First?

Oh man! I’ve never been close to first! LOL!

I spent too much time laughing at the tweet about Satan hating estrogen. Phooey.

roebuck wrote:

These people are delusional idiots, and why anyone gives them the time of day, much less fame and money and adulation, is a real mystery to me.

Total mystery. Well said.

Penal substitution *snicker, snicker*

I know we’re all calling BS on all this gender roleness is next to godliness (or maleness is next to godliness), but I smell an underlying motive: $$$. With books, conferences, etc. on this nonsense, it all goes back to the money. Basically, the CBMW is peddling spiritual snake oil.

And people still believe they can get a theological education and an SBC Seminary.

Hmm.. is holy testosterone like holy water?? I can order some testosterone from a chemical supply company… Do you think I can get them to bless it??

Robert Bly had a Men’s Movement going back in the day, that evolved into the Urban Caveman Movement, and more recently, BroScience (or BS for short).

“… attempting to recover masculine role models from (mostly medieval and Euro-centric) mythology, and lacking anything resembling modern science, empirical evidence or common sense.” [wikipedia]

“Lacking theological or Biblical basis” could be added to “lacking anything resembling modern science, empirical evidence or common sense”, in the case of the dear church folk who are off on this tangent.

That is one good thing about the Jim Elliot types who were actually running around in dangerous places for the Gospel back in the day. They didn’t question their masculinity. They were not drumming up pseudo-macho adventure on the backs of their church, women, family or society to “prove” they were “real men”.

There’s a recent photo of Jimmy Carter building homes with Habitat for Humanity, to the last inch of his life, even as he deals with cancer and aging. Carter does not appear insecure about his masculinity, or life in general. He just does stuff that matters and appears content in doing so – living life to the fullest and ready to enter eternity when that happens.

Some might borrow a page from Carter’s or Jim Elliot’s playbook and feel better about themselves without all the brouhaha.

Great post! Their rhetoric does reek of insecurity, and also disastisfaction. The first-shall-be-last life Jesus called us all to is often unglamorous and self-denying. Complementarianism gives them an elevated position that puffs up their egos making the hard work of following Christ more appealing to their dude bro sensibilities.

Jonathan Merritt recently interviewed the guy who wrote Wild at Heart. I believe that awful book was as big an influence as Driscoll.

dee wrote:

@ Sallie Borrink:
You are a female and are second where you belong.

Are you saying her abundance of estrogen made her slow on the draw? 🙂

Speaking of recent complementarian fails:
The Failure of Complementarian Manhood
http://www.missioalliance.org/failure-complementarian-manhood/

I thought these tweets were recent tweets. Most of them are dated from August of 2014. I thought they had been tweeted during the T4G conference.

White male entitlement is on the way out. It has been for a long time. These guys are fighting it tooth and nail. Jesus was the epitome of masculinity by laying down His life for all who would accept Him. These guys obviously didn’t learn from Him. Women were important to Jesus. I am ashamed of today’s church. It is a pale imitation of what Christ died for.

Leslie wrote:

White male entitlement is on the way out. It has been for a long time. These guys are fighting it tooth and nail.

I agree. With some men, it’s apparently created confusion or a malaise.

As a result, I see a lot of conservative women over the past several years writing more and more books and articles
1. blaming feminism and
2a. telling women to voluntarily make themselves doormats to make men feel better and
2b. telling single women, “if you want to marry, you must become a dependent Damsel in Distress because men don’t want strong women”

(I am a conservative but don’t agree with those conservatives on any of that.)

I posted this the other day on the last thread, but this complementarian guy says he finds strong, competent women threatening, and he needs women to lay all that down to be weak, so he can rescue them and feel needed:

An Open Letter To Rey
http://warhornmedia.com/2016/03/07/an-open-letter-to-rey-from-star-wars/

It astounds me that insecure men (and some conservative women) think the way to help men get over societal shifts is for women to lower themselves.

It took more than a mere male to crush Satan it took the Son of the Most High God. The higher these men become in their own estimation the darker their theology becomes. We are to become more like Jesus. I don't think having testosterone injections will make that happen.

That tweet on penile penal substitution had me laughing the hardest I’ve laughed all day!

Ever the contrarian, I can’t help but wonder where the fine people with androgen insensitivity syndrome fit into this complementarian binary. They may look like women, but they don’t lack for testosterone. I’d like to see Owen put that one in his pipe and smoke it. 😮

Twenty years ago my stepfather bemoaned the fact that now it is not just men competing with each other but also with women.@ Daisy:

Holy testosterone?! Good grief, these New Calvinists don’t know the basics! It is the blood of Jesus that had/has power, not His testosterone!

If these fools are going to rely on testosterone when going up against Satan then they are in for a rude awakening. And to think they have elevated themselves up above us rubes.

Pride causes a lot of embarrassment but also seems to prevent the poor culprit from detecting their humiliation.

Wowza!!!! Testosterone!!!!! That almost sounds like a new prophetic revelatory addition we may be missing from our bible!!! Totally inappropriate and demeaning to Christ’s sacrifice….these guys are out of control…

Max wrote:

Good grief, these New Calvinists don’t know the basics! It is the blood of Jesus that had/has power, not His testosterone!

Bravo, Max!

BSJYJames wrote:

Robert Bly had a Men’s Movement going back in the day, that evolved into the Urban Caveman Movement, and more recently, BroScience (or BS for short).

“… attempting to recover masculine role models from (mostly medieval and Euro-centric) mythology, and lacking anything resembling modern science, empirical evidence or common sense.” [wikipedia]

“Lacking theological or Biblical basis” could be added to “lacking anything resembling modern science, empirical evidence or common sense”, in the case of the dear church folk who are off on this tangent.

That is one good thing about the Jim Elliot types who were actually running around in dangerous places for the Gospel back in the day. They didn’t question their masculinity. They were not drumming up pseudo-macho adventure on the backs of their church, women, family or society to “prove” they were “real men”.

There’s a recent photo of Jimmy Carter building homes with Habitat for Humanity, to the last inch of his life, even as he deals with cancer and aging. Carter does not appear insecure about his masculinity, or life in general. He just does stuff that matters and appears content in doing so – living life to the fullest and ready to enter eternity when that happens.

Some might borrow a page from Carter’s or Jim Elliot’s playbook and feel better about themselves without all the brouhaha.

@ Max:
@ JYJames:
BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! – I too am laughing too hard to have any sort of intelligent comment to make…………..BS! seriously?

I have sadly started to notice a form of neo-Calvin thought creeping into the church I have been attending all my life as a Christian – 20 years now.
why is it that churches are either hyper-dance round yer handbag hands in the air singing `Jesus is my boyfriend` whilst drinking grape juice and eating a bit of bread – or the `you are all foul sinners – you should hate yourselves – God allows people to burn in hell just because’ filled places that seem to just confirm how badly so many of us feel about ourselves?
frankly I am starting to look at the Catholic church with a bit more understanding right now.

Your statement in the post that “CBMW appears to be trying to convince us that men and women are so different that we cannot experience similar feelings”seems to me to be the heart of the matter!

Only by convincing themselves, and others, that they are different (read: Special, Unique, Elect) can they begin to justify the sort of demeaning behavior that they exhibit toward all women, and men who disagree with them.

You are so right–it is the old attempt to make themselves feel better by lowering everyone else’s worth.

Common behavior but always destructive.

“Men long for a higher calling. They need a higher purpose. Our hearts leap within us when we see exhibitions of courage, when we hear tales of heroism, when we witness valiant sacrifice. Give men a grander vision for their life, one marked by service, leadership, and devotion to great and noble ends in the Kingdom of Christ.”

Then why is it that so many more women than men are going on the mission field right now?

And why is it that so many more single women are going to the most dangerous places to share the gospel with those who have yet heard?

I know. I know. We’re feminists trying to compete with the men.
Do they have any idea how ridiculous this all sounds anywhere else but in the US? And it sounds pretty ridiculous here.

molly245 wrote:

“CBMW appears to be trying to convince us that men and women are so different that we cannot experience similar feelings”seems to me to be the heart of the matter!

I agree Molly! The CBMW gospel™ separates the men from the women (“Is Christ divided?” 1 Cor 1:13). However, the book of Galatians teaches us that in Christ we are joined together as one, and the barriers that fallen people construct to create divisions that are based on gender, race, nationality, social class, etc., are done away with and inconsequential to the reality of the union we enjoy in Jesus.

The CBMW loves to promote Men’s Conferences and special Male Bonding Moments, teaching men they should be more manly, and not share any similarities with women who are so, so, so different. And if a man isn’t working on being more of a man, then he’s just not biblical™.

And I can’t really say what they teach the women because none of them allowed themselves to be interviewed for this comment, telling me that it wasn’t their role to be involved in anything outside the home. 😛

“Holy Testosterone, Batman!”

“Uhhhhhhh, hey Beavis, he said ‘penal,’ uhhh-huh-huh-huh.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, hmmm hmmm hmmm, ‘pehal!,’ hmm hmm hmm.”

Gonna have to rewrite a lot of hymns. There is power in the testerone does not have the the same ring to it.

“Satan hates testosterone.” I thought he hated truth.

Steve wrote:

“Satan hates testosterone.” I thought he hated truth.

Yes! That does not work as propaganda for the young unthinking minds.

I have an idea!
Since the YRR/CBMW/T4TG crowd likes to make money off the G$spel TM, I think they should start selling Apostolic approved testosterone suppliments! They are not FDA approved/covered, so they do not have to worry about whether they are effective.
They could pitch it that taking these endorsed suppliments will keep satan away,help you grow a better beard so you look like more of your Gospel bros, give you strength to keep your church/small group/family/wife in line, and might even make it more fun for you (wink wink).

Deb wrote:

Dee,

I remember when Jason Allen was installed as president of Midwestern Seminary – another Mohler appointee.

Here’s his bio on the CBMW website (2016 pre-conference info):

http://cbmw.org/2016-preconference/

Jason K. Allen was elected by the Midwestern Board of Trustees as the Seminary’s fifth president on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012, becoming the youngest seminary president in the Southern Baptist Convention, and one of the youngest presidents in higher education in America. Previously, he served as the vice president for Institutional Advancement at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and executive director of the Southern Seminary Foundation.

Holy c***. That guys not just some 23 yo intern? That makes this article even more disturbing.

BL wrote:

“Satan hates testosterone”

I actually believe that a misplaced sex drive, the one that leads many men to stray and violate their marriage vows, is a tool of Satan. It would be more likely that Satan loves testosterone b/c it leads to the sin of substituting a sex object for the person to whom the guy has a marriage commitment.

Gus wrote:

Don’t you know the bible is full of testosterone, as in the “Old Testosterone” and the “New Testosterone”?

lol! Started my day off with more laughing! Hope those guys realize how absurd these things sound! If this is how they interpret the higher standard they are called to, I worry about their servant-leader interpretation.

So, Satan was defeated by roid rage? I guess that explains a lot about John the Baptist’s “madness”, as he was probably juicing. But wait, if all it took was some injections, did Jesus really need to come at all. Seems like some other male receiving holy injections from the angels could’ve done the job and spared Him the trouble. (Of course, there is that annoying little factoid about “God so loving the world…”, but that was probably metaphorical…)

“Men long for a higher calling. They need a higher purpose.”

With words and vain philosophies such as these that are found no where in my Bible, I am beginning to understand that satan is using men with this type of heresy to kill and destroy the true Body of Christ. Who is seeking the attention, the applause, the praise and the worship of people here….is it not a man/flesh?

This is called outright heresy and idolatry as we are told to worship Jesus in Spirit and truth, not men who seek a higher calling or men who need a higher purpose. Why are these men destroying the unity of the Ekklesia?

And so that woman in our Holy Scriptures who anointed Jesus with that expensive ointment in the Pharisees home, in the presence of lofty men, was a feminist because she dared to worship Jesus without the permission of a man, let alone a pastor man/authoritarian?

The false Christian religion gets weirder by the day.

@ Lea:

Oh wait, it’s not an article by DeYoung. It’s by Scot McKnight about deyoungs article. That’s better.

Steve wrote:

“Satan hates testosterone.” I thought he hated truth.

Well, this much I know.

Genesis 3:15
“And I will put enmity
Between you (the serpent, Satan maybe?) and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Enmity is kind of like hate. Right?
And I thought the serpent represented Satan.
I could be wrong.
But I know Strachan isn’t right.
Nor does he understand his Bible.

JeffB wrote:

I’m surprised he didn’t call it Gospel Testosterone.

TestGospelRone[TM]

I shoulda gone into sadvertising. Just imagine what coulda been done for the Klinkdom …

Stan wrote:

I’d wager the teachings of purity culture have screwed up young Christian men a lot more than modern liberal influences in secular culture.

I have about decided that also…..

@ K.D.:
Yep, you just can not have a woman pastor in the SBC–just about everything else is allowed though.

Lea wrote:

I don’t think the men in these organizations see women as fully human.

