Lord God, as well, I pray for those men who are here that are cowards. They are silent passive impish worthless men. They are making a mess of everything in their life. And they are such sweet little boys that no one ever confronts them on that. I pray for the women who enable them, who permit them to continue in folly, those who are mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives. I pray Lord God for men who are chauvinists. Those who are mean who are brash who are rude who are harsh. Who Lord God think they are tough when in fact they are satanic…
–Pastor Mark Driscoll’s prayer* in front of an audience of men and women after reading the instruction to husbands in 1 Peter 3:7
Commenter Michael identified the most potent snare in the Stepping Up™ advertisement:
Why does the husband have to be “harangued by his ballbusting wife”?
Answer: Because he is not doing what he is supposed to do. He isn’t taking the initiative with his son. He isn’t being a man. He’s a fat slob parked on the couch watching T.V. eating Cheeto’s and drinking beer.
This guy, this fat Dad with a bad back, this guy isn’t a real man. He is a lazy ball-less slob.
The advertisement dangles a poor example of a Christian husband in front of the audience, and invites the audience to tear down the position of husband in Christian marriage and excuse feminist rebellion. This is of course exactly what a number of commenters proceeded to do. Matthew King fired the first salvo on Christian headship in defense of feminist rebellion (emphasis his):
…when men begin acting like men, women will follow their command. It is our fault, it is our responsibility, that is the message they are trying to get across. But you would rather defend the prerogative of middle-aged adolescent parasites because, like, feminism and stuff.
In another comment he continued, failing to see the irony of his accusing others of excusing while himself excusing feminist rebellion:
Men can just assert their prerogatives and the rest will fall into place. If they wanted to. But you are adding excuse upon excuse upon excuse for their ongoing lethargy, for the thousand reasons why it never should have come to this…
Matt not only excuses feminist rebellion if husbands aren’t good enough, he is an armchair husband with boasts of courage he has never displayed in the face of risks he has never confronted:
But what if she doesn’t listen? What if she goes her own way? What if she files for divorce, takes my kids? Or calls the police? What if she writes a mean blog post about how horrible a husband I am? These are phantoms, fantastical fears you would rather have direct you in the abstract hypothetical than confront them in the face and thereby demonstrate they are not real.
Fellow armchair husband and thirty-something peterpan manboy Earl soon joined Matt in excusing feminist rebellion against the Bible because Christian husbands aren’t perfect:
Women’s rebellion only happens because a strong man isn’t there to guide her.
…
Men are the representation of God on earth. When men rebel against God…women rebel against men. It starts with the father…and continues with the husband.
…
Most women only get evil in this day and age because men are afraid what would happen if they stand up by taking the good side.
For all of their hollow bluster about men’s obligation to lead women, neither of these two men considered the fact that their own writings are leading women into sin. They wrote these words to an audience of married men and women. They know modern Christian women are strongly tempted to rebel against the biblical instruction to wives to submit to their husbands, and like the serpent in the garden they whisper words of temptation instead of encouraging them to remain faithful.
If your husband were a worthy man like me, you wouldn’t feel tempted to rebel.
Make no mistake, there is no courage in this act of treachery. What takes courage, obedience, and faith is to witness a failing Christian husband and remember that the Bible is clear that husbands are the head of the household, and wives are called to submit to their husbands even if the husband is not leading her as Christ leads the Church.
These men are overcome by their own pride and a desire to curry favor with the wives they are speaking to. In the case of Pastors who sin this way it is to strengthen their position of leadership over their congregation, and this is by far the most damaging act of treachery. In the case of the omegas circling the camp hoping to find a shortcut to manhood by currying favor with unhappy wives, the treachery is no less real but it is far less damaging because these men are failures whom neither men nor women respect. But either way, this is how feminist rebellion is sold to modern Christians, and it perfectly explains why movies like Fireproof and Couragous are so eagerly accepted. Christian women in feminist rebellion are eager to hear a message which absolves them of the clear instruction to submit to their husbands, and far too many Christian men are looking to ingratiate themselves to the women in rebellion.
*H/T Robert Yates
Jan 24 2015 Update: The original video link has been marked private, but I found another copy on youtube and have updated the link above. However, since Driscoll’s videos have been disappearing from the web the new link may stop working at some point as well. Here are two pages which include transcripts of the sermon “Marriage and Men” for reference, here and here.
I’d punch that tool in the face and walk out of his church
Right… and in exactly the same way, when a Christian sins or falls away from God… it’s because God didn’t give him/her the leadership that they required. God isn’t a good enough God so it’s HIS fault that some poor person began sinning… riiiiiight.
That’s not it at all. So these fools are expecting men to provide a level of leadership/relationship that not even God can. There is always free will involved and you cannot force somebody to act any way they do not want to.
Slight typo in the O.P. first paragraph — “chauvenists” should be “chauvinists”. Apologies if this comes off as picky, otherwise (since I am not in the piece’s ‘target audience’ of married Christian men) I’ll recuse myself from comments on the post otherwise.
[D: Thank you. Fixed.]
I always loved the idea that “if only men would man up, women would submit”. And maybe if they *all* did, AT THE SAME TIME, then yes, perhaps the statement would be true. But that’s like pushing a few men to riot knowing full well that the rest of the group will not support them. Men cannot lead if the tools of leadership — the legal right to discipline those they are supposed to lead — have been taken away from them. Telling them to “man up” in this climate is exactly as you remarked Dalrock, an act of treachery, it’s sending them to their demise and treating them like cannon fodder. These men are the real cowards.
That is not the way Ton because he’d call the police and have you arrested. And then he’d press charges (and he’d be right to do it) and you would really have completely messed up your life (maybe for good.) You do not want that, it isn’t worth it.
Walking out of his church is correct. That is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us “walking out” to matter. These churches must appeal to the women. The women control their husbands with threats of frivorce and restraining orders if they don’t get their way. The husbands make the money that the wives spend. The money controls the Pastors, their salaries. Its always about the money, follow the money.
Well said! My husband and i were discussing about a woman we know. She controls the finances, his time etc. How can a man become a man if he isn’t allowed to make choices? Or is being bossed around, A man just like everyone else needs to make choices and have responsibility in order to “step up”. What can he learn if he doesn’t have choices to learn from or a family to be responsible for. it’s unfortunate and highly unattractive to watch. when a women doesn’t submit she cuts her legs from underneath her. She casts herself into poverty any chance of eternal progression.
Dalrock would you like to vote in my poll?
http://housewifesexuality.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/men-if-you-saw-a-woman-open-a-door-for-a-man-would-you-think-that-the-man-has-high-statushigh-value-or-someone-important/
* and any chance of eternal progression
Really Ton? You’d walk up in front, punch him in the face?
I would applaud the walking out of the church, but only after rising to your feet, and using whatever talents for public speaking are available, decry his words, decry the attitude behind the words, explain that you can not lend any semblance of silent support for his attack on the Bible, and are therefore withdrawing your support immediately. And then challenge any other men to gather their courage to obey God rather than women, and follow your example.
It quickly reveals to the other men the poisonous attitudes even some of the female leaders have inculcated in their hearts toward men. And your woman will be swimming in tingle juices.
Nah, it’d be easier to punch in the face, less satisfying for sure, but definitely easier.
Women rebel because worthless-fat-slob-useless-wimp-husband? Ridiculous! Rebellion is the default setting for woman. She doesn’t need an excuse to engage in it. The excuse always comes after the fact. And the excuse is not the cause.
The woman that fails to “see to it that she reverences her husband” is tearing down her own home. When she cuts him down, she lowers his stature. Which again makes him less attractive to her. Which only opens up more faults for her to find. And yet… most evangelical churches are only too willing to accelerate this: as soon as she shows up to complain about her horrible mean husband, she’ll have a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, and a pat on the back for just how much patience and steadfastness she “really” has.
The husband that observes this will get no sympathy. A pastor will quickly tell him that if he wants to be in authority, that he has to be under authority. If only he submitted to a big shot preacher… *then* she could submit to him! That this advice makes no sense whatsoever to Christian women married to unbelieving husbands (1 Peter 3) is not something that anyone seems concerned about.
Which leads us to the biblical order of leadership in the home: why not let the woman submit first… and then observe how the husband behaves with the kind of authority that he gains…? Unfortunately, this route is already excluded from the thinkable. Preacher types have expended massive amounts of hot air straining to articulate that leaders go FIRST. After all, Jesus loved us FIRST. After all… we only love, respect, and serve Jesus because he was such a humble footwashing meek and quiet guy that patiently took on all wrath and sin and death for our sake…? Isn’t that good enough for the Christian husband?
That a man would dare ask to be treated any other way is PROOF that he is little, wimpy, mean, not particularly well endowed, and bad-in-bed. Or at least it seems so, the way everyone carries on. Much noise is made, but things would be infinitely simpler if the woman went first. It is in fact the only way forward. How much “leading” and “stepping up” is Christian Husband going to do when she detonates the family, after all…?
“A continual dropping on a rainy day and a contentious wife are alike: restraining her is like restraining the wind, or like grasping oil in his right hand.” Prov 27:15-16 WEB
The idea that if a husband was a better leader that her wife would submit to him is absolutely not biblical. If a wife won’t place herself under the headship of her husband, there isn’t anything he can do to force her. It is, as the Bible states, like trying to restrain the wind.
What you can do as a husband is to mitigate the damage she may do to your marriage by managing her. This is where game comes in as a useful tool (even for Christian husbands) as it helps you to understand the underlying motivations of your wife and how to manage her.
Managing your wife may seem a strange concept (I’m supposed to love her–right?), but letting her live her life without any authority covering her is not love either. I’m talking about agape love–tough love; giving her what she needs, not what she wants.
The alternatives are:
(1) Lead your wife (only works if she submits)
(2) Manage your wife (mitigating damages)
(3) Let your wife lead (which is what happens in egalitarian marriages)
innocentbystanderboston don’t be such a sissy, that guy deserves a punch in the face. did jesus walk out of the temple or get a whip and chase those a-holes out?
No leader anywhere at any time can stop their followers from rebelling. The followers have full autonomy to rebel or not rebel. They are not mind-controlled.
Yesterday our deacon preached on the need for Christians to evangelize, and he mentioned the specific situation of sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner where “somebody” mentions something critical of the church, or contrary to Catholic doctrine. The deacon urged Catholics to speak up.
Okay, so far as it goes, but I was curious whether he would encourage a Christian wife to “speak up” if her husband contradicted Catholic doctrine, or, in her opinion, was overly critical of the priest, bishop or pope.
What about children? Are they supposed to “speak up” against their parents if they think their parents are wrong?
I’m not criticizing the deacon. He didn’t address these issues at all. But it would be very interesting to see how people in the congregation would answer those questions.
Anyway, to Dalrock’s point, while Christian men are certainly at fault for failing to lead, it is simply not true that if the man leads properly the wife will follow — any more than it’s true that if parents are good parents, children won’t go astray.
Sin and rebellion are real things.
Hmm. Chills – in that italicized paragraph about “things that aren’t real”, every example was done by my STBX – except I filed the divorce once it was clear where we were headed.
~when men begin acting like men, women will follow their command.~
I’ve read a fair number of books about leadership, many of the most popular by successful leaders in a variety of fields.
One thing that struck me (even in the first one) is that they ALL point out that some people will not be led…and they all conclude that these people need to be shown someplace else that they’d rather be.
Point is, that Matt’s comment (which echoes those made by Rainey, and others) is completely wrong.
Women are inclined to rebel as part of the fall. It’s a sin within the Church not to address this with proper discipline. It’s suicide that Churches actually promote it.
If we are to take very seriously the principle of “husband leading a wife as Christ leads the Church”, would it be appropriate to point out that for many people in the church, it probably FEELS like Christ isn’t really leading them in any significant way?
Often the church just has Christ’s promises as a basis for trusting that they are being led by him. There may be several reason why Christ’s leading isn’t very visible but at least one of them probably has to do with the church members’ rebellion against Christ’s leadership. As a consequence of this, one would expect the very same observations (lack of visible leading) both on the hypothesis that Christ isn’t leading the church and on the hypothesis that the church is rebellious to His leadership. This would seem to have at least some possible applications to thinking about the situation with the husband’s alleged lack of leading of his wife.
Typho,
He may deserve it, but if Ton punches him, then Ton deserves a night in prison. Ton is not Christ and that Church is not Ton’s private property. And even if it was, Ton could (and would) still be arrested. And it isn’t worth it.
JC,
Husbands don’t want be frivroced over this. Wives aren’t taught to obey their husbands anymore, so of course, this may not fly. Religion is one of those things where women would feel entirely justified in divorcing their husbands. They don’t even need to get on the hamster wheel to get that justification.
First all of your comment threads become the world vs. Matt King and Earl, now you have entire posts dedicated to arguing with those two? Good God.
This gets laid squarely at the feet of the pastor and leadership of the church.
Ton, go forth son of Phinehas and fulfill your mission.
The problem with trying to change the leadership is they’re in business to make money, and the church is a money-making business. They have salaries to meet, building to pay for, ministries to fund and it all comes down to money. The only way to change things is to start mens groups and help them choke down a red pill. After that, if they learn a little game, things will change. The pastor CAN’T always AMOG you, especially if you know the Bible well enough. Always remember the way Reagan did it to Jimmy Carter: “There you go again.”
If you publicly challenge the leadership, always do it on the merits, always on what Scripture says. Never let them slide off point, but really, it takes more than one. It takes a team to really control the social dynamics of change and they have to work together. Even better is having some women who are willing to offer their vocal support. The two most effective questions I’ve found so far are “What God do you worship?” and “Why won’t you obey the God you claim to serve?”
@Dalrock,
You may want to explain the term fragging and what you mean by it, as it is a pretty loaded term.
[D: I mean it in the way it is loaded. Treachery. Mutiny. Cowardly attacks on lawful authority.]
A man is better off understanding the nature of women in this environment and using game.
I’m with Ton kick his ass on the way out.
dear dalrockasz
i hopesz it is ok to post this here too, as it is even more pertinent in this thread than the last onez 🙂
i would also like to add that a remarkable thing about the manosphere is how much time supposed “men” spend in attacking attacking attacking noble entities such as dalrock, heartists, homer, the bible, and otherz great books for menz.
as the culture and country and family and church decline, churchian “men” are “manning up” and attackingz dalrockas, while giving all da william benntes and mark driscolls and tukker max rhyems iwth goldman sax buttehxter a free pass.
is it any wonder things are the way they are?
lozozolzlzolzo
a funny thing to note is dat because Earl and King write no blog, they can only feel bigger by tearing Dalrock down, even thoughz jealousy is da rpimest eldest curse in abel vs cain zlzllzlzol
here is da GBFM’s breakdownz of matt kingz & earl’s general idiocizy and faux scholarshizpz z;zpz
General Earl comment: “everyone here should man up like me and women will follow naturally. although i am not married and do not date, today i was at the grocery store, buying my own groceries as i often do because that is the manly way to buy fgroceries, and when it came time to pay, the cashier ( a female) said “the total is $53.74.” as i pay my own bills, like a man, i took out my wallet and lead the cashier by handing her $55. she responded to my Godly leadership and gave me $2.26 in change. when she said “paper or plastic” i provided Godly leadership and said “paper” in my Godly, dulcet tones, thusly ministering unto her, fulfilling Christ’s testament “ask and ye shall receive.” If everyone here could only man up like me and lead women as i do, all your marriages would last and the families would be saved–all the aborted babies would come back to life, and all the anti-male laws would immediately disappear from our courts. trust in God, go to confession, pay your bills on time, and women will naturally follow as shown above. Stop your complaining, lead women as I do, and all will be well.”
General Matt King comment: “non sequitur, red herring, quote from bartlebies sans context, attempted insult, pause to scratch butt and sniff, random chest thumping, mental/verbal masturbation, asinine conjecture, Shakespearean saying which makes absolutely no sense in his endless sentence, illogical fallacy, random h8, hackneyed expression with no context, cliche, wordpress code for bold italics, meaningless declaration in bold italics, Shakespearean quote out of context, pause to tell wife he will take out the trash in a few minutes, cliche from thesaurus, biggest word he could think of so as to confuse the issue, cliche with no context, scholarly quote from bartlebies without context, bizarre accusation, empty condescension wrapped in words nobody ever uses, attempted insult, red herring, asinine conjecture contradicting previous conjecture, insult from the 80s, call on others to man up like him, mental/verbal masturbation,hackneyed expression with no context, cliche, cliche, attempted insult, asinine conjecture, hatred on men and mankind, scholarly quote from bartlebies without context, pause to scratch butt and sniff, attempted insult, red herring, wordpress code for bold italics, asinine conjecture contradicting previous conjecture, mental/verbal masturbation, biggest word he could think of so as to confuse the issue, apology to wife for not having taken out the trash yet.”
lzozozozzozlolzz
Disclaimer: not married, not likely to be in the near future. I may be whistling in the dark, but this being the internet, I get to whistle at all of you anyway.
At risk of having the detail stripped out of what people read below, you’re too hard on Matt K, Dalrock. Yes, what he says comes across as excusing female rebellion (and in fact may be, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt), but I suspect that he’s grasping towards a truth that the manosphere is just beginning to realize that it has yet to formulate. I’m still not entirely sure that I have wrapped my head around it, but I think it can be summed up by saying that women broke it, men will have to fix it. I’m not excusing female behavior – I’ve been burned a time or two, and I know perfectly well that, for the purposes of modeling female behavior, yes, AWALT. I know men who are trying to be leaders and are dealing with a shrieking harridan where they should have a sweet helpmeet. I know men who did everything they could short of chaining her to the basement wall to keep a marriage together when she had it in the bombsight. That doesn’t change the fact that men are the ones who have to fix this. Women aren’t going to.
In a nutshell, feminists are right. Women, as a general rule, lack any moral agency. Oh, to be sure, they have the capability of learning it, but where are they going to these days? The Sunday Morning Nightclub? Those few women, in this day and age, who choose to be responsible for the morality of their own actions are so rare in mainstream society as to be completely negligible. Thus how can we expect ANYTHING we say or write to have any effect?
This leaves the burden of fixing the problem squarely on men. Yay. We can’t lead someone who won’t be led, as DrTorch says, but we can be better leaders. I think it would be hard to dispute the idea that the better the leader, the more people (in a statistical sense) will be likely to follow him. That means that, in fact, the best thing you can do for your marriage is to become a better leader. Followed shortly by teaching your wife what ‘responsibility’ means.
I’m not saying any of this to counter the post above, but the simple fact is that women simply will not fix this mess, and the best we can usually manage is to alter things one at a time. Big sweeping changes are nice, and they will probably happen eventually, but only in the end game. You don’t start a real change (for the better – governments are very capable of breaking things, but less so at fixing them) with top-down legislation. You start it in the grassroots. We can kvetch and chat and trade charts and argue semantics all day long, but ultimately, things will get fixed by individual men going out and working on their marriages. Most of them will fail anyway, as the man gets more and more supplicating, begging for her to stay, and some will fail because he manages to lead, but too little too late. But a few more will succeed than succeeded last year. And a few more the year after that. And who knows, maybe yours will be one of them
innocentbystander has a thing for going to prison …
Bring up anything masculine, or any masculine action, he immediately thinks he’s going to jail …
It’s his goto excuse, when it comes to behaving masculine … ridiculously hilarious.
As I’ve stated before, a feminized churchianity has successfully conflated the Holy Spirit with the Feminine Imperative. The two are now synonymous in mainstream Christianity.
The male / female narrative is held as a cause / effective narrative. Good men produce good women and vice versa. However, this completely ignores the reality that women turn bad and rebel against good men. Women treat with scouring disrespect and contempt even men whose fundamental quality is good beyond reproach. Feminism holds the cause / effect idea because it is a convenient way of excusing female behavior. If women are heralded as rebellious or “bad” it is because men are “bad.” However what makes a man “good” is defined not by a transcendent standard, but by the women who accuse them of being bad, which gives them cart blanche in accusing good men of being bad whenever they face the reality that they are bad women who pretending they are good.
When Eve ate the fruit in Eden, Adam was a perfect husband.
In my previous post, “vice versa” means that bad men are held to produce bad women.
lolzlzlozlzol
What about you violating God’s law in stealing? That is right there in the Great Books for Men. You just stole $1 from the grocery store because the woman cashier can’t do basic math. Obviously, she needs to be led. Where was your leadership in telling her that was too much change?
In all seriousness, it is one thing to say that women will submit and obey their husbands. It is another matter altogether to tell men that they need their wives to submit when they KNOW that their wives would rather divorce them first than submit to his Christian headship in their family. I have known husbands who were told that their wive’s devotion to their parents were MORE IMPORTANT than their devotion to the marriage, that their wives would rather frivorce their husbands and take their kids with them and move back home before their husbands would allow their family to be moved to another state. Yes I have known marriages like this, what can you do? We can’t help those men when she holds all the legal cards.
I can’t speak for those men dealing with wives in rebellion, so I won’t attempt to. I will instead speak to a minority of men who comment here who are near my age of 28, and single. I hope that the older men can find some wisdom in this comment that can be applied to their own situations, but promise nothing.
I will say that, among the men and women between the ages of 18-30, change withina church is completely within the power of men to enact. I’ve seen testimony of such from others, and am beginning to see it myself through my own actions and those of men I’ve met at my parish the last two months. If several men can set a frame of only accepting feminine behavior grounded in obedience and biblical behavior, the women will change.
Like it or not, women will rebel. As men, our job is to lead and not to allow rebellion. Again, that is our calling whether we like it or not. There is no scriptural basis for leadership to women to be conditional, just as there is no basis for women’s submission to be conditional.
Your church should have your back on this. If not, change churches or change the church from within if you feel called to do so. I foundoe that is a mix of both. There are a decent amount of feminine women, two or three other masculine men, and a decent mix of effeminate men and rebellious women. I enact change, interacting with those available to me, by constantly engaging in discussion of masculine virtues, philosophy, and religious beliefs with the men; the masculine ones among us setting the tone, and allowing the others to join in as they will. We all dress better than the other men, and have a higher charisma and comfort with women as well as varying levels of leadership ability.
