The Marketing of Manhood: Resolution for Men, Men of Honor, and Courageous Store in a Box

“WEAK MEN WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK.”
The Resolution for Men (Copyright 2011 Kendrick Bros. LLC)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Resolution-Print-Courageous-10/dp/B005JRWS40

The Resolution for Men

Manhood is definitely in vogue in certain Christian circles, as evidenced by the success of Courageous (the movie) and all of the accompanying books and paraphernalia. Perhaps we have the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and John Piper (God made Christianity to have a ‘masculine’ feel), among others, to thank.

Here is another “courageous” congregation which has held a Resolution for Men ceremony and posted it on YouTube. Do we detect a trend?

Imagine how many Resolution Ceremonies have been planned for this Father’s Day weekend. Hopefully, these posts have enlightened you, our dear readers, and helped you decide in advance whether you will sign one of these Resolutions. We believe in full disclosure and rational decision-making, not emotional reactions.

It will be interesting to observe in the years to come whether this movement truly makes a difference in marriages. Perhaps it will be as successful as The Prayer of Jabez and The Purpose-Driven Life. I got suckered into the Jabez phenomenon and have three volumes to unload – The Prayer of Jabez, The Prayer of Jabez Devotional, and Secrets of the Vine. I am considering auctioning off this life-changing set here at TWW with the opening bid being set at 25 cents. Any takers? I can’t help but wonder if Courageous and these Resolution books will be perceived similarly in the years to come. Only time will tell…

Another way the Courageous movie is being promoted is through licensed screenings at churches. Apparently, Provident Films has authorized thousands of churches to show COURAGEOUS in their facilities. Some of these churches have been screening the film on weekends leading up to Father’s Day, supported by special sermons and Sunday School classes that utilize the ministry resources developed to go with the film.

And if that’s not enough promotion of Biblical Manhood, tomorrow evening – June 15 – at 7:00 p.m. (Eastern Time), there will be a Men of Honor Live Simulcast from Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, featuring COURAGEOUS creators, actors, and special guests. This event is being sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources. Church groups and individuals can be a part of this manly event for just $5 per venue – private homes or church auditoriums. To learn more, go to LifeWay / Men of Honor.

The Men of Honor Simulcast features Michael Catt, senior pastor of Sherwood Church and executive producer of Courageous; Stephen Kendrick, co-writer and producer of the film; and Alex Kendrick, COURAGEOUS co-writer and director. Ed Litton, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama will be providing the praise and worship music, and there will be a round table discussion with actors from the movie – Robert Amaya (Javier), Ken Bevel (Nathan), Kevin Downes (Shane) and Daniel Simmons (William Barrett).

LifeWay is generously offering something called Courageous Store in a Box which churches may want to order to promote this movement. According to the LifeWay website, here’s how it works:

1. Choose the COURAGEOUS items you’d like to purchase to sell at your church.
2. We’ll pick up your Store in a Box and send it to your church with free shipping.
3. Set up display tables and sell products before and after your movie event(s).
4. Return any unsold merchandise (that’s still in good, salable condition).
5. Your church gets a 15 percent incentive credit on all sales.

It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN (for LifeWay, churches, and the Courageous team)!

Courageous Store in a Box sounds something like a distributorship program operated by Michael and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy Ministries. They have something called Business-in-a-Box. The similarity is interesting…

“Honor Begins at Home” is the motto of Courageous, and it will be interesting to observe whether honor is indeed what results from this incredible marketing strategy. We assume the Courageous team is already strategizing about its 5th film, and we can’t help but wonder what kind of slick marketing will be implemented in a couple of years when it is released.

In conclusion, we are left wondering who is truly being glorified in this endeavor.

To all the DADS and GRANDPAS out there, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! You are valued here at TWW!

Lydia’s Corner:
Daniel 9:1-11:1 1 John 2:18-3:6 Psalm 121:1-8 Proverbs 28:27-28

Comments

The Marketing of Manhood: Resolution for Men, Men of Honor, and Courageous Store in a Box — 107 Comments

  1. The quote you used re. “weak” men says a lot… and none of it’s good!

    The bottom line surely is $$$$$$$$$$, though.

  2. When I learned about the Courageous Store in a Box, the first thing I thought of was the distributorship program offered by Michael and Debbie Pearl, which we have previously discussed – The Pearls’ Profit-Sharing Program

    Here is how it works, as explained on the No Greater Joy website:

    Business-in-a-Box Distributorship Program

    Dee,

    I just read through the Pearls’ Profiting-Sharing Program post, and I couldn’t stop laughing! My younger daughter just asked me “What’s so funny?”

