On sex abuse: “Misconduct. I wish they’d call it for what it is. Misconduct sounds like something you do to earn yourself a time-out as a toddler.” ― T.E. Carter, I Stop Somewhere
Recently, John Piper responded to the current spate of sex abuse allegations in Sex-Abuse Allegations and the Egalitarian Myth. His response generated a fair amount of valid criticism, particularly amongst abuse advocates. That criticism arose because Piper appears to be ignorant about the diverse allegations of and the dynamics involved in sex abuse.
Mistake Number 1: His list primarily includes men outside of the church
It appears that Piper purposely left out the huge numbers of allegations within the church. This is most likely because he is quite supportive of groups like Sovereign Grave Ministries/Churches.
Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Al Franken, Roger Ailes, Roy Moore, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Bill O’Reilly, and Garrison Keillor. It’s on the left and on the right, liberals and conservatives, politicians and entertainers, from Hollywood to Minneapolis to D.C. to New York City.
Mistake Number 2: He assumes that the abuser is a powerful man who has assaulted a weaker woman.
In his list, Kevin Spacey’s three allegations involved men, one of whom was 14 years old at the time, not women. Piper also overlooked the spate of female teachers who have been arrested for molesting male students. Google the epidemic of female teachers who assault male students. Here is one list.
Mistake Number 3: If only men and women practiced proper gender roles, defined as complementarianism, this abuse would radically decline.
egalitarian assumptions in our culture, and to a huge degree in the church, have muted — silenced, nullified — one of the means that God has designed for the protection and the flourishing of women. It has silenced the idea that men as men — by virtue of their created, God-given maleness, apart from any practical competencies that they have or don’t have — men have special responsibilities to care for and protect and honor women. This call is different from the care and protection and honor that women owe men. That’s my thesis. That’s my point.
…”We have put our hope in the myth that the summons to generic human virtue, with no attention to the peculiar virtues required of manhood and womanhood, would be sufficient to create a beautiful society of mutual respect. It isn’t working.”
What is wrong with his *thesis* as he puts it? Could it be that it has nothing to do with gender roles and everything to do with a culture that is now willing to listen to accusations of sex abuse instead of burying it under a *boys will boys* cover?
He believes that 50 years of egalitarianism is the direct cause of all of these sex abuse allegations. He yearns for the old days when men felt they should be protective of the *weaker vessel.* John Piper is taking advantage of his name recognition within a subset of Christendom who believe that when he speaks, it is the gospel truth. He gets to say stuff like this and not one bright man or woman within the complementation crowd says ‘Hey-prove it. Where are the studies?”
Could the recent rise in reports about sex abuse be due to a society which is now more willing to listen to women, men, teens and kids who have been abused? Were things really better in the good, old days? When were those good old days?
- Sixty years ago, my mother worked in an office in which the male bosses hit on the women and felt quite comfortable making suggestive remarks. She told me that the only way to deal with it was to be quiet and look for another job. Those were the good old days when real men held open the doors for women and then hit on them inside the company.
- Let’s go back to the founding of our country, when men were men and women were women. Thomas Jefferson sexually used Sally Hemings, who he treated as his property. How many children did he have with her? 6.
- In fact, let’s go way back when King David sexually molested Bathsheba. David was one of those real men who lived in a time when women were not in charge
According to Piper, Adam’s original sin was not being a leader for his wife.
The Christian Post focused on this aspect of Piper’s *thesis.* It had nothing to do with wanting to be like God. It was all about not being Eve’s leader.
“He failed to take some initiative and deal with the devil, to be the leader and protector that God had designed him to be. He failed, and he’s been failing ever since,” he explained.
Why is this viewpoint dangerous? Molesters have psychiatric disorders, not improper gender role identification and misunderstanding this could lead to overlooking the real problem.
If people were to accept John Piper’s theory at face value, they would believe that following strict complementarian roles within the church would prevent sex abuse. It doesn’t.
Let’s look at Exhibit A-Josh Duggar. There is no question in the minds of anyone that Josh was raised in a home which scoffed at egalitarian values and taught complementarian roles for the boys and girls. Note the long hair and dresses for the girls as one example. They were homeschooled and kept far away from any movies, television and books that might hint at anything other than complementarian values.
It didn’t work. Josh molested his own sisters and went on to view porn and join Ashley Madison. Here is a timeline of his escapades.
So, what went wrong? They did the entire John Piper shtick and still ended up with a bunch of kids who were molested.
First things first. Molesters have a psychiatric disorder. In other words, teaching Jimmy to open the door for a woman is not going to cure what is wrong inside Jimmy’s head. Jimmy needs help- lots of help.
Sadly, churches tend to cover for molesters who then do not get the psychiatric help that they desperately need. For example, I believe that Andy Savage should have received psychiatric intervention after his assault of Woodson. Instead, everything was buried.
Sex abuse is all about power, not proper gender role assignments.
The Christian Post quoted from a blog called The Sinnergists. I had not heard of them before this but found their website so intriguing that I plan to follow them regularly. Here is how they define their goal.
We first began discussing the idea of teaming up on a project like this because we were frustrated by the way the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement seemed to have cornered the online theology market and we wanted to show folks that there are other, and, in our opinion, better options. From the very beginning, however, we knew that we wanted to do something more than just an “anti-Calvinist” podcast. We were determined to take a positive, constructive approach to theology and Christian discipleship and avoid the acrimony and exclusivist mentality that sometimes characterizes Christian podcasts—especially ones that take a “side” in the ongoing Calvinist/Arminian debate.
They took on John Piper’s *thesis* in No, John Piper, Egalitarianism is Not to Blame for Sexual Abuse.
Egalitarianism, by its very definition, is the belief that all people are equal and that there is no inherent difference of power, authority, worth, or status between men and women.
Sexual abuse, by its very nature, is about the exertion and the assertion of power. As experts have long noted, sexual abuse is not about lust or desire or even sex; it is about power and it is about control.
They contend that a true egalitarians would NEVER sexually abuse another.
a person who sexually abuses another has, by their own actions, demonstrated that they are not actually egalitarian because, as stated above, true egalitarianism is inherently and fundamentally incompatible with sexual abuse.
John Piper’s dangerous thesis
This brings me back to my concern that John Piper’s views, if adopted by a church, would lead some to believe that to *cure sex abuse* one merely needs to make sure women and women and men are men. It won’t.
- Abusive men abuse women, men and children
- Abusive women abuse women, children and men
- Abusive teens abuse men, women and children
- Abusive men, women and teens abuse members of their own families.
It has nothing to do with gender roles and everything to do with some form of psychiatric disorders which causes the molester to exert power and control over another. It has little to do with sex.
John Piper needs to do some serious study on the matter before he starts spouting his *thesis.* A thesis should be supported by facts. He gives none and that is just plain lazy.
A thesis statement is the single, specific claim that your essay supports. A strong thesis answers the question you want to raise; it does so by presenting a topic, the position you wish to defend, and a reasoning blueprint that sketches out your defense of your chosen position. A good thesis is not merely a factual statement, an observation, a personal opinion or preference, or the question you plan to answer.
John Piper, egalitarianism does not cause sex abuse. Your thesis is not only wrong, it is not really a thesis.
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1st
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2nd
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And I actually read the article before I posted. The really sad part is how many people actually buy into this crap.
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First?
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Well done.
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Theilogical constructs like this one from Pipet does nothing to help the body of Christ.
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*theological constructs like this one, from Piper, do nothing to help the body of Christ.
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Preach it!
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If he wants to argue the egal vs comp matter, then argue the egal vs comp matter rather than going to apples vs oranges, vs buicks.
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Saudi Arabia says Hi.
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The jury is still out on the Jefferson/Hemings situation. To be fair, reputable historians reviewing the available evidence still to this day are coming to completely opposite conclusions.
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I’m getting really fed up with people like John Piper spouting off about the cause of sexual abuse like it’s a fact. Sexual abuse is caused by people who think they are entitled to take from others. They have so debased another person in their minds that they believe they can use them for their own pleasure. They rob, kill, and destroy because they believe it is their right to do so.
Confirmation bias will lead to blaming what ever the pet peeve of the speaker is: I’ve read sexual abuse blamed on the way women dress (never mind that it happens in countries where women wear burkas); fatherless homes (mass shootings are blamed on this too ); and now, egalitarianism.
Poppycock!
Sexual abuse is perpetrated by one person sadistically robbing another of their security, innocence, trust, peace, and sometimes sadly, even their faith in God. John Piper needs to be quiet more and listen to actual victims. Maybe then he might actually learn some truth instead of the nonsense rattling around his head that so often makes its way into the Christian mainstream.
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@ JDV:
I compleltely agree, and this is so typical thinking of these “celeberty preachers”…. there is little opportunity for someone to challenge there mushy thinking….. In my world, I have to defend my “concepts”, and I will be called on such mushy thinking….
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Seraph wrote:
Clever.
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I became acquainted with Nick Quient and his wife (from Sinnergists blog) at the CBE conference in Orlando last summer. I remember reading the article last week and this line had me saying YES!!!:
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I wonder why John Piper doesn’t allow comments on Desiring God??????? ; ^ )
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Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:
He’s insecure and only likes sycophants. And giving the appearance of pontificating from on high.
“Pontiff” is deliberate. Calvinists are just running the same racket as their original masters.
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Dee,
1-Thanks for standing up to the false teaching of Piper and his cohort, Desiring God. (Doesn’t anyone there think about what they are publishing? And the fruit? The emperor has no clothes?)
2- The links you include are helpful and present an excellent picture of what is going on, for example the Duggar Timeline. Very helpful. Clearly demonstrates complementarian issues.
Strange how this thinking seems to put men at the top in the leadership roles without “interference” or actually, feedback – so then men will finally be real men and do the right thing. Like, their overbearing mean high school lady English teacher stifled them and put too many red marks on their term paper so now, unless they can break free and never answer to a woman anywhere, any time, for anything – they’ll finally step up to always, or almost always, do the right thing without the “interference” of a woman squelching their precious (big and tough? or delicate and easily stifled?) manliness (ego). Tip toe, tip toe.