The women notice this and comment on it. They have slightly started conforming to our frame and becoming more submissive and feminine. Later this month I’ll be expanding our ability to lead men by starting a weekly or bi-weekly meeting where the men are invited to a pub or whiskey bar to continue such discussions without female influence.
I do this because I am a man, and am called to lead a household should I find a suitable wife. While I search, I will take actions that make the women around me more suitable wives for either myself or other men as their future husbands. I also lift the men around me up to the best of my ability through God’s grace and wisdom, so that they may be good future husbands and help shape quality wives of their own. While doing so, every man and woman involved brings greater glory to God because we’re better able to follow his commands and avoid sin.
I also do so because, while I expect the church to have my back when necessary, I also acknowledge that there are going to be many situations the church is unable or unsuited to do so through the reality of the world. I would be a fool to not set myselfup for successful navigation of such instances. To be able to operate simply as myself following biblical teaching as necessity demands when unable to fall back on the church until such a time as I’m able to. Or simply solve it completely without having to rely upon a priest, freeing him up to serve others needs.
Take from my experiences and beliefs what you will
The pastor is teaching moral relativism.
If the husband would become a BETTER leader, his wife would follow him. You can’t measure better; it isn’t an absolute measure, so who decides when better is good enough for the wife to start following?
The wife, and since the measure of what is “good enough” is different for every wife, it is a relative measure. It’s a modern case of “everyone doing what is right in their own eyes,” or in this instance “every wife determining what is good enough in her own eyes.”
rmax,
Punch a Pastor and you go to jail. Say just the wrong thing to your wife (and she calls the cops and gets a restraining order) and you go to jail. There is nothing ridiculous or hillarious about that, that is REAL LIFE, the real life that many Christian men must live.
We’ve all seen it. We are walking the tightrope sometimes. We do the best we can but all of man’s laws are there to empower her, not you. And even if you don’t like it, there is not much you can do about it.
Toad,
That is perfect and acurate.
Unfortunately, most churches would just Joe Jackson you right out the door if you try to do this. Its one thing to say it, another thing to actually do it. Good luck getting married men to try this anyway if their wived are content in the church.
innocentbystanderboston says:
August 19, 2013 at 12:43 pm
lolzlzlozlzol
“What about you violating God’s law in stealing? That is right there in the Great Books for Men. You just stole $1 from the grocery store because the woman cashier can’t do basic math. Obviously, she needs to be led. Where was your leadership in telling her that was too much change”
innocentbystanderboston! go to the head of the class! you saw it!
what da GBFM is illustrating is that the modern church leadership defines their success by how much wealth they transfer/steal, all the while labeling it “godly leadership.”
i knew that innocentbystanderboston would rise to da occasion!
nitouken said: “We can’t lead someone who won’t be led, as DrTorch says, but we can be better leaders.”
What good will becoming a better leader do, if the person you want to lead refused to be led?
I could become the greatest singer in the world, but Metallica will never, under any circumstances, “submit” to my singing skills and make me their lead singer, because they want the singer they currently have.
I could become the greatest leader in the world, but my wife will never, under any circumstances, “submit” to may leadership skills and make me the leader of the family, because she wants the leader she currently has–herself.
@innocentbystanderboston
Unfortunately, most churches would just Joe Jackson you right out the door if you try to do this.
Depends on how it’s played. Years ago, I was asked to leave several churches. I’ve learned to use other tactics. I have a dominant enough personality that compliments are powerful, especially in public. I go out of my way to compliment women who are acting/dressing/being feminine. I usually compliment in such a way as to reinforce either a father or husband’s headship. I also shame poor behavior, though not in quite so loud a voice.
I’ve found that if I have even one other man who will defend me once the ad hominem attacks start, the discussion can be shifted back on point. If there is at least one woman who will agree with me, the force of their moral argument is significantly lessened. JoJ brings what I’ve done for years to a whole new level and it would be interesting to get his story and see if he’s got a pattern of behavior that can be taught in a structured way to men.
The bottom line is I know a lot of Christian men who no longer go to church because they can’t stand the atmosphere. Those are the guy’s I’d be recruiting if I wanted to take JoJ’s path.
@nitouken
This is totally wrong. Marriages don’t fix problems, and marriages aren’t fixed by better handling of wives.
There’s also a lot of confusion of what it means to be a Christlike husband as regards loving and leading. Husbands ARE the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the Church. Nothing needs to be done to set that right. It just IS. If a wife perpetually acts as if she is headless, then the thing to do is bury what can only be described as a corpse–divorce. Most men dig (rimshot!) that as far as it goes, but they don’t like the follow-up: Remain single and pray for her, because ours is a faith of rebirth and resurrection, and our God can bring things back to life. In this way they keep faith in God, remain loving to their harridan wives, and yet soothe their situations. Few men even contemplate this fully.
The lack of leadership is about rebellion to God. We are social creatures; imitators of imitators, and imagined in God’s image. If a man is not in submission to God, then it’s only logical that his wife follows his lead and so, in turn, is not submissive to her husband.[1] The answer isn’t to squash the rebellion yourself, but to do what you want your wife to do: Appeal to your Commanding Superior for fire-support. She won’t learn from being told, but from imitating. It’s the way she was made; the way we were all made. This is why the Word (Christ) is not presented just as the Scripture, but had to become flesh and live it out for us to see. This is always why He had to actually die and be resurrected.
The response to wifely rebellion by submission to God is far from the retreat that our wicked little hearts often make such moves feel like. It is a counterstrike, and not in some passive-aggressive peace-nik spiritual mumbo-jumbo way.
Scripture is a weapon against all sorts of evil; even rebellious wives. As soothing as commiseration in the Mensphere can be, the Bible is WAY better at it.
[1]This is not always the case. Women have a tremendous power in that they can keep even a recklessly-headed marriage alive through submission; they can win their husbands to life without a word. (They really are life-creating vessels.)
As it happens, this podcast was the next as I work my way through this sites archives. Love it when God provides a good addendum in such a timely manner
http://www.audiosancto.org/sermon/20080113-The-Holy-Family-Compared-to-Adam-and-Eve.html
You guys seeing money as holding primacy of motive are wrong if you see it as being for their material direct gain. There are those charlatans who sell prosperity gospel and all the attendant trinkets, yes. That some of these also pander to women is not in dispute. There are also medium and very small churches where the pastors receive a stipend, or in some cases work elsewhere and receive little to nothing at all, and they too tend towards evangelical feminism. They are equal opportunity panderers. Its far more base than money. Unless money affords them more access to women’s approval. This is a classic example of “the lift”. These men seek “the lift”, and yes, it is that simple.
To one degree or another all men seek “the lift”. that these men have a captive audience of women who are an ever present source of flattery back at the pastor is the drive. If you somehow took money utterly out of ministry, all ministry being voluntary, you’d loose some (Creflo) dollars indeed, but the ones remaining would be? Yep….pandering to the women.
Its way too simplistic and therefore useless as a source of corrective to view it as merely profit motive. Its cliche to see churches as simply “after your money” lacking the real deeper motive which is to please lots of women and get their backs patted and rubbed
@8to12
Did you even finish reading my post before you jumped off? I know that. I’m not talking about a panacea, or a fix for any individual marriage. I’m talking about what is needed to restructure society in the long term. Frankly, marriage situations are overwhelmingly likely to suck for every single single man today. We can’t fix now. Cannot be done. You can’t unride the carousel – we’re not going to magically see an influx of virtuous, marriage minded 20-30 something women. We need to think long term – not ‘how do I fix this for me’ – but ‘how do I make it so my grandchildren don’t have to put up with this’. The way to do that is make all the changes you can make. Sure, alphaing up and fixing a marriage probably won’t work. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Of course, for those readers who think that death really is the end, well, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
The bottom line is I know a lot of Christian men who no longer go to church because they can’t stand the atmosphere.
The demons are doing the worm(wood) on the floor about this.
@Empath
They could get their backs patted and rubbed if they were doing thing right, just not by as many people. Every pastor learns pretty quickly that there’s an unwritten set of rules and there are a couple of alpha mares who’ve made it their job to be the arbiter of those rules. Ultimately it will come down to a choice of preaching highly unpopular sermons and sleeping with a clear conscience while looking for a new job, or at best just avoiding the thorny issues women don’t want to hear about. If growth is desired, as super-pastorTM Andy Stanley stated, “A church that wants to grow cannot teach the doctrine of complimentarianism.”
Growth means more power, more recognition, more influence, a greater voice and of course, more people want to be your friend. It’s all fueled by money. Always money.
One subtle message that might have been overlooked in that video you posted last time. The wife says, “If you don’t do something, I’ll move into that nice trailer park down the road” or something along those lines.
Considering the well-to-do white demographic this video is appealing to, this might stand out as somewhat odd. After all it’s likely none of the women in Driscoll’s church are in danger of living in a trailer, even (and perhaps especially) after frivorce.
The implication, the message, being sent here is that if you as a woman tolerate lazy, layabout, poor leaders of men in your life, you’ll be at risk of not having enough resources for your desired quality of life with some left over for your spawn. You wouldn’t want that now, would you? Of course not, so don’t tolerate these poor excuses for men, woman.
@Cane Caldo
This is all true, and Christian husbands absolutely do need instruction (done with great care not to give an excuse to wives tempted to rebel). But the eagerness by Christian men to cut down headship is pandemic. We can’t get a clear message out to wives or husbands while the piling on is unabated. This is I am convinced the primary method feminists are using to attack headship, although it comes in slightly different forms. For example, the “abuse” canard is just one flavor of this. Point to a flawed husband and watch the craven men fight to be the first to murder headship.
@Empath
Haha! Well done! The Creflo comment was good, too.
Jesus cracked the whip and chased the money lenders out of the temple. Prolly get arrested for that now. But it was an excellent cause. Same ought to happen with the craven pastors supplicating to the women in their congregations. Crack the whip (metaphorically I hope) and call the pastors onto the carpet. JoJ showed us one way to go. Another way as CC says is to say your piece, then walk your family out the door and find another church.
@Matt
This quote, especially the bolded, needs to follow you all over the manosphere so that men may know whose flag you’re flying when they read your screeds. Phantoms? Fantastical fears? Like David J in the last thread and many I have known in real life, I lived them. Like him, I wish I could turn the clock back but that’s not the way life works. Unlike you brother, we may not be of it, but we deal in reality. I won’t tell you to go to hell as that is not a Catholic thing to say, but I do hope you exercise the opportunity to reflect on the errors in that last sentence in your prayers.
@ 8to12:
Your comment of August 19 at 11:53 is exactly correct. I wish I had this knowledge when I was married. Game felt wrong to me, but as you explain game in that context, I can see you are correct.
Hey, it’s Angry Dalrock. I like. “Armchair husband”, very cute.
@Empath
You might want to take a look at this:
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/ and reflect on their conclusions as to why people are leaving the church. Perhaps those blue-pill people simply don’t have the words to explain why being shamed and blamed is uncomfortable? Why being held up to ridicule just doesn’t feel right? They also say nothing about the standard outcome of divorce within the church, which is the church takes the ex-wife’s side and the ex-husband leaves.
There’s a fertile field of rebellion that’s growing quite a crop of hypocrisy and legalism.
Notice, however, that the article in Time Magazine focused on the Christians who’d rejected Churchianity going off and being Christians on their own- off the reservation, so to speak. If you research the response of various denominations, you’ll see that they tend to blame everything but their own hypocrisy.
Keep in mind that the level of apostasy, across the board, is such that one does not ask if any particular church is apostate, rather just how apostate they actually are. There comes the point at which the Bible study at somebody’s home becomes a house church…
Toad’s two sentences are written to perfection.
Mr. Dalrock originally posted:
This is precisely where your ad hominem method springs a leak. What do you know of the “courage [I have] never displayed” or “the risks [I have] never confronted”? You are so obsessed with authenticity that in the absence of personal detail your logical arguments come to nothing.
In no place did I “excuse” feminist rebellion, nor would I ever. I said let’s focus on what we can change about ourselves first, and not only will that make their conversion easier, it might even make it automatic. For that you cry anathema, how the demons have taken hold of me, and I am a mouthpiece of the enemy. You have to insert imaginary qualities into your critics in order to produce a substantive response.
I no longer wonder why your peculiar hobbyhorse has trouble reaching a wider audience.
Matt
@Dalrock
I’m not sure what the criticism is here, or even if criticism is what you intended. If it is, then that is ironic, as I believe this is the first time I’ve ever publicly endorsed divorce as an option; albeit in a context of open-ended forgiveness for repentance.
We are in agreement on the pandemic, the primary method, and the instruction. All I know to do is tell women to zip it, and men to have faith in what the Bible teaches us to do; which is what I’ve said.
The attacks at headship do not come via what I have said, but what Mrs. Darling has said way up at the top. Why did she have to say anything? Why does she have a blog about how awesome she is, and how much she loves being publicly submissive to her husband? I think the answer is the need for attention. She’s turned her exercise in (what can only appear in our society as) alternative living into an exhibition of self-aggrandizement…using your blog to do it.
It’s gross, and its an opening for other women to exploit. “If she can open her big yapper, then I need to, also. Maybe I’ll talk about how bad my husband is.”
I have felt somewhat lost – amongst the competing theologicians – in the most recent threads.
Yesterday I received a phone call from my friend: he had had yet another argument with his wife; she was not happy with the progress he was making for the overseas holiday that he was to arrange for his wife, and her two children by her previous marriage: She, he said, had then gone into a tantrum much as a child might; so he told her that if she was not happy she could LEAVE. She, then did just that, spending the day with her sister, whilst he went and spent the day at the coast. Later that evening she returned, and moved into the top-floor bedroom. Today they exchanged some texts to which I was privy. One of them advised him that she was seeing her Attorney. I persuaded him that his proposed text reply ‘Whatever’ may be one he would live to regret, so he did not send it. There is however a happy ending, as he has now agreed to take her and her two boys off for two days in a sophisticated European capital. She has however seen the Attorney and has thus been telling her husband about all the cash and prizes she can expect should she at any future time wish to divorce him. I suggested to my friend that she should be stripped of her citizenship and returned to *****stan with only the clothes on her back, or rather with the ones she came in. Sadly I can find nothing in my law books to support my proposed course of action. 😦
Would Pastor Driscoll approve of my friends handling of his wife, I wonder – of course I did my best to dissuade him from marriage at that time, as I see her as nothing but a whore – but to no effect for as we learn from the good book, the flesh is weak especially when the woman is uber-hot.
@Cane Caldo
It isn’t a criticism, more of an observation, or a plea. Large numbers of Christian men are for lack of a better term incontinent when it comes to dodging the issue of rebellion and taking the safe and self gratifying path of attacking flawed husbands. They simply lack self control, and need a period of time to learn new habits. They desperately want to change the subject to the failings of Christian husbands. I am making a plea to keep this in mind when changing the subject to the failures of Christian husbands.
Mr. Nitouken translated:
Excellent summary.
Wonderful consiliences happen when the ideological grip is loosened.
Keep your head down, Mr. Nitouken. You will have friendly fire incoming shortly. (Effing artillery with their slide rules…)
Matt
The best lies are the ones that are mostly true. Yes, many men who have been too supplicating, by becoming more dominant, will encourage submission in their wives. But that’s far from saying it’s guaranteed, which is what Matt and Earl are shoveling: if you treat your wife right (whether than means dominance and headship, or supplication as Driscoll and Gregoire teach), she’ll be loyal and loving and perfect — the corollary of course being: if she leaves you, it’s your fault, you didn’t do your husbandly job.
That treats women like machines — put in the right materials and pull the right levers and out comes the product you want — which leaves no room for free will. Free will means that you could be the perfect husband and there’s still a chance — maybe a reduced chance, but still a measurable one, considering all the encouragement she gets from other sources — that she will rebel and refuse correction.
When Cane and Deti and others encourage the husbands of rebellious wives to take a stand, that’s not because they think taking a stand is guaranteed to bring her into line. It may do so, and that’s great. But she may refuse to end her rebellion, and leave instead. That’s the risk such a man takes, but the risk is alleviated by the fact that her rebellion, if left unchecked, will destroy the marriage anyway. At worst, he accelerates the timeline.
@nitouken
“Sure, alphaing up and fixing a marriage probably won’t work.”
You should have held your ground on this point, because this seems wrong on the face of it.
The only problem is that the solution was framed the wrong way. Becoming a better “leader” isn’t what’s needed, better game is needed. In which case, alphaing up is going to have a good chance of “working”. Obviously the divorce incentives are what they are, so it’s still a risk even if it is mitigated.
I don’t know if you’ve ever read a female romance novel, but I’d recommend it if you get a chance. Outlander is a great one to read, but don’t read it if you want to hold on to your traditionally romatic notion of women.
Point is, you’d be amazed how a much a Queen of Ballbusting Misery can do a 180 with just a small dash of game, let alone a healthy dose of it. I’m not saying I’m speaking from experience here, since I’m an omega male, but if you get a chance find HawaiianLibertarian’s e-mail to Roissy (or whoever) at le Chateau. It backs up your general point.
Here, I found it for you:
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/relationship-game-week-a-readers-journey/
8to12 either is hung up on your use of the word leadership, or he’s in game denial.
@Dalrock
Men don’t tend to do battle unless they think they can win but they will engage in white-knighting if they think they’ll have the support of the women. I’m not sure, however, they truly want to change the subject TO the failure of Christian husbands because I don’t actually see where anyone got the subject of discussion around to the wife’s rebellion in the first place. It certainly wasn’t the pastor or the other members of the leadership team, it wasn’t the alpha mares and it wasn’t the beta husbands.
It isn’t that the subject is being changed to “Christian Husband’s FailureTM” but rather that “Christian Husband’s FailureTM” is a default meme in modern church. The question is how to change FROM that subject TO the subject of rebellion against some of the clearest teachings in all of the Bible.
“It isn’t a criticism, more of an observation, or a plea. Large numbers of Christian men are for lack of a better term incontinent when it comes to dodging the issue of rebellion and taking the safe and self gratifying path of attacking flawed husbands. They simply lack self control, and need a period of time to learn new habits. They desperately want to change the subject to the failings of Christian husbands. I am making a plea to keep this in mind when changing the subject to the failures of Christian husbands.”
This actually makes sense to me, in light of your other comments about the risks involved, even when do “man up.” The very risks several commenters (who aren’t married) have no real sense of.
Let me write here as an “expert” on that subject, for what it’s worth.
When I was in graduate school, I worked for 3 years as a domestic violence batterers intervention group facilitator.
Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like.
In California, a conviction for domestic violence carries a mandatory sentence of 52 weeks in this course, (at your own expense) on top of whatever jail time you get (usually the groups are done after the jail time).
The agencies that provide this service are private “education centers” and what a shock that so many of them popped up after these mandatory sentencing guidelines came. The state requires that the curriculum basically follow the Duluth model. If you are not familiar, I believe Dalrock has posted about it before. Essentially, you must CONFRONT CONFRONT CONFRONT the client about the “dynamics of power and control,” the “cycle of violence” and how horrible traditional roles and patriarchy are.
The agency where I worked had about 8 of these groups per day, charging an average of 50$ per session. There were about 8-12 guys in each group. Do the math, and you get about 20,000$ a week from that. They had 3 locations (60,000$ per week) and it was owned by a formerly married (to each other) couple. They had a handful of graduate student facilitators.
I have literally thousands of hours of clinical contact hours doing this, and the truth I am ashamed that I was a part of the system. Here is why.
A significant portion of the clients in these agencies arrive in the program like this, or something like it:
1. Wife obtains a no-contact (restraining) order on the husband after getting angry with him—based on her word. There does not have to be any proof of violence or threats.
2. She changes her mind and incessantly calls him.
3. He violates the law by simply picking up his phone.
4. He is in the class for 52 weeks for this.
So when I read that the risk is a fantasy I think, “this person needs to hear this.” I hope he/they are reading. Biblical headship is outlawed in this country. You may “man up” all you like (and I think there is an argument that you should, if you are in a Christian marriage), but please do not downplay the risk. It is real, I lived it, I participated in it. I was part of the machine.
@MatthewKing
“Excellent summary.
Wonderful consiliences happen when the ideological grip is loosened.
Keep your head down, Mr. Nitouken. You will have friendly fire incoming shortly. (Effing artillery with their slide rules…)
Matt”
I don’t have any friendly fire for Nitouken, but some criticism still. What Nitouken is missing is that he thinks men actually can solve the problem by changing their behavior while not addressing the fact that women are being enabled by men. He is still of mind that if we can just fix men while leaving women to their status quo, things will be fixed. Not going to happen.
While women will not change things, the problem isn’t that men are bad leaders or even ultimately (on the macro scale) that men don’t have enough game. The problem is that we enable women to ruin things, and then think that within the framework of that system we’re going to fix anything.
The best way to fix things isn’t to change our behavior within the system, but to change the system. For instance, we could tell women to sit down, be quiet, and let men take things from there. Just saying, “Men, do something to pick up all of the slack the women are leaving” isn’t going to hack it. There’s too much slack.
@Cane Caldo
Marriage is the foundation of Western society. If you disagree with that assertion, then we do not have sufficient common ground for meaningful discourse, and your time will be better spent elsewhere.
With that a priori, we must assume that if marriage is broken, then Western society must be broken. Marriage is broken. I think we can all agree with that. So please clarify for me how “marriages don’t fix problems”? More precisely, fixing individual marriages lays the groundwork for fixing society.
@Matthew King
I’m used to friendly fire. I am both a scientist and a Christian.
True. You could go into most churches today and show the pastor and council proof that preaching traditional headship/submission raises membership and contributions dramatically — you could even offer them a large check to do so — and they wouldn’t do it. When the Catholic churches were being infiltrated by feminism and caving in on things like letting girls be altar servers, that was the same time period in which the pews were emptying and contributions were dropping. But very, very few of them ever said, “You know, we’re killing ourselves here; maybe we should go back to what had the place packed in the ’50s.” No, they just kept steaming down the same road. It’s about far more than money; it’s about bone-deep belief that what they’re doing is right.
Does your friend have a father or grandfather who was born or was landed in Canada, USA or Argentina? Was the subject of this narrative born in some exotic colony someplace, himself? Does he have an Irish, German or Israeli claim to “return” to his ancestral homeland?
