOUT “GENTLEMEN”.
    ESPECIALLY “GENTLEMEN” BY DIVINE RIGHT.

  194. Lea wrote:

    Yes, and I think even Pruitt has said they take it too far.

    But neither of them are willing to get to the root and say comp is bad doctrine. They just say it goes too far. I feel like Aimee is so so close!

    “Next time We WILL Achieve True Communism!”

  195. Lea wrote:

    caroline wrote:

    There seems to be a misunderstanding around here that YEC has always been the position of the church, and that’s just not true.

    No, I never thought that. I think I mentioned the other day when people started talking about a 6k earth I honestly thought that was people slamming normal (non-cultish) christians for being anti-science…not actual christians being anti-science.

    Just today (a couple hours ago) I was driving up the 57 here in Orange County, CA, and one of the electronic billboards along the freeway cycled into an advertisement for Ken Ham’s Ark Experience/Creation Museum.

    Billboard space & time does not come cheap here in SoCal.

  196. Lydia wrote:

    @ Daisy:
    We used to tell people this all the time in seeker Megas. The problem, we knew, was that they were never going to get Joe on the phone or even get close enough to him to ask. It’s a ruse. And it often works if you are really really nice when you give them the run around.

    In my experience, NOBODY is as Nice (or Polite, or Gentlemanly) than a Sociopath.

    Until the instant you have outlived your usefulness.

  197. Lea wrote:

    If you identify yourself as something, whether it be a religious persuasion, a political party, etc…if you are deeply enmeshed with the group, and don’t just hold that as some changeable part of self like a neighborhood you live in…that can be hard to change.

    Lydia posted a good line to this effect in the TWW piece on Pete Wilson:

    “What you win them with … you win them to.”

    I suppose we are all indoctrinated by one thing or another. That is why it is crucial for every believer to get in the Word themselves … read large doses of it and pray for discernment. We need to allow the Holy Spirit within us to filter what we hear coming from the lips of mere men and give us a check when a teaching drifts from Truth.

  198. Caroline wrote:

    Oh I just realized that wasn’t stated very well on my part. When I said “around here” I didn’t mean on TWW. I meant in my Deep South, conservative Christian, red-blooded ‘Merican hometown.

    Yup. Jest y’all, not all y’all.
    Ditto YEC in Southern Kentucky. I didn’t hear talk about it until 10-15 years ago ’round here.

  199. Daisy wrote:

    @ nathan priddis:

    That was a cute dog photo.

    When this guy talks about “gentlemanly debate” I picture a bunch of guys sitting around in Victoria-era type suits, with monocles, top hats, sipping tea with pinky- finger extended, and even if American, talking in vaguely British accents.

    I picture them trying to take the fight onto their home turf where they have EVERY home-field advantage. Like an Intellectual parsing semantics letter-by-letter — ever tried to go against a former Berkeley debating champ on why Communism is not The Perfect Utopia?

    And you DO know the seedy underbelly of Victorian England underneath all the surface pinkie-extended decorum.

  200. brad/futuristguy wrote:

    Yes, however, Aimee Byrd, another of the bloggers at Mortification of Spin was very specific in calling out how ESS had been misused and calling out CBMW leaders to take responsibility. I believe she considers herself a (moderate) complementarian as well.
    Here’s some of what she had to say in her forthright and challenging article of August 11, 2016, “What Denny Burk Could Do.”

    Given that Aimee Byrd is a woman, is anybody in the YRR camp going to pay any attention to her?

  201. Max wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    Why do you have to track down Joe’s phone number to debate him in private?

    Because Joe might be able to silent you and your dissenting view … or offer you a seat at the table in the coming kingdom.

    Whatever would God do on J-Day without Pastor Joe Wormtongue at His right hand to tell Him who’s REALLY a correct-theology sheep and who’s a goat?

  202. Daisy wrote:

    Deana Holmes (fka mirele) wrote:

    Oh, and by the way, can I just say how sexist it is to talk about “gentlemen theologians”? As if women can’t do theology.

    Yes, thank you. I sort of brought that up in a post I did above, too.

    They keep going on and on about “gentlemanly” thi-s and- that, when there are also women involved in the debate (women who are complementarian and Non-Complementarian).

    “WOMEN- KNOW YOUR LIMITS!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w
    (and it’s Veddy Veddy British, too!)

  203. Nancy2 wrote:

    Given that Aimee Byrd is a woman, is anybody in the YRR camp going to pay any attention to her?

    Absolutely they will not. However, the CBMW crew has been exposed, and they know it. Their Female Subordination requires ESS, and the reason we can be confident of that is that no one would have invented something so brazen if it were not absolutely necessary. It is impossible to sustain Equal in Dignity, Value, and Worth though Different (subordinate) in Role without the support of ESS. Without ESS, 1 Corinthians 11 can be read without hierarchy, thereby making Paul’s entire argument in Chapter 111 coherent. Without ESS and hierarchy within the Trinity, Paul’s supposed argument *for* hierarchy collapses.

    I think that it is only a matter of time before people realize what has happened. Denny Burk and Al Mohler certainly understand it and are behaving like good political operatives. Grudem has a lot more personally invested in this, namely his entire career, so we can expect him to never back down.

    The guys at Crossway and ESV tried to cement Female Subordination into the text, and they got caught. They tried it because they thought they could get away with it just like they have gotten away with ESS for so long. Their sacrifice to Grudem’s legacy certainly backfired.

  204. Lea wrote:

    I feel like she would probably be willing to accept censure if she felt she was right? At least that’s the sense I get.

    I don’t know her, either, but I do not get the sense that she is a doormat or a fool or a coward. At all. I think she is a person with convictions who has not been forced by circumstance (AFAIK) to confront what “complementarianism” really means. I suspect women of her generation are going to get big wakeup calls with their daughters.

  205. @ Jack:
    I haven’t read all the comments but I can see why ESS is gaining traction. The Trinity doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense….

    ESS provides a pat answer….”
    +++++++++++

    is ESS gaining traction?

    my sense is it’s being resisted, more and more, especially in the last several months. my sense is that those who subscribe to it do so because it comes with the Wayne Grudem sign that they carry (a bonus, as part of the package deal).

    i think it’s no less odd and mysterious than the trinity idea itself.

    God is inherently loaded with mystery. when someone comes up with a pat answer about God, seems to me there should be an internal warning signal going off. something like the ‘alarm’ ring tone on my cell phone, which is always turned up to 11 so i don’t miss it (enough to alert an entire coastal town of a tsunami coming in)

  206. Velour wrote:

    I’ve never heard of Cheryl Schatz. Are there youtube videos? Tell me more, please.

    I became aware of Schatz’s stuff shortly after the turn of the century. At that time I was an LCMS (conservative wing) Lutheran. A dear friend’s daughter, gifted in every sense of giftedness a shepardess Pastor should be, was barred from becoming an LCMS Pastor simply because of her gender.

    At first I didn’t give it a second thought and just chalked it up to Paul’s “inerrant command from the Lord” that women cannot be Pastors.
    But my conscience began to bother me to the point where I could no longer just blow it off. “This is just plain wrong” it said, “And you know it!”.

    Shortly thereafter I chanced upon Schatz’s vids and the works of Katharine Bushnell. I became convinced that women are not barred from ministry and that the Bible teaches no such thing.
    Schatz’s vids are here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e9TL5TWdac

  207. elastigirl wrote:

    God is inherently loaded with mystery. when someone comes up with a pat answer about God, seems to me there should be an internal warning signal going off. something like the ‘alarm’ ring tone on my cell phone, which is always turned up to 11 so i don’t miss it (enough to alert an entire coastal town of a tsunami coming in)

    There is an internal warning system. It’s called feelings and gut feelings. They’re put there by the Almighty as navigational aids, same as the inner ear fluids keep ya’ from fallin’ on yer’ arse.
    In the last 40-45 years or so, fundagelicalism, whether the arminian or reformed variety, has taught that you can’t trust your feelings because they’re “of the flesh”… My opinion? Another lie from the father of lies.

  208. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Jason Duesing on ‘Gentlemen Theologians’ Who Would Have Handled the ESS Debate with ‘Civility and Kindness’

    P.S. Regarding ‘Gentlemen Theologians’ Who Would Have Handled the ESS Debate with ‘Civility and Kindness’, Highborn Gentlemen show ‘civility & kindness’ ONLY to other Highborn Gentlemen, NEVER to their inferiors.

  209. @ Muff Potter:

    “In the last 40-45 years or so, fundagelicalism, whether the arminian or reformed variety, has taught that you can’t trust your feelings because they’re “of the flesh””
    +++++++++++++++++

    atomic age-inspired, perhaps? hope, trust, and confidence in textbook knowledge and the bible textbook itself? one’s faith is only as viable as a biblical interpretation that can fit all the data together like an algebraic equation?

    it’s as stupid as the atomic age over-confidence in the scientific several decades ago that made breast-feeding newborns seem like an silly outdated notion.

    natural, organic, intuitive, honest, simple — without these things a person is bound to go in a wrong direction.

  210. Velour wrote:

    Glad yours isn’t the more severe form of Diabetes.

    Indeed – I’m what I call “the happy kind”!

  211. Bridget wrote:

    Christiane wrote:

    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    tried to sort out “IHTIH’, however the only thing I could come up with was ‘it hurts, though, it hurts’
    how did I do?