How insulting to men! God help the men who dumb themselves down to Piper’s false teaching. Can’t handle standing on level ground with women. Pathetic.
Completely contrary to Scripture, Tim Fall posted today: Authoritarian Husbands – the failure to follow Scripture and revere Christ. https://timfall.com/
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Dear John Piper: Worship Jesus, not your testosterone.
Seriously.
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Guys like us we had it made
Those were the days.
And you knew who you were then
Girls were girls and men were men
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again
— Archie and Edith Bunker —
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Don’t a lot of these comp dudes believe rape isn’t possible in marriage? So yes, by their definitions, sexual abuse wouldn’t happen if everyone was complementatian…
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Muslin, fka Dee Holmes wrote:
I question just how much they even care about that. I’m not sure about Piper, but aren’t a lot of into “Eternal Subordination of the Son”. They embrace Arianism and diminish Jesus and the Trinity, just to prop up the desire for male power.
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Complementarianism, the idea that women are created to be led by men, but never to lead them, and that men are created to lead women and never to be led by women, is the “idée fixe” of John Piper – an unhealthy fixation if ever there was one.
For him, a “return” to “proper gender roles” will fix any contemporary problems in society.
“For a man who only has a hammer, every Problem becomes a nail.” But a hammer, at least, is very useful in some situatins, this whole “female subordinatin” stuff of Piper’s has no value whatsoever, except – maybe – that of propping up the egos of small men with psychological problems.
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Dangerous thinking.
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Abuse is always about taking power and control over someone else. Someone who fundamentally believes that everyone is equal to them would not believe in overpowering someone.
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Brother Maynard wrote:
My guess is that so many “buy into” this kind of teaching because it was John Piper who said this and due to the pedestal so many have him on. Sadly so many people take off their “thinking cap” and just blindly accept teaching like this when they have such awe for a person like this. How sad.
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Gus wrote:
… vast or big overreaching theologies, presuppositions, assumptions. Compensating. Small men in big trucks with their side chick gal pal who also tosses her humanity to the wind, to play the gender game.
There’s a reason Pipe is the one who hammers away at this, his schtick. Catch a glimpse of him with his bro buds. Obvious.
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It seems to me they mostly see the church as a tool to enable a particular social order. And they’re willing to even bring down the Trinity to get it. If they think they can define the Creator of the Universe, what makes you think they care about some random person’s opinion?
And if they’re just morons and doing this unconsciously, it’s still bad. Arius was also a moron and doing it unconsciously. He was actually a pretty moral man, admired by many in his day, and had the ear of Constantine himself (Constantine liked him much more than Athanasius.. who he thoroughly disliked). But being a moron doesn’t make your doctrine any less evil.
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The surest sign of a snake oil salesman is that he believes his kooky product will cure literally everything even though it’s just snake oil.
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Seraph wrote:
As do the Commanders of Holy Gilead.
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JYJames wrote:
Piper’s the short skinny hysterical one.
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Gus wrote:
And “If at first you don’t succeed, GET A BIGGER HAMMER!”
— American Army corollary proverb
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I’m clueless. I can’t even get a result on Google…?
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Seraph wrote:
The Legalist (Rom. 2) and the Lascivious (Rom. 1) equally dumb themselves down to be less than their God-given potential, who God made them to be.
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Every time I come across something from Desiring God, Piper, TGC and similar people/organisations (And I’ll say that’s a pretty common occurrence considering what many of my Facebook friends share), I get a really strong feeling that their view of the world and humanity in general is extremely monodimensional, like there’s no place for even the tiniest hint of grey in there. The right theology (Theirs, of course) for everything and everyone, and every little problem there is may be solved.
PS. I haven’t written here in a very long time, and I cannot seem to remember what my usual Nickname was. Last few months have been very busy and life has changed substantially… No surprise this evades me now.
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My grandfather was mentally debilitated by a stroke, and my grandmother spent the rest of his life taking care of him. I wonder if Piper and his crew would have insisted she still submit to his male leadership?
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Bill wrote:
The general consensus is that Thomas Jefferson fathered all of Sally Jemongs’ children. There are a few historians that disagree but the DNA evidence is against them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%E2%80%93Hemings_controversy
Let’s be clear. Thomas Jefferson OWNED Sally Hemings. She literally had no right to refuse any sexual advances from him because she was property and not a legal human being. And I rather doubt, as her owner, that Jefferson would have stood aside while some other male relative in his family had a multi-year sexual relationship with HIS PROPERTY.
I realize this makes Jefferson look real bad, but he’s not the only founding father with a tarnish on his reputation due to slavery. George Washington’s slave Oney Judge escaped in 1796 and lived as a fugitive slave until she died in 1848. She escaped because she was told she was being given as a weddingpresent to Martha Washington’s granddaughter. The article on Wikipedia is informative on this matter, it shows how ingrained slavery was in American life, and also how cruel.
The lesson here is that some patriarchalists would love to treat their wives and daughters as slaves, but the law doesn’t allow it. I’d love to ask John Piper some pointed questions on the matter.
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It tarnishes him, but I think it’s possible he may have been fond of her. Jefferson is on record as knowing slavery would need to be dealt with, but it was difficult to both get colonial alliances and try to get them concede on slavery. So they kicked the bucket down the road, much to everyone’s detriment.
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How did Piper get on that pedestal to begin with? Did he used to have more marbles?
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SIN BEFORE THE FALL—John Piper’s view.
It is important to point out a major theological innovation that Piper proposes (as others have proposed as well). Orthodox theologians and biblical scholars have alway maintained that the disobedience of Adam and Eve in their eating the fruit of the Tree was their fall into sin and thus the fallenness of human nature. John Piper blames Adam for his failure of headship, which he regards as sin. I quote Piper on Adam: “He failed to take some initiative and deal with the devil, to be the leader and protector that God had designed him to be. He failed, and he’s been failing ever since.”
So here is his theological innovation: SIN BEFORE THE FALL. It’s a curiosity and he ought to be called on it. But, of course, he and his bunch have also done their Trinitarian trick in an effort to prop up their male headship/female submission ideology.
“
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Ruth Tucker wrote:
Just two sentences, but Piper reads so much into the text that isn’t really there. Does Piper think Adam was supposed to expel the snake from Eden? Was there some commandment to Adam to lead Eve before the Fall that didn’t make it into Genesis? Maybe that will be restored in the next edition of the ESV.
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Ruth Tucker wrote:
When all you have is a hammer…
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Ruth Tucker wrote:
Whatever the case was “before the fall”, we are called to something even greater than that. Jesus didn’t come to merely restore humanity’s earthly, sinless state. Instead we rise anew. There isn’t just a pre-Fall state and a Fallen state. But also a Resurrected State. And in the Resurrection, gender is irrelevant. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” Mt 22:30
And at the same time, we are to practice living in the Kingdom in the here and now. To not only see the Resurrection as a future event, but a reality changing us now. “Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Some of us are even called to monastic living, to be “eunuchs” (Mt 19:12), to not even concern themselves with gender issues. And Paul wished everyone could be like that, but he knew not all were capable yet – 1 Cor 7:7. For those who are called to marriage, their purpose is still to build the kingdom. Not obsess over petty power games. This is ridiculous.
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Seraph wrote:
The name of the nation state in The Handmaid’s Tale.
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My dad knew and practiced all the social graces. He also beat up my mom fairly consistently. As a child, I could predict the probability of my dad popping a cork and throwing a punch almost 100% of the time. As the oldest child, I felt it was my job to protect my mother. My dad was a power freak, and everything in our homes revolved around him. As no-fault divorce came into play, my mom finally found enough courage to leave him, but she also moved out of the area. He continued to terrorize our family in different ways, either verbally or by throwing tantrums at family functions (we tried not to cut him off from weddings, christenings, etc.) Finally, we had to. He’s an old man now, and I make sure to stay in contact, but he laments the fact he has had a hard time making friends. It had nothing to do with “roles”m but everything to do with power and control.
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Seraph wrote:
Ha! Imam Piper and his Sharia laws!
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Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:
The vast majority of sane and rational people have no desire for Piper’s god.
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Complementarianism also asserts male superiority in intelligence, superior ability to interpret experiences and judge them, superior emotional regulation, etc.
As a woman, all of your identity, thoughts, reasonings, and perceptions are ultimately deferred to men. Your thoughts, judgments, experiences can only wait and float around until a man in a relationship or chosen men in a group comes along and decides if they are valid or not. Most often it just gets ignored and dismissed.
If that’s not a set up for abuse (or is already inherently abusive in itself), I don’t know what is.
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Seraph wrote:
The Reconstructed Godly Christian America of The Handmaid’s Tale.
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emily honey wrote:
Just substitute “White” or “Aryan” for “male” and you see where this can lead.
(Or WILL lead once Entropy sets in over time…)
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Seraph wrote:
Which is why I prefer to gather and analyze my own data, formulate my own theses, and hatch my own doctrine. Sometimes it agrees with what has gone before, sometimes not.
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Seraph wrote:
From a single woman in her 30s, thank you for this comment. I’ve never felt I fit in with church because the overemphasis on marriage, marriage, marriage. (And gender roles!) And it’s strange. Between the Disney cartoons and church teaching me Disney fantasy marriage being the goal of life, I used to pine for marriage. I’m so glad in retrospect God didn’t give me what I wanted. What I wanted was misplaced. What I really wanted was God, and to be loved by God. And family. I grew up in a broken home with an abuser for a father, and few to zero friends. I think I was trying to replace the loneliness I felt with marriage. Bad Disney doctrine from church reinforced this as the solution to all my life’s problems. Mistake!
