Thanks again for another good article.

Sad, to see someone like Piper leading so many people astray.

What the heck??? What space? Masculine is feminine? Men are free to be appropriatly feminine???? Whaaaaat??? No confusion on our part but piper must be smoking something because I don’t believe he even understands his own answer!!!

Shauna wrote:

What the heck??? What space? Masculine is feminine? Men are free to be appropriatly feminine???? Whaaaaat??? No confusion on our part but piper must be smoking something because I don’t believe he even understands his own answer!!!

My 15 month old granddaughter speaks clearer than what he tried to say.

Shauna wrote:

I don’t believe he even understands his own answer!!!

But the guy next to him sure seemed to. He kept nodding away.

The masculine feel creates a space: beautiful, roomy, peaceful. Didn’t Timothy Leary get down with this vision decades ago?

With the help of large quantities of Lysergic Acid.

I wish I was posting this from my home system instead of a PonyCon hotel’s business center; there I could cross-index YouTubes and fan content of Tree Hugger (i.e. My Little Stoner Pony) balancing her chakras and warbling to soothe the savage Smooze.

mot wrote:

Shauna wrote:

What the heck??? What space? Masculine is feminine? Men are free to be appropriatly feminine???? Whaaaaat??? No confusion on our part but piper must be smoking something because I don’t believe he even understands his own answer!!!

My 15 month old granddaughter speaks clearer than what he tried to say.

So did that speaker at the N.I.C.E banquet after Merlin cast Curse of Babel.

Many people claim Piper doesn’t write his own tweets and posts, but the crazy convoluted opinions he puts out publicly would never be tolerated if written by a mere employee.

Only Piper himself could get away with it. I’m sure his staff cringes — or at least rolls their eyes.

Shauna wrote:

What the heck??? What space? Masculine is feminine? Men are free to be appropriatly feminine???? Whaaaaat???

“Girls will be boys
And boys will be girls
It’s a mixed-up muddled-up shook-up world
‘Cept for Lola —
Lo lo lo lo Lola
Lo lo lo lo Lola!”
— The Kinks, “Lola”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsWS6fuVw1o

Does anybody have the Piperorean definition of “flourishing”?
I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.
Little Johnny Piper has been frolicking in the autumn mist for far too long.

Now, our dear bro from England, home of the Beatles, DaveAA turned us onto Piper tripping on the whole dude/chick thing. Darrin Patrick, Doug Wilson, Crawford Loritts groove along with his mystic crystal revelations.

“Mystic Crystal Revelation
And the Mind’s True Liberation —
TESTOSTEROOOONE!
TESTOSTERONE!”

“Doug Wilson” as in “PENETRATE! COLONISE! CONQUER! PLANT!” Wilson?
(Commonwealth spelling of “colonize” to sound Veddy Veddy British. Bowler hat and Brolly.)

Dave A A wrote:

Farm Out! This trip is all just so, like, yesterday, man. I really thought most folks were already aware of it. Maybe Piper or some of the other guys have changed their minds in the subsequent years, or have come to some understanding about what it meant and can enlighten us.

You ARE Channeling Tree Hugger!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdX1kldYdCg
(warbling horse sounds…)

siteseer wrote:

It sounds like… Electric Ladyland! Ha ha

“THERE IS ELECTRIC KOOL-AID BEING SOLD AT THE PANEL TRUCK. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TRIP, DON’T TRY IT.”
— PA announcement at Woodstock

@ one of the little people:

Their type of Christianity is very two dimensional and formulaic. People can’t have real personalities, complex motivations, and deep spirituality.

Gender roles are shallow and superficial.

I’m glad to be out of that world of Christian seduction and manipulation and pretending to be something you’re not. To that crowd, God can only love you if you fit these guys’ description of your gender. They are control freaks and don’t speak for God on who is in and who is out.

To quote St. Augustine:

God has many the Church does not have.
The Church has many God does not have.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
we could call these ramblings ‘Piper Palaver’

Janey wrote:

To quote St. Augustine:

God has many the Church does not have.
The Church has many God does not have.

Reminds me of a line from the film ‘The Hiding Place’ where Papa ten Boom says ‘just because a mouse is in the cookie jar doesn’t make him a cookie’

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

everybody take another drink!

Oh, I thought you meant Kool-Aid.
Didn’t realize this was another kind of drinking game.

Try this one:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/an-olympic-lesson-for-husbands-and-wives

i am so confused now, if its ok for a man to have feminine characteristics does that mean he can now dress as a woman and go to Target?

@ Kevin:

That’s where the ‘appropriately’ comes in. It’s supposed to keep you from crossing that kind of line.

Janey wrote:

Many people claim Piper doesn’t write his own tweets and posts, but the crazy convoluted opinions he puts out publicly would never be tolerated if written by a mere employee.

Maybe one of those spambots that periodically comment jibberish here have gained access to Piper’s data stream and he can’t tell the difference.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

I wish I was posting this from my home system instead of a PonyCon hotel’s business center

I think you may be this blog’s most dedicated participant! Deb and Dee should maybe send you some kind of ribbon or something 🙂

dee wrote:

Yet one dude tried to convince us today that Piper had *real* elders. I think stoned elders might be more descriptive.

A cult of personality… facilitating delusion.

“Personality cults were first described in relation to Totalitarianism regimes that sought to transform society according to radical ideas. Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent “guide” for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future could not occur.” – wikipedia

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Piper continues the revelation by saying that men can be feminine. Whoa, this is getting interesting. Do any of you have any idea what he’s seeing?

One of the things I would have said is that in a community where there is a secure, strong, humble, masculine feel, men are free to be appropriately feminine. And women are free to be appropriately masculine. In other words, when you look at any given human being, the most attractive, interesting, winsome human beings are not all masculine or all feminine.

He said HUMBLE — everybody take a drink!

And WINSOME — everybody take another drink!

Anyone know an ER (other than Gettysburg) specializing in alcohol poisoning?

LoL!

Off topic…I and a mate once sat through a high school biology lecture by a teacher who loved the word “therefore”. We counted 234 instances in 60 minutes. Being cricket lovers we gleefully reported to others at the end that said teacher was 234 not out at the end of the innings!

More seriously though…looks to me like these have fallen seriously in love with the sound of their own and each others voices and the ability of their own brains.

They appear to live in cloud cuckoo land and spout confusing nonsense but its somehow good “theology”.

Who was it who said you can know a theologian by how well he confuses everyone including himself?
Oh wait….that might have been me

If Christianity has a masculine feel to it, then why did the uncircumscribable God choose to be circumscribed within the womb of the Virgin Mary? Of all the ways our Lord could have revealed Himself as the Messiah, He chose to be born of Woman, breast-fed and nurtured by his mother – a woman. Now that is humility. Something the Neo-Cals have yet to understand.

When I read that paragraph, I couldn’t help but think how Piper sounds as though he might have smoked just a bit too much reefer. Thanks for the laughs!

Oh my, the second paragraph sounds like he is tripping. Men are free to be appropriately feminine and women are free to be appropriately masculine. What in the world? This reminds me of some dudes I knew in my teen years who deemed themselves enlightened hippies and endeavored to teach deep, profound truths….while being stoned out of their gourd, of course. And those sitting at their feet would exclaim, “Wow man, that is HEAVY.”

I’m having such fun watching this video. The first question – posed to none other than Doug Wilson himself: “What is biblical femininity and what are the feminine virtues that you refer to?” This is laughable. Let’s see, how about this: “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

one of the little people wrote:
Shauna wrote:
I don’t believe he even understands his own answer!!!
But the guy next to him sure seemed to. He kept nodding away.
A Yes-man’s head is incapable of moving from side to side, only Up and Down.

If I’m not mistaken, I think at first he was really trying to wrap his head around what Piper was saying. “Okay, I think I get it. Yeah, alright. Uh-huh. Okay dude, I’m really trying to like this. Yeah…right…yeah, bro…I think I get it now. Yeah…cool, groovy, hip, deep, far out!”

What Piper is saying in the video seems to be consistent with what he’s maintained all along: masculinity is to be defined primarily as “being in charge” and femininity is to be defined primarily as “being submissive.” Other things, like being nurturing or liking art or music, are considered “feminine,” but a man can display them without censure as long as he remains in charge of the women in his life. Similarly, a woman can “show backbone,” stand up for herself, enjoy sports, and not be censured as long as she does it as part of an overall attitude of submission to male authority.

By “masculine feel” in Christianity, Piper really means, “Men should be in charge of women in Christianity.” As long as that is in place, he can allow all kinds of supposed latitude in these other areas. And of course he qualifies that male authority should be humble and so on. But what it all comes down to is that men rule, women obey. That’s what male and female mean to him. Period.

Ron Oommen wrote:

@ Ron Oommen:
PS. Two fingers down the throat might work too

Oops sorry that was meant to be a reply to HUG. Flippin’ phones and their touch screen buttons…

It always drives me nuts when “mystical” Christians and non-Christians spout off nonsense and string together words that sound “spiritual”, but taken together at face value don’t mean anything.

To hear self-proclaimed Calvinists talking like this, though… there’s so much irony here, these videos need rustproofing.

Is Doug Wilson deliberately trying to look like Spurgeon in that image/video? He fancies himself as such.

mot wrote:

My 15 month old granddaughter speaks clearer than what he tried to say.

Video Bear, our Forever Friends bear, does too. And he can’t actually talk.

(Though, if you squeeze him in just the right way, he can wave his paw or nod in agreement.)

Sadly enough, it does sound like he’s on some type of narcotic concoction. As for the bit about the “feels”, it sounds like he was using that term to cover up the fact he meant “vibes”. Seriously, replace “feels” with “vibes” and see what you get. All in all, this has less to do with Jesus and more with reading “energies” -how very New Age of him. Now, let’s head over to the drum circle and commence with some male-led chant to bring about a New Patriarchal Age of the Triple God (ala Wayne Grudem) who is eternally separate…

On a more serious note, how in the blue blazes does someone spout this kind of nonsense word salad and people actually take him seriously? I mean seriously.

Daisy wrote:

It must really annoy or disturb some of these male complementarians that some of the core tenets of Christianity are in direct opposition to secular cultural, manly-man stereotypes of masculininity

Except I don’t think “secular culture” teaches this at all. It may sometimes be a useful modern marketing trope, but humans have rejected and feared this imbalance for millennia. In fact, the Iliad is essentially a morality tale about the dangers of unrestrained thumos.

@ Darlene:
This is a family friendly blog, so I’ll just say, Doug must have incredibly boring conjugal experiences.

This is pitiful. Listening to him explain himself I get the ‘feel’ that I am listening to someone who has little if any real experience in the worlds of men or women either one. He seems to live is his own fantasies. Like thinking what it might be like to actually be a grown man if one were that. Really non-realistic.

In my med school class we graduated 80+ of whom only four were women. I practically lived in an environment dominated by men for several years. I have experienced being a woman in a male environment. There are no ‘feels’ like what he seems to be describing. And there is no aura of safety in which women thrive. In my experience when you get a bunch of men together what you have is a bunch of men together; there is no creation of a special outer ring of heaven for anybody male or female.

Somebody has suggested drugs? Let me add to the list. Perversion? Illness? Dementia? Arrested growth and development at an early age? Some poor soul who never really played the game but tries to carry water for the team? I don’t feel anger; I feel pity. Bless him. And yes, somebody who loves him needs to get him off social media and out from in front of the camera.

I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to comments yet but are they really all laughing at ‘they broke a guys neck playing football’??? Is that a real comment or joke? Is that a funny joke? No! Good night.

Half the problem with these guys is that they feel the need to label everything masculine or feminine and yet they recognize that these are qualities that are really NOT masculine or feminine solely, they are shared qualities. It’s like they are halfway to truth but they can’t get there because they are so wedded to gender theology. If they would just stop this stupid idea that ‘backbone’ is masculine and ‘kindness’ is feminine and so on and so forth they would stop being quite so stupid.

A community protected by a masculine ‘feel’, I think that is a quote. He wants his nice safe little church house community to be protected by a masculine ‘feel’ while he and they fantasize about how being a man means putting your foot in some woman’s face.

You are not a man, sir. All you do is sling words around. In your nice safe little religious world. Men do more than that. Young son just told us a few days ago that he is being deployed-again-to the middle east-again. He hates to go, they all do, but this time he says he feels better because the mission is clear. We have to stop this threat.

So, you wimps in your ‘masculine’ churches will be a little safer we hope because my son and a lot of other mothers’ sons think there is more to being a man than sitting around fantasizing and whining.

ishy wrote:

I think you’re right that’s what he’s saying here, but it contradicts what he’s said at other times, such as with the “muscular women” comments. He’s implied at other times that women should fit his image of what women should be, even though that might not be what other men prefer.

That thing about sex rather than hand holding was so strange! I think he was saying you can list after someone with muscles but not want to talk to them? Which just tells you something deeply disturbing about how he thinks of women.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
HUG strikes again…. my thoughts on Lola as well, or Weird Al’s Yoda!!

okrapod wrote:

A community protected by a masculine ‘feel’, I think that is a quote. He wants his nice safe little church house community to be protected by a masculine ‘feel’ while he and they fantasize about how being a man means putting your foot in some woman’s face.

You are not a man, sir. All you do is sling words around. In your nice safe little religious world. Men do more than that. Young son just told us a few days ago that he is being deployed-again-to the middle east-again. He hates to go, they all do, but this time he says he feels better because the mission is clear. We have to stop this threat.

So, you wimps in your ‘masculine’ churches will be a little safer we hope because my son and a lot of other mothers’ sons think there is more to being a man than sitting around fantasizing and whining.

Best to your son.

I don’t like to divide all into masculine feminine but I think in life you have people who talk and people who act. Actions tell you who they really are. These men do nothing but talk endlessly.

okrapod wrote:

Young son just told us a few days ago that he is being deployed-again-to the middle east-again

May God keep him safe.
My husband did 3 deployments to Iraq, and many little two or three week trips in between deployments to undisclosed locations. I know things that DH doesn’t know that I know, but he came through every situation without so much as a scratch. May the Lord keep your young son that safe!

“Pay particular attention to Crawford Loritts’ expression!” (Dee)

The video shot posted above speaks to me. “Why did I agree to get on stage with this guy?!” (Loritts) … “Hey dude, what are you smokin’?” (Patrick)

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

On a more serious note, how in the blue blazes does someone spout this kind of nonsense word salad and people actually take him seriously? I mean seriously.

Good point. It reminds me of the portion of Scripture 1 Corinthians 14:33King James Version (KJV)

33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

@ Nancy2:

I have given the wrong impression with the use of the term ‘young son’. He is not young, he is a relatively senior officer with a permanent assignment to combined services headquarters and this assignment did not automatically fall to him. But the JAG who was scheduled to be deployed with one of the aviation units resigned rather than go one more time, so ‘young son’ said he would be the one to go. This particular assignment is for someone below his rank but there is some leeway in the regs about that. So he is going. To me, this is the sort of thing that constitutes how leadership ought to work. If you aren’t willing to do it yourself, don’t ask somebody else to do it.