    I hope this is helpful

    Correct:

    ION = In Other News
    IHTIH = I Hope This Is Helpful (it generally isn’t, needless to say)

    (And for Wittertainees:
    HTJI = Hello To Jason Isaacs)

    IHTIH

  212. Muff Potter wrote:

    In the last 40-45 years or so, fundagelicalism, whether the arminian or reformed variety, has taught that you can’t trust your feelings because they’re “of the flesh”… My opinion? Another lie from the father of lies.

    Agreed, but I think some of those camps do so because they wanted control over the decisions (read: money) of others. And they knew they did not belong to God, but those Christians were just such easy pickin’s.

  213. ishy wrote:

    but those Christians were just such easy pickin’s.

    Ishy, that is so true. It is like so many “christians” never engage their brains.

  214. OldJohnJ wrote:

    caroline wrote:
    … and (worst of all to me) Ken Ham.
    Ham is no friend here at TWW. If you look at the Creationism entry in the “Categories” menu you will find about 50 posts and resulting comments on topics germane to YEC.

    Checking what a church thinks about Young Earth Creationism is a good test to see if that church is reasonable or not. If Ken Ham is their guru then it is the type of church that has a literalistic view of the Bible and they are probably dogmatic about a lot of secondary issues. And they are probably into most of the ultra-conservative fads and are likely to have a toxic level of legalism.

  215. @ishy
    @mot

    And then there is the other extreme. There is the person who engages his brain but his brain has too little evidence to go on and has not developed good thinking skills. This person then may have some seriously far out opinions which are just basically worthless, or anywhere on the continuum. And then there is the person whose emotions are in some state of disrepair (think about the incredible number of people who take prescription meds for this) and who somehow are blown about by their emotions.

    So cognition and emotion certainly are necessary, but so is evidence/ reality regardless of what one thinks or feels about that evidence or reality. In religious terms one would say that truth matters, regardless of what one thinks or how one feels about that truth. I think that humanity is only too ready to believe the lie and love that what should not be loved and we need to protect ourselves from this tendency in ourselves.

  216. Gram3 wrote:

    Speaking only for myself, it took some pretty big jolts for me to even consider that the clobber verses have been misinterpreted. I cannot honestly say I would have ever considered it but for those severe shocks to my comfy little world. That is why the Bent Tree Bible journey to mutualism resonated with me.

    I am reluctant to say I am thankful for severe jolts but I am thankful for the manner in which you approached seeking truth. You obviously did your homework when it came to scripture interpretations. And you are a much needed articulate voice.

  217. Nancy2 wrote:

    brad/futuristguy wrote:

    Yes, however, Aimee Byrd, another of the bloggers at Mortification of Spin was very specific in calling out how ESS had been misused and calling out CBMW leaders to take responsibility. I believe she considers herself a (moderate) complementarian as well.
    Here’s some of what she had to say in her forthright and challenging article of August 11, 2016, “What Denny Burk Could Do.”

    Given that Aimee Byrd is a woman, is anybody in the YRR camp going to pay any attention to her?

    That is a problem. How does one convince others to listen or be taken seriously when the one has agreed with the concept of a spiritual caste?

    The argument then becomes about nuances/rules/standing within the caste.

  218. Gram3 wrote:

    I think it is a deep conviction that confessionalists have about the tradition of the confessions and also the “plain reading” of the clobber verses.

    When you say “confessions” would it be similar to taking an oath?

  219. @ Lea:
    You have just described why I am weary of formally aligning with movements, groups, denominations, etc. These affiliations tend to require some sort of blanket agreement to be accepted at some point.

  220. elastigirl wrote:

    it’s as stupid as the atomic age over-confidence in the scientific several decades ago that made breast-feeding newborns seem like an silly outdated notion.

    I know quite a few women who desperately wanted to and went to heroic lengths trying to breastfeed. It is not always possible. They had what I think is needless guilt about it after the tyrannical Le Leche peoole were done with them. Thank God for science that invented formulas.

  221. Muff Potter wrote:

    In the last 40-45 years or so, fundagelicalism, whether the arminian or reformed variety, has taught that you can’t trust your feelings because they’re “of the flesh”… My opinion? Another lie from the father of lies.

    I tend to view them as instincts. We need to practice paying attention to them and checking things out, too. That is probably the biggest problem I have with comp/Pat doctrine and little girls. They are basically taught they can never trust themselves in a round about subtle way. As they grow up, they are then blamed for being ignorant.

  222. @ elastigirl:
    I’m not that plugged in so maybe ESS isn’t the challenger it appears to be.

    My evangelical experience is limited but the church I did attend kept stating how simple it all was. The Bible is accurate & inerrant. Always go back to the Bible. The messages in the sermons were easy to digest. Arrowroot philosophy.

    This church is not Calvinist or authoritarian ( or didn’t seem to be, didn’t really get involved)

    If you infantilize people, tell them it’s simple. They’re going to follow the easiest path.

    The Trinity is how early Christians agreed to explain how there there appeared to be 3 deities but maintain the faith as a monotheism. It’s a pretzel of an explanation.

    In some churches, I could see the average pewsitter being vulnerable to the ESS answer.

    Not all of us have the time or inclination to fully understand the theology.

    Maybe that’s not how it is on the front line. It’s just my opinion as an outsider.

  223. Daisy wrote:

    Ken Ham Unequivocally States on TV Program that a Belief in YEC is NOT Necessary to Be a Christian

    He also still has this article on his site: https://answersingenesis.org/who-is-god/god-is-good/the-god-of-an-old-earth/. Some quotes:

    The god of an old earth is one that uses death as part of creating —death therefore can’t be the penalty for sin — or “the last enemy’

    But they accept the millions of years history for the fossil record, so to be consistent, they have to throw out original sin, and death being the penalty for man’s rebellion. The god of an old earth cannot therefore be the God of the Bible who is able to save us from sin and death.

    Thus Christians who compromise with the millions of years attributed by many scientists to the fossil record, are in that sense seemingly worshipping a different god — the cruel god of an old earth.
    There’s no doubt — the god of an old earth destroys the Gospel.
    Let this be a challenge to the Church to return to the loving, holy, righteous God of the Bible.

    Ken Ham is notorious for his double-speak. The Bible does no say when animals started to die, so there is no Biblical reason to force anyone to believe that no animal death existed before the fall. But the Bible speaks quite a lot about human death.

  224. Lydia wrote:

    Thank God for science that invented formulas.

    This comment brought back memories. After my son was born, we had to spend some time in the hospital due to complications.
    The nurse who came to “teach” breastfeeding brought my wife to tears. She wasn’t expressing enough milk & this woman was so adamant that my wife wasn’t trying hard enough. I put the kibosh on that and did all the night feedings through the miracle of modern science.
    It eventually sorted itself out but I have some really great Dad memories from those times.

  225. Lydia wrote:

    They had what I think is needless guilt about it after the tyrannical Le Leche peoole were done with them. Thank God for science that invented formulas.

    Yes there is a balance. But I don’t think that elastigirl was implying that everyone had to breastfeed. She is referring to Drs./science that told women, like my mom, that formula was better so don’t nurse. My mother had 8 children in 10 years and another one 6 years later. Breastfeeding would have been cheaper, maybe spread those children out a bit more 😉 , and been healthier for the children, although we were not a sickly bunch. The fifth was born with spina bifida, most certainly due to folic acid deficiency in my mother, having given birth so often. Even with that, that child is a walking miracle some doctors would say.

    At least doctors/science will admit when they are wrong and reverse their proclamations, which is more than we can seem to expect with theologians. 😉

  226. Bridget wrote:

    At least doctors/science will admit when they are wrong and reverse their proclamations, which is more than we can seem to expect with theologians.

    YES!… THIS!

  227. Bridget wrote:

    At least doctors/science will admit when they are wrong and reverse their proclamations, which is more than we can seem to expect with theologians.

    Because Theology elevates Everything to literally Cosmic Importance.

  228. Bridget wrote:

    But I don’t think that elastigirl was implying that everyone had to breastfeed. She is referring to Drs./science that told women, like my mom, that formula was better so don’t nurse.

    Let me guess — 1950s? That was the peak of when Formula was Scientific and breastfeeding was Unnatural. (Yes, I actually heard the latter in so many words.)

  229. Jack wrote:

    The nurse who came to “teach” breastfeeding brought my wife to tears. She wasn’t expressing enough milk & this woman was so adamant that my wife wasn’t trying hard enough

    Fundamentalist Breastfeeding Activist.
    “Hooray, hooray for the One True Way,
    The One True Way, the One True Way,
    Hooray, hooray for the One True Way…”

  230. Lydia wrote:

    When you say “confessions” would it be similar to taking an oath?

    I don’t think it is like an oath, but those who describe themselves as confessional have a conviction that the confessions faithfully capture the truth of the Bible (which is presupposed to be the special revelation need to live godly lives.) If you believe that about the various confessions, then it would be another hurdle to overcome to get to mutualism. I think that is one big reason for the necessity of including gender roles explicitly in the BFM2K and then to make that document into a confession, for all practical purposes. Once you see the political aspects of much of what has happened, it is impossible to unsee them.

  231. @ Lydia:

    That’s not exactly what i’m talking about. To some degree i fall in the category you described w/my first kid, and am *darn* thankful for formula. I’m referring to a general mindset (in the 1950’s-60’s at least) that did not value breast feeding to the point that formula was considered superior. Something so basic and natural was disregarded because confidence instead was put in something humans controlled.

    i see parallels to christian culture putting their confidence in the bible as textbook and ignoring the basic component of their being — feelings, intuition, sensing, common sense (& parallels to those with power telling them to / formula marketing).

    but i know the topic of breast feeding can be a very sensitive one — perhaps it would have been better to not bring it in like this.