God has had much better for me by keeping me single and teaching me reliance on Him. What I’ve learned I would not trade. I can now taste the life to come. I think God has been trying to get me (though I am stubborn and dense when it comes to hearing Him) to be a bit more monastic, to press into Him, to “waste time with Him”, as the old monastics would put it. Just to be with Him. It’s only when we drink deeply from Him and His life that we have any living water to share with others.
God bless you, Seraph!
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Ruth Tucker wrote:
It’s not just Piper and the radically reformed tribe. The big honchos of Calvary Chapel teach this stuff too and yet they will insist simultaneously that they’re non-Calvinist.
In reality (my opinion) they’re kissin’ cousins and any ‘differences’ are purely cosmetic.
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Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
Did not know that about Washington. Yet another thing that my home school textbooks did not tell me. Funny, my Mom wanted to home school me in part to keep me from brainwashing. This was triggered because in first grade I had a new age teacher who made the entire class meditate daily, and my Mom couldn’t get her to stop forcing her religion on me and the other kids, even after talking to the principal. My Mom just wanted me to learn facts, not agenda.
Now I realize that my Baptist home school textbooks were brainwashing me at the other extreme. My Baptist textbooks went out of their way to make the founding fathers of the USA look squeaky clean and make the USA look like a Christian nation. It’s sad when you can’t just relax and trust a history textbook to tell you complete truth. What’s a parent to do when they just want their kids to learn facts without some sort of brainwashing agenda? My poor Mom tried so hard. To have Christian textbooks betray one’s good intentions is abominable.
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Linn wrote:
So sorry for the abuse you endured. Thank God for no-fault divorce! I hate to say that, because I wish that people couldn’t up and leave if there wasn’t anything bad happening at home. Me and my Mom nearly went homeless because my father up and left. (But that was a good thing long-term, as he abused us.) On the other hand, a no-fault divorce lets victims get away without having to go through hell to prove abuse. If only there were real justice in our court systems. And a magic brain scan machine that could identify a faulty party who is abusive or adulterous beyond a doubt and reward the victim with all the offender’s stuff.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Funny thing HUG, every time I go to one of the ‘progressive’ sites on Patheos, I see well educated and savy white people pillory their ‘whiteness’ endlessly as the cause of all that’s wrong in Christendom.
At some sites, it’s gotten so routine that it resembles the ‘enlightened self criticism’ sessions before a Party Commissar in the old Soviet Union.
They are every bit as Orwellian as the most rabid alt-right fundamentalists, just 180 degrees (or pi radians if you prefer) in the opposite direction.
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Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
That is an interesting conclusion about patriarchalists that they “would love to treat their wives and daughters as slaves, but the law doesn’t allow it.” I will have to think about that conclusion.
When I toured Jeffereson’s home a few years ago I was always baffled by his supposedly being against slavery but being a slaveholder. Here was a man whose actions contradicted what he was teaching (sadly nothing that unusual about that). My conclusion was that slavery was something Jefferson felt he HAD to do to keep his estate functioning etc. vs. something that he wanted to do. Perhaps he didn’t see or think there were any alternatives to slavery at the time?
Another similar possibility is that Jefferson didn’t want to pay the price of not having slaves.
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Robert M wrote:
I think he was just better at covering up his lack of marbles with his flowery drivel.
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JYJames wrote:
I love how they think doing the right thing for men, and ‘christian’ men at that!, is somehow conditional on what women do or think.
You can’t be kind regardless? You can’t protect, regardless, anyone who needs it, not just women?
Then what are you? Some introspection about your motives for ‘protection’ of women is needed.
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Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
I think the alternate theory I heard was that it was family members of Jefferson, which would also fit the DNA evidence.
It doesn’t really matter, though, if he used her himself or allowed his family to. Still bad.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Full control over slaves didn’t make slave owners treat them well.
Full control over women will not make men treat us right either.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s like the history of the world never happened.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
Once you get to be single and above a certain age, it’s especially difficult to see why any woman should accept these gender roles as presented. They don’t fit, except within a very specific lifestyle and even then not well.
For me, they would be completely silly.
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Muff Potter wrote:
This is because it’s not really about Calvinism, it’s about control over others.
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@ Clockwork Angel:
No-fault divorce was why she finally felt brave enough to file. In the 1970s, no one seemed to take DV seriously unless a body was involved.
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Lea wrote:
Yeah the gender roles really, really don’t make sense when you’re single. And a working professional on top of it all! At home, my Mom and I don’t need any power/control role dynamic. We’re just friends. We get along fine.
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Linn wrote:
Yup. Even in the 80s, as a little girl calling my first phone number all by myself (911), the police did nothing when they showed up. The obvious evidence that a scared little girl called them while frantically crying didn’t matter. My Mom and I had to take a drive to give my father time to cool off. That was it. It was only in the early 2000s when I called at 18 that they finally arrested him. For him to be charged, I had to be 18 as a witness to what he did to my Mom. The testimony of a minor is not good enough. My Mom’s bruises that the police photographed at the hospital would not have been enough by themselves to convict him in court. I’m surprised in retrospect my testimony counted, since I was the daughter of the victim.
We still have a loooonnnng way to go.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
One of the things I find baffling about all the ‘reasons’ why marriages need a ‘head’ is the idea that two people can’t manage to make a decision together without anybody being in charge. It doesn’t work that way in real life.
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Lea wrote:
Yup. It would be so weird to have a “head” at home at this point. We just make decisions together, pull our resources together. It works fine. We’re not just friends. We’re *best* friends. Why can’t married folk figure that out?
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
Because somebody’s thinking in terms of Power Struggle — who’s on Top, who’s on Bottom, and nothing else can exist.
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Lea wrote:
Those who worship POWER can paint themselves with any ideology.
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ishy wrote:
“If you can’t baffle them with brilliance…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o
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Lea wrote:
Right but the idea that Jefferson would have let a male relative have a years-long sexual relationship with HIS property is hard to believe. And I think the evidence bears that out.
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Piper from the OP:
Most cultures from the dawn of history have been patriarchal, but that has not made women safer.
Even contemporary pro-patriarchalaists, such as Doug Phillips, abused his position of power and trust to sexually harass his teen-aged female nanny, Lourdes.
I think the Bible says the problem with the world is sin, and it says a correction to sin is Jesus Christ – not adhering to gender roles.
Marriage is also not a “cure,” either, not at societal level, and not for individual people.
However, a lot of Christians promote marriage (and parenthood) as “cures” for a troubled society, while the Bible itself says (see 1 Cor. 7) that it is better to remain single.
If marriage were a cure, one would expect Paul to have said it was a command from God that all should marry.
I thought Christian guys like Piper are supposed to be pointing people to Jesus Christ for help, as a solution and not gender roles (and not marriage, “family values,” the nuclear family, parenthood, or marriage)?
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From John Piper’s article: “Is there, Mommy and Daddy, a God-given, profound, beautiful meaning to manhood and womanhood?”
Piper’s interjecting himself in this question. No child would ask such a thing.
Another of Piper’s comments from the article: “…it won’t do to answer, “What it means is that when you grow up, you will have maturity and wisdom and courage and sacrifice and humility and patience and kindness and strength and self-control and purity and faith and hope and love, etc.” That doesn’t answer the question.”
Why doesn’t it answer the question Mr. Piper? I’d posit because he is so confined to his strict gender roles that this is the prism through which he sees all of life on an everyday basis. He can’t extricate himself from his gender roles bias to regard people as humans first, and not as men and women. Further, our very identity in Christ is not gender-based at all, for “there is neither male nor female in Christ.”
I think Piper is just another version of Doug Wilson the penetrating, conquering, colonizing, planting guy. They live in a small, insulated culture which cannot fathom men and women living together equally and in harmony. They must, at all costs, promote the Gender Wars in order to promote their theology on men and women.
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Julie Anne wrote:
Yes, Julie Anne! And I would assert that Complementarianism, especially the strict Patriarchy type, teaches that there is an imbalance of power between men and women – not just physically, but an imbalance of power in EVERY area, both emotionally, psychologically, mentally, spiritually, intellectually, etc. – that this sets the stage for abuse toward women and children in these kind of environments. When women believe that they must be submissive to abusive men because of the ‘male headship’ teaching, the result will be that they will be abused.
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ishy wrote:
What does that say about his followers?
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Darlene wrote:
It doesn’t lead to the answer he wants, so it doesn’t answer the question.
Glancing over that article I didn’t see enough meat there to make me think if will persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with him.
I think the idea that people are to be treated with respect because they are people is a better foundation for relationships without abuse than the idea that women need to be led by men. I’m just silly that way, I suppose.
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Robert M wrote:
Who would have thought?! “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” makes a good basis for Christians (and humans in general!). Brilliant! Why didn’t anyone ever teach this before?
Oh wait…
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Darlene wrote:
My Mom raised me to be a traditional female, and the Baptist churches we went to peddled this stuff that Piper pushes, and even as young as around age 4, it made me feel bad about myself, because I was a Tom Boy, not a “girly girl.”
These gender complementarians must think they are righting what they perceive as wrongs in culture (ie, gender confusion, transgenderism), but they contribute to it.
Complementarian teachings about girl- and woman-hood made me hate being female, for several reasons I won’t get into here. Being a male always looked much more fun and advantageous under complementarian gender teachings.
Boys (and men) got to be assertive, loud, out-spoken, risk takers, having fun and adventures, while I got the message loud and clear as young as age 4 and 5 that my only supposed purpose in life was to sit still, be quiet, flutter my eye lashes and look pretty for boys. And later marry and have a kid or two. No fun. No exciting adventures.
Then I get older and see 99.9% of these comps guys tell me if I marry a doofus or an abuser, I must submit to him and can never divorce – they once more make being a woman look like a form of hell, not something good.
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Dee I knew this would get up your nose as much as it got up mine. They need to wheel off Piper stage left & put him out to pasture. I suppose he’s still a cash cow though, so they keep him around…
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srs wrote:
Yeah. And some of them believe that if a woman doesn’t scream or yell for help, then she is complicit in her rape. How do I know? I’ve encountered these guys on social media more than once.