An interesting line that needs some pondering. It’s increasingly apparent that New Calvinists look at the spiritual worth of their “sistern” in a totally different way than they do their brethren. There’s a lot of YRR hype in Southern Baptist ranks about taking the denomination back to its roots … the theology that drove the creation of the denomination prior to the Civil War. The founders were predominantly Calvinists, who used that theology to defend the sinful practice of slave-holding … yes, early SBC pastors, deacons, and laymen were slave-holders in the South. If you stretch Scripture enough, you can not only put women in an un-Biblical subordinate role, but the lives of others who must bow as your servant. When the early victories by the Confederacy turned to defeat, Southern Baptists began to distance themselves from reformed theology. By the time the 20th century turned around, the belief and practices of SBC founders were in the rear-view mirror. New Calvinists want to turn the clock back … not to justify slavery, certainly, but to justify their current authoritarian use of “holy” testosterone in other areas, which ain’t holy behavior at all.

Lots of intelligent, faithful estrogen waited at the tomb of One placed there by lots of testosterone.

Max wrote:

It’s increasingly apparent that New Calvinists look at the spiritual worth of their “sistern” in a totally different way than they do their brethren.

It’s not just spiritual worth. They seem to think men are the only ones who need respect, fulfillment, education, etc..

Irish lass wrote:

Gonna have to rewrite a lot of hymns. There is power in the testerone does not have the the same ring to it.

Speaking of hymns, the Baptist hymnal used in Southern Baptist ranks was revised in 2008, at a time when New Calvinist influence was becoming apparent throughout SBC life. Two of my favorite hymns were dropped: “Whosoever Will” and “Whosoever Meaneth Me”. Those songs point to the sacrifice of Christ for ALL … the “whosoever wills” who respond to the Gospel message (the right one) in belief and faith. The words of hymns such as this do not line up with reformed theology regarding the predestined elect. Calvinist influence in dropping these hymns? Think about this next time you pick up one of those new LifeWay hymnals.

Lea wrote:

They seem to think men are the only ones who need respect, fulfillment, education, etc..

When enough young women trapped in New Calvinism see this, perhaps they will rise up en masse to proclaim “Wait just a darn minute here!” and drag their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the mess! Perhaps then we will see New Calvinism fall.

Don’t you guys understand the extensive word study Owen has made to come to this Biblical conclusion? There is an ancient manuscript discovered in a very esoteric language coined as “dudespeak”. It was found in some unknown city called Settle or Seattle or something. We think it was located in a place called Oregon. What Owen discovered was Oregan was “dude speak” for organ. And in ancient dudespeak the only important oregon or organ was phallic in nature. As he continued his research, he was introduced to the original concept of penal. The written language of the time had not been codified and MANuscripts often had alternative spellings. By God’s divine inspiration, Owen discovered penal had been a misspelling of penile! Now Christians have been exposed to the “new light” or “new revelation”! It wasn’t our Messiah’s divinity that conquered death, it was his penis!!
How could we have been wrong for so long? Alas for me and my house-we will be hanging phallises in our house to remind us of all God has done through Jesus’ male anatomy! Come join our club. PS-no girlz allowed.

@ brad/futuristguy:

What a fascinating article! “I]t teaches that women are semi divine, morally superior to and spiritually stronger than men.”

Edward wrote:

“The Gospel has a complementarian shape”

Of course it does. It is the Mars symbol

Paula Rice wrote:

I’m feeling pretty confident that Owen Strachan tweeted this tweet prior to an upcoming new release of CBMW’s version of the Bible or something, in which the books of Ruth & Esther are removed and replaced with 1st Testosterone & 2nd Testosterone.

This made me laugh out loud. Thank you! Very therapeutic.

My ten-foot-tall-bullet-proof husband fell off of a 12 foot ladder Saturday onto a concrete driveway and a lava rock flowerbeds and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. He could have been hurt much worse than he was, and it is a miracle that he got off as easy as he did.
Here’s the rundown: concussion, cuts requiring stitches on his hand, chin, and lower lip. He has a broken jaw, and he bit his tongue badly – completely through about 3/4 of the way across. Blood every where! I watched them stitch his tongue ….. Horrible.
Saturday and Sunday he had major memory problems, was combative, angry, in denial. He is still in a lot of pain. I had absolutely no qualms about taking control at the hospital – forms, info, instructions, keeping my husband under control and preventing him from hurting himself even more. He understands the situation now, but he is still being a bit belligerent. I have no qualms about making my husband behave and follow Drs orders at home. My primary back-ups are my mom and my daughter – he listens to us better than will anyone else. Phooey on submission and sanctified testosterone.

Our situation has given me mean-spirited idea for a “higher calling” suggestion for Owen Strachan and his CBMW/Comp dude bros. How about they climb up some 12 foot ladders? I’ll be more than happy to yank those ladders out from beneath them, and then tell their wives to stay in their God-ordained, subservient places. Let’s see what their sanctified testosterone does for them then!

Bill M wrote:

If these fools are going to rely on testosterone when going up against Satan then they are in for a rude awakening. And to think they have elevated themselves up above us rubes.
Pride causes a lot of embarrassment but also seems to prevent the poor culprit from detecting their humiliation.

It strikes me odd that Calvinists would be bragging on males having the holy testosterone, as if man accomplished salvation.

Mae wrote:

It strikes me odd that Calvinists would be bragging on males having the holy testosterone, as if man accomplished salvation.

CALVIN did!
CALVIN whose Institutes have God All Figured Out!
CALVIN who had testosterone!

Calvin treated his critics with contempt, calling them “pigs,” “asses,” “riffraff,” “dogs,” “idiots,” and “stinking beasts.” In this vein, Calvin said this of the great Anabaptist leader, Menno Simons: “Nothing could be prouder, nothing more impudent than this donkey.”(8)

And the stones that go with it! Just ask Servetus!

Edward wrote:

This is hardly the first bizarre tweet from the CBMW crowd, or from Owen Strachan in particular. A few weeks ago he tweeted “The Gospel has a complementarian shape”. What?

They see The Gospel(TM) every time they look in the mirror.
(Make sure to take breaks for food or sleep — remember what happened to Narcissus…)

@ Nancy2:
Nancy2, I prayed for your husband … and you … just now. Praying for a quick recovery for your husband and for your strength as you minister to him.

We need to recognize each other in the Body of Christ. There is no male and female “in Christ” (Galatians 3:28) – we who know Him know that.

Regarding New Calvinist leaders now standing on 12-foot celebrity ladders, God has a way of yanking those ladders out from beneath them better than we can. In His time …

@ Nancy2:
Praise God he survived. The father of one of my daughter’s friends died a few years back from cleaning out the gutters. So tragic!

Bill M wrote:

In a similar vein I wonder if I’m not guilty of pride in this exercise of taking down Strachan with his tweet, it sounds like shooting fish in a barrel, it is ridiculously easy and guaranteed of success.

Even Strachan provides us some counsel in this regard, when he says “It’s really hard in this day and age not to have egg on your face if you are a person that’s active and engaged. We have these patterns, we are not self-critical about things. I know that I am not always self-critical about what I write … am I self-promoting?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQpZjgiWDOk

Preaching that Jesus’ “holy testosterone” crushed Satan’s head is egg on your face … an easy fish to shoot in a barrel.

Ann wrote:

Owen discovered penal had been a misspelling of penile! Now Christians have been exposed to the “new light” or “new revelation”! It wasn’t our Messiah’s divinity that conquered death, it was his penis!!

How could we have been wrong for so long? Alas for me and my house-we will be hanging phallises in our house to remind us of all God has done through Jesus’ male anatomy! Come join our club. PS-no girlz allowed.

And so the Cult of Priapus starts a new membership drive…

Will there be sacred ritual masturbation of the Holy Lingam like in some types of Tantric Yoga?
Ritual Sex Magick like in Semitic fertility cults?
(With the firstfruits of the Quiverfull passed through the fire?)

Humans have a REAL bad track record of mixing the Sacred and the Erotic.

Lea wrote:

I don’t think the men in these organizations see women as fully human.

Neither do men into pornography.

Gus wrote:

Don’t you know the bible is full of testosterone, as in the “Old Testosterone” and the “New Testosterone”?

These guys must be really desperate. Taking one step back, it’s eady to see that this is mot an exclusively christian phenomenon. Fundamentalists of all strips – christian, jewish, muslim, hindu – are united in one common goal: to keep women subservient to them.

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/TOXICVAL.HTM

Somewhereintime wrote:

I believe this all stems from the pastor worship that many of these guys seek and desire. By talking “testosterone”, they get their self fueled egos going thinking that they are big, sexy macho men…

You said da Sekrit Woid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO43p2Wqc08

Jeffrey Chalmers wrote:

Since the YRR/CBMW/T4TG crowd likes to make money off the G$spel TM, I think they should start selling Apostolic approved testosterone suppliments!

I see a post for the Babylon Bee 😉

Nancy2 wrote:

How about they climb up some 12 foot ladders?

My parents walked into my sister’s house one day when she was seven months pregnant to find her up on a high ladder replacing lightbulbs. “Why doesn’t K [husband] do it?” they asked. “Because it will never get done,” my sister replied. So much for testosterone.

Max wrote:

When enough young women trapped in New Calvinism see this, perhaps they will rise up en masse to proclaim “Wait just a darn minute here!” and drag their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the mess! Perhaps then we will see New Calvinism fall.

I hope you’re right, Max. It can take a long time to finally see the emptiness and become disillusioned.

Edward wrote:

This is hardly the first bizarre tweet from the CBMW crowd, or from Owen Strachan in particular. A few weeks ago he tweeted “The Gospel has a complementarian shape”. What?

Hoo boy… I’m not going to describe the shape I’m seeing…

molly245 wrote:

Only by convincing themselves, and others, that they are different (read: Special, Unique, Elect) can they begin to justify the sort of demeaning behavior that they exhibit toward all women, and men who disagree with them.

A lady at Julie Anne’s blogged got very miffed with me a few weeks ago for saying I think men and women are more alike than not (I did not say “identical”), but the older I get, I honestly feel that most of the differences we see (in the USA at least) are socially conditioned, not in-born traits.

Outside of obvious biological functions and differences, such as the fact that women can bear children, I’m not seeing where men and women are all that different.

I’m still not saying they are identical, but I don’t buy into the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and designed that way by God” stuff anymore.

For one thing, I’ve seen too many exceptions and have been one myself in some areas. I’ve seen men/boys who display interests or traits that many would consider feminine, and women/girls who have what many would consider masculine.

Irish lass wrote:

Gonna have to rewrite a lot of hymns. There is power in the testerone does not have the the same ring to it.

This reminds me!

And I do believe I gave the link to this on a thread here a couple of months ago: I read an article where it was pointed out that most of the “Jesus is my boyfriend” hymns sung in churches – the songs that manly-man complementarian males say they hate – have been written by men.

The same article said that many of the hymns emphasizing Jesus’ rough, masculine traits have been written by women.

(I am pretty sure that article is on CBE’s site.)

Daisy wrote:

I do think the other extreme of Jesus – Jesus all lovey dovey and super pacifist no matter what, is also rather inaccurate.
I don’t recognize either Jesus, the super violent manly Jesus, or the super mild, non-confrontational wimpy Jesus some Christians espouse.

Jesus got angriest confronting terrible religious leaders. If they want to talk about that Jesus, I’m all ears.

Lea wrote:

Oh man, ssb linked a new Kevin DeYoung 9Marks Complementarianismismist article on facebook

Someone wrote a response to it (I’m assuming this is referencing the same article):
DeYoung’s 9Marks of Complementarianism
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/04/25/deyoungs-9marks-of-complementarianism/

Daisy wrote:

I’ve seen men/boys who display interests or traits that many would consider feminine, and women/girls who have what many would consider masculine.

There have always been tomboys and we didn’t make such a big deal about it. Many things may be more prevalent in one group or another, but averages are just averages. Many people on both ends of the spectrum and a bunch in the middle. It’s silly to act like everyone of either sex is going to be the same, have the same interests, roles, and talents.

All of this hyper focus is nonsense. Are you a man? Then you are being a man. Are you a woman? Then you are being a woman. Nobody has to think about it so hard.

Can we please focus instead of on stupid prescribed ‘roles’ simply being decent men and women?

Gus wrote:

Don’t you know the bible is full of testosterone, as in the “Old Testosterone” and the “New Testosterone”?
These guys must be really desperate. Taking one step back, it’s eady to see that this is mot an exclusively christian phenomenon. Fundamentalists of all strips – christian, jewish, muslim, hindu – are united in one common goal: to keep women subservient to them.

Yes, it’s not an exclusively Christian problem, it’s a human problem…called sin. I’m curious maybe these guys are so desperate and in fearful they are trying to grab control. Who knows? It is really so sad that they don’t know the actual gospel as much as they throw the word around.

