1st?

3

Not sure what is going on but the last four of my comments are going into moderation – one on this thread and 3 others on the previous thread.

I read The Trinity and Subordination around 2005 the Jesus and the Father around 2007. My point being Giles was pretty much out there by himself for a long long time.

The ESS guys freaked when Liam Goligher took them on much later and even backed off from what they had previously declared.

I guess because I was following the teaching trajectory of this very closely, this really bothered me. But there were people taking them on but they were not reformed and one was a woman. Giles was the only one I could find who wrote books.

I was trying to put a timeframe on it but my guess is ESS is firmly entrenched in minds from seminary and many pulpits. Ex, Grudems ST has been around since 1994 and is still a best seller on Amazon.

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Totally agree. I am anti ST for many reasons. It’s like living in a mental/spiritual box.

Dee you are correct on this before we left LBC pastor Ramey was and is teaching that Christ is subordinate to the God, and the Holy Spirit is Subordinate to Christ. Then they translate that over to members are subordinate to the pastors/elders and then women and children are subject to their husbands. Basically you fall under their authority no matter what and to go against that is to defy the order of the godhead. It didn’t dawn on me until we left how ungodly this teaching is and gos to show that it’s not just well known pastors teaching this. If pastor Ken ramey is teaching it then I’m certain churches all over the country are doing it! This is so incidious and flat out heresy. There’s my 2 cents worth.

Lydia wrote:

Grudems ST has been around since 1994 and is still a best seller on Amazon.

In his section on the Trinity, Grudem writes that the Father is analogous to the husband, Jesus to the wife, and the Holy Spirit to the children. So he not only subordinates Jesus to the Father, he goes further by subordinating the Holy Spirit to both the Father and the Son.

@ ishy:
Good question!

Shauna wrote:

Dee you are correct on this before we left LBC pastor Ramey was and is teaching that Christ is subordinate to the God, and the Holy Spirit is Subordinate to Christ. Then they translate that over to members are subordinate to the pastors/elders and then women and children are subject to their husbands. Basically you fall under their authority no matter what and to go against that is to defy the order of the godhead. It didn’t dawn on me until we left how ungodly this teaching is and gos to show that it’s not just well known pastors teaching this. If pastor Ken ramey is teaching it then I’m certain churches all over the country are doing it! This is so incidious and flat out heresy. There’s my 2 cents worth.

As for other churches: growing up, I was taught that Jesus and God were two separate things (no, not God the Father and Jesus, the One God and Jesus). Took me years to figure out that Jesus was God (in the sense that he was the member of one unified Trinity), instead of being some random extra figure.

Even when I was a believer I never understood the Trinity. Logically it doesn’t make a lot of sense and is quite the brain twister when you read the bible literally (as many fundamentalists tend to do).

You have 3 “aspects of God” – father, son and holy spirit – all one God but in the bible Jesus (who is God) prays to himself (also God) a few times and God states how pleased he is with Jesus (who is himself) during the baptism, then you have the holy spirit in there who is also spoken of in the third person but is God. By the time all’s said and done you wonder how Christianity can be considered monotheistic.

I’m not saying this line of thinking is correct but ESS provides an easy to understand hierarchy that literalists can relate to. You have Dad, you have the son. In your own life your kids are subordinate to you. Just like you’re subordinate to God so no problem right?

It seems these groups can’t understand anything without hierarchy so God -> Son -> Church -> Pastor ->Man -> farm animal -> Woman -> kids

Strictly reading the bible this seems to be the prevailing way of things.

However in using ESS to justify the headship of man over woman doesn’t make sense either. Makes sense for a Father to be over the Son but Jesus was a dude. It’s a father-child relationship, not marital. So logically that falls flat. So complementarians see their wives as children – insert the ewww factor.

For what it’s worth, redefining the Trinity (such as it is), redefines the faith as it as stood for millennia and I’m glad that folks are speaking up about it.

Complementarianism is an interpretation from a biblical culture that defines men and women roles as they stood in antiquity – many thousands of years ago. It doesn’t have a place in the 21st century.

my apologies – “wholly” spirit should have been “holy” spirit – see how ignorant I am of how the Trinity works? Can’t even spell it right.

@ Jack:
I loved it!!; True you know….wholly.

@ Jack:
And the word Trinity is never used in scripture. But it’s “heresy” to even suggest we try not to use the word for a greater understanding.

Tree wrote:

I guess they will find another way to prove that boys rule, girls drool.

Yes.

It’s sort of telling that this doctrinal debate is the thing that brought out passion and correction, rather than abuse, neglect, subordination of women.

Dr. Goligher has some fantastic sermons on Esther you can listen to online, btw.

Lydia wrote:

This breaks my heart. I recognized the heresy early on because I was taught Jesus as God in the flesh.

It’s amazing what does (and doesn’t) get taught in church.

Jack wrote:

However in using ESS to justify the headship of man over woman doesn’t make sense either. Makes sense for a Father to be over the Son but Jesus was a dude. It’s a father-child relationship, not marital. So logically that falls flat. So complementarians see their wives as children – insert the ewww factor.

It never made sense to me. I think the ‘logic’ is ‘the bible says the husband should love his wife like christ loved the church and give himself up for her, so obvs she should give up her life entirely for him – See footnote, ees’

This is what happens when you begin with the end in mind (women as lesser), and fix a theory to fit it.

Sam wrote:

Lydia wrote:
This breaks my heart. I recognized the heresy early on because I was taught Jesus as God in the flesh.
It’s amazing what does (and doesn’t) get taught in church.

We used to sing the doxology ‘praise god from whom all blessings flow…praise father son and holy ghost’ as a baptist and at my presby church we sing ‘praise triune god whom we adore’.

Lydia wrote:

@ Sam:
This breaks my heart. I recognized the heresy early on because I was taught Jesus as God in the flesh.

Same here. Was taught Jesus was the visible form of God.

Hmmmm… A theology that says that not even the Trinity is “created” equal? Sounds like something that could catch on with all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.

Disclaimer: I am not accusing anyone holding to ESS of anything, just pointing out some broader implications. Just as some people misapply Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” to justify dog-eat-dog business practices, ESS can be misapplied to social constructs.

@ Max:

How can equal be turned into….but subordinate?
If I believed Jesus was a perpetual child within the Trinity, it would devastate my faith. He lowered himself willingly to face the cross for my redemption. If he were made to do it, what love is that?

Mae wrote:

How can equal be turned into….but subordinate?

Good question, but they manage to do it with the ‘no gentile/jew, male/female, slave/free’ passage too, although we’ve jettisoned all but male/female at this point.
Mae wrote:

If I believed Jesus was a perpetual child within the Trinity, it would devastate my faith. He lowered himself willingly to face the cross for my redemption. If he were made to do it, what love is that?

It’s a completely different type of action on Jesus’s part, isn’t it? Where is the love in any of this?

Max wrote:

What is the first thing that comes to mind when we think about New Calvinism? Beyond the aberrations in belief and practice of the new reformation, we think of men (John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Al Mohler, etc.). That’s because New Calvinism is man-centered, not Christ-centered. When man and his doctrine become the center, you have the ingredients of heresy. Any teaching that makes Jesus less than God has declared Him to be is misbelief and delusional and must be rejected, along with any who teach it. The doctrine of Eternal Subordination of the Son does not place Jesus preeminent in Christian faith, regardless of the occasional drop of His name by New Calvinists to make them appear credible. Grudem, Ware and their supporters knew if they could get you (generic you) to believe their carefully-crafted lie about Jesus being subordinate in the Trinity, they could more easily deceive you into believing that female believers are subordinate to men in the Kingdom (their kingdom).

This. Wholeheartedly agree! This is a fundamental problem in small fundamental Bible churches, in my experience. Man centered systematic theology has shoved Jesus off into a corner and those guy’s religion, a return to bondage, is practiced by all of the manly men christ-shuns.

Very well put!

@ Nick Bulbeck:
@ Lydia:

Agree!

@ ishy:
Moore is just getting started. His tentacles are far reaching now. Mohler made his bones being a culture warrior on radio and Larry King. Never once mentioned Calvinism, Reformed or spoke in terms of deterministic beliefs.

He is that good.

Jack wrote:

It seems these groups can’t understand anything without hierarchy so God -> Son -> Church -> Pastor ->Man -> farm animal -> Woman -> kids

The Great Chain of Being. Kiss up, Kick down, Boots on Faces all the way down, and God just stomps with the Biggest Boot of all. Very convenient if you’re the one on top holding the whip.

I first heard of this cosmology in association with the Medieval Church, but later found it originated in pre-Christian Roman society. Kiss up, kick down, Power Struggle Without End, Awe Kaesar.

Mae wrote:

@ Max:
How can equal be turned into….but subordinate?

My Dear Wormwood,
I refer you to my previous epistle on Semantics, specifically the Redefinition of Words.
Your Ravenously Affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape

@ Mae:
It’s based on the old “separate but equal” thinking. They use fancy words like ontology, essence, economy to take you into the abyss. So equal in essence but not in function, basically. Then you create a hierarchy of functions.

Bruce Ware has this whole “singing parts from sheet music analogy” he used which drove me nuts. And they mangle Phil 2 and 1 Corinthians 11 beyond recognition as proof texts.

I knew I should not get started on this thread. Sigh. 🙂 I can take a lot of things but projecting the Trinity as an oligharchical hierarchy is one I won’t take lightly.

