One of the Dallas/Fort Worth megachurches has a web page called The Man Site. They offer what they call mansources:
Be a Better Man
Looking for some resources to help you “step up” and build a better home? We’ve got you covered!
They make a classic feint to biblical headship while quickly reminding readers that “all are equal”:
Lake Pointe Men’s ministry will encourage men to be servant leaders in their homes – recognizing that, in Christ, all are equal, and all should be loved. We have events like Man Church that will teach men how to love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. View some of our “ManSources” to supply you with resources about real issues. Have questions or real manly needs? Contact us…we can help.
One of their featured mansource speakers is Sam Ingrassia. I haven’t heard the content, but from the description Mr. Ingrassia talks about his book Just Say the Word, a book to help husbands lead their wives in prayer. I was curious how Mr. Ingrassia handled the topic so I took a quick look at the introduction to the book in Amazon.com. There isn’t much available there, but the introduction bemoans the fact that modern Christian men “are failing to provide spiritual leadership to their wives”. While this is undoubtedly true, there is no mention of the fact that modern Christian women are as feminist as any other group of women. Modern Christian men don’t lead their wives because Christian leaders are terrified of mentioning the parts of the Bible which offend feminists, which is pretty much all of the NT regarding women and marriage. Men are failing, but their primary failure is to confront the mass feminist rebellion, a failure which at least from what I can see Mr. Ingrassia himself is guilty of. To be fair to Mr. Ingrassia, I can’t imagine him being invited to come speak to Man Church if he stressed the biblical framing of marriage in violation of the Book of Oprah.
This failure is front and center in the very first endorsement in the book:
Sam Ingrassia is on to something. For years I struggled when it came to praying with my wife. Why? Because she is light years ahead of me when it comes to getting in touch with God. And I’m a pastor! It seems that we men need help, and we need a plan…
See Also: Cutting leaders off at the knees.
The Word of God wasn’t the only thing that won pagans over and continues to today. Modern evangelicals seem to forget this. The Christian life as prescribed by the Word is remarkably convincing when compared to the new-age paganism espoused by the modern West. The problem is the vast majority who claim to practice Christianity does not live in that manner.
Christianity is secular-lite in the West, adopting most of the bad behaviors and life-practices of the pagan neighbors in an effort to make itself more enticing. They forget that the only people who come to Christ are those genuinely looking for change. Promising the same-old same-old will only ever attract those who never want to submit to the Word of God and the provisions therein.
What on Earth is a “servant leader”? Is he a servant, or is he a leader? I guess they wanted to allude to Jesus being the head of the Church, while at the same time being a servant of mankind. But if that is the case, it would be very helpful to define who he leads, who he serves, and how he does both. A man can be serving his wife and kids by providing for them, yet leading his household. But like you, I don’t think that’s what they had in mind.
Is the “mansite” on the EPA superfund list? It seems sufficiently toxic. Consider the image at the “Get Serious” page there:
Or the “mansources”
(perhaps the toxic waste is estrogenic)
Perhaps a parody site is in order with things slightly less, well, a parody.
(There is a form of anti-evangelism where it becomes “Follow Christ, and you can be like…”).
It’s odd the way they want to force the two jobs of servant and leader together, as if they’re supposed to be the same thing. Why can’t a man be a servant and a leader? When he’s mowing the yard, he’s a servant; when he’s leading the family rosary, he’s a leader. Why is it necessary to torture everything into having both meanings?
@zykos, I assume somewhere forgotten is our Lord’s statement in Matthew 20:
25But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.26“It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,27and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
I’m not sure what they might have in mind. I’m not sure they have a mind to have something in.
“recognizing that, in Christ, all are equal, and all should be loved”
Equality is a doctrine of Satan, it doesnt appear in the Bible for a good reason, God hates it
“all should be loved” is likewise simply demonic
the west is full of false “pastors” supplicating to their wives, to their female congregants, and to their feminist nations — this coward thinks he’s a Big Man for trumpeting that wifey is light-years ahead of him on the path to God
NEITHER of them is on the path to God, and they lead “their” sheep to the same doom
“Men are failing, but their primary failure is to confront the mass feminst rebellion”
absolutely correct, good post
when i’ve confronted “christian” women about their false temples, their response is the same as their secular feminist sisters — go immediately on the attack, quote bible verses to “help me with my bitterness,” tell me i’m an abuser, a criminal, a perpetrator etc
anything except obedience; anything except admitting their error
we would have healed babylon, but she would not be healed
Anything the word “man-” is used before another word you can guarantee its unmanly.
Sometimes they cut leaders off at the knees. The problem is if they still fight then comes another cut slightly higher up between the next joint.
Wives often become the biggest cross, in a strange interpretation of Husbands to imitate Christ. They must accept an instrument of torture and be nailed to it. Jesus said to take up your cross daily and follow him. Not mentioned is that said cross would constantly complain, scream, scratch, bite, and s**t-test (is there a more polite term? I need one for my local fora).
And it is not that Men are failing. It is that no actual “Men” are permitted. There are humans with Y chromosomes in both megachurches and harems.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of feminism is the beginning of folly.
@ Tz
The polite term is “fitness test.”
And your analogy is both apt and sickening. Take up the cross indeed.
@tz, that’s what I had in mind. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this whole talk of being great by serving is based in the spiritual sphere. When it comes to social order, we can’t all decide to serve, and have no leaders. Jesus did say to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, marking a clear separation between between the secular and the religious. When the husband and father is called to serve, I would think he is supposed to serve God primarily, not an entitled wife and spoiled children. A man doesn’t become great by doing these things.
We get to the most tricky part of the message of surrender and “holding out the other cheek”. It is sometimes better to be the martyr, when for instance the alternative would be to be the abuser, but I doubt people should volunteer to that position in all circumstances.
To answer my own question: “servant leader” is a way to castrate the concept of leadership, reducing it to only servile acts. When Jesus washed the Apostles’ feet, He was being a servant, and yes, He was being a leader by showing them how to be servants. But that was an exception to make a point; His leadership wasn’t primarily demonstrated through acts of service. There was nothing servile about throwing the money-changers out of the temple or driving out demons.
Yes, being the head of the family involves service — lots of service, like working extra hours to keep a roof over everyone’s head and then spending your weekend fixing a leak in that roof. But there’s no logical progression from saying that’s part of the job to saying it will make your wife happy and ensure that she will fulfill her duties as well. And it certainly doesn’t follow that because Jesus washed the Apostle’s feet, you can make your wife hot for you by giving her nightly foot-rubs.
It’s quite possible that some guys find themselves married to women who are spiritually more advanced (though I doubt it’s as common as people would think, because what most women call “spirituality” is a very shallow thing). That doesn’t mean she should lead him; it means he should get on the ball and develop to where he needs to be to lead her. I’ve seen religious women hook up with men who are religious novices, and one of two things happens:
1. He resists, which helps maintain her attraction for him, but it doesn’t bring him any closer to God, and she may follow his lead and regress in her faith.
2. He submits to her leadership, and she comes to see him more as a project than a man, and he converts just in time to see her lose interest and move on to another project.
Neither is very pretty.
“Men are failing, but their primary failure is to confront the mass feminist rebellion”
This is the real problem.
And I ask myself how much ignoring their behavior through game is actually encouraging it.
“What on Earth is a “servant leader”?”
A man who serves when his wife wants him to serve and leads when his wife wants him to lead.
“Why? Because she is light years ahead of me when it comes to getting in touch with God.”
Women think they are more spiritual and can appear to be more spiritual because they are focused on “checklist Christianity”. Tangible things they can tally up at the bottom of a checklist; attend more meetings, buy more Christian books, listen to more Christian radio, watch more Christian TV. Meanwhile their husbands are doing more practical Christianity which leaves them little time for the checklist; working long hours to provide materially for their wives and children, commuting back and forth to work, planning for the future, spending time interacting with their children and their wife.
St. John of the Cross talked about how the people we live with are like sandpaper, wearing off the rough edges that make us difficult to deal with, but the paradox there is that sandpaper works because it itself is a rough surface. He was talking to monks and nuns living in community, but the same thing applies to families: we all have our abrasive qualities, and in learning to deal with the flaws of others, we smooth out our own. So there is a sense in which your imperfect wife and children are (part of) your Cross to bear, which, if borne properly, will bring you closer to sanctification.
However, that doesn’t mean we should seek to be sandpaper for the people around us, as if to say, “Yeah, I know I’m being a bitch, but being patient with me will make him holier in the long run.” There’s a big difference between accepting the Cross you’ve been given, and even being aware that you’re part of someone else’s Cross; versus looking for opportunities to shoulder or become a bigger Cross than necessary.
@ Cail Corishev
Exactly.
The Scripture gets twisted around to say that men should be catering to the whims of the wife.
That’s not serving — that’s slavery.