  232. okrapod wrote:

    And then there is the other extreme. There is the person who engages his brain but his brain has too little evidence to go on and has not developed good thinking skills.

    Yes, this and the rest of your comment. Thinking skills and reality testing seem to have gone out of style.

  233. @ Bridget:

    “At least doctors/science will admit when they are wrong and reverse their proclamations, which is more than we can seem to expect with theologians”
    ++++++++++++++

    which, to me, is the thesis statement for this ESS controversy, and the reason for Jason Duesing’s contribution to ‘the narrative’.

  234. Muff Potter wrote:

    There is an internal warning system. It’s called feelings and gut feelings. They’re put there by the Almighty as navigational aids, same as the inner ear fluids keep ya’ from fallin’ on yer’ arse.
    In the last 40-45 years or so, fundagelicalism, whether the arminian or reformed variety, has taught that you can’t trust your feelings because they’re “of the flesh”… My opinion? Another lie from the father of lies.

    I think a lot of this was done as an over-reaction to the charismatic movement, I remember a lot of sermons that tied the two together- ‘if you let your feelings go, pretty soon you’ll be rolling in the aisles and believing any sort of nonsense.’ It really was a huge dividing issue back in the 70’s.

    Why should we ever feel we need to separate mind, body, feelings? We are denying parts of ourselves that God created and meant to function together as one, if we do so. Obviously, we should seek truth with our minds, the Bible is clear on that, but that doesn’t mean our feelings should be separated off or ignored. I think often times our feelings alert us to what we do know with our minds, before our minds have a chance to explore the reasons, kind of an automatic connecting-of-the-dots going on in the background, so to speak.

    And there are groups that greatly discourage using the mind and teach that only the feelings are reliable, too. When the church I was in went NAR, that was the big push. The mind was cold and dead, only the feelings could be trusted. Trying to understand the reasoning behind it, asking questions, being a Berean was mocked as being the cold, dead, unbelieving mind. You had to let yourself go completely to feelings in order to experience God.

    I don’t think we should ever have to dissect ourselves!

    A person can end up so fragmented in church.

  235. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    In my experience, NOBODY is as Nice (or Polite, or Gentlemanly) than a Sociopath.

    Until the instant you have outlived your usefulness.

    This is so true. I’ve gotten to the point I’m suspicious when someone is *too* nice.

  236. @ Max:
    maybe what it comes down to for evangelical folk is to try to find a faith community where people are kind and helpful to one another in response to the Royal Law of Christ.
    If this loving-kindness were not present within the heart of any faith community, I would question if it even mattered what other doctrines were proclaimed.

  237. @ dee: I would only add that Dr. Nicole had a terrific sense of humor and did not take himself overly seriously. And that he was a very dedicated teacher who was never to busy to interact with students. As a side he was also narcoleptic. Sometimes when he would have a drowsy spell he would slip from English to French without realizing it. The effect could be comedic and he was always a good sport. By contrast the ESS crowd generally come across like petulant passive aggressive teenagers who cannot take the slightest criticism. In part I think because of the narrow bubble they exist in.

  238. John g wrote:

    By contrast the ESS crowd generally come across like petulant passive aggressive teenagers who cannot take the slightest criticism. In part I think because of the narrow bubble they exist in.

    Yes.

  239. @ Christiane:
    siteseer wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    In my experience, NOBODY is as Nice (or Polite, or Gentlemanly) than a Sociopath.

    Until the instant you have outlived your usefulness.

    This is so true. I’ve gotten to the point I’m suspicious when someone is *too* nice.

    And the Body of Christ? Regarding ‘kindness’?
    ” … the vision of Jesus for our world
    announced by St Paul:
    one body –
    with the poorest and weakest among us at the heart,
    those that we judge the most despicable, honoured;

    where each person is important
    because all are necessary.

    His body, to which we all belong
    joined in love,
    filled with the Spirit.

    This is the kingdom.”
    (Jean Vanier)

  240. elastigirl wrote:

    i see parallels to christian culture putting their confidence in the bible as textbook and ignoring the basic component of their being — feelings, intuition, sensing, common sense (& parallels to those with power telling them to / formula marketing).

    Pretty much my sentiment too. The Bible as textbook is a Protestant invention started by Calvin and Luther in reaction to the other extreme of the Catholic Magisterium in their day. I would argue that it (Bible as plain reading textbook) gained its own extreme version of traction with the rise of American fundagelicalism over the last 40-45 years or so.

  241. elastigirl wrote:

    but i know the topic of breast feeding can be a very sensitive one

    And it can be a complicated one. It was not a time when the back to nature idea had caught on yet. It also was a time when some women who had worked during WW II did not want to give up their jobs, and leaving the bottle with the baby in some sort of child care arrangement caught on. It also was a time when both third world countries and war damaged countries were devastated and the issue of poor maternal nutrition and the issue of disease transmission and the issue of actual orphans were all brought into the picture. And it was a time when the idea of freeing women from at-home duties including such things as post war buy this new household gadget really caught on, so bottles fit right in with the free the woman process. In addition, there can be medical complications sometimes with breast feeding. In the 50s when I was in nursing school newborns were started on the bottle while still in the hospital; evaporated milk at various dilutions based on weight.

    I was a bottle baby and my children were bottle fed, and the little abandoned children we adopted were of course on the bottle. But there is sound medical evidence for breast feeding as usually the best but certainly not the only option. BTW: in china the formula mix is different and includes cereal and fish–makes you smart or something.

  242. Christiane wrote:

    If this loving-kindness were not present within the heart of any faith community, I would question if it even mattered what other doctrines were proclaimed.

    Spot on, sister.

  243. From the post, emphasis mine:
    “Jason Duesing …….. various roles at SWBTS included ……. most recently, vice president for strategic initiatives.”
    What do they mean by “strategic initiatives” and why does a theological seminary need such an office?

  244. @ Max:
    Agree. Just like that the Shakespeare line illustrates that being a gentleman is about manners, not morals.

  245. There’s no “like” button for this article Deebs, so here’s mine:

    Like like, likety like like.

    🙂

  246. Christiane wrote:

    maybe what it comes down to for evangelical folk is to try to find a faith community where people are kind and helpful to one another in response to the Royal Law of Christ.
    If this loving-kindness were not present within the heart of any faith community, I would question if it even mattered what other doctrines were proclaimed.

    Indeed! A genuine faith community will be characterized by love, not doctrine.

    Jesus did not say “By your doctrine, all men will know that you are My disciples.” He said “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

    “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Jesus)

    If a church or denomination isn’t hanging on love, it will hang itself sooner or later.

  247. Chris wrote:

    There’s no “like” button for this article Deebs, so here’s mine:
    Like like, likety like like.

    If the DEEBS had a “like” button, it would probably crash their server!

  248. Nancy2 wrote:

    What do they mean by “strategic initiatives” and why does a theological seminary need such an office?

    So they can formulate and implement the best ways to plant TULIP beds all over the Protestant landscape?

  249. Max wrote:

    If a church or denomination isn’t hanging on love, it will hang itself sooner or later.

    And good riddance to them.

  250. @ elastigirl:
    I never knew it was sensitive until I had kids (later than most). I was appalled at how people so causally interjected themselves into a very private decision.

    But I get your point! Thanks for clarifying.

  251. Bridget wrote:

    John g wrote:

    By contrast the ESS crowd generally come across like petulant passive aggressive teenagers who cannot take the slightest criticism. In part I think because of the narrow bubble they exist in.

    Yes.

    Ditto on yes.

  252. @ Gram3:
    That is interesting about the BFM2K. I totally agree. For a document only the academics and SBC leadership cared about it sure has been hacked at the local church level the past few years.

    I first came across this focus on SBC pastor blogs. The Neo Cal pastors referred to it constantly as a sort of unity document for Cal/Non Cals.

    You gotta hand it to Mohler. He sees the strategic long view when you go back and read the debates on the BFM2k from 16 years ago. Only a few saw it. (Even those articles have been deleted now) The non Cals were so comp focused, they missed it, too.

    Mohler missed his true calling.

  253. John g wrote:

    For anyone interested this you tube video will give you a basic sense of Dr. Nicole. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eD7VSjGPY7s
    @ John g:

    Thank you for posting that. When I first started researching this topic years ago, I was stunned at how many Theological scholars there were out there who had done serious work on clobber verse interpretations. But because it was pre internet they did not get much notice outside academia unless you knew what to look for. Many came out of Gordon Conwell. Many of them have passed on now. CBE has some of their work available.

  254. @ John g:
    If you guys get a chance, you might want to check out this video. What he is focusing on first is the “image of God”. It totally refutes Bruce Ware and what has come out of SBTS and CBMW with women as “derivatives”.

  255. @ Lydia:

    Thanks John G. I am making a post about this for my website. I hadn’t heard of Dr. Nicole before now. I already posted the video to Facebook, two Facebook groups, and to Twitter.

  256. Gram3 wrote:

    I think that is one big reason for the necessity of including gender roles explicitly in the BFM2K and then to make that document into a confession

    Southern Baptists – actually all Baptists – have historically had an aversion to creeds. The BFM 2000 revisions essentially made that statement of faith more creedal than previous versions.

