“He always apologized, and sometimes he would even cry because of the bruises he'd made on her arms or legs or her back. He would say that he hated what he'd done, but in the next breath tell her she'd deserved it. That if she'd been more careful, it wouldn't have happened. That if she'd been paying attention or hadn't been so stupid, he wouldn't have lost his temper.” ― Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven link
Update on Dee's situation: Lou is coming home from Rehab. This is very good. Although Lou and my mom will still need lots of help, having them close by will help me gain about 3 hours in my day. So hopefully my participation will increase in the coming week. Thank you all for being so understanding.
***
Although we want to continue to give you some updates on Gospel for Asia(GFA), we felt it is an important to the mission of this blog to promptly report on a developing situation that deals with domestic violence and a well known religious figure. The circumstances surrounding this situation have been debated and we wanted to add our thoughts on the matter.
Three stories
Here three stories as told to me by the victims, friends and/or family.
1. One man, a church leader in a Reformed Baptist church, was abusive to his wife on numerous occasions. When he realized she was going to go to the church and ask for help, he set up a situation in the home, complete with hidden video recorder, to *prove* that she was an angry woman. He showed this to the leaders before she came for help. He told the leaders he needed help in dealing with her. They refused to believe her side of the story. She was to be disciplined. She left the church. He divorced her with the approval of the leaders. He immediately began dating again.
2. A health professional (and church member), with knowledge of a number of domestic violence episodes in a well known church which has a pastor on the board of TGC, asked to place a few signs in the women's bathroom with the contact number of a well respected domestic violence hotline. Said pastor absolutely refused to do so.
3. An assistant pastor's wife, mother to their several little children, was being physically abused. Her parents convinced her to leave the home with the children. They then called the lead pastor and asked him to deal with his abusive assistant pastor. He refused to do so unless she and the children returned to the home. Thankfully the wife refused to do so and she divorced him. The church was never told the story. Oh yeah, this lead pastor is hugely supportive of TGC and CBMW and well known to them.
Owen Strachan and the Council of Biblical™ Manhood and Womanhood says the church deals really well with domestic violence.
Special thanks to Julie Ann Smith for copying these into a post.
I think Owen Strachan does not understand the reality in many churches and I am talking about his kind of churches. The first call we ever got on this blog was from a pregnant woman in Georgia who was being beat up by her husband. Her pastor, of another Reformed Baptist church, told her she had to return to him. We talked her out of that and told her where to seek help.
Oh, and TGC/CBMW isn't the only group that has issues. Paige Patterson is notorious for bragging about sending a woman home to her abusive husband and getting two black eyes! Hallelujah! Don't believe me? From our post
Patterson's message sounds like the same old, same old; and we have little hope that anything will ever change. Remember, this is the Christian leader who told a wife who was being physically abused by her husband the following: (audio link)
“I had a woman who was in a church that I served, and she was being subject to some abuse, and I told her, I said, “All right, what I want you to do is, every evening I want you to get down by your bed just as he goes to sleep, get down by the bed, and when you think he’s just about asleep, you just pray and ask God to intervene, not out loud, quietly,” but I said, “You just pray there.” And I said, “Get ready because he may get a little more violent, you know, when he discovers this.” And sure enough, he did. She came to church one morning with both eyes black. And she was angry at me and at God and the world, for that matter. And she said, “I hope you’re happy.” And I said, “Yes ma’am, I am.” And I said, “I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy."
"And what she didn’t know when we sat down in church that morning was that her husband had come in and was standing at the back, first time he ever came. And when I gave the invitation that morning, he was the first one down to the front. And his heart was broken, he said, “My wife’s praying for me, and I can’t believe what I did to her.” And he said, “Do you think God can forgive somebody like me?” And he’s a great husband today. And it all came about because she sought God on a regular basis. And remember, when nobody else can help, God can.
And in the meantime, you have to do what you can at home to be submissive in every way that you can and to elevate him. Obviously, if he's doing that kind of thing he's got some very deep spiritual problems in his life, and you have to pray that God brings into intersection of his life those people and those events that need to come into his life to arrest him and bring him to his knees."
And, of course, there is TGC's much admired Doug Wilson who recently wrote in Moving Out of Range
Often intractable marriage problems are also opaque. She reports his abusive behavior to the elders or pastor and the husband denies it. It is now a did too/did not situation. When that happens, it is not possible to excommunicate the husband on the testimony of his wife, any more than it would be lawful to go the other way and excommunicate the wife on the strength of his word. You cannot do this because sometimes men lie and other times women do. Scripture teaches that two or three witnesses are necessary in order to excommunicate anyone.
Oh yeah, and she can't divorce because he might repent. And even if he doesn't and she divorces his sorry butt, she can never remarry because it's against the Bible. Besides, it is only a he said/she said situation. Does he care about what really happens out there in churchville? Oh yeah, he's the guy who thought it was a good idea to marry a pedophile off to a young woman. Stupid me.
Some important statistics
From the American Bar Association:
Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.
In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims
Access to firearms yields a more than five-fold increase in risk of intimate partner homicide when considering other factors of abuse, according to a recent study, suggesting that abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.
Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds were killed by their intimate partners. The number of females shot and killed by their husband or intimate partner was more than three times higher than the total number murdered by male strangers using all weapons combined in single victim/single offender incidents in 2002.
50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Wives were more likely than husbands to be killed by their spouses: wives were about half of all spouses in the population in 2002, but 81% of all persons killed by their spouse.
From The National Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women :
The percentage of women who lie about violence is quite low.
To date, the MAD study is the only research conducted in the U.S. to evaluate the percentage of false reports made to law enforcement.The remaining evidence is therefore based on research conducted out- side the U.S., but it all converges within the same range of 2-8%.
So, what am I leading up to?
Who is Pastor Saeed Abedini?
Here is a quick history from Wikipedia.
Saeed Abedini (Persian: سعيد عابديني, born 7 May 1980) is an Iranian American Christian pastor imprisoned in Iran. He has been detained in Iran since the summer of 2012 and initially incarcerated in Evin Prison in September 2012. On January 27, 2013, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, reportedly on charges of undermining national security through private religious gatherings in Christian homes in Iran in the early 2000s. In November 2013, the Iranian government transferred Abedini to Rajai Shahr prison, just outside of Karaj, Iran.
Free Saeed
There has been a concerted effort to free Pastor Saeed amongst both Christians and justice groups.
From Tasered and Abused, American Pastor Saeed Threatened with New Charges
After a short family visitation today at Rajaei Shahr prison in Iran, Naghmeh Abedini, the wife of American Pastor Saeed Abedini, heard disturbing news about possible new charges being brought against Pastor Saeed. Over the years, the Iranian government continually promised that Pastor Saeed’s eight-year-prison sentence could be arbitrarily extended, and yesterday they took their first steps to fulfill that promise.
Yesterday in Iran, Iranian intelligence officers summoned Pastor Saeed for an intense round of interrogation. Pastor Saeed reported to his family that the interrogators were abusive both verbally and physically. During the course of interrogation, the officers repeatedly used a taser gun on Pastor Saeed. This new assault is concerning as Pastor Saeed is still being denied needed medical care for injuries sustained as a result of beatings in the past.
The interrogators threatened that Pastor Saeed will face new criminal charges. They claimed Pastor Saeed has connections with anti-government groups and has made statements and taken actions against the government of Iran. Pastor Saeed denied all of these allegations, and once again asserted that he is apolitical and that he has never threatened the security of, made any statements against, or taken any action against the Government of Iran.
Petitions have been sent to President Obama (who has met with the family), members of Congress and the United Nations in an attempt to secure his release. On each Wednesday, a number of people send out reminder tweets to Pray for Pastor Saeed. I have happily retweeted them.
Nagemeh Abedini: Pastor Saeed's wife.
Nobody has been more of an effective mouthpiece for the Free Saeed movement than his lovely wife Naghmeh Abedini who is the mother of his two children. Here is a report she gave about a visit she had with Pastor Saeed in prison.
The visit was bittersweet. The loss of his dear Grandma in the last few weeks and not being able to say his last goodbyes at her funeral, the sense of loss of missing out on seeing his kids go to their first days of school, and especially missing out on Rebekka’s 9th birthday, has taken its toll on Saeed.
It was too painful for him to see pictures of how much his baby girl had grown up since he last saw her, from the 5-year-old little girl to the 9-year-old young lady she has become. A different kind of maturity covered his baby girl’s face. A maturity that spoke of painful, tear-stained nights. The picture his family took to show Saeed told him of a girl who was trying to be strong and brave for her daddy. Many tears were shed and stories shared. So many stories that Saeed struggled to remember his babies and our family, memories that the prison walls were slowly stealing from him. So many new memories were trying to form about what the kids liked to do now and how they had changed over the years. Saeed tried hard to hold on to something to take back to the prison once the visit was over; something Rebekka said; or something Jacob did.
Saeed was told of the prayer vigils that are happening on September 26th, which marks his third anniversary in prison. Told that he was not forgotten. His face lit up and he was encouraged to hear that so many are praying for him. He was encouraged to know that a date that brought so much pain had become a day when Christians united together to pray for him and the persecuted church.
A stunning admission: Naghmeh Abedini recently claimed that Pastor Saeed was an abuser as well as user of pornography and that she was stepping away from the public temporarily.
Last week, Christianity Today reported that Naghmeh was stepping away from her advocacy for her imprisoned husband.
For the past three years Naghmeh Abedini has publicly battled her husband’s captors, advocating for his release from an Iranian jail.
Behind the scenes, she also struggled with his inner demons.
Last week, the emotional distress of doing both finally proved too much, she said.
In two emails to supporters, Abedini revealed details of her troubled marriage to Saeed Abedini, an American citizen and pastor imprisoned in Iran since September 2012.
Those troubles include “physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse (through Saeed’s addiction to pornography),” she wrote. The abuse started early in their marriage and has worsened during Saeed’s imprisonment, she said. The two are able to speak by phone and Skype.
Touring the country to advocate for Saeed’s release while coping with marital conflict proved too much, she wrote. She told supporters she’s withdrawing from public life for a time of prayer and rest.
However, she asks everyone to still pray for his release.
Pastor Saeed supporters reacted with disbelief.
Many of Pastor Saeed's followers expressed both concern and doubt, even stating that this report was not true and questioning her motives. Julie Ann Smith asked an awesome question on Twitter. I did not take a screen shot but it went something like this.
"Why would you automatically believe a pastor in prison over his wife?"
Good question indeed and one that had me pondering for quite awhile.
Why did she wait until now to report this? The answer will most likely demonstrate why Strachanand CBMW is wrong about how the church responds to domestic violence.
In a post published today, Timothy Morgan at Religion News Services attempted to answer this question.
Why do evangelical women wait so long before reporting abuse?
Research shows that domestic abuse survivors in general are less likely to receive extensive public support through their local church. According to a 2014 poll from LifeWay Research, about two-thirds of Protestant pastors address domestic abuse from the pulpit once a year or less. Additional research from LifeWay found that only 25 percent of surveyed pastors consider abuse or sexual violence an issue within their congregation.
Once again, CBMW and Owen Strachan stick their heads in the sand, refusing to see what so many see. This is one reason why complementarianism will not capture the hearts of women because they do not see the plight of abused women (and let's not forget children) in the church.
The church's response to abuse is to make the woman feel ashamed for mentioning it.
“Many churches appropriately stress the importance of marriage and family, but some churches wrongly teach that a wife’s primary role in life is to protect their husband’s or family’s reputation,” said Holcomb, the Episcopal priest. “Because of this emphasis, those experiencing abuse in their relationship may feel ashamed because they believe they failed in their relationship,” Holcomb said.
Women in the church experience isolation and shame surrounding this abuse, despite what CBMW claims about their advocacy for women.
“Many who suffer domestic abuse feel lots of shame, are blamed by others, and do not tell anyone,” said Justin Holcomb, a Florida Episcopal priest and seminary professor who co-authored with his wife Lindsey “Is It My Fault? Hope and Healing for Those Suffering Domestic Violence.”
“Christian women, in particular, stay far longer in abusive situations and in more severe abuse than their non-Christian counterparts,” he added.
Sadly, according to Fox News, Naghmeh reported that this abuse has gone on even during the Skype conversations she has had with Saeed while he has been in prison.
She also spoke about "physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse (through Saeed's addiction to pornography)," which, she disclosed, started in the early days of their marriage and increased during her husband's imprisonment in 2012 as they spoke on phone and Skype.
My take:
I believe Naghmeh. It is extremely difficult to admit to a marriage filled with abuse, particularly when the Christian world which is watching you and expecting you to be a "good wife." I believe that she reached the end of her emotional rope and could no longer keep up the charade. She is a courageous women in many, many ways.
I also believe that the evangelical church, and, in particular, complementarian churches (both Reformed and not) have stuck their heads in the sand for far too long. It is time to wake up and support the abused and stop pretending that the church has led in this area. When CBMW and Owen Strachan make unprovable statements, it is time to call them on it. I am waiting for Strachan and friends to release a statement that they support Naghmeh. I bet they side step this one, big time, like they have in the past.
#IBelieveNagemeh
*****
Here is Fix You By Coldplay sung by an elderly gentleman from Young@Heart. This group is becoming well known and I think you will see why. This elderly man died two years after this was recorded. Try to watch it without tears.
@ Ken:
Ken, this is one of your creepier interpretations. Ignoring the cultural context takes you into fringe superstitions that you try to moderate with wishy-washy explanations. As if the bible is teaching for all time that women everywhere as believers are more susceptible to demons. It is positively medieval.
@ Ken:
Would you explain how women led willow creek into deception? My interaction with willow creek goes back before the days of women in any leadership capacity and they were a business model back then. Jesus for profit. They were in the forefront of the whole “servant leadership” model. ( Hee Hee. Some of the Neo Cals might be a bit embarrassed their coveted servant leadership language comes from the seeker sensitive mega world)
Ken wrote:
The top half of your view essentially neglects single and childless, infertile women, however.
You are arguing that being a Wife And Mommy is the only magical protection a woman has from being deceived or seduced or whatever, which leaves women like me out in the dark.
You said,
I did not choose to be single.
Many women like me had wanted to marry, but we find ourselves single anyhow, against our wishes.
Your “marriage is the norm” is wrong and bad for so many reasons.
Marriage is not the norm. Most in the USA, Japan, and other nations are not marrying.
As of 2014, in the USA, single adults (many never married, I am not talking divorced) out-number married couples. Being single is now the “norm” in some nations.
There are man shortages (as discussed in recent TIME magazine articles) among conservative religious groups, so that even religious women who want to marry end up single and may never marry.
According to your strange theology, these women, due to no fault of their own (it’s demographics issue) are doomed to be spiritually abused just by mere fact of being single and childless or childfree.
You said,
The salvation here is not from the penalty of sin, but from temptation to stray into areas she is not authorised, namely the office of pastor-teacher that Paul forbids
Usually if the Bible forbids “X,” doesn’t that mean that “X” is a sin?
So you are in fact, in the end scheme of things, arguing that women who are childless are sinning.
The Holy Spirit does not distribute gifts based on gender, so some Christian women are gifted by the Spirit to teach or preach – you are attributing to sin or Satan what is the work of the Holy Spirit.
You said,
And you honestly think that no married people are guilty of gossping and idleness? Really?
I’ve been friends with, and read about, married women who have husbands who never work, who sit about in their boxer briefs drinking alcohol all day watching football on television. These married men are very idle.
I’ve known married women who gossip about other women.
You said,
Like what? You have said women are more easily deceived, so that limits us single women from teaching or leading.
You have said women cannot be elders or preachers.
You have said it takes having a baby and being married to ward off spiritual deception and so forth.
That leaves single women to do what, exactly, Flag Ken? About nothing, that’s what.
I do not feel comfortable around children and have never enjoyed being around them, so don’t you dare suggest that I work in a church nursery, teach teens in Sunday school classes, or act as free baby sitter to married Christian couples who have babies.
And please, do not rejoin with “Oh, you can teach other women!!!” –No.
It’s not consistent to believe it’s wrong or harmful for women to teach men, but jolly fine for women to potentially misled other women.
Because with that perspective, you are saying the spiritual safety and growth of other women is not important, and not as important as men’s, something Jesus did not believe…
Luke 10:
Lydia wrote:
For sure! I’ve never read such a desperate attempt to prove a point.
By the way, I apologize to any here who feel I am “over- commenting,” but I sometimes, upon re-reading a person’s post (especially long ones like Ken’s) get hit with new thoughts as I read them.
I’m not intentionally trying to “hog the comments” here. 🙂 There’s just stuff I don’t notice until after I go back and re-read a comment.
Ken wrote:
Post Script.
This is funny to me because I have no desire to preach men or to lead anyone.
I’ve always been an introvert, I am more comfortable being a follower and a wall flower.
I have had people (even my gender comp parents) over the years push me to TEACH people, even men, and even in a church setting, because in my teens and 20s, and up to around my early or mid 30s, I was always reading conservative Christian theological works, history, apologetics, etc.
My dad is slightly sexist, but even he kept pushing me to go teach women and men in local churches because I read and learned so much about the faith and the Bible.
I told him and Mom I was not interested in teaching anyone, though… not in person, in a class room setting.
I don’t have a desire to preach anyone or to be in authority over anyone, not even men.
So all this gender comp stuff about women being led from a so-called proper role, or to usurp supposed male authority, is so much hog wash mean to detract from what’s really going on-
Some Christian men desire to be in control and power over women, and/or to limit all power/ control to men only, and/or to limit women.
Or some, who may have good intentions, end up hurting women from wanting to adhere to these practices in life and church because they feel this stuff is “biblical” or “godly”.
I have never had a desire to preach or be in authority over men.
I just find these teachings of comps to be horribly degrading and unfair to women, and against the person and teachings of Christ and how Christ treated women. I am boggled that anyone so ardently defends sexism in the name of God.
Ken wrote:
This same quote triggered another thought in me (sorry).
Complementarians can’t even agree with each other on this stuff.
I remember reading a couple years ago where one comp took on another.
Egalitarians and mutualists have pointed out that the Bible says women are prophets, daughters will prophesy. The take away being, God did not put restrictions on women teaching or leading men, or in having positions of influence in the church.
So some comp (Piper I think??) wrote a blog post trying to wiggle out of this by saying something like the Bible does not consider being a prophet to be as important as being a preacher.
So, another comp (I think John MacArthur?) wrote a rebuttal saying he may be against women as preachers too, but Piper was a knuckle-head for trying to diminish the position of prophet in his bid to argue against women being preacher or teachers.(*)
I find all the complementarian quibbling over titles beside the point and indicative of the desperation of comps to limit women.
I for one personally don’t care much about the specific duties of prophet, teacher, apostle, elder, deacon, etc.
All those positions have some grain of influence in them. So, in some cases, the Bible has examples of women in one or more of those very position.
If God is fine with women being in Position “Z”, it would stand to reason (with me), He doesn’t give a lick if a woman also holds to Position”W.” I look at the big picture.
But comps want to nit pick over each and every job heading in the Bible and quantify each in meticulous detail.