Which is ironic because Marriage 2.0 is essentially slavery of the man…
(almost forgot that nice tidbit that goes with my above post)
@donalgraeme thanks! I could not think of it though I think I’ve heard it before.
Servants:
Servants have been given a mission to carry out. In this context it is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has given us the responsibility and authority. As Catholic, I’m hoping for the next pope to fix and enrich the church, not himself. Men have the mission (in marriage) of the family. That is the wife within the context of marriage and family (think a farmer with a field he wants fertile and productive, not exhausted). You love God with everything – and out of that neighbor as self. You serve God and out of that serve others.
A servant looks for the best interest of his master. If master comes home drunk and says he wants servant to get the family fortune to give to some stranger, the servant smiles, says master should sleep in bed, gets him up there, puts on music that will make master sleep and not here, and ejects the stranger or has the police do so.
A contemporary legal term might be conservatorship or guardianship of someone with diminished capacity. One can hope and pray for the Woman of proverbs. (And there are too many men who wouldn’t be proper husbands even if the structure was righted). One usually gets the usual mixed bag (pun half-intended). But love (agape) is of the will, not the emotions. Jesus saying, here, this is your personal evangelical reconstruction project. (I’m reminded of “Married with Children’s parody of “It’s a wonderful life” where Sam Kinneson is the guardian angel, and upon first seeing Al Bundy looks heavenward and says “Noooooo!”). St. Paul says women are saved through childbearing if they persist. Husbands know this since they often have to bear with childishness. (As do wives – both Adam and Eve ate. Though I keep wondering if the serpent was/is merely an allegorical form of rationalization hamster).
@CC – yes, and importantly, as we are polished with the abrasiveness of others, it behooves us to – in charity – become equally abrasive to remove both their rough edges and the abrasive in them.
Those “Christians” use the following scripture justifications for waiting wife hand and foot as servant leaders:
Matthew 20:25-28
25Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever
wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Ephesians 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
As well as the foot washing incident in John 13:1-17 to demonstrate that a true leader is the slave of all, waiting on his followers hand and foot. In that same why the husband is also to do the same for this wife. This predominant twisting of the concept of servant leadership
@zykos
You mean this teaching:
Matthew 5:39
But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
An explanation on the significance of this in Jewish culture:
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/madmad.html
Why? Because she is light years ahead of me when it comes to getting in touch with God. And I’m a pastor! It seems that we men need help, and we need a plan…
Only if you were a pagan pastor with some form of Christ as the idol and a true Christian wife. I pity your congregation. Feminism is one form of paganism, but even most pagans (ancient Romans as an example) rejected feminism because of the obvious consequences.
It is not impossible for the wife to develop spiritually so as to be more an image of Christ and closer to him than the husband (it is easier in the sense if the husband isn’t leading, Christ can, and the wife can submit to our Lord and then grow – Jesus is the ultimate Male/Alpha, read That Hideous Strength by Lewis where Ransom and Jane discuss her marriage to Mark). Similarly the husband can become an apostle where the wife stays or becomes something else.
Who is the more accurate image of Christ is a very different question than who is nicer (or … add other feminominals as needed).
They’re not marketing to men.
@Bee
“Women think they are more spiritual and can appear to be more spiritual because they are focused on “checklist Christianity”. Tangible things they can tally up at the bottom of a checklist;
attend more meetings, buy more Christian books, listen to more Christian radio, watch more Christian TV. ”
Could it be that men are more spiritual than women instead of the converse as our prevailing culture portrays?
@tz: As has been said, what a wonderful, horrifying analogy. Truly terrible. Lord, help me not to be such a woman!
@Bee: I can’t remember where I read the article (but I think it may well have been here at Dalrock’s), but I remember seeing someone point out that the common justification for “women are more spiritual” is because women purchase more Christian supplement materials, and participate in more Christian classes/activities. But, you know, most Christian supplement materials/classes/etc are geared and marketed towards women… so it sets up a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately, spirituality is much more than consumption (and ick! How twisted that a correlation is even suggested!), but as it’s not easy to “measure” a person’s spirituality, consumption is used as a proxy.
I would suggest that a better (though still certainly flawed) measure would be works, as though works are not the way to the kingdom, still, faith without works is dead.
“Because she is light years ahead of me when it comes to getting in touch with God.”
That’s interesting….because she is also probably light years ahead of him in getting in touch with, and becoming impregnated, by a serial rapist or multiple murderer,by her own preference.
God as murdering rapist…. You know, I’ve heard anti-Christian liberal atheists make a similar argument.
@infowarrior,
“Could it be that men are more spiritual than women instead of the converse as our prevailing culture portrays?”
I think so.
We have not even discussed the sin of pride. When a woman thinks or states she is more spiritual than her husband, could that be self-deception via pride?
@peoplegrowing,
“I can’t remember where I read the article (but I think it may well have been here at Dalrock’s..”
This may be it:
http://societyofphineas.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/bd-1-women-are-the-more-spiritual-sex/
So why bow down to mangina pastors, preachers, servant-leaders?
One can read a Bible at home, right? Contemplate it’s meaning without the need to be fed cherry-picked stanzas. The average reader of this site is smarter and more thoughtful than your general PC pastor.
telling men to take responsibility and eschew taking authority.
How can they stand themselves?
any preacher who relies on tithes and offerings for his wage can no longer be trusted to tell the truth.
It is a severe conflict of interest.
Women are only more spiritual in the sense that they deify their holy hamsters.
… recognizing that, in Christ, all are equal, and all should be loved.
This is one of the main problems I have with the “complimentarian” position. It begins with the concept that men and women are equal in value, but different in roles. That is fine as far as the language goes, but it still begins with equality and puts a “traditional” topping on it. The egalitarian position also begins with equality, but then follows with the honest outflow from equality.
+1. The employment relationship immediately and totally corrupts. Once a man’s livelihood is involved, it ceases to be about pleasing God but becomes all about pleasing men. I’ve heard and read too many stories about this coming to pass. It’s not about serving God, it’s about serving the church organization (and it goes for all of them). Several things written of old regarding Israel have literally become true of those who call themselves “Christians” today. For instance:
Isn’t “servant-leader” a contradiction in terms? An oxymoron?
@PEOPLEGROWING
I don’t think that women are more spiritual because they buy more books. I think that the female and male natures are different and experience faith in different ways. I left the following comments on the Society of Phineas post mentioned by Bee:
Women process religion as feelings. “Jesus loves me! I am so close to God! It feels good!” I think many Christian men have encountered women who devoutly worship the Holy Trinity of me! me! me! For women Christianity gives good feelings.
Men do religion to know what is true and false, what is good and evil, what must I do to be worthy of the promises of God? Am I in a state of sin, and what must I do to be worthy of salvation? For men Christianity is seldom fun. There are many crosses to bear.
We are men. We may be held eternally accountable for our unrepented sins. That is why we are not offended when reminded that we are not good Christians. We are or should be aware that we are unworthy of the free sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
In the present age women are often held up as examples of good Christians, and men are expected to follow women’s rules and have a joyful experience of God. A lot of men drift away because we cannot have that experience. “Either there is something wrong with me, or something is wrong with God”.
The complementarian position is fine if it were strictly Scripturally defined, but as it goes, the problem always shows up that the roles are defined in a way that breeds superiority in the women and subservience in the men. Case in point:
Yes, it’s a feminist doctrinal invention to enable the willing subjugation of men. Like Napoleon noticing that men would stick out their necks more in war for mere trinkets, throwing this trinket out to men in churches drives them towards servant hood/slave hood. It also happens to be a fine example of Marxist double-speak. You mean I really am being a leader by emasculating myself, denigrating myself, and putting myself in a place where I’m a slave not only to my wife but to all the “masters” of the church? Of course, the whole idea is easily pushed by denoting that Jesus’ only laudable acts were washing the apostle’s feet and dying on the cross. Reading the rest of Scripture (even a little; Eph 1:20-23 is a quick one) readily disproves all of this.
On women being more “spiritual”
If a man could: 1. blurt out solipsistic nonsense all day and rarely get called on it 2. float through life with a reasonable expectation someone will always be there to rescue him 3. Have an entire system geared to protect him from his own mistakes 4. Have multitudes of people treat you nicely simply due to your genitals
You can bet that men would be super “spiritual” too
@peoplegrowing – women are more spiritual, but in a fallen world where that means more temptations, demons, etc, it is not a good thing. Spiritual is not Holy, merely that there is something more sensitive to the spiritual world. There are far more witches than warlocks. Note how women have all the angel stuff and men don’t. It can work to their advantage with God, and in the family they are the guard dogs against spiritual threats if they can turn it into discernment.
@Miserman – I tried some analogies, but consider a tour guide, navigator, or captain of a ship. They all lead a number of people, but the people have paid him to get them to the destination so in that sense they are servants. We are all called to lead people to Jesus, and to the highest place in heaven possible. So we lead and serve them.
