Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

"I love my man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man." -Mary Wollstonecraft link

Facebook Nagemeh Abedini

Complementarian leaders say they are against domestic abuse but often act differently.

The Naghmeh Abedini/Saeed Abedini story has been heartbreaking to me. I thought we have been making strides in the area of domestic abuse and the evangelical, gospel™ churches. There have been so many posts written over at The Gospel Coalition on showing empathy and care for the abused spouses. Go to this link and see all of the posted articles.

We have Owen Strachan claiming that complementarians are better at handling abuse. Special thanks to Spiritual Sounding Board

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Complementarian supporters run when domestic violence gets reported.

Today, The Washington Post published The strange case of the pastor released from Iran and his wife’s abuse allegations. Here is how they view what is happening to Naghmeh in the aftermath of her abuse allegations which have been backed up by a guilty plea of domestic abuse in 2008 by Saeed Abedini.

Now that her husband has returned the United States, the mother of two may be facing an even bigger challenge. She’s trying to rebuild her life after suffering from years of what she says was abuse in her marriage to Saeed.

And Naghmeh will likely have to do so without the help of her high-profile friends, some of whom have distanced themselves from her. She also may face of suspicion from many of her former faith-based supporters, domestic abuse experts say.

In fact, it appears that her original support systems are fleeing for cover, including the DeMoss Agency (remember them from the Driscoll fiasco?) Also note the ties to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association which is run by Franklin Graham.

A spokesman for the ACLJ said the Christian legal nonprofit is no longer representing the Abedinis, now that Saeed has been released. The family is no longer working with the DeMoss Group, a prominent Christian public relations firm based in Atlanta, which does media relations for the ACLJ and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

DeMoss handled media relations for the Abedinis when Saeed returned from Iran and stayed at the Cove, a retreat center run by the BGEA.

“Now that Saeed has left the Cove and returned to Boise, we are not in a position to navigate his or Naghmeh’s movements, statements or wishes relative to interviews,” a DeMoss spokesman wrote in an email.

The Post article offers some cogent insights into abuse in religious homes by Marie Fortune, founder of the Faith Trust Institute, which trains clergy and faith groups on how to deal with domestic abuse.

“The faith community doesn’t necessarily want to talk about domestic abuse because they don’t want people to think that it is happening within their community” she said.

That’s especially true when the abuser is a pastor. People don’t want to believe that a pastor could abuse their spouse. So a pastor’s spouse like Naghmeh often has no one to turn to for help, Fortune said.

…Fortune said that at times, faith can be a roadblock to getting assistance for victims of abuse. Victims are sometimes pressured to forgive their abuser early on in the process — as a kind of shortcut to healing a marriage.

But forgiveness, if given too early, can do more harm than good.

Complementarians often do not believe women who report being abused by pastors, leaders, heroes, etc.

What distressed me the most were the numbers of comments left by supposed Christians under various news reports about the Abedini situation. Here is one example from Charisma News.

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Another went on to discuss that she was in this for the money!

A commenter at Religion News believe that this whole thing is a conspiracy on the part of the Abedinis to gain fame.

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On TWW we had the following themes run through our comment section.

  • Naghmeh had to say she was abused in order to get her husband out of Iranian prison. She was being forced to say this by an evil government.
  • Saeed's previous conviction of domestic violence was so long ago. Surely he is now cured.
  • We have no right to bring up Saeed's guilty plea because it is against British law to take such things into consideration.
  • Naghmeh has a honey on the side and wants to marry him.

It is unsafe for women (and men) who are victims of domestic violence to report this to many religious leaders who are ill trained in responding to domestic violence.

  • Only this summer we were presented with The Village Church demanding Karen Hinkley not divorce her kiddie porn loving husband.
  • One former church told a physically abused woman to return to husband before they would support her.
  • Paige Patterson told a woman to return to abusive husband and she was further beat uo by him. Paige Patterson said this was a good outcome because the husband *came to church.*

Please be sure to get help from domestic violence centers which care far more deeply and intelligently for the abused spouse than many churches and pastors. I also recommend the blog A Cry for Justice which has many resources listed.

Pedophiles and trust=Complementarians and submission

I expect to get my head bit off with what I am going to say next. I do not blame churches when pedophiles show up at a church. Pedophiles seek out vulnerable kids who have parents who trust youth workers. Therefore, pedophiles go where the kids are. It is the job of churches to be aware of this fact and institute safeguards to protect the children from the clever child molester.

In the same manner, men who have abusive and violent tendencies will go to churches which teach submission, male headship and authoritarianism. I am not saying that all complementarians are abusive (Repeat x 10). I am saying that a number of abusers will be found in complementarian ranks due to the emphasis of the teaching.

The problem with teaching a generic submission

Here is a Tweet from Matt Smethurst, a true blue gospel™ sort of guy. 

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Guess what I replied? 

Submit to what?

Just like the words *church discipline are ill defined which means they can discipline you for whatever they darn well please, the word *submit* is a generic word and can mean whatever the speaker or the receiver wants it to mean. And that can, and does lead, to abuse.

The Village Church debacle showed us that even those churches trained in the 9 Marks way of disciplining screw it up badly and hurt people.  I can assure you that the same thing goes on in domestic violence cases. Paige Patterson is a President of a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and even he doesn't get domestic abuse. That is a very sad state of affairs for the church.

It is dangerous to submit to any church or group until they are willing to tell you what that means. I would stay away from any church that frequently preaches submission, male headship and discipline. I can just imagine what sort of men attend such churches.

What I have learned from Naghmeh Abedini and her reports of her abuse.

  • Christian leaders like Franklin Graham do not get domestic abuse. There are not two sides to every story as he so claims. Abuse is always wrong and there are no two ways about it.
  • The church is ill equipped to teach their members about how to respond to abuse because many church leaders are not equipped to respond in a compassionate way to abuse.
  • The complementarian camp MUST accept that their teachings will attract those who have abuse problems. If they really care, they will do something about it.
  • Groups like The Gospel Coalition have been strangely silent in light of this revelation. Joe Carter stuck this rather tepid report in the middle of one of his columns.

Since 2012 Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, had been working publicly to secure his release. But in November 2015, Naghmeh suspended her public advocacy citing “physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse (through Saeed's addiction to pornography)” in her marriage.

More recently she said the timing of her emails, which were leaked to media, was unfortunate, and that, “When he gets home, we can address the serious issues that have happened and continued.

        There is one comment that has been allowed to stand under that post. TGC is infamous for deleting comments, why not this?

Does anyone else find Naghmeh's statement fishy? I smell a rat. I hope they weren't forced to lie and say that he was an abusive porn addict. And now mental health evaluations? Maybe…I mean…I guess…but it doesn't match up. Jesus was falsely accused too. I can't imagine an abusive porn addict to all of a sudden have the strength of conviction to last in Iran's worst prison for his testimony of Christ. Someone with no Christian decency in private would surely cave under such immense pressure. I don't know- just doesn't add up. Praying for the family, and I sure hope that they really truly will be safe and not forced to say or do things that taint their witness and the name of Christ.

Far too many of the complementarian leaders have remained silent in the light of this situation. It is that silence which speaks volumes to the watching world. 

And until these guys start telling us what they mean by submit, I will continue to ask them "What and why?"

Comments

Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers? — 325 Comments


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    The “complementarians” not only practice censorship, but they always rally around “their guy” and claim “persecution”! They seem bent on keeping women “in their place” and elevate their idols.


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    Find a healthy church and submit to its leadership.

    And watch that leadership pretend they never knew you when their “leadership” causes calamity in your life.


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    “The complementarian church is the most pro-woman outfit there is” (CBMW)

    Prove it!

    If there is an Achilles heel in the New Calvinist movement, it may rest with the women who have been ensnared by it. As soon as they wake up to their eternally subordinate status, they may rise up en masse, declare “Wait just a darn minute here!”, and jerk their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the mess!


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    Yes it does.
    Just the same way as prosperity gospel theology attracts con artists and those who are vulnerable to them.


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    As has been pointed out several times, these people really don’t understand abuse. The area of abuse they most overlook is manipulation. The abusers know exactly which buttons to push to get the responses they desire. … Hmmm … sounds a bit like what passes for “preaching” in a lot of churches. Maybe that’s why so many church leaders just don’t get it.


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    I wondered about this quandary when thinking about my spiritually abusive, IMO, former father-in-law. Did Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and its brand of theology create him or simply attract him? I think it was a little of both. It certainly gave him tools to more effectively screw with my head.

    A HUGE problem with silence on these matters is how it enables abusers to hold onto a cloak of legitimacy as if God approves of their abusive ways (which He DOES NOT!). It breaks my heart than any domestic violence victim would be taught that God approves and supports the abuse. That’s a lie.


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    Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff. What a bunch of dangerous like Matt are to cast about for a righteous man to whom to submit when the Righteous Man already came and told us that he is the only mediator between us and the Father.

    How very, very much like the culture his suggested path is (just like the gentiles who lord it over the people), how very unlike the way Jesus laid out for us, the way of all being priests, none leading by compulsion but only by example, the biblical way of mutual submission.

    Matt, you’re just in love with the culture, while you reject Jesus’ counter-culture.


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    Loren Haas wrote:

    Yes it does.
    Just the same way as prosperity gospel theology attracts con artists and those who are vulnerable to them.

    That is a most excellent, apt comparison right there.


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    Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership not only Attracts Domestic Abusers, but certainly has the potential of creating them!!

    I know I've brought up the "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" and the Stanford University Prison Experiment before, but it confirms (for me) that abuse in both of those experiments happened only after select groups were given power over others. And the abuse happened to all in the group with no indication they had all been abusive prior to the situation. They were peers who were on good terms with one another.

    If a man and woman who are new Christians start to hear that type of power imbalance teachings, it's very possible it will begin to have the same abusive effect in their relationship. And the sad part is they will think they are abiding by the commands in the bible.

    Power corrupts….


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    Regarding the blog title:
    “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    I’d say yes. Like public fish markets attract stray cats or bread crumbs in a city park attract pigeons.

    I’ve been thinking of writing a blog post about this at my Miss Daisy Flower blog. My folks were complementarians, and I was taught to believe in all it involves.

    After my mother died, I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. After doing some research, I figured out codependency was one of my biggest problems.

    My mother was a severe codependent and taught me to be one as well. She was one due in part to being in a family where one parent was an alcoholic, but she also got the idea that God supposedly is into all that complementarianism entails.

    I am not sure how much she got that from her Christian mother vs. churches she was raised in. But I got this stuff from my mother, the churches we went to, and Christian magazines and books I read growing up.

    Anyway, when I began looking into codependency, I was struck by how similar it was to the stuff gender complementarians teach to women.

    The two are about identical. Each belief set insists (and this is just a partial list of what they have in common): it’s wrong for a person to get her own needs met; you should be passive; having boundaries is selfish; always defer to other people, etc.

    I learned from reading further (including in books about abuse) that many of those same qualities are irresistible cat nip to men who are seeking women to abuse, control, or manipulate.


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    @ Law Prof:

    That is a seriously good comment. These people who want to be counter-cultural are letting the culture decide for them what is and is not important just like the people who try to mimic the culture.

    Jesus kept saying follow me, keep my commandments, believe me and such. I think that doing that sometimes agrees with the culture and sometimes disagrees with the culture and sometimes it has noting to do with culture at all. But for sure, it does not let the culture call the shots as to what is important.


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    I’d also like to add that

    1. I too think that the majority of Christians are very ignorant about domestic violence and related topics.
    And
    2. The amount of victim blaming (with tinges of sexism to it) that goes on is also deeply troubling.

    So many people on Christian sites that are covering this story are filled with people who are wanting to blame Naghmeh or blame women in general, or they just refuse that a preacher could be guilty of abusing his wife.

    I’m seeing a lack of compassion by many of these Christians for women who are being abused by a significant other, which is very at odds with how respectful and compassionate Jesus Christ was towards women.


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    1) What does submission transform into when it is mandated?
    2) would Mattie boy say the same thing if he were not in a position of leadership?
    3) Yes, Jesus was falsely accused. He was also abused. So, is being compared to Jesus, Fishy Person?

    I have such a big bone to pick with this “Cathy” person, it’s unreal! My husband was active duty military during the time we dated, throughout our engagement, and for the first 14 years of our marriage. I’ve seen a lot of people decide they just don’t want to be married anymore, and most of them were the husbands. I know of only one wife who left her husband when he came back from deployment. I also know a few couples who had a second honeymoon for the first couple of weeks the husband was back from deployment, then the abuse started again — always he abuses her, not the other way around.
    For me personally, once when my husband was in Iraq a non-military friend asked me how I could stand to live that way. My response was: I have two choices. I can live this way, or I can live without him. Then, she understood. And, I have a lot of female friends who have walked that same road with me.
    So, Cathy, darlin’, if you haven’t lived the life, don’t go a dreamin’ up stooopid stories to make your own incredibly biased case!

    Big name preacher men: go ahead, tuck your tails and run …. stick you heads in the sand. We already know what you’re made of. It’s high time the rest of the world finds you out!

    Okay. Rant over. The comment that Cathy person made really lit my fuse!


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    okrapod wrote:

    @ Law Prof:
    That is a seriously good comment. These people who want to be counter-cultural are letting the culture decide for them what is and is not important just like the people who try to mimic the culture.
    Jesus kept saying follow me, keep my commandments, believe me and such. I think that doing that sometimes agrees with the culture and sometimes disagrees with the culture and sometimes it has noting to do with culture at all. But for sure, it does not let the culture call the shots as to what is important.

    It is a good comment, so good, I won’t even post what I was going to say…


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    @ Nancy2:
    Should say:
    3) Yes, Jesus was falsely accused. He was also abused. So, who is being compared to Jesus, Fishy Person?


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    Daisy wrote:

    I’d also like to add that
    1. I too think that the majority of Christians are very ignorant about domestic violence and related topics.
    And
    2. The amount of victim blaming (with tinges of sexism to it) that goes on is also deeply troubling.

    </blockquote
    Two excellent points Daisy….excellent…


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    Headship and Abuse by John Turner
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2015/04/headship-and-abuse/

    Snippet:

    The question Baird posed is a critical one for the Christian church: “Can emphasis in some churches on the doctrine of headship—that man is the head of woman, and women are to voluntarily submit—create a climate where men who seek to abuse their wives are enabled?”

    There is an example on that page of a guy who justified his abuse of his wife to her by underlining all the passages in the Bible that talk about wives submitting to their husbands.

    I’ve read of that same story happening with other couples in other books and on other sites.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    1) What does submission transform into when it is mandated?

    This is one of the things about complementarianism I don’t see how it works out.

    If you wish to interpret the Bible in the manner complementarians do, the text is asking or instructing women to voluntarily submit, but I see a lot of male Christians (occasionally female, but usually male) demanding, arguing, and insisting to women on blogs (and in sermons) that women are to submit.

    If you’re a Christian guy who thinks the Bible teaches this stuff, then let the Holy Spirit speak it to women as they are reading the text.

    Let the Holy Spirit convict women on this score if it’s true or real. It seems to me that if you are a man, it’s not your place to “man-splain” the Bible’s ‘woman submit’ passages to women.

    The other thing I don’t grasp: should a married woman refuse to submit to her husband (in the way comps teach submission), what then?

    Do complementarians advocate the the husband lecture the wife, shame her, get the preacher at church to shame her, or beat her up when she refuses to submit?

    This page kind of addresses that point too (under the bold faced heading on the page that reads, “Does God require that women obey men or not?”):

    Control: The Reason The Gospel Coalition and CBMW Cannot Actually Condemn Spousal Abuse
    http://fiddlrts.blogspot.com/2016/01/control-reason-gospel-coalition-and.html


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    I like how these people always say “healthy church.” This usually means that if it isn’t THEIR church or an Acts 29/9 Marks church, then it isn’t healthy. All other churches are just amateurs. It really creeps me out.


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    Want to do something counter cultural? Join a cult and have every aspect of your life controlled by people with selfish motives. If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!


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    @ Law Prof:
    Matt is in my neck of the woods. I think I spotted him buying clearasil at Walgreens. The church near the university has a ton of elders and a few pewsitters like most of them do. Probably SBTS students. I often wonder how much money the SBC is pouring into these places to keep the doors open. But the real goal is to become a social media star with the Gospel.


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    Daisy wrote:

    If you wish to interpret the Bible in the manner complementarians do, the text is asking or instructing women to voluntarily submit, but I see a lot of male Christians (occasionally female, but usually male) demanding, arguing, and insisting to women on blogs (and in sermons) that women are to submit.
    If you’re a Christian guy who thinks the Bible teaches this stuff, then let the Holy Spirit speak it to women as they are reading the text.

    To me, this stuff just screams that there is NO communication between a married woman and God or the Holy Spirit. If a wife can only gracefully state her position, then she must submit to husband’s decision even if she disagrees (except when He tells her to commit an obvious sin, of course!), then the husband is God’s messenger to his wife??? God doesn’t “call” us women to use our gifts? Men determine what our gifts are, as well as when and where we may or may not use them? We are forced to put our faith in men. Do we become spiritually deaf and dumb when we get married?


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    I think so. I have often heard advice given to men who are not even Christians who are looking for a “good wife” to go to church to find one.

    People with a certain bent tend to find the places they will find like minds.


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    Here’s a couple observations that maybe will be a little encouraging?

    Maybe things are changing for the better. The fact that Naghmeh had the courage to stop, set limits, and speak up means more to me than the stupid comments I’ve seen from ignorant people.

    Secondly, yes, a lot of comments are maddeningly ignorant. But maybe this is a lot of peoples’ first glimpse into these sort of issues. Maybe their eyes will be pried open just a bit and they will go on to learn and understand more. Maybe a seed has been planted that will eventually bear fruit.

    I think some of these ignorant comments are also more about the person’s own cognitive dissonance as they are confronted with reality vs the image they had created of a hero in their own minds.


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    A few months ago I met Dee and she asked me what the 20-somethings think of gospel(TM) complementarianism, and I just didn’t know. But that’s what helped me see what it is – seeker-sensitive patriarchy. Just make men feel like whatever they’re already doing makes them king-of-the-castle manly men. Plenty of chauvinistic slobs and henpecked wimps get to feel like they’re biblical men too, but that doesn’t make the news. When what you’re already doing is abuse, that’s when there’s a problem.

    And that’s why when pressed for the answer to what complementarianism is, it’s 5 minutes of buzzword nonsense: https://vimeo.com/88840250 or the groundbreaking concept of continuing to take your wife on dates after marriage: http://cbmw.org/topics/leadership-2/developing-a-date-your-wife-mindset/. Gee, how could anyone disagree with that?!

    Note to Owen Strachan: What culture actually does is virtue-signal but then do nothing to act if it means forgoing a pay day. And you and your ideological clique would never do that, would you?


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    Christina wrote:

    . If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!

    For a thoughtful love offering, I would be happy to set up a cult.


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    Divorce Minister wrote:

    I wondered about this quandary when thinking about my spiritually abusive, IMO, former father-in-law. Did Mars Hill Church (Seattle) and its brand of theology create him or simply attract him? I think it was a little of both. It certainly gave him tools to more effectively screw with my head.

    Darn-thoughtful comment but sad that you had to go through that.


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    Stan wrote:

    A few months ago I met Dee and she asked me what the 20-somethings think of gospel(TM) complementarianism, and I just didn’t know. But that’s what helped me see what it is – seeker-sensitive patriarchy.

    Ooo. That is a great way to put it! That is exactly what it is. Piper takes credit for coining the word, complementarian. He even made up the spelling.


