The constellation Ursa Major – the Great Bear – holds a massive galaxy that spans about 150,000 light-years in diameter. Known as NGC 2481. NASA
“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
― The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
My mother will continue with therapy for a couple of weeks but may be entered into hospice care. It has been a long two weeks.
Who is Owen Strachan?
According to his biography at Grace Bible Theological Seminary:
Dr. Owen Strachan is Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. Before coming to GBTS he served as Associate Professor of Christian Theology and Director of the Residency Ph.D Program at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned his Ph.D from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, his M.Div from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his AB from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He is married and the father of three children. Strachan has authored numerous books, including Reenchanting Humanity: A Theology of Mankind, The Pastor as Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision (with Kevin Vanhoozer) and Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement is Hijacking the Gospel – and the Way to Stop it. Strachan is the former president of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, the former director of The Center for Public Theology at MBTS and is the President of Reformanda Ministries.
Grace Theological Seminary is a relatively new and minor seminary in Conway, Arkansas. It has a small faculty consisting of rather hirsute men. I wonder…do beards make one look more Calvinistic? It started as a ministry of a local church. One wonders why a few of these gentlemen, like Dr. James White, who were somewhat well-known in the Gospel Coalition circles, ditched more familiar seminaries for a startup. Thoughts, anyone? We all know about the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I decided to look at Reformanda Ministries, of which Strachan is the President, according to his bio. I found a Twitter account that has been unused since 2021. However, when one clicks on reformandamin.org, it seems that some weird gambling thing has overtaken his presidency. I would be happy if anyone could find a better link to Strachan’s Reformanda thing.
Strachan says strong men are reaching a breaking point due to the evil ideologies of feminism, paganism, and godless wokeness.
This sounds exciting… Strachan has a history of saying things that irritate people. It appears he’s done it again! The Christian Post featured Author theology professor Owen Strachan, who says feminism, ‘wokeness’ behind cultural ‘war on men.’
“Feminism and wokeness have accomplished nothing less than the destabilization of civilization.”
It appears he is quite concerned about “strong manhood.” Men are at the breaking point due to evil ideologies. Huh?
- the rise of “toxic masculinity” is actually symptomatic of larger threats.
- “Feminism, paganism, and godless wokeness have attacked strong manhood relentlessly for decades now,”
- “These evil ideologies have had a ferocious effect on the home, the church and society. They have weakened men to breaking point.
- If you weaken men, it turns out, you weaken everyone.
- cultural traffic cops, have sought to make it “fashionable to hate men.”
He defines four groups of deficient men. I propose a fifth—men who do not embrace radical hirsutism.
Another book deal
The breathless statement of seeming panic by Strachan describing attacks on strong manhood should have made me realize sooner that we are dealing with a new book by Owen: The War on Men: Why Society Hates Them and Why We Need Them.
Strachan appears to be involved with Ken Ham, who wrote the following endorsement of the book.
Satan is on the warpath, seeking to destroy everyone who bears the image of God—men, women, and children. And increasingly, that war has its crosshairs set on men and masculinity. But God designed men, and while we recognize sin distorts everything, masculinity in itself is a good thing. I’m thankful for Owen’s bold and powerful defense of biblical manhood. It’s much needed today!” —Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis, Ark Encounter, and the Creation Museum
Dee sees things a bit differently than Strachan.
I decided to address the feminism thing.
Strachan is a hairy man who hangs around men in his manly seminary and forgets (or refuses to acknowledge) that women have gotten a bad deal if one considers thousands of years of history. Men were the leaders and would bring home the bacon to the wife, whose duty was to remain home and produce children. Before anyone gets worked up, I stayed home with my kids while my husband worked. Our choice was due to my daughter’s illness and my husband’s hectic schedule.
But there is another side to this story. Even a few decades ago, women were actively denied a place at the table or ignored.
- Women in surgery
- Women flying jets in the Airforce
- Women astronauts
- Women CEOs
So many women have taken on professions that were once considered the bastion of men. With their spouses, they are making it work.
Strachan ignores the sad history of women. Downton Abbey fans will remember that women could not inherit noble estates tied to a title. Only men could inherit those titles, even if the women were more capable than a man. For centuries such a thing was not believed. Could a woman smarter or more capable than a man? It can’t be.
Think about the history of coverture.
Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine in the English common law in which a married woman’s legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband, so that she had no independent legal existence of her own. Upon marriage, coverture provided that a woman became a feme covert, whose legal rights and obligations were mostly subsumed by those of her husband. An unmarried woman, or feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name.
Coverture was well established in the common law for several centuries and was inherited by many other common law jurisdictions, including the United States.
Jesus caused a stir by speaking to women. I love the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. He treated her as a whole person even though she had two strikes against her: She was a woman and a Samaritan. Women were important in the early church. However, as the church grew and passed through the ages, women were given a back seat and continued to be overlooked in the grand scheme of things.
Remember John Piper, who said women shouldn’t give road directions to men, serve as police officers, or not be muscular? Strachan has close ties to Desiring God. Yet in spite of their faulty reasoning, women are serving as fighter jet pilots, and the NIH states:
No important differences between women and men in signs or symptoms of G stress were observed,
In other words, women are capable and effective no matter what Piper and Strachan might say. Are these women pushing men to their breaking point? They don’t sound strong. They sound more like pantywaists.
Labels like feminism are troubling to me.
When folks see the word “feminism,” they have differing opinions of what that means. Strachan says that feminists are evil. Why? Are they any more evil than the men who subjugated women throughout history? Do we need to teach Strachan all the evil things done by strong men throughout history?
I believe that Strachan is following Mark Driscoll and others in claiming men are under attack. He does not appear to be an original thinker. However, he should also stress that women have been under attack for millennia. I view myself as a woman excited to see the world of opportunities open up to women and men. Strachan focuses on the plight of so-called “strong men.” Why does he ignore the pain of women, which was caused by strong men?
I think things are slowly changing for the better for women in secular society. Unfortunately, women are not heard in many churches because “they are not allowed to be pastors or elders. “I say “balderdash.” Here are a few examples of how it could change.
- If women can’t be elders, form a group of women who would advise the elders on their perspectives of ministry. Call the group “Not Elders” so wussy men won’t fear that they are under attack by subversive women.
- If women can’t be pastors, form a group of women who would advise the pastors. See above.
- Form a group of men and women (equal numbers of both if possible) and have them advise the pastors and leaders.
- Have men plan the church dinners. Let the women do set up. Break stereotypes when possible.
Finally
Here are a few things I hope to see before I go home.
- A woman POTUS
- A woman who is the first human to step foot on Mars.
- A female leader of the SBC Executive Committee
- A women’s advisory committee for Strachan.
I guess I’m lost to Hell. I am the father of four STRONG daughters and they are wonderful.
Owen Strachan, the son-in-law of Bruce Ware (a founder of CBMW), is having a conference called “The War on Men.” There is a live session linked below. It starts at 7:30 Pacific time – about an hour from now.
My opinion is the conference is all part of the promotional program by Strachan and Salem Media to boost sales of Strachan’s book.