Mae wrote:

Lydia wrote:
@ Sam:
This breaks my heart. I recognized the heresy early on because I was taught Jesus as God in the flesh.

Same here. Was taught Jesus was the visible form of God.

And in doing/being so, keeps God on a one-to-one human scale.

@ okrapod:
totally agree the concept of equality in the godhead is different. Not sure we can fully fathom the concept of “one mind” to that extent.

But Wow. What you wrote woukd make for a great discussion!

@ Lea:
Yes! Yes! Yes! Most of them, is my guess.

@ Lea:
Hee hee. That was my first thought when I heard him. But then, I think we gals are regulated to harmony no matter what.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Mae wrote:
Everything in the Neo Cal world is a power construct. Sadly, it’s almost a game of, who’s on top.
Like Hell in the preface to Screwtape Letters, where everyone is perpetually concerned with their own advancement (at the expense of everyone else). Kiss Up, Kick Down, and plot to backstab your Superior and take his place.

You got it right!

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Mormons, too. Cheryl Schatz first recognized ESS way back because she had a ministry to those exiting cults like JW and Mormon. She recognized the similarities of error and produced a DVD about ESS that is excellent. What is really interesting is looking at ESS from an OT pov.

https://www.amazon.com/Trinity-Eternity-Future-Explaining-Exposing/dp/B001ID8582

@ Lea:
In my view, alto is harder. And choral conductors are always trying to turn sopranos into altos. Surely there is a correlating metaphor there? 😉

Jack wrote:

It seems these groups can’t understand anything without hierarchy so God -> Son -> Church -> Pastor ->Man -> farm animal -> Woman -> kids

Although in practical terms it works out more like this:

Pastor -> God -> Son -> Church -> Man -> farm animal -> Woman -> kids

(part 1)
In the late 1990s, I read a book called “Good News For Women” by Rebecca Groothius.

Unfortunately, that book was lost in a move, so I don’t have my copy any longer.

From what I remember of the book, she did a good job of dismantling complementarian views to the degree (and I hope I can accurately summarize how she put it)-

She said really the only way complementarians could even slightly hope to justify keeping women subordinate to men, based upon “roles,” was to in turn base that concept as being grounded in women’s very being (i.e., ontological arguments), and the only way to try do that was to turn to E.S.S. (to argue that Jesus was eternally subordinate to the Father).

Without being able to rationalize keeping women in inferior positions to men by basing it on their very natures (which is what ESS arguments attempt to do), complementarians do not have a leg to stand on.
(continued in part 2)

Lea wrote:

Now I’m wondering if he thinks altos are outside the created order?

Well, we do tend to be the ones goofing off…

Injun Joe wrote:

Even the name of the institution (Liberty University) is rich in irony…

Dr. Falwell, for all his faults, was a big believer in the priesthood of the believer and personal autonomy. That didn’t quite translate all the way down to his views on women in ministry and marriage roles, but one time he told me personally to “Go evangelize Asia”. I don’t think the New Cals would ever tell me, a mere woman, that.

@ Mae:

Ahhh, but the males CAN be a grand poobah one day. (And they can be one in their little family one day, too) That was part of the underlying message that resonated with so many young men. They could be the next Mohler if they carried enough of their water and praised them enough. Just to be invited to be in the same room with such greatness was enough. Much like middle school girls and Justin Bieber.

refugee wrote:

Pastor -> God -> Son -> Church -> Man -> farm animal -> Woman -> kids

🙂
kids>dog

@ Daisy:
Asking the “why” is a great point. My experience with that usually came down to: well, created order is the reason . God said so. The Bible says so. (No it doesn’t) You are arguing with God….and so on.

Created order actually brings up even more problems. Even if one reads the Genesis Creation narrative literally. In my view, They needed ESS as a mapping tool to shut people down.

Now, all I hear is that I hate authority. Yes, I can agree with that to a certain extent by nuancing it to “human authority for adults”. I can live with shared and equally applied laws as my “authority”. But, even our jobs are contracts for crying out loud. We aren’t serfs although it might feel like it. 🙂

@ Daisy:

By the way, I hope it doesn’t look arrogant of me to quote my own posts at times like I did there, LOL.

I sometimes will re-read a post I made to check for typos, and something in it will trigger another thought about something else I want to comment on.

(So I’m not quoting myself out of some grandiose notion that I’m this esteemed genius.)

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Mae wrote:
Everything in the Neo Cal world is a power construct. Sadly, it’s almost a game of, who’s on top.
Like Hell in the preface to Screwtape Letters, where everyone is perpetually concerned with their own advancement (at the expense of everyone else). Kiss Up, Kick Down, and plot to backstab your Superior and take his place.

Sounds like the way Jack Campbell constructed the “corporation” society in his “Lost Fleet” sci-fi series.

@ Dave A A:
I wish I could remember which Giles book I read this in but it startled me back then to read Giles outlining how Bruce Ware had actually edited Anthanasius to make him come off as pro ESS.

I was astonished a “scholar” would do this so cavalierly. But then, I thought of the bubble and Wares position in the bubble. Who would question? I don’t think he counted on how much the internet would changed things.

And eventually, I found quite a bit of this sort of thing from Grudem and Piper (their “work” on Junia as an example)

(Personally, I believe Servetus was a man born in the wrong century. So he conned his way into areas of interest: Religion, medicine, law. I have tried to read all I can find on him. He was brilliant, it seems and in a very caste system society could never be accepted)

Daisy wrote:

By the way – being critical of a thing (such as evangelicalism or whatever) is not the same thing as “hating” something.
(A person can be critical of a topic without hating it. Criticism does not always denote hatred.)

That would be a rational approach, IMO.

However, many of these guys who use ad hominem attacks (“everybody who disagrees with my take on theologist is a radical Commie feminist”) do not strike me as rational. Or if they are rational, they are evilly, coldly logical in their wicked schemes.

Inflammatory language, sorry. Does it go so far as “ad hominem”?

dee wrote:

I always get antsy when some theologian comes up with a view of the Trinity that supports his view on secondary issues such as gender roles. Seriously, the Trinity is something huge, complex, beyond full understanding by us since we have nothing in this world which exists in such a state.

I also do not see how the complementarian – Trinity stuff is applicable to all women.

It looks to me as though the majority of complementarian argumentation is in place merely to keep convincing Christian wives that (point 1) God intends for the wives to play “second bananas” to husbands.

(And, point 2, complementarians are also obsessed with barring women from being preachers.)

Outside of that, especially point 1, I have no idea how this
“Trinity = eternal subordination = wives submit”
stuff applies to never-married ladies, such as myself, or to widowed or divorced women.

Lydia wrote:

Moore is just getting started. His tentacles are far reaching now. Mohler made his bones being a culture warrior on radio and Larry King. Never once mentioned Calvinism, Reformed or spoke in terms of deterministic beliefs.
He is that good.

Moore upset a big chunk of his own ilk with his statements on politics. They are calling for him to be ousted. I get where he and Mohler were going with that–they thought they could get more millennials and post-millennials on board with New Calvinism if they went moderate in politics. But they forgot that much of the YRR is extremely conservative and active in politics. Of course, a lot of people have been unhappy with just having the ERLC to begin with. Land took it far into political land and that’s what people expect from it now.

@ ishy:
He showed the big mega boys the potential for money in the high stakes NGO business. He got a pass.

Lydia wrote:

You might be able to Google Denny Burk and Phil 2 because he blogged a lot. He mangled it beyond anything. He basically presents it as, ‘see, even Jesus admits He isn’t equal to the Father’.

I don’t know about Burk, but if you look at that passage in the NIV and in the NKJV you get a different picture. Was he by his very nature God or was he in the form of God? So-back to the translations again. Either argument can be made depending on how it is translated. So I am thinking that is how they, whoever they are, do it.

@ okrapod:
Good point. It helps to understand they were trying to sell ESS and there are several passages they rely on and build around. It’s been about 10 years since I was immersed in this so time fogs it about. There are quite a few translations that are very different concerning Phil 2. Look at the Geneva:

6 Who being in the [f]form of God, [g]thought it no robbery to be [h]equal with God:
7 But he made himself of [i]no reputation, and took on him the [j]form of a servant, and was made like unto men, and was found in shape as a man.
8 He humbled himself, and became obedient unto the death, even the death of the cross.

The question for me is why woukd He have to humble Himself? And “He made Himself”…

OTOH, we are created in His Image and can’t seem to nail that down to specifics, either. Unless I have missed something?

@ dee:
Lol!

3 in 1 shampoo!!! That’s a new one for me.

There’s the 3 legged stool
The Egg
3 in 1 water thing.
3 peas in a pod

Any others y’all can think of?

@ Lea:
With icing?

Lydia wrote:

@ Lea:
With icing?

There is no such thing as cake without icing. I may, on occasion, except a glaze. That is all.

In Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, his recent post “The Trinity: Not from the Bible Alone”, Alastair Roberts makes the following comment:

Alastair J Roberts • 2 days ago

Frankly, both sides need to get their act together here. Neither has moral high ground in this debate.
————————

Who is Alastair and where does he fit in the evangelical, inc. scheme of things?

He says comps as well as egals need to ‘get their act together’. Anyone know what he’s referring to? Maybe it’s for him to explain.

What is ‘orthodox’ and what is ‘heresy’ is defined by whoever gains the upper hand in some argument-or in some political playoff. It is not a thing in itself, it is rather an opinion about something. ‘Traditional’ varies with what tradition one is talking about.

