Complementarianism on the West Coast: Real Men Eat Sausage and Real Women Eat Vegetables

“I recently went to New York for the first time, and honey, I’m in love with that place. I’m obsessed with its sausages.” Natalia Tena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielbasa#/media/File:Kielbasa.jpg
link

My father and his parents were Russian. My grandmother taught me how to cook Russian dishes like pierogis and kapusta. We often served these dishes with kielbasa and other sausages. I had a number of friends from Eastern European backgrounds who enjoyed these treats. I still remember going with my mother to Sobocinski’s Meat Market in Salem, Massachusetts. I can almost smell the curing sausages and beautiful cuts of meat on display along with cheeses of all kinds.  Most people in the store chattered on in Polish, Russian, etc.

I remember my father enjoying his time at the Russian Club at Derby Wharf in Salem. Every year, the club would hire a bus to take a load of men and women to New York City to scour the Eastern European stores for the finest kielbasa. It was called “The Kielbasa Bus.” I still remember him coming home with his paper wrapped kielbasas that he treated like they were made of gold.

Many of his patients would bring him gifts of homemade sausages. The art of making kielbasa was a skill enjoyed by many women from Russian and Polish backgrounds. The closest gifts of vegetables that I remember were cabbage soup and wild mushrooms.

My kids grew up eating these foods This past week, I made kielbasa k bobs on the grill that we delicious. These foods are a part of my heritage. My DNA results show that I am pure Eastern European on my dad’s side.

My father also was a believer in really good bread-the thick, hearty Russian bread that needed to be served at breakfast, lunch and dinner along with the meats. He was known to judge the quality of a restaurant by the quantity and caliber of the bread.

What I wouldn’t give to hear my father’s reaction to a Gospel Coalition post The Beauty of Complementarity Goes Beyond Gender written by Brett McCracken. Even though McCracken seems to know a bit of what constitutes a hipster, he does not appear to be widely educated in the complexities of gender and multiculturalism.

It appears that McCracken believes (and a belief is what it must be because he certainly does not have any proof) that men and women eat different things.

We had picked two restaurant options where we would have dinner, depending on what the ultrasound revealed. If our baby was a boy, we would celebrate at the local artisan sausage and beer hall. If a girl, we planned to dine at our favorite all-vegetable restaurant in downtown Los Angeles.

A few months earlier, we were in a Vancouver restaurant enjoying an amazing porchetta sandwich. The doors on this restaurant’s restrooms struck me as subversively old fashioned. Instead of plain white triangles or “all gender” notations, these two washrooms had two different labels. One said “meat” and the other said “bread.”

Is food gendered? It sounds ridiculous. But what does it mean that my wife and I immediately knew that brats and fries for dinner were more appropriate to celebrate our baby boy than kale and candied beets? What does it mean that everyone in that Vancouver restaurant knew which bathroom to use, simply by the “meat” or “bread” signs on the door? Why is it that meat and bread—or meat and vegetables—pair so well together?

It’s because they are not the same. They are different—beautifully different—in ways that enhance and bring the best out of the other. They are dignified, not diminished, by their complementary differences. They are part of a ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet—that bring structure, coherence, and irresistible beauty to life.

McCracken appears to judge what constitutes gender differences by what they eat in California “in his type of restaurant” these days. In his world, hip people know that a picture of bread on a door MUST mean that it is for women. However, had the *meat* and *bread* doors been present in my hometown growing up, I can well assure him that it is highly likely my dad would have walked into the *bread* restroom and my grandmother, known for her sausages, might well have walked into the *meat* restroom.

For all the discussion going on with the gospel lads when it comes to fighting racism and extolling the virtues of immigration, I find this post rater amusing because it demonstrates just how difficult it is for them to define the differences between men and women.

Men and women are more complex than bread, meat, land and sea, desert and ocean. et. Any attempt to compare humans to food, inanimate objects, land formations, whatever, will fail.The reason is simple. Men and women are created in the image of God. Sausages are not.

I am still left with my unanswered questions.

  • What can a man do in a marriage that a woman cannot do?
  • In the church, does the whole gender thing really boil down to “Women cannot be pastors and elders?”
  • I put a few veggies on my kielbasa k bobs. Does that mean I’m bisexual?
  • Doesn’t this sound like something John Piper would write?

 

Comments

Complementarianism on the West Coast: Real Men Eat Sausage and Real Women Eat Vegetables — 245 Comments

  1. By associating MALE with “sausage” and “meat”, my mind goes inappropriate places.

    And yes, this is something John Piper would have written.

  2. These people have WAY too much time on their hands. If they had to go out (men and women together) and plow their fields with oxen, dig out the big rocks, fertilize with llama dung, irrigate with hand dug ditches, etc, in order to plant potatoes and corn so that they could eat anything at all… then maybe they wouldn’t have time to write this nonsense. Do they not realize that most of the world’s population is just happy to have something / anything to eat?

  3. There is much I can say about the OP and probably will.

    OP (the complementarian guy writing):

    It’s because they [bread and meats] are not the same. They are different— beautifully different— in ways that enhance and bring the best out of the other.

    Oh, yes, but what a coincidence, isn’t it, that only the male food item gets to make all the final decisions in relationships and run the church,

    While the “feminine” food stuffs are limited to things like changing the diapers of the apples and bananas back in the nursery aisle.

    This is not about who or what complements who or what, or what beautiful differences there are between bread and meat, it’s about maintaining and justifying a male hierarchy.

    Being feminine, or being a woman, means being “lesser than” in complementarianism, and being limited based on your biological sex alone. That’s what it means. And there’s nothing “beautiful” about it.

  4. Mary27: These people have WAY too much time on their hands.

    The Gospel (aka Calvinist) Coalition needs to be out and about preaching the Gospel, but they don’t know how to do that.

  5. The OP:

    It’s because they are not the same. They are different—beautifully different—in ways that enhance and bring the best out of the other.

    They are dignified, not diminished, by their complementary differences.

    They are part of a ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet—that bring structure, coherence, and irresistible beauty to life.

    I never totally fit into the complemetnarian ideal that was taught to me as a kid into my adulthood, which defines womanhood to mean “married with kids” and “girly girl feminine.”

    I was rather tom boyish, not interested in playing Barbies, and I never married and never had kids.

    And it absolutely “diminishes” a woman to tell her that the only reason she cannot or should not do or be “X” in a marriage or “Z” in a church is because she was born a woman.

    Not because she lacks the skills, talent, education, or interest in Z or X, but just because of her biological sex.

    Complementarians really keep trying to convince people with this “equal in worth just not in role” stuff, but it doesn’t work.

    You can’t convince me I’m equal “in worth” if you’re not going to give me a shot at whatever role, if I am qualified for whatever role.

    If you’re barring me from “role X” just due to my gender, and not that I’m uneducated for that role, that is not a justification.

    I wish they’d stop twisting the Bible to defend their peculiar type of sexism. And stop staying that sexism is “beautiful.”

  6. Complementarians are making their gender views look more and more idiotic with each passing asinine post like this, about comparing men and women to food items.

    Secondly, (and as I told Dee on Twitter the other day) I like both carbs and meats.
    Had I been at their restaurant, it would not have been readily clear to me which bathroom was for which biological sex.

    I would’ve had to have guessed which bathroom was for men, and which for women.

    I do think in American culture, it’s a gender stereotype (not in the Bible!) that many American men love meat.

    But I’ve never heard of a stereotype in the USA that all women love bread (carbs).

    Any time I’ve watched reality TV shows about weight loss, and the doctor orders the male AND female patients to give up carbs (stick to high protein), I’ve seen both men AND women patients on these shows cry and complain about how much they miss their carbs (pasta, bread, rice).

    At least in American culture, I don’t think liking bread is strictly a ‘woman’ thing. Plenty of men seem to like bread, too (as Dee pointed out in her post).

  7. “Doesn’t this sound like something John Piper would write?” (Dee)

    Yes.

    Look what he tweeted a couple of weeks ago: “The moment we say you must be sexually fulfilled in order to be fully human, we are saying Jesus wasn’t fully human.” (John Piper)

    Did ‘we’ say that?! The stuff Piper comes up with! For the life of me, I don’t see why the YRR idolize him so.

  8. What in the world is he talking about? The CBMW guys have gone mad about gender distinctions.

    No matter how you slice it, if the woman in the marriage is obedient to her husband, it is a caste system. She is not on an equal level with him.

    Just try to tell complementarian men that they must submit to their wive and watch them go nuts.

  9. Does everything come down to gender? I had a vegetarian burger today. But it was a manly burger. Really it was. I’m feeling culinarily confused!

    I must have missed the whole meat/vegetable conundrum in Sunday school.

    Now I want to wear an angora sweater.

    I should really get back to these “Christian truths”.

  10. Mary27 has an excellent point. As for McCracken’s post, reducing such a complex topic as gender to meat and bread or meat and vegetables is the epitome of shallowness.

  11. Daisy: it’s about maintaining and justifying a male hierarchy

    Well stated, Daisy. This is the bottom line, or shall we say the meat and potatoes of what’s going on here.

    The dude is on the gravy train of nothing to do but put out another word salad of mumbo jumbo. Definitely not my cup of tea. Life is more than beer and skittles credo.

  12. Dee, the town I grew up in as a pre-teen kid is in the Southeastern corner of Wisconsin on Lake Michigan.

    Racine is Denmark and Eastern Europe fused together, but not melted together.
    I know exactly what you’re talking about up-top in the article.
    Golumpki (stuffed cabbage rolls) was one of my favorite dishes, made by the Polish women in my extended family.

  13. jyjames: Daisy: it’s about maintaining and justifying a male hierarchy

    Well stated, Daisy. This is the bottom line, or shall we say the meat and potatoes of what’s going on here.

    You mean “meat and bread” don’t you? 🙂

    Yes, the continued emphasis on the “beauty of complementarity” is to wash enough brains with error about gender roles to secure the eternal subordination of women. It’s the Chinese drip technique to torture enough of the church to buy the lie and ensure an unBiblical patriarchal control of the New Calvinist empire.

  14. Max: Look what he tweeted a couple of weeks ago: “The moment we say you must be sexually fulfilled in order to be fully human, we are saying Jesus wasn’t fully human.” (John Piper)

    The funny thing is, other complementarians have sexualized the Trinity and some of them have said that one has to be having sex to fully know God.

    Here’s a link to one site (with more links on this page) discussing that:
    Tim Keller, Sex, and Eternal Submission Doctrine: Summing up the Sexualization of the Trinity with Shirley Taylor
    http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2015/09/tim-keller-sex-and-eternal-submission.html

    As a celibate adult, I can say it’s nice if Piper is telling people to stop equating having sex to “knowing Jesus” or being “fully realized,” “fully human,” or whatever (because other Christians have in fact taught this stuff), but his fellow complementarians would not agree with him.

  15. jyjames,

    Well, thank you.

    I am a choco-holic. I love chocolate more than bread and meat, so even in this odd complementarian analogy, I once more do not quite fit in. 🙂

  16. Daisy,

    Tim Keller is another big “influencer” in the New Calvinist movement who has been getting off way too easily by the watchblogs. He’s just about as far out there as Piper.

  17. Daisy: chocolate

    Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food. – Michael Levine

    So, Daisy, maybe you’re a perfectionist.

  18. A bit off topic, but recently, “FBC Jax Watchdog” tweeted this about Heath Lambert’s biblical counseling:

    If you’ve EVER thought to use @acbc counseling, listen to this podcast and you’ll see why you should NEVER.