Of interest – Executive Salaries at Salem Media Group:
David Evans, COO
$509K salary
$555K total comp.
David Santrella, CEO
$455K Salary
$501K total comp.
Source: https://www.comparably.com/companies/salem-media-group/salaries
While Salem media is much more than just a book publisher, you can perhaps see what a big business Christian books are.
https://youtu.be/bht9C2RocPk?si=KSgT81AUwMOYQaJQ
https://www.youtube.com/live/g3qpyTLGAIQ?si=cws-PMf6Tx3_mZdC
I think you may be too hard on him.
“He defines four groups of deficient men.”
3 out of 4 ain’t bad – that’s a solid C. Good Job Sparky!
Strachan sounds like a man blaming women when the world just doesn’t go the way he prefers. He sounds like a two year-old throwing a hissy fit.
Doesn’t poor little Owen fall into the “exaggerated man” category???
Cartoonish….. Elmer Fudd in a Pulpit??? (Or maybe Shaggy from the Scooby Doo cartoon show?)
He did tweet, “God has staked everything on men.” (If my husband had said that, he’d still be payin’ for it!)
I need to go back and read the Elmer Strac …. Uhm, Owen Strachan quotes aloud with an Elmer Fudd accent.
He always a snazzy dresser tho, especially before the beard. I always noted that.
There is no “war on men”. Period.
What there is, is the fact that increasingly, many jobs do not demand the (usually, but I’m not so sure about Owen ☺) superior physical strength of men compared to the average woman. Also, many of those backbreaking jobs have been mechanized, for health and efficiency reasons. So men and women increasingly compete for the same jobs. That is, however, not a “war on men”, but a general development in the workplace, that generally also benefits those women that did those traditionally “female” jobs that were also physically hard.
The real problem is that many men have a hard time adjusting to a world that no longer needs some of their strengths to the same degree, with the accompanying loss of status and privilge. Loss of privilege for those that are used to it feels like attack. Many people feel that life is a zero-sum game, and that if a group that hitherto had fewer rights and status than the in-group were to acquire those same rights and status, they would feel like something has been taken from them.
The real “war on men”, if we can call it that, is perpetrated by those grifters who rile up resentment in the men, instead of helping them transition into the new world of work. These transitions happen all the time – think of the farrier jobs lost due to the automobile, the typesetters’ jobs lost to the computer, etc. – this is not a new situation. And those changes can hit some very hard, and the transitions can be fraught, for whole groups of workers.
For some people, and I would count our boy Owen among them, it is good business to stoke resentment instead of helping make the change. How he can bear to look at himself in the mirror each morning, I don’t know. He probably doesn’t do that as much as in the past, anyway, since getting rid of the cute hair.
The ole’ boy apears to be low IQ and simplistic, apparently, instead of being thoughtful to understand workplace changes. From his platform, he spews his nonsense.
They could read “Jesus and John Wayne” by Kristin Du Mez.
They could also read “The Making of Biblical Womanhood” by Beth Allison Barr.
A third good read for this crowd is “Strongmen” by Dr. Ruth Ben-ghiat.
Finally, “Golden Handcuffs” by Nina Burleigh details the 6 women who influenced the ultimate woman-hater of our time:
“explores the forces that shaped his take on women in this account of the six women closest to him.
“He flagrantly cheated on all three of his wives, brushed off multiple accusations of sexual assault, publicly ogled his eldest daughter, bought the silence of a p*rn star, and proclaimed his now-infamous seduction technique: ‘grab ’em by the *****’.
“The women closest to him are: his German-immigrant grandmother, Elizabeth, the UNCREDITED FOUNDER of his famous family Organization; his Scottish-immigrant mother, Mary, who craved wealth as a maid in the Andrew Carnegie mansion; his wives– (the first and third of whom are immigrants); and his eldest daughter, groomed to take over the brand from a young age.
“Also examined are his two older sisters, one of whom is a prominent federal judge; his often-overlooked younger daughter; his female employees; and those he calls ‘liars’–the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct, imcluding violent assault.”
But then, alas, like their mentor profiled in Nina Burleigh’s book, the woman-hater crowd doesn’t read much. Obviously. They especially don’t read the Bible, the WHOLE Bible to see and acknowledge God’s dealings with both men and women.
Men on platforms that are the only voice in the room (their cherished room) seem to disdain women with brains that research, write, and inform.
Yawn.
You know, a lot of this does look like satire or parody, except for the damage it does.
When all of this started showing up at First Baptist about 10 years ago, the Sunday School hour was re-structured so that men and teenage boys would view certain video series together. One was “Stepping Up;” the other was John Eldredge’s “Wild at Heart.” According to Eldredge, men desire “a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue.” In the videos, men would go out into the wilderness (S. California) with pickup trucks and gather logs, wearing brand new chamois work shirts and brand new work boots. Very manly.
The fear of feminism is overcompensated by toxic, if not incompetent, masculinity. I never did figure out what the guys did with the logs.
Todd Wilhelm,
Excellent comment from the Director of our premier investigative division and the Editor and Talking Head of the southwest news desk.
DEW,
I wonder- Does the snazzier the dress and the hairier the face mean one is closer to Calvin? 🙂
New Calvinism has provided an avenue for strange little men to have a microphone.
I hadn’t heard anything about Strachan for a while. It appears that he has migrated to a radical fringe of New Calvinism where he can exercise “Biblical Manhood” over womanhood to the extreme.
“It has a small faculty consisting of rather hirsute men. I wonder … do beards make one look more Calvinistic?”
Whew! The lone woman on staff at this obscure seminary will probably have a beard before this over!
Long pointy beards are a thing at some of the NeoCal churches in my area. I saw one the other day that approached Calvin-quality; his beard put Santa Claus to shame!
I’ve heard that a clerical beard during the Reformation was a sign of the break with Rome, where priests were more tidy in appearance. It was also a symbol of patriarchal masculinity.
Driscoll is getting in on the “Stronger Men” gig, too!
https://strongermen.org/
Perhaps he’s striking back at women with his aberrant theology because he couldn’t get any dates in high school?
Bottom-line for you wannabe-men listening in … a man doesn’t need New Calvinism to be a man! In fact, it may hinder you from being the man in Christ that Jesus desires of you. Strachan’s brand of faith and its treatment of women is “hairy” stuff.
Puzzling, and sad.
Puzzling because, if a disturbed person using a firearm on unsuspecting bystanders is an example of strength, but perverted, what on God’s green earth does he think good strength is?
Sad because, as Gus said above, men, and society as a whole, really do have significant problems. Churches and Christian “leaders” could be putting their resources to so much better use if they wanted to. The notion that we could fix them by somehow turning back the clock is at best a distraction.
Gus you are spot on. Although I would say some places we have lived there is a war on what some consider masculine traits. Where I live women hunt and fish as much as the men, play video games and watch violent movies at the same rate. Both little boys and little girls like to play cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, pirates and non pirates for lack of a better term. Some places we have lived the adults would fall over in a common faint over kids playing that way.