@ brad/futuristguy:
Thought provoking comment! I think you’re dead on. And I would argue that it’s hard for complementarians (or as @ Lea: would say “Complementarianismismist” haha) to refute the fact they promote the belief that “women are simply an addition to the male ego; their only identity is found in being a virgin, wife, and mother.”

Also, that image of Mary on the Marianismo page? Ugh. Not the first time I’ve seen that kind of thing: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/c6/48/94/c64894ef39332379701f91e19b400287.jpg
So disturbing. I think that images like that, however, serve to reveal the idolatry that, in reality, fuels this ‘Biblical Womanhood’ stuff. I think it’s more accurate to label a lot of it ‘Demonic Womanhood’ because of the bondage it creates.

Max wrote:

There’s a lot of YRR hype in Southern Baptist ranks about taking the denomination back to its roots … the theology that drove the creation of the denomination prior to the Civil War. The founders were predominantly Calvinists, who used that theology to defend the sinful practice of slave-holding … yes, early SBC pastors, deacons, and laymen were slave-holders in the South.

There was an interesting 2 part series about this at CBE.

From part 1 (by Kevin Giles):
Justifying Injustice with the Bible: Slavery
http://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/arise/justifying-injustice-bible-slavery?page=show

Snippet:

Complementarians are absolutely convinced that what they teach on the man-woman relationship is what the Bible teaches.

To reject their teaching is to reject the Bible, and because the Bible is literally God’s words, to reject that teaching is to disobey God himself.

After giving a lecture outlining CBE’s position, one Sydney theologian told me publicly, “You reject what Scripture plainly teaches. Those who disobey God go to hell.”

When faced with such weighty opposition, it is helpful to note that we find exactly the same dogmatic, vehement opinion voiced by the best of Reformed theologians in support of slavery in the 19th century and Apartheid in the 20th century.

They too appealed to the Bible with enormous confidence, claiming that it unambiguously supported slavery and Apartheid.

He goes on to show how gender complementarians today approach the topic of gender roles / women / marriage in the same way.

@ mirele:

That sounds like almost every boyfriend or husband my sister has ever had. Also sounds a lot like my ex fiance’.

Steve wrote:

Lots of intelligent, faithful estrogen waited at the tomb of One placed there by lots of testosterone.

Amen.

I guess Owen Strachan didn’t consult with Al Mohler prior to tweeting.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/11/thank-god-for-testosterone-confusion-about-christian-manhood/

I especially loved this line:

“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

Bill M wrote:

Nancy2 wrote:

My ten-foot-tall-bullet-proof husband fell off of a 12 foot ladder

Sounds like a variation on 1 Cor 10:12, “he that stands take heed lest he fall”. In a similar vein I wonder if I’m not guilty of pride in this exercise of taking down Strachan with his tweet, it sounds like shooting fish in a barrel, it is ridiculously easy and guaranteed of success.

It sort of enables the persecution complex thing they have going on, too.

Where is The Onion? This stuff is Onion worthy.

Paula Rice wrote:

I guess Owen Strachan didn’t consult with Al Mohler prior to tweeting.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/11/thank-god-for-testosterone-confusion-about-christian-manhood/

I especially loved this line:
“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

Holy Testosterone is being driven 150 yards to work in an Escalade.

siteseer wrote:

It can take a long time to finally see the emptiness and become disillusioned.

A few young women we know in an SBC-YRR church plant are starting to look empty and disillusioned when we bump into them in the community, after 5 years of experiencing the glory of New Calvinism … you can discern the oppression on their countenance. They used to be so joyous in the traditional SBC church where we met them. They had roles in that church and faithfully served Jesus there. They followed their young whippersnapper husbands to the new and improved reformed thing when it came to town. Their husbands appear happy enough, however.

Steve Scott wrote:

“Holy Testosterone, Batman!”
“Uhhhhhhh, hey Beavis, he said ‘penal,’ uhhh-huh-huh-huh.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, hmmm hmmm hmmm, ‘pehal!,’ hmm hmm hmm.”

LOL!

@ patriciamc:
T? Oops.

Paula Rice wrote:

“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

Of course, EVERYTHING non-Calvinist is “liberal” to Dr. Mohler. Calvinism is the only genuine Christian orthodoxy in his mind and he will tell you that. I praise God for women believers throughout the Body of Christ who help keep churches open with their spiritual gifts, whether they be widows, single, or staying the course after their no-account husbands rejected the Gospel.

Max wrote:

Paula Rice wrote:
“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

Of course, EVERYTHING non-Calvinist is “liberal” to Dr. Mohler. .

The dismissal of women’s value, particularly tying it to age, is just another indication that john piper has a empty cavity where his heart should be. What a jerk. Really.

Daisy wrote:

Justifying Injustice with the Bible: Slavery

Thanks Daisy for the link to that article. A good read.

Another resource on this issue is Bruce Gourley’s book “Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War.” A review of his book speaks clearly about the influence of Calvinism on Baptists in the South prior to the Civil War.

“Baptists in the South, rapidly rising to challenge Methodists numerically, helped align Southern religion with the South’s black slave culture. The birth of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, formed in order to preserve God’s will for the African race, signaled the inevitability of war.”

The new reformers are just as wrong about the subordination of female believers, as the old Calvinists were about God’s will for the African race.

“Time and again, Paul chastised these believers, especially their men for their immaturity. The Apostle wrote: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able.”[1] – See more at: http://jasonkallen.com/2016/04/5-keys-to-cultivating-biblical-manhood-in-your-church/#_ftn1

How in the world do you get to be a seminary president, when you can’t even see that Paul was NOT talking to males but to everyone. Sure, he conveniently used the couple of translations that through in the word men for people as many translations say men/man for humans all the time. BUT, in this case, not even a word exists in the original for people at all except for brethren is common to be used when speaking to a co-ed crowd back then.
Oh, wait I think someone already answered how you get appointed to president, young and Mohlerized, got it.

Uh, Dee, would you mind fixing my grammar please, not I do not sound educated :-/

Leslie wrote:

Twenty years ago my stepfather bemoaned the fact that now it is not just men competing with each other but also with women.

Sounds like your stepfather was influenced by the GI Generation? After WW2, woman were discouraged from occupying seats in the classrooms or positions in the workforce to make room for the returning servicemen, and with that came all the propaganda aimed at women. I think the 1950’s is the decade American complementarians use as a standard for the way the family was defined. Or, really, anytime prior to 1960 when the birth control pill came out!

rhondajeannie wrote:

It took more than a mere male to crush Satan it took the Son of the Most High God. The higher these men become in their own estimation the darker their theology becomes. We are to become more like Jesus. I don’t think having testosterone injections will make that happen.

A BIG AMEN here rhondajeannie! What these geniuses always conveniently ignore is that God chose the seed of the woman to destroy the works of the devil.
No Human Male DNA Whatsoever was involved in Messiah’s conception.
It was by Mary’s ovum alone, supernaturally acted upon by the Almighty himself that brought Jesus into this world. It’s the main reason why I trust in his very literal and very real person alone.

@ Max:
I know, right? And Amen to what you said!

I will say that I listened to some of the men and the messages they preached at T4G 2016, and I know I felt myself aging each time. So, I really don’t think it’s fair to place the blame for the premature aging us women have suffered in church on Liberal Protestantism alone. Know what I’m saying Max?

Paula Rice wrote:

I guess Owen Strachan didn’t consult with Al Mohler prior to tweeting.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/11/thank-god-for-testosterone-confusion-about-christian-manhood/

I especially loved this line:
“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

That is offensive on so many levels. A bit of sexism here, some ageism there.

He says men are leaving churches in droves – he hasn’t seen the latest research I guess, because either Pew (or Barna) have reported that women are leaving in droves, too.

Five Factors Changing Women’s Relationship with Churches
https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/722-five-factors-changing-women-s-relationship-with-churches

However, what may come as a surprise is the increasing number of women who are part of this cultural shift away from churchgoing (and from the Christian faith).

By the way, one of the most obtuse things I’ve ever seen to explain why more women are quitting church was written by a complementarian woman:

On her blog, on one of her bulleted points, she maintains that churches are not complementarian enough, which is driving women away (in her view).

When I’d say it’s the opposite situation: complementarian churches either
1. devalue and limit women, which women notice and tire of and leave, or,
2. comp churches stick with ministering only to the ‘nuclear family model,’ when more and more women are remaining single and childless now and don’t get their needs met at church.

Anyway. Mohler also says men are leaving because churches are feminized, which is also a lot of bunk (at least, he says this is more true of liberal churches).

Even if we grant that point, guys like him complain that conservative churches are losing men too, and it seems to me most conservative churches are complementarian and promote a manly-man version of the faith, so how does he explain that? He can’t attribute it to churches being feminized.

There were one or two points I agree with Mohler on in that page, but there were a few “misses” too, IMO.

Mohler writes:

1. The movement is largely correct in its identification of contemporary Christianity as feminized and feminine.

2. The problem is their apparent adoption of a cartoonish distortion of masculinity as the answer.

I think he’s wrong on point 1.

I agree with point 2.

If modern conservative churches are having trouble attracting men, the answer is not to blame women or anything woman-like, as Mohler is doing.

I would say a lot of men are driven away from churches due to stuff like the shallow sermons, or rock-concert type environments, and other silly, seeker friendly dreck that goes on – and you can’t blame women for that.

I think seeker friendly nonsense was created by men, yes? Such as Rick Warren?

I do appreciate that Mohler calls out the rudeness and selfishness promoted under some comp teaching, but his views on women are still sexism, of the condescending, benevolent variety:

Are these guys serious? A real man honors women — especially his wife.

Real manhood is shown in chivalry and the code of the gentleman, not in crude “rules for real men” that should be an embarrassment to all concerned.

The Comp Cavemen treats women like slaves or property, but the Condescending Comp type (Mohler) treats women like little helpless waifs who are like toddlers and need a man to assist them.

Mohler’s version of sexism is just a nicer, kinder patronizing type. I don’t care for either kind.

Lea wrote:

they do say if you want something said ask a man. If you want something done, otoh…

do you mean like this:
How to Explain Mansplaining
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/opinion/how-to-explain-mansplaining.html?_r=0

The manologue takes many forms, but is characterized by the proffering of words not asked for, of views not solicited and of arguments unsought.

… The fact that this tendency is masculine has been well established in social science.

…The problem is global and endemic across all media. Female characters speak less in Disney films today than they used to…

@ Lydia:
Haha, seriously?! Are there SBTS students standing there at the ready when he arrives at the office, a large, open umbrella in hand (representing male authority) for when it’s raining, too? 😛

@ R2:
I like everything about your post. 🙂

I don’t know how to explain it, but it bothers me when commentators in the media weep tears over how younger men today are supposedly having a rougher time of things because women are out-performing them in college.

This rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Like, women are being blamed for being more responsible and studying harder, as though this is their fault?

When men fail at stuff, women get blamed for it.

You certainly see this in Christian modesty culture: when a man gets into sexual sin, the woman gets blamed.

The wife gets blamed because she’s let herself go or whatever, and the mistress gets blamed for dressing like a hussy. The man is never held accountable for his choices.

Patrice wrote:

Paul wrote to Timothy partly because the Ephesian women believed they were extry-speshul because their former religion put them at the center of the world

Some people will go to great lengths to avoid hearing that, Patrice: Ephesus, Women, And Getting Tossed Out Of A Board Meeting.

Paula Rice wrote:

Or, really, anytime prior to 1960 when the birth control pill came out!

Years ago, I’m pretty sure I read an article that mentioned that in the south (USA) in the 19th century, condoms were advertised in public on billboards (or in paper??).

I just did a web search on the topic and several pages turned up verifying this.

From Wiki:

Condoms have been made from a variety of materials; prior to the 19th century, chemically treated linen and animal tissue (intestine or bladder) are the best documented varieties. Rubber condoms gained popularity in the mid-19th century…

…The early 19th century saw contraceptives promoted to the poorer classes for the first time…

…From the 1820s through the 1870s, popular women and men lecturers traveled around America teaching about physiology and sexual matters.

….In the 1840s, advertisements for condoms began to appear in British newspapers, and in 1861 a condom advertisement appeared in the New York Times.[2]:127,138

So, the complementarians who blame 1960s feminism for the sexual revolution or changes in sexual behavior or whatever might want to rethink things.

Daisy wrote:

Condoms have been made from a variety of materials; prior to the 19th century, chemically treated linen and animal tissue (intestine or bladder) are the best documented varieties.

I knew this from reading cheesy regency novels!

This = exactly! And there’s a word for that kind of emphasis: pride.

Max wrote:

Steve wrote:

“Satan hates testosterone.” I thought he hated truth.