    Dr. Mohler has used the Abstract of Principles at SBTS as a required confessional for academic staff there. In his convocation address, as he assumed leadership at SBTS in 1993, he sent a clear message to Southern Baptists just where he stood on confessionals:

    “My design today on this day which will ever remain sacred in my memory as the occasion of my own public attestation of this confession is for us to consider the central role of the Abstract of Principles in structuring the identity of the
    Southern Baptist Theological Seminary … We bear the collective responsibility to call this denomination back to itself and its doctrinal inheritance … the Abstract remains a powerful testimony to a Baptist theological heritage that is genuinely evangelical, Reformed, biblical, and orthodox … This is a true
    reformation …”

    It should have been clear to all who heard those words that Dr. Mohler was on a mission, passionate about his cause, truly believed his theological confession, and was intent on altering the SBC landscape to nothing less than a reformed entity via the release of an army of young, restless and reformed seminary graduates into SBC churches. He has largely succeeded on that endeavor.

  257. mot wrote:

    Max wrote:

    He has largely succeeded on that endeavor.

    Sadly, he has been very successful!!

    Max wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:

    I think that is one big reason for the necessity of including gender roles explicitly in the BFM2K and then to make that document into a confession

    Southern Baptists – actually all Baptists – have historically had an aversion to creeds. The BFM 2000 revisions essentially made that statement of faith more creedal than previous versions.

    Dr. Mohler has used the Abstract of Principles at SBTS as a required confessional for academic staff there. In his convocation address, as he assumed leadership at SBTS in 1993, he sent a clear message to Southern Baptists just where he stood on confessionals:

    “My design today on this day which will ever remain sacred in my memory as the occasion of my own public attestation of this confession is for us to consider the central role of the Abstract of Principles in structuring the identity of the
    Southern Baptist Theological Seminary … We bear the collective responsibility to call this denomination back to itself and its doctrinal inheritance … the Abstract remains a powerful testimony to a Baptist theological heritage that is genuinely evangelical, Reformed, biblical, and orthodox … This is a true
    reformation …”

    It should have been clear to all who heard those words that Dr. Mohler was on a mission, passionate about his cause, truly believed his theological confession, and was intent on altering the SBC landscape to nothing less than a reformed entity via the release of an army of young, restless and reformed seminary graduates into SBC churches. He has largely succeeded on that endeavor.

    Max: Do you think we will ever get the SBC leaders to give a factual answer as to why the 1,000 missionaries were recalled a year ago?

  258. Getting back to “Civility and Kindness” … perhaps Mr Duesing doesn’t know his New Calvinist peers have been out and about with uncivil and unkind behavior in SBC churches:

    – maneuvering their way into traditional church pulpits by stealth and deception
    – forcing elder rule polity on congregational churches
    – altering the belief and practice of a denomination which has existed without their theological flavor for over 150 years
    – leading by authoritarian control, manipulation, and intimidation
    – ruling in an unloving way to shun and excommunicate dissenters
    – delegating pastoral responsibilities to visit the sick, pray with members in nursing homes, counsel members by phone and visit, preach funerals
    – not preaching a Gospel for ALL people
    – subordinating women!
    – subordinating Jesus!
    – etc., etc.

    Yep, this bunch is anything but civil and kind! There’s a whole lot more that ETS should address with New Calvinism than the ESS doctrine … but that’s a great place to start!

  259. mot wrote:

    Max: Do you think we will ever get the SBC leaders to give a factual answer as to why the 1,000 missionaries were recalled a year ago?

    No. There has been no overwhelming outcry from the pew demanding those facts. The giving units continue to give, willingly ignorant to what is happening to their denomination. No one is holding SBC leaders accountable; they are moving on.

  260. Max wrote:

    mot wrote:

    Max: Do you think we will ever get the SBC leaders to give a factual answer as to why the 1,000 missionaries were recalled a year ago?

    No. There has been no overwhelming outcry from the pew demanding those facts. The giving units continue to give, willingly ignorant to what is happening to their denomination. No one is holding SBC leaders accountable; they are moving on.

    When will these giving units stop giving in your opinion?

  261. So, in news related to Wayne Grudem, he posted his withdrawal of support for Donald Trump on the Townhall website. Among other things, he states: “God intends that men honor and respect women, not abuse them as sexual objects.”

    I find it ironic and exasperating that he can say that, but apparently is utterly unable to perceive how the doctrines of gender hierarchy he has so long nurtured inherently result in conditions where women are objectified in all social realms. And, in fact, that one week after the U.S. election where he no longer supports Mr Trump as his morally best choice, Mr Grudem will be presenting his case to the Evangelical Theological Society for how ESS is in fact crucial to Trinitarianism.

    http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/09/trumps-moral-character-and-the-election-n2229846

  262. mot wrote:

    When will these giving units stop giving in your opinion?

    If and when they ‘finally’ realize what has happened to the Southern Baptist Convention. During my long journey, I have found there are three types of people in church: (1) those who plan to make things happen, (2) those who make things happen, and (3) those who wonder “What happened?!” The Southern Baptist majority is in the latter category when it comes to SBC Calvinization.

  263. Christiane wrote:

    tried to sort out “IHTIH’, however the only thing I could come up with was ‘it hurts, though, it hurts’
    how did I do?

    Bwah-ha-ha!

  264. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I was driving up the 57 here in Orange County, CA, and one of the electronic billboards along the freeway cycled into an advertisement for Ken Ham’s Ark Experience/Creation Museum.

    Seriously? I’ve got to go looking for that, just for the fun of it!

  265. Debi Calvet wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I was driving up the 57 here in Orange County, CA, and one of the electronic billboards along the freeway cycled into an advertisement for Ken Ham’s Ark Experience/Creation Museum.

    Seriously? I’ve got to go looking for that, just for the fun of it!

    It was on the 57 northbound, between the 91 interchange and Cal State Fullerton (Chapman/Nutwood exit). Billboard was on the right (east) of the freeway.

    Remember, these are E-billboards, so the ads cycle every 10-15 seconds.

  266. Debi Calvet wrote:

    Janna L. Chan wrote:

    I do concede that Calvin himself was an autocrat …

    That’s putting it mildly.

    Calvin was to Geneva what Ayatollah Khomeini was to Iran.
    Beard and all.

  267. mot wrote:

    When will these giving units stop giving in your opinion?

    When they decide along with Huckleberry Finn, “All right, I’ll go to Hell.”

  268. Lydia wrote:

    @ John g:
    If you guys get a chance, you might want to check out this video. What he is focusing on first is the “image of God”. It totally refutes Bruce Ware and what has come out of SBTS and CBMW with women as “derivatives”.

    I wonder if he’s going to quote the Dake’s Annotated about all three Persons of the Trinity not only being male, but being male in bodies made of “spirit matter”? And about all angels and spirits being male? And the female being only a special dispensation for physical procreation?

  269. Lydia wrote:

    You gotta hand it to Mohler. He sees the strategic long view when you go back and read the debates on the BFM2k from 16 years ago. Only a few saw it. (Even those articles have been deleted now) The non Cals were so comp focused, they missed it, too.

    Sociopaths and Master Manipulators plan and plot 16 years (and the equivalent in chess moves) in advance. I once saw my brother work a 16-year long con setting up revenge against our stepmother. SIXTEEN YEARS of pre-planning and grooming and getting all the chess pieces in position. How can anyone NOT a sociopath (or who has a life) match that single-minded level of dedication and pre-planning and sticking to the goal?

  270. Muff Potter wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:

    What do they mean by “strategic initiatives” and why does a theological seminary need such an office?

    So they can formulate and implement the best ways to plant TULIP beds all over the Protestant landscape?

    IN’SH’CALVIN — CALVIN WILLS IT!

  271. Janna L. Chan wrote:

    @ Max:
    Agree. Just like that the Shakespeare line illustrates that being a gentleman is about manners, not morals.

    And Good Manners are just another weapon in a Sociopath’s arsenal.

  272. John g wrote:

    By contrast the ESS crowd generally come across like petulant passive aggressive teenagers who cannot take the slightest criticism. In part I think because of the narrow bubble they exist in.

    “Satan fell by force of Gravitas.”
    — C.S.Lewis? John Donne? Dante Aligheri?

  273. siteseer wrote:

    Why should we ever feel we need to separate mind, body, feelings? We are denying parts of ourselves that God created and meant to function together as one, if we do so. Obviously, we should seek truth with our minds, the Bible is clear on that, but that doesn’t mean our feelings should be separated off or ignored.

    For what it’s worth, Ayn Rand’s term for her Author Self-Inserts and Objectivist Heroes was “Men of the Mind.”

    And as a former Kid Genius whose 7th-grade nickname was “Mr Spock”, I can attest that “of the Mind” has its serious downside.

  274. okrapod wrote:

    @ Bridget:

    Ah yes. Breast milk, UNICEF and Nestle. That one was a doozy.

    Anything like General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire & Rubber and the demise of the Pacific Electric/Red Cars?

    (Yes, the conspiracy at the center of Who Framed Roger Rabbit was based on a real event in Los Angeles history.)

  275. @ Debi Calvet:
    Luther was an anti-Semite. Does that mean we should assume that all modern day Lutherans hate Jews?

    Or that modern day Calvinists live in communities that were like Geneva 500 years ago?

    🙂

  276. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    @ John g:
    If you guys get a chance, you might want to check out this video. What he is focusing on first is the “image of God”. It totally refutes Bruce Ware and what has come out of SBTS and CBMW with women as “derivatives”.

    I wonder if he’s going to quote the Dake’s Annotated about all three Persons of the Trinity not only being male, but being male in bodies made of “spirit matter”? And about all angels and spirits being male? And the female being only a special dispensation for physical procreation?