And since some consider that “boyish” play I guess they are rejecting maleness if you accept that as male traits. (I don’t)
And what better place than Conway??? Good grief, most of the men look like Duck Dynasty guys, would not wear a mask when covid hit because it covered the manly beard thus castrating them, and think women should still be kept barefoot and pregnant.
The IBLP is considered rather lacking in patriarchy and is seen as rather liberal by many in that area.
Heaven help us you just cannot make up what some of these weak men blame their weakness on.
A strong woman intimidates no strong man. A weak man runs crying when the breeze shakes a tree leaf off near him. Lots of trees down here.
Since Grace Bible Theological Seminary is located in Arkansas, I’m guessing it must really annoy / appall Strachan that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was elected governor of Arkansas in 2022. Surely, during the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election, Strachan must have voted for the manly man Democrat named Chris Jones, rather than the quite conservative female Huckabee-Sanders. /s
Personally, I’m fond of facial hair but it interferes with the seal of my N95 respirator.
Patience Dee; on present trends, a lot of these hairy culture warriors will eventually be debilitated with Long COVID, and possibly worse things, such as immune dysregulation and loss of immune surveillance. Of course, one prays that this may not befall them, but I’ve noticed that my prayers for others’ wisdom generally are not granted.
It may be a kind of slow-motion Darwin Awards.
I agree.
“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
This drifting from the Main Thing has been going on, in one form or another, for decades. Christianity Lite, Church as Entertainment, Extreme Patriarchy, Men Only Ministry, Biblical Manhood at the cost of Biblical Womanhood, My-Way-or-the-Highway Theology, etc. etc. have darn near ruined the American church. Church leaders have lost their way.
Stronger men?
Remember what happened to the ‘strong’ men during Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, and the ‘strong’ men of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad?
In the videos, men would go out into the wilderness (S. California) with pickup trucks and gather logs, wearing brand new chamois work shirts and brand new work boots. Very manly.
Ted,
These “men”, Stachan, Driscoll, Eldredge..….
Snort, snort, snort and a robust belly laugh. Rural farm people, like me, would call them sissified city slickers
Ha, these boys wouldn’t last 15 minutes cutting and spiking tobacco,
I was more “manly” than they will ever be before I was 9 years old…… tending to hogs, horses, and cows, and chickens, fixing fences in the heat and cold and the mud, helping process our own meat……. Doesn’t bother me one bit to skin a rabbit in the morning and fry it for supper the same night. The summer I turned 10, I broke a 2yo mule to ride. I wonder if they could ever suck it up and be that “manly”?
These boyz need to put those brand new boots on, crawl through the barbed wire fences, and help us treat my brother’s cattle for their current outbreak of pink eye. When we’re done, they can hose the pretty new boots off with the garden hose before they get in their shiny new pickup trucks with push button everything and automatic transmissions.
Ugh. These jerks absolutely disgust me with their drama queen yammering and childish play acting.
I apologize for the long rant, but it feels so good to vent!
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) “Impious to Desecrate the Symbol of Manhood”: “But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! ….For this is a meretricious and impious form of snare. For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him, as an attribute of manhood, with a shaggy chest – a sign of strength and rule
My understanding is that men in the armed forces, law enforcement, and fire departments aren’t allowed to have facial hair (in some instances, a modest mustache is permitted) because it interferes with the seal on gas masks that are sometimes needed in the line of duty.
Ironic, isn’t it? That the full beards common among the manly men of neo-Calvinism AREN’T worn by those I’d argue are (in a generic, ideal sense) actual manly men using their physical strength in non-toxic ways for the protection and service of those more vulnerable than themselves?
PS – Just to be clear, not knocking facial hair. Husband and I are frequently (mistakenly) identified as fundamentalist because of his rather impressive beard and my long hair.
Gus,
Yes!
“Heinrich Horch (1652–1729), theologian and pastor in the German Reformed Church, has been described as ‘without doubt one of the most interesting figures of the Pietist movement in Hessen
In 1698 Horch began what Max Goebel called ‘a restless and fanatical life, lasting ten years, in which he sought to escape the deep pain gnawing at his inner being over the willfully surrendered circle of influence’ that he had left behind in Herborn. Horch renounced his doctor title, and grew his beard long after the fashion of the Anabaptists”
(The Practical Calvinist::An Introduction to the Presbyterian & Reformed Heritage)
The reformer’s name (Luther) was on every tongue; and Merle d’Aubigné encountered on his way the crowds of young German students who were journeying to the Wartburg. On the eve of the celebration he felt an overpowering desire to take part in it. He therefore followed the throng, and after travelling all night came at daybreak within sight of the castle famous as the scene of Luther’s confinement. A novel spectacle here presented itself. The squares and streets of Eisenach were filled with a motley crowd, chiefly composed of young men. Their long hair falling upon their shoulders, their thick, untrimmed beards, their velvet cloaks reaching to the knees, their caps adorned with feathers or foliage, their broad embroidered collars, their banner proudly borne aloft, surrounded by its defenders who, with outstretched arms and drawn swords, formed its bodyguard, the name of Luther the while resounding in all directions—this spectacle, the antique costumes, the usages of a bygone age, all contributed to transport the traveller in imagination into the midst of the scenes of three centuries ago.“ (Schaff,
History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol.8)
It might also be a Lutheran thing
It may be that Mr Eldredge is onto something when he says that men want to fight a battle. Of course, the real battle offered in Jesus’ kingship is the battle to rule one’s own spirit, and that’s not the battle the immature man wants to fight.
I suspect (and speaking as a man in his 50’s) that this is a lesson we all have to learn at some point. But it’s very hard for a young man to learn that if he’s given fame and status first. I think nowadays that this is one thing Jesus meant when he lamented how hard it is for a rich man to enter God’s kingdom. Far too many of these men were promoted far to far, when they were far too young.
I think the issues are quite complex but men seem to be increasingly unwilling to marry modern women. I do think feminism plays a part
In all my years in various Lutheran Churches, I have yet to see a guy with a full beard.
Nick Bulbeck,
Well put Nick, well said.
Just to say that beards aren’t solely the province of Calvinists or the ‘Continental’ reformers, and Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley would like to have a word.
https://collectionimages.npg.org.uk/large/mw125831/5-Bishops-including-Nicholas-Ridley-Hugh-Latimer-Thomas-Cranmer-John-Hooper-and-Robert-Farrar.jpg
I found myself reading everything Strachan says above replacing ‘man’ with ‘hipster’.
I’d check your Tinder profile
Maybe women are tired of “traditional men”.
Me man, you woman, Og smash!
… you’ve fixed biblical hipsterhood!
Incidentally, I’ve got a beard as well; though I keep it short (I use a #2 trimmer guard, which may or may not be called that to the left of the Atlantic but undoubtedly exists).
Seneca,
Since when and why have you not been lamenting the churches’ stopping teaching prayer, Seneca?
I have a zero on my head myself so I know what you mean.
But I bet your husband doesn’t hang out only with dudebros with long beards … and I bet you don’t follow six feet behind him everywhere you go.
In a common interpretation of the parable of the “strong man” in Scripture, the strong man represents Satan and the attacker represents Jesus. These dudebros need to think about that before they go around calling themselves strong men.
