“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” – GK Chesterton link
There are times that my head spins. The evangelical complex may seem huge but it is both small and tribal. Everyone is connected to everyone else.
Who is Doug Wilson?
Along with CJ Mahaney, Doug Wilson is a *darling* of The Gospel Coalition. Also, he, like Mahaney, has faced intense criticism for how he has handled sex abuse situations. Wilson rules from his enclave in Moscow. Idaho and, like Sovereign Grace Ministries, is so controversial that his activities like SGM/SGC, have spawned its own watch blog called The Truth About Moscow which is worth the read.
The list of his controversies is extensive and it would take too long to list them in this post. So, here is a link to the posts that we have written about him in our 9 years of blogging. They run the gamut of seemingly implying that slaves were treated well prior to the Civil War to pushing a conspiracy that HIV is not related to AIDS.
In order to understand his recent critique of Boz Tchividjian, one must understand that Wilson has some *different* ideas about pedophiles and marriage. He presided over the marriage of a convicted serial pedophile to a very young woman in his church. We wrote about in The Real Doug Wilson Encouraged & Presided Over the Marriage of Serial Pedophile
Sadly, this couple had a child and the pedophile daddy admitted that he had a sexual attraction to his baby boy which we wrote about here.
This incident was not the only sex abuse situation for which Wilson received widespread criticism. I believe that Wilson has done much to earn the disapproval of fair minded people. He seemingly cannot comprehend why the entire Christian world does not agree with his leadership in these matters.
Wilson went after Tchividjian while trying to butter up Denhollander.
The decision by Wilson to preside over the pedophile marriage caused widespread expressions of dismay which irritated Wilson. TWW, along with Boz Tchividjian and others, called out Wilson’s actions in this matter. I believe it was the criticism that Wilson received which caused him to go after Tchividjian in Rachel Denhollander’s Accomplishment (and Mistake).
Wilson rightly congratulated Denhollander for her role in the Larry Nasser conviction but indulged in a bit of self pity while doing so.
For those who falsely assume that in matters of sexual justice, I have been assigned a role of protecting predators, a role I continue to refuse, with decreasing politeness,
However, he talked down to Denhollander because she views Boz Tchividjian as a respected and independent investigator. Poor thing. She doesn’t understand how brilliant Wilson is. She must not know the whole story and Wilson is going to school her. Sadly, he has met his match. She didn’t put up with the baloney from SGM and I doubt she will find solidarity with Wilson.
He implied that Tchividjian’s critique of Wilson’s actions negates his ability to be a truly independent investigator for anything within the church. Wilson does not seem to recognize that some actions are concerning on a universal level. Does saying that one is shocked and dismayed by the school shooting in Florida negate that person’s ability to render a fair judgement in a trial involving a shooting? If so, there would be few people alive who could sit on such a jury.
He called Tchvidjian an ambulance chaser because he had something to say about Wilson’s actions in the marriage of that pedophile.
A few years back here at Christ Church we spent some time in the limelight over a couple of sex abuse cases, and during that period Boz was every inch an ambulance chaser. In Rachael’s efforts to bring Larry Nassar to justice, she was falsely accused of being an ambulance chaser. It is unfortunate in the extreme that she has made the (serious) mistake of identifying with a genuine ambulance chaser.
He then insulted Tchividjian. Shame on Tchividjian! Not shame on himself for his own actions.
Boz behaved in a foolish, shameful, and very partisan fashion.
Now of course, the Internet is Dodge City in the Wild West and Boz can be a gunslinger if he wants to be. All well and good, free country and all that. I am simply maintaining that he is temperamentally unsuited to the office of sheriff.
Wilson even complimented Denhollander, claiming she noted some valid issues with SGM/SGC which I find rather amusing since I believe that Wilson appeared to downplay the SGM debacle in previous years.
In her critique of the SGC review, she says a couple of noteworthy things. “The firm used poor methodology. They chose not to speak with key witnesses.” And in another place, “He did not even speak with these key witnesses.” Exactly so.
Wilson claims that Boz *disgraced* himself when he critiqued Wilson’s actions. I adamently disagree with Wilson. Tchividjian spoke truth, hard truth, and Wilson wouldn’t listen. Wilson is his own worst enemy.
And incidentally, she mentioned that Boz offered to recuse himself personally from the SGC investigation, were the task assigned to them. But this is no good. When Boz was disgracing himself in our controversy, the organization GRACE as an organization backed him up fully, despite our private appeals. They are not qualified for such a task either.
Doug Wilson, instead, commends himself and recommends MinistrySafe…Why?
Wilson is so smart that he protected his kids from pedophiles by not allowing the kids to go sleepovers. Yet, he felt comfortable presiding over a wedding of a young woman to a convicted serial pedophile. This pedophile also attended his church and would one day become sexually attracted to his own baby boy. So, no sleepovers for the Wilson kids but a convicted serial pedophile getting married in his church is a different story.
Nancy and I were suspicious in all these areas before being suspicious in these ways was cool. We took a dim view of sleepovers and lock-ins, we monitored our kids whereabouts very closely, and I followed the Mike Pence rule for decades before I had ever heard of Mike Pence.
Wilson liked MinistrySafe which spoke to his wee group of churches.
If you look at Sovereign Grace’s statement on all this, you will notice that they have engaged one of these organizations, an outfit called MinistrySafe. A representative of MinistrySafe, Kimberlee Norris, gave a very capable presentation to the Council of the CREC just this last fall. She understands very well how sexual predators get away with their abuses in a church environment.
Do you remember MinistrySafe?
This is the organization which has been asked to review *just* the child safety practices of Highpoint. This has been quite confusing to some of us because we have reason to believe that MinistrySafe is also looking at the Andy Savage situation as well. Oddly, the church said the investigation would be complete by March 1 and there has been dead silence on the matter. Was this due to Larry Cotton;s resignation while claiming that Jules Woodson did experience sex abuse and this should have been reported to the authorities?
MinistrySafe, also based in Fort Worth, was retained separately to assist Highpoint in evaluating in its practices regarding children. Spokeswoman Kimberlee Norris said previously the firm’s mission at Highpoint is to assess and enhance existing child protection protocols.
It is our understanding that MinistrySafe markets themselves to church leadership which we believe makes them beholden to the leaders for their business. So much for independence. I would be interested in finding out how much money MinistrySafe makes on consulting in these matters.
If Doug Wilson feels that MinistrySafe is a great *independent* organization, I would guess that Wilson and *the Kirk* were not challenged in any way. Perhaps Norris gave a nice talk about *preventing child sex abuse* and did not address the rather concerning episodes within Wilson’s own ministry. Of course he would like that and feel quite Kindly towards MiniostrySafe.
I do not think that Wilson is qualified to assess that Norris gave a *very capable presentation* given his history with dealing with sex abuse in his own congregation.
TWW looks forward to MinistrySafe’s report on Highpoint Church.
Doug Wilson seems to blow off questionable situations and makes me wonder what he has overlooked in his own ministry.
This next statement caused me to sit up and take notice. Is Wilson actually downplaying sex abuse? In my former church, the pastors decided to ignore reports of nude games which were being encouraged by a seminary student volunteer. The pastors idiotically called it “locker room” humor. Their pathetic lack of insight resulted in over 13 young teen boys being horrifically molested by the perp who is now serving 13 years in prison.
I have news for Wilson. I don’t know what he means by *grab ass* but that sounds like abuse to me and if someone played it with my kid, they would be reported to the authorities after a bunch of people finished holding back my husband from beating the &%#@ out of the perp.
We also live in a time when it is possible for a well-respected minister with a fine reputation to be forced to step down from his ministry because twenty-five years earlier some junior high kids were playing grabass at a church-sponsored youth camp. And the cabin counselor, barely out of high school himself, dealt with it by means of a brusque and inadequately-trained “knock that off or I’ll tell Smitty.
Doug Wilson also accuses Tchividjian of not respecting evidentiary standards.
This is just plain nonsense. Perhaps I can forgive Wilson who does not have the professional and educational experience of Tchvidjian. Tchividjian is not only a respected law professor but once served as an Assistant State Attorney for Florida’s 7th Judicial Circuit. My guess is that Tchividjian knows quite a bit about rules of evidence-far more than Wilson.
we now live in a time when anyone who wants a careful investigation that is bound by oath to due process and the rules of evidence is himself accused of being a defender of the dark deeds. Boz has actively engaged in furthering that particular form of injustice. He is not a qualified doctor for this disease; he is a carrier of it.
Wilson is just plain put out that decent people do not understand how smart he is. Bless their hearts!
Doug Wilson portrays himself as the godly one who swims against the tide of public opinion to do what is right even if even fellow Christians disagree with him.
Wilson is the one, according to his own counsel, who has a backbone while the rest of us are a bunch of wusses. Read this next statement carefully. He is referring to himself and his decisions, decisions that I find disturbing. In Wilson speak, that means I am weak willed and he is the strong one since he always does the right and proper thing.
