I’ve referenced Pastor Driscoll’s sermon Men and Marriage in several recent posts. This is the sermon to watch, or better yet, read, if you wan’t to understand what I was describing in The only real man in the room. In this sermon Driscoll opens with the prayer I quoted from in Fragging Christian Headship:
Father God, I pray that our time would be pleasing to you, that it would be profitable to us, Lord God, as well. I pray for those men who are here that are cowards, they’re silent, passive, impish, worthless men, they’re making a mess of everything in their life and they’re 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 falling, those who are mothers and sisters and girlfriends and wives. I pray, Lord God, for those 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. God, I pray for those men that they would have the courage today to not fight with a woman, but to fight with you, to actually find their rightful place in creation, that they might receive a good rebuke so that they can become honorable rather than dishonorable sons. God, I pray for my tone, I pray for our men, and I pray for the women who are listening in. I pray, Lord God, that they would know this comes from a heart of passion, deep concern, and love. I pray, Lord God, that we would think biblically, critically, humbly, and repentantly, and that, Lord God, there would be dramatic life change by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, Amen.
If you read the sermon, you will see that Driscoll repeatedly makes it clear that when he uses terms like dishonorable, Satanic, cowards, passive, impish, worthless, jokes, losers, imbeciles, fools, etc. he isn’t just referring to a few “peter pan” men who don’t have jobs and/or aren’t married. He is talking about the husbands and fathers who sought out the church lead by Driscoll, the men who brought their wives and children to the sermon.
…most of you men don’t know what masculinity truly is
Driscoll defines the eight types of worthless men he regularly comes across. They are all either cowards or chauvinists and bullies. And again, Driscoll is addressing this not to men outside the congregation, or even a smallish subset of the men in the congregation. He means nearly all of the men in the congregation:
Were this a women’s conference, I would not call you all idiots and imbeciles and fools, that you’re a joke, okay? But you men, this is where it needs to go. You’ve been glad-handed and buddied up and positive thinking and you’re a winner and Jesus loves you and you can do better. And I’m telling you, you’re a joke. And the real men in the room know it and they see it. And maybe there’s one woman that you fooled and she doesn’t see it because like Eve, she’s deceived.
The hallmark of a real man, a real Christian man, according to Driscoll, is looking around at the other men in the room and knowing that they are pathetic compared to you. This is of course exactly what Driscoll is doing throughout the sermon.
Again, this is a sermon about men and marriage, and married men are Driscoll’s primary target. While he makes a short stop in Genesis for background, the inspiration for the sermon is one single verse, 1 Pet. 3:7
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
The disparaging of the men in the room goes on to the very end of the hour and seven minute sermon. I’ll repeat that I highly encourage you to read the transcript (archive). There is simply too much to quote, as the stream of invective against the men in the room is non stop.
Most in the manosphere are familiar with Driscoll’s famous How dare you! tirade. What you may not know is that the famous tirade is from this very sermon. It is the sermon’s grand finale, closing out over an hour of constant belittlement and abuse of the men in the congregation. Driscoll has so much disparagement to share that he packs both the opening and closing prayers with abuse and insults of the men. Driscoll ends the closing prayer with:
And God, I pray for those women and children who suffer under men who are cowards and chauvinists. May they speak up. May they have the courage to articulate their frustration and, Lord God, may it wreck our men. In Jesus’ name.
Many of Driscoll’s sermons are disappearing from youtube in what appears to be an effort by Mars Hill to quietly distance itself from him. The video I found of this sermon wasn’t the original one uploaded by Mars Hill, but a copy uploaded by a woman with the youtube handle Miss Flowahs. She published the video with praise for Driscoll, the only real man in the room:
He gives me hope that there are still men out there like him, and I pray that God prepares me to be worthy of a man like him.
Miss Flowahs got Driscoll’s message, and no doubt so did the women in attendance.
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As I read this, I was deeply moved. There was a time in my young life when I accepted messages like this as the norm. Now, I am disturbed because of how personal and abusive it is.
Also, Driscoll prays, I pray, Lord God, that … there would be dramatic life change by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, Amen. So, what kind of “dramatic life change” is he praying for?
The message has been received loud and clear by men like me too. Marriage is a joke, a pox upon it. Women have made it abundantly clear they don’t need or want men, let them have at it alone. A stress free life is a blessing, thank you God for granting such a life to me!
I’m quite sure she’s busy ‘preparing’ herself right now. She’ll be ready when she’s over 30 and has a couple children to add to her worthiness.
I guess I am ‘blaming the victim’ here but so be it…..can someone tell me what kind of man would sit there and listen to such shrill nonsense for more than 10 min? What kind of man would subject his wife and children to this manipulative, diabolical crap? (And I mean diabolic in the classical sense of attacking through slander: https://ewonago.wordpress.com/tag/origin-of-diabolic/).
What a miserable, phony little puke this Driscoll is.
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‘So, what kind of “dramatic life change” is he praying for?’
Perhaps it is his own personal cry for help to God. Yet he shows his pride when he shifts the blame onto other men.
This is a simple case of AMOG – Driscoll wants the pussy for himself.
Plus Driscoll is selling a product – The men attending to Driscoll do so because they WANT to be put down. Some BDSM right there.
Dude, you Christian men… This man is literally the mouth of your devil. He just told you to not fight with women, but rather to fight with God himself. I can find no better evidence that this man should receive the worst punishment your faith offers. He elevated women above God by directly telling you that the word of a woman should not be fought with, but God, yes…
I really want to swear now, really badly, but you’re all men of faith, it wouldn’t be appropriate… but _____ _____, why the _____ aren’t you guys rebelling against this ____ by now?
Alyosha
I guess I am ‘blaming the victim’ here but so be it…..can someone tell me what kind of man would sit there and listen to such shrill nonsense for more than 10 min? What kind of man would subject his wife and children to this manipulative, diabolical crap?
Good question. Off hand I can think of several.
* Average men who have been taught that women are more spiritual than they are, who are stuffed full of the neo-Victorian nonsense about women as “civilizers”. Such men may refer to their wife as “my better half” not as a joke but in all seriousness. Average Frustrated Chumps, in other words, many of whom grew up in modern American churches being told something like this all through their teen years. Men who simply do not know any better, and who have never been taught by anyone how to stand up in a Bible-based argument to a loudmouthed, yelling, bully.
* Introverts who married a carousel rider and who started attending a church in their 30’s for the first time, who have serious oneitis and who do not actually read the Bible in a systematic way, so they don’t know any better.
* Average men who have been taught from infancy that men and women are the same except women can bear children, who are fully on board with “happy wife, happy life” and who therefore are willing to do just about anything to make Mrs. Special Snowflake calm down and be happy, if even only for a moment. Since Mrs. Special Snowflake surely liked Driscoll’s church, that’s where the family goes, and no way he’s going to get up and walk out on any sermon. They may even play act at something they call “complimentarity”, but in reality
In other words, men who sat through that stuff at Mars Hill were a lot like the men in just about any other church in the U.S. This matters because Driscoll is merely an extreme example of a kind of preacher who can be found in many churches. There are some common elements in all of them; both the preachers who berate men, and the men who sit in a pew and take it without complaint.
And yes, it is interesting that this particular sermon is a bit more difficult to find than it used to be.
A little downloading to a secured disk is in order.
Use too many words Driscoll does.
Make points clear and concise one should.
I don’t think I knew anything about this Driscoll guy or Mars Hill Church until I discovered this blog and others like it this past summer. I’m curious as to what my reaction to Driscoll would have been had I heard any of his messages before discovering the manosphere. I just watched a Nightline clip about Driscoll, which was uploaded six years ago, and he actually didn’t seem that bad on the surface. However, obviously, when you start hearing some of his sermons, some of his stuff starts to sound pretty bad.
Yohami
Plus Driscoll is selling a product – The men attending to Driscoll do so because they WANT to be put down.
Possibly so, but also possible for some of them Mars Hill was the only church they had ever been to (Seattle, remember?). For others, such berating has been the norm for them in other churches as well. For AFC’s, who live under the cloud of “happy wife, happy life” they will go to whatever church their Better Half chooses to lead them to.
And there may well have been a smattering of men who did know better, but who put up with that stuff because of other aspects of Mars Hill (“yeah, gets off the rails but it’s still the best church in Seattle”) and because of the idea of unity. “Christian Unity” is a concept that can be used to keep people in line, when it’s deployed in the “don’t rock the boat, no matter what” manner.
Don’t discount ignorance as a factor. If we’ve learned anything in the androsphere over the last 5 years, it’s that a lot of men were raised in ignorance of the facts about women, and men, and what the real differences imply.
Driscoll wants the pussy for himself.
How much need he does?
It can’t be overstated that Driscoll was selling a product. Products are sold to a target market. If you are not in that target market, you may well look at the product and say, “Huh? Who would ever want to buy that? It’s junk!”. But so what? If you’re not the target market, you don’t “get it” in terms of the product. No worries for the seller, you’re not the target market.
This applies to the prosperity peddlers as well.
So one question for the confused: what was Driscoll’s target market, in this sermon? It had to be large enough to be worth his time, it had to be a target market already in the church building, and it had to be a target market financially worth selling to. The answer shouldn’t be difficult to figure out.
Not necessarily. Good men welcome criticism, because criticism helps you do better. A Christian man knows he’s a sinner, knows he fails every day, knows he could do better, and he wants to know how. We can’t always (usually?) see our own faults objectively, so the man who truly wants to become a better man will seek out those who will challenge and guide him.
The problem we have today, thanks to fathers being removed and demoted and men in general being encouraged to keep their opinions to themselves, is that a man doesn’t get that criticism from a healthy source like his father while he’s growing up, or from male friends as an adult. He gets a generalized sense of disdain from society, but nothing specific to him and his faults, no, “Hey, you’re screwing up on such-and-such; get it together, man.” So he goes looking for it, and he finds himself in a sorta church-shaped building where a man, for the first time in his life, looks him in the eye and says, “You suck.”
That’s exciting to him — not because he’s a masochist, but because he thinks that’s going to be followed up by, “and here’s what you need to do to get better.” Maybe that never happens, or maybe it ends up being advice like “listen better to your wife,” but at that point he’s already emotionally committed because this is what he was looking for and he didn’t find it anywhere else. It takes him a while to realize the guy never really gets past “You suck,” and that his advice isn’t making him a better man.
‘So one question for the confused: what was Driscoll’s target market, in this sermon?’
Most likely women who want their ears pleased and men who’ve heard that shaming sermon all before.
He certainly wasn’t selling loving God and neighbor, repentance of sin, or salvation. The things Christ promoted during His life on earth.
“what was Driscoll’s target market” Self Castrated Men and Strong Independent Women, aka the mainstream.
Cail Corishev makes a very good point, and it’s notable that in the modern world the line between “constructive criticism” and “verbal abuse” is very blurry and fuzzy when it comes to men.
This is why scripture warns about wolves in sheep’s clothing. It’s hard to imagine the damage this preaching does among the marriages of congregation members. Husbands come away ashamed to be men, and even less likely to ever assume their proper role as heads of the home. Wives come away puffed up with false pride, and believing that any time their husbands disagree with them, they are in sin. They are even more likely to feel that they are entitled to have anything they think will make them happy, and if they are not happy, it is their husband’s fault! This is the enemy sowing seeds of dissention.
Cail’s answer above is very good, and I think especially explains why Christian men are so eager to play the role Empath describes. But Driscoll takes this to a whole new level, and with this in mind I would also add Cane Caldo’s comment from yesterday:
The irony is that when Driscoll says the men in the room don’t know what masculinity is, he is right on target. At one level this is projection. If Driscoll understood masculinity he wouldn’t be aping this cartoonish drill sergeant character when explaining a verse that says to love your wives and live with them in understanding. But Driscoll is still right, in that if the men in the room understood masculinity even a little, they never would have sought out Driscoll’s church. This is harsh, and I wish it weren’t so. But this is a critical truth. We are collectively lost on this topic, and the men who flocked to Driscoll did so precisely because they had no idea what real masculinity looks like. We need to learn from this lesson.