Which is part of why this infamous gang of religious bullies is so obnoxious in my opinion. I want to say show me your scars, show me your dirty hands, show me where you ever risked anything for anybody or any cause. Then maybe I will listen to you, you sorry excuses for humanity.

The spoof news site Newslo did a satire article about John Piper a while back.

http://www.newslo.com/pastor-john-piper-women-who-wax-their-private-parts-are-hurting-gods-work/

I saw Timothy Leary give a talk at UC Santa Barbara back in 1981. Entertaining, but not too comprehensible. One audience member yelled out about half way through, “Man, you’re burnt!” Leary responded, “Ain’t it the truth?!”

Piper: “So that as you walk in on Sunday morning and strong singing, led primarily by men, and then a voice from God is heard, and women are loving this, they’re radiant, they’re intelligent, they’re understanding, they’re processing, they’re interacting.”
++++++++++++++++
Some thoughts:

1) Piper has a perverse understanding of worship. “Christian Hedonism” defines the purpose of worship as “God serving me” instead of “Me serving God.” This colors his whole notion of what goes on during the service.

2) “A voice from God is heard.” As a result of lustful worship, God speaks audibly? His voice is heard? Tell that to Aaron when he lost his two sons, Nadab and Abihu.

3) “They’re interacting” Unlike the Christian gathering spoken by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 where there in fact IS interaction among the saints, Piper pontificates for half and hour and then dismisses everyone. There is no interaction.

While Piper certainly has his weird views regarding the “masculine feels” of christianity (little “c”), I credit Mark Driscoll for first stepping a toe in this water which subsequently precipitated a flurry of masculinity mischief by the New Calvinist who’s who.

Christianity Today summarized one of Driscoll’s sermons like this “‘Real men’ avoid the church because it projects a “Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ” that “is no one to live for [and] is no one to die for.” Driscoll explains, “Jesus was not a long-haired … effeminate-looking dude”; rather, he had “callused hands and big biceps.” This is the sort of Christ men are drawn to – what Driscoll calls “Ultimate Fighting Jesus.” Of course, we all know that his un-Biblical views on several fronts and potty-mouth preaching eventually cost Driscoll his Mars Hill and Acts 29 ministries.

Darrin Patrick, the obvious “dude” in the linked video, is famous for his Bible studies in bars with a round of beer, being right-hand man to Driscoll at Acts 29, his book “The Dude’s Guide to Manhood”, and for inappropriate conduct with women which cost him his ministry. Patrick, while he still had a microphone, echoed Driscoll’s cry to the emerging young reformers to be “real men”: “I believe males should really be men. We don’t need more boys, we need real men.”

Driscoll has re-invented himself and returned to ministry. I’m not sure where Patrick is these days.

While Piper and others have picked up on this sort of “preaching to men” (as Matt Chandler, new Acts 29 president, refers to it), the Acts 29 boys are directly responsible for releasing macho beasts on the church. This ‘masculine Christianity’ teaching has certainly attracted young men back to church, but unfortunately at the expense of women who are being subordinated into New Calvinist bondage. If you listen closely, you can hear the real cries of “feminine feels” about this mess. TWW and other watchblogs have stepped into the gap to represent them as the reformed boys attempt to mature into men without a proper view of Christ and His Church.

On the average, women live longer than men. Piper, Grudem, Chandler, Wilson, etc ………. What are these men going to do if they fall into the average, as far as aging goes? ……… When they become completely dependent on their wives to care for and protect them? (We already know that Grudem is going in that direction at warp speed.)

@ dee:

Sure. We will talk later; they don’t go for several months yet.

Deb wrote:

I suspect it was Neo-Cal congregations that paid for their pastors to attend this Desiring God Pastors Conference.

No doubt about it! When you are a 20-30 something “lead pastor”, with a team of hand-picked elders in their 20s-30s, and operate an authoritarian elder-ruled church with no congregational voice, you can use the tithes and offerings at your discretion.

Max wrote:

While Piper and others have picked up on this sort of “preaching to men” (as Matt Chandler, new Acts 29 president, refers to it), the Acts 29 boys are directly responsible for releasing macho beasts on the church. This ‘masculine Christianity’ teaching has certainly attracted young men back to church, but unfortunately at the expense of women who are being subordinated into New Calvinist bondage.

It’d be less weird if they had gone the route of something like (unrealistic) knights, with codes of honor, chivalry, and a desire for truth. Go on a quest to save the damsels. Not saying there’s still not huge problems with that, but the wild beast thing doesn’t make them seem smart, or at least that’s my perspective. Maybe being dumb oafs appeals more to young men now.

And Driscoll was just nuts. Yes, Jesus was a carpenter, and he was probably pretty sturdy, but nothing in the way He acted even vaguely resembled the things Driscoll called for.

dee wrote:

I did not know about this.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/brewing-battle-baptists-beer.html

Apparently the church has it’s own way of defining what is masculine and what is feminine. (I am not surprised).

In regard to his examples, how is being tender, caring, writing, and artistic a feminine quality? Think of all of the doctors, architects, fashion designers, and authors who are men and live in the real world. Would Piper consider these men feminine because of their chosen profession? How is being thoughtful a masculine quality? Think of all of the women philosophers, researchers, and teachers in the real world? Outside of the church, does Piper consider women who use their brains to think masculine?

Only men can create a space in church where the genders flourish? And when those men create that space the women will be in awe? John Piper is ridiculous. He focuses so much on sex and and gender rightness that I think he really has a problem.

dee wrote:

Maybe I will add into the next post on Piper.

Thanks, Dee!

dee wrote:

I wonder if he would feel uncomfortable?

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that. And almost anything really where Piper has to deal with a competent woman doing her job, totally unaware of his views on femininity. I think his head would explode if a woman changed his car tyre. I’d volunteer for this myself 🙂

Kathi wrote:

Only men can create a space in church where the genders flourish? And when those men create that space the women will be in awe? John Piper is ridiculous. He focuses so much on sex and and gender rightness that I think he really has a problem.

Makes me wonder if Piper has some misgivings/doubts/insecurities about his own sexual identity.

dee wrote:

Women have so much to give to the church

AMEN! It’s clear from Scripture that there are to be no distinctions of race, class, or gender in the Body of Christ:

“All of you who were baptized ‘into’ Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female — you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 Phillips)

I realize that complementarians claim that we are overworking this verse … but, it’s because it is Truth!

A comment from my wife as I discussed this blog piece with her “New Calvinists are taking spiritual things and turning them into carnal things.”

Max wrote:

dee wrote:

Women have so much to give to the church

AMEN! It’s clear from Scripture that there are to be no distinctions of race, class, or gender in the Body of Christ:

“All of you who were baptized ‘into’ Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female — you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 Phillips)

I realize that complementarians claim that we are overworking this verse … but, it’s because it is Truth!

Complementarians hate that verse. But I believe every word of it. God uses whomever he wishes too.

Kathy C wrote:

His coach yelled at him to take off his skirt and put his basketball shorts on.

With a little research, you might find the coach is a member in good standing at a local New Calvinist church. Of course, a lot of athletic coaches are macho-idiots regardless of church affiliation.

Dale wrote:

Therefore, when a member of Bethlehem is considering divorce, he or she is expected to bring the situation to our elders and cooperate with them as they determine whether biblical grounds exist for the separation, and as they endeavor to promote repentance and reconciliation”

The elders determine . . . makes me ill.

ishy wrote:

Maybe being dumb oafs appeals more to young men now.

New Calvinist small group meetings are the only “Christian” gatherings on the planet where its OK for macho-boys to drink, burp, pass gas, and make utterly stupid comments about Scripture … even in the presence of women!

dee wrote:

That may explain his hung over appearance.

I realize that Christians have various views about alcohol consumption. However, in Patrick’s case, he took Southern Baptist church planting money to launch a ministry which included Bible studies at St. Louis taverns, drinking with the folks there while discussing Scripture. It was a slap in SBC’s face, which has resolved to have a “total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing, and consuming of alcoholic beverages” (from one of several SBC resolutions in this regard). Right or wrong, this is SBC’s stance and for a young whippersnapper New Calvinist to preach otherwise as an SBC pastor runs contrary to the majority position on this … while enjoying $200,000 of SBC money to plant his church!

dee wrote:

how did you guys survive the storm?

It just missed us up here in the Northwest mountains. Currently a balmy 12 below and a week of blinding snowshine is a thing of the past as the first clouds of storm Iras work their way up from California. I’m resting up expecting a few feet to shovel or blow from the deck and walk.

Dale wrote:

Bethlehem Baptist is a 9Marks church in the mold of The Village Church in Dallas. Members must agree to abide by a set of “Relational Commitments.” Here is a link to them:
Dale – Reading this is very disturbing. How, exactly, are the church leaders “involved” in the beginning of a marriage? Are we talking Doug Wilson level of involvement? Then the expectation that people will go to the elders when there is a marriage problem and then they are expected to follow the elders determination. This is cult talk and is highly problematic when there is abuse in a marriage.

“Just as church leaders are involved in beginning a marriage, they should be involved when it is threatened with seeming dissolution. Therefore, when a member of Bethlehem is considering divorce, he or she is expected to bring the situation to our elders and cooperate with them as they determine whether biblical grounds exist for the separation, and as they endeavor to promote repentance and reconciliation”

Oopps – I didn’t format my comment very well….

Dale – Reading this is very disturbing. How, exactly, are the church leaders “involved” in the beginning of a marriage? Are we talking Doug Wilson level of involvement? Then the expectation that people will go to the elders when there is a marriage problem and then they are expected to follow the elders determination. This is cult talk and is highly problematic when there is abuse in a marriage.

R2 wrote:

There are times Piper says things that are clear, even profound. There are times he makes a fair point but is far too dramatic. And there are times he sounds like this. I never found his good statements to be regular enough to justify sifting through all the confusion.

There are also times when he flat out contradicts himself.

Bill M wrote:

Maybe one of those spambots that periodically comment jibberish here have gained access to Piper’s data stream and he can’t tell the difference.

How big a loser do you have to be to fail a Turing Test?

Ron Oommen wrote:

More seriously though…looks to me like these have fallen seriously in love with the sound of their own and each others voices and the ability of their own brains.

We had a high-profile fanboy like that in local Eighties-Nineties SF & Furry Fandom.

A Legend in his own mind, a running bad joke in everyone else’s.

Darlene wrote:

This reminds me of some dudes I knew in my teen years who deemed themselves enlightened hippies and endeavored to teach deep, profound truths…

“Grass doesn’t make you deep and profound. It makes you THINK you’re Deep and Profound.”
— A Child’s Garden of Grass (from memory)

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Perhaps Piper is simply suffering from senility onset. If so, I hope it debilitates him quickly enough to stop him doing further harm.

I have heard the same speculation about Pat Robertson and his open-mouth-insert-both-feet talent. The first time I heard it was in a commenter who claimed he saw the same symptoms & behavior in his boss during early-stage Alzheimers.

But remember this: NOBODY dares tell a CELEBRITY anything other than what the CELEBRITY Wants to Hear.

okrapod wrote:

This is pitiful. Listening to him explain himself I get the ‘feel’ that I am listening to someone who has little if any real experience in the worlds of men or women either one. He seems to live is his own fantasies. Like thinking what it might be like to actually be a grown man if one were that. Really non-realistic.

Slacktivist has said exactly the same thing about the Author Self-Inserts in Left Behind (all volumes) — that the ASI Airline Pilot and Greatest Investigative Journalist Of All Time are NOT shown (or even hinted at) doing anything their RL counterparts in their position would; instead, they do what a five-year-old would IMAGINE Important Grown-ups would do.

Lea wrote:

That thing about sex rather than hand holding was so strange!

Channeling Josh Duggar?

I think he was saying you can list after someone with muscles but not want to talk to them? Which just tells you something deeply disturbing about how he thinks of women.

“Masculine Musculature on a Woman can beget Unnatural Arousal in a Man…”
— Piper regarding “Muscular Women”

To which my initial (and unchanged to this day) reaction has been:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=457N1m4oUZw

Nancy2 wrote:

I still want to know what Piper means when he talks about women “flourishing” under the control of men. Is it like rescue animals flourishing in a zoo, or an animal shelter?

With Benefits (nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean know what I mean…)

I’m no fan of Piper, by a long shot, and he can sure manage to mess up even a good idea.

But yep, there is such a thing as overly feminized church services, and it can hurt a church. We were once part of a UMC congregation. Pastor was a woman–no problem. Worship leader was a man. Again, no problem.

Except the services had gone from church services or preaching services or whatever to “worship services” as part of a carefully laid out growth plan. No singing of hymns or even most ccm. All was of the “Jesus is my boyfriend” variety, including the one about the sloppy wet kiss. Sermons went from Christ centered to part of the package to help you have an emotional moment with Jesus. Actually as a woman I was very uncomfortable. It felt like a sexual encounter, or at least the attempt to get you to close your eyes, sway, and have a physical good time with Jesus.

Most of the men detested it, and so did a lot of the women. Most went “elsewhere.” When the church went back to regular services they got the growth they sought. Admittedly, a few women, mostly single, missed their weekly emotional high and went elsewhere.

Many of the men did state they did not like church when it was all “girly” and “touchy feely.”

I’m a woman, but I do like some emotion in a service but ALSO some logic and rock solid preaching and theology. IF those things are masculine then I like a “masculine” service.

But really the difference is some prefer a Christ centered service of proclamation and thinking, others a service more seeker oriented and feeling based.

Piper just messed up the labels. Again.

I didn’t know that being insightful and articulate were masculine qualities.

Nancy2 wrote:

TULIPs!!!!!

Ah yes, what else would be in their garden?!

John Piper’s interview with Matt Chandler is a tip-toe through the TULIPs:

“When you say ‘I’m a Calvinist’, what does that mean?” (Piper)

“Well, I mean the 5-Points. I don’t know how else to define it.” (Chandler)

A revealing exchange on “Calvinism and Sexual Complementarity” if you haven’t viewed it. Warning: Chandler refers to the female members of his church as “our girls.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKEpVzHnUw0

Christiane wrote:

” … without women who were brave enough to visit the empty tomb on Easter Sunday and then return to preach the gospel to a bunch of cowardly men, there would be no church for Piper to exclude them from” (Zack Hunt)

Print it and stick it on the refrigerator, folks!

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Slacktivist has said exactly the same thing about the Author Self-Inserts in Left Behind (all volumes) — that the ASI Airline Pilot and Greatest Investigative Journalist Of All Time are NOT shown (or even hinted at) doing anything their RL counterparts in their position would; instead, they do what a five-year-old would IMAGINE Important Grown-ups would do.

I remember thumbing through a couple of the “Left Behind” books while browsing in a bookstore. What bad writing to go along with the bad theology. I happened upon a passage where the heroes were flying about in a jet plane, supernaturally shielded from enemy missiles. I think they were flying over Israel as it got nuked by someone. Now that you mention it, it does seem like something that would appeal to fundamentalist ten year old boys. Horribly unreadable.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Even within the same sentence?