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Lea wrote:
It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a reason why at least some parents try and get their children to marry young. Get the women to marry before they become to smart to put up with this.
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Robert M wrote:
Gender Complementarianism Does Not Adequately Address, or Address At All, Incompetent, Loser, Or Incapacitated Men
https://missdaisyflower.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/gender-complementarianism-does-not-adequately-address-or-address-at-all-incompetent-loser-or-incapacitated-men/
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You don’t have to be Catholic or Orthodox (and even they are far from blameless in this), but there is something to say about having a real tradition of saints. It gives people examples of all walks of life to know that others like them have been honored and are worthy role models.
Look who partly inspired a young girl named Joan of Arc to do what she did.. she called upon St. Mary, St. Margaret and St. Catherine and St. Michael. And now, girls grow up calling on St. Joan herself.
Don’t expect either of these churches to change liturgical offices though (it’ll never happen for the Orthodox, but there is a lot of push in the RCC). The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ.. and at least for the Orthodox, they’re not quite transsubtantianist, but believe Christ exists in eternity and serves at the altar in heaven. So a priest is his model at the earthly altar. It’s not a sexist thing so much as it is about symbolism.
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emily honey wrote:
Complementarians also teach that each and every man is extremely susceptible to feminine wiles, sex appeal, and that the male ego is delicate and can be easily bruised if a woman for example gives a lost man directions too bluntly.
So, in complementarian land, men are simultaneously more rational, stronger, more logical, more un-Emotional than women, -but they are also capable of- being weaker, more emotional, more illogical, etc, than women.
It’s interesting and telling how Complementarians cook up a doctrine where men are only admitted to be flawed if doing so in that particular instance gets them off the hook and puts the blame on the female gender.
John Piper wants all men to be in charge even though they are delicate little things who apparently cannot with-stand a woman being direct and assertive with them when they are lost in a car, or, if a man sees a woman in a swim suit or a skirt showing off some leg.
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Mr. Piper has some serious mental health issues in my opinion. I am no expert but since he is not an expert in many professions he blabbers on about I figure what the heck.
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I should add that there are great, inspiring examples of women in Protestantism too.. but nothing is sealed in stone. It’s like a rug that could all be pulled out from under you. and people can forget (for example) great women of one’s tradition. I would say in Black churches, it’s harder to pull the rug out..the culture wouldn’t allow it. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, etc.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
I’ve never married and am over 45 years of age. Complementarianism is fixated on marriage for women.
Comps occasionally remind women they should not be preachers, but the majority of their out-put seems aimed at convincing women that their only purpose in life is to marry and have children and treat their husband as though he is a Boss over them.
Any articles comps have on their web sites about single adults are vastly out-numbered by the sheer avalanche “married women, remember, submit to your husband” drivel, and the tiny remaining articles will …
1. tell single women to act as free baby sitters for married couples
(which is patronizing – no mention is made of how marrieds or churches can minister to the singles)
2. assume that any woman reading the article is probably under the age of 30 and will definitely marry eventually, so, these types of articles are chock full of dopey Martha Stewart frou frou advice, telling single women how to make their homes “hospitable” for guests…
So when they marry, they can create that frou frou oasis for their Ward Cleaver husband who will come home after a tough day at the 9 to 5 grind.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
I forgot to mention this in the last post.
Another thing – and I’ve said before on this blog – I’ve held full time office jobs with both male and female coworkers.
When I had disagreements with male co-workers, we settled it by compromise or by talking things through.
The men I worked with did not insist on getting a “tie breaker vote” and stamping out my ideas or preferences just because they possessed male genitalia, an adam’s apple, or stubble.
If adults can achieve harmony in mixed gender workplace relationships without a hierarchy, there’s no reason Christians cannot do this within marriages.
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Lea wrote:
My ex was too dim-witted to make all or any big decisions. But comps would have insisted I defer to him even though I was more intelligent and more educated than he was. Their gender beliefs make no sense.
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Robert M wrote:
I agree with that, but I was just thinking about singleness again.
Really, the majority of complementarianism is concerned with marriage, and wives submitted to husbands.
However I’m a never-married woman in my 40s. I don’t need a man to define me or complete me or what not. (Then there are also divorced people and widows.)
Guys like Piper seem to feel that a woman can only be complete in a marriage, with a husband. Complementarians such as Piper seem to think a woman cannot have an identity on her own, she needs a husband for that.
It puts a fly in his complementarian ointment that there are in fact men and women who exist within and outside of Christendom who don’t marry and never will, either by choice or by circumstance, and the Bible does not say adults need to be married to be complete or to be a total woman (or total man).
The number of single adults is rising all the time. Depending on what studies you look at, singles (in the United States) are either at about the same number of married couples, or we singles have surpassed married couples in number.
Other nations are experiencing the same thing. Japan is another nation where more and more singles are choosing to stay single.
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Daisy wrote:
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve wondered recently if rigid gender roles contribute to gender confusing. If a little girl is told the only way to be a girl is to be super girly, she may feel confused if she doesn’t fit.
Heather Heying gave a really balanced take on this on shoe Rogan’s show, including stories about being a young girl who identified more with her father. She was never made to feel bad about it though, because she didn’t grow up in the church
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Daisy wrote:
This! I never have to submit to a tie-breaker man at work! At work, I use logic and persuasion skills, and am listened to. We all have to reason together or negotiate.
And yet these comp types allow men to do whatever without having to listen, reason, persuade, and negotiate. Supposedly, this is because women do not possess the same reasoning skills that men do, and are too emotional. And yet, who are truly the illogical, unreasonable, emotional ones who don’t want to reason through things, persuade their partner with logic, or calmly negotiate? Complementarian men. They get mad if they don’t get their way and resort to ad hominem attacks, like calling their wives emotional or stupid.
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He goes against Christ himself if he thinks single people are incomplete.
But then again, like I said about getting rid of a tradition of saints was a bad idea.. so was getting rid of the tradition of monasticism and solitary life.
…
I hate to sound like a broken record. Obviously I’m just annoyed with Calvinism in general. Whatever good intentions all of this “streamlining” had, it hasn’t amounted to much good.
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Beakerj wrote:
The same can be said for Pat Robertson (he hosts a daily Christian t.v. show in the United States).
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Ricco wrote:
I’ve seen one or two articles about it the last few months by two different Christian authors, but that was my experience growing up.
The sort of gender role teachings comps present made me dislike being a girl, and made me feel as though I was “wrong” in some way because I did not fit their definition (very narrow definition) of what it meant to be a girl.
I did try pretty hard to fit that box, mostly to please my mother. But it was never really me.
I also felt even at a young age that God loves and values men / boys more than women / girls due to how churches teach this stuff (ie, from the complementarian position).
And I don’t care about their stupid complementarian disclaimer that they believe women are ‘equal in worth just not in role,’ because even as a kid, I could see it was misleading and deceptive to tell me I (a girl) have equal worth to a boy, but could not do X or Y, merely due to having born been female.
Their motto about women being equal in worth did not erase the feeling I had that God does not love me as much as he does boys and men.
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Seraph wrote:
I don’t know as Piper has ever actually said single people are incomplete (though I have heard this from other preachers), but his gender role theology leads to that conclusion. He seems to define woman as merely being the opposite of man… so for me to be an actual woman, I’d have to have a man on my arm.
I don’t think Piper thinks a woman can be fully woman on her own, she’d need to have a man (her supposed opposite) to “complete” her in some fashion. I’m saying that’s what he seems to suggest, or where his views logically lead.
He’s probably (like a hypocrite) agree with me that a woman does not need a man to be a woman, but you would not know that from the way he goes on and on about defining women in their relation to men.
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I don’t even think “girly girl” was a thing 100 years ago. A lot of people had farms and had to work hard… all of them.
This is hardly a conservative or nostalgic concept so much as it is a weak, civilized concept (too civilized for one’s own good).
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@ Seraph:
It’s basically an idolization of 1950s upper muddle class society.
Poor folks have never had the option of comp lives. You are right about “gender roles” being way different when most people worked on farms. My grandma ran a dairy farm by herself while my grandpa sold cars. They weren’t wealthy enough for her not to work.
One of the two jobs (I can’t remember the other) that anthropologists have never found evidence of women doing is Whaling. There are only 2 jobs that women, as far as we know, have never done.
There are obviously genetic and physiological differences between men and women. We have very little idea how that actually manifests itself and, more importantly, we don’t really know how it should manifest itself. The only solution, in my mind, is to remove barriers and give people the freedom to live their lives as they see fit.
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Seraph wrote:
For a few of us, it wasn’t a hundred years ago.
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Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:
True. My mom grew up on a farm herself.. but it was in Thailand. But my dad (who just passed away) grew up on one in the 40s, until his family sold it when he was still young.
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Ricco wrote:
I grew up in church and always felt personality wise more like my dad. I never felt bad about it but I think this is before churches went quite so far in on gender roles.
Or maybe I wouldn’t have cared anyways precisely because of the ways I am like my dad, because he defiantly wouldn’t have been having any of that.
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Love this story of the lions..
St. Thecla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmlQ0Qyw894
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Err.. that story is apocryphal, of course… but it’s very old and sheds light that things weren’t so simple, even if you simply looked at it from the perspective of the writer of that story.
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Also, it’s interesting that Tertullian spoke out so much against it.. since he’s known himself for writing one of the loveliest letters to his wife, that depicts the equality of Christian marriage.
He’s also not canonized a saint, because he became a Montanist later in life. The movement started by Montanus, Priscilla, and Maxmilla (the latter two being outspoken female preachers).
Anyhow!
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Seraph wrote:
I’ve got two generations on ya. — my daughter and I both grew up on farms. Hogs, cows, tobacco and corn crops …… We fixed fences, cut and housed tobacco, etc. Gender didn’t matter. We were both expected to work, scars blisters and all that went with it.