    @HeathLambert admits exposure of your “unrepentant sin” to the church for discipline supersedes your desire for confidentiality. Just WOW.

    He posted a link to Lambert’s podcast where Lambert explains this position:

    TIL 164 | Counseling and Confidentiality By ACBC
    https://soundcloud.com/acbc-2/til-164-counseling-and-confidentiality#c=47&t=0:00

    After finding out about stuff like this, I cannot imagine anyone wanting to see a biblical counselor about anything.
    (Not that I could really imagine it before, but this adds another reason.)

  19. This has got to be the most ridiculous article I’ve read yet. After the meat and bread bit the rest was blah, blah, blah…nothing new here. These folks don’t have anything new to say so they start making things up.

    I grew up going to visit my Italian grandparents in their little town of which I was probably related to all but a handful. The best part were the homemade Italian sausages from the town’s grocer. Sausages and homemade raviolis always graced our Christmas dinner. To this day I love sausage.

    Comp doctrine is nothing more than men trying to maintain power and control over the last two things they can – marriage and the church.

  20. jyjames: Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food. – Michael Levine
    So, Daisy, maybe you’re a perfectionist.

    I really do like chocolate, but I don’t eat it that often. 🙂

    My dad’s parenting certainly turned me into a perfectionist at a young age, but I’ve been trying to get away from that.

  21. Max: You mean “meat and bread” don’t you?

    What I mean is their complementarian fine words butter no parsnips, as their gender theory is one sandwich short of a picnic.

  22. Jack: Does everything come down to gender? I had a vegetarian burger today. But it was a manly burger. Really it was. I’m feeling culinarily confused!

    No worries. There’s a cafe in town that serves an “Untamed Man-up Veggie Burger”, cooked to order, with have-it-your-way fixings, for everyone. Popular.

  23. My little daughter prefers meat…should I be concerned? Ha. This is so ridiculous an idea. If they want to discredit their theology, they only need to continue publishing these stupid articles. It really comes off to me as if it was written in the dude-bro echo chamber…i.e. nobody stopped it from going to publication.

  24. All other discussions aside…

    Now I’m just hungry. In a very literal way.

  25. Quote in the op: “They are part of a ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet—”

    Hmmmm…. I really like the sea-shore, particularly tide pools where they are sometimes underwater and sometimes not. I must be some kind of aberration.

  26. Daisy: I am a choco-holic. I love chocolate more than bread and meat, so even in this odd complementarian analogy, I once more do not quite fit in.

    It is okay as long as it is dark chocolate.

  27. I had baked chicken and vegetables for supper. I guess I’m in trouble with Brett McCracken and TGC.

    I’m more of a northwest European mutt (English-German-Irish) but I enjoy kielbasa. I’ve had to cut back in recent years, however, as I’ve also had to do with carbs thanks to a combination of family history and getting close to 60.

  28. But what does it mean that my wife and I immediately knew that brats and fries for dinner were more appropriate to celebrate our baby boy than kale and candied beets?

    It means that if you were considering eating kale voluntarily you have major issues that run deeper than your theology.

  29. On this baby boy’s birthday, are they going to put blue candles on brats???

    Stooopiddddd!

  30. I am Irish. Meat and Potatoes go together. I never heard the phrase meat and bread. And maybe a pint of Guinness to round out the meal.

  31. “They are part of a [sic] ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet” …master and slave?

    Honestly, in most couples there are differences in temperament and the two people “complement” each other but don’t try to use that to justify sexism. It’s pretty normal to be attracted to someone whose innate qualities cover the range that yours miss. Extroverts tend to marry introverts, etc. That does not translate to ‘all women are like x and all men are like z,’ nor does it justify placing one sex in authority over the other. We can celebrate the differences in people without it being about subservience of one to the other.

  32. srs: It means that if you were considering eating kale voluntarily you have major issues that run deeper than your theology.

    I know, right? ha ha…

    I’ve never made a meal of kale and candied beets… it sounds kind of like the booby prize. I guess that’s what you get when you have a daughter. 🙁
    (No offense to those who love kale and candied beets- to each his own lol)

  33. yes, a very stupid article. evangelicals ran out of content quite a while ago. all they can do now is free association plus a verse it made them think of. and feel pious about it.

    ———

    this word “complementarity”… is this strictly about insisting on 2 and only 2 genders, male and female, or do gender roles factor in as well (male headship bull$h|t)?

    and if the latter, is it a bait & switch thing? get people on board this friendlier culture war, without telling them that women are still born to be subjugated to men, and let’s pretend that transgender doesn’t exist?

  34. So are women bread or vegetables? What about ice cream?

    What about when Jesus said He was the bread of life? Was that a statement of gender?

  35. Oh it’s a load of old bobbins isn’t it? All that technology & with the platform they have this is what they put on it?

    And it does sound like JP. This is the intellectual child of all his ridiculous utterances. Why can’t they major on the fruits of the spirit rather than the fruits of someone’s loins?

  36. ishy:

    What about when Jesus said He was the bread of life? Was that a statement of gender?

    That was the first passage that came into my mind as well! I love what Jesus went on to say there: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” Like the Coca-Cola ads from the 70’s, He’s the “real thing!”

    The McCracken article, on the other hand, is total nonsense. It makes me wonder if he might have ingested some ‘special’ mushrooms before writing it! So…I wonder which gender mushrooms would be, since they are neither meat nor vegetable. 🙂

  37. Leslie: I am Irish. Meat and Potatoes go together. I never heard the phrase meat and bread. And maybe a pint of Guinness to round out the meal.

    I am not Irish, but I grew up with the meat and potatoes idea; not bread–potatoes. And I grew up Baptist so forget the beer-nay, repent of the beer. And I grew up Southern. My grandparents generation were working class with both of my grandfathers being carpenters, one working for the railroad. My parents generation were just getting into the professions, both men and women contrary to what some may think they know about that generation.

    So, yes, ideas about eating and nutrition were not what they are today. Because of different expectations of the amount of physical work between men and women and the nutritional requirements to sustain that, and because of economics (what was cheap enough or what one could grow in the backyard) , and because of food rationing during the war as to what was available (which is how mom and I got into the chicken business).

    So, yes, it was thought that men as compared to women, and children as compared to adults, and poor folks as compared to rich folks, and young folks as compared to old folks just plain ate differently. And so they did. Men were meat and potatoes, and meat meant some slab of dead animal body which still looked like what it was-muscle or liver mostly. Red meat was the best, not just chicken all the time, with pork chops somewhere because pork was cheap enough.

    One problem was that women were not ‘red meat men’ and there was discussion about the fact that women lose iron with their periods and if anybody needed the red meat it was pre-menopausal females. This was discussed when I was in nurses training in the 50s, how low hemoglobin in women had both economic and cultural factors-what was available and what the culture said about what was available and who got the slab of beef if any was available.

    Sad to say, but neither sausages nor chickens and not even pork met the ‘red meat’ requirements in the cultural attitudes of the time and the very real economics of it. Everybody at it all when they could, but cow meat mostly came from Texas/ Kansas stock yards, and cost more.

    We have come along way baby. But don’t anybody be surprised if some of the old ideas persist with some people. Just go get you a slab of good red cow meat, fry it up in the pan, and you will feel better. Auld Lang something or other. You might even achieve the level of those who are so rich they can eat meat every night, those who always have meat on their table, those who may even feed their dogs leftover meat scrapings aka the height of prosperity.

    And this, historically, is how barbecue happened. In the south, cheap cuts of pork. It then moved west and became beef when it got to Texas because beef was cheap out there. Just thought I would throw that in for fun.

  38. Siteseer: I know, right? ha ha…

    I’ve never made a meal of kale and candied beets… it sounds kind of like the booby prize. I guess that’s what you get when you have a daughter.
    (No offense to those who love kale and candied beets- to each his own lol)

    Ironically, one of the few legitimate uses for kale is as an ingredient in a classic soup recipe, paired with white beans and (wait for it…) KIELBASA. Delicious, especially with a nice hunk of real bread.

  39. Kathi: These folks don’t have anything new to say so they start making things up.

    New Calvinism is replete with one-liner tweets that are intended to shock and awe the young reformers. Piper Points, Mohler Moments, Dever Drivel, and now McCracken Malarkey, fly across cyberspace. I’m sure the young reformers are tweeting and retweeting McCracken’s “meat and bread” gender words of wisdom this week. New Calvinists across America viewing his work on their devices are saying “Wow Daddy Wow!” These folks are too shallow to come up with anything deep. Of course, none of this has anything to do with the Gospel.

  40. Real Men Eat Sausage and Real Women Eat Vegetables

    Isn’t that saying “Real Men are Predators, Real Women are Prey”?

    Because in nature, what do meat-eaters do to plant-eaters?
    “TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN, MA!”

  41. Max: New Calvinism is replete with one-liner tweets that are intended to shock and awe the young reformers.

    I thought it was because 140 characters is as long an attention span as they could get.

    Like Freddie Silverman, who was responsible for programming on all three TV networks in the Seventies. Attention span like a ferret on double espresso; only way to hold his attention was to shove big boobs in his face. And thus was begat Charlie’s Angels and all the other “jiggle” shows of the period.

  42. elastigirl: yes, a very stupid article. evangelicals ran out of content quite a while ago. all they can do now is free association plus a verse it made them think of. and feel pious about it.

    And count coup on all us Unrighteous.

    “I Know I’m Right —
    I HAVE A VERSE!”

  43. I have a great idea: why don’t Calvinistas but out of everyone else’s lives and stop telling them what to do. I don’t need advice from them on my marriage. I could use some help understanding ancient culture and linguistic issues in the Bible, but they’d rather talk about whether a “real woman” can like sausage.

    It’s probably just as well, because who could trust these people to exegete the Bible without overt ideological bias anyway.

  44. Max: Piper Points, Mohler Moments, Dever Drivel, and now McCracken Malarkey, fly across cyberspace. I

    Love it! And their prey pipe this stuff in via their earbuds, and never question it. Trust me, I live with one. Ya heard of ‘In one ear and out the other’? This is ‘In both earbuds, and it stays forever.’

  45. Ricco: I have a great idea: why don’t Calvinistas but out of everyone else’s lives and stop telling them what to do. I don’t need advice from them on my marriage. I could use some help understanding ancient culture and linguistic issues in the Bible, but they’d rather talk about whether a “real woman” can like sausage.

    It’s probably just as well, because who could trust these people to exegete the Bible without overt ideological bias anyway.

    Yes! People try to convince me that I need specially trained seminarian grads to give me weekly input to run my life. I say, ‘I am more than eager to get expert input into the original languages and cultures of biblical times from people who have had the opportunity to study such. How about a word study, with input from various viewpoints as to all the possible meanings?’

    What I don’t need is some young, bald kid in skinny jeans (Remember when bald guys were old?) telling me how God wants me to think and live. Or how to eat. Seems like they’re trying to put the Holy Spirit out of business.

  46. Ricco: I have a great idea: why don’t Calvinistas but out of everyone else’s lives and stop telling them what to do.

    That would be impossible! The New Calvinist movement exists to restore the “gospel” that the rest of the church has lost over the centuries. These young reformers have been indoctrinated to believe that they ‘must’ butt into everyone else’s life and tell them what to do. They firmly believe that they alone are the keepers of truth; that they have come into the world for such a time as this to set us straight (that would be 90+% of Christendom worldwide which has rejected Calvinist belief and practice). Thus, they have a BIG job to do and are out and about to accomplish their mission with a fevered pitch of passion and militancy. Sadly, it is a misplaced passion which the real Church of the Living God could use.