None of these conclusions are necessarily tied to true vs not true. One hopes that they might be, but reformations and revolutions have stuck fingers in the eyes of traditions just lots.

@ elastigirl:

Maybe Roberts is saying that Giles’ description sounds too much like tritheism rather than trinity? Giles description would not require ontological oneness perhaps but merely co-operation and dependency, noting that he uses the term communion rather than unity.

Or maybe not-just a passing thought.

Lydia wrote:

Any others y’all can think of?

The 1966 film: The Bible: In the Beginning…”
That is what I base my view of the Trinity on. The portrayal of the three “men” who visited Abraham on the way to Sodom & Gomorrah. Played by Peter O’Toole as “The Three Angles” Always that that part was moving.

@ A.Tumbleweed:
I need to check that out!

Lydia wrote:

them throwing out big theological terms

Someone the other day posted that their teeny little church was doing a series on ‘Eschatology’ the other day. I’m not opposed to big words or anything, but their does seem to be this ‘throw theological terms at the wall’ emphasis now that I don’t remember from childhood. It obscures more than anything, or maybe its just a signaling device like all the culture things. One of us/not one of us.

@ dee:
I am stealing that. I always go back to the Old Testament. One True God. The What.

And in there we see the Lord of host armies, the Lord said to the Lord, The spirit hovering, Elohim, etc. Too many manifestation to mention.

@ Lea:
Any good teacher/trainer will not try to impress but will seek the hearers understanding. If the topic is big words, then fine. But if it’s understanding a concept, give the background including various names and seek understanding. Very frustrating. People who feel like they are being insulted or are ignorant are not going to open their minds.

Lydia wrote:

@ dee:
Lol!
3 in 1 shampoo!!! That’s a new one for me.
There’s the 3 legged stool
The Egg
3 in 1 water thing.
3 peas in a pod
Any others y’all can think of?

Cherry pie.

Lydia wrote:

It’s rather silly really. Why would NT authors need to shore up Patriarchy? It was a 1st Century cultural given.

Well, it’s obvious that you don’t believe the Bible or go to a Bible-believing church. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Muff Potter wrote:

The crafters (all men) of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy were very careful to disavow hyperbole in article 13…

If they really believed that, there would be a lot of eyeless men walking around…

Dave A A wrote:

Bottom line, to me, is that only one solitary human being has ever gotten the trinity “right”.

I’d rather deal with a Mensch (Yiddish for good person) who gets it wrong than a tyrant who gets it right.

Just so you know, Dr. Ware’s position is not the final position or the one that’s held by most students coming out of Southern Seminary. Dr. Stephen Wellum opposes Ware’s Trinitarian position on ESS. It’s well known on campus that Wellum is THE theologian at SBTS (not that Ware or Allison are anything to scoff at). I bring this up because sometimes seminaries are connected to a certain prof’s position, which isn’t always correct to do. I’m not saying you did that here. I just wanted to bring it up. Having been taught by Wellum, I think ESS is incorrect.

@ refugee:
Ok. You got me.

@ Lea:
It’s one thing I like about NT Wright. he will use the terms but he always explains them. He often makes fun of them.

https://books.google.com/books/about/God_the_Son_Incarnate.html?id=rvh7DQAAQBAJ&hl=en

Published 2016. Crossway.

https://www.crossway.org/authors/stephen-j-wellum/

It still amazes me how a few guys with an agenda can lead the largest denomination in the US towards an understanding of God’s nature that would have gotten them tossed out of the early church, and/or slapped in the face, without anyone noticing. Giles is a hero.

@ bunny:
Lol! Perfect description!

It seems like the purveyors of ESS have done the exact thing that conservative Christian leaders accuse liberal or progressive Christians of doing. They staked out a position – women are always subordinate to men – and then they created a theology to support it. And the fact that they were willing to flout the Bible, the creeds, and every traditional and mainline understanding of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in order to do so shows how very, very determined they were to preserve and extend the power of men and to devalue women.

@ Lowlandseer:

In other words: no, but sort of, but mostly not really if you think about it

Adam Embry wrote:

Dr. Stephen Wellum opposes Ware’s Trinitarian position on ESS.

That’s good, and it is also true that Erikson’s ST was (is?) used as well. The problem is that the ESS theology is the foundation for Complementarianism which cannot be sustained without it. I imagine that Dr. Wellum affirms Danvers. I also think that before your generation sees the Lord face to face that Complementarianism will be seen as a foolish venture into speculative theology just as ESS is seen now.

GSD [Getting Stuff Done] wrote:

It still amazes me how a few guys with an agenda can lead the largest denomination in the US towards an understanding of God’s nature

Well, it happens when people are not Bereans and when men who purport to be teachers of the Bible do not tell the truth about what the Bible says. I hope I am not being too blunt. Danvers is one lie after another. I hope I am not being too blunt. It happens when God’s people are lazy and do not pay attention and ask questions and just go along. I hope I am not being too blunt.

Just to be perfectly clear, I was one of the people who did not pay attention. We knew there were Female Subordinationists in other groups, but we had no idea they were so close to home until we started paying attention. Then we had some decisions to make.

bunny wrote:

@ Lydia:
Having endured two semesters of it over a decade ago, I could NOT agree more. It is like
dissecting the Word of God as if it were a dead cat instead of the Living Word of God.

Turning everything into an Intellectual Abstraction?
(As in nuclear war –> Only a Three-point-seven Gigadeath situation?)

Lydia wrote:

@ Nick Bulbeck:
Totally agree. I am anti ST for many reasons. It’s like living in a mental/spiritual box.

How about strait jacket?

Gram3 wrote:

Well, it happens when people are not Bereans and when men who purport to be teachers of the Bible do not tell the truth about what the Bible says.

Being a Berean is hard work. Many folks are not up to it and have no desire to dig for themselves. They’d rather be told what to believe and let it go at that. It takes the onus off of them, assures them absolute linearization of Scripture (god said it, i believe it, and that settles it), and they can always come back and say:
‘This is what I was taught.’
Easy peasey.

Muff Potter wrote:

Being a Berean is hard work.

Walking the narrow way requires some balance and vigilance, metaphorically. In our case we were paying attention to other matters which were much weightier to us personally because, honestly, Complementarianism does not affect us personally. When we first discovered ESS so many years ago, we were outra”ged that it was being taught and that it was being taught only it was the support for female subordination in the home and male exclusivity in the clergy. How pathetic is that! It is unimaginable to me that “elders” and Ph.D./PhD scholars who claim the name of Christ would be willing to subordinate him in order to lift themselves up.

Mike Warnke, of all people, talked about cherry pie as an imperfect picture of the trinity. You look at it and see the top crust, and you can cut it into distinct pieces, but the filling all runs together as one under the crust.

Or something like that.
Lydia wrote:

@ refugee:
Ok. You got me.

Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:

Lydia wrote:

It’s based on the old “separate but equal” thinking. They use fancy words like ontology, essence, economy to take you into the abyss. So equal in essence but not in function, basically. Then you create a hierarchy of functions.

What that line of thinking boils down to is we will be equal after we die, but never while we are alive.

Oh, no — not even after we die. Some of these guys are teaching that women will be subordinate into eternity.

@ Gram3:

Your last line communicates my sentiments, exactly about ESS. A desperate need to be on top by de-edifying Jesus Christ.

Was it Grudem in his book about female subordination (they run together) in trying to sell female subordination wrote that God “submits” to us when He helps us. Parents “submit” to children when they help with homework. And so on. Elevating by Twisting meanings, etc.

Lydia wrote:

God “submits” to us when He helps us

Can I say, the twisting of Eve helping Adam is one that bugs me a lot. As if helping is something only subordinates do. That’s not right at all! even without getting into original languages. So irritating.

@ Lea:
Yes. Horrible translation of Ezer which is also used to describe God and others in the OT. It even has warrior connotations. As in warriors standing together to subdue the earth. Carolyn Custis James has the best descriptor: “Blessed Alliance”. The subordinists hate the “mutual” stuff. Which is why I like mutual (as in all 58 one another’s) better than egalitarian which is just too French Revolution for me. 🙂

dee wrote:

I always get antsy when some theologian comes up with a view of the Trinity that supports his view on secondary issues such as gender roles.

Maybe they don’t teach TRANSCENDENCE in their Systematics anymore. I don’t know. Nobody tells me anything, and it’s hard for me to keep up. I am but a mere older woman, but I’m doing the best I can…

Here’s my opinion and it’s just that—one person’s opinion, and I could sure be wrong.

The people who embrace this sort of thing are not usually Christians filled with the Holy Spirit who get some bad teaching from a seminary professor and run off on a wrong track from which they need to be corrected and they’ll have their eyes opened and slap their foreheads and say “What was I thinking?”.

No, I sincerely believe that people who get off on these wrong tracks, playing heretical games with the very nature of Jesus Himself, typically do not know Jesus at all, only give lip service to this “Christianity thing”, and are fakes, lovers of doctrines, worshippers of men in lust of their power over women and others, and willing to sell even Jesus down the river to grab what they list after. I do not believe they are Christians at all; they’re dangerous fakes and liars—to themselves and others.

Gram3 wrote:

Well, it happens when people are not Bereans and when men who purport to be teachers of the Bible do not tell the truth about what the Bible says. I hope I am not being too blunt.

No, you’re not too blunt. Most of the good churchgoers that I know, especially the ones I knew in my Baptist days, were nominal at best. They were caught up in the business of life, work, school, events, TV… And church on Sunday, when the Pastor fed you the Word. The main reason for leaving a church was, “We weren’t being fed.”

