In one of the early scenes of Fireproof we witness the first of two marital fights which sets up the primary conflict of the movie. Much has been made about the husband’s viewing of pornography, but the movie goes to great pains to make it clear that the real problem is that Caleb isn’t submitting to his wife’s leadership.
He isn’t following her leadership on how they spend their money. He also is failing to do the housework as well as the chores she has set out for him. Here is the dialog from the first scene in the movie where the two are together (modified from this source). Watch it here for full context and to see the amount of contempt Katherine has for her disobedient husband:
Caleb: You have breakfast already?
Katherine: Yes.
Caleb: What’d you eat?
Katherine: I had the last bagel and a yogurt.
Caleb: Are you planning on making a grocery trip soon?
Katherine: Caleb, you work 24 hours and then you’re off for 48. You’ve got more time to go than l do.
Caleb: I asked a simple question. You don’t need to get smart with me. At least save me some breakfast.
Katherine: I never know when you’re coming or going. You don’t tell me.
Caleb: Catherine, what is your problem? Did l offend you by walking in the door?
Katherine: You can’t expect me to work every day and get the groceries… …while you look at trash on the lnternet dreaming about your boat.
Caleb: You chose to take this job. No one said you had to work full-time.
Katherine: We need the income. Especially since you tuck away a third of your salary… …saving for a boat we don’t need. You’ve got $24,000 in savings when things in our house need fixing.
Caleb: Like what?
Katherine: The back door needs to be painted, the yard needs landscaping. And l wanna put more shelves in the closet.
Caleb: Those are called preferences. Those are not needs. There’s a difference. lf you wanna spend your money on that stuff, fine. l’ve been saving for my boat for years. You’re not taking that from me.
Katherine: This is so pointless. l don’t have time for this.
Caleb: Yeah, shut the door on your way out.
As you already know, fortunately the wayward husband is finally brought to heel through the wisdom of modern Christianity and the wife graciously accepts him back.
This is very sad to me. She is showing him complete disrespect by the way she is responding to him. When I saw the movie, I didn’t think that but since I have learned what true respect looks like, I see it so clearly. So many women disrepect their husbands by rolling their eyes, interrupting them, correcting them, etc. We probably will never see that pointed out in a movie…
“Those are your ‘preferences’, Katerine, those are not ‘Needs'” He states it very clearly. She’s upset that he’s not spending the money the way SHE wants, and that’s the cause of the conflict on that morning scene.
Holy shit, I would immediately leave if someone ever talked to me like that. What a bitch.
yogurt and bagel is borderline junk food. Most yogurt is heavily sugared, and bagels are likely bromated white flour. In any case, she is a) eating the last of the food as he comes off shift b) not grocery shopping c) not cooking any decent food even for herself d) not doing any dishes e) arguing and getting defensive about food or lack of it. All that adds up to a “why bother”.
After the painful 40 day love dare, at least now the husband can come home to a refrigerator full of yogurt, bagels, TV dinners, canned vegetables, and with a bit of luck, a case of soda pop or beer.
Painful. I would drop her so quickly.
So, after this, he gives her 24K and that fixes the marriage.
Whats the moral of the story, that every Christian woman a whore?
@Yohami
I just don’t even understand how this movie is Christian whatsoever. Are Christian women supposed to be ungrateful sluts, and Christian men wimpy pushovers? Forget Christianity.
So, I’m reading the dialogue and then watch the video and thinking, yeah, OK, Caleb’s right, she’s a bitch who’s not submitting to her husband and isn’t that obvious? I guess not.
Look, as long as the pop-Christianity money-making industry/films/books/seminars/sermons/mega-churches continue to cater to women, guys should write it off. When women start filling stadiums for the equivalent of “Promise Keepers” to reflect on their faults and consider improvement, then it might be time to take another look.
More single guys should watch this movie – good way to convince them not to get married.
Here is an enlightening comment revealing the unabashed sentiments of a Christian woman. My observation might inspire others to write more posts on the feminist delusions and self-pedestalization of Christian “Goddesses.”
Oh noes, shopping is so hard! And here I thought that most women liked to shop, and didn’t want the guy to get the food (he might come back with a bag of meat and forget the chocolate). Silly me!
I would also note that as a fireman, he has to shop for food for the station. They’ll generally rotate the shopping, cooking and cleaning among the team, but he certainly isn’t exempt from those activities. So his wife wants him to do that at home as well as at work? Ugh.
I think this poison is being marketed to Christians because they already had an unhealthy frame, which made them easy preys for feminism / abusers. What unhealthy frame?
Pushover ( did I hurt you? gimme your other cheek )
Guilt ( Jesus died for you, so this shit is your fault )
Shame ( are you living up to the code? … eh you´re not. you are a fucking sinner )
Inferiority ( how you dare to judge me? yes Im blowing cock and crack but how do you dare? you cant throw stones at me. But, take this, I can. Oh I like when your eye pops! )
Irresponsibility ( I leave up to God, its in Gods hands, etc )
Denial ( where to start? )
Whatever. I think this gynocentric fungus is just feeding on a fine wood that was already rotting. Painful to watch tough.
Something I noticed watching the beginning of the movie on youtube is that The Husband was Right and was standing for his own decision to not get shit from someone who doesn’t respect him when he’s doing his job well done and being a productive member of society. He yells at her to demand respect, and say that if she can’t even give him that then there’s no point in being married to her and don’t back down just because she started crying to play the victim (even though she was too, yelling at him with all her breath just seconds ago).
He changes his mind later on, when everyone around him start telling HIM that he should try to work things out, while no fking one ever did stop to say the same shit to his nagging wife.
So much more at fault than the wife who were a bitch, were people around him telling him non-stop that he should try to make things out with the bitch “because that’s how women are”, else he would have let her go and be a happy man with a boat to relax – and no one nagging aboard – when he came home out of a quite stress-full day of playing chicken with trains, putting his life on the line (no pun intended) to save others.
I have watched the clip! What (living on this side of the pond) struck me was that although he is a fireman (blue-clollar) they live in a large house with all mod-cons (I should be so lucky) yet between themselves, not-withstanding $24,000 in the bank, to be unable to provide themselves with food or to survive without bickering. She is unhappy that he looks at Porn (women always see Porn as a threat) and has a purpose in life other than her (the boat). There does not appear to be any tenderness between them or any meaningful partnership and she ducks any attempt at resolution by walking out on the conversation (that is to say excluding him). She claims to be doing everything in the house, yet stocking it with food seems beyond her. Trying however, to apportion blame here, – and I think the writer has balanced their respective attitudes – is a hopeless task which one will never get to the bottom of; which is why the concept of no-fault divorce was introduced.
In the Gym (I don’t think men do that sort of thing over here) his black friend (do white american males have black friends?) recommends counselling. Is that a plug for him to see his Pastor? Again (over here) counselling (whatever that is) is seen as psycho-babble, and a device to fleece people of money – and these are people who are unable to fill a fridge.
Now, thanks to Dalrock, I know that before long, a White-Collar Doctor will show up, so it seems to me that her problem is boredom and lack of purpose to be assuaged by Hypergamy serial monogomy if you like. Theirs is clearly a bad match, and the sooner they divorce and meet someone who brings out their good sides (but would a Handsome Doctor want a bad-tempered Divorcee?) the better, because I am assured by my Christian friends that in these circumstances Jesus would not want her to be unhaaaapy. Isn’t Christianity wonderful.
I await further transcripts.
Her contempt for him is obvious.
He takes milk out of the fridge to make a bowl of cereal. While he is getting the cereal out of the pantry, she puts the milk back into the fridge. In a word: petty.
Opus,
Yes, here in the US average folks have big houses by European comparison, especially on two incomes.
Yes, white folks have non-white friends…but usually just work pals, non-work social settings are usually far more segregated, and I can’t really explain why…hummm. I have a very good friend (black) from work, who has been invited to my house many times for BBQ’s etc, he shows about 1/2 the time, wonderful guest, very sociable …I’ve never been invited to his home (not complaining, just an observation).
Counseling is a fleece job, the irony is that the at fault party in a couple is the one who resists counseling; they don’t want to hear that they are the problem, the aggrieved want a setting to vent their side without the at-fault one walking out. Usually the at-fault wants to quit counseling after only a few sessions.
Yes, the average American woman is a pathetic house-keep, and spends so much time primping herself that all else in her world is meaningless/neglected…like grocery shopping. The average American household lives on crap, processed foods because no one is taught to cook by their first generation feminist mothers…who also can’t cook.
The gal portrayed in this movie is pretty typical of a pretty American woman. They have NO personality, no interests, no hobbies, nothing…they obsess about relationships, but there is nothing else in their world. Guys get duped into the nice piece of ass they are going to bed, only to wake up with a zero personality monster who has a fit if she is not the sole center of his world…thus the $24,000 boat ( read escape). As she gets older her desperate attention whoring will almost certainly lead to affairs, if not real then media types (facebook anyone?) and further bitchy clinging to the sap who married her.
He will hunker down and slump shoulder take her guff because he knows the monkey ass raping he will get in divorce court. Knowing he is defeated, he’ll start to neglect the gym, drink to excess, become a couch potato and die of a heart attack by age 60.
He may have kids, and they will be his only sunshine, until they become teens, then they too will add to his daily agony.
The Christian angle is only relevant in that the divorce rate for non-Christians is 50%, within the church 38%.
Was the wife a Christian? I saw the movie years ago and I never got the impression she claimed to be a Christian.
@Buck
The 38% stat was only for the most devout churchgoers. Otherwise it was 60%
@anonymous female says:
Are you saying the movie was only telling Christian men to submit to their wives if the wife wasn’t Christian?
Spot on. That was the exact scene that made me go, “say what?” Exactly what does Caleb get from this marriage? No creature comforts (sex, homecooked meals, groceries bought for him), and no respect, and seemingly no children.
First of all, Dalrock you are spot-on about this movie (I saw it about 10 months ago), and I thank you for shining the spotlight on this crap.
Secondly, I’d like to point out to you all the following organization: http://loveandrespect.com/
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs runs this outfit, and he “gets it.” His core message is that modern Western women are failing because they don’t understand they must respect their husbands. He bluntly takes Christian women to task, saying there are plenty of messages in the media complaining about what men need to do in order to “man up” or whatever, but what is missing in our society is a corresponding correction to women for their own egregious behavior.
My advice is that any man who proposes to have a solid and worthwhile LTR or marriage needs to show the Love and Respect DVD series to his woman and ensure the “light bulb” is shining inside her head.
Cheers,
GS Jockey
I just heard Tom Petty’s “Here comes my girl” on the radio. Listen to the lyrics. That’s how marriage is supposed to feel like.
Spot on. That was the exact scene that made me go, “say what?” Exactly what does Caleb get from this marriage? No creature comforts (sex, homecooked meals, groceries bought for him), and no respect, and seemingly no children.
As a in-shape, proven heroic man, who saved a child no less, he gets to avoid icky sex with extremely willing, very hot women who are exactly his type!
He was on TV! For having saved a child! And he nearly died! OMG.
Being stalked by super hotties is a definite risk for this guy.
Thanks yet again for ANOTHER reminder of why I’m glad to be single. You can take married life and stuff it!
The film is a huge advertisement against American Christianity, really.
Dal,
This isn’t the hill you want to die on. The problem with Fireproof is that the wife is a fucking nine trying to make it work with Kirk Cameron of all people. Her mistake was slumming with the Herb in the first place (half of the base female instinct, and epidemic back in the days of mass serial monogamy, which was one of the things that led to its end) and then she doubled down by marrying the poor bastard.
Submission is what Herbs do, that’s why HB’s are drawn to them. As you note, no basis for a decent marriage. EPL is actually also a recognition of this reality, but its way too late. The solution is for HB’s to strike while their iron is hot in their early twenties with a man likely to match her value by his late twenties and to steer clear of the easy Herbs (or, and it goes without saying, fleeting alpha cock/genes).
“The film is a huge advertisement against American Christianity, really.”
Oh, bullshit on a stick.
My (liberal, mainline) church is full of healthy couples with manly men and wives that adore them and their many children. Don’t blame dipshit megachurch halfassery on Christianity.
After reading several of dalrocks observations on this movie I finally “manned up” and watched the first couple segments. I also checked out the source of the movie.
Here’s the biggest problem with this steaming pile of shit which purports to teach us some Christian based relationship Game:
It’s all a fucking setup. Start to finish. Caleb got set up when they were penning the script. His side of the story is never portrayed in a sympathetic manner. Just hers.
After that what’s the point? He’s a dirtbag and she’s a “Goddess” or some stupid shit. Anyway, after I saw that I dropped this turd like a hot rock. Analisys is wasted.
I never thought my nonbeleiving self would ever say this but… I sure do feel sorry for you Christians. God must really like fucking with you guys.
Caleb:
Those are called preferences. Those are not needs. There’s a difference. lf you wanna spend your money on that stuff, fine. l’ve been saving for my boat for years. You’re not taking that from me
His boat is a preference as well.
In a marriage there is no “your money” or “my money”, all the money is “our money”. It’s not about me or you it’s about us. She should be thinking about him when she makes a decision and he should be thinking about her. Instead these two people are pursuing their own lives without any consideration of the other. She eats his breakfast, and he doesn’t care about the house. They partake in the form and not the substance of marriage.
This is a perfect example of Houellebecq’s idea of personal atomisation. They cannot love.
Desiderius says:
December 3, 2011 at 3:16 pm
That was a 9 in your book? Please don’t ever poste a picture of what you think is a 2.
She is totally not a nine. And that voice, it is so horrible.
she’s a 9, because she’s not fat or old. She’d be a 10, except for the whiny, shaky voice.
one interesting thing, is that she seems to resent having to work, and she is dumping on husband during the morning argument. With her hospital job, she’s likely pulling in 65k or more, along with benefits, and 401k. And as a DINK, they would be raking in some serious cash, way above national average. More than enough to buy comforts for ailing parents, home improvements, boats, church tithe, and then some. The whole premise of the movie is flawed. It really shouldn’t be taken seriously in any way except as emo-porn. This movie is for women, what Call of Duty is for men.
Yeah, the bitch wife is a seven, at best-and that’s only in the looks department. Her ‘charming’ personality is something else…
She only came around at the end because the realized she could get treated like a queen while getting pregnant by Caleb’s “BBC” friend on the side. (Win-win!)
I am saddened to see people saying “forget Christianity” because of this kind of film. The problem is not believing in a loving God or trying to live your life well and help others…. the problem is the feminist entitlement bullshit that has infiltrated Christian circles.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, lets be intelligent enough to make the distinction.
One thing that is so frustrating when you try to help Herbs like that in real life, and they can’t hear a word you say, because they are afraid to take the red pill and have to re-assess everything they know. It really grieves me that perpetuating this feminist garbage in churches is causing families to blow apart, all because no one has the balls to tell him to man up and put that bitch over his knee and spank her ass raw… or because no one really knows.
I just watched segments of the movie for the first time. Almost disgusting. I wanted to vomit. The overall message seems to be one of total betafication of yourself, and that you have to worship your wife to demonstrate your love for her. And the father in the movie. Just repugnant…to have the fatherly advice be one that you essentially have to martyr yourself as a demonstration of love.
Off that point, IMO, she is a solid 7, maybe 8 in looks. I continue to wonder what the heck guys are using as their templates for 7-8s if she is barely a 7. I think to my workplace, and there is maybe 1-2 women in an entire large company that look as good as her. But yeah, she is a total f’ing bitch. F*ckb*ddy material, not a life partner.
“My (liberal, mainline) church is full of healthy couples with manly men and wives that adore them and their many children”
“liberal” and “church” are mutually exclusive, and can never produce healthy couples, nor manly men
wives are not commanded to adore their families, nor their houses, nor their purchases, but to OBEY their husbands and adore god, as sarah called her husband lord, and abe worshipped yah
jesus said you can love your family, or him — and especially in modern times, it is extremely rare to manage both
christianity is corrupted by submissive males and family-worship, yet another sign of the matriarchal nature of worldly churches in worldly cultures
Okay for the believers on board, I have a question that I couldn’t figure out the answer to when watching this movie a number of years back.
I had the same reaction, sheesh, he had to totally degrade himself and demean himself to win her. He had to do so much crap when she clearly didn’t deserve this. And Caleb brings this up at one point, asks his father that question in much nicer words, and his father points him to the cross.
And I thought to myself at the time that that was a tough truth to swallow. That we must be willing to endure humiliation and pain and agony for the ones we love, just like Jesus did for us.
But it seemed so wrong! The other part of me was screaming, “No, he shouldn’t have to do that!” But I figured that was just my prideful nature speaking.
What gives?
Celeste, what gives is that no one is having a similar conversation with the wife. No one is telling her that she needs to be upright as well. In fact, everyone is simply reinforcing her bad behavior. The husband is expected to do all the heavy lifting to fix the marriage. Anyone with a properly calibrated sense of justice would have a similar reaction.
@Samuel
We’re not throwing the baby out with the bath water; that is Christianity. If most Christians are like that, and most Christian churches are like that (Dalrock has done some excellent expose type work about how thoroughly feminised most churches are nowadays) then that is what Christianity is. Saying otherwise is just invoking the no true Scotsman fallacy
M. Steve
That was so simple and should have been obvious to me. Thanks.
In reality, humbling oneself and doing very self-sacrificing things may be necessary in marriage. It’s in the “sickness and health” clause. But yeah, one sided. I get it. If both were willing to be that self-sacrificing, then it would work.
Slumlord, that is what a lot of marriages look like now, at least in the US. Maybe because no one ever taught a lot of people otherwise. Maybe because of all the “wealth” via credit over the last 20-30 years. But please take careful note that the man in this case is told by everyone he should think more of his wife, while the woman is basically not told anything.
Once again the message is the same: men have duties / responsibilities, women have choices.
This is one of the fundamental premises of feminism. To see it embedded into the script of a movie sold to Christians as modeling what marriage should look like simply demonstrates how feminized some churches are. I believe that’s one of the points Dalrock keeps making over and over.
I’ve spoken out against this movie ever since I saw it at a church.
She is hot, for having a kind of horse face. I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, realizing there is a problem in the Church is a start for all of us.
Desider:
It is excellent advertising against Christianity – for men.
Any non-Christian male seeing this movie is LESS likely to see Christianity in a positive light.
I suppose it is positive advertising for women, but the Oprah-fication of secular society has provided so much cover for bad female behavior that I don’t think they need the Church to help out at all.
All in all, it makes Christians look bad, which was Brendon’s point. He wasn’t saying that it was proof that Christianity was bad (which was how you interpreted him).
After watching about 1/3 of this film on youtube I think it needs to be retitled: Fireproof way to be a bitch and get divorced.
I didn’t see the movie and have one question Did he have kids with his wife?
[D: No.]
Haven’t seen the movie, but to all young men slumming it with today’s young women, always ask yourself “and this is better than being single how exactly?”
No matter how twisted the law and the culture, you still get to stay single if you can’t find better elsewhere. Don’t ever forget this.
Yes, the final scenes where she only goes back to the husband because she finds out he handed over the 24k rather than Dr. McDreamy posits the obvious corollary; what if the dear Dr. handed over more (as he could obviously afford to do)? Would her husband still be a scumbag (yeah, 20k just ain’t doin’ it for me. I’m not haaaapy with your net income)? I can see the moneylenders at the Temple agreeing, but WWJD? How did the film-makers (and, by implication, given the enthusiastic response from so many Christians) so many Churches and Pastors get themselves into such a mess?
When are Christians going to hold “Goddesses” to account for worshipping false idols?
Well if that is the case the first time she said something he didn’t like he should have gotten rid of her. I would never take crap from some chick The only reason I’m still married is because of my kids. He had 24k. He only needed to tell her go find you a place to stay and put this 24k down on it and get lost. Rarely do childless women act like that. A lot of women are pretty good wives until they have hostages (children).
This also reminds me of the movie Paranormal Activity. They where counting off day 1, day 2 etc. They got up to about 5, 6 days and while watching with my wife i said to her “isn’t this guy going to f**k this chick that is his his house right? I don’t think she even has a job” Later in the movie she gets mad at him for something and starts running her mouth. I had this comment “she must be crazy She has no job, gave up no ass, and we’re 2 weeks in and then on top of all of that she brought a ghost into his house” Some off these movies are really unrealistic in that way or we have some really sorry dudes out there that are hurting so bad for a woman’s attention that they will just tolerate any thing.
@slumlord
You are correct, but keep in mind that the conflict of the movie is only resolved when the husband gives the wife everything she demanded in the opening scenes, and she offers no compromise. They didn’t agree to compromise and spend a few thousand on a new bed and wheelchair for the mother*, with some left over for a smaller boat. Nor did she agree to stop denying him sex after he decided to stop viewing porn. Likewise he picked up the housework with no counter offer from her.
He needed to submit to her and follow her lead in everything in order to be a proper Christian husband. This is the message they are sending.
*Here is the scene where they show the mother who absolutely requires a $24,000 wheelchair and specialty hospital bed. Nothing less than this magic amount will do, or she will suffer greatly.
anonymous female says: “Was the wife a Christian? I saw the movie years ago and I never got the impression she claimed to be a Christian.”
Dalrock: “Are you saying the movie was only telling Christian men to submit to their wives if the wife wasn’t Christian?”
I haven’t watched the movie, but apparently Kirk’s character’s parents are the Christians, he and his wife aren’t supposed to be at the beginning of the movie.
“Something has changed in you. And I want what’s happened to you to happen to me” is supposed to be about his conversion, not about the love dare.
From this review by Chris Willman:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20229911,00.html
“These are temptations faced by Christian and non-Christian couples alike, but the filmmakers hedge their bets by making the **young marrieds agnostic at the start of the movie**, in order to turn Fireproof into a manual for eternal as well as marital salvation.”
From Amazon’s product description:
http://www.amazon.com/Fireproof-Kirk-Cameron/dp/B001KEHAFI
“Yet as they prepare to enter divorce proceedings, Caleb’s dad asks his son to try an experiment: The Love Dare. While hoping The Love Dare has nothing to do with **his parents’ newfound faith**, Caleb commits to the challenge. But can he attempt to love his wife while avoiding God’s love for him?”
I suppose my post isn’t showing up because it contains links.
anonymous female says: “Was the wife a Christian? I saw the movie years ago and I never got the impression she claimed to be a Christian.”
Dalrock: “Are you saying the movie was only telling Christian men to submit to their wives if the wife wasn’t Christian?”
I haven’t watched the movie, but apparently Kirk’s character’s parents are the Christians, he and his wife aren’t.
“Something has changed in you. And I want what’s happened to you to happen to me” is supposed to be about his conversion, not about the love dare.
From this review by Chris Willman:
“These are temptations faced by Christian and non-Christian couples alike, but the filmmakers hedge their bets by making the **young marrieds agnostic at the start of the movie**, in order to turn Fireproof into a manual for eternal as well as marital salvation.”
From Amazon’s product description:
“Yet as they prepare to enter divorce proceedings, Caleb’s dad asks his son to try an experiment: The Love Dare. While hoping The Love Dare has nothing to do with **his parents’ newfound faith**, Caleb commits to the challenge. But can he attempt to love his wife while avoiding God’s love for him?”
It’s not about his wife’s LEADERSHIP at all, Dalrock; come on. In fact, he was actually leading her. The Kendrick brothers are huge on men doing that, and they’ve been doing films with male main characters, which means the films’ promote the man’s role.
I suppose it is out if line to point out that a husband has absolutely no biblical obligation to obey his wife. What a disgustingly ungodly scene from the movie. She has the obligation to submit to him not he to her. This is a Christian movie right?
Jason
It’s nothing like, Brendan. Actually guys, and Celeste, there are dozens of books telling wives THEY must change, no matter how boorish their husbands are; this film did the reverse. Honestly, I hated her attitude and how he wept when she was sick; this was over the top (however, notice she cried too after that and didn’t say anything else resistant). I was mad at her at times, and wished someone would take her to task, but she didn’t have anyone either aware or smart enough in her life to do so, and Caleb had pretty gently spoken friends too; I just understand why she was conflicted now better than I did before. The big difference was, as Stevens pointed out, the fact that Caleb had Christians friends and Kat had stupid ones, and that Caleb was Christian. He had something to fall back on; she had nothing. The first few things he did were just to get her off his back, and then she caught him looking at porn when she came home; no surprise she didn’t respond well. And this was after her friend told her he was just buttering her up; now she was at an utter position of distrust. Then, Caleb never told her he was now Christian and really wanted to save the marriage, so she didn’t know what to make of his actions after that; she was basically scared out of her mind.
I don’t think the argument between them in this post was anything other than mutual, and could understand her frusteration too; it was the later one that bugged me more. This film isn’t about just men changing; Caleb’s mom was the one who led his father to change, and apparently did all the work for a while there.
“Those are your ‘preferences’, Katerine, those are not ‘Needs”
Neither is a boat. No, he wasn’t required to sell it at all, and after a while she didn’t nag him or ask, just kept to herself. So his selling it was the ultimate act of love, and she cried her eyes out and told him she wanted to change like he had (be a Christian and a better spouse).
LOL It’s not one-sided Jason; maybe the whole “obey your husband no matter what” thing is partly what encouraged this film. Book after book, after book, I’ve seen tell this to wives.
You guys should really look into the Kendricks’ work before you make these accusations about what they stand for. Two books published, “Resolution” for men and then one for women, go with the film “Courageous” and both tell women to submit. This film backed up the other half of that command, for husbands to love their wives, not obey them.
@greyghost
Yes, men are hurting and will take anything they can get.
~70% are getting nothing and sidelined, women would sooner be alone than with them (us?)
~10% (so-called greater betas) are the guys like our hero firefighter here who get rotating monogamy and table scraps,
~20% we all know oh so well who have their harems.
One person said Caleb was basically your case of an alpha, who needed more beta.
If he were an “alpha” male by the internet definition he would have plowed her friends and she would have crawled back to him while the sheets were still wet from the women before her.
Maybe I’m saying this because I’m unacustomed to having a woman speak to me with such icy contempt. Certainly not in my house, and not a woman I’m married to. But the Christian thing to do here would be for this guy to slap her hard across the face. Absent the SWAT team storming your house as a consequence, this would do wonders for their marriage.
As Dalrok mentioned, they have no children. And by appearances, no intention having them. In which case, why are they even married?
Yeah. If this is a Christian guide, contemporary Christianity as practiced on the mainstream is sterile in every sense of the word.
One problem is a lack of authority from the husband.
“Mothers nurture; fathers guide.”
If two people are equal and come to a disagreement, well, then, each one negates each other’s vote and nothing gets done. By choosing which one has the final say, who’s effectively “in charge” will save time, money, and energy. Compromise doesn’t always work, and some decisions really can’t be compromised (it’s either a yes/no decision). Equality doesn’t always work. A marriage is not a democracy or a political arena for power.
Imagine if a commoner started challenging and blocking the president’s actions because they’re “equal.” Something’s gotta give.
“If he were an “alpha” male by the internet definition he would have plowed her friends and she would have crawled back to him while the sheets were still wet from the women before her.”
“the Christian thing to do here would be for this guy to slap her hard across the face…As Dalrok mentioned, they have no children. And by appearances, no intention having them. In which case, why are they even married?”
Christ Almighty, insanity. I don’t know if you noticed, but while yes, the wife acted like a brat a good deal of the time, the film showed that HE had been equally responsible for the fights they’d been having; the problem was not in his apologizing, but in her not apologizing for so long. And if you compare a marriage to the relationship between a president and a “commoner”, there’s a real problem.
“If this is a Christian guide, contemporary Christianity as practiced on the mainstream is sterile in every sense of the word”
Actually, many have said that the Love Dare helped save their marriage.
It didn’t save their marriage. After that marriage was no longer an accurate description.
Jennifer which exact things in the film made him equally responsible for that woman who he gives housing and a paycheque to running around behind his back? Was it his pornography addiction? was it saving his money to buy a boat with? Was it working long hours to support his live-in parasite?
She had a job too, don’t you recall? She worked longer hours; his job was a hell of a lot, but she was not in the least a parasite. A porn addiction is a very big matter, and the film had them both equally at odds; he stepped on her feelings (he admitted to this later), she disrespected him; he could have gone to the store, she could have resisted nagging; and they both had emotional or mental affairs, his being porn and hers with that happy-trousers jerk at work. He gave her sincerity she wasn’t getting elsewhere, just as the porn gave him a release he didn’t get at home (sort of).
“He gave her sincerity”
“He” in that sentence being the doctor.
Believe me, I wrote a review expressing frusteration with the film not showing her literally apologizing, but later on I did realize why she was so much on her guard during the love dare thing, and confused more than anything else. I just wish they’d left out her huffy statement in bed that she wasn’t ready to trust him again, and his teary words (though if he hadn’t said them, she wouldn’t have cried too; surely the film-writers could have done something in-between?)
“After that marriage was no longer an accurate description”
That’s nonsense; they renewed their vows with her clearly vowing to change, and following his lead. Anyway, I was referring to real marriages.
@Jennifer,
“LOL It’s not one-sided Jason; maybe the whole “obey your husband no matter what” thing is partly what encouraged this film. Book after book, after book, I’ve seen tell this to wives.”
I didn’t say “Obey no matter what”. IF the husband was expecting his wife to do something ungodly then she would be right to refuse, and it isn’t a license for the husband to behave like an arse. His duty to his wife is to treat his wife as Christ treated the Church (die for her, either a little each day or all at once at circumstances demand).
My point was simply that there is no biblical justification what so ever for the idea that a husband has an obligation to _OBEY_ his wife. That is commanded absolutely nowhere in scripture at all, yet this is what it seems many women expect from their husbands, that they will obey them.
This is part of the curse of the fall for women that they will seek to dominate their husbands in this fashion it seems and this movie seems to be _encouraging_ that aspect of fallen female nature.
Jason
Jennifer,
Aha, but he´s the one doing the work to salvage their relationship. And he´s the one expected to do so. And she acts like a bitch all along.
Yes, and his mother did the work to salvage HER marriage, thus showing the onus isn’t all on men. If one spouse finds Christ, it’s their job to lead the other to Him.
Jen, but the movie isnt about his mother is it?
Surely a movie is little more than another commenter. Why the respect?
That’s correct Yohami, but the filmmakers are, again, male, and tend to focus more on male characters and therefore their roles.
You guys might prefer another film about marital salvaging, “No Greater Love”. Ten years ago, a couple in love since teenhood split up: the wife was an alcoholic and severely depressed, and her husband worked long hours. Some time later, when their son was a baby, she disappeared. Now she’s back, and they’ve both changed and will have to change more; she’s become a Christian, is a spiritual newborn, and happened to show up in the town her husband and son moved to by pure chance. The husband isn’t a Christian, but still feels a pull to her inspite of his difficulty in forgiving her. Here, their attempts to repair matters are more mutual (she also reveals that she’d tried to at least find them years before, but the courts wouldn’t give her any info; the husband apparently didn’t know the courts refused her thus, because he was upset about the fact that they’d never heard from her).
“Painful. I would drop her so quickly”
Did you not read the whole conversation? I’d say they were mutually angry at each other, and I could identify with both their frusterations.
“So, after this, he gives her 24K and that fixes the marriage”
It’s not for her, it’s for her invalid mothers’ care.
“Whats the moral of the story, that every Christian woman a whore?”
Why the devil are you guys calling her a whore? She never slept with anyone, and as far as emotional or mental affairs go, he was having one too, with porn.
Look alll this debate stuff is foolish. As soon as she tried that cut him off stuff she should have been done. The premise shouldn’t have even been a movie. Well I finally whatched the scene Dalrock posted the link to. First off the stuff she is complaining about is stuff she wanted in the first place from what it sounds like and she is not handling her business. That scene in the weight room and the advice he was getting from that other guy was pure female fantasy. When ever we have spoken about our wives at work the words like bitch,stupid ,crazy,selfish seem to come up most often and we all make cracks about how none of us married guys have wives that fuck them. But I have never had a guy say he needed help in how to make a marriage work.