  47. So let me poke at y’all a bit.

    Laying aside nutrition, which is a real health issue and laying aside anything else that is a genuine issue like employment or safety or such, what is wrong with men having their own things which are male identifiers? Women have fancy shoes, and certain kinds of jewelry, and plunging necklines which barely cover the surgical scars from ‘enhancement’ and hair styles and colors and on and on. Women who do this feel good about doing that sort of thing. So why should men not have stuff that say ‘man’ and then feel good about it?

    Punch line: are we supposed to resent men being men, and perhaps advertising themselves as men, when we women finance a large section of the gross domestic product by what we do to enhance and display our sexuality/gender? Whatever happened to the idea that what is good for the goose…?

  48. I don’t always have sausage, but when I do it is often wrapped in bread, with mustard and diced onion, and quite often I have two. With a beer (gasp). At the ballgame. Which, as boring as that can sometimes be, is infinitely more interesting that any YRR service, sermon, blog post, or tweet.

  49. okrapod,

    I think this is a good point, and I agree with much of what you said. I think what makes many of us react so strongly to this is mapping these differences on top of an authoritarian religious structure. If you are just making observations, I have no issue with that. If you are telling people how God wants them to be a woman, especially if you are part of an all male leadership cabal, Good Night (to quote a great woman)

  50. Daisy: I wish they’d stop twisting the Bible to defend their peculiar type of sexism. And stop staying that sexism is “beautiful.”

    It is if you’re the sex on top, and that’s what really matters.

  51. Ricco: but they’d rather talk about whether a “real woman” can like sausage.

    Only HAWT and juicy from The Real Manly-Man.
    “PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT!”

  52. Max: New Calvinism is replete with one-liner tweets that are intended to shock and awe the young reformers.

    Inerrant Infallible SCRIPTURE, precut into 140-character Verses for sword drills and rewordgitating.

    “I Know I’m Right —
    I HAVE A VERSE!”

  53. Beakerj: And it does sound like JP. This is the intellectual child of all his ridiculous utterances. Why can’t they major on the fruits of the spirit rather than the fruits of someone’s loins?

    Because they keep thinking with the wrong head, that’s why.

  54. Siteseer: “They are part of a [sic] ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet” …master and slave?

    Top and Bottom, Dom and Sub, Penetrator and Penetrated, Hold the Whip and Feel the Whip…

  55. Max: Okrapod, you need to write a book!

    I have been known to read a book or two. Here is one I recommend.

    https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/75826/cows-pigs-wars-and-witches-by-marvin-harris/9780679724681/

    It is about the residuals of old ideas that meant something useful in the beginning but which have now long lost their original meanings but still hang around the culture.

    Let me put in a plug here. Back in the day there was something called the WMU Training School which eventually became Carver School and sat on the hill next to SBTS. Mohler closed the school and the building is now Boyce College. I took enough courses at Carver School to meet the then FMB requirements for appointment back when I was looking at medical missions as my potential path. One of the courses was ‘cultural anthropology’. There were maybe two or three in the class-sumer session-pitiful attendance. But the prof gave it his best anyhow and I found it fascinating. It and what I have read since have contributed to my life substantially. Bless that old school, now gone, and bless that guy who taught the class.

  56. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): On this baby boy’s birthday, are they going to put blue candles on brats???

    Well, a brat IS in the shape of the Male Organ…

    Kinda like the male-only taboo on bananas in some Polynesian cultures; because the gods made the banana in the shape of the Male Organ, it is Taboo for a woman to even touch a banana… (Symbolic Castration Fear? Paging Dr Freud…)

  57. Kathi: The best part were the homemade Italian sausages from the town’s grocer. Sausages and homemade raviolis always graced our Christmas dinner. To this day I love sausage.

    I just ate, and you’re making me hungry.

  58. Max: Yes, the continued emphasis on the “beauty of complementarity” is to wash enough brains with error about gender roles to secure the eternal subordination of women.

    It is beautiful if you’re the one who Holds the Whip.

  59. Max: Did ‘we’ say that?! The stuff Piper comes up with! For the life of me, I don’t see why the YRR idolize him so.

    2 Thessalonians 2:11.

  60. hahahahaha, this is going to be the joke of the day between my husband and I now.

    I don’t necessarily disagree with his entire article, but he never really moved beyond “men and women are different and there are different things in nature. Isn’t that cool?” His main point seemed to be against gender fluidity and in favor of the general differences in gender. Okay. His final section says, “Imagine if the earth were entirely ocean, with no visible land. Imagine if every painting in the Louvre were monochrome. Imagine if we could only taste salty things or only hear major chords.” I would add, “Imagine if leadership in a church was all male?” Further his metaphors only go so far. Sausage vs veggies and rocks vs water is cute, but men and women are made of the same substance.

  61. Headless Unicorn Guy: 2 Thessalonians 2:11.

    And leading up to, vs. 11, those allowed and left delusional by God, the text reads:

    vs. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means …
    vs. 4 The son of perdition rebels and exalts himself above God …

    Deception and playing God, indeed, the very dynamic of this delusional sausage and bread doctrine.

  62. Max: The stuff Piper comes up with! For the life of me, I don’t see why the YRR idolize him so.

    Freedom of choice. Some folks settle for god, when they could be in relationship with God. That’s what Judas did.

  63. Ricco: f you are just making observations, I have no issue with that. If you are telling people how God wants them to be a woman, especially if you are part of an all male leadership cabal, Good Night (to quote a great woman)

    I don’t know if you are using the generic ‘you’ or if you mean me. I am not either male nor generic. I am an aging female physician, mother and grandmother who talks bible talk from habit while being strongly influenced also by non-biblical research and observation. Mostly my default position has finally found rest in being generally half past give a rip about a lot of stuff.

  64. okrapod: what is wrong with men having their own things which are male identifiers?

    The problem arises when one picks something out as a *male identifier* that in a large subculture makes absolutely no sense. My father would have become confused with the *bread* symbol on the door. He might have even interpreted that as the *breadwinner* for our family which he was.

    Also, times change. When I was growing up, few women wee physicians. So, the symbol of a doctor could easily have represented men. Today, over 50% of med school classes are females so the picture of a physician is no longer represented by a man.

    The entire premise of this article was to point out gender identifiers that, to people like myself, make no sense. This whole thing was about inanimate objects: land and sea, vegetables and sausages, etc. that somehow are supposed to represent gender differences. His point is that these contrasts are proof that God intended these binaries to exist to prove that binary gender differences are intended.

    I totally disagree with that conclusion. Even your high heel symbol doesn’t hold water throughout time and cultures. High heels were initially more popular among men than among women.
    http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/06/high-heels-were-popular-among-men-before-women/

  65. The “gender differeces” in food is SO srupid, is it even worth our time to comment??

  66. Dee,

    First thanks for sharing some of your background. Your parents table would definitely be a table I would love to break bread at and have sausage. I love the rich history of your family. Anyways Thanks for making me laugh comparing gender to food has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If any of his followers think for one second that food is gender based I guess we see where the term dumb sheep comes from. Sorry I said it and I am not taking it back. I mean really? Is this what we resort to in order to explain the differences between men and women? where has common sense gone?

  67. Jeffrey Chalmers:
    The “gender differeces” in food is SO srupid, is it even worth our time to comment??

    “Stupidity is like hydrogen. It’s the basic building block of the universe.”
    — Frank Zappa

  68. Many of his patients would bring him gifts of homemade sausages. The art of making kielbasa was a skill enjoyed by many women from Russian and Polish backgrounds. The closest gifts of vegetables that I remember were cabbage soup and wild mushrooms.

    I could see those three going together in a recipe.

  69. The post at TGC has to be one of the most inane collection of words that I have ever read, on par with many of Piper’s tweets. I would hope that even the more robust defenders of the extra-biblical concept of complementarianism would rise up and call this asinine, but I won’t hold my breath.

    I think the author must have been looking for a metaphor on which to pen another complementarian article (of which we clearly cannot have too many) and, while perusing through his Netflix queue, saw the movie Sausage Party. Maybe he even watched it while grooming his beard, enjoying his latest craft brew find, or deciding which fedora best accessorizes his locally sourced, hand woven scarf.

  70. I am still left with my unanswered questions.
    * What can a man do in a marriage that a woman cannot do?

    What else?
    “PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT!”

  71. Jeffrey Chalmers: The “gender differeces” in food is SO srupid, is it even worth our time to comment??

    I view commenting on stupid things the New Calvinists do as instructional to young reformers who troll TWW. They are so enamored by their idols that they can’t see straight – they can see but they can’t see through. It’s up to us to help them a bit with our collective common and spiritual sense.

  72. Burwell:
    The post at TGC has to be one of the most inane collection of words that I have ever read, on par with many of Piper’s tweets.
    Or Merlin Ambrosius is REALLY going overboard casting Curse of Babel.

    I think the author must have been looking for a metaphor on which to pen another complementarian article (of which we clearly cannot have too many) and, while perusing through his Netflix queue, saw the movie Sausage Party. Maybe he even watched it while grooming his beard, enjoying his latest craft brew find, or deciding which fedora best accessorizes his locally sourced, hand woven scarf.

    Don’t forget spending three more hours primping his Man-Bun and Ironically braiding Ironic jewelry into his Ironic beard.

  73. okrapod: Back in the day there was something called the WMU Training School which eventually became Carver School and sat on the hill next to SBTS. Mohler closed the school and the building is now Boyce College.

    For TWW readers who do not know what “WMU” is/was … the “W” stands for women (Women’s Missionary Union). It’s not surprising that Mohler closed the former WMU Training School to make room for Boyce College (James Boyce was the Calvinist founder of SBTS – one of Mohler’s heroes of the faith). He prefers Boyce over women!

  74. Max: For TWW readers who do not know what “WMU” is/was … the “W” stands for women (Women’s Missionary Union).It’s not surprising that Mohler closed the former WMU Training School to make room for Boyce College (James Boyce was the Calvinist founder of SBTS – one of Mohler’s heroes of the faith).He prefers Boyce over women!

    The blinders Mohler wears are HUGE. Decrying sex abuse and defending Mahaney ( and complementarianism). Decrying racism and having Boyce (Confederate Army chaplain, slave owner, and screaming racist) as a personal hero. Asking where people who want historical Christianity can go but to Calvin (ignoring 1500 years of history). That emperor truly has no clothes.

  75. I could have figured out which bathroom is which. But, it would mean standing outside for awhile considering different viewpoints from the owner. All the viewpoints I can imagine, point to it being a dumb restaurant.

  76. Burwell:
    The post at TGC has to be one of the most inane collection of words that I have ever read, on par with many of Piper’s tweets. I would hope that even the more robust defenders of the extra-biblical concept of complementarianism would rise up and call this asinine, but I won’t hold my breath.

    I think the author must have been looking for a metaphor on which to pen another complementarian article (of which we clearly cannot have too many) and, while perusing through his Netflix queue, saw the movie Sausage Party. Maybe he even watched it while grooming his beard, enjoying his latest craft brew find, or deciding which fedora best accessorizes his locally sourced, hand woven scarf.

    I literally started laughing and couldn’t see straight trying to read it. I ask myself “Do these people hear themselves?!?” However the answer is plainly obvious that they do not.

    Headless Unicorn Guy: What else?
    “PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT!”