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    that last comment standing, “…Praying for the family, and I sure hope that they really truly will be safe and not forced to say or do things that taint their witness and the name of Christ.”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    do they mean forced to say and do things for the sake of the institution? for the sake of a publicity campaign (to precede lucrative careers (for multiple people) with Saeed on the speaking circuit, publishing contract for books about Saeed, etc.?

    do they really care about these people? or the institution?


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    A new post is up at Phoenix Preacher / Michael Newnham. He gives this introduction — “Before we attempt to discern the things unknown, I think it would be wise to mark out what we do know” — and lists 10 points of what is known, even where questions remain. Worth a read:

    http://michaelnewnham.com/?p=24544


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    Also worth noting in Michael Newnham’s most recent post is his last point: “10. The saddest part of this whole story is that in some ways both Saeed and Naghmah are in new prisons now …”

    That seems like an echo of the January 16th post by Julie Anne Smith on Spiritual Sounding Board, “Saeed and Naghmeh Abedini — Two Kinds of Violence, Both Still a Prison.” Given the continued unfolding of facts and questions, her post offers an important compilation of key details, and as best I recall, they’re in chronological order which could be especially helpful in tracking information up to the middle of last month.

    http://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2016/01/16/saeed-and-naghmeh-abedini-two-kinds-of-violence-both-still-a-prison/


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    “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    They not only attract domestic abusers but the abusers soak up the teachings and become worse. I am now divorced after 25 years in an abusive marriage but that is exactly what happened in my own marriage. We were both involved in a legalistic para church organization before we were married, then went to several churches – all heavily complementarian – after we were married before settling down to the one we would attend for the majority of our marriage. Our marriage was in trouble from the beginning but the church only made things worse. Shortly after we we married, my husband told me that, if I ever crossed him, there would be “hair, teeth, and eyeballs all over the place” and they wouldn’t be his. Even as naive and codependent as I was back then, I was shocked and would have walked away from the relationship if I wasn’t already married. But, I was married, God hates divorce, my role was to submit, I had no where to go, and all of that, so I stayed. I didn’t know at the time that he was also a narcissist. I reached out to the pastor, who could have been in a great position to guide us newlyweds – or at least me since my husband probably wouldn’t have listened to healthy advice. But what did we get? The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice. Over the years, I watched my husband become more and more deceived and cruel. I would sit in sermons knowing he was going to take what he was hearing and use it as a weapon against me. Near the end of our marriage, he would say things that would make my head spin: “God put me in charge so I don’t need to know what you think about anything.” “As your husband, I am supposed to do whatever it takes to make you godly” (including physical abuse.) Note: “godly” is defined as “be like me”. “If you even think something different from me, you are being unsubmissive.” Someday, I’m going to compile a list of all the things he believed the Bible supported (NASV version only, though). At the time, I thought it was just him, that he was deep in deception. It wasn’t until I started reading TWW and met Dee and Deb that I realized that, sadly, there was a whole culture of people like my ex, not only in the church but leading the church, and that I wasn’t alone.

    So as not to leave my story hanging, I grew up over time, dealt with my own stuff, and started setting boundaries. There were children involved and not the resources there are today so I felt I couldn’t leave. When I started telling my husband that, if he touched me or the children again, I would call 911, he took me seriously and left because “I was out of control.” I was out of control – his control! Anyway, that was 15+ years ago, I still have wounds that have not healed, and am only beginning to tell my story. I’m glad to have a safe place to put pieces of it out there. However, I am very glad Dee has 4 people in moderation right now. If any of the 4 of you in moderation are reading (and you know who you are), your comments and off topic derailments are hard to take as I’m trying to heal.

    Lastly, Naghmeh is a strong, courageous, and wise woman. My heart goes out to her and the children. Naghmeh, you have done the right thing to protect your children and yourself. If there is one thing I could go back and do differently, it would be to leave much, much earlier for the sake of my children.


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    Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

    Submission makes comp women Easy Prey, and where the prey is the Predators will swarm.


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    Uncle Dad wrote:

    As has been pointed out several times, these people really don’t understand abuse. The area of abuse they most overlook is manipulation. The abusers know exactly which buttons to push to get the responses they desire. … Hmmm … sounds a bit like what passes for “preaching” in a lot of churches. Maybe that’s why so many church leaders just don’t get it.

    “Under cover of Heaven’s gate
    I. MANIPULATE.”
    — Steve Taylor, “I Manipulate”


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    dee wrote:

    Christina wrote:
    . If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!
    For a thoughtful love offering, I would be happy to set up a cult.

    Does the love offering include a personal Gulfstream 650 so you never need to ride in an airliner with all those DEMONS?


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    Owen Strachan: “In the church, woman-abusers are stringently disciplined.”

    are they now.

    looks like they are made pastors, Owen. And then celebrities.

    Owen Strachan, i’ll be watching you closely in particular. To see how you respond to this situation.


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    dee wrote:

    For a thoughtful love offering, I would be happy to set up a cult.

    Your sarcasm just cracks me up; unfortunately, however, this really happens. Pathetic and sad but true.


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    In his excellent book, “Why Does He Do That?” Lundy Bancroft, who pioneered treatment for domestic abusers and help for their wives, says two things are part of every abuser’s world: 1) he feels a sense of entitlement and 2) there is cultural support for mistreatment of women. The broader US culture has lots of cultural support for mistreatment of women in our entertainment industry. However, Dee, you are right, that a complementarian Christian culture could very well provide the kind of cultural support that an abuser seeks—even if unintentionally. Imagine a guy with a sense of entitlement who hears that he’s “head of the household.” Where does that line of thinking lead in that kind of person? It’s a set-up for emotional abuse, even if physical abuse does not occur. Not all emotional abusers physically abuse, but all physical abusers emotionally abuse. So Christians who are sincere complementarians need to take seriously that their rhetoric provides the cultural cover that is needed for abuse to emerge. To counter that, there would have to be a very, very strong, ongoing drumbeat of speaking out against both emotional and physical abuse. I don’t see that happening. In fact, as an example of the opposite, Mark Driscoll who was known to be a bully to his staff and others in his congregation, didn’t have everything crumble around him for his emotional abuse of others, but rather plagiarism and financial issues began the downfall. His violent words about Petry and Meyer were said to his congregation and were on video. It was not all done in the dark. His TGC buddies didn’t publicly call him out on it and in fact, the victims reported that they reached out to Piper to mediate and he wouldn’t. Driscoll was a perfect role model for abusers. And they saw him get away with it.


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    @ siteseer:

    “Maybe things are changing for the better. The fact that Naghmeh had the courage to stop, set limits, and speak up means more to me than the stupid comments I’ve seen from ignorant people.”
    ++++++++++++++++

    really good comment, siteseer. yes — I can’t think of any other woman of this high a profile in christiandom who said “No. I have a boundary here,” with regard to imposed marriage roles.

    she defied the power brokers!

    all in all this is so significant.
    ==========================

    “Secondly, yes, a lot of comments are maddeningly ignorant. But maybe this is a lot of peoples’ first glimpse into these sort of issues. Maybe their eyes will be pried open just a bit…..

    I think some of these ignorant comments are also more about the person’s own cognitive dissonance as they are confronted with reality vs the image they had created of a hero in their own minds.”
    ++++++++++++

    Yes, I think you’re right. This is, like, a first. (at least I think it is). no one this high profile has rocked the boat like this (have they?) it is the first time many are being exposed to someone (a woman, no less!) in her position saying “No”. To very powerful people.

    I think their world view has just been scrambled. Kind of like ants living in their civilization under a big rock. You lift up the rock, daylight streams in along with a whoosh of air and they all kind of go crazy with the change.
    —————–


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    This situation brings to mind Janet Mefferd’s producer who resigned over the MD-as-guest-on-talk-show-and-hard-questions debacle.

    in her own words, “All I can share is that there is an evangelical celebrity machine that is more powerful than anyone realizes. You may not go up against the machine. That is all. Mark Driscoll clearly plagiarized and those who could have underscored the seriousness of it and demanded accountability did not. That is the reality of the evangelical industrial complex.”

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2013/12/05/ingrid-schlueter-resigns-from-janet-mefferd-show-over-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-controversy

    i suspect allies with influence and power are very much needed in Naghmeh’s corner.


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    I have been a Christian for a very long time. I am grieved over what christianity has become. “A machine “. ‘ “The Evangelical Industrial complex”. Unfortunately I have seen it with my own eyes and know it is true,. Terms and definitions lose their meaning. What was once meant as being a Christian is no longer so. I pray for discernnent for God’s people. This is for sure a spiritual battle. I have been privileged to know a few true men of God. Humble men who looked after the sheep, I have also seen the wolves who have tried to devour.


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    don’t know how all this will play out…

    if necessary, my hope is that Boz Tchividjian, someone with clout and influence (& with his head seemingly screwed on right!), will stand strong in Naghmeh’s corner, and speak truth to power (as endowed in his relative, if necessary).

    “The grandson of evangelist Billy Graham, and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, Tchividjian made the comments in an interview with the Christian Post. He told the website that churches are guilty of sacrificing the safety and care of abuse victims “in order to protect the reputations of individuals and institutions”.

    http://www.christiantoday.com/article/billy.grahams.grandson.on.josh.duggar.and.karen.hinkley.churches.must.protect.victims.not.offenders/55221.htm


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    and now to get more in sync with “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    seems very logical to me.

    what I have observed is that comp. mandates create acquiescent women. soft women. who unlearn how to make decisions. who unlearn many things, actually (such as assertiveness, the ability to disagree publicly, the ability to say “no”, the ability to gather oneself into a fighting stance whether emotional, mental, or physical)

    to regain these things & reinstitute boundaries means consciously taking off the gender role (totally un-)supersuit. Stepping out of it and stepping a good distance away from it.

    but otherwise, there is vulnerability.


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    A bit off-topic, but congrats to Dee and Deb for getting a mention over at Baptist News for their work in educating folks about CJ Mahaney and his sneaking into the SBC (WW mentioned about mid-point of the article). Your hard work is starting to get some deserved recognition by others:
    https://baptistnews.com/culture/social-issues/item/30879-blogger-concerned-about-controversial-pastor-s-sbc-ties


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    elastigirl wrote:

    This situation brings to mind Janet Mefferd’s producer who resigned over the MD-as-guest-on-talk-show-and-hard-questions debacle.
    in her own words, “All I can share is that there is an evangelical celebrity machine that is more powerful than anyone realizes. You may not go up against the machine. That is all. Mark Driscoll clearly plagiarized and those who could have underscored the seriousness of it and demanded accountability did not. That is the reality of the evangelical industrial complex.”
    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2013/12/05/ingrid-schlueter-resigns-from-janet-mefferd-show-over-mark-driscoll-plagiarism-controversy
    i suspect allies with influence and power are very much needed in Naghmeh’s corner.

    I’m glad people are calling out the Christian celebrity machine, and I’m very glad that it failed in regards to Driscoll. With enough people and proof, the machine can be overcome.


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    Why would anyone want another person to be submissive in such a way as to give up their own personhood; now two people mutually agreeing to serve each other sounds a bit more like a relationship based on mutual respect. Seriously I don’t understand people like Mr. Wilson I truly don’t. And the “wordsmithing” that he uses it makes you want to sand paper your eyebrows off.


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    My friend behind the curtain has enabled me to get off the discussing complementarian treadmill, and I’m not getting back on it.

    But I hope one comment is in order. I actually agree with critics of American complementarianism when they complain that such complementarians never get beyond the word submission. If that is all they can talk about.

    This is plain wrong. For one thing, what is the ‘complement’ to such submission? The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others. If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity. There are several aspects of the Christian life that are prone to such distortion, and teaching the whole counsel of God seems to me to be the only antidote to this.

    All Christian teaching is fair game for rigorous scrutiny and debate to make sure it is in line with the faith once delivered. Indeed the NT requires us to test all things.


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    How can we expect the church or a world that's watching the church to respond any better when the celebrities of the Christian culture don't give a cr#p (ed.) about child sex abuse?


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Submission makes comp women Easy Prey, and where the prey is the Predators will swarm.

    Exactly. And when we live in a culture that not only tolerates but rewards the predator/prey paradigm in many aspects of the culture, and when people view the creation story as validating the prey status of pitiful deceived Eve forever desiring/ turning to her husband and the predator status of ‘he shall rule over you, then WTH, the culture and the church are saying the same thing.

    How they convince anybody that they are being counter cultural is one of the biggest con jobs on the planet right now.


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    “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    I’d like to ask: Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership CREATE Domestic Abusers?”

    When I was a young woman, 30-40 years ago, churches taught young men and women that the man must rule (yeah, do it with love, but rule that roost young man!). Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you. The young woman would rather die than be insulted with being called “domineering.” So she swallowed her pride, her gifts, her personality and became a shadow. She was beaten by the stigma of being labeled “domineering.” Her kind husband became stern, harsh and, eventually, angry, finding himself forced into a role of “leader” in a marriage with this stranger who once was a vibrant girl.

    It created a precarious predictament for those young men and women seeking to please the Lord.

    His frustration is exposed as anger. Maybe violent at times. She does not stand up for herself in fear of dominating. A cycle of abuse is born.

    Two decades later, the woman no longer able to abide by the false constraints of submission, bursts forth with a crisis of spirit, upsetting the long-established marital patterns. And survival of the marriage must be renegotiated,

    I do not blame the woman. Not.one.iota. Yes she bought the lie through coercion. But whether her husband chose to vent his frustration with verbal abuse, or manipulative abuse, or threat of vilence, or physical violence, those are his choices to own.

    Nevertheless, perhaps the abuser was CREATED by the false teachings.


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    Victorious wrote:

    Power corrupts….

    A man who views his wife through the lens of complementarian authority has reduced her to involuntary servitude, which is to say that he has objectified her. Because satisfaction cannot be derived from an object one owns, the complementarian husband will begin to commit abuse out of frustration and anger. He will also begin to attempt to fill his emptiness by looking to other women. Pastors who claim authority over entire congregations and who have, therefore, objectified humanity as a whole, will be particularly susceptible. Is it any wonder so many “pastors” indulge themselves with pornography? Is it any wonder that so many “pastors” enter into emotionally adulterous relationships, which will, with near inevitability, lead to physically adulterous relationships?

    Yes, complementarian mandates of submission and male leadership both attract and create domestic abusers.


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    I haven’t read all of the comments, so apologies if someone has already made this point.
    It seems that two undisputed facts in the Abedini story are that 1) he plead guilty to domestic assault in 2007 and 2) he was ordained in 2008. Who in their right mind wants to “submit” to a system in which that can happen? Why should I trust “church leadership” if they are vetted no better than this?


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    Gary W wrote:

    involuntary servitude,

    In a word, slavery.


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    Gary W wrote:

    A man who views his wife through the lens of complementarian authority has reduced her to involuntary servitude, which is to say that he has objectified her.

    Complemetarianism reduces a marriage to Power Struggle and the rules of Power Struggle are in effect:

    Only two possible outcomes: His boot stamping on her face or her boot stamping on his. And the only way to avoid the second is to make sure of the first. Forever. Hold the Whip or Feel the Whip, nothing in between. And comps, MRAs, PUAs, just make sure that he who has the penis is he who Holds the Whip.


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    Remnant wrote:

    When I was a young woman, 30-40 years ago, churches taught young men and women that the man must rule (yeah, do it with love, but rule that roost young man!). Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you.

    “You hold the Whip.”
    — Slaver in Game of Thrones


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    Law Prof wrote:

    Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.

    Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?

    “Fiendishly countercultural”? More like, predictably status quo.


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    brian wrote:

    Why would anyone want another person to be submissive in such a way as to give up their own personhood;

    “…the day when all shall be inside him and all that says ‘I’ can say it only through him. The bloated spider parody…”
    — C.S.Lewis, preface to Screwtape Letters


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    Leslie wrote:

    This is for sure a spiritual battle.

    Exactly Leslie! While we fix names to folks associated with the mess in church, there is no doubt a spirit behind the flesh, driving their behavior and consequences … and that spirit ain’t holy. The enemy of the church is still active on planet earth and he uses the weaknesses of men (including those in the pulpit) to bring reproach to the name of Christ and the true Church. The multitudes in organized church don’t realize this is indeed a spiritual battle for the souls of men, and thus don’t pray as they ought – the average church member seems satisfied to live without revival and do church without God. In that environment, anything is possible … and TWW continues to report the manifestation of that anything.


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    @ Ken:

    The truth is mutual submission.. It says so before the clobber verses in Eph 5:21. The one all comps ignore.


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    Caroline wrote:

    I haven’t read all of the comments, so apologies if someone has already made this point.
    It seems that two undisputed facts in the Abedini story are that 1) he plead guilty to domestic assault in 2007 and 2) he was ordained in 2008. Who in their right mind wants to “submit” to a system in which that can happen? Why should I trust “church leadership” if they are vetted no better than this?

    You hit the nail on the head. There is a desensitization to what is corrupt. The concepts of right and wrong are turned upside down. You are to forget, forgive and move on. But we all know real change is grueling.


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    Abigail C wrote:

    Over the years, I watched my husband become more and more deceived and cruel.

    For you complementarian men tuned into this blog, listen carefully to these words. The problem with deception is that you don’t know you are deceived because you are deceived. You have exposed your marriage and your family to an authoritarian church structure which is outside the will of God. You are walking in the flesh and not the Spirit. For the health of your marriage – for God’s sake – put your behind in your past and get out of a church which is controlling you and your destiny.


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    Burwell Stark wrote:

    Law Prof wrote:
    Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.
    Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?
    “Fiendishly countercultural”? More like, predictably status quo.

    Both. They live to be noticed by the Mohlers and Pipers. Be a speaker at the conferences and share a stage with the greats.


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    Lydia wrote:

    The truth is mutual submission.. It says so before the clobber verses in Eph 5:21. The one all comps ignore.

    Once you see it, you can’t unsee it Lydia! New Calvinism is at the core of this latest surge in complementarianism. They are masters at cherry-picking verses, while ignoring the context of a passage. Beware of those who camp out in select passages of Romans and Ephesians, while ignoring the Gospels … who use Scripture to control, intimidate, and manipulate.


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    @ Abigail C:

    I know very well a mega church pastor who gave a sociopathic narcissist a character reference to another church simply because he was afraid of him. That reference was affirmation to the sociopath who milked it against his wife in many ways because thousands of people revered the mega church pastor.

    Pastors can be your worst enemy. They can even harm people because they want to appear neutral or fair. Or they are all into cheap repentance that thugs use for the moment. In this case, the great comp pastor who preaches protection of women was just scared.


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    Ken wrote:

    The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others. If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity.

    I find this an odd statement for you to make.

    Eph 5.21 calls for mutual submission (husbands are to submit to wives, not just wives to husbands), but you have denied that this is so.


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    Lydia wrote:

    they want to appear neutral or fair.

    If they refuse to take a position in the interest of being neutral or fair, harm will ensue. Even judges, who are expected to be impartial and fair, must ultimately take sides. S/he must make decisions and enter orders. Where I live, a judge who takes too long to decide a case can have their salary withheld. Unfortunately there is very little enforcement mechanism where cowardly and opportunistic “pastors” are concerned.


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    @ Abigail C:

    I’m very sorry for what you went through. Not only were you abused by your husband, but your preacher/church lent a hand in that abuse or piled on to it, in that they gave him the means or warped justifications to continue.

    This is one of the negative consequences of complementarianism (or “bad fruit,” as Jesus might say).

    That complementarianism can be so easily used by abusive men to defend why they feel they can control and abuse a wife (and that is is often used in this manner) should be a wake up call to those who still want to defend comp as being God’s design or as being “biblical.”