My aunt now owns my paternal grandparents farm. My dad still has his farm. My husband and I have land that is mostly woods, but we call it a farm.
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Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:
You’re lucky.. I wish my parents had land all of these years.
Also, I probably wouldn’t be single if I grew up around the country. I’d probably marry a tough, farmer girl 😀
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Regardless of how one feels about Rachel Held Evans (I don’t agree with her on every subject), she always does an outstanding job of dismantling complementarian arguments.
She recently wrote this (I haven’t read it yet myself but will shortly):
Patriarchy doesn’t “protect” women: A response to John Piper
https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/me-too-john-piper
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@ Seraph:
How come we never hear of Thecla if she was that closely associated with Paul?
And why didn’t Paul defend her when she was up against the ropes?
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Seraph wrote:
I understand the Montanists were also into End of the World scares.
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Gus wrote:
Piper is not the only one who spouts this nonsense. Many messages at the church that I just left are chock full of complementarianism, and one preacher even lamented that the younger generation today is failing at marriage worse than any other generation and we should go back to things we were doing before and that would totally fix everything.
People like Piper and his ilk make me physically ill.
Clockwork Angel wrote:
This, this, a thousand times this!! And it’s not just marriage that churches are pushing, but *proper* marriage with *proper* gender roles. It’s sickening how much this message has permeated the church today.
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Daisy wrote:
That’s probably projection.
Piper is himself a delicate (if not effeminate) little thing.
Smaller and weaker physically than the majority of women at my office.
(That’s probably why he gets the Vapors in fear of “Muscular Women”…)
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Steve240 wrote:
Didn’t the beard from Duck Dynasty say pretty much the same thing?
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Daisy wrote:
You were a G4 Rainbow Dash in a world of G3s.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Quite a few teachers were end times types, but their real fault was saying they had special revelation and charismatic gifts (charisms were a good thing in themselves), yet dismissed church authority. So to the church leaders, it was suspicious. Because the church had the succession of the apostles and leaders were explicitly left by the apostles to carry on their teachings. So why would God go against them. That was their reasoning anyways.
Tertullian is such a great read though. And out of all the heretics, it wasn’t off base or anything. It was a matter of authority and pride.
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Daisy wrote:
Don’t have the credentials to comment on your blog, so I’ll just tell you here:
The way you described your ex-boyfriend “Burt”, it sounds like a marriage would have quickly developed into a Mooch-and-Sucker Show with you as the Sucker. Never mind the Mommy-and-His-Majesty-the-Baby vibe.
And followed another like about Comps and Damsels-in-Distress. I admit, when it comes to FRP game scenarios or pulp adventure, I have a thing for Damsel-in-Distress rescue scenarios. Thing is, I KNOW it’s a fantasy shtick And These Guys DON’T.
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Lita wrote:
This marginalizes a whole lot of people. Jesus never did that. He was the opposite, inclusive, whosoever will may come, if you take up your cross and follow Him (not if you pass the marriage with 2.5 kids “family” test). Jesus said His family was comprised of those who followed Him and did His Father’s will. Don’t hear wedding bells in that criteria.
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Seraph wrote:
To me, Saints are officially recognized Heroes of the Faith.
And we need Heroes other than the Charlie Sheens and Kim Kardashians.
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Muff Potter wrote:
Well, she is a saint still for Catholics and Orthodox. But it’s a very good question why the stories didn’t rise to more prominence. There were various stories of her, so I think she existed (certainly a lot of women did suffer as she did).. but maybe the stories became so divergent that it became hard to tell what was true or not.
I get the feeling that the story of Paul giving her a waiting period to be baptized is something from the writer’s own experience. Maybe not the original Thecla, but maybe the writer was using her and Paul to criticize something. Specifically criticizing a practice of catechists (students/new converts) that still exists to this day).
We are in the period of Lent as we speak. Lent means Fast, and it’s the great Fasting period before Easter. Catholic and Orthodox converts have a year or so waiting period to be baptized and they finally go through a Fast during this part of the year.. and then finally get bapitzed and partake of the Lord’s Supper on Easter and become full members of the church. This waiting period was meant to learn the faith and understand how to be in the community and worship services. So my theory is this is what Paul is doing in the stories.. but in a basic form.
But as for not helping her, that’s really strange. The writer certainly had an axe to grind against Paul. But the story of Thecla is still beautiful on it’s own.
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Darlene wrote:
The Ayatollahs of Iran and the Mullahs of Talibanistan would agree.
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http://thewartburgwatch.com/2018/01/26/while-male-pastors-continue-to-mishandle-issues-of-sex-abuse-and-domestic-violence-john-piper-declares-that-pastors-in-training-have-nothing-to-learn-from-competent-women/
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@ Daisy:
From the article:
“That’s because contrary to Piper’s argument, patriarchy isn’t about protecting women; it’s about protecting men. It’s about preserving male rule over the home, church, and society, often at the expense of women. “
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Indeed. It’s part of life to have examples and heroes. So why not Christian ones? Christ himself is our ultimate example and why God became flesh.. but many walk in Christ too to help us see him further.
This is what was so silly about tossing it out. You take that away, human nature will still exist, and then people will just go after the Kardashians lol.
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I’m starting to laugh to myself now about my theory on Thecla’s writer. Maybe it was written by students, who loved Christ, but who resented their teacher and waiting period.. and it circulated more than they expected. lol. I mean, it was still popular in the Byzantine empire centuries later.
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Nancy2 (aka Kevlar) wrote:
Thanks for pulling out the quote. Such a good point. And in that “protection” everyone is dumbed down to a “role”. The gender game. No Holy Spirit in that.
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Lita wrote:
By “failing” he probably means people are either choosing not to marry or don’t marry until later in life… which is not “failing.”
He’s taking his personal opinions on the topic and judging everyone by that yard stick.
And it’s not just today’s millennials. Plenty of Gen X like myself have never married. (I am single by circumstance, not by choice.)
Divorce rates started climbing sometime around the 1970s or ’80s, so your pastor’s generation (I’m assuming he’s older) was also “failing” at marriage, if one is using divorce rates as a criteria.
Today more people are choosing to get an education, a career going, and have some money saved up before marrying, as opposed to decades past, when many would marry just out of college or during, and marry with no money in the bank.
This is just a cultural / generational preference and is really neigther good nor bad, it just is what it is.
However, I keep seeing the Al Mohler types get really upset about it and write horrible posts insulting singleness and trying to scare today’s 20 year olds into marrying before they turn 25.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I’ll take your word for that since I’m not as familiar with the Pony show 🙂
I was into the Batman TV show, Star Wars movies, climbing trees, bike riding, etc. I was really not that keen on Barbies or other stereotypical girly-girl pursuits that culture or complementarians say that I “should” be into, or that God supposedly designed me to like and care about.
I hated wearing dresses, too, as a kid, but my mother always stuck me in one for church every week.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I remain bowled over that complementarians would have expected me to unilaterally submit to that guy, especially in “big decisions” that they say require a “tie breaker quote.”
My ex had many flaws and annoying habits, but another big one is that he kept putting his mother before me, even when we were engaged.
Even after my ex’s mother bit my head off over the phone (I didn’t do anything to provoke her, just called to ask if she knew where he was), and I later told him about it. And he defended her.
Anyway, my ex was not leadership material. Even just in dating/ being engaged to him, I had to take charge because he was not the sharpest tool in the shed.
I didn’t even want to make any or all choices in that relationship, because I was not raised to do so by my parents. I was reluctant to make decisions for him/us, because my mother raised me to be a passive June Cleaver type.
But to be June Cleaver, you have to be married to a reasonably intelligent, competent, and responsible Ward Cleaver, but my ex was a doofus extraordinaire.
I cannot fathom how it is John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and these guys really expect a woman with a brain in her head to take direction from a dim bulb.
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Daisy wrote:
Have you met their significant others? Everyone dumbs themselves down to play this gender game, and it takes two to play complementarian – the original and the complement. The game insists that everyone play less than who they are created to be. The guys don’t have to learn to relate to women as peers, and the women don’t have to step up to be fully independent, responsible persons. Boys and their girl toys. Forever. ‘Til death do they part. It’s a mindset, a culture, a contrived theology.
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JYJames wrote:
Complemntarian licing involves way too much subterfuge.
I’ll pass.
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@ Lea:
Living! What I get for commenting in the middle of the night.
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@ Lea:
It’s OK, however, thanks for the correction and you make a good point. Complementarian living does involve sub·ter·fuge, or a scheme: to elevate men and subordinate and silence women. Unfortunately, both genders lose their humanity, who God created them to be as fully relational human beings. Men no longer have feedback, and women have limited contribution.
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one of the little people wrote:
Well said! The myth that Egalitarianism, they used to say ‘Feminism’, is the root cause of sexual immorality in all of its ugly manifestations, including sexual abuse, is the false message that has been used all along by New Calvinists to sell their beloved myth of Patriarchy.
Pushed as Modesty, Purity or ‘Kissing Dating Goodbye’, these hucksters abused the trust and fears of well-meaning parents who wanted to spare their children the pain they themselves may have suffered. Red-blooded mothers and fathers who may have been abused themselves, or ended up with a child out of wedlock, were eager to believe promises that if they ‘did things right’ their children would not succumb to sexual temptations.
Those involved are increasingly seeing that much of this movement included placing the blame on the female – she was too immodest, too ‘friendly’, too available and so on. What was downplayed was the age-old truth that, no matter how a girl dresses or behaves, there are many men who have trouble controlling their junk.
Thus, not only did abuse still happen, added to this was the trauma of parents and children alike feeling like they somehow ‘failed’. After all of the promises, all the radical steps they took to ‘protect’, how could sex still happen?
The real mistake, made by those who call themselves ‘church leaders’, was in insisting that sexual sin is caused by exterior circumstances, rather than innate selfishness. Whether it is forcible rape or grooming and manipulation, sexual abuse is always about selfishly using another person for your own personal gratification. This is the simple, obvious message that this whole Patriarchy movement has distorted.