Not necessarily in the same sentence, but certainly in two adjacent sentences, like this: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-shall-we-fight-for-joy

1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.
2. Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly.

Jack wrote:

What the men and women of this Neo Calvinist belief confuse is that somehow the society of the bible, the culture in which the bible was written (and the attitudes of those chronicled within) is the point of the bible. That the bronze/iron age culture of the bible is what is godly about the bible.

And in so doing miss the point, causing great misery in the process.

My thoughts too, but it’s not just the Neo-Cals, there are Arminian leaning outfits a-plenty who also believe in and long for those good old days. And now for thee favorite clobber verse which is commonly used to shut down this kind of talk from ‘the enemy’: (drum roll please…)

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

linda wrote:

But yep, there is such a thing as overly feminized church services, and it can hurt a church.

What you’re describing is bad theology, not feminization of a church.

Nancy2 wrote:

Todd Wilhelm wrote:
So, when Piper had his 8-month vacation, what exactly was he cultivating in that garden of his?
TULIPs!!!!!

Ding, ding, ding. Folks, we have a winner.

Nancy2, please step up to claim your prize.

Word salad… bah. The envy on this thread fairly reeks to high heaven.

I know more about churches in my little finger than all of you do put together in a month of Sundays. And I know for a fact that jealousy is the only reason anyone ever criticises anybody I agree with.

John Pipeband is a great writer. The years of selfless dedication to writing sheeps of height that none of you can approach is testimony to what hard work can achieve: if any of you whiners could be bothered, maybe you could sustain 50,000 words without saying anything too. But you can’t, so you never will.

You’re all rubbish.

Up Yours,
Roger Bumblast

@ R2:

“It didn’t take me long after moving to the Ville to realize all his young followers were getting off on thinking they’d found a profound guru with special, arcane knowledge.”
++++++++++++

we can laugh that them, can’t we? at the very least, roll our eyes? emote an ironic facial expression?

gah dang, it’s great to have exited such environments. feel like running hard through the whole town for hours, i feel so festive about it.

@ Roger Bombast:

Knuckle rapping on the hardwood.

Todd Wilhelm wrote:

So, when Piper had his 8-month vacation, what exactly was he cultivating in that garden of his?

Seeds from the coastal highlands of Oaxaca?

@ okrapod:
Godspeed to your son and my gratitude.

siteseer wrote:

So, in the intro to the article, before it gets to Piper’s quote, it says:

In his 2012 biographical address on “The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle,” John Piper highlighted the value of a masculine ministry — and with it, the importance of Christianity having a masculine feel. It’s a provocative thing to say when, not only in our day, but throughout history, true masculinity has seemed too often like an endangered species, under assault from both the left and the right.

The “Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle”??

Throughout history, masculinity has been an endangered species?? Under assault?? I have no words. Do these guys have any idea what it’s been like to live as a female through the vast majority of history?

I’m amused by Piper’s phrase ‘Masculinity has been an endangered species’. Has he no idea that the definition of a species is one in which the members can have sex and reproduce their kind?

Someone should very gently explain it to him. Yes.

ishy wrote:

siteseer wrote:

been an endangered species?? Under assault?? I have no words. Do these guys have any idea what it’s been like to live as a female through the vast majority of history?

And what is “true masculinity”?

Hypermasculinity — defining “masculine” entirely in terms of Power Struggle and Sexual Aggression, burning out everything else with a white-hot iron, and firewalling what’s left to the max.

For what it’s worth, I first came across the term in a reprint of a 1943 OSS psych profile of one Adolf Hitler, describing his “Fuehrer” persona that ended up taking him over.

Muff Potter wrote:

@ Roger Bombast:

Knuckle rapping on the hardwood.

Knuckle rapping or (Inner) Ring Knocking?

“The first thing He (God) says is not good is a solitary bachelor.”

Doug Wilson’s comment. These Neo-Cal fellas like to take their playbook solely from Genesis. While they love Paul on so many things, they donb’t point to his singleness as a virtue, nor what he says about the benefits of remaining single. Further, they seem to brush aside the fact that our Lord Jesus was never married. No doubt, had the Neo-Cals been around in Jesus’ day, they would have been hounding him to get married, and telling Him that is the most godly way for a man to live. It’s been said many times here but bears repeating. Neo-Calvinists idolize marriage. Marriage is the ideal for everyone. They don’t even consider that being single is a viable choice. Further, should persons in their congregations be struggling with sexual temptation, the remedy is to go out and find someone to marry as QUICKLY as possible, just so those sexual urges can be satisfied. Remember the inteview with Doug Wilson’s father? “Ask her name and marry her!” Because self-control is out of the question, I suppose. Imagine if we treated other areas of temptation in the same way? For those who were formerly thieves, or drug addicts, or greedy CEO’s, what would the *Quick Fix* be? If the main reason to marry is to have sex, I think that marriage is based on a shaky foundation. When you consider that, just about anyone will do. But I think we here at TWW recognize that marriage is based upon more than fulfilling one’s sexual desires. And it’s about more than just not wanting to be alone. Neo-Cals have a very narrow, boxed-in view of marriage that lays the foundation for serious problems that will arise later on. Anyway, here is the link for that interview with Jim Wilson, Doug Wilson’s father, “Ask her name and marry her!”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKprMev1W8Q

and now i’ve just watched the Desiring God conference video clip.

my toes are curling backwards.

as were crawford loritts’. you weren’t buying into it, were you, crawford. it was the weirdest thing you ever heard, right? why did you give in and start nodding your head?

Max wrote:

Ken F wrote:

The problem is often with the extremes.

Someone once said that heresy can be an overemphasis of a long-neglected truth.

Especially when pushed in isolation. Chesterton wrote that Christianity is a dynamic balance of opposing doctrines, “any one of which in isolation could lay waste to a world.” Examples:
Calvinism — God’s Omnipotence and Sovereignity.
Communism — Woe to the Rich and standing up for/elevating the Poor.

elastigirl wrote:

“I never found his good statements to be regular enough to justify sifting through all the confusion.”
+++++++++++++++++++

well, statistically, everyone ends up being profound with at least every 2,034th utterance.

(probably should run this by Ken F, though)

I like the phrase “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” But that phrase has less meaning these days with digital clocks. Maybe Piper is digital?

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Chesterton wrote that Christianity is a dynamic balance of opposing doctrines

Chesterton is a good remedy for Calvinism.

Has anyone else pointed out that Piper himself is inherently NOT masculine. His sermons read like they were torn from the pages of a weepy 12-year-old girl’s diary.

He needs to chop some wood or spend some time in a bar full of marines to understand the alpha male directive.

Darlene wrote:

But I think we here at TWW recognize that marriage is based upon more than fulfilling one’s sexual desires. And it’s about more than just not wanting to be alone. Neo-Cals have a very narrow, boxed-in view of marriage that lays the foundation for serious problems that will arise later on. Anyway, here is the link for that interview with Jim Wilson, Doug Wilson’s father, “Ask her name and marry her!”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKprMev1W8Q

I think that’s definitely a reason, but I think there’s a bigger one. It’s easier to control a whole lot of people if you have a large group of them suppressed by the others. The Calvinistas aren’t just in the business of promoting marriage. They are in the business of organizing people underneath them to promote themselves and their churches. They get husbands to “keep control” of the women, which effectively puts half the population into slavery of a sort.

It’s not just women they want to control, but they give husbands the “prize” of being slaveowner of their wives and families, and promising them that one day they might move up to elder, and gain standing in the community and money from the congregation’s allegiance to their businesses. The promise of elder will not happen for most men. It’s a prize for those that kiss up the most. The rest will be expected to pay their money to the ministry (probably more than they can afford), support the pastors, elders, and theologians by buying their books and using their businesses, and they will probably be just as likely to be excommunicated for a small slight or for having any thought of their own.

Remember the people above them are given passes for having affairs with younger, prettier women, amassing large amounts of wealth, plagarizing, etc. They are not good examples of people. But if any of the peons attempted those things, thinking they’d get a pass, too, they’d be kicked out.

Ken F wrote:

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Chesterton wrote that Christianity is a dynamic balance of opposing doctrines

Chesterton is a good remedy for Calvinism.

Yes! Chesterton ‘gets it’. In his poem ‘The Convert’, he celebrates how man-made circular logic is so prfoundly lacking in ability to convey an experience of the great mystery of God

“AFTER one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

(G.K. Chesterton)

the opportunity to be an idol and doing what they tell you as you take your place on the pedestal in the spotlight in front of crowds and being paid handsomely for it does funny things to people. which i would think they end up regretting.

and then it’s burned into the internet for eternal public consumption.

not worth it.

Deb wrote:

I am so grateful that there is video evidence of this nonsense.

It might be his subconscious cry for help.

dee wrote:

John Piper is Truly Chance the Gardener.

Funny but no, Chance = obvious, Piper = oblivious.

Dale wrote:

But doesn’t 9Marks emphasize expositional preaching to prevent such unbalanced idolatry?

I think it depends on how you define expositional preaching. In SEBTS, it was the topical, popular style that often involved very little Scripture.

It certainly didn’t seem expositional to me.

Proud to have made the list of selected Twitter responses!

SureWhyNot? wrote:

He needs to chop some wood or spend some time in a bar full of marines to understand the alpha male directive.

Piper would never make it through a wives of 5th Group SF “while the boyz are deployed” party!

Dale wrote:

How true. From Bethlehem’s “Relational Commitments”:

“Because our church recognizes both the divine origin of marriage and the devastating effects of divorce, we are deeply committed to preserving marriages and preventing divorce. Toward this end, we will devote a significant portion of our preaching and teaching ministry to strengthening marriages and families.”

Way to make the 51 percent of adult American women who are not married at this point in time feel welcomed in your church, Bethlehem Baptist! I am not saying marriage is wrong or bad, but when it’s emphasized to the point of being an object of cultic worship, then yeah, it’s a real problem.

And yes, since 2009 the majority of American woman have been in various states of singleness–divorced, widowed, never married, with children, without children, empty-nester, etc. And Bethlehem is making for darn sure that they are not welcoming.

SureWhyNot? wrote:

Has anyone else pointed out that Piper himself is inherently NOT masculine. His sermons read like they were torn from the pages of a weepy 12-year-old girl’s diary.
He needs to chop some wood or spend some time in a bar full of marines to understand the alpha male directive.

+100!

Thanks for the laugh. Spot on.

Darlene wrote:

There are so many situations in which the Neo-Cal take on gender roles betrays the reality of life and the situations we humans find ourselves in.

I think a huge part of this is due to the fact that their leadership have never been in a position where they were were supervised by women. Think about it this way–take your average YRR pastor. At the very least, since he started seminary, he has been treated as always being over all women and over a good chunk of the men, since he is studying to be in ministry. He’s probably never worked a job where he had a woman as a supervisor. Now he’s the young lead pastor of a big church and he’s bringing in his buddies to properly educate these people in the pews.

Now let’s switch to the pewpeons. I can guarantee you there have been employees of my too big to fail financial institution who attended Bethlehem Baptist. I can also guarantee you that bringing Piper’s nonsense about what women should and should not do would not go over well at my employer. I suspect this is pretty much the case for most non-church jobs in the USA today. BBC members probably ignore Piper’s witterings on the subject or compartmentalize them in one way or another. However, I’m sure Piper’s fanbois just follow along after everything the Great Man says.

Velour wrote:

And there was a shortage of women so the states that wanted more women to come to marry their men said, “We’ll give you the vote too!”

Maybe the State of Alaska should let women’s vote count double. It has gotten better – I think it is up to 48%.

For women living in Alaska and seeking a spouse, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Nancy2 wrote:

SureWhyNot? wrote:

He needs to chop some wood or spend some time in a bar full of marines to understand the alpha male directive.

Piper would never make it through a wives of 5th Group SF “while the boyz are deployed” party!

Too funny!!!

Muslin, fka Dee Holmes & mirele wrote:

Now let’s switch to the pewpeons. I can guarantee you there have been employees of my too big to fail financial institution who attended Bethlehem Baptist. I can also guarantee you that bringing Piper’s nonsense about what women should and should not do would not go over well at my employer. I suspect this is pretty much the case for most non-church jobs in the USA today.

And the NeoCalvinists seem to be, like many evangelicals, relentless in their attacks on gays. And then there’s the people like me who work jobs in the real world, with a gay supervisor, gay colleagues, and strict anti-discrimination laws (California) that violating could get a person fired from their job and the employer sued.

My gay colleagues are far nicer and more professional than the entire leadership at my former 9 Marxist/John MacArthur-ite/NeoCalvinist/Complmentarian-Patriarchy promoting church (Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley). The people in these NeoCal churches don’t live and work in the real world but in their own special little bubbles where they never have to get along with anyone who is different.

Max wrote:

Christiane wrote:

I’m amused by Piper’s phrase ‘Masculinity has been an endangered species’.

I hope to live long enough to see New Calvinism on the rare and endangered species list.

I’m thinking that the neo-Cal version of a ‘real man’ is part coward, part jerk, all self-absorbed, obsessed with sex, self-serving, and boldly going into greater and greater heights of misogyny than ever before …. in short, you may get your wish 🙂

Darlene wrote:

When I read that paragraph, I couldn’t help but think how Piper sounds as though he might have smoked just a bit too much reefer. Thanks for the laughs!

Piper would’ve been right at home among these teens and adult hippies who were stoned on weed:

That 70’s Show (American TV sit com, getting high in the basement scene):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SolmwnWnWW4

Max wrote:

Christiane wrote:

I’m amused by Piper’s phrase ‘Masculinity has been an endangered species’.

I hope to live long enough to see New Calvinism on the rare and endangered species list.

So do I and the sooner the better.

Lea wrote:

Half the problem with these guys is that they feel the need to label everything masculine or feminine and yet they recognize that these are qualities that are really NOT masculine or feminine solely, they are shared qualities. It’s like they are halfway to truth but they can’t get there because they are so wedded to gender theology. If they would just stop this stupid idea that ‘backbone’ is masculine and ‘kindness’ is feminine and so on and so forth they would stop being quite so stupid.

^This is spot on.

JeffB wrote:

The prize for the most ridiculous comment on this subject, imho, still goes to Mark Driscoll, who said that he couldn’t respect Jesus if he could beat Him up. I would be concerned if a ten-year-old said that.

I hadn’t heard that one but I agree with you that sounds like a man who never got past a certain level of emotional development and should probably not be teaching anyone anything.

“Well, that’s good thinking there, Cool Breeze.” – Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

siteseer wrote:

Throughout history, masculinity has been an endangered species?? Under assault?? I have no words. Do these guys have any idea what it’s been like to live as a female through the vast majority of history?

I really don’t know what they think. It makes no sense at all to say that sort of thing.

ishy wrote:

seems like they just want to act like jerks and call it masculine.

Bingo.

They also get really upset if someone complains that they have acted like jerks.

elastigirl wrote:

as were crawford loritts’. you weren’t buying into it, were you, crawford. it was the weirdest thing you ever heard, right? why did you give in and start nodding your head?

