The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. NASA
“#5. Real racist jokes or sexist jokes aren’t funny – not because they’re offensive, but because they’re not true. As soon as a joke is based on an untruth, it’s not funny. – Ricky Gervais
How many of you went to one of those marriage seminars in the 1990s or later in which lots of jokes were told about “How women are” or How men are?” As recently as a few years ago, I was at a Christian event where a husband and wife told lots of supposedly amusing stories that put men and women in boxes of “How we are supposed to be.” It was always something like “Men need respect” and “Women need love.”
I have always felt like an outlier. I want to be loved. Doesn’t everybody? But I also want to be respected. If I’m disrespected, I don’t see how I can feel loved. I have rarely laughed at jokes in these supposed seminars and once got up to “go to the ladies’ room” to cool down.
The Emerson Eggerich fallacy is still making the rounds in the post-evangelical wilderness.
Psychology Today presented an article that questions this premise in Women Need Love and Men Need Respect? by Dr. Shauna Springer. She discusses Emerson Eggerich’s book, Love and Respect. ( I had to giggle that he made sure Dave Ramsey endorsed the book.).
In his original sample of 400 males, 74 percent said that if they were forced to choose, they would prefer feeling alone and unloved rather than feeling disrespected and inadequate (p.49). He collected data on a female sample and found that a comparable majority would rather feel disrespected and inadequate than alone and unloved.
Based on this data, Eggerichs concluded that a wife “needs love just as she needs air to breathe,” and a husband “needs respect just as he needs air to breathe” (p. 37).
…A few pages later, he asserts, “Husbands are made to be respected, want respect, and expect respect. Many wives fail to deliver. The result is that five out of ten marriages land in divorce court”
She then makes an important observation. Eggerich uses the word “esteemed:”
For example, he says that a wife “yearns to be honored, valued and prized as a precious equal” (p. 11) and that wives “fear being a doormat” (p. 53).
He informs his male readers that a wife will feel “esteemed” when “you are proud of her and all that she does,”
She points out that one could easily use the word “respect” in the place of “esteem.” She decided to test her theory that women want to be respected as much as men. Here is what she found.
The first phase of data collection for The Lifestyle Poll was based heavily on a Harvard college graduate sample. In this group of 300 women, 75 percent reported that they would rather feel alone and unloved than disrespected and inadequate.
She admits her sample is biased and should not be applied to all women. I agree with the statement that I would rather be alone and unloved as opposed to being disrespected in my own life.
I’m not saying that all women would prefer to feel alone and unloved any more than I’m saying that all women would prefer to feel disrespected and inadequate. My sample is a highly targeted sample, and I can no more generalize my results to all women than anyone studying a particular group of people.
Many jokes during this time of the 1990s and 2000s centered around these supposed differences between men and women. Frequently, I would say to myself, “I’m not laughing.” As I would look around the room during such seminars or talks, I noticed other women appeared uncomfortable.
Times have changed, and some of our Christian leaders aren’t keeping up with the shifts in sentiments of the Millenials and younger folks. Today I read an interesting article by Jonathan Merrit written in 2021 that speaks to this point. Albert Mohler’s darkest hour:
For more than 30 years, Dr. R. Albert Mohler has been among the best known and most revered leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, and when he chose to run for president of the country’s largest Protestant denomination, he was widely considered the favorite. But at their annual gathering this week, the 17,000 “messengers” in attendance declined to press the denominational laurels upon Mohler’s brow.
…The SBC presidency was expected to be the crowning achievement of this stellar career. But when results were announced, Mohler had come in a distant third behind two lesser-known candidates, failing even to qualify for the runoff.
Merritt then says:
Mohler’s supporters were stunned. I, too, was shocked, but for a different reason: It’s not that Mohler lost, but that he didn’t see it coming.
…The once-towering conservative intellectual, who fancied himself a culture watcher and marketed himself as a culture warrior, utterly failed to discern the “signs of the times”
Dr. Danny Akin’s 2003 antiquated “treatise” on the differences between the sexes.
Times have changed, which leads me to my question. What happens when times change and Christian leaders have written books filled with jokes that today might come across as cringeworthy?
Here is a case in point. Dr. Danny Akin is the President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a contemporary of Dr. Al Mohler. He wrote God on Sex: The Creator’s Ideas about Love, Intimacy, and Marriage. See what you think of this list.