Amen! These New Calvinists are good at twisting everything to make it fit a reformed grid. However, the truth is that Satan indeed hates Truth (Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life). When the enemy of the Cross comes knocking in your life, you don’t defeat him with aberrant theology and testosterone; you overcome him with the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony (Rev. 12:10-11). And, folks, the word of your testimony better be the Truth and nothing but the Truth! You are not walking in the presence and power of Christ if you embrace the teachings and traditions of men as your shield, when they are off-track as much as this current strain of reformed theology. New Calvinist belief and practice has strayed into territory it shouldn’t have and its followers are powerless to defeat Satan’s meddling in their lives (as evidenced by the sinful fall of some of their most prominent leaders). Satan doesn’t hate testosterone – he loves it when it gets stirred up into a macho frenzy which will fall into his trap.

@ Josh:
The linguist in me just always wants to remind the YRRs that complementarian is not a recognized word…

Lea wrote:

Daisy wrote:

Condoms have been made from a variety of materials; prior to the 19th century, chemically treated linen and animal tissue (intestine or bladder) are the best documented varieties.

I knew this from reading cheesy regency novels!

Bodice-rippers?

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Lea wrote:
Daisy wrote:

Condoms have been made from a variety of materials; prior to the 19th century, chemically treated linen and animal tissue (intestine or bladder) are the best documented varieties.

I knew this from reading cheesy regency novels!

Bodice-rippers?

I think this was from an Amanda quick novel! Mostly involving people ‘pretending’ to be engaged to solve mysteries, or having to get married under goofy circumstances…

Daisy wrote:

I don’t know how to explain it, but it bothers me when commentators in the media weep tears over how younger men today are supposedly having a rougher time of things because women are out-performing them in college.

Young, single women out-work and out-perform young, single men because they have to. Boys are expected to goof off and be boys. When men marry and have kids, they typically become more responsible and dependable workers.

There are any number of former Southern Seminary students who dropped out and became skilled blue collar workers after they got married and had a kid. That was the responsible thing to do. Then you have the boys on campus pretending that an M.Div. gives them a higher “holy testosterone” blood count.

It’s sad that the CBMW types are emphasizing testosterone and Jesus, with so little focus on testosterone and domestic violence. When will they take up the issue of muscular Christianity and how it relates to wife abuse? Too many of us have had our heads CRUSHED by complementarian men.

This stuff reads like an SNL sketch!

Aunt Mom and I have been out of church for thirteen years, and were unaware of just how bizarre things within the hollowed (not “hallowed”) halls of churchianity had become. It used to be that these people snipped phrases and verses from the Bible to give the appearance of legitimacy to their claims, a.k.a. “doctrines”.

For a time they would decree, “The Bible says!” without quoting an actual passage of Scripture.

Now they are just making sh*t up as they go along! Not only have they not read the Bible, they seem to think that none of us have read it either. Their opinions and doctrines of dung have replaced the Bible in their teachings (alleged).

A feller could grow some mighty fine tomaters with the stuff these boys are shovelin’!

Ruth Tucker wrote:

It’s sad that the CBMW types are emphasizing testosterone and Jesus, with so little focus on testosterone and domestic violence. When will they take up the issue of muscular Christianity and how it relates to wife abuse? Too many of us have had our heads CRUSHED by complementarian men.

Too busy going “ME MAN! RAWR!!!”

Calvinism is nothing more than man made teachings In order to place us in spiritual bondage. It seems to me that it has become a religion and ultimately an IDOL….

Max wrote:

Dee wrote “It seems to me that these men are so insecure with their masculinity that they must attempt to read into Scripture what is not there. Why? Did these guys get beat up when they were little kids and are now trying pretend that they are bad*** dudes?”

I have always gotten that impression about Womb Tomb Swanson. Former High School Dork who got into a position of POWER by Divine Right and is throwing his weight around.

I’ve been thinking along this line for a while. A couple of the SBC-YRR church planters I know in my area are wimpy little guys, who were most likely bullied, had domineering mamas, dateless in high school, etc. New Calvinism gives them a bully pulpit and illegitimate authority to go with it so they can flex what few muscles they have and put women in their place. Macho, potty-mouth Driscoll set them free and complementarian charlatans perpetuate the madness.

Like the wet noodle of a wimpy trid gamer bragging that “I’M REALLY A NINJA! I COULD KILL YOU ALL WITH JUST MY LITTLE FINGER!”

Or (more sinister) serial killer Edward Kemper, who murdered coed after coed as stand-ins for his abusive Mommy against whom he dared not raise a finger.

Bill M wrote:

If these fools are going to rely on testosterone when going up against Satan then they are in for a rude awakening. And to think they have elevated themselves up above us rubes.

Remember the Seven Sons of Sceva?

My writing partner (the burned-out preacher) actually saw that happen IRL. A know-it-all Spiritual Warfare type who “discerned” and cast out Demon after Demon after Demon — until he ran into his first REAL one.

clarissa wrote:

why is it that churches are either hyper-dance round yer handbag hands in the air singing `Jesus is my boyfriend` whilst drinking grape juice and eating a bit of bread – or the `you are all foul sinners – you should hate yourselves – God allows people to burn in hell just because’ filled places that seem to just confirm how badly so many of us feel about ourselves?

frankly I am starting to look at the Catholic church with a bit more understanding right now.

Well, we’ve got the longer track record and solid historical trace…

dee wrote:

I read your post after I published this one. We think alike! Its a great post and a must read by all.

I like what you did with all the tweets here. Dee. Creative use of social media for the forces of good!

@ Daisy:
Haha Daisy, yeah! And I can’t help but think men, through the ages, dreamed of the day when they wouldn’t need to use a fish bladder, or some such thing, to put limits on the bacon they had to haul home! (I’m sure it was a special relief to the women, too)

The breakthrough in women gaining control of reproduction was huge. It helped scale back The Curse in a big, big way. My main beef with complementarians is that they don’t emphasize oneness. It’s like they believe the Bible says, “And the two shall become a) A Biblical Man and b) A Biblical Woman and, together, they will be known as Complementarians.” No, it doesn’t say that!

K.D. wrote:

You want to scare these ” manly men?” Go into an actual farming or ranching community in which the wives, daughters of the farmer, rancher help on the ” place.” They’re more of a ” man” than most of these braggarts in the pulpit….and clean up “really well” for special occasions…(

This might give Piper the vapors.

Dave A A wrote:

Nancy2 wrote:
But, let’s not forget Dave AA and his wife. They have a tougher row to hoe than my husband and I. We’re with you, Dave!
I’m afraid you’re thinking of of someone else. But will pray for them, along with you and your husband, if you can recall the situation!

Uncle Dad maybe?

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

I have a well-defined six-pack. But I choose to conceal it behind a modest layer of abdominal fat.
(I need somewhere to inject insulin, after all.)

Well, that’s okay. You have a good excuse.

Lea wrote:

I think this was from an Amanda quick novel! Mostly involving people ‘pretending’ to be engaged to solve mysteries, or having to get married under goofy circumstances…

I wish I could have filmed my father’s reaction when he accidentally downloaded an Amanda Quick novel. Priceless!

marquis wrote:

Calvinism is nothing more than man made teachings In order to place us in spiritual bondage. It seems to me that it has become a religion and ultimately an IDOL….

Oh yeah…

Lydia wrote:

@ Tim:
Great blog post. Simple and brief. One thing that annoys me is how many ivory tower scholars ignore the Book of Acts and its descriptor of the culture in Ephesus when interpreting that passage in 1 Tim. Right. The goddess cult was no big deal. Sigh.

But that’s putting verses into context, and the guilty parties don’t like that because that leads to proper interpretation which leads to them losing power. Comps are very bad at lifting verses off of the page and ignoring the topic of the chapter and verse, what Paul was referring to, etc. It leads to very bad theology. I cringed once when I heard a guy say about divorce, “But that’s what it says here on the page.” Well, yes and no.

patriciamc wrote:

Lea wrote:
I think this was from an Amanda quick novel! Mostly involving people ‘pretending’ to be engaged to solve mysteries, or having to get married under goofy circumstances…

I wish I could have filmed my father’s reaction when he accidentally downloaded an Amanda Quick novel. Priceless!

HA! I’ll bet.

I have read no further in the post than this tweet by Owen Strachan: ‘He crushed Satan as a man’.

Wow. Heresy right there.

Max wrote:

Definition: “religious belief and practice that allows young reformed preacher boys to treat women in a way that indirectly gets back at their mamas for not giving them more chocolate when they were little”

Or maybe for not standing up to their domineering fathers in order to give them the nurturing that they needed.

May wrote:

I have read no further in the post than this tweet by Owen Strachan: ‘He crushed Satan as a man’.

Wow. Heresy right there.

I wonder if Strachan understands what he said. And I wonder what his concept of the Incarnation is. It is hard for me to fathom these CBMW people as to how connected they are to orthodox Christianity, especially as regards the ancient creeds of the Church which attempted to state clearly ‘Who Christ was’ as well as the nature of the Holy Trinity
. . . the CBMW ‘Christology’ seems very flawed in their celebration of the ‘eternal subordination of the Son’, which I would call a form of an early Christian heresy, yes. None of the Churches coming out of Jerusalem in the first century ever preached the ESS teaching, and it is not a part of the Trinitarian doctrines of the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church, no.
CBMW seems more of a ‘cult’ thinking to me, and has taken root in the SBC in defining the status of women, but it has not managed to spread the ‘ESS’ heresy fully into the SBC. I hope it never does. Our Lord deserves better than to be used by a cult in order to ‘put women in their place’

@ Nancy2:
I apologize to everyone for my mistake. Uncle Dad’s wife has cancer, not David AA.
Sheesh. I’ve been a bit out of whack the last couple of days!

@ BL:

“For the majority of history, cultures, and societal levels – women were not living safe, sheltered, protected lives within the home, while the men were off doing manly things.

Both men and women were usually side-by-side in the fields, working to put food on the table.

…Can anyone provide examples of when their form of patriarchy flourished?”
++++++++++++++++++

I can.

in perusing the ‘about me’ info of many Christian men who have an internet presence, in their lists of favorites, the movie that seems to shows= up more than any other is “Sense and Sensibility”.

I thought it was a little comical.

elastigirl wrote:

@ BL:

“For the majority of history, cultures, and societal levels – women were not living safe, sheltered, protected lives within the home, while the men were off doing manly things.

Both men and women were usually side-by-side in the fields, working to put food on the table.

…Can anyone provide examples of when their form of patriarchy flourished?”
++++++++++++++++++

I can.

in perusing the ‘about me’ info of many Christian men who have an internet presence, in their lists of favorites, the movie that seems to shows= up more than any other is “Sense and Sensibility”.

I thought it was a little comical.

What??? Weird.

dee wrote:

@ Sallie Borrink:
You are a female and are second where you belong.

ROFL. You guys are cracking me up tonight!

Paula Rice wrote:

I especially loved this line:

“In many liberal Protestant churches the pews are filled with females, many of them aging. Al Mohler”

Notice, too, that it’s ‘females’ not ‘women’, but two sentences later, it’s ‘men and boys’, not ‘males’.

How long are these guys going to foist the feminized Christianity shtick on us? I’ve been hearing about it since the early ’90s, when they became weirded-out by mauve/turquoise colors which was fashionable several years before they noticed.

How long does it actually take uber-testosteraddled men to wrest the church back from little old ladies? After all these years, they’re still complainin’.

Leslie wrote:

White male entitlement is on the way out. It has been for a long time. These guys are fighting it tooth and nail. Jesus was the epitome of masculinity by laying down His life for all who would accept Him. These guys obviously didn’t learn from Him. Women were important to Jesus. I am ashamed of today’s church. It is a pale imitation of what Christ died for.

Ok, serious comments like this make me ashamed for laughing so hard at this post. You are right. Although, I don’t think Strachan is fighting white male entitlement so much as desperately trying to create a brand and earn a lucrative living by supplying a never ending stream of offal to people who will pay good money to fight white male entitlement tooth and nail…

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Although, I don’t think Strachan is fighting white male entitlement so much as desperately trying to create a brand and earn a lucrative living by supplying a never ending stream of offal to people who will pay good money to fight white male entitlement tooth and nail…

So true! Just look at Russ Moore. His signature issue while Dean at Southern was patriarchy. He was all over the place writing about patriarchy and how comps are wimps.

Now he has a more National position as president of the elrc and his pet issue is now racism. He gets every media opportunity he can get and he never talks about patriarchy. His audience is different so he is selling another issue to promote his brand.

patriciamc wrote:

But that’s putting verses into context, and the guilty parties don’t like that because that leads to proper interpretation

Lydia, I found a great quote from Keri Wyatt Kent on why cultural context counts: https://timfall.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/scripture-context.jpg

Max wrote:

Holy testosterone?! Good grief, these New Calvinists don’t know the basics! It is the blood of Jesus that had/has power, not His testosterone!

I’m thinking their preferred Scripture version may have mistranslated the following verse from Revelation…

“And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testosterone, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”

There you have it!

.

@ Tim:
Very true! It is one of my pet peeves.

Lydia wrote:

Patrice wrote:

How long does it actually take uber-testosteraddled men to wrest the church back from little old ladies

Oh but they are more than happy to take their money. And encourage them to leave a financial legacy.