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    Blog title:
    “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    Why yes, it really does. Another indicator:

    Does Douglas Wilson Teach That Unsubmissive Women Deserve Rape?
    http://www.jorymicah.com/does-douglas-wilson-teach-that-unsubmissive-women-deserve-rape/

    The author’s conclusion is that no, not exactly, but he comes very close to teaching that very thing. And she quotes Wilson as saying,

    I began by saying that I am on the same team with Gospel Coalition complementarianism.

    I’d say she is much too kind towards Wilson in her post. I think his views about “unsubmissive” women is a distinction without a real difference.

    At the end of the day, Wilson is saying that unsubmissive women can, should, or will be raped, and so they do “deserve” it, they brought it on.

    It’s much like the old argument that a woman who wore a short skirt or walked alone in the city at 2 in the morning was “asking” to be raped, or deserved it. It’s the same mentality.

    On another note, not all women have husbands or fathers to submit to, so Wilson leaves such women out in the cold, as she discusses in her post.

    But complementarianism does attract abusers or sexists like a moth to a flame – it gives them a supposedly biblical-sounding rationalization for treating women as though they are inferior to men.


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    @ Gary W:
    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.


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    Remnant wrote:

    Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you. The young woman would rather die than be insulted with being called “domineering.”

    That’s one thing among several that’s always bugged me about gender complementarian teaching. It assumes all women want power or to control men. Not me.

    Over my life, I’ve not been comfortable being in charge of others or being a leader. I’m an introvert and play the part of wall flower the best. I am more comfortable being a follower.

    I wish gender comps would stop taking their skewed teaching about women vis a vis Eve and acting as though all women are prone to X, Y, or Z. Because not all women fit their little box of how they assume all women to be.


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    elastigirl wrote:

    what I have observed is that comp. mandates create acquiescent women. soft women. who unlearn how to make decisions. who unlearn many things, actually (such as assertiveness, the ability to disagree publicly, the ability to say “no”, the ability to gather oneself into a fighting stance whether emotional, mental, or physical)

    Yes. This echoes what I was saying above. Gender complementarianism is codependency. It infantilizes teen girls and grown women, so it doesn’t do them any favors.

    It does not prepare them properly to be in independent adult in the event they never marry, or their husband dies from a heart attack or divorces them or what have you.


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    Gary W wrote:

    Because satisfaction cannot be derived from an object one owns, the complementarian husband will begin to commit abuse out of frustration and anger. He will also begin to attempt to fill his emptiness by looking to other women.

    That parallels a secular book I read on the topic of submissive women. The therapist who wrote it shared a conversation she had with a guy who likes to control women.

    Her male patient said he was at a place in his life where controlling women and taking advantage of them finally left him empty.

    He said he finally realized he was all alone in life, and it bothered him. He wanted a true life partner, which he realized meant a woman who would stand up to him when he was wrong or a jerk.

    Some men may think at first they would be thrilled with a totally passive, submissive wife, but after awhile, they may come to realize it leaves them all alone in the relationship, in life.

    There was a sci-fi movie that came out years ago that illustrated this point:
    Cherry 2000:
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092746/

    The guy in that movie thought he was happy with a totally compliant, passive robot girlfriend, but when the robot broke, he ends up meeting and getting into disagreements with a real woman.

    There is a real give and take in their relationship, not a fake, hollow one-way submission on the part of the woman.

    *spoiler*
    He falls in love with the real woman in the course of the movie and doesn’t want a robot replacement any more.


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    P.S.
    Gary W wrote:

    Because satisfaction cannot be derived from an object one owns, the complementarian husband will begin to commit abuse out of frustration and anger. He will also begin to attempt to fill his emptiness by looking to other women.

    As to the guys who are not abusive, or who won’t turn abusive due to comp, there can be other, negative ramifications of complementarianism on men, as this page describes:

    The Consequences of Complementarianism for Men
    http://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/consequences-complementarianism-men

    In light of all this, I think the only people who benefit from complementarianism are men who don’t want competition from women in going after church leader roles, and men who are abusive.


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    Lydia wrote:

    Pastors can be your worst enemy. They can even harm people because they want to appear neutral or fair.

    I’d say this is true even of rank and file Christians, the ones whose habit is to doubt victims who come foreward, like we see on these blog posts about domestic violence or child abuse.

    As to the first part of your post, the preacher who gave a character reference to a known sociopath, that is creepy!


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    I have said this before but let me repeat it. My lawyer dad had a little private practice at home after regular work hours, and one of the societal problems that drifted over to the lawyer’s office was a series of repeated problems caused by some local preacher stepping out of his role (yes I said the dirty word) and trying to pass out legal advice under some religious rubric and which subsequently turned out to be just a mess.

    Dad had mostly nothing good to say about preachers.


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    Daisy wrote:

    Yes. This echoes what I was saying above. Gender complementarianism is codependency. It infantilizes teen girls and grown women, so it doesn’t do them any favors.

    Infantilizes except in regards to sex.
    Which sounds way too close to pseudo-pedophilia.

    It does not prepare them properly to be in independent adult in the event they never marry, or their husband dies from a heart attack or divorces them or what have you.

    Death or divorce, the man is gone so it’s not his problem.
    “I’ll be gone by then, so That’s YOUR Problem!”


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    Daisy wrote:

    this is true even of rank and file Christians

    “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

    Many in the organized church profess the name of Christ, but don’t have his character. An outward profession may cause us to think we are the children of God, but if have faith in that and nothing else, we are greatly deceived. “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14). Not everybody that goes to church is the Church … that’s why the rank and file don’t always act like Christians. You will know them by their fruit.


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    Lydia wrote:

    @ Gary W:
    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

    One of my writing partners is a burned-out pastor who’s barely making ends meet. The expectations of him as “Pastor(TM)” and “Reverend(TM)” have burned him out. He describes himself as “a middle-aged fat man with a bad back and bum hearing”.

    I’ve only known him in relation to SF fandom, fantasy literature, and writing, so I don’t treat him as “Pastor(TM)”. And being able to interact as himself instead of “Pastor(TM)” is a real relief. I think we’re keeping him sane and grounded.


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    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    I have always thought comp doctrine had a daddy/husband problem.


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    Burwell Stark wrote:

    Law Prof wrote:
    Gosh, what a little boy Matt Smethhurst is, what a beacon of naive (or perhaps malicious) nonsense he is, what damage he is about to do to himself and those round him unless he turns back from the cliff.

    Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?

    “Can neither be bribed or influenced except for his personal Advancement within The Party.”
    — description of a KGB Operative in an old FRP game scenario pack (TriTac’s Invasion USA, a Soviet-occupied America dystopia)


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    @ Gary W:
    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

    One of my writing partners is a burned-out pastor who’s barely making ends meet. The expectations of him as “Pastor(TM)” and “Reverend(TM)” have burned him out. He describes himself as “a middle-aged fat man with a bad back and bum hearing”.

    I’ve only known him in relation to SF fandom, fantasy literature, and writing, so I don’t treat him as “Pastor(TM)”. And being able to interact as himself instead of “Pastor(TM)” is a real relief. I think we’re keeping him sane and grounded.

    He sounds like he just was unfortunate enough to have a real conscious.


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    Max wrote:

    Exactly Leslie! While we fix names to folks associated with the mess in church, there is no doubt a spirit behind the flesh, driving their behavior and consequences … and that spirit ain’t holy.

    Before John Nelson Darby and Hal Lindsay, one of the two classic archetypes of Antichrist was The Slick Deceiver (“Anti” in the sense of “imitation of”), presenting a façade of Christian Gospelly Godliness as cover for his real agenda. Specifically targeting and corrupting the church into his own image.

    Today, this archetype has been completely forgotten. Only the other archtype (The Fanatic Persecutor, the ultimate Other) remains. And these two archetypes work very well as a Beast-and-False-Prophet tag team; in fleeing the Fanatic Persecutor (The Beast), you take the Mark of the Slick Deceiver (False Prophet) for protection.

    For a lot of preacher-men, the Slick Deceiver hits a little too close to home.


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    I tend to think that there are two kinds of men who might gravitate to comp doctrine. There are the preacher/proponents of it who seem to be able to turn it into cash money. Then there are those men who don’t seem to compete too well with other men but who can go home and kick the dog, take a belt to the children and slap the wife around and convince themselves that this is manly.


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    Lydia wrote:

    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    I have always thought comp doctrine had a daddy/husband problem.

    Which adds pseudo-incest to the pseudo-pedophilia.

    Especially since the comp wife is expected/demanded to satisfy her comp hubby/Lord and Master’s every sexual expectation. (Including kinks, and you can develop a LOT of unrealistic kinks & expectations when being raised a boy in Comp Chrisitanese Purity Culture.)


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    okrapod wrote:

    Then there are those men who don’t seem to compete too well with other men but who can go home and kick the dog, take a belt to the children and slap the wife around and convince themselves that this is manly.

    If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.
    “I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”


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    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Yep and yep. This mess would not be a popular as it is becoming unless there were both a financial and a sexual payoff. The guy who gets a sex slave, and especially a virgin who does not have enough information or experience to know how perverse some of his ‘needs’ are, and who at the same time gets to control all the money and all the financial decisions…what perv would not want that???

    Like, what is she going to do about it? She is ignorant, brainwashed, ashamed when she does get some information but so what, because she does not have enough job skills to survive on her own-the religious philosophy has seen to that. I actually knew a case where the guy bragged about this. Publicly, so I assume he thought that his audience would admire him for it.

    I am not saying that they are all like this, but I am saying that there seems to be a slice of the demographic which looks like this.


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    @ okrapod:
    I’ve seen both types you mention, and let me present another, as represented by my soon-to-be-ex-pastor: the guy who Must Be Completely Sure. He desperately needs everything neat and buttoned down with no loose ends. No questions. No shades of grey. In this particular case I think there’s a lot of insecurity based on an absent/unpredictable father, super squirrelly mother, borderline poverty as a child, and other issues. It seems like this theological system meets a deep need and keeps scary thoughts at bay.


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    what frightens me more is HOW was it that a sheltered and beloved son of a patriarchal family get exposed to the idea that he could commit incestuous abuse and GET AWAY WITH IT ???

    . . . that it happened more than once speaks for itself, and adds some weight to my question

    . . . that is happened to a visiting child whose family trusted her safety in the Duggar home, speaks to how the boy was further encouraged to act out

    . . . that he married a lovely Christian woman and sought out ‘relationships’ outside of his marriage and acted out in these ‘relationships’ seems a further indictment of how he was brought up to see women within his cult

    I think we have to tie the SBC subordination of women to the cult of patriarchy, and we can begin to see in more depth how young Christian men can be exposed to a life where women are being observed (by the impressionable children of these patriarchal families) as something ‘less than’ a human person worthy of all dignity and respect.

    Paige Patterson’s treatment of women included his treatment of Dr. Sheri Klouda, and it involved the well-being of her family which included a husband suffering from heart trouble . . .

    this lack of simple Christ-like compassion has grown out of something that is NOT reflective of Christ, but seems more born out of a male-idolatry cult nurtured among Patriarchists.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.

    Ahhh, yes Mr. Complementarian himself. I still remember him dragging his poor wife on stage to support the patriarchy when promoting his “Real Marriage” book. She looked like a trapped animal. Now that he’s hanging out in Pentecostal ranks, he will need to change his tune … there’s some women preachers in that bunch who will teach him a thing or two about real marriage!


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    Submission for everyone but the leader is counter-cultural?

    Good joke.


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    And also, there used to be talk about the alleged sexual insecurities of some men such that they could only successfully engage in sex with some prostitute or such-some woman who could not or would not dare criticize or reject them in the process. I can see where this could be a D/S situation at home, even if just in somebody’s fantasies. Let us not forget that Dick Rascal was selling sex from the pulpit. This is actually a sad situation all around, but it used to be talked about back when people were more into Freud and less into Ephesians.


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    Comment from someone at TGC: “I can’t imagine an abusive porn addict to all of a sudden have the strength of conviction to last in Iran’s worst prison for his testimony of Christ. Someone with no Christian decency in private would surely cave under such immense pressure.”

    This is a strange yet not uncommon idea in Evangelicalism—that people can’t be horrible in one area while being ok in other areas.

    A related idea is that there are some bad things that a US Christian church-goer would simply never do.

    These ideas also disallow spousal and child abuse. “I can’t imagine…” he writes. Yeah, it is unimaginable when determined to be impossible.


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    @ Daisy:
    When I said one comment is enough above, that was my intention. Now of course there is a total of two!!

    Apart from moderation’s request for us two in particular to take a break from this subject, there were two posts in the recent threads on which this arose that brought home to me that the discussion was increasingly futile.

    The fact I have said what I think of Eph 5 goodness knows how many times only serves to illustrate this.

    Other issues were intruding, and there is a huge cultural difference from attitudes this side of the Pond too imo.

    I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you hence this comment, but I really am enjoying a holiday from this. It had started to become an unhealthy preocuppation.

    I’ve got other questions from the family, such as evolution and Genesis, faith and works (James v Paul?), baptism, OT violence, and ‘does the bible endorse slavery’. So there are plenty of other things for me to have to mull over!

    Not always the most savoury of subjects, but if I can make up for being spiritually inactive for so long and shed a bit of light on genuine questions and problems, it will be worth it.


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    Remnant wrote:

    When I was a young woman, 30-40 years ago, churches taught young men and women that the man must rule (yeah, do it with love, but rule that roost young man!). Don’t give in to the woman, because she has that Jezebel spirit and will seek to dominate you. The young woman would rather die than be insulted with being called “domineering.” So she swallowed her pride, her gifts, her personality and became a shadow.

    This is precisely what Calvary Chapel teaches from their pulpits regarding Genesis 3:16, that the ‘woman’ turned (teshuqa) from her divinely established ‘role by gender’ for the express purpose of ‘domineering’ her husband.

    It is my fervent hope that more young women will read Katharine Bushnell’s writings and see this teaching for what it is, pure poppycock, and that the Almighty has no ‘wonderful plan for their lives’ based solely on plumbing received at birth.


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    @ Daisy:

    “The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others.”
    +++++++++++

    is it? how do you know?
    —————-

    “If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity.”
    ++++++++++++++++++

    ‘balance’… do this, do that, yeah, put this there, twist that around, now bend a little, no bend a lot, lift this, lower that, stand on one foot, other knee at a 48 3/4 degree angle, head up, eyes to the left, toes pointed down right foot, toes pointed up left foot, make a fist, extend your pointer finger, now rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time….

    seems to me this ‘balance’ you talk of amounts to a contortionist act. balance, indeed. (talk about disfigurement)

    https://www.google.com/search?q=contortionist&biw=1280&bih=578&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ7Z3zzNnKAhVW92MKHcJPBTYQ_AUIBygC&dpr=1.5#imgrc=5cKKdkwH8X_TzM%3A


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    On 2 other TWW threads, brad/f.g. just posted links to latest SSB article about Saeed Abedini’s vetting, or lack thereof.
    Go check it out!


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    @ elastigirl:

    in response to ken’s comment, not daisy’s.


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    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    That reminds me of a similar story I read in the book “Qutting Church.”

    There was an ex pastor in that book who said he was never allowed to be a regular person by his congregation.
    When he was a pastor and took up playing jazz music on the saxophone, his church members acted as though that was inappropriate for a preacher.

    This guy had it up the wazoo with preaching and left that vocation.


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    I sent Dee a tweet with a link to this page (for point #4, “Post Office”).
    As I told her in the tweet, swap the word “post office” for “blogging.”

    4 Everyday Things That Caused Huge Panics When They Were New
    http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-everyday-things-that-caused-absurd-panics/

    Really, read the ‘Post Office’ part of that page and tell me if it doesn’t remind you of the complementarians who bemoan Christian women who blog, especially the ones who call out abuse in churches or by other Christians.


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    Burwell Stark wrote:

    Is he a naive little boy, or is he calculating his advancement within the 9M/TGC crowd by loudly trumpeting the favorite mantra of its leadership?

    “Fiendishly countercultural”? More like, predictably status quo.

    How about just plain “fiendish”?


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    …and frankly, I think it is interesting that he chose the word “fiendishly” countercultural. On some level, he recognizes that “fiendish” has application here. His brain picked the word “fiendish” as a great description.

    If you had to describe the ideal church, would the word “fiendish” come to mind in any sort of connection?


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Which adds pseudo-incest to the pseudo-pedophilia.
    Especially since the comp wife is expected/demanded to satisfy her comp hubby/Lord

    I can’t remember exactly where I heard or read this (what blog or podcast), but I came across some Christians discussing an off-shoot of this, with examples. I can’t remember the Christian celebrities they named by name.

    Some extreme complementarian groups (or full blown patriarchalists) have these weird views about daughters, not just wives.

    Some of these comp/pat guys have written blogs posts or books suggesting that grown men need a daughter, because all men (supposedly, this is HIS view) need or want attention from younger women.

    Then you have the Daddy-Daughter patriarchal balls, where at some of them, the daughter shaves the dad’s face.

    There is some very icky, weird stuff going on in these groups in how they think of girls and women.

    One blogger also mentioned that some of these comp/pat families – the parents – rely on their children to meet their emotional needs, which she described as being “emotional incest,” (and it’s harmful for everyone involved)
    There is some clinical term for that, but I can’t remember what it was.


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    @ brad/futuristguy:

    I like the Phoneix Preacher…he does an amazing job. I wish the world had more Michael Newhams.


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    Lydia wrote:

    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

    Yes, in Scripture, early church pastors confess they are the “least of these” … yet 21st century church attempts to assign “the most” to them! Pride cometh before a fall.


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    @ elastigirl:

    My name was tagged at the top of your post, but those quotes were by (Flag) Ken, not by me. (Just to clarify.)


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    Ken wrote:

    The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others. If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity. There are several aspects of the Christian life that are prone to such distortion, and teaching the whole counsel of God seems to me to be the only antidote to this.

    All Christian teaching is fair game for rigorous scrutiny and debate to make sure it is in line with the faith once delivered. Indeed the NT requires us to test all things.

    An admirable goal to be sure Ken. Where we disagree is on the method to bring this about. Yours relies on a strict mechanical reductionism in which all the gear teeth must mesh perfectly so to speak, a paradigm that I’ve argued here and elsewhere is not much more than 40-45 years old and almost exclusively American in origin.
    Let’s just say that many of us at present day don’t agree with this approach and leave it at that.


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    Daisy wrote:

    There is some clinical term for that, but I can’t remember what it was.

    Let me suggest a multi-purpose clinical term for a lot of this: sick.


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    elastigirl wrote:

    what I have observed is that comp. mandates create acquiescent women. soft women. who unlearn how to make decisions. who unlearn many things, actually (such as assertiveness, the ability to disagree publicly, the ability to say “no”, the ability to gather oneself into a fighting stance whether emotional, mental, or physical)

    This conversation has recalled something murky from my memory…
    Way back when I was a new Christian, I remember seeing a book at the Christian bookstore called “Husbands, Please Lead Us!” I didn’t read the book and can’t remember the author or publisher, but I remember seeing that book around from time to time and for some reason it stuck in my mind, I guess it just seemed odd to me. Does anyone remember this book?

    It occurs to me that the complementarian teachings were being brought out and some women were frustrated because their husbands were not picking it up. They thought they had a mandate to submit and obey and were frustrated with husbands who had no desire to rule and demand??

    Seems like the church has created the opposite problem now. What brought about the change?


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    Patrice wrote:

    These ideas also disallow spousal and child abuse. “I can’t imagine…” he writes. Yeah, it is unimaginable when determined to be impossible.