A woman reviewed this book on Amazon and said it well.
I am far older than today’s Millenials, and I find Dr. Akin’s “joke” list disturbing. Frankly, I think most of us were shoehorned into rooms, listening to sexist nonsense that women need love and don’t care about respect. This fits in quite well with the complementarian message. Women need to know their place, and that place doesn’t need to involve being respected. Perhaps this erroneous message contributed to domestic abuse.
In marriage, raising children, and friendships, we must both love and respect one another. I do not see how those can be separated.
Akin’s “just joking around” list disrespects women and needs to be removed from publication. But I’m sure the good old boys will think this is funny. Then again, they don’t get how times have changed.
If you look at many, but not all, of the “typical” stereo types, I am more “feminine, and my wife is more masculine”..
So how does that fit into the “traditional evangelical/fundamentalist” mold? But, then, we all onow I do not fit anyway..
If you don’t fit, neither do I. And my pastors like me so that means you are OK.
“Akin’s “just joking around” list disrespects women and needs to be removed from publication. But I’m sure the good old boys will think this is funny.” (Dee)
It’s not just SBC’s good old boys that Akin is playing to … it’s the young whippersnapper-pastor-wannabes at his seminary. They love old guys who put women in their place and make them submit to the “beauty of complementarity”, while beating them up with crude jokes. I’m sure they laugh their way through chapel sermons when Mr. Akin shows up to perform. These are not the sort of folks Paul had in mind when he taught that older men are to mentor younger men.
My Dad would listen to this demeaning language by a “man of Gawd” and say “He gives me the heebie-jeebies!” I never knew what a heebie-jeebie was, but I think I get them whenever I look/listen to Akin (there’s just something there beyond his trash talk).
These Biblical Christian men, they claim to be followers of Jesus, but the Gospels don’t recorded Jesus’s ever using this kind of demeaning and reductive language about men or women. They claim to follow St. Paul, when St. Paul wrote, “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”
Weird folks.
I haven’t been to those seminars, but I’m old enough to remember when such jokes were commonplace and considered true. They haven’t been funny for a long time.
Man or woman ………..
If you’re married and not concerned much about whether or not your spouse loves you, why should it matter whether anyone does?
If you’re married and not concerned much about whether or not your spouse respects you, why should it matter if anyone does?
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers…” Psalm 1.
These are mockers we’re regarding here.
When we first got married, and nothing was working like all the complementarian marriage advice said it was supposed to, I thought that maybe my husband and I were broken.
So I finally tuned out the advice and figured we could just learn how to make things work for the two of us through good old-fashioned trial and error.
Then at some point I realized that it wasn’t the two of us who were broken. It was the advice.
We are in a much happier place as a couple, now. And as individuals, since neither of us really fit the CBMW stereotypes, anyway.
“Women somehow deteriorate over the night.”
Puh-lease. It’s only because his snoring keeps her awake all night.
From the book description: “Daniel Akin does not write in a vacuum. Having led over 300 marriage seminars across the United States, he is in touch with contemporary distorted perceptions of sex. But the Bible is not silent on this subject.…”
There were warnings about combining preaching with numerical sociology, let alone false dichotomies and rigid combinations. These are always very worldly and manipulative whoever practises them.
Wild Honey,
Instead of disembodied quips where the contrast is the point and not the persons they are alleged to be about, the intention of the YRR / neo cals / fundamentalists is to make them ad hominem.
Preaching got turned into cynical agitating and seizing the media monopoly gave them 100 % rent free space in all our heads.
The “faith” of Akin and his lookalikes is a nasty circus devoted to shocking by poison as pretend showmanship. An ethicless epic in which you and I are the villainous monsters, forever condemned, and he the pointless conqueror.
Laurel and Hardy gone too far. (Wasn’t Mark Twain having a go at the beginnings of this?)
Freudenschade I call it. What a shame your elbow got jogged. What a shame your name wasn’t Dr Danny Akin when you got born.
Entertainment for the powerful.
Have fun with this: https://youtu.be/OpYS_Zw8Od0.
“Many of us have found it to be a wonderful gift from a great God.” Remember when Akin told us how Ashford discovered this truth and finally joined this club. Akin put the book in his hands.