In marriage, it is the responsibility of each spouse not the make the other content, fulfilled, or whatever else but get them as close to Jesus, the highest place in heaven. To sanctify each otehr. Jesus says in essence, to the wife: “Pretend that jerk is me, and serve him as such, and you will be rewarded as if you are serving me”. Men are told conversely, “You need to lead, remember Martha complaining about Mary not helping cook and I told her off and she became a saint? If you are worthy of me, you will become someone worthy in the eyes of your wife because you will become the image of me you were meant to”.
As the Apostles said in a moment of honesty recoiling in horror at Jesus words on divorce, “then it is better not to marry”. Marriage is both a sacrament and vocation.
@Alex “So why bow down to mangina pastors, preachers, servant-leaders? One can read a Bible at home, right?”. But scripture also says in Hebrews 10: 24and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,25not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Gather with other Christians, not backsliders or those who preach to please the audience, not God.
“A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others…thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.”
Feminism perverts unselfishness to mean catering to her needs. She no longer takes trouble upon herself, except by proxy, by electing the socualists to intervene for her. Because her time is her own.
With apologies to this cs lewis quote…
Tmg,
The really crazy thing is that women project their experience onto men, believing they have charmed lives.
I am having difficulty conceiving their degree of self delusion.
Good return to first principles. Outing such as these is worthy work. You know you could make it an interactive piece where we could plug in preacher and church names and never veer from it being true.
It can depress a man, the magnitude of the servitude. Light years ahead….sure.
You say you have no doubt men are failing as spiritual leaders, and I know what you mean by it. They have set an obstacle course for men anyway where praying, leading prayer, is not sufficient anyway and will yield at best linear drawings on his back in church, the goal being circles. Spiritual leadership is what she says it is, and what she says it is is subject to change….a lot…like standing in a rapidly changing climate alternating between holding an umbrella then wrapping her in a blanket.
Observer: I hear you, man. And that is why it is very hard for me to contain my disgust for women at times.
Women think they are more spiritual then men because folks confuse emotional spasms for Godliness
“There are far more witches than warlocks.”
To be sure. The term “warlock” only describes a subset of practitioners of Scottish sorcery who have betrayed their own “clan” of sorcerers and are marked on the face or forehead with a scar or brand. I would imagine they are rare indeed,especially these days.
Truth be told,while the term “witch” is gender-neutral and can apply to either sex, it was much more common for a woman to be a “witch” in the sense of a “malefica” or sorceress who worshiped the “dark side” of the Magna Mater. This is where the popular warty old hag image that most Westerners are familiar with comes from. A man has always been more likely to be closer in his pagan spirituality to what we would think of as a shaman or wiseman,dispensing actual medicine and occasionally psychotropic and/or hallucinogenic drugs for misguided but essentially harmless “spirit journeys”,spiritual advice, and developing a transcendent ascetic set of beliefs.
Women,it seems, were more likely to provide herbal-based abortions,poisons,primitive midwifery that was supplanted by objectively superior male medicine almost immediately when men entered the field, ridiculous relationship advice like putting snake teeth in your pillow to restore your husband’s erection,”love potions” which usually amounted to noxious poisons and/or narcotics distilled in and mixed with high-potency alcohol*,the world’s only true “love potion” that is practical fat and/or ugly chicks to ensnare men with,and of course, the ubiquitous curses that pop-culture and Hollywood love so much. These practices are common no matter which culture of pre-Christian pagan women you’re looking at. If you’re knowledgeable in this subject,you will see these things come up again,and again, and again. This is the “spirituality” that women come up with when left to their own devices,but don’t take my word for it, read about it yourself at your local library.
*In other words, it is a Fun Fact (TM) that despite recent hysteria,more men have received a date rape drug from a woman than vice versa,historically-speaking.
I’m a Catholic male of strong faith. I was searching for years for guidance on how to be the husband and father God wants me to be (including in various Christian men ministries). Then I found the manosphere. Indeed, the Lord works in mysterious ways.
I’m sorry, Gentlemen, but that is nonsense on stilts. Telling the truth may not build you a mega-sanctuary or a 10,000 member congregation in North America in 2013, but if you think pastors are obligated to work for free you’re nuts. And if you think pastors who receive their pay from a denomination (which is also paid for by tithes and offerings) are any more likely to say hard things that need to be said than men of God in non-denominational churches, you must not have ever been in one.
You might be surprised how restrictive many denominations are about what they allow. Trust me, denominational preachers (including those not paid directly through tithes and offerings), have more restrictions on what they may say, not fewer They often guard their pet heresies like a tigress guards her cubs.
Infowarrior,
Are you an IO guy? If you have to look it up, you’re not. Just curious.
I have a question.
I lived in Boulder during the Bill McCartney era and Promise Keepers was a yearly event held at the University of Colorado stadium, usually in the summer. The whole city was quite aware of it because the attendance was far higher than football game. Attendees were on the playing field as well as in the stands. This multitude of men, and some brought their sons, would descend on liberal Boulder and would park where they could and start walking to the stadium, often at large distances. They might eat before and then after. We learned to avoid the stadium and downtown areas. Some people annually just left town for the weekend. But overall they were most well behaved. You could see 20 or 30 waiting at the crosswalks for the “walk” signal even when no cars were coming. They were usually older than 40 and many up into 50s.
The Boulder women had a particular duality in their attitudes towards the attendees. It was remarkably similar to Red Pill interpretations of how women view beta men in general, they want men to be better betas, they just aren’t attracted to the ones that do it. Some of this just the disdain locals have for “tourists” that come in for events and make life more miserable with traffic, parking, crowds, etc, but a lot where just cultural issues. They were most derisive of the way the men looked, the conservative nature of the men, the general awkward geekiness of them compared to the ideal hipster SWPL males the Boulder women professed to prefer, and they had liberal SWPL disdain of anything to do with religion. But at the same time, the mission and the ideals of Promise Keepers, to be better husbands and fathers, was something that had them, in an overall manner, “pull their punches”, and, at least, respect the offering the men were making.
So here is my question:
“Was Promise Keepers a mission to reinforce ‘Biblical’ marriage in the sense that Dalrock uses, and to exhort the men that the necessary condition of “if you have the morality then you have the authority” and to lead a more Godly life as an example and a justification for leadership?”
“Or was it just a masculine version of the Book of Oprah, coming from a none masculine authority figure like Coach McCartney, to “man up” and be a “mo betta beta”, to challenge those men and boys to work harder to be more deserving of the women that had chosen them?”
Mark, the second option. Churchian women’s groups focus on women’s needs and desires and how God is there to make these desires true. Churchian men’s groups focus on women’s needs and desires and how men must behave to make these desires true
@ Mark Minter
I went to one or two my dad. It was pretty much all focused on manning up and how the man could be a more spiritual and lead better.
Remember, this was an era where the divorce rates were just starting to skyrocket in the church. They tried to stem the tide, but were obviously focused on the wrong way to correct it.
Suffice to say my dad only went to a couple before he stopped going and thus I never went again. He has always been more iffy on church than my mom… couldn’t figure it out by himself I’m pretty sure. I’m debating on telling him about it.
My parents will never divorce and have said as such, but I doubt there is a significant amount of attracting between my mom and dad currently because of the betafication.
I knew something was really wrong, but I couldn’t tell what. I had known about roissy et al for years and it always bugged me why “game” worked so well. Thankfully, I found the Christian manosphere a few months ago.
I have to laugh a little at Ballista’s allegations … but I’d suggest the bigger the congregation, the more corrupt the money influence becomes. On the other hand, within the Catholic Church, there wouldn’t be any such thing as the parish without contributions from the attendees.
Also Catholic conferences tend to have much more modest fees than their counterparts among the evangelists … example: understand Joel Osteen’s latest big show gig required an outlay of $199 for one day. While a recent Catholic 2 day conference in southern California only required $21 for one day, $39 for both. Essentially to pay for the facility rental and the speakers’ expenses. So yes the Vatican has a lot of money, the archdioceses have a fair amount at the top (if they haven’t paid it out already in sex abuse settlements), but the parishes have to fend for themselves.
Ballista’s point, I dont thing, was that if they are not paid via tithe and offering they would necessarily say the right things, but is is absolutely more ,likely they would even if by a tiny increment. Evaluating those statements can make some think he is suggesting they are aware of what they are doing, in real time. Thats not so, they are not linking the man up sermons to the church cash position except to the extent they assume that , naturally, all the good churches include man up messages….isnt that what the people want?
@Bee and RICanuck
That is certainly the post I was thinking of, and, for clarity’s sake, I don’t think that women are more spiritual on account of book-buying/etc, just that that is the standard by which the cultural belief (of women’s superior spirituality) is based upon.