  3. And only insecure men would respond to such an obvious marketing tactic

    I would love for this to fall flat on its face, but given recent trends, my guess is it’ll be a big hit.

  4. I also have a copy of The Purpose Driven Life and the Prayer of Jabez. May I add them to your lot to be auctioned off?
    I have long thought it strange how folks (myself included) can get sucked into these sorts of things. When did the Bible become not enough? When someone realized there was money to be made.

  5. Craig,

    Thanks for sharing that link! I have scanned the IMonk article and can hardly wait to read it in depth. I also looked through the comments and saw some familiar names – Eagle and HUG, among others.

  6. The problem these people have with the Bible is that it is susceptible to being understood differently than they want us to understand it. So they replace it with things that show what they want the Bible to mean. They want to replace the Holy Spirit as the interpreter of the Bible message.

  7. AlaskaAnna,

    Part of the reason we get sucked in so easily is because these things are very, very cleverly marketed…often for free from the pulpits and Sunday school rooms of your local church. They all just “seem so right” at the time and later we wonder what we were thinking and what all the fuss was. One of the things I find truly ironic is that I have picked up far more spiritual insights from great “secular” works of art, music and literature than I ever have from the latest and greatest new Christian trends. Authors and artists who speak honestly into the human condition will inevitably enrich your understanding of why the Good News is truly good news. I find too often that what lines the shelves of Christian bookstores paints a picture of a “Jesus-in-a-box” or else a Jesus whose humanity (and love for humanity) is completely absent. So I am thankful for Buechner, for Dickens, for Tolkien, for Frost, for Whitman, for Shakespeare, and for so many others who have enriched my understanding of the Gospel.

  8. @ Craig:

    I couldn’t agree more. Similarly, deepest communication and understanding come through poetry and art.

    Sometimes I wonder if all that’s left for christian speakers to talk about is recycled information — recycling their own information time and again, when not recycling that of their peers. The air is very stale.

    Something wants to happen. I can feel it. A new paradigm altogether.

  9. What Arce said above.

    I think another key is that as Christians in America we are looking for someone to take the blame for our failings. The blame game has become the new American way of life. Pastors love these things. If things don’t work out they simply claim that the individual did not fully follow whatever plan, purpose, or prayer that they were promoting.

    As a pastor it is very, very difficult to wean folks off of this mentality. They want it. As long as someone is saying things they somewhat agree with they are willing to put the responsibility for their behavior on that person. It’s late, I’m up, and I’m bored, so here it goes.

    As a youth pastor I began to realize that many of my kids looked at me like I was their dad. Sounds good? Wrong. What this meant was that they listened to me until they wanted something more than they wanted to listen to me and then they chose what they wanted. In other words they respected me until they thought they knew better than I did, much like my teenage daughter. I began to see then that my focus needed to be on overall principles of life, not the stringent guidelines these folks propose, due to the fact that principles will direct when guidelines can simply annoy. This means though, that we have to allow for the fact that they may disagree with us, and do things that don’t fall under our control. The key word in that entire paragraph was control.

  10. At least six of these resolutions would have been inapplicable to the Great Apostle Paul who was a single man.

    Surprised nobody has mentioned the Promise Keepers nonsense.

  11. @ David C:David C – it’s all over the previous post “Courage and The Resolution for men”. Try Ctrl + F with the word promise if you want to get to the comments quick. I think there may be a future post by Dee coming?

    Anecdotally, I’ve heard of issues with male group confession of marriage issues that broke confidences and should have been kept within the marriage. Am I on track or am I confusing it with something else?

    I’ve been thinking on this whole Courageous thing today after watching “Stevie” on the ABC here (yes we’re 10 years behind the USA with our TV) – down at the Illinois farm. Not sure if you can view it o/s. http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/23004
    or some blurb
    http://blogs.abc.net.au/abc_tv/2012/06/sunday-best-stevie-where-are-they-now.html
    For someone like Stevie, perhaps something like Promise Keepers and ‘Courageous’ might fill a need. I don’t know. The documentary also depicts how the pentecostals accepted and included and baptised him. To what result? Hard to tell as he’s back in jail for breaching bail.

    For others not like Stevie though, I wonder about these ‘movements’ and in particular how they may feed those with a patriarchal bent already.

  12. @ Craig:

    I completely agree!

    This quote from N.T. Wright sums it up for me:
    ‘It might be much more appropriate to go off and write a novel (and not a ‘Christian’ novel where half the characters are Christians and all the other half become Christians on the last page) but a novel which grips people with the structure of Christian thought, and with Christian motivation set deep into the heart and structure of the narrative, so that people would read that and resonate with it and realize that that story can be my story.’

  13. Eagle, you’ll have to tell me how you put the emoticons in your text. I have no idea, and accidentally put one in the text above by tapping on who knows what on my keyboard.