If I were he, I’d be exploring the possibilities of claiming/reinstating citizenship someplace else, and quietly moving all the “cash and prizes” overseas.
Of course, we’re entering gray legal waters here, and unlike Bro. Opus, I ain’t been admitted to the bar; so, I’m just thinking out loud, on what I would do, if I were in this poor boy’s shoes. It sounds like a perfectly horrible situation, and I’m glad I’m not married to a greedy ballbuster…
Thank you Scott.
Dalrock, please make your next blog post about (in some way) what men can do about the system that Scott has described. If you don’t (and you don’t have to) I’ll blog about it, but I think we need to have this discussion.
Frightening.
Forget cash and prizes in frivorce. Sctoo’s scenario might be the biggest reason why MGTOW.
Here’s the whole point:
FotF and Family Life presenting “submit to your wives” and “you men need to step up” and “man up and marry the sluts” as a solution IS A PROBLEM.
Family Life’s Dennis Rainey and Bob Lepine balking at Voddie Baucham telling women to shape up and then apologizing for it IS A PROBLEM.
We can’t even get people in the Church to see that THIS IS A PROBLEM.
Women need to woman up. Stop putting out for every douchebag who buys you a Long Island Iced Tea. Stop making babies with douchebags. Stop dating men you aren’t attracted to. Stop marrying men you aren’t attracted to. Stop getting drunk, stop getting high, stop getting baked. Stop walking out on your obligations. Stop rebelling against every lawfully constituted authority over you.
Cail Corishev: +1.
When I dropped the hammer on Mrs. Deti I was ready to detonate the marriage myself, because that’s where we were headed. I was fully prepared to walk that all the way out to a final divorce decree. My attitude was “If this brings her to heel and saves the marriage, fine. If not, that’s fine too. Because if she continues in her rebellion that’s where we’ll end up anyway.”
Deti,
Do you have kids? I’ve found that men get to this point in their marriages much quicker if (and only if) they didn’t have kids with her.
But what if she doesn’t listen? What if she goes her own way? What if she files for divorce, takes my kids? Or calls the police? What if she writes a mean blog post about how horrible a husband I am? These are phantoms, fantastical fears you would rather have direct you in the abstract hypothetical than confront them in the face and thereby demonstrate they are not real. [Emphasis mine]
Some years ago, there was a case here where a woman would take her 17 year old, mentally retarded daughter to the hospital on some pretense, and call her separated husband. If he showed up, he was in violation of the protection order in place against him. If he didn’t show up, he was failing in his duty of care as a parent of a child.
Ask any cop and they’ll tell you about women who use DV claims and protection orders as a weapon.
Phantom, fantastical fears?
Point to a flawed husband and watch the craven men fight to be the first to murder headship.
Point to a flawed husband and you are full circle aren’t you? You have Step Up TM as the murder weapon. These omegas fluttering about (you referenced them in the other thread) want all men to be lip quivering weeping piles of mucus together, and other manly overtures like that.
It’s about far more than money; it’s about bone-deep belief that what they’re doing is right
And what is the feedback loop comprised of? Women’s approval. Circle complete.
By the way, the Septuagint reading of Genesis (which is the Church’s original Old Testament) reads ‘and her desire will be for her husband’ – the Greek phrase implies that she will desire to usurp him or surplant him. It’s part of the curse.
The West is dying. Find a life boat.
Growth means more power, more recognition, more influence, a greater voice and of course, more people want to be your friend. It’s all fueled by money. Always money.
Money is too easy an answer. Its also an answer that really does require nothing of men to fix it, nothing deep or profound of men. To see that its about female approval though, now that is a buzz kill. I can walk from a greedy Shepard, take my family, and more easily find one who is acceptably less money driven or not at all money driven. Can I as easily do so from a Shepard who is motivated by female approval? Can i even find one?
Or maybe the better question is, for a man in general, including self, which is easier to be certain one is free from, the love of money, or the love of female approval? Which is easier to shuck?
Its a cheap (no pun) answer to simply say its about money.
any comments on this one: couple has been members of a ‘believe in headship’ church for 15 years. husband wants to switch to a sister church — different denomination that broke off from the main one in the last 50 years, so still very similar. wife says no and asks elders in private. elders tell her she doesn’t have to obey husband in this matter because it is rebellion against their leadership. they never talk to the husband.
elder leadership > husbands?
I am indebted to my much-learned friend Boxer for his advice; indeed my friend was telling me about his Plan B, which was very much along the lines suggested. Like most plan Bs however, his ideas struck me as never like to happen and naturally I could see many flaws therein which I felt it unhelpful to mention. I have suggested that if he is to act on his Plan B he should do so now while she is in the false state of security of believing that the marriage has been adequately patched.
My friend has neither the comfort of the Christian religion nor is he restrained by its tenets.
@IBB said: “Do you have kids? I’ve found that men get to this point in their marriages much quicker if (and only if) they didn’t have kids with her.”
The person that is willing to walk away (and end up with nothing) always has the upper hand in any negotiation.
At least, that’s what I was taught about business negotiations. It’s probably an imperfect rule for marriage. But, it’s still worth remembering.
You should at least have a clear, concrete idea in your mind of (1) the consequences of walking away, and (2) the circumstances under which you would walk away. Otherwise you are facing the unknown. People can face the known–no matter how terrifying, but people will do anything to avoid the unknown.
“any comments on this one: couple has been members of a ‘believe in headship’ church for 15 years. husband wants to switch to a sister church — different denomination that broke off from the main one in the last 50 years, so still very similar. wife says no and asks elders in private. elders tell her she doesn’t have to obey husband in this matter because it is rebellion against their leadership. they never talk to the husband.”
I’m no Bible scholar, but I think the elders are wrong here. The husband did not tell the wife to sin. He wanted to move to another demonination. At the very least, the elders should have said “hey wait a minute. Does your husband know you are here?”
Upon asking myself: “did a man of God just pray THAT prayer towards his congregation?” I would simply walk out. I wonder if there was a single man in the audience who walked out.
@Nitouken
Why did you not address what I said?
I am on record as being against trying to save Western Civilization because it doesn’t matter. There is only one kingdom worth building and that kingdom is not of this world. If you love WC, you’re in love with some quite temporary puppetry. Seek ye first after the kingdom of God, and Western Civilization may be added unto you, but if you seek WC first, you’re already failing.
The same is true of marriages: Christ is the foundation of marriage; of all things. And when we die our marriages dissolve in to the dust just like our bodies…just like WC will. For the Christian man, marriage is about: “I’m heading towards Christ. Come with me!” And everything else is added unto that; even WC.
You have your a priori backwards. So did Adam, and it is still tempting for all of us men, but you cannot waiver off that point. Everything–everything!–is about establishing a horizon, an outlook, on Christ.
At the cost of provoking Dalrock (and I do not mean to) I must say that women did not break it. Women broke themselves. Men broke themselves and the world. God had made the world straight–ordered–and in response to our disobedience He made it crooked–disordered–so that we might know what we had done in our rebellion, and repent. In the same way he made rearing children a very crooked experience to teach the woman. He has always and forever wanted us to be with Him eternally. Who can make straight what He has made crooked? No one but God. Attempts to “fix” WC or marriage are futile. You do the work because He told you to, He does the fixing. You sow, He harvests.
If you were going to “fix” WC, you wouldn’t even start with marriage. You’d start with eliminating public
daycareschool; welfare; access to clean safe abortions, and access to cheap birth control. What women need is a good dose of children…and loss of children. We can’t work to erase God’s own prescription for women’s treatment, and then supplement it with something else; even good things like marriage. Very few women look decent after taking care of four, five, or six kids unless they are Godly women who are in submission to their husbands and God. Those looks are what enable their hubris, and why old age is such a wonderful grace for uppity women. It crushes their pride, and serves to make them strive to develop inner beauty; grace and modesty.This leaves the burden of fixing the problem squarely on men. Yay. We can’t lead someone who won’t be led, as DrTorch says, but we can be better leaders. I think it would be hard to dispute the idea that the better the leader, the more people (in a statistical sense) will be likely to follow him. That means that, in fact, the best thing you can do for your marriage is to become a better leader. Followed shortly by teaching your wife what ‘responsibility’ means.
Crux issue.
What IS “the problem”, specifically, that you are on about fixing?
Is it family law?
Is it relational harmoney?
is it the morality of women? of men?
Is it the church misappropriated stand and resources on familial things?
is it the adherence (or lack) to bible based marital order?
Is it feminism in a secular sense?
Is it scripture twisting evangelical feminism?
What is the problem?
By calling this THE problem you necessarily beg the very thing you reject, which is big over arching sweeping initiatives. You have it correct that individual efforts are the functional foot soldiers. But unless “the problem” is THAT guys marriage, so what if a (one) guy does x y or z? So what about that guy’s marriage?
Now the uncomplicated part. You will not lead your children by being a better leader, solely, unless you refer to his ability to be above reproach. Anything beyond that is merely self improvement gobbledegook. Leading is an action, not just a modeling behavior. The notion it is only a modeling behavior is part of the raw material from which “servant leader” is constructed. Model a servant and you will be a leader is conflated with the first shall be last and converse. Those are not fully practically related as stated. But when you add the element of correction to both of them, they suddenly become practically related. Correction of others. Wives, kids, each other (men), etc. You will not likely come out looking like the above reproach upright man who has his own shit together…..not right away…..you have to fight for that, not just be that.
That was incomplete. Part of the fight is the correction of women. Its where the pastors fail, its where their fear manifests as demonstrated by Rainey and Lepine.
Rainey had an email blast the other day that was about his son who was an accomplished tennis player. When the boy was 14, he was struggling in a match, and was slapping his racquet against the net and the fence in anger. Finally Dennis ran onto the court and declared, the match is over, and removed his son. A decent show of leadership…that.
What would Dennis do if his wife was convinced that something equivalent to a line judge call had gone against her? What if she showed anger? What if…gasp….she cried…and that made others feel uncomfortable? Would he lead? Would he correct her?
The difference in what we KNOW his reaction would be to the wife, and what it was to the son is illustrative. Not that he need run into the situation and declare “this is over!” and remove her, but that he does show her her error if she made one.
Its so incredibly easy to fall into those little traps. Support the wife, correct the kids. Support the desires of her heart. Ask her how you can better be supportive. Listen and do not fix. All these are meant to sound not only harmless, but virtuous. Substitute child for wife in those admonishments. If they still sound ok, they are leadership. If not, they are pandering.
IBB:
Yes, I have 2 kids. At the time I put my finger on the nuclear button and prepared to enter the launch codes, I had been married just under 15 years.
Mark Driscoll proves that good money can still be made in projection if you’re set up right. His entire congregation must by now be entirely devoid of masculinity (Driscoll included).
Okay, well, I would say that most brow-beaten men (with 2 kids) who have been married for 15 years to kind of a harpy, would not put their fingers on the nuclear button in the manner in which you have described. I assume you had to launch the nukes (or maybe she called the police, a lawyer, and she launched and you launched in response.) I certainly hope that didn’t happen but I don’t see too many circumstances where the wife backs down, not when all the laws empower her and she knows she’s going to get your money either way. She has far less to lose to fire the divorce nukes, particularly if she has kids (mostly because she doesn’t give a damn if you are good father or not.)
That is the main reason why I hate that movie Mrs Doubtfire so much. Here you have a situation where a wife frivorces her husband because she is not in love anymore even though her husband gave her 3 beautiful children, loves her so much, and is by all accounts a GREAT father who absolutely adores his children. In the end, the only thing that matters is that she isn’t happy because he’s always between jobs and she is going to exit the marriage and get with an alpha male like Remington Steele. And at the end, it was supposed to be bitter-sweet? Are you kidding me?
@Cane Caldo
I didn’t address what you said because I didn’t disagree with any of your statements other than the one that I did address. On the whole, I agree with you. We diverge on the subject of WC (which I’ll get into in a moment), and on the correct response to the current failures of the church, but I don’t really see any other meaningful points of divergence.
I’m perplexed why you think that accepting that a thing is important (Western Civ, in this case) means that you can’t accept that anything else might be more important….
Stated propositionally –
Western Civilization is a pinnacle of human achievement. It is not the Kingdom of God, but it has done more good for more people than any other society in history, and we should at least try to protect it.
The Kingdom of God is absolutely central to the believing life.
Christ is absolutely central to the Kingdom of God.
Any believer must place Christ paramount in their life.
Although Christ is the center of the believing life, we must assume that there are other actions to be taken in a given day, aside from (or better yet, alongside of) prayer and worship.
I’m not saying that every believer should be a defender of WC, and I don’t even have a particular problem with opposition. I will, however, insist that there is nothing /wrong/ with defending WC, any more than there is in opposing it. The identity, death and resurrection of Christ is the only thing that believers are required to hold in common.
The list at the end of your post is all true, too. If I had one of those that I would tie with no-fault divorce as the thing that could repair the most damage overnight, I’d tag government indoctrination camps.
@haniel
Scott is right, the elders were very wrong. If it is as plain as written, they should not be elders any longer. The story seems incomplete, though. It would be interesting to know exactly what the woman said in her private conversation with them.
I’m thinking it was George Whitefield that confronted a Reverend during his sermon with pertinent scripture and sent the man running and crying from his own meeting house. We need some Holy Ghost power to start showing up at these travesties that men like to call “churches”. Blasphemy gathering is more like it, why drag God’s name into these things?
IBB:
Not exactly. All I had to do was threaten to launch. I lifted the bar, put my fingers on the button, and started reciting the codes. When I did that Mrs. Deti backed down. Sort of like my own little Cuban Marital Crisis.
This can be an effective threatpoint to counter the one all wives have; and that they want to have “just in case”:
“Do what I want or else I’ll divorce you, take half of everything, impoverish you with crushing child support and alimony obligations, you’ll never see your children again, and you’ll never have sex again.”
IBB:
This is relevant:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/threatpoint/
Of course not. Heck, as a Catholic, I believe that my parish priest was appointed by a bishop who gets his authority in a direct line from the Apostles, and yet we don’t believe that he outranks a husband in making decisions for his family. I can’t imagine giving that kind of authority to some people because they…what? Have been there the longest? Got elected? He should need no more incentive to get his family away from that place.
All I had to do was threaten to launch
Her name Alice? One a deez dayz ….to da moon
“elder leadership > husbands?”
That is the line that I am getting from local pastors, essentially.
When I tell them my concerns about headship not being taught/practiced, they immediately fire back that I have to be in submission first. The rhetoric is that the husband has to be in subjection to Christ, but the subtext is that any teaching on this point requires that the man be joined to the body of believers (and in submission to the elders/leaders/ministers there) before the “magic” of the wife’s submission can happen.
Scott, that comment is very interesting. It calls to my mind a conversation that I had over coffee with a long term friend some 10 or so years back. He was grim, and resigned, and just generally unhappy about what he was having to endure on his day off in order to keep his family intact – i.e. keep his wife from detonation. I really did not have an understanding of what he was talking about – it was embarrassing to him to even mention it and he gave few details – and now you have made it all very clear.
Thus, from memory, an addendum to Scott’s note regarding his role in the DV re-education machine. Not about Scott, but about the re-education system. The 52-week classes must be completed, each and every one, I think that is part of the Duluth protocols. A man who somehow is absent from one – just one – class is required to go back to the first step and start all over again. Doesn’t matter why he missed, there is zero tolerance or flexibility in that system. So take the $$$ Scott listed off from his perspective in California, and bear in mind that some percentage of those men are going through the machine for the second, or third, time. Repeaters due to missing a class are pure profit for the “education center”, IMO.
This money making machine is a part of the larger feminist system imposed by VAWA. It is one of those hidden costs, along with men in debtor’s prison who owe back chilimony. It’s part of the huge, uncounted overhead on civilization that feminism has created.
And in parting, readers / lurkers, bear in mind that you probably know some man who has had to go through one of these quasi-Maoist sessions. It’s that easy for an angry woman to drop the DV grenade, and in mandatory-arrest states, once that machine starts it runs to completion, even if she has second thoughts. You can’t know who that man is, because unless he really has a deep trust, he ain’t gonna talk about it. Just look for the tight-lipped man who only talks about his wife in positive terms, but seems to bite his own tongue as he does so. And yeah, some of them may be sitting next to you in church…
At risk of having the detail stripped out of what people read below, you’re too hard on Matt K, Dalrock. Yes, what he says comes across as excusing female rebellion (and in fact may be, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt), but I suspect that he’s grasping towards a truth that the manosphere is just beginning to realize that it has yet to formulate. I’m still not entirely sure that I have wrapped my head around it, but I think it can be summed up by saying that women broke it, men will have to fix it. I’m not excusing female behavior – I’ve been burned a time or two, and I know perfectly well that, for the purposes of modeling female behavior, yes, AWALT. I know men who are trying to be leaders and are dealing with a shrieking harridan where they should have a sweet helpmeet. I know men who did everything they could short of chaining her to the basement wall to keep a marriage together when she had it in the bombsight. That doesn’t change the fact that men are the ones who have to fix this. Women aren’t going to.
That’s nice. How many seconds into a man actually fixing it will you start screaming like an autistic kid having a fit and PUT A STOP TO THAT?
I’m guessing it will take about five seconds.
To be more clear, I’m sure skippy wouldn’t mind men “fixing it” provided they followed every single one of his 50,000 rules and didn’t upset any women and didn’t upset any oldsters and didn’t upset any pastors and didn’t upset any of his friends and didn’t upset any of his coworkers. As long as they follow these few limitations, which are quite reasonable, he wouldn’t mind men fixing it. In fact, he demands that they fix it and follow his 50,000 rules and all his limitations while doing it.
This seems reasonable to him.
Anonymous reader–
In case my iPhone does what it always does– this is Scott.
That is correct (although they were allowed 3 absences –that they still had to pay for).
This is because missing sessions constitutes a violation of probation.
Innocent Bystander Boston sez:
I was a young kid when that film came out. It made me cry a few years ago, as I had lost my dad in much the same way.
I watched it again, a few years ago, and couldn’t help but snigger. A dried out cow like Sally Field (by the time that film was shot, she was way past the hotness she exuded in her earlier films) was not, is not, and never will get a hunky millionaire like the Pierce Brosnan character. At best, she’ll get a moderately dysfunctional but well meaning schlub like my own stepfather turned out to be (and despite his faults, my mother got very, very lucky; and he is the object of a lot of pity from me, for continuing to put up with her shit).
What a fucking absurd farce that was, just like all the spectacular media social-engineering fantasies that are churned out ad nauseum, in an effort to get more women to divorce more decent men for no good reason. Laughable and pathetic.
Someone made a comment, on the last post I believe, that I very much agree with. I do believe that the whore that rides the beast (satan) as described in the book of Revelation, is “FEMINISM” aka (spirit of Jezebel). I also believe this whole quandary we are in was engineered by the Adversary (Satan) to bring about the destruction we are seeing today. I’m in agreement with the red pill/manosphere tools to fight feminism, but I strongly believe the most important tool, rarely mentioned, is prayer. This is Spiritual warfare that Satan has leashed against mankind, and we don’t have a chance without Gods help.
Revelation 2:20
Nevertheless, I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teachings she misleads my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
@Matthew King
I called you out plainly, as men at times do. In response:
1) You complain that I called you out on your hollow boasting. Ad hominem! Fight fair Dalrock!
2) You suggest that what I said might not be true, while going out of your way not to deny it.
3) You argue that it doesn’t matter if you lack the experience that I called you out for lacking.
But no where in your response is there a denial that you are an armchair husband who boasts of courage he has never displayed in the face of risks he has never confronted.
Why go to the trouble to respond to me calling you out, and yet be so careful to leave the matter ambiguous?
@Some Guy
I can tell you as a Catholic you would not get that from the parish priest or from whatever passes for the parish council or organization. Not to say the Church does not have issues, just to say that is not one of them. In Catholic theology, the man is definitely the head of the home as in Ephesians 5 and the local parish can never compel him to not take his family to another parish. Or to another denomination entirely.
Yeah, I was thinking about the feminist wish-fulfillment that was “Mrs. Doubtfire” wherein the husband has to be completely emasculated in order to remain a distant part of his own family while being virtually cuckolded by Sally Field who insists that he is the sicko.
Also, IBB I’ll go you one farther and suggest that feminism is the tip of the Mystery Babylon iceberg, that is what Jezebel was typifying in that story.
I-A-L,
It was awful. They tried to make that movie out to be some kind of family movie? Are you kidding me? Disgusting. Horrible.
I wonder what Mrs. King would think about Matt’s outreach method over at FeministX? I wonder what future Mrs. King will think about it? Far from being Jesus with the woman at the well, Matt dreams of being one of the 5 men. He doesn’t seem very married to me.
I think that movie was the pinnacle of feminism, all downhill from there gals. (With “Mr. Mom” priming the pump).
Scott, on the 52-week DV / anger management machine:
That is correct (although they were allowed 3 absences –that they still had to pay for).
This is because missing sessions constitutes a violation of probation.
Ah, “probation violation”, the magic words that can be used to cost a man his job, if so desired.
Or just held up as a threatpoint, to the middle class man who values association with his children.
Suddenly, I’m thinking of a book from some years back, “You and the Police” by Boston T. Party…
With Mr Mom, at least Terri Garr STAYED with her unemployed husband, even after she caught him almost having an affair!
I wouldn’t exactly call that movie a pinnacle of feminism. They put their marraige first. He didn’t put his penis where it didn’t belong and she stayed in her marriage with her ever-fattening, smelly, beard-growing husband, who wasn’t currently earning money, because that is where SHE belonged. Mrs Doubtfire was deplorable!
It’s all so upside down.
Pastors should never berate leaders in front of anyone. It’s disrespectful and leads to mutiny!
If there’s any public correction going on it ought to be toward women.
This way there’s accountability in numbers much as in the very public banishment of Queen Vashti after her rebellious disobedience in the book of Esther.
The whole assembly would be aware of the standard of respect expected towards husbands.
Titus 2 women ought to be teaching other women HOW to develop an attitude of gratefulness and thankfulness no matter their situation and how to act with submissive respect toward men. Just because they are men – not only when women are confident in the man’s ‘leading ability’! Surely this is just Vashti all over again?!