BLECH. Just re-watched the bedroom apology scene, though; least favorite scene in the whole film. They should have let up either on his apologizing or her uncertain stiffness. With scenes like that, I understand the anger all the more.
“When ever we have spoken about our wives at work the words like bitch,stupid ,crazy,selfish seem to come up most often and we all make cracks about how none of us married guys have wives that fuck them. But I have never had a guy say he needed help in how to make a marriage work”
Which is a perfect illustration.
Is this a scam?
No, not this Blog – I mean the movie, Fireproof. Now, I know that xtianity is a broad church, and so I know that a lot of xtians will see things differently from the film, but, I have done a little research:
Kirk Cameron is a former child actor and there are those who suspect he did this film for the money, – a gross return so far of $33,000,o0o on an initial investment of $500,000, is the kind of deal I want to make. Cameron has a buddy, by the name of Alex Comfort – I thought I recognised the name – for he is the banana guy. Religion is big business, so I hear in the USA and so I need not tell you that among xtian apologists are a few who have failed to live up to their rhetoric, not that I am suggesting Comfort who can clearly take a joke against himself is not sincere, but sincerity is I think overated, and what could be easier than producing divorce porn under the guise of moral exhortation. There are some who regard the movie as an improvement on the usual Hollywood anti-marraige ethos, but I think that, we here, see through that, hence my suspicion that this film is snake oil.
What strikes me is this: If xtianity really works – if it is more than a feel-good tonic; if xtianity really changes your life, then how come the divorce rate for xtians is hardly any different than for non-xtians. Frankly I suspect that Hindus and Muslims have a lower divorce rate, and, if so, that is surely as a result of culture rather than belief. Xtianity here strikes me as emperors new-clothes, a fantasy fabric that falls to pieces at the first confrontation. The wearer thinks they are safe from the snares of modern life, but is relying on an insurance policy that does not pay out, and thus is actually far more dangerous as it gives a false sense of secuirty.
‘By their fruits shall ye know them.’
Opus says: Is this a scam?
Of course it is. It’s a chick flick designed to make money. It caters to women and confirms their ideas on how a marriage is supposed to work. It’s pure female fantasy. I can’t see any self-respecting man sitting through it. I could barely tolerate the few linked-to clips.
‘If xtianity really works – if it is more than a feel-good tonic; if xtianity really changes your life, then how come the divorce rate for xtians is hardly any different than for non-xtians.’
Opus, for your average person, it is very difficult for religion to stand alone. Its tenets must be supported by society at large to have a firm base of believers. Muslims and Hindus, in their home countries, have this support. In ‘Christian’ nations, Muslims and Hindus, for the most part, have very closed communities (family and friends) which continue to support their religion. Humans are weak and stepping out of church on Sunday, it’s a challenge to live the religion the rest of the week because society at large pulls you in a different direction. The strength of a group’s conviction probably follows a bell curve like most else. There’s a large number no doubt who would be ‘model’ Christians if during the rest of the week they lived in a society which backed them up. The West is no longer ‘Christian’ no matter how much we sing ‘God bless America’. A better comparison would be to the early Christians under Roman rule. While the Church might have been built on the blood of the martyrs, there were many who folded. Much hand-wringing was done on how to deal with those who offered a pinch of incense to the pagan gods in order to save their skins. While we don’t live under that threat today, the decades long propaganda and soft pull of peer pressure has their effect.
‘By their fruits shall ye know them.’ Indeed. Religion has to be patriarchal and a male Christian searcher has to find a church that is patriarchal. I cannot speculate ‘if my church showed this film to the congregation I would…’ because my church would never show this trash.
but keep in mind that the conflict of the movie is only resolved when the husband gives the wife everything she demanded in the opening scenes, and she offers no compromise
I agree Dalrock, the movie is bad, and it presents a traditionally romantic, watered down version of Christianity. It furthers the notion that you can gain a woman’s love by giving her everything she wants. The movie is moral lesson in feminised and desexualised Christianity.
The real kicker is however in the end. He only gives his money at the threat of her loss, and she only stays because she got the money. They both stay because of mutual benefit. They are two interrelated parasites feeding off each other. They are together because both are getting something from the relationship. This film furthers the problem it purports to solve.
What should have happened is that he should have stopped watching the porn if it upset her that much because he is loves her and she shouldn’t have been such a bitch to him out of love. Symbiotes, unlike parasites, have a vested interest in the well being of their partners.
A love that is conditional on some benefit is cheap love indeed.
In the real world, his supplicant actions would have disgusted her. She would have bee emotionally torn( “confused”) between his repulsive beta behaviour and gratitude for paying for her mothers medical bills, and after a suitable time would have shacked up with the doctor.
[D: Agreed.]
@slumlord
Excellent assessment and perfect summary:
“A love that is conditional on some benefit is cheap love indeed.”
In the real world, his supplicant actions would have disgusted her. She would have bee emotionally torn( “confused”) between his repulsive beta behaviour and gratitude for paying for her mothers medical bills, and after a suitable time would have shacked up with the doctor.
I agree that this is a much more realistic outcome. Supplicating in a troubled marriage situation only makes it worse — believe me.
“@slumlord
Excellent assessment and perfect summary:
“A love that is conditional on some benefit is cheap love indeed.”
Yep slumlord nails it..I agree..
Of course, unconditional sex could be an exception I reckon.. 😉
How gratifying to see folks not ALL knee jerking and going histrionic about the fact that God is involved and a church is involved. The movie is a mere reflection of the poison that is the gynocentric church of today. The movie hints at some female culpability, but see this is what females in church perceives as being balanced. The men in church are held accountable for direct unilateral sin and dysfunction that they, in many cases are indeed more prone to than women. Men do not have a problem saying that in general, porn affects men more than women…..duh……but i challenge you to find something that is equally duh, that affects women more than men. Oh these things exist, but we don’t see them or acknowledge them. The accountability at women in the church is insidious, it says they are accountable to “help” their husband, this has gone fully into what this article mentions, men submitting to women, because women are good and men are bad, because women are more in tune with relationship and men are not, so women, you are accountable for sorting your husbands. Cant they see the stupidity and issues that dichotomy produces?
Women are controlling in Christian marriages. The church has made them task masters, especially in the new Daytimer faith sold by mega evangelical churches, where a good man that leads spiritually has a list of tasks, he leads devotionals with wife and kids, he reads and discusses the Bible with his wife, and he prays all the time with anyone and everyone, most importantly in a weeping festival of guilt and recrimination kneeling at bedside nightly with his wife. That none of that is Biblical, and that the concept of a task oriented spiritual leader if sound no where in the Bible aside, this stuff makes women FEEL GOOD.
They get an empathy orgasm nightly. And thats what they want, to have empathy experiences more and more, the drive to do so as powerful as the male sex drive.
The Love Dare is nothing more than a structured way to pander to the empathy urges.
The biggest problem is that the expectations of men, by women, in todays church are majorly messed up, so wrapped in ribbons that they look more like romance novels than anything a God that exhalts long suffering would prescribe. Women in church have bought that there is to be NO suffering in marriage, and that when there is, they buy books and get counseling and finally file a divorce, and then they set about twisting that all up, he neglected me, thats abuse, Im good…..or my favorite, “I prayed and God released me from this marriage”……oy vey its all screwed up, and movies like this, well, they are one BIG EMPATHY porn fest for women.
Women in church have bought that there is to be NO suffering in marriage, and that when there is, they buy books and get counseling and finally file a divorce, and then they set about twisting that all up, he neglected me, thats abuse, Im good…..or my favorite, “I prayed and God released me from this marriage”
This is because the culture at large is driving the culture in churches. In the culture at large, the current model of marriage is so-called “hedonic marriage”, as explained by feminist Stephanie Coontz in her book “How Love Conquered Marriage”. Obviously seen as a good thing by feminists, but in general the broader point is that this is now how marriage is viewed from end to end in our culture — that is, marriage exists to further your *personal* happiness. That’s a radical shift in orientation around marriage, and by and large almost all American Christians buy into that paradigm to one degree or other– some more than others, but almost all at least *some*. When that’s the baseline paradigm for marriage, it becomes rather obvious what is happening in Christian marriages, because it’s the same thing that is happening in non-Christian marriages: people are going through unhappy periods, and begin to ditch the marriage because marriage is supposed to be about personal happiness and fulfillment, and it isn’t doing that. The “ditching the marriage” happens long, long before any separation or divorce, in women at least, generally. By the time concrete acts are taken, bridges have already been crossed, mentally and emotionally, in most cases — with the full support of the culture at large, both inside and outside the churches. From there, it’s pretty easy to rationalize, as a Christian woman, that “Jesus doesn’t want me to be unhappy!! Jesus loves me and wants me to be happy, so I have been released from this unhappy marriage!!” (or some similar reasoning). The cult of personal happiness is quite easily recast in Christian terms, really, with just the slightest hamsterization, precisely because the church has done little to combat this transformation in our view of marriage to hedonic marriage.
As long as the ideas of most American Christians about marriage mirror those of the broader culture, expect this to continue in American churches — because it follows from the broader culture’s conception of marriage. One which is more or less shared by most American Christians at this point in time.
Yeah, big porn addiction. Tempted to click a raunchy pop-up? Yeah, that’s no porn addiction, that’s using the internet with a lousy browser.
“In the real world, his supplicant actions would have disgusted her. She would have bee emotionally torn( “confused”) between his repulsive beta behaviour and gratitude for paying for her mothers medical bills, and after a suitable time would have shacked up with the doctor.”
That is how it is. A women complaining and nagging about a man that I have seen show up to work everyday as schedualed and on time for 6 years is not a bad man. And to actually work with the man and see his sense of duty to the team and skill level tells a lot about the man’s character. To a man we all know it is normal for women to complain about everything all oft he time. .As slumlord said rolling over like a good christian dog is the last thing that will save a marriage . Infact fact that shit will wreck a good marriage.
First off modern women are selfish and stupid. The solution the fimeman should have used was this. Step one get in his head he is getting rid of her and quit argueing petty points with her. His biggest mistake is allowing his emotional state of mind to be dictated by her behavior. He should just take care of business go grocery shop himself and cook his self and do his own laudry like she wasn’t there. They make enough money for her not to work. But she has t decided to work full time not for the benefit of the family of course, (that is a whole subject on it’s own) but so she can talk about how she works as much as he does. What that means is she has the resources and ability to take care of her mom directly and he needed to state that to her and tell little concerned for mom princess to start saving money. Don’t say any else to her on the subject but advise her she should be saving half. Let her get to work and maybe add some to it as you go but let her make more than half the total needed for her project. Kills two birds with one stone and allows you see if you have a worthy wife or lets you know she is a selfish cunt that needs to be gotten rid of. Most women will argue the points this female character argued because that is what todays women are taught that makes them strong. Cut off the arguements about the house work shit and but her to the task. And it is not a debate it is made as instructions as in this is what we do to solve the problem. He turns and starts up the washing machine and heads out to the supermarket and gets what he wants to stock the house. ignore her and never complain about anything she does. But keep tabs on how well she is saving. And look at all the porn you want. They could have easily made the movie about how a good christian man weeds out an unworthy woman. And make it a being kind to the cruel is being cruel to the kind sought of thing. (that is why PUA are doing the lords work)
Man, check out that hamster on Jennifer. That’s gotta be a Purple ribbon winner.
@buck said….
Correction to that (I know you mean well) …
Counseling is a fleece job, the irony is that the “at fault” party in a couple is the one who resists counseling; they don’t want to hear that they are the problem. The aggrieved want a setting to vent their side without the “at-fault” one walking out. Usually the “at-fault” wants to quit counseling after only a few sessions.
There… as the movie being discussed, and as many other articles here point out, just because someone thinks you’re at fault (waahhh… their feelings are hurt because they’re not the center of your universe 24/7 and you don’t indulge every whim) doesn’t mean you are.
Lots of entitled wives drag the husband to counseling where counselors, many of them christian, try to tell the husband they have to work even harder. It’s often an ambush.
Lots of entitled wives drag the husband to counseling where counselors, many of them christian, try to tell the husband they have to work even harder. It’s often an ambush.
I agree with this. Generally this is how it comes about. The key for the guy is hanging in and keeping in frame, not allowing himself to be bullied by the 2 on 1 scenario that it usually starts out as. Same in my case. It was only after few months that it became clear to counselor that it was my now ex who was the flake, and she got booted from counseling because of it. It backfired on her. But that only happened because I was willing and able to grit my teeth at the beginning, because in the beginning, pretty much no matter what happened, the focus is going to be on the husband and what he needs to do to fix. That is the case either with feminist counselors or with Christian ones — there isn’t much of a difference, in pragmatic terms, apart from the rhetoric used.
Guys,
Jennifer is just a feminist in Christian clothing. She spread her drivel all over Laura’s Full of Grace, Seasoned with Salt blog. We heard all the standard feminist rhetoric about how women were oppressed, sought equality, all that BS. Jennifer doesn’t get it; she’s never gotten it; and, she never will get it. IOW, DON’T FEED THE TROLL! Starve her of the attention she seeks, and she’ll go away.
MarkyMark
[D: I have more active tools for trolls. I don’t see her as one.]
@brendan
Had nearly the same thing happen, but it does require a counselor who’s honest with themselves and what they observe, and not blinkered by biases common to the profession.
The problem I personally had was not that I had no faults to address, but that only my faults were being addressed, and my concerns, at first, were dismissed.
I began to dread going, but I went. I also started talking to the counselor outside of the couples therapy environment (I believe this was key)
I’d calmly present my case, discuss where I screwed up, and where I had concerns or problems with what was going on, etc., and the counselor caught on – my wife constantly cutting me off in couples sessions, my ability to refute almost every overwrought charge with the facts, and yes, accept and acknowledge my faults while she would utterly melt down.
A big thank you to all you guys who have watched the movie so I don’t have to. Your sacrifice is appreciated.
Thank god my girl’s not christian. Nor is she American.
My take on the movie was that both were behaving badly, and that for there to be change, one of them had to take the risk of laying down first and submitting. And that Caleb thought this was a great idea – just so long as Katherine was the one to take that step, not him. (This was shown in the scene where his father is reading a handwritten journal, which Caleb thinks was written about his mother, which talks about how that person decided to change and through this, his parents’ relationship was saved. (Someone correct me here if I don’t have the details mapped out correctly about this scene, it’s been a while since I saw it.) Caleb says, Gee Dad, Mom was a real problem. And his father says, no son, it was me who needed to change. I was the problem. And Caleb is brought to his knees in a dramatic turnaround.
That being said, Dalrock, your words are priceless: “As you already know, fortunately the wayward husband is finally brought to heel through the wisdom of modern Christianity and the wife graciously accepts him back.” Despite what I objectively know about the plot, this seems to be the conclusion to be drawn about the movie on a deeper level. And, this movie would have been a box office flop if it was the roles of Caleb and Katherine had been reversed. So, your commentary about this movie, set in the context of the current culture make sense to me.
Also, it is implied that in Caleb’s parents’ relationship, it was his mother who laid down her defenses, kissed up, whatever – but still, it was the man who was behaving badly. Son, it was me who needed to change….
I tend to think that the biggest problem of that film is that they show that in the end, the beta groveling WORKS
when we all know in real life, it wouldn’t, and he’d be the world’s biggest chump, after she was sucking the doctors dick and taking all of Herb’s money.
That’s the biggest lie of all. Supplication to women does NOT WORK.
@Nummm Christianity is supposed to Patriarchal. When it is, families can function quite well.
@Jennifer
You are making things up. Here is the renewed vows scene. It says absolutely nothing about her vowing to change or follow his leadership. All it says is this time she means it for life.
Show me in the script where she ever apologizes or admits she was wrong. Show me where she agrees to follow his leadership. It isn’t there. You made it up.
@Jennifer
I should add this to the interviewing a prospective wife questions. Make her watch the movie and see if she can tell that Katherine is acting like a whore. If not, run…
The only problem is making a prospective wife watch this would be cruel in itself.
Jennifer I really got a kick out of reading your responses to my baiting questions. Thanks for the entertainment! As we all suspected women’s brains create false equivalencies to justify anything they want, yourself included.
Thanks!!! 🙂
I’m not making anything up, Dalrock. She said she wanted to change, that she wanted what he had, at the fire station scene; quite obviously their new vows would be different from the old ones. The film definitely should have had her literally apologize, but when she asked him if it was too late to ask him to grow old with her, she was clearly wondering if it was too late for him to forgive her. Once again, how was she being more unfaithful than he was, mentally, with his myriad porn? Would you ask prospective grooms if they saw anything wrong with his behavior?
Clearly, Celeste, you didn’t see all the other scenes where it was confirmed Caleb used porn quite a lot.
Sure Samuel, spiritual patriarchy works quite well, when it’s the woman groveling. Seen it, over and over. Groveling isnt a good idea, which is why I think they needed to majorly cut back that overdone ad nauseum bedroom scene where Caleb really became supplicating. But here’s a question: would the men here have a problem with it if the roles WERE reversed? Probably not.
Mark, I don’t know what’s biting your ass; we disagreed on Laura’s blog, and then we agreed on other areas and spoke civilly, and now you’re back to calling me not only a feminist, but a troll? Laura Grace, as a matter of fact, doesn’t in the least agree with you, and I’ve spoken with her for far longer.
Talk about hamsters, Joshua; I’ve rarely seen such eager male-o-sphere shitting all over a film most of you haven’t even seen. I never intended to stick around here and listen to a lot of seculars bemoaning the film for reasons more extensive than the anti-beta ones, but with words like Mark’s I’m always tempted to stay.
Not surprising you couldn’t come up with a more logical counter-argument or questions to begin with, YBM; love how some men skip half the picture when they want to make an anti-female point.
I love you too sweetie 🙂
The thing is, I understand (and understood) perfectly you guys’ anger over the wife’s attitude here, and that one nauseating bedroom scene spoiled the moment hugely. But it’s the misunderstanding of the film as a whole that bothers me so much, and the grating on the husband for doing any of the work to change in the first place. The message of the film isn’t that men need to become subordinate; it’s that even when your spouse isn’t being receptive, you need to keep offering love like Christ. Hell, it’s a hard message to swallow, but it’s supposed to be, as it’s not of this world. And certainly opposite to the idea that alphas should keep their wives wondering and in doubt of their devotion. Caleb went over the top in that scene, all right, and I always mentally edit the scene with his apology when I watch it, but the film as a whole is very different from what the critics here are claiming it is. And seriously: if you read the directors’ and writers’ other material, you’d know submitting to a wife’s leadership is not remotely what they’re about. No, they tell women to submit even when they’re not sure, even when they’re as skilled as their husbands in something.
YBM: Go play with someone else, pookie. Your friends think that flirting’s worse than porn.
Jen,
“The message of the film isn’t that men need to become subordinate; it’s that even when your spouse isn’t being receptive, you need to keep offering love like Christ.”
Except the woman is not doing that. Hence it IS fucked up.
Like most of your values and beliefs, you essential argument regarding this film is flawed, and made irrelevant the second you create an equivalency between a computer screen with naked images with a human male. In essence, you believe men are devices.
I only flirt with women worth flirting with, I’m mocking you dearie. 😉
I hope at least, that if the divorce has occured, Caleb would finally have gotten to say something along the lines of, “Just don’t blame this one on me, darling.” As it happens, he never intended for her to know about the money donation to her parents.
Here’s an approving comment of the film by a site very anti-feminism (LAF-Ladies Against Feminism): http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/What_Can_We_Do_22/Giveaway_8_Special_DVDs_for_Fireproof_the_Movie1003435.shtml
They’re well-known for their antique beliefs, including that women shouldn’t vote in an opposing way to their husbands. Strongest beliefs are found at the Hot Button issues.
I’m mocxking you too, honeybuns. Men are devices, lmao. Talk about a logic weasel, or whatever it is men have.
“Except the woman is not doing that”
No, the man is doing that; only ONE can do that in such a situation. Point being. I’m sure you don’t think this is only a woman’s role.
Yeah, her behavior’s fucked up, after a while of her husband’s generosity; look at us, what Jesus deals with.
I felt that this film was incredible in many respects. Firstly the suggestion that the strategy of the Love Dare would work in this sort of situation was incredible. It might work in a situation where the husband had been having an affair and had come back to the marriage intent on making it work, but in a situation where neither party shows respect for the other, then to suggest it would work is incredible. Secondly to put forward the idea that someone would pay over $24,000 to support the mother of a wife who has only just served him with divorce papers is incredible. Thirdly to suggest that the Caleb character would confront the Dr friend without rearranging his features when it seems he (Caleb) thinks he (Dr) is either knocking off his wife or is about to start strikes me as incredible. And finally to suggest that paying over $24,000 would cause the wife to fall back in love with the husband is totally incredible. For all of these reasons I was unable to suspend disbelief.
At the beginning of the film neither of the protagonists were Christian and it is clear that the marriage is already almost dead, just waiting for someone to say the last rites (issue divorce proceedings) and that would be it all over. So there was no reason why she should respect her husband rather than fall in with the prevailing orthodoxy of middle America and similarly there is no religious reason why her husband should not be looking at porn.
That the wife seemed to be already planning her marriage to the Dr. while still married to the fireman seems to me to be proof positive that she was certainly not Christian
The problem is that too many have heard the corrupted message of Christianity and people on this blog seem to have gotten into this position. When one looks at what Joel Olsteen preaches for example, and analyses what he says, it is a “health and wealth” message and not true Christianity, In Christian terms, marriage is not an institution to develop happiness, but to develop holiness. And it is not just the megachurches who preach some watered down version of Christianity, it happens in mainstream denominations too. Why else would the Episcopal Church in the USA appoint as a bishop a man who left his wife and children to move in with his boyfriend if they had not already abandoned the requirement for holy living in all of the flock. why does the Roman Catholic church have worldwide problems with paedophile priests if not because it has abandoned the requirement for holy living for all of the flock.
If one were to apply Christian morality to this film, it would be to say
1) The husband and wife should be having regular sex together
2) The husband should not be watching porn
3) The wife should not be flirting with the Dr.
4) The wife should be respecting the husband and following his lead
5) They should both be expressing their love for each other in practical, self-sacrificial ways
So please, those of you on this site who are not Christian, do not be afraid to call out hypocrisy when you see it from Christians. All that we ask is that you call it when you see it from others, like the ACLU and feminists.
Jen,
“Yeah, her behavior’s fucked up”
Thats it.
“Laura Grace, as a matter of fact, doesn’t in the least agree with you, and I’ve spoken with her for far longer.”
Laura can speak for herself, thanks.
Jennifer,
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck-well, you know the rest…
MarkyMark
Awesome, Fred.
Was that what you were waiting for me to say, Yohami? Hell, I agreed with that from the start; she was being a pain in the ass. That kind of perseverence is very hard, even for a Christian (the husband’s). The novelization stated that Kat wasn’t remotely used to Caleb being anything other than impatient with her, even if she was sick or upset, but I still found her stiffness in the bedroom scene weird.
I know you can, Laura, but I wasn’t aware you were here.
Mark, being a feminist is about a lot more than believing women used to be repressed and wanted equality, as I found out myself.
Ha, so men aren’t devices, we are weasels, relegated to the level of dumb beasts and vermin. Jennifer believes that a man has no agency, no capacity to think, feel, or experience. He only follows his base urges and drives.
A classic case of female projection. Jenny you are something else girl.
Jen,
Yes, that the woman is the fucked up here, and thus the husband behavior in that context is insanity.
You do can, anyone can, keep giving until you break. Turning the other cheek. Like Christ. Keep loving on spite of being spit on. And then you get crucified, like Christ. Except you dont come back after 3 days.
Dumb beasts and vermin, like hamsters you mean? You’ve said women have rationalization hamsters and I’ve heard that men have avoidance weasels, or something; tit for tat, darling. Sorry to spoil your fun, but you’re getting too ridiculous to continue with.
It seems insanity, Yohami, especially to people taught to give their mates less rather than more. Believe me, I’ve seen far worse treatment in marriages and relationships, with people left wrecked; I do know there’s a limit. In this case, if Katherine had left, the worst thing that happened would be that Caleb was single.
and broke.
Naw, I doubt he’d let her take everything; even at her angriest, she didn’t threaten to walk away with it all.
24K broke already, all his savings…
Seriously Jen, if this stuff was gender reversed, and it was the dude acting like a demeaning dick, flirting and about to marry a hotter chick, and the wife did all this stuff and gave up the 24K she had to launch her own business, what would you think?
My ex came from a culture where counseling was frowned on. But when I moved out on her following her poor conduct, she was desperate to save the marriage so I let her pick the counselor. The counselor was another woman who picked up fairly quickly the kind of person my STBX was and advised me on the side that she didn’t think our marriage was salvageable. So there do exist counselors who get it about wives being at fault as well as husbands. They can even be female. But I’m guessing they’re not that common.
Of course this accountability on the wives’ part is not well received and it really takes a woman with humility in her heart to take the message and act on it in the right way. Such women are rare … think of all the angry men in the manosphere who have seldom known such a woman and would therefore deny that they exist. Combine that with the great number of counselors and pastors/priests who bash men exclusively and there’s your 38% divorce figure for Christians.
I’d think he was being as much of a pain as the wife was, in this film, but was glad the marriage worked out.
Avoidance weasel? What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Who came up with this concept and where is it described?
Sure Samuel, spiritual patriarchy works quite well, when it’s the woman groveling. Seen it, over and over. Groveling isnt a good idea, which is why I think they needed to majorly cut back that overdone ad nauseum bedroom scene where Caleb really became supplicating. But here’s a question: would the men here have a problem with it if the roles WERE reversed? Probably not.
they shouldnt have a problem, b/c they are commanded to lead and love, and you are commanded to obey and submit
but, like the vast majority of females in western cultures, you dont WANT TO SUBMIT
you want to rebel, as satan wishes, and go to bullshit feminized.counseling, and read the latest bullsht relationship books — ANYTHING except doing what youre told
“Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:
“Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.
“And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.
“Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.
“And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.
“And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.” (Isaiah 3,4; nonconsecutive)
here’s Isaiah prophesying about female rebellion in the last days, i.e., now and soon upcoming
woman, having rebelled at the beginning, middle, and end, will live under REPROACH — especially the independent, liberated, empowered females ubiquitous to our times and cultures
the future will be more “patriarchal” than anything this foul planet has ever seen, an utterly masculine, and truly CHRISTian civilization, and women will BEG to lose their hyphenated surnames and take the name of a “mere male”
good times coming, jennifer, i suggest you start practising submission now
Here’s an approving comment of the film by a site very anti-feminism (LAF-Ladies Against Feminism): http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/What_Can_We_Do_22/Giveaway_8_Special_DVDs_for_Fireproof
Well Ladies Against Feminism (of all things LAF) said the film was ok. i gues that makes you an f’in asshole dalrock along with all of your sexest followers. And that greyghost guy should shoot himself.
“And seriously: if you read the directors’ and writers’ other material, you’d know submitting to a wife’s leadership is not remotely what they’re about. No, they tell women to submit even when they’re not sure, even when they’re as skilled as their husbands in something.”
Jennifer, we’re not getting that message from this movie. Sure she might have promised to make up in the end. But the movie is filled with her running away, refusing him, seeing the doctor and so on.
“The film definitely should have had her literally apologize…”
At least you get that much, I’ll give you credit for that. But it’s not enough, her attitude has sucked almost all the way through the movie. I would never reconnect with a woman like that, who didn’t get down on her knees and apologize for running to the doctor and other actions through which she made clear to Caleb she didn’t want to be there anymore… she does not deserve it without the deepest expression of genuine humility. Of which most women are incapable. If she truly wanted the marriage, why is she making a run at the doctor in the first place?
LOL Nice nihilism, Ray. So simple; I think that attitude, of wanting women on bent knee, begging for more ruling, more than ever on this earth, you say? More than the tribes who chopped off pieces of vaginas, or shrouded them in body-length veils and shot them when a toe was shown? That’s not enough for your domineering lust? That kind of attitude, I think, is what brought a film like this about. I will give my life for my future husband. For you, a rotten creep, you can bet I’d never submit or give you an ounce of respect.
I think that on this board, many see the pro-female anti-male sentiments in society, and hope to see some balance in Christian films. So the beef with Jennifer I think is that she’s pushing more sympathy to the female in this movie, when there is way too much sympathy to women in general. If this movie existed in a balanced world, I think it wouldn’t really bother folks here too much.
“Well Ladies Against Feminism (of all things LAF) said the film was ok. i gues that makes you an f’in asshole dalrock along with all of your sexest followers. And that greyghost guy should shoot himself”
Glad to see you’re thinking rationally, Greyghost.
Thank you Jennifer I knew I was smarter than everybody else.
Thank you for your calm disagreement, Random. After all Katherine’s crying and claims of “I want what happened to you to happen to me” and “Is it too late to ask you to be with me?” I have no doubt she apologized profusely in private. But yeah, sure would have been nice to actually see it. In the book, she greeted him at home, that night or the next, with candles lit and wearing his favorite teddy, or some other outfit.
“If she truly wanted the marriage, why is she making a run at the doctor in the first place?”
Because he caught her at a weak moment. We don’t see the interaction between her and the doc until she and Caleb have a huge fight, in which he finally yells in her face, she cries and says she wants out, and he says that’s fine with him. So after that, as far as she knew, the marriage was over. Things got more complicated after that; when Caleb gave her the first few gestures, he wasn’t feeling sincere, just wanted her thanks. Then, one of her friends told her he was just buttering her up for a divorce, that she knew a woman whose husband did the same thing and then left her dry. So Katherine went home..and found Caleb looking at porn. Any attempts on his part to reconcile were, after that, dead upon arrival for some time; she didn’t trust him. And he didn’t tell her when he became a Christian, or that he actually wanted to save the marriage, so she remained in the dark as to the reasons of his actions for some time. Still, the sick bed scene should have been cut back a good deal.
Well-said, Celeste.
It does depend on where you come from; these guys have suffered feminism, while I’ve seen that other women more tolerant of liberalism have suffered from spiritual patriarchy. I do agree with the folks here, though, including you, about the film being faulty in not showing the wife actually apologize, and in going overboard in one scene with the husband apologizing. (In any case, some things he said in the apology didn’t sound very realistic, especially since the book described Caleb as a guy who didn’t know how to express himself).
“I’ve seen that other women more tolerant of liberalism have suffered from spiritual patriarchy”
Not that ALL women tolerant of liberalism have done so; some are just foolish. In general society, American women are the luckiest on the planet.
Because why should she like have to actually file for divorce, much less have it finalized, before she gets a replacement man?
By this logic, Caleb, and something like half of married men, would be justified at MANY POINTS in their marriage going out and having one-night stands. COMPLETELY justified. And would have done NOTHING WRONG.
Ah, the Sacred Bond of Marriage. Somewhat easier to escape than an unlocked car.
Oh wait, that doesn’t benefit the woman. I’m sure Jennifer will explain to us all how that is different.
Fireproof is a modern hillbilly love story, southern style. You’ve got a selfish, wild country girl who loves her mother more than Jesus and a immature mama’s boy who has no clue how to handle life with decisive leadership. Here in southern smalltown America, strong, liberated coutry girls thrive on their empowerment while the men spend their lives in perpetual adolescence, being raised by those liberated, single country mothers.
I’ve watched, with my own eyes, how these country girls favor their daughters and connect with their sons only in authoritative ways. One young women laughingly quoted the following little odes:
Girls go to college to get knowledge and boys go to Jupiter to get stupider.
and
Girls rule, boys drool.
These country girls idolize Miranda Lambert and have Gretche Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” as their anthem. They are proud that they can smoke, drink, shoot guns, fight and drive big trucks as well as, if not better than, the country boys.
So you strip away the fancy house, the big money, Contemporary Christian Music and the religious symbols and all you have left in Fireproof is a couple of southern hillbillies fighting and then having a tearful altar call in a small Baptist church on Sunday. Rinse and repeat.
Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia made this film and that says a great deal about this film. I’m a Christian who was born and raised in the south, but I’m not at all impressed by this movie or its lame message.
Rationalization Hamster? Oh, you mean this:
Jennifer, she made the run at the doctor while she was STILL married. Weak moment, hell, … she’s just as bad as he is yet she isn’t taken to task for it. The film made it OK for her to do that. Her disgust at his porn does not excuse her running to the doctor at all. Just saying what’s good for him applies to her too, but the film never makes her accountable the way it does him. Truly execrable …
but I still found her stiffness in the bedroom scene weird.
That’s only because you’ve never been in a situation like that in real life yourself, I would guess. I have been. Her icy reaction is 100% normal for a woman when a man supplicates in a situation like that because she’s already left him in her heart and finds him a pathetic worm not worthy of being called a man. This is not “odd” behavior by a woman — it’s 100% normal in that situation.
The film made it OK for her to do that. Her disgust at his porn does not excuse her running to the doctor at all. Just saying what’s good for him applies to her too, but the film never makes her accountable the way it does him. Truly execrable …
That’s because porn is now one of the main bugbears in mainstream US Christianity that is used to beat men around the head. It’s in its own special category of absolute, unmitigated evil. Engaging with an actual human being in a sexual/emotional-sexual way when you are married to someone else is like chewing bubblegum, but looking at pictures of unknown people on the internet is the absolute depth of evil, and is much, much worse than actually contemplating an affair with a real flesh and blood person you are interacting with in a sexual/emotional way.
With attitudes like this, why does one have to wonder why mainstream American Christianity is so utterly fucked up when it comes to men, marriage and sex relations in general. It’s absolutely hostile to men, full stop, in a completely and utterly imbalanced way.
“By this logic, Caleb, and something like half of married men, would be justified at MANY POINTS in their marriage going out and having one-night stands”
Um, wrong. I never said Katherine’s actions were right, but she didn’t have SEX with the guy either, so comparing that to a one-night stand is incredibly weak.
“Engaging with an actual human being in a sexual/emotional-sexual way when you are married to someone else is like chewing bubblegum, but looking at pictures of unknown people on the internet is the absolute depth of evil, and is much, much worse than actually contemplating an affair with a real flesh and blood person you are interacting with in a sexual/emotional way.”
No one said any such BS. Katherine’s actions were wrong, but you’re not going to get anywhere by ignoring the fact that he was wrong too. Caleb’s apology and body language was over the top, but I don’t agree that she’d rebuff him just for apologizing; she was crying as he spoke, because she never believed he’d reveal any sincerity. She was stiff afterwards because she was still wary of things not lasting.
Random, did you see the film? A woman did warn Katherine that she was making a mistake. She was pretty gently spoken, but then so was Caleb’s dad when he was correcting him; Caleb was harder on himself than anyone else. I don’t think Katherine consciously planned on leaving at that point; she was enjoying the feeling of being appreciated, because she told her mom that Caleb made her feel humiliated and ashamed (no doubt Caleb sought porn partly for a similar reason: a cold wife). She didn’t realize, as absorbed women often don’t, that she was playing with fire. The movie did not make it ok, though, and Caleb threatened the doctor with a balled up fist once he found out.
Katherine’s actions were wrong, but you’re not going to get anywhere by ignoring the fact that he was wrong too.
They are not even close to being the same thing and the suggestion in the film (which reflects the broader Christian culture in America about this) is absurd. We were over this a few threads ago, in any case, in the first Fireproof thread on this blog.
@Jennifer,
NO… (about your spin & reflections)
Brendan is at least twice your intellect, about twice your age and has way more experience. It would be prudent for you to stop thinking and just listen.
@Brendan
Engaging with an actual human being in a sexual/emotional-sexual way when you are married to someone else is like chewing bubblegum, but looking at pictures of unknown people on the internet is the absolute depth of evil, and is much, much worse than actually contemplating an affair with a real flesh and blood person you are interacting with in a sexual/emotional way
Pornography is nothing more than digital images and videos. It is not at all the same as interacting with a living, breathing woman, though real women were used to create the images and video. That is the lure and the lie of pornography. It is nothing pretending to be something.
To say that internet porn is the same as cheating with a real woman, you would have to say that playing a military video game (i.e. Call of Duty) is the same as being a real soldier in Iraq or playing Flight Simulator is the same thing as being a real 747 pilot or that chatting on Facebook is the same as a real face-to-face conversation over dinner.
Virtual reality is not the same as reality. Pornography is not the same actually having sex with another woman. Pornography as an excuse for divorce is like divorcing a man because he likes to watch football. Rediculous.
7man: NO (on your interpretation of all things intellectual and marital). Not even worth getting into, and you should know your crappy patronization only tempts me to speak more.
How were they not equally wrong, Brendan? How can you consider a weak-minded woman enjoying being appreciated to be worse than an upset husband looking at porn?
7Man,
In order to listen to Brendan, Jennifer would have to be humble-a totally FOREIGN concept to a modern, feminist, American woman. She cannot, nor will not, admit that-gasp-a Ferengi MALE was in any way superior to her, Man! That would constitute high crimes and treason against The Sisterhood-oh, the horror! She could no more do that than you or I could stop breathing.
MarkyMark
“No one said any such BS.”
“How were they not equally wrong, Brendan? How can you consider a weak-minded woman enjoying being appreciated to be worse than an upset husband looking at porn?”
ROFL. Oh sweetie, its not your fault its just the way God made you.
Since I’m not a Christian I’ll ignore the pornography because that should only be a “legitimate” problem if he isn’t able to get it up in the bedroom – and there is no indication he is even being offered chances in the bedroom. The real question is her intentions with the Doctor ( a sympathetic ear , or is she thinking of cheating) and the fact that this stupid movie presents marriage as some sort of one way street. That’s where it does its damage.
Marriage is a one-way street Clarence, this has been discussed at length throughout a thousand mens-issues blogs.
How can you consider a weak-minded woman enjoying being appreciated to be worse than an upset husband looking at porn?
Rather obviously because the first involves toying with the idea of having an affair, whereas the second involves nothing of the sort at all. Rather obvious. Again, this was discussed ad nauseam on this blog recently here: https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/warn-men-beware-christian-marriage-doublespeak-and-hair-trigger-for-wife-initiated-divorce/
How do you know she planned on having an affair, Brendan, or that porn wouldn’t lead him to do the same? Their divorce was supposed to be occuring fairly soon, so she shouldn’t need to do anything so rash while she was still married. The Bible, as it is, compares lust to adultery, and Caleb was lusting plenty before she was.
Jen’s not giving an INCH, is she? She cannot, in accordance with her feminist programming, admit that a man is right; she cannot admit, no matter the objective proof, that a man is superior to her-even when it’s obvious that Brendan has a far superior intellect…
YBM, I said they were equally wrong, not that her actions were less. You need to use logic before you make fun of others.
“Pornography as an excuse for divorce is like divorcing a man because he likes to watch football”
Utter. Bullshit. So many men around here are dismissing porn like it’s nothing or promoting suffocating male rule, saying women just need to obey, and one guy on the older thread said men in the OT were allowed to visit prostitutes even while married. Yet women who like this film are the problem, even if they agree about the wife’s bad behavior. Right.
Jen,
Perhaps if the bitch wife (Katherine, is it?) were taking CARE of Caleb’s needs, he wouldn’t be inclined to look at porn, would he? Ah, but to admit that is to go against your feminist programming and indoctrination; you could no more admit that a woman is wrong than I could stop breathing.
MarkyMark
I already gave plenty of inches, Mark, in saying REPEATEDLY that I agreed about the film going over the top. Talk about weaseling; it’s you who doesn’t budge an inch and claims I have hatred issues, even though I don’t have a blog calling the opposite sex stupid, man-whores, obnoxious, prideful, worthless in logic, or anything that you do.
@Jennifer,
You are using a “what if” projection about a man to equate with the REAL behavior of a woman.
Again I say NO.
I just tell the truth, Darlin’; when I do, women THINK it’s a hateful act…
Mark, once again, I’ve criticized numerous women, both on Laura’s blog and right here in this thread, even saying Caleb was partly drawn to porn because of a cold wife. You’re just speaking like a fool at this point.
@Mark
As a mainstay of the blogs I check you know better than anyone that due to certain….ahem…cognitive limitations inherent in the female sex, debate with them is limited as they follow a script (which women are very, very good at, ie. mindless repetition)
1. Deny the issue exists
2. Create a false equivalency
3. Shame
I do not get upset when my roommates cat scratches the carpet, why would I criticize a woman for not doing something they are biologically incapable of: Thought.
The Bible, as it is, compares lust to adultery, and Caleb was lusting plenty before she was.
When Jesus made this statement (Matthew 5:28), there was no such thing as pornography. It was real women that caught men’s eye. Pornography is not a real woman. There’s nothing to lust after. That is it’s main failing.
It’s funny that Jennifer can’t even admit that Brendan and 7man are smarter than she is (both are smarter than most, I would say).
The great thing about encountering those smarter than yourself is that you get the opportunity to learn something, if you can bear to open yourself to it and admit you don’t already know everything. The vehemence of her defence points to a weak intellect.
“You are using a “what if” projection about a man to equate with the REAL behavior of a woman”
So are you; you are assuming she planned to have an affair, while ignoring that her husband, too, was actively sinning. Once again, lusting terrifically day after day. So, no, your argument here isn’t very strong either. I’ve said that they’re both wrong, that they both should have apologized, that the film went overboard, and I receive accusations of hatred, feminism, and being intolerant. That logic is ludicrous.
As an unbeliever, this stuff about porn fascinates me. I honestly don’t care if my husband views porn occasionally, as long as he’s still into me and it’s not obsessive. To use that as an excuse for ANY poor behavior on my part would be ridiculous, in my mind.
“Pornography is not a real woman”
LOL Yes they are. You’re saying it’s worse for a man to be turned on by a woman walking by, then to deliberately watch women having sex online? Seriously?
You’re a cute fangirl, CL. But I don’t care for the intellect of anyone who more or less dismisses porn as being less harmful than flirting. I thought Christians were different, yet this is two men dismissing porn, and I know another Catholic man who watches it freely.
Celeste has a more mature, more SENSIBLE response WRT porn than most Christian women do. She ‘gets it’ more than Jen ever will…
“There’s nothing to lust after. That is it’s main failing”
You’re right about that, Miser, in the fact that they’re not really interacting. But it’s still sex, isn’t it? Aren’t they watching those women, fantasizing about them? Porn is real, and acidic.
You’re a cute fangirl, CL.
Aww, shucks.
MarkyMark, I was thinking the same thing. It seems a Christian man would be better of with a secular woman in a lot of cases.
So you’re ok with porn too, Mark? Is that it? That makes a 4th Christian man dismissing it, if you are.
You too, CL? A man would be better with a secular woman who didn’t mind him watching porn?
Ahh, female debate script 3 has emerged.
Declare yourselves puny men, to our goddess, confess your sins on her most holy of altars.
Oh and Jen, you don’t have to agree with a person to note their superior intellect. I don’t always agree with Brendan but that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge that he is far smarter than I am. I will admit, however, to having been a ridiculous 7man fangirl for a long while now – I was a fan before he became the artist formerly known as…! Next time I see him, I will ask him to autograph my boob!
“Next time I see him, I will ask him to autograph my boob!”
I thought he already did, or was that your butt?
Nice to see someone with a sense of humor. But I am curious, CL, about your words to Mark regarding a secular woman’s view of porn.
@Jennifer,
I took the liberty to sign my name to both!
There are lots of men in the blogoshpere that demonstrate an abundance of thoughtful analysis. Yet there is a dearth of quantity insightful posts and comments by women. Many men understand women, but very few women understand men.
I don’t agree with most of the smart thoughtful posts but I learn something from each and have the prudence not to blindly oppose. Rather I remain silent or may affirm the parts which I agree with or include a thoughtful comment with a slight influence.
I strive to use decorum unless the other is a total dumbshit and then the gloves come off. I will not refrain from humiliating those of lesser intellect that resort to shaming, calling names or spouting total crap.
I thought Christians were different, yet this is two men dismissing porn, and I know another Catholic man who watches it freely.
Jennifer, please understand, I’m not dismissing porn. I am simply saying that it is empty and lacking in substance, like everything in a virtual environment. To equate it with flesh-and -blood seems way overblown. I don’t need porn and would rather have a real woman than porn any day.
However, porn would not rant and rave and threaten to divorce me just because it doesn’t like the way I’m doing things. Hmm.
Jen,
I wasn’t dismissing porn. I am well aware of the verse that says when a man looks on a woman with lust, then he’s already committed adultery in his heart. What I object to is the total EXCUSING of women’s bad behavior because her husband looks at porn. I was also pointing out that he may have had a reason to look at it: Wifey wasn’t meeting his carnal needs-far from a rare occurrence. All I did was offer an explanation of why Caleb did what he did. Given Katherine’s ‘charming’ personality, I could easily see her neglecting her husband’s needs-something else that runs contrary to Scripture. After all, when you’re married, your body is not your own. Perhaps you forgot that, eh?
MarkyMark
Seeing as I am sexually faithful, cook his meals, give him respect, and contribute my income to my husband, yes, I think he’s better off with me than with a woman who disapproves of the occasional perusal of porn.
While not a believer, I do retain many of the traditional values of the culture. For me, this was the “not throwing the baby out with the bathwater” part.
Celeste,
You’re a better Christian wife than most PROFESSING Christian wives…
MarkyMark
The porn thing is way overblown by Christian women as CL wrote about; Masturbation, Marriage & Sin. I doubt most women (Jennifer?) will comprehend that there was no promotion of porn in that post.
So, the movie infers that Katherine has cut Caleb off. Rather than divorcing her, he switches to viewing porn.
Since Caleb is watching porn, Katherine feels justified in planning to take up with the doctor.
Both of these can be viewed as violating the ban against adultery. Neither has actually committed adultery, so we’re in a gray area. For degrees of gray, Katherine is obviously much closer to black. She is taking steps toward mating with another man, lust is in her heart for that specific person. Caleb is looking at pictures of someone he’ll never know, never meet, and doesn’t plan to do anything with. The porn is an aid to masturbation, nothing more.
I even went and asked a ‘professional’, monsignor O’Grady (my old parish priest, now retired). His opinion was that Caleb’s sin was venial, while Katherine was falling into mortal sin. I don’t expect you to accept that, Jennifer, I also don’t expect that you’ll have an intelligent rebuttal.
What this movie does validate is Roissy’s maxim that the person who cares the least has the power in a relationship.
Isn’t the point here that if you submit to your husband, you can influence him, but you may not “put your foot down” and withhold your body as punishment or whatever? If this is the case, then his occasional use of porn is something that you may just have to deal with, so long as it’s not causing real problems – by which I don’t mean hurt feelings caused by blowing the porn use out of all proportion and expecting a man a tip toe around your feelings. All you’ll do by doing that is drive the porn use underground, where it has greater potential for real harm.
Isn’t the point here that if you submit to your husband, you can influence him, but you may not “put your foot down” and withhold your body as punishment or whatever?
This is absolutely, 100% correct. I’ll not get into the porn thing because that’s more contentious than I think it should be among believers, but CL hit the nail on the head with the distinction between influencing and trying to yank the reins.
@Nummm
Like Carnivore said…what we observe in a lot of the mainstream churches does not equal Christianity – what the Bible says equals Christianity – plus, observe Christianity throughout history – definitely not feminized. Definitely patriarchal. What we see today taking over the mainstream church is a sick perversion…I condemn this feminism as much as anyone else here.
You have to separate the implementation of religious institutions in *one* particular culture/country/time period in history, one little corner of the world, physically and temporally speaking, with an entire belief/philosophical system throughout all of history. The early church father’s were very suspicious of women, and the Bible frequently makes note that women are to submit to men and never the other way around (unless you count small children submitting to their mothers.) Why do you think that priests/ministers always have to be male? (Except, of course, counting the disobedient and wayward modern churches, which once again, are most definitely not following Christianity on the gender dynamics front.)
So while I understand your contempt for these feminized modern churches, please don’t conflate them with what Christianity historically has been, and will be again, once all the wheat is separated from the chaff, to borrow a Biblical analogy.
Even if just to satisfy your own curiosity, trying reading a little bit (you can find it free online) of some of these historical writings (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Origen, Tertuillian, and so on) or some of the Bible itself. Heck, see what early 20th century wrtiers like G.K. Chesterton had to say about feminism…Anyway post here with the first feminist writing that you find.
Here’s a problem. It appears to me that the heroine really only returns to her husband when she finds out how much money he spent. So if the handsome doctor had spent, say, $25,000 she would have followed him. Therefore, the heroine auctioned herself to the highest bidder.
There’s a word for this.
[D: That is exactly the point of the movie. Only when she found out her husband had given nearly 100X what the doctor gave did she all of a sudden decide she wanted her husband back.]
“There are lots of men in the blogoshpere that demonstrate an abundance of thoughtful analysis. Yet there is a dearth of quantity insightful posts and comments by women. Many men understand women, but very few women understand men”
I think about the same amount of women and men don’t get each other, but I agree with your first points. 7man, I haven’t been blindly disagreeing; I don’t understand how people can keep missing the fact that I’ve agreed, repeatedly, that Katherine was wrong, the movie was overdone, and I did NOT like the scene with Caleb’s apology. The responses to me have been, “Ohh, man-hater! Blind femmie! Never admits women are wrong! (I’ve done this several times). Doesn’t think flirting is wrong! (Contradicted this too). Thinks men should supplicate!” (Said just the opposite). Much of the blind disagreement has been to me, not paying any heed to what I actually said; I call that bs. I don’t paint myself as a victim here in any way, but I have been called names and shamed repeatedly.
“I took the liberty to sign my name to both!”
Is that what the Bible means by “your body’s not your own”? Heh.
Miser, thank you for explaining. But since porn is not about real women actually being in a man’s life, that actually makes it harder for real women in said man’s life to compete with it. In fact, Katherine said she couldn’t; Caleb did, OTOH, compete with the doctor. I was actually not referring to you, btw, when I said two men were dismissing porn (or seemed to be); I meant Christian men, and don’t know whether you’re Christian.
“Given Katherine’s ‘charming’ personality, I could easily see her neglecting her husband’s needs-something else that runs contrary to Scripture. After all, when you’re married, your body is not your own. Perhaps you forgot that, eh?”
No, Katherine should have been giving her husband what he needed, I agree. But the porn had been going on for some time, and men apparently don’t get that that can make a woman feel totally unworthy and useless. We don’t know when the porn started or when they stopped having sex; the film’s more unclear about this. Thanks for confirming your meaning, Mark. Generally, if a woman withholds sex for a long enough time, I consider that ample grounds for divorce. In “The Bridges of Madison County”, Clint Eastwood met a woman who was with a married man. The man had a frigid wife, and everyone was siding against the mistress and the husband. Well, sweeties, I thought, that’s what happens with women act like planks of wood.
“I even went and asked a ‘professional’, monsignor O’Grady (my old parish priest, now retired). His opinion was that Caleb’s sin was venial, while Katherine was falling into mortal sin.”
Another man thinking porn is lesser. When I spoke against it to several secular men, I was called a dumb bitch, a dried up lesbian, all sorts of lovely things. Yet all the men except one (who actually had an intelligent discussion with me) denied having any involvement with porn at all. Yeah. Right.
CL, I’m glad you don’t promote porn, but I’m amazed you have any tolerance for it at all; it’s exploitation of loose sex, mass fornication, and utter degradation and sexual objectification of both men and women. Not, in the least, something to tolerate or dismiss as not a big deal.
“Isn’t the point here that if you submit to your husband, you can influence him”
Yes, but Katherine wasn’t a Christian or at all familiar with this concept, which sounds contradictory. I don’t know why you guys think he was the one walking on eggshells; he blew his top more often than she did. Can’t always blame him, but I can understand both their frusterations.
Elspeth, it is natural to want to yank the reins when you come across something like that. Nagging’s never good, but it’s also painful to see your husband doing that.
“If this is the case, then his occasional use of porn is something that you may just have to deal with”
That’s not something acceptable for anyone to do, CL, and not something the other spouse should ever just have to “deal” with. Don’t men get upset, too, when women read crap like “Twilight” and start comparing their husbands to pretend men? Quite a few Christians have made a fuss over this, and if so, should make an equal squall about porn.
Also, as a man who has seen a few women do a few things in the world over a few years, I’m afraid that I see the last scene differently from many. I see her as being amazed at the power she has over her husband, and wondering what she can make him do next.
Call me a cynic if you wish. It won’t be the first time by a long shot.
Hey Dalrock how much did Jennifer pay you to hog up your blog?
CL, just read your post “Masturbation, Marriage & Sin.” I think it’s excellent! Very fair to both sides. Masturbation is a different animal from porn; I don’t know why women would demonize it as much as all that.
That’s not something acceptable for anyone to do, CL, and not something the other spouse should ever just have to “deal” with. Don’t men get upset, too, when women read crap like “Twilight” and start comparing their husbands to pretend men?
Yes absolutely this is a thing that both should discuss and “deal” with!
But it a waste of energy to worry about the jot and the tittle. Just honestly and openly talk about it and both should accept reality. Do not deprive one another and it will likely work out. It is her FEELINGS and not the trigger for her feelings that is the issue. He should address her feelings, affirm her, not appease her, or make promises or lie. He can lead them both through this, but not by giving in to her whims, projected beliefs and accusations.
Yes, they should discuss it. I’m guessing their problems started when one unwittingly offended the other, and the other got quiet out of anger, then this offended the other one because they didn’t know why..and so on, and on.
Jen
Maybe this would fix the problem: Have the editors of the movie script re-write things such that Calebs porn use is the thing that saves their relationship. In the new, improved plot, Caleb stops caring so much about ever sexing his frigid, thickening wife again. So she starts to feel, down in her gut, that she has screwed something up big-time and if these trends continue she will be a bad situation. Especially when she notices “The Doctor” being hit on by a couple of girls younger, hotter, and tighter than she will ever be again.
Thus awakened, the wifey starts hitting the gym and giving Sunday morning before-Church blow jobs without being asked. And swallowing.
In the new version, the move ends with a future scene of the happy couple holding hands as they watch a flock of their chirping, happy grandchildren playing all around them.
Porn saving a relationship and letting a woman flourish; likely.
Why are women so threatened by porn? He sees another naked woman, but she really can’t compete with the love I have for him. Maybe if all a woman has to offer is her sex, it’s competition. But if you bring more to the table, a naked chick on a computer screen will not be able to compete with you.
You answered your own question Celeste
“But if you bring more to the table”
They don’t.
Those women have different bodies, Celeste, and do often perverted things; it’s not just jealousy. Your husband’s not supposed to lust after anyone else. I’m opposed to it as a Christian, not just a woman.
Why are women so threatened by porn? He sees another naked woman, but she really can’t compete with the love I have for him. Maybe if all a woman has to offer is her sex, it’s competition. But if you bring more to the table, a naked chick on a computer screen will not be able to compete with you.
Ka-ka-kaboom! Celeste DRILLS another one! Too bad more women (especially Christian women) don’t get this…
Mark I would say that women (especially Christian women) do get it. For women, acquiring and securing exclusive access to as “good” (rich, successful, etc) man’s resources as possible is their Raison d’être. Porn creates a situation where a man does not have to deal with the illusion of scarcity that is created by a woman’s preferred form of mating (monogamous hypergamy) and thus, her vagina has lost its magic, so to speak.
There are many women who find their partners’ viewership of porn offensive, and their partners can’t figure out why. This article does the best job I’ve seen so far of explaining why
http://teamohq.com/sexual-polarity-david-deida-vs-adult-entertainment
Right TFH, I always threaten men I’m attracted to. The classic male fantasy and lame projection. I shared a fantasy about killing you because you were accusing me of stupid, and disgusting, sexual things; that’s called bloodlust, not sexual lust.
Mark, if you understand about porn, I’m sure you get why women are threatened by it too.
I’ll leave you guys to discuss it among yourselves. It was nice talking with some of you, and I hope at least some clarifications have been made; try reading the Kendricks’ “Resolution” books.
Dalrock, you may like “Courageous”. It celebrates fatherhood and the need for it.
But a never-married guy does know how women think, and even knows me more than I know myself. That was the disgusting thing you kept repeating to me, that I lusted after you, TFH.
Enjoy your fantasies.
The tingles were so strong that the mere presence of TFH in the thread has forced Jenny to schedule some personal time offline.
Jennifer: “Another man thinking porn is lesser. When I spoke against it to several secular men, I was called a dumb bitch, a dried up lesbian, all sorts of lovely things. Yet all the men except one (who actually had an intelligent discussion with me) denied having any involvement with porn at all. Yeah. Right.”
Is this what you consider an intelligent comment? Oh noes, you’ve been called names by other people (tarring me by association, since you can’t pin that one on me) because of your porn denunciations! And they are tarred black by the evil porn (that they didn’t admit to), so they are obviously mortal sinners damned to hell, and I should be too.
How about some thought about my logical points? Shaming by association isn’t going to work on me, child.
Don’t call Jen stupid!
Those women have bodies unlike mine. But a beautiful woman on a screen doing “perverted” things can’t compete with an alright looking woman with a good heart. It seems that some Christian women are so committed to seeing porn as so bad, and therefore it MUST always have devastating consequences. That’s just not the reality that I’m experiencing.
Maybe I just missed the gene, or law written on my heart, or whatever, that makes me recoil if my husband looks at another woman. The porn he sees is mild stuff, just some pics of naked chicks on the web, and I just think, “meh, yeah, they’re pretty.”
And as for the suggesting it’s ridiculous for never married guys to know what women think more than a woman, these women are not speaking for me. I don’t feel justified taking my husband to task for a wayward glance, I’m capable of reading Twilight without wishing I was the main character.
It’s odd. My husband is my best friend. I want him to be as happy and fulfilled in life as possible. If it’s not hurting anyone, I want him to be able to have his fun. So he can watch his James Bond marathon, see a few naked chicks on the internet, spend his money setting up some kind of weird multi-computer in the basement, etc. Why does every sexual thought, every money spent, seem to be the opportunity for conflict?
Maybe I do get gina tingles hanging out here, or at roissy’s, or reading Twilight, etc. He doesn’t care, it makes me feel sexier, and he reaps the benefits of that!
@Jennifer
The message of the film isn’t that he needs to love his wife. The message is that he needs to maker her love him. Think again about the scene where the conflict is finally resolved. She goes from loving the doctor at one moment, to all of a sudden loving her husband again. This is the point of the love dare. Not for him to learn to love her, but for him to make her love him. In case you missed this, the authors even reinforced the point where Caleb tells the doctor that he is competing for his wife’s heart, her telling him she didn’t love him, her not caring when he was burned in a fire, etc. This is how the conflict is resolved. She doesn’t decide she made vows she needs to keep, she decides she loves him again.
Jennifer doesn’t give off the Desi/Bag Lady vibes, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have trolled this thread all weekend as “Jennifer.”
@Jennifer
and later:
Edit: and later:
Admit it. You changed this film in your mind because it is too awful to accept as it actually is. You pretend they didn’t have him give a groveling apology and that she actually apologized. But they did have him give a long groveling apology and she didn’t ever apologize in the movie. We aren’t talking about the movie in your head, we are talking about the movie they actually made.
Argument for SAHM: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069965/Stressed-angry-How-modern-female-boss-bully.html ?
Jennifer said,
NO, LUST is a sin. Mere arousal is not the same thing. You are confused. Your lack of understanding of profound, but is all too common a misunderstanding among Christians.
Celeste understands the difference between image and real. Men may view image but WANT REAL. Also keep in mind that although men are more visual than women, men are also LESS influenced by environment that women are. Celeste clearly shows she is a better woman than most Christian wives. I offer no apology to Christian women for this obvious observation.
This should be a reason for Christian women to re-evaluate and improve, rather than did in their heels. It is DAMN hard to lead a woman with her heels dug in. Unhappiness and devastation prevails.
In the end, Katherine submitted to the patriarchy in her head, in Jennifer’s head.
My head hurts.
Damn YBM you beat me too it. Women around here do a lot of things in their head. Why cant they just have their divorce fantasy in their head? /rhetorical question.
You said “the marriage was over”. So, how is it cheating on the wife if the “marriage is over”?
So now the marriage is NOT OVER if the man cheats. Okay, got it. It is only over if the woman wants to cheat.
And by the way, if a married guy went out and bought a 10 prostitute on a business trip, the wife should be less worried, way less worried, than the husband should be if the wife were flirting with a doctor.
This is obvious stuff, Jennifer. Way obvious.
The husband is being led by his lust, but is not plotting destroying the marriage. The wife IS.
I consider the wife’s behavior 10x times worse. But you consider it slavery for the man to expect any loyalty from his wife, so I can see your problem with the husband having any expectations about the wife.
The thing that annoys me about these sorts of narratives is that they are crafted in such a way that it is hard to make a specific judgment because the info isn’t there, but they stand in for a reality that would not be hard to judge. So we don’t really know much about Caleb’s porn habits, and it appears that Katherine didn’t actually sleep with the doctor. But IRL she probably would have slept with him and we would know what Caleb’s real proclivities are. In a similar way, Harlequin romances are chock – absolutely CHOCK – full of single mothers who aren’t single mothers. Or aren’t single mothers of their own doing. They’re the aunts who’ve suddenly inherited children and are trying to do the right thing or widows whose husbands have suddenly died. Or they had to get divorced because he became a raging monster/drug dealer overnight, etc. This sort of narrative allows readers who might disapprove of single motherhood to still enjoy reading the rescue of a single mother by a handsome, well-funded hero who’s always wanted to be a father. Read enough of these things and you start thinking that all women are mere victims of circumstance. And from there it’s only a short leap to believing that they all have a right to be rescued. (To be fair, within the genre, this is changing somewhat. Now you have single mothers who are choosing to be single mothers, whether by sperm bank or ONS, because they are *independent women who can take care of themselves* but who might still like to have a white knight take care of some of the peskier problems of life. Fully entitled to the rescue that’s not a “rescue,” though.)
I don’t like porn. It’s dehumanizing, and the industry grinds already broken people up for its own profit. But it sounds like Caleb was only dabbling in it – which is worthy of a trip to the confessional, rather than divorce court. Clearly Katherine was dissatisfied with the bargain she’d made and wanted a “Christian” excuse to get out. Porn use was it. The ending indicates that she can be bought again for the price of his life savings, and I do wonder if she went back to Caleb not because he shelled out so much, but because the doctor shelled out so little. Caleb could have saved a lot of money if he’d been able to channel Petruchio and make her say the sun was the moon, but clearly he’s unable. I would not believe for a second that her vows this time will “take,” even if she says them before a whole countryside full of life-size crosses. She is not trustworthy, and if she is dissatisfied with a life that would look pretty darn good compared to those of 95+% of the world (youth, good looks, good health, attractive, loving husband, enough money, lovely home, loving family), just like the Fisherman’s Wife, she will never be satisfied.
There are a couple of sites on the web where women tell each other stories of the horrible “abuse” they had been forced to endure and how they had over-come it. They thank each other for all the “help and support” they have provided and helped them to “heal”.
From time to time, they let it out that the stories are made up out of thin air. Deep down, none of them seem to care about that detail.
Keep this in mind the next time you feel tempted to argue with a woman.
Dalrock, I watched the entire film! What I got from it was more a conversion story than a marriage story. The point was to show how when one spouse becomes born again in Christ, their life is changed for the better, and that example can affect the other spouse, who will also eventually become born again and thus Christ will save their marriage.
Which spouse becomes born again first and changed is irrelevent. The movie wants us to become a born again Christians. It promises improved marriages if we do.
Also: she totally needed to grovel to be taken anywhere close to seriously, and she didn’t even *admit wrongdoing*. She did the infantile, smilearen’tIcuteletmeoffthehook shrug and pointed to her engagement ring. (I noted she dug frantically in the drawer for the ENGAGEMENT ring – a symbol of the resources one’s suitor can offer- rather than the WEDDING RING – a symbol of the commitment she made.)