  14. Deb, thanks for the reference guide which I will faithfully use now. But, argh, you’re driving me nuts ! How DID you do the smiley ??? I can type over 100 wpm and can’t insert emoticons ! (well not deliberately anyhow)

  15. Haitch,

    It is so easy!!!

    Here are a few – leave out the spacing between the characters which I have done below and the emoticons will appear. 😀

    Smiley face : – ) or : ) 🙂

    Frown : – ( 🙁

    Smiley wearing glasses 8 – ) 😎

  16. One of the quotes from Luci Shaw in Breath for the Bones…
    “But truth isn’t always pleasant. Christians who practice art must not always feel bound to produce sweetness and light. We have to recognize the darkness and shadow as well as the light, and realize that God is not dark and evil, but he embodies mystery. Sometimes God withdraws and leaves us in the dark — and we can learn to view it as an instructive and salutary phase of life. It’s not pleasant, but we discover things in the dark that we couldn’t find in the light.”

  17. I find I inclined to stay away from most of the stuff in the Christian bookstore and instead go for some of the older more eclectic Christian titles from our local used bookstore, which is owned by Christians and has an amazing selection of theology titles. I actually heard of Breath for the Bones from Ann Kroeker at http://www.annkroeker.com and ordered it from CBD. Other recent good reads (currently still working through them) are The Cure by John Lynch (et al) which is about grace vs. legalism and was given to me by my counselor, and Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel.

  18. AlaskAnna
    Does your price including shipping from the interior of Alaska? Are you enjoying the warmer weather? How are the goats? Alaska is the most breathtakingly beautiful place on earth!

  19. Craig

    Amen to your comment of 10:59. But, I will admit to being a fan of Ted Dekker as well as some other Christian authors. But none of them are the Ed Young Jr’s of the world.

  20. “The problem these people have with the Bible is that it is susceptible to being understood differently than they want us to understand it. So they replace it with things that show what they want the Bible to mean. They want to replace the Holy Spirit as the interpreter of the Bible message.”

    Yikes is that accurate!

  21. That is rather curious. It sure seems like they’re doing an awful lot of promoting. Are they motivated by a desire to spread their idea of manhood and what it means to be a man? Or is this really about promoting the film for money? I would be interested if someone called them out on it, what they would say.

  22. I wonder if John Eldridge (the “Wild at Heart” guy) is worried about this cutting into his business.

    Oops, did I just mention another (recently) bygone Christian fad?

  23. @ Virginia Knowles:

    yeah….. very kool…. this is resonating. i feel like a guitar whose strings have just been strummed on a provocative chord.

    Makes me think of “negative space”, and how in art and music it serves to emphasize the main point.

    ****
    “Negative space can be used to depict a subject in a chosen medium by showing everything around the subject but not the subject itself. Usage of negative space will produce a silhouette of the subject… Most often, though, negative space is used as a neutral or contrasting background to draw attention to the main subject which is then referred to as the positive space.

    The use of equal negative space, as a balance to positive space, in a composition is considered by many as good design. This basic and often overlooked principle of design gives the eye a “place to rest,” increasing the appeal of a composition through subtle means. The term is also used by musicians to indicate silence within a piece.”
    ****

    As this concept relates to writing, art, and music (& communicating a truth by it), nothing is more boring than “sweetness and light” (as well as literal language / imagery). It’s the negative, darker, complex, menacing, even ugly and painful content that gives deeper meaning to the positive, life-giving beauty of something.

    Religion (in the sense of religiousness) ruins art. “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Phil 4:8) has not been good for art. Wonderful verse, but myopic embrace of it compromises art.

    Is anyone tracking with me, or am I off on some private island of introspection? I’d enjoy feedback.

  24. Been involved with lots of fads from “Christian-dumb.” Oy Vey!!! 🙁
    Tried lots of stuff to get me “Closer to God.” Books, Conferences, All night prayer meetings,
    Wake an hour earlier each day “To Pray One Hour.” Giving more, Praying more. Reading more.

    Lots and lots of “I Will” – But – Praise God – The Proud “I” failed at every one of them… 😉

    Jesus warned us about “The Traditions of Men” that make “Void” The Word of God. Mark 7:13.
    But, being a dumb sheep I kept going back to “mere fallible humans” to show me the way.

    Seems I had to become so discouraged, so burnt out, trusting a “mere fallible humans” wisdom
    before I desired, to “Hear His Voice,” be “led” by the Spirt, and have Jesus teach me His truth.

    Why isn’t Jesus good enough?