Creflo Dollar private jets and Furtick Mansions are expensive.

Mark wrote:

Who would want to go back to this?

From its inception, Calvinism was all about control. John Calvin’s magisterial reformers persecuted other Christians who would not bow to their belief and practice. Many Anabaptists (whom I believe to be the true reformers) were tortured, imprisoned, and executed by the magistrate (which was linked at the hip with the early Calvinists). If some of these young folks who are being attracted by the new and different could be transported back to the 16th century to observe the roots of ‘real’ Calvinism, they would not be so inclined to join the movement.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Mark wrote:

And Calvinism in the antebellum American South and early 20th century South Africa would glory in this kind of divine order.

Because they were the ones on top Holding the Whip with God on their side.

It’s good to be king and have your own world
It helps to make friends it’s good to meet girls
A sweet little queen who can’t run away
It’s good to be King whatever it pays…

@ Max:
I waited to see if some one else would comment on what you wrote here, but no one did.
“New Calvinists want to turn the clock back–not to justify slavery, certainly, but to justify their current authoritarian use of ‘holy’ testosterone in other areas, which ain’t holy behavior at all”
I think that you are giving them too much credit re: slavery. The abusive underpinnings are right there in the Calvinistic theology supporting hierarchy with the submission and subservience of ANYONE below leadership status. This provides the framework for future abuses that could happen pretty quickly given the right political climate. Slavery still exists in many parts of the world and even illegally in this country. It was not that long ago that the Dutch Reform church in South Africa supported apartheid. Doug Wilson only reluctantly backed down from his pro-slavery views. Patriarchy is the default mode of the sin nature and Calvinism could be a useful tool for a return to those “good old days,” with god’s stamp of approval, of course.

Lydia wrote:

So true! Just look at Russ Moore. His signature issue while Dean at Southern was patriarchy. He was all over the place writing about patriarchy and how comps are wimps.

Now he has a more National position as president of the elrc and his pet issue is now racism. He gets every media opportunity he can get and he never talks about patriarchy. His audience is different so he is selling another issue to promote his brand.

Wow. You’re dead on with this comment.

Bridget wrote:

Well, that is one version of calvinist history, but certainly not all of it.

Reformed folks have done a good job over the last 500 years to distort the real Calvin and his early followers. They like his systematic theology and determinist God who elects some to be saved (them of course) and others to be damned before they ever draw breath … so they will stand by their man. The thing about it is, that as a Southern Baptist, I have worshiped alongside old-guard Calvinists over the years – I have found them to be civil and they have provided good perspectives to some Scripture. These New Calvinists, however, are a totally different beast … they are arrogant, militant, aggressive, and always stretching the boundaries in belief and practice to accommodate the culture. Their teachings, at times, fall outside Christian orthodoxy (which they claim to have a corner on) … before you know it, one of them will teach that Jesus defeated Satan with holy testosterone!

JYJames wrote:

Some might borrow a page from Carter’s or Jim Elliot’s playbook and feel better about themselves without all the brouhaha.

*brouhaha*—bro-haha

Back to the “Satan hates testerone. You can’t blame him — after all, he’s seen it used to crush his head” thing.

owen reminds me of my 14 year-old son, routing for his school, and putting down the rival high school.

“Mustangs Rule! Falcons Suck!”

“Really? Why, dear?”

“They just do!”

well that settles it then, doesn’t it.

@ JeffT:

“To recover your biblical manhood, your testosterone must be sanctified”
+++++++++++++++++++

good grief, they’re reaching. they must be running out of things to talk about.

but you just watch…. I can see all manner of product lines deriving from this totally made-up maxim. ‘testosterone theology’ books and how-to books and studies and retreats-with-speaker and conferences and mugs and thought-for-the-day calendars.

the logo will be the 4 hexagon-thing testosterone molecule with a cross –it will be everywhere: on T-shirts, on black rubber bracelates, on bible covers. people will use it as their moniker, just like Prince and his symbol.

and the test for the watching world will be observing who buys into this sh!t .

pcapastor wrote:

When the Calvinist side lost the revolution in England, and the Calvinists came here and set up their little democratic civilizations by the standards of the seventeenth century, they again had very high rates of literacy and had very high status for women relative to the time

Believe it or not, I recall an occasion here at TWW when I spoke up in defense of the Calvinist missionaries who settled Hawaii. They put a stop to the practice of human sacrifice and that really does deserve a vote of confidence. I’m a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due regardless of the brand of faith, or even to those who profess no faith at all.

I’ve posted a new update on the February 18th post….I did not get the job.

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2016/02/18/a-long-time-tww-reader-in-need-of-support-through-gofundme/comment-page-1/#comment-250205

@ pcapastor:
I would suggest some better research on the rules for living everyday life in Calvin’s Geneva his second time around. There were harsh punishments for disagreement with him. Reading his letters I am convinced he was a sociopath.

I continue to be a bit shocked at the attempts to sanitize history. The Reformers where every bit as cruel as the Catholic leaders when it came to those who dissented.

And as to the main lines here, they eventually dropped the focus in determinism and focused on a Social Gospel for the most part. A large proportion of the descendants of the Puritans became Unitarian!

I think our Founders had them in mind when they were debating a Bill of Rights.

Nice to see the 34-year-old Owen Strachan point to his father-in-law’s book as a source that would be “helpful” in understanding testosterone-Jesus.

One should never miss a chance to promote another family member’s book!

Strachan has spent his life in academia and been given one cushy Christian job after another. At 34, he has it all figured out. Sorry, I don’t have much time for his type.

“In addition to his work as CBMW President, Strachan will continue in his role as Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College. He also serves as the Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement at SBTS and as a Fellow with the Center for Pastor Theologians. Strachan is the son-in-law and former student of past CBMW President Bruce Ware. He trained under eminent complementarian leaders Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C., and R. Albert Mohler, Jr. at SBTS, working in President Mohler’s office from 2005-07 as his Editorial Assistant.”

Todd Wilhelm wrote:

testosterone-Jesus

Snort!

Max wrote:

These New Calvinists, however, are a totally different beast … they are arrogant, militant, aggressive, and always stretching the boundaries in belief and practice to accommodate the culture.

They are to Calvinism what the Taliban and ISIS are to Islam.

More Calvinist than Calvin, more Islamic than Mohammed.

And they end up with exactly the same God.

Lea wrote:

Todd Wilhelm wrote:
testosterone-Jesus
Snort!

I wonder if they think Jesus was a cork bobbing in a sea of estrogen?

patriciamc wrote:

pcapastor wrote:
All the liberal main line churches come out of the Calvinist tradition.
Except the Episcopalian and Methodist churches which are descended from the Church of England.

And why I lean toward Anglicanism or Methodism….
And I grew up at the knees of an old school Calvinist…But I grew up….

The two nations where Calvinism was most dominant, Switzerland and the Netherlands, are some of the most tolerant nations on earth. They are centers of banking and commerce in large part due to their work ethic and cleanness in government. The New England Puritans in some cases extended women the right to vote a couple centuries before the rest of the United States did. The students of Jonathan Edwards pioneered the anti-slavery movement in the United States.

There’s a very selective reading of history here that gets as tiresome as the tone deafness of the NeoCals. If you go to the Reformation museum in Geneva that’s next to Calvin’s church you won’t find a single mention of the T4G boys.

These guys are Fundamentalists, not really different than other Fundamentalist tyrants except that they’ve wrapped it up in intellectual garb. They’re afraid of democracy and congregationalism because they’re afraid of change. They try to push out any possible heresy through the use of elder rule, and they groom those elders and select them similar to the way the Roman Catholics responded to early Gnostic heresies and persecutions by amplifying the distinction between laypeople and priests and controlling who got to be priests. But as some have noted, the Roman Catholic Church has more internal controls to check abuses.

Calvinism is merely incidental except that I think some of these people may have personal backgrounds that left them very damaged to the point they see the world as cruel and arbitrary, which naturally lends itself to accepting a deterministic or fatalistic view of the world.

Jim G. wrote:

I’m not into all the CMBW stuff, but his statement is not heretical. The context is very weird, but he has not lapsed into heresy.

Weird enough to trigger alarms?

@ okrapod:
Of course the thinking displayed in the tweet is not complete. I’m with you there. Twitter really isn’t the best medium for deep and reflective thinking. The character limit gets you every time.

I’m fairly certain that he does not deny the divinity of Jesus. That is why the charge of heresy in this case is unfair. Is his statement theologically incomplete? Yes. Is it weird given the context? yes. Is he off base in other areas (notably ESS)? Yes. But he is not espousing Christological heresy.

Jim G.

Jim G. wrote:

@ okrapod:
Of course the thinking displayed in the tweet is not complete. I’m with you there. Twitter really isn’t the best medium for deep and reflective thinking. The character limit gets you every time.

Hard to get more profound and reflective than “I Made a Poopie!” in 140 chars.
Txtg abbrs, fluttering jazz hands, or no.
Why do you think they call them “Twits”?

http://jasonkallen.com/2016/04/5-keys-to-cultivating-biblical-manhood-in-your-church/
I read this, this, this grrrrrr, blog article. Sounds to me like he believes the Bible was written for men, as in MALES only. Would he be satisfied if all females just walked away from church and let them have their little biblical boys club?

@ Muff Potter:
It is important to know the good/bad angles. That is how we are supposed to learn from history. The Puritans also claimed that alleviating pain in childbirth was Witchcraft and several women were burned at the stake for it. Anne Hutchinson was banished for holding an unauthorized Bible study in her own home. Jonathan Edwards owned slaves and so on.

The two nations/states where Calvinism was most dominant became extremely liberal in their social views. My guess is by an correction.

Lydia wrote:

The two nations/states where Calvinism was most dominant became extremely liberal in their social views.

I don’t know what you all mean by liberal, but I seem to recall that one of those states led the continent in establishing laws normalizing drugs and perversions and euthanasia, and the other has a banking system replete with secrecy where people who have something to hide can do so while at the same time having been somewhat cozy with the Third Reich back in the day. That may well be an over-correction to rid themselves of some oppressive religious past, or not.

And while I am at it, hooray for an emphasis on literacy, but it was the Moravians who began a revolution in pedagogy based on the radical idea that if the teacher is nice to the child then the child will learn more and more easily.

Daisy wrote:

@ Jeffrey Chalmers:
That might be the next step on CBMW and among complementarians: selling medications to treat Low Testosterone on their sites. I see commercials for that stuff late at night by companies.

Big market as men age, and testosterone fizzles out.

Nancy2 wrote:

http://jasonkallen.com/2016/04/5-keys-to-cultivating-biblical-manhood-in-your-church/
I read this, this, this grrrrrr, blog article. Sounds to me like he believes the Bible was written for men, as in MALES only. Would he be satisfied if all females just walked away from church and let them have their little biblical boys club?

A couple of years ago when an article came out on the numbers of women leaving the church, someone at Scot McKight’s blog noted that she had been on a Calvinist board (Puritan Board maybe) and there, some of the men were saying that maybe it’s not such a bad thing because if a lot of women left the church, men might actually join the church, the implication being that men are so much more holy and more valuable than women.

@ Lydia:
It is hard to talk about without taking it wrong.

I think that sin – the real thing, not what passes for it in this world – has left us incredibly uncomfortable with both who we are and who God is. As a result, we cannot fathom that the two are compatible. But Jesus breaks all the molds!

Jim G.

patriciamc wrote:

A couple of years ago when an article came out on the numbers of women leaving the church, someone at Scot McKight’s blog noted that she had been on a Calvinist board (Puritan Board maybe) and there, some of the men were saying that maybe it’s not such a bad thing because if a lot of women left the church, men might actually join the church, the implication being that men are so much more holy and more valuable than women.

So much wrong with all of this! Bah.

1. Good luck to churches if women leave
2. A pox on the houses of these men who think they are more important and
3. Even Piper is making fun of so called liberal churches by saying they are full of old ladies. As if that is a bad thing. Because woman + old = useless!

@ Jim G.:

Good grief. He is saying that gender dysphoria is a normal? reaction to feminism (a cultural idea) and also that it is a sin. We can call that viewpoints #1 and #2. The mental health people started out calling it a mental disability and now they say a dysphoria; viewpoints #3 and #4. Some people go with the born that way and therefore OK based on the assumption that anything that is congenital is therefore good and to be celebrated, viewpoint #5. And there is now the designation as a victim of denial of civil rights, viewpoint #6, as they are being used as a cat’s paw for what looks like other people’s political agenda, or so it seems to me. And other people’s religious agenda per Strachan et al.

If Strachan thinks this is new and due to new advances in feminism then he has not done his homework on gender theory or on anthropological differences in other cultures, and any idea that this is new on the face of the earth is not correct. The only thing new about this is what the medical establishment has done with surgery and hormones and what the media and the mob have done in taking up the cause.