Like most men, I prefer a reasonable mostly-rational woman, similar to Celeste. (A certain amount of emotionality is expected and wanted.) Where does Jennifer get the idea that most things seen in porn are “perverted?” A non-nagging woman enjoying sex is quite an item of fantasy for a HUGE number of men. (Or is this just a Christian man’s “perverted” fantasy?)
And what is about all Jennifer’s guessing and imagining conversations that did not occur in the movie in order to justify and contrive how balanced it was. Seriously….. WTF?
Few can imagine the horrors of appeasing an irrational prudish “Christian” woman. The simplicity and calm that comes from talking about sex with a regular woman that does not make it a case for WWIII is bliss! (Really there would be many more good marriages if more women relaxed like Celeste.)
LOL, Jennifer, your imprecise language and your choice of argument has now exposed you to refutation by both the Christian men and the secular men. In fact ,you seem to be a one woman army. Has it dawned on you that you should be quiet, observe and learn?
I advise you to parse your words, think three times before posting and ultimately to choose your battles wisely. (Rest assured I have equally engaged men that spout ill formed crap on the blogs.)
My Ex wanted me to see this movie so “maybe” we could patch things up. Studied it, got and read the book too, only to have her go “oh, I wanted you to be more like the doctor.” F*ck it, I said. Even adherents of this stuff said “dude, you’re better off.” She got pumped and dumped before the divorce was even final. Be careful what you wish for.
@Grerp
Good comment, but you do raise an interesting point.
Isn’t a Harlequin novel a female version of porn? I mean for most guys porn is a fantasy, but so are romantic novel for women. The whole idea of the romantic novel is to get the female reader to identify with the heroine and have a bit of fantasy adultery. True, that female porn places far less emphasis on those “yucky” anatomical bits and much more emphasis on “feelings”, but in the end both partners consummate their affections as assuredly as Linda Lovelace did with her lovers. Both “art forms” have fantasy adultery as their end point.
The question is why does our society look down with opprobrium on men who look at porn but at the same time not give a second thought to women churning through the Mills and Boon? It appears that as long as artistic depictions of adultery don’t involve any genital display then its O.K.
Like you, I think Caleb warranted a visit to the confessional (Sorry Protestants) but not to divorce court. Porn is a vice and your comment about porn being the “Christian get out of marriage” card is very perceptive. I think that it’s a card the most wicked of women use unscrupulously when they want to leave an otherwise good man. It’s a smokescreen that lets her break her vows when she tires of marriage preserving her reputation whilst conveniently labeling her as a victim.
It takes two to tango.
The husband was doing everything he could to make the marriage work; the wife wasn’t.
The husband is essentially blamed for everything while the wife is a victim of a hard-working honest man who saves money and doesn’t want to waste any.
“Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself.” – Aristophanes
I guess I advertised Steve Moxon’s book enough: http://www.4shared.com/folder/_a9GIj5w/_online.html
But there is also a new book out on feminism. Although I am a UK based reader some people may find it interesting: http://therightsofman.typepad.co.uk/the_rights_of_man/2011/11/new-book-why-britain-hates-men-by-swayne-opie.html
How to reclaim male victim’s legal cost: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069879/Husband-prison-sexually-assaulting-wife–pay-HIM-1-000-month-alimony-divorce.html
Two interestings facts:
US Military Deaths From 1950 – 2010
Women – 139 – 0.001%
Men – 100,063 – 99.99%
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/the-feminist-fantasy-of-male-privilege/
This fact about a female soldier is celebrated: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069988/It-says-female-soldier-kill-combat.html.
Where are all the male stories? Too low entropy I guess…
@grerp
Right.
I see a linkage in the way women generally view porn and the way generally women conduct discourse. Take the other persons position to its extreme, then refute said extreme, usually by saying something that is 100% true but irrelevant, and establish in her mind therefore I suppose a feeling of firing a winning shot.
Example:
Man says “I think divorce laws should be tightened up a little, make its a tad more difficult to walk out”
Womens response, “Im not surprised that you want to enslave abused women under their oppressors I will stick to my belief that abuse is not to be tolerated”
That rhetorical instinct (Im convinced its not done because she is clever, or even aware she is doing it, I submit she has heard others doing it and taken it on board as instinct, like a button one pushes for a canned response) that instinct manifests in seeing the word porn, and inferring or impugning the word
addict, then lashing out at that. Any attempt to differentiate between the Calebs and the truly dysfunctional addicted men is met with another tactic, it falls under shaming, saying that the person trying to differentiate is “excusing porn”….or “thinks porn is good”.
When one rhetorically places topics at the extremes and addresses them as such, there is no way to converse, its disingenuous and lacks in integrity, but sadly its the norm save a few women such as yourself who can simultaneously disdain porn, its industry etc., and differentiate between the levels of participation…..excusing NONE…..but controlling your emotions to allow the logical assignment of different degrees of loathing for the man involved.
Elspeth, it is natural to want to yank the reins when you come across something like that.
I thought I made it clear in my comment that I wasn’t referring to the pron issue in particular, Jen. But there really is no good that can come from a wife trying to lead the family unless her husband is severely incapacitated in some way.
I think where I differ with many of the commenters here on the porn issue just became pretty basic after reading 7man’s comment on the distinction between arousal and lust. I agree with him by the way, that arousal is not the same as lust.
However, it’s one thing to experience arousal involuntarily as a result of something to someone you see. That’s not sinful in my understanding. But I don’t think we should be inclined to practice the use of anything or any other person to experience arousal. That’s deliberate and it’s wrong, therefore a sin. A married person should make every effort to condition himself to be aroused primarily by his or her spouse. This means that romance novels and semi-nude boys is Twilight movies that the women use to get themselves worked up is equally wrong.
And yeah, wives need to do be doing everything in their power to make themselves desirable. Absolutely. Husbands, too.
@Grerp & slumlord:
“Like you, I think Caleb warranted a visit to the confessional (Sorry Protestants) but not to divorce court. Porn is a vice and your comment about porn being the “Christian get out of marriage” card is very perceptive.”
Being a stupid, traddie RC, that some believe this has been a surprise revelation for me. Is the porn = adultery = get out of marriage card an evangelical thing or is it held by the mainstream denominations (e.g. Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.) as well? Has this always been the case or is it a recently discovered teaching since the internet allows porn to be piped into the home? After viewing a couple “Fireproof” clips, I dismissed the movie as a chick flick (OK, a “Christian” chick flick) but the subsequent discussion here highlighted the porn = get out of marriage card theme present in the movie which I didn’t at first pay much attention to. Sorry for sounding incredulous, bu the Trad RC doctrine is that “adultery” impacting marriage as possible grounds for separation has always been defined as intercourse between a married person and someone else besides the spouse (the “someone else” being either married or single). That people expand this definition to include porn is beyond me.
Yes, Carnivore. Protestants are a bit more wishy washy on what constitutes grounds for a divorce than Catholics.
As a Protestant, it pains me to admit that, but it’s true.
Slumlord – my view of romance novels is somewhat nuanced. There are some romance novels that absolutely meet the definition of written porn. They are sex written for people who want to read sex and get turned on. But there are also romance novels with no sex at all in them and these have a wide following too (the Christian romance sub-genre has had explosive growth over the last decade).
My view is that there isn’t anything wrong, intrinsically, with a love story. People have been telling, and hearing, and reading love stories for thousands of years, and readers who read them aren’t wanting to commit adultery any more than people who play video games really want to kill someone. The problem is that a steady diet of even the “clean” romances will set you up with overly high expectations regarding relationships between men and women. The fact that romance novels have become more ubiquitous and regularly read indicates that something is wrong between the sexes and that women are getting their emotional needs met outside of human interaction.
Men sneer at romance novels for the same reason women frown at porn – because a steady diet of either keeps one sex from getting their needs met by the other. It makes them, in a way, unnecessary. Men don’t condemn porn and women romance novels for the same reason – it gives them a seemingly necessary outlet in a more and more dysfunctional environment.
Another thing I’ve noticed about romance novels that is still more troubling is that the female characters in them have become more realistic – older, fatter, more career oriented, sexually experienced – while the male characters have become hyper masculine. This Batman-obsessively-pursuing-Liz-Lemon narrative is obviously total wish fulfillment (read: delusion) on the part of female romance readers.
What’s interesting is how movies (a medium that is less gender specific than romance novels or, say, video games) that meet both male and female needs get universally embraced. The Last of the Mohicans was wildly romantic and terribly, gratuitously violent. And no one – male or female – objects to the fact that almost no men are going to be heroic and super able like Nathaniel Hawkeye.
I’d just like to make an observation about the Catholic/Protestant female “Christians” “refusing” to argue on this thread. In a way, Jennifer is both more honest, and dumber, than you.
You know you are deceitful and lying, and don’t bother defending completely selfish and un-biblical beliefs from people who won’t “argue” with you with both hands tied behind their back while being moderated by your fellow sisters.
That’s very American of you.
Carnivore – since porn has exploded in availability and use in the past 15 years, I think we are going to continue to see how it affects the equation, inside and outside of the Christian church. But I’ve known two women who either broke an engagement or got divorced because of the alleged porn addictions of their men, and no one seems to have batted an eye at the appropriateness of this. It is interesting how porn is universally decried and romance novels are not. Obviously the churches have become very feminized.
Whether or not romance novels should be called by the word “porn” is an important, but distracting issue.
Do romance novels (even the ones without graphic sex content) serve to make women less attracted to the real men that are available in the real world?
I say – it depends on the women. Go watch those Beatles concerts on youtube from the 1960s.
Some women were just having a good time being at a show. Some were crying like their child had dies. This emotional overloading of young women when they are at their most emotionally vulnerable is something that could not exist IN LARGE SCALE before mass media.
Now, we can have millions of young women lusting over the Jonas Brothers (yeah, they will just pretend it is a “crush”), while deciding that 80% of the young men in their school are “dorks” or “creepy”.
Instead of nurturing these teenage crushes – which is nothing more than TINGLE ™, parents should be letting their naive daughters know the realities of life.
Forget the birds and and bees. Let’s talk alphas and betas.
If I have such a daughter, I would make sure that she was not harboring any delusions that she was going to marry a rock star or be some famous guy’s girlfriend.
Ladies-
Check out your male orbiters. Those are the bidders at the auction that is YOU.
@Grerp-“It is interesting how porn is universally decried and romance novels are not.”
I don’t think it is. i think its feminist and socons doubling down on controlling men. Pretty simple to me.
Slumlord, the tamer versions of romance fiction for women are a subtle form of emotional porn. I’m informed that there are romance fiction writers out there that incorporate explicit sex scenes into their books, just as Jackie Susanne did over 40 years ago, as well. In any event, it seems pretty clear to me that visual porn provides men with the illusion of a harem, which fits in with the urge for polygamy that is a known male reproductive strategy. Emotional porn provides the illusion of an alpha to cuckold with, or serial monogamy, or both – known female reproductive strategies.
Why one form of sexual fantasy is regarded as a major crisis & justification for divorce, while the other form of sexual fantasy is sold in chain bookstores and is regarded as perfectly acceptable has to do with the demonization of male sexuality IMO. Women in churches appear to be women first, and anything else second, so it should not surprise that they also demonize male sexuality.
Anonymous Reader: Here’s a problem. It appears to me that the heroine really only returns to her husband when she finds out how much money he spent. So if the handsome doctor had spent, say, $25,000 she would have followed him. Therefore, the heroine auctioned herself to the highest bidder.
There’s a word for this.
[Dalrock: That is exactly the point of the movie. Only when she found out her husband had given nearly 100X what the doctor gave did she all of a sudden decide she wanted her husband back.]
Katherine is a whore. She is whoring herself out to whoever gives her the most of what she wants at that moment — attention, money, whatever. That’s called whoring.
It’s important to differentiate between slut and whore. A girl can be both a slut and a whore, but also can be one or the other. A slut is a sexually promiscuous woman who probably has a high partner count. A whore is a woman who literally sells or exchanges herself for something she wants: attention, money, a spouse, status, etc.
Elspeth – ”Yes, Carnivore. Protestants are a bit more wishy washy on what constitutes grounds for a divorce than Catholics.”
In my own experience, the pseudo-Christianity practiced by many “Churchians” is wholly “wishy-washy”. It’s basically a cafeteria-style “pick-and-chose” version of Christianity. That’s what a Churchian-feminists like this Jennifer can without the slightest hint of irony call for the strictest interpretation of some scriptures (seeing porn = equals lusting = adultery) , while all but dismissing others (wives submitting to their husbands – ”promoting suffocating male rule, saying women just need to obey” (December 4, 2011 at 5:33 pm)).
It dove-tails in with how she could also argue that the wife’s (Katherine) pursuit of another romantic-sexual relationship is somewhat “okay” since she views the marriage as already being over, while also rejecting the idea that the husband (Caleb) is likewise free to engage in extra-marital activities.
That sort of “pick-and-chose” pseudo-Christianity has got Churchianity to the point wherein they can actually believe that a man looking at porn is still worse than a married woman actually perusing a sexual relationship with another man (if viewing pornographic images is lusting in ones heart, then what is a well beyond “just flirting” pursuit of an actual person?).
And, while I understand that the intent of having the husband “pay up” was to demonstrate a sacrificial love for his wife, the fact is that they used money as the medium of exchange for the demonstration of such love – which corrupts the underlying intentions.
The wife was clearly in pursuit of money (her well-paying job, her desire that his savings be spent on her mothers needs – rather than use some of her own earnings for that purpose, and even her choice to pursue a higher financial status doctor); thus, the otherwise sacrificial act of providing for his mother in-law is reduced to nothing more than a feeding of her worldly desire. It is, as Dalrock has pointed out, nothing more than a winning bid for her “love”, which can be bought and sold. Any hope a positive Christian theme has been sold-out in what must have been a calculated effort to appeal to modern Churchian women’s collective desire for more and more money being funneled their ways.
There was a lot of discussion upthread about whether Katherine had an affair with the doctor. Even if that relationship had not been consummated, it’s clear Katherine was having an emotional affair with the doctor that was clearly headed to sex.
What is important to remember is that when a married woman takes steps like this (seeing another man, selecting a higher status man, openly flirting with him, and explicitly rejecting the husband), she has already left the marriage, considers it dead and beyond saving. She is 100% done with the marriage. She considers herself “free” and “released” from the marriage to pursue other romantic and sexual interests. IRL, by this time, Katherine would never return to the marriage, regardless of anything Caleb did or did not do.
Roissy maxim: “When the love is gone, a woman can be as cold as if she had never known you.”
Jennifer: “How were they not equally wrong, Brendan? How can you consider a weak-minded woman enjoying being appreciated to be worse than an upset husband looking at porn?”
In the film, Katherine was doing much, much more than “enjoying being appreciated”. She was pursuing an emotional and sexual relationship with a man not her husband. If it was not sexual by the time Caleb bought her off, it would have very soon been consummated. She was getting her mind and body ready for another lover. Yet the film says almost nothing to discourage or judge Katherine for her behavior. And she was not weak-minded. Katherine knew exactly what she was doing. She was leaving her husband for another man.
Maybe someone has already said this, but IRL this is how it would turn out:
Katherine leaves Caleb and the divorce goes through. He pays her a little alimony. She gets the house, he gets his car and a little furniture. The doctor gets in a STR with Katherine, sexes her for a few months, then dumps her for someone hotter and tighter after his own divorce. Caleb continues in his job. Following his bad experience in marriage he does not marry again, instead enjoying a series of relationships with younger women. Katherine continues in her job but can’t afford the house, so she sells it and moves to a smaller condo, one that allows cats.
+1 on Deti’s posting. The difference between the two protagonists in the film is — one is male, and one is female. I’m not going to get tired any time soon of pointing out that women are not “men who can have babies” and men are not “inferior women”. Men and women do not perceive sexual activity in quite the same way, and if we’ve learned anything about female psychology from Game it is that the female reproductive strategy of serial monogamy has some deep implications. One of them Deti explains in detail above, and his scenario for how the divorce would play out is very likely. An alternate ending would involve the man, Caleb, learning Game and becoming some version of a PUA, or even remarrying to a younger woman. A woman he will never allow to get the upper hand on him – because he understand why his first marriage blew up.
In none of the alternate endings does Caleb ever, ever, prostrate himself before a woman as he does in that bedroom scene. One way or another, he’s learned his lesson on that disaster.
@Deti
Funny enough Sheila Gregoire said much the same thing when we first discussed the movie on her own blog (emphasis mine):
I like Sheila as you know. But I wonder where the idea came from that this woman was interested in the doctor for a second marriage. We’re never told that. And wasn’t it revealed later in the film that he was already married?
I just think it is wrong for a married woman or man (no matter what stage of marriage they are in) to look to get involved with another man or woman. Until the ink is dry, they are married. Period, and not free to pursue a relationship with anyone else. Is that “fair?” Maybe not, but right is right.
There was a lot about the wife’s character that bothered me, but the fact that we were supposed to be sympathetic to her while she was being unfaithful (just as unfaithful as her husband was actually if we are calling his behavior adultery) is the part that bothered me most.
[D: I think what makes it even worse is part of the time the defenders of the movie are defending Katherine as Sheila did, the other defenders are stating that it is perfectly obvious that the movie showed her as equally wrong and needing to repent. So you can’t challenge the movie because the other side will simply tell you that you missed a part of the movie which was never actually there.]
One more point. I’ve called this out before but it bears noting again. Sheila’s moral defense of serial marriage for the flimsiest of pretexts is bright as day right there in the comments I quoted from her own blog. She later made the same pro serial marriage argument in one of my posts on the topic as well. There is a deep investment in this idea especially amongst Christian women. Shiela isn’t alone here.
Gregoire’s comment seems to need fisking.
I think what the movie was trying to portray was a marriage in which one party had completely messed up, and the other party was fairly innocent. Because the movie was trying to show people how to fight for your marriage once it looks too late. He had been adicted to porn, and was using the money he had saved for something which was pure pleasure for him, and ignoring genuine medical need in the family. So it was pretty clear that the guy was in the wrong.
The wife had decided to leave, and was interested in another doctor for a second marriage (not just an affair, and she certainly was not going to sleep with him until they were divorced. She also considered her marriage over). So I don’t think it’s that she was “whoring”, as much as it was that he had broken the vows and was completely unrepentant (at the beginning of the movie) and pushing her away.”
The woman was not fairly innocent. She would not submit to her husband. If a woman has left the marriage, it is over. I don’t think we can say he was addicted to porn because that’s not made clear in the film other than Caleb saying “no more addictions” before he smashes his computer. We can say he was viewing porn. What is made clear is that Katherine has cut Caleb off sexually. Interesting, isn’t it, how Caleb is begrudged a pleasure of saving money for a boat. Caleb is expected to sacrifice endlessly and deny himself all leisure pursuits. And the medical need is that of his mother in law, for whom he has no legal or financial obligations.
Yes, the wife had decided to leave the marriage, but Gregoire then leaps to conclusions. It’s not clear Katherine wanted a second marriage; we’re not told she’s scouting for a new husband. It’s not at all clear she would refuse to sleep with the doctor before divorce. What’s made clear is Katherine is very interested in the doctor. She has public lunch dates with him. She flirts with him and displays unmistakable IOIs. She stops wearing her wedding and engagement rings, clearly signaling and telegraphing her unattachment and freedom.
Finally, gregoire is plainly in her last sentence relying on the porn use to justify a claim of marital “infidelity”, thus giving Katherine the Biblical “out” from her marriage. “Husband looked at porn? He’s been unfaithful!! He’s cheated on you! You deserve better. You are now released from your marriage to the unfaithful porn-viewing knuckle-dragger, because he committed adultery in his heart.” That’s what this is really about, it seems to me.
I have seen truly awful things in the Christosphere dealing with men’s “addiction” to porn. I think that porn hysteria is being used to redraw the power balance in marriages to the point where they become dysfunctional.
Once, I tuned in to a Christian talk show, i I don’t remember which, where a husband had “made a covenant” with his wife to be sexually aroused only by her . The script they were reading from was from the popular series of men’s books “Every Man’s Battle” by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoekes. Basically, this series of books purports to help men achieve sexual purity through continual self-policing, and the avoidance of “second glances”, staring at attractive, scantily clad joggers, etc.
On this particular show was a man whose wife had caught him in a “porn addiction”, although the specifics were never spelled out. The spectrum of pornography on the Internet runs from very mild to deeply disturbing, but it was never revealed just how far this particular husband had strayed from the straight and narrow. However, his pastor had recommended the “Every Man’s Battle” series of books and had placed his wife in charge of his “rehabilitation”. Supposedly, he was supposed to confess to her every time he even looked at another woman, whether real or virtual.
It was the look of abject defeat on this man’s face and the look of triumph and control on his wife’s face that told me that this was about something more than spirituality. It was about browbeating the poor man and his brutish, loutish, reprehensible appetites. It was all about putting a lock on his dick and handing the key to his wife.
I don’t have an easy answer to this. I’m Orthodox, and we do confession as well, and when I confess an Internet porn spree to my confessor, it is not a pretty sight, but my confessor is adamant that it is none of my wife’s business. According to him, marriages work better when you aren’t always poking around in each other’s plumbing. The modern, progressive concept of marriage as the intimate total union, body and soul, of two separate human beings obviously hasn’t dawned on the retrograde, benighted Orthodox Church. The idea is to provide a mechanism for controlling to a degree the sexual anarchy all of us carry around inside ourselves, and to provide a nurturing environment for children.
Once, I tuned in to a Christian talk show, i I don’t remember which, where a husband had “made a covenant” with his wife to be sexually aroused only by her . The script they were reading from was from the popular series of men’s books “Every Man’s Battle” by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoekes. Basically, this series of books purports to help men achieve sexual purity through continual self-policing, and the avoidance of “second glances”, staring at attractive, scantily clad joggers, etc.
This reminds me of a guy I met a few years back in a coffee joint near a college campus. While talking about this and that he told me of a great tool he was using to keep himself from browsing bad websites; it was an application that logged each and every URL he looked at, and then at regular intervals automatically emailed the logged URL’s to his wife. So essentially he automated having her look over his shoulder. Well, ok, if that works for you, fine. I asked him if she had the same thing on her computer – was she sharing her browsing history with him? He gave me a blank look and basically said there was no need to do that.
This was before I began to learn about the differences between female and male psychology, before I really understood about pedestalization even. But it struck me at the time that he had set himself into a kind of “mommy / child” relationship with this tool. Probably it was a price he was paying for past behavior. But the situation’s asymetry is like the talk show above: it’s assumed his motives are bad and hers are good from the start. He’s submitting to her will and leadership in either case.
So the words of women demand that men submit their thoughts for censoring by women. And we know from Game that such actions ultimately are tingle killers, with all that results from that. Hmm. So does that make the growing fury that we see over men viewing porn as just another shit test?
Wow, if my husband confessed and apologized every time he saw a naked pop up or looked at some mild porn, I’d be so repulsed. He sees other women, he notices them, these are signs that he is a living, breathing man, and that he’s healthy. Frankly, I would be repulsed if my husband were so apologetic and self-hating of his sexuality.
If a man speaks in the forest, and there is no woman there to correct him…
is he still wrong? 😉
The fundamental, and so simple that it almost always escapes notice, basis of feminism is that it is very literally FEMININE-ism. It is a philosophy that assumes that the female way of viewing things and doing things is simply superior, and men are – at best – seriously defective women. The battle of the sexes raged long before the word “feminism” was ever coined.
From the outside perspective, it appears that Christianity remains in the garden. The English translation of Genesis calls the tree of forbidden fruit “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
Most women fundamentally believe that they have eaten of this fruit and know good from evil – they (and most women) are good, men are evil.
And, that idiot, Adam, still manages to gulp down every last bit of selfish perspective women feed them.
One thing which was left out of the book of Genesis is the monstrous regiment of White Knights and manginas who enforce Eve’s wishes. If today’s Adams refuse to be browbeaten, all Eve has to do is put out the call stating that she isn’t happpy, and a swat team of WK/M’s will descend on Adam and force the fruit down his throat.
Is if for this reason that I say that “Churchianty” (showing some respect for the authentic devout believers by not calling it Christianity) is one of the largest purveyors of evil today. The men who claim to practice it – and the women – do everything they can to force men to swallow the fruit which God explicitly told him not to eat.
This movie is not just bad – it is evil. This is the serpent speaking, folks.
But it struck me at the time that he had set himself into a kind of “mommy / child” relationship with this tool.
Wow, if my husband confessed and apologized every time he saw a naked pop up or looked at some mild porn, I’d be so repulsed.
I didn’t want to go there, because the psychosexual dynamics are so perverted, but it appears to me that a lot of these women want to be Mommies to their poor, naughty, weak, little husbands, and the husbands appear happy to fall into this behavior.
So essentially he automated having her look over his shoulder. Well, ok, if that works for you, fine. I asked him if she had the same thing on her computer – was she sharing her browsing history with him? He gave me a blank look and basically said there was no need to do that.
To be fair, I have come across many women online who think that men should be peeking over their wives shoulders, too. There is a stunning lack of trust being marketed to married couples as “accountability”.
I’ve found that an easy way to shut up Christian women who believe pornography is the same as adultery is to ask them if they think people who have harbored strong hatred at any moment ought to be condemned as murderers by their congregation. After all, the New Testament says in several places that hating someone is spiritually analogous to murdering them much like lust in the heart is like having committed adultery with someone already–in the eyes of God with regard to standing before His judgment seat.
Evangelicals tend to not really understand these “nuances.” They almost revel in the simplicity of their religion, which is ironic because part of the foundation of our religion is a set of sacred mysteries such as the Trinity.
Lack of trust indeed. I just can’t fathom being in a relationship where everything I searched, everything I looked at, was analyzed.
“Is if for this reason ..”
Should read
“It is for this reason…”
Having to look over someone else’s shoulder at everything they do like some kind of security surveillance sounds like hell to me. If you can’t trust someone to that extent, it’s probably best for you to not get married in the first place. By the same token, I wouldn’t want either of us to feel we had to hide things from one another, hence, it is better not to make mountains out of molehills if you don’t want a man to lie to you. If you knew that telling the truth about something benign was going to get you harangued for hours or hauled off to “counselling”, wouldn’t you chose the lie?
The more you keep hidden, the more of a wall you build between each other and the more likely someone will end up actually cheating. If someone cheats in spite of open trust, no amount of surveillance would have prevented it.
“Do not strive to catch every word people say,
or you may hear your servant cursing you—
for you know in your heart
that many times you yourself have cursed others.”
Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
That the heroine of Fireproof is named Katherine, the same name as the heroine of Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew is I suspect not accidental. What is unusual about Fireproof is that it is not written (as is usual with pseudo re-marraige films or for that matter Shrew) as comedy and thus making it much more difficult for the writer to bring off successfully.
I like Sheila as you know…
Elspeth, after reading Jennifer’s hamster spewing defense last night, in which she reminded of the debate over “porn addiction” and Sheila’s conflating porn use with adultery, I decided to try something – I went over to Sheila’s blog and did a bit of reading as well as keyword searching.
Sheila is the worst sort of fraud. Her ministry is PRECISELY how Christianity in the West has been utterly corrupted and feminized.
This so-called “pro-marriage” advocate…no wait MINISTER, preaches the subversive message of equality.
Sheila is NOTHING like you, nor Alte, nor Morticia. You all regularly discuss what a struggle it is to live in submission to your husband, but you do it because God commanded it. After reading over an hour of her blog posts, I fail to see her even mention wifely submission to her husband. She is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.
First up, I did a search on her blog for the term “submission.”
The only context for which it appears, is the following gyno-centric corruption of God’s biblical commandment regarding the hierarchy of leadership in marriage. Here’s Sheila writing about her own marriage:
God was also doing a work in Keith’s heart, and he came to basically the same decision around the same time I did. Never ever discount what God can do in your spouse’s heart. But that’s the key, I think: God does it, not you.
For me, then, the key was a shift in my own attitude, and a submission to God, which also led to the same thing in my husband. I can honestly say that we’re so grateful for each other and we’re ridiculously lovey-dovey all the time now. But it wasn’t always like that.
Note, that I read every single article that came up on her site that came up on a key word search of submission and submit. The ONLY time these words are ever referenced, Sheila references submission to god. Nothing even HINTING at Ephesians 5:22. (A search for Ephesians 5:22 returns ZERO results).
Let’s explore Sheila’s attitude more:
I believe that it is a spiritual principle that God tends to start working when we are in submission to Him. Even if you are not the principle problem in your marriage (ie. your husband is doing something wrong/sinful/selfish), the more you hold on to the hurt, the less God works. I was reading in my devotions today about how God “pleads the case of the orphan”. God likes pleading the case of the person who is wronged. He does stand up for the wronged person.
But He tends to do it once we have stopped pleading our case. When we hand our case over to God, He works. When we try to fix it, He can’t. And I find that when I have handed things over to God, then He has started working in the other person’s heart (I think my husband would tell a similar story. It was when He surrendered that God worked on me, too, because it really was quite simultaneous).
That doesn’t mean that we don’t confront, or use consequences, {gee, I wonder who wears the pants in the Gregoire household…} as we talked about over the weekend in the Doormats or Wives post. I’m not saying that we need to hold up the white flag to let God work. I’m saying we need to hand our emotional needs over to God; our need to be right; our need to have our husbands admit they were wrong; our need to have them love us completely and utterly. These are all needs, but it is to God that we must turn, not our husbands. When we are expecting these things from our husbands, then God can’t work in the same way because we’ve set up a very negative dynamic, both emotionally and spiritually. When we turn to God, things change.
Got it?!?!?
Turn our needs over to God, and THEN the wife’s needs will be met! Once Sheila “submitted to God” her Husband realized that she was right…her husband than realized he needed to admit he was wrong. Through God, all things are possible!
Now Sheila does give some good advice to wives for which I have no truck with…which is what makes her even more subversive. If you read between the lines and discern her attitudes and core message, it becomes clear that she is a false teacher! What so called Biblical Christian who appoints herself an expert in marriage for Christians ignores THE Bibles most clearly stated scripture regarding the framework for marriage? But it’s worse than that, Sheila twists the message so that the only submission she references is both Husband and Wife must submit to God (but no mention of a wife submitting to her husband.)
The more I read her damnable website, the more I realize that she is the embodiment of all that has gone wrong in Western Christianity aka Churchianity.
I could literally fisk her blog postings for hours, but I’m not going to bother. Dalrock has already exposed her for the false teacher that she is.
Jennifer,
In regards to your “if you only knew what the message means” meme, that is bull. Its propaganda. Yeah, as a Christian, knowing the Bible, I can see your argument but that only applies in the theoretical AND because I KNOW, I, I, EYE!!!! (cant stress “I” enough) HAVE the BENEFIT of CONTEXT.
Essentially what you are saying is, this movie is for people like me and no one else should see it (for the sake of not having it misinterpreted). That is essentially your argument but this is PROPAGANDA. All you want it plausible deniability and men are just wising up and calling it out. It really has me question, what is your (feminist) motive? what is your (feminist) agenda?
Now Sheila does give some good advice to wives for which I have no truck with…which is what makes her even more subversive.