    Isn’t that like on the evening TV news where the reporter has a neighbor on video saying,

    “I never would have thought that my neighbor Joe was an ax murderer who had dead bodies buried under his floor boards. He was such a nice guy. He waved at me every morning as I drove off to work”


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    okrapod wrote:

    @ Law Prof:
    That is a seriously good comment. These people who want to be counter-cultural are letting the culture decide for them what is and is not important just like the people who try to mimic the culture.
    Jesus kept saying follow me, keep my commandments, believe me and such. I think that doing that sometimes agrees with the culture and sometimes disagrees with the culture and sometimes it has noting to do with culture at all. But for sure, it does not let the culture call the shots as to what is important.

    Thanks, naturally, agreed. It just seems like the general culture, the one that Jesus decried when He talked about the gentiles lording it over other, saying to the disciples “Not so with you”, is exactly what these self-styled “counter cultural”, follow-the-leader types want to set up in church. They want to make the Church just like the world: hierarchies, structures, penalites imposed from on high, strutting leaders who hang around other leaders, numbers, size, importance, turf wars, etc. Nothing like the kingdom that Jesus talked about.

    Nothing counter-cultural about Matt’s call to counterculturalism. Nothing at all.


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    Max wrote:

    Abigail C wrote:
    Over the years, I watched my husband become more and more deceived and cruel.
    For you complementarian men tuned into this blog, listen carefully to these words. The problem with deception is that you don’t know you are deceived because you are deceived. You have exposed your marriage and your family to an authoritarian church structure which is outside the will of God. You are walking in the flesh and not the Spirit. For the health of your marriage – for God’s sake – put your behind in your past and get out of a church which is controlling you and your destiny.

    I grow more and more thankful my husband and I left an Acts29/Calvinistic/Comp church (left a couple of years ago and do not currently have a place of worship outside of our home). Actually, being the “jezebel” I am, I left first. Basically an “eat my dust” kind of action. He was not happy, and started to throw the whole, “do what I say, woman!” into my face (not that seriously but close). I told him I did not marry my father, and as a born again, saved, joint heir to the kingdom of heaven, I did not enter into a marriage to go backwards. This Lord the comps/calvs/authoritarians promote is not the Lord I’ve come to know and love.
    I love my husband. We’ve been married over 10 years and have seen peaks and valleys like most others, if not more. I grew up in the UMC and he in the Church of Christ. I think part of his upbringing played into his (more than mine) easy acceptance of this Acts29/Comp/Calv teaching and church we attended for a couple of years.
    My husband is not abusive in any way, shape, or form. He can have a critical nature, but he has never abused me verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually. He’s about as level-headed as they come. With that said, as I look back to those couple of years within that authoritarian church system, he started to swallow it all hook, line, and sinker and I think it was appealing to him to do so. Was his more rigid background in Church of Christ an opening door? I think perhaps. For me, growing up UMC, I think I was able to smell the false teaching quicker and more stronger than he..
    I think if we would have stayed in this church system, he would not have become abusive per say..however, I do think it would’ve killed our marriage.
    I like where we’re at now. Mutual love and respect and not some tipping of the scales in either gender’s favor. If marriage cannot be of mutual love and respect, I have zero desire to be married. I’d have stayed single..


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    siteseer wrote:

    This conversation has recalled something murky from my memory…
    Way back when I was a new Christian, I remember seeing a book at the Christian bookstore called “Husbands, Please Lead Us!

    I’ve never heard of it. I searched Barnes and Noble, E-bay, and Amazon and didn’t find a book with that title, but there are a million other similar titles.

    Here are just a few I did find:

    1. J. Walker – Husbands Who Wont Lead & Wives (1993) 2. Husbands Who Won’t Lead and Wives Who Won’t Follow, Walker, James
    3. Behind Every Good Man: Helping Your Husband Take the Spiritual Lead in the Home


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    okrapod wrote:

    I tend to think that there are two kinds of men who might gravitate to comp doctrine. There are the preacher/proponents of it who seem to be able to turn it into cash money. Then there are those men who don’t seem to compete too well with other men but who can go home and kick the dog, take a belt to the children and slap the wife around and convince themselves that this is manly.

    Bravo. My anecdotal experiences as well. It seems like the types who go there and stay there in their mindsets and doctrine are often the types who are emotionally stunted or outright disturbed, they are quite often awkward nebbishes (John Piper, Matt Chandler) or chubby wannabe bullies (Mark Driscoll, James Macdonald, Doug Wilson). None of them, of course, could hold their own in a fair fight, so they pick on the weaker members of the herd or gang up with like-minded people where they can hide behind the numbers.

    They are abusers, the types whom Jesus warned us about. If only we’d listen.


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    @ Max:

    Amen


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    I forgot to mention, and I think this is an important observation. My husband is a man’s man, whatever that means and whatever that’s worth. I do think since he had a first marriage that ended in divorce, and our marriage being his second, it was appealing to be in a church system that hyper-promoted male leadership. He’s been afraid, IMO, of being a “failure” a second time around. I don’t see him as such, but I think it was appealing to have so much focus on family and manhood and male leadership and blah blah blah, as if that would’ve helped our marriage.
    I also think as I look back on that time at that church, that even though these teachings were appealing to him, they exhausted him. It’s all works based. He was trying to do something against the grain of who he really was/is. It’s not only physically draining on these men and marriages, it’s emotionally and spiritually. It sucks the literal life out of these people. He was trying to be something he’s not.
    We were saved from this death, thank God.


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    Melissa wrote:

    I like where we’re at now. Mutual love and respect and not some tipping of the scales in either gender’s favor. If marriage cannot be of mutual love and respect, I have zero desire to be married. I’d have stayed single..

    Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
    I don’t.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.
    “I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”

    Of course I take issue with the notion that beating capable of beating someone up is a sign of manliness, but even granting Mr. Driscoll the point, does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
    I don’t.

    None I suspect!


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    Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

    – Is water wet?
    – Is the South Pole a cold place?
    – Is the Pope a Catholic?

    Seriously, though, it would be very surprising if the complementarian submission to headship fantasy did not attract would-be and real domestic abusers, as well as immature men who feel insecure confronted with strong women.

    It may even do more harm: push those immature men from a position where they would like to have more authority to one where they demand it, and in no uncertain terms, backed by their pastor and their church, and, of course, the bible.

    If only they could read.

    But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. “It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

    Whatever the Pauline letters (seem to) say, the gospels are primary. And let no one confuse voluntary mutual submission with headship on male side and submission on the female side, enforced as a new law.

    Oh, the sweet smell of authority exercised by ME!


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    Gus wrote:

    Whatever the Pauline letters (seem to) say, the gospels are primary.

    Amen & Amen!! This is exactly where the New Calvinists miss the boat. Too much focus on twisting Paul’s words to conform to the tenets of reformed theology, while missing the clear teachings of Jesus.


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    Max wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.
    Yes, in Scripture, early church pastors confess they are the “least of these” … yet 21st century church attempts to assign “the most” to them! Pride cometh before a fall.

    We’ve been reading through Acts in family Bible time, and one thing I went on a little talk about afterwards last night to the kids, having just read Acts 5, was how those First Century leaders, by declaring themselves as such, were basically signing their own death warrants (and historical tradition, assuming it’s accurate, tells us that every last disciple died a violent death for their faith, excepting John, who died old and exiled, having suffered torture for his faith).

    So calling one’s self a leader in the church simply must be taken in the context of the day–there was no real thanks for it, you were likely to be impoverished, rejected by family, imprisoned, burned alive, beheaded, thrown to animals, crucified–yet they considered it a great thing that they were considered worthy to suffer that way. And even then, “leadership” in the church was defined as doing so by example, not compulsion, in the context of mutual submission, being the last and least, because you are a leader. And when one considers what being a leader meant then, frankly, who wouldn’t want to be easily persuaded–the Koine Greek “pithos”, translated (stupidly) as “obey” in Heb 13:17–by one who is literally risking being skinned alive by declaring themselves a leader?

    What a far cry from a a Christian-friendly western culture in which a scrawny 32 year old pastor with a few pimples, a backing group composed largely of twenty-something elders, and a self-proclaimed mandate from God to take authority over a 60-something widow’s personal affairs, seeks to be something big by developing a youtube following and minor celebrity status. No comparison.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    Ken wrote:
    The NT itself is always balanced in its doctrine, it doesn’t allow one truth to negate others. If you focus on just one aspect, you get a distortion of the truth, and end up with a disfigured Christianity. There are several aspects of the Christian life that are prone to such distortion, and teaching the whole counsel of God seems to me to be the only antidote to this.
    All Christian teaching is fair game for rigorous scrutiny and debate to make sure it is in line with the faith once delivered. Indeed the NT requires us to test all things.
    An admirable goal to be sure Ken. Where we disagree is on the method to bring this about. Yours relies on a strict mechanical reductionism in which all the gear teeth must mesh perfectly so to speak, a paradigm that I’ve argued here and elsewhere is not much more than 40-45 years old and almost exclusively American in origin.
    Let’s just say that many of us at present day don’t agree with this approach and leave it at that.

    I’ll tell you what, the ancient Jews sure didn’t take that approach–I’m not even certain the Pharisees themselves went that far in their rigid mechanical interpretations.


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    Remnant wrote:

    “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    I’d like to ask: Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership CREATE Domestic Abusers?”

    Thanks for asking that, Remnant. I believe we’ve got to explore how these ultimately dehumanizing beliefs, values, and actions get transferred to next generations by older individuals, younger peers, and organizational systems. That is, if we’re going to move from always trying to intervene when the doctrine has been deeply implanted, to interception of younger generations who’re at risk, and eventually to prevention so it isn’t on the radar anymore or at least gets nipped before it bears its poisonous fruit.

    I don’t know that Robert Jay Lifton’s eight indicators of a “totalist”/cult-control society have been mentioned lately. He became the father of “trauma psychology,” and did his original research work in the 1950s, interviewing men and women who’d been political prisoners in China during the Cultural Revolution. (I’ve learned a lot about toxic systems by looking at how the first and second generations of Chinese children after the Communist revolution were indoctrinated, and how Mao used the Cultural Revolution a decade later to institutionalize his dehumanizing practices into and through those children.)

    Here are Lifton’s titles for the criteria, and my summary of them:

    1. Milieu Control – restrict what communication modes are allowed.

    2. Mystical Manipulation – appeal to some higher purpose, as set by the leader or organization.

    3. The Demand for Purity – require purity of thinking, that is, with a black-and-white mentality where every view our group holds is absolutely correct.

    4. The Cult of Confession – use a radical level of personal confession to unburden people from their crimes (real or imagined) against the organization and realign them with its principles.

    5. The “Sacred Science” – promote our moral vision as ultimate: Our way of life is the only right one.

    6. Loading the Language – create code words and insider jargon that reduce complex problems to simplistic solutions, and condense categories into judgmental labels.

    7. Doctrine Over Person – require people to conform to our perfect system of truth so that individuality is eradicated and sublime conformity is the sacred norm.

    8. The Dispensing of Existence – exercise the “right” to decide who has the right to exist in public and who needs to be isolated or excommunicated.

    If people are interested, here’s a three-part series that expands on those indicators, and also has reflection/discussion questions for survivors of spiritual abuse to process what we’ve experienced, and for organizational developers so that fewer people need to process abuse in the future.

    https://futuristguy.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/the-hunger-games-trilogy-5a/


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    @ Melissa:
    Melissa, Praise God you are free from that Acts29/Comp mess! You were brave to take the lead in getting your marriage out of that patriarchal snare. As I’ve noted on TWW before, I truly believe that the Achilles heel in the New Calvinist movement is what you have championed in your life. When enough women rise up and proclaim that enough is enough and start dragging their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the NC trap, the reformed movement – an authoritarian experiment actually – will fail. It’s all about control … and, oh, how they love to control “our girls” (as Matt Chandler, Acts29 President, refers to female members at TVC). I’ve visited SBC YRR church plants in my area … it doesn’t take a lot of discernment to witness eternal subordination in motion – the countenance of the women testify to that which is gone amiss in these works.


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    @ Law Prof:
    Good words, LP. Your last paragraph describes several SBC-YRR church plants in my area.


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    @ brad/futuristguy:
    From what little I know, that sounds very CalveryChapel/9Marks/Acts29/YRR ish.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    From what little I know, that sounds very CalveryChapel/9Marks/Acts29/YRR ish.

    That’s part of the reason I think having a list of warning indicators helps us identify toxic systems. Some of those harmful beliefs and behaviors are so ingrained in a cultural or church/ministry system, that they are pretty obvious, even to a casual observer. It’s interpreting them as a interconnected system, and demonstrating how people are directly AND indirectly harmed by these systems, that gets more difficult.

    Also, I think there’s a significant amount of hope for those who follow dictates and dictators because of ignorance. The light can shine in their darkness and bring out the truth. Maybe it’s not easily so hopeful for those with a seared conscience or without compassion, because they’re far less likely to see or care about the harm being done — because they are doing it in the name of Jesus.


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    Max wrote:

    Amen & Amen!! This is exactly where the New Calvinists miss the boat. Too much focus on twisting Paul’s words to conform to the tenets of reformed theology, while missing the clear teachings of Jesus.

    …just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men…
    2 Peter 3:15-17


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    Law Prof wrote:

    Max wrote:
    Lydia wrote:
    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

    So calling one’s self a leader in the church simply must be taken in the context of the day–there was no real thanks for it, you were likely to be impoverished, rejected by family, imprisoned, burned alive, beheaded, thrown to animals, crucified–yet they considered it a great thing that they were considered worthy to suffer that way. And even then, “leadership” in the church was defined as doing so by example, not compulsion, in the context of mutual submission, being the last and least, because you are a leader. And when one considers what being a leader meant then, frankly, who wouldn’t want to be easily persuaded–the Koine Greek “pithos”, translated (stupidly) as “obey” in Heb 13:17–by one who is literally risking being skinned alive by declaring themselves a leader?

    This.is.it. I read every passage about leaders in the Body through that lens. It was not glamorous. It was just the opposite.


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    Abigail C wrote:

    I still have wounds that have not healed, and am only beginning to tell my story.

    Thank you for telling your story here. It pains me to know that you suffered so very much. You have a special and clear voice that will help many… you have already helped me.


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    Re: “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”

    This page says yes, that plays a role:

    A Deadly Formula for Violence By Barrington H. Brennen
    http://www.soencouragement.org/deadlyformula.htm


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    Patrice wrote:

    Comment from someone at TGC: “I can’t imagine an abusive porn addict to all of a sudden have the strength of conviction to last in Iran’s worst prison for his testimony of Christ. Someone with no Christian decency in private would surely cave under such immense pressure.”

    Ignorance is bliss.

    Unfortunately, when you’ve lived long enough/seen enough, things are not hard to imagine at all, in fact I’m kind of in the place where nothing shocks me anymore.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
    I don’t.

    I know I have zero interest now in marrying a gender complementarian guy. This would be a big reason why.

    The wife is regarded as an after-thought or an accessory to help the husband reach his goals in life, she is not seen as a person in her own right with her own dreams and goals.

    (Then of course there are the guys are are abusive who use complementarianism to rationalize abuse. That’s another reason.)

    Complementarians don’t really make marriage look appealing to most women.


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    Max wrote:

    @ Melissa:
    Melissa, Praise God you are free from that Acts29/Comp mess! You were brave to take the lead in getting your marriage out of that patriarchal snare. As I’ve noted on TWW before, I truly believe that the Achilles heel in the New Calvinist movement is what you have championed in your life. When enough women rise up and proclaim that enough is enough and start dragging their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the NC trap, the reformed movement – an authoritarian experiment actually – will fail. It’s all about control … and, oh, how they love to control “our girls” (as Matt Chandler, Acts29 President, refers to female members at TVC). I’ve visited SBC YRR church plants in my area … it doesn’t take a lot of discernment to witness eternal subordination in motion – the countenance of the women testify to that which is gone amiss in these works.

    I think the cat’s meow will be women rising up to reclaim their marriages and families from this cancerous “christianity.” Of course, in that circle, my move would be deemed atrocious because woman. Those darn XXs, always trumping the menogawds. I’d rather deal with menopause than menogawds! 🙂


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    Law Prof wrote:

    Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

    Interesting observation.

    When Driscoll is criticized (or feels attacked), his tendency (that I’ve seen so far) is that he gives sermons, or issues blog posts or interviews, acting like a victim (though he’s the instigator), like a couple years back when he was going on about helicopters flying over his house, and someone allegedly threw rocks on his drive way.


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    okrapod wrote:

    @ Headless Unicorn Guy:
    Yep and yep. This mess would not be a popular as it is becoming unless there were both a financial and a sexual payoff.

    There is another pay off that is significant. He gets to be somebody important even if his empire is tiny. Topping the list of motivators for people year after year in the WSJ was: recognition. Money is always after recognition.


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    @ Daisy:
    A snippet:
    Tony Evans, a motivational speaker and preacher of the gospel states, “I believe that feminists of the more aggressive persuasion are frustrated women unable to find the proper male leadership. If a woman were receiving the right kind of love and attention and LEADERSHIP, she would not want to be liberated from that.”

    Oh, joy. My husband is currently reading a Tony Evans book. Maybe I should recommend he check out GTY.


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    @ Patrice:
    Oh he submits to his yes men elders. That is why they all want elder ruled churches.


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    Many times in the past, I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. The argument is given that if women are allowed leadership positions in the church, the men drop out, stop following the Lord, and the church gravitates to being made up of mostly women.

    I could say a lot about this mindset, but I’m wondering if others have heard this excuse?


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    Law Prof wrote:

    anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up?

    I got to thinking of this more. Driscoll idolizes cage fighters and guys who box and what have you, because I suppose he thinks being a tough guy proves manliness.

    One of these MMA guys wrote this in response:

    The Confessions of a Cage Fighter: Masculinity, Misogyny, and the Fear of Losing Control by Matt Morin
    http://theotherjournal.com/2011/06/28/the-confessions-of-a-cage-fighter-masculinity-misogyny-and-the-fear-of-losing-control/

    A snippet:

    This is the punch line. This is the work that Driscoll and Dobson think MMA does for their brand of Christian masculinity—it provides the necessary control.
    It places men back in the driver’s seat of a world that has been careening out of control ever since we allowed our women to remove their head coverings in defiance of an explicit scriptural command.


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    @ Melissa:

    “he started to swallow it all hook, line, and sinker and I think it was appealing to him to do so”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++

    what about it was appealing to him?


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    siteseer wrote:

    Many times in the past, I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. The argument is given that if women are allowed leadership positions in the church, the men drop out, stop following the Lord, and the church gravitates to being made up of mostly women.
    I could say a lot about this mindset, but I’m wondering if others have heard this excuse?

    I have.


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    siteseer wrote:

    I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart.

    Christian men do not fall apart if they know who they are in Christ. Authoritarian nature is a religious expectation of men, not godly character. The problem is where you seek your identity – in a religious structure created by men or a church bought by the blood of Christ. The pursuit of one over the other leads to a completely different experience and destiny.


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    Remnant wrote:

    perhaps the abuser was CREATED by the false teachings.

    Thank you for this… I agree. The “husband as despot” ideal must be very confusing and corrupting to husbands who are not naturally abusive, and who are goaded into wondering if they aren’t doing manliness right. One of my relatives, a quiet and studious man, used to lash out in an almost obligatory way, as if he suddenly remembered he was supposed to show who was boss. His weird displays of abuse taught the family to tiptoe around him. Yeah, right, king of the castle. We all learned wariness and mistrust at his feet.


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    @ siteseer:

    “Many times in the past, I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. The argument is given that if women are allowed leadership positions in the church, the men drop out, stop following the Lord, and the church gravitates to being made up of mostly women.”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    i haven’t heard it articulated, really, but it is my deductive reasoning.

    it’s a gimmick.

    ever since i heard the wonderful news of ‘headship’ explained to me for the first time, in glowing terms (wore my best ‘you must be joking’ face ever) i immediately saw it as a a gimmick. tell boys & men God wants them to be the big-man-on-campus. and give him ‘God-ordained’ power of others. a dream come true!

    gives new meaning to redemption, Redeemer, and him being “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think”. even jr high!