“I think God was having a really good day when he came up with the sex thing; that’s just my own personal opinion. But I think it was one of God’s best days.” Is it like CJ Mahaney writing on humility? The more you speak about it the further you show yourself to be from the topic.
“God smiles and God is happy when he sees a man and a woman come together and enjoy one another in this wonderful relationship.”
He discusses the “radically opposite perspectives” between men and women at minute 7:00. Men are like microwave ovens, and women like crock pots. “Men are creatures of sight. He can heat up in a hurry and it takes him no time at all.” Etc. Etc.
Be sure to listen to the counseling assignment at the 9:30 mark in the video. “Mischievous,” Akin says. And he loves it. “Become a huntress.” By the way, the anecdotal example is so not representative of reality. If we were in a logic class, someone would call that a fallacy.
Akin is ‘playing to his base’ using those demeaning jokes . . . .
there is a point, especially when something is being present from the pulpit, where a listener has to decide to stay or to walk . . . . .
I imagine Akin thinks the jokes will ‘entertain’ them what pays the offering$, in a place where the ‘culture’ has for too long permitted teachings about ‘how to treat men and how to treat women’ differently, according to the ‘complimentarian’ model;
instead of the more biblical ‘either to other’ arrangement in Christian marriages where the DIGNITY of persons is a reflection of God’s image in them, regardless of gender.
Too long the wrong interpretation: ‘your husband shall rule over you’ was not a PRESCRIPTION from God, it was instead God’s mention of part of the ‘curse’ flowing from the Fall in Eden, a curse that at its worst becomes the sin of full-blown misogyny. . . .
John,
What is with Falwell Jr and water? Wishing he had been a “pool” boy? Yachts where one pulls one’s trousers down? His principles for living are weak and watery, you could even say fluid.
Akin then is “bitchy” or “catty”.
Logic is (really) anbout honesty.
Ava Aaronson,
When my second son was little, we were memorizing Psalm 1, and he started out,
“Blessed is the man who walks not on the counters of the wicked,
Nor stands in the way of dinner,
Nor sits in the seat of golfers.”
“I have always felt like an outlier. I want to be loved. Doesn’t everybody? But I also want to be respected. If I’m disrespected, I don’t see how I can feel loved.”
Yes! My husband and I went to a Love and Respect seminar when we were either engaged or recently married (can’t remember exactly) and I had this exact thought- I wouldn’t feel loved if he didn’t respect me. But I too thought I was weird and “unbiblical”, not that the whole premise was screwed up.
Wild Honey,
Chuck the advice if it doesn’t fit you and your spouse.
Why don’t any of these marriage “gurus” ever tell you that? (Wait, I know. Book sales would suffer).
What mystifies me is how cbmw types didn’t ever seem to notice that they were asking people (women in particular) to conform to the image of a gender stereotype rather than Christ. Or that trying to fit every image bearer into a box based on the bits they were born with is incredibly stifling.
I wonder to what extent these stereotypes (such as females as uncontrolled spenders) can have the effect of giving people permission to indulge themselves in ways that all people, regardless of gender, are tempted to. That might have the effect of reinforcing the stereotype, a sort of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy.’
There was an evangelical psychologist who was prominent in recent decades who proposed a simplified ‘hierarchy of needs’: ‘security’ and ‘significance’. One might re-frame these as ‘safety’ and ‘status.’ Eggert seems to assign these two fundamental needs or desires to genders.
Personally, I see the desire for ‘significance’/’status’ as a kind of ‘fear of man’, dependent as it is on ‘what other people think of you.’ It’s nice to have, but not worth living for. Actually, ‘love’ is like that too, IMO. It may be that, ‘under the sun’, ‘happiness’ is best approached obliquely, as a side-effect of other worthwhile endeavors.
Danny Akin:
If you really believe that, why marry at all?
I believe that women are rational creatures, as rational as men, who are sometimes capable of very irrational fears, hopes, and behaviours – just like men.
In six and a half decades of my life I haven’t had to change this “opinion based on observation” once.
If Mr Akin really believes that (and expressing it as a “joke” embedded in a lot of “serious” text to the same effect makes me think that he *does* believe that), then the only reason for marriage (since friendship, companionship, mutual help and understanding, … are out of the question) must be sex.
Who’da thought that the fundamentalists, er, complementarian calvinists, are even more sex-obsessed than the rest of the culture?