Exactly – this is the problem. On the surface she appears to be doing good, but dig a little deeper to find the underlying attitude and it’s egalitarianism. If she were just “some blogger” and not a runner of a “Ministry” this wouldn’t matter so much, but she has set herself up as a Christian leader and makes a good living off it from what I can tell. A wolf in sheep’s clothing indeed.
zed — “Most women fundamentally believe that they have eaten of this fruit and know good from evil – they (and most women) are good, men are evil”
that secton of Genesis (a condensation and summarization of inceptive human history) exists to illustrate how ALL evil on this planet stems from the assumption by woman that she is qualified to act as ethical/moral judge, i.e., knowing what is good and what is evil
after being enticed by satan with lust for endless empowerment and self-awarded adjudication of others– expressly reserved by God for God alone — she ropes mangina adam into her self-serving eve-ill
take a look at the Fireproof film, take a look at the Western JustSis Sistems — they
exactly reflect this eve-ill, this revolt against god which arose from woman superseding man and deciding, with the help of her Advisor, that she is qualified to judge and punish others, through the proxy of her mangina governments, police, etc
Ms Fireproof doesnt leave hubby’s (possible) sin to god for judgment — like her ssisters, she takes judgment unto herself, instead of OBEYING her husband as she is COMMANDED, and trusting in god to sort out who is a sinner, what is a sin, and what consequences , if any, are appropriate
this is rebellion against god, and the fact that a baptist “church” produced this apostasy indicates how irrevocably fallen the gynocratic west is… and how much women (and even many “men”) approve of that outright rebellion, as long as it’s profitable, comfortable, and women approve
as in the “christian ” churches, god is no longer god; instead, woman (individually and collectively) is god
“This movie is not just bad – it is evil. This is the serpent speaking, folks.”
yup it’s exactly the same rap, modernized and cunningly packaged
Not all religions are feminized. I currently distance myself from Christianity because of a decade-long stint in what is certainly a patriarchal branch of Christianity. Women are not allowed to “teach” and children are beaten to let them know who holds the power. I must say that in situations like that men do terrible things to preserve their authority or at least, the semblance of authority, and to hide their human weaknesses.
The reason I am commenting now, though, is somewhat a defense of Sheila, even though I disagree with her more than not. A woman submitting to God would ipso facto be submitted to her husband. In fact, Sheila has specifically told wives to do whatever it takes to work through their fear, repulsion, and pain associated with sexual intimacy in order to give their husbands the marital due. There would be no reason for women to suffer through to the other side of the problem but for the fact that God commands her to please her husband. So if a wife is really serious about submitting to God, dinner isn’t the only thing she will be serving up on a plate…
I suggest those who are analyzing these clips watch the entire film because you are off on a number of things.
1. Neither are Christians. Caleb becomes one in the course of doing the love dare. Hence Kathryn’s objection to his porn use has nothing to do with God. At the end of the film, inspired by Caleb’s change, Kathryn becomes a Christian too.
2. The movie was made as conversion propaganda more than a manual for husbands.
3. The Love Dare is not a bad idea, but like anything, can be taken to extremes.
Not all religions are feminized. I currently distance myself from Christianity because of a decade-long stint in what is certainly a patriarchal branch of Christianity. Women are not allowed to “teach” and children are beaten to let them know who holds the power. I must say that in situations like that men do terrible things to preserve their authority or at least, the semblance of authority, and to hide their human weaknesses.
Not All Patriarchy’s Are Like That!
But seriously…give me a break.
Children are beaten solely so that Men can “hold a firm grip on power?!” Just who is administering the beatings, and on whose children?
The reason I am commenting now, though, is somewhat a defense of Sheila, even though I disagree with her more than not. A woman submitting to God would ipso facto be submitted to her husband.
Bullshit.
This is a rationalization I saw play out over and over again in my own “Churchianity” organization I was raised in. In which women cite God as a reason to NOT submit to their husbands.
This is precisely why I make the distinction between Sheila’s ministry (in which you can by her books, DVDs and book her for exclusive speaking engagements for $$$$$$$!), and ladies like Elspeth, Morticia and Alte with the most contemptible Sheila.
All three have posted on numerous occasions that they struggle with submitting to their husbands, even when they know their husbands are not following their religion, because it is commanded of them by the Bible.
Sheila? Ephesians 5:22 doesn’t even exist. She doesn’t even bother mentioning it.
This so-called Christian Marriage “expert” has a post in which she lists her 50 favorite scriptural quotations. You’d think the direct, non-ambiguous quote regarding the role of husband and wife should be amongst that list, no?
Not so.
That’s because Sheila only believes in submission to GOD by BOTH husband and wife. Then, and only then, will God work his miracle and change the husbands heart to grow up and not be so immature and to help around with the housework!
Oh yes, I read plenty of her blogging and commentary last night.
Women like her and her type’s influence on the formerly Patriarchal religion of Christianity have driven men like me from the congregation.
She preaches a subversive Goddess worship agenda in the guise of worshipping God…and women like her are precisely why their is a biblical prohibition from having women as “teachers.”
Mellie,
Can we apply similar logic to men?
Ephesians 5 calls for a woman to submit to her husband in everything and to respect her husband. If submitting to God is akin to a wife submitting to her husband in everything, is a man loving God akin to sacrificially loving his wife? Then a he would not have to specifically love her because he loves God and she would not need to respect him because she respects God.
Of course I do not defend abusive men, but when reinterpreting traditional Biblical understandings, there are many theological implications to consider.
I just don’t see how Calvinist (Reformed) Christianity in the US is feminized. It is authoritarian in structure and only the males are allowed to be in authority. This type of fundamentalism is also insular so I am curious how women voting in civil matters intersects with church culture. In my experience, they view the civil government as persecuting and limiting of their rights.
7man, yes I think it would work both ways. Personal feelings would not be a high a priority. Following God’s rules or commandments is the goal and pinnacle of the Christian life, at least in my understanding.
I just don’t see how Calvinist (Reformed) Christianity in the US is feminized.
Which are you discussing here? You wanted to defend Sheila…she is certainly not a Calvinist. Furthermore, most of us on this blog are discussing the overall zeitgeist of Christian worship in the US (and West). Most of it is Feminized, and Sheila and her “Ministry” represent precisely what is wrong with “Churchianity” today.
Keoni Galt, I think I have an inkling of what you mean when you say “women cite God as a reason to NOT submit to their husbands.” I have not seen Sheila do that or recommend that other wives do that but I think you are concerned not with an actively rebellious spirit but with the fact that she does not specifically *promote* submission. Is that right?
7man
“Ephesians 5 calls for a woman to submit to her husband in everything and to respect her husband. If submitting to God is akin to a wife submitting to her husband in everything, is a man loving God akin to sacrificially loving his wife?”
I think perhaps you guys misinterpreted Mellie’s comment. I think she meant that a woman who is not submitting to her husband is failing to submit to God, since God has commanded her to submit to her husband.
Jennifer is that you?
“…but with the fact that she does not specifically *promote* submission. Is that right?”
It’s not just that. You have to read between the lines to see that she in fact supports an egalitarian model of marriage. She preaches a watered down version of feminist doctrine disguised as a Christian pro-marriage advocate.
Sorry – my first paragraph about the church was directed to TFH. Calvinists are not small in number, not in my area of the country so one would have his pick of a traditional patriarchal church here.
My second paragraph was “defending” Sheila’s position and was addressed to Keoni Galt. I don’t know if she is a Calvinist or not but I would not be surprised if she is. She does not seem to go into theology very much.
Mellie, Dalrock has already exposed Sheila here:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/warn-men-beware-christian-marriage-doublespeak-and-hair-trigger-for-wife-initiated-divorce/
Not All Patriarchy’s Are Like That!
I believed that for a long time, even with much evidence to the contrary. I wanted to believe that an authoritarian or hierarchical system would work and work well with the right leaders at the top. Now I believe that it is a very hard system for everyone: men, women and children. People are changed by being put at the top of the chain. Power corrupts and all that…..
And because I was not clear in my first comment, I want to reiterate that I am no longer a Christian but was for over twenty years.
Of course, TFH, of course! Hence my tongue in cheek reference to “Not All Patriarchy’s Are Like That!”
It’s obvious that Mellie is projecting her own experience in a strict, Calvinist reformation Church to defend and justify Sheila’s false doctrine.
Wait, doesn’t it say something in the Bible along the lines of (paraphrasing here) “if you can’t follow the things I gave you in regards to physical relm and relationships, how can you claim to have relationship with me?”
All these women saying that they submit to God with out submitting to their husbands, there is a bible verse for that to counter. I guess this is where the sword of the spirit (its a small dagger not a broad sword) is so important to surgically and with precision, take out non-biblical arguments. Fight like Jesus did against Satan, with the (targeted) Word of God.
How do you know she planned on having an affair, Brendan, or that porn wouldn’t lead him to do the same? Their divorce was supposed to be occuring fairly soon, so she shouldn’t need to do anything so rash while she was still married. The Bible, as it is, compares lust to adultery, and Caleb was lusting plenty before she was.
You clearly don’t understand men’s use of porn, then.
Men don’t want to meet the women in porn, they don’t want to have affairs with them or with other women. Porn is an aid to masturbation for men. I’m not a big fan of it myself, but it isn’t at all like flirting with a real life person of the opposite sex in a romantic/sexual/emotional way. The latter doesn’t always lead to affairs, but is pretty much always the gateway to an affair. It is treading on thin ice, and in the case if you fall through it isn’t “virtual adultery” or “lusting in the heart” — it’s good, old fashioned “fucking someone else” adultery. Porn viewing, by contrast, does not lead to adultery. Now, if Caleb were perusing personals sites, or Ashley Madison, or Craigslist or something like that, it would be comparable to what Katherine was doing. Viewing porn for masturbation purposes is not — it’s sinful, but a sin of a very different order than the kind of sin that is the natural gateway to real, physical adultery.
Well, if you’re truly submitting to God, wouldn’t it follow that you’re obeying all his commandments? Of course, that’s a bit of a no true scottsman, in that no imperfect person could ever be said to have truly submitted to God…
“Supposedly, he was supposed to confess to her every time he even looked at another woman, whether real or virtual.”
and
“it was an application that logged each and every URL he looked at, and then at regular intervals automatically emailed the logged URL’s to his wife. ”
Man, I didn’t know things were this bad. That’s serving your balls up on a silver platter. Seems like they want to be married to mommy. Or is it just being beaten down over time – since boyhood, probably, at home and at school.
@Carnivore-“Or is it just being beaten down over time – since boyhood, probably, at home and at school.”
That! That times infinity.
@Mellie
I just don’t see how Calvinist (Reformed) Christianity in the US is feminized. It is authoritarian in structure and only the males are allowed to be in authority.
Darlock has article on the TradCon (Traditional Conservative) churches. I recommend reading them.
The patriarchal male-orientation applies only to the pulpit and it is generally just for show. These churches will not speak out against women divorcing their husbands or feminism in the home. So even if Calvinist churches are patriarchal in their presentation, in their practice they don’t dare go against feminism. They simply say that the role of women is an “ongoing discussion.”.
I guess it’s good that only about 137 people actually saw this film.
This is an example of the apex and frontman fallacies in action.
I do want to understand what is going on here so I googled the fallacies you mentioned, Pro-Male. I can see the apex fallacy coming into play in what I wrote, especially considering Miserman’s last paragraph. It is the men up front who are getting the benefits of running the show, telling people what to think and do, while the men in the pews are simultaneously at the mercy of the whims of the guys up front and of their own wives.
I don’t get the frontman fallacy, though. Isn’t it a tautology to say that people in positions of power lead in such a way as to preserve the group? Isn’t self-preservation human nature? And don’t women who head up feminist groups act in the same way? So, yes, the men leading the church were acting the way they did to protect their “turf” (theologically speaking) and basically said as much.
Mellie is also conflating Calvinist churches with fundamentalist cults of personality. Actual Calvinist churches do not have child-beating on the menu and disfellowship for divorce without Biblical cause (adultery is cause, and not ‘viewing porn as adultery’).
Also, Miserman, I want to say that I do understand and agree with the part about divorces in the church. It has been a very bad year for divorces in my limited circle. I only know what happened in two cases. Both involved untreated mental illness in the husband. In one couple, it was the wife who left while her husband begged her to stay. In the other case, the husband left, though the wife begged him to stay. The church was not helpful, to say the least.
I know that Dalrock has called on churches to be not just helpful but absolutely punitive in cases of spousal desertion (I assume by either sex). One huge problem is that people change churches on a dime. Divorce, leave, remarry, new church, repeat. That is all I should say because that was probably hashed out in the other comment thread.
A Lady, I agree that Calvinists do not disfellowship for divorce, certainly not on any consistent basis. As to conflating Calvinist churches with fundamentalist cults of personality, well, yes, guilty as charged because Calvinist churches are. fundamentalist cults of personality.. Child-beating is always on the menu and heralded as the one and only way to raise “godly” children. Just one example is the 15-week parenting class I sat through in which every single week was spanking and it was the answer to every single problem, including the problem of the child resisting being spanked!
I am curious about something, though. I know that the Christians here believe wives should submit to husbands based on Ephesians 5. It is seen as God’s plan for marriage. But there are plenty of non-Christian, even non-religious commenters here. On what basis do they expect a woman to submit to her husband?
No, they do disfellowship for divorce with Biblical cause. Sorry if that was unclear.
Also, Calvinist is a term that may refer to a fundie cult but it can also refer to a church where the members follow Reformed Theology reaching back to Luther and Calvin and St. Augustine, hardly the same thing at all. But many fundie cults have grabbed onto the term Calvinist because people have caught on to their use of the term ‘fundamentalist’. So I understand why those in such cults are confused and mix them up with actual Reformed churches with no child beating or other such errors of doctrine.
The frontman fallacy is that the idea that the frontman represents who is really in power. Just because the titular head of some organization is for example, a white male, that doesn’t mean he promotes the interests of white males. Just because the people with titular leadership in your church are men doesn’t mean that men are the ones in power there which means that your church can be (and likely is) feminized.
TFH, I have such conflicted feelings about your comment. I have sons and I don’t want anyone to drug or beat or bully them out of their “maleness”. People feel “sorry” for me because I don’t have daughters and that pity actually greatly irks me because I wanted boys and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I appreciate their maleness.
But sometimes, it is the man and his problems that break up the marriage. One of the men I mentioned is a real man’s man, it is true, but he also has unaddressed PTSD from childhood. I get a knot in my stomach when I think of his haunted look. His wife “submitted” (very religious) for years, much to her own detriment as well as her child’s. So all the submitting in the world can’t cure that and if I were a nationally known “marriage speaker”, I would not want to take a chance on giving blanket advice that might greatly harm people.
I will think about that, Pro-Male, because it sure does seem like the church as a whole leans quite masculine, although in the individual homes of some of the members, I can see it being a different story. I will read the article TFH suggested, though.
I’ve maintained that we are either in the middle of or entering into a silent genocide of women aborting sons.
Feminist western women I should say,
TFH wrote:
Beyond Christianity, there is a mangina Rabbi called Shmuley Boteach who is pretty extreme in his whiteknighting.
You’re right about that. He’s convinced that women are superior to men and that it’s women’s role to ‘civilize’ men. Sort of like George Gilder on steroids.
He is pretty prominent, and should be analyzed and exposed.
A good place to start would be his misuse of charitable funds to feather his own nest, along with his “tell-all” expose of Michael Jackson.
Mellie: “People are changed by being put at the top of the chain. Power corrupts and all that…..”
So, what’s the point of you working for a change of power then? Why is one corrupt person (or many) better than another corrupt person?
Misandry the new Jim Crow? We are not at the point where India and China is, sex selective abortions and infanticide of the baby is the wrong gender. Nor will we ever get there. We are light years ahead of those people and we are not going back. People wishing a family with only boys would have a girl to add to the clan is hardly Jim Crow.
Do women read romance novels as much as men watch porn? Are they reading them online, because I rarely see anyone holding an actual book in their hands these days. A few nights ago my family, all 3 generations of us, went to one of those Medieval Era theme dinners where you get served while watching a live show. There was a romance story line in it of a damsel in distress getting rescued by a, cough, heroic knight. They fell in love and exchanged a kiss. All 3 generations of us, my parents, my wife and kids, loved it. There was nothing we felt we had to tell the kids to look away from. I wouldn’t be able to say that had it been a pornographic show. To equate romance with porn is ridiculous.
“I only know what happened in two cases. Both involved untreated mental illness in the husband.”
Mellie
Since it was untreated I’m guessing it was possibly undiagnosed as well. You know those registered medical professionals having multiple sessions with maybe brain scans and other tests. Cos seriously what percentage of divorcing wives don’t accuse their husbands of being crazy. I know my ex wife diagnosed me and all her friends agreed!!! So it must be true.
mellie, you use the most extreme of circumstances (ptsd guy and a “patriarchal” church beating kids) as justification for abandoning those Mean Evil Male Churches — are you really so naive as to imagine this as representative of organized u.s. religion? <– question mark = doubt
not suggesting remaining in a truly abusive relationship w anyone, but female submission and obedience are required in MOST instances, absent exceptionalism
but let's be honest: females would rebel against that too
females and their enablers often pull the Abuse Excuse to exonerate disobedience to god and the doing of their own wills, like female misandrists use "abuse" to justify sexually mutilating boys and men
ever hear of a "radio"? turn one on sometime to a "christian" station; i dont think youll find too much Abusive Patriarchalism… but pleeenty of Paternalistic Pussy Pandering!
do agree however w/yr assessment about strutting male cocks in the pulpit, cults of personality, etc.
a fair criticism– the big problem w guys is often pride, and baby does that show in the "pastors" and "ministers" and "deacons" etc who long ago forgot that GOD owns "their" church
Mellie says:
“I will think about that, Pro-Male, because it sure does seem like the church as a whole leans quite masculine, although in the individual homes of some of the members, I can see it being a different story.”
That’s part of a general challenge – practicing the religion the rest of the week and not checking it at the door when you leave the church on Sunday.
Reasons for a secular woman to submit to her husband:
Biological nature indeed. Same reason a secular woman wouldn’t have promiscuous sex. It would ruin me emotionally and I’d run the risk of disease. Biology in action.
That said, for my husband and I, the submission is negotiable. If I feel too smothered I can talk to him about it. and if the dynamic doesn’t work for a particular couple (I do think there are outliers in humanity for whom traditional gender roles won’t work), I’m fine with that.
Mellie confuses “domineering” with “dominant.” A domineering man is weak and seeks to control others. A dominant man leads with vision, fairness and integrity. Patriarchy has been demonized by equating it with controlling domineering male tyranny, when really the hierarchy has been predominantly benevolent. The exceptions are not true patriarchy. A hierarchy in roles does not equate with inequalities in worth.
@ Mellie
Reread Dhurka’s comment below.
“Since it was untreated I’m guessing it was possibly undiagnosed as well. You know those registered medical professionals having multiple sessions with maybe brain scans and other tests. Cos seriously what percentage of divorcing wives don’t accuse their husbands of being crazy. I know my ex wife diagnosed me and all her friends agreed!!! So it must be true.”
I had the same experience during my divorce. When my ex wife decided she needed out I was instantly labeled a terrible person. All the good things I did to support our family were now viewed as controlling or the sign of a loser, or lazy or whatever. It was like a light switch. One day I was the best husband ever and in the space of three months turned into the worst man on earth. The accusations were relentless. In reality, the only thing that changed was my ex wife banging a coworker. But I was diagnosed with all sorts of psychological disorders. The funny part was how the diagnosis changed from week to week during our divorce.
Does this matter now? Nope. Do I care? Nope. Just pointing out that there are a lot of women out there who will look at the holes in their story. You know, the story that portrays them as perfect. Those holes could be small potholes or gigantic asteroid size craters. Doesn’t matter. They will fill in those holes with whatever they have to so they feel good looking in the mirror and their friends can swallow the story whole.
I doubt you’ve ever encountered a real church.
In my experience, a true American is repelled by actual religion in the same way a vampire is by a Cross. It defies his whole being and fills him/her with loathing and horror.
Pot smokers don’t deserve to be gang raped in jail? And she/he is evil for putting them their? But they is BAD BAD BAD BAD! And he/she is GOOD GOOD GOOD! Merciless and legalistic, dumb and filled with mindless certainty, the equal certainty of true religion repels him/her. Christianity says we are all sinners? NO NO NO. SHE IS GOOD! MEN IS BAD! POOR IS BAD! POT SMOKER NEEDS SOME GANG RAPE!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, they don’t like real religion.
@Mellie
You use the terms child-beating and spanking interchangeably above. This fragment of Rosetta Stone in your writing is helpful for me, because I had totally misunderstood what you originally meant when you were talking about being in a patriarchal version of Christianity where:
Yes, when a wife instigates a divorce, she commonly accuses her soon to be ex-husband of psychological disorders. The system then swings into action and white-knight-male judges, female judges and female evaluators become supporters of the projection.
The men most viciously accused are typically decent “nice” husbands. The real person (the wife) with the psychological disorder is rewarded. And yes, there are some decent women that experience this too, but 9 times out of 10 it is a decent man that is demonized. The children are the real victims. Christian women are more adept at this than secular women because Christian women use projected religious morality in their allegations and the other Christian women gather around with moral justifying support.
@Mellie
You really have a problem seeing the western church as feminized? From the superficial , aesthetics of decor, music about Jesus as lover, overt acting out of emotionalism, etc., to the deeper and constant drumming of man bad woman good, its painfully obvious. You will get it, or you wont. The problem is camouflaged by the white knights who thrive on male self effacement. They are stuck still panting in the back seat with the girl trying to convince her they “aren’t like those other guys”. Though now all grown up, they want to show women they are happy to cop to male dysfunction and propensity to sin, because that will get them complimented for their courage, by women. Shux husbands do it several times a year when the preacher tells men to step up, er, again, and men nod and weep while the wife stroked their back and neck in a circular pattern saying its ok John you can be a good man.
Go online, find random churches with websites, look at the ministry offerings for men, and for women.
Mens ministry ranges from the banal…”football and burger night guys!” to corrective ministries designed to get men off drugs or porn or anger, etc. Women’s ministry is universally also banal, with typically feminine hobby pursuits…OR…it is to boost their self esteem, “how to be that women God called you to be”….”being a princess in a not so princess world”….self esteem is a self created epidemic in women, they need to be held to account….not pandered.
There is zero accountability for women in church, except that which says she has to assist her husband to get better.
I had to laugh when I saw that bit from Mellie about mental illness in men in her circle who got divorced. My ex called me “evil”, “the devil”, “not normal” and whole host of other deprecations implying that I was very defective in a bad way. She really thought I was mentally ill. She refused counseling, saying I was the one with the problems, I needed to go. It’s not limited to me, I know a few other guys that went through similar scenarios.
So Mellie, I would really, really take that with rock salt. Especially if the source is their ex-wives.
@ 7man
Good points. Ive written often about the church being an advocate FOR divorce. The Christian rationalizations are amazing.
Imagine the little girl raised in church. She grows up hearing anecdotal remarks just in casual conversations, when news of a divorce is offered, the reaction is “oooo, wonder what HE did?”. Additionally after a dozen Mothers and Fathers Day sermons she gets the idea that Moms are praiseworthy despite having to put up with Dads and that Dads COULD do better, they COULD step up, if they’d just let their wives intervene and keep them from what amounts to having a toe in sin at all times.
The little girl learns that men must (and yippee CAN) communicate just like the women. Men can get in touch with the emotional side, men can learn to empathize and not fix…..just listen. Men are taught how to communicate like women, and the woman’s way explained and celebrated.
There is much more, but the sum of it all, of this experience is that that girl at marrying age has an attitude she may not even be consciously aware of, where man is a good thing to have as a husband, BUT, he is always walking a fine line near falling into sin, however with her spiritually more in tune guidance, he CAN step up and be the man God called him to be (translated the man she wants him to be in all and every way….he can be remade in HER image).
This sets up the divorce filing years later, when the guy doesnt bend to her will, cant communicate like a women, and has any inkling of individuality…..he is emotionally abusive then.
The divorce is filed, the church rallies to the woman’s side because she was “abused”….if the man signs up for DivorceCare he learns that that is a ministry that is perfectly designed to help women stick to their divorce plan…..it supports women who are filing divorce.
The church helps women divorce their husbands, and the women create rationale for it. God released me from that abuse, oh and my kids will be fine because I prayed about it. The friends all say powerful things like “whatever you want sweety follow your heart God wants you happy”
There is something to the fact that a Christian man would be better off marrying a non-Christian wife in terms of the marriage surviving. Every single aspect of the church experience is about women.
Some say the church looks patriarchal. they need to hear the quote Murrow put in his book about men hating church. A woman said to him “men sit on boards, women run the church”
Interested:
I just wanted to add something for others to consider in relation to your past situation.
An angle to consider is women reinforce this misogony by their education. Think about it, all the psychology majors, feminized HR departments. Its mostly women.
Something about the Bible saying that near the end times, people hearing false prophets to hear what their ears are itching to hear. Therapist are the modern day false prophet, getting in the ears of women (and reluctantly in the ears of men who are forced to listen to them for the sake of saving a relationship maybe not worth saving)
Thats right, every man is abusive or mentally ill.
Imagine if that was really true to the degree that the sum of the allegations suggest. There would be blood flowing the streets in our neighborhoods and no house would be safe.
If you read any forum that has a relational subforum, especially Christian ones, almost all women who post about marital issues throw in the word abuse. I do mean almost all, like 95% or more. And you know its a sham when they start down the path they take about how one form of abuse is as bad as another. What they means is they had arguments with their husband and they usually lost because they so frustrated the guy with their rambling he raised his voice, and she cried……that’s the majority of verbal l abuse in a nutshell. Emotional abuse is the guy reacts badly to “honey we need to talk”. That arises when other Christian women raise an issue they say they are experiencing, and this wife wants empathy, so she goes looking for her own issue. Heck she buys books about relationships and amazingly the issues in the book are suddenly in her marriage.
My boys, 18 and 15, are well sorted out on this and see it very clearly. It costs them in that they can’t chase girls with abandon and be true to self about reality. In the long haul though its best.
Tony I fully agree, that “form of knowledge” the Bible speaks of is here, now, in all the books and therapy and such that take what is natural, male female interaction, and synergistic as well, and makes them so flippin complicated no one can ever be at peace. Its running to and fro with some form of knowledge….just like prophesy says
conservativation, I do see the American church, in general, as feminized. In fact, your description seemed spot on and would be funny if it were not so sad. I was speaking of a small (but growing?) niche of Calvinist churches. They contradict your typical evangelical church picture; the dreary decor is selected by the male elder board, the hymns/songs are about what wretched worms we are, the sermons proclaim the fact that God can barely tolerate us even after we are “saved”, and emotions/feelings are belittled. My point was that you can find this type of church but it is ultimately just as unpleasant as the other kind. For those who said I have never seen a “real” church, you are right. Perhaps moving to another area would help but I am not holding my breath.
Dalrock, your Rosetta Stone comment made me chuckle. I don’t want to say too much else about corporal punishment because it is a sore subject for me and because it is admittedly tangential to the conversation taking place here. To clarify briefly: corporal punishment took the form of hitting the child with a rod or paddle and was administered by the parent of the child or by a school administrator (the church had a regular day school). The punishment was not meted out by the church elders themselves.
I know and am related to loads of reformed people – RCA, CRC, etc., most of them Dutch. While the Dutch have a tendency to be somewhat stiff necked and uncompromising (and to splinter their reformed churches over important theological issues like insisting the service be conducted in Dutch), the men are decent, hardworking husbands and fathers. Yes, every group has some bad apples, and in my area the reformed have remained more conservative than society at large and held on tigher to their ethnic identity, but they are not particularly domineering.
Women really have a problem with the idea of submission. I had a problem with it when I was younger. Now that I am older I can see that being the one in charge is not always a huge thrill. There’s a lot of additional responsibility to being the boss and having people depend on you.
the hymns/songs are about what wretched worms we are, the sermons proclaim the fact that God can barely tolerate us even after we are “saved”,
Which denominations are you referencing, Mellie? Because at my sister’s (and parents’) church they either sing from the Psalter hymnal (psalms set to melody) or those interminable 7/11 praise choruses (sing the same 7 words 11 times). I have to say, the music in Protestant churches is really going downhill (and it downright stinks in most Catholic churches where they like to sing hideous atonal selections like “One Bread, One Body”). I miss the old Luther/Wesley hymns like “The Church’s One Foundation” and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” or the rousing “Wonderful Grace of Jesus.” If the music is dumbed down anymore, we will be merely grunting rhythmically.
@Grerp
“I don’t like porn. It’s dehumanizing, and the industry grinds already broken people up for its own profit. But it sounds like Caleb was only dabbling in it – which is worthy of a trip to the confessional, rather than divorce court”
Grerp again while i love your writing & blog, there are VAST portions of MRM you simply have no clue about
For future reference EVERYTHING benefitting men, benefits society as a whole, such as porn
Everything benefitting women DESTROYS society as a whole, such as emotional porn & its hyper ramping of a womans hypergamy to unscalable heights
This is PRECISELY because society is created by men for men, our corporations are created by men for men, our cities created by men for men
The structures required to SUCCEED & MAINTAIN a society created by men for men, requires the sexual & physical & emotional needs of MEN be filled
Men INSTINCTIVELY know what works best for society, PRECISELY because we built society
When women interfere with our ability to satisfy ourselves & be men, ALL of society becomes highly unstable
As society is dependant on ALL of mens needs, whether it be sexual or physical, or mental, ie porn, promiscuity etc
Women simply do NOT realise the heights they should be going to satisfy men, as they do not realise the survival of society rests on HOW SATISFIED men are in the society men create
Men created society based on THEIR NEEDS & WANTS, basically men created a society DESIGNED TO FUNCTION on the needs & wants of men
When women demonise our sexuality, through our need for porn, through our biological need for multiple women, through our need for younger women, through our need for sex, the function of society suffers as a whole
EVERYTHING made for men by men, is ALWAYS for the function of society, yes that includes porn, war, dominance AND the SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN AND the SUBMISSION OF WOMEN to our needs
Which is WHY we have porn for men dominating the net, porn is simply a technology made by men for men
@GRERP Also if you’re so against porn, maybe you should go & CONFESS for everytime you view a SITCOM or a drama, chick flick, emotional porn for women
I DARE you to stick to your guns & confess watching a sitcom as wrong …
Porn does not grind up already broken ppl for its benefit, it’s telling how instinctively you react to promiscuity as being broken
But then again, Christianity has always vilified mens sexuality & the women who dared satisfied them
For the record Grerp, your views on porn & the need for women to divorce are wrong
Porn provides a SAFE, NOTE THE WORD SAFE …. haven for WOMEN & MEN who want multiple partners, who would otherwise go onto destroy families & society in general, to satisfy their needs for multiple partners, if not for porn
Yes porn can be shady, but then so are ALL industries
REMEMBER sin is a religous PREFERENCE, in the exact same way pork is a religous preference for jews & muslims
WHEN Christians try & turn a religous PREFERENCE, into a form of FALSE morality, society self destructs as a whole
& we’re seeing this very SAME FALSE MORALITY IN DIVORCE, by christians today
Christians i do LOVE to burst your bubble, SIN IS NOT A MORAL, nor is it an ethic, it is a RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE ….. Christians owned by logic …. yet again ….
Sorry Christians but we’ve seen through your attempt at applying sin, which is logically simply a religous preference, to all of society
Yes we’ve seen through your attempt at turning sin into a form of false morality, for the false morality it has always been
TRUE sin, is when men are called sinners & condemned for following their natural biological need for sex for HUNDREDS of years, precisely because of PURITAN beliefs like grep’s & the rest of the christian women spouting their irrational feminist drivel
TRUE sin, is when Christians try to force their BELIEFS AND RELIGIOUS PREFERENCES such as sin, as false forms of morality
While denying their concept of sin is simply a belief or a religious preference
Christianity’s FALSE MORALITY is precisely WHY it has IDIOTIC charismatic churches & evangelical churches, with their tambourines & FALSE FORMS OF catharsis
While the charismatic & evangelical churches destroy the traditional roots of their faith CREATED BY MEN for men, with their hideous singing & dancing & FALSE WEEPING & shouts as prostrations before a morally false god
Christianity thanks to charismatic & evangelical churches, has turned into a PAGAN RITUAL
Congratulations to Christianity for giving into puritanism, for giving into the demands of the youth ie children, & the demands of women everywhere, it is now a charismatic evangelical all singing NEW AGE CULT lol ….