Complementarians have to bend themselves into Pretzels to keep coming up with reasons why a woman may do “X” on one day, but never, ever “Z,” or only “G” every other Thursday, and maybe “Y,” but only at their jobs and never in a marriage-
And that is such as Pharisee like thing to do.
—-
* This might be the J Mac page I am thinking of:
Fallibility of Female Prophets
(by John MacArthur addressing John Piper’s views):
http://www.gty.org/blog/B140317/fallibility-and-female-prophets
Snippet:
Gram3 wrote:
Flag Ken
(btw, for all reading, my use of the name “Flag Ken” is not a pejorative.
It’s only meant to distinguish him from another Ken or two who post to this blog. I think I first saw Nick refer to this Ken as “Flag Ken,” and I found it amusing-)
Flag Ken did admit in some post on this thread that (Christian) men can, and are, deceived at times.
I’m not following the logic where a complementarian person thinks women should be barred from leadership roles in church or marriage on the basis of them allegedly being capable of being easily deceived –
But it’s okay for men, who are also capable of being deceived, to get a pass?
If we’re going to disqualify people on the basis of them being capable of being deceived, that would disqualify every one, men as well.
Even if a complementarian wants to toss out the reasoning that ‘Women are more likely to than men are…’ -it comes across as special pleading.
Nancy2 wrote:
This first part of my post is a bit off topicish, but it seems like at least once very three months, I see a news story about church people getting killed in a church van, on their way to or from some church event.
The vans flip over, or get hit by other vehicles. I wonder if church vans are death traps. I’ve ridden in a few in my day and don’t really want to again.
Your other point is well taken.
I hear a lot of Christian women say that their husbands (or church men in general) won’t step up to the plate and do stuff in the church, so if the women don’t do whatever, that ‘whatever’ will not get done.
Then you get into the gender comp nonsense that this is a sign of the fall of Adam and Eve, that men are being passive, not leading, and letting women to fall into their “temptation” to “usurp authority.”
Men really shoot themselves in the foot here, as I said above. I think one reason God created woman was to act as an equal to men, because life is hard and is made easier if you have an equal beside you to carry the burdens of life.
When men insist on being the ‘Head Boss Guy,’ they take on 100% of all stress and problems, too, not just all authority and power. They give themselves ulcers and heart attacks under this teaching.
They get a lot of perks but sometimes also get a lot of heartaches and problems alone with the perks.
Gram3 wrote:
Your entire post there was excellent, this was my favorite part. 🙂
I tried to convey something similar above, but I wasn’t as good and succinct about it.
Ken does seem to deliberately avoid some of our points at times, as you were saying, or side steps them, which is frustrating, and at times, makes me feel like these conversations are repetitive, or going around in circles.
Gram3 wrote:
Among some portions of Christianity, everything is always woman’s fault – even if it’s really man’s fault.
Adam to God over disobeying God: “God, it was that woman you gave me….”
Passing the buck since the days of Genesis. 🙂
@ Nancy2:
Yes, Ken’s explanation to me above on this matter did not ultimately steer clear of the problems his interpretation raised.
He was wanting it both ways: he spent about 1/2 the post saying the Bible says women having children is somehow, in some way necessary to keep them out of trouble-
But the last half trying to explain if a woman cannot or does not have kids, things might be okay for her anyway.
If that is so, there is no reason to think women having kids is necessary for a woman to keep from being deceived or misled or whatever calamity.
Nancy2 wrote:
i) There is one restriction on when a woman may not teach, and a general one on becoming elders. How can this remotely mean women are not part of the church? Are men who don’t become elders or teachers not really part of the church?
ii) We are discussing Christian marriage and the Christian church. What goes on outside the church is not relevant to this. The purpose of the church is not make us feel we matter. It’s not there so we can have a ministry. It’s there so we can love God, our neighbour as ourself and enter into all the good that is ours in Christ Jesus. Our needs may well be met in the mutual giving amongst the body, but getting our needs met is not the reason for the church. We’ve all done it, but going to get is the wrong motive. It is more blessed to give than receive is a more noble motive.
iii) If you really want to insist on taking Paul’s qualifications for eldership absolutely literally, that’s fine by me. Paul was an apostle, not an elder, and the qualifications are different. Elders are long-term in one place, apostles short-term in many places.
Ken wrote:
This makes no sense. Do we stop being followers of Christ outside the institutions we call “church”? If women should not teach men then they should not teach males at all. Evidently there is some genital requirement for spiritual things? Did the women at the Tomb know this before they went to tell the Good News? I mean, what else besides the Good News are we teaching people? Perhaps that is the problem?
Ken wrote:
Elders are “long term” in “one place”. Where do you get this?
Ken wrote:
What is prophesying? Do people “learn” from prophesying? If so, the women in the Corinthian church, according to chapter 11, were breaking the “law” you have referred to in chapter 14. Now the Puritans had a long circular argument for what is prophesying and what isn’t. I hope you don’t use it.
So, about this restriction. I would need to know when boys are considered men in a body of Christ setting so that I won’t break the “law”.
Ken wrote:
If this were true, men would stop teaching comp doctrine and put themselves last instead of insisting on their authority. I think the entire doctrine is about having their needs met.
Lydia wrote:
Exactly! Does “church” begin and end at the property lines as recorded in the property deeds at the courthouses?Are the rules and teachings that are applied on “church” property non-applicable off of “church” property?
Lydia wrote:
Women are ontologically equal, but functionally subordinate! Men and women are of equal value, but women must play the inferior roles while men get to play superior roles!
Women must serve men, whether the men serve God or serve themselves! Wooohooo! Men have it made!
@ Nancy2:
IOW, God wants you to shut down your brain at church. This means that when Lydia started the first church in her home she was to shut down her brain. She was not to “speak” because the “law” sent to the Corinthians said so. (I suppose prophesying is not speaking?) Do you think she was aware of the Corinthian law for women of The Way?
The rules, roles and formulas are a bit harder to map to the actual functioning of the early church which had no designated buildings…especially in Ephesus! I sort of see it as a wild west type of situation that Paul was frantically addressing from his travels. :o)
Nancy2 wrote:
Sounds to me like they are having their needs met in the process and calling it Christian.
What you describe above is akin to “Some animals are more equal than others” and “separate but equal”. It is all the same thing. Equal but different “roles”. (Of course no believer should be living out a “role”. They should be authentic.
Lydia wrote:
… you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. That’s the point of the instructions in 1 Tim!
@ Ken:
Lydia was referring to the organizations called churches, but Paul was talking about the Church, the Body of Christ. Those are two very different things, though the “leaders” love to conflate them. Good for business and all that. You would be much more persuasive if you would actually address the important questions.
Ken wrote:
Actually 1 Tim is about false teachers in Ephesus. There are those who deceive on purpose and those who deceive out of ignorance. Paul has a lot of empathy for those who deceive out of ignorance. He used to be one. Go read chapter 1 where the reason for the letter is given.
@ Gram3:
Yes, exactly. The historical institutional church has probably done more to stifle the Holy Spirit than anything else.
@ Ken:
Every believer is of the household of God whether or not you are part of a brick and mortar church.
Gram3 wrote:
Yes, because the temple had already been destroyed I think and believers were meeting more in homes as opposed to the buildings we now call churches. Paul would know “the church” refers to the Body of Christ; i.e. all believers.
I have not had the time to read any and all posts since I was last on this thread.
I just want to post this:
Submission isn’t just for wives; sacrificial love isn’t just for husbands ( 5:1-2, 21)
http://newlife.id.au/equality-and-gender-issues/kephale-and-male-headship-in-pauls-letters/
Kephalē and “Male Headship” in Paul’s Letters
The Metaphorical Meanings of “Head” in Paul’s Letters: Part One
Ken wrote:
I should really be getting off my computer, but I keep getting sucked into stuff like this.
Can you not see how insulting this whole thing is?
It would be like if Christians had some rule saying only white men with blue eyes can be elders (or whatever other position), so that all
1. black men are excluded from that role automatically, and therefore any 2. red heads, or 3. men with brown eyes.
Now, groups 1, 2, and 3 may all still be church members, but it’s demeaning of them as persons to suggest they are unqualified, or should not even be considered from some position, due to having been born with a certain skin color, eye color, or what have you.
You are insisting on some level that those men are somehow inferior. And there is nothing they can really do to change it, no more schooling, or practice, or skills they can pick up to leave this permanent lesser status.
Ken wrote:
I have to disagree with this for a few reasons.
Someone on an older post here gave me a link to a book that talks about this very thing, what was the title? I read parts of it online and really liked it, “Why Don’t I Measure Up” or something – was the title of it.
Ken, I grew up not only in a gender comp family, but one that taught this idea that it’s shameful or selfish to have needs or feelings.
According to my traditional, conservative, Christian family, you’re supposed to bury your feelings, don’t share them, don’t go to others seeking emotional support if or when you are hurting.
This was all mixed in with the gender comp stuff I was taught:
women above all are not supposed to have needs, not get them met, and you’re supposed to always and only put other people first.
This has messed me up so many ways. It’s causing problems for me now in other ways, too.
Another good book which refutes that view (that it’s wrong for you to have needs or get them met) is, IIRC, “Twelve Christians Beliefs That Can Drive You Crazy,” by Christian authors Cloud and Townsend.
In a nut shell (as explained in one part of the book):
If it’s wrong for you to have needs, it’s wrong for you to meet the needs of others, because it’s wrong for those other people to have needs and get them met too.
Ken said,
Some of these gender comp beliefs and underlying attitudes about women’s roles in marriage trickle down to impact the divorced women, the never-married women, and the widowed women.
(In ways I don’t want to get into at the moment, because this post would be way long.)
Briefly, I’ll also add under that point, you see guys like John Piper telling un-married women that they should think twice about taking up certain professions (like police officer).
Piper and comps like him is dictating to single women what and where they may hold secular employment.
Some comps clearly do try to apply gender comp to un-married women, and to all women in non-church areas of life.
Theirs is just an extension of what you believe about gender roles, the Bible, etc. They use some of the same rationales as you do, some of the same biblical interpretations, etc.
Lydia wrote:
OK, I’ll clarify this. Willow Creek has exported its variety of ‘doing church’ around the world. Initially in favour, I became increasingly disenchanted with it from the effect it was having in churches I was attending (UK and then Germany). So I read round it, and with all the caveats about Internet ignorance, began to see the inherent problems (running the church like a business, worldly thinking). Concomitant with this I could not but fail to notice and had some exposure to the female leadership and what such leaders were teaching. This was pseudo-christian mysticism, more New Age than Christianity.
Now I wasn’t looking for any vindication of my view of 1 Tim, but I simply couldn’t avoid noticing this. I’m not of the John MacArthur pesuasion and I do believe in women having a ministry. I did briefly wonder, in view of the church’s huge “success” whether female elders were such a big deal.
If I could remember all the details, I do not doubt you would see why this rampant deception struck me so clearly. To give one example, our house-group here listened to a sermon giving by a Willow Creek teacher, Nancy somebody. iirc she quoted one verse from the bible, a psalm, but the talk was not based on this at all. By the end I realised she had quoted two New Age gurus that I had encountered in my reading about Willow Creek. So the source was not the bible, but worldly wisdom (at best) from outside it. It was not aimed at the intellect, but was emotionally manipulating.
Now it’s true to say that the whole structure has succumbed to deception, both men and women being led astray to another Jesus and another gospel. And the two individuals most obsessed (and I don’t use the word lightly) with Willow Creek that I have known were both men. Nevertheless it struck me that trying to experience God through unbiblical and unauthorised means was a deception that women were more prone to than men (note the comparative), to the extent it seemed to be a universal feature of the church.
I would also include messrs Cloud and Townsend in replacing the NT with psychology at Willow Creek.
ISTM thinking about this now that the male leadership were initially deceived into abandoning the bible in favour of gearing the church up to be more compatible with the world and it’s corporate culture thinking, and making the church an equal opportunities employer. After all, we now have women CEO’s. Having done this, relegating 1 Tim to the past, what followed in its wake was Eve again – female deception in the present. The female was more ‘in your face’ and struck me more forcibly. But I would concede the problem started with and was compounded by the failures of the male leadership.
I’m sorry if this seems a bit vague (or even wishy-washy 🙂 ), it’s a long time ago and I can’t face digging it all up again!
@ Ken:
Of course without concrete examples I have no idea but still I reject the blanket assertion that all women are more prone to deception. If you are really being scriptural and using blanket application then add they are more prone to admit they were deceived like Eve did. (Sigh)
I don’t think there is a worldly wisdom or a biblical wisdom, either. I think that is part of the “world view” myth that became a popular money maker doctrine. It turns us to an “us vs them” dichotomy that I think is harmful long term. I think we are running into the same problem that has more to do with your hermeneutics than anything. Again, we would probably have very different views of wisdom.
The King whose name is synonomous with “biblical” wisdom had 600 wives and concubines. Not wise. :o)
Daisy wrote:
An abusive husband by definition doesn’t care what the bible says. If he did he wouldn’t be abusive.
Lydia wrote:
Precisely. Imagine having 600 mother-in-laws …
Lydia wrote:
I don’t know what the puritans taught on this!
To me it is speaking in the Spirit, bringing a specific word from God for that occasion and that group or person within it. It differs from teaching which I equate with expounding the bible and showing by example how to put it into practice.
A woman may pray of prophesy; she may not be a teacher of or have authority over men, but learn and be in submmission.
The law in 1 Cor 14, which I take to be the OT, doesn’t regulate a women not being allowed to speak, rather as in 1 Tim 2 it is the basis for Paul’s argument for submission.
I appreciate women prophesying but not being teachers, both being a means of bringing God’s word, does at first seem strange. But this comes from the same apostle who clearly saw no contradiction. 1 Cor and 1 Tim shed light on each other.
If the ‘law’ verses in 1 Cor 14 were in fact quoting a question posed by the Corinthians, hadn’t Paul already dealt with this long since in chapter 11? I don’t find this interpretation very convincing.
None of the Big Three interpretations of 1 Cor 14 is not without its difficulties; it’s not possible for us to reconstruct what Paul is correcting with absolute certainty.
@ Ken:
So you base your opinion of all women in existence on the women at Willow Creek?
Why don’t you base your opinion of all men in existence on the RCC pedophiles?
…….. or your opinion of all Germans on ten Nazi’s?
……… or your opinion of all Caucasians on the South Africans who practiced apartheid?
…………????
Nancy2 wrote:
Didn’t remotely imply that. I gave a specific example of specific disobedience to the apostle’ doctrine illustrating precisely what his restriction is imo designed to prevent.
@ Ken:
Nice try Ken. But over and over we have asked you to point us to the OT law you claim 1 Corin 14 is referring to. God is very clear in communicating His law. You should have no problem pointing us to it.
Ken wrote:
You will find these same issues in churches all over the world which are led by men. So what is your point? My point is that women leading is not the issue.
Ken wrote:
This again sidesteps the issue.
It also gets back to the idea that everything is fine with comp, the only problem is when comp is not carried out correctly (the “No True Complementarian” shtick).
At its root, comp is problematic itself, because it denies full personhood, agency, and many opportunities to women, and all based on a trait that cannot be changed, that they are born with (gender).
As such, it is discriminatory, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
Men who are abusive or who wish to deny women opportunities (even to single women and women in the secular world) use the same Bible verses and interpretation that you do about women, marriage, etc.
I left you a longer reply up thread here, I don’t know if you ever saw it:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/11/20/naghmeh-abedini-wife-of-imprisoned-pastor-abedini-is-a-victim-of-domestic-abuse-while-owen-strachancbmw-reports-that-complementarians-handle-abuse-really-well/comment-page-3/#comment-230807
Lydia wrote:
You’re welcome!
Lydia wrote:
There is no one verse in the OT telling women to be in submission.
It’s a good principle of interpretation that words used in the same context have the same meaning. Paul has already used the verb for silence in this chapter, and also referred to the Law, meaning the OT as he actually quotes from the Prophets v21.
Just as the silence in 1 Cor 14 for tongues speakers and prophets is not absolute but in a specific situation, I think it safe to apply this to the silence of the women also not being absolute. The alternative is the extra-biblical Jewish law (too speculative) or absolute silence in church from women a la MacArthur (too restrictive).
The law he has in mind is the beginning of Genesis, in particular chapter 2. He has already alluded to this 1 Cor 11, though without actually quoting it (8 – 9, balanced by 11 – 12). This also fits in with the parallel of 1 Tim 2. This is related to submission rather than silence.
I do actually see the egalitarian objection to reading too much into Gen 2, that ‘Adam was created to lead his wife’ or similar, but I don’t see how you can understand Paul’s ‘Adam was created first’ as meaning anything other than he was the custodian of the word of God (the command not to eat) given him before Eve’s creation, and because of this God assigns him the responsibility for the fall in a way that is not attributed to Eve. God required an account from Adam rather than Eve.
Bridget wrote:
My point is that as much as I’ve seen excellent ministry from women, particularly some charismatics, when they become teaching elders I’ve never ever known it not to lead to error.
It’s not that men cannot be deceivers and deceived, but when Paul’s instructions are not obeyed it doesn’t work. If you think I am stubborn on this, it is not for being unwilling to see the other point of view on this, it is in part experience which is hard to explain away. I don’t wish it had been that way, but it has.
Daisy wrote:
My interpretation of Eph 5 is that the complement of wifely submission is the husbandly agape love, expressed in nourishing, cherishing, honouring, being considerate towards his wife.
I defy you to get an abusive husband out of that. I’ve stated it enough times, but you always reply imputing to me views I don’t personally hold. It is just going round in circles. I don’t mean to be rude saying that, but there are aspects of this subject that keep getting batted to and fro like a tennis match, to change metaphor.
All biblical subjects are worth revisiting from time to time, but not if no-one is prepared to reconsider their existing position and all you get is constantly restating the same thing. Getting entrenched in a position can apply to egalitarians as well as complementarians.
@ Ken:
Wives are also supposed to show “agape love” to their husband. That one action is asked of one gender does not mean it is not also expected of the other.
Your view lays the ground work for men who are prone to be abusive, and at its root, it, in its interpretation of the biblical text, assumes very negative things about women.
See also (this addresses a few of the points you made):
Egalitarians Are Not Confused: A Response to Jason Meyer (The Gospel Coalition)
http://www.jorymicah.com/egalitarians-are-not-confused-a-response-to-jason-meyer-the-gospel-coalition/
@ Ken:
This was a quote left by a commentator on that same page I just gave you a link to (the person is quoting another site):
By D. May:
“This is a year old, but I think makes the same case based on a recent pop culture phenomenon (50 Shades of Grey).
“Women living under complementarian Christianity are told regularly that God’s intention for humanity is that men should hold exclusive power in the home and in church. They are the decision makers and the ones responsible for the well-being of the women and children under them. A Christian woman in the complementarian world is left hoping for a man like Jesus because that is exactly what it takes to guarantee gender hierarchy NOT be abusive.””
Source:
http://www.jorymicah.com/egalitarians-are-not-confused-a-response-to-jason-meyer-the-gospel-coalition/
@ Daisy:
Daisy,
I think Ken is just going to keep riding his little “no girls allowed” merry-go-round no matter what!