Well I can give you a great example of what real masculinity looks like.
Jesus Christ and how He lived his life…other examples are men who studied His life, learned from it, and then went and did likewise.
And you want more…those men before Christ who followed the Laws of Moses. There’s a reason the Bible is the first and last book on the list of GBFM.
In the previous thread, Ballista74 posted a link to a video of a different preacher. The preacher has a sign behind him, “Boot Camp”. I’ve never been in the military so I have never been to a real boot camp, but I know men who have. The basic message of boot camp to new recruits is simple:
You stink. You are not one of us, so you stink. You probably aren’t good enough to be one of us, but if you want to, then do exactly what we tell you to do and maybe you’ll stop stinking so much.
This is followed by a lot of very clear instruction, from “you will shower when and how we tell you” to “you will clean your gear our way and no other” to “you will run until we tell you to stop” and so forth. Goals that can be defined and achieved. Milestones that are visible. Many, even most, maybe all, of the recruits can eventually meet the requirements, and they become one of the group.
If boot camp consisted of “You aren’t one of us, and no matter what you do you never can be but do what we say anyway”, everyone would fail sooner or later.
When a preacher berates men with “You are no good, you are not as good as me, you never can be as good as me but I order you to try anyway” it is a message that will feed despair, but also as Cail Corishev points out it will drag in men who are interested in being better men, because of the illusion of possible improvement.
It’s like teasing a dog with a piece of meat, “Jump! Jump Fido!” but no matter how high the dog jumps, he never gets the food.
“The timing and manner of his downfall–and at whose hands–are further evidence.”
—Ok, I’ve looked and haven’t found it yet, what are the details about this “downfall”? What happened with Mark?
‘When a preacher berates men with “You are no good, you are not as good as me, you never can be as good as me but I order you to try anyway”
Especially since the preacher is a fallen man just like everyone else. If a preacher goes on about self-righteous he is, that’s Pharisee talk.
I don’t know the entire demographic of Mars Hill’s men, but its reputation was as a place that made a lot of new Christians. The average Seattle guy coming to church after spending his 20s partying, doing drugs, slacking off, sleeping with every woman they could is of course going to be receptive to being called out. He’s been under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and knows he’s been living in sin. Why wouldn’t he assume the church has the right answer for him? (I think later on the church probably grew by sucking out people from existing churches in places like Portland – there’s a ton of recycling of people through different churches in the evangelical world).
Not all of Driscoll’s put downs are inaccurate either. In some respects he’s not that different the manosphere: cut out the porn (nearly universal among even Christian men, and they do need to be called out for it), stop playing video games, get off the couch and get to work. The problem is that it’s mixed in with a lot of outright foolish stuff and is incredibly unbalanced because women’s equally severe sins are ignored and excused.
@Anon Reader
We (collectively) are enthralled with the sports training montage*, and want to turn church into a bootcamp or the sports team training camp. There the pastor-as-drill-sergeant will tear us down to nothing and build us back into the real man we need to be in no time. We want a quick fix, resulting in our ascension into an elite force, emerging triumphant to reclaim our wife in a scene reminiscent of Officer and a Gentleman. It doesn’t work like that, not for creating a husband and father at least. You can’t scream love, patience, understanding, and wisdom into a man. You can’t beat it into him. You can’t belittle it into him.
*Thank you South Park creators for the term.
I feel like in the Driscoll saga, I am seeing a repeat of the story of Hugo Schwyzer, but with Evangelical Christianity as the setting.
There appears to be a pathology in some men that goes above and beyond the call of typical white knighting, and turns into something far worse.
I suspect it is what happens when the white knight paradigm is taken up by a sociopath. He is not out to save any damsels in distress, but to use the role as a means of negating and liquidating any perceived opposition.
This was the first sermon I heard when I visited their church back in 2009. Ironically, at the time I was not bothered by it at all, because none of his descriptions of the men bore any resemblance to me. I then looked back at the “women become single mothers because you don’t live up to their expectations” comment. I never attended regularly and am thankful for that. Had I taken the red bill prior to this sermon, I would have stormed out in anger.
The lesson learned here is critical: No man should ever step inside a church that openly ridicules or criticizes men in front of the entire congregation for their perceived failures. The church might as well place an Asherah pole and Baal altar next to the communion table as far as I’m concerned, because what they’re doing is submitting to the feminism religion.
Nate winchester:
—Ok, I’ve looked and haven’t found it yet, what are the details about this “downfall”? What happened with Mark?
Sorry that your Google is broken. Here is one source, biased I’m sure but the outline is there.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/category/mars-hill-church/
Another two, courtesy of the search term “mark driscoll timeline”
http://seattletimes.com/html/specialreportspages/2024534250_mars-hill-timeline.html
http://www.solasisters.com/2014/12/mark-driscoll-timeline-of-his-downfall.html
Note that the lack of accountability dates back to 2007.
natewinchester:
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/decline.and.fall.the.slow.erosion.of.mars.hill/42568.htm
It’s pretty bare bones. But TL:DR, the fracas consists of the usual things that bring down megapastors. Too much power, not enough accountability, running the place like a business with nondisclosure agreements, noncompete agreements, and allegedly harsh church discipline. Allegations of arrogant/abusive/controlling/generally not nice conduct on Driscoll’s part. (Or, if you prefer, a pastor not acting like other people think a pastor should act.) Other men (read: assistant pastors) got tired of Driscoll’s AMOG a**hole shtick, he saw the writing on the wall and quit. No one else is charismatic enough to keep Mars Hill together as a multi site entity, so it’s broken up.
It’s one of the fundamental failings of female perspective that they believe that it’s activities like a drill sergeant yelling at men somehow magically turns them from boys into men. In their simplistic perception of male culture, they believe such nonsense. They can’t conceive of what is actually happening at boot camp, they can’t imagine the bonding nature of a shared trial because so few women (in the west) have actually experienced hardship of any kind, much less shared among peers.
“I guess I am ‘blaming the victim’ here but so be it…..can someone tell me what kind of man would sit there and listen to such shrill nonsense for more than 10 min?”
I’d never have been in his church at the first place but had I found myself there I would have walked out. Life is far too important to listen to a fool such as he who thinks he knows better than I.
“Plus Driscoll is selling a product – The men attending to Driscoll do so because they WANT to be put down. Some BDSM right there.”
Yohami speaks the truth.
“Men who simply do not know any better, and who have never been taught by anyone how to stand up in a Bible-based argument to a loudmouthed, yelling, bully.”
Much of what I’ve learned about the faith I’ve learned in formal settings or what have you. Concepts that interest me, such as relations between the sexes, I’ve learned myself through the Internet. Most people don’t realize just how beaten down men have been since the 1980’s.
I agree; much of what he said applied to non-Christian men at church very well, but the trouble is he either fails to differentiate or he deliberately throws all men under the bus. He also ignores the fact that these beta men are the way they are because that’s how their mother’s raised them- which brings me to the next point. Notice he rarely if at all called out women who put off marriage and sleep around until their 30s and then try to get married with a kid in tow from one of their “it just happened” moments. He never calls them selfish for bringing a child into this life without a stable family structure. He placed none of the blame for single motherhood on the women themselves.
In short, the men were blamed for everyone’s sins, while the women were regarded as though they were well-intention but misguided and simply needed to be put on the right track. There were exceptions to this, as he did give sermons on bad behavior in women, but it was one out of hundreds.
@Anon Reader
The thing is, I don’t think Driscoll was holding out on them. He knew the first part of the bootcamp script– tear them down to nothing. He had no idea what to build them into though, so he stopped there. If he had known what he needed to build them into, he never would have torn them down like that in the first place. Notice how much Driscoll’s description of worthless men fits him, especially the first four. From the study notes:
See the sermon for Driscoll’s detail on all four, but I’m the Boss Bob is especially striking. How he couldn’t see this while screaming at a group of men in a church where he refused to submit to any authority but himself is bizarre:
Whom is Driscoll really yelling at there?
@AR
Perhaps not overstated, but it can be misunderstood. I’m writing off the top of my head, but two things (at least) should be recognized when we say he was “selling a product”.
1) The product is the Mark Driscoll lifestyle and perspective; featuring the new and improved Angry Christianity engine.
2) He was not trading for money. Driscoll was not an Olsteen. Driscoll’s gold was love and respect. He was greedy for it, and a miser of it. He saw respect from those beneath him as 14k gold; the cheap stuff. But because he rejected those above him–their stations, their churches, their hobbies, their clothes–he was unable to attain the pure 24k stuff fast enough from those above him. He rejected the established denominations; declared himself a pastor and prophet; started his own church; and waited for people like himself–people who were unsatisfied by “cool”, but who couldn’t get past it—to show up. Seattle is one of the places to do this and to find . It is full of the young, disaffected, and cynical but who cannot escape the trap of “cool”; male whose bubbles went bust in the modern economy of respect. Then he strip-mined those who came to sit at his feet; ripping and grinding it out as fast and cheaply as he could.
Eventually, he acquired enough respect that others above and outside him (foolishly) started to give him the 24k respect he had always wanted. When that happened he traded his Affliction shirts for Men’s Wearhouse vests. The Driscoll lifestyle now featured the smooth shifting Papa Christian engine. He was one of them. But it was too late because too many of those he had crushed for respect were, like he had modeled, hell-bent to take it back. Driscoll could have done so, but only if he could give up his greed and miserliness; which is what he could not do. So they took it.
Why was Mars Hill successful, especially with men? If you are one of his parishioners and the man next to you is chewed up for Driscoll’s gain, then you benefit because now your leader is even richer than before. Driscoll respect becomes yours vicariously because you were Driscoll’s. This can continue for a very long time if there are always new men showing up to be mined of respect and a certain number of them didn’t take too much offense; which there were…right up until the end when the dogs devour your carcass.
emerging triumphant to reclaim our wife in a scene reminiscent of Officer and a Gentleman
One of our wedding pictures is a direct recreation of this scene. I, in my dress blue uniform carrying her. She is wearing my officer cap. It is on my desk right in front of me.
His message is simple: “Man up!” by which he means “Be little bitches and do what your women want.” Typical white-knightery.
Did anyone here listen to Ed Cole when he was alive? I found a lot of his material useful way back when, but I wonder how it would hold up to a more red pill view of things.
I would agree that men can respond very well to strongly holding them to standards, but I am not sure I can think of a good modern example of any preacher who does that well without straying into female worship of some sort.
This is part of my current struggle to find a church to really hook into. It is a tough challenge.
I would probably be kicked out of their church very quickly if I hadn’t already left. I would not idly stand by to such untruths. His prayer is more like witchcraft than true prayer. Just saying you are praying doesn’t make it so.
Thanks guys for the links. Just “Driscoll” and “Mars Hill” were only coming up with vague talk about “quitting the church” and phrasings that told me there was more to the story being left out.
Often it’s not that it’s broken, it’s that it works too well, giving you millions and millions of answers… and almost none of them applicable to your question. It’s not too much to at least point people to the right haystack to go look for their needle in.
Do other Christian churches around the West more or less preach this kind of garbage?
I would agree that men can respond very well to strongly holding them to standards, but I am not sure I can think of a good modern example of any preacher who does that well without straying into female worship of some sort.
The entire culture is now cramming down the throats of men the list of things they need to be accountable for.
The young men I know do not go to church anymore and this is #1 reason. They want to hear an uplifting, pro-family Christian message, and instead they get more of the same message. Why go to church for that kind of bombardment?