I think the issues are quite complex but men seem to be increasingly unwilling to marry modern women. I do think feminism plays a part
Seneca,
Nope. Maybe just the men you hang with?
I think the issues are quite simple.
Owen Strachan, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and their ilk aren’t happy unless they can keep someone beneath them, someone they consider to be a lesser being, someone who would consider a man like that to be their master……. someone to cater to their insecurities and pump up their egos on a regular basis.
It would be hard to top Calvin’s long pointy beard … that thing was quite remarkable.
… or hoeing and picking cotton, or pitching bales of hay, or milking cows, or working real jobs of just about any sort … that’s why they talk for a living
These dudebros need to think about that before they go around calling themselves strong men.
Max,
I don’t think they should even call themselves men. They are just boys who refuse to grow up.
If the whiners like Owen Strachan and Mark Driscoll can’t deal with the real world, they need to just go home to their mama’s. (Well maybe not, since I suspect they are actually afraid of women.)
All they do is rant about their ideas of what “real” men are and what “real” women are, and how gospelly it all is.
Owen Strachan’s latest whiners-are-us episode bring Rodney Dangerfield to mind: “I don’t get no respect!”
This goes both ways. Women are now able to support themselves financially in ways that used to not be available. They can now get married because they want to, not because they have to. Men simply have to up their game and make it worth our while.
I’m old enough to remember when a feminist was somebody who believed that a male employee and a female employee with, say, 5 years’ experience as short-order cooks, should receive the same wage. This was controversial: many Americans believed the man deserved more money because he was physically stronger and probably supporting a wife and children.
People openly mocked women for daring to assert that they were equally qualified to make a blue-plate special. That was considered crazy talk.
I’m genuinely tired of narrow-minded silly men continuing to trumpet their superiority.
Second question. Are women happier now that less and less men look to marry them?
Does less marriage benefit women?
He used to… is it weird to say that I think seminary brainwashed him?
I can’t say for sure, because he’d graduated before we met. But there were times where his reaction to something completely reasonable (IMO) I’d say about the “Biblical” evidence for complementarianism was uncharacteristically defensive and terse.
I think being a layperson and seeing mediocre men elevated over gifted women in our complementarian churches, his years of working in secular corporations alongside capable and qualified women, his wife’s annoying tendency to point out double standards in sermons and elsewhere, and his basic integrity have slowly helped his views evolve over time. But it hasn’t been without a lot of angst on both our parts to unravel what I’ll call for the sake of this conversation “the brainwashing.”
(Not that marriage is a competition, but for the record, I think I’m winning. We’re finally at an egalitarian church, that actually has a lady associate pastor, and he’s confided that he likes her sermons better than the male senior pastor’s.)
Not at all. In the literature about cults from the sixties and seventies brainwashing was only seen as happening in the new religious movements the authors focused on. This has meant that people are much slower to see it in more established religions but it’s there every time a religion tries to influence your mindset, life choices, relationship with family, etc. So often respectable religions get a pass, when actually everyone would see that what they are doing is the same as ‘cults’ if they were founded more recently or were viewed as ‘foreign’.
In the RC church this way of shaping you is literally called formation, which is scary as hell.
senecagriggs,
Please give me the stats from a reputable group that provides the percentages for before and after. Women are happier when not forced into marriages like 150 years ago.
No, not all! I know several SBC seminarians who were “brainwashed” with reformed theology. Entering as non-Calvinists, they were continually bombarded with New Calvinism in dorms and classrooms (at SBTS & SEBTS). They were mocked if they didn’t “convert.” We have one close friend who took a few years to recover from that experience before he could effectively minister in Jesus’ name in the churches he served. One still suffers from the trauma of his time at seminary.
Your husband is fortunate to have had you in his life to confront and recover from the NeoCal assault on his mind. Many of the young reformers don’t have anyone outside of the NeoCal circle to speak truth to them and lead them out of this mess. When the NeoCal bubble breaks (it will), thousands will be left confused and disillusioned.
Many churchmen could benefit from having women preach to them at church, in addition to the preachin’ they get at home. 🙂
Yep, God has something to say to the church through spiritually gifted women. What a blessing it is when you find a church which has released the gifted to do the work of ministry, without distinction in race, class or gender.
Your husband sounds like a thoughtful, wise, astute man. 🙂
“Give respect to whom respect is due” (Romans 13:7)
Never respect theo-whiners who demand their way or the highway … who twist Scripture to fit their theology … who kick and scream for attention.
Dee you deny that marriage rates are declining? Men are opting out? And again, how does this benefit women?
Benny S,
Nah, a vote for Miss Sarah was seen as just a covert vote for her dear old daddy. And a covert vote for DJT and his ilk. So she got a pass on being female because it is assumed what she says will be what the strong men allow her to say.
Will be interesting to see if she prevails over the whistleblower’s accusations.
As to the dudes with beards, down here they fall into two classes: the macho man with a long beard and just as likely long hair. And the “I’m so educated” man with the long beard and the shaved head. What is it with shaving the head?
I’m endlessly grateful that my husband views me entirely as an equal.
The women in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations put up with a lot. Unfortunately these women and their friends also bought into some of this, criticizing women who wanted to work after marriage, and gossiping about women who did not have any (or enough) children, as well as those who had too many.
Most of the noise, though, came from the almighty men. They yammered about “women drivers.” They told us not to worry our pretty little heads. They pinched us, forcibly kissed us, and more—and then called us “used merchandise.” They told us we were too stupid to be doctors, pilots, astronauts, politicians, judges, reporters, and engineers. “I could never work for a woman,” they declared. If we did get a position other than waitress, secretary, teacher, or nurse, they accused us of taking a job from a man. If a husband was unreliable, the wife was not allowed to take up the slack by paying the bills on time.
Then of course they lampooned women who stood up en masse, calling us “women’s lib kooks” instead of “mothers who don’t want the family to be evicted” or “people who see what’s wrong.”
Some women don’t want to get married for various reasons, and now they don’t have to, so, IMO, for them it’s a benefit.
Not having to marry someone you don’t really want to, just because your parents think it’s about time because “you are not getting any younger, you know … and at 27…”, so you accept Mr Collins’ proposal (with apologies to Jane Austen), that – for women – is a net positive.
I’m sure that there are women who would like to get married, but instead of accepting the hand of some complementarianism-infested, CBMW-indoctrinated theobro j**k, they say “Thanks, but no, thanks!” – it’s a win for them.
There are sh*tty men in every group, left, right, religious of any color, atheist, you name it. But one group with a high number of thoroughly entitled and condescending a-holes is conservative religious young men. Some of the most insufferable young men are highly religious¹. Who would want to marry one of those?
People don’t become like that without outside influences, so churches and preachers bear a lot of the blame.
—
¹ Also some of the nicest, it has to be said. But even those often have various strange ideas about women and about decision-making inside a marriage². I blame the churches.
²I know, I was like that once. Thankfully, then life happened and cured me of a lot of strange ideas in this and other fields.
And all this because of some Greek letters all run together on crumbling parchments huh?