    HEADLESS, what IS this stuff? Never heard of it before. Sounds like it comes from a place very, very isolated from orthodox Christian traditional thinking. Do you think Grudem and Ware drew their ideas from this source? Or did you confuse me? 🙂

  277. John g wrote:

    … who cannot take the slightest criticism. In part I think because of the narrow bubble they exist in.

    I think you’re right about the “bubble” thing, John.

    Mixing with others who are very different is one of those idiot-simple and yet extraordinarily powerful life-changers. I remember years ago reading an account by an anti-racism activist some years ago, back in the day when anti-racist activism wasn’t yet a Thing here in the UK and, if anything, racism was still widely accepted and even cool. The point of his story was that by his late teens, he was a committed extreme right-wing activist with the then-notorious National Front. What changed his mind was his job; at some point, he found himself working alongside a black man. As you can imagine, all of his assumptions and reasons for despising “Them” and wanting “Them” to be “sent back where they came from” collapsed under the weight of evidence. At least he was honest!
    Anyway,my daughter wants the laptop – I’ll have to do Part 2 later…

  278. @ Christiane:
    You are free to research Augustine’s writings on women. He is one I came across that taught women are not created in the direct image of God and their image of God comes through the male as their head.

    His writings and interpretations merge the pagan concept of dualism with Christianity which believes that the material/physical realm is evil and the spiritual, good. It’s a form of Gnosticism. And variations of it are all through Western versions of Christianity including the more cultic variations.

    Spirit Body, as I understood it, is the esoteric Mormon answer to “image of God”. Again, they separate the physical and spiritual, too. And they tend to agree with Augustine on women. :o)

  279. @ Christiane:

    I have not traced anything back to anybody, so those interested in historical derivation of ideas can do that themselves. However, I see you apparently saying where did people get this stuff, and from the way I heard the idea of spirit bodies occasionally mentioned (not actually taught) it may have started with 1 Cor 15:44 and the statement that what is raised in the resurrection is a ‘spiritual body.’ It would be easy enough to take that idea along with the idea of angels as spirit beings who on occasion appear to people in bodily form, and come up with the idea that people are actually spirits who have bodies, not the other way around and not some equal composite or whatever. Throw in a little sexual perversion of one’s thinking and the next step could be that males retain the substance of pure spirit whereas females do not in order to reproduce.

    I don’t know if they got that from something Augustine said or they though that he said but from what little of know of the man he does seem to have some sort of sexually perverted ideas. Throw that in with the fact that protestants do not view the Church Fathers the say way that Catholics do, and bingo-a weird idea with an associated bible verse or two.

    But like I said I have never actually heard this taught but I have heard something about spirit bodies in an occasional conversation here or there.

  280. Slight off-topic announcement.

    *Marquis (Shauna) and her son Billy are in need of food, gas for their car, and other basic expenses. They received a recent contribution in the GoFundMe campaign which they used for food. Marquis said that their services are going to be cut off on Friday. Contributions to the fund would be appreciated. So would gift cards for places like Wal-Mart and gas cards for Texas. (They are in Montgomery, Texas.) Contact Dee and Deb via email at the top of the page under the Contact information if you need a mailing address.
    https://www.gofundme.com/pxs5dk

    *Jeannette Altes is also in need of contributions. She has $450 of bills coming due and also needs food. And gas for her car too.
    https://www.gofundme.com/ljahelp

    Any other discussions about these fundraisers/needs can be placed on the Open Discussion thread.

    Thank you!

    And…please pray for these folks.

  281. Velour wrote:

    It wasn’t Jesus’ on the cross that saved us, it was “sanctified testosterone” according to Owen Strachan and Company at their recent Council on Biblical Manhood Womanhood Conference.

    i.e. MY Own Testicles!

  282. Thanks OKRAPOD and Lydia for input.

    I was trying to sort out WHO the ‘he’ is when Headless referred to
    “I wonder if he’s going to quote the Dake’s Annotated about all three Persons of the Trinity not only being male, but being male in bodies made of “spirit matter”? And about all angels and spirits being male? And the female being only a special dispensation for physical procreation?”

    As for Augustine and the ESS crowd, wouldn’t it be hysterical if they had sought out Augustine’s thoughts while he WAS a Manichaean and not yet converted to Christianity, and then used those sources as back-up for their own strange heresy.

    For some reason, the ESS folks seem to want to belittle women and Our Lord. I know the Manichaeans belittled Christ.

    Good idea to look into Augustine’s history and writings of that time. I hear that Grudem and Ware were not too careful about their sources on the early Fathers and there was some ‘mis-quoting’ going on, but I need to sort this out and see where it leads.

    Thanks again, people. I love a good historical mystery. 🙂

  283. Christiane wrote:

    As for Augustine and the ESS crowd, wouldn’t it be hysterical if they had sought out Augustine’s thoughts while he WAS a Manichaean and not yet converted to Christianity, and then used those sources as back-up for their own strange heresy.

    Would that include his written words after conversion? Or, is there some wiggle room there, too? :o)

  284. Lydia wrote:

    @ Christiane:
    He didn’t leave it all behind.

    I know. I think his earlier influences always haunted him. And yet he wrote against the Manichaeans powerfully.

  285. Lydia wrote:

    Christiane wrote:

    As for Augustine and the ESS crowd, wouldn’t it be hysterical if they had sought out Augustine’s thoughts while he WAS a Manichaean and not yet converted to Christianity, and then used those sources as back-up for their own strange heresy.

    Would that include his written words after conversion? Or, is there some wiggle room there, too? :o)

    Could be.

  286. Lydia wrote:

    He didn’t leave it all behind.

    That same thing is pretty much a protestant mantra about Constantine, and with some good evidence apparently.

    Permit me to say the following because I think it is pertinent. As we all know the essence of Anglicanism is that it includes ideas from both ends of the spectrum as well as in the middle. But, one thing I read (and one can read all sorts of things of course) is the idea that where scripture is clear in meaning, then one believes scripture; where scripture is unclear then one may take into consideration tradition using reason to do so. Our rector has mentioned rather lots of times that Hooker’s three legged stool does not mean you get to choose which of the three you prefer; they are prioritized as it were with scripture at the top of priority. This is only one way of looking at it in the anglican tradition, but it is one of the ways as I understand it.

    I like it basically because that is always how I thought anyhow. So my first approach to what any of the Fathers said would be to be careful and to remember that one default position can be ‘so what’.

  287. Since this post is largely about Wayne Grudem, can it be mentioned here that he has finally withdrawn his support for Donald Trump? I know we’re not supposed to talk politics here, but the edges are fuzzy, aren’t they?

  288. okrapod wrote:

    I like it basically because that is always how I thought anyhow. So my first approach to what any of the Fathers said would be to be careful and to remember that one default position can be ‘so what’.

    It’s a valid position. The writings of the early Fathers give some good insight into what was going on in the Church in those days, particularly with the fighting against the early heresies AND in the development of the Church’s doctrines on ‘Who Christ was’ and on the Holy Trinity. But the writings of the Fathers are NOT ‘inspired’ and are not to be raised to the same level of importance in the Church as sacred Scripture. Another problem: there are many spurious copies of writings attributed to the Fathers, and IF a researcher was not knowledgeable about these spurious writings, they could get into difficulty with their own academic credibility, yes.

    I use this as a reference, among others:
    http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/

  289. Nancy2 wrote:

    What do they mean by “strategic initiatives” and why does a theological seminary need such an office?

    Because the organized church (including its seminaries) is a business and must always be looking for new strategies to keep it successful and profitable.

    Speaking of strategy, I thought it was a brilliant maneuver by Duesing to refer to ETS folks as “Gentlemen Theologians”, implying that folks commenting on these things in the blogosphere are neither gentlemen or theologians. By using that term, he is also sending a subliminal plea to ‘real’ ETS theologians to be civil and kind (gentlemen) as they take on Grudem and his aberrant teachings in San Antonio. The flip side of that coin was designed to make us who have been challenging the ESS doctrine in cyberspace look like “deplorables” (to borrow a word from the presidential campaign).

  290. Christiane wrote:

    Another problem: there are many spurious copies of writings attributed to the Fathers, and IF a researcher was not knowledgeable about these spurious writings, they could get into difficulty with their own academic credibility, yes.

    Another thought is to check in with reputable historians “outside” one’s preferred religious tradition for a more balanced perspective; not skewed by anti or pro voices.

  291. Patty in Massachusetts wrote:

    Since this post is largely about Wayne Grudem, can it be mentioned here that he has finally withdrawn his support for Donald Trump? I know we’re not supposed to talk politics here, but the edges are fuzzy, aren’t they?

    A ‘deplorable’ development.

  292. Patty in Massachusetts wrote:

    Since this post is largely about Wayne Grudem, can it be mentioned here that he has finally withdrawn his support for Donald Trump? I know we’re not supposed to talk politics here, but the edges are fuzzy, aren’t they?

    well, it does impact on the dignity of women as human persons, yes

    Perhaps that is a legitimate concern where politics and religion intersect?

  293. Bridget wrote:

    Another thought is to check in with reputable historians “outside” one’s preferred religious tradition for a more balanced perspective; not skewed by anti or pro voices.

    In the last five hundred centuries, this is a possibility. Who do you recommend as an alternatie source prior to the Reformation? Many of the early Fathers of eastern and western Christianity during that time are mutually acknowledged.

  294. Christiane wrote:

    The writings of the early Fathers give some good insight into what was going on in the Church in those days, particularly with the fighting against the early heresies AND in the development of the Church’s doctrines on ‘Who Christ was’ and on the Holy Trinity.