The king may request anything he please of his subjects and expect full obedience.
Likewise husbands ought to be confident that he has a helper in his life no matter what his journey holds.
Women need to be taught they don’t wait for a ‘LEADER’ before they change their attitude to one of sweet deference. Husbands don’t have to lead anything they just have to live!
A woman is welcomed into her man’s world and it is her role to be a useful addition.
Men can tutor other men how to strongly hold their position by all means. But this should be done in the privacy of a discipleship setting. Women shouldn’t be privy to this growth tutelage for many reasons not least of all that she could choose to admire the teacher’s ‘power’ instead of her own husband’s.
On a practical note – Very SMALL churches are far less likely to become a marketing machine! And if men were given the space to decide about tithing within his own household this whole ghastly man-shaming tactic wouldn’t profit the mega-churches anymore!
Women need to stop leading their families with the excuse that their husbands are just not stepping up to their ‘spiritual’ level!
A husband whether he believes in God or not IS the head of his home.
He may be won over by a meek and quiet spirit but he almost certainly won’t be won over with an air of spiritual martyrdom by a wife dragging his children and his money to church on a Sunday while he stays the outcast heathen at home!
We women really need to be taught to stay out of almost every decision 🙂
(Says a woman putting her 2 cents worth into a manly discussion I know – I get the irony doh!)
Imagine the reverse, a movie about a stay at home mother would not be made. It was just more feminist wish-fulfillment. Pick just about any movie with Julie Roberts.
I was pointing at Mrs. Doubtfire as being the pinnacle, not Mr. Mom.
Ah. gotcha I-A-L. Yes Mrs Doubtfire may have been the pinnacle.
@nitouken
I think I understand what you are saying, and I used to agree. Now I do not because what ends up happening is that as soon as a man concentrates on saving his marriage, or on saving his little corner of civilization he dooms it. This is in fact the mechanism by which West. Civ. men were conned into the mess we find ourselves now. “We (WC) have come so far, and done so much good. Let’s go this one last good bit further of turning women into men with suffrage and public education and absolute “equality” under the law. Whoever opposes it reveals themselves for not loving such an obviously good thing.”
Feminism is the curse of Dr. Ray Stantz; wished for under the guise of loving our society.
The Game guys get this con on the relationship level, and express it as “Whoever cares less has the upper-hand in a relationship.” Their version is the prisoner’s dilemma and gives perverse incentives to love less; which is obviously horrible for a marriage, or any relationship. The truth this plays upon is that if you love God more than anyone or anything else–including your wife, or your society–you’ll fare well because He is the source of love, and whatever you spend you get back far more than what you put in. From this absurd excess you can spend it freely on others; even wives, a well-run museum, or any of the other joys of an advanced civilization.
The above illustrates why it’s important to focus on following Christ, and not on saving a marriage, or civilization. The Game advice, even taken in good faith and for the seemingly best purposes, ultimately leads to less love. The Biblical advice gives more than you had in the beginning.
Esther 1 15-20
““What shall we do to Queen Vashti, according to law, because she did not obey the command of King Ahasuerus brought to her by the eunuchs?”
And Memucan answered before the king and the princes: “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will become known to all women, so that they will despise their husbands in their eyes, when they report, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in before him, but she did not come.’ This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media will say to all the king’s officials that they have heard of the behavior of the queen. Thus there will be excessive contempt and wrath. If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him, and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it will not be altered, that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. When the king’s decree which he will make is proclaimed throughout all his empire (for it is great), all wives will honor their husbands, both great and small.”
Oh and women should stop watching and listening to the media! My father refused to let me and my siblings watch “Mrs Doubtfire” at a youth group evening 20 years ago so I’ve gratefully never seen it! He held Sally Field’s other feminist gem “Not Without My Daughter” in just as much contempt much to the upset of many churchian women 🙂
Women’s rebellion only happens because a strong man isn’t there to guide her.
Women rebel because sin.
Men fail to lead because sin.
Doesn’t mean we continue doing it, means we recognize it, move on, and try to do better.
The difference between men and women atm is that women are given a free pass for their sin (and consequently don’t even recognize it for what it is… which is serious failure on the church’s part to hold women accountable and help disciple them to be more like Christ) while men are being called to the carpet for it. Is it necessarily wrong to say that men need to step up? I don’t think so… but I do think its wrong to excuse all women’s failings as men’s fault or to just ignore women’s issues and say its okay.
Hey! My Ray Stantz link isn’t showing up. Bummer.
Y’all keep being nice, polite little boys, using your big boy vocabularies, arguing about small differences in dogma, worrying about minor assault and battery charges…. why y’all will set this mess to right in no time. After all worrying about the police and polite words have worked so well to stem the tide of all this horseshit.
Wonder if Christ worried the cops would be upset when He made a whip and drove the money changers out of His Father’s temple?
Speaking of all hat no cattle…there’s Ton.
Don’t forget Sally Field in “Smokey and the Bandit” where men with authority were presented as buffoons and the alpha bad boy as the epic hero. Thanks Hollywood, thanks Jackie Gleason!
Maybe we should be punching everyone we disagree with huh Ton?
And also the chicks; because nobody has heard enough from them in the last five minutes. Like poor Ton: they have nothing to really add to the conversation, but they are starting to feel a little ignored.
I’m out.
Mr. Dalrock,
You can be certain that there is nothing whatever in my correspondence that can be characterized properly as “complaining.” I do not bitch and moan and whine — that’s your bailiwick, the very matter which drew my attention to your umpteenth plaint-piece on Mark Driscoll. You grumble and call it a counterargument.
Further, you focus on the messenger rather than the message, which also is no counterargument. I am not saying “Fight fair, Dalrock!” in the slightest. I am saying your ad hominem (“to the man”) fallacies are destroying the very crusade on which you have embarked, a crusade that is too important to let peppy petty representatives like you sabotage. This is no “fight,” trust me. Maybe you’re confused because when someone — with your argumentative philosophy and style — announces “AD HOM,” you presume he is offering it as a substantive response, or you think it the equivalent of accusing an interlocutor of mere name calling. No, I meant it literally.
I could not care less what you think about me (to the man). Neither do I seek your counsel about the integrity of non-entities like Mark Driscoll, nor do I care about your opinion of Bill Bennett’s reputation. I only care about the substance of a cultural argument we simply must win if we are to survive, the substance you confuse with the persons of those who dare to differ with your findings. Your tactic is to whip up outrage among the victim-readers of this site, who then go on to ascribe to me all kinds of strange assumptions like you do, too many to answer.
And as far as your attempting to extract a “denial” from me — and taking the absence of said extraction as proof of some assertion you made about me — again, I am not concerned. My job is not to offer you details about my life from which you, in your leftist obsession over authenticity, will selectively chose various “smoking guns” and fabricate the rest. Your twerp commentariat has already done that with Earl, and he has to spend much of his time explaining the obvious to dullards.
So fill in the gaps however you want. I know how your type operates, I won’t contribute a drop to your predetermined conclusions or rigged investigations. It’s your job to be on guard against the assumptions you make about opponents, because arguments fashioned out of imaginary material demonstrate that you haven’t much of an argument at all.
For instance, if I told you I was single, you would tell me I have no business talking about the married life. If I told you I was married, you would call me a kept man to an uxorious wife (as you already snarkily implied). If I told you I was divorced, you would call me a marital failure or a self-hating victim. The point is, you focus on irrelevant personal trivia to distract (mainly yourself) from the poverty of your position.
In the absence of such detail you have nothing to say in response to well-founded criticism. That’s the point. The mere presence of opposition is a scandal to you — again, like a leftist — and so you must go digging for hidden, personal explanations for its existence.
Yeah. I’m not playing.
Regarding our substantive difference — I still think you should exhort men to take responsibility for their unjust predicament, “unfair”* though that is, rather than encouraging them to play the perpetual victim. Need anything more be said?
Matt
—————–
* A preoccupation with “fairness” is your third leftist tendency.
Christianity is Western Civilization. Fixing marriage means bringing marriages back to the Law. Fixing society means bringing society back to the Law. If you do not follow the Law, you will not have civilization. The way back from the edge is Christianity.
The Shadowed Knight
Got to admit, I loved Sally Field in Lincoln. I very much believe that she played the part of Mrs Lincoln exactly the way Mrs Lincoln was, a woman totally devoted to her husband the President in public but (in private, just him and her) would cross him with regards to their sons mostly because she buried one.
Apologies for the intrusion Cane – don’t leave. This is your domain not mine.
But Ton throwing punches? Well he adds much to the conversation!
Men should quit paying so much attention to the media, too. It’s the opium of the people, literally. A lot of fabricated appeals to emotion and similar nonsense drowns out what might be considered quality stuff. Even the American science series NOVA has been dumbed down to catastrophic levels, in recent years.
tsk,
Bold part is IMHO the most important part.
That was perfect. Agree with all of it.
She was practically typecast as Mrs. Lincoln who by my reading was an insane ballbusting nag.
I don’t think he was referring to you or necessarily this post Hannah.
@Hannah
I appreciate your sensitivity here, but you are welcome to comment. This isn’t church, and women have a dog in this fight. Cane isn’t wrong that women can and often do change the tone of the conversation in problematic ways, but I also think that ironically the women reading this get the problem better than many of the men. The man attacking your husband’s headship is trying to sow discord in your family, and tempting you to sin. This is no kindness, nor is it as it is couched, courage.
@I Art Laughing: Don’t confuse eros with caritas, of which FemX should be so lucky to be a recipient. According to Father Barron, God loves sinners. Sometime that means one goes places or does things that gets one a little dirty. But, overall, the virtual world affords the cleanest place to wade into mud. There is little progress in preaching to the choir. Matt gets into the trenches. Change of a society can only be made one individual at a time. Don’t mock him; join him.
“To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will RULE over you.” Genesis 3:16
Ehhhhh…,but she is going to rebel anyway, God. She isn’t going to submit to me no matter what I do…so why should I rule her. After all she rebelled against you…why would you think she wouldn’t do it to me? She’s just a ball busting you go grrl feminist and I have to sit there and take it every day…so why should I rule her. Please God, take this burden away from me…I don’t want to complain or have the task of ruling her anymore.
IAL and IBB – Here’s a recutting and remixing of “Mrs. Doubtfire.” Horror film, or documentary of what modern American frivorced men have to do just to have any contact with their kids whatsoever.
So many mangina’s & armchair husbands in this thread, thanks gawd for Ton injecting much needed toestosterone in this thread
Why dont you mangina’s & armchair husbands, start holding the women responsible?
It’s women who brainwashed you, & turned you into damaged men … do something about it
It’s women who’re nothing more then a pack of sociopaths, so sociopathic, they dont even know how to be attracted to normal men
What you faggots dont realise, its WOMEN who’re responsible for turning men into alpha’s
Women ONLY start hungering for thugs & alpha’s, when they become so dysfunctional, when women become so sociopathic & diseased, they no longer know how to turn men into alpha’s
No amount of leadership fixes the batshit crazy christian women today
Its upto women to fix themselves
Or men will replace them with artificial wombs & sexbots, hundreds of times safer then the bitches & whores
80% of men have already replaced women with porn
It’s only a matter of time when the uselessness of women as a population reaches critical mass
& men desert the treacherous women for artificial wombs
I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
(Joh 17:14-19)
I don’t have to mock him, he does a good enough job of that on his own. That is in no way shape or form agape love that Matt is participating in, either here or there. All of the ego stroking is the first hint.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
(Mat 7:16-20)
earl says:
“August 19, 2013 at 6:18 pm
“To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will RULE over you.” Genesis 3:16
Ehhhhh…,but she is going to rebel anyway, God. She isn’t going to submit to me no matter what I do…so why should I rule her. After all she rebelled against you…why would you think she wouldn’t do it to me? She’s just a ball busting you go grrl feminist and I have to sit there and take it every day…so why should I rule her. Please God, take this burden away from me…I don’t want to complain or have the task of ruling her anymore.”
so Earl–is that why you did not get married? is that why you have forsaken women? is that why you have no stories of ever having lead a woman? is it because you detest serving God?
“Lord God, as well, I pray for those men who are here that are cowards. They are silent passive impish worthless men. They are making a mess of everything in their life. And they are such sweet little boys that no one ever confronts them on that.”
Yeah that is way too far. I wouldn’t even call that a prayer.
Here’s a better prayer.
” We thank you, O God, for the Love You have implanted in our hearts. May it always inspire us to be kind in our words, considerate of feeling, and concerned for each other’s needs and wishes. Help us to be understanding and forgiving of human weaknesses and failings. Increase our faith and trust in You and may Your Prudence guide our life and love. Bless our Marriage O God, with Peace and Happiness, and make our love fruitful for Your glory and our Joy both here and in eternity.”
Earl still doesn’t know the difference between theory and practice apparently. The curse you cited from Gen 3:16 is one decried upon Eve. Feminism is rebelling against God and the curse and the order, neither orthodoxy or orthopraxy magically fixes any of this. It has to be worked out like the rest of our salvation, one step at a time.
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
(Php 2:12-13)
It’s not some “gee-whiz” incantation or holding our mouths the right way, we can’t just pick ourselves and our wives up by our boot straps.
Also, no amount of blue pill popping will provide you with your Sacred Mary to bride up. Nobody that is currently married waited for Mr/Ms Perfect.
All this rebellion…by the way I hope your wives stocked up on those birth control pills. So that the one or two times a month there is sex…she can rebel the seed.
If you want to really cut down the rebellion…there is the place to start.
What if she says no earl?
earl
All this rebellion…by the way I hope your wives stocked up on those birth control pills. So that the one or two times a month there is sex…she can rebel the seed.
I know a man who nearly died while pregnant with their last child. During childbirth both woman and child came close to dying. As part of the multi-hour surgery to preserve both of them, a hysterectomy was necessary. My understanding is she takes some sort of hormone supplement now that may resemble the dreaded birth control pills in formulation, because her ovaries are long gone.
So what advice do you have for that family?
If you want to really cut down the rebellion…there is the place to start.
Is that what you do with your wife? Is it what you did with her in the last few months of a difficult pregnancy? Is it what you did with her after a long labor that involved tearing? Is it what you did with her during her post-partum depression that went on and on for months with no resolution? I can put names on all of the above and more, people I know from various parts of my life, and some of them took months, years, even a decade to resolve issues both mental and physical. Some are near and dear to me, some are more remote in space, or time, or both. Smug, arrogant and ignorant is not a good combination. So here’s a free clue: not all issues between married people are as easily resolved as you clearly believe. Make a note of this fact
Earl, you’re becoming less and less useful, and more and more annoying.
Correction:
I know a woman who nearly died during childbirth…
heh.
I do believe that earl is still waiting for Miss Perfect. 🙂
Have you found her yet earl?
“Nobody that is currently married waited for Mr/Ms Perfect.” Aside from Dalrock’s post on why women desire the legitimacy of marriage (which was excellent and surprising in a way to me that it even needed to be explained) this comment strikes me as the most potent thing written recently. No one is perfect. No one. You don’t wait for some fully formed perfect person to arrive and bless you with their presence. No, you take a person or a situation whose imperfections suit you and you start putting together the puzzle. Someone once made the comment to me: “These are the things that happen in a ‘fallen world.'” I didn’t really understand the concept of a ‘fallen world.” It has become more clear to me as I acknowledge the weakness I see in others and in myself. I think the most effective way to help people is to meet them where they are and then steadily build them up. So, can people let go a little of their lists and high expectations and learn to “educate” (meaning draw out) those people who have great promise and potential? The results might surprise you.
“A Pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men. When a person becomes alienated from a Christian community in which he has been placed and begins to raise complaints about it, he had better examine himself first to see whether the trouble is not due to his own aspirations that should be shattered by God; and if that be the case, let him thank God for leading him into this predicament. But if not, let him nonetheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.”
Bonhoefffer, Life Together
Matthew King,
Read Whitefield and Edwards’ preaching that kindled the Great Awakening. Satan has accusing your enemies handled. He’s not in need of your assistance. Know thyself.
“So what advice do you have for that family?”
It’s different when it is a medical condition…much different that if it is to prevent pregnancy.
“Earl, you’re becoming less and less useful, and more and more annoying.”
Then quit reading my statements.
“Have you found her yet earl?”
The Virgin Mary.
@ Desiderius,
I like that book by Boenhoefer, that is some of the best reading there is aside from the Bible. I was just pointing out Whitefield a bit ago, wasn’t he the one who chastised the CoE Reverend in his own congregation and ran him out crying? Seems like I heard something about that. Sometimes the Holy Spirit does send us to correct.
@Kate,
Thank you. The problem with not marrying Mr/Ms Right is so many have our own plan for converting them. Instead of following the pattern:
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
(Eph 5:28-33)
Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
(1Pe 3:1-2)
Everyone has a better way. Any way but God’s way.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
(Rom 3:23)
men desert the treacherous women for artificial wombs
This is what I’m pushing for. Shit I might just set up a lab in the garage and make one myself and sell it on the black market. This whole man up thing is for the benefit of women(pussy worship) man and children do not need women ,women are a helper not necessary for a damn thing. As soon as men have birth control pills and an artificial womb there will be submission like you never saw. Right after the civil war that comes from the double down of the manginas.
I will leave Joseph of Jackson’s success story here:
sunshinemaryandthedragon.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/creating-a-tribal-culture-an-update-from-joseph-of-jackson/
“They desperately want to change the subject to the failings of Christian husbands.”
I’m pretty sure Rollo predicted this some time ago, that the ‘sphere would be hijacked and redirected to serve the ‘imperative’. And voila, as if on queue on the ‘Man up’ and ‘Stand up’ squelch appears ( I swear these guys read your posts).
Interesting that Driscoll targets hard working men who unwind by catching a game on the boob tube with a beer as the lowest scum on the planet but nary a word on divorce injustices.
Your right to mock the ‘fragging’, until they’ve had the weight of a family sitting on their shoulders and been in the situation where one phone call could ruin their lives they should refrain from giving advice.
“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders….”
“Have you found her yet earl?”
The Virgin Mary.
Matthew 1:24-25 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
Sorry, Earl, she isn’t a virgin now and wasn’t after Jesus was born.
@someguy, I went the same route as you. With All the answers, I got ran around in circles. This is just me, but I can’t submit to those who can’t help me. It similar to being lost in the woods and meeting another person who tells u they know the way out, all u have to do is Submit to their knowledge and humble yourself. Well, u do that and after many twists and turns coupled with unanswered questions they admit there just as lost as you. that’s what it’s like getting married in the church today. The longer we all discuss what’s going on the more likely we are to come up with a solution. Btw, i am still unmarried and 31. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Actually, Fragging was a Viet Nam war term, and it means to use some sort of death inducing device. Rifle; hand grenade; or whatever, to kill NCO’s and Officers who were abusing soldiers or placing them in excess risk with no real reason. (Fort Lewis 1964-66)
@nitouken >>I’m not talking about a panacea, or a fix for any individual marriage. I’m talking about what is needed to restructure society in the long term
No, you are not. You are talking a pipe dream. If it were that easy feminism would have been stopped 45 years ago. That didn’t work in the Roman Empire or any other civilization where women took over. and, it will not work here. You said someone didn’t read your entire posting. You are ignoring everything Dalrock has written, and are pretty much guilty of the same as Earl and Matt.
Also, note that Dalrock is one of the most read blogs on the Internet manosphere. You only see a few hundred comments, but these blogs and boards at times have 10 or 20 readers for every comment.
You men who insist that man-fault is the explanation, even though Dalrock and The Bible clearly instruct women to submit, remind me of my ten years, 1984 to 1993, as an MRA activist. No matter what anyone does, they bust in, shouting, “You are doing it wrong. You are doing it wrong.”
Until they break up the activist organization. Then they say, “I knew he was doing it wrong.”
What they don’t do is ANYTHING. These destroyers do nothing but destroy. It was that way 30 years ago, and Matt and Earl and nitouken are the same today.
I want to make a few predictions. They are only predictions, which means subject to being wrong.
First, Earl will either never get married, or will not be married long. He assumes he knows how to be a leader husband. If he gets a girl friend as unlikely as that is, the first time he says, “It is going to be my way or the highway.” it will be the highway and she will be gone.
If she does marry him, when he says my way or the highway, he will find himself walking great distances on the highway, because she will get the car, as well as the house and kids.
My other prediction is eventually Earl and probably Matt will have to be banned. I am not suggesting that. Dalrock can make his own decisions. I base that on my personal knowledge over 30 years. The Destroyers never stop. Nothing Dalrock or anyone else says will stop these guys unitl they are banned or destroy the blog. Which is their only goal.
@earl
I see that one went right over your head.
Huh, you say?
Allow me as another Catholic to explain: IBB wasn’t asking who we venerate. He was asking if you found a real woman aka Miss Perfect in your own life. Was there a hint of sarcasm there? Yes. And you totally missed it.
Must you be so thick? I really gotta go to confession for thinking that one, let alone asking it…
These past few posts have been great Dalrock. Stay strong
I ask:
“So what advice do you have for that family?”
Earl
It’s different when it is a medical condition…much different that if it is to prevent pregnancy.
You took it upon yourself to offer free advice on the topic of endocrinology. Don’t back out now, and don’t waffle with “it’s different”, either. Since you ducked the previous opportunities to advise married men, I’ll provide you with some more.
Tell us what a man with a depressed, lactating wife who cannot take SSRI’s, zero sexual desire, a desire for carbs and chocolate who is actually gaining weight while nursing, rather than losing it, should do, for example. Or how a man should choose to love a wife who nearly died in childbirth, and who is thus fearful of pregnancy. Or the more prosaic issue of a 30+ woman who has just delivered her first child with considerable difficulty, whose reproductive system is healing quite a bit slower than she, or her husband, or her doctor, expected – what do you advise there, earl?
Add those to my previous questions. I can put names and faces on each one of them as well, I’m not just pulling these things out of thin air. None of the problems are unheard of, some are not that rare. You have chosen to offer advice to married men. Now you are backing away from your previous soapbox.