    Jn 10:27, Jn 6:45, Deut 4:36, Psa 32:8, Jn 14:26, Jn 16:13, 1 Jn 2:20, 1 Jn 2:26-27,

    And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:
    them also I must bring, and they shall **hear MY voice;**
    and there shall be “ONE” fold, and “ONE” shepherd.
    John 10:16

    One Fold – One Shepherd – One Voice – One Leader

    {{{{{{ Jesus }}}}}}

  25. Here’s one reason why we get “Sucked into these things.”

    Because it’s simple, and folks want “to fit in” with the group, with the latest fad.

    So – People watch what other people do, then they do what other people do
    without finding out why they do what they do.

    Then I come along and do what they do just because I saw them do it
    and I have no idea why they do what they do.

    But, because I see a lot of other people do what other people do
    I do the same thing and I don’t do what Jesus wants me to do
    because I don’t go to Jesus and ask Jesus what He wants me to do.

    I become stuck in what I already do, my traditions, the latest fad, because
    everybody else is stuck in what they do, their traditions, the latest fad.

    And now, when I read the Word of God I try to make the Word of God fit
    with what I already do because that’s what I was told to do
    and what I see others do because I think what other people do, the latest fad,
    is already correct for me to do because of what I see the other people do.

    And they all do the same thing, they read God’s Word and try to make it fit
    with what they already do so they don’t have to change and do something different
    from what other people do and what they already do, their traditions, the latest fad.

    Personally – I NO longer desire to have anything to do with mans traditions,
    or the latest fad, because mans traditions and fads are nothing but a bunch of dodo. 😉

    And dodo reminds me of the time I was stuck in the muck in the creek,
    at very low tide. And that stuff stinketh and it’s very difficult to become un-stuck.

    It sounds like the religious crowd wants you to do the same dodo they do
    so they can feel good and comfortable about what they do, their dodo, the latest fad.

    And if you don’t like their dodo and remind them that it’s just dodo that they do,
    their traditions, the latest fad, they become uncomfortable. Then you become the bad guy
    for making it seem like low tide, exposing the smelly muck and mire that they’re stuck in.

    They don’t like you exposing the smell of their dodo so they figure what they
    have to do to save their dodo is – they should get rid of you.
    Then they think they won’t be stuck in the muck and the stink of what they do,
    their dodo, their traditions, the latest fad.

    The only trouble is they’re still stuck in their dodo, their traditions, the latest fad.
    All they’ve done is get rid of the reminder that they’re still stuck in the muck
    and they need lots of help, they need Jesus, to get out of their smelly dodo.

    *My people* hath been *lost sheep:*
    “their shepherds” have caused them “to go astray,”
    Jer 50:6

  26. I have such a very hard time understanding why so many people are drawn to movies like this. Especially men!! My husband would be considered by the creators of this film to be a very “manly” man. He hunts, lifts weights, plays sports, loves scotch, and is a cop. (He also reads classic literature, loves classical music and the ballet which I guess aren’t very “manly…”). He would rather go shopping for clothes with me for eight hours than subject himself to drivel like this. He cannot stand this stuff and (as a man) finds it absolutely repelling.

    I have suffered through both Fireproof and Courageous just to learn what all the hype is about, but he can’t even sit and listen to my description of them afterward. And being a cop makes it worse because everyone at church wants to know his “expert” opinion about the movie. Oh how I cringe as I anticipate the awkward silence after he responds to questions about his take on the movie. It’s very difficult to come up with a nice way to say that the movie is complete garbage both in content and artistry when everyone acts so ridiculously excited about it. It’s even worse when his secular co-workers ask him about his take on these movies. Coming up with a good way to explain these movies are completely ridiculous without presenting all Christians as completely ridiculous is difficult.

  27. I just sold a Mark Driscoll and a John Piper book and made like $25! I bought Carolyn Justis James’ excellent book Half the Church and some beer. Totally worth it. 🙂

  28. Steve Scott,

    We stopped threading comments because we were having a hard time keeping up. Maybe that is what’s throwing you off.

    My technopeasant advice is to just address the person you are responding to, as I have done here. 🙂

    Hope that helps.

  29. Hester,

    That was a fantastic post over at Rethinking Vision Forum. I’m going to have to spend some time reading over there. I can assure you that we will be discussing Doug Phillips and his ilk in future posts. I trust that you’ve seen our previous articles about him and Vision Forum.

  30. I wish I would have secluded myself and not mingled with the church like what the Apostle Paul did for years following his conversion. Instead, as a young convert I got caught up in following what other people were saying about how to follow Christ and live like a Christian.

    It was during that time that someone handed me the book, “How To Be the Wife of a Happy Husband” by Darien B. Cooper.

    There is no way I would sell that book, and that’s not because it’s priceless. It’s because I plan to burn it!