And basic training/boot camp model? Please. Nobody “learns” anything in basic. You survive it (or other similar front loaded training like SFAS, etc). You survive it by coming together around your team mates. It’s you against the drill sergeants. You cannot succeed by yourself. At the end, you see a long line of soldiers going back to the revolutionary war (if the drill sergeants do it right) that you are a small part of.
Using this model in church to get men to step up is stupid. It is like apples and oranges. The analogy falls apart too quickly.
It’s real easy to tear men down, it’s nigh impossible to build them back up again. Not without some real training, guidance and hard work. The thing is, if Driscoll wants to tear men down, he had better be willing to spend every waking moment, for the rest of his life, building them back up again. Of course, he didn’t do that, he did this specifically to garner favour with women and the Church; certainly not to create better men.
The blame for a cultural lack of morality and decency has to be laid at somebody’s feet. Society cannot lay it at the feet of feminism, nor female debauchery and wickedness, and therefore the natural target becomes the target for all of the ills facing society…. men.
I just do hope that society realises what it does when he keeps men down and that creating men who cared for families and gave themselves and their hard work over to keeping families and society safe was a boon for society and WOMEN, not men.
“Do other Christian churches around the West more or less preach this kind of garbage?”
In the midwestern United States, they do, but it’s not nearly as in-your-face or blunt or direct. The style and content are much more subtle, but the same basic message is there.
Perhaps opening myself up to some abuse now or in the future, I will admit that my perspective on Driscoll is heavily influenced by the fact that I have some of the same temptations to which he fell victim. Very often I just have to shut my mouth/keyboard because I find that nothing encouraging can come forth.
No offense, but-
Protestants are weird
I would posit that such is a common issue with many men who see things clearly. Getting too cynical is a temptation that comes with seeing things as they are. I would still rather face that than the alternative, but recognizing it is present is valuable.
I mentioned the South Park “Sports Training Montage” before, and I think they do a masterful job of poking at the myth that
meaningfulamazing growth happens quickly if only you follow the right approach. It is fairly tame for South Park, but if in doubt you might wait until you are at home to view it.http://southpark.cc.com/clips/153324/sports-training-montage
Every person that’s asked me why I don’t bother with women or marriage. I never answer their question, just ask them a question back.
Why benefit does a man get via marriage?
The answers one gets are to be expected and can equally easily be dismissed as they mean nothing when marriage 2.0 is the norm.
For instance, the common answer to the benefit of a man getting married is the idea of getting sex. What if the wife decides not to give sex right after the wedding vows? How does the man get sex then? Oh… he can divorce her though, will be the response, I guess he shouldn’t have married then, huh?
Oh, he gets children from marriage, does he?! You sure about that? What happens if she divorces him, what happens to the children? Oh, she gets them, why is that? Oh, she’s the primary caregiver… oh, right, and what is he then? Oh… right, the primary cash dispenser… oh, I forgot, so not only does he not see his supposed kids for being a breadwinner but he still has to pay for them and receives no sex, which were the two reasons a man gets married… shouldn’t have gotten married then, huh?
The faces of the people when I answer them thus, is priceless. I’ve yet to get one reasonable response to why a man should get married.
What if Driscoll had leveled the same vitriol against women, using terms to describe bad women? Of course he would have to use older biblical terms for bad women since modern society has none.
He would have been thrown out and sent to jail on some trumped up abuse charge.
Or at least, once finding themselves there, they’d soon recognize the lie and get out.
As you say, men are simply lost on the topic of masculinity. And I don’t say that as a criticism the way Driscoll might, like, “You men need to find your way!” There’s no shame in being lost in the forest, if someone else dropped you off there as a child without a map or any directions and told you the way out is to keep walking in circles.
But men are lost, because masculinity has been denigrated and replaced with a facsimile. Unless you watch old movies or live in an isolated traditional community, you almost never see it.
There was an ad (don’t remember for what) that ran during some football games this year, where a guy is walking through his house talking about how he’s doing “dad stuff.” His wife brings him coffee. He tells his son to turn his hat around straight or something like that, because “men don’t do that.” I wish I’d caught it and watched it more closely, because I’d like to praise the company that made it. But what I saw was simply a man — not a particularly macho man, just an ordinary suburban guy — being in charge of his family in a matter-of-fact way, and it caught my attention precisely because you never see that — even (maybe especially?) during football games.
It doesn’t work like that, not for creating a husband and father at least. You can’t scream love, patience, understanding, and wisdom into a man. You can’t beat it into him. You can’t belittle it into him.
More importantly, it’s not how Christ built his disciples.
I agree; much of what he said applied to non-Christian men at church very well, but the trouble is he either fails to differentiate or he deliberately throws all men under the bus.
Not so.
He knows exactly who he is talking to, because the text of his speech lays out eight or so archetypes of men in the audience before him. He doesn’t pretend it’s just a couple. In fact, it’s only “a handful” of real men in attendance. The rest of them fit into his typecasts.
He is throwing all of them under the bus. he is emasculating all of them.
In front of the very person they are supposed to lead and be respected by.
That’s the equivalent of a Sergeant Major ripping all the drill sergeants a new one in front of the fresh recruits, then saying, “Now, go do your job!”
@Cane Caldo
I think we all have some of this temptation, albeit to varying degrees. What makes this risk so pernicious is that the kind of men who we need to lead will very often have this temptation to a greater degree. Moreover, sometimes we need to have our ass kicked. We just need to guard against the dynamic that the Driscoll case makes painfully clear.
Fathers don’t turn their sons into men in one day, or with one phrase, etc. It is a process, and it involves years of sometimes encouragement, sometimes correction, sometimes letting them make a mistake they are intent on making so they can learn the hard way what they refused to learn the easy way. This takes time, and it takes wisdom. This is the same for mentors. Iron sharpens iron, but it isn’t like the movies. It is as often as not about modeling being immovable, neither turning to the right hand nor the left. It is as often about what isn’t spoken as about what is. This doesn’t happen in a day, or a month, but over many months and years.
None of those work because none of them provide an incentive for the man to improve. They provide the belt but not the carrot.
@Feministhater
This isn’t the problem. It is more fundamental. You have to model these things. You can’t teach them by modeling the opposite.
Yohami beat me to it, in part.
Driscoll’s ranting immediately struck me as having no higher motive than simply trying to seductively, surreptitiously poach. But I also think that there may be more to it than that.
The women in his congregation are miserable, generally. A commenter in a previous post said that they thought Driscoll was terrified of his female congregants, and I agree…
So, he may be terrified of them because he fears his own lust. He hates himself, and he hates what he is doing, in his contorted AMOGing. He hates it all the more because he is brazenly utilizing scripture and God’s name to foment this ruthlessly narcissistic attempt at poaching. But he can’t even control himself in doing so. And it’s a dead giveaway that he’s screaming and hollering through the ‘How dare you!’ rant – he lacks self-control. Furthermore, he despises the men in his congregation, since their beta-tude exacerbates the self-loathing he wrestles with upon mitigating all this stuff, even as he ultimately, perhaps partially sub-consciously, inches towards a shameless and transparent poaching frame.
I think this guy hates himself because he can’t help himself and he’s pursuing malignant, destructive goals in Jesus’ name – and the only result possible from this being played out would be his base animal lusts becoming fulfilled while deeply wounding the very men who came to his church seeking support, spiritual guidance, and the trusting mentorship of an admired ‘man of God’.
I agree; and that is why fathers are extremely important to a boy becoming a man. Who else is going to guide and teach him? Who else is going to care enough to spend that amount of time and energy to mold his son to becoming a man? Who..
Dalrock,
I am learning a great deal on your site and others. Things have improved dramatically in my marriage. I see you use Driscoll and the obvious apostates, but what of others that have messages so subtle that most of us neophites miss. I was all for The Art of Marriage program until I look Rainey up on your site. His messages have feminism so subtle in them I missed it. They are so subtle that my pastor misses them and they are hard to define them to him as he and I have a discussion going about feminism in the church. He strongly agrees with feminism in the church, but he still takes it back to the men and husbands are responsible.
He has a very strong message on feminism and to be submissive to husbands, but misses the fact that the FI is so strong that nodding heads does not translate into obedience.
I pointed out what I thought of an author of a book he had me read… and he agreed. I am not sure if he was placating to me, but he is not the type to pander or placate, so I wasn’t sure if he was guaging what I would say about it and not recommend it in the future to others or not OR if he truly saw it in the first place himself.
Your insights into FOTF an FLT etc are great, what about the likes of Brad Bigney, John Macarthur, Allister Begg etc.
HH asks: Do other Christian churches around the West more or less preach this kind of garbage?
Yes, pretty much all of them, although most not as blatantly and aggressively as Driscoll did at Mars Hill.
This also makes perfect sense to me:
If Driscoll was explicitly trying to ensure that he was *not* establishing a poaching framework in his congregation, he would precisely *rant at the women* and open himself up to cries of ‘Misogyny!’
He could thereby greatly reduce his exposure to temptation. But he never wanted that.
Jeff,
I am not sure if MacArthur focuses on it as much. I haven’t heard of the other guys.
There was a pastor mentioned a couple years ago, Voddie Baucham. I bought a couple of his books. I can’t speak for anything current, but he did have solid stuff before.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying he wasn’t throwing all the men under the bus; my point was that a lot of what he said applied well to non-Christian men, but this was incidental, rather than intentional.
Even then, this sort of rebuke should only be done privately and on an individual basis for specific sins that person has committed. It is absolutely inappropriate to call out an entire demographic in a “carpet bombing” fashion in front of the whole congregation.
Isn’t it ironic he subjected men to this kind of “discipline,” but when it came turn for him to submit to church discipline he left? Tells you something, doesn’t it?
Using th[e boot camp/basic training] model in church to get men to step up is stupid. It is like apples and oranges. The analogy falls apart too quickly.
Indeed. Few things enrage me more than people who obviously have no military experience advocating a military approach to problem solving, usually always for things where a “military” solution is anything but appropriate. To me, this represents capitulating to the lowest common denominator, the lazy man’s way of grasping for a simple solution to a complex problem without having to invest any critical thought, intellectual effort, or interpersonal skills. Moronic, counterproductive, and destructive all at once.
feministhater
I agree; and that is why fathers are extremely important to a boy becoming a man. Who else is going to guide and teach him? Who else is going to care enough to spend that amount of time and energy to mold his son to becoming a man? Who..
One aspect of this problem is leading by example. “Do as I say, not as I do” tends to create cynics. The endless denegration of men and masculinity over the last N years makes this much more difficult for an intact family. Imagine a father who wishes to model calm confidence to his children, but who has a wife who yells endlessly and will not listen to him on any issue. That’s one way to view our culture.
Now consider broken up families, where frivorce has happened. The problem is even worse. Men from frivorced families, often raised by feminists, don’t even have the words to express the concepts, but do often have a heaping helping of self hate. That self hate can be tapped as a resource by other people, but doing so won’t actually help such a man at all. If anything it will make him even more miserable.
When I work with college aged men and women, I have to remind myself that about half of them come from busted families, they are children of divorce. So there are a lot of premises about the world that we don’t share, starting with “vows mean something”. “Your word is your bond” sounds good to men who were taught that by their fathers, but to a young man who saw his father kicked out of the house, maybe led out by men in uniform, it may not have all that much meaning.
Final thought: Driscoll failed to lead by example. Perhaps that is the most succinct way to put it.
@Cail
General Mills’ “How to Dad” Peanut Butter Cheerios commercial:
It sounds like Driscoll was selling spiritual cuckold pornography.
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I LOL’d at the South Park Sports Training Montage. Actually, it isn’t just that the montage effectively lampoons the idea of amazing growth if you just follow the right approach. That clip devastatingly makes fun of the notion that montages obscure the time and work involved in real improvement. Of course, montages leave out the months and years of work and dedication, and omit the pain and sacrifice.