It won’t do, earl. Either man up and do the job you have taken on, or admit your deficit in knowledge and stop pontificating on topics you don’t really know much about. Your choice.
I wrote:
“Earl, you’re becoming less and less useful, and more and more annoying.”
earl
Then quit reading my statements.
Ignorance and half-truth require correction. They cannot be allowed to pass without comment.
For the people who want to ‘save’ Western Civilization. There is fellow called John Bagot Glubb who noted the cycle of history with civilizations called The Fate of Empires. It is a short 26 page booklet free on the net. Read it.
http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
Try and place Western Civ on the correct stage.
“Christians have substituted ‘love your wife’ with ‘make her happy’ and if your wife reads Cosmo you’re fighting a losing battle” -HeraclitusSpeaks
Any unmarried man in his 30s who only dates women in their late-teens/early-twenties who is arrogant enough to believe that he can advise a forum of men who are (or were) already married on what they need to do to have a good marriage, is going to miss quite a bit.
Yes earl, we are talking about you. Go back to Mary’s where no one will pick on you.
Dalrock thank you for welcoming me to comment – I am pretty content to mostly lurk and learn :).
Marlon, that is a sobering read indeed. My cousin who introduced me to Dalrock also introduced me to The Fate of Empires concept. Wise man my cousin.
“III Frivolity
As the nation declines in power and
wealth, a universal pessimism gradually
pervades the people, and itself hastens the
decline.
The heroes of declining nations are always
the same—the athlete, the singer or the
actor. The word ‘celebrity’ today is used to
designate a comedian or a football player,
not a statesman, a general, or a literary
genius.”
It would appear we are very much in the Age of Decadence no?
I agree with Matthew king and nitouken.
Blaming women doesn’t work. No matter how in the wrong they are.
Blame games will never work. And never have. They give away your power. And if men blame, guess to whom them power goes?
Women have been doing enough blaming. And men too.
And stop blaming leaders too! I’ve been doing that for ions with no reason to expect them to change any time soon.
I don’t know what you are hoping to accomplish with this site, because it is not inviting women to change their ways, from the way we are blaming.
Maybe hoping leaders ‘step up’? Lol
(Laughin out loud from the pun of asking men to step up!)
How about we make these websites a place where men can go and learn what to do, what to become, in order to lead their women to salvation.
Those that say this is impossible have no faith in Christ, because all things are possible with Christ.
Haven’t you read scripture!?
There are MANY women out there in the Christian world who want what is best for them – a biblical headship marriage – so they can live a happy life – how about we just be examples for rightful marriage, and happy marriages –
With the knowledge we have from game, and such websites –
COME ON!!!!!!
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
– Edmund Burke
I believe it is a unanimous thought, that we want leaders to preach from the pulpits of the evils of feminism, and women’s rebellion.
Doesn’t that mean we need better leaders? And more of them?
‘Everything rises and falls on leadership’ – John c maxwell
Teach the women. If you teach them early enough, they will want to oblige and be led by the man that love them.
I’ve seen that in soooo many young girls and young women. They just want to be led.
Leadership to me seems a viable solution
@ Opus
What country was she from? You said something Stan. Khakastan?
What I don’t understand is why Pastor Mark Driscoll has such a large congregation… Who is giving him money?
I’ve been listening to various clips. Some of the subject matter doesn’t to be firmly grounded in scripture. He kind of skirted the medias politically sensitive topic of homosexuality by equating it with premarital sex. He kind of spun Tattoos in Leviticus. Comparing it the New Testament when there is no need because the Old Testament could not be more clear.
Then this prayer. I made me sick. I cannot believe any man of the cloth would pray something like that. I would hope he would explain himself.
Mr. Driscoll is a huckster, and seems quite malevolent. He doesn’t seem to be a real pastor… more like a fraud.
@Michael
I think it would be prudent for me (so as to ensure some anonymity) if I refrain from mentioning which of the stans – just in case. The ***s were entirely uncounted. What you may deduce however, is that she is not an anglo-bitch. How often do we hear that the solution to female hypergamy is for men to marry women from outside of the anglosphere; clearly not.
I find it difficult given the legal environment in which we exist to say what my friend can possibly do to prevent himself from being divorce-raped and to lead his new family in a sensible and effective manner. He (and she) are only human and these bust-ups are frequent. He is a bit sulky, perhaps, and had had enough, but as you see she can get round him. What worries me is that she is getting through his money like water, and that when it eventually runs out (as I am guessing it will within a year or eighteen months) that she will then bail and find some other mug to man-up and take her. Unlike the characters in the video, my friend is not a slob, does not play pool and works hard.
It seems to me that Driscoll and the other pastors in the video are creating straw-men in that even a saint would find it impossible to control the sort of wives – like my friend’s – who now cause so much trouble. Raising the bar too high, is, I think, a frequent and perhaps understandable failing of Christians which is why Christians (beyond original sin) tend to think of themselves as sinners – especially the Catholics who raise the bar to pole-vault level. In England we treat The Ten Commandments much as we might examination questions – only seven out of ten need be attempted. This is much more sensible, and erases the need to wear hair-shirts.
GBFM was quite right about central banks, Bernanke and being Bernankified.
American corporate giants and richest men giving money and power to leftist-liberal groups in Brazil (it’s quite a coincidence how George Soros is a Jew). Shocking article in Portuguese –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/08/05/socialismo-fabiano-os-milionarios-por-tras-do-esquerdismo/
A good Brazilian woman points to feminist hypocrites for getting all of their money and power from these foreign richest men, NGOs, corporations and the like. How they don’t represent Brazilian interests –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/08/12/mulher-denuncia-organizacoes-socialistas-fabianas-milhonarias-que-financiam-o-feminismo/
The “Slut Walk” movement in Brazil was also imported from abroad. Pardon me, but to be crude a bunch of feminists inserted holy Catholic symbols into their anuses a couple of weeks ago and mocked the Roman Catholic Church –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/07/28/feministas-da-marcha-das-vadias-protestam-enfiando-simbolos-cristaos-nos-anus/
@ Michael
Where is the money coming from for Driscoll’s church, you ask?
Probably the same place feminists find their financial support……….moneyed interests with a stake in killing off the traditional family.
1) Government
2) Top 1%, including the banks
3) Academia
According to this Portuguese article, the companies Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were ones who complimented the fact that LGBTPQI marriage was legalized in the USA –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/06/28/grandes-banqueiros-e-grupos-que-patrocinam-o-movimento-gay/
This Portuguese article is called “Big banksters and groups which fund the gay movement”.
Paging GBFM, GBFM, GBFM. It’s Bernankified!
“I like that book by Boenhoefer, that is some of the best reading there is aside from the Bible. I was just pointing out Whitefield a bit ago, wasn’t he the one who chastised the CoE Reverend in his own congregation and ran him out crying? Seems like I heard something about that. Sometimes the Holy Spirit does send us to correct.”
The point is they first convicted themselves in their own sin, repented, and prayed for mercy.
BTW, that is a strategy not unlike the one employed by Jon Stewart, who enjoys a reasonable following among the generation in question.
It seems to me there is a two-fold view of women among evangelical leaders. On one hand, they view women as individual and autonomous beings that deserve the respect and recognition due to a person capable of a strong leadership position. That view is then joined with the view that women are gentle, weak, and infinitely vulnerable and their fate, their goodness and or badness, is directly dependent on men’s goodness or badness. It is a place of feminist have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too.
Since Dalrock has welcomed us to comment, 🙂 .
There is a lot of whistling past one another taking place here, The men who insist that a wife will follow sufficient leadership are very naive. It is clear that they have never been married. We are rebellious by nature.
Something that Cane wrote stood out to me, as is usually the case. His reaction to his wife’s declaration of marital regret took a bit of heat, but I think it’s worth pointing out that wives have to be taught not to say anything that pops “into our pretty little heads.”
I have absolutely no doubt that if I ever said anything similar to my own husband in the early years of our marriage, he would have reacted the exact same way and given me what I claim to have wanted. I harbored no delusions that I could cut him with such words and not reap an equal and opposite reaction. My knowing that he refuses to such tolerate games actually kept me from saying something that dumb no matter how much I wanted to lash out.
Whether it is good or right for a man to react in such a way is open for debate I suppose, as there is a case to be made for either side. The more important thing is what he does if he walks. Does he remain faithful and steadfast in prayer for his wife or does he use it as an opportunity for the flesh?
Part of being an effective leader is training those under you to refrain from folly. This is true for parents and children and equally true for a husband and his wife.
Have we fallen in the feminist/churchian trap by using the word leadership?
Leaders don’t command; others follow (and, it’s voluntary–a leader that orders people to follow him really isn’t leading, he’s dictating). People follow a good leader; they don’t follow a poor leader.
By making leadership the marriage model, we’ve setup a framework where (1) submitting becomes following his leadership, (2) her submission is voluntary, and (3) if she fails to submit it is his fault for being a poor leader.
But is this what the Bible actually teaches? That we should think of leadership and authority as one and the same (because that’s what the Bible actually teaches in relation to marriage–authority)?
The Pharasiees wouldn’t follow Jesus. Is that Jesus’ fault for being a poor leader? Do we absolve the Pharasiees of all responsibility(because if only they have had a better leader to follow, they would not have rebelled)?
Yet, we’ve created a framework where it’s the husband’s fault if the wife rebels; where we absolve the wife of any responsibility for her actions. The fault all lies with the husband for failing to be an adequate leader. This is a standard even Jesus couldn’t meet. Why do we hold husbands to this standard?
Because, the real framework God created for marriage is an authoritarian model, and authority isn’t something a wife can grant or remove from her husband–it just is. Jesus wasn’t able to cast out demons, because he was provided them strong leadership; Jesus was able to cast out demons, because he had authority over them. Leadership and authority are not the same thing.
The Bible has few teachings on leadership (and in fact never mentions the word in relation to marriage). It does have a lot to say about authority–the roles and responsibilities of those in authority, and the roles and obligations of those under authority. And, unlike leadership, the Bible does speak of authority (and submission to authority) as it relates to marriage.
Maybe our first step in fragging these feminist/churchian leaders should be blowing up this (false) teaching on leadership in marriage.
I agree with Matthew king and nitouken.
Blaming women doesn’t work. No matter how in the wrong they are.
Pure solipsism and an expected response. You seem to see “blaming” as THE action suggested. Blaming is merely an observation, and even that is not done in isolation. Your post sums up decades of teaching that has managed to create the protective wall around women. Its nonsensical in and of itself.
Think of it this way, if you make the observation that women need leadership, and leadership involves a corrective aspect, then is it not reasonable to suggest that women are doing some thing(s) that need correction? Is that not blame?
How can you teach mean to lead women and omit the part that the women are sometimes screwing things up? This is a clever trick to somehow see as separate, rebelling women, and the need for leadership, all the while forbidding the idea of blame to manifest.
So, men are taught to lead. To what end? Who do they lead? This is what i referred to as teaching leadership as modeling behavior only. It involves no actions directed at anyone, its a facade, a veneer. Its naive.
You would be correct if this was what you seem to be seeing, a group of men tossing ever more fantastic phrases of blame, and then walking away. But that’s what your mind is trained to see because for decades any nod to any responsibility women have has been conflated with simply and only casting blame.
I’ve seen that in soooo many young girls and young women. They just want to be led.
This is a very deep set lie that has been sold to the church. Women WANT to rebel, not to be led. In the rebellion they want the sort of eye and arm candy of the appearance of a strong leader in their sphere. But no, its settled in Genesis that women do NOT want to be led. Listen to pastir Baucham explain it.
The most dangerous lies approximate truth. The things you MrDarling have written are wolf ideas disguised as sheep ideas.
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Good essay Dalrock.
“By making leadership the marriage model, we’ve setup a framework where (1) submitting becomes following his leadership, (2) her submission is voluntary, and (3) if she fails to submit it is his fault for being a poor leader.”
As I mentioned before, it doesn’t matter. This is codified into law now. What you are talking about is literally–not figuratively or metaphorically–illegal.
@Matt King
You think the marital status of a man who makes bold statements about the “correct” way to do marriage is irrelevant? Thats plainly ridiculous. I wouldnt take bodybuilding advice from someone who hadnt built muscle, I wouldnt take automotive repair advice from someone who hadnt fixed a car and I wouldnt take advice about the proper way to approach a marriage from someone who isnt married.
The credentials and credibility of a person making certain types of statements IS relevant, no matter how many times you say ad hominem.
lozozozozozozo
THANKSZ YOUZ alcestiseshtemoa !!! other thanyou and dalrock and a couple othersz, nobody sees ythis. and so instead of people discussing the issuesz, we have to watch earl and matt kingz masturbatingz and going to confessionz instead of tlaking about manyly issues of RELAI?TYZZIOZ lzlzozo
alcestiseshtemoa says:
August 20, 2013 at 5:53 am
GBFM was quite right about central banks, Bernanke and being Bernankified.
American corporate giants and richest men giving money and power to leftist-liberal groups in Brazil (it’s quite a coincidence how George Soros is a Jew). Shocking article in Portuguese –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/08/05/socialismo-fabiano-os-milionarios-por-tras-do-esquerdismo/
A good Brazilian woman points to feminist hypocrites for getting all of their money and power from these foreign richest men, NGOs, corporations and the like. How they don’t represent Brazilian interests –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/08/12/mulher-denuncia-organizacoes-socialistas-fabianas-milhonarias-que-financiam-o-feminismo/
The “Slut Walk” movement in Brazil was also imported from abroad. Pardon me, but to be crude a bunch of feminists inserted holy Catholic symbols into their anuses a couple of weeks ago and mocked the Roman Catholic Church –> http://liberdadeeconomica.com/home/2013/07/28/feministas-da-marcha-das-vadias-protestam-enfiando-simbolos-cristaos-nos-anus/
@Scott,
The Bible doesn’t change simply because something has been coded into law.
Pastors should be teaching a Biblical model of marriage, regardless of what the government say.
“(2) her submission is voluntary,”
Let me expand on this a little further. Again, based on my experiences as a cog in the system–which were extensive.
Under current law in the US, this is the ONLY way “submission” will be occuring for the forseable future.
And..
1. If she changes her mind..you go to jail.
2. If some of your friends come over to your house for dinner and they witness it (and don’t like it)…you go to jail.
3. If she talks about it to her mother and she doesnt like it…you go to jail
and on and on. Do you see?
“The Bible doesn’t change simply because something has been coded into law.
Pastors should be teaching a Biblical model of marriage, regardless of what the government say.”
I am right there with you. I am just talking about risk.
Well Scott, submission has always been something the wife has to offer, no matter what the legal framework of society was. There’s a reason why Scripture commands the wife to submit rather than offering ways for a husband to extract it.
What is different is the way child custody and alimony are awarded regardless of what caused the dissolution.
And this is a serious question, no snark intended: Since when can a wife’s friends or family members get a husband thrown in jail simply because they “don’t like” the way a man interacts with his wife? That sounds absurd to me.
I will look for your answer but am respectfully bowing out of the conversation now.
“And this is a serious question, no snark intended: Since when can a wife’s friends or family members get a husband thrown in jail simply because they “don’t like” the way a man interacts with his wife? That sounds absurd to me.”
Please accept my position as a mental health professional, with 13 years of clinical experience on this. My time in the domestic violence “industry” as I have described way up thread also should lend credibility.
The simple answer is–by calling the police.
Down to the individual–most of the behaviors described in the manosphere as “frame” and “alpha” and all that will be considered “abuse” by almost every cop and judge who hears the case. I am not making this up. I am pleading with my new male friends around here to be careful.
Sorry–hit send to soon.
I have seen it. I have SENT PEOPLE BACK TO JAIL on my word to their probation officers that what they did was “abuse.”
I have come out of the shadows of anonymity. I only hope it does some good.
@Scott,
I agree that a man has to live in the world as it is, not as he wishes it to be.
Laws reflect society. Whether we can change society enough to change the law is unknown.
We can stand out ground when it comes to getting married. We can say we won’t accept this faux marriage leadership model, and that we won’t participate in any marriage based on that model.
I know that sounds idealistic. Like I said, I live in the real world. I’m a 50+ year old guy, married 25 years to a woman that owned a fish/bicycle t-shirt when I met her. I understand fully the problems of being in a modern marriage (one of the reasons I’m here), but I also understand that if we don’t even try to turn back the tide, we never will.
Standing up for Biblical marriage concepts is as good a place to start as any.
@Cane Caldo
This is a false trade off. Paul instructs the Thessalonians to work and eat their own bread. As I understand it, he was responding to those who thought they could take a shortcut and quit their boring unimportant jobs and focus solely on Christ. Are you arguing that marriage is even less important than working for our own bread?
Why not? It worked before. It was important to Paul, and the Spirit who guided Paul. After all, the WC you are referring to, at least the good parts, are largely if not entirely the stamp of Christianity. The family is at the core of any civilization, and marriage is the core of the Christian family. Even when it comes to spreading the faith, is there any doubt that Christians modeling biblical marriage did as much to win over the ancient world as anything else? More importantly, do you not see how this would work today? The world around us is starving for the answer God gave Christians, but Christians can’t be bothered to live it out as an example. We don’t need to travel to far off lands to find people thirsting for the Truth in the Bible. Our neighbors are starving for it, but we (collectively) can’t be bothered.
Marriage matters because children matter. Having children matters. The suffering of children matters. The legitimacy of children matters. Sexual morality matters, and Paul instructs us that marriage is the answer to the problem of sexual morality.
If you fix all of these things you say are more important than marriage, we are still hopelessly lost. This is true both spiritually and in a more practical view regarding indexes of sociological well being. You say the answer is more children, but without marriage? Seriously? You are arguing for more illegitimate children? There is no need for schools to teach children if there aren’t any children, and children need marriage. According to this site, 83% of abortions are to unmarried women. Fix marriage and you go a long way towards fixing all of the social ills you say are more important, along with a slew of others you didn’t mention (crime, prisons, etc). But focus first on fixing the others and you still have to fix marriage. You are arguing we don’t have time to drain the swamp, lets get serious about fighting alligators.
Scott is exactly right here.
A man trying to exert anything that looks like headship over his wife is apt to find himself ground to dust by the state, and this process could very well start with a trip to the pokey absent any true measure of due process.
He will be lucky to avoid criminal prosecution, but the wealth and family destruction machine (domestic relations court) will find him and ruin him.
Well Scott, submission has always been something the wife has to offer
Thank you.
Unless and until she, of her own volition, offers this there can be no marital order in a complete way. This is why the Step Up format is failing. It doesn’t recognize the simple existence of female proclivity to rebel. It doesn’t explain to the men that part of their mission will be corrective towards women. Those leaders are afraid of women’s rebelliousness, not insignificantly due to much of what Scott says. Men are also afraid of or dislike drama, it is unpleasant. Men like calm harmonious homes, and if left unchecked, they will not get that from their wives at all. Step Up leaders do not dare tell men that they need be fully trained to steer and correct their families including their wives. They are told they are to be a source of encouraging her dreams and supporting her and serving her. No. Matter. What. (that is unspoken, it’s clear by omission)
The sexual dynamic is the perfect illustration. The sexual act is a great metaphor for willing submission. That’s one reason why its so danged important. When men are told to jump through ever higher hoops just to have something that is painfully clearly expressed in scripture, how much more will these leaders barricade the ideas that men actually have authority. I dare so most Christian wives are in rebellion regarding sex and everything else, and they find succor in these stupid seminars.
Scott brings up a good point.
The court system and police force criminalize Biblical male behavior.
And the federal reserve loves, loves, loves the fact that King Mathew and Earl cheer each time one of their brothers is sent to jail, rather than ever trying to reform a law.
King Mathew and Earl are the useful idiots, like the William Bennetts and Mark Driscolls, whom the fed can count on. King/Earl/Bennett/Driscolls will always blame the bernanfkfieatcions of women on good men, so they can legislate against good men and throw more good men into prison.
King/Earl/Bennett/Driscolls hate their fellow men and love money, approval, arrogance, and bueteghztztzthetxz zlzlzoozlzlzo.
Wth is up with all the trolls from Heartistes site
1st we get super mangina’s & pussy beggars, earl & mat King
Now we get two of the worst retarded trolls over at Roissy’s, Feministx & Kate …
The crap these two dumass women spew, is legendary …
Those 4 trolls single handledly turned Heartiste into the shithole it is today …
The stench from these wackjob trolls, on the verge of causing a globalwide explosion of bullshit …
@Dalrock
Take anon 71’s advice & put these 4 guys on moderation already, for the love of gawd… all these guys’ll do is run the community built on your blog into the ground
Exactly the same way these half-assed clowns, ran the community over at Roissy’s blog into the ground …
You seriously want to avoid trolls of this caliber, running all over your blog …
All they’ll do is attract more assholes & pricks, until your blogs over-run with trolls …
For the love of frack, moderate or ban the trolls already …
@Elspeth
I’m fairly certain you already know this, but just in case and either way for anyone else who might not; you are and always have been welcome to comment here. This is true not just for you personally (but of course I hope you know it is), but for women in general.
I don’t respond to the vast majority of comments, including the vast majority of truly excellent and truly stupid ones. But I do make it a habit to respond if someone is telling women they aren’t welcome. However, women should be careful how they engage here, especially since being a male space it can get a bit rough. I can’t offer chivalric protection without profoundly changing the nature of the discussion. With that said, Cane is also welcome to express his concerns and thoughts about when and how it is appropriate for women to engage in the conversation. But his comments are as a fellow guest, not as the host.
This is a false trade off
Its a false tradeoff because it should be no trade off at all.
If:
then what is everything if not creation, family, civilization (never mind the specifics of how it is ordered politically and otherwise….irrelevant) procreation, childbearing, child rearing, etc. Those comments sat uncomfortably on me as well. They reminded me, unpleasantly, of those men I have written about before who have a dose of evangelical arrogance. they have hangers on, and the twisted thing about it is that, like some sort of Zen master, no matter what the hangers on say the evangelical arrogant man will raise the bar higher and higher as if the others are even challenged to reach his spiritual pinnacle. I do not mean to lambast Cane with all of that, only to say it came to mind when i read that comment.