I hope you have had time today to relax a little and take some deep breaths.
I’m sending you a virtual hug. : )
@ Ken:
There you have it: *you* have never known it.
That is the problem; it is about your experiences, not about women as leaders or elders per se.
I sympathize re. the bad experiences, but please, you just cannot be judging *all* women based on that. It is, to say the least, extremely short-sighted.
@ Ken:
I am trying to understand. You are viewing creation order as a law? We don’t see this expounded in Mosaic Law. Strange.
@ Ken:
I am trying to understand. You are viewing creation order as a law? We don’t see this expounded in Mosaic Law. Strange.
Where is the prohibition law against women leading or teaching men?
Oops…
@ Nancy2:
Nancy, Ken is making up laws. Laws the both Deborah and Huldah broke.
numo wrote:
And how many times have you or I been told to base NOTHING on exeperience or feelings which, by the way, is the exact complaint Ken has with Willow Creek and seeker friendly types of fellowships. Yet, here he uses ‘his experiences’ as proof.
@ Ken:
See my response to Numo @ Bridget.
You have not addressed this:
Bridget wrote:
Lydia wrote:
But, but, but, …. Ken is a man. He is God-ordained to make up laws. Women, on the other hand, are only commanded to abide by those laws.
My faves are Rahab and Jael. They didn’t fit in a box, either!
Jael vs. Sisera – who was easily deceived???
Bridget wrote:
I think Ken firmly believes that any church that gives women any powers whatsoever is careening down the Willow Creek Road at breakneck speed with reckless abandon.
I’m not sure ‘submission’ in the way it is interpreted among fundamentalist patriarchal couples is always healthy. I look at the upbringing of the eldest Duggar son and we can see the resulting acting out of this young man’s own feelings and frustrations . . . and I wonder IF he was raised in a home that was more respectful of women, would he have come to view them as ‘objects’ upon which to act out his own needs?
‘Submission’ is a loaded word. It implies a forced servitude, not by one’s willingness so much as an ordained command, and that the failure to comply will lead to devastation . . . a guilt trip that ranks up there with anything I’ve seen in religion yet.
I don’t trust the ability of all males to handle ‘complementarianism’ respectfully. And I sure don’t trust the ability of their wives to survive the ordeal emotional intact. I’m sorry . . . it may be the ‘ideal’ for many Christian people, but to me it seems to place a great number of men into the temptation to abuse the dignity of another person, just by employing the very word itself, and leading on from there into the fall-out of a theology of placing ‘males’ in an altered position as human beings than ‘females’. It’s disordered. Especially when looking at the fact that the woman is also a person of conscience before God, with her own God-given talents.
numo wrote:
He can and he does. The mind boggles.
I really think gender complementarianism is sexism with a gloss of Christian-ese painted on top, and it’s parallel to racism.
Could you picture a gender comp arguing that because the handful of black persons he’s known as teachers (or elders or whatever) has always ended with them teaching error?
And that due to that, black people should not be allowed to teach or lead?
You could also possibly put in other categories, like, “the few Canadians I’ve known always taught error, ergo, Canadians should never be allowed to be X within the church…”
From what I’ve read, Paul was not arguing there is anything inherent in women that makes them false teachers, only that some of his directions were aimed at women who were un-schooled.
They needed to be properly educated before they were permitted to teach.
Bridget wrote:
Most interesting point, because Ken has said a few times over that he is against people using “extra biblical” sources to support, understand, or clarify what the Bible is saying on stuff, at least stuff about women, marriage, etc
Bridget wrote:
I’ll take a stab at this.
Most gender comps get caught up in the “I forbid a woman to teach” line by Paul. They cannot see past it.
The refuse to see that the logical outworking of their views and its practical ramifications of it shows that the text may not be saying what they think it’s saying.
It’s so much neater, simpler, to see a “I forbid a woman to teach” line and leave it at that, take it at face value, and as though it’s meant for all women every where.
Don’t mess with trying to understand why it says what it does, or to consider, maybe Paul was not intending that on being a timeless prohibition for all women every where.
Christiane wrote:
I agree with everything in your post but just wanted to comment on these parts in particular.
I can’t get Ken of this thread to grasp Point 2.
He doesn’t see that ultimately, male only headship and unilateral wifely submssion = repugnant and sexist in and of itself.
So long as the husband is not giving his wife black eyes, Ken thinks this stuff is okay.
Part 1 is another problem. Ideas have consequences and that includes gender complementarianism.
The abusers and overt sexists share the same to similar interpretations of wifely submission type Bible verses as other gender complementarians who may not be abusing their wives.
That some men do not abuse their wives under gender comp does not mean there is nothing wrong with gender comp. It is still a demeaning view of women, and one that unnecessarily limits women.
Ken wrote:
What you may call abusive, they call discipline.
In fact, the assertions of his *duty* to discipline his wife is liberally buttressed about with Bible verses, disproving your assertion that he “doesn’t care what the bible says.”
The wife who expresses reluctance to being ‘disciplined’ by hubby is clearly expressing her sinfulness and disobedience (as per the same misreading you have of Genesis) in which she is attempting to usurp his authority.
I understand that this may not align with your belief, but the fact remains that the verses & associated interpretations you bring forth regarding authority & submission are the very same verses used by the more authority/submission-focused men to justify as they force their wives into spiritual burkas.
If you are unaware of this reality and the increasing commonality of it, then it would behoove you to research it a little more in depth. Information is readily available.
@ Bridget:
Exactement oui!
@ Daisy:
I know. It does.not.compute. I can’t even…. [:words fail:]
@ Daisy:
Oui ja sim si si si… [fell free to add “yes” in even more languages…]
Daisy wrote:
Spot on, Daisy! When we slice & dice the Good News into male and female principles, we must also call God one who shows partiality which contradicts scripture and the result is that confusion reigns.
My view is that evil is delighted with any attempt to keep females from developing gifts as full heirs for the Body. Evil loves it when they waste time wrestling with what is acceptable for females in that area or not. Can I stand on stage? Can I use the pulpit? Can I read scripture? At what age are boys men and I should stop teaching them……and so on and on and on. It is a delightful distraction for Screwtape.
Evil is delighted with this because Christ’s so called followers are implementing this bondage for him!
I may have wondered this before, but.
Unmarried women do not need male headship.
Women who never marry, who are divorced, do not need a “male head.”
So I wonder why complementarians think married ones do?
I am not in agreement with all things David Barton, but this snippet from his page echoes some of the things some of us have tried to explain to Ken.
From a page about slavery in America:
“The Bible and Slavery”
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=120
Snippets:
—-
Slavery is a product of the fall of man and has existed in the world since that time.
Slavery was not a part of God’s original created order, and as God’s created order has gradually been re-established since the time of Christ, slavery has gradually been eliminated.
….When God gave the law to Moses, slavery was a part of the world, and so the law of God recognized slavery. But this does not mean that slavery was God’s original intention. The law of Moses was given to fallen man.
Some of the ordinances deal with things not intended for the original creation order, such as slavery and divorce.”
———–
-What Barton writes there applies to male leadership and patriarchy as well.
Daisy wrote:
Daisy, I’ve said it enough times, I don’t define submision in terms of subjugation. A respectful deference as the occasion demands would be nearer what I think. But it’s not an easy thing to define and I think men should be wary of doing so!
You have constantly asserted (without argument) that submission in the church and marriage is mutual. If submission is by definition abusive, you are arguing for mutual abuse.
Since this is a discussion about submission of wives in the NT and whether this applies today, if you insist submission is instrinsically abusive then it must have been abusive back then.
Forced submission would be abusive, but then no-one is arguing for that. Paradoxically, it must be voluntary, as an act of obedience to the Lord himself.
If submission in marriage is mutual, then as the wife must follow so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands the husband must also submit to his wife in everything. How would that work in practice? Is no-one ultimately responsible? This is worse than the ‘casting vote’ idea.
The reason the wife should submit is because the husband is head. Where is your verse or verses that ever intimate joint headship in marriage?
As marriage is intended to be a reflection of Christ and the church, is the submission there mutual? The very thought is absurd.
I am aware (BL) of the potential for abuse in any human submission/authority relationship, but I don’t believe the NT in any way allows this, and I do believe there must be a way of living this out – today – sensibly without any abuse; on the contrary, this is here for our mutual blessing.
@ Ken:
Why you are so blanket anti-psychology? This has come up before and honestly this is my biggest problem with you, not the comp thing. Whenever someone brings up whether X Christian thing is psychologically healthy you discount it immediately and trash talk psychology, even to the point where you once said that you “don’t believe in therapy” because it only makes sinful people behave better instead of saving them – i.e., all behavioral improvements are meaningless unless the person also converts. Sorry. If a murderer stops murdering people but doesn’t believe the Gospel, it’s still a good thing. And I think God thinks it’s a good thing too.
I know you can’t (and won’t) see this, but this anti-psychology thing you keep spouting is EXTREMELY dangerous and unhealthy. I’d be curious to know what you would find objectionable about Cloud and Townsend’s book Boundaries. My experience with it is that it enabled people to see they were being abused and get out of the relationship.
Addendum @ Ken:
There’s also the equally problematic underlying assumption that only non-Christians would ever have a problem serious enough to warrant therapy. Or would you be okay with a Christian going to therapy because they’re already saved?
And if you tell me you’re in favor of “Christian counseling” or “nouthetic counseling” instead, sorry, but they’re an incestuous web of self-certifying crap with no professional standards, some potentially illegal moments and views that set people up for abuse.
http://revolfaith.com/2014/12/20/the-biblical-counseling-movement-the-tangled-web/
http://revolfaith.com/2014/12/25/the-biblical-counseling-movement-bait-and-switch/
http://revolfaith.com/2015/01/25/biblically-counseling-the-sexually-abused/
Hester wrote:
It has also enabled people to see that they were being abused on a lesser scale and to see how they can change their reaction thereby actually improving and sometimes actually saving the marriage from spiraling into even deeper abuse.
@ Hester:
Hester, the clue is in the expression replacing the NT with psychology.
I’ve never been that keen on it because of its roots in Freud and Jung.
I’ve spent years in a church where the pastor, who genuinely cared for people, imo over-emphased a psychological approach to people.
I’ve never been at at keen on sncretism – the merging of human philosophies to make up for the deficiences of the NT. The NT is not a medical book, but it does have plenty to say on what is right and wrong, and taking responsibility of our behaviour.
A high level of psychology (what I term psycho-babble) leads to down-playing of sin and human responsibility, and the cultivation of a victim mentality and/or focus on self.
What I read of Cloud and Townsend and Willow Creek was astonishingly antithetical to Christian marriage. We won’t quibble about the word boundaries if what is meant is saying no to unreasonable demands, but setting boundaries in marriage is to undermine the one-flesh relationship, where the idea is a unity, not the continuation of two separate entities.
I had a Christian friend at university whose wife was a psychologist, and we happily agreed to differ on this one. It’s easy to talk at cross-purposes. My middle one also cannot understand my antipathy to psychology, and gives me grief for it!
I suppose what I have seen is justification by faith (if at all) coupled with an attmept at sanctification by psychology. An attempt to modify and change the ‘old man’ or the flesh, rather than put him to death. I wonder if the underlying cause is the absence of the Holy Spirit to effect real change, so a substitute is needed. Entertainment or high ritual can also be a symptom of this in churches.
I have to thank Hester for alerting me to this post by Ken.
I sometimes don’t see all his posts, or only parts of his posts until someone else quotes him.
Hester quoted this in her post:
Ken wrote:
I think your view of the Bible is very off.
You have an extreme, extreme form of “sola scriptura” that even conservative Christian theologians and apologists do not hold.
There is nothing un-godly, wrong, or liberal about using sources outside the Bible to either learn more about the Bible, or about other topics in life.
For example, several years ago, I had to put RAM cards into my CPU (computer). The Bible does not say how to take a computer apart to insert RAM cards, so I had to buy a book about computer repair to learn how to do that.
The Bible is not a life manual. It’s not going to spell out everything a Christian needs to know for every area of life.
There is such a thing as being too narrowly focused on the Bible as a source of information and authority, and you do appear to fall into this category.
There are other Christian psychologists and psychiatrists – and secular ones – who also will verify what Cloud and Townsend teach on topics, such as codependency.
So, if you don’t like Cloud and Townsend for whatever reason, there are other Christians who can corroborate their views.
Cloud and Townsend offer Bible verses and biblical principles for almost every other comment in their books to support their positions.
Ken, have you ever actually read any books by C and T?
The Bible is being misinterpreted and misapplied by persons such as yourself regarding gender complementarianism.
It’s all fine and good to respect the Bible and think you are going by the “Bible alone,” but it does no good for other people or yourself when you are mis-interpreting that Bible.
You are also reading your (cultural) assumptions into the biblical text in regards to the Bible.
You keep pointing to women teachers you felt were dodgy at Willow Creek as to why you understand the Bible as you do
(which is an extra-biblical thing for you to do. Why do you feel it’s OK for you to make extra biblical appeals, but not for others)
Well, Ken, I was raised in a gender comp home, and I lived as a woman under gender comp for decades.
I point to my personal experience to show you the real-life harm gender comp interpretations do to women such as myself. I had to live under these stupid, sexist, confining rules – you have not.
You’re a man, so you get a pass under these gender comp teachings.
Gender complementarianism actually conflicts with other teachings in the Bible, such as, gender comp conflicts with the Bible’s instruction not to have a fear of man, and not to practice idolatry.
Gender complementarians pass codependent behaviors and attitudes off as being God’s design for women.
Women, under this view, are encouraged to defer to men, especially husbands and male preachers this is, in other words, i.e., “fear of man”),
And gender comp, with its extreme devotion to male headship and male authority, turns masculinity into an idol (deity, false god).
Gender comps have turned manhood, men, and their cultural understandings of masculinity into idols (deity).
What some Christian psychologists, psychiatrists -and authors, theologians, and philosophers – do at times is expose how the Bible is being abused or mis-applied by Christians such as yourself.
When you present your interpretation of the Bible on some point or another as being binding on all women everywhere, those teachings have real life (negative) consequences on women such as myself (ones which can and do leave a woman with a sour taste of the Christian faith).
-Which is a point I don’t think you care squat about, honestly.
Ken, your gender comp teachings actually keep women in bondage, while Jesus came to free women.
If I were to draw up a list of behaviors, rules, and attitudes Christian gender comps expect women to adhere by, and make up a list of typical codependent behaviors and attitudes, both lists would match about 99%.
Codependency for women (often referred to as “gender complementarianism” by some Christians) is not biblical.
Codependency for women consists of behaviors or beliefs women and girls are encouraged to practice by churches or Christian material, and/or from growing up in abusive families.
The Bible you appeal to so often for your position about women actually condemns the very attributes you assume Paul and other biblical writers are discussing regarding women / marriage.
The Bible actually has examples of women who God approved of, who displayed attitudes or actions that counter what gender comps teach – women who were bold, assertive, taught and led men, etc.
I find it strange you would criticize Christian authors or doctors as these authors show how Christians misapplying or misunderstanding the Bible does harm to people.
Jesus said his burden is light, but you present a Jesus to women who created even more burdens, rules, and obstacles for women.
Jesus did not come to uphold patriarchy, or to invent a kinder, gentler form of patriarchy to keep women in bondage under.
There was something else about Ken’s post I wanted to address, but I may have to come back to that later.
Hester wrote:
I kind of have an errand or two I need to care of soon, so I may have to return later to comment more on some of this-
But in regards to this post of yours.
I was “saved” at a young age, prior to turning age ten, and I was brought up in a gender complementarian house.
You can be a Christian, “know Jesus” (have accepted Christ as your savior) and still have problems in life, including psychological health problems, physical health ones, etc.
I never found “Bible only” approaches to depression, anxiety, and codependency helpful at all.
The Bible is actually misinterpreted by Christians quite a bit, which only keeps people trapped in their problems.
Instead of encouraging me to have healthy boundaries, be assertive, and get my needs met, (all concepts the Bible is not opposed to), most Christian teaching on these subjects was warped, and taught me to be a participant in my own abuse, allow people to walk all over me, that it was selfish for me to have needs and to get them met, etc.
I had to break away from incorrect, conservative Christian understandings (which are actually misunderstandings) to come to a mentally healthy place.
If I was still operating under the gender comp perspective of the Bible and what it says, for example, I’d still be in clinical depression, feel ashamed of myself all the time, tolerate a lot of mistreatment (especially off of boyfriends), and so on.
I actually think if I had been raised in a Non-Christian household,
I probably would NOT have had the problems I did. I would have had parents who encouraged me to take risks, be assertive, go after what I want, not feel ashamed of my needs, of having needs, or making mistakes.
-But all that negative stuff was pushed on to me, often (not always, but quite a bit) by my Christian upbringing, under the guise of, “this is how Jesus wants Christians, especially girls and women, to live.”
I don’t think the Bible is teaching what gender comps think it’s teaching, in other words.
Their manner of teaching can mess Christians up (especially females), and those women may have to enter into therapy or take anti depressant or anti anxiety medications to cope, as a result.
The gender complementarian brand of teaching is not liberating Christian women, but causing them even more problems, which cannot be remedied by Bible reading alone, or by prayer, or church attendance.
I wanted to add a ‘Post Script’ (to my post above that hasn’t been published quite yet), with an example of one thing I mean.
In the case of spousal abuse, for instance, conservative, extreme “sola scriptura” advice from preachers and other Christians to wives does not work, but keeps them trapped.
Often, church people will tell an abused wife to remedy her abusive marriage by “submitting more” to the abusive husband and/or “pray more for him”.
-That’s a “Bible only approach,” accompanied by a misunderstanding of a biblical verse or two, that talk about wives submitting and so on.
(That is also an example of “this is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Women in abusive marriages have been coached to “submit and pray more” for decades by Christian pastors, and it has not worked.)
This overly wooden application and understanding of the Bible is ineffective in assisting abused wives.
Submitting more to an abuser (whether it is a spouse, boss, neighbor), and whether we are talking about emotional, verbal, or physical abuse, is enabling the abuser.
The abuser will keep abusing.
Based upon the 56 billion books, blogs, testimonies, I’ve read over the years on this issue, and my own life experience with this stuff, if you are being abused, your only hope is really only to get away from the abuser.
-Which would mean divorce if you’re married to an abuser, or quitting a job and getting another one somewhere else, if your boss is the abuser.
But standard Christian advice, the type that Ken would likely give his stamp of approval to, because it’s a “flat,” wooden application and interpretation of the Bible, would keep victims stuck in abusive relationships.
A Christian person of Ken’s persuasion would probably coach people being bullied or abused by a boss or spouse to stay in the marriage, submit more to the spouse (or boss), pray for that person, etc.
Someone of this mindset would probably tell the victim that to be concerned for your own safety and mental health, and to want an escape from the abuse, is self absorbed, thinking too much of self, etc.
-And all those views are nothing more than a recipe for asking an abused person to simply stay and put up passively with even more abuse for years.
The reality is that the Bible does not ask for people to live as perpetual doormats.
Your Biblical interpretations are not done in a vacuum. They have real-life impacts on people.