And what is the right thing? That really does depend on the circumstances. Sometimes it means calling the cops, even when the people you must report are dear to you. Sometimes it means standing up to online lynch mobs. Sometimes it means insistence on due process and withholding judgment until you know all the facts. Sometimes it means taking a pounding because a sexual predator has professed repentance and wants to attend your church. But in all cases it means that you need to have a backbone that was not carved out of an overripe banana.
I believe that Wilson is flat-out wrong and he is nothing if not self-serving. He proclaims his virtue while attacking a man who exhibits common sense and wisdom- something I see sorely lacking in Wilson’s leadership. My perspective goes well beyond his incomprehensible choices in dealing with sex offenders. Read all our posts and Google his name.You’ll see what I mean.
In the meantime, watch the Highpoint situation carefully. I am not sure I know exactly what MinistrySafe is doing there but I think it is more than just reviewing child safety procedures.
5th?
I love his post script in which he manfully refrains from calling Boz the name he calls him.
3
Dave A A wrote:
I refer, of course, to the Laphroaig Doug must be drinking if he’s thinking this article will have the desired results.
drstevej wrote:
Now 5th for real. I have to be up pretty late to beat you!
second??
If you wish to watch Doug Wilson get his clocked cleaned by a half sober Christopher Hitches may I suggest watching their debates.
@ Dave A A:
ROFL!
Oh man, that’s such an endorsement for “MinistrySafe.” I hope the attorneys are aware that Douglas Wilson protected a couple of confirmed pedophiles (as in sentenced to prison pedophiles) named Steven Sitler and Jamin Wight. Has anyone contacted MinistrySafe to see if they accept Wilson’s endorsement?
And if this isn’t a warning that MinistrySafe is basically a whitewash for churches, this should be a red flag. Seriously, churches, if you contract with MinistrySafe, I’m going to give you the side eye in the worst possible way. Because you’re not actually protecting children from sexual abuse, but protecting yourselves from legal action. That’s not what it’s about!!!
Sprinting into cultish territory, as some many of these guys with dubious track records set up shop wherever they want and are ceded leadership and financing by scores of people.
Professing repentance and being repentant do not necessarily go hand in hand. And allowing a sexual predator to attend your church means letting him groom everyone while he seeks out the next victims.
This is weird. Anything related to Reform/TGC has a hyper-masculine element, in an often complicated way. So what is up with “grab assing”?
Now, I will welcome any males to chime in here. But, grab ass, in my world referred to juvenile homo-erotic atraction/contact. The plausible denial was that it was only a joke, when in fact, those doing it where simply to insecure, or nervous, to be up front.
But, it’s still same sex attraction.
Since when has the wee Kirk gone open and affirming?
“Doug Wilson portrays himself as the godly one who swims against the tide of public opinion to do what is right even if even fellow Christians disagree with him.”
Going against public opinion (let alone opinion of believers) doesn’t necessarily make you right. Even if he was sincere (and I’m not saying he is), being creative in your methods isn’t always a good thing either. The strain of independence can also be destructive.
“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.” – Leviticus 10:1-2
If God prescribed such strict directions on tabernacle practice, how much more so with those who harm children! God as special concern for them.
brian wrote:
I often disagreed with Hitchens but he earned my respect, he is missed. I didn’t know he had even bothered to waste time with Wilson. I’ll have to go and take a look, I can’t help watching a train wreck.
Estelle wrote:
Insightful observation.
About the two men in the post, in this case the coward (DW) is criticizing the stalwart (BT). Couldn’t be more opposite.
In my 20’s and early 30’s I was in a position where I had to listen to a lot of pseudo intellectuals. I learned a lot from them. Whether secular or religious they basically had nothing to say. And it took them hours to say nothing.
Boz responded to DW’s post on Twitter, and it was great:
I wonder what makes him even thinking he’s merely disputing with other Christians.
“Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in Heaven.”
Like I said, this guy is like Abihu, who offered “strange fire” to the Lord. In his foolish idea of “mercy”, he becomes merciless to children. This is “strange fire”.
And when you harm children, you don’t just dispute with the church. It starts with the Lord.
“But whoso shall cause one of these little ones who believe in Me to fall, it were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
If Doug Wilson is mad at you, you must be doing something right. DW is usually so wrong about the important (as well as the not ao important) things that it’s difficult to know where to even begin – the whole setup of how he approaches a problem rarely makes any sense.
But – according to John Piper – Wilson “gets” the gospel. Which only makes all claims by John Piper related to the gospel even more dubious.
Doug is God’s man in Moscow Idaho, just ask him. What a tool.
I know from experience the value of Boz T’s work with sexual abuse survivors and their families.
When I was suffocating under the weight of my child’s revelations of her abuse by a close family friend; my own ignorance of what the right thing to was; the devastation in my other children who loved and trusted the man (he was my son’s best friend from infancy) who abused my child; the criticism, pressure, resistance, and active opposition of people I loved and trusted in my church “family” and a dear friend of 30 years (the perpetrator’s mother); the support of the child molestor and isolation of my child and family by much of our church, Boz was a lighthouse and the answer to hours of sobbed prayers for wisdom.
I had no idea what to do about reporting until I found an interview between Boz and Rachel Held Evans online. Then in the blackest moments of the investigation and prosecution, when I thought it couldn’t get any darker, Boz answered my emails (within a few hours) and brought so much light and so much of the loving, just Spirit of God, I will be forever grateful.
I’m crying as I write this, remembering three years ago when I couldn’t breathe for the stress and sorrow; for the relief that having someone so informed and experienced and God-centered to come along as a Good Samaritan when I and my family had been left on the side of the road by so many people we loved, who did so in the Name of Jesus.
I’m not even going to waste my breath on Wilson, who’s shameful record speaks for itself. Boz T has been a faithful servant to Jeaus.
@ one of the little people:
Jesus*
Will Rachel Denhollander receive Doug Wilson’s accolades as a compliment? Like they’re on the same team?
@ one of the little people:
I am so sorry for what your child, you and your family went through but thank you for sharing how Boz Tchividjian was there for you.
“This is just plain nonsense. Perhaps I can forgive Wilson who does not have the professional and educational experience of Tchvidjian.“
Wilson’s own comments amply demonstrate his lack of qualifications to pastor anything.
Thanks for sharing that @one of the little people. I hope things are improving for you and your family.
“It is our understanding that MinistrySafe markets themselves to church leadership which we believe makes them beholden to the leaders for their business.”
Despite the fact that Doug Wilson is a hypocritical insulated blow hard, I fail to see how GRACE is much different than Ministry Safe. They were paid by Bob Jones U, ABWE, and I don’t know who else. Horrible situations!
My view is all they did was provide them cover to stay in business and were paid, too. Sheesh. If Christian organizations marketing Jesus don’t know that sexual perversion is wrong then why would I believe GRACE is the answer for them?
It might even be different if they were advocating for civil lawsuits for victims or something. But I am not seeing how Justice is done for victims with their investigations and Reports.
Frankly I would rather see these places just go out of business. Why help them continue?
Gus wrote:
Piper’s quote was something about Doug Wilson being right on penal substitutionary atonement, so he gets the gospel. Appearently that’s all it takes for Piper, say you believe what he says he believes.
brian wrote:
A town of about 20,000 that is in the middle of nowhere. Not hard to make yourself feel like a big fish in such a small pond.
I don’t suppose Wilson ever makes any concrete points about Boz Tchvidjian, but instead sticks to name calling as in the excerpts here? I guess you have to go with your strengths.
I don’t think Doug Wilson understands what an ‘ambulance chaser’ is.
Of course there are a lot of things he doesn’t understand so just add it to the list. If he would just stay in his little cult town and no one paid any attention it would be for the best, but why any supposedly ‘respectable’ people promote him so beyond me. It makes them immediately suspicious.
@ Ricco:
Yep. Funny but sad story. When Piper promoted Wilson for a conference, the YRR boys were all jumping on the bandwagon. On one Baptist blog that allowed dissenting opinions, I started asking some of the YRR commenters if they had read Black and Tan or Slavery As It Was by Wilson. They had never heard of either. Point was made clear; if Piper approves, then it’s ok. They never do their own homework. Same thing if Mohler, Dever, Moore, etc promote someone.
Nathan Priddis wrote:
I am so glad you said something. I thought his comment was bizarre but wondered if I missed something.
I just read the article about Wilson presiding over the marriage of a serial pedophile, and found out that marriage was basically arranged by the church leadership. Lord help us!
Thersites wrote:
I found Christopher Hitchens to be fascinating and miss reading his writings.
Wilson’s one of these people who can only be understand if likened to overfed, coddled teenage boy who has never had a date and is living in a big house alone with mommy, who strokes him like a luxurious cat and tells what an underappreciated genius he is. The chubby boy is protected from the harshness of the real world and interactions with true peers, so in perfect ignorance, he comes to believe all that mommy tells him. He is a genius, the smartest, most accomplished, beautiful creature around.
And anyone who calls him to account for his lack of accomplishment, extreme narcissism and delusions is a fool. They’re fools, all of them—they just don’t understand!
Estelle wrote:
I found it very interesting that it was worded that way. It’s almost like he acknowledges the issue without responding to it.
Law Prof wrote:
“…understood…” “…tells HIM…”
You made him sound like a millennial stereotype.