I think it was a wary head shake, like when you start shaking your head at someone hoping they’ll stop talking about something.

okrapod wrote:

So, you wimps in your ‘masculine’ churches will be a little safer we hope because my son and a lot of other mothers’ sons think there is more to being a man than sitting around fantasizing and whining.

I really do wonder about the John Pipers out there.

Piper wants things “just so” in order for him to feel safe, secure, or to feel that all is right with the genders.

How does Piper, and complementarian guys like him, expect his fans to function in the real world, when they do things such as hold a secular job, where they may be working with or for very blunt, out-spoken, direct or bold women?

Not all women out there are Christians, are complementarian, or give a fig what Piper says.

Piper seems to think his masculinity or security is at least partially dependent on how women dress or behave around him.

Well, Piper, women are not all the same, none (not even Christian ones), are beholden to you and your whims and preferences and your weird views of how you “think” women should be.

If your gender theology leaves you this weak (at the mercy of how other women dress, talk, behave, or if they work out at the gym or not), there is something amiss with your gender theology.

Darlene wrote:

I don’t think Piper would actually appreciate a woman with backbone if it meant that she would stand up to the Neo-Cal status quo.

Women with a backbone in these churches tend to get excommunicated if it comes time to show it.

dee wrote:

Beakerj wrote:
. He’s never seen what actually happens when males & females just act out their humanness within a freeing environment, he doesn’t know what people actually are in terms of their talents, capabilities, qualities & so on because he’s never seen these actually just be allowed to unfold & be used.
I would love to observe Piper if he had to depend on a female officer in a serious situation. I wonder if he would feel uncomfortable?

Or what about a female physician in the E.R. able to save his life? I seriously doubt whether he would be concerned about gender roles at that point.

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

The spoof news site Newslo did a satire article about John Piper a while back.
http://www.newslo.com/pastor-john-piper-women-who-wax-their-private-parts-are-hurting-gods-work/

That article was hilarious. I had no idea that Piper preached against women waxing their private parts. If one would go along with his thinking, then men shouldn’t ever shave because God gave them whiskers. Piper: I call bluff on you! Stop shaving and look like a man!!

Darlene wrote:

MidwesternEasterner wrote:
The spoof news site Newslo did a satire article about John Piper a while back.
http://www.newslo.com/pastor-john-piper-women-who-wax-their-private-parts-are-hurting-gods-work/
/
That article was hilarious. I had no idea that Piper preached against women waxing their private parts. If one would go along with his thinking, then men shouldn’t ever shave because God gave them whiskers. Piper: I call bluff on you! Stop shaving and look like a man!!

He didn’t. It’s a parody site. You can click the “Show facts” button and see the parts that are true. But… what he did say, taken to its logical end, pretty much ends up in the same place.

ishy wrote:

He didn’t. It’s a parody site. You can click the “Show facts” button and see the parts that are true. But… what he did say, taken to its logical end, pretty much ends up in the same place.

That guy is very strange. You really can’t tell the difference between the real McPiper stuff and the Piper/Parodies

Darlene wrote:

As an Orthodox Christian, I don’t see these kind of portrayals of Christ in the icons in our church.

The Orthodox icons are MUCH better – no comparison.

mot wrote:

You are telling the truth. Only women who just blindly go along are wanted in these “churches.”

Yep. I’ve been a Baptsit most of my life, but I’m not a “good fit” anymore……… even in the non-Neo-Cal SBC churches around here!

I was going to write that Piper is a total creep on so many levels, but I’ve written that before, so I won’t. Whoops! I just did! Oh well. Bummer, man!

Velour wrote:

Darlene wrote:
Okay, I read the article and Piper’s advice is far better than what I’ve read/heard from the Neo-Cal Camp insofar as he isn’t pushing marriage as the main means of fulfillment.
Except for the fact that Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church routinely publicly disciplines and excommunicates godly Christian women who leave abusive husbands/marriages. A woman named Natalie has been lied about by BBC pastors/elders before hundreds of church members at BBC for leaving an abusive husband of several decades to protect herself and her children.

Velour: Well yeah, I explained further on in my comment that the advice Piper gives to Ashley at the Desiring God site is different from how Neo-Cals operate generally and how Bethlehem Baptist Church operates specifically. Two conflicting messages and the one that gets preached and taught consistently is that women are most happy, fulfilled and most glorifying to God when they are married and raising children.

roebuck wrote:

I was going to write that Piper is a total creep on so many levels, but I’ve written that before, so I won’t. Whoops! I just did! Oh well. Bummer, man!

You saved me having to write it. Thanks.

Darlene wrote:

Two conflicting messages and the one that gets preached and taught consistently is that women are most happy, fulfilled and most glorifying to God when they are married and raising children.

Thanks Darlene.

I did read your entire comment and I understood what you meant. What is lived out at Piper’s (now former) church Bethlehem Baptist is pure evil in what is done to wives who are forced to leave abusive marriages.

dee wrote:

I have never seen 2 degrees ever predicted for a night time low in this area.

I grew up in the Great Lakes region and regularly experienced below zero temps. Now I live in the Poconos and we get cold temps at night in the teens and lower. But this region is still not as cold and blustery as the Great Lakes region. Cold weather has just become a part of the cycle of nature for me because I’ve always lived in a climate that has several months of winter weather.

IMO, I think Crawford is horrified by what he is hearing in much the same way that any of us might be horrified and embarrassed in his situation. Think of an embarrassing in-law who just cannot stop talking nonsense, usually after too much alcohol. IIRC from decades ago, Crawford was a chaplain for a pro football/basketball team, so he probably knows that it is unlikely for someone to break their neck playing flag football in the backyard. That is also why Doug Wilson and Darrin Patrick were so quick to jump on that detail when given the chance.

The imp in me wants to say that Crawford is thinking that Karen Loritts could metaphorically break Piper’s neck with an “appropriately masculine” look from her lovely and intelligent eye. She is intelligent and funny and articulate. Piper could learn a lot from her. However, like it or not, Loritts is experiencing the un-fun part of being in a coalition. You get to share equal billing with an adolescent who looks like he has not groomed himself in a couple of weeks, an aging theologian who is speaking nonsense, and Doug Wilson who defies categories except that he is reliably pro-Doug.

I am not a psy*, but IMO there is something seriously wrong with Piper’s schema(s) of human relationships such that they are reduced primarily to rank. It would be extremely helpful if he could come to understand how he has wandered so far off course and why and the impact that has had on his own marriage and children. Think of the good that could come of that for all of his disciples and their families and congregations!

Darlene wrote:

That article was hilarious. I had no idea that Piper preached against women waxing their private parts.

Jesus wept. What will that sad old man come up with next?

Dale wrote:

Bethlehem Baptist is a 9Marks church in the mold of The Village Church in Dallas. Members must agree to abide by a set of “Relational Commitments.” Here is a link to them:
http://www.hopeingod.org/document/relational-commitments
“Just as church leaders are involved in beginning a marriage, they should be involved when it is threatened with seeming dissolution. Therefore, when a member of Bethlehem is considering divorce, he or she is expected to bring the situation to our elders and cooperate with them as they determine whether biblical grounds exist for the separation, and as they endeavor to promote repentance and reconciliation”

The best thing to do in this case, if one attends The Village Church, go to a J.P. to get married. Oh, and by the way, those Village Church leaders haven’t been involved in the beginning of all the marriages of their members. What about the members who married before they ever started attending TVC? I’d wager that there might even be some members who married when Chandler and the Village Church elders were in diapers. 🙂

Velour wrote:

And the NeoCalvinists seem to be, like many evangelicals, relentless in their attacks on gays.

Because it means that another, bigger, tougher Man somewhere might treat and use them the way they do a woman.

ishy wrote:

I think that’s definitely a reason, but I think there’s a bigger one. It’s easier to control a whole lot of people if you have a large group of them suppressed by the others. The Calvinistas aren’t just in the business of promoting marriage. They are in the business of organizing people underneath them to promote themselves and their churches. They get husbands to “keep control” of the women, which effectively puts half the population into slavery of a sort.

How can you have the thrill of Holding the Whip when there is nobody beneath you to Feel the Whip?

Dale wrote:

Would you seek counseling at Bethlehem given their one-sided definition of confidentiality?
“Confidentiality is an important factor in establishing a relationship to receive spiritual counsel. The leader providing spiritual counsel will keep confidentiality except in the following situations:
2) when a person refuses to repent of sin and it becomes necessary to promote repentance through accountability and redemptive church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20);”

I’d have to be kooky to agree to their terms of confidentiality. Sin is whatever they determine it to be. If you disagree with the pastor = sin. If you question a particular teaching = sin. If you don’t submit to your husband as they think you should = sin. Heck, Neo-Cals are proficient at finding sin behind every rock, crevice and corner. Further, this shows that they are clueless when it comes to counseling in the first place. People seeking counseling do so because they have….you guessed it….PROBLEMS. So now these inept counselors can turn your problems into sin, thereby releasing them from confidentiality. The client has absolutely no right to privacy whatsoever. Anything they say to the counselor is information that can be exposed to the elders. Oh, and by the way, the same kind of Non-Confidentiality exists at The Bible Church of Little Rock, where Frank Turk of Pyromaniacs blog teaches. Here’s there Non-Confidentiality Consent to Counseling form:
http://www.bclr.org/wp-content/uploads/Counseling-Forms-Combined.pdf

Ken F wrote:

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Even within the same sentence?
Not necessarily in the same sentence, but certainly in two adjacent sentences, like this: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-shall-we-fight-for-joy
1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.
2. Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly.

4. Learn the secret of gutsy guilt – how to fight like a justified sinner.

What does #4 even mean? Please, can somebody here translate Piper for me?

There’s an aspect to this I haven’t seen anyone bring up yet.

Many of the NeoCal guys I’ve known have some pretty serious emotional problems that they try to control through sheer force of reason. They’re afraid to face the demons inside of them. That’s why they hate psychology so much.

Generally speaking, I find women to be emotionally stronger than men because they’re better at experiencing and processing their emotions. In NeoCalvinism the male tendency to suppress emotions is seen as a virtue rather than a weakness.

These guys don’t know how to experience their own emotions and outsource that job to women. But only the feelings that men think are safe are permitted. Emotion has to be bounded by their own “masculine rationality.” If the “feminine feels” aren’t kept under control, the men might have to face their own demons. And they can’t have that.

dee wrote:

Women have so much to give to the church and it makes me sad that they are relegated to flourishing after the men do the leading. …

If all men mysteriously vanished off the earth tomorrow, or from some sort of disease that only affects males (like in some kind of “Twilight Zone” television episode), what does Piper think would happen to Christianity and/or the church then?

I think the faith would continue on just fine in such a scenario. Women don’t need men to “be in charge of them,” or be a “covering,” or for teaching, biblical comprehension, etc.

(Before anyone jumps all over me for that, if there were any Christians advocating a ‘Matriarchal’ version of the faith, I’d just switch it around: if all women disappeared tomorrow, the faith would continue on as-is, just fine, if only men were in existence).

I guess one of the points I’m trying to make is that complementarian guys like Piper (unlike the Bible) make Christianity, or the church, far, far too dependent in some fashion on gender/sex (in his case, upon the male sex).

Darlene wrote:

dee

You might enjoy the post I wrote about Christmas a couple of years ago. It involves a Christmas eve I spent in an old mountain bar in Ouray, Colorado.
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2013/12/23/in-an-old-mountain-bar-on-christmas-eve/

Dee: That is at the top of the list as one of the best Christmas Eve stories I’ve ever read. I was able to visualize all of it in my mind’s eye.

wow, like finding and opening a gift that got lost behind a chair when all the others were opened … a beautiful bit of golden warmth in the middle of a snow storm …. thank you so much for sharing this here and now 🙂

I urge everyone to read it. It’s like being hugged by angels. 🙂

rsiteseer wrote:

Throughout history, masculinity has been an endangered species?? Under assault?? I have no words. Do these guys have any idea what it’s been like to live as a female through the vast majority of history?

They are in denial. Anyone who even has just a rudimentary understanding of human history knows that men have not been an endangered species. They would know that it is women who have struggled to be emancipated and recognized as human beings deserving the same rights and freedoms as men.

R2 wrote:

Many of the NeoCal guys I’ve known have some pretty serious emotional problems that they try to control through sheer force of reason. They’re afraid to face the demons inside of them. That’s why they hate psychology so much.

Bingo.

That was my experience at my ex-church Grace Bible Fellowship of Silicon Valley.
Pastor/elders from abusive backgrounds taking it out on others, unwilling to face their own demons and what abusive people they had become.

Daisy wrote:

dee wrote:
After making taco soup
Taco soup? I like tacos, and I like soup, but you may have to reassure me that Taco Soup is indeed not only edible but very yummy. I am skeptical.

Taco soup rocks, Daisy.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/chicken-tortilla-soup/

Jack wrote:

For example, here’s the folks in charge of the air defence of Canada and the United States.

http://www.norad.mil/Leadership

Notice anything?

You mean that the top commander (the four-star general) is female?

Darlene wrote:

Heck, Neo-Cals are proficient at finding sin behind every rock, crevice and corner.

Interesting, in a NYT article comment section recently, a writer suggested that some folks reduce our national conversation to: Neo-Cals vs. Secular Humanists.

Comments: Michael Tide of Bothell, WA
“A nice article, but an incomplete argument. Rep v. Dem cant be reduced to a Neo-Calvinist v. Secular Humanist formula. We have to examine what we mean by ‘good’ and ‘bad.'”

and the NYT article was: The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
“Why Rural America Voted for Trump”, by ROBERT LEONARD JAN. 5, 2017.

Apparently Neo-Cal really is a thing, all over the map, and in the secular news.

Neo-Calvinist v. Secular Humanist was the formula of a 2009 documentary film with debates of Doug Wilson and the late Christopher Hitchens: “Collision”, http://bit.ly/2i5LreG.

Bothell, WA is West, near Seattle, distant from Moscow, ID and Pullman, WA where Wilson resides.

Darlene wrote:

When I read that paragraph, I couldn’t help but think how Piper sounds as though he might have smoked just a bit too much reefer. Thanks for the laughs!

More like acid or shrooms.
(Or bath salts if you’re Driscoll or Wilson?)
“Weed don’t make you do that!”

mot wrote:

Sad, to see someone like Piper leading so many people astray.

Showed this post to a friend who assessed that Piper portrays the church as a brothel.

@ siteseer:

“I’m curious how people get to this mindset where they view everything in life through a lens of sex? Qualities are not qualities in and of themselves but are expressions of sex. Everything is some kind of expression of sex.”
++++++++++++++

they grew up in a subculture where sex is the unforgivable sin.

“No, you can’t even think about it.”

but then the sexual revolution hits christian culture (40 years late, of course). repression-on-penalty-of-something-too-horrible-for-words meets pseudo-liberation. Shame if you do overnight becomes shame if you don’t (but agree to the terms and conditions).

i’m sure there’s a psychological term for what this does to people.

linda wrote:

Admittedly, a few women, mostly single, missed their weekly emotional high and went elsewhere.