What Jeremy said regarding “but to fight with You”, and….
….. Lord God, may it wreck our men. In Jesus’ name.
It’s absolutely beyond parody.
The men in Seattle are heavily pozzed. Driscoll may have been right.
sometimes letting them make a mistake they are intent on making so they can learn the hard way what they refused to learn the easy way
This is even harder to accomplish when it is your step son. I have had to demand my wife trust me with these kinds of techniques, which she usually does. (Remember, I married a single mom.) It usually turns out great, but it is a risk.
IF you are considering a blended famiy situation–make sure this is clear up front.
Part of the reason Driscoll was so popular were because of rants like these. The Christian culture at large (in the Northwest anyway) had become very reactionary to what was going on in the culture around it. I remember going to a church that was responding to “The Davinci Code”, going through a 4 week sermon series. In contrast, Driscoll was in your face, unapologetic, and when he preached about Jesus he did it in such a way that was new, entertaining and insightful. You just had to put up with his rants and the occasional beat down…he was creating culture through his church and not merely reacting as a lot of churches have been doing, and if he was willing to modify the narrative he could have even been red pill – generally Mars Hill followed a complementarian theology which pissed off the feminists in the area left and right. What he offered was needed in a city like Seattle which is very Corinthian in nature.
What’s the difference between Mark Driscoll and Hugo Schwyzer?
http://therationalmale.com/2013/08/15/the-lesson-of-hugo/
Both built pseudo-cults using exactly the same feminine-primary shaming tactics on men to create their ego empires. Their demographics may be different, but they use the same playbook. Game recognizes Game.
It should be interesting to watch Driscoll follow Schwyzer’s path to ruin. It’s just a matter of time before he’s nailing one of his students and she makes his sexts go viral.
@ AD1984
About that commercial… a couple of things came to mind seeing it. First, he has a large (for contemporary American society) family, in that he has four kids. That is far more than average these days. So its a bit counter-cultural there. Also, the wife shows up once and that’s it. She doesn’t steal the show. Although her appearance does suggest a professional type job where she works full time.
‘More importantly, it’s not how Christ built his disciples.’
Exactly…Christ didn’t berate them that they should do these things, he taught them and then he proved it by His actions.
Rollo
It should be interesting to watch Driscoll follow Schwyzer’s path to ruin. It’s just a matter of time before he’s nailing one of his students and she makes his sexts go viral.
Er, the Mars Hill church empire does not exist. All the satellite churches are on their own. Driscoll is now reduced to “visiting preacher” status as far as I can tell. So…what students? He doesn’t have any.
Seems to me Driscoll was never about sex the way Hugo was, and probably still is. Rather Driscoll was, and is, more about power and money. Look over the “Real Marriage” manual Driscoll had published in 2012, see if it resembles anything Hugo Schwyzer would have written. Sure, Driscoll scandalized a lot of Evangelicals with the idea that oral sex is OK, and he offered up more graphic advice in his book than many churchgoers could tolerate, but he’s pale compared to Hugo.
Driscoll is now in the position of a wandering preacher without a church, by his own choice – he could have stayed on at Mars Hill, but he would have had to accept other men’s authority.
I don’t see him following Hugo’s path to ruin. He’s ruined in a different way.
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“Many of Driscoll’s sermons are disappearing from youtube in what appears to be an effort by Mars Hill to quietly distance itself from him. The video I found of this sermon wasn’t the original one uploaded by Mars Hill, but a copy uploaded by a woman with the youtube handle Miss Flowahs. She published the video with praise for Driscoll, the only real man in the room:”
1) Mark Driscoll was the Mars Hill brand – he owned the rights to every piece of output that Mars Hill produced. In essence and by law, he was Mars Hill. With him out of the picture, Mars Hill ceased to exist…
2) Miss Flowah’s is most likely his sister – she put up a strong defense for him when the church was in its death throes…
What’s everyone’s take on John Eldredge’s WILD AT HEART?
Are there any good Christian books out there that exalt classical masculinity?
I apologize for my coherence, as I have misplaced my Ritalin. lol
@Anonymous Guy “Protestant’s are weird”?
Taken a good look at the Pope lately?
Lest anyone think that my prior comment was unduly argumentative I agree with AG…..Churchianity IS weird.
@ Dalrock
I can only hope that this Driscoll and others like him are the final ‘burst’ of fireworks before they fall back to earth.
Certainly I see nothing but a doubling down across societies worldwide on the feminist narrative. Feminism is a farce, it does not scale, and it is unsustainable at current levels.
Dalrock, can you give me one good example showing the swing in the other direction? An abject admonishment of feminism at a significant level of society?
I don’t know about your other readers, but I could use some hope that this feminist bullshit is in its death throes.
Pastor, could I ask you a question?
(Driscoll -exasperated as he’s now late for coffee hour) sigh…. Sure.
Well… I lost my job in the recession and as a result, I had to move back home with my mother. So now I live in the basement and I feel pretty worthless. My girlfriend has been nothing but supportive and patient with me while I look for a job in my profession, and its been almost 4 months now. My question is…. am I truly acting satanic?
(Driscoll in full vapor lock mode) uuuhhhhh…… no.
Well, just listening to your sermon, my losing my earning power and moving home with more sure did make a mess of everything in my mom’s life and my girlfriend’s life. So given what you just said, I sure feel like I am living a satanic life.
(Driscoll looking at his watch, smiling at the young man and slowly walking away) look… we are both pretty late for fellowship meeting… why don’t you give me a call and I’ll set up some time for you and I to talk during the week….
Okay, I guess I’ll just fight with God in the meantime. Perhaps that will make me honorable?
@innocentbystanderboston No, you wouldn’t even get past the security and entourage. “Take it to a campus pastor. Mark is a busy man and has to hurry to his next appointment.”
@innocentbystanderboston
No, it would be more like:
Approach Mark and entourage, get stopped by security guard and be told if you have questions, speak to a campus pastor who is now doing damage control because Mark is very busy and has to hurry on to his next appointment.
So in his list of types of men who are bad, did Driscoll include a 9th group, Uncle Tims, who shamelessly and groundlessly abuse other men for financial and sexual gain?
Asking for a friend.
Cane Caldo,
Was it really that successful with men? What I mean by that is did the men show up because they genuinely wanted to be lectured and screamed at by a sociopath because that is what they thought was Christian? Or, did they show up in droves because their wives picked the Mars Hill Church because feminist women just love when they hear a man tear other men down (and thus, build women up) and if their husbands chose NOT to attend that church, their wives would have divorced them? How do we know for sure that the success at Mars Hill church in Seattle wasn’t just a byproduct of threatpoint? I guess the real question here is what percentage of men in the Mars Hill congregation are married? If that is large enough number, then I’d argue that they didn’t want to be there, and this was all just threatpoint.
I know of two women who went and divorced their husbands because of religious differences. They got married (and they probably shouldn’t have.) The two men in question did not want to attend a church their wives loved. This was a “marital deal breaker” for the two women (their faith trumps their marriage) and they went and frivorced the fathers of their children. Heartbreaking.
As Christians, we are called-upon to edify one another. That has the same root-word as edifice: a building. How one can build up Christian men by tearing undermining them in front f their wives and children, I don’t know. Correction? Sure, starting privately. Condemnation? Not so much (“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” – Romans 8:1).
We can tear down ideas, but not each other. Since Dalrock brought up the “Drill Sergeant” analogy: in all my years as a military officer, I never yelled at a subordinate. It may be appropriate to browbeat recruits in that setting – they are trying to join the group and are not ready – but Driscoll was talking to (okay, yelling at) guys who had sat under his own preaching for years. Two things stand out to me:
1) If his leadership was insufficient to do anything more than turn all of his male congregants into cowards or bullies despite his own attempts to PastorUp, how can he blame men’s lack of success on insufficiently ManningUp? His own indictment points squarely back at him.
2) Once the people you’re working with are already in the fold (like when I was an OCS TAC Officer working with NCOs becoming officers), the time to treat them like recruits is over. I never yelled at my OC’s (I may be the only OCS TAC to do that, though). My goal was to build them up from where they were. In other words… to edify.
Yes it was. It was one of the few churches that men were actually more active then women.
Speaking of the Pope:
Pope Warns Against ‘Absentee Fathers’ In New Chapter On Family
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/pope-absentee-fathers_n_6562480.html
@Dalrock
Nice Post!
“”I pray for those men who are here that are cowards, they’re silent, passive, impish, worthless men, they’re making a mess of everything in their life””
If I were sitting in the audience and heard this statement,I would get up and leave.If this moron said this to my face,I would respond….”let’s step outside…we will see who the coward is….and get ready to hit the pavement”. This guy is pandering to all the women, as stated in an above comment,about his “target audience”.Does he ever mention the laws that govern marriage 2.0?…of course not.He does not want to talk about that.What about divorce rates?….he does not want to discuss that either.Again,”target audience” and man shaming.He is a disgrace to the Christian religion and even a bigger disgrace to the male gender!
Out of Nod,
I wasn’t really asking if Mars Hill church was successful with men. Sure they may have been active in it but what was the reason for that? Did they really believe in Driscoll, or something else? Perhaps the men who were “more active than women” were being that way because their wives told them to participate?
I don’t think we are asking the right question. We shouldn’t be asking how successful Mars Hill was with men. We should instead be asking what percentage of those men whom attended Mars Hill were married. That will give us an important data point. If the majority of them were single (and not living at home and being forced to attend on threat of being booted out of the house) then I might buy your argument that the men loved what Discoll said….. I’m just not sure they did.
Apparently the study guide was a bit plagiarized (there is a link to the pdf in this article):
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2013/12/10/mars-hills-sermon-series-battle-plan-reveals-authorship-of-mark-driscolls-book-on-peter/
From the study guide
P. 97
Peter says that husbands who are mean to their wives will not have their prayers
answered by God. What this means is that husbands who do not lovingly serve
their wives will not be lovingly served by God until they change and stop sinning
against their wives. God says this because sometimes people can be really
mean to other people and God wants them to stop being mean and so he warns
them to be nice.
And P 178-200 has the key discussion, an excerpt
Seeking to appear
not to subvert these domestic norms is a very different goal from seeking
indefinitely to perpetuate them. Those who read such passages as 3:1–6
as a template for husband-wife relationships as God meant them to be
enacted through all time fail to take into account the author‘s very specific
and culture-bound purposes in giving these instructions.
No offense, but-
Protestants are weird
Non taken, but who isn’t weird?
@Casey – I don’t know about your other readers, but I could use some hope that this feminist bullshit is in its death throes.
Sadly, no – http://www.rooshv.com/6-ways-poland-is-becoming-degenerate-like-america
Anonymous Reader @ 9:24 am:
“Don’t discount ignorance as a factor. If we’ve learned anything in the androsphere over the last 5 years, it’s that a lot of men were raised in ignorance of the facts about women, and men, and what the real differences imply.”
Yes, and that ignorance is deliberately cultivated. Most California churches take the opposite approach of Driscoll: sermons are carefully neutral, morality issues are ducked or preemptively refused, Bible studies only nitpick trivia, non-ordained men are denied any chance at lay leadership, pastors toe the party line so carefully that plagiarism is a problem and the highest mark of a church’s devotion to Christ is mechanically going through the motions of communion and singing. The only ways to voice disagreement with a pastor’s teachings are to write a letter or confront him openly in-service… neither of which will accomplish much.
It’s all pacification and insulation. My current theory for it is that Churchian leaders themselves prefer to see Christ as an ideal, like mathematics, something to be preached and practiced like a factory worker tasked with keeping things running smoothly. That was the Sadducees’ reaction to Christ, as I recall. They saw Him as a rogue element in a politically tense situation (the Roman occupation) because he shook people’s trust in their “God-appointed” leaders.