  31. Evie,

    I haven’t heard of the book How to Be the Wife of a Happy Husband before. Based on the little I have seen, these things concern me:

    (1) This book was re-released in 2011

    (2) It has sold over a million copies

    (3) Tim LaHaye wrote the Foreward

    I read some of the one-star review over at Amazon, and this sounds like a book made in Stepford heaven.

  32. lys wrote:

    And being a cop makes it worse because everyone at church wants to know his “expert” opinion about the movie. Oh how I cringe as I anticipate the awkward silence after he responds to questions about his take on the movie. It’s very difficult to come up with a nice way to say that the movie is complete garbage both in content and artistry when everyone acts so ridiculously excited about it. It’s even worse when his secular co-workers ask him about his take on these movies.

    I suggest the following response for your husband: I wept through the whole movie. I am still crying over the 129 minutes I will never get back.

  33. Deb,

    I thank God for the faithful work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, who leads us into the truth. Unfortunately, as Christians we are often misled down wrong paths of thinking that we assume are in sync with the will of God, only to discover years later that what we assumed to be in line with the truth, wasn’t true at all. Yet we were taught these things within the context of the church and told to submit ourselves to their ‘sound doctrines.’

    Scripture obviously warns against false teachers, and we must all beware of false brethren and wolves in sheep’s clothing. After all, where do we find false teachers and false brethren hanging out? At Joe’s Bar? No! They’re in the church! We want to feel safe in church and trust that the other people we are having fellowship with are authentic, genuine believers. I know for myself I used to let my guard down because I wanted to believe the other church goers were my brothers or sisters in Christ. Not that we should go into church expecting to get hurt or that 9 times out of 10 we will encounter a fake. It’s just that trust is something earned and we need to be cautious about easily it away too easily, especially within environments which impress us to conform, submit, and not ask questions.

    I’m glad I’ve gotten away from being involved with harmful pseudo-church groups like Sovereign Grace Ministries, and reading woefully misguided books like “How to Be the Wife of a Happy Husband” or “Feminine Appeal.” As you yourself know, once you’re out, you want to shout it from the rooftops so that others may hear and get set free as well.

    The problem is, some aren’t willing to listen. Don’t want to hear. Or assume that what you have to say simply isn’t true.

    Like what Alvin Toffler has said:

    “The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn.”

    Your blog is a great site for those who are in the process of unlearning what they once learned so they can relearn the right things! “He causes all things to work together for our good.” 🙂

  34. No one should ever pledge to “take full responsibility” for anyone’s life besides their own. Not even our children’s. Instead, we should train them to take responsibility for themselves. To take “full responsibility,” especially for another adult, is the language of codependent dysfunction.

  35. @ Evie:Emelina & Evie, I’m going to my storage space next week to go through my books. Books are the one thing that are precious to me and I have a hard time slimming the stock. I intend to have no problems now binning quite a few of the ‘popular’ brands, especially the how to find your life’s purpose stuff and how to be a very godly Christian woman. I considered the second-hand book shop but ruled it out as I think that I just don’t want a well-meaning person to stumble upon them and take it at face value (or any value of any kind). So, no Wittbeer for me. 🙁

  36. Haitch, I’m totally in agreement with you! Some books should be kept out of circulation. Whatever money you might make off selling them is simply not worth it!

    But if your neighbor Farmer Brown could use something softer than the corn cobs he uses in his outhouse, then maybe he could benefit from the paper pages – as long as he doesn’t take to reading them while sitting on the hole!

  37. Evie wrote:

    It was during that time that someone handed me the book, “How To Be the Wife of a Happy Husband” by Darien B. Cooper.
    There is no way I would sell that book, and that’s not because it’s priceless. It’s because I plan to burn it!

    Hmm. Funny. I am the wife of a very happy husband and I have never heard of that book. The last book I read on how to make your husband happy (The Excellent Wife) ended up in my trash can. But that’s because I don’t have a fireplace.

  38. Deb wrote:

    Haitch,
    Check this out!

    Deb,

    Thanks for this!

    I used to be confused. O_o

    But now I am not. ^-^

    I would often want to make certain smilies but didn’t know how. This made me very sad. :'(

    Or I would try to do it but get the code wrong. And that would be frustrating. :O

    But now I can do it with confidence it will work! :>

    Now I am happy! 🙂

    Very happy! 😀

    Thank you Deb! :*

  39. anonymous wrote:

    Deb wrote:
    Haitch,
    Check this out!