    One problem with that, as I understand it, is that the early church was into destroying evidence such as the actual writings of the dissenters so the primary evidence we have is mostly only the issue as the church fathers wrote it down and from their own viewpoint. We have to conclude or guess at what the opposition actually believed from the writings of their opponents. Which would be bad enough but some of what the fathers wrote is such angry and vile impassioned denunciation of the opposition that one can easily conclude that one cannot be sure that what they wrote is accurate. For myself, I believe that the very fact that the writings of the opposition are ‘missing’ is good evidence for distrust of the evidence of the fathers as it relates to the beliefs of the dissenters. Not all of it of course, but there is a gray shadow which lurks over some of their writings.

    I am not a historian. Mostly I know not what the truth may be; I tell the tale as was told to me. And recently I have read an atheist on this subject so I am sure he also has bias. That would be Ehrman.

  295. Burwell wrote:

    One has to wonder what finally tipped the scales on Grudem’s endorsement.

    Let’s just hope that ETS tips the scales on his ESS endorsement, too!

  296. okrapod wrote:

    For myself, I believe that the very fact that the writings of the opposition are ‘missing’ is good evidence for distrust of the evidence of the fathers as it relates to the beliefs of the dissenters.

    Can you name some of these dissenters? Maybe I can find something. Thanks

  297. @ okrapod:

    I meant to add that it is the victors who write the history, especially before any idea of free press or historical objectivity were popular.

  298. okrapod wrote:

    @ okrapod:
    I meant to add that it is the victors who write the history, especially before any idea of free press or historical objectivity were popular.

    I listen to a podcast on british history and this is one the things he mentions rather constantly. We are reading through an obviously biased leans, and much of the time this is someone associated with the catholic church (monks, etc) because they were record keeping. So it’s very interesting to try to figure out what actually happened.

  299. Max wrote:

    Let’s just hope that ETS tips the scales on his ESS endorsement, too!

    I do so hope, but sadly must moderate it with the knowledge that the current trajectory of the ETS is bringing it in alignment with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

  300. @ Christiane:

    I am going to have to let you do that yourself because I am not willing to go downstairs and rummage through my books (all neatly but not categorically in plastic containers since my downstairs is actually only a partially finished basement)). However, I can point you in the right direction.

    Ehrman’s idea, and yes I know that he is a textual critic and not himself a historian though he rather claims to be one, is that early on before Nicea there were multiple groups one of which he calls the proto-orthodox. The proto-orthodox would be what became officially the orthodox basically at Nicea under the eye of the emperor. He notes differences of opinion regarding body and soul, the Gnostics, most of whose writings are not available. He talks about the Jew vs Gentile controversy-rather Jewish law and greek philosophy of sorts. In this he mentions people called the Ebionites I think but I have totally forgotten the name other and apparently larger group which were the opposite of the Ebionites. Again I cannot recall the exact details but in one of his books he mentions other groups and ideas but I get the impression that early on there were a few big players including the proto-orthodox and the gnostics and the Ebionites and the opposite to the Ebionites whose name I have forgotten. Apparently greater knowledge is available about later idea groups who were later called heretics by the group which had become orthodox and recognized, such as the Arians and others. The missing evidence is from really early on apparently.

    Like Nick says IHTH.

  301. okrapod wrote:

    I meant to add that it is the victors who write the history, especially before any idea of free press or historical objectivity were popular.

    Yes. And we see what happened in modern times when ‘the powers that be’ changed the ESV and initially called it ‘written in stone’ …… there is good reason to want to cross-reference as much as possible when looking at extant sources. Sometimes the differences are matters of ‘translation’, and sometimes the result of poor scholarship, but ‘commentary’ on ‘commentary’ is prone to the viewpoint of those who write from a position of ‘authority’.
    Another problem: imagine a person who is not familiar with even the basics of tradition in the early Church attempting to comprehend a document written over a thousand years ago. I suppose in some ways that would be an advantage (a fresh mind), but without some help to fathom the context of the times, it would be a very difficult journey.

  302. @ okrapod:

    Your entire comment was excellent. It does make me wonder exactly how heretical some of the dissenters actually were, if at all, since we have only one side of the debate. It was a bit harder to skew the story after the printing press/Reformation, and even harder now. But the victors, or those who desire the victory over truth, still try.

  303. Forrest wrote:

    siteseer wrote:
    I find it telling that Duesing only called out one side of this debate for being “ungentlemanly” though the other side has been engaging in the behavior he says he deplores as well as deception.
    Sadly, this type of narcissistic behaviour is typical within this group.

    MY Side Can Do No Wrong.

  304. okrapod wrote:

    In this he mentions people called the Ebionites I think but I have totally forgotten the name other and apparently larger group which were the opposite of the Ebionites.

    Wasn’t “Ebionites” the name of one of the aliens in the original B&W Outer Limits?

  305. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    okrapod wrote:

    In this he mentions people called the Ebionites I think but I have totally forgotten the name other and apparently larger group which were the opposite of the Ebionites.

    Wasn’t “Ebionites” the name of one of the aliens in the original B&W Outer Limits?

    NOW you show up. 🙂

  306. Christiane wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    @ Christiane:
    He didn’t leave it all behind.
    I know. I think his earlier influences always haunted him. And yet he wrote against the Manichaeans powerfully.

    Auggie had a lot of baggage from his previous life, and after he became St Augustine, Doctor of the Church there wasn’t much discernment over which parts of his writings were actual theological insight and which were his baggage showing through.

  307. Lea wrote:

    We are reading through an obviously biased leans, and much of the time this is someone associated with the catholic church (monks, etc) because they were record keeping.

    And, in some cases, record destroying like many rulers of those times were prone to do.

  308. Christiane wrote:

    as “derivatives”.
    I wonder if he’s going to quote the Dake’s Annotated about all three Persons of the Trinity not only being male, but being male in bodies made of “spirit matter”? And about all angels and spirits being male? And the female being only a special dispensation for physical procreation?

    HEADLESS, what IS this stuff? Never heard of it before. Sounds like it comes from a place very, very isolated from orthodox Christian traditional thinking. Do you think Grudem and Ware drew their ideas from this source? Or did you confuse me?

    Back when I was mixed up with that End-of-the-World Shepherding Not-a-Cult in my college days, they were very much into the Dake’s Annotated Bible. I don’t think any of them studied the KJV in the two center columns, mostly Dake’s notes and commentary on the two outer columns. And THAT was some of Dake’s commentary.

    Among other things just as strange; looking back as a real adult, I recognize the style of a Kook Rant in those notes/teachings.

    For the record, here’s what Wikipedia says about Dake:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finis_Jennings_Dake
    Sounds kinds familiar, even to the Polishing-the-Shaft Schaapf tropism for jail bait sex scandal. Understand I didn’t know anything about this guy Dake himself until the Age of the Internet; before then, all I knew was his Bible.

    As for the “spirit matter” and “spiritual bodies” (presumably with male genitalia, even the Holy Spirit), I also was struck by the resemblance to the Mormon Inner Mysteries. Even to the Trinity sitting on Three Thrones on a Planet called “Heaven” in the Northern sky. (cue “If Ye Could Hie to Kolob…”) All claimed as “plain reading of SCRIPTURE.”

  309. okrapod wrote:

    But like I said I have never actually heard this taught but I have heard something about spirit bodies in an occasional conversation here or there.

    Chuck Smith (founder of Calvary Chapel, aka ‘Papa Chuck’) taught that in the resurrection we receive ‘spirit bodies’, which is contrary to both Jewish and Christian historical teaching. The short of it is that he based his teaching on one verse (1 Corinthians 15:50) Hueyed out of context.
    You can read the long of it here:
    http://calvarychapel.pbworks.com/w/page/13146615/Chuck-Smith-Resurrection

  310. Muff Potter wrote:

    Chuck Smith (founder of Calvary Chapel, aka ‘Papa Chuck’) taught that in the resurrection we receive ‘spirit bodies’, which is contrary to both Jewish and Christian historical teaching. The short of it is that he based his teaching on one verse (1 Corinthians 15:50) Hueyed out of context.
    You can read the long of it here:
    http://calvarychapel.pbworks.com/w/page/13146615/Chuck-Smith-Resurrection

    Wow. all based on 1 Cor. 15:50

    I wonder what his take would be on this triumphant description of resurrection found in sacred Scripture:

    “I know that my Redeemer liveth,
    and that He shall stand at the latter day
    upon the earth.
    And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
    whom I shall see for myself,
    and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”
    (Job 19:25-27)

  311. @ Burwell:Burwell, it was apparently the latest revelations about Trumps “locker room” talk. Apparently everything horrendous before that didn’t quite hit the same nerve. But whatever it takes.

  312. Christiane wrote:

    Yes. And we see what happened in modern times when ‘the powers that be’ changed the ESV and initially called it ‘written in stone’ ……

    My my, these guys still believe that the Almighty is still thundering out of Horeb to them as a protectorate of God’s inerrant will and commands to a wayward humankind.

  313. @ okrapod:
    I agree with “so what” but much of Western Christianity did not. My view is that Western Christianity took more from Greek philosophy than Hebrew. It is a huge topic that is very nuanced but has huge implications in how we view God.

  314. Burwell wrote:

    @ Patty in Massachusetts:

    One has to wonder what finally tipped the scales on Grudem’s endorsement.

    Burwell wrote:

    @ Patty in Massachusetts:

    One has to wonder what finally tipped the scales on Grudem’s endorsement.