    Thank you Doug Wilson (Lord Almighty, that man is a sleazeball and cult time bomb waiting to happen. I don’t know how he hasn’t imploded yet.”

  77. I can just imagine the author of the original article thinking he was being clever and deep.

  78. Noevangelical:
    I don’t always have sausage, but when I do it is often wrapped in bread, with mustard and diced onion, and quite often I have two. With a beer (gasp). At the ballgame. Which, as boring as that can sometimes be, is infinitely more interesting that any YRR service, sermon, blog post, or tweet.

    “I don’t always…” one of the best quotes of all time.

    I have quote anxiety knowing I’ll never invent one on that level.

  79. Root 66: That was the first passage that came into my mind as well!I love what Jesus went on to say there:“My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”Like the Coca-Cola ads from the 70’s, He’s the “real thing!”

    The McCracken article, on the other hand, is total nonsense.It makes me wonder if he might have ingested some ‘special’ mushrooms before writing it!So…I wonder which gender mushrooms would be, since they are neither meat nor vegetable.

    Mushrooms are both.

  80. dee,

    I totally would not have understood the meat and bread idea either, and frankly I would have thought they were being vulgar because of the use of the term ‘meat market’… But then, I am not nearly as nice as you are-seriously. Not flattery. I am all about looking somebody in the face and asking-nicely and all- total southern how I just hate to have to bother them with the question but..what they were saying and meaning; and then enjoying their ensuing discomfort. I do a lot of repenting, but dang it somebody needs to confront people who can’t even label their potty doors so that their customers know what to do and where to do it.

    I am going to try that cabbage dish. Years ago we went to a series by the LDS people about vegetarian cooking and they had a recipe for cabbage/onion/noodle cooked in veggie broth and then drained and crisped a tad in a skillet. Delicious beyond deliciousness.

    Anyhow, I do think that if God labeled potty doors it would not be something cryptic. Having to make up extra rules about male and female looks to me like they have missed the main idea.

  81. I just had a roast beef and gravy on bread for lunch. Is that allowed? Maybe I should only have eaten the bread while telling my husband he can only eat the roast beef and gravy. Please tell me what to do cause I am very confused. Tomorrow I will be making Italian sausages with tomato sauce, red bell peppers on buns. I guess my husband will only get the Italian sausages in his lunch. LOL.

  82. Robert M:
    I can just imagine the author of the original article thinking he was being clever and deep.

    I’ve seen the same in Bad Fanfic — “SEE HOW CLEVER I AM? SEE? SEE? SEE?”

  83. Max: New Calvinism is replete with one-liner tweets that are intended to shock and awe the young reformers. Piper Points, Mohler Moments, Dever Drivel, and now McCracken Malarkey, fly across cyberspace.

    Like they say, it’s impossible to make this stuff up.

  84. Noevangelical: I don’t always have sausage, but when I do it is often wrapped in bread, with mustard and diced onion, and quite often I have two. With a beer (gasp).

    Dos Equis, naturally.

  85. Burwell,

    “The post at TGC has to be one of the most inane collection of words that I have ever read, on par with many of Piper’s tweets.”
    +++++++++++++++++++++

    there seems to be this idea amongst The Gospel Coalition folks that the swirly-er the nonsense the more prophetic it must be.

    well, when you ignore the concept of the Holy Spirit let alone the person, you have to come up with something to work with.

    the paycheck and cultivating personal significance depend on it.

    so, so disappointing.

  86. okrapod: I am going to try that cabbage dish. Years ago we went to a series by the LDS people about vegetarian cooking and they had a recipe for cabbage/onion/noodle cooked in veggie broth and then drained and crisped a tad in a skillet. Delicious beyond deliciousness.

    Can you post a copy of that recipe? Sounds like the one-pot semi-soups of my Bachelor Survival cooking. (Though I tend to use unsalted chicken stock instead of veggie broth.)

    Also sounds like after draining you should reserve the resulting flavored stock for re-use in your next recipe.

  87. Muff Potter: Like they say, it’s impossible to make this stuff up.

    “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
    — Tom Clancy (though often attributed to Mark Twain)

  88. Rambler: I literally started laughing and couldn’t see straight trying to read it. I ask myself “Do these people hear themselves?!?” However the answer is plainly obvious that they do not.

    Too madly in LOVE with the sound of their own Clever Voice.

    We had an infamous fanboy in local F&SF fandom who was like that.
    His real name even became a verb for “to get cornered by a motormouth”.
    A Legend in His Own Mind, a running bad joke in everyone else’s.

  89. Headless Unicorn Guy:

    Corrected HTML:

    Burwell:
    The post at TGC has to be one of the most inane collection of words that I have ever read, on par with many of Piper’s tweets.

    Or Merlin Ambrosius is REALLY going overboard casting Curse of Babel.

    I think the author must have been looking for a metaphor on which to pen another complementarian article (of which we clearly cannot have too many) and, while perusing through his Netflix queue, saw the movie Sausage Party. Maybe he even watched it while grooming his beard, enjoying his latest craft brew find, or deciding which fedora best accessorizes his locally sourced, hand woven scarf.

    Don’t forget spending three hours primping his Man-Bun and Ironically braiding Ironic jewelry into his Ironic beard.

  90. okrapod: Punch line: are we supposed to resent men being men, and perhaps advertising themselves as men, when we women finance a large section of the gross domestic product by what we do to enhance and display our sexuality/gender? Whatever happened to the idea that what is good for the goose…?

    From my viewpoint? The answer is no. We live in a free and open society that was hard fought for and hard won. At one extreme we have Orwellian femi-nazi types who want to impose their will upon us, and at the other, we have ‘chrislamics’ who’d be more than happy to have us all living under a kind of ‘Calvinized Geneva’.

    I think the vast majority of Americans are somewhere in between and content to just live and let live.

  91. I think John Stackhouse said the church is a clash between an inbreaking kingdom and an evolving culture. The revolutionary good news that Jesus taught could only be as realized as the culture would allow. The long arc of justice has been bending increasingly toward justice ever since.

  92. Read the article in question. Me thinks his articulateness exceeds his intelligence. The lock and key metaphor simply doesn’t work because specific keys are made to work with specific locks rather than keys in general being made to work with locks in general. The dark and light metaphor doesn’t work as darkness can be defined as simply the absence of light.

    The article cleverly ignores any discussion of the fact that Complmentarianism, as a movement, is not about men and women being inherently different but rather about assigning defined roles based on gender and giving those roles a hierarchical dimension. What makes it heretical is the invoking of C.S. Lewis in a fluff piece full of generalizations on the differences between meat craving men and vegetable adoring women.

  93. Max,

    Meanwhile, the GC crowd, and other “Celeberty preachers” are largely silent on all the “Christain leaders” that are perverts, or power abusers, etc….. yup, they got their priorities right… make sure the women folk eat their veggies in a submissive way while their “celeberty preachers” do all sorts of disgusting things!

    they live in their little bubble, while the rest of us pew peons work in the real world, where the ramifactions of these pervert/power abusing “Christain leaders” make us embarrassed to be associated with “evangelicalism”…

  94. Max,

    While it is a bit of a stretch, but evil leaders are good at diverting the attention of the masses off their own “issues”… think dictators starting patriotic wars to divert attention from crappy economy..

  95. Janet: I think John Stackhouse said the church is a clash between an inbreaking kingdom and an evolving culture.

    A good thought. I’m in continual prayer that the Kingdom of God – heaven on earth in the here and now – will break through! I’m old enough to remember when the church was counter-culture to the world … now, it is a sub-culture of the world in many places. The New Calvinists are all about being “culturally-relevant” … the Kingdom of God is in sharp contrast to that approach to doing church. Jesus is the eternal contemporary – we don’t need gimmicks to make Him more contemporary … just preach the Word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, no bells and whistles necessary.

  96. If I hadn’t seen McCracken’s post on TGC I’d swear it was a parody. Just when I thought they’d run out of sharks to jump over, the neo-cals surprise me with a new one. I want to give McCracken grace on this one, though. He’s trying too hard to impress his superiors with metaphorical meanderings. In ten years he’ll probably regret that post anyway.

    But his church needs to be called out for leading people astray with false teachers. Southlands in Brea, CA – McCracken’s church according to the bio on his blog – is a member of Advance led by PJ Smyth. The Advance North America Conference will be held at Southlands this coming October. PJS is a keynote, as is the pastor of Southlands Alan Frow. If they don’t know what’s come to light about PJS recently, the Southlands congregation should be warned about it.

  97. All this meat talk has me confused.

    If we are the New Israel..does that meat need to be kosher?

  98. Headless Unicorn Guy: Can you post a copy of that recipe? Sounds like the one-pot semi-soups of my Bachelor Survival cooking. (Though I tend to use unsalted chicken stock instead of veggie broth.)
    Also sounds like after draining you should reserve the resulting flavored stock for re-use in your next recipe.

    I don’t think there is a recipe. What you are saying sounds good. I keep frozen chopped cabbage in the freezer, and raw yellow onions in the cabinet, and pasta here and there and just throw it in however I feel like. Mostly I like those little beef flavored cubes for cooking, but chicken sounds good. The LDS use veggie broth. When I drain a can of veggies I keep the water, no later than the following weekend and then use that for the liquid with Campbell’s anything that requires ‘water’ just for the flavor and perhaps some nutrients. Or because of the certainty of looming economic disaster when we are all about starve or something or because boredom makes people kind of go crazy like that. But it just does not matter.

    My mom during the depression when I was a wee one kept a pot of soup or stew on the stove and when people came to the door looking for ‘work’ she gave them a bowl of it. The recipe was easy: take whatever you have, throw something else in if you can, keep on back of stove, and don’t let anybody into the house.

    That’s all I know. Like they say, the rest is commentary.

  99. Nathan Priddis: If we are the New Israel..does that meat need to be koshe

    Yes. And what does that say about my planned barbecue on the south lawn in heaven? Lot of deep theological questions there.

  100. Max: Jesus is the eternal contemporary – we don’t need gimmicks to make Him more contemporary … just preach the Word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, no bells and whistles necessary.

    1,000+ AMENS

  101. Again, one of my favorites.

    When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. (Mark Twain)

  102. FW Rez: What makes it heretical is the invoking of C.S. Lewis

    I wish these guys would stop dragging Lewis into New Calvinism. Lewis was smarter than that; he would have never accepted their brand of theology, nor endorsed their rebellion against the rest of Christendom.

  103. Just think how the Kingdom could advance if we weren’t busy telling people how to abide by these stupid, contemporary hipster rules.

    Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. It works.

  104. Jenny: He’s trying too hard to impress his superiors with metaphorical meanderings. In ten years he’ll probably regret that post anyway.

    Joshua Harris, a former New Calvinist golden boy, came to regret writing “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” on Christian courtship. Harris wrote the book when he was just 21 years old. How much courting could he have done at that young age to be an expert on the subject?! New Calvinism has released a bunch of preacher boys into the church, rather than men of God. They are lacking in wisdom, while attempting to speak authoritatively.

  105. Rambler: Just think how the Kingdom could advance if we weren’t busy telling people how to abide by these stupid, contemporary hipster rules.

    New Calvinism has caused segments of the church to retreat, not advance. Putting female believers into bondage is not advancing the free church of Jesus Christ.

  106. okrapod: what is wrong with men having their own things which are male identifiers?

    It’s when others start telling me the definition of “manly” and “womanly” are. I don’t care if it’s a religion or Vogue magazine.