@peoplegrowing – women are more spiritual, but in a fallen world where that means more temptations, demons, etc, it is not a good thing. Spiritual is not Holy, merely that there is something more sensitive to the spiritual world. There are far more witches than warlocks. Note how women have all the angel stuff and men don’t. It can work to their advantage with God, and in the family they are the guard dogs against spiritual threats if they can turn it into discernment.
I disagree, but I think you are on the right track. I don’t think that women are more “spiritual” – but rather that they are more sensitive. The “more witches than warlocks” I think has more to do with women’s prediliction for the occult than spirituality, and this is tied to the same attraction in mystery which grounds ideas like the “feminine mystique,” rather than any spiritual inclination.
servant leaders
I got in a long and protracted argument about this sometime last year with a woman I love and unfortunately her husband gave her some air cover. She’s a nice older gal, but a definite child of the sixties.
It is _true_ that Christian leaders are to be humble. But that’s not what “servant leader” means to these people. It means _subservient_. It means do work and forget any authoritas. The Bible takes a dim view of this giving certain men “double honor”. Their mindset is one of humility but they are treated with honor and deference because they represent God.
I don’t think the Promise Keepers were ever concerned about helping men. I went a few times in my blue pill days, and even then I was annoyed at how the speakers trashed men.
She’s lightyears ahead of this pastor because the Feminine Imperative IS the Holy Spirit to guys like this.
Evidence of the Chick-Crack dynamic aside, women are “more spiritual” than men because it’s the most useful social convention they have available to them. This “more spiritual” than men phenomenon is simply an extension of the Feminine Mystique:
https://rationalmale.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/the-feminine-mystique/
A pastor gets laid after patiently and faithfully waiting for the woman God has intended for him for so long that anything resembling sexual attention from her seems like a mysterious and wonderful experience of cosmic significance. How could she not seem lightyears ahead of him spiritually when she possesses the magic vagina capable of relieving his sexual tension after so long?
I would seperate it into this.
Men should serve other men…I don’t think any guy would argue against that unless the guy is always taking advantage of your help. It doesn’t rob your manhood to ask for help…or to give your help to other guys when they need it. Men should lead women…his acts of help reflect a leadership role. If she asks for it humbly because she doesn’t have the capablities, I’m not against helping. If she demands or expects it…I’m taking my talents elsewhere.
The point I’m making isn’t money related to the congregation at hand, but to the person involved in preaching. The thing I think what I linked to points out in abundance is that most people involving themselves as priests/ministers/whatever title are wholly unaware of the corrupting influence such positions have on those that hold them.
Now, given the average congregation, I can always find at least one fully and completely Scriptural message (and in many cases several) that will bring out the pitchfork and torches because it challenges the human traditions of that congregation and offends them. Now, if there were any needed messages, those would be the ones that would most need to be preached. But if a person knows their livelihood is tied to feeding the empathy pump and affirming the personal Jesus, it’s going to present a terribly powerful temptation upon them to serve those men and not serve God.
Now when money changes hands (and it does, even if it’s just room and board), that person’s livelihood becomes at stake. It becomes a very real snare and control upon the person by the ones putting the money out. If the person doesn’t produce “pleasing messages” (why I quoted Isaiah 30:8-11, there’s a couple of dissertations on that same blog that make this same point using a number of other Scriptures), the congregation will get rid of them and find someone who will. When it comes to employment (and it is such a situation), the usual caveats apply – performing to the expectation of the employer, performance reviews, and if released, references. These things will follow a preacher who doesn’t preach “pleasing messages”, like for instance one story I know of of a preacher who was called onto the carpet for preaching sin and not preaching God’s love. Got to give the people what they want.
The man-up messages are just a specific example. A preacher might not in his heart of hearts say such things because he knows better via Scripture (and the “man-up and marry the sluts” message is non-Scriptural). But if he knows that’s what his constituents want to hear (and make no mistake, all priest/minister positions are political), he’s going to do it eventually if it’s tied to his future livelihood and advancement within the ranks. Right now, it’s that popular, so much that the “not feminist” feminists are even doing it and always draw the cheers. Priests have never been historically tied to Sola Scriptura when it comes to the messages they preach and I wouldn’t expect them to start now.
@ taterearl
Actually, this may be a brilliant distinction.
I do not seem to recall any passage in Scripture where Jesus specifically “served” women as he did with washing the disciples feet et al. Jesus was typically teaching, healing, merciful with women (aka leading them) to make a point (see:Samaritan woman, anointing woman, Mary/Martha, widow’s son, etc.).
This is probably the way to approach things, instead of supplicating to women.
Boy does that attitude annoy me. Women are not closer to God..they are just more thirsty for God..for various reasons that speaks to their strength and their weakness. Its like saying people who go to AA are closer to God because they go to a lot of meetings and talk about God all the time. It may be true that they recognize their need more, but they are also more easily tempted. They need extra guidance by virtue of their weakness, not less by virtue of their need.
http://likeinbooks.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/the-women-are-more-spiritual-myth/
“I do not seem to recall any passage in Scripture where Jesus specifically “served” women”
Neither can I. In fact his first miracle of water into wine was at the request of Mary at Cana…she said the magic words “Do whatever he tells you.” A very teachable moment for men and women alike…she knew what he was capable of but didn’t demand that it happen.
If women approach men with the mindset of asking humbly and then doing whatever he tells you (as long as it’s not immoral or puts her in danger)…things go a lot smoother.
tz said:
“Though I keep wondering if the serpent was/is merely an allegorical form of rationalization hamster.”
You have it backward as to which is the reality and which is the symbol.
The Game Community often seeks to encourage men to take advantage of the “Rationalization Hamsters” of women. The Game Community would have a lot more trouble if they called it what it was.
Imagine Roissy or Roosh honestly saying:
“Listen, what you’ve got to do is feed her Inner Serpent. Give that Father of Lies inside her something to go on so he can make up so new fabulous stories for her to believe in, like ‘if you eat of it, you surely will not die.’ You’ve got to help out that Tempter that is trying to convince her to sin against God. If you say or do the right things, you can partner up with the Adversary and get her to do things her God-given conscience opposes. Use that Inner Serpent to your advantage to get her to do what you and it want and not what God wants her to do.”
It is one thing to try to learn about the feminine side of human nature to try to lead (and help your wife lead) a better Christian life. It is another thing to try to take advantage of it to fulfill your own evil desires.
Morticia said: Boy does that attitude annoy me. Women are not closer to God..they are just more thirsty for God..
I continue to hold to the idea that those things that God instilled us with, and Since God did it that makes it good, are the very things that Satan uses against us. I thought I had a pretty good handle on how Adam was manipulated into sin, but could not see what Satan manipulated in Eve to bring her to sin.
I think that thirst is the very thing. And I think it is very much manipulated by ministries of all sorts, bringing their own version of the fruit.
Bingo. The way I was going to put it is that women are more open to spiritual-ness. But “openness” can be good or bad. On the one hand, it means if you go in a Catholic church on a weekday morning, you’ll see more women than men. But it also means you’ll see more women at a New Age seminar on healing crystals or whatever. Being more interested in and open to spiritual things doesn’t mean you’re using them in a correct or useful way. A man may not be as drawn to things spiritual, but when he does engage them, it’s generally going to be in a more serious way.
There’s a Catholic tradition that says the man is the head of the family and the woman is the heart. Some people take that to mean the woman is the spiritual center of the family, because we think of the mind today as being anti-spiritual, therefore spirituality must be in the heart. But that’s not what it means at all. It’s “heart,” not “soul”; emotions, not spirituality. It means the woman has the greatest influence on things like how well the family gets along around the dinner table, and the general pleasantness of the home. But the man, as the head, is meant to be the leader in spiritual things just as in everything else.
Incidentally, a study in Switzerland looked at how likely children are to be regular church attendees as adults, compared to what their father and mother did in raising them. (These numbers come from the era when overall attendance was falling drastically, but they are still revealing.) Some of the results:
Father and mother both attend regularly: 33% of children attend regularly, 26% drop out completely.
Father attends regularly, mother doesn’t: 38% of children attend regularly, 18% drop out.
Mother attends regularly, father doesn’t: 2% of children attend regularly, 60% drop out.
Basically, it doesn’t matter what the mother does; most kids take their cues on religion from their father. If Dad thinks church is more important than football, they probably will too. If he stays home to watch the game, Mom can drag them to church every Sunday and twice during the week until they get too heavy to drag, and it won’t stick.
If that’s not proof that it’s critical for the father to be the spiritual leader of the home, I don’t know what would be.
Of course the man is supposed to be the spiritual leader. My goodness, that should not be controversial. If he isn’t the spiritual leader, he is hardly “Christ” leading.