Gus,
“If Mr Akin really believes that (and expressing it as a “joke” embedded in a lot of “serious” text to the same effect makes me think that he *does* believe that),”
Right. Rule of thumb: Just make it a “joke” and you have plausible deniability if anyone complains.
“then the only reason for marriage (since friendship, companionship, mutual help and understanding, … are out of the question) must be sex.”
Yep. I don’t know if Akin flat out says this but there are people who do. Heard of Mark Gungor? “Ladies, if he wanted companionship he’d get a golden retriever.” And this is just “how God made men and women.” If you don’t like it you must be a liberal feminist who can’t take a joke.
Dee wrote: “Then again, they don’t get how times have changed.”
Actually, they DO get how times have changed, and that’s the problem for them. They want to go back to some mythical age where (white) men had unquestioned power over all and women came in 2nd place at best (and people of color are viewed even more dismally than that). Their machinations are attempting to stem the tide of “these days” — because increasing equality/opportunity for marginalized groups means that white males lose power. Kristin Du Mez goes into depth on this dynamic in “Jesus and John Wayne.”
Good Ol’ Boys?
I didn’t think religion featured very highly in “The Dukes of Hazzard”.
Was there a conservative evangelical church in the county town?
I have had a look at Eggerichs book but gave up at chapter 3 because I need to watch my blood pressure.
He references Gottman’s original research which he says describes husbands and wives talking about love and respect but he does not indicate Gottman making a gender difference in these things.
He bizarrely references Eph 5:33 and points out that it does not tell the wife to love the husband. This is the weirdest biblical eisegesis I have ever seen. How can anyone reasonably even suggest that wives are not required to love their husbands?!
I’m a bit concerned that I can’t see in the book where Emmerich says he did this research so fear it may be attributed to him wrongly when he may be referring to (and misusing) Gottmans research but like I say I can’t face reading further.
One thing is clear is that the book is not an academic work of research.
Just read the list.
It absolutely sickens me . . .
If you want a real eye-opener about just how sex-obsessed the NeoCals are, take a gander at Mark Driscoll’s book “Real Marriage” … it’s darn near pornographic! They couldn’t keep them in stock at the local “Christian” bookstore when it first came out … the new reformers were lined up to get them.
I’m pretty sure #8 isn’t a joke so much as an old trope. I remember hearing Wilson say it on Home Improvement. Ref: https://tvquot.es/home-improvement/quote/dgrq5187t/
None of the list is even funny, though. It reads like a list ripped off from a 1950s book of jokes you’d get for a quarter in the supermarket checkout line.
Akins has reached the depths of deterioration with this missive … totally depraved as they say in New Calvinism.
That’s probably where Akins picked it up … he’s about that old. He’s a New Calvinist; they never come up with sermons on their own … they “borrow” sermons from others or buy canned material off the internet. His words are sad enough, but the really sad thing is that a great multitude of “men” (NOT) laughed their heads off over his disrespectful words.
A lot of Christians are stuck in the Godly Golden Age of the Nifty Fifties.
(Unless you’re that Kirk in Moscow ID, where it’s the Godly Golden Age of the Antebellum South.)
Both of these fit the axioms of a Grievance Culture, whose only reason for existence is Revenge upon The Other:
1) Once WE were Lords of All Creation, and Everything Was Perfect!
2) Then THEY came and took it all away from us!
3) IT’S PAYBACK TIME! WITH INTEREST!
Akin is an as*. He and so many men leaders truly hate women and were not made in God’s imagine.
Tom Parker,
and believe that women were not created in god’s image like man.
After reading Akin’s list of “observations” – and having a little time to think about it – I am more inclined to believe that he drew his observations from episodes of “The Flintstones” …………. which is probably his favorite tv show.
And Akin should apologize to his student body and to Ashford’s wife.
John,
Ex-wife*
#10. ‘They’ could understand ‘women’, or at least an individual woman since we are not all the same, if they would put aside preconceived notions, open their minds, and actually do some good Listening, on a regular basis!
Not holding my breath…
Oh my good grief!! That this could even be published!
Now I remember why I love the equality I found in churches in the Wesleyan family of theology.
Take what this bozo says and substitute white/black or Hispanic/Navajo and read it. Or millennials/boomers. No one would tolerate it!
So why do we tolerate sexism?