    At my wife’s church the guys activities revolve around garage culture. Fishing, fixing stuff. I can fix stuff but I’m not a fan of fishing and I’m equally at home in library or bookstore.

    Women’s activities revolve around reading groups or cooking.

    The gender stuff is really delineated and this is not a complementary church.

    So there’s a swath of people who probably wind up doing crud they dislike to get along.

    It’s also the reason that we’ve kept our son in secular activities. The Christian Service Brigade is no girls allowed son my wife can’t participate and as a non Christian I’m not godly enough.

  107. What I wrote on TGC’s Facebook:

    *tartly* I’d just remind all you people comparing complementarianism to sausages and vegetables that a balanced diet is necessary for good nutrition. In fact, to take the metaphor further, I’d argue that comp churches and organizations are spiritually deficient because you praise the brats and put the asparagus down and don’t give it much role to play at all in your spiritual meals.

    I didn’t post this: I was the kid who turned down candy, chips and pop for a piece of meat. And us kids fought over the asparagus whenever we had it.

    I rolled my eyes so much over this article I was convinced they were going to get stuck in the up position.

  108. Jack,

    They do not sound like your kind of people, religion or no religion. Maybe you all need to investigate elsewhere. My oldest g’kid has just today finished day two of try outs for high school volleyball all the while rejecting the church youth group. She has not rejected church or turned her back on Jesus, perhaps partly because nobody requires church youth group of her. I prefer Barnes and Noble to cake decorating any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but unfortunately they do not do funerals so compromises have to be made.

    Question: What does the bible say was Jesus’ hobby which showed him to be a real man? Nothing. Listen to the silence on that one. So perhaps tinkering for Jesus is just a made up thing? Maybe the professional firefighter now in California can’t wait to do some recreational fishing to prove that he really is a real man just as soon as they get this fire under control. Maybe Jesus was missing the boat when he told Martha that her excessive emphasis on hospitality to the exclusion of listening to Jesus was just a mistake on his part and maybe Jesus regrets that he ever said that.

    Or maybe some folks at your church need to ease up a bit on the extraneous and the unimportant and let people live their own lives? Yep, I go for that idea. Or, and this is sad, if they do not have a life other than just what other people expect of them, then somebody needs to do some serious work with these folks.

    Meanwhile, they had some great prices on large print sudoko books in the bargain section at B&N and MIss Volleyball’s mom got me a couple books recently, sudoku and also logic puzzles. That surely shows that I am not a real woman. Could have fooled me.

  109. Max,

    The stuff with Chantly is pretty bad… and think, the Dee’s took all sort of grief for getting that monster exposed….. but, remember, we need to keep our women folk eating their veggies and staying away from sauages!! Maybe that is why Dee took so much greif? She eates sausages!

  110. FW Rez: his articulateness exceeds his intelligence.

    Love this! Change ‘his’ to ‘my’ and it would make a great bumper sticker for their cars. It would also make a great slogan for narcissists, charmers who can talk their way out of anything but really don’t have a clue.

  111. This is totally off topic but ya’ll are very well read, so maybe you can recommend something for me: I left the Baptists for a Wesleyan group and love it. But I am also learning a bit how the Orthodox church influenced both Wesley and Ireland. And being partly Irish I am trying to learn about how the EO influence plays out now in my subculture, which is mostly white mountain Wesleyans of Irish and Scots Irish extraction.

    And heaven help the dude that tries to treat women like idiots here. He might be wearing a cast iron frying pan for a hat.

  112. I would imagine that McCracken had a deadline for an article, a case of writer’s block, and a brain full of Piper nonsense. So the article is understandable, but still comical.

    I agree with you guys, it’s not bad enough that these folks want to dictate what men’s and women’s roles are, but they want to carefully define those roles. I’m an artsy computer geek in a town full of plant workers, so I don’t fit the stereotype. I once had a plant worker type guy comment that my hands were so smooth, I had probably never done a day of “real work” in my life. I wished I had responded, “Yeah, but my brain has callouses.”

  113. “What can a man do in a marriage that a woman cannot do?”

    I couldn’t resist giving St John Chrysostom’s answer: nothing. From one of his sermons, I believe (so men and women were both listening):

    “When we speak of the wife obeying the husband, we normally think of obedience in military or political terms: the husband giving orders, and the wife obeying them. But while this type of obedience may be appropriate in the army, it is ridiculous in the intimate relationship of marriage. The obedient wife does not wait for orders. Rather she tries to discern her husband’s needs and feelings, and responds in love When she sees her husband is weary, she encourages him to rest; when she sees him agitated she soothes him; when he is ill, she nurses and comforts him; when he is happy and elated she shares his joy. Yet such obedience should not be confined to the wife; the husband should be obedient in the same way. When she is weary, he should relieve her of her work; when she is sad, he should cherish her, holding her gently in his arms; when she is filled with good cheer, he should also share her good cheer. Thus a good marriage is not a matter of one partner obeying the other, but of both partners obeying each other.”

    Don’t shoot me for quoting Chrysostom. People who think he was misogynist (or anti-Semitic) are mistaken, usually because of reading quotes from him taken out of their literary and historical context. He did not have either attitude. My point is that Classical Christianity has never supported nonsense that comes from the complementarian line of thinking. It’s Mutuality all the way.

    D.

  114. dainca: I couldn’t resist giving St John Chrysostom’s answer: nothing. From one of his sermons, I believe (so men and women were both listening):

    VERY impressive considering SJC’s reputation as having a low opinion of women.
    But then, he also went to bat for the Apostolic status of Junia (NOT “Junias”).

  115. GSD [Getting Stuff Done]: I once had a plant worker type guy comment that my hands were so smooth, I had probably never done a day of “real work” in my life. I wished I had responded, “Yeah, but my brain has callouses.”

    Sounds almost Soviet; the CPSU also seemed to define “Worker” as “Manual Labor and ONLY Manual Labor”.

  116. FW Rez: Me thinks his articulateness exceeds his intelligence.

    That’s commonly called “a BS’er”.
    Or classic “Mr Interlocutor” (the straight man in a pre-Civil War Minstrel Show).

  117. So, pondering where I’d seen the name Natalia Tena before, it struck me that she played Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter movies. Anyway, she likes sausages, so she probably likes Cumbria as well.

  118. So weird. When we met, my now husband was a vegetarian and still likes veggies more than I do. I am a whole-hearted Midwest meat-eater and eat vegies under nutritional duress. Does that make us a reverse roled couple?

  119. Shannon H.,

    Have you heard those ads for a certain once American and now Italian-owned car company that are sooo targeted at men. “Join the brotherhood…”

    Maybe the ad author is complementarian and thinks men drive SUVs and women something else, but definitely not anything with real power. SUV V. crossover?

  120. okrapod: The recipe was easy: take whatever you have, throw something else in if you can, keep on back of stove, and don’t let anybody into the house.

    That’s most of my Bachelor Survival recipes right there.

    And there’s a channel on YouTube called “Great Depression Cooking” where this old woman who grew up during the Depression demonstrates the low-cost recipes that kept her family alive back then.

    Odd that the LDS are into vegetarian cooking; at the time of their origin in the 19th Century, a LOT of offbeat startup religions were heavily into Vegetarianism as Being More Spiritual — I specifically remember the SDAs and Spiritualists — but this is the first I heard of the Mormons following suit.

  121. Headless Unicorn Guy: And there’s a channel on YouTube called “Great Depression Cooking” where this old woman who grew up during the Depression demonstrates the low-cost recipes that kept her family alive back then.

    I like that channel. I’ve actually made the poor man’s meal. Although I followed the version by youtuber emmymadeinjapan, which is another good channel.

  122. Headless Unicorn Guy,

    I bet you are right; it just might have been the adventists. The mormons have dietary rules of like no coffee I think as well as no alcohol and I really don’t know what else. But the adventists are trying to be vegetarians. The classes we went to were folks trying to sell pots and pans and giving cooking lessons in the process, so I could have got it wrong about which they were, but it was some religious affiliation. It was at the Y so that doesn’t help me remember. But I bet you are right; it makes more sense.

  123. Jack: Women’s activities revolve around reading groups or cooking

    It is the men’s group at my church who do the cooking for our Wednesday dinners. It was one of thee first things I noticed. I love to cook and so do they. I agree. Men drink beer and play cards and women make the nacho dip is something I noticed in the South.

  124. okrapod: identifiers

    Identifiers are interesting. They can be kind of like folk lore or family lore, but in reality, have nothing to do with God. So there’s no dogma, nor is the lore deemed “truth”. It’s something for chat and humor. Never defining or degrading.

    In our family, the identifiers are something we joke about and never take seriously. Everyone knows that just beyond our property border it’s a big bright world out there and everyone looks at things differently. Even in our family, the children have grown up developing starkly different tastes where the boys may not be the same as their dad, nor the girls like their mom. It’s always an awesome surprise when the kid is completely different in taste than the parent. No judgment. We don’t even share the same politics. No matter.

    A mom friend says she was a tomboy and hates fixing her own hair but her daughters spend hours in the mirror, doing hair and nails and so on. They are their own people. Etc.

    Pity the kids who are raised by parents who buy into this gender dogma nonsense. Yuck. What kind of a home does that create? Jesus has two rules: Love God, Love neighbor as self. And one Christian identifier: you’ll know we are Christians by our love. Done.

  125. jyjames: this gender dogma nonsense

    Yes. I think that gender nonsense works both ways. One way is to say that one must do thus and such and the other way is to say that one must not do thus and such. But if somebody wants to do, or not do, and that is who they are, then within rational limits of course it ought to be their business. We have way too much of people being required to choose sides on way too many issues of gender politics.

    My point is that if somebody feels ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ doing their nails or changing the oil in their own car, then it should not be judged on some idea that feeling feminine or feeling masculine in and of itself is somehow oppressive or wrong in some way. I have bouncy and wavy springy hair that is a brilliant white and has been since I was in my forties. I love it. Every time I go get a cut I get oohs and ahs about how lucky about the hair. Even now as old and sick it still makes me feel feminine. It is a gender identifier for me, for me personally. This sort of thing, this feeling, this gender identity stuff itself is what I am defending. And if some guy does whatever and it makes him feel masculine, more power to him.

  126. NJ: I like that channel. I’ve actually made the poor man’s meal. Although I followed the version by youtuber emmymadeinjapan, which is another good channel.

    “Poor Man’s Meal” is a variant on a sausage hash recipe I came up with independently; thee days I use the YouTube version except with polish sausage instead of hot dogs and unpeeled white potatoes. I’ve also done Pasta with Peas and the Poor Man’s Feast (though that one took two tries to get right).

    The base of all of these is pan-fried potatoes and chopped onions; add some sliced mushrooms and you have a good general side dish. (My problem’s been in timing; how long to cook the various ingredients. I usually start with the potatoes, then add the onions near the end to keep them fresh and crunchy. Never timed the mushrooms right.)

  127. okrapod: The mormons have dietary rules of like no coffee I think as well as no alcohol and I really don’t know what else. But the adventists are trying to be vegetarians.

    A lot of religions have various food taboos and tribal markers; just Vegetarianism was a popular one for “startups” back in the 19th Century.

  128. Jack: It’s when others start telling me the definition of “manly” and “womanly” are. I don’t care if it’s a religion or Vogue magazine.

    It’s funny how much these religious ideas of gender roles are just a conceit of the upper middle class. In poorer classes or cultures, everyone works as much as possible so they don’t starve. In Scandanavia, where egalitarianism has been instanciated into law as much as possible, there is more difference between which jobs men and women choose than in poorer countries.