Folks like this barely understand Calvinism, much less something like the Trinity, or the debates in church history. “Mystery” covers a lot of topics.

The irony is, the same is true of many pastors. I have some friends in that business, the business of professional Christianity, and I’m not sure how many of them would even know what ESS means, much less have an understanding of the controversy or history. Like their sheep, they are too busy with other things.

Anyway, I wrote this post this evening for anyone who is interested:

Gender Complementarian Trinitarian Analogies Do Not Work
https://missdaisyflower.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/gender-complementarian-trinitarian-analogies-do-not-work/

Refugee wrote:

Oh, no — not even after we die. Some of these guys are teaching that women will be subordinate into eternity.

I don’t know where this leaves never-married or divorced women.

The religious guys asked Jesus about this, sort of.

They asked Jesus, “A woman has been married and divorced X times. When she dies and goes to the afterlife, which of the X number husbands will she be married to?,”

And Jesus was like (paraphrase by me), “LOL, there is no marriage in the afterlife, you doofus. Your question is moot.”

I’m a woman who’s so far not been married.

If I die ten minutes from now, I wouldn’t have a husband in the afterlife to submit to. I guess I get to boss people around too?

Complementarians just do not come up with responses to all possible scenarios.

Complementarianism only works for a very small number of people in very specific circumstances (e.g., married, with kids, middle class or higher income, husband in good health, husband not abusive, husband has a steady, good paying job, etc.)

I believe in male headship, but don’t change my Trinitarianism for it. ESS doesn’t seem to line up with historical Christian readings on the Trinity. @ elastigirl:

Law Prof wrote:

No, I sincerely believe that people who get off on these wrong tracks, playing heretical games with the very nature of Jesus Himself, typically do not know Jesus at all, only give lip service to this “Christianity thing”, and are fakes, lovers of doctrines, worshippers of men in lust of their power over women and others, and willing to sell even Jesus down the river to grab what they list after. I do not believe they are Christians at all; they’re dangerous fakes and liars—to themselves and others.

I can get on board with that.

I just said something similar in a post I wrote on my Daisy blog.

There may be some complementarians who are naive and who honestly feel that the Bible teaches female subordination, and they want to be true to God and yada yada – but –

I sense that most of the ones who teach this stuff and who defend it the most stubbornly – are driven by sexism and/or thirst for power over others.

I’d like to know how and where the Holy Spirit fits in to the ivory tower speculation on ESS. A serious red flag, for me at least, is any discussion of “The Trinity” that leaves out one third.

Considering how often Jesus and the Holy Spirit are shoved off into a corner in most, if not all YRR influenced preaching, writing, philosophizing, I wonder sometimes if these men aren’t applying for one of those two jobs themselves.

For me, its easier to see what’s missing (love, The Holy Spirit) than it is to wade thru the bloviation.

A dear friend has rejected God because she has suffered the death of mom, dad, and husband all in a very short time frame. These men who twist and shout their opinions have absolutely nothing to say to her. Maybe they have nothing to say to anyone.

Maybe they should try getting their hands dirty in the stuff of real life for a change. Oh, but wait. We can’t engage in any “social-gospely” thing now can we?
Puke.

Riley wrote:

2. The bible says that eve was deceived and sinned, which means that women can’t be trusted, so men should be in charge.

I’m not sure how sinning because you were deceived could possibly be worse than sinning because you wanted to sin.

Gram3 wrote:

And the first step in unwinding this mess is to really just start at the beginning and test every statement and ask whether the text actually does say that or whether that is an inference or something else imported into the text.

Besides asking if the interpretation is correct, I find that you have to question the translation sometimes too. You know something is hinky when a word has a different definition depending on if it’s used referring to a man or to a woman.

Adam Embry wrote:

There are numerous systematic texts used in various classes, typically requiring around 3k plus of systematic reading. @ Gram3:

Assuming they cover some breadth, that is good. I’m just an old, ultra-conservative cradle roll Southern Baptist who is horrified by what has happened to the SBC. I am an inerrantist, not a feminist, and I’m someone who actually believes that we should get our theology from the text and not put it into the text. So, ergo, I’m not a huge fan of Systematics, where scholars are tempted to do what scholars are tempted to do, as ESS demonstrates so well. Depth and breadth of reading can help with that to some degree. I do not think that Grudem’s capture of the market has served young Evangelicals well.

Riley wrote:

2. The bible says that eve was deceived and sinned, which means that women can’t be trusted, so men should be in charge.
I’ve heard both of them many times.

Not only was she deceived but more importantly, she admitted it!

Adam sinned on purpose then blamed God and Eve.

If that is a “leadership litmus test” which one do you think passed? 🙂

Gram3 wrote:

What do you mean my male headship? Is it prescriptive or descriptive in the text, and does it apply universally or only within the family?

I’ve used Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian’s challenges several times and the response was dead silence…. smile

Check his 10 challenges about female subordination here:

https://godswordtowomen.org/bilezikian.htm

Ken F (aka Tweed) wrote:

Wayne Grudem subordinates the Spirit to both the Father and the Son in his Systematic Theology. I don’t have the page number, but in his section on the Trinity he compares the Spirit to the children in a family – under the authority of other the two members of the Trinity.

Now THAT is really whacked! What are they on anyway? The “Cult of Systematic Theology” rolls on…

@ Adam Embry:
But they did. For many years. Even the ones who disagreed kept their mouths shut because it did not go along with the party line Mohler built in the SBC. Mohler contends ESS is an acceptable option.

Gram3 wrote:

I’m not a huge fan of Systematics, where scholars are tempted to do what scholars are tempted to do … I do not think that Grudem’s capture of the market has served young Evangelicals well.

Amen! SBC’s New Calvinist who’s-who use Grudem to support their movement. If you want to indoctrinate young minds at seminary, but Grudem in front of them as required reading. He is a strong advocate of Calvinistic soteriology, elder-rule church governance, and the “beauty” of complementarity. He is a master at taking text out of context to fuel the new reformation. Thousands of young reformers can thank him for steering them off course in their ministries.

Lydia wrote:

it has been cult of personality in the YRR movement. From Mohler to Piper.

No doubt about it! New Calvinism is man-centered, not Christ-centered. If you want to test that statement, step into an SBC-YRR church plant in your area next Sunday. Sit in the back with a notepad listing 4 columns: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, New Calvinist Icon. By the end of the “sermon”, you will have recorded several check-marks for “God”, a few for Jesus (maybe), none for the Holy Spirit … and more mention of Piper, Keller, Mohler, etc. than Jesus! The young reformers are name-droppers who don’t lift the name of Jesus above all names. (at least in my neck of the woods – hope it’s better where you live)

Adam Embry wrote:

ESS doesn’t seem to line up with historical Christian readings on the Trinity.

Forget the “readings” of mere men … it doesn’t line up with the whole Scripture! Only cherry-picking select passages would paint an ESS picture. But, it’s a portrait that does not belong in the Kingdom.

@ Max:

The question is how that could happen. Naturally I have an idea or three-a bit of which may be significant or not. During the time I was SBC there were other things to worry about-the great depression, WWII, the cold war, the Korean War, the VietNam War along with the cultural revolution. Sound emphasis on ‘the bible says’ fell by the wayside. People were thinking about other things-hugely important and scary things though they be. A whole generation or two or three were let to grow up unlearned and untaught in many areas. All people wanted from church was ‘fellowship of kindred minds’ usually about political and social issues and ‘love’ too often defined as license.

I can’t blame people; the times were overwhelming. Still are in some aspects. But none the less people were left in vulnerable positions and fell victim to some twisted ideas and bad theology (if any). So now ‘leadership’ is scrambling over the wreckage and trying to redesign stuff, apparently using secular business concepts, and it is a sad thing to see. I agree with LawProf, some of the leadership appears to be unconverted-literally unconverted-at least in their thinking and methodologies.

Once when I was a kid I literally slid down the side of a mountain a ways. They had to come rescue me. It was terrifying because there was so much farther to potentially slide and I was basically helpless. I get that feeling again about some of this. Whatever in the first place made us think that down the side of the mountain was a good idea?

Lea wrote:

When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Been in the rabbit whole too many times in my 17 year Calvinista adventure.

ION: Cricket

England are struggling with the bat on day 1 of the Second Test; 140-5 when I last looked, and it may be even worse the noo. Aren’t likely to post 250.

IHTIH

Mae wrote:

How has ego and recognition become so dominant in our society, so much so, that the church exemplifies it?

Exemplifies it while giving lip service to standing up against the “culture”.

Gram3 wrote:

@ Riley:
And the first step in unwinding this mess is to really just start at the beginning and test every statement and ask whether the text actually does say that or whether that is an inference or something else imported into the text. I will assure you that their logic is flawed, but once you see the flaws, you cannot unsee them. Somewhere on TWW is a list of the Ten Reasons for Male Headship. It is a classic Ware/Grudem logical fallacy prooftext bonanzapallooza. Thing is, once you study that, you can take apart Danvers in the same way because it is the same trickery. And once you see how Danvers is done, you can see how Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s essays are done.

To quote Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start…”

When Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology first came out, it was reviewed in The Gospel Coalition theological journal Themelios (Volume 22, number 1, October 1996) by Roy Kearsley of the then Glasgow Bible College. As you will see from his remarks, the error of ESS was picked up quite quickly and found to be completely out with the traditional understanding of the Trinity. Grudem’s assertion was shown to lack both substance and evidence. The big question for me is Why did the TGC ignore what was so plainly staring them in the face? Why did they continue to endorse someone who was so far out of the way as to be on the road to heresy?