Does nobody feel pity for these people? Do we have to (a) condemn them while at the same time (2) rearrange society to accommodate this issue? and (3) engage in nation wide conflict over it? Are we now going to repeat all this with every variation in the book (that would be he DSM 5) just because we do not know what we are doing? Something is vastly wrong here.

patriciamc wrote:

But the churches sure do want these women’s money!

Without any women around, they won’t really have any one left to boss around, unless they plan on bullying “beta” males?

Daisy wrote:

5 Key Ways to Cultivating Biblical Manhood in Your Church by J. Allen
http://cbmw.org/topics/leadership-2/5-key-ways-to-cultivating-biblical-manhood-in-your-church/
On the page, Allen claims:
“Many churches are bereft of male leadership…”
Er, what? Most churches (the conservative ones) have nothing BUT male leadership because they don’t allow women to lead.

Now don’t you be using logic with them, after all, you’re just a female….

patriciamc wrote:

Now don’t you be using logic with them, after all, you’re just a female….

Most of these articles read like gibberish to me, like they’re written by 19 year old interns and then I find out these are grown married professors and pastors! What on earth!

Like, what is this: “many congregations exist in a settled fog over what biblical manhood should look like”.

Also, all of the problems he lists with things like employment are society problems, not church problems…

The ‘other’ Calvin? The BEST Calvin.

Christiane wrote:

ESS is a big red light. It cannot be defended, no. I am glad that you are not a part of it, but I am disappointed that you do not recognize the attack on the integrity of the Church’s Trinitarian doctrines that ESS poses.

I think you might have misunderstood concerning ESS:

Jim G. wrote:

I’m fairly certain that he does not deny the divinity of Jesus. That is why the charge of heresy in this case is unfair. Is his statement theologically incomplete? Yes. Is it weird given the context? yes. Is he off base in other areas (notably ESS)? Yes. But he is not espousing Christological heresy.

Jim G.

Okay, I need some Twitter detectives. I will send many cyber hugs to whoever can find this for me. I’m not super Twitter savvy and I couldn’t find it after about twenty minutes of looking.

Angie left this comment on my most recent post. I would LOVE screen shots of this discussion:

“One other thing. During the recent #CBMW16 conference, Denny Burk and I interacted on Twitter. He as much affirmed, in a style similar to your experience about the woman in a boat, that Mary, sent by Jesus, would not be permitted at his church to proclaim the resurrection to an adult co-ed assembly during the Sunday morning service.”

Hi LYDIA,
I do think that the CBMW doctrine of the Eternal Subordination of the Son leans towards heresy, when the proponents of ESS claim that it is ‘orthodox’.

People of my Catholic faith and people of the Eastern Orthodox faith will not see truth in the word ‘Eternal’ in the phrase ‘ESS’. The early Councils fought off Arianism in all of its forms especially when the attacks focused on Christ and on the Trinity. So I perceive the CBMW as scamming people when they use their ESS doctrine to shore up their strange theology of male authoritarianism, especially when they say that Christ models a behavior towards the Father that wives need to copy toward their husbands . . . their man-made ESS theory shows me that they felt they needed more support for their views, but tampering with the ancient Creeds and the REAL orthodoxy of the Church IS a kind of heresy, and for such a pitiful reason, too. I disagree with JIM G. on this, yes.

Nancy2 wrote:

So when Mary proclaimed Jesus’ resurrection, she was being anti-biblical.
Bwaaahahahahahah!

I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I shared this in a Facebook group and said my head exploded when I read it.

@ Christiane:

ABSOLUTELY. I’ll go you one further. I know I’m being a bit strident, but in my book, it isn’t leaning towards heresy: IT IS heresy, and terrible heresy at that!

Otherwise, **I live your post,** for real. Great observations!

I wonder if this kind of thinking attracts men who have felt powerless in their own lives, either as children, or now as adults. The need to even discuss such silly stuff, rather than just living their lives to love God and others really makes one wonder what could be motivating such drivel/ignorance.

My 6’4″ sweetie has never uttered such ridiculousness about God and testosterone. He’s too busy swinging a hammer or cooking or loving his family and others. Come to think of it, neither my brother, nor my brother-in-laws (all 6 feet and above) have ever said/believed such silly things, while I suspect many of the men espousing, nay, screaming about manhood may feel inadequate in their own actual manhood. Don’t get me wrong, a man who is 3’7″ is just as much of a man as a 7 foot man. NONE of that has anything to do with character or Christlikeness, despite what our fallen culture may want to say. I just wonder if there are men out there who feel inadequate in the way God made them physically so must make up for it by these kinds of illogical statements.

In other words, compensation much?

@ Stunned:

THIS. Very astute!!

@ Christiane: Thanks, Christiane. It is about time a spade be called a spade. If they are not orthodox, they are heterodox. They are going against the early church councils that all branches of Christianity have affirmed for most of Christianity’s history. ESS is heresy.

@Sallie

He’s saying Mary Magdalene would always be free to obey Jesus at his church, as would anyone else. Even if Jesus called her to preach (David Schell asks)? Jesus does not call people to break his word.

Now, where are my cyber hugs? 😉 😀

Sallie Borrink wrote:

One other thing. During the recent #CBMW16 conference, Denny Burk and I interacted on Twitter. He as much affirmed, in a style similar to your experience about the woman in a boat, that Mary, sent by Jesus, would not be permitted at his church to proclaim the resurrection to an adult co-ed assembly during the Sunday morning service.”

Well, I guess they know more than Jesus, right? Part of this goes back to their making an idol of Paul and totally mis-reading what he says. They don’t realize you can’t take the Bible apart in bits and pieces; it all flows together.

Monica wrote:

Now, where are my cyber hugs?

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Monica!!!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Okay, I found the thing on April 11, but I cannot figure out how to follow the entire conversation to find all of it.

(I have a Twitter account that I use when I absolutely have to, but I can’t stand Twitter. I don’t even understand how it works to follow a discussion. LOL!)

I can see parts of the conversation, but I can’t find the part I’m looking for. I’ll have to keep clicking buttons and try to find it. LOL!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

BL wrote:

Quoting from Strachan’s post:
“First, transgenderism is a logical–if remarkable–outcome of feminism. Men today not only are influenced by feminism and aware of it, but actually view becoming a woman as the best possible goal for their lives.

Hey you guy commenters of TWW, are you aware that you want to be women?

R2 wrote:

These guys are Fundamentalists, not really different than other Fundamentalist tyrants except that they’ve wrapped it up in intellectual garb.

This is true, and the real line of demarcation; not “calvinist” theology.

Some in the CBMW camp appear not to be very bright OR very well-spoken. Resorting to manipulating doctrines and claiming their own skewed interpretations of sacred Scripture are ‘inerrant’ are desperate activities that only reinforce the image of an organization with a shallow theology unable to stand on its own when brought out into the light.

BL wrote:

Quoting from Strachan’s post:
“First, transgenderism is a logical–if remarkable–outcome of feminism.
Men today not only are influenced by feminism and aware of it, but actually view becoming a woman as the best possible goal for their lives.

You raised some good points in your post. One thing I wanted to say about this, especially the part about men wanting to become women.

I could be reading him totally wrong, but he seems to be saying that women have it so sweet – that our lives are so easy – that men are all jelly, and that’s why some of these transgender folks want to become women.

I do think things have gotten a bit easier or better for women (in the USA), but there’s still sexism.

Men don’t know what it’s like to deal with stuff like being afraid to walk alone to your car at night, on the off chance you might get raped. Or feeling afraid to get on to an elevator alone with a strange guy.

Or having a guy harm you if you reject his advances (which does happen. Men have killed women for refusing to date them). Men talk over women and interrupt us all the time, even adults in business settings.

I could go on and on with the negatives there are about being a woman. So Owen can blow it out his hair if he’s saying biological men are motivated to become women because women have life easy-breeze. Women don’t have life easy all the time.

And yes, leave it to a complementarian dude to somehow blame something in the world on women.

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” (Genesis Ch 3)

“God, it was the woman you created who drove biological men to go through hormone therapy and wear dresses” – Owen S.

Sallie Borrink wrote:

Angie left this comment on my most recent post. I would LOVE screen shots of this discussion:
“One other thing. During the recent #CBMW16 conference, Denny Burk and I interacted on Twitter. He as much affirmed, in a style similar to your experience about the woman in a boat, that Mary, sent by Jesus, would not be permitted at his church to proclaim the resurrection to an adult co-ed assembly during the Sunday morning service.”

This might be the Twitter conversation you are thinking of:

https://twitter.com/DennyBurk/status/719610388309008385

You might be able to use Storify to post it, and then link to the Storify page, showing her and his Tweets in the order that they happened. I myself do not have a Storify account, so I’m not exactly 100% sure how it works, but I’ve seen other people use it to show Twitter coversations.

Patriciamc wrote:

Hey you guy commenters of TWW, are you aware that you want to be women?

I do!? Who knew? 😉

Daisy wrote:

The Tweet by The Gospel Coalition reads:
“It’s more masculine to be attracted to men yet obedient to God than attracted to women and disobedient to God”

??????

Can we say, “word salad”?

Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

??????

Can we say, “word salad”?

Can we say, “BUZZWORD BINGO!”?

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

Yep. Before I even clicked on that, I thought, “I wonder if HUG has linked to that song by Josie Cotton.” You did not disappoint. LOL.

There does seem to be some homo-erotic homo-something undertones going on in their tweet. For people who act like they are clear in gender and gender issues, I found their Tweet a little murky or… I don’t know. Not clear.

Stunned wrote:

May I suggest that if no one is able to step forward with adequate proof to the contrary, we might consider that this label is something put out there to impress us

I guess CJ’s opinion doesn’t count as adequate proof? 😉

Stunned wrote:

I’m sorry, but I have to point this out. I am perplexed by the ongoing claims that this movement is wrapped in intellectualism or has anyone who would rightfully be considered an intellectual.

I just want to give R2 credit for using the phrase “intellectual garb”. I could dress up in Native American garb, but that won’t make me Sacagawea!

Christiane wrote:

Some in the CBMW camp appear not to be very bright

I was thinking that today. Also, there’s nothing wrong with being proud of being male or reading books about being a man, etc., but the comp leaders go on and on and on about maleness to the point that I have to go, “Hmmm.” I’ll just leave it at that.

Daisy wrote:

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:

Yep. Before I even clicked on that, I thought, “I wonder if HUG has linked to that song by Josie Cotton.” You did not disappoint. LOL.

There does seem to be some homo-erotic homo-something undertones going on in their tweet. For people who act like they are clear in gender and gender issues, I found their Tweet a little murky or… I don’t know. Not clear.

Daisy, I think there’s a subset of the gay male population who seem to hate women. It sort of made me think of that.

Stunned wrote:

NONE of that has anything to do with character or Christlikeness, despite what our fallen culture may want to say.

Indeed, there is not enough Christlikeness in the New Calvinism movement to assign them that label.

@ Stunned:
It’s equally hard to find what and where he studied at Oxford University. His bio only says he “did research” there.

Stunned wrote:

I am perplexed by the ongoing claims that this movement is wrapped in intellectualism or has anyone who would rightfully be considered an intellectual.

Exactly. There is not a true “intellectual” among them. The New Calvinism movement is cluttered with easy-to-get doctorates from institutions that would not be considered among the top centers of higher learning. Just because one has a doctorate, the gift of gab, and a master of one-liner novel tweets, doesn’t mean he is very smart. Indeed, the fact that so many are so easily sucked into the vortex of New Calvinism, following a strange collection of celebrity leaders, is proof that the NC masses aren’t very smart. I have examined several of the popular New Calvinist books at a local Christian book store. I wouldn’t call any of them scholarly works, nor their authors scholars. I don’t mean to insult anyone’s intelligence, but they have insulted mine!

The genuine church of the living Christ is built on revelation, not education. But, even if the New Calvinist who’s who were educated at Ivy League universities, education doesn’t produce one ounce of revelation. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with education – I even have some – but the learning the YRR are getting at some seminaries is indoctrination, not education. New Calvinism is a successful movement because its followers are gullible and, thus, not very smart. It’s leaders, on the other hand, are smart enough to pick their pockets.

Observers of the first century Church marveled that its leaders were unlearned men, but took note that they had been with Jesus. There is not enough evidence to convict most of these folks that they have been with Jesus. Indeed, they don’t even drop His name much. They may talk a lot about “God”, but their Calvinist God is not the one I know.

lowlandseer, you’re a better researcher than I! I never came across any mention of Oxford in all I did. That would be an interesting component (if it’s not spin or twisted truth), pointing to some possibility that he could be “intellectual”. (PS. What does that even mean?)

So did his research mean that he went into their library on his own and read stuff or was he invited there, personally, by Oxford? Was it because they let in any college president (don’t know if that’s what they do or not) or was it because something about him made them think he was super smart and they needed his help in ground breaking research? Was it an invite by another professor or was it the head of a department who … who actually knows? Still, a throw away that he did research at Oxford could mean something or it could be super misleading.