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    siteseer wrote:

    I have heard the excuse that men must be allowed to be the authorities/leaders because if they are not, then they tend to fall apart. I could say a lot about this mindset, but I’m wondering if others have heard this excuse?

    This seems to be a part of the idea that the male ego is fragile and must be handled like fine china. This idea was all over the place in my youth. We were taught to pretend to be rather simple minded, and to always lose at checkers, and to constantly be playing up to the male. You great big wonderful man! That is odd, because at the same time scads of women were having their own businesses and entering professions and managing their own money and such. I got the impression that one should do both, succeed while at the same time you pretended that you were a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present. Well, maybe the alphabet but certainly not the multiplication tables, math being the man’s sphere. It was sort of a double life thing.

    But yes, if the fragile male ego was not protected terrible things would ensue the worst of which was that the male would turn his back on you and go off with somebody who would massage his ego constantly. At this point the worst fate might befall you and God might send you to Darkest Africa as a missionary. I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up, nor am I abusing some substance as we speak.

    This idea that if the male ego is offended at church he will leave the church seems like the same idea in different application. It looks like society has move on a bit but the church has not.

    And let me say that there are some really great guys out there who are not fragile like that.


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    Friend wrote:

    Thank you for this… I agree. The “husband as despot” ideal must be very confusing and corrupting to husbands who are not naturally abusive, and who are goaded into wondering if they aren’t doing manliness right. One of my relatives, a quiet and studious man, used to lash out in an almost obligatory way, as if he suddenly remembered he was supposed to show who was boss. His weird displays of abuse taught the family to tiptoe around him. Yeah, right, king of the castle. We all learned wariness and mistrust at his feet.

    It becomes tragic if he wasn’t naturally that kind of man, yet felt he HAD to abuse his wife and kids to show who’s boss because that was EXPECTED of him. Doubly tragic if the only reason he did it was because “God Saith”.

    When I first started reading Wartburg Watch and other watchblogs about Male Supremacist Christianity, I kept having this idea for a fantasy story about a male in a male-supremacist culture who genuinely wants a life partner for a wife, genuinely wants to love his wife and have her love him back, but because of his culture figures he HAS to stomp on her because that’s what’s expected of him. “That’s just the Way Things Are.”

    It would be a Tragedy in every sense of the word.


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    okrapod wrote:

    We were taught to pretend to be rather simple minded, and to always lose at checkers, and to constantly be playing up to the male. You great big wonderful man! That is odd, because at the same time scads of women were having their own businesses and entering professions and managing their own money and such. I got the impression that one should do both, succeed while at the same time you pretended that you were a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present.

    I am a former kid genius with an IQ somewhere around 160. You think I could stand being married to “a ditz who could not recite the alphabet if some male of the species was present”? It would be even more lonely than my current hardcore single state.

    And a couple years ago over at Slacktivist, I mentioned something similar in how the ideal Christianese girl IS a devout ditz. I said that hard times were ahead, and a woman who was too dumb to recite the alphabet and always deferred to Milord Husband was a liability instead of an asset when things got rough (and it looked like “Winter is Coming, John Snow”. When Winter comes, you need someone who can not only take care of themselves, but who’s got your back.

    okrapod wrote:

    But yes, if the fragile male ego was not protected terrible things would ensue the worst of which was that the male would turn his back on you and go off with somebody who would massage his ego constantly.

    Funny, Okrapod, I was taught much the same things about women. Except that to a woman, Sex and only SEX was what massaged their ego and if you didn’t give it to them they’d leave you.

    At this point the worst fate might befall you and God might send you to Darkest Africa as a missionary.

    Handing out Gospel tracts as the natives put you into the stewpot (Oooga Booga!) was THE Prestige Posting for some reason; anything less and you were one of the Lukewarms whom God Would Spew Out of His Mouth.

    Sounds like you had the same reaction to that High and Lonely Destiny as I did. What happened to the Jewish idea of “Just Live Your Life”?

    I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up, nor am I abusing some substance as we speak.

    No you’re not. Not only are such things documented, there’s a little quote attributed to Mark Twain: “The difference between fiction and reality is fiction has to make sense.” And it’s corollary “You think I could make up s**t like that?”


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    @ brad/futuristguy:
    From what little I know, that sounds very CalveryChapel/9Marks/Acts29/YRR ish.

    Like I’ve said many times, I have ALWAYS gotten a “bad vibe” from Calvary Chapel and Calvary Chapelites.


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    The discussion is not getting to the point of why there is Complementarians and such in the church.

    How the Wisdom of God Healed Man
    On Christian Doctrine -Augustine, Ch. 13

    –“The disease was brought in through a woman’s corrupted soul: the remedy came through a woman’s virgin body.”–

    1. The woman was to blame, and this is not the same understanding of sin as given to us in the Scriptures.

    –“He was born of a woman to deliver us who fell through a woman:”—

    2. This is a lie. Sin entered the world through Adam.

    –“He came as a man to save us who are men, as a mortal to save us who are mortals, by death to save us who were dead. And those who can follow out the matter more fully, who are not hurried on by the necessity of carrying out a set undertaking, will find many other points of instruction in considering the remedies, whether opposites or likes, employed in the medicine of Christianity.”–

    3. Here you will see a male centric understanding of salvation. This also is a blatant misrepresentation of salvation. Christianity is not a medicine.

    The doctrines that Augustine laid down are not separate but part of a seamless package including submission to spiritual teachers. One can not receive this “medicine” without physicians. It would have to be dispensed through teachers, and the medicine is a teaching ABOUT the Scriptures not the Scriptures themselves.

    Today’s Neo-Calvinist are not 1700 years removed from these doctrines at all. Augustine is sort of the grandfather to the movement. Calvin was a direct follower / disciple of Augustine and looked to him for confirmation of his (Calvin’s) Institutes of the Christian Religion.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Like I’ve said many times, I have ALWAYS gotten a “bad vibe” from Calvary Chapel and Calvary Chapelites.

    It’s time I went on record by also commending one Calvary Chapel pastor for his efforts. His name is Dave Rolf. I don’t have to agree with everything he preaches from his pulpit, but where there’s common ground, it should be recognized as universal trueness. Good is good no matter where it comes from.


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    Daisy wrote:

    Interesting observation.
    When Driscoll is criticized (or feels attacked), his tendency (that I’ve seen so far) is that he gives sermons, or issues blog posts or interviews, acting like a victim (though he’s the instigator), like a couple years back when he was going on about helicopters flying over his house, and someone allegedly threw rocks on his drive way.

    I simply want to see or hear of a single circumstance in which he has stood up to anyone when the numbers surrounding him weren’t overwhelmingly in his favor. I know him based on public record to be a man who talked of breaking elders’ noses from the pulpit, who chuckled as he spoke of the bodies–and he hoped to God there would be more–crushed underneath the wheels of the Mars Hill “bus”.

    I also know of him, based on public record, to be a man who, when faced with the very discipline he had demanded that others submit to, immediately ran three or four states away and refused to face a soul. I know him to be one who, when he crashed the Strange Fire conference and was asked to leave by a physically imposing security man, immediately left the premises after a ham-fisted attempt to play nice and “bro” the security guard, then immediately went to social media and tweeted the outright lie that said guard had confiscated his book. I know him to be a man who, when bunkered down in his gated compound, lied to a single reporter with the temerity to ring his gate bell and politely request an interview: “Not here, dude” (or words to that effect).

    So, Mr. Driscoll talks big of violence, but when faced even with discipline for his own sins or a simple request from a reporter, he runs, hides, lies and plays aggrieved victim.

    I can fathom the manipulations of one with a severe personality disorder and no conscience to anchor them, what I cannot fathom is the mindset of the loyal follower, who brags about their tough guy pastor out of one side of their mouth, then defends the poor beleagured victim on the other. How do they reconcile these?


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    …the ideal Christianese girl IS a devout ditz.

    My valedictorian wife, who did her graduate work in the hard sciences and put me through law school as her dependent while on the FT faculty at a Pac 12 university, certainly did not fit in at our neocalvinist church.

    She would try to hang with the very young, very pretty elders’ and leaders’ wives, but she couldn’t stand the conversations. They’d sit there and talk about nail polish and draperies. One time my wife said “They were trying to figure out the five points of Calvinism, not the deep understanding, but just what they were “Let’s see, there’s resistible grace (No, that’s “irresistible”, my wife would say); “Oh right, ‘irresistible’, then there’s total depravity, then, oh, something about atonement…unlimited atonement!” (“I think you mean ‘limited’, honey.”). It was hilarious–and sad–this group of a half dozen or so twenty-something mothers, not a one of them with a hair out of place, collectively not capable of producing the five points of Calvinism, even though it had been hammered at them constantly from the pulpit, celeb books, care groups.

    It was not that they were naturally dumb, but that was what was valued in that church: women who measured at least and 8 on the 1 to 10 scale who had no intellectual curiosity at all. Had many of these boys who helped run the church been man enough to marry a woman who refused to make herself willfully stupid, say, a Zipporah or an Abigail, they’d have never survived in their smug intellectual pretensions–and perhaps the church wouldn’t have imploded under the weight of male egos.


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    Pulitzer winners tie domestic abuse to Christianity by David Roach, April 2015
    http://bpnews.net/44613/pulitzer-winners-tie-domestic-abuse-to-christianity

    Snippets:

    At least two articles in the Post and Courier’s seven-part winning series suggested that the traditional Christian belief in male headship of the family is among the causes of domestic violence without distinguishing between the “belief that men are totally dominant” — as one source in part three of the series put it — and the more mainstream evangelical teaching that husbands and wives are of equal worth but have complementary roles in the family.

    … The Post and Courier series’ first article, which noted that a woman in South Carolina dies every 12 days from injuries sustained through domestic violence, suggested a link between domestic abuse in the state and the complementarian view of gender.

    Even provided the qualifier comps often give, that “women are equal in value” – in practical terms, it doesn’t really matter; gender complementarian views are still promoting a view of women as being lesser.

    Gender comp still provides a cover for men who want to abuse their wives, and the system teaches women to stay with their abuser, as

    1. divorce is almost always forbidden and
    2. The burden is put on the abused spouse (usually the wife) by gender comps to keep the marriage together, because the wife is thought to be some kind of sanctifier who can win the husband to Christ or get him to turn over a new leaf.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    So, Mr. Driscoll talks big of violence, but when faced even with discipline for his own sins or a simple request from a reporter, he runs, hides, lies and plays aggrieved victim.

    Those are my observations of the guy as well. He talks a big manly man talk, but when push comes to shove, he takes his ball home crying.


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    Daisy wrote:

    Those are my observations of the guy as well. He talks a big manly man talk, but when push comes to shove, he takes his ball home crying.

    That is the typical pattern of a four to six year old boy. Nay, I take it back, my four year old talks big, but he’ll also swing his little fists when challenged. It takes a real bully to be a real coward.


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    @ okrapod:
    It was still that way when i was young, and i was growing up furing the 60s-early 70s. All of the advice columns for teenage girls were full of this “-handle him eith kid gloves, simper and let him win at games” drivel. I had brothers and was never, ever encouraged to treat men this way. My mom found it appalling, as did my late father. (Who was brought up to never, ever be abusive to women – that it was the opposite of “being a man.”)


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    Doctrine of headship a distortion of the gospel message of mutual love and respect
    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/doctrine-of-headship-a-distortion-of-the-gospel-message-of-mutual-love-and-respect-20150226-13q2xc.html

    The church should be a haven from domestic violence but power imbalances remain for many worshippers badly affected by abusive relationships.


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    Daisy wrote:

    But complementarianism does attract abusers or sexists like a moth to a flame – it gives them a supposedly biblical-sounding rationalization for treating women as though they are inferior to men.

    I agree, and I hope complementarians realize this. Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss. As a single woman, I have to be very careful with Christian men because I don’t want to date a comp. I want a good, strong man instead.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss. As a single woman, I have to be very careful with Christian men because I don’t want to date a comp. I want a good, strong man instead.

    Well put.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Daisy wrote:
    But complementarianism does attract abusers or sexists like a moth to a flame – it gives them a supposedly biblical-sounding rationalization for treating women as though they are inferior to men.
    I agree, and I hope complementarians realize this. Comp doctrine attracts weak men, ………. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss. As a single woman, I have to be very careful with Christian men because I don’t want to date a comp. I want a good, strong man instead.

    It’s not alway weak men. My husband is a 6’2″ Special Forces army retiree. Until he retired, he treated me as his equal. He was stronger in some respects, while I was stronger in others. We made a heck of a team.
    Since he retired and really got involved in church, I have had to fight to keep from fading into oblivion ( Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it!). That is why I found TWW, etc. So, single or married, ladies keep watch and be wary!


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss.

    I sometimes wonder if some of these YRR pastors and elders had domineering mothers … and New Calvinism is a way at getting back at mom through their wives and other women they can control in their churches. Whatever the reason, there has to be some sort of mental quirk in the mix, because it’s sure driving me crazy!


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    This is mirroring what is happening in the LDS church. Some within this tradition are equating patriarchy and complementarianism with child and spousal abuse. I realize most here would view the LDS church outside the pale of orthodoxy (I would), but it is interesting some in LDS tradition also feel concern about the connection between their authoritarian religion, which espouses patriarchy and complementarianism, and child and spousal abuse. Many times church leadership in the LDS religion is more interested in protecting the church than protection the helpless and the submissive from abuse. This is another mirror.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

    “ARMORBEARERS! BEAT HIM UP!”


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    Patriciamc wrote:
    Daisy wrote:
    But complementarianism does attract abusers or sexists like a moth to a flame – it gives them a supposedly biblical-sounding rationalization for treating women as though they are inferior to men.
    I agree, and I hope complementarians realize this. Comp doctrine attracts weak men, ………. What a boost to their ego for them to think that God has made them boss. As a single woman, I have to be very careful with Christian men because I don’t want to date a comp. I want a good, strong man instead.
    It’s not alway weak men. My husband is a 6’2″ Special Forces army retiree. Until he retired, he treated me as his equal. He was stronger in some respects, while I was stronger in others. We made a heck of a team.
    Since he retired and really got involved in church, I have had to fight to keep from fading into oblivion ( Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it!). That is why I found TWW, etc. So, single or married, ladies keep watch and be wary!

    Not all weak men look like John Piper. Even an emotionally strong man becomes weaker as he submits more and more to a man’s system rather than the Lord.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    It was not that they were naturally dumb, but that was what was valued in that church: women who measured at least and 8 on the 1 to 10 scale who had no intellectual curiosity at all.

    i.e. Bimbos with plastic surgery & silicone.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    Even an emotionally strong man becomes weaker as he submits more and more to a man’s system rather than the Lord.

    Like patriarchal church pastors and Bible colleges with all male faculties??????
    Eeeeeeeeeyeah. Sometimes I wonder If my husband kinda lost his identity when he retired and started desperately seeking a new one.


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    Max wrote:

    I sometimes wonder if some of these YRR pastors and elders had domineering mothers …

    Possible, though the types I encountered often have abusive and/or alcoholic fathers and weak mothers. But of course, that’s just my anecdotal experience.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    i.e. Bimbos with plastic surgery & silicone.

    That is, of course, possible. That is a common occurrence in our adopted part of the country: Deep South, and certainly around here I would not think confined to “worldly women”. One thing we’ve noticed is my wife, no major fan of gobs of makeup and expensive hair and designer clothes (she goes more for the intellectual or “I don’t care about superficial things” look), was way out of place in the average evangelical church around here. Women would judge her pretty harshly “Look at that trash, will ya?” when they saqw that she didn’t value manicures and the like. All superficial. One of my colleagues, also originally from my part of the country (Not Deep South) told me she’d decoded “Well Gawd bless yeww”, it means something that starts with “F” and ends with “U”.


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    Well first of all, the answer to the title is, “Of Course.” I don’t say that out of emotion, or because it “rings true”. I say that because there are dozens (probably more) of quality psychology journals out there outlining this very thing.

    However, I am more concerned with the tweets outlined above. I could get into the logical flaws and intellectual suicide represented in some of these sentiments, but in all honesty, no one expects anything intelligent to come out of Owen Strachan’s mouth. No, my concern is the rather ham-fisted and completely undisguised use of propaganda. Of course, CBMW is little more than a propaganda engine, so I kind of expect it, but there is something that makes my skin crawl when I people who claim to be real, true believers. This is not Christianity.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    It’s not alway weak men. My husband is a 6’2″ Special Forces army retiree. Until he retired, he treated me as his equal. He was stronger in some respects, while I was stronger in others. We made a heck of a team.
    Since he retired and really got involved in church, I have had to fight to keep from fading into oblivion ( Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it!). That is why I found TWW, etc. So, single or married, ladies keep watch and be wary!

    Nancy2, I don’t know your husband, so I’m not going to talk about him specifically. I do think my point in general is still true: there is an emotional weakness that attracts men to complementarianism. Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.


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    Anyway, back to the query at the top of the article. Does comp doctrine attract abusers? Not necessarily. Some men are born beasts and abuse women far away from any religious environment and have no desire whatsoever to become ‘churchy’. But on the other hand, and as one commenter has pointed out upthread, if it’s a latent trait already resident, there’s a good chance that comp doctrine will exacerbate it and make it become virulent.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.

    I have a couple of ideas.

    I was raised with this stuff. So, you have Christian women who were taught to believe all this complementarian stuff is biblical and what God expects of you from the time they were girls. You want to please God, so you go along with it. That’s one reason.

    The other reason – which can be related to that first one (an outcome of it), but doesn’t have to be:
    If you’re afraid to live alone or make it on your own, the idea of living with a husband and him providing safety, security, and taking care of you can alleviate a lot of anxiety.

    I think my parent’s marriage was like that. (They believed in traditional gender roles).

    My mother looked to my father for everything. He was the provider and took care of most big decisions (though she sometimes got final say so on big purchases). There was stability and security in that set up for my mother. My father bore most of the responsibility and stress.

    I think that’s why the complementarian type of marriage may appeal to some women.


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    @ Melissa:
    I sat in an Oregon Conservative Baptist congregation for too many years and heard repeated references by the then pastor to “the Laaydies!! Gawd blessem!!”(gag!!”


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    Anyway, back to the query at the top of the article. Does comp doctrine attract abusers? Not necessarily.
    Some men are born beasts and abuse women far away from any religious environment and have no desire whatsoever to become ‘churchy’.

    But on the other hand, and as one commenter has pointed out upthread, if it’s a latent trait already resident, there’s a good chance that comp doctrine will exacerbate it and make it become virulent.

    One caveat I did want to offer. Some abusive men (though they seem to be in the minority) actually seek to break strong, independent women.

    – So said one or two books I read by psychologists. Some abusers view strong women as a greater challenge to break.

    But from what I’ve read, most abusers like easy prey, the women who has been conditioned by secular culture or church to be very passive and have weak boundaries, because such women won’t put up much resistance to being exploited or controlled.

    I used to wonder why I seemed to get singled out for bullying more than other people no matter the environment I was in.

    I then learned from reading books and blogs by psychologists and therapists that the traits I was encouraged to have under complementarianism were the same ones that tend to attract bullies and abusers (such as, being quiet, having lax boundaries, being passive, soft spoken, etc).

    Some of those qualities I came by naturally, but gender complementarianism taught me to increase them, to become even more shy, quiet, unassertive and passive than I already naturally was.
    I suspect this is probably also true for a lot of other Christian women.