Anyway, here is the quote from Roy Kearsley’s review.

(Grudem’s writes in the introduction the following) “‘[apart from the Bible] the other writers I interact with in this book are mostly within what is today called the larger ‘conservative evangelical’ tradition … I think someone needs to say that it is doubtful that liberal theologians have given us any significant insight to the doctrinal teachings of Scripture that are not already to be found in evangelical writers’.”

(Kearsley then comments in the review) “But his dismissal of modern insights also impoverishes some parts of the work (for example, ecclesiology) and leaves it at those points without a depth it could have had. It also ensures that applications will often be fairly bland without a radical cutting edge and challenge.

In addition, it leads him into mistakes. He introduces, for instance, the idea of ‘economic subordinationism’ into the Trinity. This does not seem to resemble either role differentiation (or ‘appropriation’), as in the mainstream Christian tradition, or the Son’s subordination in the ‘State of Humiliation’ (Berkhof’s Reformed approach). It seems rather to endorse the ‘hierarchical’ Trinity which has come under question from theologians of most traditions in recent days, including many with a devout view of Scripture and faith. They may be wrong—but you will not get Grudem to tell you why. True to form, we are led in due time to the statement that ‘Just as God the father has authority over the Son so in a marriage, the husband has authority over the wife’. A glance at such despised ‘liberals’ as Jurgen Moltmann would have delivered a caution against such an unorthodox statement, one that appears nowhere in the NT and is not authorized in the confessions and creeds”

@ Burwell:

My grammar be atrocious. My apologies to all. smh

Adam Embry wrote:

There was a huge backlash against Grudem over this.

I don’t remember anyone speaking out against Grudem until very recently about much of anything. I certainly don’t remember anyone speaking out against Ware’s ESS at SBTS or elsewhere in the SBC. One word from Mohler and that would have been the end of it. So that is why no one believes what he says when he says he does not believe it himself. That is why no one believes Denny Burk or Tom Schreiner or Andreas Kostenberger or anyone else at any SBC seminary who says they don’t believe it *now.* Where were they all these years when ESS was being preached in order to subjugate women? They were happy to go along with it as long as it served their purposes. Where is the integrity there?

@ Lea:
Meant to say that was quoting grudem, not lowlandseer.

@ Burwell:

It is my understanding that Salem College is the oldest historically and currently majority female college, but Meredith is the largest historically and currently majority female college. So much for people predicting the downfall of predominately female schools.

For a while I commuted from work to study with a violinist at Meredith trying to regain some lost skills, and my daughter got her masters at Salem. All of that was really nice but too expensive.

@ okrapod:

I agree…both schools are good schools. My mom is a Salem alumna and one of my sisters is a Meredith alumna (though both my sisters attended M at some point in their respective collegiate careers). I was referring to Peace College, now William Peace University. 🙂

Lowlandseer wrote:

The big question for me is Why did the TGC ignore what was so plainly staring them in the face? Why did they continue to endorse someone who was so far out of the way as to be on the road to heresy?

Because he is one of them. Why would they not endorse him? The question for me is why would the men of NAPARC wait so long to rebuke ESS which originated with George Knight III who did that work for the PCA and is now, IIRC, OPC? I am thankful that some good Reformed folks, men and women, stepped forward to rebuke some (mostly) Baptists Behaving Badly.

Burwell wrote:

… they are ministering to themselves…

Regular Wartburgers will know enough about how my mind works * to guess exactly what picture this phrase painted therein.

Esoteric euphemisms aside, that IS the substance of much of modern churchianity.

*… … … never mind.

@ Nick Bulbeck:

Along that line we used to call phony theology and puny philosophy ‘mental m (instering) ‘ to use the edited form.

No need to eliminate good imagery where it can be useful.

@ Burwell:

“…with the exception of four men wearing ties seated around a single table, the cafe (and outside tables) were occupied almost exclusively by millennial, white, ‘urban’, hip (employed?) Christians.”
+++++++++++++++++++++

“employed?” i’m dubious as to the actual ‘work’ factor (requiring an actual work ethic).
———————

“Would it therefore be a stretch to call them micro-colonialists? In their desire to reach the community, they are recreating the community after themselves, and when the transformation is complete, they say “job well done.””
+++++++++++++++++++++++

God complex-ians, perhaps?

goodness, how many times have i observed christians creating truth in their own image and calling it ‘Gospel-‘, saying to themselves ‘behold, it is very good’, basking in their job well-done.

That’s very interesting, tickled my curiosity. So is this one of those doctrine defining sort of times like the Councils of Nicea or Luther’s 95 theses? Apologies if my terminology is off. I’m just curious how these sort of changes occur in religions.

Lowlandseer wrote:

Apologies.

No apologies needed. Zondervan carried a lot of weight, and Grudem’s ST is Zondervan. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it. If the publishing contracts that these guys have were public, I think a lot of questions we have might be answered, and yours might be among those. Were some men silent about Grudem’s heresy because they had Zondervan contracts? I don’t know. Are Crossway contracts reason that the Gospel Glitterati are so cozy? I don’t know. But they sure do some things which do not pass the smell test, as we say in the real world.

Gram3 wrote:

Adam Embry wrote:
I believe in male headship
What do you mean my male headship? Is it prescriptive or descriptive in the text, and does it apply universally or only within the family?

This page raises one interesting point of what it does Not mean:

Here is just a snippet from the page:

Myth #3 Headship as Leadership

Did you know that the Bible never says that the husband is to “lead” the wife?

People who teach this are actually giving their own interpretation of scriptures that talk about the “headship” of the husband.

They are assuming that the Greek word for “head” means “leader”.

This is a common assumption because in the English language, “head” can be synonymous with “leader”. But not all languages equate “head” with “leadership”.

Source:
Five Myths of Male Headship
http://juniaproject.com/5-myths-of-male-headship/

Lydia wrote:

I was going to ask similar. But I can’t get past the “ship” in headship. It’s a black hole of textual gymnastics but is accepted “Christianese” and no one at SBTS will dare question it.
Is there a corresponding bodyship? Appendageship? It just doesn’t work with Kephale. It’s made up. Added in as meaning. If it is about heirarchy then they have serious textual problems elsewhere. That is why proof texting is convenient.

Comps also try to pass Male Hierarchy off under the term “Servant Leadership.”

What complementarians want is to defend and maintain “leadership” over women, the “servant” part is just there to soften what’s really going on.

I get tired of the word games played by comps.

I read a web page or two that said that the word “complementarian” itself was actually not theirs to start with, they stole it from gender egalitarians but took it over to use as their own.

Even egalitarians believe that the sexes complement one another – but comps don’t stop there, they say that women should be subordinate to men (or at least wives to husbands, depending on the flavor of complementarian you are speaking with).

Daisy wrote:

there are Christians out there who are complementarian out of love and loyalty to God, and they truly want to be faithful to what THEY THINK the Bible is saying.

That is so true and it is also true that many people believe that Complementarianism means that men and women are complementary. They have no idea that hierarchy is embedded in the definition of Complementarianism. Why should they? If you look up “complementary” in a dictionary, there is nothing about hierarchy. The fact is, Complementarians have hijacked a word and are using it deceitfully to hide hierarchy within it.

That is how good people who love God and who love his Word have been deceived by this system. These are not conservatives. They are radicals who love a System.

Lea wrote:

and if you dare to say ‘hey, sometimes women actually know stuff and should be making decisions’ they shout you down as a feminist

Depending on the type of complementarian you are talking to-

Some of them will say that women can make some of the decisions in a marriage, provided they are not “serious” decisions.

I get into this on a blog post on my Daisy blog. There is a complementarian lady who was essentially saying in her blog post that God designed men to be better decision makers or leaders of families (really? the Bible does not say any of that stuff, but regardless), so, she argued, wives should defer to husbands in all things, especially the big things of life-

But, if the husband is an understanding kind of guy, she said, he should occasionally cave in to the wife every so often in a disagreement, like (and she used an example like this one, or something similar)-

If the husband wants to eat at Burger King tonight, but the wife wants Taco Bell, then, she told readers, the husband ought to, shucks diddley darn, be a super duper nice guy and let the little lady determine the menu.

The complementarian woman who wrote this post was saying “tie breaking votes” is not what complementarianism is really all about (she was sort of responding to a question or criticism by author Ruth Tucker), but she goes on in her post to end up defining comp by….

….”man gets tie breaker vote”

One of the things I found so annoying about her post about all this-

It’s incredibly demeaning and patronizing to women to say, “well, no, ladies, you really should not be able to make final, big choices in your lives or marriages, allow your husband to have final say, but hey, it’s not so bad, because your husband should at least let you pick whether you eat at Pizza Hut tonight or Burger King!”

She’s still advocating for husbands to treat their grown wives as though they are five year old children, but the women reading that post are supposed to be okay with this and think it’s honoring to them.

No, it’s not respectful or honoring. It’s insulting, condescending horse doody.

The husband gets to make the “big” choices, like if and where to move to a new city, but the wife gets to pick Burger King vs. Taco Bell???

The Bible doesn’t say anywhere that God granted men with superior family leadership skills or life- decision making abilities, which is one of the things she was using to justify her views.

She is just reading all that malarky into the “male headship” stuff.