    Deb,
    Thanks for this!
    I used to be confused. O_o
    But now I am not. ^-^
    I would often want to make certain smilies but didn’t know how. This made me very sad. :’(
    Or I would try to do it but get the code wrong. And that would be frustrating. :O
    But now I can do it with confidence it will work! :>
    Now I am happy!
    Very happy!
    Thank you Deb! :*

    Oh. 🙁 Some of them don’t work. Now I’m sad again. 🙁

  40. DB wrote:

    Pandora’s box, any takers?

    An exceptionally apt analogy, DB!

    I spent part of an evening back in the 70s going through some books I had stored and tossing a great many of them – discipleship movement stuff – in the trash. And i could do that again, though in some cases, I have bought or traded for “Third Wave” stuff because I wanted to see if what I was told by That Church was really, truly as warped and cultic as I remember… and (no surprise), it is. I even know some of the people who are referred to – without use of names – by one of the big-time authors. I went to church with them back in the 90s.

    Either way, I would *never* want to pass on anything by MD, Piper et. al. to another living person on this earth. So that means that any such materials go in the trash, for landfill, no questions asked.

  41. @ Deb:

    Oh, yes, I’ve been all over you guys and Rethinking VF. I love that article because it perfectly sums up my thoughts and feelings about Doug Phillips. Right here:

    “Stop talking about manhood, courage, valor and perseverance like you know what those words mean… Those aren’t baby names, Doug. … I don’t want [my son] to grow up to be like you. … I want him to know true courage, true honor and true valor. … Until you have ANY CLUE about real life courage, please stop talking about it like you know know what those words mean.”

    Because (not to be blunt) – it takes a special kind of hypocrite to preach “Women and children first!”, then advocate killing both by demanding a woman carry a non-viable ectopic pregnancy to term. (And then make money on the backs of Titanic victims and WWII veterans to boot.)

  42. @ Diane:

    Wow…you’d never know that site was Christian except for the phrase “for God’s glory!” stuck on the header like an afterthought.

    Poor Soli Deo Gloria. It was transformed from a meaningful phrase into a trite throwaway line in less than a decade.

  43. Deb wrote:

    anonymous,
    You’re showing off now and showing me up BIG TIME!
    Great job!

    But how come so many of them don’t make a face? They just come up as the code. :/

    I am actually a smiley junkie but where I developed my addiction was a forum where you just had to click the face you wanted. I never had to remember the code. I’ve only been able to get the code right for a few of them on blogs. I still haven’t been able to get the bug eyed guy right. It’s probably just as well I can’t figure it out because I’d probably drive everybody crazy with them since I have no self control when it comes to smileys.

  44. Evie wrote:

    But if your neighbor Farmer Brown could use something softer than the corn cobs…

    Evie & anonymous – apart from the boghole, there’s always the permaculture method too – turn those printed words into fruits and vegetables ! a lemons into lemonade analogy???)

  45. Haitch,

    My hyperlink comment looked fine on my laptop but not on my IPhone. 🙁

    I will correct it later. You will find this to be very useful.

  46. Hester wrote:

    @ Diane:
    Wow…you’d never know that site was Christian except for the phrase “for God’s glory!” stuck on the header like an afterthought.
    Poor Soli Deo Gloria. It was transformed from a meaningful phrase into a trite throwaway line in less than a decade.

    Exactly. So nice to see Dougie’s new manly website. Dominion-Risk-Manhood?? All for the low price of $1075 pp.

  47. There are plugins for websites that offer all the smilies and quick codes so you don’t have to remember the HTML tags. Maybe adding one of them would be a nice addition to the “Leave a Reply” section? 🙂

  48. Haitch wrote:

    Evie wrote:
    But if your neighbor Farmer Brown could use something softer than the corn cobs…
    Evie & anonymous – apart from the boghole, there’s always the permaculture method too – turn those printed words into fruits and vegetables ! a lemons into lemonade analogy???)

    You may be on to something….

    I found a site for WordPress smileys. Here’s a few as a test

    😯 This should be the bug eyed guy

    😕 This should be the confused face (I need this one a lot!)

    :mrgreen: This should be the green cheesy grin guy.

    🙂

  49. Sallie,

    Remember, you’re dealing with technopeasants here, but we’ll look into it. I agree that it would be a nice addition.

  50. Diane wrote:

    Hester wrote:

    So nice to see Dougie’s new manly website. Dominion-Risk-Manhood?? All for the low price of $1075 pp.

    If you want to look at this purely from the business standpoint, it’s brilliant. You get to do all the exotic travel you want to do, bring your sons, and other people pay for it. Granted they have to do the work of planning which has to be fairly significant, but… Oh nevermind. They have interns to do that work.

    Say what you will about Doug Phillips. He’s created a marketing machine and has an excellent mind for business. While I may disagree with him about a great deal, everything VF puts out is outstanding from the design standpoint.