    The point is, the Calvinistas are taking their cultural preferences and reading them into the Bible. I guarantee you if they were moving west in a covered wagon in 1880 or subsistence farming in Africa, they wouldn’t be nearly as obsessed over this issue

  129. Headless Unicorn Guy: (My problem’s been in timing; how long to cook the various ingredients. I usually start with the potatoes, then add the onions near the end to keep them fresh and crunchy. Never timed the mushrooms right.)

    I managed to not cook the potatoes quite long enough, and probably put in a bit too much ketchup, but the shredded cheese on top was a good idea.

    Your version of sausage hash sounds good; I should show it to my husband in case he wants to try cooking it. He also likes kielbasa as well as metts and brats, which is pretty common around Cincinnati.

    Anyone who thinks sausage is for guys only should show up for Oktoberfest.

  130. That is the most asinine thing I have ever read. I am surprised that this hipster neo-cal thinks that real men eat sausages, since he seems to have the understanding of a middle schooler about gender, and when I was a middle schooler we thought guys shouldn’t eat sausages because they are phallic. But, now I’m a grownup and I realize that anyone can eat anything they want to.

  131. okrapod: But if somebody wants to do, or not do, and that is who they are, then within rational limits of course it ought to be their business.

    ‘Tis. (Their business.)

    Why don’t the gender police engage in real problems, like trafficking, for example?Unimpressive: what is and is not on their radar.

    Listening to “Rogue Lawyer” by John Grisham. If the trafficking he is writing about as modern slavery in the USA is for real, then this is a serious problem in our borders. Tragic.

  132. I guess Daniel and his 3 companions, who subsisted on vegetables alone, must have been effeminate.

    LoLoL!!!

  133. Muff Potter:
    Dee, the town I grew up in as a pre-teen kid is in the Southeastern corner of Wisconsin on Lake Michigan.

    Racine is Denmark and Eastern Europe fused together, but not melted together.
    I know exactly what you’re talking about up-top in the article.
    Golumpki (stuffed cabbage rolls) was one of my favorite dishes, made by the Polish women in my extended family.

    I’m grew up in Cleveland, the Polish capital of the United States. We called stuffed cabbages, halupkis, and I must have eaten kielbasa till it came out of my ears. I love Eastern European food!

  134. If bread is representative of females, then why did Jesus say, “I am the bread of life.”?

    Oh the irony!

  135. Am I the only one who thinks the restrooms labeled Meat and Bread are a simple reference to anatomy? Moderately stupid, but McCracken’s article is completely and utterly stupid.

  136. Bookbolter,

    Oh good grief, picture that. These guys have pre-occupied minds. Doug Wilson, Mark Driscoll, et al. And it all gets down to the woman being a tool for their fantasies.

  137. Mary27: These people have WAY too much time on their hands.

    That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking. What does this even matter? Is this just another ridiculous way to push their warped complementarian insanity on people? Oh wait, I just answered my own questions. Carry on whilst I make some delicious sausages.

  138. L

    ishy:

    What about when Jesus said He was the bread of life? Was that a statement of gender?

    And here I thought I was the first one who thought of that. That’s what happens when you’re late to the party.

  139. dee: I totally disagree with that conclusion. Even your high heel symbol doesn’t hold water throughout time and cultures. High heels were initially more popular among men than among women.

    Years ago, Mustang cars were marketed at women. They are now considered as being for men.

    4 Things Now Considered Manly (Were Created for Women)
    http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-manly-products-that-were-originally-meant-women/

    Also, years ago – I don’t know exactly when, either the 90s or early 2000s – high heels for men were trendy in high fashion cat walks. Men would stroll down the run way in heels.

  140. okrapod: And this, historically, is how barbecue happened. In the south, cheap cuts of pork. It then moved west and became beef when it got to Texas because beef was cheap out there. Just thought I would throw that in for fun.

    And now I want some brisket. I guess this makes me very theologically confused.

  141. linda,

    Page through the Irish American Magazine on line and you may find clues where to look further. I plugged in searches on Scots and there’s an article on http://irishamerica.com/2018/01/300-years-of-scots-irish-immigration-to-u-s/ Another example when searching religion on their site touches on http://irishamerica.com/2008/01/pennsylvanias-irish/

    You may find something of interest in Arthur Herman’s “How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It”

  142. Darlene: I guess Daniel and his 3 companions, who subsisted on vegetables alone, must have been effeminate.

    LoLoL!!!

    Yeah, also Adam in the Garden of Eden. But who needs those Scriptures anyway?
    TGC can cite BATHROOM INSCRIPTIONS that bolster their gender dogma!

  143. Darlene:
    I guess Daniel and his 3 companions, who subsisted on vegetables alone, must have been effeminate.

    LoLoL!!!

    Actually they where, but it wasn’t from the veggies.

  144. dee: I totally disagree with that conclusion. Even your high heel symbol doesn’t hold water throughout time and cultures. High heels were initially more popular among men than among women.
    http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/06/high-heels-were-popular-among-men-before-women/

    I was speaking with a person one time going on about clothing and grooming, and how men must wear this, and women must wear that. And, I brought up the fact that high heels were originally men’s shoes, and how men also wore elaborate wigs and/or long hair, makeup, stockings, and lots of silk and lace, but that now that is seen as non-masculine. So I asked him how he came to the conclusion about what he thinks is masculine? And, this “Christian,” who otherwise likes to talk about how we are not of this world, and should not be defined by this world, answered “it just is, the world has decided it.” So of course I pointed out his hypocrisy, but he still couldn’t understand that his allegiance to his preconceived gender roles, was less about being obedient to God and more about conforming to what the world decrees.

    The interesting thing is if Jesus came walking in their churches on a Sunday morning dressed like He would have when He walked the Earth, they would shun him as a cross dresser, since men did not wear pants at that time.

  145. GMFS

    Anyway, back to the cricket. The First Test between England and India begins at Edgbaston today. One of the questions leading up to this series has surrounded the exceptionally hot and dry summer the UK has had; if this makes the wickets dry and dusty, they would favour the Indians who are used to (and very accomplished at playing in) those conditions. The first session could go either way.

    I’m not going to be following the Test all that closely today as I’m at work, but I’ll try and keep you all posted as best I can.

    Incidentally, cricket (like most sports these days) is increasingly played by both genders at a professional, and international, level. But I don’t think it would fit very well in the fantasy world of pseudo-christian patriarchy; it involves too much thinking.

  146. dee: It is the men’s group at my church who do the cooking for our Wednesday dinners. It was one of thee first things I noticed. I love to cook and so do they. I agree. Men drink beer and play cards and women make the nacho dip is something I noticed in the South

    I know not all churches are obsessed with gender roles. The Anglican church I was raised in, it was always men doing the cooking for the pancake breakfasts. I don’t live in the South but it seems that the more fundamentalist the faith, the bigger the gender focus.

  147. okrapod: They do not sound like your kind of people, religion or no religion.

    They’re not my kind of people, and ironically they aren’t my wife’s kind of people either. Though Pentecostal, she’s not a fundamentalist. Gender roles don’t factor in our lives. She likes the praise & worship but the Sunday service is as far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone.

    My personal relationship with Christianity is more complicated than finding the right church and I’m not about to dictate where she should worship.

  148. Jack,

    Yeah, that’s complicated. You sound like you are dealing with it. I don’t know what flavor of anglican church you were raised in, but I am an episcopalian and we have our issues also. Some of them/us seem to think it is sexist to call God ‘Father’. Humans being what they are I sometimes fear for the future of the species. They do say however that the greater fear for the species lies in actual mutating viruses so I guess that some of all this is more nuisance than real disaster.

    You sound like a reasonable person and a considerate husband. I would guess that your wife and kid are fortunate. There is that, then, which is lots more important that church silliness about unimportant things.

  149. Allie,

    Years ago a relative (who wanted my late father’s truck) said women shouldn’t be driving trucks. Whenever my mom and I would see a woman driving a truck we’d go, “Oh LOOK..a WOMAN driving a TRUCK!” and laugh. I love those decals “silly boys, trucks are for girls”.

  150. I’m so glad you posted this article because it was so next level dumb and people were hilarious roasting it on twitter.

  151. Daisy: At least in American culture, I don’t think liking bread is strictly a ‘woman’ thing. Plenty of men seem to like bread, too (as Dee pointed out in her post).

    My boyfriend told me the other day that every meal should have bread in it…I disagreed. (Although I do love bread)

    The association between sausages and men is phallic. You can do the same with bananas. Was that the authors point?

  152. srs:
    But what does it mean that my wife and I immediately knew that brats and fries for dinner were more appropriate to celebrate our baby boy than kale and candied beets?

    It means that if you were considering eating kale voluntarily you have major issues that run deeper than your theology.

    If you invite me to any celebration, please serve neither kale nor beets. Ugh.

    Has this guy never heard of cake?

  153. ishy: What about when Jesus said He was the bread of life? Was that a statement of gender?

    Jesus was telling us he was actually a woman! Ishy has solved the great mystery.

  154. Beakerj: And it does sound like JP. This is the intellectual child of all his ridiculous utterances.

    Iirc they even referenced him…yes, they did ‘psychologist Jordan Peterson’.

    I don’t know if it is outside Dee and Deb’s purview, but we should talk about how his nonsense is being embraced in these quarters maybe. He’s practically CBMW level dumb, just dressed up in pseudo intellectual trappings.

  155. Bread vs. Sausage

    As far as I’m concerned about this, Wartburgers just need to know that most breads are high in carbs, contain a lot of gluten, and are low in essential nutrients … sausages, on the other hand, have excess salt, preservatives, and fat. Why McCracken chose to draw these two important food groups into his intellectual gender discussion is over my IQ to comprehend.

  156. Ricco: If you are just making observations, I have no issue with that.

    I think the problem with most such ‘observations’ (regarding stuff that is for men) is that they tend to be wrong, and often limiting for women in a way that is not true in the reverse. Men claim stuff like ‘math’ and ‘jobs’ and ‘decision making ability’ for themselves. I don’t think anyone is fighting them for beards.

  157. Nathan Priddis:
    I could have figured out which bathroom is which. But, it would mean standing outside for awhile considering different viewpoints from the owner. All the viewpoints I can imagine, point to it being a dumb restaurant.

    Another thing meat stands for is ‘meat market’, but I think you would have to be thinking in ‘dumb hipster mode’ to interpret this one.

  158. NJ: Headless Unicorn Guy: (My problem’s been in timing; how long to cook the various ingredients. I usually start with the potatoes, then add the onions near the end to keep them fresh and crunchy. Never timed the mushrooms right.)

    I managed to not cook the potatoes quite long enough

    When I make fried potatoes, I usually fry them and then stick the lid on for a while which kind of steams them? That helps make them cook through and you still get the fried crunchiness.

  159. “It’s because they are not the same. They are different—beautifully different—in ways that enhance and bring the best out of the other. They are dignified, not diminished, by their complementary differences. They are part of a ordered cosmos of binaries—man and woman, light and dark, land and sea, salty and sweet—that bring structure, coherence, and irresistible beauty to life.”

    Coming late to this buffet to thank McCracken for showing me that I still remember something from a college anthro class, 50-plus years ago. The professor was talking about cosmologies and the way they can shape culture (and vice versa). He said European Christianity tended toward tidy binaries–good/evil, heaven/hell, black/white, dark/light–and this was a cultural “choice” that could seem divinely ordained if you didn’t know (or care) that other cultures saw the world differently. The Maya, for example, looked more for spiritual meaning in transitional states: dawn and dusk rather than noon and midnight, the ever-changing margin between sea and shore, etc. Their “ordered cosmos” would look different.