I had to finally look him up… He’s 64. Nevermind. 😀
Leslie wrote:
This is a excellent description of the kind of people who want to seem smart, but actually are not.
I usually say their arguments go in circles. Very annoying!
@ Law Prof:
Great comment.
Robert M wrote:
And Wilson defends it, saying that he had to marry them because they were part of the church. Baloney.
Robert M wrote:
This is all about Tchividjian who expressed his concern, along with a whole lot of people about this sicko marriage.lThen, when the pedophile admitted to sexually feeling for the new baby, there was outrage and rightfully so. Doug Wilson cannot weasel his way out of this and so he does the next best thing. Attack the messenger.
Lydia wrote:
My impression is that ministry safe is more about teaching some basics and evaluating current procedures and telling churches where they can do better. (Not sure if this perception is off). Grace seems to have done more evaluation of a specific issue.
In that context, teaching the basics, ministry safe may be great. That doesn’t mean that any church who uses them will be safe. Doesn’t matter what rules and procedures you set up if you don’t follow them or if you ignore blatant issues that are brought to your attention.
Doug Wilson is a typical example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, that is, according to Wikipedia’s succinct description, “a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusiory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is.”
The dilemma is: how does anyone explain this to Doug Wilson?
@ Lea:
I read the Grace reports that were shared on another blog. It was same thing you stated about ministry safe, imo. I just don’t get the point of it all. It seems so the org can stay in business.
@ Lydia:
I am concerned it’s all going the way of ECFA. Get the seal of approval and perhaps lower insurance.
People who can’t even admit a mistake usually do it because they believe confidence projects truth (and I think he probably does realize the mistake btw. It seems hard not to). And since he’s running a racket… ahem.. I mean “ministry”, perhaps he doesn’t want to risk losing customers.. ahem.. I mean church members. Some people feel good around a strong, self-assured type like that.
@ Law Prof:
LOL – but the reality is sad.
Gary Boswell wrote:
In small words with lots of pictures.
http://www.moscowid.net/2017/08/12/steven-sitler-update-the-house-that-wilson-built/
A Judge, a Pastor, and a Pedophile… and then, of course, there are victims, in the Pastor’s church, sanctioned by the Judge.
Brings to mind “The Keepers”, where predators, clergy, law enforcement, government, business, and the community, all enabled, covered up.
Ken wrote:
“The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time”, by Maria Konnikova https://www.amazon.com/Confidence-Game-Fall-Every-Time/dp/0143109871
@ Burwell:
Lol!
Lydia wrote:
I don’t see the point if it’s only CYA.
If people are actually learning things that might make things measurably safer, that can only be good. But they have to actually *learn* and put into practice what they’ve learned. That seems to be the sticking point.
Ken wrote:
Mercy for the pedophile. Twisted torture for the pedophile’s victims.
Aaaaand Moscow’s Jerk with the Kirk shoots off his mouth yet again….
JYJames wrote:
I can’t shake the idea that those Pastors(TM) with pet pedophiles are closet pedos themselves but too chicken/Respectable to Do The Deed themselves. So they get their rocks off on all the JUICY details of counseling/confession from their pet pedo in yet another example of Porn for the Pious.
Yeah, I got the idea from a therapist character in a South Park episode (Season 4 Episode 16, “The Wacky Molestation Adventure” where the kids falsely accuse their parents to get them taken away), but it sounds plausible enough.
Law Prof wrote:
who attracks other chubby boys and their fawning womenfolk:
“…until the men of the Kirk, are able to stop being what I think of as little more than a boy scout troop where collecting “atta boys” from the scout leader is more meaningful that behaving like adults with gravitas and maturity in Christ their ability to unite as a group and dethrone the dictator is negligible. Indeed, as they limp along now they are the pseudo-religious, cultish equivalent of the Walking Dead – and I don’t mean the human survivors.”
– Rose Huskey http://www.moscowid.net/2016/07/06/nepotism-its-a-papal-tradition/
Gary Boswell wrote:
You can’t. The Dunning-Kruger Effect results in Invincible Ignorance.
As one of the Proverbs was explained to Archie Bunker, “Don’t waste your time arguing with an idiot.”
Lea wrote:
As was explained to me about the Constitution of the USSR and its Third World imitators:
Very high-sounding, very full of People’s Rights and Democratic mechanisms, all of them suspended because of a “strictly temporary state of emergency/siege by the Dark Forces”.
dee wrote:
You did not miss anything. What it means for Wilson, I don’t know. It’s not enough pixels to form a picture. But it was a huge eyebrow raise moment.
I believe that we men can inadvertly drop data points, that if noticed, can be used to reverse engineer our inner self. Possibly,even our whole life and driving force.
It’s why I put so much importance on the Andy Savage -Drive in Date Night webpage. It was a window into Savages mind, twenty years after 1998. It showed an ongoing juvenile sexual fantasy in reminisce. The setting was later high school years, after participants were driving, and out at night.
Wilson? No idea. It’s just a really odd mention of something that very sexual, ans juvenile, in context.
Gothard was a far more complete picture, based on a since removed bio page. I interpreted his whole life was an attempt to live out a juvenile fantasy as the World aged around him.
It was an earlier adolescent setting, specifically tied to organized church youth classes. It involves both inhibited sexual desire, combined with a desire for public admiration.
He goes on to construct a life in which he lives the dream vicariously through a world wide ministry. He ages, the fantasy never does.
Burwell wrote:
http://www.moscowid.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Kirk-Payroll.pdf Request granted on this link: pictures with small words.
Ken wrote:
That makes him a Baby Boomer, and the sins of the Millenials (the Boomers’ “Keeper Kids”) are just an enhanced reflection of their Boomer parents with generational entropy.
Like Amnon with Tamar reflecting David with Bathsheba (Want. Take.).
Law Prof wrote:
IT’S CARTMAN FROM SOUTH PARK!
EXACT SAME DYNAMIC!
Lydia wrote:
“If the Fuehrer says so, Two Plus Two Equals Five.”
— Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
Ken wrote:
Same thing that gives you the Doctor Strangelove types who view global nuclear war as a mere Intellectual Salon Exercise — “Only a three-point-seven gigadeath situation. Insignificant.”
@ JYJames:
Your link adds another layer to @ Headless Unicorn Guy: “All in the Family” reference.
Leslie wrote:
“You don’t need any intellect to be an Intellectual.”
— G.K.Chesterton, one of the Father Brown Mysteries
dee wrote:
If it was just that two people loved each other and wanted to get married, I don’t know that the pastor could really deny them, but this looks like someone wanted the man to get married and found a young woman who wanted to get married so much she was willing to agree to marriage with a man she dated twice. It wouldn’t surprise me if the leadership thought he should get married because that would reduce his temptation toward pedophilia.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Wonder if the Doug Wilson Saga could be produced as a Godfather Saga? On some of the sites, there is reference to the Moscow Mafia. Family network, businesses, protectors, threats, deals, criminal aspect (losing non-profit status, dealings with the Feds), prominence of men, control of women, etc. Virtual murder-for-hire?
Or, as one commenter mentioned, The Walking Dead.
brian wrote:
We talking Epic Hitch Slap country?
Robert M wrote:
Does that work? Marriage prevents pedophilia? Most pedophiles are married with children, and still go after other people’s children while keeping the home front as a guise.
Maybe the Kirk or all of the other higher learning institutions associated, should have done their research.
Adulterers who go after other people’s wives are married, often to a trophy wife. Look at our Dear Leader. Always a 10 wife, yet on the look-out. In a non-partisan way, JFK the same.
If “marriage prevents pedophilia” was their reasoning, they’re just plain stupid. I’m not sure how to be nice about it. I mean, it’s literally on the level of a cro-magnon intellect.
Here I was being nice by calling him a con-man. No! He’s just an idiot.
Ugh. Guys, sorry about that. I shouldn’t be too crass.. even if this is troubling.
Sorry for the triple post too 😛
Robert M wrote:
I think that’s exactly what they thought.
Which shows you as clearly as anything that they have NO IDEA what they are doing.
brian wrote:
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/Wilson.htm
More truth stranger than fiction and Hollywood-style drama.
“For of all slaveholders whom whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders were the worst.” Frederick Douglass
Replace slaveholders with predators.
“We also live in a time when it is possible for a well-respected minister with a fine reputation to be forced to step down from his ministry because twenty-five years earlier some junior high kids were playing grabass at a church-sponsored youth camp. And the cabin counselor, barely out of high school himself, dealt with it by means of a brusque and inadequately-trained “knock that off or I’ll tell Smitty.”
This makes no sense. He’s omitting details and minimizing. For this to be an issue 20 years laters implies a victim coming forward who remembers this as something other than child’s play.
JYJames wrote:
All I know is someone who feels sexual attraction toward toddlers has serious problems. I hope there is help for such people, but it’s possible there is none.
dee wrote:
I don’t think that is the only thing that is bizarre about Mr Wilson.
@ Leslie:
Hi Leslie,
Could you explain your comment further?
Ken wrote:
I don’t know how many times I heard from fundamentalists in college that getting married and having sex solves all your lust problems. I’m sure every single one of them knew it wasn’t true, and yet, they still kept saying it.