Years ago I was in a few church environments that presented this stuff in various ways (pulpit, class). I never sat through a class, but had others give me material on Eggerich’s book. I never, ever thought any of it was funny. When I heard the “Cheerleading” mandate for wives from the pulpit, that’s when I thought “puh-lease.” It never made sense to me in terms of being consistent with “loving/respecting one another.” Over time the leadership lost credibility with me, to put it nicely… My children, of both genders, were in their early teens at the time. I’m very glad they didn’t “buy into” that crap.
As an antidote to that poison, I find Ellie Wiesel’s quote on friendship comes to mind: “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”
Another Wiesel quote that helps me “place” Eggerich and CBMW complementarian teaching where it belongs is: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Men (and women) who push this teaching (or put up with it) are indifferent, IMO, to a woman’s humanity, and really, also, to a man’s humanity. They are indifferent, IMO, to issues of child abuse and domestic abuse, if indifference is displayed/defined as lack of acknowledgement and lack of meaningful healing movement/action.
Also, regarding status needs: Motives matter, not that we can discern them accurately, but they matter. If someone is pursuing status as duty to create an acceptable, or charming, image (for others). What’s really in that? Substance?
Regarding #8, not that that is the 1st one that boils a lot of response up in me, but regarding change: Is “not changing” an option for anyone? Not “changing” could be worded as stagnation. “Changing” could be worded as deterioration. Direction of change may be an option for both.
Danny Akin, you’re a jerk. (and i’m being polite)
Everything on your list insults women and shames them for who they are, what they do and what they don’t do
while lionizing men and entitling them a pass on character and maturity.
How is it you missed these stereotypes?
“Marriage: she becomes a mommy, with an attendant child for the rest of her life; he gains license to remain 6 years old.”
“Every good idea a man thinks he has paraphrases what the woman just said.”
“When a women gets married it’s only a matter of time until the man announces his horrible, debilitating man-cold wherein he excuses himself from all responsibilities. Meanwhile, she continues on saving the world as Wonder Woman silently enduring excruciating pain every month, let alone head aches, colds, etc.”
.
.
apologies for the stereotypes. I admire the men who comment here.
Tom Parker on Thu Apr 28, 2022 at 11:18 AM said:
i love this comment.
it’s a credential for you in my eyes.
CMT on Thu Apr 28, 2022 at 06:50 AM said:
“I wouldn’t feel loved if he didn’t respect me. But I too thought I was weird and “unbiblical”, not that the whole premise was screwed up.”
++++++++++++
professional christians redefining words for their own convenience strikes again.
as if love and respect occur independently of each other in a soul-partnership relationship.
all Emerson Eggerich did was soothsay gullible christians to buy into male entitlement as godly, and the horrible sin of not pandering to it.
i shake my head at how claiming to follow Jesus promotes such levels of self-centeredness and stupidity, and the brainlessness to go along with it like a twig on a stream.
readingalong,
They can only handle stereotypes that make women sound pathetic. None of them have the skills to actually handle real individual women with brains & abilities. Just embarrassing to read. These are supposed to be the ‘head’ over women because they’re superior?
BeakerN on Thu Apr 28, 2022 at 02:26 PM said:
“These are supposed to be the ‘head’ over women because they’re superior?”
No. Not superior. Simply because they had man parts. No superiority necessary.
Mind boggling!
Depends on which of their heads are doing the thinking.
Translated from their Christianese:
“I KNOW I’M RIGHT —
I HAVE A DICK!”
But it does make sense if you never grew out of High School.
“I WAS A FOOTBALL STAR IN HIGH SCHOOL. ONCE I SCORED THREE TOUCHDOWNS IN ONE GAME!”
— Forty-something loser from Married with Children
“They have never left High School. They will never leave High School. And they will never ever let the rest of use leave their High School.”
— some political blog (The Anchoress?) circa 2007 or 2008
I think some of these guys didn’t like their mamas telling them what to do and take it out on their wives. The NeoCal “beauty of complementarity” is just what they were looking for … it puts women into bondage.
Cynthia W.,
ROFL!!!
How can you apologize when You Can Do No Wrong?
Cut out the middleman. Good deal.
Lots of middlemen running around in churchianity. $$$. Lucrative. They don’t do middlemanning for free.
The book of Hebrews is all about NO MORE MIDDLEMEN IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. Jesus once and for all ended the middleman deal.