The “one size fits all,” or “let’s say going to outside sources for knowledge on how to help people is un-godly or replacing the Bible” – and so on attitudes – they are not helpful with people’s very real problems in daily life.
They keep people languishing unnecessarily in abusive situations, jobs, or marriages.
Ken wrote:
You don’t believe each individual is held responsible for him or herself? Or does individual responsibility only apply to single people? Husbands are held doubly responsible because it’s a wife’s duty to relinquish her responsibilities, like Sapphira???
@ Daisy:
So true. The more I submitted, the worse our marriage and family life got. The boundary lines kept getting moved, so that “rebellion” slid down that slippery slope, until (because I was giving in, in everything) a pained look crossing my face became a display of rebellion. Our daughters resented their father’s disrespectful treatment of me, and so I got accused of leading them in rebellion.
Now that I’m no longer in abject submission (we left that church behind over a year ago, and good riddance), our marriage seems to be improving. At least, my husband is more considerate and more loving than when he suspected me of having rebellion simmering under the surface at all times.
I still get triggered when I hear a “pastor” or “elder” mention wives not submitting enough to their husbands. How about praying instead that wives and husbands submit to one another? And all those other one-another verses?
Tell me, for I haven’t looked lately, but is there more than ONE Bible verse that explicitly says “and wives, to your husbands” — see, even in that explicit text, “submit” is not literally in the sentence, but assumed?
Wow, such an incredibly huge and complex house of cards is built upon one verse in the bible, that doesn’t even have the word “submit” literally contained within the verse.
Of course, if I’m forgetting some other explicit instruction somewhere else, please correct my misapprehension. (Gently, please. I have taken a lot of damage over application of this one verse.)
Daisy wrote:
I wonder how many otherwise good marriages have been destroyed by application of this doctrine? This whole submission thing and the heavy burden put upon my husband of leading his family (according to the definition of “leading” laid out by the doctrine of our former church) almost destroyed our marriage.
We had a pretty good marriage before joining that church, and it’s getting better (I think. I hope.) since leaving. But there was so much damage done, both in the marriage relationship and in the father-daughter relationships.
@ Ken:
I’ll just reiterate what Daisy already said about this. The Bible is not designed to cover everything. And yes, it has deficiencies, because the authors didn’t know some things that we do now. For instance, there were debates at one point about whether or not the moon reflected the sun’s light or emitted its own light, because if it did not emit its own light this would clearly “contradict” the bit in Genesis about it being a “lesser light to rule the night.” Luther thought it was reflector. Calvin thought it emitted its own light. Luther was thus a “syncretist” per your definition because he used astronomy to “make up for” the deficient description of the moon. Except, of course, we all know now that Luther was in the right on this one and the moon does not in fact emit its own light per the literal reading of Genesis 1. Funny how that worked out.
There are many situations in which someone actually NOT sinned, is NOT responsible, and IS really a victim. Are there certain mental illnesses that are invented in your view and just ways to “downplay sin” and “cultivate a victim mentality”? If so, which ones?
I can never and will never agree with this from a moral/ethical standpoint, or even a Biblical one. Frankly it’s creepy-scary to me on a visceral level. It’s really no different from this description of the parent-child dynamics in patriocentrist households where children can’t develop a sense of self because they are told to “think their parents’ thoughts after them” etc., except it’s the spouses instead of the children.
http://botkinsyndrome.blogspot.com/p/enmeshment-and-botkin-syndrome.html
This makes me sad, really, because you will eventually hurt someone with this philosophy (albeit probably unintentionally), if you haven’t already. As I suspected, your view really is no better than a nouthetic counselor’s. As such it’s dangerous for people like abuse victims.
I also find it interesting that you think psychology is bad because it encourages the spouses to remain two separate selves instead of one flesh, when you’ve spent the whole rest of this thread vociferously defending the idea of differing commands (headship and submission) to husband and wife. (IIRC you’ve also supported similar ideas like “equality doesn’t equal sameness,” etc.) Why are there separate commands if the goal is to downplay self and individuality? Also how does no marriage in heaven work if the spouses are supposed to shed or downplay their separate selves the whole time they’re on earth? They suddenly become completely separate again in the resurrection? You are taking “one flesh” WAY too literally here.
How do you know that therapy cannot be a way to put the flesh to death?
Also, Ken, please make sure to look through the links I provided about Jay Adams’ nouthetic counseling complex. The whole thing is a scam through and through and I wouldn’t send my cat to get advice from a nouthetic counselor.
@ Daisy:
The only thing relevant to or about a wife is how submissive she is to her husband. Nothing else matters as far as married women are concerned.
I reached the point of distancing myself from church, at least mentally, because of the strictness on “women’s roles”. I’m actually using the twisted interpretation of submission to avoid participating in activities in our VERY male controlled complementarian church. When someone asks me to do something, I just say, “You’ll have to ask my husband.” They very seldom proceed to ask my husband.
Hester wrote:
Just like Scientology, except Biblical Nouthetics instead of LRH Dianetics?
Nancy2 wrote:
This is called “Beat the System”.
@ Ken:
Garbage. Boundaries is all about accountability and sin. His has nothing to do with Willowcreek.
Boundaries as the first book my wife and I read together, and it has reaped more benefits and I could imagine. We have one of the healthiest, most loving relationships imaginable, and we have healthy boundaries. This allows us to be even closer and more intimate.
@ Nancy2:
Sapphira is a bit of a comp problem, isn’t she. What is usually taught is that a “plain” reading of the text is that she conspired with her husband.
I do agree she is guilty because I believe adult individuals are responsible and accountable for themselves regardless of gender. But is she was following the “law” of creation order then it got her killed.
What we do know for sure is that she was not seeking the wisdom of the Holy Spirit on her own or thinking independently different from her husband.
I liken it as a sort of early church version of Eve who “turned” to Adam instead of God.
@ Jeff S:
I think comp doctrine has an unhealthy (they won’t admit this) understanding of one flesh. It is really more like: She is an extension of me. The one flesh becomes 3/4 husband and 1/4 wife. If both are submitting it can be a whole. If one is expected to submit to the other, then it is off kilter. (never mind that pesky verse 21)
That is why treating the wife as an independent but interdependent individual with clear boundaries to be respected as she does his, is considered pop psychology.
Ken wrote:
I am saying that the type of submission that comps call for is or can be abusive, and is often exploited by men to order their wives around.
You can see this time and again on blogs for Christian survivors of domestic abuse, by Christian women who had to divorce their Christian abusive husbands.
These men often appeal to the SAME LOGIC and BIBLE VERSES and INTERPRETATION (all caps for emphasis, becaise I am too lazy to type up bold tags in HMTL) that you do when you support your view about submission and marriage.
Your view of submission is that only women submit, and that based on a trait they are born with, which is like saying you think all blacks should submit to all white people no matter what.
Being black (skin color) is something in-born, they cannot change.
To base a directive on an in-born trait is unfair to that person or group of persons.
There is nothing intrinsic in being a man which makes you better, smarter, or more whatever, that gives you a right to unilateral authority over a wife, or any woman.
Ken wrote:
No, I’ve explained til I’m blue in the face.
I’ve also cited bible verses which say that all are to submit to all, but you read your own views into such texts to say “No only wives submit to husbands.”
Jesus said not to lord authority over anyone, but you argue that men should lord authority over wives, but that’s OK with you, so long as you sugar coat it by calling that authority “servant leadership.”
Ephesians 5:21
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
-There is nothing in Eph 5.21 that says “this applies to wives only,” nor in the context.
If single(as in unMarried) women do not need male headship, and the Bible does not say single women need male headship (and it does not), then married ones don’t need male headship, either.
Which tells you that your interpretation of what “the man is head of the woman” means is wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Head” in the biblical NT text is not speaking of being boss, authority over, in charge of, or the man gets the final say.
If all women were inherently stupid or capable of being easily deceived, the NT would teach that ALL women (widowed, divorced, and never married) need a “male head” to boss them around, and not just married ones… but it does not say any such thing.
Further, women do not magically change between being single and the marriage ceremony.
Women do not go from being smart, capable, and just as spiritually wise as men prior to marriage…
To the moment they stand at the wedding ceremony and say “I do,” their brains instantly get removed from their body, and the Holy Spirit vacates their hearts.
Before I go over the rest of the posts and reply, I wanted to say.
I just took a quiz on another site called “how evil are you,” which I wrote about in the Open Thread here (with a link to that quiz, so you can take it too):
http://thewartburgwatch.com/open-discussion-page/comment-page-9/#comment-231535
My quiz results said,
“Infrequently vile
You are infrequently vile – you mostly put others before yourself, though you may find occasions in which your dark side shines.”
Even though I have healthy boundaries now, and healthy self interest, and I am assertive, I still get told by this quiz, “you mostly put others before yourself”.
How about that!
Having healthy, normal self esteem and good boundaries and being assertive does not lead to a person becoming totally self-absorbed or too into self, to the exclusion of caring for or about others, as Ken seemed to be saying in a post earlier up on this page.
You do not have to be a doormat and deny your own needs. You can get your own needs met, be assertive, and still care about others. It’s not a mutually exclusive proposition. Yay!
Ken wrote:
Eph 5.21 speaks of mutual submission.
Your definition and understanding of wifely submission is abusive.
You are saying if a married couple gets into a disagreement, that the wife must always defer to what the husband wants, and this is based on her gender + marital status only.
Married couples are adults, Ken. They talk through disagreements. They compromise.
It’s like if you get into a disagreement with your adult brother, an aunt, or your co-worker wants to eat Tex Mex at lunch, but you want to go to the Chinese buffet.
If your co worker wants Tex Mex, and you want Chinese on your work lunch break what do you do, Ken?
Do you insist you have Headship over your co-worker so that he/she has to cave in and go to the Chinese place?
How ever do you handle this dispute with coworkers, bosses, neighbors, grandparents, cousins, and everyone else? Hint: you use those same skills with a wife.
I also don’t see what responsibility has to do with submission? That seems to be mixing apples and oranges.
“Head” in the Bible does not mean “husband gets final say in disputes.”
The Bible says, to paraphrase or summarize, “husband gives up his rights and authority over the wife that culture gave him, as he is to treat the wife the way Jesus loves the Church”
You’re misreading the text. The culture in which the Bible was written, men already had authority over their wives.
The type of “head” the NT is talking about is not saying the husband has authority, or final “say so” over the wife, -that was something the husband ALREADY* had given to him by secular culture.
It was more counter cultural for that day for Paul to convey, via “head” analogies, that the husband was supposed to love his wife, respect her, and occasionally maybe even caving in and let the wife have final say-so in a dispute… which is the complete opposite of what gender comp guys like you are advocating.
*(all caps for emphasis, not yelling)
@ refugee:
I am so sorry for what you went through, but I am happy to hear things are improving.
The gender complementarians out there, such as Ken, need to read stories like yours. I don’t think they really appreciate that their teachings can and do have negative, real life consequences for people.
This isn’t just an abstract theological debate for us.
@ Lydia:
It’s rediculous, and it make me angry. My relationship with my wife is unbelievable. I mean, out of this world. And yes, it is the way it is because we are equal partners with boundaries who respect one another. How can people call these things the problem with our culture? As “unbiblical”? All while sowing fear if you try to do these things that actually creat healthy relationships. They are actively standing in the way of peolle having what I have. They’d rather people be miserable and confirm their beliefs than actually have healthy marriages. It sickens me. Because everyone should have the tools to have a great marriage. Instead, poison is pedaled as the cure.
Relationships are hard enough withot piling more garbage on top of it. Christians need to stop talking about marriage and start talking about the great redemptive story of our Savior, because the dumb stuff we spew only hurts people and discredits the Cross.
Hester wrote:
Good catch.
He’s advocating what appears to be an extreme form of a married couple being “one flesh” -boundaries are supposedly wrong, because they allow for distinctions between husband and wife-
But then advocates for a biblical interpretation of submission / head verses and so on, which calls for or can create distinctions between husband and wife. 🙂
He’s wanting husbands to be distinct and one flesh, and at the same time arguing certain concepts, such as having boundaries, is allegedly wrong, because they create distinctions.
So I guess only “Ken-approved” distinctions are okay and to be thought of as biblical? 🙂
BTW, when two people lack boundaries and take on too much of the other’s responsibilities in life, or don’t individualize themselves, you get something called enmeshment.
You become enmeshed, which is unhealthy for everyone involved.
I hope he’s not advising an extreme form of “one flesh” that is nothing but an enmeshed, codependent martial relationship, where the wife has no identity of her own, does not seek ultimate identity in Jesus, but seeks it in a mere mortal man, a husband.
That is a recipe for disaster, abuse, and all sorts of bad stuff.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Except Scientology lacks a Tom Cruise character who will jump up and down on a couch in protest over psychology.
I also remember when Cruise took Brooke Shields (or some actress who had a baby) to task for using anti depressant medications due to postpartum or something?? That was years ago. I don’t remember the details.
We need more couch-bouncey gender complementarians to keep the entertainment up.
So I can be like this animated GIF:
http://img.michaeljacksonspictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/popcorn-blank.gif
Daisy wrote:
Correction! I meant Christian Gender Complementarian lacks a Tom Cruise like character.
Gender comps need a Cruise.
@ Jeff S:
To add to the discussion, my mom would have referred to boundaries as “consideration”. It is part of treating each other as adults with respect.
What on earth has happened in 30 years? My parents displayed very healthy partner functionality and they were as about as opposite as you can get.
Personally, I think spending your life with someone who views you as lesser, or easily deceived or even responsible for the behavior of the other sounds like pure misery. I imagine it works for some but I don see how both can grow in wisdom and maturity in such an environment.
Lydia wrote:
I agree with this.
I’ve also heard preachers who specialize in marriage related topics (they pump out stuff like “How to have a healthy marriage” books, seminars, etc), will teach that people cannot “be whole” until they marry.
They think you have to have one man married to one woman for either/both of them to be totally human, or to be completely in God’s image.
Now, if you are divorced, widowed, or single, (like me), they are in effect saying you are not completely human, or not totally in the image of God.
I heard one preacher who is a marriage- fixated one (he writes books about marriage all the time, does conferences on it), that it took his brain plus his wife’s brain to equal a full brain.
I’m sitting there as a woman who’s never married listening to this preacher’s speech, thinking, so you’re really saying I’m a dim wit, I’m only half-brained?
Yet another similar preacher has taught that God created husbands so that women could have male covering and protection.
I’m a 40ish year old, never married woman, so he’s basically saying God left me protection-less, if we go by this guy’s understanding.
I am convinced that many Christians who promote these gender and marriage views do not fully think through their beliefs and how they impact folks who cannot or who do not fit their views or life situations.
I also wonder at times if they all got into a Doc Brown DeLorean time machine car and are sending us broadcasts of their TV shows from 1952, when lots of people did marry by the age of 25.
These days, here in 2015, most people (Americans at least) are not marrying, or don’t marry until their late 20s or even older.
@ Nancy2:
This is priceless!
@ Lydia
I’m sure many people can function well in such a system. But I doubt they will ever reach their potential.
My pastor asked me, when we discussed this, if his wife was suffering for heir views. I told him I believed that she would never reah her true potential, though she is a great woman.
But while we disagree on complementarianism, at least he thinks boundaries are healthy.
Nancy2 wrote:
I think this is hilarious.
Depending on the depth of snark factor, another possible response could be “I’m sorry, but I’m sure had my husband wanted me to do ‘X’, he would have already informed me.”
@ Hester:
Yes.
Daisy wrote:
Nonsense! Jesus and Paul (and others) were most certainly “whole” persons. I have heard this type of teaching before and I always thought it sheer nonsense!
Daisy wrote:
I’m afraid they would just say that the problem wasn’t with comp doctrine, but with the fact my husband “did it” wrong. In fact, we have heard that, from numerous comps who are invested in the system, both male and female.
If we would just go back and do it right, do it “godly” and “biblically”, we would have a marriage made in heaven. I’m not able to do that, which in their eyes means I’m continuing in rebellion. Pity my poor husband…
Ken wrote:
Both are responsible. Neither are boss. What is so hard about it?
refugee wrote:
No! The problem was that you just aren’t that good at faking it.
Not nearly as good at it as the comps who were telling you that your husband “did it” wrong.
Bridget wrote:
Bridget, the hard part is when the husband wants to be the boss. What ensues is either a fight, or the wife being the servant. The wife may be a treasured servant, but still just the servant. When they agree, the marriage is 50/50. When they disagree, the marriage is 100/0.
Nancy2 wrote:
Or the wife! Boss wives do exist.
Ken wrote:
The Boldness That Comes With Mutual Submission
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/boldness-comes-mutual-submission?page=show
@ Ken:
A lot of people fall for the idea that there must be an adult in charge of the adults. They cannot imagine anything else. This idea has become codified in our government and church structures. The individualism that came together with other individuals during Westward expansion is dead. It was messy but effective.
Now we want our blankey and binkey and dare anyone to offend us. We depend on autocratic officials who are supposed to be servants who milk their positions for our security and freedom. The irony oozes.
All it takes is convincing adults they need a leader. So you ask how it works? It is called being a grown up.
Owen Strachan/CBMW Reports That Complementarians Handle Abuse Really Well ………..
Maybe they claim that because they don’t call it abuse. Maybe they just call abuse disciplining the wife.
refugee wrote:
No-one else has taken this on, so I’ll have a go – with some trepidation. I must say two things first: I’ve experienced = been on the receiving end of the misuse of authority and position both in the church and employment, and it did some real damage. Secondly, any use of the term ‘submit’ or any similar translation that leads to abuse, putting down, manipulation, lording it over … of one person by another is a misuse of the concept. It cannot possibly be what the NT writers mean by the term.
Wives are told to submit three times. Specifically it is a hallmark of being filled with the Spirit, and occurs in Eph 5 : 21, and v 22 by implication – you cannot really have a verbless sentence. It is specifically commanded in the parallel passage in Colosians 3 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. The third occasion is in 1 Peter Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, ….
In every instance there is a corresponding command to husbands, and I have endlessly been repeating this. The husband must love, nourish, cherish, be considerate and bestow honour, not be harsh with his wife. This his part of the bargain, and God expects him to aim to do these things.
I suppose a fourth example would be Paul instructing the older women to train the young women to love their husbands and children,
to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited. This verse is why I don’t believe men, especially young men from seminary with too much head knowledge of Greek, should teach what submission means. There is no way on old lady, with all her maturity and wisdom, a lifetime’s experience of getting it wrong and then getting it right in a marriage (hopefully) will ever instruct young wives to ‘submit’ to abusive treatment.
There is one instruction to wives, and a whole load to husbands, which is an interesting thought!
I hope that helps rather than brings up painful memories.
Daisy wrote:
i) Who’d of thought it …
ii) If you want a husband to take responsibilty, it may be the wife has to give way on occasions.
Daisy, the wife submitting because the husband is her head applies to wives and husbands. It’s not used for any other relationship except figuratively for Christ and the church. So why keep bringing up how you treat people to whom you are not married or who are not married? The debate is about either leadership in the church or wives and husband, nothing else.
@ Lydia:
I agree with a lot of your sentiments here. In Britain, this has become known as the Nanny State. An over-reliance on the State to sort everything out.