Lea wrote:

Where I really, really get irritated though, is in the way the ‘male headship/patriarchy/comp’ folks deal with problems. It’s like ‘oh everything will be happy clappy if we do this right’. Well what about when it isn’t? What to do you do then????? This is what I was trying to express in my comment before. This is where you see whether people or policy is more important. This is where you see if people are willing or able to question what they think.

This became even more evident in situations like where complementarians were reviewing Ruth Tucker’s book a year or more ago.

Tim Challies even said in his blog post on it that he didn’t want anyone to read it – I can’t remember how he put it exactly, but he was discouraging complementarians from even looking at it!

Defending or propogating the Male Hierarchy view of Complementarianism is more important to 99% of complementarians I’ve come across than actually caring for and about women who may be in abusive marriages or in some other dangerous situation.

@ okrapod:
I think it was the birth of the Christian Industrial Complex around the 70’s.

Daisy wrote:

I’ve been right wing my entire life. It’s so annoying when complementarians toss the, “you’re must be a feminist” comment at me, (or they just assume it to be so).

So…. equality is a bad thing?

@ Daisy:
How small does your worldview have to be in order to reduce life and relationships to mere labels? These great “manly-men-o-gawd” can’t see anything beyond their label maker.

Gram3 wrote:

Lydia wrote:

no one at SBTS will dare question it

Some have, and I know them. Metaphorical blood was spilled and masks fell and eyes were opened. There are a very few who are willing to question.

They did not lose their jobs like all those people in the 90s? They must have been well connected. I don’t suppose you can name names which is usually how this stuff works.

@ Gram3:
Yes. Exactly.

@ Lea:
Someone would have to Define liberal for me. Example. Giles is liberal? NT Wright Liberal? Are we talking doctrinally or socially? Are we talking doctrinally or politically?

The old labels aren’t working anymore for me.

Lydia wrote:

The old labels aren’t working anymore for me.

Funny, there was an article today about Kevin DeYoung (maybe?) and somebody else talking about if they should drop evangelical.

All these words are constantly being jettisoned as people figure them out, or propagandized as evil and then they become bad PR.

It would be nice if we could agree on basic language, but orwell called this issue a long time ago.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Equal but Different Roles.
Servant Leadership.
Etc.

Lea wrote:

Lydia wrote:
The old labels aren’t working anymore for me.

Funny, there was an article today about Kevin DeYoung (maybe?) and somebody else talking about if they should drop evangelical.

All these words are constantly being jettisoned as people figure them out, or propagandized as evil and then they become bad PR.

Doesn’t work. Because the crazies latch on to the new word as fast as you can change it. And that’s two words that now have “diabolical meanings”. Then three. Then four….

Like the George Carlin routine about how “Crippled” became “Handicapped” became “Handi-Capable” became “Differently Abled” etc. Within two seconds the bullies adapted to the new word as a clobber word.

Several years ago, we had something similar happen in Furry Fandom. Because so many crazies (including “alternative lifestyle” sexual crazies) were glomming onto the fandom and letting their freak flags fly (“I’m FURRY!”), a lot of Furries tried to claim to be “Anthro” in order to distance themselves from the crazies. Guess what happened? The Crazies started calling themselves “Anthro” too and flying their freak flags higher. Except now it was “I’m ANTHRO!” instead of “I’m FURRY!”

A.Tumbleweed wrote:

So…. equality is a bad thing?

It is if you’re the one on top with the special privileges.

“I GOT MINE,
I GOT MINE,
I DON’T WANT A THING TO CHANGE
NOW THAT I GOT MINE!
— Glenn Frye, “I Got Mine”

Lydia wrote:

@ Refugee:
Oh boy! That just doesn’t work at all. But then it was Warnke.

Warnke whom Cornerstone exposed as a total fraud.

Lydia wrote:

I am from the wing that said no King but Jesus and no Creed but scripture. We are all priests in the Holy priesthood and have soul competency.

Amen, Sister! I will see you in that wing in Heaven, if not before then!

The core distinctive held by Baptists at large and within the pre-Mohler Southern Baptist Convention has been the competency of the individual soul before God in religious expression. Soul competency is a principle that runs throughout the Old and New Testaments if one reads Scripture through a spiritual lens, rather than theological blinders. In matters of faith, we are free to choose and responsible for our choice. It’s as clear as the nose on your face, unless you can’t see your nose through the smoke and mirrors of aberrant theology.

Lydia wrote:

I had absolutely no idea that we were really Presbyterians until Al Mohler came along.

See, they’ve made an error here, because at that point…why not just BE Presbyterians? And maybe they’ll wonder into the bad ‘women are not prevented from anything’ kind and find they like it.

Which cycles back around to this article: https://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/it%E2%80%99s-not-about-doctrine-why-people-leave-churches-over-women-teaching?platform=hootsuite

A.Tumbleweed wrote:

and who does not.

It’s a corollary to the Cult of the Family.

Ken F (aka Tweed) wrote:
Wayne Grudem subordinates the Spirit to both the Father and the Son in his Systematic Theology. I don’t have the page number, but in his section on the Trinity he compares the Spirit to the children in a family – under the authority of other the two members of the Trinity.
Now THAT is really whacked! What are they on anyway? The “Cult of Systematic Theology” rolls on…

Oddly, if you quote two things in a row, the system seems to retain the pointer to the first comment quoted, instead of inserting the new pointer.

I was going to say, in answer to the blockquote that will hopefully appear above, that it is a corollary of the Cult of the Family.

Part and parcel of the statement I’ve heard from quite a few of the Family Worshippers (not worship in a family, but worship of the family) that says that more christians are being made by being born to believers and raised up in the faith, which seems to be reflected in a statistic someone quoted in a recent comment that more baptisms are being chalked up to children in church families being baptized than to new converts.

@ Max:
So will future scholars speak of the Grudemian or Mohlerian heresies, do you think?

refugee wrote:

So will future scholars speak of the Grudemian or Mohlerian heresies, do you think?

Maybe, if they are as sucessful as they want to be, people in the future will just call it “Baptist”… and everyone will nod knowingly.

Lydia wrote:

The amusing part of reading about his old finds is how much Baptists argued about things like doctrines and Creed’s.

Respectfully, I’m at a loss on trying to understand what there is to fight about with say The Apostle’s Creed and The Athanasian Creed. Since I’m not a Southerner born and raised in the Baptist tradition but rather the Germanic Lutheran tradition of the upper Great Lakes region, I suppose it would explain a great deal.

Lydia wrote:

I am from the wing that said no King but Jesus and no Creed but scripture. We are all priests in the Holy priesthood and have soul competency.

Again, and said with respect, I am of the notion that people who mind their P(s) and Q(s), and who don’t do the kinds of things to others they wouldn’t want done to themselves, need no king…

@ Max:
Let me repeat: we are responsible for our choices. Amen!

Nick Bulbeck wrote:

I wonder sometimes whether I’m too indecisive; it’s hard to tell, though.

You should ask God.

@ Muff Potter:
I can kind of sorta explain it. Baptist do not have a shared trajectory of History like Lutheran’s do. They were never a part of State Church tradition in Europe. There are several lines of them coming out of Europe and England to the United States.

There is no one source that explains it all and historical Scholars are all over the map. And they all want to claim Roger Williams. 🙂

I find this lack pedigree and eschewing of the state Church traditions refreshing. Doesn’t mean many didn’t try to label and categorize. The founders of the SBC were mainly Princeton men who were more Presbyterian. That didn’t last very long after the war.

Baptists are all over the map and it’s often embarrassing. 🙂

@ okrapod:
Sorry! Can I just say Anglican next time? 🙂

@ Lydia:

There are Anglicans who are not Episcopalians here in the US. For example: our parish is an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal Church, but many Anglo-Catholic parishes are not affiliated with TEC. TEC is affiliated with the Anglican Communion but that is not the same as being one of the Anglican groups who may or may not be also so affiliated. So it all just depends on how specific you want to be.

This bunch wrote the book on how complicated it can get.

Lowlandseer wrote:

I googled Zondervan to see if I could find any financial data.

What is germane is a non-disparagement clause in the authors’ contracts. That is what would, in effect, buy the silence of any Evangelical or Reformed author under Zondervan contracts. At the time of Grudem’s ST, I imagine there were quite a few.

Lydia wrote:

They did not lose their jobs

I had in mind some students I know from SBTS. For various reasons, over the years Gramp3 and I have known many students from several seminaries across a very broad spectrum stretching from conservative Evangelical to conservative Baptist to conservative Presbyterian. We’ve pretty much seen it all. :))

As a result of their experiences, one of them dropped out of seminary after two years. The other graduated but is a Done, the last we heard. Interestingly, the first one was crushed under the burden of discovering the disconnect with reality while the second was stiffened with resolve against the System. Obviously there are True Believers who arrive on campus and who leave three years later even Truer True Believers.

Totally OT: Everyone in Texas stay safe and smart!

@ Albuquerque Blue:

“So is this one of those doctrine defining sort of times like the Councils of Nicea or Luther’s 95 theses?”
+++++++++++++++++

i suspect CBMW is still holding out hope for their Council at Danvers of 1987 where they all convened on that historic day, tall funny hats & all.

refugee wrote:

So will future scholars speak of the Grudemian or Mohlerian heresies, do you think?

Well, I’m not a scholar – and barely a gentleman – but I’m leaning in that direction already.

Lydia wrote:

@ Mae:
I think it helped me recognize red flags quicker, too. I have watched a lot of young people here leave the YRR movement in a fog. They tend toward atheism upon leaving. Very burned out. Disgusted. When I was their age, we were just backsliders. This is something altogether different. It’s concerning.