Leslie wrote:
Ever noticed that in their writing too?
I have.
Three thousand words (for instance) where three hundred would have done nicely and they still didn’t say a goddang thing.
Muff Potter wrote:
Doug Wilson’s Credenda Agenda was a classic example of that. Arrogant, prideful bloviating. Difficult to read pseudo-intellectual diarrhea of the keyboard from smug, self-satisfied (mostly) men.
Muff Potter wrote:
And then they try to tell you that you were just too stupid to understand them.
Nope. Try again, sport.
Robert M wrote:
So, why does it seem like the clergy leaders cannot figure this out? Oh, maybe you are clergy leadership and you have this figured out, so please accept my apology for cutting a wide swath. Perhaps this is only my perception or uninformed generalization. Maybe only the misguided clergy get the headlines these days. (In the past, only the victim got the headlines, for asking for it, but victims didn’t reveal, to prevent further victimization.)
[Douglas Wilson] doth protest too much, methinks.
Lydia wrote:
The problem with criminal lawsuits is that most of the crimes of rape/sexual assault are past the statue of limitations. Look at what happened with the case against Bill Gothard.
An investigation is pretty much all GRACE can do.
And GRACE was hired by BJU, ABWE, etc (if I remember correctly) because of pressure from outside. BJU fired GRACE because they didn’t like how the investigation didn’t make them look good, but re-hired them because all the flak the school got for that, so those reports at least got done. ABWE did the same thing: fired GRACE because the investigation didn’t make them look good, and that case is closed. It’s all about “reputation” for these people.
The good thing is that with these reports by GRACE, the truth is out. People know what these organizations are really like and, hopefully, one day they will close their doors for good.
ishy wrote:
That’s just Christianese for the secular thang of “Just Get Laid, that’ll solve all your problems” I experienced in my college days.
All too often, “Marriage” is just Christianese for “Getting Laid”; except for the ring and ceremony, the baggage is identical. Especially when you’re male.
JYJames wrote:
A PARODY
“Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell,
And women buy and children sell,
And preach all sinners down to hell,
And sing of heavenly union.
“They’ll bleat and baa, dona like goats,
Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes,
Array their backs in fine black coats,
Then seize their negroes by their throats,
And choke, for heavenly union.
“They’ll church you if you sip a dram,
And damn you if you steal a lamb;
Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam,
Of human rights, and bread and ham;
Kidnapper’s heavenly union.
“They’ll loudly talk of Christ’s reward,
And bind his image with a cord,
And scold, and swing the lash abhorred,
And sell their brother in the Lord
To handcuffed heavenly union.
“They’ll read and sing a sacred song,
And make a prayer both loud and long,
And teach the right and do the wrong,
Hailing the brother, sister throng,
With words of heavenly union.
“We wonder how such saints can sing,
Or praise the Lord upon the wing,
Who roar, and scold, and whip, and sting,
And to their slaves and mammon cling,
In guilty conscience union.
“They’ll raise tobacco, corn, and rye,
And drive, and thieve, and cheat, and lie,
And lay up treasures in the sky,
By making switch and cowskin fly,
In hope of heavenly union.
“They’ll crack old Tony on the skull,
And preach and roar like Bashan bull,
Or braying ass, of mischief full,
Then seize old Jacob by the wool,
And pull for heavenly union.
“A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief,
Who lived on mutton, veal, and beef,
Yet never would afford relief
To needy, sable sons of grief,
Was big with heavenly union.”
— Song from Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Appendix 3
brian wrote:
To be more accurate, delete “‘s man”.
JYJames wrote:
In past days, Marriage was supposed to cure Homosexuality, and sex with a virgin (the younger the better) was supposed to cure various STDs from syphilis to AIDS.
Muff Potter wrote:
My late father used to say the same thing about lawyers:
“Only a lawyer can talk for three hours and say absolutely nothing.”
JYJames wrote:
And Bill Clinton, and a lot of CEOs in the corporate world.
They used to be called “Womanizers”.
@ Christa:
I was thinking civil lawsuits. We simply have different views about the investigation/reports and immediate PR from that. I am always squeamish when the investigators are paid by the ones being investigated.
@ JYJames:
Bingo
Gary Boswell wrote:
I’d say the whole pack of ’em (YRR wannabe ‘intellectual’) suffer from the same delusion, right on up to Al Mohler, Boy Genius. I’ve tried to read some of their stuff, and it is poorly reasoned garbage – unbearable, really. Their mode of argumentation is sophomoric, as in sophomores in high school. That’s really what these clowns remind me of – certain no-nothing blowhards I knew in high school.
There also seems to me more than a bit of fraud going on among these people. But people still give them their money. Come on people, wake up!
I CAN’T with this guy. (Insert meme roasting him like Sodom and Gomorrah.)
It angers me that he has the nerve to “advise” Rachael D. on anything. I feel that he knows her reputation and conduct are above reproach and is trying to use that to his advantage, while slandering Boz T.–and why the !@#$% should anyone listen to him rather than Boz, who is not only a believer but a former special prosecutor of child sex abuse cases??
Also, HUG, your posts are my favorite always.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
That’s no big deal. I can talk for an entire semester and say absolutely nothing.
@ roebuck:
‘know nothing’, not ‘no nothing’.
Lance wrote:
Haha, you will have to wait for my book to be published .There will be plenty of lengthy commentary as my publisher pays by the word. For a succinct version, my original comment stands.
Nathan Priddis wrote:
“I get older; they stay the same age.”
— Movie clip I saw once; a forty-something ehebephile ogling high school girls.
roebuck wrote:
“They have never left High School. They will Never leave High School. And they will NEVER let anyone else leave their High School.”
Dee, thank you for this backgrounder on Doug Wilson, a name I did not know till this week. What a despicable man. Blows my mind that he has any credibility among Christians anywhere.
Interrupting for a moment to bring off-topic but related news of modern SodomGommorah. Unfortunately, we need to be aware of this stuff.
EXCERPT: Republican Dan Donovan of Staten Island, a federal prosecutor for 20 years before his election to the House in 2015, has made it his mission to sound the warning about child sex dolls. “When I saw articles on the issues of child sex dolls abroad, I knew I had to act immediately to stop the proliferation of them within the United States,” Donovan said in an email to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. (They’re already illegal in the United Kingdom and hotly debated in Canada.)
To wit, Donovan has proposed the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act to ban their import and make possession of them illegal. Donovan spent an entire career locking up pedophiles and he says that, “Every case has stayed with me—there is no situation where a child was hurt or victimized that doesn’t leave your thoughts.” And now, as then, he adds: “I will do everything possible to stop crimes against children.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials informed Donovan recently that they’d discovered a child sex doll during a crime bust. Which suggests that more will be en route. “This situation shows that these dolls are being shipped here now. The ability to obtain child sex dolls needs to be stopped immediately.” In the United Kingdom, where the dolls’ possession and production are banned by a law similar to the proposed CREEPER Act, police seized 128 of them last year and found that the vast majority of their owners were in possession of child pornography as well.
SEE:
Congressman: Child Sex Dolls Are Coming—And We’re Not Ready
http://www.weeklystandard.com/congressman-child-sex-dolls-are-comingand-were-not-ready/article/2011945
I saw news of that earlier. More power to him!
I just recently completed training from MinistrySafe – their Camp sexual abuse training specifically. All their trainings cost $10 to go through individually, which I recommend to anyone who wants to know what they are saying. I actually thought it was very well done. Not sure how they’re handling these church situations in particular, but their abuse prevention training was better than others I’ve been through.
(I have not done their church-specific training, so I’d be interested in what that entails. I know in the camp setting, they talk a lot about peer-to-peer sexual abuse, the “grab-ass” that Wilson refers to, and how it is wrong and must be prevented and reported)
roebuck wrote:
Reminds me of politicians who we know are highly intelligent, not because they make convincing arguments, but because people tell us they are highly intelligent.
More about special manly-manliness from our favourite manly-man John Piper: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/sex-abuse-allegations-and-the-egalitarian-myth
Beakerj wrote:
What crumbs of truth he has spread out in that, what really screams out to me is he worships men more than Christ. He’s obsessed.
I was actually listening to this before that. Need to go back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI8usOB_BJ8
Beakerj wrote:
Have any of these idiots ever picked up a history book? Or even their own bible? Patriarchy has never stopped rape or abuse. Anyone with any sense would know that. Just like slavery didn’t protect slaves from abuse. Anytime you give someone power, there will be people abusing it.
“My point in this podcast is that this divine design for men as men to show a special care, protection, and honor to women is essential for good”
Yo, Pipe. All these awesome manly virtue manly men? They’re the ones who women need to be protected *from* too. So. Problem.
And nothing is stopping all these complementarian dears from protecting women, is it? If you see someone abusing, offer to help. Why is it we see the opposite, all the time, even from Piper? Maybe their is reason women can’t trust their system. They live in this happy clappy world where everything always works out the right way, and when it doesn’t they just handwave it.
Lea wrote:
What did Darling David do when his own daughter was raped? Not a dang thing.
Nice protection.
People should just ignore him. Isn’t he pretty much an Arian.. much like that ESV Editor guy? Eternal Subordination of the Son, etc..