The error of the Shepherding error (apart from pure abuse of authority) was that perhaps for the first 6 months of being discipled it was a good thing – close mentoring or a new Christian. But the goal of discipleship is to produce disciples of Jesus, and for them to learn to stand on their own two spiritual feet. An unwillingness to let go means they will end up in a kind of religious dependency culture. Hey presto! and you’ve got a new Romanist priesthood inserted between the believer and God.
Ken wrote:
I’ve already addressed this post of Ken’s a time or two above, but I wanted to cover another aspect of it.
Flag Ken wants to maintain there is nothing abusive about gender complementarianism, or at least, not if it’s implemented the way he suggests.
But at its root, it’s already an abusive system (which Gram3 has explained more eloquently than myself in the past).
Ken goes on to say (I’m summarizing his views according to my understanding of them on this point) that at least one person in a marriage should have final control, which is exhibited in who gets the last say in a disagreement.
First of all, he would have to make a case why it’s the Husband who gets this power / ability rather than the wife.
I don’t see a biblical basis for male favoritism in marriage, or in any other sphere of life.
The Bible actually says not to play favorites, e.g., James 2:1:
Job 34:19, (speaking of God):
Appealing to “husband is head” type verses does not work here, because the Bible is not ascribing “final say so” powers under the “head” metaphor.
It’s actually pointing to the opposite: that the husband should lay down his male privilege, power, control, to appease, defer to, and love the wife, as Christ loves the Church.
Christ does not love the church by “steam rolling” over the individuals within the church, or their choices. Christ does not arrogantly or condescendingly insist on having his way all the time.
Jesus asks that people follow him, out of love for him – not because he was God, or had power, or had a male body.
Anyway, the notion that there has to be a spouse within the marriage at all times, and that this “tie breaker” can be the husband only, is itself abusive.
Almost any check list you read published by domestic violence sites about warning signs to look for of abusive tendencies in boyfriends or husbands, *wanting control or insisting upon it* is always in the top tier of traits.
From one page about warning signs that you may be dating or married to an abuser:
Gender comps are taking a behavior (man gets final control, say so, etc.) that is well- known by experts on domestic abuse to be an indicator of abuse, and saying this is what Christian husbands should be doing.
It’s calling evil good and good evil.
Isaiah 5:20:
Also, where Ken writes:
But you are, actually.
You, a man, are continually insisting to women readers here that women must submit to a man, (and you define this in part as the man gets “final say so” in the relationship), you are insisting this is a doctrinal thing that God insists upon in the Bible (in other words, you are arguing this view is binding on all Christian women), so you are in effect forcing women to accept submission.
However, any submission the Bible calls for in the NT in regards to any relationship within the body of Christ, marriage or not, is voluntary.
It’s not up to a man to tell women they must submit to a husband or to another man.
If I get married, it is wholly my choice if I “submit” to a husband, in the way gender comps believe I should submit, or in any other way, for that matter.
I can tell you right now, should I marry, I will not be submitting in that (gender comp) manner.
Any marriage I have will be a marriage of equals, not a servant- to- master relationship, where the husband gets to veto my wishes and decisions each and every time or anytime there is a dispute
(and at that, by sheer fact of having male genitalia. Any spouse of mine better have a better reason for me to go with his view over mine than, “I have a male body, that settles it, and the Bible talks about men being heads”).
I believe in compromise and hammering out differences in a relationship.
Daisy wrote:
Correction to this post. I left out a few words, which I will add in brackets here:
@ Daisy:
A post scrip to that.
I have never married, but I was engaged to a guy. I was in a several year relationship with that guy. We were engaged the last few years.
At that time, even though I had severe doubts about gender comp, I was still living out gender comp values in that relationship.
My ex fiance got the “final say so” all the time. I deferred to him constantly, even though it made me deeply unhappy.
I was doing with my ex just what Flag Ken has been saying in this thread women in relationships are supposed to do.
And the ex was happy to exploit that to the hilt, that I always caved in to his choices and preferences.
The few times I did disagree with him, even over minor stuff, like, “Honey, I really want to stay in tonight and eat a sandwich, I’m not up for eating at the Tex Mex place tonight,” he would sulk, pout, or complain until I caved in, and he got his way.
That sort of thing went on (minor and more major issues) for the entire several years we dated.
My wants, preferences, and needs were almost always booted to “second place,” or disregarded entirely.
-Because the man gets “final say” in relationship disputes, as Ken and other Christians like to say. I was raised to believe in that, and to be very unassertive.
When the woman’s needs and priorities are constantly undermined, repressed, and shoved aside, so that the man gets all the final choices, this dooms the relationship.
I dumped my ex for many reasons, but that was most certainly one.
He got everything he wanted in that relationship, because I always did as Flag Ken here is promoting. My ex got “final say”.
My ex got his way all the time, in disputes we had, or what movie we were going to watch that weekend, etc.
I was taught to defer to others by my gender comp mother. As a result, my needs went un-met, but my ex did not care, because he was getting his met.
You cannot cannot be happy and satisfied in such a relationship. You do have needs. That is a fact.
You cannot shame another Christian out of having needs by telling them things like, “The man is the head and gets final say, it’s in the Bible!,”
or, “it’s selfish to have needs and be a separate person in a relationship, you should be one flesh.”
Repressing your needs or denying them only works for so many months or years before you cannot stand it any longer. I ended up dumping that guy.
Gender comps are basically asking women (especially married ones) to forever repress and deny their own wants, desires, goals, and needs, so that the man gets his met.
@ Daisy:
I have known comp men who:
– would only let their wives leave the house certain days of the week
– told their wives they couldn’t complain if they left their boots on the living room floor
– made their wife return a skirt because she already had too many in that style (though to be fair, in this particular case the wife was an abuser too, so I don’t know what kind of dysfunctional situation was going on in that house)
I have known sons – young sons, 12yo or less – of comp parents who:
– told their sister she had to do what they said because she was a girl and “boys rule girls”
– used this same reasoning to try and shut up an unrelated girl who was unhappy with them (i.e., “we do it my way because I’m a boy” kind of thing)
All of this is controlling behavior, all justified using the typical verses, and yes, sometimes the entitlement starts at a VERY young age.
Ken wrote:
When read without taking culture and the time period in context, the “interesting though” is that wives really don’t matter so much.
Ken wrote:
Do you mean only on those occasions when the wife doesn’t agree with the husband ?
Ken wrote:
Unless we’re talking about a married women. She must submit to her husband.
right???
Hester wrote:
And in many cases, that sense of entitlement grows exponentially with each generation.
Ken wrote:
In return, the wife is not told to love, nourish, cherish, be considerate to or bestow honor towards the husband. She is only told to respect him and submit to him.
And there you have it. All the makings of a great marriage.
I guess most Christian men don’t really care whether their wives love them or not. That’s not part of the bargain, anyway.
This thread is still going strong. Wow…
Bridget wrote:
I wonder if anyone here is familiar at all with sumo wrestling. I quite enjoy watching it — the fact that the tournament broadcasts are bilingual is a big help.
At the professional level, no one tells the two contestants when to start wrestling. The referee will instruct them to line up at their respective starting lines, but after that they’re left to start the match on their own timing. If one should cross his line before the other, they’ll both get harangued by the referee, and be told to start over.
So, how do they do it? By mutual consent. They face each other, get their rhythms in sync wordlessly, and take off when they’re both ready. It’s different at the high school or college level; after the wrestlers line up, the ref calls, “Begin!” and they’re off. But at the pro level, fans and officials expect the wrestlers to be mature enough to figure that out on their own.
@ Ken (and other comps) seem to think less of mature married couples than the Japanese think of pros in their traditional sport. How ironic.
Ken wrote:
Good for him.
Or is it “her”? If so, even better! 🙂
Daisy wrote:
Yes, it was Brooke that Cruise publicly lambasted for taking prescription meds for her postpartum depression. Then, when Matt Lauer questioned him over it, he had the nerve to say something like, “You don’t know the real history of psychiatry. I do.”
Does that kind of arrogance remind anyone else of the CBMW?
Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
It’s her, and you are permitted to enjoy this!
I might add she has seen a wife overdoing the submissive, pampering a husband bit – and him accepting this – and it bothered her, so she asked about it. For those who enjoy irony, my reply sounded pretty egalitarian, but summed up in the sentence ‘Gal 3 : 28 and 1 Tim 2 : 12 are from the same apostle, are both true – don’t make them negate or be enemies of each other’.
The husband’s mother-in-law with whom my daughter was staying wisely kept out of it. She said he needs to learn not to be so lazy and his wife will sooner or later get fed up with this and they can sort it out themselves.
Incidentally, on the psychology thing I reigned in my views on this before she started a two year course on the subject as I thought she ought to make up her own mind on this. After two years, she said to me she could understand some of my objections to it where it is speculative, ethereal and not very connected to everyday real life.
Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
Thank you for that sentence – it started something off in my addled brain.
Isn’t a lot of the problem with this subject immaturity? Daisy has put up link after link to egalitrarian sites, and I usually read them. All too often there is a mentality of ‘unless I’m joint head of the marriage, I’m not playing’ or ‘no-one tells me what to do’, especially amongst some commenters.
Likewise, immature complementarian or patriarchal men for whom the dictionary definition of head is ‘Noun: Lord and Emperor, and the right to be the same’.
The thing they have in common is both cannot get beyond seeing how this teaching affects them; they can’t get hold of the idea of how as a whole this fits together.
No wonder we need to ‘go on being filled with the Spirit’ to have the remotest chance of getting this right. The flesh really is useless. It won’t submit in any sense of the word, it won’t love in the sense of put others first.
@ Nancy2:
You know, if they are going to apply this woodenly in the 21st century, who gets to decide what is not harsh, what is loving and what is cherishing to the lesser person? Because I have seen some doozies when it comes to interpreting this in action.
Just one major difference really puts this in another perspective. The majority of Western marriages are not “arranged”.
Nancy2 wrote:
And Paul was actually saying, they DO matter. What Paul wrote was a step up. Not only that but he wrote that believers should submit to one another. The part that is often left out or interpreted to mean something else than what it says. According to Grudem those with christianese titles and husbands are exempt from verse 21.
@ Ken:
I see you haven’t responded to my comments and Jeff S.’s comments about your objections to boundaries in marriage even though you’ve responded to everyone else.
@ Lydia:
…and are not usually between partners with huge age gaps, either (i.e. an older man marrying a teenage girl).
@ Hester:
Give us a chance … 🙂
Ken wrote:
Ken, whether or not “some commenters” vocalized their boundaries with words other than those you would have preferred, I say good for them for recognizing they have the freedom to make their own decisions and “not play” if the rules of the game are unfair.
@ Ken:
I wouldn’t date or marry a comp man. I’ve blocked matches before on dating sites solely because they said that the statement “the man is head of the house” is “the way it should be” (this was one of a huge set of quiz questions you can answer as part of your profile). I made this decision because our views of marriage would be fundamentally incompatible and thus lead to avoidable and unnecessary conflict. It’s the same reason I would never date or marry an uber-Reformed guy who didn’t believe in using musical instruments in church, because I’m a church organist and he literally believes I’m worshipping an idol by having that job.
Is that wrong or self-centered of me?
@ Hester:
I came across boundaries reading up on Willow Creek, and in the context of a WC church that is heavily into psychology in its thinking.
I haven’t read the books, I have read some reviews both positive and negative and a fairly lengthy quotation from C & T. I was simply astonished at how they drove a coach and horses through Eph 5. This came from the excerpt I read and a positive review of their ideas – they couldn’t suppress their enthusiasm at how finally this submission doctrine had been assigned to where it belongs, the past.
Now to be specific, as I understand the concept, goes against (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) How can you have a marriage with two independent people? You have to lose your freedom, you no longer can do what you want, you have to take into account the needs, wishes, interests of someone else – as long as you both shall live.
The unity is such that your spouse is your next of kin, now closer than your parents or siblings. A new unit, a new family. Leaving and cleaving.
There is an interdependence, and this will involve some risk. Don’t enter into marriage lightly. If you put up ‘barriers’ to try to prevent things going wrong, you work against the unity.
In case you have misunderstood me, you do not cease to be two people where one person almost extinguishes the other, but you are now yoked together. I have a quotation for Daisy that talks about this better than I can.
As far a Jay Adams goes, he’s good on using the bible to judge Christian behaviour. He is also good on holding us responsible for our actions. He must not on any account become a substitute bible (it wouldn’t surprise me if he has with some people). I significantly part company with him on divorce and re-marriage, his interpretations are far from infallable. He was popular in Britain with pastors who didn’t want to have to turn to psychology to deal with problems where sin is the origin. Genuine medical problems are something else.
Take Driscoll. He has been described here as both a sinful perpetrator and as mentally ill. If the latter is true, then calls for him to repent are meaningless, he is not responsible for his actions, his illness is the cause of them. My default position is to assume he is indeed responsible for his actions unless there is evidence to the contrary; I don’t like psychology being used to get him off the hook on this.
@ Daisy:
Daisy, I have a quotation from someone who summarises my problems with the egalitarian position on understanding the NT more succinctly than I ever could:
The egalitarian mantra of mutual submission in marriage is also biblically untenable. While it’s undeniable that Ephesians 5:21 says to “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ,” it is also undeniable that Scripture nowhere tells husbands to submit to their wives.
The Bible does say, explicitly, that wives are to submit to their husbands (Eph. 5:22). It also says that the head of the wife is the husband.
Egalitarians say that head in Ephesians 5:23, “the husband is the head of the wife,” means the husband is the “source” of the wife. This interpretation is understandable insofar as Genesis 2:21-22 reveals that Adam’s side was the source from which God fashioned Eve.
But exchanging the word head for the word source causes problems when we look at 1 Corinthians 11:3: “Now I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.”
Practically speaking, exchanging the word head for source makes the headship of the husband irrelevant. Perhaps the biggest trap in an egalitarian marriage is for the husband and wife to live two parallel lives. Instead of functioning as one, they can dwell independently as two. Egalitarian marriages are especially susceptible to the perils of Western individualism.
It seems hypocritical for egalitarians to complain that complementarians use 1 Timothy 2:12 as a proof-text when they do much the same with Galatians 3:28. It’s also ironic that egalitarians use a Galatians verse about salvation to talk about church government, while at the same time criticizing complementarians for using a 1 Timothy verse about a specific church to talk about church government in general.
Ken wrote:
And if he fails — or refuses — to hold up his “end of the bargain”? What remedy is there for his wife? Especially if they have a pastor who backs up the husband’s abusive or neglectful behaviour?
@ Serving Kids In Japan:
That’s a very difficult situation, I’m glad it doesn’t fall to me to have to sort this kind of thing out. But not to evade your question, depending on what kind of abuse is going on, she might have to trust God to intervene as per 1 Peter, she might have to consider separation. She might have to get out quick.
Ken wrote:
I am so far behind the comment thread, please forgive me if I am saying something that has already been said.
There is a difference between mental illness and insanity. Indeed, one can be mentally ill and still responsible for one’s actions. This determination must be made by a competent, carefully trained psychiatrist. A mentally ill person could indeed be held responsible for his actions if it is determined that he understand right from wrong within a given set of parameters.
For example, I would contend that a pedophile is mentally ill. Mentally sound people do not have a desire to have sex with 3 year old kids. However, that being said, the vast majority of pedophiles understand the law and know that it is a crime to molest a child. That does not take away the fact that they are attracted to children which is a mental deviation.
Once again, mentally ill people can be held responsible for their actions if it has been determined by a real psychiatrist/psychologist that they knew what they were doing was wrong.
So, Mark Driscoll and others could be mentally ill but still be judged for their actions.
Ken wrote:
It’s not immature to note how a distorted teaching can impact other people or one’s own life.
You are coming off as being very callous about this.
I suppose if you teach that black people cannot be teachers or preachers in Christianity, that is perfectly OK, and it would be wrong of them to point to the unfairness and injustice of it.
One glaring problem with gender comp is that it can and does lead to domestic violence and/or its perpetuation, which I’ve written of several times over in this thread such as
here:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/11/20/naghmeh-abedini-wife-of-imprisoned-pastor-abedini-is-a-victim-of-domestic-abuse-while-owen-strachancbmw-reports-that-complementarians-handle-abuse-really-well/comment-page-3/#comment-231625
And yeah, when/if I get married, I am not going to be servant to a master.
You can spout off your views about headship all you like, but I am not under any obligation to live my life as you feel it should be led. I’m an adult who can make her own choices.
This is one thing I find somewhat amusing about gender comp. You ultimately only have your own opinions. But others can live life as they please.
However, I am concerned for young or naive people, especially female, who buy into gender comp at a young age, as I did, because it will create problems for them later in life. Which you just brush off as being “immature” or as “selfish.”
No, it’s called having boundaries and being mentally stable and healthy.
(Gender comp leads to the opposite of having boundaries and being mentally healthy.)
Ken wrote:
BTW, no – the links I’ve given you do not contain those sentiments.
You got that from ONE post I wrote above where I said that would NOT be the kind of marriage I have if I get married.
I used to have a gender comp friend who said he read a book I mailed to him that disputes gender comp…
However, when I pressed him on it he admitted he had NOT in fact read the book, only the back cover of the book.
He just made assumptions about what the book said based on the back cover, and his assumptions were incorrect.
Ken wrote:
No, you teach that women do not have the Holy spirit, they therefore need a male husband or male covering to lead them, because women are supposedly born being “more easily deceived” than men.
You deny that Christian women have the Holy Spirit in them as well, or that the Holy Spirit is just as effective in a woman as in a man.
Nancy2 wrote:
This exactly.
I don’t really know if Ken has read our posts or not, because this point has been raised time and again.
That one directive is aimed in the biblical text specifically at one gender does not mean it is not also expected of the other.
I also gave him a link a couple weeks ago to a page that explained that concept as well.
Lydia wrote:
Re: the part in bold.
Yeah, Flag Ken here keeps pulling that.
There is nothing in v. 21 which says husbands are exempt:
that is the plain, literal reading of v.21, but gender comps who claim to be sola scriptura (or who present themselves as such) and against “extra biblical” information, keep denying the “plain” reading of v. 21.
You’re not honoring the Bible much, as you say you do, when you deny the “plain” reading of a verse like 21, which is directed at all Christians, even husbands.
Ken wrote:
I don’t have time to go through the rest of your post at this time (I may have to leave in the next few hours to run an errand), but regarding this.
You should read books by Christian psychiatrists, because they back up all their assertions using Biblical text.
They cite Bible verses constantly, especially in the book by Cloud and Townsend, which I actually found annoying and distracting.
Having boundaries is a biblical concept, it is NOT an invention of secular psychology.
The books even give you examples in both Old and New Testaments where God and/or Jesus practiced boundaries and being assertive with people, for pete’s sake. And Jesus is to be the example for Christians.
Jesus was not always about ‘turn the other cheek’ and be a martyr – he stood up for himself at times…
Like when the Temple guard slapped him, Jesus did not turn his cheek, he challenged the guard on the unfairness of his actions.
The Bible itself contains examples of Jesus practicing boundaries.
@ Ken:
P.S.