As a never married woman (hence single here) what on earth does their singleness have to do with anything?

I’m not particularly a fan of emotional services and just prefer a calm, level- headed person giving a sermon.

@ Darlene:

pastor-john-piper-women-who-wax-their-private-parts-are-hurting-gods-work/

“Oh my…this reminds me of the first time I read an article from The Onion. My son was the one who first showed me the article. I took it seriously, not knowing that it was parody. Boy did I feel like a clueless, naive pushover.”
+++++++++

not clueless nor naive at all — why wouldn’t he say something like this? i’d put nothing ludicrous past him. by now we expect these kinds of things from him. it’s a weird new kind of entertainment.

elastigirl wrote:

@ Darlene:

pastor-john-piper-women-who-wax-their-private-parts-are-hurting-gods-work/

“Oh my…this reminds me of the first time I read an article from The Onion. My son was the one who first showed me the article. I took it seriously, not knowing that it was parody. Boy did I feel like a clueless, naive pushover.”
+++++++++

not clueless nor naive at all — why wouldn’t he say something like this? i’d put nothing ludicrous past him. by now we expect these kinds of things from him. it’s a weird new kind of entertainment.

Poe’s law doesn’t just apply to fundamentalists, it apparently works on neocals, too.

A personal anecdote: the first time I saw Mermaids: The Body Found on Animal Planet, I didn’t know it was a hoax. I thought it was a serious documentary and spent the next 24 hours believing in mermaids, until I went online to look up the mermaid researcher “Dr. Paul Robertson” and found out he was just an actor.

Daisy wrote:

I’m not particularly a fan of emotional services and just prefer a calm, level- headed person giving a sermon.

I feel the same way. Two things I don’t appreciate in church: overly emotional or being yelled at. I don’t get up early and go to all the trouble to be there to get screamed at. I appreciate calm, balanced teaching and I expect to learn something.

@ MidwesternEasterner:

“…the first time I saw Mermaids: The Body Found on Animal Planet,”
++++++++

oh this is funny. we love Shark Week on Discovery. Anyone remember the ‘documentary’ in South Africa, documenting the impossibly huge shark nicknamed Submarine?

totally thought it was real. and those poor people trapped in the overturned boat with a few inches of air left over their heads, and Submarine zooming around below their legs… and that brave, brave man who swam through the dark waters dodging Submarine and rescued them one by one.

“What a hero!!” i exclaimed, in choked-up amazement.

(loved the mermaid ‘documentary’. if only it was true. still holding out for Bigfoot and extraterrestrials)

I am single myself, I have never been married and I have no children. I did raise a nephew who said I was like a father to him and often tells me what an influence I was in his life. Of course, my evangelical side will not listen to such emotionalistic pablum all I need to hear is what a piece of trash I am and how I disgust God. After many years I am actually able to hear that from him now and it means a lot. My reasons for not being married are actually quite simple and most likely selfish at least that is what I was told when I was in real world faith communities. I was the primary/secondary care provider for about 31 years for family and the “ministry” I was in required so much time I did not want to drag a mate down that rabbit hole. Another reason, far more important, I did not earn a lot of money and I did not have a nice car, big muscles, etc.

I did try a few times with women in the faith but it just never fully worked out. I can tell you this if you are older and single in many evangelical faith communities you are seen as a total failure and outside the will of God, in sin, pathetic etc. You are actually much more accepted if you have been married a few times, have a few kids, not paying any support in some circles and are messing around on the side.

It is far better now in some faith communities in my area and I am seeing a change in that area.

Christiane wrote:

The ‘alternate’ reality thing requires a way of thinking that does not allow for questioning or even pointing out that the double-talk exists… It’s a strange new world.

Your observation is spot on, except the part about it being new. In one of the earlier threads was a discussion about the Westminster Confession of Faith. It has the same double-speak. It actually states that God ordains everything that comes to pass, and not in just a way that he foreknew. And yet it also says that God does not ordain evil, which means some things came to pass that God did not ordain. It makes God responsible for everything except the things that could make him look bad. The WCF was the basis for most of the other Calvinist Confessions, such as the Second London Confession. These confessions enable people to argue from both sides of their mouth. If this is how they have been taught to think, it’s no surprise to find so many contradictory aspects to New-Calvinist teaching.

R2 wrote:

These guys don’t know how to experience their own emotions and outsource that job to women. But only the feelings that men think are safe are permitted. Emotion has to be bounded by their own “masculine rationality.” If the “feminine feels” aren’t kept under control, the men might have to face their own demons. And they can’t have that.

Spot on! This is what I was taught growing up, and it was reinforced by my earlier “Christian” training. My wife is helping me to unpack all of this. But by now the trenches where I buried all that stuff is pretty deep. I might not be able to validate what you wrote through my feelings (yet), but I can validate it through what I was taught. It’s not a matter of men getting in touch with their feminine side. Rather, the challenge is to learn to identify and process emotions as real and important.

R2 wrote:

These guys don’t know how to experience their own emotions and outsource that job to women. But only the feelings that men think are safe are permitted. Emotion has to be bounded by their own “masculine rationality.” If the “feminine feels” aren’t kept under control, the men might have to face their own demons.

The thing is, pride is an emotion. So is anger. All this talk about hitting people is not unemotional rational talk! Stop pretending men aren’t emotional, because they are.

Velour wrote:

Daisy wrote:
dee wrote:
After making taco soup
Taco soup? I like tacos, and I like soup, but you may have to reassure me that Taco Soup is indeed not only edible but very yummy. I am skeptical.
Taco soup rocks, Daisy.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/chicken-tortilla-soup/

I don’t think Chicken Tortilla soup is the same as taco soup. Look on pinterest, there are a bunch of recipes though. (although I love chicken tortilla soup too).

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Piper is one of the most emotional people I’ve ever seen.

All the guys laughed at him for saying flag football and he went straight from that to ‘we broke a guys neck’. Fascinating.

Women are always accused of being emotional and not rational but just watch this stuff.

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Ken Ham does the same thing, propagating his blarney about the age of the earth, but that is relatively harmless.

The Young Earthers are no longer harmless, in my opinion. They will proclaim that anyone who doesn’t agree with them isn’t a Christian and isn’t saved. They have made a secondary issue a primary issue. They are a hateful group and they lack love.

Muff Potter wrote:

it’s not just the Neo-Cals, there are Arminian leaning outfits a-plenty who also believe in and long for those good old days.

True. It’s fair to say that “fundamentalists” of all stripes long for a golden age that never was.

K.D. wrote:

it is this way with many people who formerly and still call themselves ” Southern Baptists.”

Yes, many Southern Baptists are joining the “Done” ranks … done with church in its current state, but not done with Jesus.

Lea wrote:

R2 wrote:
These guys don’t know how to experience their own emotions and outsource that job to women. But only the feelings that men think are safe are permitted. Emotion has to be bounded by their own “masculine rationality.” If the “feminine feels” aren’t kept under control, the men might have to face their own demons.
The thing is, pride is an emotion. So is anger. All this talk about hitting people is not unemotional rational talk! Stop pretending men aren’t emotional, because they are.

Yes! So is cruelty, arrogance, sarcasm, humor, etc. People are really disagreeing over what are appropriate cultural displays of emotion or are politically correct emotions within their group/tribe. I tend to prefer the more subdued emotions that are not outwardly when it comes to groups but that does not mean there are no emotions going on. But then my parents raised us that way, too.

Frankly, the emotionalism of the YRR is one thing that really turned me off trying to have discourse with them. They reminded me of middle school boys who cannot handle even basic disagreement and parroting points they had heard but did not really understand. They tend to view disagreement as personal disrespect. They literally become either angry or arrogant over the most trivial things. In their world that is an accepted display of emotion. And they are quick to project their own emotional response onto others who dare disagree with them.

@ Max:

Apparently Jared C. Wilson is the author of the Fake John Piper Twitter account. Thus it seems the account is less a satire and more an homage.

Lea wrote:

Stop pretending men aren’t emotional, because they are.

the Gospels also relate that Jesus at times gave way to these emotions and expressed his feelings physically – he wept (John 11:35),he even wailed (Luke 19:41), he sighed (Mark 7:34), he groaned (Mark 8:12), he flashed angry glares at people (Mark 3:5), he spoke with annoyance in his voice (Mark 10:14), or with chiding words (Mark 3:12). On occasion Jesus broke out in a rage (John 11:33, 38 as the Greek makes clear), or openly exulted (Luke 10:21), or cried aloud in utter desolation (Matt. 27:46).
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/robertcrosby/2012/06/the-emotional-jesus-his-ups-downs/

It’s also sad that Piper had to prove his “manly” creds by mentioning that a man’s neck was broken in football and double sad that he was “called out” as somehow “unmanly” for bringing up flag football.

If that story is even true.

Lydia wrote:

And it becomes pure Gnosticism where these boys view themselves as the specially anointed philosopher kings that God appointed to lead the ignorant toward their version of the Gospel

Gnostic = “He Who KNOWS Things (and YOU DON’T!)”

Roger Bombast wrote:

The years of selfless dedication to writing sheeps of height that none of you can approach is testimony to what hard work can achieve: if any of you whiners could be bothered, maybe you could sustain 50,000 words without saying anything too. But you can’t, so you never will

Roger is absolutely right!

When my wife gets off work today, I’m going to tell her exactly what her place is in this house!

This will be followed by a move to the garden shed. Which is unheated. We have a cold wave and today is a balmy -20C (-4 F).

MG is neither winsome nor enduring. I pull a Piper and it will be far warmer in the garden shed.

Ken F wrote:

The face reveal starts at about 2:06:00, and one good sample is at 2:14:19. But anything on the History Channel has to be taken with a big grain of salt.

These days, you’re liable to get more accurate hard information on Coast to Coast open lines.
“WEST OF THE ROCKIES! YOU’RE ON THE AIR!”

I think I see a similarity between the neo-cal obsession with gender roles and the current idea that people are whatever gender they believe themselves to be. Both seem to be saying that (a) you have to behave in specific ways and if you do/do not then that says something about your gender/gender conformity, and (b) you have to delve into your own inner thoughts/feelings to validate your conception of maleness or femaleness because you may not be a ‘real’ man/woman.

This puts very small radius for whatever circle you may have thought you belonged to. So, you guys better be driving an F150 and you women better be wearing heels, because if not…If not what? Well at the church they might be telling you that you are defying God’s plan for humanity, and in the world of options and alternatives they might be telling you that you need to go ahead and come out.

@ okrapod:
Gender insecurity.
Or, insecurity, with gender components.

Max wrote:

Yes, many Southern Baptists are joining the “Done” ranks … done with church in its current state, but not done with Jesus.

You don’t have to walk into a building with a sign that says Blah Blah Bapist Church to know be close to Jesus. He is not confined to man made structures.

Lea wrote:

The thing is, pride is an emotion.

Pride demands that something be sacrificed to it. So you can understand why pride is called the mother of all sins.

@ Christiane:
Pride = Idolatry. Great insight, Christiane.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Isn’t that called Doublethink?

It depends on how literally you take the root work “think” in this example.

Ken F wrote:

“courageous contrition.”

Like, a victorious defeat?

brian wrote:

I am single myself, I have never been married and I have no children. I did raise a nephew who said I was like a father to him and often tells me what an influence I was in his life. Of course, my evangelical side will not listen to such emotionalistic pablum all I need to hear is what a piece of trash I am and how I disgust God. After many years I am actually able to hear that from him now and it means a lot. My reasons for not being married are actually quite simple and most likely selfish at least that is what I was told when I was in real world faith communities. I was the primary/secondary care provider for about 31 years for family and the “ministry” I was in required so much time I did not want to drag a mate down that rabbit hole. Another reason, far more important, I did not earn a lot of money and I did not have a nice car, big muscles, etc.
I did try a few times with women in the faith but it just never fully worked out. I can tell you this if you are older and single in many evangelical faith communities you are seen as a total failure and outside the will of God, in sin, pathetic etc. You are actually much more accepted if you have been married a few times, have a few kids, not paying any support in some circles and are messing around on the side.
It is far better now in some faith communities in my area and I am seeing a change in that area.

I have experienced some of the same things. A guy who is irresponsible and has made a mess of his life is probably more accepted than a responsible man who is inexplicably single. Bubba is a good ole boy who likes his fun – he is a good, regular guy, while Bob over there is kind of quiet and seems to be always working – must be something wrong with him. What if your life does not follow a nice, neat script like everyone says you should have? I had a few career changes and did not get to be what some would call moderately successful until I was 40. I have had to struggle with both bitterness and pride. What if culturally you don’t quite fit in?

From cultwatch.com:
1. Single charismatic leader.
2. People always seeming happy and enthusiastic. Image of perfect American family. (Reality – Piper problem kids & marriage issues.)
3. Instant friends.
4. Told who you can associate with.
5. They hide what they teach.
6. They are the only true group, or the best. Elite.
7. Hyped meetings. (He depicts masculine/feminine worship feeling.)
8. Experiential rather than logical.

These 8 encapsulate the Piper phenom. One leader prominent at Bethlehem Baptist. Go deep to get to the core (#5). His comments in the video emit experience, lack logic. Cult of the personality is established; the group is grounded in that single leader, forever.

Impact. The Pipers lived in a 3-story inner city turn-of-the-century manse, so the Core followed & moved in from the suburbs. The Caucasian Pipers adopted an African American daughter, the Core followed with adoptions (cross-cultural). Etc.

A culture – a cult. Piper rules from his retirement, no less, at Bethlehem and nationally with Pipettes lockstep via his pastor conferences at his base, Bethlehem.

Thank you, TWW, comment people, Dee and Deb, for bringing into the light the phenom. “Walk in the light as He is in the light.” 1 John.

Jesus was all about light, and the established cult of His contemporary religious leaders did not like this, even to the point of crucifixion.

Oh dear, tread lightly speaking truth to power.

For me, this all boils down to a couple of simple questions:

Are complementarian marriages happier than egalitarian marriages?

And…

Is the complementarian view of men and women [and marriage] biblical?

I don’t take any pleasure in the Pipers’ reported marital issues. I had a sibling who unknowingly married a nutcase, and experienced years of difficulties. Marriage can be messy. It usually is, to varying degrees.

But since Piper is such a vocal and public advocate of this extreme view of “roles,” in the church and out, it’s worth asking, “How’s what working for you?” Has JP’s view of women caused him to treat his wife differently? Does she harbor any animosity over her role as his sidekick, with no concern for her interests and calling?

Nancy2 wrote:

Christiane wrote:

Women are supposed to wear heels? What are ‘heels’????

Those blasted things than hang in the carpet when you clutch to shift gears!

Ha! I had to get new car mats because I wore a hole in the old one shifting in heels!

Lea wrote:

They definitely kept a better lid on the details than most of the other scandals. This one made me curious because of the odd way they phrased the whole thing…

(referring to The Journey elders in the sacking of Darrin Patrick)
Whole thing was curious. I’m curious whether any of his buddies from the stage or from Acts 29 came along side to help him man up and deal with whatever the mistakes or weaknesses were?