You can’t expect anyone who diminishes Christ to ever give others much respect either.
Beakerj wrote:
Oh, my 🙁 So much wrong!
What struck me the most is that he didn’t call out ANY of the abuse situations IN THE CHURCH. He only refers to what he sees in the secular arena. Then he has the gaul to say this:
“It has moved way beyond confusion. It’s a firm conviction of most of our egalitarian culture that men as men do not owe women a special kind of care and protection and honor that women do not owe men. I believe they do. I believe fifty years of denying it is one of the seeds bearing very bad fruit, including all those sexual abuses you talked about in your question. There are others seeds in our culture, but this is one of the seeds.”
He seems to have no clue, that in his complementarian church world, there is as much or MORE abuse than in the egalitarian secular world. He also seems to have no clue that this abuse against women and children was actually far worse and going on from the beginning existence of human beings. It has actually gotten better for women and children in the last 50 years since there are more laws against these abuses. Geese!
John Piper is not a very smart man and I don’t give a fig who disagrees.
Bridget wrote:
This is how Piper himself thinks women ought to be viewing their violent and abusive husbands:
“This legitimate recourse to civil protection may be done in a spirit that does not contradict the spirit of love and submission to her husband, for a wife may take this recourse with a heavy and humble heart that longs for her husband’s repentance and the restoration of his nurturing leadership.”
Just LONGING for that ‘nurturing’ ‘leadership’.
Bridget wrote:
And these laws to safeguard women and children did not come from the complementarian church folks, John Piper.
He seems to take Genesis words as a blessing, rather than a curse. He literally revels in the curse.
He also forgets Christ’s whole purpose was to restore creation.. and there wouldn’t be male or female, Jew or Greek, free or slave.
Perhaps “forget” is being kind. I’m not sure he knew in the first place.
Lea wrote:
He assumes the “nurturing leadership” existed at some point in the relationship. It might never have existed, in which case who will teach him? The wife, who isn’t allowed to teach a man? Ugh!
Seraph wrote:
Piper and Wilson are on the same page with this nonsense.
Nathan Priddis wrote:
In Tim Bayly’s recent Mahaney article, he describes a “rough-hewn” CLC youth pastor’s “manly grab” of his nephew to save him from falling off a jetty. I thought his wording was a bit odd. In fact, I think it was worse originally and he’s edited it. I tried the wayback machine to get the March 8th version but got an error message. Anyone with wayback machine expertise care to give it a try? https://warhornmedia.com/2018/03/07/c-j-maheney-learning-from-our-brothers-mistakes/
@ Beakerj:
Don’t you just want to ask him how all that is going to work out when Noel is changing his depends?
Is it just me or does Piper’s prose seem more appropriate for romance novels than for theology?
@ Lea:
You have made an excellent point. When they have been faced with these situations in their churches they blamed the victims or Promoted and defended guys like Mahaney.
Like Hollywood, these guys, from Russell Moore to Piper, are desperately trying to hijack this issue for personal gain. They are hoping people do not know their history.
Lea wrote:
And what happens when men don’t show a special care, protection, and honor to women? It appears the answer is the women should just hope that the men change. This is the way it always seems to go in authoritarian churches — the upper levels discipline the lower levels, and the lower levels are admonished to “trust God”.
If Piper thinks complementarian men always act with good intentions and wisdom, he is kidding himself.
Lydia wrote:
I agree. Wilson’s asked his own organization, the CREC, to do an investigation of how his Kirk handled their sex abuse cases. Admittedly, this was not a 3rd party, but once the report was completed it did include some constructive criticism of Wilson. His kirk then published the report in an obscure format so as not to show up in web searches, or even allow copy/paste of excerpts. AFAIK Wilson never addressed it anywhere. But one can find it here: http://www.moscowid.net/communion-of-reformed-evangelical-churches-presiding-ministers-report-on-the-sitler-and-wight-sex-abuse-cases/
Other organizations may take such investigations and reports more seriously, but it will always take the form of fine-tuning. The channel you are watching will remain the same. If one re-reads SGC’s response to Rachael, one realizes Satan himself could hardly be more diabolical. So if SGC DOES hire investigators but the author of that article (I suspect it is Mickey Connolly) remains in power, nothing substantial will change.
The only solution is bad PR to the point that pews and offering plates empty out.
Lydia wrote:
Hey, that’s hitting below the belt!
@ Robert M:
Christian Bodice rippers? He is the master of meaningless emotional flowery verbosity. It helps if you only read him and not listen to him —for analysis. He has mastered the whole “passionate cadence” thing in public speaking. He’s like a grand hypnotist who mesmerizes his audience.
@ Pastor John:
Yeah, reality does that to us. 🙂
Robert M wrote:
I’m the inventor of Christian Hedonism, after all…
Lydia wrote:
Tanks for the complement!!!
Lydia wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o
You ever notice how even when the article is about my former TGC compadres Doug and Ceej, the conservation always comes around to— moi?
Oh My! Off now to the river to spy on the young people making out!
Like Jesus turning water into wine at Cana, so does marriage takes on new meaning in the Christian life. As we have become new creations in Christ, so have our practices. You can not look at it with the old eyes of Adam. But the new one.
Jesus would further encourage us to embrace our new nature with celibacy, in fact.. but this is not called for everyone (Matt 19:10-12). Paul also mentioned it (“I wish all were as I am”).
Robert M wrote:
The Great Chain of Being;
Boots stamping on faces all the way down.
And God/Pastor is on top with the biggest boot.
Lydia wrote:
Before I drive off, a quote from the “real” Pastor John…
“”Deep calls to deep” is true of her necklines and his knowing.”
Robert M wrote:
CELEBRITY: Someone who is famous entirely for being famous.
Robert M wrote:
Pray harder!
And Treat him like the leader he is so he will respond that way.
That is typically part of the answer given to women to make her responsible for the abusers behavior. You see if she prays really hard and God doesn’t force him to change his violent ways it’s STILL her fault because she didn’t pray hard enough. But if you really think about it, what guys like piper are saying with that response is that she holds all the power and the man is too much of a weakling to be able to change without her. It’s uncanny.
It’s Adam all over again: It’s the fault of that woman you gave me, God!
@ Pastor John:
Exactly! The guy is a certified fruitcake who took tens of thousands of young men on a long drive to nowhere.
It’s funny that the early church was so eschatological that most of the heresies went the other extreme and revolved around flesh and celibacy. Marcion, the Gnostics, Montanists, neo-Platonism, etc.. Virginity was taught, but these heresies were so adamant about the new creation in Christ that they took it to extremes and castigated flesh and materialism.
Now 2000 years later and the heresies and controversies are in the opposite extreme. Drama revolving around marriage, sexuality, and gender relations. All heresies of the old creation. It’s very strange to me.
@ Nathan Priddis:
“Wilson? No idea. It’s just a really odd mention of something that very sexual, ans juvenile, in context.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
perhaps he’s simply grabbing something catchy-sounding he heard somewhere in an effort to write something catchy-sounding — minus an understanding into the greater context of that catchy-sounding thing he saw floating in his mind.
he’s a good weaver of words — but i don’t think he truly understands what he’s weaving with.
Nathan Priddis wrote:
Long ago I concluded that any Hypermasculine male-supremacist culture is going to have a love/hate relationship with male homoerotica. Because since women are no more than livestock, the only way to Make Love(TM) to another Person is with another male. Yet this requires one of the males to take the (ugh) female position on the bottom getting penetrated by the More Manly Male. The usual workaround is the strong and powerful get to Penetrate/Colonize/Conquer/Plant while the weak and powerless Lie Back and Accept. (Like a prison rape — come to think of it, that attitude describes heavy-duty Rape Culture.)
In a long-ago Web essay, talk-show host Dennis Prager wrote that before ha-Torah, the distinction of sexual acts was not between male and female but between Penetrator and Penetrated in a forced-dominance display. And that the sexual taboos in Leviticus were given to re-focus sex away from that Penetrator-or-Penetrated forced dominance, much as Gene Edward Veith proposed that the taboo against graven images to written Word re-focused away from the all-primate “Monkey See, Monkey Do”.
Both the above tropes also dovetail with a theme done in the better Furry fiction — “Transcending the Animal”. Ha-Torah was given to Transcend the Animal.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Good stuff! So true.
I have no idea why but one day it came to me that all of it reminds me of Ernest Hemingway’s prayer in a “A Clean Well Lighted Place”. I am no fan of Hemingway but it was required reading in college and some things just stick with you.
Robert M wrote:
They have no answer for this, which is why ‘complementarianism’ DOES NOT WORK.
I can’t believe I just read Torah and Furry in the same sentence.
@ Robert M:
“It wouldn’t surprise me if the leadership thought he should get married because that would reduce his temptation toward pedophilia.”
++++++++++++++++++++
yeah, just get a woman-appliance and plug her in. oh, the wonder of kitchen technology, saving time, energy, with better and more accurate results.
sounds like christian culture to me.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I wish I could unread that. Isn’t there a happy medium between soy boy and hyper toxic masculine? Have you met these patriarchal guys like Piper, Moore, Bruce ware, etc. they are tiny. I.mean.tiny. Like buy your clothes in the junior department. If there was a fire, it would be more likely the average 5’10 woman would have to save them. I think they should buy their wives concealed carry for “protection”.