The fact that you confuse a mentally healthy adult practicing or having boundaries with it being “selfish” or “immature” is a big, read flag to me that you do not understand what boundaries really are.
This is a huge problem with a lot of other Christians; it’s rife in Christianity.
A lot of Christians confuse having normal, healthy boundaries and normal self interest with being “selfish,” or with other negative traits.
This is certainly true in gender complementarian views, which brain-wash women into thinking they can never be assertive, stand up for themselves,
but that they must quietly suffer abuse from husbands, friends, bosses, etc., and allow themselves to be taken advantage of repeatedly.
Years of living like that can and does lead to depression and suicidal ideation – it did in me.
I had to dump all this toxic thinking about gender roles, and that it’s supposedly “wrong” or “selfish” for me to have boundaries, in order to be on the road to recovery.
Gender complementarianism (which is codependency for women, which teaches that having a lack of boundaries is good and godly) kept me trapped in thinking that made me very susceptible to having clinical depression and suicidal ideation since childhood. But Ken thinks that it doesn’t matter if a teaching has negative, real life consequences on people. People and their feelings be darned to heck, what really matters is defending an idea he or comps assume is biblical.
Just like the Pharisees did with Jesus.
The Pharisees also thought defending their man-made traditions (which they mistook as genuine biblical commands) were more important than helping or saving people who were hurt or injured.
—
Luke 13:10-17:
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?
16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
Ken wrote:
I have pointed this out time and again, but the problem is with gender comp itself, not just when it is poorly executed.
You keep appealing to the ‘No True Comp’ fallacy, which does not hold up:
The No True Complementarian Fallacy
http://www.heretichusband.com/2013/01/john-piper-and-no-true-complementarian.html
@ Ken:
And part of that is recognizing which lines they don’t wish you to cross. Which is called a boundary and respecting said boundary.
Also, when you said before that there were some parts of psychology that were weird and speculative, sure there are – bizarro stuff like Freud thinking all men want to marry their mother. NOT things like having healthy interpersonal boundaries, which is pretty much agreed upon by everyone I’ve ever encountered.
Funny, because Adams was influenced by a non-Christian psychiatrist who didn’t believe in the existence of the mind, which should be a huge problem for you since you object to syncretism and the Bible clearly teaches that the mind is a real thing.
http://revolfaith.com/2015/01/23/the-biblical-counseling-movement-bad-theology/
1. Please see Dee’s comment for a fuller explanation of why this is wrong.
2. How come all the people I know who’ve been in therapy were asked to change their behavior by the therapist? And in one case, sabotaged their own therapy because they refused to change? That makes no sense if the therapist believes they’re not really responsible for their actions and can’t do anything to change. Again, how do you know that therapy can NEVER be a way to “put to death” a sinful behavior pattern?
Daisy wrote:
If you really want to cut to the nitty gritty, the Ten Commandments were written for men, not women. All of the pronouns in the Hebrew text are in the masculine form. The real kicker for me is, “Thou shalt not covet …. thy neighbor’s wife ……”
@ Daisy:
His ideas about psychology certainly often have very, very ugly real life consequences, which is why I’m taking such a hard line on this.
Ken wrote:
This describes the attitude of every male complementarian there is.
Ken wrote:
Clearly, because what you are describing is not what the books teach.
The books are very clear that “boundaries” are not “walls”. A husband and wife are distinct persons while unified in marriage. This is not a foreign concept to Christianity (note: the Trinity).
Boundaries are what separates “me” from “not me”. And there is a distinction between who my wife is and who I am, even though we are unified in marriage.
In the Bible, we are called to shoulders some burdens for others; at the same point, we are also told to be accountable for our own actions. Boundaries help define what those things are. If you are doing something for someone else that he or she ought to do on their own, you are harming them because you are blurring the boundary between you and them. If you do not do things that other people need your help with, then you are not being obedient to Christ. But these things easily get conflated. The book helps understand how to draw boundaries and why you need them. And you even need them in marriages. Because however unified we are, I am not my wife.
The book is very clear that boundaries are permeable, that we do let other people in. That we need interactions. That we were designed for them. But part of taking care of ourselves, which God has given us to manage, is knowing when to let things in and when to block them out.
Psychology is not the enemy. There’s a lot of good stuff there, like there is some bad stuff.
And don’t get me started on Jay Adams. It’s because of his teaching and work that women who are beaten by their husbands go to their pastors for help and are asked “but what is YOUR sin”. Sometimes, our problems really are other people’s sin and it really sin’t our fault.
Hester wrote:
I do think gender complementarianism is codependency with a biblical sheen so there is a psychological component to some of this discussion.
Gender comp is instructing people, women in particular, to view their worth, purpose, and identity in very unhealthy (and unbiblical) ways, and ones that leave them susceptible to attracting men (or women friends) who are prone to abuse or expolitation.
Gender comp did that to me, as well as creating depression and suicidal ideation.
Gender comp (and other distorted Christian teachings) can have negative psychological and relationship affects on people.
That is most certainly something Flag Ken should care about, because Jesus did.
I cited an example above of Jesus harshly criticizing the Pharisees for elevating their doctrines above the welfare of a sick woman.
I don’t think negative ramifications of a doctrine o people and their lives is anything to water down or dismiss easily, as Flag Ken has done.
And, telling people who do have psychological problems that their only form of treatment should be from victim-blaming counseling (such as Nouthetic counseling), or to pray and read the Bible more, will only keep them going round in circles, trapped in the same problems.
Jeff S wrote:
Yes, that is the attitude of some male gender comps.
I also think Flag Ken misunderstood my post, or is twisting it.
It depends on who Ken is referencing with this, or who he thinks this is addressing:
“nobody will tell me what to do.”
If we are talking about gender comps:
No, I’m not going to allow gender comps to dictate my life choices to me, or whether or not I have and practice boundaries.
Now, concerning marriage, if I am married, I believe in compromise, where neither partner is the “boss” of the other.
That is not the same mindset of, “I will not let others tell me what to do.”
If I am married, and the husband and I have a dispute, the husband will have to make a case for his position. I am not going to cave in just because he is the male in the relationship, nope.
Just as I’d not expect any husband of mine to cave in automatically for me in a disagreement because of my gender.
Flag Ken may have missed my longer post above where I explained I already tried the Gender Comp approach to relationships with my ex fiance, and it left me used, taken advantage of, and I never got my needs met.
And I do have needs, as every person does; repressing them for the several years I dated that sucker (my ex) did not make them magically vanish.
I became exhausted, resentful, and tired of my needs being neglected in the relationship, while I was the ever-loving, giving girl-friend to my ex and catering to his every wish.
I constantly deferred to what my ex wanted in the relationship almost every single time, I rarely stood up for myself or what I wanted/ needed, and my Ex was thrilled to exploit that to his selfish advantage.
The Gender Comp method did not work. It was a failure.
I had to dump my ex for that (he used me, never met my needs, I was always trying to meet his, I was deferential to him and his wants), among other reasons.
That could not work in a engagement relationship (we were fiances), I cannot see how that could work in a marriage, and it does not work in platonic friendships or with co-workers.
I know, I lived as a gender comp doormat since childhood and into my adult years.
Most people take advantage of you when you are deferential and you don’t insist on them meeting (or ask them to meet) your needs in return.
@ Jeff S:
Jeff S wrote:
In the book on Boundaries by Cloud and T, they even use the analogy of garden gates to describe boundaries.
They say good boundaries are like a garden gate: you might have walls around some parts of your property, but you have a gate.
You decide to let in good people to your property but keep the gate close and locked on robbers and muggers.
I suspect that Ken has not really read most of the links we’ve posted for him, or the Boundaries book by C and T, but is only assuming he knows what this stuff says based on his preconceived notions.
He’s already assumed or mistaken one of my personal views for what egalitarian sites that I’ve linked to say… but those were my own views and words, ones I’ve not seen on any of the egal sites I’ve linked him to.
You said,
I agree with everything you said.
Yes, that is true of a lot of Nouthetic/ Biblical counseling.
It’s also true of some 12 step programs. Someone on here got irate with me, but it’s true of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous as well.
My brother was in AA for years. When I tried talking to my brother about some problems I was having (ones I did not create), he kept saying to me, “And what role did you play in that,” a question he got from AA counselors.
Depending on when and how it’s used, a question to a hurting person such as, “and what role did you play in that,” can be very victim-blaming and hurtful.
This victim blaming mindset pops up in Christian and Non Christian settings.
Sometimes, bad things will happen to you in your life that are not your fault, but others will assume it is your fault, or make you feel as though it is.
Jeff S wrote:
Another thought I had about this.
Gender comp makes an idol out of Husbands or the male gender. The Bible condemns idolatry. Christian women are told by gender comps to basically view their husband as a deity figure, someone to whom they must go to for spiritual leading, he has authority over her, etc.
This is all very contrary to the bible, which says that each believer (including wives) has the Holy Spirit, has Jesus alone for a High Priest.
A married woman (and single ones) are to look to Jesus/God alone for their identity, NOT a husband!
This was an idea that came across to me a few years ago, as I was reading up a lot on boundaries, codependency, etc, and J. Micah recently wrote a page touching on the topic as well:
I Am Not Made In My Husband’s Image
http://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/i-am-not-made-made-my-husbands-image?
Lydia wrote:
Paul tells husbands in the 1st century to treat their wives pretty much the way PETA tells owners to treat their pets in the 21st century.
Ken wrote:
Here is THE problem! Pastors are not competent to discern the source of many problems. Every problem does not stem from sin. Many pastors and counselors do great damage when “they think they know” how to help someone. Psychologists spend years studying to become trained.
There are good psychologists and not so good ones. But there are good pastors and not so good pastors as well. And pastors are not trained, nor do they have the time to spend, to help people the way they need to be helped.
@ Bridget:
PS – God can, and does, work through psychologists to help heal people. God is not limited to pastors or “Christian” counselors. More harm is done when pastors and Christian counselors refuse to send people to phycologists for help.
Nancy2 wrote:
Except I’ve heard of jail sentences for animal abuse. I love animals, but it amazes me when abuse or neglect of pets can result in a misdemeanor but many wives are subject to the same on a regular basis and are blamed for it by some counselors.
Ken wrote:
You view marriage as losing instead of gaining greater things than you had before? You communicate as if it is one big sacrifice. It should be a blessed alliance.
Ken wrote:
Nouthetic counseling is a disaster for victims. And very bad for couples who buy into comp doctrine. Whose interpretation does he recommended or does he have his own?
Ken wrote:
Ken, I believe you have some pretty serious misconceptions. A husband and wife being ‘one-flesh’ does not mean they are one entity. They are still two individuals, with different characters, perceptions, preferences, opinions, sensations, and personalities. The one flesh cannot mean that two personalities merge into one —that is impossible! If one of those spouse disrespects and tramples on the dignity and personhood of the other person. the trampled spouse is RIGHT to call out that sinful behaviour and set boundaries against it! If the trampled spouse does not set boundaries, the arrogant (abusive) spouse is just enabled to instensify and entrench their sinful conduct.
Boundaries are good and right in all relationships: they are one of the ways we restrain wickedness from running rampant. Boundaries can be nuanced and varied according to the particular situation. But to say that it is UnBiblical for spouses to have boundaries in respect of each other, is to enable domestic abuse, marital rape and domestic violence.
You may not have realised the implications of your assertion about boundaries, but please think about it now, and please retract it.
Daisy wrote:
i) I have never once stated that (Christian) women do not have/are not indwellt by the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, he is given to men and women and I have explicitly said so. And the gifts. More than once.
ii) I have never believed a man is a ‘covering’ for his wife; I’ve stated as much explicitly. This is the Shepherding error.
iii) I have also not said in so many words ‘women are more easily deceived’. I have asked the question whether in some particular circumstances women are more prone to deception.
Why shouldn’t a women teach or have authority of a man?
a) You see, Ken, the culture back then in Ephesus was characterised by the cult of Artemis, where women dominated …
b) … and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
My question is a valid one. The text mentions deception, it does not mention culture. Indeed a) could be an example of b), where the creation order was up-ended by Satan.
You really do need to stop this one size fits all view of complementarianism, meaning don’t impute views to me that I have clearly and repeatedly said I don’t hold. Feel free to go for the ones that I do …
Barbara Roberts wrote:
No boundaries = No respect. The one who is bigger, stronger, more self-centered, and/or more determined has the absolute power.
Hester wrote:
Adams was influenced by Dr. Szasz? I never knew that. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Szasz also teamed up with another anti-psychiatry cult decades ago, to form one of the cult’s numerous front groups. If you’re wondering what cult I’m talking about, here’s a hint: It starts with an “Sc”, and ends with an “ientology”.
Szasz apparently came to regret that association years later. I wonder if he ever regretted his hand (however indirect) in the quackery that is nouthetic counselling.
Ken wrote:
The problem is, if the brainwashing that comes with one-sided “submission” teachings has been effective enough, she might not consider separation or running away, no matter how bad the abuse is. On the other hand, if she is assertive enough to consider protecting herself, she opens herself up to being labelled as “unsubmissive” by her spouse and her pastor, and perhaps by her congregation. A scarlet letter is hers to own, simply for trying to guard her sanity and well-being. And that prospect alone might keep her simply “trusting in God” long after it is safe or wise for her to do so.
This is partly why I find gender complementarian teachings so dangerous, in addition to being impractical, nonsensical and unnecessary.
@ Serving Kids In Japan:
No, I didn’t. I don’t know much about Szasz other than what I found researching Adams/nouthetic counseling. But denying the existence of the mind is pretty big quackery red flag, and association with Scientology is even worse.
Ken wrote:
It’s always spoken into a culture, though. And understanding the culture helps you understanding the text.
Do you think that women are saved by childbearing? Don’t those verses cause you to go “wha???” when you read them? Wouldn’t you look for some way to make sense of how Paul saying women were saved by childbearing works with the rest of his teaching?
Understanding the culture he was speaking into give a reasonable answer to what Paul is talking about here, and it understanding *that* give a lot more understanding of the prior verses (which taken at face value, don’t jive with the rest of his writing).
Your interpretation, that Paul was establishing an order and talking about deception implies that women are more easily deceived than men, and that is why men need to be in charge. This would be a misogynist interpretation, and also does not square with the leadership positions Paul respected for women elsewhere in scripture.
@ Jeff S:
Not to mention it makes no sense that Adam is being painted as the good guy for something far worse than deception (knowing he was doing something wrong and going ahead with it anyway). At least Eve was tricked.
Barbara Roberts wrote:
I’ll answer your point by reiterating something I said above:
In case you have misunderstood me, you do not cease to be two people [when you get married] where one person almost extinguishes the other, but you are now yoked together …
Perhaps the biggest trap in an egalitarian marriage is for the husband and wife to live two parallel lives. Instead of functioning as one, they can dwell independently as two. Egalitarian marriages are especially susceptible to the perils of Western individualism.
The second quotation is of a female egalitarian who understands the legitimate problems someone like me has with their interpretation of the NT writers. She is someone I reckon I could have a very good discussion with!
You have to remember I don’t live in a culture saturated in psychological terminology. This is largely true of the UK, and probably more so in Germany, unless you end up in a church that has imported pop psychology from the States.
iirc, boundaries is about self-control in the sense of ‘taking control of your own life’. Now if this means ensuring you are not dominated by someone else, by either wife or husband if we are talking about marriage, I don’t have a problem with this. There is plenty about this in the NT without needing to create a new buzzword.
I do have a problem with it if it means one spouse reserves part of their life as a no-go area from the other; the ‘dwelling independently as two’ as described above. Can you imagine the following at a wedding:
N, will you take N to be your wife?
Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her,
and, forsaking all others,
be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
And the answer is I will, subject to the exemptions, qualifications, and derogations as set out in Appendix A of the Schedule attached to the contract.
How do you square this idea of taking control of your life with the need to put others first and deny self at times, or even to be submitted to others (even mutually!!)?
Boundaries may or may not be a good faith attempt at dealing with genuine problems, but do we really need ‘experts’ with a whole load of complicated steps and programmes and analysis to sort our lives out?
Hester wrote:
I am aware of Szasz being the secular counterpart to Adams. My understanding is Adams denies the existence of mental illness, because the mind cannot be ‘ill’, although it might misfunction leading to wrong behaviour due to chemical malfunctions, making the illness a medical problem.
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was probably one of the great preachers in the UK in the 20th century, thought Adams’s ideas ‘dangerous nonsense’. I would respect Lloyd-Jones’ opinion on this because he was a fully qualified doctor of medicine before going into full-time ministry. He wrote a classic called Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, which one day I might get chance to read!
Whether or not they were talking at cross-purposes I don’t know, I’ve never spent time looking into it.
You don’t have to agree necessarily with Adams’ dictum that sin is always the problem to find useful help in dealing with people where sin really is the problem. We are to admonish one another, but you don’t have to set up a whole new counselling structure replete with experts and conferences to achieve this.
This whole one to one situation has never been my thing, so my interest in it is somewhat academic. Adams gets a hearing amongst those who are tired of hearing the bible is insufficient to speak to the problems of modern life and needs supplementing. That’s what I liked about him donkey’s years ago.
Ken wrote:
That’s not what ” Boundaries” is about.
@ Ken:
Yes, we *do* need people to help understand boundaries because so many are bad at them.
And no, boundaries are not about having “no go” areas. They are about saying “This is an area over which I am supposed to decide- you don’t decide for me”.
The modern church is really good at trading all over people’s boundaries. One example in the book is saying “yes” to a Bible study because you are guilted/shamed into doing it. The authors talk about how the study actually might be the right thing to do. But if the church doesn’t give you the ability to say “no”, they you can’t say “yes” either. It isn’t healthy for other people to make decisions for you.
I see so many people with problems that this book addresses- the need is there. That it is should lead you to question why churches are so willing to cross boundaries, not the value of the teaching itself.
Ken wrote:
This is where your view point logically leads.
You think a husband should be head over a wife (boss) because women are more easily deceived, and your view logically necessitates that women lack the Holy Spirit and are inherently dumber or more inept than men.
If you believe women have the Holy Spirit every bit as much as men, and are not as prone to deception, etc etc, it means women do NOT need a male in authority over them, which in turn means your interpretation of ‘head’ in the NT is incorrect.
Re: deception and culture.
Paul wrote his letters about deception in a particular culture and to people of a particular culture.
Those cultural situations determine what Paul meant by “woman was deceived.”
Ken wrote:
This makes it sound like if one considers their spouse to be their equal, it is the same thing as just shacking up and not getting married. This is closely akin to Russell Moore’s statement that having an egalitarian relationship is the same thing as having a same-sex relationship.
Do you think there something inherently wrong with a couple recognizing one another’s strengths and weaknesses and each allowing the other to exercise his or her strengths and talents and work as equal team mates without inserting and insisting on the woman being limited by gender boundaries?
I guess Jael should have forgotten about that hammer and stake and let Sisera have his little nap and go back into the fray. She was way out of line.
Barbara Roberts wrote:
I agree with everything you wrote here, but Ken has a tendency not to care a whit about how Christian biblical interpretation can negatively impact people who are under that teaching.