    It is curious. I thought we were told certain things were private and did not matter during a previous administration?

  315. Christiane wrote:

    I wonder what his take would be on this triumphant description of resurrection found in sacred Scripture:

    When you (generic you) believe that you’re God’s anointed mouthpiece to wayward children, you can always find an elaborate tap-dance around Scripture that doesn’t agree with what you’ve spun and you want to make stick. Circular reasoning and special pleading will usually do the trick. If not, fear is the sure-fire castor oil of fundagelicalism that will whip recalcitrants back into line

  316. Christiane wrote:

    I wonder what his take would be on this triumphant description of resurrection found in sacred Scripture:

    I don’t know what he would say, but I do know something which was brought up in a teaching series the Methodists were using (source: ResidentEducator who was doing the series ‘Disciple’ at the time) that there were a lot of Job stories floating around at the time not limited to the ancient Hebrews and that genre was very popular. The idea being that one does not have to and/or should not consider Job some ancient patriarch nor does one have to accept as very truth of very truth that God actually authorized the destruction which was visited on Job; but rather the version of the Job story was just that, a story in a popular genre in which the author(s) got to present their own ideas of God and man and disasters. That is to say not to be taken literally.

    Much like some of us consider the Genesis origin stories as well as some other early Genesis stories.

  317. @ Bridget:

    Lea wrote: “We are reading through an obviously biased leans, and much of the time this is someone associated with the catholic church (monks, etc) because they were record keeping.”

    Bridget: “And, in some cases, record destroying like many rulers of those times were prone to do.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++

    CBMW, 9Marks, TGC etc. & disappearing posts, articles, and blog comments…. some are still prone to record destroying.

  318. Muff Potter wrote:

    okrapod wrote:

    But like I said I have never actually heard this taught but I have heard something about spirit bodies in an occasional conversation here or there.

    Chuck Smith (founder of Calvary Chapel, aka ‘Papa Chuck’) taught that in the resurrection we receive ‘spirit bodies’, which is contrary to both Jewish and Christian historical teaching.

    I think they used the term “Resurrection Body”; it probably started as an attempt to describe Jesus post-Resurrection “Glorified Body” and by extension the bodies of the General Resurrection and probably got out-of-hand.

    Remember: Whatever Papa Chuck of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa taught became Dogma Ex Cathedra for a LOT of American Evangelical “Born-Again Bible-Believing Christians(TM)”. Calvary Chapel so DOMINATED the local Born-Again Christian scene out here that anything from the lips of Papa Chuck was not just Ex Cathedra, but almost SCRIPTURE(TM).

    I have always gotten a bad vibe about Calvary Chapel in general, like they distill down and concentrate all that can go wrong with American Evangelical Nondenominational Christianity.

  319. Muff Potter wrote:

    If not, fear is the sure-fire castor oil of fundagelicalism that will whip recalcitrants back into line

    And Fear of Hell (or “Being Left Behind(TM)”) is the biggest whip of all.
    Fall into line or Eternal Hell.

  320. Lydia wrote:

    It is curious. I thought we were told certain things were private and did not matter during a previous administration?

    oceania has always been at peace with Eurasia, comrades.

  321. okrapod wrote:

    Much like some of us consider the Genesis origin stories as well as some other early Genesis stories.

    The flood shows up in the epic of gilgamesh, too.

  322. TWW’s internet connection is down It has been down this morning along with our television and home phone Time Warner says that this is due to the aftermath of the hurricane over the weekend. Schools in the area are not in session and some of the roads are impassable due to falling trees If the Internet does not come back in the next three hours there will be no post today Sorry about that

  323. Paul sure wasn’t very “gentlemanly” to those who preached a different Jesus (i.e., one who’s eternally second rate, second class, second fiddle; he also wasn’t very gentlemanly with those who enriched themselves and furthered their careers and comfort through the appropriation of Jesus’ name, either–just ask the superapostles).

    Come to think of it, Jesus wasn’t very gentlemanly either, especially towards the religious powerbrokers of the day who always seemed to be adjusting the spotlight to shine on them–rather than Jesus.

    But Satan presents himself as an angel of light (which one must suppose, amongst tweedy academics, would be the very picture of gentlemanly).

    You just can’t be gentlemanly with one who presents a false Jesus, for you will be throwing your pearls to the swine who likes to diminish Him.

    It’s all about Jesus. Is He THE thing, the MAIN thing to you? Then you know Him. Is he a junior partner, an associate, is he eternally subordinate to anyone, even the Father, for you? Then I rather doubt that you know Him at all, all you know is doctrine and your own lusts for whatever it is that trips your trigger, and you’ll invariably gravitate to the wrong doctrine and trip over the real thing, the stumbling block, Jesus.

  324. Max wrote:

    Speaking of strategy, I thought it was a brilliant maneuver by Duesing to refer to ETS folks as “Gentlemen Theologians”,

    That phrase kinda slams and locks the door on the wimmenfolk too, doesn’t it?

  325. Dee wrote:

    TWW’s internet connection is down It has been down this morning along with our television and home phone Time Warner says that this is due to the aftermath of the hurricane over the weekend. Schools in the area are not in session and some of the roads are impassable due to falling trees If the Internet does not come back in the next three hours there will be no post today Sorry about that

    We’re sorry to hear about that, Dee. No worries. Take care of yourself, your husband, family, and those Pugs!

    And more importantly than posting today, do you have access to hot coffee? Lord,
    hear my prayer that Miss Dee has hot coffee. Amen.

  326. Christiane wrote:

    well, it does impact on the dignity of women as human persons, yes
    Perhaps that is a legitimate concern where politics and religion intersect?

    It’s all about the “groping” tapes that went public over the weekend. I don’t think Grudem’s change of heart has any thing to do with the dignity of women as human persons. I believe it’s all about the dignity of MEN!

  327. Nancy2 wrote:

    I don’t think Grudem’s change of heart has any thing to do with the dignity of women as human persons.

    …or the dignity of Mexican-Americans, of workers, of veterans, of law-abiding muslims, or folks who were duped by Trump University, etc., etc. I really am dumbfounded that it was this particular breach of ethics and decency that got to Grudem.

  328. elastigirl wrote:

    CBMW, 9Marks, TGC etc. & disappearing posts, articles, and blog comments…. some are still prone to record destroying.

    Not much has changed. How sad 🙁

  329. Beaker wrote:

    “I also note the fact they quote Owen, & not a church Father. They are children of the Reformation… maybe not children of the truth as once handed down. I feel like the measure for orthodoxy has become the Reformers, not those who walked with Christ or learned from those who did. The 1500 years they leave out make all the difference.”

    I totally agree.

    I think it might be a good idea to start referring to these neo-Calvinists and other people who think like them as the “Dark Reformation”, because there are a lot of parallels with the Dark Enlightenment.

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

    I’d argue that the neo-Cals are the theological counterpart of the Dark Enlightenment; there are many things they share in common including a complete rejection of individualism, “modernity” and everything distinctly American, in favor of authoritarian Western European ideals (hence the neo-Cals want to go back to Geneva, and the Dark Enlightenment folks want monarchies). Add to that a connection to misogyny and the Manosphere, and the fact that both movements are heavily young and tech-savvy….

  330. Nancy2 wrote:

    Christiane wrote:

    well, it does impact on the dignity of women as human persons, yes
    Perhaps that is a legitimate concern where politics and religion intersect?

    It’s all about the “groping” tapes that went public over the weekend. I don’t think Grudem’s change of heart has any thing to do with the dignity of women as human persons. I believe it’s all about the dignity of MEN!

    I wonder how many SBC leaders are speaking out about Trump’s latest “christian” actions in the 2005 tape.

  331. Nancy2 wrote:

    Max wrote:

    Speaking of strategy, I thought it was a brilliant maneuver by Duesing to refer to ETS folks as “Gentlemen Theologians”,

    That phrase kinda slams and locks the door on the wimmenfolk too, doesn’t it?

    It is so sad–these men HATE women! They are killing the church IMO.

  332. Nancy2 wrote:

    That phrase kinda slams and locks the door on the wimmenfolk too, doesn’t it?

    Crazy. Especially since real gentlemanhood would OPEN doors for women.

  333. @ brad/futuristguy:

    The latest news on Mr Grudem is this article in Religion News Service — *Is Wayne Grudem lying about not knowing D onald T rump’s past? Watch the video* — noting how he had talked previously about things he knew about what eventually became his endorsed candidate … but didn’t apparently know when he wrote his endorsement?

    As with Watergate, it appears the question is now: “When did the President [endorser] know, and when did he know it?”

    http://religionnews.com/2016/10/10/is-wayne-grudem-lying-about-not-knowing-donald-trumps-past-watch-the-video/

  334. @ MidwesternEasterner:

    Well, I learned something new today. I had no idea anyone wanted to return to monarchy-

    the Dark Enlightenment believes that “while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good.

    More harm than good? I’m amazed that anyone could even think that. It seems like they have an exaggerated idea of what is wrong today along with a highly romanticized idea of what things were like in the past? We tend to preserve what is best from civilization but that isn’t a complete picture by any means. These must be people who have not yet have faced any extreme medical challenges? We have so much to be thankful for today! Yes, human beings are still sinning but guess what, they were doing that yesterday, too. And there were a whole lot of other disadvantages. People are hard to understand sometimes.

    The dark reformation, that is a good name.

  335. Nancy2 wrote:

    That phrase kinda slams and locks the door on the wimmenfolk too, doesn’t it?