Why don’t they just get it over with and call their religion ‘Paulianity’.
his wife’s annoying tendency to point out double standards in sermons and elsewhere,
Sarah (aka Wild Honey),
I walked away from church because most Southern Baptists churches finally, completely pushed Jesus aside for married women and replaced Him …. the perfect Son of God…. the Living Word….. with our husbands…fallible, imperfect humans…. as mediators between us and God the Father.
In my mind and in my heart, that is forced apostatization……. and Owen Strachan is one of the ringleaders.
senecagriggs,
That would depend upon what you think marriage is. If marriage means living for decades in a servile status and being treated as a second or third class citizen in your home and church, having someone else make your decisions for you, living your entire life where the primary purpose of your existence to bend and bow to the will of another….. (mastah’s favorite…well, only, slave……. Or, if your lucky a favorite pet, a prized possession) … ?????
Yeah. You try that shoe on yourself and see how it fits.
It’s not going to get any better for women in SBC NeoCal churches until female believers rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!”, and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of this mess … retreating from error and turning to the Truth. Jesus is the Way! … not Strachan!!
I have wondered whether there might be a kind of collective phenomenon in human societies analogous to the quorum sensing in bacterial biofilms that signals the need to stop proliferating and go into a metabolically down-regulated state when “per capita” resources are scarce.
There is a lot of anxiety about demographic problems that result from below-replacement birth rates. But limitless growth is not sustainable. I wonder whether there is an identifiably Christian approach to planetary limits.
I’ve not finished reading the comments yet….
No need to apologize for the rant, Nancy2(aka Kevlar) 🙂 ….I loved reading your rant, although I wouldn’t consider what you wrote a rant. 🙂 I consider what you wrote a truth that many need to read and pay attention to….how do they think the pioneers (or even older cultures, etc.) survived???
And as I was reading your comment, I was curious — and if you don’t mind taking the time to answer — is a 2 year old mule harder to break to ride than a two year old horse is to break to ride?
….now back to reading the comments. 🙂
researcher,
Off topic… horses and mules.
Between adolescence and middle aged, I broke 3 mules, 2 horses, and 2 ponies to ride (I also supervised/coached my daughter through breaking her horse to ride). Not much difference. They have very different body types…….The way they buck, run, trot, there are some differences. It’s just a matter of knowing the differences and adapting.
The first 2 mules I broke was my grandpa’s. Years later, I broke my own mule to ride. My mule was easier to break simply because 1.) I was older with more knowledge and experience, and 2.) she was MY mule. I raised her; handled her everyday; took her treats; I started training her early, adapting as she grew — she’s the one who drank my RC cola out of the bottle.
IMHO, the things that have the greatest bearing on training is the way the animal is raised, treated, cared for…. I still have scars from a horse I had who had been abused and neglected the first 4 years of her life (she was the mother of MY mule). My daughter’s horse (born in my dad’s barn) was an easy-peasy!
And please, don’t anyone call these people Dee writes about “mule-headed”. That would be a misnomer and an insult to mules everywhere.
It’s obvious that some men don’t want to marry a woman their equal! That’s their problem, not feminism’s.
It’s obvious that some men don’t want to marry a woman their equal! That’s their problem, not feminism’s.
It benefits some women. Marriage isn’t the end all, be all you want to make it out to be. Even Jesus agreed with this! If you have a problem, speak with him.
I’m not yet finished reading the comments….
What a perfect word, Max. 🙂
….now back to reading the comments.
Off Topic:
I was thinking of Muslin, fka Dee Holmes just now, thinking about I’d not seen her commenting….I did a really quick search and the most recent comment I found was from September 29 (although she might have commented on a slightly older post). I realize she might be on vacation, or perhaps taking a break from the TWW blog (or maybe only from commenting on TWW)….I’m just concerned….
Perhaps what brought Muslin, fka Dee Holmes to my mind was Dee’s Opening Post and the conversations that were generated — I’ve been thoroughly enjoying reading all the comments (as I always do 🙂 ) — when I realized I’d missed reading any of her comments in a while.
Blargh, for a different reason today I went and looked up the article the Washington Post published last year about what happened to Nagmeh Panahi, the ex-wife of Saeed Abedini. The reason I looked it up was because of something Franklin Graham said yesterday in the news, and I just wanted to let readers know that Franklin Graham really should remain silent because of his previous actions. Here’s a gift link: https://wapo.st/3tmb7L4 .
The reason I looked it up was because I wanted to remind people that when it came down to believing a woman who was being abused in different ways, Franklin Graham asked her if she was having an affair. And in 2020, he said he would have asked her again. He could not, would not, believe that Panahi’s husband had abused her. He instead went straight to bad behavior for which he had no evidence.
My point here is to say that there is no war on men. Sorry, over and over and over again, it’s a war on women and it’s based on patriarchy which borrows from religion to prop itself up. We see this all the time. I could go on all day about how these men have used religion to prop up their own male authority, and nobody wants to hear it. But when Owen Strachan goes on about this, I just want to say, “it’s not women, dude. It’s y’all. You’re oppressing women. And you really need to put a sock in it.”
Ummm, you’re not going to believe this, researcher, but I posted my rant without reading all the posts and so I just now saw you were asking about me. I’m doing fine, I’m just rather busy in between helping my brother with our mother, my day job watching money churn through many complex application flows and keeping my young, energetic kitties entertained.
I’ll be sure to check in more frequently!
1 .
Don’t ask church permission to sleep in separate beds, if that’s what you would like to do.
2 .
When I was 14 teachers officially dangled sex outside marriage (instead of leaving it a private affair amongst those affected and their families and trusted friends).
Result: girls and women don’t know how to signal to a boy or man how to relate with them, and the ab*rtion and r*pe scandals.
It also leads to lonely men. To “sweep a girl off her feet” like I was told to, didn’t seem to me fair either to her or to me.
I’ve explained this countless times and don’t get a reaction from Wartburgers, who normalise it.
Seneca,
This was just when trendy religion dropped prayer and went over to influencing which they had been told not to do in 1966.
researcher,
I value Muslin’s comments as another of us rare singles.
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
Good point and a good comparison, Dee H!
Franklin Graham….. abuse, separation, divorce ….it’s always a woman’s fault.
Owen Strachan……. rinse and repeat …… everything’s always a woman’s fault….
Whiney man-child doesn’t feel manly enough? Blame women…..
Women have too many constitutional rights to suit whiney man-child? Oh, definitely blame women!
If I have interpreted the comments semi accurately, none of the commenters are concerned that women are having less and less opportunities to get married. Feminism has won? TWW approves.
*
For the non-believer, why would a young man get married? Women seem to be available for physical relationships without the demands of permanency.
*
One of the “triumphs” of feminism is it has allowed men to become even more irresponsible.
That depends entirely on (a) the woman and (b) the marriage.
And what really gets to me is that it doesn’t hafta’ be this way.
Not in this day and age anyway. There was a time yeah, when women had almost no agency of their own. But the world has moved on in that regard, and I for one am glad that it did.
Muff Potter,
Strachan wouldn’t like me very much and I don’t give a rat’s a$$.
I too was raised in a ‘no ya’ don’t world, but I got out of it.