The trouble is that in most of US Christianity everything, indeed every-thing, is up for grabs to be reinterpreted constantly by every single individual pastor, Christian, father, etc. These issues are done and dusted many centuries ago. They get constantly re-exposed due to a poor hermeneutical habit, and nothing more.
Women are followers spiritually. They are not to be ordained. They are not to teach in church. They are to submit to their husbands and respect them, and men are to lead their wives, be ordained, and teach in church. Women are NOT spiritual leaders, other than in the most warped, twisted and feminist hermeneutic.
“servant leaders” is a contradiction in terms. You’re either a servant or a leader. You cannot be both.
“@infowarrior,
“Could it be that men are more spiritual than women instead of the converse as our prevailing culture portrays?”
I think so. ”
Clarification; the above is a macro perspective.
On the personal level it is not good for men or women, husbands or wives to spend time measuring how spiritual they are in comparison to their spouse or to others. But, I do encounter more women who assume they are more spiritual than their husbands than the other way around.
“For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with [a]some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.” II Cor. 10:12
I think any direct comparison of male vs. female spirituality is doomed from the outset. Carl Jung discussed these differences in VII Sermones ad Mortuos. The spirituality of each are driven by different needs, wants, desires, social positions, etc. This should not be as controversial as it probably appears. Women and men simply think in different ways, and approach similar situations from different angles.
Women approach the divine in a completely different way than men. The biggest failings of the churches, at least contemporary to all of us, is the promotion of the female way as the *one true way*. What the preacher is calling “servant leadership” would probably be appropriate to preach to women. You can’t have two people on the same team, though, who occupy the same roles. Someone’s got to lead, and someone’s got to serve, otherwise you are just building unnecessary conflicts.
Of course, marital conflict is big business to the stockholders in the megachurch business. It means more donations, more fees for counseling, etc.
Two servant leaders (and mutual submitters) approached a door.
Both said to the other, “after you…..no….after you”
Death or leadership, one or the other would get them through the door. Which will come first
I cannot go along with this notion of women being more thirsty for God, anymore than women being more spiritual than men. One is just a form of stating the other anyway, and both are indicative of nothing of the sort. Rather, both explain that it is the thirst for SOMETHING that is indeed the pathway to sin, the proclivity that is taken advantage of, in women, where its analog in men is sex drive. I realize its not two perfectly defined and mutually exclusive subsets. But close.
Its tricky. Morty (if I may take allowance to use the diminutive name) seems to be saying its because women have a greater need for the moral buttress afforded them by closeness to God, which appears a self effacing remark. It may be intended as…but it is dangerous, because buried amidst it is the notion that a woman is aware of all these things about herself and therefore naturally doing what she can to limit her bad choices being manifest, which is just another way to say she is therefore more moral, more spiritual, ….like that.
Think of the line heard in many a small baptist church
“How are you”
“Oh, I’m just a sinner saved by grace”
This is a spiritual boast wrapped in self effacement ribbons.
The hamster has his tiny pink feet into the spiritual parts of a women too, because she has inserted him there and is.With layers of misdirecting and feints and misleads and confusion built in to the point it can even keep her away herself from her own truth by leading her into varnishing over it with her efforts to be so forthright about her weaknesses.
Its limitless how far one can go to do that.
That she may be weaker and more needful of Gods corrective collective may be true, but proclaiming that it is true is a mighty tempting way around the very thing it points out.
If I say “Children are more thirsty for God than adults” do I seem to be implying a moral superiority in children? Because that is not the intention…children are more likely to FEEL and ACT ON their dependence on authority..and even still they will disobey authority constantly.
I’m simply saying women thirst for authority and guidance and the Church is one place they receive that.
It does not mean they OBEY authority better.
The woman is more likely to say “I have a boo boo..fix it”…but she isn’t more likely to take the antibiotics on schedule.
I think this is one of the ways that the sexes are complimentary. The women will recognize a need faster than men, but the men will recognize what the need is and be more constructive in fixing it. Hence the analogy of man as the head and the woman as the body. The body knows when it is sick..but its up to the head to figure out what it is sick with and to take the action to heal it.
@morticia
Jeez you clearly said women are more thirsty for god …
Seriously do you ever stop worshiping women & your vagina for two seconds …?
You’re ridiculous cheerleading for women, even when theyre literally destroying your church & religion is insane, not to mention vomit inducing …
Seriously do you ever stop trying to worm your team woman crazy into every post?
@Lyn87
Nope. And I don’t even know the definition of IO guy.
@Random Angeleno
Joel Osteen that Pansy?!
He is false teacher, a sniveling smiling satanic preacher:
Dang. Great video, infowarrior. I might have to snatch that.
@taterearl
Remember what Jesus said to mary:
John 2:4
King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Jesus said unto her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour has not yet come.
New International Version (©1984)
“Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”
A rebuke for her interference. Intending to do miracles in his own way. Also it may be him saying that although he obeyed her in the past she has no claim on him now as a man.
@mort
FYI It DOES mean women follow authority better … showing your true feminist in sheep’s clothing much ?
Women worship & grovel at the feet of alphas for their authority
Women are biologically physically weak, it’s what women do
Women LIVE for submitting to authority
Morticia is a CLASSIC example of a female feminist fascist supremacist, team woman batting to the point of vile & insanely perverse
Get your head out of your vagina … seriously batting for team woman is a huge mistake
As ppl are collateral damage to a woman’s emotions
Ppl always take 2nd place to a woman’s emotions
The women your cheerleading for will always destroy you, every second they get
Which is WHY they aborted millions of their own children & called it a right
Which is WHY women destroy their own families & deny their kids a childhood
Women DO NOT understand the concept of the greater good
Which is WHY they refuse to work as dustbin men, or die in coal mines
When you spew your feminist drivel, all your doing is reinforcing women seeing MEN & WOMEN as collateral damage for their emotions
The women you’ re cheerleading for will always see you as collateral damage for their emotions
The women you’ re cheerleading for will always throw you under the bus of fascism, censorship, feminism & brutal repression, while it rolls over your carcass
Women DO NOT understand the concept of the greater good, which is why theyre entitled & narcisistic to the point of being enslaved to their emotions
Realise the true face of feminist supremacists … ie yours
Mort the child analogy fails. Look at it this way….as Christians, set aside Catholic or Protestant and look at a basic statement.
Men and women are both under Gods authority, or men and women should submit themselves to God. This is true in the absence of other hierarchy, it’s true in and of itself, in a vacuum.
So, if the woman has this greater desire , whether based on her self perceived greater need or not, then is she not superior from the start? Is she not , let’s say, easier to reach?
Then, if women were easier to reach, would the numbers not in truth skew to women actually being better moral agents than men? Instead, women have built a facade of it while running rough shod over real morality. It’s there, in the numbers.
Or I guess it’s always possible up is down and hot is cold.
She is at great disadvantage because she is so very susceptible to any type of direction. She is just as easily led toward the devil as she is toward God.
Men are more discerning which makes them SUPERIOR to women in almost every way.
It is not a BOAST to say that men are generally the moral and spiritual superiors to women. That is the fact.
The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is male for a reason.
is there any church left which teaches the LAW which Jesus cmae to fulfill?
“16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
in bloated william bennet’s “book of man,” he leaves out the heart and soul of western civilization. a better name for bennet’s book would have been, “the book of fanboy manginas.”
lzozozozolzolozoz
in bloated william bennet’s “book of man,” he leaves out the heart and soul of western civilization. a better name for bennet’s book would have been, “the book of fanboy manginas.”
jesus battled with the old, pedantic, dead-souled scribes in matthew 23, for which he was put to death. king leonidas had to consult with the corrupt, rotting, old counsel. in braveheart robert the bruce’s corrupt father had a face of rotting flesh. bill bennet reminds me of all of these, after a seven-day vegas-bender whence millions of fiat dollars, earned from an insincere, copy-and-paste “book of virtues” were gambled away.
ye shall know them by their fruits, it has been written, and bill bennet is the godfather of all the debt and debauchery–of all the divorce and destitution–of the incessant asscocking, buttcocking, and desouling of the culture and currency–of the false, fiat virtues he is paid fiat dollarz to espouse and promote as the hollow man blimps up on CNN.
bennet ignores the central, exalted message of genesis, and then ups the ante (as a gambling addict) by debauching and debasing the iliad faster than a neocon can debase a dollar to fund the perpetual warfare/welfare state. to top it all off, bennet ignores the most-decorated war veteran of all time in his “book of fanboy manginas.”
completely absent from bennet’s book is the awesome work of the jews in genesis:
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
in the classical, judeo-christian, chivalric context, a man would man up as he would be guaranteed a non-asscocked, chaste woman who be shamed out of not acting on and serving every gina tingle and butt tingle. instead of serving her butt and gina tingles, a woman would be expected to serve god, man, and family. for this, she would be honored in a civilized context, and she would realize her greater mythology as a mother, wife, and grandmother, instead of an asscocked, aging spinster with cats, working to expand the fed’s debt alongside her ass.