@ Seraph:
Lolololol.
@elastigirl
Not Christian culture 🙁
Maybe in current America (where I am..maybe you too?), but Christian culture itself produced women saints. Women need not be looked down upon in a Christian context. In fact, many are heroes in the great “cloud of witnesses”.
Lea wrote:
I think any system that assumes that all people in it are good actors, always putting other people’s interests ahead of their own, and always act wisely, is a fantasy. I certainly don’t act that way and I doubt anyone else does either, Piper included. I’d go further and say that if everyone always behaved the way complementarianism assumes they do, then complementarianism wouldn’t be needed.
@ Ken:
“If “marriage prevents pedophilia” was their reasoning, they’re just plain stupid. I’m not sure how to be nice about it. I mean, it’s literally on the level of a cro-magnon intellect.”
+++++++++++++++++++++
sounds like christian culture to me.
i think we can dispense with “nice”. “nice” has gotten us into too much trouble already.
Oh btw, I’m “Ken”.. I found that there were too many Kens here. 😉
@elastigirl
Perhaps. I just feel bad if I get too rude. Maybe I’ll just facepalm.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/sex-abuse-allegations-and-the-egalitarian-myth
“Egalitarians define all our relationships by competencies, and I think this suggestion is hurting us.”
Clearly, Mr. Piper, and with all due respect, God has defined competencies (gifts)without regard to male of female. What is, “hurting us,” is complementarians defining “all our relationships” WITHOUT regard to competencies.
Lydia wrote:
That’s why they’re so into Hypermasculinity. In Hypermasculinity, Being Strong and Dominant is the number-one priority and they have a LOT to make up for. Especially when they’re smaller, skinnier, more Effeminate than their Hypermasculine Master Race ideal.
“And sometimes on quiet nights, you can hear his voice far in the distance:
‘I’m not Gay… I’m not Gay… I’m not Gay…’.”
— South Park, don’t remember the episode
And Subordination of Wimmen; because the average WOMAN (never mind a Muscular one) could fold them up and stuff them in a dumpster. To paraphrase a trailer-trash Ku Kluxer of the Fifties, “If I can’t be better than a WOMAN, who do I got to be better than?”
Seraph wrote:
I’m also a Ken.
That’s why I use the handle “Headless Unicorn Guy”.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/sex-abuse-allegations-and-the-egalitarian-myth
“Egalitarians define all our relationships by competencies, and I think this suggestion is hurting us.”
CORRECTION…:)
Clearly, Mr. Piper, and with all due respect, God has defined competencies (gifts) without regard to male OR female. What is, “hurting us,” is complementarians defining “all our relationships” WITHOUT regard to competencies.
Lydia wrote:
Right off a cliff with all of them in the car.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
That’s funny 🙂 I’ve never been around so many of my kind.
“Ken” as you know means “born of fire”. That’s why I’m using Seraph. /cheese
Lydia wrote:
That’s one of my favorite TED Talks on YouTube.
And he WAS actually “saying something”; he was demonstrating all the manipulation tricks used to get a standing ovation and True Believer followers for saying Absolutely Nothing.
Seraph wrote:
It’s like “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, and Bruce” from the Monty Python skit.
“Mind if we call you ‘Bruce’? It’ll avoid confusion.”
(Or the RL “Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, Debbie, and Debbie” from my grade-school days in the Sixties.)
Robert M wrote:
But just putting forth the idea that complementarian men are *supposed* to act this way gives him the justification, or so he seems to think, to insist that women show outward respect to all men, all the time, without exception.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Holy cow, HUG! You nailed it! I’ve been thinking that for some years now, because I saw it with my own eyes.
My father used to claim that he struggled with homosexuality because his own father was abusive and he never felt loved. I don’t think his assessment of himself was correct. He thought men were superior to women, thought women (including his own mother) were stupid, etc. In my opinion, it was his misogyny that caused a struggle in himself, because he couldn’t see women as anything more than objects to use, control, and discard. He couldn’t relate to women on any friendship level. He could only relate to men.
The light bulb for this went on when I was sitting in a sermon given by a guy who majored in history and began to talk about how the ancient Greeks were so misogynist that it was considered “higher” to be with another man than with a woman. It just all clicked for me, right then and there.
Clockwork Angel wrote:
Sort of a superiority-inferiority deal, though. Men are superior, so the women aren’t good enough to be friends. But also jealous of and fearful of, even in their superiority and rule over thought mode, because women, being different, may actually be enviable, and men might come up short, thus there can be male underlying feelings of inferiority.
Robert M wrote:
Good point.
@ Augustine:
Bingo. Back in the wild West days of blogging a certain Bible translator tried to moderate a blog bridging the gap between complementarians and egalitarians. It was something to behold. I remember a female accomplished CPA discussing how she and her sales guy (not great with money) husband lived a comp life with her managing family finances. She asked him! He said ‘yes, please’!
Sigh.
Comp is how to complicate your marriage and micromanage each other in 85 easy steps. (Ht to Grudem)
@ Lea:
““…with a heavy and humble heart that longs for her husband’s repentance and the restoration of his nurturing leadership“–jp
+++++++++++++++++++++++
???? is there a woman alive who is actually wanting let alone needing this?
we’re responsible adults, for mikessake. strong & saavy as wonder woman.
the next time they say “hey, let’s play gender!”, just say “No, i lost interest in role-playing games when i turned 6.”
(but this is old news, isn’t it.)
Lea wrote:
True. And TWW never hand waves abuse, thank God.
elastigirl wrote:
ROFL. But seriously, right on.
@ Seraph:
“Maybe in current America (where I am..maybe you too?), but Christian culture itself produced women saints. Women need not be looked down upon in a Christian context. In fact, many are heroes in the great “cloud of witnesses”.”
+++++++++++++++++
yes, in America. where christian culture is thick as a milkshake, zero visibility into the past or future.
no doubt there are many women heroes of demonstrable strength in christian reality over the ages.
Lydia wrote:
Really? That raises all sorts of interesting possibilities. I wonder if they are self-aware enough to joke about it among themselves? Do they use it somehow to control bigger men?
There are exceptions, I’m sure. How tall is Mahaney? He always struck me as seeming taller than his admirers.
elastigirl wrote:
not gonna work
JYJames wrote:
Sounds like you nailed Piper’s attitude/approach toward women.
@ Pastor John:
“You ever notice how even when the article is about my former TGC compadres Doug and Ceej, the conservation always comes around to— moi?
Oh My! Off now to the river to spy on the young people making out!”
+++++++++++++++++++++++
former compadres? no longer friends and allies? how did they get the gospel wrong? i hadn’t heard.
Age has a way of making some men push their weight around too. I’m 6’5″ and I’ve met old, small guys who still need to project themselves a bit. I don’t get it, but I know size doesn’t seem to factor to them.
Bridget wrote:
Yes. So, Woman, defend thyself – you have the right and obligation to do so. As Tim Fall has said, “My Wife Has a Savior and I’m not Him”. https://timfall.com/2017/12/21/my-wife-has-a-savior-and-im-not-him/
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
It’s a great one, truly!
But I think Piper is more like ‘the emperor has no clothes’. Everyone thinks he wonderful, so they must believe it too.
Or maybe he just says what these guys want to hear. I don’t understand it at all.
There’s been so much silliness in the comp world on Twitter this week that I can’t even wrap my brain around it.
refugee wrote:
If all complementarian men did was act kind towards women and protect those who needed protecting, we really wouldn’t be having a problem. They are welcome to do that.
They are not welcome to tell me I have to follow the ‘leading’ of idiots and abusers, simply because they are male. They are not welcome to direct all aspects of my life to make these men feel better.
Mind your own house, men.
ConnieS wrote:
It’s not even analogous to any of the various high profile cases discussed recently. No one is suing SGM for having leaders that protected people who as kids played “grabass” or as counselors barked at kids for playing grabbass. How is that in any way analogous to sodomoizing young boys or raping toddlers?
Robert M wrote:
You mean all men are good actors and women are not. All women need male leadership to keep their womanly dark side under wrap. Wait, oh yeah, right, women are not people anyway in their system.
Lea wrote:
I’m pretty mystified by it, too. Some of the gushing responses to his dumbest tweets make me worry for the state of humanity.
Clockwork Angel wrote:
JYJames wrote:
This sounds a lot like the stuff I’ve been reading about ‘incels’, if you are familiar with that little group. Women are terrible horrible no good people, or possibly not people at all (and history tells us, dehumanizing any group is a BAD idea), but also at the same time responsible for all the men’s problems.
Funny how the answer to any problem with women seems to involve controlling them, and refusing to allow them to live their own lives.
andrew wrote:
Exactly. He is giving a hand wave to some pretty serious stuff. Though 20 years may have passed, it’s 20 years of anguish for the victim of criminal, not child’s play, activity. Think Sandusky with boys. Weinstein with women. Cosby with aspiring actresses. Savage with youth groupies. Brutal.