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    @ Daisy:
    Thanks for the reference–that was a great article!!


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    @ elastigirl:
    SO funny!! I really appreciate your comments, always!!


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    I’ve been confused by TWW’s reporting and the commenters on this topic. It seems like folks are using it as a wedge to attack Calvinists rather than abusers, which I find strange because I thought Saeed Abedini was a Calvary Chapel guy. Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing? What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?

    I hope that Naghmeh Abedini is able to stand against what is clearly immense pressure from the celebrity Christian culture and I also hope she has enough support and encouragement from people within the Church who believe her.


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    It atttracts abusers and creates them equally. At a minimum, it creates dysfunction and hurt in marriages where people can’t discern and recognize the problem of what the preacher man is hurling at them. I know a young couple who became Christians about 5 years ago and they sincerely are trying to follow the Bible. However, the attend a comp church and so are being presented that as “Biblical” ( don’t you just love it how the comps define their doctine that way like they have some special line to God? ). Anyhoo, it’s sad because what was healthy marriage pre-Christianity is now not going so well because the husband is now trying to be something different and the wife is adjusting to the new pardigm. How sad that a couple turns to faith in Jesus and now instead of growing closer and in joy together, there is conflict born out of stupid teachings in their church.


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    anewproblem wrote:

    Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing?

    I would have said that a few years ago. I think now that there are many things in CC that are other than they appear.


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    @ Bunsen Honeydew:
    What you are describing is what happened to my marriage. We were Christians at the time, neither one of us had a great frame of reference for what a good marriage should look like. We got this great idea to find a solid church that was something we both liked and went from there. We found a CC church that looked decent. We nearly destroyed our marriage trying to make comp work for us. It took nearly five years to repair the damage we did in one.


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    Daisy wrote:

    Patriciamc wrote:
    Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.
    I have a couple of ideas.
    I was raised with this stuff. So, you have Christian women who were taught to believe all this complementarian stuff is biblical and what God expects of you from the time they were girls. You want to please God, so you go along with it. That’s one reason.
    The other reason – which can be related to that first one (an outcome of it), but doesn’t have to be:
    If you’re afraid to live alone or make it on your own, the idea of living with a husband and him providing safety, security, and taking care of you can alleviate a lot of anxiety.

    Good points. My parents didn’t discuss it, but they acted egalitarian. We were Methodists but attended a PCA church, so I was exposed to this nonsense in middle and high school. I was wise enough not to fall for it, but my friends did. They were raised in families that taught gender roles. Oh, and the boys in the youth group were extreme jerks because they were told they were the leaders and we mere girls were the followers.


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    Daisy wrote:

    I used to wonder why I seemed to get singled out for bullying more than other people no matter the environment I was in.
    I then learned from reading books and blogs by psychologists and therapists that the traits I was encouraged to have under complementarianism were the same ones that tend to attract bullies and abusers (such as, being quiet, having lax boundaries, being passive, soft spoken, etc).

    Well, this is interesting. I too am naturally soft-spoken and polite and I was targeted by the office bully instead of the more brash people. I wonder if they were that way out of self-defense. Anyway, it was a screwed up office all the way around. But, good points to ponder.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    I can fathom the manipulations of one with a severe personality disorder and no conscience to anchor them, what I cannot fathom is the mindset of the loyal follower, who brags about their tough guy pastor out of one side of their mouth, then defends the poor beleagured victim on the other. How do they reconcile these?

    This is what has my brain bending into a pretzel.
    I can understand why people follow the phony prosperity teachers- there is always the promise of a payback if they give enough, so their own greed is awakened and fed.

    But why do people follow those who abuse them, and why do they follow the likes of Driscoll? or Perry Noble? or Doug Wilson? or Davey Blackburn??


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    nancyjane wrote:

    I sat in an Oregon Conservative Baptist congregation for too many years and heard repeated references by the then pastor to “the Laaydies!! Gawd blessem!!”(gag!!”

    When our pastor said the thank you from our church to all of the people who worked in the Vacation Bible School program last summer, one guy yelled out, “Let’s not forget to thank the ladies!” Some of the other men responded with hearty “Amens”. I was dumbfounded. 95% of the people who work in VBS are women.

    The clincher for me was when my Sunday school teacher went on his “Woman submit”/”Jezebel” rant — told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”
    I haven’t been back in that class, and I’m gradually phasing out of that church.


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    Lydia wrote:

    We confer too much status on pastors because of a title.

    I find the American Evangelistic Association conferring the title “pastor” to Abedini interesting. From my estimation AEA hands out pastor licenses but without much accountability so it appears ready made for abuse. Why the need to be called a pastor unless you are desiring some authority from the title? What better organization than AEA, it apparently doesn’t check out their candidates before granting them the title, then doesn’t provide oversight. The “pastor” then has authority but not accountability. Have I mentioned I’m tired of men grasping after that title?

    I think TWW should crank up a similar diploma mill and hand out pastor certificates so we can go toe to toe with these guys. The only problem it would be like having to go over to the dark side to battle Darth Vader. Still it would be fun to have my very own framed “pastor” license to hang on my office wall. I could then command the respect of my colleagues, it would be hilarious.

    One of the great aspects of technology was the Gutenberg press made the production of indulgences such a low cost commodity that the church stopped issuing them because they could no longer make money off them. If we flood the world with “pastor licenses” we could similarly devalue title pastor to such a degree these guys would have to go back to being servants or take up a useful trade. Who knows we might even re-discover the priesthood of all believers.


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    anewproblem wrote:

    Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing? What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?

    The differences (Calvinista vs. CC) are only cosmetic in my opinion. Remember when Edith Bunker would try and tell Archie that the reverend Felcher was not the reverend Fletcher?
    Same difference.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”

    Can you imagine Jesus saying anything remotely like that?


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    Birds of a feather flock together so which do you prefer?
    Galatians 5:16-25
    So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature……. 19. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS, AND SELF-CONTROL. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to CHRIST JESUS have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires………….
    Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from the nature will reap destruction, the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

    I do think that building the cult of self to the rationalization of abuse of the wife and children under the guise of religion fools tooo many but fortunately not all. Keep up the good work.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    The clincher for me was when my Sunday school teacher went on his “Woman submit”/”Jezebel” rant — told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”

    Good Lord! No, that's not strong enough. Let's try WT#! (ed.)


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    The clincher for me was when my Sunday school teacher went on his “Woman submit”/”Jezebel” rant — told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”

    That’s insane! Did anyone react?


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    This is way, way, waaaayyyy off subject, but JOEL OLSTEEN was on The Late Show tonight. He brought one of his books with him. How that for Gospelly Glitterati?


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    hat’s insane! Did anyone react?

    Some people, including one woman said “amen” loudly.


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    I think my parent’s marriage was like that. (They believed in traditional gender roles).

    My mother looked to my father for everything. He was the provider and took care of most big decisions (though she sometimes got final say so on big purchases). There was stability and security in that set up for my mother. My father bore most of the responsibility and stress.

    I think that’s why the complementarian type of marriage may appeal to some women.@ Daisy:
    I do think that your Father assuming his responsibilities, the stresses,etc is way different than the coddled male “male supremist” ego babies that “kick her in the a## (ed.) if you need to” that is more in line with what is out of whack what is being taught in some churches.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    Some people, including one woman said “amen” loudly.

    That fits my experience. My former church was not a hotbed of female submission but I did notice that the women were the main enforcers. It reminded me of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s story that it was the women in her family that practiced female circumcision over the objections of her father.

    Is this another of those places where abused don’t act rationally? I don’t have a real good handle on this one.


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    @ siteseer:

    “I remember seeing a book at the Christian bookstore called “Husbands, Please Lead Us!” …

    It occurs to me that the complementarian teachings were being brought out and some women were frustrated because their husbands were not picking it up. They thought they had a mandate to submit and obey and were frustrated with husbands who had no desire to rule and demand??

    Seems like the church has created the opposite problem now. What brought about the change?”
    +++++++++++++++++++

    someone put that in print? and put their name to it? i think i’m going to be sick.

    about these supposed mandates to submit and to lead… it would seem that one party’s ability to sin or not sin is completely dependent on the other party.

    if I actually gave a rat’sass about any of this, it would also mean that the other person’s ability to sin or not sin depends on me. i am responsible for his ability to sin/not sin, and he is responsible for my ability to sin/not sin.

    that’s just weird. isn’t it?


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    Patriciamc wrote:
    hat’s insane! Did anyone react?
    Some people, including one woman said “amen” loudly.

    That is seriously messed up. There’s something cult-like about it.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    @ Nancy2:
    Should say:
    3) Yes, Jesus was falsely accused. He was also abused. So, who is being compared to Jesus, Fishy Person?

    the same thing I was wondering….


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    nathan priddis wrote:

    anewproblem wrote:

    Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing?

    I would have said that a few years ago. I think now that there are many things in CC that are other than they appear.

    Agreed.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    Yours relies on a strict mechanical reductionism in which all the gear teeth must mesh perfectly so to speak, a paradigm that I’ve argued here and elsewhere is not much more than 40-45 years old and almost exclusively American in origin.

    I really would be interested if you could explain this to me in a couple of sentences if you’ve got time, I don’t understand what you are getting at!

    I got my idea of balance in the late 70’s from Dick Lucas in London, and Anglican in the John Stott mold, who would often bring out the balance of the NT. Word and Spirit, mercy and judgment etc. The apostle Paul was often at pains to keep a balance. We all have a liberty as Christians balanced with not using such liberty if it causes others to stumble, that kind of thing.

    I reacted against such ‘balance’ in a later anti-evangelical phase, thinking it was a euphemism for being lukewarm, but have since come to see the wisdom of it again.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Nancy2, I don’t know your husband, so I’m not going to talk about him specifically. I do think my point in general is still true: there is an emotional weakness that attracts men to complementarianism. Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.

    I have thought it is much like any other authoritarian system like Islam or Mormonism. People are attracted (especially women in this view) because it offers rules, roles and formulas that counteract what they view as chaos around them. It makes them feel pious.

    In my view the freedom we have in Christ is really scary for people. It requires abiding in Him many times in total opposite of all around you. People want to belong to a group. And Christianity as really, at its root, about becoming strong individuals who come together. It is nothing like the other caste systems. Since we can all have what is described as the anointing, the Holy Spirit, turning it into a caste system really makes no sense. But that is what was done early on.

    It is something to think about when raising kids in church.


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    nathan priddis wrote:

    anewproblem wrote:
    Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing?
    I would have said that a few years ago. I think now that there are many things in CC that are other than they appear.

    It might be like some Megas I am familiar with who claim free will but are structured and operate in a non free will mode.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Comp doctrine attracts weak men, and weak men always blame women for their problems and dominate women in order to make themselves feel better.

    Regardless of the fact that I will hereby stir up a hornets’ nest of cats among the pigeons, I have to respond to the inbuilt inaccuracy of this point – it is only a partial truth.

    Weak people blame others for their problems. People who are internally weak but in positions of strength – perhaps because they hold authority, or a loaded firearm – will indeed dominate others to make themselves feel better.

    Accordingly, weak men will blame others – both men and women, depending on who’s available to blame – for their problems. By the same token, weak women will blame others for their problems. In both cases, this will emerge as sexism if you get a single-sex group of weak people together.

    So, church-like organisations run by groups of like-minded men will blame groups of others for their, or the world’s, problems. Since there are no women in their group, then women handily come under the heading of “others” and yes, those groups will undoubtedly develop crude and belittling myths about women. (Though abortionists, homosexuals, non-Christians and liberals also qualify as “others” in this context, and they too will Get Blamed For Stuff.)

    But equally, I have on occasions been the only man in a setting dominated by weak women. (One of these was a church setting – patriarchy has made fewer inroads in the UK church.) It is not a pleasant place to be. The best that could be said for those experiences is that they gave me an insight into what it’s like to be a woman in an unhealthy male-dominated culture.


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    anewproblem wrote:

    What am I missing?

    The connections are not in ‘the outfit’ but in the similar ideas when it comes to male/female relations. Thus, what I said about the secular culture of my youth. There is nothing there about some ‘outfit’ but a lot there of the ideas incorporated in complementarianism which is itself championed by neo-cal churches and neo-cal big wigs. We have not yet talked about ‘the south’ and some of it’s peculiarities regarding male/female interaction, but there are also strong similarities there.

    Ideas may have a stronghold is some outfits, but they are pesky things which tend to escape their cages and infest the larger environment.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Now, as for the women, I have no idea, although, and this is pretty radical, I’ve always wondered if an attraction to sexual submission is behind some being attracted to complementarianism.

    It has been said that for women who have been taught or have come to believe that sex is dirty/wrong/sin or even not God’s best compared to being a nun or going off to Darkest Africa, the duty to submit can over-ride everything and they can allow themselves to participate in actual (gasp) sexual activity. Because God told them to submit. It relieves them of the guilt and puts the burden on husband and God.

    I do not think this is the only problem, however. I am just addressing what you said.


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    @ okrapod:

    In my opinion, the church has got to address the issue of human sexuality in all its functions and malfunctions. This bit of ‘have I got a bible verse for you’ played out against a secular culture which also has veered off the track when it comes to human sexuality is just not working.

    We have to accept that ‘the facts’ are not always what we want them to be, but pretending otherwise does not solve anything.


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    anewproblem wrote:

    I’ve been confused by TWW’s reporting and the commenters on this topic. It seems like folks are using it as a wedge to attack Calvinists rather than abusers, which I find strange because I thought Saeed Abedini was a Calvary Chapel guy. Calvary Chapel has always opposed neocalvinism, from my understanding. What am I missing? What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?
    I hope that Naghmeh Abedini is able to stand against what is clearly immense pressure from the celebrity Christian culture and I also hope she has enough support and encouragement from people within the Church who believe her.

    This particular thread is using the situation with the Abedinis to discuss the larger issue of “the complementarian mandates of submission and male leadership” and “domestic abusers” It is not specifically about Calvary Chapel. If you’re going to discuss the issue of comp theologies, you’re remiss if you don’t discuss some of the more vocal proponents of it within Christendom, which is undeniably the so-called YRR, neocalvinist movement. Many of the posters here, including me, have experiences with this movement, naturally we refer to those experiences.


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    siteseer wrote:

    I can understand why people follow the phony prosperity teachers- there is always the promise of a payback if they give enough, so their own greed is awakened and fed.
    But why do people follow those who abuse them, and why do they follow the likes of Driscoll? or Perry Noble? or Doug Wilson? or Davey Blackburn??

    They must be giving them something they want. And it might just be abuse. Masochism is a real disorder, it is not always sexual in nature–think of the flagellants.


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    siteseer wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    told the men in our class that if any of them had a wife who is acting like a Jezebel, then straighten her out …… “Use your boot if you have to!”
    Can you imagine Jesus saying anything remotely like that?

    I can imagine Him perhaps using His boot on the men. He drove crooks and creeps out of temples at the point of a whip, why not?


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    Bunsen Honeydew wrote:

    Anyhoo, it’s sad because what was healthy marriage pre-Christianity is now not going so well because the husband is now trying to be something different and the wife is adjusting to the new pardigm. How sad that a couple turns to faith in Jesus and now instead of growing closer and in joy together, there is conflict born out of stupid teachings in their church.

    Wow that church sounds divisive. Isn’t it funny, too, because anyone who’d question their tactics in light of the damage they’re apparently doing to Christian relationships would surely be labelled “divisive”, jezebel”, etc.


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    anewproblem wrote:

    What am I missing? What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?

    The connection is they are all “complementarian” outfits ……… men lead, women submit. Men make the decisions, women follow their orders. What it really boils down to is the husbands are the Prophets, Priests, and Kings of the homes and churches in all of those outfits. Women are lowly serfs.
    And, the title of this thread is, “Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?”


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    @ Nancy2:
    The other connection is that CBMW went Neo Cal a long time ago. People forget it was the Bayly brothers early on then over to Al Mohler.

    It can be done but it is much harder to be free will in a serious manner and authoritarian at the same time. It takes structure in place with no voting. ( cos the gals can vote)


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    I believe that, not only do complementarian churches attract abusers, but they can also “breed” abusers. Some men who abuse their wives are born and raised in these churches – I personally know some men who fit the bill. I’m not saying that abuse runs rampant in comp churches. I’m just saying it happens, and the abusers use church doctrine to justify the abuse, as some of you have often said.
    There is one couple that is very close to me. The wife is actually part of my close knit extended family …. we use to attend the same church as this couple and I grew up around the wife. I do not believe the husband has ever gotten physical with the wife. But, mentally, emotionally, and physcologically, he rules with an iron fist. I have seen it repeatedly through his behavior and speech, both towards her and women in the church. She is on quite a bit of medication for migraine headaches and “nerves” and I believe that is a result of his behavior. She was not this way until after they had been married for a few years. He is a bit of a peacock, too – always has been.


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    dee wrote:

    Christina wrote:

    . If you cross them, they’ll shun, I mean Biblically discipline you. Sounds fun! Sign.me.up!!

    For a thoughtful love offering, I would be happy to set up a cult.

    I will happily supply the clergy from amongst my cats! (They both think they’re perfect in every way. I will also supply the $$$ for their ordinations–I’ve done it with another one. Easily done.)


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    zooey111 wrote:

    I will happily supply the clergy from amongst my cats! (They both think they’re perfect in every way. I will also supply the $$$ for their ordinations–I’ve done it with another one. Easily done.)

    But, the litter box still stinks, doesn’t it?


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    Abigail C wrote:

    The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice.

    Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

    To all the DV apologists: many forms of domestic violence go far beyond sins to be repented of. Many forms are criminal and have consequences.


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    I shared this on a slightly older thread, but I’m not sure how many people check older threads:

    You Are the Second Abuser
    http://popchassid.com/you-are-the-second-abuser/

    From college campuses to the world of celebrity to religious communities, there seems to always be a backlash against those who come forward. Whether it be about rape, abuse, or any other trauma.


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    BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

    I had wondered that too. Accessory to unlawful restraint or inciting violence?


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    anewproblem wrote:

    What is the connection between him and CBMW or another neo-cal complementarian outfit?

    Complementarianism is taught and believed among a variety of Christian groups, not just Neo Calvinists. They all hold the same, or similar, beliefs about women, marriage, male headship.


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    okrapod wrote:

    It has been said that for women who have been taught or have come to believe that sex is dirty/wrong/sin or even not God’s best compared to being a nun or going off to Darkest Africa, the duty to submit can over-ride everything and they can allow themselves to participate in actual (gasp) sexual activity. Because God told them to submit. It relieves them of the guilt and puts the burden on husband and God.

    Good points.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Regardless of the fact that I will hereby stir up a hornets’ nest of cats among the pigeons, I have to respond to the inbuilt inaccuracy of this point – it is only a partial truth.
    Weak people blame others for their problems. People who are internally weak but in positions of strength – perhaps because they hold authority, or a loaded firearm – will indeed dominate others to make themselves feel better.
    Accordingly, weak men will blame others – both men and women, depending on who’s available to blame – for their problems. By the same token, weak women will blame others for their problems. In both cases, this will emerge as sexism if you get a single-sex group of weak people together.
    So, church-like organisations run by groups of like-minded men will blame groups of others for their, or the world’s, problems. Since there are no women in their group, then women handily come under the heading of “others” and yes, those groups will undoubtedly develop crude and belittling myths about women. (Though abortionists, homosexuals, non-Christians and liberals also qualify as “others” in this context, and they too will Get Blamed For Stuff.)
    But equally, I have on occasions been the only man in a setting dominated by weak women. (One of these was a church setting – patriarchy has made fewer inroads in the UK church.) It is not a pleasant place to be. The best that could be said for those experiences is that they gave me an insight into what it’s like to be a woman in an unhealthy male-dominated culture.