For the interested, there’s a book “Surprised by the Voice of God” by Jack Deere. He was one such “God went away and left us this book” Churchian who documented his shift to charismatic. It isn’t red pill-relevant but gives insight into how modern Church leaders can have more faith in God’s Word than God Himself… and disobey the Word as a direct result.
In terms of understanding what Driscoll was up to – what really comes to my mind reading it is this:
https://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/how-abusive-women-brainwash-you/
Notably:
“Abusive [people] establish control over their targets by using “brainwashing tactics similar to those used on prisoners of war, hostages, or members of a cult” (Mega, Mega, Mega & Harris, 2000). Most abusers instinctively know these behaviors. Their behavior is mostly unconscious; they’re natural predators.”
and:
The Goal: Pointless Control with No End to the Abuse
“Individuals or groups who use brainwashing techniques are deliberately trying to convert followers, change political allegiance or get people to buy their brand of soda. The ultimate goal is to breakdown your identity and replace your belief system with their doctrines in order to make you an obedient follower. Once they achieve their aims, the psychological torture stops because you’ve become a faithful acolyte.
“Unlike professional terrorists, cult leaders and prison camp commandants, most abusive narcissistic, borderline, histrionic and sociopathic wives and girlfriends don’t have an end goal for their brainwashing techniques. They don’t know what they want. They just know that they want to control you in order to feel in control of themselves. This is why they don’t progress past the sixth brainwashing step and complete the process through the third stage, Rebuilding the Self.”
AD1984, thanks, I couldn’t find it. I’d never seen the full version before.
It’s certainly not perfect; I’d prefer that he told his daughter to get off social media, for instance, rather than compliment her profile pic. But just a guy talking confidently about being a dad and looking capable — that alone is strikingly different these days. I think the line that caught my attention the first time I heard it was, “It’s not about breaking the rules; it’s about making them.” I wanted to cheer. A dad who makes rules, who doesn’t have to check with his wife before he tells his kids what to do, and who tells them once rather than asking and negotiating?
No, not perfect, but it’s so much better than the rest of the ads and promos, which portray men as slobs, idiots, and criminals except when they have a woman leading them.
Closing point on the above, re: “most abusive narcissistic, borderline, histrionic and sociopathic wives and girlfriends don’t have an end goal for their brainwashing techniques. They don’t know what they want. They just know that they want to control you in order to feel in control of themselves.”
That’s the sense I get. Driscoll isn’t a cult leader as much as he is an abusive person. He’s on the way to cult leader, but doesn’t quite make it there. I wouldn’t be surprised to find there were members who felt Mars Hill was “cult like” but people by and large stop short of calling it a cult.
That’d be … just about right.
It could be that one reason so many defended Driscoll for so long is that he got attacked regularly by feminists for his views on “complimentarianism”. That word has as many meanings as there are people who use it, but it isn’t egalitarian. So a certain “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mindset is likely involved; anyone who ticks off feminists can’t be all bad.
Yeah, maybe, maybe not.
Some may find this review of the Driscoll’s book (both contributed) on marriage to be interesting
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/mark-driscoll-real-marriage
Note that Evans is not at all a Bible literalist. In some ways she appears to be a feminist.
Dalrock
What is strange is that Driscoll knows nothing about anthropology civilisation and its’ link to the economic system – via marriage. This isn’t new: I didn’t know of it until I looked up the Manosphere/Red Pill due to marital rebellion.
What he should know is that calling single mothers ‘heroes’ is a satanic disgrace, as millions of children are placed at massive disadvantage. At least 40 years of social science research attests to this, and Driscoll would have to be living under a rock not to know.
What surprises me is the lack of general understanding Christians have of this issue. I am seeing it in the church I attend: young men are consistently doing what they should be – studying, working hard, working out, obviously shunning vice (or shunning obvious vice) – while young women don’t do anything. Young men then see diminishing returns as young women exit church.
In my own experience I had seen the same when I was single, and I put it down to fathers: Christian fathers believe the feminist lie that men and women are the same so they raise their daughters to be the same, getting a education, getting travel and career opportunities and most importantly delaying marriage. I only knew one man who thought his daughters going to university was a waste of time. He was rare. As a result, only a handful of the marriage age young women I knew growing up signed up for Christian marriage.
The cycle is being repeated now. We cannot fix society, with its’ single mother epidemic. But Christian fathers can and should be able to spot feminism for what it is and advise their daughters against buying its’ lies.
It is because we have let society infiltrate the church. I’m 37 and I’ve heard sermons like these all the time growing up. I was taught like the customer rules at stores.
1. The customer is always right.
2. If the customer is wrong, refer to rule #1.
Sadly we have done this with church and replaced customer with women. They have no fear because modern Christianity is on their side. They tell us men will us submission against them. Yet when the bible tells them to submit to their husbands. They’ll belittle anyone who holds that viewpoint. They’ll say you’re judgmental and tell you that only God can judge them.
I do have to agree with Driscoll on one thing. Men do need to step up, but not for his reasons. Men need to step up and fix Christianity. We need to kick the feminists out of the church. We need to bring the bible back. If they don’t like the message, then they know how to find the door.
Christianity is the second coming of Israel. Feminist Christians are nothing more then the golden calf.
I just recently left a church with my family. I caused a few heads to turn in the process. They have a divorced preacher who was calling men out like Mark Driscoll. He wasn’t doing it in your face type of speak. He was doing it in his sermon series on family. He would berate the men and praise the women.
My wife was having issues with his preaching too. So we decided if he would berate men again and prioritize the women. We would walk out of that church. We made sure to sit in the middle of the church that Sunday. It was maybe 5 minutes into his sermon. He started his rant. I looked at my wife and we both nodded our heads. We closed our bibles, stood up, walked out of the sanctuary, got our kids from Sunday school, and walked to our car.
Rachel Held Evans is a feminist–evangelical feminist to be specific. Those here will find, as I do, a great deal of disagreement with her.
The faces of the people when I answer them thus, is priceless. I’ve yet to get one reasonable response to why a man should get married.
I have had these conversations. The responses I get range from surprise to flat out disbelief. It can be irritating when someone tells you your facts are wrong but have no facts themselves explaining why your facts are wrong. I guess we could call that “The Blue Streak”. It runs deep in some folks.
My Pastor was one who after hearing took the time to investigate. He hasn’t given up on marriage for Christians, but he is aware that, in the US, married Christian men are in a bad situation where our legal system fundamentally weakens marriages and gives women power that for the most part belongs to their husbands.
He knows that the more partners a woman has had the less likely she will be able to bond with her husband, and the more likely the marriage will fail. He knows that women divorce at a much higher rate than men, and they do it for petty reasons. He knows that a foolish women will tear down her house with her own hands. He is much more careful about whom he will marry, and this is a subject we still talk about.
We all know that God is able to over come any obstacle, but unless God is specifically telling someone to do something (and this has been confirmed by more than just feelings and coincidences) it is best to follow the principles He has given us.
@innocentbystanderboston
That’s the thing, they – we – bought into the message. Driscoll always said that his call was to disciple men- which is why he also didn’t feel the need to call out women; he let the men do that on their own or the women do it to each other when they had their conferences….and oh did they lay into each other. His message was that it’s all about Jesus. And we all believed it – some still do even after the downfall. We bought into that mission.
I do not have the official stats on the married to single ratio, but on a given Sunday at its apex Mars Hill Bellevue (Marks preaching site) would see 3000 attendees come through in 4 services. Based on giving statistics, I would suspect that 2/3 of those people were married couples. (This was between 2011-2014)
This message was preached in Ballard 2009 where you have the younger, single crowd – often UW college students or Seattle hipster types. He was a lot more brash when at Ballard.
Rachel Held Evans is a feminist–evangelical feminist to be specific. Those here will find, as I do, a great deal of disagreement with her.
Therefore her critique of Driscoll’s book on marriage comes from the feminist point of view, and as I suggested at least some of the support of Driscoll may well have been a case of “Here’s a preacher the feminists are attacking, therefore he must be defended”, rather than anything stemming from his actual work.
All that said, I think her review of the book is worth reading as an insight into both Driscoll’s own words in the book, and how some feminists view him. And because Evans appears to be quite popular among the under-30 churchgoing cohort, therefore expect to hear / read her ideas from many such people.
I’d quote Sun Tzu here but do not have the exact wording.
Dalrock,
I think we all have some of this temptation, albeit to varying degrees.
That is why some of us tend to jump off tangents in threads more. At least that is my fault. It is dealing with the truthfulness of a specific point that causes some of the push to go off track.
@tz
I don’t think that was for this sermon, but perhaps that isn’t what you are suggesting anyway.
The plagiarism charges are hard for me to follow, so I’m not sure what to make of them. One of the charges claims he didn’t credit someone for coming up with an idea that he explained in a book, using his own words. This one seems perhaps more serious, but still confusing. I think the much more serious issue was the use of Mars Hill funds in the secret scheme to create straw buyers of his “Real Marriage” book in order to get it on the NY Times bestseller list.
Dalrock
I’m late to the discussion (working long hours) This series is very interesting and I truly hope other leaders of various churches get a chance to see the work you have done. If nothing else it explains where the enthusiasm for atheism is coming from. If you ever want to set a mega church here in the Dallas Fort worth are I work with you.
Disappointing also to read this from Pope Francis: http://visnews-en.blogspot.com/2015/01/general-audience-fatherly.html
Though I get a very vague sense from it that it’s remotely possible that he’s feeling it out and trying to find a way to critique women today without starting a nuclear war.
@jeff
I’m delighted to hear that!
I do try to focus on the more obvious examples first, and then dig into some of the more subtle ones to show what the pattern looks like there as well. These things are as you point out, hard to describe at first. But the more you study the patterns the easier they should get to point out and explain.
I don’t know that your pastor is wrong that men are responsible. What I think is important is not to let men’s responsibility be used to duck that very responsibility. Very often men’s responsibility is used to avoid calling out sin in women, which is a part of our responsibility, and something which is very much out of favor.
From what you describe it sounds like you have a very good pastor. You shouldn’t expect to be able to explain it all in one sitting, and on top of that he is the leader and teacher, so you instructing him is a sensitive area. It sounds like he is handling that with grace. I don’t know that I would ask for more than what you describe, which is him both pushing a biblical perspective and being open to discussing the issues with you. I would avoid terms like the FI when speaking with him, because you should be able to explain these things from a strictly biblical perspective.
Thank you. My intent is to explain the larger issues with the culture as I see them, not to say this teacher is good and that one is not. Hopefully I’ve gotten better at both keeping this focus and making this clear as I’ve been blogging. I use real examples because they are the best way to illustrate the bigger concepts. With that said, I don’t know anything about the three men you list so I don’t have any thoughts to share.
Patrick, this pope is so far left leaning, that I highly doubt that critizing women has even entered his space, let alone his brain. Sad.
Interesting to see that MD was raised a Catholic.
Pope – “… At times it seems as if fathers are not sure what position they should occupy in the family, or how to educate their children. And so, in doubt, they abstain, they withdraw and neglect their responsibilities, possibly seeking refuge in an improbable relationship of parity with their children”.”
Sounding like a lighter version of driscoll to me.
Josh @ 4:01 pm:
“I do have to agree with Driscoll on one thing. Men do need to step up, but not for his reasons. Men need to step up and fix Christianity.”
How? Driscoll pressured men to “step up” but didn’t give them a way to do it. Did he train proteges? Delegate authority? Uphold good examples? Nothing frustrates a man more than being held responsible for things he can’t accomplish.
That’s frivorce in a nutshell. Marriage 1.0: man has both power and responsibility. Marriage 2.0: woman has the power, man has the responsibility. Hopefully, that’s also what the Pope is poking at. Men aren’t neglecting their responsibilities; they have no way to fulfill them. No wonder they withdraw.