Here’s a song-bird who sang in a tree by the brook for all of us escapees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC1yJW2xTbI
JUST LIKE THE MANOSPHERE, EXCEPT CHRISTIAN(TM)!
Recently, YouTube’s Sacred Algorithm has been sending me a load of Manosphere videos that all say the same thing. (I myself had to MGTOW many years ago because the dating scene just got too crazy and too risky.) When the video begins with some bearded muscled Alpha of Alpha Males ostentatiously lighting an Andrew Tate-sized cigar with a wooden match (NEVER a lighter), you just know what’s coming and it’s going to be BAD.
Like Biblical Manhood(TM), this is just the same with a Christian coat of paint.
dee,
Well, there are lots of stats about that, but they don’t show what Seneca is implying (shocker). If anyone is interested, here are a few sources.
For straight folks (not much data for others), both men and women benefit from being partnered (economically, physically, emotionally), but men benefit more. Here’s a Pew study with data on income differences by gender and relationship status:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-share-of-u-s-adults-are-living-without-a-spouse-or-partner/#:~:text=A%20new%20Pew%20Research%20Center,the%20case%2030%20years%20ago.
Women are more likely than their male partners to handle the majority of household and caregiving responsibilities, while men have more leisure time. This still holds when both partners work outside the home (and even when they both earn about the same!) Another study from Pew:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-growing-share-of-u-s-marriages-husbands-and-wives-earn-about-the-same/
Men are also less likely than women to get emotional support from friends, and men tend to rely more heavily on their partners for emotional support than women do:
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/
None of this is to say all men are bad partners. A lot of them are great. But statistically, in hetero relationships, women do considerably more work for less reward than men. Blaming feminism for drawing attention to reality is just shooting the messenger.
Nancy2–right there with ya! This gal got her dream gift for her sweet 16 birthday: the prettiest little Stevens pump 410. Still have it.
Now, curiously, I would say there is a war in our culture that rejects both the traditionally male activities and traditionally female activities no matter who is doing them.
The school where one of my kids teaches would probably have a fit over me wanting that weapon of violence. (Just ask the quail!) Same school would likely have a fit over my brother preferring music over boxing.
Me, I just say activities that are not illegal, immoral, cruel, etc can be done by anyone. I chose a 410, later had a 20 gauge, but my shoulders would never handle a 12. His would handle the 12, but handled a guitar better.
When a female does “guy stuff” common sense says she may have to do it differently. When a guy tries to do some traditionally “girl stuff”, he may find he needs to make some adaptations. Stereotypes do have some grounding in norms, not that any of us fit the norm exactly.
But if wearing an n95 around your aged grandpa emasculates you and grandpa, you didn’t have much to lose. And if you try to appeal to innate male pride to put me in my place, well, buddy, I will tell you right quick pride is one of the seven deadly sins.
And like you, this former SBC lady who has been part of many other groups, likes her time with Jesus one on one, not mediated by any man.
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
I laughed when I read this comment of yours, as I’d done a similar thing as you….I’d read your prior comment in which you’d included the link to the Washington Post article How Franklin Graham pushed a domestic abuse victim to return to her husband and bookmarked it to read for later reading (which I’ve now done 🙂 ).
I enjoyed reading your rant, and I’ glad you’re doing fine. 🙂
From the Washington Post article (How Franklin Graham pushed a domestic abuse victim to return to her husband):
That.
In your earlier comment, you wrote:
That. And Franklin Graham needs to put a sock in it too. 🙂
Because “GOD HATH SAID!” justifies anything whatsoever.
Never underestimate the Arrogance of God’s Speshul Pets.
Which were a Rabbi from Tarsus answering questions (themselves long-lost) from his congregations and commenting on what was going on in those congregations.
But since it’s SCRIPTURE(TM) there is no backstory, there is no context, there are no real people on either end, only the word-for-word, letter-by-letter WORD! OF!! GAWD!!!
Thank you, Nancy2(aka Kevlar), for taking the time to reply with details of your experiences of the differences between breaking horses, ponies, and mules to ride. 🙂
I still have the scar on my hand (and some non-physical scarring as well, although that has almost healed) from when I’d been bitten many years ago by a dog that’d been abused. The owners of the dog are lucky — if the same thing had happened to me now, I’m guessing the owners would’ve been fined and their dog likely euthanized….their dog would have paid the penalty for their making excuses for the dog, rather than keeping the dog indoors. I only hope that dog didn’t go on to attack anyone else, especially children.
You also wrote:
That.
Franklin Graham has all the responsibility of a gasoline can with no seal gasket for the cap.
How many more women (cowed and beaten down by the Bible) will suffer more black-eyes (and worse) because of Graham’s idiocy?
senecagriggs,
seneca, IMHO, you either don’t have a clue, or your baiting.
Someone one said, “ “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”
That’s how it is for me, and for many other women, I’m sure.
*** To be human, to be free to use our abilities… to have equal rights… to make our own decisions and to have equal influence with decisions made in and for our relationships/marriages….. to be an active participating team member a instead of being forced to ride in the back of the bus…
*** Not to be property… a doormat… not to be trapped in an abusive relationship….not to be ignored or just blown off ……or even to be hugged and loved and treated like some man’s “SPECIAL PET” (to quote HUG).
(Hey, I loved and hugged my mule, and shared my RC colas and apples with her….. but I also put a snaffle bit in her mouth!)
This is also true for men who look beyond surface detail for patterns not so obvious.
Sometimes the damage is permanent.
Like Frodo after he bore the Ring to Mount Doom, with the Ring working on him for at least four months.
Wasn’t that the original meaning of Discernment?
Seeing the Reality beneath the Surface?
(What St Thomas Aquinas would have called “the Substance and the Accident”.)
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you!
Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!””
Psalms 122
senecagriggs,
You are too funny! Certain men have (and will be) irresponsible regardless of “feminism.”
Every single generation of women in my family going back to the 1920’s (which is the longest we still have living memory for) has a member who was abandoned by a man when they got pregnant. Sometimes a boyfriend, sometimes a husband. Up until the most recent generation, that is, born in the 1980s and raised in “feminism.”
If you are going to make sweeping claims, please cite reputable sources who’ve done the research and provide statistics to support such sweeping claims.
researcher,
Sarah (aka Wild Honey),
Exactly, and it has been fuelled additionally by materialistic “influencing” manoevres by religious leaders, which I have lived through.
I think one of the most difficult things humans can do is work with others to achieve a goal that benefits humanity. Putting your desires ahead of everyone else often means you are stealing things from others that don’t belong to you. Putting your own wants second to the needs of everyone means a lot of work to release your own ego and desires.
And because it’s difficult, many people are terrified of doing exactly that. So they insist that they need to be in charge, have their way, and get only what they want. I have yet to see a man made manly by always getting his own way. It just makes anyone selfish, short-sighted, and damaging to those around him and his world. Men like that remind me of the toddlers I used to work with in preschools, who can’t see beyond their own immediate wants. They cry, throw tantrums, and create problems for their families.
I’ve seen Owen Strachan’s world first-hand. It ends in crimes, scandals, and crumbling families and churches.