There is a false mutual exclusivity that this type of thinking creates. It makes it so that saying anything in response to anything that is not simply “its all about/for Christ” is evidence that the person is weak in faith, faulty in priority, not yet at that place where the evangelically arrogant man is (and they never will be). Its a discourse shutter downer. And those thing are not mutually exclusive. If we love our neighbors, if we love our wives and children, then it is not taking the focus off Christ to have discourse on the order of things, it is actually evidence of the opposite.
All of Gods word from OT through revelation points to Christ and His work. How does it do so? Not by dismissing human events and stating simply that it IS all about Christ, but rather by using human events to show Gods expectations, consequences, etc. If we were to have no priority to things like family, then why bother having instruction on it at all?
I am certain Cane will tell me Ive misunderstood. So, I am eager to know how I did so.
This is worthy of a separate post. While this statement is true it is also completely meaningless. Here are a list of other things which the wife has to freely give:
1) Her fidelity. You can’t force her to not pull a train at the local biker bar. She has to freely decide not to do this.
2) Not murdering you or your children.
3) Not robbing a bank.
4) Not denying her husband sex.
@Anonymous Reader
Tell us what a man with a depressed, lactating wife who cannot take SSRI’s, zero sexual desire, a desire for carbs and chocolate who is actually gaining weight while nursing, rather than losing it, should do, for example.
While not wishing to interfere with you taking Earl to task, I will go off topic a bit suggest that SSRI’s are a really really bad way to deal with depression. Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors work to maximize the serotonin in the system but in doing so they induce a looping sequence that causes problems. The literature is full of evidence on this, as well as the resulting side effects this causes. A better way to go is to take L-Tryptophan, which is a direct precursor to Serotonin and tends to increase levels of serotonin naturally. In fact, a combination of L-Tryptophan and L-Theanine is very effective in dealing with post-partum depression. These are amino acids with zero side-effects, unlike SSRI’s, and can be consumed while breastfeeding.
One of the major causes of post-partum depression is a drop in estrogen, however, this drop in estrogen is natural and is key in creating sensitivity to prolactin, which is antagonistic to estrogen. The release of prolactin as a result of the nipple stimulation associated with breastfeeding will suppress the estrogen level in her body and the prolactin will be dominant. With prolactin dominant, FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) is suppressed and ovulation doesn’t occur until there is a relaxation or cessation of breastfeeding, in which case the level of prolactin drops, allowing the estrogen to become dominant again at which point ovulation begins again. The post-partum depression typically occurs in the period of time in which the body is switching from estrogen dominance to prolactin dominance and once prolactin is dominant the depression goes away.
So, my advice to a husband with a wife in such a situation, especially if she isn’t breastfeeding, is to pay a great deal of attention to her breasts with a focus on nipple stimulation (at least 5 minutes at a time). That will result in the release of oxytocin, with all its attendant euphoric pleasures and bonding aspects, as well as prolactin, which causes her to focus on “nesting” within the home. In other words, if you’re in this situation… develop a taste for warm milk. L-Tryptophan and L-Theanine are both very effective in terms of increasing production of serotonin and reducing anxiety. Stimulating the release of oxytocin and prolactin via serious attention to the breasts/nipples will also help. I’ll also point out that the cervix is quite sensitive to certain prostaglandins contained in semen, and spraying the cervix with a coating of said prostaglandins will also result in a release of oxytocin, and she might be in the mood for such activity after you’ve given her breasts some serious attention.
Standard disclaimers apply, this isn’t medical advice, do enough reading to make well-informed decisions, etc., meditate on Proverbs 5:19.
There are two models of leadership, for the purpose of this post I’ll define them as the military model and the political model.
An officer has authority over his men. Consequently, he has a responsibility to provide them with leadership. His leadership role is an outgrowth of his authority. It doesn’t matter if the officer is a great or poor leader, his men are required to submit to his command due to his position of authority. This type of authority is absolute.
A politician provides leadership in order to gain authority. If he provides good leadership, he is given authority by those who follow him. If he leads his followers where they want to go they will continue to follow him. If he provides poor leadership or leads voters where the don’t want to go, they will quit following him and replace him with someone else. This type of authority is conditional.
The political leadership model is the one advocated by the pastor in this post. If you provide your wife with the type of leadership she wants, she will grant you authority over her (but only for so long as you lead her where she wants to go). This is not leadership. It is finding out which way the crowd is already going, jumping in front of the crowd, and yelling “follow me.” This is authority is not only conditional, it’s non-existent. It’s a faux “I’ll let you lead as long as you do what I say” authority.
The Biblical marriage model is closer to the military leadership model. The authority assigned to men comes with responsibilities (a lot of them, some quite heavy) including the responsibility to lead your wife.
I understand a husband can’t jump up and bellow “OBEY WOMAN!” and expect to remain married to the typical American woman for long, but I also understand that adopting the political leadership model isn’t the answer either.
I suggested earlier that husbands learn to “manage” their wives. There is a management style of leadership. The authority is still absolute (like the military model), but it’s a softer approach–more velvet glove; less hammer. And, I believe game gives husbands (including Christian husbands) some of the tools they need to understand their wives motivations and use that understanding to manage their wives–to gently lead them where they NEED to go.
I said I was out, but gosh darnit Dalrock, you pulled me back. With both of your responses to me.
Firstly, thank you for the welcome and the admonition. I hold Mr. Caldo and his commentary in high regard as he well knows so I certainly didn’t want to do anything to discourage him from continuing to add his substantive contributions. I do recognize however, that this is your house. As for this:
While this statement is true it is also completely meaningless.
I disagree that noting a wife’s offer of submission is meaningless. In fact, it was not my intent to frame submission as something a wife has a choice about at all. It is a part of her marital debt as much as her fidelity, her obligation to her children, and her responsibility to remain sexually available.
The problem within the church is that submission has been held out as something separate, conditional when it is not. I suspect that is where your objection comes in, but you are ascribing to my statements an intent that isn’t there. I never meant to convey that submission is optional, simply that a woman can withhold it same as she can withhold any other thing that she is commanded to do.
The thing about submission however, is that once she has committed to obey God in that area, the other areas you mentioned are automatically taken care of. She will be faithful, a diligent mother, a willing and engaged sexual partner.
Submission comes first, but she must obey. Her husband cannot do that for her. It is same as all the other choices we have with respect to sin and righteousness.
Pingback: Wayward Christian Women, the Bible Tells You to Submit, Full Stop
@Elspeth
My mistake. I wasn’t responding to you, and should have searched upthread to see who originally made the statement. My response was to the statment as I see it so often. For one example, see the pastor’s wife I linked to in the original post on the video as advertising (see transcript here). She included it as the fine print which negates the bold print. I read her use of it as:
Edit: The above is my paraphrase of how I read the pastor’s wife’s message. Here is the specific quote I had in mind:
This is worthy of a separate post. While this statement is true it is also completely meaningless. Here are a list of other things which the wife has to freely give:
1) Her fidelity. You can’t force her to not pull a train at the local biker bar. She has to freely decide not to do this.
2) Not murdering you or your children.
3) Not robbing a bank.
4) Not denying her husband sex.
It may be worthy of a separate post, but the comparisons do not make the case. The action is in comparing the church position on the things you stated. Is the church running cover for or even aiding women doing 1,2, and 3? Is there an element of Step Up that would apply to her not doing those things? Of course not.
More importantly, the problem I suspect you are having comes from this idea we have disagreed on before, that women are craving authority or leadership. Apply that thinking to your examples.
Are women craving sex with their husbands but for that being unleashed by some action on the husband? Are women “craving” NOT pulling a biker train (that would be the correct comparison direction for the analogy to hold) and that they go ahead and pull one is a sign that the husband is lacking in some aspect of his role?
Its absolutely an absolutely crucial statement she made, far from meaningless. We have a fundamental disagreement here. Its a bit contradictory. You at one decry the teachings of Step Up as being misdirected while then suggesting that women are craving Christian husbands leadership who, if they toss in a bit-o-game the women will find their comfy chair under his righteous authority. Please break down what differs about the two things because I don’t see it at all.
It would seem we should unify on the idea that women are rebellious. Ive zero difficulty unifying on the rebellion of men.
Conversely then, are men craving being righteous leaders? If they are, what sets them off? A Step Up program? Or….what Elspeth says, a gift of submission freely given. This is another interesting notion…what are men craving. I believe Christian men ARE craving leadership and that there are (many) other proclivities men must be on guard against. You seem to offer this toe in the door of excuses for women’s rebellion, and the melange is confusing.
Scott
Thank you for putting two and two together for the churchians theorist we have here thinking there actually is a wife to be had. It is the laws of misandry and always has been. Too busy playing Christian to understand that souls will need to be dirtied to change the laws. The Christian church is now full on churchian and have lost all credibility. The bible rules and the more crass and red pill one gets the better the bible reads.
A wife gets to be a wife with her submission as the entry fee. feminism is rebellion that is why all of the laws that make even walking away from a grown woman a crime. This rebellion against god has insured no women will enjoy her rebellion. (no gina tingle for the supplicating man. She will never feel content and will be enslaved to her hypergamy in hysteria) In the long run and by law there is no wife and there is no marriage. All talk of such is a lie or just a survival technique to learn to live in misandry.
Oh I fell into the same trap as Elspeth, and wrote a screed that was unnecessary.
[D: The error was mine, not yours or Elspeth’s.]
This proves that headship does not imply superiority, nor does submission imply inferiority
Perfect expression of the red herring.
@ Scott:
“1. If she changes her mind..you go to jail.
2. If some of your friends come over to your house for dinner and they witness it (and don’t like it)…you go to jail.
3. If she talks about it to her mother and she doesnt like it…you go to jail”
This is too much of an exaggeration! A man would go to jail if he actually hit the wife, or if she falsely accused the husband of hitting. Merely leading in an appropriate authoritative manner will not land a man in jail.
“This is too much of an exaggeration! A man would go to jail if he actually hit the wife, or if she falsely accused the husband of hitting. Merely leading in an appropriate authoritative manner will not land a man in jail.”
I stand by it because I have seen it. I have been the vehicle for it. I have seen men go to jail for:
Putting their wife on an allowance.
Stopping her from going out with certain friends.
Inspecting her phone records.
Telling her to quit her job.
I don’t so much care who believes me. I know it to be true first hand, so it is not an issue.
@Scott
Ok, I’ll take the bait. Were these men put in jail for the things you’ve described because they were charged with some specific crime related to the actions you’ve listed, or because they were under some sort of supervisory oversight related to prior conviction?
What, specifically, would be the grounds for jailing someone for what you’ve described? Contempt of court? Violating a protective order?
Someone needs to read Baskerville. These are not exaggerations
empathologism
Women as their nature dictates want all of the benefits of being lead while in rebellion. The reason is simple women are naturally adverse to responsibility. Nothing at all should be discussed about what women crave it doesn’t matter. Making it matter has destroyed the Christian church at a foundational level. All that matters is men focused on handling their business. (and thank you Dalrock about the growing your bread to eat every one can’t be a biblical shit talker I always felt those men were cowards) If that includes artificial wombs and surrogates, male birth control pills, prostitutes and porn then so be it. More focus needs to be on men living lives independent of pleasing women. God have given us a tell by repeatedly showing how women submit to men that treat women the worst in I guess is a subconscious effort for women to actually live a Christian life while in rebellion.
vascularity777 says: @ Scott:
“This is too much of an exaggeration! A man would go to jail if he actually hit the wife, or if she falsely accused the husband of hitting. Merely leading in an appropriate authoritative manner will not land a man in jail.”
The Fed depends on “men” like vascularity777 trying to shame truth speakers and shut them down.
vascularity777–do you think Dr. Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. is a liar?
Please do your honest research vascularity777, before trying to tear your brothers down.
@ Scott:
Perhaps if the husbands were already on probation. Then he would be under the “control” of a state worker who’s opinion would be omnipotent in court. Otherwise, a man would not go to jail just for the other items you indicated. I have also worked for the courts in differing capacities and was a social worker. The states differ in the laws, but not to this degree.
To “men”/manginas like vascularity777/earl/king matthew/driscoll/william bennett, this honorable, well-researched book by a Ph.D. is a book of lies:
http://www.amazon.com/Taken-Into-Custody-Against-Marriage/dp/1581825943/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377011542&sr=8-1&keywords=stephen+baskerville
@Anonymous age 71
The parallel here is very strong even if you stipulate that all of the officers killed in this way were placing their men in excess risk with no real reason. There are after all poor husbands. The question is: Is there such a thing as headship, or in the case of the military, authority of officers and NCO’s to give orders? Fragging is a disaster from the point of view of order and morale. To embrace fragging is to embrace chaos.
“Ok, I’ll take the bait.”
It’s not bait. Geez. Do you think I like the system?
Here is a perfect example.
I have a current patient who has: 1. had his personal weapon taken. 2. has been placed in a database of domestic violence offenders. 3. Was incarcerated for 3 days while the police sort it out. 4. Has a no-contact order placed on him, and 5. was told to start the counseling program as a head start because of the probable conviction (by his lawyer).
No trial has occurred. He is guilty until proven innocent, but HAS ALREADY begun to pay for his “crime.”
What happened? He had an argument with his wife over dinner. His wife called her mother, who in turn called the police and told them that he “stole” her credit card from her purse.
The patient says it was argument and nothing more. Even the wife says she absolutely did not say that to her mother. She even denied it happened like that to the police. They are state-paid “white knights” as known around these parts.
SIn their eyes–SOMETHING MUST HAVE happened and we are going to save the damsel in dsitress, regardless of the evidence. This is from last week. It is a real person.
vascularity777
It doesn’t matter a man only needs to be involved with a woman in any way and is arrested. The police are called and he is subject to arrest. There is no reasoning at all he cannot say a thing he has no rights none. All by law do not think you have rights under the constitution in a relationship with a woman, you don’t. Just know Scott is telling the truth.
@ Empath:
I value your opinion (and wittiness). I found the book, Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family written by Stephen Baskerville. Is that the book you reference? Not available on kindle, but I might purchase it anyway.
@ greyghost:
The wife would have to say something like she is afraid. That might be enough in some, or perhaps most jurisdictions. The claim of fear would work. In that case, in my state, if there were no priors and no actual violence or false claims of violence, the charges would be dropped. At worst the man would have to take some silly DV classes; upon completion of the classes the charge would then be dropped.
But he would be compromised. The wife would have the power to make another false claim that would be more serious, not being an initial charge.
@ Greatbooks:
I don’t give a damn what you think of me. You can post 20 pages of loz about me and I won’t care.
Let me approach this from a different angle. One of the coolest things I ever read from Dalrock was how he describes the “civlizationists,” of which I guess I am one. He called it “saving the seeds of civilization while the fire rushes over the forest.” Brilliant.
The problem I (think) I have with some in this same camp is one of “how close is the fire?”
What I am describing is the fire is already buring the forest, and those who pop their heads up out of their fire shelters will be burned to death.
Many don’t think it is that bad. That’s what I actually trying to point out.
@ Scott:
We would most likely agree on very much. I also view our culture as totally screwed up. Those of us who have children are especially frightened.
Scott
It is that bad and worse because I think we are in the period of the double down. Some don’t even think it is worth saving and have become preppers stock piling food and weapons.
@Scott
I agree that it is an excellent quote, but I don’t think I can take credit for it.
“vascularity777 says:
August 20, 2013 at 10:31 am
@ Greatbooks:
I don’t give a damn what you think of me. You can post 20 pages of loz about me and I won’t care.”
Dear vascularity777,
This is not about da GBFM nor what I think about you.
this is about you attacking your brothers for speaking Truth. ” Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit.” — Called or uncalled, God will be present, vascularity777, and God honors the Truth over your preference for lies.
It was likely Bishop Francis George, but the first time I saw it was on here.
[D: Got it. Thanks!]
@Scott
What’s bothering me about what you said is the implication that a third party could induce a chain of events such as you’ve described over the objections of the wife. In your example, you described a no-contact order. Was this slapped on your patient by a judge, sua sponte, or did the wife request it? I’m aware women can be coerced into doing things that plainly aren’t in their family’s best interests, but again, the implication is you’re describing a situation in which once the call is made it doesn’t matter what the wife says. That’s the point I’d like you to clarify for me.
The error was mine, not yours or Elspeth’s
Well of course it was!
GBFM transcribed:
Great quote. What’s the attribution? A quick and dirty Google search says Carl Jung, but he got it from somewhere else.
It reminds me of the key exchange with Pilate:
“Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” Not, “every one who hears my voice is of the truth.” Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, no matter what name he is called on this broken plane. If they are of the truth already, they are baptized. It’s our job to tell them the name of Whom they worship.
Which further recalls Mark 9:40, “For he that is not against us is for us.” The invincibly ignorant pagan who is “baptized by desire” is more “for” Christ than the fully informed and vincibly pharisaical.
Matt
@Artisanal Toad,
I can remember a couple of decades ago there was a push amend domestic violence laws so as to no require the wife to press charges before they went forward.
The theory was that a DV victim might call the police in a time of panic, but would be intimidated by her abuser into dropping the charges. So, once the accusation is made, the state steps in an acts on behalf of the victim and presses forward.
In that scenario, it doesn’t matter what the wife says. The charges can never be dropped or the process stopped, because the state becomes a stand-in for the wife and assumes the wife is being pressured by her abuser to drop the charges (no matter what the reality).
@ Opus
“What worries me is that she is getting through his money like water, and that when it eventually runs out (as I am guessing it will within a year or eighteen months) that she will then bail and find some other mug to man-up and take her”
– Not if men start rejecting single mothers. The stigmatization of single mothers seemed to play a large role in families prior to single mothers being “accepted” and “normalized”. But if a new stigmatization emerged driven by men this might (I’m not sure just hypothesizing) might counteract it. This website said something like 40% of births are not out of wedlock? I’m not sure what percentage is the “proud single mother” group.
As long as guys see single motherhood as relatively normal women will always have the option to cock hop. Dragging the innocent children from one “Daddy” to another. Only thinking of themselves.
Single mothers have to be seen as off limits at worst – or easy lays at best. Used for sex only. No commitments. No relationships. And never any visiting with some other guys kids. She comes over to your house – gets pounded, goes home, and feels lucky to have anyone fuck her. If she wants a single Dad that’s an equal playing field. But for some reason most want men without kids.
I would think that only a loser would take a single mom with 2 kids. No offense to your friend. But I can’t believe she could so easily find another sucker to use.
@AT,
The above assumption also applies if a third party (like a relative or neighbor) makes an allegation of domestic abuse against a husband.
The assumption is that the wife is so intimidated by her abuser that she can’t even ask for help (much less tell the truth about the situation), so the state needs to step in and act on her behalf as a proxy representing her best interests.
8to12
You are right on the money with that. Also protective orders are from the court not from her. She gets a protective order to protect her and a month later decides to “get back together” and calls him over to dinner he is under arrest because the order is between him and the court. Even though it involves her the law takes her out of the loop.
The laws don’t work the other way a man can drop charges against his wife. (Tiger Woods and the golf club)
I really thought men that made it to the manosphere knew all of this stuff? The women do.
“What’s bothering me about what you said is the implication that a third party could induce a chain of events such as you’ve described over the objections of the wife. ”
A couple of commenters have come along behind this and already covered it, but it should bother you. It is true–in many states, once the police are called, there is in a sense, no stopping it. This is by law.
The guidance they (the police) receive is also absolutely obnoxious. I have seen the guidelines (in this case, San Jose County, CA) the deputies/police officers recieve in determining “whom to arrest.” Suffice it say, it all points to the man.
What bothers me is there seems to be a large portion of men around here who think they still have some fancy lawyer tricks they are going to use in order to force the police to give them their due process rights back. Good luck with that. Once this train leaves the station on you, you are toast.
To expand–once the call is made-IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE WIFE RECANTS in most states now. Even if it is hearsay from mommy in another state. The police are making arrests based on assumptions found in the Duluth literature, that have nothing to do with things like “evidence” or “proof.”
State and local practice can and does differ on these points in the details, but in broad brush a court can and often will issue a temporary protective order on the basis of the testimony of the cops, whether the wife corroborates or not (out of concern that she may have “battered wife syndrome”, so that she may be feeling like she wants to de-escalate regardless of what happened – so her testimony isn’t really dispositive if she decides to back off – it’s discounted, in many cases, if she decides to do that).
As to the “triggers”, again it varies by state/local, but what constitutes “abuse” is often determined by reference to the Duluth-type standards, which include some very interesting things, many of which are common in the context of marital arguments:
Example, Link: Rutgers University Domestic Violence Project: http://org.law.rutgers.edu/o-dvp/Handbooks/ProtectingYouself.pdf
The idea behind these laws is to be “prophylactic” – that is, to err on the side of protecting women, even if it overdoes it by impacting situations where there was no physical violence. This is done by describing mundane spousal arguments as abuse – which essentially renders virtually every marriage as one which contains domestic violence. This can also be reported by people other than the wife – the law doesn’t require the wife to be the complainer, or the person who brings the “violence” to the attention of the cops. Anyone can, as with respect to any other crime. And the definition of “abuse” is wide enough in at least some states to cover most of the Duluth-type stuff that Scott is talking about. So, yes, someone is at your dinner party who is a feminist, doesn’t like the dynamic between you and your wife and sees it as Duluth abuse, can have you arrested for domestic violence even over your wife’s objections, and once that happens it’s likely that you will be sucked into the entire DV legal system as he outlines (and as Baskerville does in his book as well).
Phantoms my ass.
@AT,
There is rank manipulation over those protective orders. I know of several cases among my friends and relatives, some of which were truly egregious. In agreement with Scott.
In my state, DV charges can be filed without the wife’s consent and the cops often go for it.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ze-germans-aren-t-coming_749902.html
Seems like 23 % of German have it correct!
“German men”
“out of concern that she may have “battered wife syndrome”, so that she may be feeling like she wants to de-escalate regardless of what happened – so her testimony isn’t really dispositive if she decides to back off – it’s discounted, in many cases, if she decides to do that). ”
Absolutely!! Shout this from the mountain top!! In my experience, a recant is generally regarded as defacto evidence that the wife is suffering in silence! My God, its been so long since I ran one of those groups, I had forgotten about this. I hope those men in the groups I led can forgive me somehow.