Sexual abuse does not happen because the victim did something wrong, wasn’t modest enough, wasn’t pure enough, didn’t take enough steps. In fact, what appears to be true is that the more naive and innocent the individual, the more vulnerable they are to manipulative predators. This is the dirty little secret of the Calvinista Patriarchs, which they are desperately trying to evade, as countless families deal with the fallout of having believed their false promises.
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Daisy wrote:
Sounds like he expected to marry another Mommy.
You dodged a bullet.
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Daisy wrote:
G4 is the current version (4 of 4) of “the Pony show”, currently starting its eighth season; Rainbow Dash is a highly-competitive tomboy of a Pegasus, who around 4th-5th Season finally achieved her dream of getting into a prestige stunt-flight team.
G3 is the previous version, and is considered the all-time low point. All the Ponies in there were shallow girly-girl airheads doing giggly girly-girl things — tea parties, dress-up, you name it.
There’ve been a couple short video mashups of G4 Rainbow Dash watching a musical number of her G3 namesake and reacting with either mouth-open shock or rage.
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Seems the less a woman is seen as an equal, the more a man is seen as the necessary protector of a woman rather than a co-equal heir in Christ, the more patriarchal, more “complementarian”, the more abuse occurs.
That’s what every abusive society does, from Ancient Egypt with their view of the Hebrews, to the Antebellum South, and their view of people with African ancestry, to the National Socialists, and their view of Jews, Christians, Gypsies and other non-Aryans. They all viewed them as lesser things, not co-equals. It’s more or less something that must be done before a society can rationalize really vicious abuse.
Is there anyone, anywhere who thinks Weinstein viewed female stars as equals like an egalitarian? Or that Spacey viewed teenage boys as equals? Really? The reason they thought these people were objects to abuse was for the very reason that they thought they were beneath them. Of course, it’s self-evident.
But the more self-evident something is, the less it seems to occur to John Piper.
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Seraph wrote:
In my youth, we often had mythologized versions of historical figures — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and the like. But they have been deconstructed with appropriate ironic quips, leaving only the Kardashians.
(Though around Age 10, with me it was a fictional hero — the original Lion King, Kimba the White Lion.)
This also explains why Superhero movies are such a big thing — mythic heroes.
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truthseeker00 wrote:
Indeed. All of their advice for avoiding sexual (or emotional or physical)abuse makes it more likely.
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Seraph wrote:
Steve240 wrote:
i.e. Every word from his august lips is Ex Cathedra SCRIPTURE.
That takes Infallibility farther than any Pope has ever claimed.
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Lea wrote:
Feature, not Bug.
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Law Prof wrote:
Like Romans getting around the anti-adultery laws by buying sex slaves.
Slaves were property, not people, and you can’t commit adultery with your furniture.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
A commenter over at Internet Monk once coined the phrase “Salvation by Marriage Alone”.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Yep, happened in the Deep South also back in the pre-1865 bad old days.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I’d argue the same thing was at work in the antebellum South. The masters would sexually assault their female slave property and if any children resulted, they were property as well. They could, and were, sold away from their sperm donors.
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Law Prof wrote:
One of my contacts in Furry Fandom told me about encountering Millenials at con parties whose attitude is “What’s Wrong with Slavery?” And that every one of them initiates the subject of Sexual Rights to Animate Property.
And we all remember ManaGAWD Doug Wilson and Southern Slavery as it Really Was, don’t we?
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Muslin fka Deana Holmes wrote:
How do you think Thomas Jefferson offset some of his debts?
(Guy had NO money sense; always getting into hock…)
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I haven’t read the above comments as of yet, so please bear with me as a former “worshipper and faithful listener” of the desiring god program via the internet. The generalizations that Piper makes within the context of our faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, simply amazes me….and not in a righteous way. When the scales fell off of my eyes and my ears were opened to the truth of God’s Word, I found no Scriptural verses to justify the babblings of the Pipers, or any other individual who professes those same lies within the “complementarian camp.”
I asked myself, “Was Jesus, my Risen LORD and Savior, a complementarian or an egalitarian.” And the answer was “neither.” I am reminded of Jesus preaching to the masses and feeding the five thousand….and all of the other miracles He performed. Jesus had a great mass/number of followers as He preached and taught amongst those thirsty for the truth. And when those truths became difficult, too difficult to bear, many fell away from those truths because Jesus Kingdom was not like the kingdoms of this world. And when our LORD and Savior humbly and willing went to the tree on Calvary to be crucified for our sins, who, pray tell, was with Him to the end of his earthly life as we know it? Who dared to weep at the foot of the cross for the Savior of the world…………………
were these individuals “complementarians” or “egalitarians.”
When the Word of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is divided into “complementarian or egalitarian” camps, please know, that the Jesus of our Holy Scriptures is NOT being preached nor taught, but instead, a doctrine that is foreign to Christ……perhaps a “doctrine of demons” so to speak, for He came and rose again to set the captives free…..and that is you and me…….from the bondage of religious zealots who seek followers after themselves (Piper and his cohorts).
To me personally, Piper is but a coward, hiding behind a form of religion that no longer ministers nor witnesses to me. And as far as the east is from the west, I believe he is in desperate need of getting his own home in order AND in need of hearing the Gospel in its Scriptural context for he is not rightly dividing God’s Word. God’s sheep are far more worthy than the jibberish that comes out of Piper’s mouth/heart.
Praying Piper will some day, receive Jesus as His LORD, Savior, and Master.
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From the article:”Let’s go back to the founding of our country, when men were men and women were women. Thomas Jefferson sexually used Sally Hemings, who he treated as his property. How many children did he have with her?”
I am with you about Piper. His point is ridiculous. I am not a historian, but from my investigation this allegation was from political dirt, from a person paid to dig up dirt on Jefferson. I don’t think we can trust such things. The allegation was known at the time and people who knew Jefferson denied it in no uncertain terms. It was however known that Jefferson’s brother did socialize with the slaves and thus could explain the DNA link. Although I can’t say for certain, neither can his critics prove that Jefferson did this. Though I know some will want to believe that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemming’s children, I think it is very questionable that he did.
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Karen wrote:
I’m not saying I think this is what you are saying, but speaking just for myself I don’t think both partners should be equal in a marriage, either. There are things that I do better than my wife and things my wife does better. Ideally I should lead in the areas that I am proficient in and she should lead in the areas she is proficient in. Accordingly I believe marriage roles should be left to the people in the marriage to figure out. They certainly shouldn’t be dictated by men like Piper, who thinks the man should lead even though his personality might be more submissive than his wife’s.
For a topic that the complementarians consider to be of utmost importance they don’t seem to claim much of a scriptural support for it. It’s like the think the Bible can be summarized by, “Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit, then Paul wrote to the Corinthians about head coverings, and that’s it.”
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Robert M wrote:
I believe they are equal in their persanage as human beings created in the image of God, but they have different gifts they bring to the marriage.
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Bridget wrote:
Agreed.
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Bridget wrote:
Different gifts, experience, education, temperament…
where complementarians err (well, one way they do!) is assuming that specific gifts go to specific sexes, or even if they don’t we should all just forget about it – crazy to hear people like Piper lamenting that COMPETENCE is considered???
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Ken A wrote:
You might find this article interesting, from the website of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation website, Monticello.org:
https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemings
Interestingly, Hemings appears to have been Jefferson’s late wife, Martha’s, half sister.
She was herself a third generation slave/concubine.
Also, Jefferson could not have married her had he wanted to, despite fathering six children, because interracial marriages were illegal. Make of that what you will.
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Ken A wrote:
Really? Why is it even called political dirt? Would it have been dirty if he had loved a black woman?
The slavery part is the dirt.
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Lea wrote:
Indeed!
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Indeed. I was one of them myself (well, a comic book fan when I was a kid.. pretty burned out on the movies now).
I’ve never seen the Lion King. Or a lot of Disney movies. I’ve been told that’s weird. 😛
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Karen wrote:
Thanks for sharing your story, Karen. As straight up as it gets. Appreciated.
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Not true. Recent DNA testing has proven that the Hemming’s family is directly descended from Jefferson and Jefferson’s descendants have accepted the Hemming’s as kin.@ Bill:
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Brother Maynard wrote:
Brother Maynard, pullest thy pin and lobbest thou…
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Robert,
I understand your comment and can relate to what you are saying. My point regard the issue of “humanness.” I believe we are created equal by our LORD, for He created “man” and “woman” per the book of Genesis, and yes, I agree with you with respect that He gave each of us unique talents, gifts, and personhood. There is no one else upon the face of this earth that was or is created exactly like each of us…..we are individually unique…..and the thought of this revelation gives me such great expounding joy in our LORD for only HE is the author of all life.
My concern is the fact that so called clergy, teachers, preachers, or anyone else who claims the Name of our Great and Sovereign LORD, can legitimately force their false theology regarding the “headship,” “leadership”, and “gender authoritarianism” by using the Holy Scriptures as their weapons to force a certain people group under “submission” to a false lord/god/jesus.
My story also includes running, sprinting, bolting out the door of an abusive Baptist church where “complementarianism” was taught, practiced, and even spilled over into the area of women having to “obey” rigid male leadership beyond our own husbands. Our conservative, signs and wonders Pastor taught from his pulpit stage, the “hierarchy” of his theological ideas….1. God the Father, 2. Jesus, 3. Man, 4. Woman, 5. Children…in that order. And I won’t even go into the messy state of his own household. I believe this teaching is known as ESS in some circles of Christianity due to the fact that hierarchy, including human hierarchy, has become the pillar of the visible church.
And when I left that abusive religious system disguised as “a church,” I was suffering greatly, floundering for answers concerning exactly what I experienced in that church/cult. The internet became “my friend” and I read as many articles that I could find regarding the “ways of cultic religion/Christianity” as well as listened to a myriad of preachers and teachers, seeking to find answers as to why Christians could be so abusively cruel. John Piper was one of the theologians that I listened too on a regular basis for I was blind and confused in understanding the true meaning of the words “God’s Love.”