completely absent from bennet’s book is the divine RAGE of ACHILLES–the very center and circumference of homer’s iliad. the first word of the iliad is RAGE, as achilles is robbed of his prize and property by his commander; and so, his anger ignited, achilles quits the greek army in the first showdown between man and state. zeus sides with achilles, exalting the Natural Law that John Locke and Thomas Jefferson would someday exalt in their respective poetry–the very same Natural Law that Moses exalted when he rebelled against the corrupt Pharoah–the Natural Law that William Bennet detests in all his blundering ignorance regarding the monetary system which robs the common man and places future generations in debt to send today’s best and brightest to die on foreign shores in foreign wars. achilles rages as he reasons, “if i’m the one fighting, doing all the work, why are you–the king and his william bennett vegas cronies who never ‘buckle on armor’ getting all the rewards?” indeed, so might a marine wonder these days, if he’s taking all the risks for a few hundred dollars a month, why does bill bennet get to sit back home in vegas, gambling millions away while ballooning up like a big old blimp of debauched, foul hot air? so it is that bill bennet is working for the fiat bankers in all his blustering, bloating books, which serve far more to debauch and desecrate–to contort and confuse–than they do to exalt and enlighten. why isn’t bill bennet telling all the army-wives to “woman up” and stop with the buttcocking adultery, and serve their men with loyalty as Yahweh commands them to, and as Penelope does in Homer’s Odyssey? It’s because bennet is well-paid in fiat dollar to hate on homer, the bible, and the honorable serviceman like ron paul, while bennett himself never served in any branch of the armed forces. CNN rewards him for his supreme ignorance of the spirit on the Great Books and Classics, which he makes his arrogance.
finally, bill bennet, who “never buckled on armor nor suited up for battle” in the words of achilles, also ignores the most-decorated general of our own era–the noble Smedley Butler:
[quote]
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
In another often cited quote from the book Butler says:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
[/quote] –http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket –War Is a Racket is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit from warfare.
Compare warrior Smedley’s words to those of Achilles, who also questions the utility of war for the heroic soul:
[quote]
Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, I should give you formal notice plainly and in all fixity of purpose that there be no more of this cajoling, from whatsoever quarter it may come. Him do I hate even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides another in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean. I will be appeased neither by Agamemnon son of Atreus nor by any other of the Danaans, for I see that I have no thanks for all my fighting. He that fights fares no better than he that does not; coward and hero are held in equal honour, and death deals like measure to him who works and him who is idle. I have taken nothing by all my hardships- with my life ever in my hand; as a bird when she has found a morsel takes it to her nestlings, and herself fares hardly, even so man a long night have I been wakeful, and many a bloody battle have I waged by day against those who were fighting for their women. With my ships I have taken twelve cities, and eleven round about Troy have I stormed with my men by land; I took great store of wealth from every one of them, but I gave all up to Agamemnon son of Atreus. He stayed where he was by his ships, yet of what came to him he gave little, and kept much himself.
[/quote]
And so you see why the gambling, warmongering, chicken-hawk, mysandric, soulless Bennett is calling upon men to man up while debauching and deconstructing their heritage–it is because, at the fiat baneker’s behest, he needs the men to take all the risk, while bennet and the fiat bankers get all the rewards, celebrating their conquest of other men’s future wives with the famous buttocker and secretive taper of butthext tucker max rhymes with goldman sax, who the weekly standard casts as a six-foot tall hero, repeating the butthexer’s lies, while ignoring the true, selfless heroism of those Achilles and Smedley Butlers fighting and dying on foreign shores in foreign fiat wars.
In his later years, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “They all fall off, one by one, until one is left with Virgil and Homer, and perhaps Homer alone.” Jefferson advocated the gold standard and railed against central banks. Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. And so you can see that William Bennett is a Judas, selling out Jefferson, Virgil, and Homer, all for a few fiat dollars and short-lived fame. Nay–he is worse than Judas, as at least Judas was paid in Silver, while William Bennet is paid in fiat debt for his soulless, ignorant debauchery, which he gambles away as sure as tomorrow is a new day.
lzoozozolzozozz
if women
are closer to god
how come they did
not write
genesis nor matthew
nor exodus nor leevitccitucs nor mark nor luke nor john?
how come instead
they wrote
twilight
and eat, pray, buttehxt?
lzozoozozozozoz
lzozozozoozoz
There isn’t much available there, but the introduction bemoans the fact that modern Christian men “are failing to provide spiritual leadership to their wives”.
lzozozoozozoz
today if a mane manz tried to “provide spiritual leadership to their wives” and tell her where and where she could not buttehxt wne when she couldn’t follow gina or butt tinglez nor atc on gina bunor btth tinglez– if aman told a womanz any othis of this
he would be
incarcertaed
and have his chidlrenz
tank taken form him by da ebebrnanikfifying state
and exiled form his church
and lebaled
abusive
oppressive
mysoginisistic
shauvinistsic
and all-around
crucfied
for sevring jeuss jesus and mosesz
over oprah
zlzlozlzozlzozozloz
lzozlozooozzozo
lzozozozozozoz
Dalrock
Have you ever had a church maybe this one ever see a blog post such as this?
GBFM…..I’m glad you exist
The who wrote what point settled into my gut without messing up amylase/lipase balance.
This looks like a hipster church. Also, the fact it holds up Every Man’s Battle as good source material is a bad sign. A very, very bad sign. Those books basically teach men to become codependents towards women and narcissistic/ alpha men. Seriously, the books have actually pointed out men are supposed to love women more than themselves, be they their girlfriend or date or wife or whatever. Just more woman worship pedaled as Christianity.
lzozozozoz
da history of butthext:
NSFW not suitabe for work, unless u work at a church or university or schoolor or in a corporation or in america or the europe or anywheere elesz zlzozozlzozl
Off topic: Does anyone know what happened with “The Woman and the Dragon” by Sunshine Mary.
I haven’t heard anything, and to the best of my knowledge no one has. Given how much time has passed, I don’t think she was hacked. I can only guess as to why she felt compelled to not only stop, but delete the blog. I hope that she and her family is well, but we may never know.
I’m pretty sure we will never know. That’s fine. it’s the nature of the internet. She did what she had to do for whatever reason she had to do it.
I wonder if these “manly” churches are teaching about empowered women manipulating their way through life:
Noticed how Selena Kyle escapes by manipulating the men’s natural instinct to protect and provide (after effectively beating the men who lack that instinct). If men as a whole ever lose that instinct, the Selena Kyles of the world are in deep crap because unlike Hollywood, the real world is not as neat or kind.
> I lived in Boulder during the Bill McCartney era and Promise Keepers (Mark Minter)
When Divorce 2.0 is probably 90+% wife driven overall, the idea that you need to round up and lecture husbands about keeping promises is such complete feminist ludicrousness that only somebody with the combined numbskullery of being both a football dude and an xtian could have thought it up.
I was living down in the Springs (Col. Spgs.) then. Many don’t know/recall that McCartney’s daughter got knocked up by one of his football players. So PK just goes to show: when fathers can’t control their daughters, they try to control other men’s sons instead.
If we could harness the energy generated by rubbing circles on backs, there would have been massive power surges immediately following PK conventions…..massive appliance failures sending junk to the land fill.
Whatever happens, I pray blessings for SSM and her family.
@Martian Bachelor there’s nothing logical or Scriptural about how Marriage 2.0 works other than its doing its intended effect – bringing men under the subjugation of women. The women won’t ever be rebuked (at all) because that’s the whole point. Not holiness and service to God, but service to women.
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@Cail,
Incidentally, a study in Switzerland looked at how likely children are to be regular church attendees as adults, compared to what their father and mother did in raising them. (These numbers come from the era when overall attendance was falling drastically, but they are still revealing.) Some of the results:
Wouldn’t mind the link but am not surprised in the slightest. I imagine the 38->36 dip is where dad “goes along”.
On SSM,
She posted elsewhere here (advice for women over 30) that she had had her name found out. So she deleted everything. We’ll see what comes of it.
@zykos Servant leadership is a model of leadership that a professor, a Quaker by religion came up with. It’s got like 13 or 16 components. My guess is most preachers who use the term aren’t familiar with what the term entails. When James and John wanted to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand, he said that the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
You can’t read too much into that comment about his wife. The noble woman of Proverbs 31 has a husband who takes his seat among the elders. A godly woman may have a godly husband. She can have a positive influence on him. Abigail helped keep David from shedding innocent blood. Maybe this man has a wife who is a great intercessor. It doesn’t mean he is necessarily a white knight. I do get a little concerned with the overemphasis on equality in sermons on marriage, since the Bible doesn’t focus on the issue. It’s an American obsession–equality in general, not just when it comes to marriage.