Society suffers as a whole, because of the destruction of Christianity, but ONLY BECAUSE women tried to turn sin, a simple religious belief, into a false moral, & used that false moral as a crusade against christian & none christian men
Science USED to be an integral part of Christianity, women cried against science & it was stripped from christianity
SOCIETY USED to be a VITAL part of Christianity, women cried against it & it was stripped from christianity
Government USED to be a VITAL part of Christianity, women cried against it & it was stripped from christianity
& NOW we’re seeing the DEATH of FAMILY & the VITAL part it plays in Christianity, what we’re seeing are the beginning of the cries of women, as they call for FAMILIES to be absolved from Christianity
I need to say more about the mental illness comment. I want to make it clear that I am not claiming that the husband is mentally ill in all instances of divorce. There are probably only a tiny number of break-ups where this comes into play. Why mention it then?
Well, I was trying to explain what it must be like to be in a counseling type role to troubled couples. It is a role that the church is thrust into (like it or not), a role that speakers and bloggers like Sheila must take on, and a role that friends sometimes play.
Let’s say that ten couples I know got divorced recently. In eight of those instances no mental illness or abuse was evident and I don’t know what happened or whose fault it was. For discussion’s sake, we can even say that in those eight cases, it was the wife who was the impetus for the split. But then there are the two with the mental illness component. We can throw out the one where the man had clinical depression and PTSD and left his family saying he never wanted to think about them again.
That leaves the case of our friend who married a man who appeared to have some mental problems. She either did not notice or thought it insignificant. Fifteen years later, her church helped her to obtain a “biblically” sanctioned divorce. She told us that her husband was completely unconcerned for her welfare and, in fact, she compared his mental state to that of a mass murderer who was in the news at the time. Parts of the situation seemed fishy to me, specifically the church’s actions. BUT it had been several years since they had been house guests in our home and by all accounts, the husband’s problems had worsened considerably and he refused to get help. Basically, she was telling us she was afraid for her safety. We can’t (and the church can’t) take a chance with someone’s life. So even if my husband and I were very uncomfortable with these actions, we could have ended up with a dead friend, if we had asked her not to go through with the divorce.
Please don’t think I disregard the pain of the men here whose wives have falsely accused them or even the pain of the husband in my story. I think about it all the time but I don’t know how to balance that with the fact that men do hurt, kill, abuse their wives and some men do have psychological problems. How can we protect BOTH (men and women) or is it not possible?
Yeah, grerp, I wonder where Mellie went to church as well. The actual Reformed/Calvinist churches I am aware of sing the Psalms set to music or (in the bigger ones) worship songs about how God is super awesome and a big tough guy protecting you from sin, and say what one will of the Psalms, they are not about what wretched worms we are and how God can barely tolerate us. Quite the opposite in fact. Also the Reformed churches that do worship music do rock-oriented arrangements of oldies like Amazing Grace. Which, you know, if you have a beef with Amazing Grace, I don’t really know what to tell you.
I think Mellie got entangled in the (extremely small, incidentally) wave of fundie and evangelical churches seeking to distinguish their crazy from the usual fundie and evangelical crazy by attaching themselves to the term Calvinist to imply they were doctrinally sound when such isn’t the case.
The Reformed churches I am familiar with take a very hard line on divorce and are quite clear that women ‘leading from the neck’ is not acceptable or Biblical. That said, men abusing their patriarchal authority is also punished. And no, feeling unhaaaaappy because your husband had to work long hours is not considered ‘abusing patriarchal authority’.
But the Church can only do so much. Men who are genuinely abusive tend to isolate themselves from church on the grounds that it isn’t good enough, while abusive women tend to stay within the church and attempt to use manipulation to distract from/justify their abusive behavior. Where churches fail is in not accepting this pattern as more likely and dealing with it accordingly.
grerp, I would rather not give the name of the denomination since that would narrow down my location. Unaccountably, I love the old hymns, too. I recently passed a church when its carillon was playing “The Church’s One Foundation” and it brought tears to my eyes, even though I am no longer a Christian.
Women really have a problem with the idea of submission. I had a problem with it when I was younger. Now that I am older I can see that being the one in charge is not always a huge thrill. There’s a lot of additional responsibility to being the boss and having people depend on you.
Yes, this. Also now that I am older I see that submission is actually a place of greater freedom. It sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless true. Submission does not equal subjugation.
I knew a couple having marriage trouble, my wife was friends with Mrs, me just a casual bud with the hubby. I start hearing second hand about all the “abuse” hubby is heaping on poor little Mrs, but one “event” in particular was the straw that will break the back on the marriage…to wit, Mrs had surgery, hubby, allegedly, didn’t even bother to drive her back and forth to the hospital…hummm?!?!
I start hearing about this “outrage” from the extended circle of church-lady gal pals…Hummm?!?!
Funny, he was such a nervious wreck about her health condition … I DROVE THEM TO THE HOSPITAL so he could be there with Mrs. I arranged to have his car dropped off at the hospital for when Mrs was released. THE WHOLE STORY WAS MADE UP…TOTAL FANTASY!
Real story, Mrs was having an affair ( still not admitted to by Mrs, they’re on the mend don’t ya know).
I can only speculate about things…I figure the pump-n-dumper found about her health issue and lost her number. But when she thought she had lined up a new schwantz she was reflexive in her ability to create a fantasy, teary eyes, emotion, the works…all to make hubby look like an ogre.
Very scary.
The church group didn’t even blink about buying her story. He quit that church, and to this day I’ll hear about poor Mrs, having to put up with “that abuser”. I’ve set the record straight, or tried to, several times….but if Mrs said it, they believe it, that settles it …now I’m painted with the woman hater brush. I actually don’t mind, I love being the turd in the punch bowl.
A Lady, I am glad you are aware of healthy churches; I do think that my experience is colored both by attending a series of unhealthy churches and churches that I hear about from acquaintances. You mention churches failing men who stay away from the church. In one of the churches I attended, there were several older men who left their wives to go live with younger women. The pastor pursued them and tried to get them to reconcile with their wives and with the church but the men just laughed at him and said they would either go to another church or not attend church. Our whole societal structure (highly mobile, highly individual, etc.) just sets up the church to fail in this area. It is hard to see what the church *could* do about it.
All you all Christians should become Orthodox. All of you. No kidding. I can think of no valid reason not to.
Agnostics, etc, it may take a little longer.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Orthodox/2007/09/Why-Orthodox-Men-Love-Church.aspx
If the Church were in greater unity, disfellowshipping would have a real impact. If someone’s heart was hard and they could find no tolerance for their unrepentant sin, it would have a meaningful impact. This is, admittedly, a great failing of Protestant churches having denominational splits.
I truly don’t understand leaving Christ because the church has sinners in it. I mean, obviously people do, but I dunno, my faith is not snapped because some areas are full of loonies. But certainly I haven’t had the experience of attending such churches as my primary church, or at all. I have heard the horror stories of people who did and regretted losing their faith due to mistaken, evil teachings. Many return to the faith in the end, though.
@ Grerp and CL:
Now that I am older I can see that being the one in charge is not always a huge thrill. There’s a lot of additional responsibility to being the boss and having people depend on you.
This. And this:
submission is actually a place of greater freedom. It sounds paradoxical, but is nevertheless true. Submission does not equal subjugation.
I agree with both of you on the issue of submission being freeing.
I truly don’t understand leaving Christ because the church has sinners in it. I mean, obviously people do, but I dunno, my faith is not snapped because some areas are full of loonies.
I don’t understand that either Lady, unless one equates Christ with the people in the pews.
Okay, let me start by saying that I’m a Christian and I attend a Baptist church, and secondly that I’ve been following this blog for a good while.
I don’t agree with what some of you are saying about the Christian church not saying anything about divorce, are we talking about mega-churches here? I can see that being the case for large churches that have thousands and thousands of people, but I’ve attended many churches and not all of them have such a lax view on divorce.
I can agree, however, that when messages are preached to the congregation, pastors tend to be much more sensative when talking to women about submission; however, the topic does come up even if it is for a short period of time. Pastors also tend to talk to men in a much more “to the point” manner. Possibly because the men relate to other men more.
Now, one thing I do not know about are those conferences for women, which have been promoted pretty heavily in all the churches i’ve attended, those may be highly feminized and I don’t I could ever sit through them.
One more thing.
While I have occasionally viewed porn, I try to stay away from it since, in my opinion, there is really nothing positive that comes from it. I was actually given the book “Every Man’s Battle” and read it. I hated it because the man he described in his book was not me or anyone man that I knew. I think it’s garbage that some of these leaders think that their experience with porn may be everyone’s same experience. To be honest, though, I don’t really any addiction or even a strong drive to look at porn, so I’m not by any means an expert on the subject.
I think there is some confussion here. Big F fundelmentalist churches are not typically “Calvinist” or “Reformed”.
Anyway I thought I’d ad that I occasionally waste my time on the TAM forum. I just go banned with no warnings for a week. My sin? I responeded to a womans question about wherether or not she was being too sensitive when her husband makes jokes that she doen’t like and speaks before he thinks. My response “Get over it”….thats it.
This was in the “Men’s Clubhouse”.
What a joke. Wondering if the mod was a woman or wished he was one mangina.
The vast majority of Christians I have known (maybe every Christian) say that Christ has entered their hearts, their minds, transformed their thinking and actions. So while Christ may not be every person sitting in a pew, Christ’s very Body is the invisible Church. I assume that the visible and invisible Churches should overlap somewhat.
What I observed was people who abused children, who divorced their spouses even after they would have sworn every which way that they didn’t “believe” in divorce, who betrayed “friends” at the drop of a hat, and who were super self-satisfied while claiming to be the most humble of men/women. So where was the “Christ” in them that they claimed? Not there. No one showed up to answer their prayers or to truly change their hearts. If I can’t see Christ in his own sheep where can I see him?
My personal breaking point was when a new friend of mine asked me how I was doing. I broke down because not one person in the church had asked me that in the years I had gone there. I saw that my friend had more of a heart than the Christians I associated with and yet because of her beliefs (pro-gay, liberal politics, non-theist, etc.), she would never have been accepted for a second in a church that prized correct doctrine above all else. I chose simple human decency over partisan theology. And the theology is absolutely intertwined in my mind with my picture of “God” and “Christ” since I learned that whoever rises to the top in the church gets dibs on God.
Please don’t think that part was merely my experience with a couple of Calvinist sects. What I wrote in this comment was also true of very mainstream Baptist churches and the evangelical college I attended, before I ever heard of Calvinism, Reformed Theology or the “Doctrines of Grace”.
who were super self-satisfied while claiming to be the most humble of men/women.
The first mark of a prideful person is when she claims to be humble, LOL. Isn’t that common sense.
I didn’t mean to ignore the rest of your comment, Mellie, but that made me chuckle.
locard said “I think there is some confussion here. Big F fundelmentalist churches are not typically “Calvinist” or “Reformed”. ”
I think the place they overlap would be verbal plenary inspiration. The place they diverge would be in an interpretation of Genesis which mandates young earth creationism (big F).
@Rmaxd
Breathe. Wowser.
You reacted too quickly, not even allowing that you could be one of those blind dudes touching a portion of the elephant, you took her post apart based on an incomplete picture of what she said.
I agree men mad the system we now find ourselves being tossed out of….no issue.
The rest of your assertions about sin and it being a false construct is fallacious. There could indeed be some things that would fall under such a subjective mistake. But you painted yourself into the corner making your view so sweeping. It leaves one wondering if you allow for any moral imperative or absolute whatsoever. If so, is it your? If not….then what?
That kind of screed may release some tension, and from the givers perspective really challenge paradigms in a “from where I sit above it let me tell you” way, but, well, it doesnt, and you brought that on yourself by taking yourself too seriously and going too far.
TFH, I read the article you suggested. It is desperately sad and I think unfortunately, by and large, it paints an accurate picture of the state of things in this country.
I think the article does a good job of tackling the economic importance of marriage. I had not thought about that as I have concentrated on the importance of marriage for bearing children. I thought that men who wanted to father children would always be dependent on marrying but as the article shows, it is going to become as easy for men to buy children as it is for women. In my mind, an important part of cleaning up some of this mess is putting strict regulation on reproductive technology.
I don’t see changes occurring unless men and women are working in harmony. The article highlights the theme of “war” and as long as there are “sides”, this conflict threatens to continue down the grim path the author predicts.
Mellie
You asked:
How can we protect BOTH (men and women) or is it not possible?
The answer is simple….start protecting the men!, the women are already as protected (and beyond) as is possible.
There is a well done study of a bunch of divorces in 3 states, I’m surprised it comes up as seldom as it does on MRA sites, but i suppose thats because it can be used as a moral argument against women making frivolous divorce claims, and that is more a Christian issue than not, and…the reaction to Christian things on MRA sites, sadly is usually histrionic, with men going apoplectic at the mere mention of a church, even if it was mentioned just to give place to an anecdote
Man says, “I was walking past a church”
Average MRA poster screams “WHAAATTT!!!! You moron in here selloin yer stupid religion, that has no place in here you narrow minded gap toothed hill jack”
Man, “um, sorry, I was just walking past it”
Anyway, the study shows the fact that women file 3/4…we all get that. But it also shows the reasons for the filings. Contrary to conventional wisdom, 6% of the 75% (female filed) had abuse, substance, adultery as a reason. Thats less than 4% of the total divorces.
Further, add to the 75% women file, that many men have filed at wifes behest or her behavior, and you have as I think we all recognize a crisis in lack of long suffering ability for women.
Anyway, the 4% says that there ain’t so much protection needed for women, that the idea that women are trapped in abuse etc. by marriage is bunk. Know this, the abuse happens long after the split mostly, or with a BF or ex….not married men. So….protection is OVERBOARD as we speak.
That women initiate IPV more often than men is now documentable. That women dominate in verbal abuse is now provable, and that the law and society are aligned unilaterally against men nonetheless is a fact.
Wominz don need no protection
My personal breaking point was when a new friend of mine asked me how I was doing. I broke down because not one person in the church had asked me that in the years I had gone there. I saw that my friend had more of a heart than the Christians I associated with and yet because of her beliefs (pro-gay, liberal politics, non-theist, etc.), she would never have been accepted for a second in a church that prized correct doctrine above all else.
Mellie, I am saying the following without any attempt to attack or demean you, as I sense you are honestly sharing your perspective here….but this is PRECISELY WHY female-centric focus of modern day Christianity has so thoroughly corrupted the church.
It’s all about FEEEEEELLLINGS!
Because a liberal person that doesn’t follow your church made you FEEL better about yourself, you turn your back on the doctrine you are supposed to be adhering to.
This is how divorce went from being unacceptable and only permissible in the most rare instances to the near epidemic proportions it is now.
This is precisely why the Bible prohibits women from being Church authority figures and why women are told to submit to their husbands.
Because FEELINGS feed rationalization hamsters, which in turn lead people astray from the doctrine. Your commentary here demonstrates this perfectly.
Galt
Yes and yes, exactly true.
Ive just blogged about the whole “its a relationship not religion” cliche that so informs the Jesus as lover, Jesus as husband church that Leon Poddles writes about so eloquently in The Church Impotent.
Women have created a form of churchianity whereby they imagine Jesus as a partner in empathy. If He empathizes with her, then the idea that “he understands” doesn’t mean He comprehends, it means he goes along with her emotional rationalizations for any and all behavior because after all He wants her happy, right?
You heard the one about the gal who says “I prayed and God released me from my marriage”?
Its that kind of fungus that is rotting the church at the root. from singing love songs, to the endless weeping to the sermons that are “4 steps to make you feel batter about yourself”…..its badly messed up.
As a member of a small, rural, fundamentalist church there are more diffrences than that. Dispensationalism would probably be the big one. Of course TULIP is another.
I grew up in an American (formerly Norther Babptist) church. I really wanted to stay in that church, lots of great memories and some great people. Then one day when I was all grown up I had a realization.
It was run by women.
A pastor leaves, perfect, a power vacuum. I finally threw the towel in when they had an “Interm” pastor for over three years with the guise of trying to find the “right” pastor. Bye bye.
I don’t consider myself a “fundi” and my church isn’t as “fundi” as many. It is a small, independant church.
Conservation, I wholeheartedly beleive that it is about a relationship with Jesus and he has no use for religion.
Now I DO believe that can be subverted into an anyting goes rationalization.
asinusspinasmasticans: Actually, that would go for certain Eastern Rite Catholic churches, too, where such are available. The practice of faith therein is virtually identical to the Orthodox, very focused on activities, self-denial, the concept of spiritual warfare, etc. Huge focus is also given to Mary, both as a general model for Christian openness to God and a particular model for women to emulate.
Mellie
You say:
I thought that men who wanted to father children would always be dependent on marrying but as the article shows, it is going to become as easy for men to buy children as it is for women.
You are instinctively, I suspect, reversing this in the way you are looking and stating it. Why even wonder about how men can buy children? Seriously, that’s got so little to do with the point its absurd. The problem isnt some obscure might someday be the case that man can buy a child, the problem is that right NOW, a woman can do this and they are doing it. What a stretch you make, scooping way out into a hypothetical future in order to squeegee back some point where the male is the antagonist.
I suspect that way of thinking was not intentional, as I assert all the time that these rhetorical tricks women employ are some kind of reflex that allows the preservation of the very interdependent file tree that is the emotion based “Screwy decimal System” of filing in memory.
Correct me if Im wrong, please.
Locard…..why? Whats bad about religion? What do you mean by religion? What do you mean by relationship?
Does the relationship dynamic resemble that you have with a spouse or a child? Is there and active discernible (always) give and take? Note, I am not asking about what i suspect you will answer with, that yes you speak to him, and he speaks to you/me…..I get that, very much.
Another question…..are you one who believes as the current evangelical church teaches (and of which i have been a member in good standing for years) that there are some characteristics of a spiritual leader in the home? Meaning, praying with your spouse, teaching your kids the scriptures, doing family devotionals, etc? Because…..that is religion.
You are seeing both sides of my point incorrectly.
I did not disallow for relationship….I just want to drill into what that means, and no honest person can tell me it means the same thing that your earthly relationships mean….and by “mean” Im saying definitionally, not as weighted value like “meaningful”
I also think you are seeing religion as some sterile rote set of behaviors done for traditions sake, things like that, which is sadly the definition the evangelical church has foist on it, and its not correct in many cases.
For every relationship not religion set up…..given 24 hours of observation i will show you all kinds of religion in your daily walk.
Your real concern is motive…..or it should be anyway, are we not about the condition of the heart? So, how flawed is it to see someone who is adhering to a tradition out of good motive, and write them off as religious.
Mellie, you never attended any church that prized correct doctrine above all. You are being dishonest in that representation of the situation. It says right there in the Bible that we are to ask after one another as Christians, and if people aren’t doing that in the church you’re at, they aren’t following doctrine. Real simple. Not all who claim to be of God are, and the Bible also mentions that one, too.
I mean, that’s the thing. I read my Bible if I feel something funky is going on in the church body I am with. I test against Scripture. What are the people doing vs. what are they saying? I have been blessed to find that they love with hearts of Christ and build each other up, and support each other and fight sin and temptation together.
The churches I have been at are not perfect, but people do work really hard to love and serve the Lord. The friend you mention would be welcome at my extremely strict, patriarch-led (no unmarried men are permitted to be in leadership) church that doesn’t even permit deaconesses (strict even for a Reformed church). But they have had pro-gay, liberal feminists attend their services, sometimes for years on end. They always welcomed such women, invited them to supper and etc., and worked to share in community with them. But there was no compromising on what the Bible said. Requests to lead a service, rejected, requests to preach pro-gay messages, rejected. And so forth. And interestingly the women in each case were polite in what they requested, and kept attending when turned down. None of them left attending the church on a bad note (usually moving for a job stuff). They liked the people, liked the elders and deacons, but just confessed to being confused that such loving people weren’t on board with pro-gay, pro-feminist theology.
What I see in the line of reasoning you use to reject Christ is that you have quite sadly not been catechized correctly. This is a grievous problem of the All-Church, Catholic Protestant and Orthodox alike run into it with many who leave the church. They have no understanding of what to look for in a faithful Christian, or how to test against Scripture in a way that isn’t pure proof-texting, so they go somewhere where the people are clearly wearing watermelons on their heads and go ‘i guess i can’t do this Christian thing, since you have to wear the right kind of watermelon on your head and i’m allergic to watermelon anyway’.
conservativation, in the article titled “The Misandry Bubble”, the author talks about four factors which will vastly increase men’s disinclination to marry. The author says one of those factors is that men can go to India now and get a surrogate for about 20 grand. Domestically, the price tag is currently a lot more. It is not at all out of the realm of possibility that this would be preferable to marriage for some men, just as you noted more and more women are going the route of donor sperm and leaving marriage and the father out of the picture. I don’t care who is doing the buying – I just personally think that the buying and selling of children needs to grind to a halt. I’ve been taken to task for that statement before and for my inflammatory language (buying and selling) but I do feel strongly about it being detrimental to men, women, and children. I don’t blame males for it or think they are the bad guys. I can easily believe that the demand started with women.
The state of affairs between the sexes is pretty grim (as the above article attests to) and one would almost say maybe marriage is passe, just let it die out. As the author points out, however, there are severe economic consequences to the diminishment or death of traditional marriage. Returning reproduction to a more natural state might be one way of renewing interest in marriage for both men and women (imo, the author didn’t say that).
Conservation, just look at how what was required of the Jews under the old law vs what Jesus commands of us. I do not believe in any way reading or sharing the word is “religion” in my book. I guess it may be semantics in the end.
I also have not written anyone off, and aparently belong to a cult as well. I’m not tyring to convince you or anyone else that my church is “correct” or that I would not attend a different church, even an evangelical church. I know people do have notions of what a “fundie” church is, but they are independant. My previous notion of what a “fundi” church is would not be a church I would likely attend.
I live in a very rural area. I found a church that satisfied my desire to attend a chuch that preached from the bible and wasn’t run by women that wasn’t an hours drive.
Oh, if you don’t read from the KJV you’re going to hell.
Just kidding.
A Lady, you are right-I am allergic to various species of watermelon, such as Wayne Grudem’s “Systematic Theology” and the Westminster Catechism and John Piper’s ….well anything about John Piper. These watermelon seem to cause extremely unpleasant behavior in myself and others.
I am simply amazed at the story of your pro-gay feminist friends being content at a Reformed church. They didn’t hear that they were going to spend eternity in hell unless they got with the program? They didn’t realize from the get-go that they would never be allowed to serve in any ministry leadership capacity? I would visit a church like that just to see that something of that sort existed. In twenty-five years and four different states, I have never seen anything that comes close, though. If you are a Calvinist, I believe you would just have to conclude that I am not one of the elect.
locard, you are right, I misspoke. The L in TULIP would be a big difference. Eschatology is a big intellectual difference but doesn’t come in to play much in practical terms.
Keoni Galt, I don’t feel attacked at all. These objective discussions are so helpful in making me examine my thinking. I want to respond to your comment about feelings but I am not sure that I can say things just right to make myself clear. I’m going to think about it and if I can, I will come back and reply.
Mellie, a true Calvinist would argue you will be coming back…
@conservativation
Do you have the name of the study you mentioned, or even better a link?
The friend you mention would be welcome at my extremely strict, patriarch-led (no unmarried men are permitted to be in leadership) church that doesn’t even permit deaconesses (strict even for a Reformed church).
no unmarried men as leaders? kinda leaves out that jesus guy, dont it?
just as well, cause he woudlnt come within a mile of these fake churches, these synagogues of satan, anyway
perhaps the biggest reason why western churches are feminiszed and bereft of the actual spirit of god are married “pastors” who preach out of the mouths of their wives
they dont make ANY decision, they dont fart, w/o consultation with their wives
it’s usually done subtly, so as to appear in obedience to scripture, while in fact reinforcing and validating the values and assumptons of our matriarchal cultures, especially the legal and economic sistems of babs-the-great
most hilarious: they imagine god is unaware of their self-serving duplicities
god aint quite as clever as themselves, you dig? cant see thru their scam! lol
@A Lady:
“What I see in the line of reasoning you use to reject Christ is that you have quite sadly not been catechized correctly. This is a grievous problem of the All-Church, Catholic Protestant and Orthodox alike run into it with many who leave the church. ”
Perhaps. What I see in more cases is that the learning process halted at the end of Sunday school – a 40, 50 or 60 year old adult with the catechism background of an 18 year old (or younger). Our relationship with God requires life-long learning and growing which cannot be fed solely by a Sunday sermon. Independent study, reading, reflection, meditation and prayer are required, with the proper guidance.
@ Tony
“Therapist are the modern day false prophet, getting in the ears of women (and reluctantly in the ears of men who are forced to listen to them for the sake of saving a relationship maybe not worth saving)”
Spot on. In my case the ex was seeing a female counselor to sort out her thoughts. I was asked to join for a series of sessions. So I showed up and told the truth about everything. I won’t go into detail here but let’s say it was a lot of info regarding my ex’s dysfunctional behavior that apparently my ex didn’t bother to share with her therapist. Then the therapist tried to explain to me how my ex’s cheating was a function of what she felt she was missing out on. It was surreal.
I was quickly disinvited from the future sessions. But I certainly got my weekly diagnosis!
That’s when I knew our relationship was beyond saving. I filed for divorce and have never looked back.
@mellie
“The vast majority of Christians I have known (maybe every Christian) say that Christ has entered their hearts, their minds, transformed their thinking and actions. So while Christ may not be every person sitting in a pew, Christ’s very Body is the invisible Church. I assume that the visible and invisible Churches should overlap somewhat.
What I observed was people who abused children, who divorced their spouses even after they would have sworn every which way that they didn’t “believe” in divorce, who betrayed “friends” at the drop of a hat, and who were super self-satisfied while claiming to be the most humble of men/women. So where was the “Christ” in them that they claimed? Not there. No one showed up to answer their prayers or to truly change their hearts. If I can’t see Christ in his own sheep where can I see him?”
Besides what Keoni Galt, A Lady, and Carnivore have said…I would like to add:
Don’t forget, many who *claim* to follow the Lord do not actually do so – this is mentioned in the Bible numerous times in both the Gospels and the rest of the NT. Ex: Matthew 7:22 and what follows. Heck, in some parts of the U.S., going to church is practically a social requirement – some people likely go only to fulfill a certain social expectation as opposed to real belief, kind of like parents who force their kids to go to church but never truly teach them anything about the Word, so it seems like this annoying thing you do on Sundays instead of sleeping in. Lots more people are delineated as Christians then have ever actually obeyed the Word, unfortunately.
Plus even the best of us humans are capable of sin, even pretty bad stuff. Human nature is inherently evil, and we are never cured of this completely in this life.
C.S. Lewis addresses this quite well:
“(2) Suppose we have come down to brass tacks and are now talking not about an imaginary Christian and an imaginary non-Christian, but about two real people in our own neighbourhood. Even then we must be careful to ask the right question. If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a Christian. (b) That any man who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he was before. Just in the same way, if the advertisements of Whitesmile’s toothpaste are true it ought to follow (a) That anyone who uses it will have better teeth than the same person would have if he did not use it. (b) That if anyone begins to use it his teeth will improve. But to point out that I, who use Whitesmile’s (and also have inherited bad teeth from both my parents) have not got as fine a set as some healthy young negro who never used any toothpaste at all, does not, by itself, prove that the advertisements are untrue. Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether Christianity works. The question is what Miss Bates’s tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick’s would be like if he became one. Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing, have certain temperaments: Christianity professes to put both temperaments under new management if they will allow it to do so. What you have a right to ask is whether that management, if allowed to take over, improves the concern. Everyone knows that what is being managed in Dick Firkin’s case is much ‘nicer’ than what is being managed in Miss Bates’s. That is not the point. To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at Factory B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought to be. No doubt the good manager at Factory A is going to put in new machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time. In the meantime low output does not prove that he is a failure.
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (pp. 209-211). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition. “
7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
So yeah, they should have cared how she was doing if they were actual Christians. But they were more the ravening wolves. Did you know that the Bible let’s you justify divorcing your husband if he uses porn!
So that would you being completely wrong.
The question, does the creature care at all for anybody but itself is a reasonable test to put a “Christian” to. If you don’t like it, then tough luck skippy.
I am continually surprised by the very positive reaction my extremely limited good-will gets from people. It’s not that I’m a good person, it’s that the souless gaze isn’t there.
I’d like to add that I don’t waste my time even pretending to be nice to the creatures. It’s stupid, and it just encourages them to see how far they can push you.
Dalrock, it appears that Nelson publishers are giving away 200 free copies of Mark Driscolls newest book Real Marriage if the blogger promises a review. I am interested in reading it. It should be revealing from the pastor of one of the bigger evangelical churches around.
http://booksneeze.com/blogger/signin/6V8MWFpcak
John Piper, who preaches against kinism and racial preference within the church? John Piper, who admittedly has a weird fandom for Ayn Rand? I have heard some John Piper and read some John Piper and that man loves people, period. I would be interested to know what Mellie’s heard or read of his that made her feel he hated unbelievers and wished them ill, or that he was a hyperCalvinist (those are the people who basically swear they, not God, determine electedness, a classic Pharisee issue and clearly not Biblical).
I actually run into this a fair amount with women. Women seem to feel Calvinist oriented theology is MEAN whether it actually is or not. I mean, John Piper a meanie? That dude absolutely breaks my heart with his spiritual delicacy. I’m still having trouble with that one, because it’s like claiming the guy is a wife-beater in terms of my actual understanding of his work and person.
I’ll give you Gruder. Systematic Theology is a big thicket and I can understand getting poked by its thorns here and there. There are legitimate critiques of it to be found, most definitely.
But there are thousands of churches in America and I find it just as hard to believe your experience was only negative, evil, control freak loons for 25 years straight and you met zero ok people in your church life in four whole states. I am familiar with churches in four states as well, and have been attending church as a believer and as a child for over 20 years (though not straight through) and while I’ve seen some bad doctrine and preaching (including a striptease set to an OT passage), I haven’t had the level of bad experience you described. I have heard of people struggling with bad churches for as long as a decade, but generally not longer. They were usually able to find a church they could live with by that point.
I do wonder how you are doing at this point in your life. But you know, I think to many women, a woman like me is just a big meanie because I can read the Pauline Epistles and see just a big old heart of love, concern and tenderness busting out for those congregations. Paul really just straight up loved like Christ every chance he got, no matter the cost and it really comes through, to my reading. But I have heard from some other women, usually who end up going for Goddess cults of various stripes, that Paul was a big meanie. He seems a dear friend in Christ to this old woman.
Striptease set to an OT passage? From Song of Solomon, I imagine?
Nope. The Pastor picked a passage you would not have believed could be set that way, but he did it. It was like a James Brown show or something by the time he was done.
@Dalrock
Yessir….
Its called “These Boots Were Made For Walkin” yeah, I know, silly….but its actually a real honest to goodness rigorous statistical study of more than 46000 divorces if memory serves me. And the thing is its not an opinion poll, meaning people werent simply asked how they feel or what they did, its drilled into counting documents, interviewing couples, dealing with any and every objection that women usually throw at the study. I can list a half dozen things they always say in an effort to discredit it….naturally they say these things and have not even bothered to look at the thing. For example “but who filed the paper doesnt tell us what was going on and whose fault it was”…..true, and the authors dealt with that handily, statistically, as they did any perceived low hanging attack fruit.
The study smashes all preconceived notions and conventional wisdom about divorce, and it its very troublesome that women singularly rush to discredit it with pat objections when all the thing is saying, at least to me, is that we have enough women filing frivolous divorces it is a legitimate line of inquiry…..you knew that already, I did too, any man who has see no fault divorces go down in his circle knows it….but those folks who are insulated from reality choke hard on this info.
Its hard to find a free copy of it, if you google what I gave as the title you will find it easily, and its executive summary, but exactly because its a scholarly study, its not just bouncing around the web. If you are diligent you will find someone who has dragged it into their article and linked it or something, or you have to buy it from one of those study clearing houses.