He has indicated in posts above that following rigid biblical interpretations (that are incorrect anyway) is more important than keeping women safe from abusive husbands, or from being harmed in other ways, by gender comp interpretations.
His view as I gather it so far:
Gender comp must be adhered to at all times, no matter how much women (and men) are hurt by it, and because women he knew who taught at Willow Creek were theological buffoons.
———–
-None of that seems biblical to me; actually seems quite extra-biblical to down right un-Biblical.
Jesus did not put doctrinal purity or man made traditions above the welfare of hurting people, which ticked off the Pharisees.
Ken wrote:
Good grief, Ken! You think pop psychology was invented in the states? BTW I need your definition of pop psychology to understand what you mean. Your definitions are sometimes different than mainstream.
Daisy wrote:
Maybe something to do with the goddess of fertility and temple worship?
Jeff S wrote:
I wasn’t angling for a discussion of this again. It cropped up earlier when I mentioned it, resulting in a comment that single women who don’t have babies will end up in hell. So I had a go at explaining my take on the meaning, clearly this is not justification by childbirth, only for the same sentiments about salvation in the sense of ‘becoming a Christian’ to emerge again a few posts later.
I’ve found some of these discussions really useful in my own thinking, but when that happens, it’s all rather pointless.
Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
Yep, everything you said.
Women brought up in gender comp are taught to stay in abusive relationships (even work related ones, friendship ones, not just abusive marital ones).
Girls and Women are taught in gender cmplementarian culture to be uber-passive and not to practice having boundaries, which keeps them stuck in relationships that are harmful to them.
Having healthy boundaries might mean divorcing an abusive husband.
But gender comps say no, no, no, you must simply go back and pray and submit some more! And never divorce, only separate, or stay in a hotel room for a month.
This is a topic that is also tackled here:
“Bible believing” pastors and the enabling of domestic violence
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnshore/2015/04/bible-believing-pastors-and-the-enabling-of-domestic-violence/
You already see Flag Ken bristling against the notion of people having boundaries in this thread.
Flag Ken sort of presents a Christian having boundaries as being selfish, or against the Bible, and /or as nothing but an invention of Non Christian psychiatrists.
My mother (who was gender comp) was the same way as Flag Ken is about this:
She taught me that having boundaries, (which includes but is not limited to: being assertive, protecting my own self interests), was “selfish,” not lady-like, and not Christ-like.
This meant I was taught to sit and tolerate abuse and unfair treatment from dates, boyfriends, bosses, neighbors, etc..
Of course, this primed me to believe had I married, I would have to quietly tolerate and stay with a man who abused or exploited me.
My ex fiance used me and exploited me, because I was raised under Christian gender comp to think it was wrong for me to stand up to him.
Daisy wrote:
I don’t want you to think I’m intending to be rude and ignore you, but this sentence is complete nonsense and there is no point responding to it. There is no communication going on, it’s a complete distortion.
You simply don’t seem able to grasp that there just might be a form of husband and wife being complementary that is in line with the NT and is therefore not abusive.
Jeff S wrote:
Gram3 and myself have been round and round with Flag Ken on this many a time.
Ken thinks it’s ‘extra biblical’ to consider the culture / era in which the biblical text was written.
This in spite of the fact (and I’ve told him this many a time) that conservative Christian apologists and scholars do this constantly.
It’s one way conservatives refute a lot of bogus or silly criticisms of the biblical texts by atheists, for one.
I spent my teen years up until about my early or mid 30s devouring Christian apologetics (I was fascinated by the subject), and it’s common for conservative Christians who study the Bible, who defend the faith, to take the culture of the Bible into account.
It’s actually the liberals who are loathe to do that.
Liberals are, or were years ago, into a post-modern hermeneutic.
This means liberals thought the text is whatever you think it means to you, and their attitude was, who cares what the original author meant, or how the original audience understood the text?
Liberal scholars and theologians did not like taking the original author’s intent or culture into account.
Flag Ken is actually acting more like these liberals who dig post-modernism, than like the conservative Christians who were defending the Bible. It’s so weird.
@ Nancy2:
Nancy, you do realise the quotation in the post was not me, but female egalitarian who believes in full equality discussing the problems that can occur within the egalitarian interpretation.
Why evangelicals pray for persecuted pastors rather than battered women
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/why.evangelicals.pray.for.persecuted.pastors.rather.than.battered.women/72803.htm
Snippets:
Flawed Applicaiton of Gender Roles
… Rather, patriarchy and views of male headship create an environment where abusers are more likely to receive the support of church leaders and the abused (and their families) to be blamed for negligence rather than addressing the abuser.
Evangelicals who hold to strict gender roles where a wife is expected to submit to the husband aren’t inevitably abusive per se. However, they must grapple with the possibility that this hierarchy can provide manipulative abusers with the key tools they need.
In addition, some pastors have asserted that wives should remain in abusive marriages in order to win over their husbands.
Ken wrote:
I haven’t read all the comments on this before, so I didn’t realize this was an “again” thing.
The overall point is that this text stands, at face value, in contrast to a lot of other scripture, but within a cultural context makes a lot of sense.
But I’m guessing this road has probably been traveled before here, so I’ll leave it alone.
Daisy wrote:
Well, this is just flat out nonsense. Everyone considers the culture and era, even Ken. The only disagreement would be how much.
But without knowing anything about the culture and ere, we couldn’t even make sense of the words themselves, as all the words are bound by culture. How can you say what a series of markings mean unless you understand they are greek words written in a culture that ascribes meaning to those words.
@ Ken:
I think you have some really incorrect view and bizarre misunderstandings of things like boundaries and egalitarian marriages.
Egalitarian marriages are two people living as one… But without hierarchy (as Jesus taught relationships should be),
Without one person getting to “boss around” the other or getting “final say so” in a dispute due to having certain genitalia, Ken.
Jeff S wrote:
I’m totally with you here.
Not only are many Christians confused about the concept of Boundaries in marriages, but in other areas of life, like in church participation, as you used as an example in your post – and in jobs, dating, friendships.
Many Christians really do feel that having normal, healthy boundaries is a form of selfishness.
My mother was very much like that. She really thought it was biblical and Christ-like to live life as a doormat.
My Mom thought God really wanted Christians to be self-giving martyrs all the time, in every situation and relationship, even if doing so hurt you, the one doing the giving.
The idea of loving one’s enemy, helping other people, etc, gets emphasized to an insane degree by some Christians where the idea of ever saying “No” to someone else, or not agreeing to go along with whatever task, is viewed as being anti-biblical, or viewed suspiciously, as a sign of secular cultural attitudes about relationships or responsibilities.
Being a codependent doormat is really considered as being proper, godly, and biblical by most Christians.
It is very scary how wrong Christians get the Bible on certain points, this being one of them, and it really hurts people.
Nancy2 wrote:
I’ve brought this up before, but that situation pans out in Gender Complementarian marriages too. I’ve not seen examples of this in egalitarian marriages.
And Ken needs to read this story:
———-
Here’s the story again. I was at an ex-IFB (Baptist) forum months ago.
This guy there said someone he knew (these were his in-laws I think?) were a married couple who despised each other and fought when together.
This couple did not want to be married, but due to the Gender Comp, IFB views about gender and divorce, they felt they could not divorce.
So, the wife lived in the house and the husband lived in the RV (trailer) in the home’s drive way.
This couple, who were into these traditional gender roles, were so miserable they were living parallel and separate lives, though they were married. Because they were taught divorce is always a no-no.
So, you do get these gender comp marriages where one or both partners despise the other, but they just live apart together (one in one room, the other in another room) as room-mates, not as husband as wife.
Jeff S wrote:
Thank you, I appreciate that comment.
My presupposition is that you can reasonably undersand the whole of the NT without a detailed knowledge of the culture. Nevertheless a knowledge of the culture can throw a great deal of light on the meaning of the text. Similarly a good knowledge of the OT can shed light on the gospels and the rest of the NT.
@ Daisy:
I have similar in my family. a very comp marriage of many years but due to position, cannot divorce. The wife lives in the vacation condo 6 mos a year. In their circles, this is totally acceptable even though only family know the real reason.
Ken wrote:
And as I just said in a post above, that living separate lives stuff happens in gender comp marriages as well….
Any marriage where there is frequent fighting or hurts can result in the wife sleeping in one room and the husband in the other. I cited at least one anecdotal story above of that, in a gender comp marriage.
Jeff S wrote:
Ken picks and chooses when to allow the cultural backdrop inform an interpretation of Scripture.
It’s OK when he does it, but suddenly becomes “liberal,” “extra biblical” and wrong or suspicious if doing so demonstrates that a gender complementarian reading is incorrect. 🙂
Ken wrote:
So what I would say is, I think that the most important and basic doctrines in the scripture can be understood with very little context. Basics like human sin, the need for God, Jesus provision for our sin- all of that is pretty clear.
But when you start going into topics that are less addressed and are less of a focal point, context starts becoming a lot more important. With regards to salvation, there is an overwhelming amount of text in the Bible so that a clear picture merges. With gender relationships, as with other secondary doctrines, there is less to go on. Therefore, the more cultural context helps us.
With regards to the culture of Ephasis, I’m not hanging my had on the cultural context. There’s a lot we don’t know and some is conjecture. Nevertheless, the idea that Paul was speaking to a cultural issue specific to that church squares more with the rest of scripture than the egalitarian arguments.
Anyway, again, not to go down that road, but that’s how I approach this.
Daisy wrote:
Or let me clarify, that is not 100% accurate.
If not cultural back drop per se, ken will not allow the verse to be read as it stands, using the wooden literal approach he will take on other passages.
He will allow other considerations (whether culture, or other doctrines in other sections of the Bible) to color how he interprets a verse, especially one about “a woman will be saved in child birth”.
-But people who reject comp are not given that same privilege by him, it would seem.
If you reject gender comp, you cannot make appeals to culture, or to other doctrines or passages in the Bible, to clarify the tricky ones that are used to suppress women.
@ Lydia:
And what a shame. Life here it too short.
To a degree, I think people who do that care too much of what others think about them.
Then you do have Christians who sincerely think the Bible teaches this stuff, so they think they are being loyal to God out of love for Him to stay in loveless, cruddy marriages.
It’s sad. So many Christians unnecessarily putting themselves through pain, and I don’t think that is what God wants or intends.
Jesus said he came to give you an abundant life, not one of hopelessness, where he requires you to stay in a miserable relationship until you die.
My mother has an aunt and uncle who are strong gender comps. They livein the same house, but have refused to speak to one another for more than 40 years. When their youngest daughter became ill and died, they refused to be in the same room at her visitation. They live about 150 miles away, but brought their daughter “home” for the funeral and burial. They traveled here in seperate vehicles and husband stayed with one of his brothers, while the wife stayed with one of her sisters. At the daughter’s funeral service, they sat on opposite sides of the aisle. If not for seeing it lived out with my own two eyes for so many years, I would hardly have believed that a couple could choose to live that way. This daughter died at the age of 50. She never married because of the example her parents set.
@ Bridget:
Yes, me too. I’m afraid he’s confusing “psychology”/”psychiatry” the valid field of academic study with peer review and journals, with “pop psychology” the NYT bestseller list goofy stuff that gets on Oprah.
@ Ken:
At the risk of repeating what Jeff already said, given what I’ve seen in other people’s relationships/families (and in my own extended family), absolutely yes. The default setting for many people if they aren’t taught this stuff from the beginning is to be at least mildly dysfunctional and maybe not even realize it. When it gets to big dysfunction it’s even scarier. Like, oh wait, grandpa’s hoarding isn’t cute and funny and a family joke, it’s terrifying and he needs help or he’ll die alone under a pile of his own stuff and we’ll only find him a month later when the neighbors notice the smell. Would I trust any pastor I know to “admonish” this person and his family members and think that would solve his hoarding problem? Absolutely not.
I’m talking about my own extended family with that hoarding example, BTW.
Addendum @ Ken:
Just to clarify, “admonishment” the way you’re using the term could probably work for more garden variety situations, but if it becomes apparent that there’s something more deep-seated going on (like hoarding, a personality disorder, abuse, etc.), most pastors are not qualified to deal with that thorny of a problem and a professional should be consulted.
Hester wrote:
I agree, and that is what happened to me.
I had to read books about codependency to figure out what was wrong with me for so many years.
My mother (and other Christians I grew up listening to) presented this very warped understanding of the Christian faith, which taught me that women are supposed to be codependent (gender complementarian).
I suffered from clinical depression and anxiety for many years as a result of being told that good, godly Christian girls are to be sweet little doormats.
I knew something was wrong with me but couldn’t quite put my finger on it, until I began researching all this.
I found out about codependency, and figured out that contrary to gender comp, I am not meant to go through life being a passive doormat who allows people to use and abuse her. I learned about having boundaries.
Christianity (and gender roles), as it was taught to me, caused much of these problems in me – the anxiety, depression, the low self esteem .
The Christain remedies for those problems, (just pray more, be more submissive, etc,) kept me stuck in a rut for over two decades.
I had to read books and blogs by Christian and Non Christian psychologists and psychiatrists to be freed from that garbage.
Just reading the Bible is not always enough depending on what subject we are talking about, and I’d say this is true in regards to emotional or mental health problems, because some Christians misinterpret what the Bible says.
My mother misunderstood the Bible to teach stuff like women are supposed to lack boundaries, allow people to use you and mistreat them, etc.
It took reading content by therapists, psychologists, etc., to clear a lot of this up for me.
Ken wrote:
Oh, you mean like “nouthetic” or “complementarian” or “headship”, etc. etc. 🙂
Ken wrote:
You mean, like Grudem and his cronies at the CBMW? 🙂 How ridiculous is it that we need to be taught how to be “real” men and women?
This is the sort of submission Flag Ken says the Bible teaches – and this article explains it’s at the root of a lot of domestic violence in SC and/or why women end up staying – and getting killed – in violent marriages:
Investigation found that a theology of one-way submission of women to men breeds domestic abuse in S. Carolina.
http://www.postandcourier.com/tilldeath/partthree.html
Snippets:
She [Carol Sears Botsch, associate professor of political science at the University of South Carolina] found a male-dominated power structure that often failed to see problems from the perspective of women.
As a result, public policies were rooted in traditional notions that “simply reinforced women’s subordinate status.”
…What pastors communicate to their flocks also can fuel the [spousal abuse] problem, if inadvertently: Scripture says women are to be submissive. Suffering is part of life, as Jesus suffered for your sins, on the path to salvation. Divorce is a sin.
…“The church believes marriage is a godly institution. Nothing should come between a man and wife,” Kennedy says. “It’s a very slippery slope.”
In churches that did acknowledge abuse, Kennedy says, pastors often compounded the problem by counseling abusers and victims together – and then sending them home with the sting of their shared grievances still fresh.
Jeff S wrote:
I think we are pretty much in agreement on this. I think you are right to reign in culture as a means of interpretation where our knowledge of it is indeed conjecture – and were previous generations unable to understand the bible because they lacked this information?
As regards Ephesus, I’ve had to smile over the cultural background here because when we are discussing Eph 5, it’s ‘Ken, in the households then women had no power they were barely one step up from the slaves’, but when we get to 1 Tim I’m told ‘Ken, the background is the cult of Artemis, where the women were dominant’. Well you can’t really have it both ways, these undercut each other.
There is also the problem of reading our modern culture back into the bible.
I recently re-read the letters to the churches in Revelation, having listened to a lengthy history and geography lesson on the background from David Pawson. You can ‘get the message’ without this, but it was fascinating to see why these particular churches were chosen, and how the letters were rooted in the real-life background and problems of the individual churches. A bit like watching in colour rather than black and white!
I’ve also listened to Arnold Fruchtenbaum on the Jewishness of Jesus in the gospels, and again this brings them to life in a very vivid way. After all, he is one of the ‘natural branches’ and I’m a gentile grafted in – from a wild olive tree rather than a cultivated one!
I’m all for anything that aids understanding and makes things clear.
Hester wrote:
I’ve rather asked for this criticism by not being clear.
There’s psychology, an attempt at observing human behaviour scientifically. Don’t know much about it, neutral as far as I’m concerned. I’m not keen on the root it originally comes from though.
There’s pop psychology which I think of in terms of new fads. One of these is boundaries. I might add when reading up on this years ago, there were stories of this concept breaking up marriages – one boundary too many. Anecdotal internet, but shows that boundaries can have a downside. Another concept was co-dependency. Now maybe this is a description of a genuine problem. Maybe it’s a psychiatric creation, a new mental illness that needs treating – and just happens to be a source of revenue for those who have the answers for it. (Sorry to sound so cynical, but celebrity pastors are not alone in this proclivity.) Is there any sinful behaviour described in the NT that corresponds to co-dependency, or is this a modern invention? Another fad was inner healing …
It’s ascribing our woes to unmet childhood needs, our love tanks being empty, this turning inside to see what is wrong or shifting the blame onto others I have a problem with if this becomes an excuse for sinful, that is, unloving behaviour. To give people the excuse ‘I couldn’t help it’. I think Adams was right to react against this kind of idea.
Do people really have disorders and syndromes, or are they selfish bullies on a power trip who hurt others? If the former is the case, I don’t see how you can call them to repentance, with apologies to Dee you cannot hold them responsible for their actions.
Did Jesus really endure the cross so that we could build our self-esteem, look in the mirror in the morning and say ‘you are valuable, you have worth, say yes to yourself …’ ? If we start to consider ourselves worthy of God’s blessings, we downgrade his grace to us. Why, perhaps he should consider himself lucky to have us in the team …
Now people do have unmet childhood needs. My mother had an unbelievable childhood. But having become a new creation in Christ, I can only say I don’t know what it is not to be loved (a privilege not many have I fear), so neglect does not have to be passed on to the next generation. She didn’t have all the psychological paraphernalia of books, CD’s and conferences available, so what is so different about the current generation?
I don’t subscribe to the notion of worm theology that we should be po-faced and lament all day how underserving and awful we are, but I also think the pre-occupation with self is precisely why the ‘love yourself’ advocates are wrong.
Ken wrote:
In ancient Ephesus, women were dominant. By the 1st century, Ephesus was under Roman rule and women had very few rights outside of the temple prostitutes.
Ken wrote:
Why do you think boundaries are “pop psychology”? Ready the book. I think you’ll find it is far less “pop psychology” than you think. You want to talk about what really is “pop psychology”? Pretty much almost everything Christian authors with no training in psychology write about marriage. It’s mostly made up stuff to try and push a world view onto people with little Biblical basis.
I actually do have my criticisms of “Boundaries”, as good of a book as it is. Some (not most) of the scripture references are forced, imo, but the concept is solid. And it isn’t “pop”- these are real psychologists who know their stuff.
Ken wrote:
This means nothing. Boundaries misused. If Complementarians can get away with saying that abuse is Complementarianism misused, surely you can understand that people can misuse the concept of Boundaries.
Ken wrote:
Real thing- but not a mental illness. And heavily related to boundaries. Understanding boundaries helps people to not be co-dependandt. And yes, the underlying concepts are dealt with in scripture.