    On the food front, if you’re Portuguese you know that kale and sausage are meant for each other. How else can you make Caldo Verde? And does McCracken bring his own grade-school cafeteria tray with him to restaurants so his meat and veggies don’t touch? My grandson follows that rule, but he’s 6.

  160. Lea: Men claim stuff like ‘math’ and ‘jobs’ and ‘decision making ability’ for themselves.

    Oh really?
    I personally know a lady mathematician (a prof. at Cal-State) who can think rings around those dolts.

  161. Rambler:
    Just think how the Kingdom could advance if we weren’t busy telling people how to abide by these stupid, contemporary hipster rules.

    Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.It works.

    But that’s ROMISH!
    NO POPERY!

  162. Muff Potter: Oh really?
    I personally know a lady mathematician (a prof. at Cal-State) who can think rings around those dolts.

    Which CalState?

  163. Max: The New Calvinists are all about being “culturally-relevant”

    Just like the Libruls they and Evangelicals denounce.

    “Nothing gets old-fashioned faster than Over-Relevance.”
    — my old D&D DM

    Remember Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In? GROOVY, MAN!
    (But Laugh-In never pretended to be anything more than a current-events topical comedy revue. NOT The Answer To Life, The Universe, and Everything.)

  164. Muff Potter: From my viewpoint?The answer is no.We live in a free and open society that was hard fought for and hard won.At one extreme we have Orwellian femi-nazi types who want to impose their will upon us, and at the other, we have ‘chrislamics’ who’d be more than happy to have us all living under a kind of ‘Calvinized Geneva’.

    I think the vast majority of Americans are somewhere in between and content to just live and let live.

    The must all be Re-Educated to The One True Way — Or Else!
    (But when there is more than one One True Way? The Universe Cannot Have Two Centers; let the Game of Thrones begin.)

  165. westerner: And does McCracken bring his own grade-school cafeteria tray with him to restaurants so his meat and veggies don’t touch?

    Well, Dake’s Annotated Bible had a lot to say on “The Law of Segregation” in SCRIPTURE…

    So much I wonder if this Dale MoG was from the Deep South?

  166. Lea: Another thing meat stands for is ‘meat market’, but I think you would have to be thinking in ‘dumb hipster mode’ to interpret this one.

    We’re not THAT dumb!

  167. Jack: I don’t live in the South but it seems that the more fundamentalist the faith, the bigger the gender focus.

    On the West Coast (here in the states) South of LA and Eastward into Arizona, we have ‘The Bible Belt West’. Fundagelicalism and the proliferation of mega-churches is big bizz in this region, and yes they are very keen on cast-in-concrete-gender-roles based solely on plumbing received at birth.

  168. Lea: My boyfriend told me the other day that every meal should have bread in it…I disagreed. (Although I do love bread)

    Anyone remember Salem Kirban’s Godly Diet? Nothing but bread, bread, bread, bread, and bread.
    Then you had to measure and weigh your stools to make sure it was working.
    And you could tell because the Holy Spirit would shine out of your eyes as it Purified you.

    I am not making any of that up. My writing partner’s father once got caught up in it.

    P.S. Salem Kirban is best know for the Christian Apocalyptic Best-Seller “666” which was almost a 67th book of the Bible in its day. “666” is the absolute WORST Christian End-Times novel ever written, a Christianese “Eye of Argon” that makes Left Behind look like Lord of the Rings in comparison. And it has an Opera Cantata version, Ode to the Antichrist’s Guillotines and all; I know because my writing partner sent me a copy. (In revenge for me sending him a YouTube link to Estus Pirkle’s “Believer’s Heaven”; it was the singing midgets that did it.)

    The association between sausages and men is phallic. You can do the same with bananas. Was that the authors point?

    The Cult of Priapus is alive and well.

  169. dee: I totally disagree with that conclusion. Even your high heel symbol doesn’t hold water throughout time and cultures. High heels were initially more popular among men than among women.

    Mrs. Muff says that “with the right pair of shoes a girl can conquer the world”.

  170. Daisy: Years ago, Mustang cars were marketed at women.

    Cute little cars for the little woman to drive while working on her MRS degree.

    I did a 1/24th scale build of a ’65 convertible with a My Little Pony theme a couple years ago — coloration, trim, Cutie Mark (pony butt tat) on the quarter panels, and vanity plate all based on a particular unicorn mare from the show. (G4 Rarity, a fashion designer/seamstress who owns and runs her own boutique.)

    Because what else would a My Little Pony drive than the ORIGINAL Pony Car?

  171. Cricket

    Sorry for the lack of updates; busy day. Anyway, England:
    – won the toss
    – batted
    – started reasonably well
    – then collapsed, losing 3 wickets for 8 runs

    I didn’t use the ION (In Other News) acronym, because – AWWBA – the above is not exactly news.

  172. Max:
    Bread vs. Sausage

    As far as I’m concerned about this, Wartburgers just need to know that most breads are high in carbs, contain a lot of gluten, and are low in essential nutrients … sausages, on the other hand, have excess salt, preservatives, and fat.Why McCracken chose to draw these two important food groups into his intellectual gender discussion is over my IQ to comprehend.

    Maybe he’s obsessed with the movie “Freddy Got Fingered”?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2aKsoizx1w

  173. Muff Potter: On the West Coast (here in the states) South of LA and Eastward into Arizona, we have ‘The Bible Belt West’.Fundagelicalism and the proliferation of mega-churches is big bizz in this region, and yes they are very keen on cast-in-concrete-gender-roles based solely on plumbing received at birth.

    So I have learned as there has been an influx of such folks from that area into mine. West Coast Evangalicalism is surprisingly hard-core fundie, gender-based, and all that. Listening to them talk to their friends back west, it’s amazing how liberal/lost/mistaken they think the evangelicals in the Bible Belt South are.

  174. Rambler: Listening to them talk to their friends back west, it’s amazing how liberal/lost/mistaken they think the evangelicals in the Bible Belt South are.

    When I hear things blamed on the south (gender roles, etc), I think about my deep south raised grandmother, whose father encouraged all of them to get an education and a job in the 40s.

    The new gender roles are much more stringent than the old it seems. Crazy.

  175. Muff Potter: On the West Coast (here in the states) South of LA and Eastward into Arizona, we have ‘The Bible Belt West’

    It’s more the state of mind than the geographical state.
    I checked one of the reformed churches website here and all the same authoritarian red flags pop up. But most of the reformed churches aren’t megas.
    But I think the predominant culture can determine which churches are more successful in a given area.
    As I’ve said before, there is no ‘christianity’ but many Christianities, each a religion unto itself.

  176. Jack: As I’ve said before, there is no ‘christianity’ but many Christianities, each a religion unto itself.

    And often as not calling Jihad on the Other.
    “DIE, HERETICS!”

  177. The next generation of John Pipers has arrived.

    With the addition of Entropy and Replication Fade like bad fanfics.

  178. okrapod: You sound like a reasonable person and a considerate husband. I would guess that your wife and kid are fortunate. There is that, then, which is lots more important that church silliness about unimportant things.

    I’m human with good & bad traits. I’ve learned from my past mistakes. If there is a God then he/she/it designed us to question. Only through dialog can you start to address any issues, personal or public. Unfortunately in my evangelical experience you were only allowed to nod and agree. Drove me crazy. My wife deals with it by taking the good and discarding the bad. She maintains her freedom of thought so that’s ok by me.
    I think there are many roads to the truth.
    But the obsession with gender down to food groups is just asinine.
    Introspection, sure. But a faith should never tear you down.
    Maybe I sound reasonable because I don’t believe that I’m smarter than your average bear.

  179. Lea: When I hear things blamed on the south (gender roles, etc), I think about my deep south raised grandmother, whose father encouraged all of them to get an education and a job in the 40s.

    The new gender roles are much more stringent than the old it seems. Crazy.

    Yeah. All my “Southern” born and bred aunts and both grandmothers are college educated. That goes back to the turn of the century, too, since both grandmothers married late for their time. Stereotyping the South is entertainment here. But watch out. California now surpasses Mississippi as #1 in poverty. And when there is a natural disaster, I will take the rednecks over the elites anyway. The rednecks know how to survive and fix stuff. 🙂

  180. Headless Unicorn Guy: Anyone remember Salem Kirban’s Godly Diet? Nothing but bread, bread, bread, bread, and bread.
    Then you had to measure and weigh your stools to make sure it was working.
    And you could tell because the Holy Spirit would shine out of your eyes as it Purified you.

    (*picks jaw off floor*)

    Someone might just have licked L. Ron Hubbard in the “Wacky Guru” department.

  181. Dee, you hooked my interest in this post when you mentioned “kielbasa”. My granddad was Ukrainian, and kielbasa sandwiches were always a huge treat when we visited him during the summer. I might even have some ‘basa during my current visit home!

    As for McCracken, there’s only one thing I can agree with in his article:

    “Is food gendered? It sounds ridiculous.”

    Yes, Brett. That’s because it is ridiculous.

  182. Headless Unicorn Guy: Anyone remember Salem Kirban’s Godly Diet? … [weird stuff, and then:]… it Purified you.

    Never come across Kirban, but I did borrow a set of CD’s on fasting by a certain more recent fellow. I don’t want to name him, but he was the same laddie who wrote at length about his intense “spiritual” (i.e., auto-suggested) experiences that he likened to spending four weeks at a time in (and I quote directly) “a womb of liquid love”. He, too, had some bizarre faddist ideas about the “Genesis diet”, even though he also believed that red meat and white flour give you cancer (that would be… the Genesis diet, basically).

    Here’s the thing about him, though. He was obsessed with cleansing and purifying himself through fasting and bizarre diets. But no matter how much he cleansed and purified himself, he was never clean or pure; if anything, he was only more vulnerable to defilement at the slightest brush against real life, and in need of more and more and more “cleansing” and “purifying”.

    Unsurprisingly, he was also very much into intense “healing” experiences, and equally unsurprisingly, he was always “healing”, never healed. Each intense experience was nothing more than a fix that temporarily satisfied the cravings of a deeply troubled man who happened to get very powerful endorphin hits through suggestion instead of through, say, hard drugs. I suppose he was better off than an actual drug-addict.

  183. Lydia: I will take the rednecks over the elites anyway. The rednecks know how to survive and fix stuff.

    Lydia, that was the nicest thing you ever said to me!

    When all hell breaks loose on the planet (it will), I would rather be in a fox hole with godly women like you, than John Piper. (I hope you consider that my complement to you in return) 🙂

    P.S. Can you believe that us Wartburgers have wasted so much brain power on McCracken’s silly piece?! Over 200 comments!!

  184. Max: P.S. Can you believe that us Wartburgers have wasted so much brain power on McCracken’s silly piece?! Over 200 comments!!

    I can’t believe I browsed through them all ,reading the majority, after several false starts over the last couple of days.

    I’ve been following closely since March, WC, and not so closely before that. I’m in the hanging on category of organized church association, that is, not quite done yet, having experienced several denominations.

  185. Headline interpretation:

    “Real men die early from clogged arteries and irresponsibly leave their wives to become widows…”

    Geeze these people (Calvinista’s et al) need to really get out and get a life

  186. “Doesn’t this sound like something John Piper would write?”