    Hey Nick. I don’t quite follow, in fact it seems like we agree with each other. Regardless, I still stand by my point. Yes, weak women will blame others, but the kind of men drawn to comp theology tend to be the type of men who are frustrated in life and quite frequently that includes their relationships with women. Of course, it’s the women’s fault and not their own. When I wrote my comment, I was thinking of the comments frequently posted over at the women’s section of Christianity Today, the section called Hermeneutics (spelling?). Every single time there’s an article on women in leadership in the church and/or society, women in marriage, etc., certain men post the most ridiculous anti-women things and basically blame everything wrong on women (feminists!) not being under a man’s control. I’m willing to bet those men are single – and why!


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    okrapod wrote:

    the duty to submit can over-ride everything and they can allow themselves to participate in actual (gasp) sexual activity. Because God told them to submit.

    “Lie back, close your eyes, and think of England.”

    “Our Duty to The Party.”


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    @ Abigail C:

    “…then went to several churches – all heavily complementarian – after we were married before settling down to the one we would attend for the majority of our marriage.”
    ++++++++++++++

    hi AbigailC — i am so sorry for the horrible way you were treated. you are so brave and courageous. I hope for joy and peace and happiness for you.

    Can I ask what kind of church, association of denomination it was?


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    @ okrapod:

    That’s a big BINGO there okrapod. I am of pretty much the same opinion. I have seen any and all meaningful discussions of human sexuality get shut down with a clobber verse or two, or three. No dissent, no discussion, cuz’ it sez so right here in scripsher…


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    @ Patriciamc:

    Yes, I went through something like that on one job I had. The boss was mean to everyone, but even several co-workers (who approached me separately over a year’s time) noticed she had it in for me more than others.

    I don’t know for sure what drove her (the bully boss) to pick me as her top target, but I suspect part of it is that I seldom defended myself or fought back, I was very passive, quiet.

    Also, she knew I could see through her mask (I had to become a good and fast people reader at a young age to avoid bullies as best I could because my mother forbid me to fight back) and I could quickly see her for what she really was. Not that I told her, but she sensed it. I think that’s another reason she targeted me more than others.

    But most abusers/ bullies like the easiest prey, as a general rule. Not all of them are like that, but from my research on domestic violence, kid on kid bullying, workplace abuse, that is usually the case.


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    This was published recently on CBE, and it seems pertinent to this thread:

    Breaking the Silence: The Implications of Rape Culture for the Body of Christ by Rachel Elizabeth Asproth
    http://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/breaking-silence-implications-rape-culture-body-christ

    I think what that some of what the author writes about rape can also be applied to spiritual abuse and domestic violence among Christians.

    Snippets:

    I want to be very clear, I am not talking about the majority of complementarian Christians. Many are wonderful people, and they’re also my brothers and sisters in Christ.

    But stories don’t lie. A “biblically-justified” power differential between men and women is always dangerous. And I think my critique of patriarchal theology is fair considering the significant amount of recent sexual abuse scandals.

    I believe that patriarchal culture enables the abuse of women. This doesn’t mean abuse always happens. But patriarchy makes this abuse possible, and arguably, far more likely.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    I don’t quite follow, in fact it seems like we agree with each other.

    Nick can speak for himself, but what I underatood from Nick’s comment is that weak men (and women) will not only blame women but any ‘others’ than themselves. My guess is that Nick has been on the ‘blame’ end of weak men.


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    BC wrote:

    I do think that your Father assuming his responsibilities, the stresses,etc is way different than the coddled male “male supremist” ego babies that “kick her in the a## (ed.) if you need to” that is more in line with what is out of whack what is being taught in some churches.

    There are different consequences of gender comp and different ways it manifests. I guess maybe I didn’t convey that well enough in that post or other ones I’ve made.

    Something I’ve tried explaining before to Flag Ken is that just because some forms of gender comp appears at first glance nicer doesn’t mean it is beneficial to the wife.

    My mother was not a fully independent adult. She relied way too much on my father. My father was not just a husband to her but a kind of daddy-figure. My mother was an anxious, timid person. Instead of learning to be assertive and stand up for herself and navigate life on her own, she looked to my dad.

    There was a tad of low key verbal abuse by my father to my mother. My mother rarely stood up to him. That was due in part to her belief in traditional gender roles (and other factors were at play).

    Even the warm, soft, fuzzy variety of gender comp harms and stunts women. It takes away some of their agency and kind of turns them into little girls who are trapped in adult bodies.

    Soft, warm, friendly, smiley face gender comp is much like secular, benevolent sexism.

    The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn Friendly [benevolent sexism]
    http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/benevolent-sexism/


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    @ Ken:

    A fair and honest question Ken, but where to start? Had my life taken a different tack and I were to write something up for peer review, the abstract alone would chew up a thousand words. Even an over simplification would be hard.


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    @ elastigirl:

    Your post and quote of the other one jogged my memory. I saw an interesting discussion just a few days ago (can’t remember where) whose participants were saying that gender complementarians confuse leadership with participation or being responsible.

    In other words, when women complain that their husband is not taking out the trash when he should, not spending time with the kids, not initiating Bible reading and whatever – these women are really saying their husband is not participating, he is shirking responsibility.

    Those women are not saying that he needs to “lead.”

    Still someone else in that thread made a good point, that when women take the trash out, spend time with the kids, do house work, and initiate Bible reading (all activities that are identical to what some men do or what the women wish the husband would do), complementarians do not refer to it as “leading” but in some other term.

    All the sudden if a husband does the identical work to what the wife is doing, he gets labels slapped on to it (or to himself), such as “capable leader,” “priest of the home,” or whatever.


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    Lydia wrote:

    I have thought it is much like any other authoritarian system like Islam or Mormonism. People are attracted (especially women in this view) because it offers rules, roles and formulas that counteract what they view as chaos around them. It makes them feel pious.
    In my view the freedom we have in Christ is really scary for people.

    I agree with all that.

    I think it especially applies to Gothard fans such as the Duggars.


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    Lydia wrote:

    I have thought it is much like any other authoritarian system like Islam or Mormonism.

    Speaking of which (I forgot to add this to my last post).

    This page reminds me of Christianity (not just in regards to child abuse, but domestic violence and spiritual abuse):

    Mormon statement on child abuse: Move along, folks; we don’t have a problem by Jana Riess
    http://janariess.religionnews.com/2016/02/02/mormon-statement-on-child-abuse-move-along-folks-we-dont-have-a-problem/

    Snippet:

    No, Mormons are not leading the charge here.
    It’s disappointing that an LDS statement would make sweeping and self-aggrandizing generalizations to the effect that “child abuse by clergy may be a problem in other religions, but it’s never a problem with us, no sir! And if it were, our church has the absolute best practices and policies in place for addressing it.”

    This so reminds me of CBMW and other complementarian groups or people who make these blog posts or tweets saying how tough gender comps are on dealing with domestic abuse.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    A fair and honest question Ken, but where to start?

    Cue the Sound of Music; Let’s start at the very beginning …

    Not to worry if you don’t have enough time; ‘balance’ is not some great issue for me, but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.


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    @ Daisy:
    Ah, so claiming a 12 year old girl as a “spiritual wife” is not child abuse/molestation and a Mormon leader who does that should not be convicted?
    Well, I guess we have been educated.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    Every single time there’s an article on women in leadership in the church and/or society, women in marriage, etc., certain men post the most ridiculous anti-women things and basically blame everything wrong on women (feminists!) not being under a man’s control.
    I’m willing to bet those men are single – and [wonder] why!

    Oh yes. Reminds me of:
    ChristianMingle: Where Egalitarian Linda Met Patriarchal Joe and Couldn’t Get Rid of Him
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/10/07/christianmingle-where-egalitarian-linda-met-patriarchal-joe-and-couldnt-get-rid-of-him/


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    Ken wrote:

    but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.

    Suffice it to say Ken, and in my opinion, the only thing the Bible ‘teaches’ is to acknowledge the Creator, be thankful to Him, and to not do that which is hateful to one’s self to others. The rest (Scripture) is just commentary.


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    Max wrote:

    I sometimes wonder if some of these YRR pastors and elders had domineering mothers

    The most dominant woman I ever knew was married to an incredibly aggressive guy. They raised highly indoctrinated, aggressive children. One of their sons went on to co-found the Quiverfull movement.

    Mother and daughters viewed themselves as submissive little helpmeets. But the whole family, males and females alike, battled to save white Christian America from a whole grab-bag of evils. They campaigned for George Wallace, fought fluoridation, insisted the moon landing was fake, viewed marijuana as a gateway drug to communism, etc., etc., etc., etc.


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    Daisy wrote:

    @ Patriciamc:
    Yes, I went through something like that on one job I had. The boss was mean to everyone, but even several co-workers (who approached me separately over a year’s time) noticed she had it in for me more than others.
    I don’t know for sure what drove her (the bully boss) to pick me as her top target, but I suspect part of it is that I seldom defended myself or fought back, I was very passive, quiet.
    Also, she knew I could see through her mask (I had to become a good and fast people reader at a young age to avoid bullies as best I could because my mother forbid me to fight back) and I could quickly see her for what she really was. Not that I told her, but she sensed it. I think that’s another reason she targeted me more than others.
    But most abusers/ bullies like the easiest prey, as a general rule. Not all of them are like that, but from my research on domestic violence, kid on kid bullying, workplace abuse, that is usually the case.

    Interesting! My case was very similar except the boss was a 60-something VP of HR who screened out black candidates (yes he did). He had a need to be worshipped and adored, which his favorites did to his face, then laughed at him behind his back. He also liked the loud and brash people, I guess the ones who stood up for themselves. I was always very respectful to him, but I thought he was a fool. Like you, I never fought back because I was trying to be respectful. Everyone else liked me, so his dislike was unreasonable – but he did know I was a Christian, snd he was heard making fun of Christians. I guess to a bully like him, I was low hanging fruit. Oh well. He didn’t know that other VPs called him a buffoon.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    I kept having this idea for a fantasy story about a male in a male-supremacist culture who genuinely wants a life partner for a wife, genuinely wants to love his wife and have her love him back, but because of his culture figures he HAS to stomp on her because that’s what’s expected of him. “That’s just the Way Things Are.”

    If you ever write it, make sure the wife and her friends talk about what a “good provider” the husband is. Tragic, yes. And maddening.


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    Friend wrote:

    Mother and daughters viewed themselves as submissive little helpmeets. But the whole family, males and females alike, battled to save white Christian America from a whole grab-bag of evils. They campaigned for George Wallace, fought fluoridation, insisted the moon landing was fake, viewed marijuana as a gateway drug to communism, etc., etc., etc., etc.

    i.e. CONSPIRACY A-GO-GO.
    With side helpings of White Supremacy and John Birch.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    My valedictorian wife, who did her graduate work in the hard sciences and put me through law school as her dependent while on the FT faculty at a Pac 12 university, certainly did not fit in at our neocalvinist church.

    Your wife sounds marvelous, and I wish I knew her.


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    Ken wrote:

    but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.

    A problem with that is that christianity has been arguing for centuries and centuries as to just exactly what the bible teaches on all sorts of things, and some of the best minds in theology have disagreed in the past and even now on major issues, not forgetting that whole denominations disagree.

    So before one comes to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme there has to be some determination as to just what it might be that the bible actually teaches. At which point, and if he wants to feel that he has a grip on it, poor old John Doe has to decide whom to believe, and John does not have the background to be assured that he has picked his chosen authority wisely.

    Before somebody says, ‘but the Holy Spirit will tell him” apparently not or else there would not be so many different understandings of scripture and even Peter would not have said that some of Paul’s stuff was hard to understand. Unless we say that the Spirit tells one person one thing and somebody else another that argument just does not fly.


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    Friend wrote:

    If you ever write it, make sure the wife and her friends talk about what a “good provider” the husband is. Tragic, yes. And maddening.

    I’ve seen this brought up in books about verbal abuse.

    The author who wrote it told of one patient who saw another therapist (or marriage counselor) previously.

    When the wife was describing to the previous therapist how awful the verbal abuse was in her marriage (btw, verbal abuse can bring on severe depression in victims, or maybe suicidal thoughts), the counselor shot back with stuff like, “but he’s such a good provider, so you should feel considerate.”

    The counselor did not perceive at all how hurtful regular verbal abuse can be on people.

    I’ve read in that book and other books and on blogs by women who left abusive spouses that they actually found the emotional and verbal abuse more intolerable and painful than the physical abuse.


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    okrapod wrote:

    Unless we say that the Spirit tells one person one thing and somebody else another that argument just does not fly.

    I read somewhere that if God tells you one thing and tells me the opposite, maybe God wants you and me to talk.

    Problem is, so many of our fellow Christians tell us not to talk, or to listen… we’re just supposed to yell our perfect and righteous truth, which is taught in only one building for an hour or two on Sunday mornings.


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    Daisy wrote:

    “but he’s such a good provider, so you should feel considerate.”

    I meant “feel fortunate”


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    Q. Do the Complementarian Mandates of Submission and Male Leadership Attract Domestic Abusers?

    A. Depends. In dysfunctional complementarian fellowships, yes and is also a breeding ground for creating them. For biblically-grounded complentarianism (that takes Eph 5:25 to heart), no, I don’t believe so.

    In a nutshell, I live by Eph 5:25. I counsel husbands by Eph 5:25. A wonderfully simple but profoundly deep metaphor. Jesus’ relationship to His bride is the PERFECT example for us husbands.

    * Disclaimer: I’m a complementarian and I understand that there are some/many who believe that all complementarianism is dysfunctional. 🙂


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    Daisy wrote:

    they actually found the emotional and verbal abuse more intolerable and painful than the physical abuse.

    Absolutely, this can happen. We laughed about the wooden spoon that eventually broke after long use on children. It was our fault, we were so bad the spoon broke. These memories stir up no fear in me. But the yelling? The name calling? Accusations that I was not dutiful or Christian? These things had me hiding behind the furniture, even into adulthood.


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    Friend wrote:

    Law Prof wrote:
    My valedictorian wife, who did her graduate work in the hard sciences and put me through law school as her dependent while on the FT faculty at a Pac 12 university, certainly did not fit in at our neocalvinist church.
    Your wife sounds marvelous, and I wish I knew her.

    She’s absolutely the bomb.


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    Ken wrote:

    Not to worry if you don’t have enough time; ‘balance’ is not some great issue for me, but a failure to get to grips with all the bible teaches on any particular theme is a potential recipe for disaster.

    A failure to teach what the collection of ancient books we call scripture is and isn’t has lead to disaster in many ways. The topic is vast. We can start with the horrible idea we can put ancient Hebrew poetry into a software program and get a literal meaning.

    What is sad is how many miss the overarching them of God’s wisdom and Rescue. But it is more fun to use it as a club.


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    @ WillysJeepMan:
    Do they squirm when you call them brides? Don’t forget Eph 5:21!!!


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    @ Lydia:
    Ha! I guess some people did a pretty poor job of teaching Eph. 6:5-9, especially here in the U.S. Prior to 1861!


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    Comp ideology attracts abusers, just like extreme patriarchy seems to attract men with s#x addictions/perversions. Is it any big surprise the Gothard has now been shown to be a perv, abusing young women with his creepy attentions and touching? The teaching made it so easy. Don’t question the men, especially the Supreme Leader. Be a nice girl and don’t complain or think for yourself.

    Or how about that disgraceful, hypocrite Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, who used his Nanny (another young women taught to submit and obey the Supreme Leader) to get his jollies. Or what about Josh Duggar? How is it that a young man who grew up in that “pure” environment, grew up to be so s#x obsessed? When women are taught to be lesser beings and objects, you may have this sort of abuse occur. You also make the forbidden enticing, when you’re that obsessed with never showing any skin, even in mundane ways.

    Ideology paves the way for many abuses. Sadly, those entrenched can’t see it. In the wake of The Duggar Scandal, Jim Bob’s response was more rules and legalism. I recall a blog post where he wrote about protecting your family from the worldly culture–movies, tv, devices, etc. Now, I agree with that to a point, but it would never occur to Jim Bob that his son grew up with those rules strongly in place, so the cause and response isn’t more rules and obsessiveness with them. How sad they can’t connect the dots and see that when you don’t allow women any self-direction–telling them what to think, what to do, with their only gift being housework and making babies, not allowing them to get a job or go to college, therein lies the problem. Would Josh have embraced adultery and p#rn addiction if he knew his wife had options, and could leave his pathetic tail? The Duggars and their like can’t admit that they’ve given their whole existence to something false. Further, they can’t admit they fell for a snake oil salesman, Bill Gothard. No one wants to believe they were deceived.


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    @ Daisy:

    “gender complementarians confuse leadership with participation or being responsible.”
    +++++++++++++

    oh, you’re so right. it’s quite ridiculous. such a fixation on “lead”, “leadership”.

    one night the husband does the dishes. he is lauded for ‘leading my wife through helping with the dishes’. the next night the wife does the dishes. it is an act of submission (although it goes unrecognized, of course). same dishes, same dish soap, same apron.


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    elastigirl wrote:

    one night the husband does the dishes. he is lauded for ‘leading my wife through helping with the dishes’. the next night the wife does the dishes. it is an act of submission (although it goes unrecognized, of course). same dishes, same dish soap, same apron.

    . . . and most of them don’t see how absurd it is to call it leadership jist because of body parts. It sure seems to make some of them boys feel important and pious. And that speaks volumes.


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    Abigail C wrote:

    It wasn’t until I started reading TWW and met Dee and Deb that I realized that, sadly, there was a whole culture of people like my ex, not only in the church but leading the church, and that I wasn’t alone.

    I’m so happy you found TWW as well and hope you will find complete healing from your wounds from the past! No…you’re not alone!


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    I realized this morning that not only has the pastor of my presumably mainstream Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod lamented both “disobedient” AND “rebellious” wives from the pulpit, but he recently in a sermon interpreted the Bible to forbid divorce except – possibly! – where young children are in physical peril – possibly!
    I’ve said before, I’ve gotta get out of there. But I don’t want to join any congregation that doesn’t have a woman in ordained ministry.
    Fast becoming a “done.”


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    Ugh. I meant to add the word “congregation ” after Synod. I really don’t think the entire LCMS church body is as knuckle-draggy as this guy, my current congregation’s pastor.


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    Daisy wrote:

    Nancy2 wrote:
    Do you know any men whom you believe would have gotten married if they were taught that they must submit to their wives’ authority and would serve as their wives’ helpers?
    I don’t.
    I know I have zero interest now in marrying a gender complementarian guy. This would be a big reason why.
    The wife is regarded as an after-thought or an accessory to help the husband reach his goals in life, she is not seen as a person in her own right with her own dreams and goals.
    (Then of course there are the guys are are abusive who use complementarianism to rationalize abuse. That’s another reason.)
    Complementarians don’t really make marriage look appealing to most women.

    I never have been attracted to complementarian girls/women and I grew up where it was taught (maybe not as hardcore) as to me they seemed “fake”. I have always preferred not only intelligent (with opinions) but strong women, somebody who can help me be better – not someone for me to control, and never bought into if as the man you don’t take control – you aren’t just a slacker and shirking leadership. Which I find odd, as I have always drifted to leadership in sports efforts (key positions as well as team captain), as well as professional (leadership positions as well as owning a business employing 25 people) – so I don’t get it myself.

    It isn’t just in the church – I also notice this having worked with active and retired military and made the observation that many had married wives from another culture who were extremely submissive (also the observation of how the guys were in general) – I think guys who are weaker are more apt to prefer submissive women.