GKChesterton,
The Wikipedia page on church attendance has a section on the influence of fathers based on the Swiss study, although it’s so confusingly written that I’m halfway convinced it’s an attempt to obfuscate the facts. The last footnote, though, leads to this article that lays the numbers out clearly:
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2002/sep2002p8_1115.html
I would like to hear what you say about this article.
To me it smacks of a strange rationalization hamster.
But I’d love to read what you think of it.
http://www.embracethechaos.ca/2013/03/giuliana-ranci-puts-marriage-before-baby-.html
@Morticia The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is male for a reason.
So is orthodox Judaism and Islam. And perhaps in isolated regions such will survive most variants of apocalypse.
@really-long-name-about-books – yes Bill Bennet managed to lose it. But I didn’t see it placed so clearly in context.
in the classical, judeo-christian, chivalric context, a man would man up as he would be guaranteed a non-asscocked, chaste woman who be shamed out of not acting on and serving every gina tingle and butt tingle. instead of serving her butt and gina tingles, a woman would be expected to serve god, man, and family. for this, she would be honored in a civilized context, and she would realize her greater mythology as a mother, wife, and grandmother, instead of an asscocked, aging spinster with cats, working to expand the fed’s debt alongside her ass.
I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but I hope you don’t mind me translating when I need to. I think “her mythology” would be better rendered “her iconography”.
This is NSFC, either for the minor vulgarity which is needed to get to the essence, nor for the hamstercide.
@Silly Person – thanks for the clarification, but forward or backward depends on which direction. Roissy I think would use the terms. I’m tempted to find a snake consuming a hamster on YouTube. Python consumes Rabbit was there (used in Monty v.s. Gamma).
@Morticia – Women (on average) are more sensitive, and are discerning in that sense – they can sense spiritual forces (beyond temporal ones) more easily, but cannot easily determine their import. Men are less sensitive but can tell if they are good or evil, at least if they haven’t been blinded by feminism. Sort of like the eye in the periphery with Rods which sense movement even in the shadows, and cones which sense color and with accuracy but need more light.
I said blinded by feminism. By that I meant after being told Green is Red for 100 times and having pain inflicted for dissent, most men give up and say “Green is Red”. Those who hold out can probe and penetrate to discern the green poison in the field of red.
In the liberal land of the blind, the one eyed man is continually condemned as a sorcerer, condemned for having an unfair advantage, and picked apart for not being able to see in infrared, ultraviolet, sound, or stereoscopically.
I was interested to read the various comments about women being ‘more spiritual’ than men. The blog ( which was still up last time I looked but seems to be rather neglected, possibly due to ill health by a lady called Gemma, passionwithinmarriage.blogstpot.co.uk Gemma is a Christian who failed to behave like a Christian wife (her view, not criticising) and has had an about-turn in her attitude towards her husband and their sexual relationship which she has recorded.
I would commend this blog to all who want to consider women as being more spiritual than men, and in particular her entry on 23 February 2008 and the green panel “about me”.
A slight bit of a tangent but it sort of touches on the idea of some perceived greater spirituality in women:
I think the biggest problem, perhaps even the biggest deception, that young men are subject to is the ‘hero’s journey.’ Without going into detail, basically getting the girl either at the end,
or perhaps even during, as the ‘divine feminine,’ is part and parcel to it.
Now, imagine how many young men go through life either consciously or subconsciously imagining themselves as being on said journey. Thus, when they approach a woman, they are thinking in terms of the hero’s journey, again consciously or otherwise. So, when women reject them, they may feel it is as though God is rejecting them.
Hence, all the whining about the “friendzone” and stuff. They don’t want sex, they want to be acknowledged as the ‘hero.’
It’s been a while since I had any faith in any god, but that phrase “getting in touch with god” has always bothered me. It bothers me because it can mean anything, yet most Christians put a lot of meaning into it. I’m not certain how this pastor means it, but he seems to be implying that his wife is more in touch with gods *will* than he is. In an almost beta way he is dogmatically presuming he is just not as strong in faith as his wife. This pastor, who has presumably sacrificed much in his life to become the servant he is, believes that his wife (who likely has more time for prayer and reflection) is a “better Christian” than he is. He has distorted his vision, deliberately considering his wife more pious, in an attempt to humble himself further.
Understand, I have no faith in any god, so throw as much salt on what I say as you want. I will not be offended.
I consider the comparison of the actions/faith of another to your own for the purpose of humbling oneself an abuse of someone else’s relationship with their chosen god. You cannot know the heart of another, so do not presume to know by instinct the intentions of all the actions of even those closest to you. Furthermore, do not blindly elevate the faith of another by presuming that your closeness to your chosen god is not equally valid. If you have faith in a god, then let your God be judge, not yourself.
He has distorted his vision, deliberately considering his wife more pious, in an attempt to humble himself further.
Pastors masterfully self efface. Constantly. Little remarks like the one I heard a few weeks ago when the pastor was closing, he said “we all have room to grow, Anna reminds me of that all the time….yuk yuk yuk”
It sickens me, where years ago I never even noticed it and would yuk along.
Oh, they certainly want sex. But you’re right, they want to win the girl (for sex) by being her hero. That’s probably the main reason that the nice guy, upon seeing yet another girl swept away by a bad boy, doesn’t go right out and buy a leather jacket and a motorcycle and start slapping women around. He recognizes that that works for the guys who do it, but he doesn’t want to get her that way, and he’s been taught there’s a better way — being her friend first, then her hero, then naked time.
Well, I suppose I could have worded it better, but yeah, I mean it’s less about sex (otherwise they could save their pennies and find a whore), and more about satisfying the mythological frame.
Understand, I have no faith in any god, so throw as much salt on what I say as you want. I will not be offended.
Lots of otherwise religious people are skeptics, I’m finding out. A conversation with a Christian priest (of the Catholic variety) several months ago was eye-opening in this regard. I’m seriously considering converting to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, simply to give the middle finger to modernity (see Roissy’s great article on this, last week). The stories are hard to take seriously, but mythology is meaningful for its own sake. Most of the people you find in the average congregation probably don’t take it any more literally than we do, but they’re there building community and helping one another lead good lives, which is what I’m becoming convinced it’s really all about anyway.
Now if only I could find some congregation which didn’t require the worship of the human female as part of the liturgy, I’d be set…
One of the worst things you may be called to bear as a Christian man is marriage to a wife who is more “spiritual” than you are. She will always be telling you how God is supposed to be working or not working, and will constantly be on guard against Satan and his misdeeds. It can get very wearisome.
Most highly “spiritual” women get a lot of self-approbation from their “spirituality” and like to go to Churches where ‘spiritual’ women are highly regarded.
The best thing to do as a man when you are married to a ‘spiritual’ woman is to keep doing the right thing, which in all cases is as obvious as a brick wall to anyone with half a moral compass, but frame it terms of ‘God led me to do this’. You will get a reputation for closeness with God and this will ameliorate the most abrasive elements of her ‘spirituality’.
@Cail
What does “yuk yuk yuk” means? English is not my native language and I find difficult to understand what your pastor meant.
Imnobody,
That wasn’t me, but “yuk yuk yuk” generally means mild laughter, especially of the “laugh along with me” variety. In other words, this pastor was putting himself down and saying that his wife points out his faults all the time, and laughing about it and assuming everyone else would laugh with him.
It’s not just pastors, men do that all the time. It used to consist of calling one’s wife “my better half,” but it’s gotten more extreme to the point where men will talk without any embarrassment about how their wives routinely have to correct them. It’s even been the basis for several TV sitcoms.
Cail is of course correct regarding what yuk yuk is, and about men doing this in general.
Its just particularly sickening from the pulpit because it builds up, like a nasty film, in the women’s minds. There is no EasyOff that will cut that crap
It is one thing for women in the church to chide and debase men. It is another when the men being chided and debased agree with them. In my experience, when a man does anything more than simply endure the derision, he is viewed as weak and immature. However, visit the same toward women and their “hurt feelings” earn men critical attention.
She can’t be “light years” ahead of him if he is her head, she can’t be light years ahead if she is in rebellion. She can be a disobedient hypocrite, but I don’t suppose that does much for her ability to “reach God”. Obviously, we have to lay our lives down as husbands. Just as obviously, the MUST submit. All else is just one big head-fake.
The question I keep running into is this:
How do you properly love and lead a disobedient (to God) rebel who delusionally believes that they are light years ahead of spiritually?
Does our sacrificial love start looking like a scorched Earth policy until our households are in order? Lately, I’m thinking exactly that. If it isn’t going to glorify God, burn it down and sprinkle the ashes over your mourning head. That sounds like love to me.