[“Youth groupies” because I grew up in a church youth group where we always had seminarian youth pastors and we nightly hung out with them in their church office – glass and open doors. We thought they were super cool. But nothing ever happened, none ever drove a kid home – they would wait ’til your ride showed up. Etc. Yes, the kids hung on these guys but the guys all had their sights on eventually being pastors and were never dumb enough to screw that up. Above reproach meant something. The church, parents, board, pastors, never would have tolerated bad behavior. Checks and balances.]
I looked up incel. I’m celibate.. but no one should be involuntarily celibate. One must do it because God is calling you to it.
Lea wrote:
I would add, Funny how, in some circles, the answer to any problem IN SOCIETY, seems to involve controlling women and refusing them to live their own lives (and stand up for themselves. When a woman stood up for herself and her children at Piper’s church, they famously banned her.)
Lea wrote:
When it gets figured out, hopefully there will be a TED talk so we all can learn. Or, maybe there should be TWW talks. Or, TWW discussions, since TWW is more interactive than top down. Everyone has their say. So thankful for TWW. Learn so much here. Light shines everywhere, and with humor (“Yo, Pipe…”).
The difference between GRACE and MinistrySafe, is that GRACE ACTUALLY investigated BJU and was initially fired by them because they DID call out the crimes of BJU. It was only after EXTREME public pressure did they hire them back. GRACE published a thorough work describing by name those who did wrong. But GRACE can’t force a private institution to take the actions they should. Only WE by applying pressure and stopping the support of disgusting places like BJU will changes be made. Please do more research before thinking that GRACE is ANYTHING like MinistrySafe.Lydia wrote:
“Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too. Together they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining. Equally are they both found in the Church of God; equally at the banquet of God; equally in straits, in persecutions, in refreshments. Neither hides ought from the other; neither shuns the other; neither is troublesome to the other. The sick is visited, the indigent relieved, with freedom. Alms are given without danger of ensuing torment; sacrifices attended without scruple; daily diligence discharged without impediment: there is no stealthy signing, no trembling greeting, no mute benediction. Between the two echo psalms and hymns; and they mutually challenge each other which shall better chant to their Lord. Such things when Christ sees and hears, He joys. To these He sends His own peace. Where two are, there withal is He Himself. Where He is, there the Evil One is not.”
– Terullian, Letter to his wife, 202 AD
You know that sense of awe when you hear letter correspondance in, like, Civil War documentaries? lol.. I think it exists in every age.. as seen above. Just not in ours.
@ Seraph:
It’s not a science but it is startling to read guys really pushing patriarchy/submission then meet them- this female towered over. It’s incongruent, perhaps, to the message of emphatic protection?
Seraph wrote:
This is beautiful, and ancient. Sometimes new and different isn’t better.
@ andrew:
This is the curse of lumping everything in together. Moral equivalency. It harms victims more than we’ll ever know.
Lea wrote:
They all seem to really enjoy controlling other mens’ lives, too. They just don’t admit to it as often. For examples, read their church covenants…
Lea wrote:
Lea, where did this come from? It might be good for a John Piper sign in Louisville.
Clockwork Angel wrote:
This was the most shocking aspect to studying the Greeks. It was considered normal to take a young boy on a military campaign. They literally worshipped the male form. And I’m not really sure how to put this but you know those Greek statues where a certain body part looks extremely diminutive in comparison to the whole? That’s on purpose. It was considered a sign of intellect.
Bridget wrote:
Fifty years ago, you couldn’t rape your wife due to a marital rape exemption here in the USA. This didn’t start to change until the mid-1970s. For the most part, spousal rape exemptions were gone by 1993, but each state is different.
Since this occurred in the last half-century, is this one of the things Piper thinks is bad about growing egalitarianism? Just Wondering.
Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
I think I googled ‘piper’ and abuse or something.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/clarifying-words-on-wife-abuse
Clockwork Angel wrote:
So the Piper et al ideal is to work all day with men in charge as peers while the 9-5 women make coffee, run errands or if they do real work, men get the credit (Mad Men). Then go home to rule over your chattel wife in the household. On the sly, venturing out to bromance, as did NAE Pastor Ted.
Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
Can’t answer for him, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
Lydia wrote:
Yes, children as sex slaves. You can see it depicted in their art and pottery, though people want to pretend it’s not there.
Complementarianism™ is driven forward by a sales pitch, for a better more Godly™ marriage™. Piper is one of the top huckster. He can never go off message, and he always needs to be teaching others how to use recent events to pitch the sale. If you view most everything he says in this light, it clarifies and simplifies your reaction to him, which is really all you need to defend your mind against him. Just put up the “no solicitors” sign on the front door of your mind, it’ll bring peace. Those of us who, after doing that, still have enough energy to do more than play defense, should do what we can to take Piper down from his throne in the minds of the people we know and love. It’s hard work but it’s worth it.
Dave Pittman wrote:
I am a supporter of GRACE because I do believe that they are independent and are not beholden to church leadership.I also believe that MinistrySafe is beholden to church leadership and will do everything in their power to keep church leadership safe from critique. I am hoping MinistrySafe will prove me wrong when the report, long delayed, comes out about Highpoint Church.
Mark wrote:
I don’t really think he’s a huckster. I think he’s bat crazy. But the outcome is the same…
Some of the other New Cals are hucksters, but I think Piper has just lost it.
@ Dave Pittman:
Missed this earlier. I have done research. Again, I don’t care who it is, I am always squeamish when the investigators are paid by those being investigated. And I do think hiring Grace gave them a much needed PR media reprieve. The hiring was much touted. The firing, not so much unless people were still paying specific attention. It’s like anything else— the initial story goes viral but —the follow up doesn’t.
It’s ok if we disagree. I don’t think they are bad people. I would just focus on justice for victims not saving corrupt evil “Christian” institutions. I don’t get that part. Never will. It’s probably because I am a simpleton.
I’m reminded why “Black Panther” has been such a hit.
The men are strong. And the women are strong. And it’s awesome.
@ emr:
i might shave my head, get a spear, and a long red dress. she was inspiring!
@ emr:
yes, both were strong. i love the final scene (if you stay til the credits completely roll up) between the sis’ and a male visitor they are giving refuge to (or so it seems — a teaser for the next film). she is clearly the gracious host, to whom the visitor defers.
(sounds so innocuous putting it into those words, but truly i am not used to seeing women depicted like that. it really struck me with amazement. i left the theater celebrating inside.)
(i mean, i feel so strong and capable — i am so strong and capable, as is every woman i ever known — to see it reflected back in imagery and description is validating beyond words.)
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
This. Yes. A thousand times yes
Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
I can’t speak for John Piper, but in my experience with “Biblical Counseling” in an abusive marriage, maybe it’s possible a man could force and hold his wife down and “rape” her. But I Cor 7!! – it’s just so troubling why a wife would be withholding herself from him.
That was the counselors’ way of putting it. Which wasn’t quite the same language as the abuser.
ishy wrote:
I agree. Bat-poop crazy (Piper) yes, huckster? No.
@ elastigirl
Black Panther is a great film. I loved it! Stan Lee is a master craftsman who recognizes and celebrates the primal strength and power of women.
All smart men do and realize what powerful allies women can be.
The macho mental midgets and idiots? I’ll leave it at that.
Maybe for some men, it’s partly because of their mothers. I know I never had any doubts about the strength of women. My mom grew up on a farm in Thailand, worked harder than most people could know, and had a bunch of older brothers she had to compete it. As a new American, when I was still a baby, she got caught in a crossfire of a robbery and got shot in the neck! She still has the scar to prove it. And don’t get me started on how rough she raised me. lol. I resented it at times, but I appreciate it now.
@ Bridget:
“John Piper is not a very smart man…”
No disagreement with that statement from me.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Aye, it’s nae wonder ah dinnae ken one Ken fae anither!
dee wrote:
The longer it takes, the more suspicious I become as to its contents if it eventually does get published. If it had given a clean bill of health it would jabe alteady been published for everybody to see.
@ Forrest:
*have already*
at least I’m sort of out wrote:
Can you clarify your remarks, please? I’m not sure what you are suggesting here. There are so many legitimate reasons why a wife would not wish to have sex with her husband at any particular time. There are no legitimate reasons why a husnand can demand/force it.
ishy wrote:
My view is he has always been like this going further back than even Christian Hedonism.
Forrest wrote:
Well, I’m not suggesting anything. I’m relaying the counseling I was given in my abusive marriage – that the problem was that as the wife, it was wrong of me to “withhold” for any reason, because, as was clearly taught by Paul, this is a foreign concept to a believer, except for a ***mutual***[SHORT! VERY SHORT!] season of fasting and prayer.
Neither the counselors nor the husband would agree with your last statement, although they would agree that the husband having to demand indicates a clear problem [with the wife, because what kind of believing wife makes her husband demand?]
@ at least I’m sort of out:
Thank you, that helps. That is typical of Biblical (Nouthetic) Counselling. They are clueless as to the truth.
I can see why you all call them Christian Hedonists now. It’s funny that they rail against modern trends, yet they seem to be products of “Sexual Revolution” themselves. Sex solely for pleasure seeking is hardly old fashioned. Did they forget procreation was it’s main purpose? It’s not a thing unto itself. Especially a one sided thing.