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@Dalrock
You’re reading Paul’s words right, but mine wrong. Marriage and working for your own bread are Christian activities; even in non-Christian settings and even when done by non-Christian people. Marriage and work are not things that Christians and non-Christians both happen to do, but things that all those made in the image of God do because that’s what they were meant to do. (I don’t mean to be clever here, or obtuse, or circular.)
This is not an age or a Christian people who are threatening to forgo care of their family to become monks and nuns. Ours is a time of dissolute folks who claim to be secular, or perhaps merely spiritual (Christians are too judgmental) who not only contemplate but PURSUE the path of stoners and careerists. To such people you cannot make the case that family and work are important because they are their own gods, or are the arbiter of their own gods. Same thing.
The intrinsic value in those activities of working for bread and marriage is in their fulfillment of God’s design for humans. Outside this: I have no way to judge what they do as wrong. I cannot tell the careerist to raise her children because without the centrality of the knowledge of the truth of Christ it’s just my opinion. Don’t ask me: They’ll tell you.
I’m not saying “don’t marry”. I’m saying whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. Everything else is vanity and futile; even marriage. This should be obvious to us by now. We see that nearly everyone still marries, but they don’t make society better. People now marry more than ever: two, three, and seven times even! Things are still getting worse. Marriage didn’t go away in the 60s, 20s, or 19th centuries. Religion did. God did.
(A quick note that I think influences this discussion: I should have been clear that I meant alimony and child-support to be included in calculations of welfare.)
As perverse as the incentives are, men still get married almost as fast as they can. Again, marriage has not gone by the wayside, and people marry as often as they can manage, and much more often than they should. What happened is the removal of children from mothers.
It keeps being described as Adam and Eve being cursed when they fell, but I think that is a misleading way to see it. They wanted to be like God, so He gave it to them good and hard. He gave men His own name, father, and drove us into the outer darkness to build a world. He gave women painful childbirth and rearing.
So, people are still getting married (in some form or fashion, and therefore recognizably human) but women are not painfully bearing and raising children. They take birth control. They get abortions. They get drugged up for delivery. They get epidurals. Insurance pays for it all. Companies give them paid time off for six or so weeks. They send their kids to ostensible daycare at the end of those six or so weeks and return to their satisfying and empowering jobs where no one shits on their hands, or throws up on their clothes. They transition their kids to school–covert daycare–and continue on not being abused by the helpless and wretched little imps. They drop them off at soccer practice. They drop them off at piano lessons. They collect forms of welfare checks and STILL send their kids to school for the bulk of the day, five days a week. They harass their husbands to “spend more time with the kids”, but spend all their time shoving them off on someone else. When they graduate compulsory school, they howl to write off the financial, emotional, and spiritual futures of the family and the child to send them off to college. They divorce their breadwinners and use the kids as pawns: Kept when they want to feel good; sacrificed when they want to play. This is a fairly safe bet because there is always some other man to come swooping in to take care of them–and there is always that other man. I’m looking at you, Mark Minter.
The very thing that children are supposed to do–get women to see their own impishly helpless and wretched situations–has been utterly removed from them. Marriage has not. And men are literally paying for it all…and men keep getting married. Meanwhile, all of Western society is one giant train of processes for keeping children out of women’s hands.
The call to fix marriage is, in the final analysis, a call for men to Man-Up and marry, and then another call to Man-Up and be better at marriage; which is what I’ve been saying for a little over a year now. I don’t disagree. What I disagree with–and had not yet figured out at the time–was that bad marriages, or lack of marriages is not the root problem. It’s the lack of real mothers. There are precious few women who have been ground down to repentance and meekness by their children because men keep bailing them out in one way or another. It is a very good thing that men want to help women. It is a very bad thing to step between the right discipline and correction of a Father towards His daughters. So, we can help them all we feel led, but removing the rod of correction that children are to mothers is a horrible idea.
Women, in this sense, are men’s children.
If I did not have daughters, I very strongly doubt I would have figured this out. When I did, many other things that perplexed me (What’s the real problem here? Where do we start to correct things?) made sense.
@Everyone
On the Subject of Women Shutting Up
It seems I have been grossly misunderstood. I did not mean that women should not feel free to post on Dalrock’s blog. After all: This is Dalrock’s blog, and I certainly don’t set the rules here. He does, and I am his servant here just like the rest of you. Nor is this a church where Paul’s clear admonition that women stay silent should be in force.
My intent was to let women know that they should shut up here, there, and nearly everywhere. As I recently told another: The hallmarks of women are grace and modesty. These things are best expressed negatively. They are the absence of things; like the hole between a woman’s legs that is so good when closed to all but her beloved, and so vile when open to the world.
It is true that there are times and places for women to speak up, and that there are a lot of these. Few women know which times are which, and half as many of those do so for the benefit of others.
@Cail,
It may do so, and that’s great. But she may refuse to end her rebellion, and leave instead. That’s the risk such a man takes, but the risk is alleviated by the fact that her rebellion, if left unchecked, will destroy the marriage anyway. At worst, he accelerates the timeline.
Absolutely. And while I quibble with the use of the term “divorce” the Bible is fairly clear that a believer shouldn’t fret too much when their wife bails for less than good reasons.
@Caine,
I am on record as being against trying to save Western Civilization because it doesn’t matter. There is only one kingdom worth building and that kingdom is not of this world.
While the second part of this “seek first…” is very true I’m totally good with WC. As “sub-creators”, as Tolkien used to say, we make things by Divine mandate. That’s just what we do. Ripping up something that came into existence effectively by mandate is not good. That doesn’t mean its (G)ood, because we’re fallen, but we should seek to heal instead of just let collapse (where the rot isn’t too deep) due to our stewardship obligation to God.
The rest I agree with.
Speaking of all hat no cattle…there’s Ton.
Muhahahahahaha. I shouldn’t laugh because he has been through a tough spot but the man seems to _like_ trouble.
@Cail,
Of course not. Heck, as a Catholic, I believe that my parish priest was appointed by a bishop who gets his authority in a direct line from the Apostles, and yet we don’t believe that he outranks a husband in making decisions for his family.
Subsidiarity not rank here. All decisions that should be made in the family should be made there. Outside authority should only be available where a clear case exists for it being there. Woman walks in with a black eye? The Church should get involved (even if it eventually decides _against_ her) as something is wrong.
@Elsbeth,
His reaction to his wife’s declaration of marital regret took a bit of heat
Wait what…I’ve been away.
Actually fragging is a good term.
Anonymous age 71 says: “Actually, Fragging was a Viet Nam war term, and it means to use some sort of death inducing device. Rifle; hand grenade; or whatever, to kill NCO’s and Officers who were abusing soldiers or placing them in excess risk with no real reason. (Fort Lewis 1964-66)”
The reality in Viet Nam was that it was Blacks and Stoners who were fragging their officers who insisted they perform their duties as soldiers, including missions into enemy territory.
Is this not what “wives” are doing to their husbands? They frag them at every chance to demoralize them, cut them down to size, refuse to be submissive or subordinate, or to follow his leadership. Without a military tribunal to try and punish them, there isn’t much that can be done. Men do not have the legal authority to punish, discipline, or correct their “wives”.
Therefore, the only option is the nuclear option that Deti spoke of – to wipe out the marriage (which in reality is only a sham marriage and not a real one) and leave.
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Artisanal Toad
While not wishing to interfere with you taking Earl to task, I will go off topic a bit suggest that SSRI’s are a really really bad way to deal with depression. Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors work to maximize the serotonin in the system but in doing so they induce a looping sequence that causes problems.
Agreed. I’m sure you are aware that some medical doctors even now regard Prozac as the go-to solution for anything resembling depression. It’s a quick fix (except for those people who find themselves on a toilet for far too long…) but longer term can lead to larger problems. Some MD’s will argue that it’s ok for lactating mothers because “not too much” of the SSRI finds its way into breast milk…Consider a rant about short vs. long term thinking inserted here.
Tryptophan probably would have helped in that case if nothing else by getting better sleep. IMO the chocolate desires were highly suggestive.
The larger point being, there’s more to female physiology and psychology than Earl was willing to discuss, and people change with time – women can change a lot during pregnancy and childbirth, a bath of estrogen has many effects from brain activity on outward. A man needs to be prepared to deal with that, and needs to be ready for doctors to try a quick-fix approach that can cause larger problems not too far down the line. Depression – the medical diagnosis, not the “I’m sad today” variety – is insidious and subtle, and people often don’t really notice it in themselves or others for a while. As with any emotional “way of being” it can become entrenched in the brain paths, to mix some metaphors, and then not easily done away with. People with real-deal depression don’t necessarily respond well to hearty, “Let’s all just cheer up! Right now!” pep talks, either. Sometimes quite the opposite.
Novaseeker
The idea behind these laws is to be “prophylactic” – that is, to err on the side of protecting women, even if it overdoes it by impacting situations where there was no physical violence. This is done by describing mundane spousal arguments as abuse – which essentially renders virtually every marriage as one which contains domestic violence. This can also be reported by people other than the wife – the law doesn’t require the wife to be the complainer, or the person who brings the “violence” to the attention of the cops. Anyone can, as with respect to any other crime. And the definition of “abuse” is wide enough in at least some states to cover most of the Duluth-type stuff that Scott is talking about.
As Novaseeker pointed out, the degree of “overdoing it” will vary by state, by jurisdiction, and so forth. So it’s entirely possible that spousal spat where a neighbor can hear might lead to a DV arrest in an urban hipster neighborhood while the same spat out in farming country would be dismissed as not a big issue. Know the territory that you are in.
When one listens to the people inside of this system – the advocates who run women’s shelters, the pro-bono legal workers, the counselors – many of them will earnestly assure that they only are interested in protecting women and children, and will produce case after case of genuine, physical harm in support of their position. They will tend to dismiss cases such as Scott refers to as unfortunate, but rare, errors. Pointing out how the system is deliberately misused by some people, almost always women, tends to result in either strong denial, or a repeat of the “unfortunate, but rare” response.
IMO there are two agendas at work, the overt and the covert. The overt, public agenda is the protection of women and children (and, grudgingly, in some places, men) from real, physical assault and arm. That’s what is brought out every time VAWA is up for re-authorization.
The covert, not so public agenda, is the feminist re-structuring of the family along fem-centric, matriarchal lines. This can be seen in the extremely broad definition of “abuse” that, as Novaseeker noted, essentially renders every marriage as “abusive”, and therefore deserving & warranting intervention by the state. It’s part of the cult of the expert, perhaps – no one is competent to be a husband or wife unless constantly corrected by An Expert (state-certified, of course).
Those who support the public agenda are often people who have seen some horrible crimes. They don’t get why anyone would oppose or even criticize them. Those who support the covert agenda are probably not in the day to day business, but rather in the academic / legislative side of things. They have a theory, and aren’t about to let reality damage it.
One more point: Scott, Nova and I have referred to the “Duluth protocols”. These derive from a study done in Duluth, Minnesota in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s. I have not read on it for a long time so I cannot offer excerpts. But many times, one finds that the “science” behind feminist policies is quite slender, or even does not exist – some study with a handful of individuals who are in no way representative of a larger population who respond to some sort of intervention is trotted out to justify major national policy changes. And since no one ever looks behind the curtain to see what sort of Great and Powerful Science is really there, once policy gains momentum and legal status, it’s very difficult to change in any substantial way.
When husbands refuse headship, they are the ones in rebellion.
@tz2026
“When husbands refuse headship, they are the ones in rebellion.”
What about men that refuse to get married? I agree when men just bow to women for the sake of peace and call that obedience to God, I want to gag.
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@Anonymous Reader
I was asking Scott to clarify his statements from the standpoint of a third party complaint that would result in a conviction against the will and over the objections of the wife. In thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that there’s an elegant solution that sidesteps all issues of abuse and causes the system to leave them alone. In visualizing how it would work, I decided to write a script for a short video demonstrating how it could be done. You might be amused.
With respect to the comments about Tryptophan and Theanine, I have a great deal of experience as the husband of a pregnant wife. It sounds crass, but a good diet works wonders. Problem is, I’ve observed that some people thrive on a vegetarian diet, others thrive on a paleo diet. This dichotomy was explained (for me, anyway) by “The Blood Type Diet” by Peter D’Adamo, a second generation naturopathic doctor. YMMV.
Artisanal Toad
With respect to the comments about Tryptophan and Theanine, I have a great deal of experience as the husband of a pregnant wife. It sounds crass, but a good diet works wonders.
It is not crass, it is taking care of one’s family. By the way, Keoni Galt has an interesting discourse with some links on the issue of Omega-6 vs. Omega-3 that reads fairly quickly.
http://hawaiianlibertarian.blogspot.com/2013/08/essential-food-for-thought.html
Problem is, I’ve observed that some people thrive on a vegetarian diet, others thrive on a paleo diet. This dichotomy was explained (for me, anyway) by “The Blood Type Diet” by Peter D’Adamo, a second generation naturopathic doctor. YMMV.
I have not yet read that book but it is on the list. Thanks for the pointer.
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AT-That script was really funny. I was laughing at my computer and my 4 year old daughter thought I was having some kind of episode. I hope no one here has to use it.
A few more points about DV that I don’t believe have been covered.
Where I’m from, once a call of domestic violence has been made, the police MUST arrest someone. The reason for this is that if they leave both people there, and one later kills the other, the police can and will be sued.
Once a charge of DV goes on a person’s record, it DOES NOT GO AWAY. The person can be acquitted, the “victim” may even admit to lying, but the DV charge is still on the record. It will show up on a police check (say for a job search), and even if it says Acquitted or Dismissed on it, people may read that to mean the person intimidated the victim into dropping the charge. It is possible to get it sealed or expunged, but this takes time and barring a case where the alleged victim can be proven to have lied,* can be difficult to do
I suspect not many people saw my comment about how a man can be trapped in a no-win situation – https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/fragging-christian-headship/#comment-90174
*Consider the Duke rape case. One of the defendants proved he was not at the party at the time the “crime” allegedly occurred. He even provided a time-stamped ATM receipt, cell phone records, and an affidavit from a taxi driver backed up his story. The case still dragged on and on because the prosecutor was using it to get re-elected.. Never underestimate the damage that can be done by a power or publicity seeking “public servant.” Not to mention the 88 feminist, politically correct, and white knight members of the Duke faculty members who piled on.
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There are two different voices being heard here. One is the “You can’t allow the ‘phantoms’ of what might happen to prevent you from doing your job and exercising headship.” The other is the response of “If she makes the call, it’s over, even if she realizes what a stupid mistake she made later and recants.” I believe there is wisdom in both, but it’s situational.
There is a difference between the cases in which the woman chooses to break the guy’s balls and uses the system to do it, the situation of the wife acting irrationally (making the call) and later repenting of what she did, and third party interference in which the wife isn’t the one who put the game in motion. In the latter two cases, a wife that’s willing to defend her husband can successfully do so by claiming the alleged violence was done for her sexual gratification as part of an ongoing lifestyle of kink. If she’s willing to do what it takes to make the claim convincing, it shuts the process down, hard. The script I wrote and linked to above is an example. A signed, notarized non-consensual consent from wife to husband authorizing him to spank her at any time at his discretion and for whatever he believes to be good reason is probably the best supporting evidence, even if he never actually spanks her.
You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, right. Good luck getting that from her.” Well, it’s no different from a prenup in terms of fitness testing and there is certainly convincing evidence that the need for that kind of forward-looking exculpatory evidence exists. Most women know they can make the call, but I’m not so sure they’re aware of just how serious it is and how it would totally change the course of the relationship forever and probably wind up destroying the marriage. The ball-breakers know all about it, but again, I’m not so sure the sincere ones are aware of how high the cost a simple 911 call in a moment of irrational idiocy could possibly be or that it’s an irrevocable act.
The BDSM community has already fought this battle and won, establishing the RIGHT of a woman to be controlled, disciplined and whatever else if that’s what gives her the tingles. It may make a Christian very uncomfortable, but if the example of Godly submission in a Christian marriage was disturbing to others to the point they’d accuse the husband of Duluth type abuse, it would behoove said couple to be prepared and know what it takes to make it go away. Besides, the blindfold, handcuffs and riding crop hanging on the wall can start the most fascinating conversations on those nights when it’s your turn to host the Bible study.
@NSR
I have found that in most jurisdictions, there is an attorney or a small number of attorneys who regularly get records of arrest expunged and cases sealed. They tend to play golf with the judges and make large contributions to campaign funds. I’m acquainted with an attorney like this and in DUI cases, after conviction, part of the “service” he provides is getting the record scrubbed such that there is no longer any evidence of the arrest or conviction. In other words, if his client got pulled over later the DUI won’t come up when the drivers license was checked. I am personally acquainted with several individuals he’s done this for. Yes, he’s rather expensive, but he delivers. I don’t see how DV would be any different in this respect from a DUI, especially if charges are dropped or there’s no conviction.
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@Cane Caldo and others here
Wow I haven’t read such powerful stuff in a while.
I would like to translate Cane_Caldo’s comment that SunshineMary has just copied on her blog. I haven’t found a way to contact him otherwise than here. Sorry for my lack of comprehension (and if you don’t mind helping me), what is the meaning of the phrase: “they howl to write off the financial, emotional, and spiritual futures of the family and the child to send them off to college” ?
Do you mean “Write off” as in “cancel”, “obliterate “?
They are “yelling to obliterate” the financial, emotional… futures of the family and the child to send them off to college.
What about the “to send them off”?. How does the action of “sending them off” relates to the write off of the futures?
In other words, do you mean “to send them” as in “in order to send them” or as in “by sending them”?
Another passage where I don’t understand well: “The very thing that children are supposed to do–get women to see their own impishly helpless and wretched situations–has been utterly removed from them. Marriage has not.”
Marriage has not what? Marriage as not been able to get women to see their own … situations?
Or
Marriage has not removed the thing children are supposed to do?
One final sentence: “There are precious few women who have been ground down to repentance and meekness by their children because men keep bailing them out in one way or another.
What do you mean by “ground down” ?
It’s the children that has ground down the mother to repentance and meekness ? The children has “forced” the mother to repentance because they see the father bailing the mother time and again?
Let me know if my interpretation is correct.
@Belantozorius
It was my pleasure.
Obliterate, yes. College in America is an extremely costly endeavor in both money and time, and it’s often simply not worth it. There is a tremendous amount of pressure for parents to do whatever they must to send their kids to college: They go into debt; they argue with each other; they absolve themselves of the responsibility of their children…the list goes on and on.
Both. The “real” college experience in America is to move away for college; to live in a dorm, etc. Most sons are pushed towards this as well, but their is a ferocity in the push to get women to college, and even more to get women into college away from their parents. We know this because anyone who is leery about sending a man to college because he lacks discipline is considered “prudent”, but if the same opinions are expressed about a daughter it’s considered “controlling”.
Few families can afford this experiment for even one child, and very few for more than one. It’s just too expensive. Plus, colleges are full of people NOT doing what parents are doing. What I mean is: Parents see college as “letting their children be their own person”. Their peers and their teachers see it as molding them into their own image.” That’s literally the parent’s job, so it’s essentially a giant system of re-education camps to turn young men and women into strangers within their own families.
Both. Again: People are still getting married, and have been throughout this whole societal downturn in Western Civilization. So, marriage alone must not be the medicine against our societal rot; else we would not see so much rot. There are many different processes in the rot, but the most common denominator is the rejection of motherhood. This makes perfect sense in the Judeo-Christian worldview because it is children who are given to women as correction for their sin. Husbands already existed.
Children are a huge responsibility, and a mix of blessings and curses. Most of the blessing is: They are yours. They belong to you entirely, and are literally made of the substance you are. Loving them is like loving yourself and AND loving another at the same time.
The curse is that they’re just like you: given to being despicable, mean-spirited, self-centered, uncouth, unskilled, incapable…just mewling bags of trouble, really. This condition continues largely unabated until they have children of their own. This is especially true of mothers: Children will just beat on a mother’s psyche; say the meanest things to them when angry; sometimes literally push and hit them (especially when the children are little). Dads generally don’t suffer nearly as much at the hands of their children.
This is good for women; especially in our society because children are the only ones who don’t know the law, and would not care if they did. Their children serve as a mirror of their own selfish behavior, and as a polishing agent on the rough edges of a woman’s soul–edges no one else will even tell them they have.
Of course, not all stony women are improved. Some just break. They were faulty rocks to start with.
@Cane Caldo
Great thanks! Guess I didn’t misinterpret that much! Your comment pretty much convinced me to follow your blog as of now.
Keep at it!
You can accomplish a college degree much more cheaply than through the modern system.
You need the ticket punched for many things, but you can get it punched at much less cost than traditional routes.
Anyone see this? Despicable…
@Belantozorius
My pleasure.
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I’m doubly sorry. Animal Mother. First, for at most that Scripture passages affirms Mary and Joseph had no sexual relations before Jesus was born and tells you nothing about what happened afterward. Second, when you read the rest of Scripture, you find that every time someone whom the careless reader might suppose is a blood brother of Jesus gets mentioned, in that passage or elsewhere in the Gospels that person’s mother is identified as someone other than Mary the mother of Jesus.
Make that triply sorry for elsewhere in Scripture we are told of Michal, wife of David, who had no children until the day she died (2 Samuel 6:23). Yet she was not fertile with children after her death.
Thus, the word “until” as used by the authors of Scripture doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. The passage you quoted does not disprove Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Sometimes the deniers of Mary’s perpetual virginity point to the word “firstborn” in the passage you quoted as support for their denial. However, among the ancient Hebrews “firstborn son” can and sometimes did refer to an only son.
That’s just a bit of the Bible evidence for Mary’s perpetual virginity. There’s also the teaching of it handed down over the centuries; the claim that Jesus had blood brothers is a 19th century innovation. Luther didn’t teach it, neither did Calvin. Believing nobody noticed for 1800 years Jesus had brothers is difficult; accepting that in an age closer to Dan Brown than to the Apostles, some Bible readers were careless is a more reasonable conclusion.
So Micha, what you are saying is that God’s plan for Joseph was be a husband to Mary and remain celibate? Where is that suggested? Show me somewhere where he was prohibited from treating his wife like she was his wife, that she had special “virgin” status that would prevent her from submitting to her earthly husband. That sounds like extra strength blue-pill deluxe right there.