Tough love is like tough meat,
nasty to serve and nasty to eat
Jesus Christ was/is a Serveant King. He taught us the importance of being serveants to each other. That took precedance over any other aspect of leadership. This was a concept that His disciples had a hard time grasping.
Even today, good leaders are seen as those that sacrifice for their people. You see that in the military. The problem is that in today’s society this concept of leadership is disappearing.
A good Godly husband will be a serveant to his wife for sure. For starters he needs to acknowledge that she is the weatker vessel in all things. Spiritually she is equal for sure and in some aspects she may be just as good as he is. Nonetheless, God grants a special spiritual grace on him to lead her in wisdom and through knowledge.
The problem that we have today is that wives do not acknowledge that they are the weaker vessel and need a serveant-leader over their lives. They also forget that they themselves should be serveants to their husband and that this is not just applicable to them. If a husband exercises serveant-leadership over a wife that refuses to be a serveant to him, then he and his marriage are in some serious trouble. She is in open rebellion not just to him but to the Lord.
@AJ Miller
The problem that we have today is that wives do not acknowledge that they are the weaker vessel and need a serveant-leader over their lives.
This basic reality leads to a natural inequality, facilitating the need for male headship. However, that inequality is openly denied. And it is not only denied, but reversed so that men are actually struggling to be the “weaker vessel” in order to satisfy their wives. So many of the messages of the modern church are in essence saying to men, “To be godly and love your wives, you need to be the weaker vessel.”
AJ Miller
The problem that we have today is that wives do not acknowledge that they are the weaker vessel and need a serveant-leader over their lives.
Miserman
This basic reality leads to a natural inequality, facilitating the need for male headship. However, that inequality is openly denied.
The interchangeable nature of men and women is a foundational premise of feminism.
Try this from time to time, in any church. Say to a man, not in a group but one on one:
“Some people believe that men and women are the same, except women can have babies”.
Watch the reaction. You may get a variety; incredulousness, a thoughtful nod, a blank stare, nervous laughter, a snort of derision, etc.
This idea should, in a church setting, be regarded as absurd. But you may get an argument, often in the form of “Yes, that’s not true, but…” followed by rationalization that essentially agrees with the initial statement.
Find someone who agrees to any degree with the interchangeable argument, and you’ve found someone who is operating – consciously, or unconsciously – from feminist principles. Doesn’t matter what the label they stick on themselves says, either.
AJ, it seems you are attempting the shove a basketball thru a water hose. Maybe Im reading wrong
Anybody think I should be concerned since mine was the last “guest post” at SSMs blog and then it vanished? Or I am just paranoid?
So what happened to ssm, it just vanished
It would register on my radar, I wouldnt lose sleep but I get your point
I didn’t read all the comments, but to respond to the original post, this sound a lot like what Anne Barnhardt was talking about, with reversal of the procession of the Trinity. They are attempting to put feelings before logic, and then those who feel more are now considered more spiritual, which is false. Before you can love something, you must know it, and these people don’t know G-d.
“The problem with this is that love PROCEEDS from logic and reason. Look at The Last Gospel. It’s right there in the very first verse. In the beginning was THE WORD. Verbum in Latin. Logos in the original Greek. Logos means logic and/or reason in the Greek. John identifies God NOT as “The Caritas” (Latin for love, which is the root of the word charity) or The Agape (Greek for the ultimate self-sacrificial love). John does not say, “In the beginning was the Love…” No, no. John identifies God as THE LOGOS. The Word. Logic and reason. Existential Reality.
Why? Because Divine Love proceeds out of the Logos. Yep. Logic/Reason/Reality comes first, then only proceeding out of Logic/Reason/Reality is Caritas, which is love. Logic/Reason/Reality is the Divine Antecedent. Charity/Love is the Divine Corollary.
What satan, through his Marxist-sodomite helpers, has done is to REVERSE the processions. The Marxist-sodomite heretics preach that the “love” comes first and that logic and reason are massively subordinated at best, or the opposite and enemy of love at worst.”
~Anne Barnhardt
http://barnhardt.biz/
That’s essentially the position I have taken. Even psychologists need to have a reality check once in a while.
Besides the obvious problem with the “servant leader” concept, the problem with it continues into this “weaker vessel” stuff and how it gets defined by the traditional feminists. One trend and tendency is for women to infantilize themselves, especially before men. This has been well noted in several sources, and even affirmed by the secular feminists. The net effect is that they can claim masterhood over men, who has to “servant-lead” over the “weaker vessel” (child). In effect, his wife becomes his first child or Child Alpha, and he has “raise” her and “provide” for her as if she is a child. This has several disastrous effects on a proper marriage dynamic, but the most notable one is that it takes away the rightful responsibilities that women have in marriage, and puts those on the head of the husband. There is a different path (as traditional and secular feminism almost always do), but the net effect is always the same. The dynamic of Marriage 2.0 is set up. The function of the wife is to lead in her will for her glory and the function of the husband (and the reason man is put on the earth) is to serve her unquestioningly in every way. Marriage 2.0 Uber Alles, it doesn’t matter what path is taken to get there.
Some source proof:
Anon:
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Bear in mind that SSM’s blog never had anything even remotely criminal, or even in poor taste. It isn’t a site which promotes criminal behaviour or victimising anyone. The fact that a crazy person was so bent out of shape that she publicised private information is horrible, but the kooks that do such stuff never have any power in the real world, hence the dirty tricks.
People who live in the USA and Canada are free to have discussions on the internet, and disagreeing about political and social matters is not a crime. I’m actually a little surprised that the SSM blog got hassled, because I’ve disagreed with SSM several times and she’s never been anything but polite and civil, even to me. There are truly some thin skinned people in the world, but these loonies are really of no significance.
Best, Boxer
@ukfred,
“….Gemma is a Christian who failed to behave like a Christian wife (her view, not criticising) and has had an about-turn in her attitude towards her husband and their sexual relationship which she has recorded.
I would commend this blog to all who want to consider women as being more spiritual than men, and in particular her entry on 23 February 2008 and the green panel “about me”.”
http://passionwithinmarriage.blogspot.com/
Gemma sounds like a Textbook Case of a sex refusing wife:
Promiscuos lifestyle before marriage – check
Used BC pills – check
Marries nice Christian guy – check
Pendulum swings from promiscuous to legalistic Christian – check
Does not deeply repent of former life – check
Personally decides that SHE is more spiritual than her husband – check
Decides husband only wants her for sex – check (The big marriage committment does not seem to mean anything to these women. Hubby has made a lifetime, exclusive emotional, spiritual, financial, sexual committment to her that none of her ONS guys would ever do; and she can’t distinguish the difference.)
Refuses sex with husband for 25 years – check
Husband and wife switch to Orthodox Christian church and she encounters deep repentance. This is a key in her changing.
Good news, she did a 180 a few years back and they are making up for lost time.
@AJ Miller,
I understand your words and the place they come from but they are flat out wrong. Jesus does not abuse his power but he is a servant of only one, “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.” – Matt 12:18.
The “servant leader” fluff confuses the object of the servants obedience. It also confuses Jesus’ action. He washes the feet of his disciples because he loves them and has no need to “lord it over” them. He doesn’t do it because he seeks to _serve_ them. Doing so would rob him of his Caritas. Jesus always moves as one who has limitless strength and can’t be compelled save by the Will of the Father. He _makes himself_ small.
In “servant leadership” you _recognize_ you are small rather than make yourself small to love another. To visualize this it is the difference between a parent moving down to eye level with a child (good leadership) and telling the child you used to steal cookies from the jar and make the same mistakes too (bad “servant” leadership).
Do yourself a favor and read Robert K. Greenleaf’s “Servant as Leader” (he’s the intellectual father of the movement) where he quotes from one of then Hillary Rodham’s (later the First Lady Rodham-Clinton) speeches. The position he puts forth is a muddled disaster. It has nothing at all to do with Christ and is at best incidentally heretical.
Interesting how you notice things when you’re aware of them. A self-effacing line I just heard in a sermon I’m listening to: “Thank God that he sent me a wife who is a shepherd to this lost sheep.” It’s almost a throw-away line, but it illustrates the self-denigration issue perfectly…
In “servant leadership” you _recognize_ you are small rather than make yourself small to love another.
GKChesteron, thank you for this. Matthew Henry seemed to have something to say on men making themselves “small.” In his commentary on Matthew 5 (Blessed are the poor in spirit) he states,
There is a poor-spiritedness that is so far from making men blessed that it is a sin and a snare—cowardice and base fear, and a willing subjection to the lusts of men.
@Bee
I believe that Gemma is an example that true repentance does lead to a genuine change in behaviour in respect to sex, given the correct spiritual leadership in both church and marriage. I thought that her belief that she was the more spiritual of the two despite her refusal of sex was a particular example of the problems that arise when the church fails to provide the correct teaching on sex within marriage.
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“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of feminism is the beginning of folly”
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