Nobel prizewinner today for Economics, Dr. Claudia Goldin researched labor force practices with regard to women, and gender discrepancies. Research, numbers, data, practices, policy.
If you have to ask this question, you have no idea of why people go into relationships, why they stay in relationships, what living together really means.
As someone who has been married for 30+ years, I’m still happy when I get home and see my wife’s car already there, or when I’m home and hear her unlocking the front door.
Companionship with someone who really knows you and loves you anyway, someone who understands you without words, that you can talk with about everything and anything, that you can trust implicitly … I feel sorry for you, Seneca, if you have not found that in your life, married or unmarried.
People don’t have to marry for the physical intimacy, but they stay together for a lot of other things.
BTW: I know a number of unmarried couples who have lived together for more than 20 years, and who are happy together, and stay together for all the things mentioned.
The question “Why should men get married if they can have the s*x outside marriage?” is either very sad or very dumb.
““Feminism, paganism, and godless wokeness have attacked strong manhood relentlessly for decades now,”
“These evil ideologies have had a ferocious effect on the home, the church and society. They have weakened men to breaking point.”
++++++++++++
well, first off, my men friends and relatives seem to be doing just fine.
the atheists, agnostics, muslim & buddhist among them are especially kind, affable, charitable, stand up for what is right, & appear to have joie de vivre.
what is this breaking point and who’s there?
(maybe it’s the contingency of rude christian jerks on twitter?)
with all the whining & blaming others for their own perceived problems, i’m inclined to embrace the ‘plain meaning’ Genesis’ Adam.
(christian culture does have a penchant for inventing problems [for job creation to solve, & to look heroic with the answer] & scaring up phantoms & being scaredy-cat neurotic about them)
Gus
“People don’t have to marry for the physical intimacy, but they stay together for a lot of other things.
BTW: I know a number of unmarried couples who have lived together for more than 20 years, and who are happy together, and stay together for all the things mentioned.”
______
2 thoughts-I’m pretty sure men and women have at least 2 different thoughts on marriage. I don’t think women marry for the physical intimacy so much as they marry for the security to build a family. Men? well they’re quite different from women in so many ways
2 you’ve mentioned unmarried friends who have been together for 20 years. My life’s experience suggest, generally couples living together without benefit of marriage more often than not reflects the MAN’s wishes. I think most women in relationships would like to have that ring on their finger.
No, you haven’t, not even semi. It’s got nothing to do with feminism, and I’ve pointed this out numerous times. Why would you copy glamour-hogging wind-up merchants? I can tell that you know that if you want to be listened to, you are capable of saying something original.
One of the “triumphs” of evangelicalism (i.e; stop teaching christians about prayer and Holy Spirit since 1966) is that it has made men and boys less intelligent, and women more timid as a consequence. It’s healthy when women generally combat that, even if they’re not articulate about the spiritual details.
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only, and that is to support the ultimate career.” CS Lewis
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
I’m not differing with you or researcher, who both put it exceedingly well (as always), but only doing what Muff describes at 1.56 p.m. It’s also a war on the real men (including boys) disguised as not a war on them. OS, FG and Grudem are the people that counterfeited Scripture in ink in order to drive the same wedge as satan, just like Stott * and countless others counterfeit it by omission to spread their irrelevant mini “gospel” by influencing instead of trusting Holy Spirit in the churches. This is why I’m single and lonely.
{ * who didn’t convince me when I was a boy }
Mood in Jerusalem is likened to the US right after Pearl Harbor — a sleeping giant awakened and filled with terrible resolve. Details of the massacres coming out as the Israelis “neutralize” the Hamas-taken villages and towns on their side of the border – over 1000 and rising, down to the last Jew infant.
It’s going to be Book of Joshua rules of engagement.
Middle Eastern blood feuds only end in one way.
Called my writing partner (the burned-out country preacher) for the vibe in his local churches. He said there’s been very little End Times gushing this time around, and any blowup regarding Israel used to bring End Times Prophecy types out of the woodwork. Looks like Rapture Ready Christians for Nuclear War has finally burned itself out after 50-60 years.
It was a feminist I quoted who noted the rise of feminism had led to increased irresponsibility of men.
I never thought of it that way, and yeah it does make sense, much more so than making Paul’s words a kind of ‘Christian’ Torah that must be followed to the letter.
senecagriggs,
C. S. Lewis did not write that. Take a look at what he did write, in a letter to a Mrs. Johnson in 1955. You will find an excerpt in a book significantly titled The Misquotable C. S. Lewis.
In case I am not being clear enough for you, the book has that title because so very many people grab made-up quotes, online and elsewhere, to goad others through fraudulent use of the reputations of Lewis, Gandhi, Lincoln, Jefferson, and others. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt; you probably didn’t know the quote was fake.
Fun fact: Lewis wrote to Mrs. Johnson in 1955, as mentioned. Born in 1898, C. S. Lewis married Joy Davidman in 1956.
(The bold was done by me.)
I loved your comment, Gus. 🙂 You express the whole idea of relationships so well….
Even though I’ve spent my entire life in abusive relationships (omitting details for my safety and protection, with the exception of saying the abuse wasn’t physical the way most people think of spousal abuse, nor were all the abusive relationships spousal relationships), I’ve been blessed with moments like you describe….seeing a car in the driveway before I get home….hearing the key turn in the lock when a person arrived home. 🙂
Yet later on, moments similar to those blessed moments were filled with anxiety, although not the anxiety or fear that comes with wondering if the knock at the door will be someone letting you know someone you loved was hurt or killed in an accident. It was the anxiety that comes with living in a non-physically abusive relationship.
And now I choose to not re-marry….it wouldn’t be fair to either myself or the other person — I’m a high-functioning Asperger person with Complex-PTSD.
The only One who really knows me — and has ever really known me — is Jesus.
I don’t write this comment as a “pity party”….I write in response to your beautiful reply, Gus, to that useless troll bait (I’d use other epithets, but they’re not allowed by me in public 🙂 ), Seneca.
(The bold was done by me.)
That.
And no offence intended, Muff Potter….I modified your comment a bit from what I’d originally intended. 🙂 Franklin Graham’s idiocy affects more women than just those cowed and beaten down by the Bible, although the women who originally weren’t cowed and beaten down by the Bible will likely end up that way due to Franklin Graham’s idiocy.
BTW, I loved your description: “Franklin Graham has all the responsibility of a gasoline can with no seal gasket for the cap.”
And how many people are continuing the irresponsibility by using Franklin Graham’s fumes to light their match?
Friend,
Friend, thanks for the correction; one should always check quotes on the internet.
This what CS actually wrote.
A
A
BY: JON DYKSTRA
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 14, 2018
“Homemaking is the ultimate career” – C.S. Lewis (sort of)
There are some quotes so good you desperately wish they were real. This one below, often attributed to C.S. Lewis, isn’t authentic. But the point it makes certainly is:
“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career.”