    It’s really too bad there isn’t someone to take him on head to head with a better vision for families.

  51. Sallie

    “Say what you will about Doug Phillips. He’s created a marketing machine and has an excellent mind for business. While I may disagree with him about a great deal, everything VF puts out is outstanding from the design standpoint.”

    Well stated! I think the AntiChrist will be most skilled in technology.

  52. “Say what you will about Doug Phillips. He’s created a marketing machine and has an excellent mind for business. While I may disagree with him about a great deal, everything VF puts out is outstanding from the design standpoint.”

    Perfect costumes, perfect food, perfect kids, perfect trips, perfect manhood and womanhood, perfect tea parties, perfect father and daughter relationships, perfect showy parties…

    Perfect VF type of Christian. Wonder what’s under the whitewash.

  53. @ Arce:
    Yes, Arce, right on. It is a handy ancient book and you can adapt it to begin to say what you want. Hey, you can pull it all the way over to say what you want! Did anyone notice that the Holy Spirit had left the building?!

    The Apostle Paul and the other NT writers were always warning and challenging people that there were people ‘changing’ the original message and that they were to be ‘on their guard’ and not get sucked in! Has anything changed??!

  54. Diane,

    And we’re ALL supposed to be perfect just like Doug Phillips and his ilk because they are the role models, not Jesus Christ…

  55. @ anonymous:thanks guys, you’ve got it all happening for me. I didn’t realise that the emoticons happened automatically in WordPress !
    Alright, see if this one works rolleyes 🙄 The perfect cue for ‘here comes neo-patriarchy’.

  56. I personally LOVE destroying those bonkers Christian books that you’re sorry you spent money on & you would never ever pass on to anyone else. I, for example, won’t have anything teaching double predestination in my house so that was when I sent Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology to the car crushers in the boot of an old car…which I know some of you have already appreciated. I also think putting crumpled pages into the worm composter to turn it into worm s _ _ _ is a great idea as I’m sure I couldn’t get a horse to eat any.. Any other ideas? I’m expecting Sergius to have some brainwaves here….:)

    And is it just me or does the over-earnestness of people signing up to those things make you want to do something ridiculous & outrageous?

  57. @ Haitch:
    Excellent! As both a life long knitter & a fine art graduate you may have hit upon the perfect medium for my sceptical-yet-cuddly reaction to this stuff…

  58. @ Beakerj:

    Yea! Another knitter!! I’ve heard the phrase “yarn bombing”. We saw a sample at a local park recently. Someone left their creation around the trunk of a tree – like a tree “necklace” with knitted flowers. There was no way to remove the tree art without scissors unless you could find the very carefully woven-in tail. So funny!

  59. I never thought I would stoop to burn a book but I did. A couple in our group at old church gave us a copy of His Needs/Her Needs for Christmas (back in the 90’s) and I burned it in the fireplace. I do not spread false teaching. :o)

  60. @ Hester:

    Never heard of him before, but I think he’s largely kidding. I’m sure he does think they’re lazy communication and so is mocking them, but I don’t think he’s completely serious about them being horrible feminisation.

  61. @ TedS.:
    Actually, the President’s Fatherhood Pledge is fairly benign. Basically, it says men need to be a part of their children’s lives. As an attorney who has cases involving children and families, it is a pledge that many need to take. It might even give some men second thought about doing things that get them sent away for years.

  62. It will be interesting to see who posts Father’s Day Courageous Resolution ceremonies on YouTube. Here is a Catholic church that held a ceremony yesterday for over 200 men.

    St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church

    I find this fascinating in light of the fact that LifeWay is such a big participant in this movement and held its simulcast last Friday night promoting it.

    Here is Walnut Creek Church of God holding its ceremony. I wonder whether these courageous men know they’re on YouTube.

    Even churches around the world are holding these ceremonies: Gospel Church of Manila

  63. And just to let them know that when I first saw their line: ‘weak men will not be able to handle the contents of this book’, I thought they meant because these weak men obviously have very weedy arms & those pages are just sooo heavy….

  64. @ M: “love for it to fall flat on it’s face”? Wow, may the critics vent while the world changers do what they were created to do. Judgement comes to the scorner. This thread is revealing a lot of you who sit in the seat of the scornful. Is this a business? Uh…yeah. Provident is a Sony company. They aren’t going to get behind a project that won’t possibly make them money. Please get your heads out of the sand. This isn’t moneychangers in the temple. This is the marketplace. Of course they are going to create resources, of course they are going to charge a cost for those resources. You’d have to be an idiot to expect otherwise.