I left an abusive church, only to replace their hierarchal teachings with the instruction of “complementarian theologians,” and so I went from bad to worse in understanding that I was a “worm” and “unworthy” of Jesus’ Love. I literally witness on a daily basis, that “woman” is to blame for ALL of the sins of this world according to the ways of the “complementarian.” I saw and heard this in my former abusive church, from the pastor man on down (jezebel theology was used to keep those “rebellious women” in line), and the funny thing was, sexual impropriety was secretly practiced at an all time high on the sidelines, including the pastor man and his household.
So no, I do not believe egalitarianism is the “root cause” of all sexual abuse, sexual infidelity, or any other sexual sin under the sun. In fact, the words egalitarianism and complementarianism are not even in the Scriptural texts and I never heard such drivel growing up in a small Lutheran church. Never. And the “jezebel sermons” never existed either due to the fact that men and women were regarded equally with love and respect for one another’s personhood. In growing up in a small, lower income assembly, ALL individuals had to pitch in, in serving our LORD, gender wasn’t a factor, as it is in today’s “modern(?) church.
After reading and understanding the Holy Scriptures for myself, fully knowing how much Jesus loves people, including the “least of these,” I find it truly amazing that Jesus teachings, preaching, and His Ways, have been turned upside down in an institution that is supposed to reflect His Image………..the freedom and liberty in Christ, His lightening our burdens and bearing our yokes, has been replaced with slavery to worldly religious systems that love money, power, control, and hierarchal titles all in the name of pride of this life.
Piper, like each of us, will have to give an answer to Jesus, for all of the lies he has been spewing out of his mouth for far too many years, and the poor sheep he is leading astray. It is truly freeing and joyful to my soul, to not be in bondage to Piper’s religion no more, and I encourage others to do the same……leave “Piper’s house!”
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JYJames wrote:
Thank-you JY James, you made my whole day. Blessings to you!
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KMD wrote:
So because Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law was a scoundrel, that means Thomas Jefferson was?
The son that was originally alleged to have been fathered by TJ does not have Jefferson linked DNA. The source of the allegation way back in the 1800’s was a man who had a grudge against TJ. He was a former investigator for a TJ newspaper who thought he had been overlooked by TJ. He had an ax to grind against TJ. Believe what you will. I prefer to weigh the facts and draw my conclusions. If TJ did have Sally Hemings as a concubine, I condemn it. It would be a terrible thing to do. I just don’t know that we in this century can come to the conclusion that he did it.
Of course we can all agree that slavery in our country was a terrible moral evil. That one man could own another man is morally repugnant. There where many terrible crimes committed not the least would be the rape of female slaves by their owners. We all agree. To put the morality of what we see so clearly on all the people of history who dealt with this as though they should have seen it exactly as we see it now in our modern culture and should have done everything they could up to armed revolt is unfair in my opinion. As an example I will say that generations after us may well look at us the same way for the sin we tolerate in our generation of abortion. I am not saying we should be ready for armed revolt. But others after us may well be morally outraged that we didn’t. I do not mean to let TJ and the Founding Fathers and Mothers for that matter off the hook for allowing slavery to go on in their generation. But to say we would have done differently than they ended up doing politically is a real stretch in my opinion. It is historical bias.
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Mark wrote:
Not to digress into the DNA evidence, but could they possibly tell the difference between, say, Jefferson and his brother so many generations later? Especially if jeffersons wife and sally Hemings were half sisters.
And they would still be family, wherever it was Jefferson or another. Especially as it sounds like there were multiple familial connections.
I am not partial to either theory, just doubtful the DNA evidence would be so exact.
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I agree with all the criticisms in the article and comments of Piper and ESS and Complementarianism. Completely agrree. But I muse disagree with one thing from the article. Piper may or may not have a psychiatric disorder, I don’t know. But I’m fairly certain that psychiatric problems aren’t what cause his beliefs.
This kind of teaching and interpreting come from a kind of choice — the same kinds of choice that people make as they become more and more racist, or homophobic, or misogynistic over time.
In God’s very nature is love for every individual, and to follow God is to desire to experience and exhibit that love. To reject that is sin, pure and simple, and that is the choice Piper makes.
I think it behooves us to criticize Piper strongly and also with love (as much as we possibly can). but we must not give him the benefit of the doubt by calling his failure of love a psychiatric disorder. He is a sinner, full stop.
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Juulie Downs wrote:
I think it’s certainly possible (although we cannot come close to diagnosing it from a few tweets) that Piper may be sliding into mild dementia, but it has nothing to do with his beliefs about women and men. Separate issues.
When given a few potential interpretations of a passage, the one you choose to believe says a lot about you and how you see God. I agree with you. Piper and his ilk choose to believe the most harsh and unloving interpretations, over and over.
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First, the biblical text does not say that David “sexually molested” Bathsheba. That is conjecture. Second, if you had read the Washington Post article which you link to, it says, “And it’s impossible to know what Hemings thought of Jefferson. As with many enslaved people, her thoughts, feelings and emotions were not documented.” The ancient, and still practiced concubinage was not deemed “sexual abuse,” nor was it considered illegal or immoral. All this to show that, given these to points alone as a reference, you should not offer an opinion.
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Be wary of churches breaking the silence by Deborah Brunt
https://www.keytruths.com/Be-wary-of-churches-breaking-the-silence/
Snippets from that article:
Pay attention when a church leader’s attempts to honor women demean and dishonor instead.
Pastor-Man preaches that women can guard against sexual harassment and rape by dating men who act like gentlemen in public. Does he not know? Or maybe he does: Abusers grooming a target play the gentleman well.
Warming up to his subject, Pastor-Man denounces sexual violence in any form. He warns against it. Especially, he warns against covering up abuse to protect the church’s reputation. Passionately, he draws a line in the sand.
And then – he erases the line. He says, in essence: “I know no sexual abuse is happening here.” Then, he keeps preaching against abuse, as if he had not just torpedoed his whole sermon.
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Seraph wrote:
Don’t feel bad. You didn’t miss out much. Disney movies are like sitting through a sermon at a Protestant church. All about fairy-tale marriage, marriage, marriage….
Although the Lion King had less emphasis on that. But there’s always the love interest that gets randomly flung in there.
It’s kinda why I appreciate the Star Wars: Rogue One movie. No forced sappy romance. The leading woman and man just got along as companions/friends with the same goal of destroying the evil Galactic Empire. No wedding bells. A man and a woman don’t automatically have to feel attraction to get along and accomplish great things. How refreshing! And coming from Disney!
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Juulie Downs wrote:
I just call what Piper has “Little Man Syndrome”. Any man that thinks an “unsubmissive” woman is a threat to his “masculinity” ……… Well, I figure he ain’t much of a man any way.
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J wrote:
Let’s do a little sex abuse education. King David was in a position of power and used that power in order to have sex with Bathsheba. The text itself does not say that Bathsheba gave consent and the focus on the Bathsheba incident focuses on David’s sin which is important. In fact, it said he sent 2 messengers to. go get her. Sounds like they were ready to drag her back to me. One did not disobey the King. She had NO choice in the matter. If the king wanted sex, he got sex. The text does not say she flirted with him or was excited to be with him. The text says HE was overcome with her beauty. That speaks volumes to me.
J wrote:
You can be sure I read it if I wrote about it. Being a bit condescending, aren’t you? Touchy subject for you perhaps? Sally Hemings was not allowed to state her opinions. She was merely property for Jefferson. Once again, this was a power differential dynamic. Jefferson had total power and control over Hemings. Any man who has kids with his wife and having sex with a slave is behaving badly. Sorry. This scenario is straight out of molester’s playbook. If he truly loved her, he would not have done this to her. He did this to her because he wanted sex, not love.
J wrote:
It may not have been deemed to be sexual abuse back then but the practice still was sexual abuse. Just because something was not illegal or immoral in the past, doesn’t mean it was moral or that it should have been illegal. Or are you one of those guys who thinks racism and slavery were fine?
Imagine being a woman amongst hundreds of women, waiting to be called upon for sex with the king and never, ever being allowed to marry and have your own family. Concubines were essentially property-for politics or because they were cute for a one night stand. That is abusive and demeaning.
J wrote:
Oooooooo The man states the little lady should not offer an opinion because he made a few statements he deems as PROOF!
So, it sure looks like I stepped on your toes. I wonder why that might be? I am a victims’ advocate and I have been doing this for a long time. You should listen to me since it is apparent that you have much to learn in this area.
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Do Gender Roles Keep Women Safe?: A Response to John Piper
https://www.cbeinternational.org/blogs/do-gender-roles-keep-women-safe-response-john-piper
Snippet:
By insisting that maleness qualifies men to lead and care for women, complementarians give men responsibilities that rightly belong only to those who have demonstrated a capacity for leadership. Maleness is not morality. Maleness is not a character quality. Maleness can tell us nothing about a person’s intimacy with Christ, their character, or their commitment to holiness.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
If you’re looking for additional movies that affirm that love comes in many forms (not just in marriage, sometimes friendship is stronger or more important than romantic love), you may want to watch these:
–Bride Wars
–Maleficent
–The Wedding Ringer
(‘Wedding Ringer’ movie contains some lewd humor in a couple of scenes, but it’s about friendship being better or more powerful than marriage)
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Daisy wrote:
Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll add them to my “to view” list.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
I don’t mean to say they are super great movies – I’d say they’re pretty mediocre – but they do have plots that teach that sometimes friendship is better or more enduring than romantic relationships.
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Clockwork Angel wrote:
I loved The Lion King! And especially Jeremy Irons as Scar. But I just don’t see the sappy romance angle over played.
I liked Rogue One too, for the same reasons you’ve elucidated even though romance does have its place if the writer is skilled enough with its warp and woof.