GunnerQ gets it exactly right.
This is one of the places where a military analogy DOES work.
In basic training, they assign student leadership positions– “platoon guide” and “squad leader.”
These “leaders” have absolutely zero authority and everyone knows it (even though the drill sergeants give explicit instructions that they have delegated authority to them).
It is a set up for failure. You can’t make anyone do anything, you can’t accomplish your mission.
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This kind of stuff is really wrecking the men in the congregation but not in the way he thinks. This really bothered me because up until recently i would have hung my head in shame and disgust at the fact that I was a man. Women are perfect men are disgusting was my world view for 30 years.
MD – “The previous church I had attended was Catholic, with a priest who seemed to be a gay alcoholic. He was the last person on earth I wanted to be like. To a young man, a life of poverty, celibacy, living at church, and wearing a dress was more frightful than going to hell, so I stopped somewhere around junior high.”
could be part of the reason he is so harsh on men. The fear of wearing a dress.
@anonymous_ng
That is, unfortunately, what I thought.
Much like the Roman Empire, we will have to experience the dark ages to come out of this depravity.
Gunner,
I’m not sure. If I was clear or a misinterpretation of what I said? What you meant was he is right. Men do need to step up but not by his viewpoint. Men need to step and kick the feminists out of the church. I was making two separate points. I could’ve probably worded it a little better?
@Dalrock
Have you considered downloading a copy of them (e.g. clipconverter.cc), and storing them in the cloud (e.g. OneDrive – 15GB free, last I checked)? (You probably have, just thought I’d put it out there for others, too.)
@Josh
“My wife was having issues with his preaching too. So we decided if he would berate men again and prioritize the women. We would walk out of that church. We made sure to sit in the middle of the church that Sunday. It was maybe 5 minutes into his sermon. He started his rant. I looked at my wife and we both nodded our heads. We closed our bibles, stood up, walked out of the sanctuary, got our kids from Sunday school, and walked to our car.”
You are embodying the role of the father and husband well. Never stand for anti-male tirades even from a preacher. This devalues men in the eyes of their wives. It is unbelievably damaging and no priest should be engaging in it under any circumstances.
These harsh criticisms directed exclusively at men by Driscoll should obviously be seen as abusive by any Christian who’s read the new testament. The gospels are full of correction directed at early Christians and there was never anything comparable to this even when the churches in places like Corinth were full of heathen engaging in all kinds of immorality. Neither did Christ, who was without sin, ever speak in such condescending self-righteous contempt as Driscoll. If however this sermon was cleaned up and genuinely given in a spirit of love there would still be its biggest fundamental flaw of gross discriminatory gender bias. Women, like men, have a sin nature and thats why Christ died to redeem us. Wives, mothers, girlfriends, daughters are rebellious and sinful. Why then the blind spot here? Is it willful?
Men including single men make lots of money in the US. Why not build a church out of them that corrects men and women? Why is in necessary to flatter women to fill a church? I don’t buy it.
Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him! When Driscoll accuses single men of ‘hands all over your girlfriends’ he’s obviously overlooking the elephant in the room- girlfriends who don’t say “No!” (his wife when she was single). Isn’t that harlotry by biblical standards? And his wife played the harlot? I don’t think he’s trying to protect his wife, he already publicly announced her indiscretions. This is about what is his. If he has to acknowledge the failures of these easy Churchian women, their status as essentially slutty. What does he have? A reformed slut who willingly, eagerly, excitedly took men’s cocks into her… Thats his wife, mother of his daughters!
He has to blame men for stealing, beguiling sex from women, his woman. The truth is far, far too painful for him to acknowledge. He can’t for a second imagine his precious daughters willingly, eagerly, excitedly taking men’s cocks into them. It’s too excruciating to even enter the mind. I think this is at least partly the root of this failure to properly correct women in church.
Virtually any heterosexual, single, young (or mature) female left to her own sin nature wants intense, erotic sex, especially with Alpha. Your wife, girlfriend, daughters even your mom will struggle. Women are naturally evil, just like men. Grow up Driscoll.
This guy is unbelievable and the people who drink up this crap? I would get up and walk out of the sermon. Gone. This is a gem I have not seen:
“The Bible records that, as she was arguing with Satan and then ultimately agreeing with Satan and then conspiring with Satan to disobey and dishonor and disregard God, Adam was right there saying and doing nothing.”
Sure, Driscol boy, Adam was right there while the snake tempted Eve. He even motioned to Eve and told her to eat the apple. She didn’t want to do it but she had to obey her husband. Why he even firmly pointed at her and snapped his fingers sharply for her to give him that other apple. That is all right there in the Bible.
Driscoll drinks the blue pill koolaid, so everything that even has a hint of critique against women must be quashed. This is kapo behavior at its lowest, and the people it most damages are women because they then have overinflated egos.
That makes a lot of sense, actually.
His laughable “How Dare YOOOOOUUU!” youtube kookrant is best seen as displaced rage at all those playas who had that ass before he got a chance.
hahahaha!
Boxer
@da GBFM Here’s my impression of Eldredge’s material
@embracing reality
This is part of the problem (in general) of why women aren’t rebuked (deification of women / male mother need). The other being so utterly p****-whipped by their own wives or women in the congregation that they fear what will happen after they deliver the rebuke. That men are so entrenched in the sin of Adam is the predominant sin problem in the church over the last 2000 years.
To wit: This is the natural consequence of the over reach of the “man of one wife” phraseology in 1 Tim and Titus. I have yet to meet any married man (in person, and I don’t think one exists given the predominance of the “women don’t sin” heresy) that would be capable of delivering a sufficient rebuke against women (both from a understanding and will standpoint) from the pulpit if given the opportunity simply because they have a wife and daughters awaiting them after the fact. If this is true of the entire leadership, coupled with the typical arrogance of “experience” and the typical deception of the one in sin, who then will deliver the rebuke when they fall into the sin of Adam? Especially if all of them are invested in the sin?
They simply can not imagine their wives and daughters to be “like that”. Driscoll’s wife being what Mark himself admitted proves his unsuitability, to the point that the most effective of his four sermons to rebuke women was written by his wife (as he admits). For Marky boy to rebuke the average slut is to rebuke his wife, and he simply can not bear the consequences to even begin to consider doing it. This is much the pattern of most all men.
So the much needed rebuke against both men and women never occurs and the sin is allowed to fester.
JDG:
If this is true, you need to support this man and give him your absolute allegiance. Hardcore priests need the backing of the people, because they often get thrown under the bus by the pozzed out freaks who pull the strings behind the scenes.
He has the potential to do a lot of good work if the people in his congregation are behind him.
Boxer
Please. This is bullshit like everything else Driscoll preaches.
There are some pozzed out Catholic priests (probably one or two who post their shite over at Catholic Answers) but they’re hardly the majority. Even the liberal, agnostic types in the priesthood aren’t openly gay or boozing it up in front of kids. The Catholics have treatment centers for the real misfits and they generally get shuttled off to a desk job where they won’t embarrass people.
Boxer
(Born a Mormon, educated by the Jesuits, practicing atheist, likely knows more Catholic priests than Driscoll)
@ER
“”Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!””
Really?……..I love it!….what a f*****g hypocrite! This statement is the highlight of this thread!…..^5’s
Wow, I finally got disgusted reading it. One interesting thing — apparently if you ever physically restrain your wife, you’re an abusive monster.
So, let’s see if I’ve got this straight — you’re an abusive monster if you don’t protect your wife. And if you feel you need to restrain her for her own good, to keep her safe, you’re an abusive monster. So either the fact that she’s acting in a way that is bad or dangerous for her is automatically proof that you’re an abusive monster in itself, or a woman would never do such a thing. Uh-huh.
Well I’m sure no parents have ever encountered a situation where they had to physically restrain their kids for their own good, I mean what kind of abusive monster would do that? They should take your kids away immediately if you ever physical restrain or force your kids to do something. Sheesh, does he even think about these things for two seconds? He’s so righteously indignant about something that doesn’t even make sense with itself, I can’t imagine how you do that. I think projection of his anger and shame about his wife’s sluttiness is an excellent theory.
On a similar note, I just read that a pastor I heard a few times is going to be “tried” by the denomination for inappropriateness of some sort, they didn’t list the “charges.” Interesting. I think I may actually have triggered it, or at least I supplied the straw that broke the camel’s back. I personally transcribed, quoted and objected to part of his sermon (he kept injecting race into his sermons for no reason; he was an academic lefty and was obsessed with proving that he was not racist, it got pretty nuts). He implied that I wasn’t smart enough to understand, but I think some elders in the church used what I wrote against him — we left so I wasn’t around to see what happened but I guess I ended up on the church’s mailing list still.
So apparently one person can make a difference. My outsider’s perspective and willingness to go dig up exactly what he said seems to have had an impact. But it was amazing to me, I went to a get-together with some guys from that church, and they were really smart guys. I can’t fathom how people sat there and just took that stuff week after week; we liked the people so I tried but I couldn’t stomach it for very long. Do people actually listen to the sermons at all? I would theorize that they don’t but those guys were really sharp, they couldn’t have been so oblivious. I don’t get it.
Pope – “… At times it seems as if fathers are not sure what position they should occupy in the family, or how to educate their children. And so, in doubt, they abstain, they withdraw and neglect their responsibilities, possibly seeking refuge in an improbable relationship of parity with their children”.”
Sounding like a lighter version of driscoll to me.
Driscoll was shaming guys for not being as great a guy as he is. The pope is talking about the confusion men face when it comes to their position in the family and how to educate their children…followed by the resulting consequences. Most of this comes I feel from lack of education in matters of masculinity for young boys and the usurpation of power from the state for men. To me the Pope is addressing the bigger picture and the more important problem.
“”Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!””
Really?……..I love it!….what a f*****g hypocrite! This statement is the highlight of this thread!’
Yes the conclusion of his projection was evident once that was found out.
Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!
Could it be that Driscoll was angry that someone else had enjoyed his wife before she got to him, and he was projecting his anger on his hearers? I just checked his About page. He has three sons and 2 daughters. One would hope that he would be more balanced when preaching about gender issues.
I want to add my voice to those above saying that Driscolls message is not so bad to men, it is just unbalanced and incomplete. Think of it as modern hell fire and damnation preaching – just without the epiphany leading to salvation plus an unwillingness to be equally aware of the modern shortcomings of women.
The men this preaching is aimed at are all sinners living wickedly in the world. We are all sinners and being reminded of that forcefully is pretty normal. Taking the red pill for me does not involve concluding that only women are wicked, it means being willing to accept women are wicked just like men (and society tolerates and celebrates women, legal stuff, blah blah…). Driscolls major problem is that he brings hellfire only to men then does not guide them down the next path AND that he thinks part of men doing better is cleaning all the messes society encourages women to make. A modern red pill preacher could say almost the exact same words to the men and continue on to discuss the failings of women and lead them both to Christ.
Boxer – If this is true, you need to support this man and give him your absolute allegiance. Hardcore priests need the backing of the people, because they often get thrown under the bus by the pozzed out freaks who pull the strings behind the scenes.
Of course it’s true. Why would I type it if not? He is a close friend and I do support him. He is probably the main reason I am still attending that church today, because he was instrumental in egalitarianism getting shown the door. I most likely would have left long ago had things gone the other way. I wouldn’t call him a hard core priest, just a simple man of God who believes what is written in the Bible.
Alyosha
…..can someone tell me what kind of man would sit there and listen to such shrill nonsense for more than 10 min? What kind of man would subject his wife and children to this manipulative, diabolical crap?
I and my family have a quaint little ritual on Father’s Day at our church. Every year we sit and listen for about ten minutes on what losers and worthless scum fathers are. Then I stand up, say we are leaving, tear up my tithe check and place it in the offering plate along with a note to the pastor clearly outlining why his sermon is unacceptable.