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Piper is one of the most emotional people I’ve ever seen. In fact, Desiring God seems to be a treatise on using one’s emotions to measure one’s spirituality. Surely this crowd isn’t claiming that men aren’t emotional?

It’s interesting that research has not found any appreciable differences between the male and female brain.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds

Muff Potter wrote:

I like to believe that the last Adam (Jesus) was the most beautiful specimen of man ever.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, there’s a clobber verse for that one too, it’s in Isaiah I think…

Ya, just as real drugs mess you up, so does Calvinism…for good. And you can’t even prevent or help it. What a bummer. Who cares? One of the biggest deceivers out there, next to his equally glib bud Big Mac from Californ. I.A.

brian wrote:

I was the primary/secondary care provider for about 31 years for family

I question if the "real men" have done anything in the sight of God that stacks up to being a primary or secondary care provider for 31 years. If they have, they would not be casting judgments.

siteseer wrote:

And, when they are unhappy, what options are open for those involved?

Piper and crew would say just suck it up. It’s all for God’s glory!

GSD wrote:

it’s worth asking, “How’s what working for you?” Has JP’s view of women caused him to treat his wife differently? Does she harbor any animosity over her role as his sidekick, with no concern for her interests and calling?

He’d never let her speak, so not sure how we’ll ever know.

okrapod wrote:

I think I see a similarity between the neo-cal obsession with gender roles and the current idea that people are whatever gender they believe themselves to be. Both seem to be saying that (a) you have to behave in specific ways and if you do/do not then that says something about your gender/gender conformity, and (b) you have to delve into your own inner thoughts/feelings to validate your conception of maleness or femaleness because you may not be a ‘real’ man/woman.

This is a really interesting thought. 2 sides of the same coin? Human identity through gender roles. Shouldn’t the gospel run deeper? To what is our essential humanity rather than societally constructed “roles”?

siteseer wrote:

okrapod wrote:
(a) you have to behave in specific ways and if you do/do not then that says something about your gender/gender conformity, and (b) you have to delve into your own inner thoughts/feelings to validate your conception of maleness or femaleness because you may not be a ‘real’ man/woman.
/
This is a really interesting thought. 2 sides of the same coin? Human identity through gender roles. Shouldn’t the gospel run deeper? To what is our essential humanity rather than societally constructed “roles”?

Can they handle that? It seems like people choose hyper-Calvinism because they want easy answers, even if they make God out to be as terrible as humanity.

I think the other side does it, too. “It’s too hard to find out who I am, so I’m just going to decide.” I have a lot of friends (even Christians) who have said and done the same thing. Maybe there are chemical absolutes, but it feels like to me a lot of people put on absolutes to keep from really searching their souls.

Ken F wrote:

Your observation is spot on, except the part about it being new. In one of the earlier threads was a discussion about the Westminster Confession of Faith. It has the same double-speak. It actually states that God ordains everything that comes to pass, and not in just a way that he foreknew. And yet it also says that God does not ordain evil, which means some things came to pass that God did not ordain. It makes God responsible for everything except the things that could make him look bad.

Mind-bending cognitive dissonance. Maybe it comes of trying to define God in minute detail that makes sense to the mind of a human?

siteseer wrote:

Shouldn’t the gospel run deeper? To what is our essential humanity rather than societally constructed “roles”?

like ‘yes’

Lea wrote:

All the guys laughed at him for saying flag football and he went straight from that to ‘we broke a guys neck’. Fascinating.

Yes, my BS meter went off there.

Can someone who knows the original languages better than what I can find on the internet comment on Doug’s comment in his first few minutes that the first person created was male? I thought the first person was simply human containing both male and female.

Bill M wrote:

Yeesh, the bad communication betrays an inability to relate to people as individuals.

You’re not kidding.

Last month we attended a Christmas program from a larger church.

To make a long story short, while the band was pretty good, but there was a play put on that left a lot to be desired.

The gist was crooks were holding up a train to steal the Christmas presents destined for an orphanage.

The crooks weren’t Christian of course and the passengers were a mix.

The Christian passengers prayed and lo and behold the thieves were taken down by the other passengers. The message was that faith overcomes all (or something like that….I think)

I’ll leave aside whether depicting a hijacking with (fake) guns is appropriate or not but the acting was as wooden as the sets, however the audience clapped and amened like nobody’s business.

The pastor came out and stated that they would love it if this became your church or if you felt the play brought you closer to Jesus (or perhaps you had never heard of Jesus (?)).

There was “musical guest star” brought out on stage with much fanfare. It was the music ministers daughter playing violin (ironically the kid was a highlight in the proceedings – she was pretty good).

At the end, the players came out to resounding applause. Flowers were handed out to the director and she did a speech thanking the “hundreds” who helped make it happen. It was like the Oscars.

I’m pretty sure I was the only non-christian in the house that night and it didn’t inspire me to go to church. This presentation was for true believers, not me.

Even my wife who is a devout Christian apologized to me and the kids for going out to that. She didn’t need to, it was a fail on the part of the church, not her. I told her that and we all had a good laugh, then went out for dinner.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between that church and the real world. The way the pastor spoke was like any non-christians in the house must be stupid not to be moved toward Jesus. If only you would read the bible. Yikes! I did, and I wouldn’t recommend any non-christian reading it with a literal fundamentalist interpretation. Sure fire way to shut down engagement.

@ Patti:

I hope you did not think that I was saying that scientists think that the first human was a male. Not at all. It was merely that the Y chromosome was what they could trace. And they were talking about when the species made the leap to ‘modern man’ not when man sprang from dirt or so. I was talking about identifiable inheritance based on the Y chromosome.

I used to attend John MacArthur’s church, Grace Community Church, for several years before moving. Now, I can’t remember whether this question was asked somewhere in the previous article’s comments or this article’s, but regardless, there is this general vein of wonder as to, “Why do women put up with this stuff?” Complementarianism, patriarchy, etc.

I can only speak in reference to Grace Church–a church that is often mentioned on this website. In all my time at GCC, I never heard any of the women wish that things were different, complain about inequality, or that they had more leadership opportunities. And this is a church attended by thousands of women.

Why?

1) Because if you weren’t a fan of Complementarianism, you didn’t go to GCC. Why bother? This is Los Angeles, there’s a church for everything.
2) Because women were given leadership opportunities to have authority over other women in Bible studies, core groups, women’s ministries–and that was enough for them. They had plenty of opportunity to edify, sympathize with, or torture their own gender.
3) Behind the scenes, these women had a great amount of sway in their marriages. Most were not heavily submissive, and their dissatisfaction in marriage could tarnish their husband’s reputation as a Christian, so the men did care what their wives thought of them.
4) Grace Church had zero problems with single women holding professional careers in the world. Even married women. Women would typically stop working when their first child was born, as motherhood is seen as the most important job.
5) The vast majority of women at Grace saw motherhood as the highest office, as well as gateway to advancing them in women’s ministries. If you had a passion for leadership, being a wife and mother gave you more credibility and leadership potential.
6) Women fight wholeheartedly for complementarianism because it protects the role of the stay-at-home mother. In fact, it promotes this role heavily. And a lot of us just want to raise our children without worrying about filing joint tax returns.

Complementarianism alongside GCC’s staunch divorce policy only seemed to break down in the face of bad marriages. Where abuse could thrive on either end, and the marriages became prisons. And this was seen on both sides, where either the female or the male were misbehaving.

@ okrapod:

No, I just don’t understand how some people like Doug Philips can so dogmatically claim that the first Adam was a male bachelor and that wasn’t good so he needed a subordinate to use for his domination.

SureWhyNot? wrote:

Complementarianism alongside GCC’s staunch divorce policy only seemed to break down in the face of bad marriages. Where abuse could thrive on either end, and the marriages became prisons. And this was seen on both sides, where either the female or the male were misbehaving.

I don’t classify Grace with Calvinista churches. They seem to be their own brand of Calvinist, though MacArthur has supported Calvinista pastors, which I have some trouble with. And in these things, Grace is much more like fundamentalist churches than Calvinista churches, I think, as women are not treated as lower than pet dogs.

I agree with Lea that Calvinism overall tries to claim that God ordains everything, then tries to force people into obeying earthly rules, with no answers for people who are not godly or nice. If God ordained everything, you’d think they’d just let things happen, but the more dogmatic Calvinists can’t seem to do that.

I wonder, what’s the ratio of single men to single women? And are singles allowed to be in leadership positions?

ishy wrote:

SureWhyNot? wrote:
Complementarianism alongside GCC’s staunch divorce policy only seemed to break down in the face of bad marriages. Where abuse could thrive on either end, and the marriages became prisons. And this was seen on both sides, where either the female or the male were misbehaving.

I don’t classify Grace with Calvinista churches. They seem to be their own brand of Calvinist, though MacArthur has supported Calvinista pastors, which I have some trouble with. And in these things, Grace is much more like fundamentalist churches than Calvinista churches, I think, as women are not treated as lower than pet dogs.
I agree with Lea that Calvinism overall tries to claim that God ordains everything, then tries to force people into obeying earthly rules, with no answers for people who are not godly or nice. If God ordained everything, you’d think they’d just let things happen, but the more dogmatic Calvinists can’t seem to do that.
I wonder, what’s the ratio of single men to single women? And are singles allowed to be in leadership positions?

The ratio was fairly evenly split in the single’s group, which was called The Foundry when I attended, but has now been changed to Foundation, I believe.

Yes, to singles in leadership. In fact, the leader of Foundation was a single male who later married and became a church elder.

I think LA would be a very difficult environment to set up a Hyper-Calvinist-patriarchal regime, as the constituents of this city are pretty educated. In the singles group, there were several young people with graduate degrees and a large percentage of professionals. But Grace often had CJ Mahaney around for its Shepherd’s Conferences, and I watched him from my perch in the choir once during worship, and his constant head-bobbing, foot-stomping, clapping, “GLORY BE!!!” seemed distinctly out of place. Like he needed to be weighed down by some heavy reading.

Piper’s books were promoted. “Have you read Desiring God? Oh you must–you MUST! I never knew what it meant to be passionate about my saviour until reading Desiring God!I feel like a schoolboy!”

Elizabeth George was widely read in our circles too. Good practical advice on how to prevent your husband from cheating by being photo-shoot ready at all times!

Patti wrote:

No, I just don’t understand how some people like Doug Philips can so dogmatically claim that the first Adam was a male bachelor and that wasn’t good so he needed a subordinate to use for his domination.

I understood it as a means to show Adam how much he needed a soulmate and live-saving ally. If Eve was formed at the same time as Adam perhaps he would be more likely to mistreat her. Proposing that Adam was at first androgynous seems to be reading more into the text than needs to be there. It’s possible, but it creates some other unexplained problems. In any case, there is certainly nothing in the text to support Adam ruling over Eve.

Nancy2 wrote:

ishy wrote:

nd in it women, flourishing

By “women flourishing”. Does he mean we shut up, submit, and wear the plastic a$$ smiley face at all times?

Yep.

Patti wrote:

Can someone who knows the original languages better than what I can find on the internet comment on Doug’s comment in his first few minutes that the first person created was male? I thought the first person was simply human containing both male and female.

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

‘human’ is from ‘HUMUS’ …. physically, we are formed from the same elements as is the soil, but our life comes from and is sustained by the Hand of God …. we are EACH individually gifted by God with an eternal soul

so our bodies are ‘of the Earth’ and our life is from God

from the author Marjorie Kinnon Rawlings, these insights about how we are ‘of’ the soil:
“It seems to me that the Earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time…”

and

“Who owns Cross Creek? ………It seems to me that the Earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time…”

and

“We were bred of earth before we were bred of our mothers. Once born, we can live without mother or father, or any other kin, or any friend, or any human love. We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man’s heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Cross Creek

a woman wrote these words, yes 🙂 That makes me smile.

Christiane wrote:

‘human’ is from ‘HUMUS’ ….

We’re all made of chickpea paste and olive oil?

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
not THAT ‘HUMMUS’ 🙂

Patti wrote:

@ okrapod:

No, I just don’t understand how some people like Doug Philips can so dogmatically claim that the first Adam was a male bachelor and that wasn’t good so he needed a subordinate to use for his domination.

Wishful thinking plus Sacred Sexual Fantasy.

Remember Douggie ESQUIRE’s preferred (not really adultery) act on his Handmaid. If that act isn’t an ANIMAL forcing Dominance on a Subordinate, you tell me what is.

If that act isn’t an ANIMAL forcing dominance on a subordinate, you tell me what is.

Maybe this is:

http://orangutan.or.id/ponys-new-life-2/

Reading stories like that reminds me of the line from the Hunchback of Notre Dame movie: “Who is the monster and who is the man?”

Christiane wrote:

rudimentary sex organs of both?

It appears to be just one set that develops into one or the other based on the Y-Chromosome. This looks like a good description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_differentiation_in_humans.

@ Ken F:
I like that article.

ishy wrote:

what is the closest to what Jesus had in mind for the church?

Well, that question is easier to answer in regard to individuals rather than institutions. I know faithful believers who look like Christians described in the early church, but I have yet to walk into a church that looks like the gathering of the Body of Christ in the New Testament. There is a big disconnect on what the 21st century church looks like and what it looked like in the first century. And it’s not a matter of culture and form, but of substance. Over the centuries, we have allowed men to control religious institutions, rather than the Holy Spirit … we are the form of godliness described in Scripture which has denied the spiritual power available to us. So we move forward in church in our own power and continue to manufacture ways of doing church … but doing church without God in most places. Unless the church, whether it be local or national, has a real 2 Chronicles 7:14 experience, we won’t see genuine church this side of Heaven. So, we (individual believers) should endeavor to get our own house in order … the church house may never get there. Dig your own spiritual well, read the Word, pray, and seek God’s face for His will in your life … it may not have anything to do with going to a local church.

SureWhyNot? wrote:

Women fight wholeheartedly for complementarianism because it protects the role of the stay-at-home mother. In fact, it promotes this role heavily. And a lot of us just want to raise our children without worrying about filing joint tax returns.

What a shame that women have to subject themselves to a doctrine of inferiority just to get respect and support for making this choice, but I know what you mean.

Ken F wrote:

I understood it as a means to show Adam how much he needed a soulmate and live-saving ally. If Eve was formed at the same time as Adam perhaps he would be more likely to mistreat her. Proposing that Adam was at first androgynous seems to be reading more into the text than needs to be there. …

I would just like to mention that marriage is not necessary to have companionship and friendship and allies (if Christians are carrying out Christianity correctly, that is).

This is one reason I believe Christ de-emphasized the nuclear family as he did, and said anyone who loves his mother or son more than him is not worthy to be his follower, or anyone who obeys God in Heaven is also his mother, sister, brother, etc.

You have folks like me who never marry (and haven’t had kids), and most of my family is either abusive and/or dying off – I don’t have a nuclear family of my own to turn to.

You have Muslims who convert to Christianity who get ostracized by their Muslim family or orgin, and they could use a new “spiritual” family to fill that void (eg, other Christians).