Wild Honey,
Amen. 🙂
Cynthia W.,
Where can I sign up for his Bible study class? 🙂
Quote from the OP about the data:
“The first phase of data collection for The Lifestyle Poll was based heavily on a Harvard college graduate sample. In this group of 300 women, 75 percent reported that they would rather feel alone and unloved than disrespected and inadequate.”
Harvard graduates are humans just like everyone else. Still, chances are that they have some resources and access. Given a choice between an abusive relationship and no relationship, they might prefer to live alone, wherever they want, and support themselves.
Somehow I don’t think this is what Dr. Akins had in mind, though.
As Kenneth Copeland shouted angrily from a pulpit one time: “Repent?! Repent of what?!!”
I’m old enough to remember the Christian book on marriage “Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti.”
Though I wish it was merely a spoof of the whole Mars/ Venus movement, memory informs me it was written as a serious guide.
CMT,
Two things about that book told me he doesn’t understand women as well as he claims to. First, every list at the end of his chapters where he said (something to the effect of) “Wives, you’ll feel unloved if your husband does such-and-such” left me confusedly telling my husband, “If you did this, I’d feel disrespected, not unloved.” Then there was that chapter where Eggerichs said that women don’t understand what it is to have a sex drive (or some such). And I did an eye roll and another “puh-lease.”
Ella,
Thoughtful. Thx for Ellie Weisel quotes.
Pathetic, isn’t it?
Regarding the trash-talking “leaders “:
“…nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure.” From Titus 1.15.
For some, trashing-talking about women is the sign of a real manly man.
Wild Honey,
… more middleman muck, but you figured that out.
I’m old enough to remember when Hollywood comedians would trash-talk about their wives for entertainment purposes, and a “good laugh ” at their wife’s expense.
Wild Honey wrote:
“Women somehow deteriorate over the night.”
Puh-lease. It’s only because his snoring keeps her awake all night.
Not yet another joke about men snoring. Puh-lease! My wife’s snoring keeps me awake at night and I have yet to ever hear myself snoring. 🙂
Friend,
He’s a geologist now.
Cynthia W.,
Excellent.
Wild Honey,
I’ve heard that book has a terrible view of sex. In retrospect I’m glad I never actually read it for the seminar we went to (which is unusual for me, most of the time I’m the person who has read the whole book before the start of the first class). I’d roll my eyes at it now too, but back then, as a early 20something who didn’t know any better, I’m not sure. It might have really messed with my head.
Another verse Mr. Akin ‘should’ know:
“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)
Akin’s words are definitely not edifying to female believers, nor do they minister grace to them. A grace-this & grace-that boy should know better. The New Calvinists, as a group, would not be accused of being pure of heart … taking over churches by stealth and deception, ruling with an iron fist, subordinate treatment of women, planting aberrant belief and practice among God’s children, and diminishing the precious name of Jesus are not pure acts of love.
Ava Aaronson on Fri Apr 29, 2022 at 01:10 AM said:
“For some, trashing-talking about women is the sign of a real manly man.”
They’re about as manly as Beavis and Butthead.
Ava–Yes and Amen! Thank you for reminding us of this simple truth. We need no middlemen. We have a Great High Priest, and we all serve as his priests. All believers. Every last one of us.
This misogynistic hot garbage fits right in with the false masculinity BS that really took off in the early 2000s. That’s when John Eldredge’s book “Wild at Heart” was read more than the Bible and Mark Driscoll was the preeminent “man’s man” for all of us to idolize. I was then in my early 20s and sought counsel from an older guy (Henry – real name) in our evangelical community who a lot of younger guys looked up to as a sort of “manhood” guru. I was quite vulnerable with Henry and described some of the deep emotional and relational issues I was experiencing. Instead of sympathizing or asking deeper questions, he decided the best approach would be to inflict a spiritually abusive “object lesson” on me. He started shoving me and pushing me all around in his backyard while telling me to stop him. He eventually raised his voice, yelling at me to make him stop as the shoving became more aggressive. He concluded by telling me that my path to healing was to go to a weekend retreat with him hosted by the Mankind Project. This is a secular organization (I later learned) that many embraces of evangelical false masculinity glommed onto. Thankfully, I was too creeped out by Henry’s antics and I never went to the retreat or followed up with Henry. I later learned of multiple lawsuits against MKP. There are stories about very abusive “rituals” at their retreats involving men verbally ripping into each other and community naked “warrior” training. Maybe if Henry actually had a human level of empathy, he would have helped me realize that childhood sexual abuse and other trauma was behind a lot of the distress I felt, and that real professional help is what I needed. But there was no time for that inconvenience when there was false masculinity to promote.
Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a part!
When the New Calvinists took over SBC, they diminished long-standing Baptist doctrines of “soul competency” and “priesthood of the believer.” They don’t want you to know that you don’t really need them! They erected a wall between clergy and laity, while the Kingdom of God does not. When you realize who you are in Christ, you have no patience with an authoritarian patriarchy … that church model just doesn’t belong in the Kingdom of Heaven in the here and now.
Eldredge and Driscoll inflicted a lot of damage on the Body of Christ. Their macho-man Jesus is not the Biblical Christ at all. While both of these guys have faded into the background, their legacy remains across America in New Calvinist pulpits. We read all about these bad-boys on a weekly basis on TWW and elsewhere.
Andy,
Oh, I am so sorry you experienced that. Good for you, for not getting more deeply involved in such an abusive scheme.
Andy on Fri Apr 29, 2022 at 01:13 PM said:
I’m so sorry.
Was there ever any kind of accountability for Henry?
How are you? You have all my hope and faith for deep peace.
Thx, Max.
Following a couple of stories of bad boys:
– the quaint small town, Chippewa Falls, case of what happened to Lily Peters.
– the Hwang dude who bankrolled RZ, now with Federal charges of financial malfeasance. Hwang spent big bucks defending “Christian” criminal RZ against CSA victim Lori Anne. The long road to justice.
Ava Aaronson,
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that by the power of the Holy Spirit you will abound in hope and overflow with confidence in His promises” (Romans 15:13 AMP)
For some reason, I thought you needed to hear that tonight, Ava. Have a great weekend!
Proffy,
Get her tested for sleep apnea. Seriously. Made a night-and-day difference for my dad in terms of his energy levels and mood. Made a difference for my husband, too, but not as dramatically. And, as you point out, women can have it, too.
PS – Not a joke. I didn’t sleep the first two weeks of marriage because of my new husband’s snoring. My mom had resorted to sleeping in the spare bedroom while waiting for my dad’s c-pap to arrive, his had gotten so bad. And a friend slept on the couch when she got desperate, because her husband knew he had sleep apnea (and the often-but-not-always-accompanying snoring) but “didn’t want to depend on a machine,” the immature man-child. (Says the woman who would love not to have to depend on eyeglasses, but enjoys being able to see well enough to drive myself places and see my children’s faces.)
elastigirl on Fri Apr 29, 2022 at 08:35 PM said:
“Was there ever any kind of accountability for Henry?”
Probably not.
The Henrys of this world are skilled at evading accountability until Karma and her sister Comeuppance finally catch up with hem.
This reminds me of the chapter of faults every fourth Sunday afternoon in one of my portfolio of colourful movements where your theme has to be “how you cause me suffering which is oh so good for my conversion because God (i.e the animators who organise this) must think I’m too stupid to deserve any better”.
Pastors who get tricked into allowing this to take root are told, “what a shame your elbow got jogged”.
As for “do you dare strip off in front of each other” those were around in the 1980s.
Indeed it is of a piece with the culture of “do you dare breach a boy’s boundaries and be considered for higher office” that has been endemic in the sort of schools that Richard Dawkins and others had to go to, since before the 1980s.
I believe there waa a book titled Jesus and John Wayne that covers that very subject. And its repurcussions and echoes throughout Christianese society.
Sounds like Eggerichs is channeling the Victorian ideal wifehood of “The Angel in the House”.
(Which was also the justification for Respectable Victorian Men to keep mistresses and frequent prostitutes.)
“HEY, BEAVIS! HE SCOOOOORED! HEH-HUH! HEH-HUH! HEH-HUH!”
It is so hard to imagine the Lord Jesus speaking this way about women. Dr. Akin is a poor model of Christlikeness for his seminarians. If he so publicly disdains his own wife in this way (or where does he come up with these ideas – is he not telling on his own marriage?) he sanctions all those husbands to do the same to their wives. This is not the love of Jesus, and certainly not the way Christ loves the Church. Imagine Christ mocking His own Body, the Church, in this way.