Let me know if you find it. If you wish to discuss it outside the comments here Im at
[redacted to prevent you from getting spammed].
[D: Thanks. I was wondering if that was the paper (download here). I’ve done two posts referencing it here and here. I don’t recall the specific stats you referenced though. I’ll have to take another look.]
locard
You are missing my points
I didnt say reading and sharing the word are religion, I didnt say that at all. I said that the task master approach of the modern evangelical church, the definition of the spiritual leader of the home, is a task list, and is even mentioned as something to put into your “Daytimer” as antiquated a term that it is.
Its not the reading or sharing….its the nature of rote….and the expectation by wives of that rote, that sets of a religiosity in the home, short of which she is complaining her man is not the spiritual leader.
But see, you CAN read and share and it not be religiosity. I submit there are tons of other things you can do and it not be religiosity….that’s all. The relationship thing is fine, so long as on occasion we explain whats meant, one of the most freeing things I experienced was finding Christians who were not afraid to go beyond the cliches, like “relationship not religion”….pat answers born of cliches sadly define the evangelical church these days
Women hate John Piper because he said a woman shouldn’t run off and divorce her husband if he slapped her one time. He said that isn’t abuse. I saw the video and he did indeed say that. As horrible as it sounds, I actually agree. Now if a husband gets off on slapping his wife all the time and it something she has to deal with as a matter of course, that’s different. One bad moment? Not grounds for separation.
As for Mark Driscoll, he takes a lot of heat for his style from more traditional religious types, but what I’ve heard from him on marriage would send the average feminist screaming from the sanctuary, LOL.
Of course, when there’s money to be made you never know what to expect.
Yes, Lady. The Apostle Paul is seen as a meanie to women because he taught the “subjugation of women.”
In other words, any Christianity that doesn’t fully embrace egalitarianism is mean. That’s about the size of it. Even the Piper abuse controversy, rare as that kind of statement is from him or anyone else (he probably he wished he could put his foot in his mouth as soon as he said it with a camera rolling, LOL), is an extreme example. Whisper the words “submit” or “obey” and you’ll get retorts of abuse.
And I also agree with you on this issue of never once running into a genuine, authentic believer. I don’t buy that. A person who has been in church for years and never met the genuine article is probably a person with a serious issue themselves that needs to be addressed.
Calvinism should be pretty opposed to the entitlement mentality; if we are all sinners undeserving of God’s grace then we cannot really be entitled to anything other than damnation.
Having said this, the entitlement mentality is heavily embedded in the wider culture, so I’m not sure how this plays out practically. My own experience in what was once a reasonably Calvinist part of Europe is that once the Calvinist guilt/unworthiness goes (whether due to secularisation or to a more “relationship” based model of Christianity) all other things also start to fall apart thereafter.
http://news.yahoo.com/end-checklist-divorcing-women-154823555.html
Here’s a guy who’s built up a business advising wives on how to take their men to the cleaners in divorce. Note how underhanded this all is.
Unrelated, but: the end of this article fills me with all manner of rage.
Synopsis: Dad comes home to find wife has already murdered their son, and is attempting to do in herself and their daughter. In a rage, he strikes wife and kills her, attempts to save daughter, thinks he has failed, and attempts to commit suicide himself. He is awakened the next morning by Daughter, who asks why Mommy and Brother aren’t breathing (oh, and can she have a cup of tea?).
That part of things hit me pretty hard, because my daughter would ask something almost identical…she loves tea.
That’s not the rageful part either. This is:
For whatever reason, visions of fork-tongued sugarplums started dancing in my head when I read the first paragraph there. And by “fork-tongued sugarplums”, I mean that I suspect that this “court-appointed guardian” has been working overtime to poison the girl’s memory of events.
And now this dad, who has already suffered the horror of coming home to find his son murdered at his wife’s hands, is being sentenced to 15-30 years (10 if he gets a degree behind bars) in prison. This in addition to the brainwashing of his daughter to fear him for the rest of his life.
@Elspeth
I'd take it further – even more than once, as long as it's rare. Truly rare.
Why do I take this position?
a) Everyone f*cks up. That doesn't make them bad people. If the extent of their loss of control is a slap or two, it's hardly in league with ongoing abuse or murder.
b) Like it or not, guys don't usually play the catty word games that women do, and women don't usually do the physical intimidation thing (when you look at work on bullying, it's amazing how much more willing people are to admit that yes, girls bully, and they do it through playing mind games…), so a guy reacting to an ongoing stream of nagging will likely respond physically. See the article originally posted here: http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/how-to-slap-your-way-to-slavery/, and also available here: http://www.shrink4men.com/2011/11/21/a-different-look-at-mens-violence-how-to-slap-your-way-to-slavery/
I'm willing to believe that a guy who snaps just every once in a while instead of being the stereotypical poster child for abuser likley is provoked.
Call my a misogynist I guess, but I'll recall two scenes from john Wayne's McClintock (which is sortof a western-version of Taming fo the Shrew). In one, his daughter gets spanked by her soon-to-be fiance. This is in direct response to her trying to get her dad to white-knight himself and kill the man who just implied she may be a trollop ("any woman who's kissing a guy before he's engaged is a trollop"). Her dad very pointedly demonstrated the consequences of what she was asking before letting the guy spank her.
(side note: look at how the daughter reacts to the manly guy vs. her professed preference for the "smart" guy throughout the movie)
Later, McClintok spanks his wife, and the whole town practically cheers because the movie made it very clear that she was an unremitting b*tch to nearly everyone.
It's also made clear throughout the movie that GW and the people she harried and scorned put up with quite a bit from her before finally saying "enough is enough."
It's also interesting to note how both the original Shakespeare and this movie portray elements that now would be referred to as game and Evo Psych.
—–
So in short, do I think it's allright for some guy to arbitrarily beat up his wife? Hell no. Do I think good guys sometimes slip up (but if decent, then only rarely) and that such screwups are not grounds for divorce? Yes. Do I think some women bring it upon themselves by being lying, manipulative, etc. ? Yes.
Most people think the old saw is "never hit a woman." No, it was "Never hit a lady."
PC Greek:
“Don’t forget, many who *claim* to follow the Lord do not actually do so”
I’ve heard this so many times, from so many different types of Christians, who hold views contradictory to others who make the same claim. Test it against scripture, yeah, that’s what they all tell you, and so many can put it to scripture, and make a decent argument as to why the other one isn’t a “real” Christian. Maybe there aren’t any real Christians.
I don’t understand why he wasn’t released with time served, and given his child back after a few months of evaluation. He was only doing what any good father would have done, end a terminal threat to his children.
Oh, I forgot, he is a man. Only women who shoot their husbands with shotguns in the back while they are sleeping get these sorts of considerations. Fathers who do the right thing, get their remaining children brainwashed against them and put away forever.
A Lady, it seems we look at things the exact opposite from one another. Your description of Piper was such that I was not sure if we were even talking about the same person. I was going to just leave it at the “agree to disagree” point but then it was suggested that I only dislike Piper because of his stance on domestic violence. That is one reason but there are more. I will just point you to a video on You Tube of Piper giving a sermon on the theme “Don’t Waste Your Life” at the Passion Festival. The combination of the hypnotic music, Piper’s unctuous voice, and most of all the content of his speech made my stomach churn for an hour. My reaction, however, pretty much guarantees that you will find it the most pleasant speech you have ever heard :).
PC Geek, you quoted an interesting passage by Lewis. It has been years since I read “Mere Christianity” and I remember being quite impressed with it at the time. My life experience since then, however, causes me to question a couple of the ideas in that quote.
First of all, Miss Bates may be constitutionally bad-tempered and yet have begun acting a bit better since she became a Christian but WHY is she slightly less bad-tempered? I’ll submit the possibility that it is because she believes she ought to be better as befits her new religion. In other words, perhaps there is nothing actually supernatural taking place here; it is just some of good old positive thinking combined with a couple of new habits (possibly something along the lines of a frequent examination of conscience).
Something supernatural COULD explain the change but psychology could explain it just as well. I didn’t see evidence of the supernatural in the lives of Christians. Anyone may well say that that is my problem and it was there all the time but I was blind. Perhaps that is the case but as you can all tell from my comments, my personality is not one of an empiricist. Rather I am naive (and used to be much more so) and I am temperamentally inclined to believe seven impossible things before breakfast. I had no trouble believing in resurrection from the dead, miracles, God speaking to people and on and on.
I know a couple of people who are genuine Christians. However, I didn’t know them before they were Christians and I can easily believe they would be the exact people they are if they were a different religion or no religion. I simply cannot have faith in something I have never seen confirmed by the slightest shred of evidence. If that is due to a failing on my part, so be it. I am so much freer in my mind since I don’t have to jump through the impossible intellectual gymnastics that Christianity demands.
Second problem with the quote: the “factory manager” of whom we are speaking is the almighty creator of the universe. Why would it “take some time” for him to put in new machinery?
Lewis is great and some of his books are among my favorites but honestly I think he had to go through some contortions too, once he converted to Christianity.
@Clarence, RE Divorce Tips article,
Note how it is just assumed that the guy is the at fault party in a divorce!
Guys, you really need a turn-out plan, regardless of how solid you think your marriage is!
I’m in LE, I deal with this crap every day, trust me..have clothes, keys, important papers, cash, tools you need for work, etc available at a moments notice. Make sure you are on the lease, car title, mortgage, bank accounts, etc.
Women have all sorts of people offering guidance to them on how to screw you over, they plan for your ass pounding for months and even years.
Snoop, shit test, check up on your wife constantly…women really think they are smarter than men and in the ways of deceit, they are more practiced, if you blindly trust a woman, you are a fool!
Unrelated II: A bit more on that “court-appointed” guardian:
To paraphrase Cappy Cap: for the patron saint’s name of f**k.
I haven’t found there to be any intellectual gymnastics in Christianity. I have found it really is as simple as love, and as complicated if you want to feel that way about it too.
Interesting that you consider a single slap from a man to his wife ‘domestic violence’. Do you feel the same way if the wife slaps her husband during a fight a single time in their marriage? Does he have the right to file charges and claim domestic abuse occurred? There is extensive research on the mutuality of many domestic violence relationships, where the two people goad each other into violence from one. Is this the case if husband or wife slaps the other once in ten years? Likely not, and I would not counsel either husband or wife who was slapped once to end their marriage, when other big fights had not resulted in same (i.e., there is clearly no pattern of violence).
I’m just a dumb Christian woman who does her best to care about people and serve them with a heart of Christ. I get angry with people, I sometimes get hurt by mean things they say and feel pettish. But I also feel care and concern and reach out where I can, when I can. I’m just not smart enough to see all these intellectual games I’m supposed to be playing. I just see God is love, and live that as best I can in a community of believers– whether it’s the two of my husband and I or the larger church community we fellowship with, or the All-Church of believers across denominations.
I’m not the opposite of Mellie. I am naive and trusting and for example I believe Mellie is a real woman with a real life story. And yet my naiveness hasn’t kept me from seeing loving people struggle to support and lift up each other and those around them. If there is a difference between us, it is that I came to stop desiring power (I did note that Mellie was only focused on the feminists attending my church not having access to explicit power and she was very worked up about why they weren’t sufficiently irate at knowing they weren’t going to be elders or deacons, even though by definition only a few can do that work even among men, we can’t all be in charge) and recognized what was in front of my eyes– that female authority is implicit, while male authority is explicit. This is not leading from the neck, it’s operating in a parallel stream, as both forms of authority reinforce and enrich each other. This is visible in the ideal housewife/working husband scenario, actually.
PS: I was wrong about elder/deacon being limited to married men with kids only. That’s just how it played out where I presently attend, but is not the denominational rule.
By their fruits you shall know them. The fact that they are focused on exacting interpretations of scripture to get the “payoffs” that they are looking for is a very bad sign for them.
The New Testament was meant to be understandable. When people like Sheila need to take a single sentence in the New Testament and strain it’s meaning and common sense as hard as she can to get her “payoff”, it’s a good bet that serving God isn’t her primary agenda.
Is “adultery in the heard” the same as adultery? Common sense would suggest otherwise. Does anyone have any actual scripture supporting the claim? No? That’s what I thought.
Is “looking at a woman with lust” the same thing as looking at a PICTURE of a woman you do not know in lust? Well, maybe. Unless it’s not. Is lust the same as arousal? I’m not making that argument, I’m just saying that if I was playing Mr. Lawyer, I COULD certainly make it.
When the “priests” begin rambling and totally nonsensical justifications for things that have obvious payoffs for the usual suspects, Rich People, Oldsters, Women, one does kinda wonder why they believe as they do.
Not really. I know why they believe as they do.
I don’t know anything about John Piper. But I do know something about the male ‘fight or flight” response. It’s innate, and in most men it is pretty well controlled. I’m coming to suspect that it works differently in women. Women often do things or say things to men that would be considered a direct challenge to a physical fight if a man were to say or do them. Most men have very deep, probably innate, resistance to actually physically fighting a woman. So what’s a man to do? Well, it’s called “fight or flight” for a reason. A man who is getting his endocrine system stoked up to engage in a serious physical fight, who cannot actually burn off those chemicals in physical action, is going to leave the situation as best he can. Maybe he’ll walk away. Maybe he’ll run away. Maybe he’ll retreat inside his mind – the cartoon of a guy sitting in a recliner while his wife screeches “ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?” in his ear is not so far from reality.
Hmm. Perhaps one reason men in the aggregate do not live as long as women is simple: our cortisol levels are kicked around for years and years by passive-aggressive females picking fights we cannot allow ourselves to engage in. Maybe PUA’s and other practitioners of Game, by defusing women’s fight-picking, are actually lengthening their lifespan? I have one final thought for the day. Take with the above, and there’s probably an article’s worth of material to work over.
Two points for consideration.
First: What do we call a child on the playground who picks fights with other children that he knows can not fight back?
Second: Suppose that most women know, possibly subconsciously, that no matter how seriously they provoke a man (LTR, marriage, dating, work, doesn’t matter) he will not actually physically fight her. (And if he does, she can have him arrested and imprisoned with ease.) In other words, the vast majority of women are free to pick physical fights with men, secure in the knowledge that we will not fight back – or won’t do so more than at most one time.
Conclusion? Anyone want to offer one? I got mine…
Oh dear, A Lady, I am afraid we are misunderstanding one another. I wish I was able to be more clear in my comments. You seem like a very kind person and I hope that I am not giving offense to you.
I’ll attempt to answer your first question. Yes, I would consider a single slap as domestic violence if it was committed by the wife. Domestic is simply pertaining to the home and violence is unwanted force (physical in this case). So either husband or wife slapping one another is domestic violence by definition. I have never thought of slapping my husband. I just cannot in any way, shape or form conceive of this nor can I conceive of provoking him to slap me. Therefore, I can’t speak to domestic violence victims as to what their course of action should be in their individual situations. However, my very strong feeling is that neither can John Piper give blanket advice on a situation he knows nothing about. He should never have touched that question with a ten-foot pole. The best thing he could have done is said “I don’t know”.
I tend to agree about the fight or flight. I believe its initiated many ways, one of which is the instinctive rhetorical flourish women have generally. I went from thinking they were dumb, to thinking they were exceedingly clever, to now thinking neither, they take on responses they hear others make, and parrot them reflexively. these responses are rhetorically challenging in that -my heads gonna explode because there is no way out of this maze-kind of way.
Backed into a rhetorical corner again and again, most men still dont hit, they yell or refuse to engage. One is called verbal abuse, the other emotional abuse. No matter what the bastard is abusive they say
I agree that it’s domestic violence in the literal sense of the word, fulfilling both the definitions of “domestic” and “violence.” But that’s just definitions. The salient point, in my opinion, is that I see a single slap as a temporary error in judgment, not as an action that should be prosecutable by law, or should tear apart a family.
It may be somewhat relevant, but I also believe that the law should not prosecute adultery. Adultery should be dealt with by the individuals involved.
Well, if you don’t count the lifespan-shortening toll that other aspects of the PUA lifestyle have, maybe. But things like burning the midnight oil more frequently and increased incidence of STDs probably balance out any net health benefit of negating shit-testing.
Guys, you really need a turn-out plan, regardless of how solid you think your marriage is!
I’m in LE, I deal with this crap every day, trust me..have clothes, keys, important papers, cash, tools you need for work, etc available at a moments notice. Make sure you are on the lease, car title, mortgage, bank accounts, etc.
Women have all sorts of people offering guidance to them on how to screw you over, they plan for your ass pounding for months and even years.
Snoop, shit test, check up on your wife constantly…women really think they are smarter than men and in the ways of deceit, they are more practiced, if you blindly trust a woman, you are a fool!
I would strongly second this.
It’s unfortunate that the contemporary legal situation is like this, but it is, so you need to be prepared. You can’t prevent your wife from having the cops come and remove you from the house in most jurisdictions — it’s just a power she has, and when she exercises it, it will cause absolute havoc in your life. You can limit the damage by doing what Buck says here. It still wreaks havoc in your life because you are barred from seeing your kids and getting any of the rest of your stuff at your house, but if you are somewhat prepared you at least won’t be completely flat-footed.
Marriage and family law have made the marital relationship, legally speaking, a slave contract for men which is in the complete legal control of the wife — regardless of how “neutral” the laws may be on their face, they are overwhelmingly enforced by judges one way. This is why I do not think any man who is not religiously required to marry to avoid sin should even consider marrying a woman in the United States.
Buck, Brendan: Good advice.
Ken, I wrote “PUA’s and other practitioners of Game“, not just PUA’s. A married man like Athol who Games his wife in such a way as to reduce the incidence of shit tests would certainly improve his quality of life, and by reducing the incidents where he’s put in the no-win situation of fight-or-flight by his wife, possibly the quantity of life as well.
Conservatation, very useful expansion of my point. Let’s go a bit further. Here’s Joe and Jane. Joe is a beta who wants to live in a calm house. Jane is a woman who knows that there’s always room for improvement, and she’s constantly trying to help Joe to improve in some way or other. From Joe’s perspective, she’s picking at him constantly. This makes Joe want to be somewhere else, either physically or mentally. But when he distances himself from her, she gets angry – because he’s not paying attention to her. What she doesn’t realize is this: no matter what he does, it is never good enough, so why should he pay any attention to her at all?
Now on the other hand, if Joe starts gaming Jane, he’s going to DHV in her eyes. That means that in time she’ll see him as higher value, and thus not in nearly as much need of improvement. So the pick-pick-picking should subside, and his stress level goes down, so he’s more inclined to pay attention to her as she desires. This in turn leads her to want to increase her SMV, which should work to his benefit. And he gets to live in a calmer house.
Returning to the subject of the posting: part of gaming Jane is going to require him to quit supplicating to her. That means he won’t be “submitting” to her. Not at all.
Fair point. What I said about PUAs still goes, of course, but you did remark on other Game-users, and I did not fully address that statement.
Speaking as a married man who keeps the shit tests more or less at bay himself, I have to say that there are other factors which become present in many marriages that would serve to have the same basic effect on a man’s health as would the hard-charging PUA lifestyle.
Currently, I have two such additional factors, ages 3 and 1. I swear they will be the f**king death of me.
Would a Game-proficient man who never had kids and yet was not a PUA experience a net increase in “quantity of life” as you (amusingly, I might add) put it? I’d say it certainly is possible. Such a man would be exceedingly rare, but I could see it being possible that if we considered all such men as a group, we might observe that they have a slightly longer average life-span.
Conservation, I’ll try better to explain what I mean by relationship vs religion as it applies to my church.
Since there is nothing I can do to “win” my salvation, no “work” if you will, all that is left is a relationship with the person I owe my salvation to. Things people “do” regarding church can often be seen as religion (say communion every week vs a few times a year, not making an argumnet either way).
I do agree that this arguement can be taken to extremes and many things I do could be construed as religion, but the statement, just like the bible, has to be taken in the proper context.
That is all. Hope this helps.
I attended a marriage confrence at church once that featured a video with Wayne Gruden in it.
In it he talks about moving to Arizona to help with his wifes health. (loving her like Christ loved the church, or supplicating? )
I can’t remember the exact context, but man he sure came off as a major beta.
@Celeste
“I’ve heard this so many times, from so many different types of Christians, who hold views contradictory to others who make the same claim.”
Well this particular statement is directly from the Bible so hearing that from anyone who even remotely makes a stab at Christianity isn’t surprising.
Honestly, the Scriptures are pretty plain on most stuff…the issue is that most pastors and their flock never really bothered to study the Bible that much – they take the plain English reading of a Book published in totally different languages and in a totally different culture (high context/eastern as opposed to low context western cultures). You don’t need to be an expert or cultural anthropologist but some stuff in the Bible, stated as it was to people in a totally different culture than our own, did require some context to understand completely that we are lacking. Most cases the meaning in English is plain, but this is not always the case. (Eg. The “turn the other cheek” thing was a specific reference to the culture of the time and response to personal verbal insult, and has nothing to do with pacifism, for example.)
But the larger issue is actually that people will naturally approach any source of information with their own cultural and political biases, and can easily ‘massage’ the data to reach whatever conclusion they want to – what you are stating happens with just about anything. Tons of scientists, for example, will swear up-and-down that global warming isn’t happening, others say that it is happening, or did happen, or will happen, and so on, and whoever disagrees must be a clueless science-hating neanderthal. (Their position nearly invariably depends on what will get them more grant money…trust me on that one.) Historians disagree about many details of past events, or even the basic points in some cases, and so on…all fields of inquiry and endeavor have people with access to the same information coming to different conclusions, fueled at least in part by confirmation bias and simple wishful thinking. Some may be right, and thus the others wrong, or maybe everyone is wrong, but that does not invalidate the source itself.
Also, are you yourself familiar with the Scriptures? If not how can you possible evaluate if the arguments they are making are decent or not? Or did you just assume they were decent? Tons of people make up crappy rationalizations for what they want to believe in – nothing new under the sun there. There is a ton of bad theology out there, just like there is a ton of stupid political debates. Most people are pretty dumb, regardless of their background and beliefs. Most people want reality to bend to their will, not the other way around.
Plus the core of being Christian is faith in Jesus Christ, even if you did make some doctrinal errors. That is where Salvation lies anyway. Most Christian denominations don’t view all other denominations as not ‘real Christians’ – just fellow Christians who don’t have all the details right.
PC, well but of course if there is a philosophy, there will be some people not following it well. I do happen to be quite familiar with scripture, and I find that “many people claim to be but aren’t” seems to most often be used to say, “well, those folks aren’t.” Yet, I have heard that said about innumerable sub-groups of Christians, to the point where every Christian probably has another Christian pointing at them and saying “you’re one of the false ones.” That was my point, that it seems to me like every Christian would be considered “not a true Christian” by some other Christian.
To a nonbeliever, I feel a bit of mild curiosity about the whole phenomenon, but I’ll let you all figure it out. But really believers can’t expect me to accept their definition of a “true Christian” and expect me to write off someone else as “not a true Christian.”
Interesting discussion.
@Celeste
I see a lot of words like ‘seems’, ‘probably’ – nothing really substantive.
Anyway, the fact that Christianity has been split into denominations, *some* of which think poorly of other ones, while a source of confusion, is simply a facet of human nature and has nothing to do with the philosophy, which is the only thing that matters here.
As I mentioned earlier, the exact same critique could be made in many fields of knowledge – the fact that people disagree, even violently, is because people are people – it does not in any way invalidate the underlying field. But they usually do agree on same basic points (i.e. no scientist is going to deny gravity even if one of them things global warming is real and another just as insistently says that it is false and the other guy is not doing real science…)
If you are quite familiar with the Scriptures, you will find that they are not really that hard to interpret in the great majority of circumstances. Many squabbles are related to people taking stuff out of cultural and historical context to match with what they want to believe. But that is another discussion for another time. Your response seems to imply that Christians are so totally subdivided that they consist of a bunch of tiny groups that are almost mutually exclusive – this is simply not the case, as any examination of doctrinal statements can make quickly clear.
Christians are still human beings, and if you look at history a bit you will see a lot of these denominational squabbles were far more political in nature than anything else. People fight about *everything*, so no surprise they would fight about religion too.
Anyway, since you are a nonbeliever, it is true that you would not be expected to be able to sort out which group is saying what, and this confusion is indeed an indictment of the Christian church. Christians need to be humble enough to admit that even with the purview of their own faith they can be in error, and that while we overwhelmingly agree on numerous core concepts, we will never know everything about any subject, including our own faith. Jesus instructed Christians to be careful in judging others, and we would be wise to apply that to ourselves. Some will, but of course others won’t. People are people, after all.
If you were curious about it though, early writings in the Church would provide historical value as well, and I do believe that C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (already quoted by me above, actually) is a good starting point for the basics. Even if you are just curious, it is probably a good read as it really does cover a lot of those core basics that are shared by just about every Christian.
Speaking as a married man who keeps the shit tests more or less at bay himself, I have to say that there are other factors which become present in many marriages that would serve to have the same basic effect on a man’s health as would the hard-charging PUA lifestyle.
Currently, I have two such additional factors, ages 3 and 1. I swear they will be the f**king death of me.
You need to ensure regular escapes from them for you and your wife. These don’t have to be fancy or expensive things, but it needs to be “husband and wife” time, time when she’s very much not being “mommy”. Don’t let her “marry” the children. The children should not be the center of family life, the family itself should be the center. You were married before the children came, and believe it or not they will in time move out of the house and into the world (this seems utterly impossible to you at this time I wager). When that day comes, you don’t want to be living with a stranger.
Would a Game-proficient man who never had kids and yet was not a PUA experience a net increase in “quantity of life” as you (amusingly, I might add) put it? I’d say it certainly is possible. Such a man would be exceedingly rare, but I could see it being possible that if we considered all such men as a group, we might observe that they have a slightly longer average life-span.
It is possible. On the other hand, living with two small people of those ages certainly has an effect on time in the subjective sense, so maybe men like you feel like they are living a much longer life regardless of actual duration.
Not kidding about the Game, and about not letting her “marry” the children. It’s in your own interests as well as hers.
@Mellie:
This whole thread is sorta going off topic – while I cannot speak for Dalrock, I don’t think he had this type of debate about Christianity in mind when he made this post. So to be respectful of that I will be succinct and end this with the some useful follow up reading – these issues warrant more than a few blog posts anyway. I can point you to some good sources – I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way, but the objections that you are making are really quite common skeptical objections and have been addressed numerous times before – nothing new here. Did you just come up with these objections and simply imagine that that was the end of the matter, than no one else has ever thought of these objections and perhaps satisfactorily addressed them? I will just *lightly* gloss over it here (so the forum can go back to the main topic) and then point to some follow-up so that way the thread can turn back to the issue at hand.
“
1. “First of all, Miss Bates may be constitutionally bad-tempered and yet have begun acting a bit better since she became a Christian but WHY is she slightly less bad-tempered? I’ll submit the possibility that it is because she believes she ought to be better as befits her new religion. In other words, perhaps there is nothing actually supernatural taking place here; it is just some of good old positive thinking combined with a couple of new habits (possibly something along the lines of a frequent examination of conscience).
Something supernatural COULD explain the change but psychology could explain it just as well. I didn’t see evidence of the supernatural in the lives of Christians. Anyone may well say that that is my problem and it was there all the time but I was blind. Perhaps that is the case but as you can all tell from my comments, my personality is not one of an empiricist. Rather I am naive (and used to be much more so) and I am temperamentally inclined to believe seven impossible things before breakfast. I had no trouble believing in resurrection from the dead, miracles, God speaking to people and on and on. “
**
About the psychology part, the thing is, since you are not privy to the inner lives of other people, there can’t be proof one way or another. Whether or not psychology can explain a particular change does not mean that it must be the explanation, and in any case, there are numerous examples (historical and contemporary) of people who have truly changed quite drastically. However, nonetheless, you are correct to say that changed lives only indicate a utility to Christianity and have no direct bearing on its’ being truthful or not (again, since we can’t prove either way what really is going inside other people…heck we can often barely understand ourselves really…)
In terms of ‘not seeing the supernatural in the lives of Christians’, what precisely were you expecting to see that you did not?
**
I know a couple of people who are genuine Christians. However, I didn’t know them before they were Christians and I can easily believe they would be the exact people they are if they were a different religion or no religion. I simply cannot have faith in something I have never seen confirmed by the slightest shred of evidence. If that is due to a failing on my part, so be it. I am so much freer in my mind since I don’t have to jump through the impossible intellectual gymnastics that Christianity demands.
**
1.) You have no way of knowing what type of people they would or would be, so that statement is irrelevant and is just your pure speculation.
2.) In terms of no evidence…hoo boy this would open a big can or worms, so all I am going to say here is that there is plenty of evidence, historical and philosophical. We have far more historical support for the Bible than we do for the existence of Alexander the Great or several other important historical figures. I will go no further since this thread is off track enough as it is (but I couldn’t help giving at least some response) You can easily do some research on these topics if you are even remotely curious.
**
What mental gymnastics are you referring to? Do you mean that you cannot find Christianity credible? There is a ton of historical and philosophical evidence for it (another topic, another time, I know) – there are lots of places to start, either William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith site or JP Holding’s Tekton Apolgetics Ministries? But outside of that, you seem to be just making an assertion without any supporting evidence.
**
Second problem with the quote: the “factory manager” of whom we are speaking is the almighty creator of the universe. Why would it “take some time” for him to put in new machinery
**
Two words: *Free Will* – Sure, He could just overwrite your entire personality and thought process, but that is not the point. The point is to guide you in the right direction, not drag you there. He made creatures with free will, genuine minds and intellect, and the ability to freely choose His Way or not of their own volition. It takes time because *we* exist in time and need that time if we are to freely “get our new machinery installed” as per the metaphor.
I cannot prove this in any way, but you are likely just rejecting faith due to your feelings vis-a-vis your early story about your friend, and you are making ex-post-facto rationalizations. Your personal breakingpoint was emotional, not rational. Keoni Galt’s earlier post (2:53pm) was right on the mark.
**
Which is just fine for a lot of people – most, it would seem – and is exactly the purpose of “feminist jurisprudence” for the past 35 years. That is what FEMININE-ism means. What causes the problems with trying to conduct a civil and constructive dialogue is that many church women (and many church men) fully support this goal.
Here is how one fairly well known Christian woman blogger recently put it.
“after all, the man’s (entire) purpose is to support the woman in her womanhood” – a man cannot, obviously have another purpose, and certainly not one of his own choosing. If he is not bleeding into a woman’s life in order to “support her in her womanhood” he has no purpose that he can fulfill. (<- some people take serious umbrage to arrogance of this sort)
Women who hold men in such contempt will never be reasoned out that belief system. Is in not the least bit uncommon for women to consider men simply a lower form of life, and believe that they are entitled to whatever resources the man produces just as a farmer believes that he is entitled to slaughter a cow, hog, or chicken to put on his table.
Family law has destroyed any personal counter-balance that men had for this consumptive compulsion. Within the family law system, women and men remind me of anglerfish –
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/anglerfish/
The smart-assed comments are too obvious to even bother with. 😉
PC Geek, my rejection of Christianity was due to many factors that took place over a 25 year period (since I was “saved” in my teens). I listed the “final” break but there were several other big ones in the two years or so leading up to that. I wish I could say more and reply to Keoni Galt’s post but I simply cannot be succinct about something this complex. More to the point, I completely agree that I have tried Dalrock’s good will more than enough by going off on this lengthy tangent.
I certainly don’t believe I could make up any new objection to Christian faith but as for those objections being satisfactorily addressed, I am unaware of it. I have not heard of the sites you mention so I will look at them out of curiosity rather than out of a desire to go back (to Christianity). It is too great a relief to be out of it. I thank you, though, for the discussion and Dalrock for allowing it.
@ grerp
“My view is that there isn’t anything wrong, intrinsically, with a love story. People have been telling, and hearing, and reading love stories for thousands of years, and readers who read them aren’t wanting to commit adultery any more than people who play video games really want to kill someone.”