I have a story about research invites that still makes me smile but I’m resisting. Imagine older, snotty regents and a cool high table. Ah, I hated academia for the most part but there were a few good moments.

Where did the new post about Bent Tree go?

FW Rez wrote:

I’ve thought in the past that “wow, these people are so much smarter than me”

I can honestly say I have never thought this listening to any of this crowd. I too have been perplexed to hear them labeled as intellectuals. This goes triple for the CBMW crowd, how sound like college interns who aren’t trying particularly hard to me.

Max wrote:

Exactly. There is not a true “intellectual” among them. The New Calvinism movement is cluttered with easy-to-get doctorates from institutions that would not be considered among the top centers of higher learning.

Lea wrote:

This is the other side of the coin. There are people running these divinity schools and then there are pastors with no education or with ‘honorary’ phds they apparently gave themselves. Bizarre.

Reverend Larry awards Reverend Moe an Honorary Doctorate.
Reverend Moe awards Reverend Curly an Honorary Doctorate.
Reverend Curly awards Reverend Larry an Honorary Doctorate.
NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!

@ Stunned:

What I did find was this comment on Internet Monk which you can find here

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/30009

It reads
“From what I can find out, he does seem to have solid enough qualifications. If anything, I find that *more* worrying – he’s a man who has clearly come into contact with a whole range of Christians and Christian thought and yet somehow believes that you can’t manage to remain a Christian without affirming a historical Adam? Surely he’s noticed the ones who have managed it in all his studies and travels?

(Pedantically, the only references to Oxford I can find are those relating to ‘having done research’ which suggests to me that he was a visiting scholar granted access to resources rather than someone who was actually part of the university or given any accreditation – else there would be a degree, college/department or title in there. Not that they are free with their resources to just anyone, mind)”

@ FW Rez:
false. He’s the smartest man on the planet!

Stunned wrote:

Again, not trying to insult ANYONE but I find calling oneself an intellectual (or having friends point to you and claim you are an intellectual) is seldom the M.O. for an intellectual crowd. About half of my crowd is Ivy Leaguers yet not one of them would consider themselves an intellectual. (And only one “legacy”among them.) The only person I know well who I would consider an intellectual is a person who the Mensa society approached and invited to be part of their group. (And he’s perplexed why people think he’s smart. Smart people don’t always get stuff. ☺ ) The rest, despite their successful academic careers and despite going to some of the top schools in the world, would not consider themselves intellectuals. They’re not stupid and probably much smarter than the average and a few/many are legit geniuses but still wouldn’t wear a cloak which read, “Intellectual.”

So why do we consider this group intellectuals?

THANK YOU for writing this.

Do you know why people say this? Because those folks have found a way to get paid well for writing books, writing blog posts and speaking at big conferences so they can do it full time. That’s why. In the evangelical world, that is enough to make you look like an intellectual.

I graduated from the honors college of a public ivy and qualify for Mensa. I don’t consider myself an intellectual (although I think I could have been a real intellectual if I had had the opportunity for graduate level work). I am, however, fairly certain if I could find a way to get paid what they do and I could study and write full time as they do, I could convince the evangelical church that I’m an intellectual, too.

(Well, except the woman thing which would automatically disqualify me. But you get my point.)

Mr Mohler is also said to have studied at the St Meinrad School of Theology.
See this

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/10/know-your-evangelicals-albert-mohler

@ Jim G.:

If I understand everyone aright here, I think Mae’s point was that Strachan is claiming Jesus to be a man as opposed to a woman rather than a man as opposed to God. So although the old hoo-ha’s about ESS and the hypostatic union do surface from time to time when “comp vs egal” rears its head, this is – AFAIK – more to do with the other old hoo-ha about whether women have souls, are meaningfully created in God’s image, or indeed on how far redeemed a woman in Christ is.

@ Serving Kids In Japan:
Yup

Lydia wrote:

This stuff is hard to talk about without people taking it wrong.

Agreed. Unfortunately, the YRR movement has given the rest of Christendom plenty to talk about by the way they frame their thoughts. I suppose it was Piper who first created the Twitter one-liners that they all feel they must now top. You have arrived if you can post something that gets re-tweeted hundreds/thousands of times across cyberspace. Most of these posts are just “Wow-Daddy” lines sent to capture the attention of a crowd – to gain notoriety and popularity. The one-liners don’t contribute much of anything to building the Kingdom on earth, but go a long way to establishing celebrity status in the movement.

Tim wrote:

patriciamc wrote:
Now don’t you be using logic with them, after all, you’re just a female….

That line of thinking is what prompted yesterday’s humor post about smart women and the men who are threatened by them: Christian Dating Tips – the one to avoid.

I just saw a Christian Mingle parody video somebody linked today where they were doing home visits to see if people were really ‘christian’. It was pretty funny and I was amused in sort of a sad way that the man was approved and the women rejected, in part for wearing yoga pants. Ha.

Normally I’m bored with such parodies but this one was awesome!

Stunned wrote:

Normally I’m bored with such parodies but this one was awesome!

I was trying really hard to read the other church descriptions on the clipboard. One had to do with a coffee shop heh.

Bridget wrote:

I guess CJ’s opinion doesn’t count as adequate proof?

Too HUMBLE(TM).

Lea wrote:

@ Lea:
Here is the link if that’s allowed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAyViQbhYgI

Very funny! I didn’t know any of those Christian artists!

There are also a couple of Christian Mingle parody videos by Tripp and Tyler. They’re Christians who do hilarious videos on youtube. They’ve done two on Christian Tingle, and their webinar in real life video is hysterical.

Tim wrote:

That line of thinking is what prompted yesterday’s humor post about smart women and the men who are threatened by them:

For the life of me I could never understand why some men feel threatened by smart women. I think smart women very sexy.

Harley wrote:

I keep going on knowing that it will all eventually get better. Tomorrow is our 31st wedding anniversary.

Happy anniversary! And I wish you a speedy recovery as well.

Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

Can we say, “word salad”?

Yes, word salad. Or maybe honeymoon salad, as in “lettuce alone without any dressing.” 😉

Stunned wrote:

So did his research mean that he went into their library on his own and read stuff or was he invited there, personally, by Oxford? […] a throw away that he did research at Oxford could mean something or it could be super misleading.

If Mohler has only “done research” at Oxford, that implies he was not a visiting fellow; visiting fellows do more than haunt the stacks. He might have had “recognised student status,” basically permission to do research without much oversight, but I doubt that.

Speaking of haunting the stacks, most of the libraries at Oxford are quite secure. People can’t just waltz in and grab a book off the shelf as they can in the US. At Oxford, people need to present a valid university ID. A great many of the books are in closed stacks. There used to be a sweet little train that ran underneath Broad Street, with books as the quiet little passengers.

My best guess: Mohler might have been part of an educational tourist group that spent a few days at Oxford, learning about the educational system.

Unless he stipulates an Oxford college affiliation, a fellowship, a degree, a certificate, or other explanation, I think he’s giving us a BS.

And not a BSc (Oxon).

Muff Potter wrote:

As you probably know, math is a very rigorous discipline, there are no loose ends allowed, and it must have 100% internal consistency by iron-clad proof. Such is not the case with philosophy.

My wife did her grad work in mathematics, taught full time at a Pac 12 university, she just didn’t take calc and statistics and probability, she taught all that. I once took a PhD philosophy seminar while attending grad school in another discipline. They pretty much worshiped at the altar of hard scientists, they were so in awe of people like my wife. When I related to her what we were learning about in the PhD seminar she listened a bit and said “They’re wannabes, there’s no rigor in their reasoning.”

Nancy2 wrote:

I have done research at Vanderbilt. The Austin Peay State University library did not have what I needed, so I was given access to the library on the Vanderbilt campus.
Maybe in my resume, I should say that I have done research at Vandy! Yeah, baby. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

I once happened to be driving by Dartmouth University during spring graduation, saw the geniuses in caps and gowns and hoods and all. That should count for something, I should spin that and put it on my bio like Mohler and his alleged Oxford encounter.

Law Prof wrote:

I once happened to be driving by Dartmouth University during spring graduation, saw the geniuses in caps and gowns and hoods and all.

I went to the Oxford campus in high school on a trip. I didn’t realize I could put it on my resume! Good to know.

Anonymous3 wrote:

I started to see God had wired into me truly masculine traits—such as compassion for the marginalized, a desire to protect and care for the weak, and a resilience to follow and obey Christ.

Stunned wrote:

Turns out Samford University didn’t even make the top ten list in the state for universities. (Actually, their 2010 acceptance rate was 83%. I would not be surprised if some community colleges have a rate similar to this.)
With this data, I’m still not finding any evidence that this guy or this group (if he indeed is their intellectual leader, as has so often been said) can be called intellectuals…After looking at the school where he studied theology and is now the president of, I’ve found that it is one of the largest seminaries in the world with an acceptance rate of 72%. I have absolutely nothing against this school, but as every man who has married into my family for 3 generations has been enrolled in seminary (until recently when I finally bucked that mold/mould!), and I’ve never even heard of it, it may not indicate that it is held in the highest regard academically, at least.

The university where I teach is three times the size of Stamford and SBTS put together and has a far lower acceptance rate than either, but I sure don’t feel intellectual. I have colleagues who went to Harvard, Yale, Duke, Vanderbilt, Emory, Tulane, UT-Austin. Other than at faculty banquets where they read a few superlatives (based on actual, documented accomplishments) before handing the faculty member an award as they squirm with embarrassment, I never hear the kind of glowing praise one hears and regularly sees bestowed upon the likes of Mohler and Piper. None of the true intellectuals with whom I rub shoulders are all that taken with themselves, and if you poured too much praise on them, such as Mohler gets regularly, they’d shut you down. This is because they actually are intellectuals rather than fakirs and poseurs like Mohler.

The reason Mohler is considered an intellectual is because his sycophants have never known a true intellectual and due to the Great Man myth so necessary to their cult. He must be a hero, he must be a brilliant intellectual, a personage, a righteous prophet, a holy icon. The young, restless and reformed are for the most part not involved in Christianity at all, they are into idolatry, and they crave idols. There is no room in their theology for simple men and women who are flawed and not at all great, following a great God who died for them. That God stuff for many of them is just a prop, a tool enabling them to get to the real thing: idol worship.

Anonymous3 wrote:

I started to see God had wired into me truly masculine traits—such as compassion for the marginalized, a desire to protect and care for the weak, and a resilience to follow and obey Christ.
How on earth are these boys-only traits?!?!

These traits are not male-only – in my experience, these traits are more commonly demonstrated by women in the church. Personally (and as a guy), it takes a serious effort to live out these traits day-to-day. I wish that complementarian churches did emphasize compassion, care of the weak, etc., but they do not. Instead, their focus is culture wars, “correct” theology, and power. It is a real disservice to men in the church.

Lea wrote:

The real sin of most of these men is arrogance.

Amen and Amen! It is the root sin from which all other failings of New Calvinism springs. It is the primary characteristic of the NC celebrities; the identifier which comes first to mind when asked to describe these men.

I just went to Ordinary University, but I have lots of ivy on the back forty. Maybe I can play that into something on my CV.

@ Stunned:
He could have gotten a pass to use one of their libraries for a day or two, maybe…

numo wrote:

He could have gotten a pass to use one of their libraries for a day or two, maybe…

Not easy:

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/using/getting-a-readers-card

Getting a reader’s card (Bodleian Card)

If you are not a current member of Oxford University, then you will need to apply for an external reader’s card, or Library card, at the Admissions Office. Access to the Bodleian Libraries is a privilege, and the Bodleian Libraries have the right to refuse to issue a reader’s card where there is good reason to do so. If you are granted a reader’s card, it is free for Oxford University graduates, readers who want to access the Weston Library, and current members of other UK universities; otherwise, charges may apply.

Then there’s this (see Wikipedia):

Admission

Do fidem me nullum librum vel instrumentum aliamve quam rem ad bibliothecam pertinentem, vel ibi custodiae causa depositam, aut e bibliotheca sublaturum esse, aut foedaturum deformaturum aliove quo modo laesurum; item neque ignem nec flammam in bibliothecam inlaturum vel in ea accensurum, neque fumo nicotiano aliove quovis ibi usurum; item promitto me omnes leges ad bibliothecam Bodleianam attinentes semper observaturum esse.

Daisy wrote:

their intelligent,

I meant “intelligence”

Daisy wrote:

Muff Potter wrote:
For the life of me I could never understand why some men feel threatened by smart women.
I apologize for being a broken record, but case in point:
“An Open Letter to Rey”
http://warhornmedia.com/2016/03/07/an-open-letter-to-rey-from-star-wars/
Summary of that page: “women of the world, stop being so smart or competent, it makes me, a man, feel useless, inept, and stupid”
I could not, for the life of me, ask another person (or entire group of people) to intentionally water down their intelligent, talents, or personalities to make me feel better about me.
That is so lame and a level of insecurity I don’t understand, and I can sometimes be a little insecure myself.