Or maybe Joseph was a bigamist?
Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
(Mat 13:55-56)
Also, please note in Matthew 1 where the angel instructed Joseph NOT to have sex with his wife. You’d think if it were that important that God would have pointed it out at some point, wouldn’t you?
I think it’s pretty funny when a person uses a proof text based on a word usage when they are two different words in two different languages with two different contents. The Hebrew word “ad” was translated into “unto” as in “unto the day of her death” by the KJV translators and the Greek word “heōs” into “till” as in ” And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son”. Of course in the first case Michal was in fact dead (with the point being that the line of Saul was not continued through her) and in the second it was that Mary remained a virgin until after she gave birth to Jesus and afterwards was still very much alive and very much a married woman.
The Welfare State is the Anti-marriage, a substitute for marriage. The Welfare State is a system of polygynous concubinage of females to the State.
The State must decrease in order for true marriage to increase. Thus your call to eliminate daycare, school care, aborti-care, and sterili-care, if carried out, would be a good first step back toward the right path, Cane.
The cultural damage done by 50 years of so-called welfare rights advocacy must also be halted then repaired. This will require steps such as bringing back shaming for that female who found a way to get herself pregnant out of wedlock with double helpings of shame if she intentionally aborts her baby; bringing back shaming for that female who attempts to raise a child outside a stable home headed by a man and his wife; bringing back shaming for that female who divorced with double helpings if she broke up a marriage with children. The mid-19th century Tender Years Doctrine must be repudiated, the ancient wisdom of father-only custody of children after a divorce must be restored.
We must ask of females, do you repudiate Feminism and all her works? Otherwise, females will continue to report ever greater unhappiness generation after generation as they have been doing since the 1960s. And they’ll keep on damaging more and more children.
Unfortunately, the growing misery of men won’t make any impression on the parasites of the Western Civilization that men have built. They consider men to be disposable.
You have said it.
Joseph was visited by an angel who told him Mary had conceived a child from God. In the Hebrew law that which was of God’s use was set aside and forbidden for ordinary use by men. With knowledge of Scripture you can find the relevant chapters and verses that show this, Art. Being an honorable man faithful to the law, Joseph would know that and behave accordingly. And Mary was faithful to the will of God, she too followed the Hebrew law. God did not have to spell this out any more than the cop who busts you for speeding has to specially point out that the speed limit applies to the little patch of road you happen to be on just like it does everywhere else.
Thank you for your warning about prooftexting. However, I’m not doing that. Instead I’m showing how whole passages support each other to form a teaching that was clear throughout Christendom for 1800 years. Nothing original with me is being cobbled together from isolated, out of context bits taken from here and artificially stuck to a phrase taken from way over there – as prooftext abusers do.
Your “Where is that suggested?” challenge is an implicit appeal to the doctrine of sola scriptura, a doctrine found nowhere in Scripture. Your appeal to authority argument when you pointed to the KJV translators gave me a laugh, a sola scriptura guy like you appealing to works of men to bolster your innovative claim, a claim that comes to us neither from Scripture nor the Tradition that Paul the Apostle told us to hold fast to. Even more laughable was you, a sola scriptura guy, appealing to what’s not in Scripture.
To get back to the main topic which is attacks on Christian headship, the principle that any man can interpret Christian teaching for himself then pick and choose what he likes and discards what he doesn’t really has no defense when Mark Driscoll and wives claim the same privilege for themselves. Bye-bye Christian headship until the second coming (after which it won’t be needed for, if you believe Jesus, there is no marriage in heaven) or until an earthly head appointed by Jesus the Christ to lead His church with His authority until He comes again can be found.
“Micha Elyi”
It’s hard not to agree with your comments.
You are using inference. What about when the neighbors of Josephs family pointed out explicitly that they knew Jesus and his brother and sisters? Where they just blowing smoke? Why would they do this? Why wouldn’t they be corrected?
And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
(Mat 13:54-56)
If being “set apart” for God in the Jewish tradition meant celibacy you would think that it appear in the Nazirite vow wouldn’t you?
But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
(Jdg 13:7)
From that would you infer that Samson died a virgin? That he never “knew” his Philistine wife or Delilah? If that was an infraction that operated against his sanctity before God I suspect that they wouldn’t have needed to cut his hair.
Do we want to start talking about innovative claims or what Paul had to say?
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
(1Ti 2:5)
Not to beat a dead horse but if Mary was set apart for God to the point of Joseph remaining celibate why is she brought up in discussion as a model wife by the likes of Earl? Did someone not explain to him if he ever did find a Mary he’d be just as well of joining a monastic order?
I’d love to see you two do a Bloggingheads….
Complementarians see women and ‘gag’
…And that, ultimately, is also true of Thabiti Anyabwile’s contemptuous disgust for, and horrified fascination with, the mechanics of gay sex.
Look at it. Really look at it. It’s not about homosexuality. It’s about women.
Anyabwile is disgusted by women. He hates them….
@I Art Laughing is giving a free demo on the mechanics of the male “hamster”.
L.O.L.
@ Alan J. Perrick gives a free demo of blue-pill administration Catholic style. Wife’s that are “holy” for specifically not providing “due benevolence”. Where can we sign up? Besides that what did the peanut gallery have to provide besides silly one liners?
I don’t need to convert every Catholic here that isn’t my goal but reading Earl squeak on about how the perpetual virgin Mary would make an excellent wife is starting to get pretty silly. If he did find her, he would have to treat her like a nun and not a wife. That is some kind of red-pill solution to real world problems?
Also, the notion that I’m a “solas scriptura guy” is a poor assumption:
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
(Jer 31:34)
and
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
(1Jn 2:27)
Jesus made it abundantly clear that His sheep hear His voice. I don’t “hear” print very well.
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
(1Ki 19:11-12)
“every” should say “any”
Wow, I just noticed the amazing correlation between this title and Shirley Taylor’s “Dethroning Male Headship” I should have realized it last night and thrown a ping in.
http://bwebaptistwomenforequality.wordpress.com/tag/dethroning-male-headship/
I-A-L, she’s nuts. Baiscally her blog is “….I don’t like the Bible because in it I must submit to my husband. So, lets re-write the Bible.” I mean, honestly, she should have no trouble finding a “church” that submits to her thinking. So…..
Well, the Southern Baptist Convention…..
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“…when men begin acting like men, women will follow their command. It is our fault, it is our responsibility, that is the message they are trying to get across. But you would rather defend the prerogative of middle-aged adolescent parasites because, like, feminism and stuff.”
Hmmm. So as long as the leader is simply perfect enough, following won’t be an issue? Unconditional blame rests always with the leader?
Let’s test that against the undisputed greatest leader of all time, perfect in every way, without sin. Why do not all follow Christ’s lead? Is He not the perfect leader? Why do some rebel against His authority and refuse to submit?
Oh, right. I forgot. Its HIS fault.
I think the real question here is “Where has the balance gone?” It is of course necessary for men to unconditionally fulfill their responsibilities within their families. And it is of course necessary for husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Frankly, there is very little reason today to be concerned that that message is receiving inadequate dissemination. Men get it from all 360 degrees. But that has become the *only* message in our churches, culture, and many family ministries — to the exclusion of every other scriptural mandate regarding marriage roles and responsibilities — largely because those other mandates are so excruciatingly unpalatable in our “enlightened” culture, and because the very pastors telling men they are “cowards” are themselves too timid to confront the women in their congregations with equally uncompromising and inconvenient truth.
Just how many women do you honestly think will sit through “next Sunday’s sermon” if it delivers a no-holds-barred message on the unconditional responsibilities of the wife without six thousand caveats that effectively render submission to the “only when your leader is behaving as you think he should behave” category? Teaching like that will have many women leaving churches in droves, with their men dutifully in tow as they “mutually submit,” while the wife effectively grabs the spiritual steering wheel and pilots the car to her “I can do this better than him” destination. The husband may sit behind the wheel, but it is not his hands on the wheel. He is functionally the passenger, and merely ceremonially the driver. It has increasingly become not just “unfashionable” but downright heretical to suggest that women treat their responsibilities in the same unconditional manner as they expect of their husbands. Increasingly,”love your wife as Christ loves the church” has come to mean “wherever the wife has decided to set the highbar.”
There is plenty of spoken and unspoken reinforcement in today’s women-centric Christianity that if the husbands will merely man up in the way women think they should, everything else will magically fall into place and wives will automatically and respectfully follow that lead. It all sounds great on paper, but there is that pesky thing called reality that intrudes. Submission is *not* automatic. It is a choice, and it is no easier or instinctive for men than for women. I must choose daily to submit to things I disagree with from my employer. I must choose daily to submit to a leader in my nation that I believe is wrong and misguided – resisting the temptation to speak evil of him, while instead praying for him and being respectful of his office. I could go on and on, as there are very few governmental authorities in my particular locale that I think are leading in the manner in which Christ would. But in such situations, respect is still a command, not an option.
The whole ‘if men would be better leaders, women would follow them’ line basically it boils down to what Girl Writes What called the tyranny of female hypo-agency — the idea that women are not responsible for anything that they do, that all of women’s misbehavior, up to and including murder, is ultimately the fault of men.
Maybe they could apply the same reasoning to the relationship between Christ and the church — that if Christ were a better, more holy leader, then the church wouldn’t rebel against his authority.
Or maybe God should have just killed Ananias, and then apologized to Sapphira for giving her an ungodly husband who didn’t man up enough.
Or maybe God should have killed Lot when his wife looked back, instead of killing her. Because if Lot had only manned up, his wife would have never done what she did.
And we could go on like this for a long time…
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Ephesians 5:22-33 is not found in the creation narrative. Nowhere in Genesis 1 and 2 does God call the man the head of the wife, and for good reason too. The reason being that to be the kephale of another person is a Groc-Roman idiom, not a Hebraic one. 1 Cor 11:3 calls man the head of woman and 1 Cor 11:8-9 tells us why, because she was created through the instrumentality of the man and after him. This is about progeneration. In Greco-Roman society, parents were considered the head of their children on account of being their pro-generators and children bore their parents image in their kinship society. Honor-shame dynamics then come into play. Children were considered the image bears of their parents and reflected glory onto their parents. They owed their parents honor and everything they did either brought their parents honor or shame. If they did something shameful then they shamed their literal head and their metaphorical head. Paul used this idiomatic expression in regards to women and the men in their clan since the first man was the pro-generator of the first woman’s life. So women reflect honor or shame on men in a unique way in their honor-shame society where women did not have their own identity but took on the identity of the men of their clan. What she did with her literal head and hair reflected on her metaphorical head. This is what 1 Cor 11 is all about, not about authority and submission. It was about honor and shame in a kinship society.
Eph 5:22-33 formed it’s theology from 1 Cor 11:3,8-9 by merging it with Adam’s words in Gen 2:23 where he called the woman his flesh and bones. The thinking is that since the woman was created from the man’s body, the man must then be her head and she his body. Being the Kephale of a persons origin is a Roman ideology and expression, it is not a Hebrew one. It is not found in Gen.
Once the husband is the head and the wife the body, it then looks to Colossians 1:15-22 and applies the supremacy of Christ to the husband!
If Christ holds first place in everything due to being the head of the body i.e agency through which the body was formed, and the supplier of nourishment and growth for the body, then in the eyes of the author, this superiority must also be true of the husband. In Roman society, the head not only meant the origin from where the rest of the body formed out of, but it also had preeminent status in relation to the body. It was the most honored part of the body and the identity for the whole body in society.
Notice that Col 1:15 says Christ is the image of the invisible God, likewise 1 Cor 11:7 highlights that man is the image of Christ and omits the woman. Col 1:16 uses the word “dia” meaning through, on account of, because of when it refers to the creation of all things by Christ. This comes right before vs 17 and 18 that calls Him the head of the body, the body formed out of and on account of Christ the Head. 1 Cor 11:9 uses the same exact word “dia” when stressing that man was not created on account of the woman, but the woman on account of the man.
Eph 5:23 – The husband is head of the wife as also Christ is head of the Church, He savior of the body. How is Christ head of the Church? Well, we are told four other times exactly how earlier in Colossians and Ephesians. Yet, we are told directly how in Ephesians 5:23, as savior of the body! Four times Christ is called the head of the body and church, each time He is saving and preserving it in some way. Complementarians try to get away from this by saying that the adversative “alla” in vs 24 nullifies any notion of the husband being a type of savior for his wife, that this applies only to Christ towards His spiritual body and then they point to two passages they think imply authority only. However, the passages they then point to are all salvationary in description and function. One cannot get around this.
“He savior of the body” stand in emphatic apposition to “Christ head of the church.” (He) is a personal pronoun for Christ. (The Church) is always (The Body). (Head) is defined as (Savior). Comps point to Col 1:18 where it says and “He is head of the body, the church” because they think it implies authority. They don’t apply the same exegesis to the passage in Col 1:18 where the same word “He – autos” is used as in Eph 5:23 as it does not seem to bother them when they think it means authority. Further, head is defined in Col 1:18 as “the beginning.” He is the head, who is the beginning, of the body, the church, etc.
Head = beginning in Col 1;18. Head = savior in Eph 5:23. Head = Christ in Eph 4:15.
Ephesians 5:23 the husband is the head of the wife, and Eph 5:28-33 the wife is the body of the man. This is a head-body metaphor.
The first time Christ is called the head of the body and church is in Col 1:18. Look at what comes right before that statement and afterward as Col 1:15-22 is one long poem.
Col 1:17 And He is before all things, and all things hold together in Him.
Col 2:19, all the body is held together by joints and ligaments that protrude out from the head. From the interior of the head outwards.
Eph 4:15-17, again the same thing, the body is held together by joints and ligaments that protrude outwards from the interior of the head.
Col 1:17 And He is before all things, and all things hold together in Him.
Col 1:18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, firstborn out from the dead, so that might be in all things He holding the first place.
There are a few things going on here. First, there is this birth language there where Christ is the firstborn out from among the dead. We already know from other passages that we too will follow after Him in the resurrection. Already Col and Eph tell us that we have been resurrected with Him, only as a part of His body. Christ is the head and we are his body that followed after Him and formed out of Him.
First, the medical books in Ephesus taught that the head is the first part of the human body to breach the woman during birth into new life, the body follows afterward. Christ is the firstborn from the dead, we follow afterward as part of his body. This is birth language. Christ as Head breached from death into new life the same way an infant’s head breaches their mother’s womb into new life.
Secondly, the medical books around Ephesus taught that the head forms first in the womb and the body forms out of the head and is held together by joints and ligaments that protrude from inside the head outwards into the rest of the body. The head was believed to form first and be the origin of the rest of the body.
Thirdly, the head was believed to hold the rest of the body together. See Col 1:17, Col 2:19, and Eph 4:15-17. The medical books in Ephesus also taught that the head held the body together by joints and ligaments.
Fourth, the head was believed to supply the body with nourishment needed for its growth and increase. The is a lot of literature from there area where they believed the head nourished the rest of the body and empowered it for growth and substance. He, Christ, supplies the whole body the nourishment needed for growth and increase. Col 2:19, Eph 4:15-17.
The head was considered the most important part of the body and had the highest honor and status attributed to it in relation to the rest of the body when metaphorical or idiomatic expression was used. See the end of Col 1:18 where He holds first place in everything, this is about status, exhalation, and honor.
In their literature, the rest of the body was always dependent on the head for its survival and well being. This is why Eph 5:23 calls Christ the savior of the body. Savior is a deliverer, preserver, provider, and defender.
The head came to be recognized as the symbol of identity for the whole the body in Roman literature. This is why Eph 2:19-23 can say that the two people groups, the Jews and Gentiles, were made at peace into one body, because they both bear the same name and identity of the same Head, Christ. He is the identity of the body and all other groups are united and made at peace in His body. This is the standard language for cultural kinship that under gritted their whole society.
So when Col 1:17 says that He is before all things and all things hold together in Him, it is the opening for the formation of the body of Christ. The Head- Christ is before the body, the body formed out of Him and on account of Him due to His death and resurrection, see Col 1:22.
He, Christ, as the head, defends the body in the heavenly realm. Eph 1:19-23. He is the head and all things are under His feet, except for His body which is ruling and reigning with Him. The body of Christ is not under His feet, it is joined to Him underneath Him as its head. He sits at the highest level of exhalation with the body just underneath and every other power under His feet and under our feet.
Here is how this plays into marriage, the whole Roman Empire ran off a system called patronage. A Patron was considered a benefactor and “savior” for those under their legal and social protection and provision. The word “savior” is in their registry for patrons.
Husbands were the identity of the wife to the outside world. A married woman did not have her own identity, her husband represented her legally and socially. Depending on what social class she married into, she took on the social and legal status of her husband. He was in a sense her “head.” When Christ became the head and all things were put under His feet for the sake of the Church, it says we were also exalted with him and became overcomers. Our status lifted together with Him. He is also the identity of the whole body.
Husbands defended wives in war and from other men who would attempt to harm or assault them. They were the wife’s only protector. We see this example of the exalted Christ who was made the head for the sake of His Church so that He may defend it. This is what Eph 1:19-23 is about.
Husbands provided wives with shelter, food, and clothing. This was in their marriage contracts. All pagan men did this. They provided for the wife’s material needs. Pay close attention to what Ephesians 28-33 says. It speaks of a man loving his wife like his own body and it used the language of nourishing and cherishing at the same standard that they would give to their own bodies using Christ as the model for who does the same for His spiritual body. It also appeals to Adam’s words where he called the woman a part of his flesh and bones. To nourish is to feed and raise to maturity. It is the same words used for fathers towards children later in the household codes. The same concept is found in Eph 4-15-17 and Col 2:19 when speaking of Christ the head supplying the body all its needed nourishment in love for its growth into maturity. This is why the author repeatedly says “as Christ also does the church.” He can point to Christ as the example because the earlier passages give husbands cues to follow. To cherish means to warm and comfort. A man is to warm and comfort his wife just like he does his own body. Again, the focus is on maternal care.
So the author of Eph compared the husband to Christ because there are so many similarities between the two. The man was before the woman in the order of creation, she was created on account of him and he was the instrumentality used. This is already laid forth in 1 Cor 11:3,8-9. Adam called the woman his flesh and bones in Gen 2:23-24. The author of Eph 5 combined these two and formed a head-body theology. From there, he applied Christ and His church as the model for both husband and wife to follow. Col 1:16 also says that Christ was the instrumentality by which all things were created, the same word used in 1 Cor 11:8-9 when saying the woman was formed “dia” the man. The man was formed before the woman. The man is the head and identity of the woman in their society, literally through idiom. The woman is the dependent body of the man and he provides for her via nourishing and cherishing her with daily material needs. The man is of higher status in society and he defended and represented his wife. The wife received her status socially from the man. Using a head-body metaphor was the perfect thing for the author to do because legally and socially women were not considered an independent person in that society. The man was preeminent in comparison to the wife, just as the head was considered superior and preeminent in comparison to the body in their literature.
The wife was to respond to the husband just the way any client would respond to a patron, by offering respect and submission. This is what the church gives Christ out of love and gratitude for the salvation and benefits He has given us. This is why Eph 5:22 says “wives to their own husbands as to the Lord. Eph 5:24 points to Col 2:19. A body that does not hold fast to its head is a dead body! The body holds fast to its head, Christ, by coming under Him and identifying with Him, by clinging and yielding to Him.
Head does not mean authority, it does not have to. Instead, it shows the merit of what makes Christ the head of the Church and body. It means preeminent status, and with preeminent status, jurisdiction and authority are by-products. Christ is superior by ground of being and the body dependent on Him. Just like the natural head was seen as superior in ability and function in their medical books and the body dependent on the head for survival.
However, there is a fundamental difference between what Christ did to become head of the body and what the husband did. The difference being that the husband did nothing, he was only the material the woman was taken from but Christ gave His life to bring His spiritual body into existence and give it life. This is what Colossians 1:20-22 is about. See below:
Col 1:22 “In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblemished and blameless in his sight”
Why did Christ give Himself up and die? To present the church holy, unblemished, and blameless.
Low and behold, Eph 5:25 also tells husbands to give themselves up for their wives as Christ did for the church. What does Eph 5:27 say right after it tells husbands to give themselves up?
Eph 5:27 “So that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and blameless.”
Not having spot nor wrinkle means to be unblemished. Eph 5:27 says exactly the same four words Col 1:22 says! To *present *holy *unblemished *blameless.
The author attempted to extend the qualification of sacrifice that put Christ in the position of being the head of His body onto the husband since it was the thing that was lacking in the creation of women from the man.
It then extorts husbands to give bodily care to wives and considers it equality and love. It seems to think that Adam’s words only meant material flesh and bones and the equality of status and honor present in the Hebraic Gen narrative is not present in Eph 5. In Gen the woman was a power face-able to the man, they meet face to face, she was his equal in status and taken from his side. She was not merely his body to be cared for like property in return for submission. It’s all quite brilliant because it tells men nothing other than what they were already doing.
I doubt pagan Roman wives were starving or walking around without clothing. Wives also made all clothing for husbands and food, they worked in the family trade and produced the husband income. It was a typical thing for the men of that era to only see what they contributed to the wife for her livelihood and indebt her with servitude to him on account of it but to ignore everything they received from the wife in terms of provision and material care.
Proverbs 31 does not have such blinders, it praises the woman for her personal contributions to the marriage and she has freedom and liberty on account of them. It uses military language to describe her. It says she is worthy of the fruit and monetary reward her labor brings her. Her persona is one of a free woman who exercises her own judgment, owns her own money, and distributes it as she wants. Instead of subordination, she is at liberty to use her gifts and talents and she has dominion and government over the welfare of the family.
It seems that the authors of Ephesians 5:22-33 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15 have forgotten Paul’s words when they created this theology. “Nevertheless… for just as the woman is of the man, so also the man (dia) comes through, on account of, and because of the woman and all things are of God.
The gender subordination material found in Eph 5:22-33 and 1 Tim 2:11-15 all trace their roots to exploitation of Paul’s rhetorical statements in 1 Cor 11:3-9.