While C.S. Lewis didn’t use this exact verbiage, in Letters of C.S. Lewis he did say something quite like it, showing that this longtime bachelor still understood the pivotal, and pinnacled position of the homemaker: se
“I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc. exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr. Johnson said, “To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour”. (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter: 2nd in the meantime to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist…”
senecagriggs,
Thank you. Please note that he is offering emotional support to a 1950s British housewife, who had already lived through rationing and recovery from World War II—and who must have felt quite awful to compare herself to Sisyphus, eh? Moreover, nothing in the words you quote says that a married woman must perform this work for her husband. Lewis is principally writing, rather, about the comforts of home. Anyone can provide those comforts with love, skill, and care.
Seneca, men have ALWAYS been irresponsible. Having sex and leaving pregnant women behind. Go read about “baby farming” during the Victorian era if you want something horrible.
Far too many men, particularly, no ESPECIALLY, in a lot of Christian areas, think we women are just there to take care of men’s physical and sexual needs, bear children, educate those children, and keep house. Ok, some women don’t mind that. But a lot of women do not want to be in the business of caring for adult man-babies.
Also, among quite a few Evangelicals, there is this idea that if you’re single, you’re not following God’s will, because, well, there are no examples of single women in the Bible. We’re supposed to get married and have children. That’s not my life, dude.
Churches can *fix* their problem by treating women as full equals of men, not as prizes to be won or scary people to be browbeaten into submission.
To conclude: it’s not like I don’t have male friends. I do. Last week, one of them talked me into flying out to Boston in a couple of weeks for a few days. I feel somewhat comfortable doing this because my mother will be on respite care for those days. And you don’t have to worry about my morals. I’m paying $$$/night for a hotel room. *yeah, OUCH* I really do like my own bed. I’m too old to crash on a lumpy living room couch.
researcher,
Thank you for your kind reply.
I’m sorry things didn’t work out so well longterm in your relationships. People shouldn’t forget that emotional abuse is still abuse, even if doesn’t leave any *physical* scars.
senecagriggs,
What difference does that make? There are feminists and feminists, some good, and there are us, with our good viewpoints. Why are you pretending to be so uncomfortable about human beings?
senecagriggs,
So now you claim women needing companionship is a threat to predatory men, which you say is the only sort (are you saying this is because you can only see yourself)? You’re quoting unchristian sex obsessives (because you don’t think anyone else exists).
Well you have got to poke your head out of that bunker and see more types of people because some men place companionship first and many women are totally confused by atheistic evangelicalism like yours and don’t know how to help.
Whilst opposite sex marriage is a norm in nature the companionship is what it is about anyway (sex used to sometimes be optional and in private). Materialistic and ad hominem, sex obsessive body theologians like Falwell Senior and you, enforce the wedge-driving system of the devil and deny the meanings in Scripture and Holy Spirit.
In don’t understand why Wartburgers don’t criticise Falwell Senior. People like Strachan are pretending that a cultural sideshow not relevant to most people is God’s main issue.
In society at large there is often the mentality you represent and which Muslin and I deplore, but Falwell Senior and Strachan are blaspheming God and wouldbe Holy Spirit filled believers.
So am I, and still single, and I smelled a rat in the “sweep a girl / woman off her feet” model twinned with promoting of predation outside marriage in my classroom when I was 14 (and the head of department in charge of that, an ex RE teacher, left after involvement with a boy; that was as Savile became prominent in association with leaders of christian outreach).
My theory is that your society’s normalising predation including inside marriage, stems from the intruding of Puritan settlement bosses into infants’ privates. I’ve read about good and bad arminianism of late; Puritans were bad arminians, material minded exactly the same as bad calvinians.)
Every country has a slightly different history which shouldn’t lead Americans into thinking what went on in England isn’t relevant.
I don’t admit being Asperger so often, now, because of the growing backlash against us. A lot of corner cutters don’t like rat smellers. People in authority will just have to learn honest logic and respect without me telling them why.
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
Any couple getting married however young should NEVER ask church permission to sleep in separate rooms or beds IF that’s what they want to do. Companionship is essential to bringing up children, to marriage, and to friendship – all of those formats.
Body theology and gender theology (coupled with dispensationism and dominionism) have by their unspiritual moralism caused the world’s problems and are not a righteous reaction to those.
Friend,
Exactly. Poor senecagriggs is either a New Calvinist or supportive of their line of thinking regarding gender roles. The NeoCals are notorious for torturing Scripture to fit their theology … if they are bold enough to twist Paul’s words to come alongside their belief and practice, they have no problem distorting what C.S. Lewis says.
CS Lewis- “So your job [homemaker] is the one for which all others exist.”
Max,
🙂
Unfortunately for provocative individuals on TWW, they bring out the best in those who respond. You and the others here don’t fume and bluster. Instead, replies share genuine thought and care, and might even equip lurkers to deal with toxic beliefs in their own lives.
Not that much different from Red Pill Alpha Male InCels when it comes to the only role for women –
Barefoot, Pregnant, and Putting Out.
Thank you, Gus. 🙂
That IS the accurate comment and of course it’s true. Without homemakers; humanity ends.
Gus,
Good analysis Gus.
As is per usual, you’ve missed the “mark” (if you’ll permit me a small ‘bon mot’ from our previous interactions)
So to move you beyond resources like “The Real McCain & Smitty’s Big Book o Luv” I would recommend scholarly works like Christina Aguilera “What a Girl Wants” and the Mel Gibson film “What Women Want”, though Mel Gibson in pantyhose may offend (or perhaps titillate) you.
Good luck from a godless, married and monogamous male.
I think you need to separate out “feminism means treating women as equally capable” and the idea of “sex without consequences.”
While there are certainly people who hold to both ideas, there are also those who don’t. There are also those who hold to “sex without consequences” who DON’T think women are equally capable.
Excellent distillation of the problem. All my life I’ve heard variations on this traditional theme: “If we let girls learn to read and write, they might start running around all out of control!”
I suppose it’s a sign of progress that we now hear, “If women get their own jobs, they won’t listen to men anymore!”
That would be true for every believer. To know and be known by Jesus is the greatest thing on earth that anyone can achieve.
I’m sorry to learn of your journey through abusive relationships, but honored to know you as a Sister in Christ.
BUT THAT IS THE PARTY LINE!
Thank you, Max…. 🙂
….and I, you, as a Brother in Christ, Max. And I, you. 🙂
senecagriggs,
So, did you aim high and go for the “ultimate career” yourself, or are you just another low achiever?
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
The Seneca party have snuck ( snook? ) away the last two days; definitely low achievers.
Poor old (young?) Seneca only shows up on occasion to shock and awe … more shock than awe. Most likely a female-unfriendly troll sent from the NeoCal camp.
Seneca – old
Actually, Seneca the Smug was trolling Wondering Eagle as their regular troll for a few months before he overstayed his welcome and came back here. Jack was counter-trolling him the whole time. Compared to Eagle’s two former regular trolls (ChapmanEd & I’m So Ronery), Seneca was positively mild.
When all is said and done, women have a primal power that these guys (fundagelicals) are scared you-know-whatless of.
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
Just another low achiever; I’m in my 70s and still earn a paycheck every month; though that could end very, very quickly. At this age I don’t purchase green bananas.
seneca,
You’re normal on the inside, if you would only have some self-confidence.