God did not intend for marriage to be the end-all, be-all or only method of a person obtaining friendship, help, or companionship, as that would leave some of us hopeless (the divorced, never married, widowers, the Muslim converts to Jesus Christ, etc).

But I see so much of the Christian faith today reading the Genesis account of “not good for man to be alone” as being some kind of reference to marriage only, and I am not sure that is what the text was getting at.

(I’m not saying that is what YOU were arguing for in your post – just something in your post triggered these thoughts in my mind.)

Daisy wrote:

But I see so much of the Christian faith today reading the Genesis account of “not good for man to be alone” as being some kind of reference to marriage only

I have a hard time figuring out how so many reconcile themselves to a mandate for marriage position when Paul, who so many of them highly regard, recommends they remain single. Are these the same folks who accuse others of picking and choosing Bible verses?

Ken F wrote:

Muff Potter wrote:

Supernaturally knit from Mary’s genome with no human male DNA involved in his conception at all,

And yet he could not have developed male physical traits without a Y- chromosome.

Goodness …. there was something much greater going on at the event of the Incarnation:
Jesus Christ took (assumed) OUR HUMANITY to Himself in the Incarnation. The Incarnation is a great mystery and a miracle beyond our understanding. We just know that by being ‘assumed’ by Christ, it is possible that we can now be saved by Him.

As for the Second Person of the Holy Trinity …. by Him, ALL things were made …. I wouldn’t worry about the miracle of the ‘Y’ chromosome, no. I wouldn’t be concerned at all. 🙂

Nancy2 wrote:

Christiane wrote:
Women are supposed to wear heels? What are ‘heels’????
Those blasted things than hang in the carpet when you clutch to shift gears!

Or that get stuck in the cracks of the sidewalks.

@ Darlene:
IMHO this is why neo-Cals blow alot of smoke…. the boiled down, logical conclusion contradicts the boiled down message of the gospel..

Darlene wrote:

I had no idea what an F-150 is. So then I Googled it. Oh yeah, I’ve seen those monster trucks in the store parking lot and can’t even imaging trying to step up to get into one.

Goodness, if you think the 150 is a monster truck, wait till you see the 350!!!

@ Nancy2:
ruh or. Typo. Should say: An F 150 is just the most common………

Nancy2 wrote:

Lea wrote:

Goodness, if you think the 150 is a monster truck, wait till you see the 350!!!

My daughter drives an F-250.

My nephew flies an F-18

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Like they actually know the Mind of God?????
They sound like a bunch of pathetic Gnostics

okrapod wrote:

‘truck garden’. A little mirth goes a long way.

“Flower bed”?

okrapod wrote:

But I actually have a very small 2000 Nissan Frontier. Absolutely everything on the road would demolish it on impact.

you’re right ….. THAT’s the very model small truck my husband was driving when he was run off the road by the Mercedes …… he hit a stone wall by a house, the wall gave way, the truck was demolished, the air bag failed to deploy, and yet my spouse walked away without a scratch …..

except he went out and bought a stupid F-150 so I know the accident must have affected his mind 🙂

Max wrote:

Max wrote:

There is a big disconnect on what the 21st century church looks like and what it looked like in the first century.

As I think more about this, it’s apparent to me (at least where I live) that the Church within the church is being marginalized. In many places, the Body of Christ is being pushed to the margins, excluded and silenced by those who desire to do church without them. While this is most visible in authoritarian patriarchies (like hyper-Calvinism) which shun and excommunicate dissenting believers, error in belief and practice can appear anywhere that the teachings of men supersede the commandments of God (and Jesus warned us not to do that!). When young folks pursue “Christian” celebrities, they may never get to know Christ. Piper’s ministry is but one example of this … he is over-emphasizing desiring God at the expense of genuinely knowing Him.

Max: These churches do not believe the Holy Spirit operates in the daily lives of the believers in that church. These men want to be the Holy Spirit for other people IMO.

Daisy wrote:

This is one reason I believe Christ de-emphasized the nuclear family as he did, and said anyone who loves his mother or son more than him is not worthy to be his follower, or anyone who obeys God in Heaven is also his mother, sister, brother, etc.

You have folks like me who never marry (and haven’t had kids), and most of my family is either abusive and/or dying off – I don’t have a nuclear family of my own to turn to.

At the time of Christ, Family and Lineage meant EVERYTHING. Like the Great Houses in Game of Thrones, the individual (except for titled Paterfamilias, of course) had only the importance of his Lineage. And the more descendants you had, the more powerful your Lineage. (Marry and outbreed the other Lineages — “You Win or You Die.” If you weren’t of a Lineage, you were nothing — no support structure, not even a decent burial at death (just tossed on the garbage dump).

One of the Church’s major appeals was it provided a Lineage and support structure for those who had slipped through the cracks on the way to the garbage dump. Those of no Lineage now could claim the Lineage of Christ, a Lineage whose growth and power didn’t depend on marry-and-breed.

These Salvation by Marriage Alone/Quiverfull types have just regressed to Pre-Christian Lineage structure.

I went and listened to Piper again. Yes, he’s off his rocker and panels like this make me think guys like Piper love to hear themselves speak and sound like what they believe is “waxing eloquent.” The only problem, he’s babbling and uttering gibberish. He’s making up stuff about how HE interprets the FEELING of Christianity. I mean, I’m not super smart, but why does he believe he can trust his feelings?

On a separate note, I was happy to read a SBC minister respond to the question “What is the biggest threat facing the baptist church in America?” His response “Hypercalvinism.”

But perhaps it is deeper than that…Piper, Macarthur, Keller, and many Lifeway materials and their leaders are all leading the charge in mass evangelical consumer market and thousands of pastors who have deep problems with hypercalivinism simply fail to realize it is coming from celebrity evangelical pastors and big publishers and the main SBC store of Lifeway.

waking up wrote:

On a separate note, I was happy to read a SBC minister respond to the question “What is the biggest threat facing the baptist church in America?” His response “Hypercalvinism.”

Hyper-Calvinism is a threat to the American Church period, not only in Baptist ranks. It’s cousin New Calvinism is perhaps more dangerous, in that it has targeted the most impressionable in our society – our youth. Young minds just don’t have the critical thinking skills to discern the errors of reformed theology – that’s why Generations Xers and Millenials are targeted by the new reformers. SBC seminaries and church planting programs across America are swarming with them.

mot wrote:

There are some pastors in the SBC that are vocal against hypercalvinism, but they are not one of the big names and what I have seen is the others will belittle them. The SBC has waited to long to stop this cancer.

*This. I don’t know of any “big names” in SBC that are challenging the theology of the Calvinists. I do know there are pastors out there who strongly disagree with it, but they’re not the big names.

And I also agree that they target successfully the millennials. They’ve got a majority of the seminaries and Lifeway. What else would you need if you’re a Calvinist in need of a power grab?

I think it is also why we see the multi-sites stem from a Calvinist center and then branch into areas where there are small and medium churches. Those are the churches who have been completely unaware or unable to do anything about the takeover at the SBC. If they can move membership to a “campus” from a small church up the road, then they’ve sown that up to. This is just pure speculation on my part, but I’m looking at all of the changes over the past 7 or 8 years and in my area, this seems to be part of the process.

mot wrote:

There are some pastors in the SBC that are vocal against hypercalvinism, but they are not one of the big names and what I have seen is the others will belittle them.

All the non-Calvinist “big names” in SBC are at the age that they don’t want to affect their retirement annuities by upsetting the apple cart. So the belittle guys and grassroots pew are carrying the heat of the battle. The only way to prevent New Calvinist belief and practice out of a traditional church is to trust in your smarts to see it coming, send it packing if/when it arrives through stealth and deception, and hold onto congregational governance through the protection of local church autonomy.

Max wrote:

Calvinists have always mistrusted personal Christian experience. In their version of Christianity, they have substituted doctrinal propositions about grace for a direct experience of Grace.

Their Ideology is Pure and Perfectly-parsed, and Reality must bow to Ideology.

Max wrote:

Hyper-Calvinism is a threat to the American Church period, not only in Baptist ranks. It’s cousin New Calvinism is perhaps more dangerous, in that it has targeted the most impressionable in our society – our youth. Young minds just don’t have the critical thinking skills to discern the errors of reformed theology – that’s why Generations Xers and Millenials are targeted by the new reformers. SBC seminaries and church planting programs across America are swarming with them.

“Give me your children for five years and I will make them Mine. You will pass away, but they will remain Mine.”
— Adolf Hitler, cult leader

R2 wrote:

Many of the NeoCal guys I’ve known have some pretty serious emotional problems that they try to control through sheer force of reason. They’re afraid to face the demons inside of them.

Thanks for bringing this up, R2. Whenever the topic of “gender roles” comes up, I find myself thinking back on Dr. Terry Real’s book on covert depression and the way that society exacerbates it, especially among men. Part of his thesis is that, in many Western societies, men are culturally conditioned to deny that they have problems or require any kind of care, because males are supposed to be strong and seeking care is equated with admitting weakness. So Dr. Real suggests that far too many men turn to various kinds of self-medication (including, but not limited to, substance abuse) in order to avoid dealing with their problems. “Force of reason”, as you call it, might very well be one drug of choice among NeoCal men.

Generally speaking, I find women to be emotionally stronger than men because they’re better at experiencing and processing their emotions.

Dr. Real addresses that, too. According to him, that’s partly due to the social rewards women receive for being emotionally connected and sensitive. Women are often better at experiencing their emotions because they’re encouraged to do so (and, conversely, often discouraged from being assertive, or taking initiative).

In NeoCalvinism the male tendency to suppress emotions is seen as a virtue rather than a weakness… But only the feelings that men think are safe are permitted. Emotion has to be bounded by their own “masculine rationality.”

Yep. Further below, Lea mentioned that such men seem to have no problem expressing anger or pride. As you say, those are the “safe” feelings, because the outward expression of them gives an appearance of strength and confidence — at least, so they hope. This allows them to feel something without admitting weakness. In fact, Dr. Real posits that displays of anger and aggression are often another form of self-medication… a desperate attempt to stave off depression and self-loathing by acting in grandiose, “hypermasculine” fashion.

It boggles my mind whenever gender comp gurus and advocates claim that they’re being “counter-cultural”. If Terry Real is right, all they’re doing is taking the most divisive and backwards aspects of our culture, and slapping an “Approved By God” label on them.

okrapod wrote:

But Al Mohler says that unless you believe in the virgin birth you cannot be a christian.

Even though I’m a believer in the supernatural conception of Messiah (no human male sperm involved) and his bodily resurrection from the dead, Mohler would still declare me heretic and apostate because I may or may not believe in, or sign onto this, that, and other stuff…
Quite frankly, I care not what Mohler says, I keep my own counsel on what I believe or disbelieve about the Christian religion.

linda wrote:

spotted a rattlesnake climbing the window by the front door … grabbed my own personal shot gun and a hoe, raked the snake to the ground and shot it

You go girl! To borrow a line from the New Calvinists, “May your tribe increase.” May you increase and they decrease in SBC ranks and elsewhere.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Max wrote:

All the non-Calvinist “big names” in SBC are at the age that they don’t want to affect their retirement annuities by upsetting the apple cart.

“The more people a country gets into the middle class (i.e. in student/mortgage debt and retirement annuities), the more we have Peace.”
— National Security Agency

Yep, they could care less about Jesus, but a whole lot about their pensions. They better start worrying about where that money to fund their pensions is going to come from.

Lea wrote:

Darlene wrote:

I had no idea what an F-150 is. So then I Googled it. Oh yeah, I’ve seen those monster trucks in the store parking lot and can’t even imaging trying to step up to get into one.

Goodness, if you think the 150 is a monster truck, wait till you see the 350!!!

Perhaps I’m confusing the 150 with the 350. And speaking of monster trucks, I bet these Neo-Calvinist fellas think that driving one of those is akin to being a Manly-Man.

Christiane wrote:

Nancy2 wrote:

Lea wrote:

Goodness, if you think the 150 is a monster truck, wait till you see the 350!!!

My daughter drives an F-250.

My nephew flies an F-18

I currently drive a Subaru Forester – automatic. The three cars I drove previously were all stick shift. A Honda Del Sol, a Toyota Tercel, & a Subaru Impreza. After the last car – the Impreza – was totaled in an accident on an icy road, hubby and I went looking for a standard vehicle. Everywhere we went, the dealerships barely had any decent stick shifts. We ended up settling for an automatic. Driving is not nearly as enjoyable any more.

Serving Kids in Japan wrote:

It boggles my mind whenever gender comp gurus and advocates claim that they’re being “counter-cultural”. If Terry Real is right, all they’re doing is taking the most divisive
and backwards aspects of our culture, and slapping an “Approved By God” label on them.

What is the name of this book by Dr. Real? It sounds intriguing.

siteseer wrote:

does hyper Calvinism tend to give way to something else?

The phrase “hyper-Calvinism” is actually a term Calvinists put on other Calvinists. It makes certain folks in their ranks sound more “hyper” than others in belief and practice, and that is true to a certain degree. However, it should be noted that all Calvinists hold to essentially the same tenets of reformed theology … so they are all hyper IMO when compared to the majority of the Christian world.

Does hyper-Calvinism eventually give way to something else? If a New Calvinist on the extreme side of things fails to come to his right spiritual senses, he will wade off deeper into error … if he doesn’t completely lose his mind before then with all the mumbo-jumbo coming at him.

linda wrote:

I wonder what Piper would think of the time when I was pregnant with child number two. Child number one spotted a rattlesnake climbing the window by the front door. I finished loading the canner with green beans, set the stove for bring up the pressure, grabbed my own personal shot gun and a hoe, raked the snake to the ground and shot it. Saved the rattles for the kiddo.
Where does that fit his gender roles?

We here at Camp Backbone will deputize you, along with Nancy2.

No doubt when trouble arises, John Piper will be hiding behind you two! (Despite his many protests about women police officers.)

Christiane wrote:

Are there any examples of this kind of survival out there?

There are traditional Southern Baptist churches which are coming up to speed with the New Calvinist movement and refuse to consider pastoral candidates from certain SBC seminaries, such as Southern (ground-zero for New Calvinism) and Southeastern. I’m not aware of a resource which records churches which have survived Neo-Cal attack, but I’m sure they are out there as SBC’s 45,000+ churches become more informed about the agenda to Calvinize their denomination. The area where SBC is losing most ground is in the church-planting program – young Calvinists are starting new churches with no resistance since they are coming in to begin something rather than take over something.

Max wrote:

mot wrote:

They truly fear the Holy Spirit IMO.

Well, one thing’s for sure. They don’t talk about the Holy Spirit much. They have relegated him to the back pew.

maybe they don’t see the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, and the Holy Trinity as ‘God’ ????

I once found this STRANGE comment by a self-identified five point Calvinist who used to blog on SB blogs:

“Q-If God is Spirit and theres the Holy Spirit, arnt they both the Spirit of God and only one Spirit. So the trinity is really one God the father and God the Son. Because the Holy spirit is God the spirit. So instead of three theres only really only two.