  65. David Hood
    How much money? $65 for a framed resolution? I am afraid I have to disagree with you. As one of my pastors is won’t to say “Even on my best days, my motives are mixed.” Also, both of your glam blog queens have an MBA from relatively good schools so sticking our heads in the sand in regards to business ventures is not in our DNA.

    Now, since it is not moneychangers in the Temple, what is it? As you know, the dudes were selling stuff for the animal sacrifices, etc. in order for people to properly celebrate. Wasn’t that a service? You know, marketplace and all, not unlike bookstores in churches these days, selling books at retail,especially books that pastors write and can’t sell except to their congregation who show their loyalty by buying the books.

    So, could you please tell me what is different about all of this from what was going on in Jesus’ day? This scorner happens to subscribe to the idea (or is it doctrine?) that the Temple of our Lord is now in the body of the believer. Whenever believers gather together, there is he in their midst (or so I am told). You know us scoffers-pretty loose on the Bible .So, how in tarnation do you separate the marketplace from the Body of Christ? Perhaps it is in the Bible somewhere but where?Or maybe you learned how to do it at a conference and have it on a DVD which you bought for $10.95?

    And as for thieves in the church, there are plenty of example of people using their church connections to push their products, some of them illegally like financial investments and Ponzi schemes.Yep, Charles Stanley and others doing the old Amway is a mission schtick.

    Proceed now to thine attic to give away or resell (mostly worthless) all of your Prayer of Jabez study guides and framed lithographs along with the Left Behind books and pictures, the DVDs etc.

    David, think a bit before you accuse people of being “scoffers.” (Sounds like church lingo ).

  66. David,
    Also think a bit before you accuse people of having their heads in the sand.

    This complementarian doctrine has been around for a long time.
    Dobson pushed it in the 70s and 80s.
    Promise Keepers pushed it in the 80s and 90s
    Now there are many complementarian aka patriarchy pushers today who claim that “saving the family” (according to their formula loosely based on some instruction given by Paul in Ephesians along with great liberties taken concerning his words). The problem is, those of us who have tried, over and over, to apply these principles have found them wanting. And upon further study, have found that the these “save the family” principles are actually opposed to what Jesus taught on authority and the Kingdom of heaven.

    The ones who have their heads in the sand are those who keep pushing these “save the family and save our nation” techniques for decades while the divorce rate among Christians is just a bad if not worse than secular. If Dobson and Promise Keepers were right, divorce rates among Christians would go down. They aren’t going down.

    One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. This is what many parts of the church tell women over and over about submission. When it doesn’t work, they send them back in to do the same thing that didn’t work the first 100 times.

    Here is what Courageous doctrine produces in men and in churches and even pastors:

    http://matthewpaulturner.net/jesus-needs-new-pr/exorcism-at-mars-hill-one-womans-story/

    The above is the result of years of Dobson/Promise Keepers doctrine. It just doesn’t work the way the teachers have promised. Not at all.

    So get your own head out of the sand and see Courageous for the shallow Christian fad that it is rather than the next great saviour of the family, the nation, and our world. Only Jesus can fill those shoes.

  67. Mara
    Standing ovations!!! “So get your own head out of the sand and see Courageous for the shallow Christian fad that it is rather than the next great saviour of the family, the nation, and our world. Only Jesus can fill those shoes.”

  68. Thanks Dee.
    All I can say is that I’m so sick and tired of there wet-behind-the-ears, fly-by-night, hit-and-runners that come here. They flatter themselves with assumption that they know better and that the rest of us were born again yesterday. They assume that none of us have ever tried to live out what the shallow, fad pushing teachers told us to do. Guys like David have no clue that many of us have tried what ‘they’ said would save our families and our nation. And we have suffered terribly from it. But we have learned the hard way that these self-proclaimed authorities are only blind guides and the end of their ways do not lead to life. Their ways are just another thing to distract us from tuning into the voice of the Shepherd.

  69. World changers?

    You need a piece of paper to do that? A movie? A marketing plan? Seems rather shallow to me. Hey maybe you can take on the persona of one of the movie actors and play a “role” of being a world changer. You guys are really into “roles”.

  70. Mara

    Many of these trends are pushed by pastors who think that if we did just what they say, all would be well. Being a bit older (yet still glamorous) I have watched pastor’s families flame out, kids rebel and families torn apart with a simplistic view of “how to do it.”

  71. Anon1 1:06AM
    I wonder how Jesus and the disciples along with a bunch of “nobodies” change the world in such short order?

  72. Victorious, When I was writing this post, I checked out DaySpring.  It's a subsidiary of Hallmark.

    http://about.dayspring.com/

    In 1999, DaySpring was acquired by Hallmark Cards, Inc. from Cook Communications. A press release from Hallmark Cards contains details about the purchase and the exciting partnership between DaySpring and Hallmark.