Does the scripture teach that people need to be responsible for themselves? It surely does. Does it teach that we are to help one another out? It surely does. Does it give us some ideas of how and when to decide which is which? It surely does. That’s all boundaries/co-dependency are about.
For co-dependency, think of this: “Am I doing something for you that you can do for yourself, out of any other motivation than love?” If you are, you probably have a co-dependency problem. If you are operating out of fear, or of jealously, or any other motivation, and you are doing something for someone else that they can do for themselves, you probably have a problem. And identifying this is huge. Maybe you don’t struggle with this, but a lot of people do, and it creates very, very unhealthy relationships.
Ken wrote:
None of this does that- and if you would read the book you would see that. Try talking to a real psychologist and you’ll see that this idea is just completely false. In fact, when I went to my psychologist as I was going through a divorce, whenever I wanted to talk about my wife and her problems, he would always re-direct me: “We can’t fix her, but we can help you be healthy”. I got ANGRY at times because he forced me to re-focus on my own issues. And this guy wasn’t even a Christian- but he got it.
In fact, when I met him, he was giving a presentation to a room full of people in an institution with emotional disorders, and he said this (paraphrased) “If you are going to heal, the first thing is that you have to take responsibility for your healing. Even if it’s not your fault. If you were abused in your childhood or someone hurt you, you cannot wait for them to make it better. It’s not just or right, but it comes down to you and if you do the hard work”.
This is a secular psychologist- does it sound like he’s giving people an excuse for bad behavior?
Ken wrote:
Self esteem- eh. “Say yes to yourself?” I don’t know what that means. But valuable and have worth? Absolutely.
We are created with the image of God. We are valuable. We are worthy of love and belonging, just for being created (yes, I owe Brene Brown for that one). And it’s only when we stop trying to achieve worthiness and accept God has made us that way that we actually find peace.
Do we deserve salvation? No- we have all sinned and fallen short. But that doesn’t not mean we are unlovable. Every person is lovable. Did you not catch that God loved THE WORLD and so sent Jesus to die for us? God loves us- we are lovable. If God love us, what arrogance is it to say we are not lovable? Why would we not rejoice in that fact?
If you receive the grace of God, then you receive the good news that you are lovable, and you can look yourself in the mirror and say that. We don’t have to work for it any more. We don’t have to strive and toil. We can accept God’s love, and we can allow it to transform us.
God commanded the Israelite over and over again to accept and meet the needs of the poor, the alien, and other struggling people. What is the basis for doing that if people aren’t lovable? If they aren’t worthy of love and belonging? Not, he didn’t just limit his commands to those in his Kingdom.
So, yes, accepting that we are worthy of love and belonging is completely consistent with the Bible. We don’t have to hate ourselves to love God. Why would we hate what God loves?
Ken wrote:
Lot’s of people survived illness without the medicine we have today- what is different about the current generation that we need it? Just because people survived without all the tools we have today, doesn’t mean we should ignore them. We are learning and growing as a people- we don’t reject understanding just because people got along without it before.
Ken wrote:
Townsend and Cloud don’t promote “love yourself”. The *do* promote “take care of yourself”. Understanding that we have worth and are lovable isn’t the same as being selfish and looking to your own needs above others. People conflate these concepts way too often, and they are very different things.
@ Ken:
To be clear about something- I’m actually very skeptical of a lot of the garbage that gets promoted around about how to improve your life. Especially about marriages and relationships. I’m generally the first one to raise an eyebrow over new material brought into “Bible Studies”. But “Boundaries” makes my short list of books that I think just about every person could benefit from.
As I said, it’s not perfect. I do wish they would come out and say that divorce is a necessary boundary in the right circumstances, and I do think they sometimes stretch scripture when it’s unnecessary (most of the scripture is used well and supports the points they are making). But it’s good enough, and deals with an issue that I’ve seen enough people struggle with, that I think it could be a huge help for creating more intimate, closer relationships. Because relationships plagued by boundary problems are NOT intimate, as counter-intuitive as that is.
Jeff S wrote:
Jeff,
Have you ever read this book?
http://www.amazon.com/Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder-Help-Family/dp/0966110447/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449856471&sr=1-1&keywords=obsessive-compulsive+disorder%3A+New+help+for+the+family
The disorder is OCD. But the I found the help for the family part was pretty good for anyone dealing with a disordered loved one.
And yes, boundaries play heavy into it.
I also liked the Boundaries book on marriage and needed it very much in dealing with my spouse and his disorder(s).
If I had time, I’d get into a conversation with Ken on how people with disorders can take responsibility for themselves and repent from using their disorders as an excuse when they hurt others.
@ Mara:
No, I hadn’t. Thank you for the recommendation.
@ Ken:
Just so you know, this is a level of determinism/fatalism that I’ve only encountered among extreme materialists/atheists who reject free will and think the legal system should be changed so intent is not taken into account (since they believe intent is an illusion and is really just a biochemical accident). I’d be interested how you would apply this to something like anorexia given the following:
If it can be demonstrated that anorexia has a biological component (and it seems there’s pretty good evidence that it does), then according to your logic it would be pointless to help an anorexic stop starving herself because that would be helping her take responsibility for her behavior. That will literally kill people, Ken. Let me repeat that.
YOUR LOGIC AS APPLIED TO ANOREXIA WILL KILL PEOPLE. In a very awful manner, I might add (starvation and malnutrition).
Forgot the citation for anorexia info.
https://www.mccallumplace.com/anorexia-causes.html
Addendum @ Ken:
Well, not only materialists/atheists. Also hyper-Calvinists who reject preaching the Gospel to anyone they can’t preconfirm is elect, so thus not anybody. I doubt you want to hitch your wagon to that crazy train either.
@ Ken:
The concept of codependency is in the Bible in examples of people’s misbehavior and in the phrase “the fear of man.”
The Bible teaches that all women are responsible for their own choices and sins – men and husbands are not responsible for women’s choices and sin.
Women who are codependent will often allow other people to dictate their life choices for them rather than make their own choices.
Or, they become so incredibly focused on fixing other people’s problems, they neglect to tend to their own lives, problems, and interests.
The Bible teaches that women are to place God first in their life – to get their purpose, identity, security, etc from God, not to look to a husband (or other person) to get purpose, identity, security.
And we do see example after example in the Bible of people who rely on a king, military leader, spouse, or other mere human to fulfill a longing or purpose that only God can provide. God says turning to other people in that manner is IDOLATRY.
And gender comp encourages Christian women to practice idolatry, because they insist on presenting husbands as being a little Messiah- leader figure to wives.
Wives are to look to God for their needs, identity, and fulfillment – not a husband, as gender comp promotes.
Those are just a FEW of the traits of codependency.
I could write a 678 long paragraph post citing even more.
Just because the word “codependency” itself does not appear in the Bible does not mean the concept is not in there, Ken.
The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, but lots of Christians do believe that the concept is in there.
It’s far easier to use the word “codependent’ than to cite all 56 billion variations and expressions of it
(such as being passive, unassertive, lacking boundaries, being conflict avoidant, looking to people for one’s worth instead of God – and on and on).
Jeff S wrote:
Precisely. If anything, I’ve had to work on myself a lot.
Learning that I was codependent in some ways set me free. I am free of depression and some anxiety.
But then it created a whole host of other things I had to start working on in myself. It didn’t let me off the hook.
I am now having to take more responsibility for myself, and make deliberate choices in everything in life.
Where-as, under gender comp / codependency, I was conditioned to automatically say “yes” to every person and request I ever got, no matter what.
Now I have to stop and mull things over if someone asks me a favor, to determine if I really want to assist them or not.
Under gender comp (codependency) my Christian mother (herself a gender comp / codependent, who lacked boundaries), I was very “outward focused.”
I was trained to only pay attention to the needs of people around me, to even anticipate what they might need or want.
When I had to reevaluate all this stuff after my mother died, I realized I did not know who I was.
I’ve been having to work hard to figure out who I am, what do I want and need out of life, and I’ve had to learn a million lessons along the way, like how to deal with conflict – just a whole bunch of stuff.
Daisy wrote:
Oh, that is worded kind of weird. I meant, my mother raised me to act and to think in that manner.
My mother discouraged me from ever putting myself or my needs first, and to this day, my dad and my sister still lecture me on this; both my father and sister think me putting me first or getting my needs met is selfish and horrible. I am having to disregard them on this.
To ever put me or my needs first was in my mother’s view being selfish or un-Christlike. I’m having to unLearn this stuff and start over.
Ken wrote:
Yes, that is one reason of several Jesus, came – to free people like me who was suicidal for years, deeply depressed, who came from a mostly negative, very critical family who shamed me, that I do have value, that it’s okay to have self esteem.
Tossing gender comp in the trash in my life (where it really belongs), and learning it’s okay for me to have boundaries and not be a doormat anymore has improved my life.
For the first time ever, I feel okay about myself, mostly. I have some self confidence now.
I lacked self esteem and felt as though I was trash under your brand of Christianity and gender roles.
To this day, I want to puke every time I hear Christian preachers get into their nauseating, shaming garbage about how we’re all just worms and God doesn’t really like or love us.
I’m going to leave an extra summary comment here in case my longer earlier one doesn’t get approved for some reason:
If anorexia, an eating disorder that fits Ken’s criteria of mental “disorders and syndromes,” has a biological component (and it probably does – see reference link I provided above), then according to Ken’s logic, it would be impossible and/or wrong and/or pointless to try and get an anorexic to stop starving herself, because that would be asking her to change her behavior when she has a condition with a biological component. This is obviously extremely dangerous and would certainly result in deaths.
Ken’s logic 1) puts already vulnerable people at huge risk when it’s applied in the real world, and 2) leaves him with no way to correct anyone’s behavior if it can be proven that they have an underlying condition with a biological component that is contributing to/causing the behavior. Unless he breaks his own rules.
@ Ken:
I think people are valuable and have worth. It’s called human dignity and it comes from being image-bearers of God. Be very careful with downplaying and degrading human dignity. Push it too far and you’ll pull the rug out from under your own feet if you’re against things like abortion and euthanasia and for things like the Geneva Convention.
Jeff S wrote:
Someone like Flag Ken who has very wonky, wrong ideas of what boundaries are, to be consistent, would have to condemn Jesus Christ for some of Jesus’ behavior.
The Gospels say Jesus sometimes left the crowds of hungry or sick people to either go off and pray to God alone (he was meeting his own spiritual needs), or to take a nap (he was meeting his own physical needs).
Jesus took a nap in the disciples boat. How selfish of Jesus to get his own needs met
(this would be Ken’s position, or maybe he’d play special pleading and let Jesus off the hook since Jesus is Jesus. Well, Jesus is the role model for Christians on stuff like this.)
How wrong of Jesus to get rest for his physical body, or to get his spiritual batteries recharged to talk to God in prayer, is how a lot of Christians would have to argue this, since they claim getting one’s needs met is self absorption.
One book I read likened this to getting on an airplane:
the adult has to put the oxygen mask on first in event of a crash, so that he is still awake and alert to put a mask on a child sitting next to him.
Someone like Ken would say it’s selfish to do this, that you should put the mask on the kid first. -But if you do that, you both pass out.
Another book (by Cloud, not the ‘Boundaries’ one, I don’t think) uses a car analogy:
If your car runs out of gas, you have to fill it up at the gas station, or it won’t run.
If you spend all your time filling other people’s gas tanks at the gas station, and not your own car, you car will break down.
How ridiculous it would be for a Christian to tell you at the gas station:
“How dare you fill your own car tank. You should be filling up the tanks of everyone else’s tanks around you.”
-But this is exactly what they do when it comes to Christians needing down time to nap because they are tired, take a vacation to relax, have boundaries and turn down doing favors for others, etc.
There are times in life where you must put yourself and your needs first or you are useless to other people. You will get sick, worn out, physically drained, or resentful if you do not.
My mother did a lot of nice gestures over her life for other people because she felt as a Christian and a woman obligated to, not that she wanted to. She ended up being tired, frustrated, and resentful a lot of the time, in private.
Sometimes, she did to nice gestures because she sincerely wanted to…
But there were many times she told me in private she did not want to volunteer at the church, or did not do ‘favor X ‘for neighbor ‘Joe Blow,’ but felt if she did not, God would disapprove of her, or the church would think she was “selfish.”
Jeff S wrote:
Thank you for your long comment, which I have read.
My complaint is in the context of Willow Creek and its related doctrines. I have always made the caveat that reading around this was subject to the limitation of books and the internet. Boundaries seemed yet another example of where psychology was being pitted against the NT.
This is certainly true of things like mysticism of the inner healing or centering prayer variety, which are spiritually very dangerous in the sense of you can start to follow an angel of light and end up with another Jesus and another spirit.
The ‘looking into the mirror and saying yes to yourself’ was something my wife actually heard someone in the church here say. Now the church was very good in many ways at doing things for other people, very practical, and yet mixed in with this was this emphasis on self-love, on feeling good about yourself and building your self-esteem. Relationships trumped sound doctrine. The practical help we received made it all the harder to stop attending, but in the end the latter proved just a bit too much to take.
When blatant and dangerous false doctrine and experience start coming into a church(e.g. Toronto or Brownsville), you really cannot lay the bible aside (Lass es gut sein – just drop it now) to keep the relationships harmonious, i.e. you mustn’t rock the boat in any way.
Hester wrote:
I think there may be some talking at cross-purposes here. A genuine medical condition requires medical intervention. I’m not one of those who believe healing is in the atonement, claim and confess your healing and stop taking medication – and I’ve encoutered charismatics who have been fooled into believing this. Indeed this can have disastrous consequences.
Eating disorders, I would assume, are a medical condition. Is there a sin component? Possibly, but not at first sight very obvious. Demonic? Unlikely, but not impossible.
It’s when a disorder is used to excuse blatantly sinful behaviour I have sympathy with the Adams’ view. People really do choose to do wrong, they cannot push the blame anywhere else, whether upbringing or ‘society’ or even a syndrome. Now these latter may be a contributing factor, and may mitigate guilt up to a point, but to the extent a particular bahaviour is caused by a medical condition, you cannot hold someone guilty for it. They need treatment rather than repentance. Repentance entails taking responsiblity for your actions.
@ Ken:
And what I’m telling you is, Willowcreek or no Willowcreek, Boundaries is not a. example of psychology vs the Bible. I am no fan of Willowcreek, FWIW.
I actually don’t think its a good idea at all to paint psychology as opposed to the Bible. Like anything, t has its flaws, but overall it’s just a study of humans, like medicine is, and can be useful, especially when we measure it against scripture.
As far as looking yourself in the mirror, the reality is that if you do not take care of yourself, it is very hard to take care of others. This does not mean that we ought to be selfish- it does mean that if we do not love who we are, it’s impossible to really love others. Hence Jesus said to treat others as we want to be treated.
In a side note, I would say that both high self esteem and low self esteem are errors and an indication that we are measuring ourselves by the standards of the world. Better to look at ourselves through the lens of God, not esteemed against others. And God sees us as wonderful and lovable.
Jeff S wrote:
Amen and Amen!
If we measure against the standards of the world, we will eventually base our worth on our performance and achievements. God doesn’t ask us to earn His love.
Ken wrote:
Boundaries are a biblical concept. Jesus practiced them, as did Paul and other biblical persons.
The Bible misinterpreted, as you are wont to do on gender roles and psychology, is just as bad and dangerous as Christians who over-rule the Bible totally with secular psychology.
Your take and position on gender roles played a large role in my problems as a kid and as an adult (including but not limited to having depression, low self esteem, suicidal ideation, allowing others to mistreat me and so on) that I am still sorting through even now.
Somewhere in this thread, Flag Ken was asking how mutual submission works or can work in marriage or where ever.
This page has a section about half way down discussing that very thing. I will not copy the entire section, because it’s quite long:
What About Submission and Headship?
http://godswordtowomen.org/krupp.htm
Here is just the first little bit of that section:
——
Mutual Submission
So how does submission work practically in a Christian marriage relationship? Doesn’t someone have to be boss? Absolutely! Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit!
Paul made it very clear in Ephesians 5:18 that the key to joyful, harmonious living is to be filled with the Spirit.
I am absolutely convinced that if a husband and wife are both filled with the Spirit, walking closely with Him and listening to His voice, there will be no need for an earthly “boss.” When a decision needs to be made in a family, both the husband and wife need to make it together.
Both should go to the Lord and listen for His direction. If there isn’t unity at first, they should continue to seek the Lord until there is.
news! is reporting 4 us prisoners in Iran are being released including Saeed.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/01/16/iran-releases-4-american-prisoners-including-pastor-and-reporter-in-swap-us-official-says.html
I’ve read almost this entire thread plus blogs, articles, individual posts, etc. I can tell you that at 72 I have wasted 40 years of my adult life by being an ultra comp. I said, “Yes dear, no dear, anything you say, dear”, and on the way up, I said, “How high do you want me to jump?”. No joke. And by doing that I was SO submissive and Jesus was SO pleased. Well, “dear” found himself another woman (or two or three–not sure of the exact count) who did it better than I did. And on top of that, within the last couple of years my current pastor preached that women were not only to be submissive but they were to be subservient. (That’s not all he said but I’ll leave that for another time.) Wow, that’s a terribly strong word. I lost it. I kept the tears back until I got to the car. My now-husband approached the pastor the next Sunday in a very gracious, friendly, but straightforward way. The pastor didn’t back down a bit. He said, “It’s in the Bible.” I could write on and on….and on.
@ Cassandra:
I am so very sorry for all you’ve been through. 🙁
If you’d like to visit sites by conservative Christians who offer solid interpretations of contested passages about marriage, women’s roles in churches and so on, you may want to take a look at Christians For Biblical Equality site
and
http://juniaproject.com/
Someone on another thread here (I am sorry I cannot remember who!) posted a link to this, which I believe really fits this thread:
Control: The Reason The Gospel Coalition and CBMW Cannot Actually Condemn Sposual Abuse
http://fiddlrts.blogspot.jp/2016/01/control-reason-gospel-coalition-and.html
I have a question about something under the “Michael and Debi Pearl” section on this page:
http://homeschoolersanonymous.org/2015/05/15/how-christian-homeschool-leaders-have-addressed-domestic-violence-isnt-ok/
Snippet from that part:
Since the Pearls think that God gave us the governing authorities and people should submit to them-
And since most (all?) states in the United States have laws against domestic violence, I don’t see why even under their teaching, it would be wrong for a woman who is being abused to call the police and have her husband charged or jailed for abuse.
So, wouldn’t the Pearls have to agree that it would be okay for an abused wife to call the cops on her husband?
If a woman called the police in case of being abused, it looks to me she would be, in a fashion, submitting herself to her governing authorities.
Persecuted Pastor Saeed Abedini’s Wife Files Domestic Relations Case
http://www.charismanews.com/us/54757-persecuted-pastor-saeed-abedini-s-wife-files-domestic-abuse-case
January 27, 2016
@ Daisy:
Interesting he threatened the end of the marriage if he didn’t get the required actions to promote his image.
I’ve not been able to find any info on his ordination as a pastor. I’m not necessarily in favor of the title, but if someone assumes it, there should be some evidence of an ordination, shouldn’t there?
I think Naghmeh is very wise to take steps to protect herself and the children.