    I was thinking more along the lines of Owen Strachan, he of the “I dicate what toys kids will play with because that will for who they are in the future”.

  187. Lydia: Stereotyping the South is entertainment here. But watch out. California now surpasses Mississippi as #1 in poverty. And when there is a natural disaster, I will take the rednecks over the elites anyway. The rednecks know how to survive and fix stuff.

    Please, I hope you didn’t interpret my geographical reference (Southern Cal.) as a stereotypical dig to you Southerners. No matter where you (generic you) go, you’ll find the good, the bad, and the ugly in all tribes and in all peoples.
    Hell, I’d hunker down with you and Max any day of the week and six ways to Sunday, if you guys would rub elbows with an unregenerate-free-thinking-reprobate-rogue like me.

  188. Jenny: But his church needs to be called out for leading people astray with false teachers. Southlands in Brea, CA – McCracken’s church according to the bio on his blog – is a member of Advance led by PJ Smyth. The Advance North America Conference will be held at Southlands this coming October. PJS is a keynote, as is the pastor of Southlands Alan Frow. If they don’t know what’s come to light about PJS recently, the Southlands congregation should be warned about it.

    Seriously? The bread and sausages man belongs to a church that is part of P J Smyth’s Advance? P J Smyth, son of the infamous child abuser John Smyth? P J Smyth, author of “Quick Start Parenting” which calls those who do not “smack” children sissies? So while there are serious, disturbing issues bubbling away just under the surface, the thing it is deemed important to be focusing on is which gender ought to be identified by sausage, bread or vegetables. There you go, the idiocy of religion in a nutshell.

  189. Headless Unicorn Guy,

    Ahh…I forgot about him..Salem Kirban. Geez I sometimes wonder why in my early years as a Christian I ran across all sorts of questionable theologies/teachings …Kirban, Hagin, Bob Larson, etc

  190. Nick Bulbeck,

    I sometimes wonder why some believers seem more interested in evangelizing those who eat differently than those who believe differently…”Hi, I am a Christian, and did you know that what you are eating right now will send you to an early grave? Here, listen to these 83 tapes on how to live as a better Christian through this secret biblical diet…””

  191. Headless Unicorn Guy,

    “Estus Pirkle”
    +++++++++++

    what a great name!

    (should i ever write a story and need a name for a male character to go along with my female character “Rosie Winkworth” — whose name i saw written down in one of several very old library books as decor on a shelf in a pub in england — she was one of many who had checked the book out long long ago… thought it was a great name)

  192. Max: Can you believe that us Wartburgers have wasted so much brain power on McCracken’s silly piece?! Over 200 comments!!

    I haven’t read the Kraken’s piece at all. I’ve just been reporting on the cricket.

  193. Siteseer: Seriously? The bread and sausages man belongs to a church that is part of P J Smyth’s Advance? P J Smyth, son of the infamous child abuser John Smyth? P J Smyth, author of “Quick Start Parenting” which calls those who do not “smack” children sissies? So while there are serious, disturbing issues bubbling away just under the surface, the thing it is deemed important to be focusing on is which gender ought to be identified by sausage, bread or vegetables. There you go, the idiocy of religion in a nutshell.

    Someone up thread mentioned the Bible Belt of SoCal. Southlands is pretty much right in the buckle. Here’s their website: http://southlands.net/ It looks and sounds just like most of the newer churches we have around here.

    I hope there are people at Southlands brave enough to investigate and question, then push back against their leadership getting them involved in P.J. Smyth’s Advance “movement”. There is a lot of information out there about him now. Red flags and warning bells galore.

  194. Lea: Several people in my family have done the ‘Daniel fast’ which is sort of vegetarian for three weeks iirc.

    Speaking of vegetarian diets, does anyone else have a problem with the way they fix green beans at fancy restaurants? They are too green and have a crunchy texture to them. I’m OK with eating their pretty salads, but sure wish they would cook the beans!

  195. Lydia: California now surpasses Mississippi as #1 in poverty. And when there is a natural disaster, I will take the rednecks over the elites anyway. The rednecks know how to survive and fix stuff.

    Contrary to media reports, not all Californians are artisan-kale-munching, Prius-driving elites, or poor illegal immigrants. There’s a hearty, albeit shrinking, salt-of-the-earth bunch around here that you definitely want as neighbors when the Big One shows up. They have common sense, skills, tools, and RVs filled with propane, water, and food.

  196. Jenny,

    bring on the porterhouse steak with peppcorn au jus, kale salad, rocquefort cheese, (red wine, of course)…

    (just remembering a meal to remember from some years ago)

  197. Jenny: Contrary to media reports, not all Californians are artisan-kale-munching, Prius-driving elites, or poor illegal immigrants. There’s a hearty, albeit shrinking, salt-of-the-earth bunch around here that you definitely want as neighbors when the Big One shows up. They have common sense, skills, tools, and RVs filled with propane, water, and food.

    Just you’ll have to go outside the cities to find them. Cali has had a long-simmering feud between city and country ever since Los Angeles Big Money influencing Sacramento politics drained the Owens Valley into alkali desert with the LA Aqueduct. In the latest book about American cultural roots, we have three vastly-different cultural roots clashing in this state:

    1) “Artisan Kale Muching, Prius Driving Elites” (constantly Virtue Signalling their Righteousness with Moral Fury) is the “Left Coast” cultural roots — utterly-secularized New England Puritan Busybodies.

    2) “Poor Illegal Immigrants” are the “Del Norte” cultural roots in Spanish Colonial Culture. (Primarily Mexican, and Mexico’s history is one long tragedy.) The main problem is that they’re coming in so fast there’s long-standing fear we can’t assimilate them. (Not helped by Mexican domestic-consumption rhetoric about “La Reconquista”.)

    3) The rest of the state (the older rural areas) are “Far West” cultural roots — familiar to anyone who’s watched classic John Wayne westerns.

    Put these three cultures together (especially 1 & 3) and you have an explosive mixture. If not hypergolic.

    Remember the 2016 election map when broken down by county instead of state? Isolated blue islands corresponding to Greater Los Angeles/San Diego (culture 2), Sacramento (the capital) and the entire SF Bay Area and Marin County/Upscale Wine Country (culture 1) in an OCEAN of red (culture 3)? Unfortunatly, since those blue islands have the majority of the population and majority rules… Which is why Cali is going to stay crazy for a LONG time to come.

  198. Never mind this Brett McCracken.
    Give me Craig McCracken (creator of the original Powerpuff Girls) any day!

  199. Serving Kids In Japan: (*picks jaw off floor*)

    Someone might just have licked L. Ron Hubbard in the “Wacky Guru” department.

    After I posted that yesterday, I did a little searching. Though the actual text of his stuff is not online, here’s the results:

    https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/115080.Salem_Kirban
    https://www.amazon.com/Salem-Kirban/e/B002880RSM

    The musical Cantata:
    https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-Cantata-Second-Tribulation-Armageddon/dp/B000C15RTQ

    I found two diet books under his name; without further information, I do not know if either of these is the one I described, or whether that was a third which never made it to actual publication, just word-of-mouth.

    And the best-selling novel itself, the “Eye of Argon” of Christian Apocalyptic, the Plan Nine from Outer Space of Book of Revelation fanfic:
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/881570.666
    (Note the blurb and comments.)

  200. Max: Speaking of vegetarian diets, does anyone else have a problem with the way they fix green beans at fancy restaurants?They are too green and have a crunchy texture to them.I’m OK with eating their pretty salads, but sure wish they would cook the beans!

    Love’em crunchy! Broccoli and carrots crunchy, too 🙂

  201. Bridget: Love’em crunchy! Broccoli and carrots crunchy, too

    Such veggies are OK I guess, but they just don’t go with sausages. 🙂

  202. At the medical office just now they had one of these wall videos telling you how to live your life. They tried to tell us that raw kale as a salad was x% better than other greens. Barf. Maybe these people have seen so much human suffering that the suffering of eating raw kale is nothing to them? I feel sufficiently female without resorting to that.

  203. dainca,

    Do you happen to know the original homily where that Chrysostom quote came from? I can’t find it with a Google search. I found some Internet pages quoting it, and they cite as the source “On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom”
    (1996), compiled by Robert Van de Weyer. But I don’t know what Homily Van de Weyer is citing.

    I suppose I’m asking because part of the passage states, “A good marriage is like a castle”, which sounds a bit anachronistic for Chrysostom’s time.

    That, and reading his Homilies on Ephesians, he really does seem to support the husband as in authority and superior to the wife. I’m not trying to knock him entirely, as he is a man of his times and he is still loads better than most of his contemporaries. He’s definitely the cuddly one of the bunch. But I would be keenly interested to have the primary source (translated in English) for the quote you shared with us, just so I can know that it’s genuine, because it looks like really nice evidence that even Chrysostom has trouble with consistency in his marriage teachings, which certainly scores one for Team Egalitarian.

    Here’s a link to Homily #20 on Ephesians, so you can see what I mean. (Have your barf bag ready.)

    http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230120.htm

  204. okrapod: They tried to tell us that raw kale as a salad was x% better than other greens.

    See, I saw something a while back that said Spinach had a better nutrient profile than kale. Now maybe I hung onto that because I love spinach and hate kale, but still. Just tell people to eat some greens and stop trying to police which ones.

  205. okrapod: They tried to tell us that raw kale as a salad was x% better than other greens.

    That’s just because Kale is TRENDY right now.

    A couple weeks from now, someone will post PROOF that Kale Causes Cancer, overnight kale will be “So Day-Before-Yesterday”, and a new “eat me and live forever” health food will have its 15 minutes of fame.

  206. Headless Unicorn Guy: That’s just because Kale is TRENDY right now.

    I’m just annoyed because I went to fresh market the other day and they didn’t even HAVE frozen spinach, it had all been replaced by Kale. Bleck.

    I want Chard to be trendy so I can buy it frozen instead of in expensive fresh bunches that cook down to basically nothing.

  207. Max: That would be impossible! The New Calvinist movement exists to restore the “gospel” that the rest of the church has lost over the centuries.

    Just like the Mormons, JWs, and Moonies.

  208. Dan from Georgia:
    Headless Unicorn Guy,

    Ahh…I forgot about him..Salem Kirban.Geez I sometimes wonder why in my early years as a Christian I ran across all sorts of questionable theologies/teachings …Kirban, Hagin, Bob Larson, etc

    Because like me, you were a Weirdness Magnet.
    Kinda sucks, don’t it?

  209. okrapod:
    At the medical office just now they had one of these wall videos telling you how to live your life.They tried to tell us that raw kale as a salad was x% better than other greens. Barf.Maybe these people have seen so much human suffering that the suffering of eating raw kale is nothing to them?I feel sufficiently female without resorting to that.

    Still beats God’s NOT Dead on continuous loop that one time in my opthamologist’s waiting room….

  210. I ended up reading almost all of the comments as well as the article because I could not believe that no one got the obvious meaning of the bathroom signs. Maybe it’s just because I’m Canadian and I often see “odd” bathroom signs (use of different languages, different symbols, word play, colours, sexual innuendos, etc.), though I have seen playful signs elsewhere in my travels.

    Meat gets put into bread. Simple as that. No deep symbology, just basic sexual innuendo. Rather blatantly obvious, at least to me and my fellow Canucks. I know Americans joke about hotdogs and buns, so how can it be that McCracken didn’t get it? Are all patriarchalists so sheltered?

    For McCracken to get some deep spiritual and religious significance out of a lame Canadian sexual joke cracked me up and totally made my day.