Forrest wrote:
Oh my gosh, yes. They are. And they are destroying peoples’ lives.
elastigirl wrote:
I know! Nurturing is a good quality that I think should exist in both parties in an adult relationship. But ‘nurturing leadership’? I don’t need a leader, I’m nearly 50, I’m highly educated, run a team, earn & manage my own finances, live a fully functional adult life. Why do I need a personal leader, rather than a partner?
@ Beakerj:
(well, because it’s a gimmick to get christian men to feel better about going to church by stoking their ego. too many women, not enough men… the men felt outnumbered. had to do something!)
You might be on to something, elastigirl. Makes a lot of sense.
Anyone who thinks the horseplay called grab-ass that takes place among males is something to be reported to authorities as though it were criminal in nature is someone who takes him/herself too seriously, has a sense of his/her moral superiority that is both unrealistic and ugly, is so obsessed with sexual abuse as to look for it where there is none, is utterly lacking a sense of humor, and would be an unpleasant person with whom to keep company.
Here’s hoping this takes off: https://twitter.com/desiringDog
Beakerj wrote:
This is a great find! I don’t have a twitter account but I gave it to my wife she is already following it. As a side note, we have the best dog in the world (but I might be biased because I’m the dog’s favorite).
elastigirl wrote:
My bad– I meant formerly TGC, not formerly buddies. But in this I was mistaken. Unlike Driscoll, MacDonald, Tullian T, Harris, and the Ceej, Who also get the gospel right, Doug is not a former TGC member. Maybe he should join, so he can become one!
Seraph wrote:
I call us that myself. “Unless a man be born again into a Christian Hedonist, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:3 PSV (Piper Slandered Version)
Competing with the ESV now, are ya? 😉
William H. Smith wrote:
Nice intro! You’re not coming across as being particularly pleasant yourself, William.
William H. Smith wrote:
It depends on how one defines it. How do you (you personally) define it?
elastigirl wrote:
Before I forget, did you also notice how the rightful king did not return evil for evil after the fight in which his nemesis was mortally wounded?
But rather, he wanted to try and save his life with the best of their medical technology.
Forrest wrote:
I am always interested in people’s perceptions. So much more interesting that substantive responses.
Ken F (aka Tweed) wrote:
I also have the best dog in the world. Funny that.
Forrest wrote:
William sounds as if he has never lost the grabass game, and can neither imagine nor empathize with the humiliation involved for those who are not “winners.”
@ Muff Potter:
yes, i did. nice to see — but moreso, it makes for much more interesting characters & storyline. i think hollywood is remiss to assume that only select audiences appreciate higher values in lead characters. i think every human can be moved by more intelligent story-telling than mere shock-&-awe shoot-em-up bravado.
Hello again, I stated what I know as factual, because I know it as factual. I used to work with these good ol’ boys professionally. Mark is not my real name because I will always be afraid of lawsuits from these people. I LOVE the discussion here and just wanted to contribute. I suppose in retrospect, though, it may not be helpful for everyone to view things through this lens, and I totally get that. I also agree with the observation that he’s never been that smart (maybe clever for a time) and also that he’s losing control.
@ Mark:
i gather you’ve quite a change of venue, change of mind? What happened?
Muff Potter wrote:
A friend was saying he heard that Black Panther was adapted from a storyline written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I think Lee’s legacy is mixed when it comes to women (sexual harassment complaints against him, for instance). Plus in ASM his female characters tend to be boiled down to ciphers, though some of that has to do with Jerry Conway resenting that Gwen was based on Stan Lee’s wife and seeming too perfect for Parker. And that reminds me how terrible it was the studio got Emma Stone to play Gwen and then they just killed her off because “canon”.
But Black Panther did totally rock. 🙂
I’m kind of surprised how popular it is. I’m an old comic fan, but I can’t bring myself to watch anything these days. Burnout on these comic book films.
Doug Wilson is one of the most despicable preachers out there. I feel for his parishioners.
refugee wrote:
Two words: Man up. (Or, if you prefer, Quit whining.)
WenatcheeTheHatchet wrote:
I’ve heard a lot of good buzz about it.
Superhero movies (especially Marvel’s well-done ones) are a big thing these days because they’re about the only Mythic Heroes we have left, and people need Mythic Heroes.
When I was a kid about 50-60 years ago, we had a lot of mythologized historical figures — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, etc. These have been totally deconstructed, leaving us with only the likes of the Kardashians.
It’s Captain America & Black Panther or Kim Kardashian & Messiah Politician Du Jour.
Change of venue, change of employer, change of basic theology, change of personal ideology, change of church family, change of circle of friends, change of the net amount of adult beverages I consume.
refugee wrote:
i.e. “I SCOOOOOORED MORE THAN YOU! HAW! HAW! HAW!”
Seraph wrote:
Unfortunately it’s possible to go too far in that direction as well, and Christians have a long-standing reputation for doing just that. This may be a case of dueling Communism-begets-Objectivism reactions.
P.S. Both sides seem to forget another important part of relationship: COMPANIONSHIP.
Guess sex really does make people stupid, or at least the total focus upon it does…
Lydia wrote:
Too much chance of “The Fix is In”.
I suspect that many people hear of Wilson presiding in a marriage of a woman to a known sexual offender and their knee-jerk reaction is disgust and indignation. And this is a completely understandable reaction.
However, here is the question: How are ministers of the gospel to respond to depraved sex offenders who have professed faith in Christ who died on that cross to save sinners? My understanding is that Wilson believes that the glory of the gospel is that even such depraved sinners can be forgiven in Christ and therefore welcomed to the Lord’s table and to the fellowship of the church. This doesn’t mean you don’t keep an eye on the sex offender. Of course you do. Make sure he is escorted when on church property. Do not allow him on the leadership team. Do not allow him to be a chaperone on youth group trips. Put out a warning to the congregation. But allow him to attend worship and fellowship meals with an escort.
Then, Wilson was faced with a situation. This guy wanted to get married and he found a woman who was interested in marrying him. What to do? Wilson chose to preside over the ceremony. I don’t think I agree with the decision. But in this, Wilson was thinking (I believe), “How great is the gospel of grace?” Wilson was not condoning or enabling sexual misconduct. He preaches repentance. But when a man demonstrates some kind of half-way repentance and just a small seed of faith in Jesus, Wilson welcomes such sinners to the fellowship and to the Lord’s Table.
In the final analysis, Wilson may still be wrong. I tend to think that he is. I can’t wrap my mind around the justification to preside over such a wedding ceremony. If the sex offender can’t be trusted with children in the congregation, how can he be trusted with his own children? But I can see a logic to Wilson’s thinking, and I don’t think this necessarily makes him an enabler of sexual abuse. Of course, if the sex offender has the slightest slip back into his old ways, he should be immediately reported to the authorities. But given that the gospel is a gospel of grace, I’m not sure that it would be responsible to say as a matter of rigid policy that ministers should never preside over marriages in which either the bride or groom is a convicted sex offender.
Regarding the camp counselor who did not appropriately handle the “grab ass game”: I think that Wilson is saying that if a bunch of kids at camp 25 years ago were doing some game that involved some level of inappropriate flirting or touching and if the poorly trained young counselor failed to do his full duty in response to the situation, this by itself does not permanently disqualify the camp counselor (now middle aged) for Christian ministry or for any kind of job or position that involves working with children. I don’t think Wilson is saying not to worry about anything if you have a sense of alarm. I think he is saying to consider all things in light of all relevant facts – remembering that the first to present his case seems right until another comes forward to question him.
Dan wrote:
I don’t know if anyone is still reading this thread. This is my first time commenting ever anywhere but I just had to speak to the notion of having an escort/minder for a paedophile in a church/children’s ministry situation. These guys are master magicians. Larry Nasar was molesting while the child’s parents were in the room talking with him. This is as much part of the *game*. They don’t mind the minder – they have no problem doing in plain sight. The minder just gives a better ‘cover’ because the escort is there and said escort will deny that anything happened. They were with him and saw nothing, therefore nothing happened! Keep a eye on the sex offender but know you’ll probably miss much.
Jimmy Hilton’s blog has two very recent articles that deal with this aspect, plus some excellent videos worth watching if a little scary.
jimmyhinton.org/not-so-fast-being-in-the-same-room-as-children-doesnt-prevent-abuse-and-heres-why/
Jimmy (Church of Christ minister) with his mother reported his father when a young woman came to him about the what his father had done to her.
And Dan, I wouldn’t give Wilson a pass as having a hard time doing the right thing with a *repentant* paedo from a pastor’s point of view. From what I read (I think on this thread) DW was very protective of his own kids as youngsters. Sitler did some pretty heinous stuff. DW has some other agenda in this whatever that might be, he’s defended himself rather staunchly over the whole Sitler debacle while going to a lot of trouble to make sure that it all happened in the first place (with the help of/along with others). Instead of humbly listening to and learning from Boz T (GRACE), he’s done the ad hominem thing and called him an ambulance chaser. Gracious to the perp but NOT to others