Over all, a very uplifting event. Yes, I have to listen to a ten minute rant, but I get to save my tithe money for the week, and get out of church early. Double win!
I tried to follow the link to his partner-message to women, but the mars hill site doesn’t load.
Does anyone know a good link?
SJW harrasment, which leads to inability for employment (noone wants to risk provoking their anger) and social death, is a king od discrimination.
It’s very similar to STASI East German secret police bullying tactics, Zersetzung.
It is a process of character assassination and threats developed to persecute dissidents, a more sophisticated Orwellian form of torture that was developed to cause “severe and prolonged suffering” without leaving marks.
In fact, it seems as if they studied it after it was publicly disclosed (the fall of Berlin Wal in 1989).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung
http://zersetzen.wikispaces.com/
@Bluepillprof
I was surprised to see that as well. I’m not sure what to make of it. I can’t tell if there is legitimate discussion on this or it is a recently invented reading of the text.
I found an even more surprising reading of Driscoll’s regarding Esther. He praises Vashti for telling her husband to stuff it, and rips on Esther. So much of what he preached has been scrubbed, but I’ve been able to find parts of it on the Internet Archive. Here is the series on Esther. See part two where he praises Vashti and tells the women in his congregation they need to learn how to say no to their husbands. Part 3 covers some of his digs on Esther, but there is more that he wrote on another site which is quoted widely on the web but I can’t find the original. But a google search on Driscoll and Esther should pull plenty of examples up.
In Part 2 he says:
Later he explains, in the section specifically for the women:
The defense I’ve always heard for him from people is “people are just quoting the 1% of the stuff he’s said, the majority of the time he was teaching the Bible.” But it seems like he always wants to white knight for female rebellion whenever he can.
But that stuff never made him unpopular, most Church goers would agree with always shifting blame away from women.
This is a common modern Christo-feminist teaching (An example of it from Eldredge). Basically, it’s an idea of how to “pass the buck” and make it so Adam alone was the one who sinned, leaving Eve scott-free. It’s another variation of the tactic to remove the blame from a woman for adultery or filing for divorce – she didn’t do those things, that mean man FORCED her into it.
Adam and Eve both sinned…but we must be reminded they’re sins were different.
Adam sinned by listening to Eve instead of God and not establishing his God given authority. Eve sinned by listening to the serpent and not her husband and God. Both rebelled against their proper authority figures…which they learned from the first being to rebel, Lucifer.
Basically you could make a ultimate case that white knighting sin is for the serpent rather than women.
Telling believers to model the behavior of a non-believer is dangerous. The act of the non-believer necessarily did not proceed from faith. Even if the non-believer was faithful to her god, it is a false god for Christians. Compounding it by teaching something in opposition to godly submission is awful.
That is stunning. How did that not set off alarm bells in his head? No answer expected.
That is what a hard core priest looks like. Balls enough in this world to have faith.
And the Vashti stuff…I actually heard that variation of modern Christo-feminist teaching in person. It’s basically inventing a proof of the “empowered woman”, and giving cause to eliminate the whole headship submission dynamic to marriage. Paint her as a moral upright woman for doing her own thing instead of honoring her husband. It requires completely ignoring Esther 1:17 & 20 to accomplish, but most preachers do far worse.
Regardless, Vashti is indeed a good example to use if you were to actually preach the sin of women.
Except that the pope (at least in this quote) isn’t saying that’s a good thing. He’s saying it’s happening, and I’d say he’s right about that. Men have been shoved out of their position of headship in the family, and are trying to figure out where they fit. They’ve been told their wives are their equals, but at the same time that their wives are superior in many ways, so they’re really left battling with the kids for the second banana position. Whether they outrank the kids is questionable, depending on whether mom exercises veto power over all discipline.
I’m not a Francis fan, and I don’t have much confidence that he would come to the right conclusion about how to solve this problem, but he’s doing okay at identifying it and recognizing (unlike Driscoll) that it’s not a good thing.
Yes. He actually reveals a Hollywood conception of Catholicism here, which is loosely based on pre-Vatican II culture which hasn’t existed many places since 1970 or so. Most priests, and definitely the effeminate/gay ones, traded in the lace vestments and cassocks for druid-style robes and secular clothes long ago. If he knew a “gay, alcoholic” priest since 1970 (quite possible, unfortunately), the guy was wearing trousers. And he probably wasn’t preaching celibacy, so that doesn’t fit either. Driscoll is just setting up a caricature to bash, which seems to be his M.O.
The only ones still “wearing a dress” are the traditionalists, who also happen to be the ones preaching male headship. Funny how that works.
And sometimes, a woman has to prayerfully, carefully just say no. Vashti says what? No.
The scriptures do not say that Vashti prayerfully and carefully said no. It is more likely that queen Vashti pridefully said no and reaped the consequences of said pride.
“10 On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, 11 to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at. 12 But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him.” Esther 1:10-12.
I’m not justifying or condemning the king’s behavior, but queen Vashti owed her allegiance and loyalty to her husband and king. What she did was in direct opposition to biblical teaching and rebellious from a biblical point of view. Though she was not a Christian, the text is there for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
Esther’s is the example of righteous behavior and Vashti’s is not. Anyone ripping on Esther and praising Vashti has seriously misunderstood the text or else stands against the teachings there in.
Modern Western Christianity isn’t merely gynocentric, it has become the full-fledged Cult of Juno.
@Anchorman – Let me know where those Central PA churches full of single mothers are. I live there too!
Dalrock you treat Driscoll as if he’s a serious theologist. He’s not. This is just about money.
He’s a shameless populist panderer jumping on the fem bandwagon for his own benefit.
Phillyastro ,
LCBC. “Lives Changed By Christ,” thought I think it was originally Lancaster County Baptist Church or something. Three branches: Manheim, Lancaster, and York. The main service is in Manheim and piped into the other ones. I went to a service. Very flashy, rock music (cover of Pink Floyd’s “Money” – sermon was on tithing), and the first prayer didn’t happen until 40 minutes in. Seriously.
When I did online dating, it seemed like every single Christian mom went to one of the three branches.
I attended the Free Evangelical churches in the area, Hershey and Mechanicsburg. They seemed very solid, overall. Too big for my taste, but there’s plenty of single moms there.
I found a small Southern Baptist church in my town on the West Shore. Great pastor. He doesn’t set up those ridiculous 5:30 am Men’s Bible study. He’s southern and has an easy-going disposition, but really knows his stuff.
And, for the record, LCBC struck me as fully “in the tank” for pop-Christianity. I didn’t give it a second chance.
Dalrock, Vashti is a type of God’s first wife Israel. She refused to obey her Lord and he replaced her with one that was willing to give her very life to enter his presence on behalf of her people. God lets us know how he feels about Vashti in the book of Hosea.
What good is a disobedient wife?
The type is rounded out by Galatians 4 referring to the first woman as “Agar” who answers to the covenant at Mt Sinai (where God’s “Vashti” refused to go up). Anyone who isn’t willing to take up their cross daily and die isn’t worthy of Him. That is the primary reason that Evangelical Feminism is a failure. They’re as rebellious towards God as they are towards husbands.
@Anchorman A new LBCB branch opened up in Harrisburg. Is this a national movement church? I know the chaplain at the college I teach at is quite the model of a SJW.
Read this bio of a Christian minister, and you’ll see that Mark Driscoll is a veritable St. Paul compared to what else is out there.
http://lancasteronline.com/lifestyle/faith_and_values/f-m-chaplain-works-across-faith-lines/article_73fbe1cb-8ade-5cdb-a7ad-fa14d5e4d0ec.html
“I and my family have a quaint little ritual on Father’s Day at our church. Every year we sit and listen for about ten minutes on what losers and worthless scum fathers are. Then I stand up, say we are leaving, tear up my tithe check and place it in the offering plate along with a note to the pastor clearly outlining why his sermon is unacceptable.
Over all, a very uplifting event. Yes, I have to listen to a ten minute rant, but I get to save my tithe money for the week, and get out of church early. Double win!”
..yet you and your family attend this church the other Sundays of the year? This makes no sense to me.
There’s an elephant in the room that hasn’t been addressed in the comments so far. The elephant comes in the form of John Calvin and Augustine.
Driscoll is a Calvinist. He believes firmly in Calvinist/Augustinian theology – a theology that believes all people are thoroughly depraved and worthless and that the vast majority of them are going to hell and deservedly so. This is why Calvinists often engage in a lot of self-abuse and self-hatred and why they often seem to take perverse pleasure in having a charismatic Calvinist preacher verbally beat them up. Driscoll’s harsh outbursts against men are really just a product of harsh, bleak Calvinist/Augustinian theology.
Why anyone today would want to sign up for this harsh, bleak, self-loathing Calvinist misery is beyond me. I would hazard a guess some people just like the idea of having their BDSM fetishes supposedly sanctified by God’s grace.
You think Calvinists are bad Jack? Ever been to a hellfire and brimstone Arminian sermon. Red faced spittle flying rage-fest? I have. I stay out of each of those corners in that debate.
I read the Garden of Eden temptation scene to indicate that Adam was present during the temptation and said nothing. That may not be the case, but giving to the man who was with her implies he was present. I would never read the rest of the idiocy into it, but it looks like he was quiet when he shouldn’t have been.
We are also told that Eve was deceived while Adam sinned. That doesn’t resolve Eve, evident because she also shared the curse and even her own version of it.
The Vashti story is a bit more nuanced than either side seems to note. I see it more as a way for God to clear things out for Esther than as some clear statement (by God) that Vashti was wicked. The rebellion issue is one that even the men of that kingdom recognized, but the king was no angel himself from all the evidence we have.
Esther herself did good, but she also had tendencies to cower and needed a bit of encouragement from her uncle / father figure to do the right thing based on what is written.
Cail, agreed. I think this pope will bail on men also. Will next week.
will *see* next week
GiL,
I don’t see Vashti as representing Israel as she would have done nothing to save the Jewish people from Haman. She was moved out of the way to make room for someone who would do so.
Note as well that the replacement theology idea has lots of flaws. The Church has had its own problem following as well.
Re: John MacArthur
He is the senior pastor at grace community in panorama city, ca. And the president of the masters college and seminary ( where I went).
Garden variety, “conservative” Christian, and all that goes with it.
BradA, “Replacement Theology” is pejorative. Akin to me saying Darby/Scofield heresy. I like it when the heretics start claiming that Hagar represents Islam in Galatians 4 (as if Islam is considered one of the two covenants). The “Church” has had it’s own problems following as well, they took after their mother (Babylon has daughters).
@Scott,
Hmm. A few months ago, I shared my experiences with a Christian 30s singles group in which I ended up being kicked out because I tried dating women hypergamous for the seminary students. That was, in fact, at Grace Community, MacArthur’s church, sometime around 2004. Checking online, the group no longer exists and MacArthur himself was not involved with the singles groups while I was there… but the (single) women of Grace Community were certainly not taught well.
What were your experiences of the women when you attended seminary there?
Also, typical of misunderstanding typology, the type is always conflating physical and spiritual references. In Esther, Israel is representative of God’s people, Esther the faithful (second) wife and Vashti the rebellious (first) wife. In Galatians, Agar represents the first covenant (wife) and Sarah represents the second covenant (wife). The latter inherits and the former doesn’t. The firstborn always persecutes the second born. (Any questions about who the firstborn is should be answered in Exodus 4:22). When we stop trying to cram our heresies on the Bible it actually starts to make sense.
And to redirect on Vashti/Agar/Israel. What was “the day of provocation”? What happened at Mt. Sinai? How many times did Israel refuse to go up to her King?
@Godislaughing: “Ever been to a hellfire and brimstone Arminian sermon.”
No, I haven’t, thank God! It makes me glad I’m a Catholic with our priests’ ephemeral, lukewarm sermons!