So true. Did my share of backsliding but never felt estranged from God. Just didn’t like rules back then.
I’ve heard this many times now about Neo Cals abandoning the faith altogether. It’s hard for me to understand fully why they end up giving up on God. It is very troubling.

Lydia wrote:

I am big on individual identity not group identity. But it’s an uphill battle on that one.

Well, yes. It is so much easier to exploit an entire group as a group. Individual-by-individual is costly and risky. Once the group identity is set, each individual becomes stickier, too.

Groups are fashionable these days. Individualism is out of style, I’m afraid. I’ve heard the “i” word used

Lydia wrote:

Baptists are all over the map and it’s often embarrassing.

I think it is gloriously refreshing.

@ Gram3:
(Me too) . But impossible to explain. I have noticed when in these discussions with people who grew up in other denominations, it sounds like chaos. They find comfort in and prefer structure and an entrenched organizational hierarchy. Something I cannot stand, myself. Of course the SBC has adopted that now. Everything is scripted right down to the votes at convention.

Lowlandseer wrote:

I found another blogger who said this, agreeing with your hypothesis

But I wonder if there is something other than a change of heart behind Grudem’s reticence on NIV 2011

Well, what do you know! When thinking about why someone might do something that seems odd, I pull out Dr. Occam’s razor and what I have learned by observing about human nature. I do know something about a few of the things I ramble about here.

Lydia wrote:

Peter Lumpkins does a lot of Baptist history research.

I could name drop one of my 18th century people (who definitely did not have any degrees), but that would be showy. 🙂

Gram3 wrote:

So now we have an oversupply of seminary-trained Southern Baptists that the SBC is doing what about?

Putting them to work as YRR church planters right out of seminary! There’s no place else for them to go … unless they want to take over a traditional church by stealth and deception. That is a tougher row to hoe, but some of them go that route and justify lying about their theological persuasion for the good of the movement.

Under point 8 in the link Victorious provided I’m not sure I comprehend Bilezikian’s point of why Paul was qualifying leadership in a specific way regarding men to Timothy and Titus. He says:

Cite a biblical text that exclusively disqualifies women from exercising church leadership ministries.

The Facts

The one passage that is ultimately adduced to claim that the New Testament prohibits women to teach or to have authority over men is found in 1 Timothy 2:11-15. However, the same section of Scriptures imposes similarly restrictive leadership and ministry prohibitions on men. According to it, a man’s family status provides the indispensable credential for his ability to lead the church (3:4-5, 12). The only men who may aspire to positions of church leadership, which include the ministries of teaching and managing the affairs of the church, must be married (“husbands of one wife”), and have children who are submissive and respectful, and who are believers (Titus 1:6). According to this text, ability to manage family provides indispensable proof of ability to manage the local church.

Such requirements disqualify from service not only women, but also all men who are single; all men married but childless; all men married but who have only one child; all men married but who have children too young to profess faith; all men married but who have one unbelieving child or children; all men married and whose children are believers but not submissive; all men married and whose children are believers and submissive but not respectful.

These exceptionally harsh and restrictive requirements are all the more amazing since the New Testament favors singleness for both men and women as preferred status to do ministry (Matt. 19:11-12, 1 Cor. 7:25-35), and since the New Testament emphatically requires the total utilization of all available spiritual gifts in the ministries of the church, regardless of marital status or gender.

Of course, the Scriptures provide an explanation for those apparent contradictions. The singularly restrictive structure of ministry prescribed in 1 Timothy and Titus was established as a remedial measure for churches that had fallen into a state of terminal crisis. Its underlying principle of restricting ministry in sick or immature churches to few leaders of proven managerial competency is relevant today to churches that find themselves in similarly extreme situations. However, the prevailing New Testament model of full participation of the total constituency in the ministries of the local church applies to healthy churches (See Bilezikian, Community 101, pp. 82-128).

Could someone rephrase that last paragraph for me? Not sure I get it. Mind is not engaging well…hard week for my health.

@kin Ok I’ve read it enough to see he’s saying Paul’s responding to specific problems in a local body and is steering them in the right direction by putting limits on leadership *for them*. Maybe men who had multiple wives were looked to as leaders, and he only wants men who have one wife. In addressing this specific issue he is not dismissing the idea that a woman cannot be qualified. The over-arching principle is that healthy leadership comes from a unified body of believers made up of men and women.

Something like that?

@ Gram3:
You know really old people!

Lydia wrote:

You know really old people!

Well, yes. 🙂 I have all kinds of Baptists in my family tree. I may even have some of those respectable Charleston ones or Philadelphia ones lurking about. Don’t tell Max.

@ Gram3:
I think you are on target. We have no idea how many church plant fails there are because they don’t report. One way around this was Acts 29 which is not SBC but Namb provided tons of help as a partner. It’s all coming to a big financial crisis like we saw at IMB which is why I think they are changing the focus to bring in a new crop, deflect and train for other things. There is always Guidestone to worry about. Pensions.

I look at long term patterns. So far they have gotten by with hiding salaries, numbers, financials from inquiring pastors who get the run around. oh and incidentally, the “expert” church planter guru at LifeWay got out. Is now at Wheaton. And that was pretty quiet for a guy who was everywhere. As to jobs to feed the seminary students into, I think they were planning on the ERLC NGO’s globally and all over the US like Catholic Charities sort of. Lots of UN and Federal dollars. They have a very different definition of missions, now.

Lydia wrote:

I can kind of sorta explain it. Baptist do not have a shared trajectory of History like Lutheran’s do. They were never a part of State Church tradition in Europe. There are several lines of them coming out of Europe and England to the United States.

Makes sense Lyds. Even the regional trajectories within our own Nation have significant differences. How much more so when the ethnic origins of those who settled the South and those who went to the upper Great Lakes region had disparate cultures from the get go.

elastigirl wrote:

i suspect CBMW is still holding out hope for their Council at Danvers of 1987 where they all convened on that historic day, tall funny hats & all.

I am a sucker for tall, funny hats. I want pics.

kin wrote:

Something like that?

I found this in Albert Barnes’ Commentary:

he occasion on which it was written is specified by the apostle himself, with such clearness, that there can be no doubt on that point. Paul had left Titus in Crete, to “set in order the things which were wanting, and to ordain elders in every city” Tit_1:5;

The principal difficulties which it was apprehended Titus would meet with in the performance of his duties there, and which in fact made his labours there desirable, arose from two sources: (1.) the character of the Cretans themselves; and (2.) the influence of Judaizing teachers.
(1.) the character of the Cretans themselves was such as to demand the vigilance and care of Titus. They were a people characterized for insincerity, falsehood, and gross living; Tit_1:12. There was great danger, therefore, that their religion would be hollow and insincere, and great need of caution lest they should be corrupted from the simplicity and purity required in the gospel; Tit_1:13.

(2.) the influence of Judaizing teachers was to be guarded against. It is evident from Act_2:11, that there were Jews residing there;

From this epistle, also, it is clear that one of the great dangers to piety in the churches of Crete, arose from the efforts of such teachers, and from the plausible arguments which they would use in favour of the Mosaic law; see Tit_1:10, Tit_1:14-16; Tit_3:9. To counteract the effect of their teaching, it was necessary to have ministers of the gospel appointed in every important place, who should be qualified for their work.

Paul knew that to counter the false teachings of the Judaisers, it would be necessary to have leaders who were familiar with the Mosaic Law. Since women were not taught the Law, it would necessitate male leaders in churches where they were a danger.

Hope that helps. You can search other commentaries for info as well.

Gram3 wrote:

As store-front operations, perhaps, but that is unlikely to support a pastor and his family.

SBC’s North American Mission Board (NAMB) has been planting such churches (with primarily YRR pastors) at the tune of $70 million per year, which is a sizable chunk of their annual budget. After the NAMB seed money is gone, most of these young guys struggle to make it; they just can’t survive on their own, unless they are able to attract some sugar-daddy members to pay the bills. It’s just a matter of time before the well runs dry to sustain them. As you note, the ones that make it beyond a couple of years are merging with other area churches. SBC seminaries are setting up a no-win situation for their graduates. Traditional churches (non-Calvinist) don’t want them and the competition for church planting jobs is getting more intense. It was a better model for new graduates when they would come out of seminary and serve under a senior pastor for a few years in a traditional church … but, of course, they have been indoctrinated to believe that such churches have not been preaching the true gospel for the last 150 years.

Gram3 wrote:

I do not believe the numbers put out by any entity.

SBC has been putting out funny numbers for years. Who really believes that there are 16 million Southern Baptists? I think the number is more like 8 million and half of those don’t attend church regularly. My wife was a volunteer church secretary for a while at a rural church. When she examined the membership books, she reported to church leaders that there were several people on the rolls who were dead, some who had moved from the area, and others who were just missing and unaccountable for. She was chastised for bringing that up, since decreasing the annual report of numbers for their church would make them look bad in their association and State convention. It’s all about nickels and noses in the SBC and both are declining. The new reformation is helping to run a once-great denomination into the ground.