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    zooey111 wrote:

    I will happily supply the clergy from amongst my cats! (They both think they’re perfect in every way. I will also supply the $$$ for their ordinations–I’ve done it with another one. Easily done.)

    But, the litter box still stinks, doesn’t it?

    Surely not after ordination!!People will mistake it for an exploded can of Febreeze!!


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    Law Prof wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
    If you take Marky-Mark Driscoll at face value, that IS Manly.
    “I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP! I CAN BEAT YOU UP!”
    Of course I take issue with the notion that beating capable of beating someone up is a sign of manliness, but even granting Mr. Driscoll the point, does anyone know of anyone whom Mr. Driscoll has ever stood up to, without the cover of a coterie of yes-men, much less beaten up? Has Mr. Driscoll ever proven his “manhood” (again, given the big “if” that that would prove it) in that manner?

    Well you know what Old Granny Hawkins said about guys like driscoll

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNHM4AL7LdU


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    @ Martha:
    Try the ELCA… 😉


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    @ Bridget:
    Christ and the apostles as The Ultimate Boys’ Club.


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    @ numo:

    And they claim to be so “counter cultural.” 😉


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    @ Nancy2:
    Hee hee.


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    @ Mike:
    Yes, that is true. Men with low self-esteem prefer more “traditional” women.


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    I have seen many a normal guy get involved in comp churches and change. I saw this big time in comp mega single groups where they went to meet nice women instesd of bars. The women are just as bad. They all believed the teaching. They were accepted in the group. And I am talking 20-35 year olds.

    Don’t ever think that groupthink doesnt have profound influrnce. It does.

    It takes a strong confident personality to disagree with the “group” out loud. But it sounded so biblical and who really studies it in depth?. That is what we pay the celeb on stage to do for us. Sigh


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    @ siteseer:
    And now you know why New Calvinists don’t preach/teach much from 1 & 2 Peter. There’s a lot in there that speaks to the error of their ways.


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    @ Martha:
    Sounds very misogynistic. Hope he doesn’t drag your congregation into WELS. WELS won’t even let women vote in congregational elections or hold church offices. Sorry for your experience,


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    okrapod wrote:

    A problem with that is that christianity has been arguing for centuries and centuries as to just exactly what the bible teaches on all sorts of things, and some of the best minds in theology have disagreed in the past and even now on major issues…

    Yep. I think this is a slightly bigger problem than a lot of Christians would like to admit.

    Can Christianity be true if Christians can’t agree on doctrine? Andrew Whyte vs Nabeel Qureshi
    http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Can-Christianity-be-true-if-Christians-can-t-agree-on-doctrine-Andrew-Whyte-vs-Nabeel-Qureshi

    Andrew Whyte lost his faith after realising the diversity of Christian beliefs. He has developed a series of Youtube videos on the way Christians disagree about various doctrines and we hear some of the audio from them.


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    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    John Birch

    Awestruck that you identified the playbook. 🙂


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    elastigirl wrote:

    Can I ask what kind of church, association of denomination it was?

    The church I gave the example from was CMA. We were there I think 2-3 years. I learned to keep my mouth shut and my husband became an elder. The church we were at for over 20 years before my husband left was SBC. I stayed for several more years fighting for change that never happened. Of interest, it was the same church Dee went to that mishandled the young teens sexual abuse situation. I didn’t know Dee then but we probably left around the same time.


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    BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.

    Patriciamc wrote:

    I had wondered that too. Accessory to unlawful restraint or inciting violence

    It took me a long time to recognize that what my husband was doing to me was illegal. It never crossed my mind that what this pastor did might be illegal. That probably means at least one other situatution falls into the same category. It took courage to post but the comments are helpful.


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    Patriciamc wrote:

    … in fact it seems like we agree with each other. Regardless, I still stand by my point…

    … and I, by mine, but certainly I think you’re right: we almost certainly do agree with each other! I think our comments are complementary – that is to say, they address different but equally important aspects of a situation.

    (The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)


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    @ Mark:
    Parts of the LCMS are a lot like WELS already.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    (The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)

    Over on the latest thread I have begun ranting about red neck values and behavior. Permit me to point out that what you have said here is a good description of one aspect of classic red neck stuff. That is exactly one of their major techniques in a lot of areas, not just about women.


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    @numo, @Mark et. al., thanks.

    At this point I’m wondering what I want from membership in a congregation, anyway. I know what I’ve been taught (and taught respectfully, in the old days) and I know what I believe. I also know this particular pastor doesn’t make hospital nor house calls unless he’s badgered to; I’ve had my memorial service written since 2004 for anyone to conduct, and my children won’t care if the service is held in a church or on a dock in the bay! While I have a couple good friends in the congregation, I don’t want to be part of this particular parish’s life – too fraught with internecine squabbles. I continue to attend to see my friends, sing the wonderful music and keep the husband – who’s default mode is verbally abusive – in my debt. Gadz, I don’t mean to hijack this thread! I need to find a Christian community that has a Reformed Jewish attitude: “Just Live Your Life, Repairing The World As You Can.” Preferably with a woman rabbi. Thanks deebs for providing a place to vent … but mostly to speak against abuse! I’ll get off the screen and on the hunt for the congregation I need … if it exists. (Bonus thought: How about just doing what a person can, without a congregation around her, for starters???? Hmm…) Thanks, all, again.


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    BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Abigail C wrote:
    The pastor told my husband that, when I was angry and wanted to leave the house for a “time out”, he was to hold me down and not let me leave. Of course, my husband was happy to follow that advice.
    Whoa! Does that make this pastor an accessory to unlawful restraint? I’m so sorry you were abused like this.
    To all the DV apologists: many forms of domestic violence go far beyond sins to be repented of. Many forms are criminal and have consequences.

    I don’t know which state you’re referring to, but what your husband did was criminal; it’s generally called wrongful imprisonment and battery. Yes, the pastor would be criminally liable also.


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    Lydia wrote:

    @ WillysJeepMan:
    Do they squirm when you call them brides? Don’t forget Eph 5:21!!!

    LOL No, I don’t forget that verse either.

    My view is that any “authority” given to anyone by the Lord isn’t actually “authority” but “responsibility” of stewardship… because that authority remains with the Lord Himself.

    In my ministries, a domestic abuser may be initially attracted by the “complementarian” elements… but as soon as they discover that it is “Biblically-grounded” they run away. They find out that the Biblical definition of their role doesn’t give them “cover” for their abuse, but calls them out on it.

    Proper follow-up occurs, reporting to authorities, getting counsel for the wives and children, as well as helping find safe places to live all happen as appropriate and as needed.


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    Friend wrote:

    Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    John Birch

    Awestruck that you identified the playbook.

    I’m old enough to remember when the Birchers had some clout (or at least thought they did). Including some radtio preachers like Billy Sol Hargis who echoed Bircher attitudes. Though the Second Russian Revolution torpedoed their Conspiracy-a-Go-Go pretty thoroughly.


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    @ WillysJeepMan:

    “My view is that any “authority” given to anyone by the Lord isn’t actually “authority” but “responsibility” of stewardship…

    In my ministries, a domestic abuser may be initially attracted by the “complementarian” elements… but as soon as they discover that it is “Biblically-grounded” they run away. They find out that the Biblical definition of their role doesn’t give them “cover” for their abuse, but calls them out on it.”
    +++++++++++++++++++

    that’s all on the positive side of things. what occurs to me, though, is that even your kind-sounding approach allows for things which, while not on any standard list of abuses, are indeed harmful & unhealthy.

    making adult #1 responsible for and steward over fully capable adult #2 reduces adult #2. Adult #2 is no longer responsible for themselves, their life, their choices & decisions, their actions — either in small part or large part. Her decisions are no longer truly her decisions — they are ultimately his.

    As a result, some women just unlearn how to make them (among other things).

    in my most recent church the pastor there has adopted an approach which sounds quite similar to yours. He’s a great guy. But I have to tell you his wife doesn’t really participate in her own life. it’s all in his hands. even to the point that it seemed to me that their daughter was not even her daughter, but rather a step-daughter to her. Actually, it really seemed like the wife was simply the daughter’s benevolent guardian.

    why does it not seem wrong, harmful to you to encourage husbands to assume responsibility and stewardship for another full-fledged adult (his wife)? and to encourage a women once she is married to give up full responsibility for her life?

    ‘because that’s what The Word says’ is not an acceptable answer.


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    @ WillysJeepMan:
    I prefer the “blessed alliance” interpretation that comes from Genesis in that they are to subdue the earth together. To me, any sort of caste system of responsibilty/stewardship is the same thing just a different name way to sell being on top..


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    Daisy wrote:

    I’m glad the news there is education the public.

    I meant educating


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)

    Yes, excellent point. Some don’t see it, others don’t care.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.

    This articulation is a gem.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    (The basic problem I have with most of the cloud of complementarian views is that they claim to give women “equal value” at the same time as diminishing them by every tangible measure.)

    Exactly.

    The Bait & Switch of Complementarians
    http://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/bait-switch-complementarians

    There was yet another blog post I saw a long time back with a title like “No Equal ‘but’…” that ran along similar thinking. I can’t remember where I saw that, maybe on a site by Baptist women for equality?


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    One might put it another way. We all know the scribsher in which Paul states that “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” Indeed, I recall hearing a podcast by Marq Driskle in which he phrased the disputed punctuation of 1 Corinthians 14 as “as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. Women should remain silent in the churches”. Interestingly, of course, Mars Hill was never comfortable with completely silencing women, so he got out of that one thus: ALL means ALL, but it’s not talking about all women, just ungodly feminist women. So ALL means ALL, but women doesn’t mean women and silent doesn’t mean silent.

    Clearly then, this “equal in value but separate in role” applies not just to men and women, but to different words in a given verse of scribsher. There are:
     scribshers we want to obey directly, and
     scribshers we do NOT want to obey directly.

    Now, those scribshers in the second category – the ones we don’t intend to obey directly – are precious, precious scribshers. We affirm them as inspired portions of the Infallible Word Of God. We greatly esteem and honour them, and they are equal in value to those scribshers commanding us, for instance, not to kill or be gay. But of course, that doesnt mean we have to obey them. Those scribshers are ‘t don’t have to obey them because they are equal in value but separate in role.


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    Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Those scribshers are ‘t don’t have to obey them…

    …with apologies for the catastrophic failure of proof-reading in that last sentence.

    🙁


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:

    Delightful comment, but let me add something. In American English usage (I am being careful because I don’t know what you all do) we do use words like ‘all’ and ‘everything’ and ‘everybody’ to mean not every specific unit on the planet but only to mean ‘all/ everybody/ everything to whom this applies.’ In other words not with some mathematical precision but rather as broad and inclusive terms.

    So when Paul says ‘all’ he would of necessity mean ‘all that I know about’ or else even possibly ‘all those congregations that I have started or taught and which follow my teachings’, knowing as we do that there were disputes between Paul and Jerusalem and knowing that any supposition on our part that we know what all those disputes were would itself be based on the doctrine of the comprehensiveness of scripture. This can get like trying to run through a briar patch.

    So why do I care about all/ everything/ everybody. Well, for example the Noah’s flood story. There were floods, but not the whole planet at one time. And the people of that day did not even know what the whole planet actually was in any detail, so either the expansive terms if taken with precision go to proving that scripture cannot be trusted to tell the truth, or else we need to think differently about expansive terms, even those used in myth on the one hand or admonition on the other hand.

    Back to 1 Cor 14 in which Paul goes on to say ‘as the law directs’ so he did mean those congregations which adhered to ‘the law.’ But this is Paul and he does not preach the law, so why assume that in this case he meant to extend ‘the law’ to some comprehensive all/ 100% or people on the planet in this particular statement? And if he did mean that, then we really do have to re-examine the relationship between Paul and the law/grace arguments and the Jew/Gentile arguments. Danged old briar patch again.

    But maybe that is not what you were saying and I missed the point. I do get what you said about MD, and he is not the brightest bulb on the christmas tree and I am totally with you there. But I do think that the clear meaning of this text is not that clear.


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    okrapod wrote:

    So why do I care about all/ everything/ everybody. Well, for example the Noah’s flood story. There were floods, but not the whole planet at one time. And the people of that day did not even know what the whole planet actually was in any detail

    Interesting, because allegedly there is evidence of a massive regional flood, the likes of which we haven’t seen in modern history, the type that turned a freshwater lake to saltwater, in that region several thousand years ago. Read that in a book by Werner Keller.


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    @ Law Prof:

    Indeed, and that is quite the point.


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    When I read that tweet,”find a healthy church and submit to it’s leadership” I had flashbacks of being back in Crossway/SGM!! Yes, I do think complementarian mandates of submission and male leadership can attract abusers and often do. You mentioned somewhere in this post to avoid churches that put an undue emphasis on this stuff, and I couldn’t agree more. At Crossway, the pastors preached this stuff ad nauseam; I mean, they really hammered it in, as well as submission to leadership! I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. I’ve been in two solid churches since my experience there, and there’s no comparison; it’s rarely mentioned. And, neither church has EVER talked about submitting to leadership – “joyfully” serving your leaders, another topic that CW really like to hammer in to keep us in line.


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    okrapod wrote:

    In other words not with some mathematical precision but rather as broad and inclusive terms.

    Always important to be aware of the variable’s domain, especially when it occurs in the denominator of a rational function.


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    Always important to be aware of the variable’s domain, especially when it occurs in the denominator of a rational function.

    Do you have these attacks very often?


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    @ okrapod:

    Nah, they’re getting better.
    The doc suggested prozac, but I’m afeared’ them internals will only make it worse.


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    @ Law Prof:
    There’s plenty of archaelogical and geological data regarding big floods in the Tigris and Euphrates deltas going back quite a few thousand years. Like the Nile, both rivers would flood regularly, but there appear to be cycles of severe flooding. Which fits with both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis. (The former being thst “other” flood story from the region.)


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    @ Muff Potter:

    chuckle


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    @ okrapod:
    Your reference is to a perfectly obvious caution. Dividing by zero leads to all sorts of intellectual problems. I’m not immune to such attacks either.


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    traci94 wrote:

    When I read that tweet,”find a healthy church and submit to it’s leadership” I had flashbacks of being back in Crossway/SGM!! Yes, I do think complementarian mandates of submission and male leadership can attract abusers and often do. You mentioned somewhere in this post to avoid churches that put an undue emphasis on this stuff, and I couldn’t agree more. At Crossway, the pastors preached this stuff ad nauseam; I mean, they really hammered it in, as well as submission to leadership!

    If anyone has to preach on it, it usually means they’re the sort of jerks who have to mention it to get anyone, even the most credulous, to do it. If I’m leading by godly example, serving truly, seeking the lowest positions, putting my neck on the line to save others from doing so, doing the thankless tasks rather than the tasks that promoting me, so that others don’t have to be bothered with such thankless tasks, if I am seeking to lead by example alone rather than compulsion and lording it over others, then under no circumstances should I have to say one danged word about submission to leadership, because people will very naturally want to be working alongside one who’s doing that stuff.

    Problem is, the sort of people who hammer those things have to do so because no one would ever want to follow their lead otherwise, so they have to lie, like the fools and blind guides they are, to compel people to follow them. They’d be better off if they just shut their mouths and served others, then the judgment for them when the Lord comes would not be so great. But, they just can’t stop playing the “submit to me” card–as the Bible says, “a dog always returns to its vomit.”


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    Law Prof,

    Thank you, I agree with everything you said.


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    okrapod wrote:

    But maybe that is not what you were saying and I missed the point.

    I probably over-egged it with references to Driskle, but I was really only poking a bit of fun at the “equal in value” fallacy. As in, the scribshers I can’t be bothered with are Different In Role But Equal In Value. That way I can live exactly how I please while still insisting that everything I do is scribsheral.

    Incidentally, I propose the acronym DREV for “different roles, equal value” – I did try to get DRIVEL* out of it but it’s getting late over here. Hence, the DREV Fallacy.

    IHTIH

    * “Different Roles? I Value Ewww, Ladies!” … but I’m clutching at straws there.


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    @ Nick Bulbeck:
    DRIVEL headliner- Different Roles Is Valued Equal Lie.


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    @ OldJohnJ:

    You and Muff need to talk to each other because I have no idea what either of you is saying.

    Do you have these attacks often is what doctors say to patients when they present with symptoms which seem to come out of nowhere (an attack) when one has been symptom free before the episode. An asthma attack, for example. I was referring to his sudden outburst of esoteric declarations when he had previously seemed quite sane.

    I might have asked him if he was speaking in tongues, but I thought I would stay away from that topic and stick with doctor talk. I was kidding him and he kidded me back.

    But I still have no clue as to what is going on here.


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    @ Victorious:
    Excellent point, Victorious!


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    I just submitted this at http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/a-complementarian-manifesto-against-domestic-abuse . It is in moderation and it’s likely they won’t publish it. Disqus (their platform) is really tough on people who include links in their comments, and I’ve had a bad run with Disqus as a result). Plus TGC is likely to hate my comment.

    “Complementarians ought to be the most outspoken people against abuse. And we ought to keep watch most closely over our own churches to prevent it.” — I fully agree.

    Since 2010 I have been calling on CBMW to review and recalibrate their Statement on Abuse.
    They have continued to ignore my call. They shun me. Why?

    http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2012/11/28/critique-of-cbmws-statement-on-abuse/


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    okrapod wrote:

    I might have asked him if he was speaking in tongues, but I thought I would stay away from that topic and stick with doctor talk. I was kidding him and he kidded me back.
    But I still have no clue as to what is going on here.

    If you think they are speaking in tongues, now, just ask them about conic sections and differential functions!


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    Nancy2 wrote:

    If you think they are speaking in tongues, now, just ask them about conic sections and differential functions!

    I’ll leave the last word on this thread to Muff, if he hasn’t already made it.


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    okrapod wrote:

    . I was referring to his sudden outburst of esoteric declarations when he had previously seemed quite sane.

    Well at least I dint start cussin’. Googled it up… they call it Coprolalia


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    Muff Potter wrote:

    they call it Coprolalia

    You are skating awfully close to disability discrimination. I am being serious now-game time over for me. There is no way to extrapolate what I said into some derogatory comment about Tourette’s. I was thinking more about some smart mouth kid in some classroom who was being disruptive. Obviously my diversionary tactic from your original comment did not work.

    Peace. Spread it around.


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    @ okrapod:
    I sense the problem is trying to map ideas from one domain to another very different one and not succeeding. I picked up on two words, domain & denominator, in Muff’s original reply that are well understood in simple algebra. In particular they conveyed to me the very dangerous possibility of dividing by 0. You might get some amusement from a classic “proof” that 2 = 1: https://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/falseProofs/first1eq2.html
    I apologize that an attempt at humor didn’t succeed.


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    @ okrapod:

    Sorry if you took offense. My last comment was in no way meant to be derogatory, just friendly banter.


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    Barbara Roberts wrote:

    Since 2010 I have been calling on CBMW to review and recalibrate their Statement on Abuse.
    They have continued to ignore my call. They shun me. Why?

    Because you’re a woman.


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    Law Prof wrote:

    But, they just can’t stop playing the “submit to me” card–as the Bible says, “a dog always returns to its vomit.”

    “The dog returns to his vomit,
    The sow returns to the mire,
    And the burnt fool’s bandaged finger
    Wobbles back into the fire…”
    — Rudyard Kipling, “Gods of the Copybook Headings”


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    @ OldJohnJ:

    I left you a comment over on the free thread.


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    okrapod wrote:

    How they convince anybody that they are being counter cultural is one of the biggest con jobs on the planet right now.

    Oh, that is SO on point, I just wanted to say thank you! I’ve been thinking that for years now and while I’m sure others have made this observation, it’s nice to read someone else making it.

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