A-No, that is not correct. While God is Himself spirit and does not, nor has He ever had, have a flesh and blood body, He and Jesus both speak of the Holy Spirit as Someone distinct from both of them. For example, in Joel 2:28, God says “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions”. He doesn’t say He will come Himself. Therefore the Holy Spirit must be seperate from God Who is spirit. Further, notice in John 14:16-17 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Again, observe that Jesus refers to another Helper coming, meaning the Holy Spirit, not God the Father coming. Therefore, I would say that while God is Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is seperate from God.
Posted by Joe B. at 1:40 AM”

My point is that the orthodox Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is NOT a strong point in neo-Cal world. I don’t think it is accepted in the post-Nicene sense of the Church’s understanding of it, no.

okrapod wrote:

or at least I never hear it.

never heard it

Darlene wrote:

Velour wrote:

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Ken Ham does the same thing, propagating his blarney about the age of the earth, but that is relatively harmless.

The Young Earthers are no longer harmless, in my opinion. They will proclaim that anyone who doesn’t agree with them isn’t a Christian and isn’t saved. They have made a secondary issue a primary issue. They are a hateful group and they lack love.

In many Evangelical churches, believing in YEC is nearly synonymous with believing the gospel of Christ. And not believing YEC is tantamount to being a heretic and thereby excommunicated. I was a witness to how rigid and nasty staunch YEC folks can be when they went to the lengths of slandering the pastor in my former church attempting to get rid of him.

A generation ago, the dispensationalists were much the same way. Eschatology and support for Israel became the new gospel.

Why do people focus so much on the distant past (creationism) and the future (eschatology), rather than on what Christianity asks of us in the Here And Now?

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

Why do people focus so much on the distant past (creationism) and the future (eschatology), rather than on what Christianity asks of us in the Here And Now?

Great question ….. great insight …. thank you

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

Why do people focus so much on the distant past (creationism) and the future (eschatology), rather than on what Christianity asks of us in the Here And Now?

Because the distant past and future don’t require anything of us.

Darlene wrote:

In many Evangelical churches, believing in YEC is nearly synonymous with believing the gospel of Christ.

The YEC arguments are full of holes, but they sound good at first. But their arguments are based on assumptions that are not in the Bible. Here are three examples – there are many more:
1) They make it sound like the whole earth was a perfect paradise. But the Bible only says that God planted the garden called Eden and that he later kicked Adam and Ever out of that garden. It says nothing about what the rest of the world was like.
2) They say that the first animal to die was the one God killed to cloth Adam and Eve. But the Bible does not say whether or not it was the first animal to die. It says nothing about when animal death started. And it does not say that God killed the animal to make the skins.
3) They say that Adam’s and Eve’s sin caused animal death. But Romans 5 says “death through sin” spread to all mankind. It says nothing about death spreading to animals.

Daisy wrote:

(I’m not saying that is what YOU were arguing for in your post – just something in your post triggered these thoughts in my mind.)

Sorry if I triggered something. That was not my intent. I hope I can clarify. The older I get the more I become convinced that the biggest errors lie at the extremes. The NT supports both singleness (1 Cor 7) and marriage (Heb 13:4). If a church pushes one to the exclusion of the other it will create problems. Both are important.

As to Adam being lonely, I think a big part was for an opposite sex partner because part of his praise for her was she was like him but different. But that does not mean that this is the only way he was lonely. If part of Adam’s loneliness was cultural, the solution was baby-making. That raises the question of whether or not society is best served by long-term monogamous relationships for raising children. I think a very good argument can be made that some kind of a marriage model provides the best environment for raising children. But of course there will always be examples where marriages should be dissolved because of things like abuse. Because of the difficulty both in raising children working through marriage issues, it can be very easy for churches to overlook singles. It doesn’t make it right, but it could explain why it happens.

Now that my wife and I raised the kids we are coming upon a new dynamic. Our church is very youth focused. Without us having kids a home, I feel like I am only valued for my checkbook and what I can do to support the youth.

Nancy2 wrote:

Calvinism and the SBC? I thought about chiming in and telling them I think it’s too late to stop it, but hey, I’m a female – they’d never listen anyway!
http://sbctoday.wpengine.com/saying-no-mas-to-additional-calvinist-entity-leaders/

They were rather let the SBC die than to admit they were wrong about women and calvinism.

Nancy2 wrote:

Calvinism and the SBC? I thought about chiming in and telling them I think it’s too late to stop it, but hey, I’m a female – they’d never listen anyway!
http://sbctoday.wpengine.com/saying-no-mas-to-additional-calvinist-entity-leaders/

For those doubting Al Mohler’s influence to change the default belief and practice of Southern Baptist to Calvinism, check this article out. The good doctor has done a brilliant job planting reformed SBC entity leaders. Rick Patrick, author of the piece and long-time opponent of the proliferation of New Calvinism within SBC keeps punching, but it appears to be a losing battle at this point … Calvinization of the denomination is in full swing, while the SBC majority (millions of non-Calvinists) slumber.

Max wrote:

Nancy2 wrote:

Calvinism and the SBC? I thought about chiming in and telling them I think it’s too late to stop it, but hey, I’m a female – they’d never listen anyway!
http://sbctoday.wpengine.com/saying-no-mas-to-additional-calvinist-entity-leaders/

For those doubting Al Mohler’s influence to change the default belief and practice of Southern Baptist to Calvinism, check this article out. The good doctor has done a brilliant job planting reformed SBC entity leaders. Rick Patrick, author of the piece and long-time opponent of the proliferation of New Calvinism within SBC keeps punching, but it appears to be a losing battle at this point … Calvinization of the denomination is in full swing, while the SBC majority (millions of non-Calvinists) slumber.

They will just laugh at Patrick and do what they had already planned. Calvinists in all the major leadership positions. The only way to kill it is to quit feeding it money.

Darlene wrote:

What is the name of this book by Dr. Real? It sounds intriguing.

The title is, “I Don’t Wan’t To Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression”. I got it from a relative some years ago, and it really resonated with me.

Nancy2 wrote:

Calvinism and the SBC? I thought about chiming in and telling them I think it’s too late to stop it, but hey, I’m a female – they’d never listen anyway!
http://sbctoday.wpengine.com/saying-no-mas-to-additional-calvinist-entity-leaders/

Nancy2: What with your background, I think you should comment at that blog. Let’s see if they interact with you as an equal or lesser than. C’mon. I know you can do it. Three cheers for Nancy2! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

A generation ago, the dispensationalists were much the same way. Eschatology and support for Israel became the new gospel.
Why do people focus so much on the distant past (creationism) and the future (eschatology), rather than on what Christianity asks of us in the Here And Now?

I think people focus on the past and the future because they don’t want to deal with reality. But that’s just me.

dee wrote:

SureWhyNot? wrote:

The vast majority of women at Grace saw motherhood as the highest office, as well as gateway to advancing them in women’s ministries. If you had a passion for leadership, being a wife and mother gave you more credibility and leadership potential.

So single and childless women are less credible?

Yes. That was sort of the implication. Like, single childless women might be able to lead an all-female core group, or mentor a new female Christian, but they were not likely (if ever) to lead a women’s conference and such. I guess the thinking is that they lacked the domestic experience to be a Titus 2 female.

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

Why do people focus so much on the distant past (creationism) and the future (eschatology), rather than on what Christianity asks of us in the Here And Now?

I think in both YEC and dispensationalism you have a Gnostic-like understanding of things. In the case of YEC you have your own alternate reality and your own version of “science.” Plus, with YEC you can become an expert in their version of astronomy, geology, biology, etc. in just hours of study! So a lot of YEC followers have a “I know all there is to know” attitude. With dispensationalism you know you are one of the elect because you understand God’s secrets about the future and you have a formula to get hidden meanings out of Bible verses. Maybe you have a sense of control because you already have the future plotted out in great detail on a timeline – all you are missing are some exact dates but your formula for discovering secret dates in the future is getting better all the time.

Darlene wrote:

I cannot believe that I did this but…I decided to go over to Blog and Mablog, Doug Wilson’s blog. Haven’t been there in a long time. The latest article is griping about feminists again. And the comment section is filled with misogynist diatribes that would make John Knox of “The First Blast Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women” fame, tickled with pride.

A friend and I were talking the other day about the tendency of people in our culture to go to extremes. Yes, there are crazy feminists, but that doesn’t mean Christians need to go to the other extreme of being wacko, authoritarian misogynists.

I think our culture is very short on people who act moderately and with prudence. People who listen to other people who have common sense instead of people who act like drama queens. Wilson has never redeemed himself, and I dunno why people follow him. I don’t know what people follow Turk and friends, either. Or the Kardashians for that matter.

There’s something very wrong with our culture that says “Those people are crazy, so I’m going to be as completely crazy opposite as possible.” It’s the wrong answer.

Jacob wrote:

Maybe you have a sense of control

I think this.
And I think this driving need for so much intellectual control is based in deep fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of pain, fear of death, and many other fears.

They delude themselves that they have so much intellectual control. It makes them think they have spiritual control. And all this control releases them from having to have actual faith in Jesus.

AFA eschatology is concerned, here is my take.
Jesus said that He told us these things before they would come to pass so that we may believe. (Have faith and not fear)
He didn’t say that He told us these things so that we can chart and graph it to death and get everything all orderly and in place, have faith in the order we impose on the info, and then feel superior to people without the charts and graphs.

ishy wrote:

I’m pretty sure the wacko, authoritarian misogynists haven’t spent one second considering that they may be causing more crazy liberal feminists.

The Party Can Do No Wrong, Comrades.

MidwesternEasterner wrote:

A generation ago, the dispensationalists were much the same way. Eschatology and support for Israel became the new gospel.

The Gospel According to Hal Lindsay (tick tick tick tick tick…) and Christians For Nuclear War (tick tick tick tick tick…)

Yom Kippur War Rapture Scare, 1973 (“IT’S PROPHESIED! IT’S PROPHESIED! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”)
Comet Kohoutek Rapture Scare, 1974 (“IT’S PROPHESIED! IT’S PROPHESIED! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”)
Rosh Hashanah Rapture Scare, 1975 (“IT’S PROPHESIED! IT’S PROPHESIED! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”)
Jupiter Effect Rapture Scare, 1981 (“IT’S PROPHESIED! IT’S PROPHESIED! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”)
88 Reasons Rapture Scare, 1988 (“IT’S PROPHESIED! IT’S PROPHESIED! SCRIPTURE! SCRIPTURE!”)
…

Max wrote:

mot wrote:

The only way to stop it is to quit feeding it money.

Discerning SBC churches are already bypassing the “Cooperative Program” and supporting missions and missionaries directly.

They are very wise to take this drastic measure.

ishy wrote:

I’m pretty sure the wacko, authoritarian misogynists haven’t spent one second considering that they may be causing more crazy liberal feminists.

Seriously. Never identified as a feminist but if one of these goobers called me one I would say ‘yep’. I honestly thought the people who were talking about patriarchy were making stuff up, because in my regular life people don’t generally talk like this. And then I come here and read this stuff and wow.

R2 wrote:

Overall I find that women are better able to express their emotions directly. Men filter filter them through some kind of excuse or mislabel them.

I’m not sure I really agree about this, but I do like hearing your perspective on it (and SKiJ’s). I think like Lydia said, there are just different ways of expressing the emotion. Thinking of men around me, I think maybe THEY mislabel them or think they’ve filtered them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still expressing them just as loudly as women.

Have you read Brene Brown? She made some points about the different kind of shame triggers (she talks a lot about vulnerability and shame) with men verses women that I thought were interesting. The emotions were the same really, it’s just that the triggers for them were different. A lot of this is about perceived cultural expectations.

SureWhyNot? wrote:

And the single young women, of course, always seemed to do a lot of free-babysitting for the wives in leadership.

Lowborn Handmaids for the Highborn Miladys.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

SureWhyNot? wrote:
And the single young women, of course, always seemed to do a lot of free-babysitting for the wives in leadership.
Lowborn Handmaids for the Highborn Miladys.

I know, right?

Singles are clearly valued in some of these larger churches, but one can see as to why.

ishy wrote:

So, I go over to these people’s half-million dollar house and find out the mom (who only had 1 child) wasn’t even going anywhere, she just wanted someone to help with chores.

I can’t even imagine the gall someone has to have to expect this of a person! I might watch family for free on occasion but not as ‘babysitting’. {All others pay cash.}

ishy wrote:

I wonder how many married people even bother to find out what kind of situation single people are in before expecting them to be maids and babysitters without pay.

If someone would lend me a husband to do free work around the house, I would be happy to watch some kids for a few hours in exchange.

Lea wrote:

ishy wrote:
I wonder how many married people even bother to find out what kind of situation single people are in before expecting them to be maids and babysitters without pay.
/
If someone would lend me a husband to do free work around the house, I would be happy to watch some kids for a few hours in exchange.

Absolutely, bartering would be worth it. And if they really needed help, and were having a really hard time, or had something bad happen like someone in the hospital, absolutely. But just having a free part-time maid when you really could afford one, especially with someone who was financially destitute? No.

She asked me another time, and I turned her down. I don’t remember what reason I gave, but I wasn’t going to be her substitute when I had more than enough on my plate that no one at that church ever helped me with.

ishy wrote:

She asked me another time, and I turned her down. I don’t remember what reason I gave, but I wasn’t going to be her substitute when I had more than enough on my plate that no one at that church ever helped me with.

Givers have to set limits, because takers never do.

mot wrote:

I wonder what the leaders of the SBC would do if the money started drying up rapidly.

What they are doing now is pressuring the state conventions to turn over more and more to the central bureaucracy. The typical Baptist Press headline now is “X State Convention Increases Cooperative Program Allocation to SBC.” They want 50% and more now.

jerome wrote:

mot wrote:

I wonder what the leaders of the SBC would do if the money started drying up rapidly.

What they are doing now is pressuring the state conventions to turn over more and more to the central bureaucracy. The typical Baptist Press headline now is “X State Convention Increases Cooperative Program Allocation to SBC.” They want 50% and more now.

They are desperately trying to get more money, because people are getting wise to what their giving is going.

@ Velour:
What the WHAT? That is a truly bizarre story. How indecent!

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

@ Velour:
What the WHAT? That is a truly bizarre story. How indecent!

The number of married people who’ve said “You must have a lot of free time because you are single” to me is pretty astounding, so I’m not surprised. I do now more than before, but I worked full-time and went to grad school for a number of years. I don’t know what they imagine being single is like, but I’m definitely not partying every weekend.

Suddenly reminds me of an abusive singles ministry I encountered in Atlanta, who tried to recruit me several times with “You should come to our weekend events, because it will keep you from living in sin partying every weekend.”
Who is partying every weekend? I’m in bed by 9 every night. I didn’t party every weekend even when I was in college!

@ jerome:
Yes. They are reversing the polity from bottom up to top down. Problem is the money flows up. Centralization is never good for the peons.

Ken F wrote:

I like the phrase “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

That’s more often than some Calvinista preachers!