@ Max:

A certain youth pastor who went to plant an Acts 29 church in a heavily churched Southern large city, took his former church’s contacts and constantly appealed for money by snail mail and email. That has never been the way it was done in the SBC as far as I knew, until Al Mohler. Churches planted churches and supported them with state and associations.

okrapod wrote:

Lydia wrote:
I was banned from sgmsurvivirs for daring to suggest Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and equal in all things . (They did not understand the Hebrew mindset that the son representing the father is considered equal to the father in all transactions.. Its the main reason why the Pharisees wanted to kill him! John 5)
Those two ideas, ‘God in the flesh and equal in all things’ compared with ‘son *representing* the father is considered equal in *all transactions* are two different ideas. Similar but different. They could both be true, but they are not identical.

I missed this earlier. I am not sure why they would need to be identical to communicate that Jesus was God in the flesh to us 2000 years later. I am not sure where you are coming from. What am I missing?

I do believe that God communicates to people where they are in understanding. In John 5 it shows the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus “because” He was equating Himself as equal to God as His Son. That was how they thought at the time.

On another note, we have not even touched on “Caesar as the son of god” and how that played into the whole scenario from another pov.

okrapod wrote:

Lydia wrote:

I was banned from sgmsurvivirs for daring to suggest Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and equal in all things . (They did not understand the Hebrew mindset that the son representing the father is considered equal to the father in all transactions.. Its the main reason why the Pharisees wanted to kill him! John 5)

Those two ideas, ‘God in the flesh and equal in all things’ compared with ‘son *representing* the father is considered equal in *all transactions* are two different ideas. Similar but different. They could both be true, but they are not identical.

I am lost. Not sure why they need to be identical to communicate a concept 2000 years ago.

I believe that God communicates to People based on where they are in their understanding and even cultural beliefs. In John 5, the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus ba himself

Is TWW experiencing heavy traffic,? It’s glitchy and I thought a comment was lost because it keeps shutting down and reloading. I don’t doubt that this is a very popular series. Hee hee.

Lydia wrote:

Is there one single clear prohibition from God in the OT for women teaching or even leading both men and women?.

I have searched. Others have searched and searched. Nothing. And God is always clear about such important things.

Which makes more sense (in the Timothy letters), Paul writing to his protege in Ephesus with specific items for specific local questions in an ethical sense, or did he intend for his letters to become a kind of new ‘Torah’ for all Christians in all times and in all spaces?
I have argued (Cheryl Schatz does it better) here and elsewhere that the latter case is not much older than 40-45 years and almost exclusively American in origin.
E.W. Bullinger (hardly a ‘liberal’) wrote this almost a century ago as a preface to Paul’s Timothy Epistles:

To Timothy were given the earliest instructions for orderly arrangement in the church, these instructions being of the simplest nature, and, as Dean Alford well observes with regard to the Pastoral Epistles as a whole, the directions given “are altogether of an ethical, not of an hierarchical kind”. These directions afford no warrant whatsoever for the widespread organizations of the “churches” as carried on today.

@ Muff Potter:
Oh boy. Is that ever true.

Muff Potter wrote:

Which makes more sense (in the Timothy letters), Paul writing to his protege in Ephesus with specific items for specific local questions in an ethical sense, or did he intend for his letters to become a kind of new ‘Torah’ for all Christians in all times and in all spaces?
I have argued (Cheryl Schatz does it better) here and elsewhere that the latter case is not much older than 40-45 years and almost exclusively American in origin.
E.W. Bullinger (hardly a ‘liberal’) wrote this almost a century ago as a preface to Paul’s Timothy Epistles:

To Timothy were given the earliest instructions for orderly arrangement in the church, these instructions being of the simplest nature, and, as Dean Alford well observes with regard to the Pastoral Epistles as a whole, the directions given “are altogether of an ethical, not of an hierarchical kind”. These directions afford no warrant whatsoever for the widespread organizations of the “churches” as carried on today.

How would it be only fifty yrs. old and primarily American if the English and American Puritans ordered their christian societies in a hierarchical manner regarding male/female roles? Maybe I missed your point.

@ kin:

Bingo. Creation order. When that wasn’t pulling it’s weight, ESS was resurrected to map the Trinity to human relationships. That is when I found out I was playing the “role” of Jesus and Husbands were playing God. The Holy Spirit children ARE a stretch, though. (Wink),

Lydia wrote:

A certain youth pastor who went to plant an Acts 29 church in a heavily churched Southern large city, took his former church’s contacts and constantly appealed for money by snail mail and email. That has never been the way it was done in the SBC as far as I knew, until Al Mohler. Churches planted churches and supported them with state and associations.

SBC’s New Calvinist leaders knew they would have to plant YRR churches by a method other than the usual (more Biblical) approach of churches planting churches. They knew going into this thing that there weren’t too many SBC churches who would plant reformed churches (contrary to mainline SBC belief and practice) at the rate they needed to propel the movement … currently at 1,000 new plants per year. So they propped up Kevin Ezell at NAMB to funnel SBC non-Calvinist funds to the church plants … currently at $70 million per year. A brilliant strategy, non-Calvinists funding Calvinization of their denomination through their sacrificial giving to the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, thinking it is going to preach a whosoever-will Gospel and reach the lost for Christ across North America as in times past! At NAMB these days, it’s more about planting theology.

Max wrote:

A brilliant strategy, non-Calvinists funding Calvinization of their denomination through their sacrificial giving to the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering…

Comrade Lenin got a real kick out of making the Capitalists finance The Revolution and their own destruction. (Though the Bolsheviki preferred more direct methods — like bank robbery and/or plain confiscation — than trickery.)

@ elastigirl:
That would be hysterical.

@ Lydia:

i might try (novice i may be).

then i’d need a place to put it…. hmmm… i’ll have to ask my IT husband.

judging by present company, i imagine it would be well-received.

Daisy wrote:

But I do think there is a slice of comps who are comp only because they’ve been taught by their church it’s God’s design, and they don’t want to be disloyal to God by chucking it.

The Threat of Eternal Hellfire — with YOU the Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God — is a great motivator to toe the line.

refugee wrote:

It’s a corollary to the Cult of the Family.

Where the Husband/Paterfamilias is the mallet, the Wife is the chisel, and the children are the blocks of stone being hammered/chiseled?

Lydia wrote:

It really paid off well for the young restless and reformed to target youth groups and colleges. Get them before their frontal lobe’s are formed.

The HJ, Komsomol, Chairman Mao’s Red Guard, and Taliban Madrassas would agree.

Mae wrote:

I’ve heard this many times now about Neo Cals abandoning the faith altogether. It’s hard for me to understand fully why they end up giving up on God. It is very troubling.

It’s called “the Take Your God And Shove It” reaction.
Like going over the Berlin Wall to freedom, fleeing that Cosmic Monster who abused you.

Max wrote:

Gram3 wrote:

I do not believe the numbers put out by any entity.

SBC has been putting out funny numbers for years.

JUST LIKE SCIENTOLOGY!

@ Mae:
Mae, it seems to me elevating the ‘church’ above Jesus or God seems to be a huge problem here. If your church fails you, and you have elevated your church, then what do you do? You reject God. Because God is the church? Whereas if you are strong in faith, but realize men are fallible, you can move away from church for a time with your faith intact.

@ Mae:
I could write for days on this problem. The descendants of the Puritans became, for the most part, Universalists or even Open Theist types. That eventually descended into wacky spiritualism The Puritans left a mess. From what I have read by them, I don’t think they had a clue about Christ. And there is no way, imo, there would have been a Declaration of Independence had the Puritans held power.

It’s fascinating to read some things John Adams wrote about his childhood religion which was the Puritan Congregationalist. (Nothing Congregational about it but it’s the form for Devers church) He despised it. He despised Calvinism. Makes sense. A Founding “ideal” is self determinism despite having a long way go.

The Neo Cals tried to operate much like the Puritans but we are a free society (sorta) so they were limited to church discipline and shame censoring in an elite chosen club with power wielding leaders. It was focused on recruiting the very young. It’s been a disaster in many ways. They are desperately trying to change the subject because determinism is exhausting and eventually dark to those who don’t make a living from it. That has happened before in history which eventually morphed into the mainlines.

This is why I don’t do groups/tribes or any collective. Just Jesus Christ.

@ Lea:
Bingo. Churchianity.

Lea wrote:

@ Mae:
Mae, it seems to me elevating the ‘church’ above Jesus or God seems to be a huge problem here. If your church fails you, and you have elevated your church, then what do you do? You reject God. Because God is the church? Whereas if you are strong in faith, but realize men are fallible, you can move away from church for a time with your faith intact.

Yes, following a system or a formula can do that.
This happens too in the secular world. People buy into an Amway type system (emotionally, financially ) and become totally disillusioned when they are not successful. They become dismayed, bitter, but often fail to comprehend it was believing in a system, a formula, that led to their failure.

@ Muff Potter:
I don’t know. I fear that communicates no guiding principles. Which isn’t the case.

I think what it communicates is that I am old enough to see how groups/ tribes/collectivism evolve. It’s scary to me. I don’t really have a problem going in and out of groups for discussions, projects and maybe even some fellowship or social fun but aligning to them? No. Free agent is a more fitting term, I think.

By the way, did you see where the spokesperson for the Church of Satan came out to say that Satan was not a white supremacist? Oh dear. Is that free thinking? 🙂

@ Muff Potter:
Mine either. And I don’t expect them to be anyone elses. 🙂

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

Mae wrote:
Yes, but then they must not have had any understanding or affection for Jesus. They need to become acquainted, fall in love with, Jesus.
But when “Jesus” is the Cosmic Abuser in whose Name they were abused?
The Name that they will always hear as memories of abuse?

But did the hear Jesus, or instead, THE Sovereign God, who is so very far away and obtuse?