That looks like parody, and good parody at that. It is parody, isn’t it?

@ Daisy:

Eh. I feel certain I would be bored to tears by any man like that so I suppose it’s no great loss…

I agree with those above, some of these people are desperately insecure. I think the others just want someone to boss around.

Stunned wrote:

I’m sorry, but I have to point this out. I am perplexed by the ongoing claims that this movement is wrapped in intellectualism or has anyone who would rightfully be considered an intellectual.
I’m not trying to be mean and I’m not insulting anyone’s intellect whatsoever, but would someone be willing to point out any particular evidence of this being an intellectual group or even among the educated elite? Or even academically gifted beyond merely being involved with academia itself?

Good points.

Speaking of Al Mohler, Baptist News Global today has a report on his thoughts about Dennis Hastert. From the article:

“Wednesday’s sentencing of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in a hush money case involving sexual abuse serves as a lesson for all, says a Southern Baptist seminary president criticized two weeks ago for introducing a speaker publicly identified with similar allegations at a preaching conference.”

https://baptistnews.com/2016/04/28/mohler-says-hastert-conviction-a-morality-tale/

@ Friend:
Oops. I got that wrong.

@ Law Prof:

The guy who wrote it is serious.

The head of one of the schools at Cambridge invited me to do research there for a short period (for real, no joking) and I don’t recall giving any ID beyond my ID from home. This was eight years ago. I had assumed Oxford was the same way.

In the dorkiest way possible, 🙂 But I stayed in a hostel where the window was constantly open and it was COLD and wet and after just a few days I was so tired that I was nearly punchy. All in all, not a bad place to be tired. 🙂 I remember driving around one of the roundabouts and suddenly forgetting A) which side of the road I was supposed to be driving on and B) which exit to get off of, so I just kept driving in circles, laughing hysterically until I could pull myself together enough to clearly steer in the right direction. (Who am I kidding? I probably had to turn around a few more times before I could figure out which exit.) Thanks for celebrating my dork-a-licious academic fun with me!

lowlandseer wrote:

Well this is a first. I seem to have been blocked from the TGC Twitter page!
I was responding to the latest nonsense reported by Mortification of Spin here
http://www.mortificationofspin.org/node/39776?utm_source=Mortification+of+Spin&utm_campaign=b64a9defc8-Mortification+of+Spin+combined&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8878352885-b64a9defc8-119263361
And I tweeted this as a response.
“@TGC It doesn’t make you more masculine, it simply makes you obedient. The testosterone has clearly gone to your head(ship)!”

It lasted all of five minutes before it disappeared.

So if they block any opposition, then the opposition doesn’t exist. I hate to tell them, but life doesn’t work that way.

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

Stunned wrote:
What makes these guys SO obsessed with defining masculinity? Why can’t they just BE masculine and shut up about it.
Because he isn’t. I know; I’ve met him. I’m not insulting him; it just is. He’s trying to compensate.

Amazing. His inflicting his insecurities on others is so incredibly self-centered.

Law Prof wrote:

There’s a strong homoerotic backbeat in the YRR/hard core complimentarian movement … They yearn for male intimacy, they tend to treat the little lady like a thing … they gravitate to their dudebros, and they nigh on worship their male celebrities.

Agreed. I’m seeing this more and more in my region from YRR “lead pastors” and their hand-picked “elder” teams of 20-30 year olds. They are a strange cast of characters who spend a lot of time together at local coffee shops rather than with their families or ministering to their flock. They flatter each other to the extreme. Some historical theologians over the centuries have wondered about John Calvin’s persuasions in this regard. Perhaps the spirit of Calvin is resting on the movement in more ways than we think?

I completely agree with Law Professor… There are couple of my big shot colleagues that LOVE to have big intro’s about all of their awards.. and what is said about them later/off line is not pretty… Most academics, at least in science and engineering, Do not want the kind of praise that these guys seem to crave.. we want our work to stand out… Again, kind of ironic that SECULAR academics, in general, are less into all this puff than the supposed humble “Christians”!! What my colleagues do get proud of is when their science makes an impact!

Law Prof wrote:

Bill M wrote:
Law Prof wrote:
Other than at faculty banquets where they read a few superlatives (based on actual, documented accomplishments) before handing the faculty member an award as they squirm with embarrassment, I never hear the kind of glowing praise one hears and regularly sees bestowed upon the likes of Mohler and Piper.
Todd Wilhelm did a post on this characteristic some months ago complete with audio clips of the abnormal flattery that appears to be the norm in their circles. This by itself indicates a warped system.
https://thouarttheman.org/2016/02/22/mahaneyspurgeon/
First saw it 20 years ago in Minneapolis at a March for Jesus through the streets of downtown Minneapolis, culminating in a rally in the parking lot of Piper’s church where the main event on the program was listening to Piper and two other like-minded pastors of large churches in downtown Minneapolis mount the platform and heap sickening amounts of praise on each other. Quite a racket, you could feign humility while you were basking in the praise, then take your turn at the podium and shout the praises of the other two–a quid pro quo arrangement if ever I saw one. The rest of us thousand or so lesser lights sat in our folding chairs watching these men really enjoy their praise, then give a perfunctory talk about that Jesus thing. No questioning, though, what the event was all about.

Law Prof wrote:

The movement is filled with wounded, profoundly damaged men who have the emotional maturity of a small child and who very often had horrific father-son relationships.

Oh, well, that’s just great! And to think that they are coming fresh out of seminary and straight into pastorates! Until New Calvinism came along, most SBC seminary graduates went from seminary to associate pastor positions, as ministers of education, youth pastors, or in other associate roles. They served under senior pastors who mentored them – sometimes for years. It takes a while for a preacher boy to become a man of God (some never do). Now these 20-somethings are getting their own church right out of the chute, as “lead pastors” at church plants or traditional church takeovers. They are just too spiritually immature to be pastors … and, as you note, some are packing unresolved baggage that manifests itself through authoritarian control of church folks.

Max wrote:

Law Prof wrote:
The movement is filled with wounded, profoundly damaged men who have the emotional maturity of a small child and who very often had horrific father-son relationships.
Oh, well, that’s just great! And to think that they are coming fresh out of seminary and straight into pastorates! Until New Calvinism came along, most SBC seminary graduates went from seminary to associate pastor positions, as ministers of education, youth pastors, or in other associate roles. They served under senior pastors who mentored them – sometimes for years. It takes a while for a preacher boy to become a man of God (some never do). Now these 20-somethings are getting their own church right out of the chute, as “lead pastors” at church plants or traditional church takeovers. They are just too spiritually immature to be pastors … and, as you note, some are packing unresolved baggage that manifests itself through authoritarian control of church folks.

I think the biggest problem is a significant percentage of them just flat out do not know Jesus–the form of godliness, but their lives denying the power thereof.

I’m chiming in to give a little plug for Samford University both as a long-ago graduate and the mom of a current student. It’s a great little school with a beautiful campus and excellent variety and depth of degree programs. Several schools are well respected around the region and some nationwide. The Pharmacy, Fine Arts, Nursing, Education, and Business programs do a great job. Of course, intellectual rigor varies within any university. Samford excels at turning out solid, well-educated citizens who are prepared to get on with life.
Here is what I most appreciate – even though Samford is a Baptist school, students are free to practice any faith or no faith at all. There is no indoctrination. Convocations are a requirement but the requirement can be met through concerts, lectures, and plays as well as worship services.There are many, many women among the faculty and leadership, even in the Campus Ministries. In fact, Mohler has stated in the past that ideas he encountered at Samford so distressed him that he turned away from those ideas into the welcoming arms of Calvinism. That gives me great comfort as a proud graduate!

@ Law Prof:

The guy means it.

I am pretty sure that he’s, or the site he’s writing for, is affiliated with the Bayly blog or Bayly family, who are super big into complementarianism (or patriarchy)

I would hope that the guy is joking or writing parody, but he honestly means that.

I’ve seen other complementarians (and secular conservatives who are into traditional gender roles) on other sites/blogs also ask women to make themselves smaller, to behave in a weak way, because today’s men feel turned off or threatened by women who are more independent.

I can guarantee you even if it turned out this dude was a troll, there are Christian men out there (and Non Christian conservatives) who would agree with every word of his open letter to Rey.

Daisy wrote:

@ Law Prof:
The guy means it.
I am pretty sure that he’s, or the site he’s writing for, is affiliated with the Bayly blog or Bayly family, who are super big into complementarianism (or patriarchy)
I would hope that the guy is joking or writing parody, but he honestly means that.
I’ve seen other complementarians (and secular conservatives who are into traditional gender roles) on other sites/blogs also ask women to make themselves smaller, to behave in a weak way, because today’s men feel turned off or threatened by women who are more independent.
I can guarantee you even if it turned out this dude was a troll, there are Christian men out there (and Non Christian conservatives) who would agree with every word of his open letter to Rey.

If he really does mean it, if he really thinks he’s making sense, then he needs mental help and spiritual counseling, because he’s neither coming across as a rational, competent person nor a genuine Christian.

Daisy wrote:

sites/blogs also ask women to make themselves smaller, to behave in a weak way, because today’s men feel turned off or threatened by women who are more independent.

Many here have seen this one before.
This is for the new ones that haven’t.
What Daisy is describing can be referred to as “Jock Strap Religion”
It isn’t Christianity or God’s order for marriage. It is a sham concocted by insecure men who what to put down women instead of allow healing for their inner selves.

http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/05/jock-strap-religion.html

Bookbolter wrote:

I believe the newish Divinity School at Samford has some faculty who are proponents of Calvinism

Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford, is general editor of the “Reformation Commentary on Scripture”, which is endorsed by The Gospel Coalition. I have not examined the commentary, so it may present a balanced view of reformers other than Calvin, but TGC’s endorsement of the book is bothersome. Additionally, Al Mohler called Dr. George a “dear friend” in an interview with him promoting George’s book “Reading Scripture with the Reformers.”

@ Law Prof:

I think I may have found another guy who thinks in these terms (“women need to make themselves smaller to make me feel bigger,” or, “It’s so danged attractive when women act like helpless waifs, because having self-confidence on its own is a masculine trait, not feminine”):

From A Man’s Perspective…
by Ashton Roark

‘How can a woman be both strong and beautiful?’

…Another trait that I find very attractive in my wife is that she is confident but yet tender. She does not have to become a man to compete with the men of this world.

I’m not sure what that guy’s religious beliefs are.

He’s either in his 20s or 30s and says he works a personal trainer.

Regardless, his views are similar to what one finds among some Christian gender complementarians.

This is more proof (as if it’s needed) that gender comp is a mirror of sexist attitudes found in secular culture, and it is not “counter cultural.”

I also find his emphasis on female physical appearance off putting. He says:

…When I first met Ari [his wife] she wore too much make up and her hair was dyed.

But when she toned it all back and her natural beauty shone through that’s when I fell in love with her.

I also like how athletic my wife is. I find a fit and strong female with definition in her abs and arms to be super attractive.

I believe the 21st century man likes the strong yet curvy female.

Goodness forbid his wife Ari ever gets a line on her face, gains five pounds, tries to experiment with her hair color or make-up.

Muff Potter wrote:

For the life of me I could never understand why some men feel threatened by smart women. I think smart women very sexy.

And we appreciate it Muff 😉

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Max wrote:

Regarding New Calvinist leaders now standing on 12-foot celebrity ladders, God has a way of yanking those ladders out from beneath them better than we can. In His time …

“I look for those carrying Holy Hand Grenades in their pockets and pull the pins.”
— some interview on a Christianese talk show long, long ago

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!!

okrapod wrote:

Stunned is absolutely correct. I see no intellectual rigor in these people or their educational backgrounds. They remind me of those professional carnival hawkers who end up on TV selling substandard products by the sheer energy of their presentation.

Well said.
And if they would only get back to selling the latest diet book/ haircare “miracle”/Ron Popeil invention on TV at 2 AM, wouldn’t it be a relief to us all!!!

Law Prof wrote:

The young, restless and reformed are for the most part not involved in Christianity at all, they are into idolatry, and they crave idols. There is no room in their theology for simple men and women who are flawed and not at all great, following a great God who died for them.

Only too true.

zooey111 wrote:

And if they would only get back to selling the latest diet book/ haircare “miracle”/Ron Popeil invention on TV at 2 AM, wouldn’t it be a relief to us all!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me8t12WUcu4

Mary and Me and Complementarianism (by Ruth Tucker)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/05/12/mary-and-me-and-complementarianism-by-ruth-tucker/

Mary Kassian responded to Ruth Tucker’s book. Tucker responded to Kassian’s response (and I found it very interesting – the questions she asks of complementarians on the page are also very interesting). 🙂

“Satan hates testosterone. You can’t blame him – after all, he’s seen it used to crush his head.”

The irony is that if any gendered body part is mentioned in serpent-crushing in the Bible, it is the egg cell:
Genesis 3: 15 say the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.