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Daisy wrote:
I was driving home today and “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables came up on my play list. My mind juxtaposed the sufferings of that poor woman with Piper’s insistence that women be subject to men. While the character’s suffering in Les Miserables is fictional, it is not fiction that historically many women suffered the same fate after they were abandoned either by the death of their husband or simply abandoned.
While I don’t buy the notion that patriarchy was some sort of western plot against women I do believe that now things are changed due to factors such as the ability to control reproduction and technology to free women from traditional chores. I don’t think the prior order of things was necessarily best and that anyone would seriously think that half the population would willingly to go back to that level of dependency is ignorant of or impervious to the suffering through out history.
While I have come across many good and bad men, even if the person is one of the good ones I would not trust him more than myself to watch out for my interests, I certainly would not want them to have the power to direct my life. And if that can be said of the good men, what of the many bad ones? I supposed Piper has some silly simplistic way to wave off those concerns.
It has been mentioned by others here on TWW that insistence on a young earth theology drives away many from consideration of Christ. While that thinking may run some off with a shake of their head, the concept of re-subjugating women will run many more off in fear.
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It is incredible to me that anyone with intelligence can look at this statement –abusers are being identified — and conclude definitively — this means abuse is happening now that did not happen in the good old days. Piper does not need Logic 101; he knows full well he is twisting things for his own advantage. But his followers need Logic 101 when they continue to buy into this nonsense.
One of the reasons Piper knows he is twisting this to support his complementarian agenda is the rampant abuse within his own church. So much abuse and relational harm has gone on there in the name of complementarianism that outside churches and counselors have considered staging an intervention. That’s why they had to preach the anti-abuse sermon several years ago. But all the sermons in the world won’t help because they refuse to acknowledge the source of the problem — their distortion of male-female relationships. Abuse of any sort occurs when one person uses his or her power to harm rather than help another. Complementarianism enables abuse because it explicitly maintains an imbalance of power, teaching women to be submissive and men that they deserve respect and fealty. And that’s only one of the harmful results of this pet piece of theology. Piper and his crew have taken a few verses from the Bible and compiled a massive Pharisaical list of dos and dont’s they believe apply to every gendered relationship throughout history and across cultures — an absolutely ignorant position to take and a matter of adding to the Bible which is explicitly condemned by Scripture itself. By so doing, Piper has created quite the destructive, legalistic environment in his church and in the churches of all the Piper fanboys that drink in his every word. All of it is an outrage.
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Thersites wrote:
Or they belong to the other half of the population who’d be on Top.
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@ Muff Potter:
I recently heard from a friend who’s a BIG World of Warcraft gamer that the WoW movie spent 5-10 years in development because for years every Hollywood director they tapped wanted to throw out ALL the established background and lore and go with a Sappy Hollywood Romance plot. It took them years to find someone in the industry who’d film Warcraft instead of Sappy Hollywood Romance.
Come to think of it, the only movie that comes to mind WITHOUT a Sappy Hollywood Romance plot is Gettysburg…
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Daisy wrote:
Like Daisy’s ex?
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J wrote:
Gag! Please stay in your own country.
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Thersites wrote:
Not a free-thinker it won’t.
We’re a vanishing breed, beholden to none, and all over the map, with varying beliefs and non-beliefs.
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Youth Earth is one of those seemingly ridiculous things that I think still has a kernel of truth to it. That humans themselves are a genetic anomaly.
Did you know that chimps have more genetic diversity than humans? Just the implications of that is pretty mind boggling. Humans have conquered and populated the earth, and it didn’t even take us very long. Modern civilization can be traced back relatively recently. If our evolutionary path was so old, we’d be as diverse as other animals. But we’re all 99.9 identical. How did something so young manage to surpass every other creature on the planet and even shoot for the stars?
But as for male or males, I’m not sure what that has to do with Young Earth. Besides that, the whole point of Christianity is that we are new creatures, through Christ. We don’t hold up the old creation as an example. “There is neither Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free”..
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“As for males or males”. I MEAN “As for males or females”.
Freudian slip 😛
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Thersites wrote:
When I saw the statement Piper made about women “longing for male leadership” it seemed to me that a woman like that would lack the emotional maturity we would normally expect to find in a functioning adult. Why would women aspire to such a state, and what kind of man would want to marry such a woman?
I wonder whether these churches have a certain expectation of what it means to be a man, such as loving football and acting like a frat boy.
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This is so asinine to me that I can’t even believe there are so many debates about it.
Eve’s “desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you” IS A CURSE.
CURSE.
Not a basis or model for life… let alone Christian teaching. It’s reflective of a CURSE.
Shall I say it again? Curse 😛
Just like Adam’s working of the soil and ever-present discontent is a CURSE. Not something you aspire to! Shall we all strive for bankruptcy while we’re at it? How about hemorrhoids? Yay!
Man, it must suck to be these people. That’s all I can really say. To look at curses and turn them into blessings. Worse yet, to spread their tainted doctrine and “teach” them as blessings. To live a life that is so devoid of realizing the magnitude of the Incarnation. “Behold, I am making all things new.” I can’t help but pity these people. If they were Christian, I wouldn’t say that.. but obviously they’re very sad folks who actually haven’t heard the “Good News”.
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This all reminds me of Islam actually. The other form of broken, heretic Christianity that turned everything about the broken creation into some kind of pseudo blessing. These Neo-Cals are even directly following suit by embracing ESS.. which is what the original Muslims did (it’s partly based on Arianism.. come back in the form of a mutated 10 headed beast).
I imagine some of these Protestants secretly long to be like that, but they don’t have the guts to voice it. In which, I actually respect Islam more for simply being less deceptive.
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Seraph wrote:
I think you’d be genuinely shocked to find out that I flatly reject the evolutionary model in favor of special creation.
But as a disclaimer, I don’t part company with those who subscribe to theistic evolution based solely on the proposition that evolution is a deal breaker for ‘the gospel’ as some see it, those who insist that you (generic you) cannot believe in theistic evolution and be a Christian too.
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Muff Potter wrote:
Evolution, creation, or creation by evolution, I don’t have a stake in the debate. I never was able to understand the biblical imperative that my acceptance of anything other than the literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis was tantamount to a renunciation of faith. If the Earth was only thousands of years old I will have a big gripe with the creator for His deception of putting in place all the evidence that it is billions of years old rather than thousands.
Thankfully the question of the age of the Earth should be irrelevant to the question of faith and how we conduct our day to day lives. We can have fruitful conversation with most any view as long as they aren’t locked into the notion that we are heretics because we don’t share their conclusions. The same cannot be said of the status of women, in this case it is not just their personal belief but is by nature of the subject something they want to impose. Even when on speaking terms with proponents I would do what I could to oppose them. Discussing with someone their desire to put women into subjugation so they can be “protected”, ranks right up there with debating a proposal on the positive aspects of slavery. And yes we’ve seen a few argue both, in particular a pastor in Moscow Idaho that argues for second class status of women and the positive aspects of slavery in the old South. I may be mistaken but at least Piper isn’t that far into madness.
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Muff Potter wrote:
Well, I’m not shocked 🙂 Or rather, I don’t know much about you, but all of the posters here seem very passionate about Christ so I know you’re not wishy washy or anything 🙂 What is special creation though? Maybe I believe that too.
Thersites, I don’t have a stake in this either. I’m happy with just the mystery. But what you said about millions of years of evolution is why I mentioned humans’ lack of diversity. That’s why I call it a anomaly.
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Seraph wrote:
Special creation simply means that the Almighty used his talents and energies to create the vast diversity of life on Earth in situ, and in real time.
Theistic evolutionists on the other hand believe that God used a long interative procedure of slow incremental steps from common ancestral types to arrive at the bio-diversity we see today.
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Robert M wrote:
Don’t forget Animal Dominance Games and Getting Laid Any Time & Way I Wanna.
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Seraph wrote:
I’ve heard it said that “Calvin Islamized the Reformation”, and these More Calvinist Than Calvin types have ISISed it. (Just as the Wahabi/Taliban/ISIS are More Islamic than Mohammed.)
Both Calvin and Mohammed were very much into Predestination and God’s Sovereignty and Omnipotent Will to the exclusion of everything else. Islam/Calvinism emphasizes the Power of God, Christianity emphasizes the Love and Personality of God. (As Christian Monist put it, “You end up with a God who’s Omnipotent but Not Benevolent.”) And a lot of the Dark Side shows through as their followers try to be Godly under that definition of God.
Remember the Paradox of Evil? God is (1) All-Good, (2) All-Powerful, yet (3) Evil Exists. Any two of these axioms, no problem. All three and you have a Paradox. Both Calvin and Mohammed attempted to resolve this paradox in the same way, by putting God beyond Good and Evil — God Wills what God Wills, and who are We to call it Evil? “We are the Creature; HE IS THE CREATOR!!!!” (from a radio preacher in the Seventies). Again, you end up with a God who is Omnipotent but NOT Benevolent, and Godly who imitate that.
And Seraph is EO, whose institutional memory includes the fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and crushing of EOs under the (Islamic) Turkish Empire for centuries. So they’ve had bloody experience with the dark/downside of Islam.
I imagine some of these Protestants secretly long to be like that, but they don’t have the guts to voice it. In which, I actually respect Islam more for simply being less deceptive.
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Seraph wrote:
Completely agree. Anyone who does not see that the predictions in these verses (“”ou shall … “) are meant to tell Adam and Eve about the negative consequences of the Fall, not as prescription for leading a “Godly” life seems to be incapable of anything more than basic skills.
That is also how I learned it as a kid – the consequences of being driven from the Garden: “Because you sinned, these BAD things will happen to you.”
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He’s absolutely wrong though I can see why he might think that. The problem I am seeing with the ministerial abuses that are going on are because of the current seminary system in which the own congregation is not governing the selection of positions from within the congregations who know the reputation of who they are selecting. That’s way Paul instructed. Not sure why modern evangelicalism is governing this way. Never have understood it.