Perhaps, but in actuality, no. This presumption is very, very, very….. very wrong. The idea of “Romance” is relatively new, about 5 centuries old. Before that, from extant sources, love or ‘Eros’ was passion, considered destructive and a type of insanity. We can trace this through to Shakespeare who took several well known stories and adapted them.
I will illustrate here for comparisons between modern ‘romance’ and ancient ‘Eros’: Romeo and Juilet was take from the Roman Classic of ‘Dido and Aeneas’ the point of the Aeneid was that love was a violent and destructive force (destructive to Dido Queen of Carthage) as Fate (which not even the gods could sway) deemed it to be not. The story ends with Dido immolating herself after Aeneas sets sail for his destiny in Italy, now what is telling is that at one point Eros (Lat. ‘Cupid’ son of Venus, god of sexual of passion, and half brother to Aeneas) sits upon Dido’s lap as part of Venus’ plot to protect Aeneas. In the end it is a destructive force not invited into the institution of marriage as seen at one point when Dido is gifted with Helen of Troy’s Wedding dress (in Rome Helen’s name was synonymous with adultery.) Now Shakespeare played up the passionate love between Romeo and Juliet to heighten the pathos between the titular characters, but as recipe for a good marriage… uh hell no.
In the traditional view, if you wanted a lasting marriage, best to leave Romance out of it. This can be seen in all the works of antiquity. Romance was for seducing loose women on the sly, not for wives. So in effect to woo/romance one’s wife in law was to literally treat her as a whore.
Hi Dalrock I’m a 6 month lurker and first time poster.
This is a relationship breaker for me, the power struggle.
I’m 36, never married, tall, good looking and a “handyman” (power engineer, mechanic etc.)
I have no problem with being wrong or admitting to such- that’s life.
But the whole “I’m wrong and I know it but I want to hear you say I’m right because you can’t stand my bitchy attitude so you will give up” BULL$IT
I’d rather hire professional help for my urges. “Why buy a cow when milk is cheap?”
I’m not a player so at this point it’s new comp game> going on a date.
Locard
I get your last post. I agree with it, I just dislike the cliche about relationship not religion for what it has morphed into. In some way it is germane to the topic of the thread in that, if SHE has this “relationship” she is constantly working it, showing Him her side, and her feelings speak back to her in a feedback loop that she attributes to God, and its all about her happiness.
Someone mentioned these womens conferences…..oh…..my….they are self esteem raising seminars, self esteem “in the faith” may be better term. Here women learn about husbands submitting to them, never in those words, but framed as supporting him. Support means control.
My old favorite forum Christian Forums has a thread going about nagging. The topic asked men to define nagging. Within 4 posts the ladies had that sorted out, “but what if what he is about to do is wrong?”…or….”what is he wont do what needs to be done?”, hence, nope, it ain’t nagging, its support, life goes on. This sense of superiority combined with what I see in so many women as being a walking to-do list affords huge conflict in marriage. I envision that beeping bionic noise when she looks around the house, beep beep beep beep…..Lindsay Wagner looking for tasks to tell him to do….so unsettled, note that you all know some woman who is contantly redecorating, could be cost free like rearranging, modest cost like painting, or some spend wildly on new furniture and cabinets and these things NEEEEED to be done.
Reading how fast the ladies sorted out that there is no such thing as nagging because the husband is about to do something “wrong”….or not do something that “needs” to be done tells a lot. She, as arbitur of wrong and need, is poised above the pedestrian creature known as man, but for her every throw of his would be gutter ball.
conservativation, grerp some time back wrote some good words about contentment vs. happiness. If I can find that article I’ll try to remember to post a link to it.
it’s been pointed out in various places that many modern women want a man who will lead them, but only where they want to go. So they don’t really want to be lead at all. They want to lead, from behind, so that the man takes the risks of leadership but really is just letting his wife tell him what to do. Somewhere recently I read a good, pithy, summary of this but don’t have a pointer, so can’t credit anyone.
“Some women say they want a man who will lead them, but what they really want is a chauffeur.”
@Conservativation,
My wife got on the “we NEEEEED a new kitchen” kick. She insisted that “WE” go plan this project, alas, it was her way or the highway. I suggested an industrial style kitchen (stainless steel, tile floors w/ drain, generous pantry) she insisted on cozy and warm ( what ever that means). I threw up my hands and said, fine, do it your way…she got her way…you go team girl!
Well, the kitchen is a disaster, very inconvenient, shoddy material etc…she hates it. Her girlfriend listened over her shoulder and crafted the kitchen I suggested at her home…my wife LOVES it! She told me she couldn’t visualize what I was talking about.
She asks if we can re-do the kitchen again, now willing to listen to the dumb guy ( who was right!).
I flat out said NO! and told her why….you demanded your way, you ignored all the sage advice, you refused to submit or even listen, you made this disaster, now live with it!
I’m a guy I can adapt, she now has a festering sore she must look at every day, and yes, I make a point of complementing nice kitchens when I see them, and blaming wife her for our nightmare.
Throughout our marriage, whenever my wife has asked my opinion then insisted on her way, it has been a disaster, and I don’t “fix” it later. After 20 years, she has learned to listen to us dumb guys as we are usually correct. (because we live in the world of logic, not emotion).
@Buck
How long ago was this and is this (making sure to “rub it in”) making any noticeable change in her behavior?
I think it is a great strategy to employ. Fight fire with fire or essentially, fighting fair. Maybe men should play just as dirty and just as aggressive as women in how they “fight”. Bring up old stuff that a guy normally would “forget” (rather, purposely keep in the past because well, it is in the past….at least in the man’s mind).
PC:
CS Lewis, yes I have read. I find him riddled with false assumptions. I use “seem” and “probably” a lot because I am voicing my opinion, not binding arbitration here. Maybe it’s because I’ve lurked on too many feminist blogs, where if someone writes in a more definite tone, they get hollered at for making generalizations:)
I think that Christians almost HAVE to believe that no one would ever break with Christianity for reasons other than emotion, otherwise it would mean there might be rational reasons.
I think it may be impossible to convince a believer that the reason I broke with the religion (which at one point I defended ardently) was not for emotional reasons, but the result of intense research.
Anonymous Reader: Protip appreciated, though it should be said that I was being mostly facetious with my quip there.
Celeste: The problem, I think, is that there are many Christians — myself included — who either came to or opted NOT to break away from that faith as the result of intense research as well.
Truth, in general, does not contradict truth. Intense research, being primarily concerned with factual truths (a subset of Truth) shouldn’t typically lead people to two opposite conclusions. Yet, we observe this to be so.
As such, we have to assume that either the results of the research are suspect or the interpretation of those results is suspect. Something apart from the facts themselves leads to the wildly different outcomes. It’s was not an uncommon thing for me, back when I actually bothered debating such matters, to pick past all of an atheist’s rational defenses to find that all he was really doing was defending the emotionally-driven irrational decision-making of his pre-teen self.
That may or may not be the case with you as well; I’ve neither read your explanations for turning away from Christianity, nor do I much care to. Mostly, I meant to point out that just as “intense research” lead you away from the faith, the same led me and many others to the faith. Which, in turn, points toward the probability that other factors are also in play.
@Tony,
It was 10 years ago, and there is a decided improvement in her attitude RE forcing her way in things.
I’m no ogre, just a guy, when it comes to decorating the house, arranging furniture etc, I don’t really care, so team girl can have their way, but when I’m asked my opinion, or I see a glaring technical reason to do things differently from team girl, she will now “submit” ( ha, love that word).
I think she is happier too.
Our society has really done a number on women with their propaganda about men being stupid/wrong/predators/ etc…men need to make a point of demonstrating just how absurd that mentality is.
I agree, Ken. Which I also think it would be fallacious for me to assert that no Christian arrived at the religion for rational reasons.
Germane to my above comment, sincerely prayerful people feeling “led” to opposite conclusions and feeling strongly convicted of them was one thing that initially spurred me to begin my research.
What I can conclude is that the truth may not always be obvious, even to sincere and rational people. For which I may suffer eternal torture. Alas, such are the breaks.
The whole concept of “led” is one that I tend to mostly reject as being valid, even in religious contexts. I’ll accept it when it’s used to describe the path taken by a more-or-less-universally acknowledged prophet, but that’s about it. In my experience, most people who AREN’T in the pages of the Bible and who are claiming to be “led” by something are really just trying to find a nice-sounding way of saying “God says we should do it my way.”
I still chide my wife about this when she tries to use that sort of verbiage, in fact. And I love her. You can imagine, then, what I think when people — even particularly devout, prayerful, and even (dare I use the word?) holy people — I’m emotionally disconnected from claim to be “led”. My usual reply to such claims takes the form of an onomatopoeia. And the same is largely true even of notable religious individuals throughout history (Luther, Calvin, various errant Popes, etc.).
I don’t doubt that the Spirit is capable of a-movin’ whom It will, but I’m usually inclined to make sure that I cross all other possible spirits off the list of potential movers before I’m willing to accept a claim of being “led” somewhere by a supernatural being I’d care to associate with.
I agree, I am now very suspicious of any claims of being “led.” It’s a specific kind of religious rationalization hamster, that probably leads to a lot of the relational harms described by our very own Blogmaster here.
In a nutshell, yes. It’s a way of attempting to claim a kind of moral/spiritual high ground, with just a hint of “you’re really, seriously damned if you don’t” mixed in. Because really, if one is being “led” by the Spirit toward a particular thing, how could anyone challenge that assertion without setting himself against God’s own divine will (which just happens to comport with Madame’s desire for a new kitchen…)?
Do you think that the prevalence of “leading” going unquestioned among modern Christians is a symptom of the feminization of the church?
I guess I meant that question in the context of relying on “leading” may be an example of women relying more on how they feel, and less on doctrine, etc.
Rationality doesn’t presuppose emotion. I mean, what else is rationalization but conversion of emotional reasoning into viable logical arguments to reassure oneself?
As a Christian who has a complicated conversion story at best, I tend to be relaxed or at ease with agnostics who’ve left the faith, because agnosticism is the only rational non-religious position if you don’t wish to be Christian (or some other religion). Contrary to their feeeeelings, atheism by its nature is a religious alternative to Christianity. So ex-Christians who are agnostic or who’ve simply picked another religious belief system make sense to me, though certainly I grieve their separation from God, but atheists are essentially stealing agnostic thunder and pretending to be something they are not (non-religious in practice and belief system). A few atheists are upfront about this, but most just descend into sputtering polemic when called out on it.
@Celeste
As was the case with Mellie, I don’t want to get this too far off track (although it seems to late for that at this point. 🙂 ) .
Ken and A Lady already said a lot of good stuff – so I have very little additional stuff to add.
So the only point I will make is to quickly return to your original contention that cast aspersions on Christianity because there a metric ton of denominations. Just like on the overall issue of religion the two of us disagree despite tons of reading, thinking, and soul searching, so to does this same process happening in a somewhat narrower scope within the confines of any belief system…so no one should be surprised at the 8002132132323 or so Christian denominations out there…
People are not 100% rational animals, and no one looks at anything without his own desires and thoughts floating around there somewhere. This does not mean we cannot know anything, but rather that we must be brutally honest with ourselves, what we want, and what we actually see out there. This is hard for everyone, and probably impossible for many. Periodically any honest person must re-evaluate what they believe and why.
I have come to realize that most people are pretty dumb and intellectually shallow, actually – no matter their background, and very few actually think about the ultimate issues like faith and religion at all. (or politics or anything outside of reality TV and other such pop culture junk). We may disagree, but I do give you a great deal of credit for at least examining and thinking about these issues in detail.
Just like the case with A Lady, I too had a complicated conversion story, and the only thing I will relate on that is that my thought about coming to faith (or not) was basically that since the legitimacy of Christianity relies on the Resurrection (if it happened the Christianity is true no matter how retarded some denominations may act, and if false than it is just a nice historical footnote) then I decided to look into the arguments for.against it (historical), the reliability of the Bible as a whole, and the related philosophical arguments for the existence of God and basically took it from there. I do attend church but my own personal spiritual study holds more weight than any denomination out there…and strangely enough my reasons actually partially echo yours…although from the other side, so to speak. (i must also note once again that if you ignore the fringe dudes most Christian denominations really do agree on most of the core stuff.)
Anyway, while I disagree with your religious direction and will pray for you. While you never did precisely say what C.S. Lewis said or thought that was riddled with false assumptions (or what said assumptions were), since you already seem to have read him, one Christian writer that even a lot of atheists and agnostics seem to like is G.K. Chesterton. His stuff is in the public domain now so it can all be found for free online.
I write way too much…’brevity is the soul of wit’ and all that…sigh…
To add to this discussion about how such an incipient movie could be lauded as a Christian undertaking in demonstrating the sacred nature of marriage and how Christ views such a thing, I would like to pitch in with some words from CS Lewis in his book “Mere Christianity”. He, like myself, was single when he wrote these words, but nonetheless a very solid and stoic scholar in God’s Word and very gifted in the ability to be introspective and committed to understanding, following, sharing, and living his faith. Since we are on the subject of submission in a godly marriage, he had some very interesting insight as to why there has to be a singular centralized leadership and why it has to be the man that takes up that position. Just remember one thing, with great power [also reads leadership as well] comes great responsibility. So without further ado, here is Mr. CS Lewis on Christian marriages from his book, Mere Christianity:
“Something else, even more unpopular, remains to be dealt with. Christian wives promise to obey their husbands. In Christian marriage the man is said to be the ‘head.’ Two questions obviously arise here, (1) Why should there be a head at all – why not equality? (2) Why should it be the man?
(1) The need for some head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as the husband and wife are agreed, no question of a head need arise; and we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage. But when there is a real disagreement, what is to happen? Talk it over, of course; but I am assuming they have done that and still failed to reach an agreement. What do they do next?
They cannot decide by majority vote, for in a council of two there can be no majority. Surely, only one or other of two things can happen: either they must separate and go their own ways or else one or the other must have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or other party must, in the last resort, have the power of deciding the family policy. You cannot have a permanent association without a constitution.
(2) If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly, is there any very serious wish that it should be the woman? As I have said, I am not married myself, but as far as I can see, even a woman who wants to be the head of her own house does not usually admire the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. She is much more likely to say “Poor Mr. X! Why he allows that apalling woman to boss him about the way she does is more than I can imagine.” I do not think she is even very nattered if anyone mentions the fact of her own “headship.”
There must be something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule. But there is also another reason; and here I speak quite frankly as a bachelor, because it is a reason you can see from outside even better than from inside.
The relations of the family to the outer world—what might be called its foreign policy—must depend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought to be, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman is primarily fighting for her own children and husband against the rest of the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claims override, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee of their interests.
The function of the husband is to see that this natural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the last word in order to protect other people from the intense family patriotism of the wife. If anyone doubts this, let me ask a simple question. If your dog has bitten the child next door, or if your child has hurt the dog next door, which would you sooner have to deal with, the master of that house or the mistress? Or, if you are a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?”
Wow, well that was a doozy, but just for everyone’s edification, Lewis did eventually marry. I added that commentary as a biographical addendum in case we might get some rebuttals from our egotistical prideful who would claim that such a man would never be able to marry. The truth is, at least for Christians, when you try to negotiate and compromise upon God’s Word, you are in rebellion…period. To those who aren’t Christians, well this wouldn’t necessarily be a predicated issue since many non-Christians would not consider God the final Authority on marriage. Grace allows us to live our lives for Christ to the best of our abilities, but it still demands that we live a holy and perfect life…or do our best to do so. It does NOT negate anything that is written as a clear commandment, including the issue of submission in marriage. Some food for thought.
PC:
Thanks for your thoughts. Like you, my (de)conversion was complex. I will check out Chesterton. I enjoy how a lot of the old apologists and counter apologists (Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine being quite convincing to me) are public domain now.
I too don’t really want this to devolve into a religious debate, and though I have the urge to bring up my issues with Lewis, I really honestly just want to stick to the marriage topics. I have actually found that some of the lesser known Christian writers tend to be the ones I like best, while some of the more popular ones (McDowell and Lee Strobel being two I can think of off hand) I find wrenchingly shallow. I suspect, however, that this is because McDowell and Strobel are generally writing for a general audience, hence the writing is more surfacey.
I appreciate your acknowledgement that I have looked into these issues, and I agree that people of all ilks don’t seem to give the issues enough thought time.
And I’ll tell you that I do have a certain kind of faith left, which is the faith that if a god should exist and that my belief in said god is conditional to the fate of my eternal soul, and if I keep a genuinely open mind and willingness to learn, then I’ll learn the truth if there is one to be learned. The fear of eternal torture, when repeated from a young age, is indeed hard to shake. But I suspect that that is precisely why said threat exists to begin with.
PC:
And I appreciate your willingness to dialogue with me. Your tone reminds me of that of some of my favorite Christians, specifically a friend I had in college who knew me before and after my deconversion, and continued to be a good, respectful, and engaging friend.
I admire the willingness of many of the believers on this board to actually “walk the walk.”
Celeste, I am enjoying your comments. I agree with your critique of the authors you mention. My favorite lesser known Christian writer was George MacDonald. His sermons, adult fiction, fantasy, and fairy tales (The Light Princess is brilliant) are all centered around the theme of love. He had a wonderful father and was able to conceive of a divine relationship with his heavenly Father that took threads from that earthly relationship. MacDonald had a very happy marriage of over 50 years duration and 11 children (which he called the wrong side of a dozen). Even though he was tossed out of the pulpit of his Calvinist church, he was said to have had a strong influence on Lewis and Chesterton, among others.
@Celeste:
1.) I never read anything by McDowell, and I read some article by Strobel a *long* time ago…so I don’t really remember anything about it. Popular stuff by its’ nature is usually pretty “surfacey” as you say – it doesn’t have to be dumb [but often is], but it won’t go too far in depth because quite frankly most people don’t care…sad but true…wish it weren’t though…
2.) (Ironically this part I am in part deriving from Lewis) I believe that in the long/eternal run, any true seeker will find Christ in the end – if you are sincerely seeking after truth you will eventually find it – while I dislike atheism and agnosticism I do want to be clear that I don’t dislike atheists or agnostics themselves. We are still human beings in the same cosmic boat, and the sincere and perceptive among us are trying to find out the big questions and go about doing this in different ways – while I believe there is One correct destination, people get there different ways…there is a really good blog post on this, but I don’t know if we are permitted to post links or not…I will try posting it right after this post, but maybe it will get blocked, I am not sure.
3.) Chesterton wrote so much stuff that it is hard to pinpoint a good place to begin, to be honest. I can’t remember the first thing I read from him…his most well known works are a pair of books called *Heretics* and *Orthodoxy* which despite their intimidating names are not what you would think…but perhaps most relevant to our discussion is his book “The Ball and The Cross” – which to avoid giving away the plot I will just say that it is about a sword duel between a Christian and an atheist that keeps getting interrupted by the bad guy(s), who consist basically of elements of modern society that thinks that big ideas are not important to talk about, and prefer the superficial genteelness of modern society.
Well it is getting pretty late around my part of the world so good night.
That link I was talking about it point #2 above: (hope this posts properly…)
http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2009/09/promise-of-matthew-7-or-why-christians.html
I love George MacDonald. The Light Princess is chicken soup for the soul.
@ Crimson:
“The need for some head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent.”
I do agree that there is always a need for some head.
Celeste: Your second comment was basically the answer I was going to give to the first, so…yes? I think “yes” means I’m in agreement with you.
I loved that article PC! And I loved how the author didn’t want to condemn the unbeliever simply because he couldn’t honestly believe at the time. I find myself there. I just can’t force myself to believe, anymore than I think a believer could force themself not to believe.
Oy, the “led” thingy.
Its one of the cliches that are the western evangelical faith now. And dare I say, especially among Christian women, because the cliches reinforce emotions that are desired to be felt. There are cliches that will get you where you wanna go!
I feel led
God will open doors…..or its offshoot about a specific “maybe God is opening doors”
God will close doors….”maybe God is closing doors
The above are to “tell you or lead you”
Something not going the way you want…..if you REALLY want it simply say “God is putting roadblocks as tests……if you don’t want it “obviously God is blocking the way for a reason”
“Maybe God is testing you”
There are cliches to get around Ephesians marriage model, for example “mutual submission”, which is a scripturally derived cliche, and hilarious in an Alvin and chipmunks way, as the mutually submissive couple stands before a door they wish to enter saying “after you”….”no no I insist after you” and never get through the thing……if you know Spongebob imagine the French accented narrator as the scene cuts back to that couple “Three Hours Later…..”
How about the primarily Christian female obsession with honesty…..whats wrong with honesty you ask? Why are you advocating lying you ask?
I’m not.
I’m being HONEST, that honesty is a Christian cliche, and that given a half a day w/ ANYONE I will show you your lies, my lies, and many more.
Oh, and there are scriptures that have become cliches as written, literal scriptures that are made into cliches.
All of that has formed the feminized American evangelical church, a warm cozy place for the gals to have their personal Jesus endorse whatever they want.
Coming to faith through emotionalism, as discussed here, is a big problem. Its what creates the cliches I mention above as it is a full on 100% emotion based faith, like an imaginary friend that is everything you want in a friend AND happens to be the creator of the universe and He’s got the power and authority to give you the power and authority to do what you need to do…….to keep or get those feelings
“Or, if you are a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?”
This. And so, a beta (like myself who has had any existing alpha beat and brain-washed out of him) finds himself even further in contempt for said appeasement.
If folks want to see all of this played out in real time with real examples, swing over to the place where Christian women let it show
http://www.christianforums.com/f140/
That married section is a treasure trove of anecdotal research material.
NO way this lady is a 7, much less an 8! Where do you guys live? she’s a 5.5 at the most. 5 for being not fat and .5 for not being ugly.
@ Jennifer, please come back, it’s hilarious watching your hamster spin spin spin!!
“Or, if you are a married woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?”
This. And so, a beta (like myself who has had any existing alpha beat and brain-washed out of him) finds himself even further in contempt for said appeasement.
Not really. Essentially the man’s job is to decide if the issue is worth fighting for, and act accordingly. You wouldn’t let a argument over a parking spot escalate into a fight to the death. Women love to play the game “lets you and him fight”. They don’t pay directly for it. You can still be the alpha if you calmly work the issue out and tell her that if she doesn’t like your solution to deal with it. You just have to decide whether there is something actually at stake for the family.
@A Lady
I bought “Phantases’ by George MacDonald a while ago…haven’t read it yet. Is it any good? 🙂
@Celeste
I’m glad that you enjoyed it – That guy is one of my favorite bloggers and a far better writer than me so I thought that simply linking to that post was quite frankly better than saying it myself.
Anyway keep on trucking – we never stop looking for answers as long as we live so just keep at it. Oh – and if you are so inclined as I mentioned in #3 above Chesterton is always a good read! 🙂
Back in my theological debating days, I always used to quip that “coming to faith through fear* isn’t the best start, but if it progresses to something more grounded in reason then I don’t have a problem with it. It’s when it stays at that first fearful point that the problems crop up.”
(* substitute with any emotion you please, or the concept of emotionalism in general)
I like fear better than fuzz
@Ken
You are right – emotionalism is no basis for belief although as I mentioned earlier (and you implied above) some people can reach the Truth in rocky, roundabout ways.
As you said, it can start all emotional, but it cannot remain that way if it is to survive and grow – as Paul stated, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)
We all start as children, and that is fine – but we all gotta grow up.
@Celeste
Another quick issue I just thought of – you talked earlier about “fear of eternal torture” – I don’t believe that that is the correct view of hell anyway…I hate to just post links but this article really does a good job discussing the matter:
http://www.tektonics.org/uz/2muchshame.html
Basically, hell is more a place of shame for those who cannot stand the presence of God – aka those who *don’t want* to be around God and choose the shame of being separated from Him. Remember the Ancient Near East was a very Honor-Shame based culture (Biblical culture was agonistic and dyadic, quite different from Western culture) kind of like the Far East today.
So, I don’t intend to watch this film….but I am curious. Does he get the boat or not?
I haven’t read Phastastes, but I have also read The Princess and the Goblin and the Princess and Curdie in addition to the Light Princess, and they are really super great.
I read his stuff when I was in my teens and 20s, and again more recently, and if anything, it’s more enjoyable the older I get. I hope to introduce my children to his work in short order as they reach reading-to age.
Giraffe, you misunderstood me, as I completely agree with you. I was saying that as someone who has only recently swallowed the red pill and is attempting rebuild himself.
Giraffe, you might find this article interesting:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/lets-you-and-him-fight/
This was insightful–made me rethink this movie. Enough that I created my own post linking to yours and expanding with my own insights.
In many ways, I think you’re right on.
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Way late to the party, but I have to note the strawman of the financial disagreement.
Both spouses are working and bringing in income. The husband is socking money away for what is seen as a purely selfish prize for himself, while household “needs” are unaddressed.
Is this a likely course of events? Or is it more likely to have a couple where the wife is not working, the husband has abandoned saving money for himself or for even simpler pleasures like lunches out or the occasional ballgame, and they are teetering on the edge of debt. The wife wants some improvements done on the house, because she is the one that is “stuck” there all day, and the husband cannot possibly understand how annoying these defects are. So she pressures him to go (perhaps further) into debt to make these improvements, etc.
Even in the strawman case, it’s not a slam dunk that the wife is right. But in the more realistic case, it is.
One more note — there was a lot of debate about the extent of Caleb’s porn (viewing/habit/addiction) and whether that justified Katherine’s behaviors, in particular her sex strike and her flirtations with the doctor.
What I think we’re forgetting is that Caleb’s porn viewing, the degree to which he know about it, and Katherine’s response to it are all creations of the filmmakers, in service of the theme of the movie.
As others have noted, it seems that this movie is designed as a message to “man up” to married men. As such, it seems that the vagueness of the Caleb’s relationship to porn is intentional. If it is presented as a full-on addiction, where he spends every waking moment in front of the computer, ignoring his wife dressed in lingerie, missing shifts as work, etc., men can tell themselves that they’re not that bad, and need not adopt the prescriptions of the film. If it is presented as extremely mild, following the occasional stray link during otherwise innocuous web surfing, then Katherine’s response can be dismissed as disproportionate, and the focus would be on that rather than on what Caleb needs to do.
By leaving it vague, the filmmakers get the best of both worlds. Caleb’s relaltionship with porn is serious or casual enough to support the following two conclusions:
1. Whatever a particular married man’s relationship to porn is, if it is nonzero, it is probably in the ballpark of Caleb’s, and likely as much a threat to his marriage as Caleb’s was to his.
2. Caleb’s relationship to porn is sufficiently serious that Katherine’s response is not out of proportion.
Whether there is a point X on the continuum of relationships to porn such that these two points can be supported is what I suppose the critical question is.
Catherine is overwhelmed.. her parents.. her mum has health issues.. she is Working full time to help pay for her Mother’s care.. meanwhile Caleb, is not supportive of her in any way.. Marriage is a relationship, i got your back, you got my back, if I need help i can count on you as you also can count on me.. to me this Movie is Good..
(Ephesians 5:22), the Bible says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (verse 25). Christ doesn’t neglect, ignore, demean or abuse the church. He doesn’t treat her rudely or disrespectfully. He never acts arrogantly or insensitively toward her. Nor does He criticize her and make her feel she is not valuable. Rather He loves her, protects her, provides for her, and cares for her. So while God gives the husband a position of leadership in relationship to his wife, He also requires the price of self-sacrifice from him.
the bible tells us in ((1 Corinthians Chapter 13 Verse 4)) that Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
there fore if once Caleb started loving his wife, by being patient, by being kind, by not being proud, the love she had for him started occurring.. so this movie is good.. it shows you as a Husband or a Wife.. how you should treat your partner.. forgive, be kind, honour and support your other half.. never carry a burden alone.. your a team.. working towards the same goal.. help each other and most of all Love each other as you love thy self..
Mickey says:
there fore if once Caleb started loving his wife, by being patient, by being kind, by not being proud, the love she had for him started occurring..
One small problem…that wasn’t what the movie showed at all.
She was on her way to have an affair with the doctor!
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/firebombed/
The conflict is finally resolved when Catherine is talking to the woman who runs the medical supply store. She wants to pick out some more odds and ends for her mother. She mentions the Dr. and when she does she lights up and starts playing with her hair the same way she has been doing while flirting with him (the whole hospital knows she is after him). The woman corrects her, explaining that the Dr. only gave $300, and her husband gave $24,000. Suddenly Catherine realizes she misunderstood who was the winner of the bidding war for her heart. She races home and puts her ring on and tarts herself up before going see Caleb at the fire station.
If the husband hadn’t paid for her would she have stayed with him? The movie seems clear enough that she would not have. It wasn’t love, it was cash on the barrel. There is a word for that sort of woman.
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I only wish my wife was as kind as the woman in the story. She has no respect for him, of course, but I could not believe he was able to get away with talking to her like that. If it were me, not only would I be beaten, but out on the street and not ever allowed to see my children again. I am at least allowed to live in the guest room of our house. I choose to see the good fortune in all of this.
Where the heck is his respect for her. All you men on this blog are so woman hating. He is a selfish man who feels entitled and she is so unlike many indoctrinated women who don’t know their husbads owe them respect too. Which rocks did all you men crawl from under?
Kitten you really are a vile person aren’t you? She treats him like garbage and denies him sex and then uses the result (ie he watches porn to get off) as an excuse to go after a REAL person (in this case some dumb Doctor).
The truth, “Kitten”, is that YOU are a man hater but you are so deep into it that you are alike a fish in the sea that has no concept it is living in water. If you had AT LEAST said that both men and women owe each other respect I would have let it go. But you didn’t do that did you “Kitten”? No your thing was how men owe respect to their wives. Actually the Scripture says for women to respect their husbands. Is she respecting him in ANY way? Even in the end she only stays with him because he gives her cold CASH $$$.
As for men they are supposed to love their wives. And he does this BEFORE he ever converts. He does not cheat on her when she denies sex but turns to viewing others having sex. He does not THINK of divorcing her or saying “its over” like she does. And he does not abuse her at all (yes he speaks angrily to her but that is only in RESPONSE to her hate filled instigation).
‘Kitten’ it is women, as God is my witness, like you that show what is wrong with modern Western culture. You are not only evil but so evil that you have no inkling of what you are doing that is evil.
St. Paul had a word for this: a seared conscience.
And you will not have it ‘unseared’ until God’s Spirit heals you OR the fires of hell wake you up to what you are.
As for these men on here they have crawled from under no rock. It is you that is living under a rock, in darkness that refuse to come out and let the light of God’s Son shine on you so that you maybe become a humble woman like the Blessed Mary was.
But you love darkness more than light “Kitten”.
The Lord rebuke you.
Taken and expanded from another poster: To the producers of Fireproof: FTFY
In order to drive the message of the movie home and illustrate the consequences of the Husband’s disobedience I propose an alternate ending.
The wedding music from the opening scene plays loudly in the background as Caleb walks down a dock to his 6-foot rowboat. The scene is dark and forlorn. He is dressed in a ragged, dirty shirt and filthy, ripped pants. Meanwhile the slutty wife and her new Husband/BF Neurosurgeon are walking down the same dock to their 60 foot yacht dressed smartly in a revealing dress and an expensive suit. The scene is sunny and bright; they are arm and arm and smiling broadly. Caleb rows his little boat into the dark water, crying, sobbing as he takes out a picture of his (ex) wife. Jumping back and forth between the scenes the Dr. and his new slut are making passionate love in the master quarters of the yacht as Caleb pulls out a gun and the producers time the head shot to a zoom of the ex-wife with her head thrown back in orgasmic bliss on the bed while she gets pounded.
THEN the final scene flashes to the funeral (with only a few attending- perhaps the family of the child he saved- because he lost his job as a fireman due to the stress of the divorce) and jumps back and forth to the happy couple arriving at the church, walking arm-and-arm, smiling, kissing, and being greeted by the “Christian” parishioners with a “holy kiss.”
The lesson is the same but think this ending would be more effective in bringing home to men the consequences of disobeying the Goddess.