    Not in my book, Nancy2. Some of the most godly men I know are women! ;^)

  336. Burwell wrote:

    One has to wonder what finally tipped the scales on Grudem’s endorsement.

    Yes, I’ve been wondering about that as presidential endorsements are being dropped like hot potatoes this week! Grudem had no problem endorsing a potty-mouth preacher named Driscoll; he even promoted Driscoll’s pornographic book “Real Marriage!” I guess vulgar politicians are in a different category than foul-mouthed preachers.

  337. Just found this old poem by Chesterton that these “gentleman theologians” remind me of:
    http://www.best-poems.net/g_k_chesterton/the_aristocrat.html

    “O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
    And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
    At the little place in What’hitsname where folks are rich and clever;
    The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse forever;
    There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
    There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
    There is a game of April Fool that’s played behind its door,
    Where the fool remains forever and April comes no more,
    Where the splendor of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
    And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
    And that is the Blue Devil, that once was the Blue Bird;
    For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn’t keep his word.”

  338. siteseer wrote:

    @ MidwesternEasterner:

    Well, I learned something new today. I had no idea anyone wanted to return to monarchy-

    the Dark Enlightenment believes that “while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good.

    More harm than good? I’m amazed that anyone could even think that. It seems like they have an exaggerated idea of what is wrong today along with a highly romanticized idea of what things were like in the past?

    Obviously (like Douggie ESQUIRE clinging to his faux-noble title and cosplaying Highborns), they see themselves as The King:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DxJ-zUtl60

    Only problem is, there can be only One on the Iron Throne.

  339. Burwell wrote:

    the current trajectory of the ETS is bringing it in alignment with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

    These New Calvinists are serious! If they can manipulate ivory-tower theologians to their side, they can subordinate the Son and women more easily. Why anyone in their right spiritual mind would want to diminish Jesus is beyond me (of course, they aren’t in their right spiritual mind).

  340. mirele wrote:

    Lea wrote:
    BTW, someone went after a lady who is a preacher in an article the other day and went hard after her on twitter. Ridiculous. That wasn’t precisely ‘gentlemanly’ either.
    I know about that. If it’s the same person, I got blocked by him last night after I took exception to a particular social teaching of his which (IMHO) harms people. He blocked me after saying “totalitarians silence dissent.” I’ve got him penciled in for a Sunday picket; he’s the elder of a Reformed Baptist church over on the near side of Phoenix. His church has lovely sidewalks! He’s using this “totalitarians silence dissent” argument to excuse some of the most heinous anti-human talk I’ve heard in my life. I have friends who have been badly harmed by his kind of talk and it’s not totalitarianism to confront James White and his friends to tell them how horribly damaging their words are.
    I am tired, very tired, of having to talk a friend into continuing to live after she hears words like those expressed by White where her very being is called into question. Jesus would never, ever do that to a person.

    Just read this now. I’m a bit behind reading TWW due to having been on vacation for a week. Do you I hear you right, Mirele? Are you intending to picket Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, where James White is an elder? What exactly did he do to offend this lady friend of yours?

  341. Lea wrote:

    I keep thinking of Rhett telling Scarlett ‘we’re not gentlemen, and we have no honor’.

    That anything like Eowyn’s “I am no man” to the Witch-King of Angmar?

  342. Max wrote:

    I guess vulgar politicians are in a different category than foul-mouthed preachers.

    “ONE OF US!
    ONE OF US!
    GOOBLE! GOBBLE!
    ONE OF US!”
    — Todd Browning, Freaks

  343. Nancy2 wrote:

    Max wrote:
    Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth – the Father gave it to Him.
    Oooooooh! There’s a fine argument to put before the Complementarians/Contras. If the Father gave Jesus, His subordinate all authority, shouldn’t Comps/Contras follow suit and give all authority to their subordinate wimmenfolk?

    Nancy2, this is a Gotcha statement for the ESS guys.

  344. @ Robin C.:
    Concluding paragraph of that article:
    The language of gospel piety always drips very easily in public from the lips of those who know that the iron fists of the Machine are quietly crushing critical windpipes off camera.

    (Make that Quietly and HUMBLY(TM), with Gentlemanly Civility and Kindness(TM).)

  345. Are there really any ‘gentlemen’ in a ‘church’ where women are forced into silence ?
    Is is possible to be a ‘gentleman’ in a marriage where the wife is considered and treated as a lesser being ?

    ?

    Do neo-Cal males even KNOW what being a real ‘gentleman’ requires of a man especially in regards to how he treats ladies?

  346. Christiane wrote:

    Do neo-Cal males even KNOW what being a real ‘gentleman’ requires of a man especially in regards to how he treats ladies?

    It means Highborn, with boots on the necks of the Lowborn.

  347. Patty in Massachusetts wrote:

    @ Burwell:Burwell, it was apparently the latest revelations about Trumps “locker room” talk. Apparently everything horrendous before that didn’t quite hit the same nerve. But whatever it takes.

    Probably because this revelation was something SEXUAL.
    S*E*X not only makes people stupid, it makes them crazy.

  348. Christiane wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    @ Christiane:
    He didn’t leave it all behind.
    I know. I think his earlier influences always haunted him. And yet he wrote against the Manichaeans powerfully.

    Monica’s son Auggie had a lot of baggage. And the church did a poor job of discerning the actual Insight from the Baggage, so a lot of it leaked through and influences Western theology to this day.

  349. Lydia wrote:

    @ Christiane:
    You are free to research Augustine’s writings on women. He is one I came across that taught women are not created in the direct image of God and their image of God comes through the male as their head.

    Many years ago, there was an online essay by a “Mars Hill” (probably not Marky-Mark’s) titled “The Christian Sex Cult” that referenced Augustine as its founder.

    The essay made a point that before his conversion experience Auggie was a real horndog and afterwards was a monastic Celibate. And that he never had the experience of relating to women as people, only (before) as sex objects and (after) as the Forbidden Fruit. There was probably also some self-treatment of residual guilt from the former.

  350. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    Hi HEADLESS,
    if you have some links, I’ll take a look.
    I do know he is supposed to have undergone a very dramatic conversion experience and his whole life changed.

    That thing about Western Christianity being influenced by Greek thought is true. I really wish the Church was closer to the Orthodox ways of accepting the mystery of God. The Western Church is more ‘cerebral’ in the way of the Greek philosophers. The East, more spiritual. Put the East and the West together (healing the schism) and you probably get the Church much closer to what it really was meant to be. 🙂

  351. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    The essay made a point that before his conversion experience Auggie was a real horndog and afterwards was a monastic Celibate. And that he never had the experience of relating to women as people, only (before) as sex objects and (after) as the Forbidden Fruit.

    That actually makes a lot of sense. Kind of like a P8rn addict and an ex-smoker trying to convert the world wrapped into one.

  352. Christiane wrote:

    Are there really any ‘gentlemen’ in a ‘church’ where women are forced into silence ?
    Is is possible to be a ‘gentleman’ in a marriage where the wife is considered and treated as a lesser being ?
    ?
    Do neo-Cal males even KNOW what being a real ‘gentleman’ requires of a man especially in regards to how he treats ladies?

    You know, I was pondering this question yesterday. I realized that there really seems to be no difference between S&M bondage types in their ‘obey and submit’ stuff and my ex-pastors/elders’ at Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley relenteless, sick & twisted demands that adult church members “obey and submit” to the pastors/elders.

    We’re adults. No. Just no. We can run our own lives, thank you.

    I really wonder what criminal acts will be reported in the future from THAT church!
    I know it’s there. Just a matter of time…

  353. Lea wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
    The essay made a point that before his conversion experience Auggie was a real horndog and afterwards was a monastic Celibate. And that he never had the experience of relating to women as people, only (before) as sex objects and (after) as the Forbidden Fruit.

    That actually makes a lot of sense. Kind of like a P8rn addict and an ex-smoker trying to convert the world wrapped into one.

    In retrospect, it’s Augustine the Man, not Augustine the Plaster-Statue Saint.

    Augustine was a brilliant man and theologian, and I think that caused a lot of the Church to take everything of his at face value, giving his baggage a free ride as part of the package.

  354. Christiane wrote:

    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    Hi HEADLESS,
    if you have some links, I’ll take a look.

    No links. This was from many years ago (forever in Internet time); I only have a hardcopy cut-and-paste text with no info on origin.

  355. @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    And worse, any search on the title “Christian Sex Cult” gives over TWELVE MILLION hits. No way to tell which is the one except by going down the entire list (assuming it’s still on the Web).

  356. Velour wrote:

    I realized that there really seems to be no difference between S&M bondage types in their ‘obey and submit’ stuff and my ex-pastors/elders’ at Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley relenteless, sick & twisted demands that adult church members “obey and submit” to the pastors/elders.

    Like Christian Domestic Discipline(TM) types, “Now that’s someone who’s into BDSM but won’t admit to it”.

  357. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    I realized that there really seems to be no difference between S&M bondage types in their ‘obey and submit’ stuff and my ex-pastors/elders’ at Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley relenteless, sick & twisted demands that adult church members “obey and submit” to the pastors/elders.

    Like Christian Domestic Discipline(TM) types, “Now that’s someone who’s into BDSM but won’t admit to it”.

    Well, some of them do. There is actually a page for “Christian Domestic Discipline” on FetLife, believe it or not.

  358. Max wrote:

    Why anyone in their right spiritual mind would want to diminish Jesus is beyond me (of course, they aren’t in their right spiritual mind).

    “He must decrease so *I* can Increase”?