However, Catholicism, Arminianism and Calvinism are all ultimately based not on the Bilbe, but on Augustine, whose theology is unremittingly bleak and harsh. The differences are relatively small. To brutally oversimplify: Calvinism takes Augustinian theology to its extreme, but logical, conclusion – only a few are saved and there’s nothing the damned can do about it. Arminianism allows for some exercise of free will, but acknowledges that most people do not exercise free will correctly and go to hell. Catholicism tries to have it both ways, asserting that only God saves through unmerited grace, but that it’s up to us to somehow cooperate with God’s grace by doing good works, going to confession, etc. Of course, most don’t cooperate with God’s grace and go to hell.
I can’t help but feel that Christianity would be better off it didn’t have so much Augustinian baggage.
GunnerQ-
To be accurate, I obtained my masters in biblical counseling there, which is a hybrid program between the seminary and the college.
In that program you take all the first year seminary courses (theology/hermeneutics/Greek/Hebrew/exegesis/etc) and then focus on the counseling part.
I discussed my experience with that in the context of the “red pill” a little here:
http://westernphilosophyeasternfaith.blogspot.com/2014/12/nouthetic-counseling-and-red-pill.html?m=1
The women in that program were taught that counseling a married man for example would be inappropriate.
Most of them were princesses looking for a seminary husband they hoped would become a rich mega church pastor some day.
A few seemed like chaste, serious about their faith types. I was married at the time so I didn’t paying attention to them.
@BradA
Exactly, but how that interpretation works that you described is that Adam is assumed to be the head (protector/provider) of the family (the Eldredge quote in the link above drives his home). The teaching goes: In Eve taking the fruit, Adam sinned by not protecting her. Therefore Eve did not sin. They will use Romans 5:12 in isolation (taken hideously out of context) to support their thesis: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
“By one man” is taken to mean Adam alone. Adam sinned by both failing to stop Eve from taking the fruit and by consuming the fruit himself. Eve becomes blameless. A convenient feminist teaching (that I addressed as Feminist Headship Theology) which happens to both make woman blameless AND argue that she has no moral agency whatsoever, catching both sides of the feminist dynamic (absolute female moral authority / female infantilization).
Oh, so a wife should respectfully tell her husband to jam it when she disagrees with him. Glad he added that; it makes all the difference.
@Jack, I’d rather deal with Augustine (and read my Bible that teaches the fear of the Lord) than a bunch of Antinomian Evangelical Feminists stuck on the notion that no matter how big of a whore they (or the “churches”) are that they will receive God’s unmerited favor and receive the inheritance (despite their evil heart of departing from the Living God).
Galatians 6:7: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
The modern “churchian” carousel rider hates this verse as much as the submission verses.
Re: Adam’s presence during Eve’s Temptation
My simple reading of the Genesis 3 text is inconclusive as to whether Adam was by her side while she was tempted. It seems to me that some people (and I believe Voddie Baucham is in this camp) read Adam’s near presence into it because allowance towards women is utterly and almost uniformly typical. When was the last time you heard about a husband ripping a Cosmo out of his wife’s hands with a pronouncement that “Filth belongs in the toilet, not in your head!”
@Re: John MacArthur
My man Voddie Baucham is an effusive fan of John MacArthur; though I’ve not read a lot of him. That doesn’t mean MacArthur never says anything wrong, but Baucham’s recommendation carries weight with me.
Re: Vashti, Esther, and Hagar in Galatians
It is an error to pit Vashti against Ahaseurus (the king) as one good and one bad.
I’ve heard it said that he wanted Vashti to appear naked, or dance–both being forms of exhibitionism–but the text just says he wanted to show her off. That this is a bad idea is buttressed by the fact that the king commanded this while drunk and while those he was trying to impress were drunk. All the women being sequestered in another location during a celebration reinforces that showing off your wife is not a thing done. In case anyone is unaware: showing of your prized possession among drunks–while drunk–is a bad idea; somewhere along the line of showing your friends a sex tape you made with your wife.
Vashti’s response isn’t bad because she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to be showed off, but because she bowed up when she should have bowed down. You can’t just tell the boss, “No”. It would have hurt nothing but her pride for her to ask how else she might serve her lord. She refused him with scorn instead of seeking his favor with humility.
As far as I can see, none of that has anything to do with the reference to Hagar in Galations; which is about who is born of the flesh/law, and who is born of the spirit/faith. Anyone not reborn of the spirit is a child of Hagar.
@Gunner Q
Our culture (in the churches, in the street, and here in Manosphere) is such that any young man who takes his faith seriously and is involved in church (read: at least a good start of a man for an unmarried woman to find) is encouraged to go to seminary. I believe that is wrong-headed, but we cannot fault women for trying to find good men where the good men have been sent. Our society is not suffering because too many women are trying to marry the men who are (ostensibly) trying to be godly.
As evidence of this pressure for groups to shove out the godly men into the seminary: I submit the discussion in the comments of “Driscoll, where do baby-mamas come from” about the qualifications for an elder/presbyter/priest. There was a whole bunch of quoting from 1 Corinthians 7 about whether single men or married men were better, but 1 Corinthians 7 isn’t about who should be leader. Nor is it a Christian idea that the most gifted are to be the leaders. The leaders are those who are called, appointed, and confirmed.
Men who are concerned about the things of the spirit ought to be upheld in our midst rather than sent off to seminary. Your ire is better directed at that bit of culture, rather than those 30s singles group women’s preference for a man who is respected. We want more of that.
ballista,
Actually, you are saying the exact same thing. Saying she is “blameless” AND saying that she has “no moral agency” whatsoever is ONLY female infantilization. It has nothing to do with absolute female moral authority. Saying she has absolute female moral authority is feminism. The two are not linked. And I hate it when guys in the manosphere try to link them. Don’t do that guys. As the Offspring say “…you gotta keep ’em separated.”
The most beautiful aspect of the television show “All in the Family” was how it perfectly defined a true patriarch who absolutely loved women while at the same time, hated all that there was in feminism. If Edith made a decision to act (without consulting him), a decision that Archie thought was right (like in the episode where Edith just held a terminally ill woman’s hand and watched her die) he would tell her “…you did right.” At the same time, Archie Bunker never gave Edith a hard time for a decision she made (without consulting him) that he thought was wrong. He would only correct the person that he thought was leading his wife astray (like Archie giving the local Catholic Priest a hard time because he thought the man was trying to make his Prostestant wife, Catholic) or….. talk to Edith about it later because he knew (what we all know here) about women, they are not at our level of accountability. They just aren’t. Guys, you can’t expect them to be. I used to think they were (and even planned my life around that blue pill belief) but now, looking back on life and looking at women for what they are (and having my plans and expectations crushed time and again because women alone didn’t step up to the plate), they most certainly aren’t. Due to this random amoral behavior, we regard women almost childlike. This is even something that men find attractive in women, something that we seem to think gives women value! GirlWritesWhat refers to this kind of thinking in her youtube on neotney. Look for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny
Women eat apples. They are always making sh-t decisions (whether it is majoring in college in something that is a waste of time, spending money they don’t have on consumer goods that they don’t need, dating men that they know they would never want to marry, etc) random horesh-t behavior that none of us would expect of men. This is the result of Eve. God rolled the dice when he created her thinking that she had a much moral agency as Adam did. She did not. And we are in the world today because of it.
Feminism was created (initially) as to give ugly women access to the mainstream of society. That never really happened (life still sucks horribly for ugly women), so its purpose had to change. Now, feminism exists and is constantly changing and rearanging itself all for the purpose of excusing women (and ONLY women) for their feral, amoral behavior while at the same time creating a society where these feral women are not ultimately accountable to a husband of whom they MUST obey (and correct them.)
@Cane, the connection between Hagar and Vashti is this. They refused to go up. Hebrews and Psalms refers to what happened at Sinai as provocation (provoking God to jealousy). Speaking of nakedness, it features in heavily in the typology. God tells Israel that He will strip her bare in Isaiah 1 and expose her nakedness. Why would a man expose his wife in such a manner?? I have my suspicions.
@Ballista
This is a brazen deception, ballista. By one man sin and death did enter the world; just as Paul says and just as those you are disparaging have faithfully upheld.
This is said to Adam by God after He had addressed the serpent, and after He had addressed Eve. Sin’s corruption and death is by Adam, and Adam alone.
How, then, if sin and death entered into/corrupted the world by one woman and one man–as you must infer–does Christ’s death alone atone for sin and remove death? Where is the female portion? Are you so eager to fight modern feminism that you will now sow the seeds of goddess worship?
You have gone too far.
@Cane Caldo
Driscoll notes this suggestion, but from what I can find the same sources which make the naked claim also claim she didn’t want to appear because she had either grown a tail, or had leprosy. Both of these are not only fantastic, but go against what the text clearly says, that she was beautiful. Either way, in Driscoll’s case I think this is all sleight of hand, because he doesn’t say “If the command was to appear naked, she should have declined”, he notes the question and then unconditionally celebrates her girlpower:
Driscoll then celebrates this as the example Christian women should follow, again without condition that the command was actually to appear naked, and as you point out, encourages bowing up.
IBB
Feminism was created (initially) as to give ugly women access to the mainstream of society.
Y’know, no matter how many times you babble this, it still is not true.
@innocentbystanderboston
A woman has absolute female moral authority by virtue that she is considered blameless. Her motives are pure as the driven snow, and therefore her will must be done. By virtue of female infantilization she can not be held to bear the consequences of her own actions – most notably by passing the blame for what she has done onto the man, but also the provider role. Female infantilization is treating a woman that is supposed to be adult as a child – hence she is not responsible for her own actions.
As for your defense of female infantilization, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Part of the reason why feminism is in such full bloom is because people believe that women do not possess full accountability for their own actions. Making women bear responsibilities commensurate to their proper rights is fundamental to dealing with the problem. If a woman can demand to be paid the same as a man and be in the same positions as a man and be treated like a man vis-a-vis rights she can bear the same responsibilities as well (for instance no quota laws that favor her in employment – these exist because of the belief that the playing field must be leveled for women, in other words they can not bear responsibility).
@Cane Caldo
So, you believe, as the Catholics put it, that women do not possess original sin (and therefore are not sinners and consequently do not need a Savior)? That sure seems what you are arguing, and if that is the case, you are the one arguing for goddess worship. I am describing the feminist viewpoint, and you might do well to re-read what I wrote to see that.
Men sin. And so do women. Even though many do not admit the latter.
@Dalrock
Yes, I agree.
I do not mean to support Driscoll’s message. He makes the error of making Vashti good because Ahaseurus does wrong. I think he wanted to make the message more salacious, and I think it was another example of him harvesting respect from men through the women, by perverting a Bible story about Esther’s godly feminine submission. And I think he believes what he said. I think it bothers him to think of women being obedient.
In response, some here have made Ahaseurus good because Vashti did wrong. GIL even goes so far as to say that Ahaseurus is a symbol of God! Now that is a horrible thing to contemplate because two pages after Vashti is disappeared, Ahaseurus signs off on worshipping men under pain of death. Should we say God would do such a thing?
I mean to say that we don’t have to make Ahaseurus good for Vashti to have done wrong. I think this is in keeping with the spirit of Peter’s admonition for wives to submit even if their husbands are like evil masters, and winning them over. Esther is a story about a woman living out that submission in adversity.
God’s stripping of Israel was not a drunken whim. Anyway, now you’re mixing the symbols and connecting Vashti to Israel and Israel to Hagar; when Israel is the produce of Sarah rather than Hagar. I think you’re trying to connect dots out of sequence.
Feminism has the same roots as Marxism.
As early as 1895, feminists praised the works of Friedrich Engels (and, by extension, Karl Marx). Clara Zetkin praised Engels “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State” as, “of the most fundamental importance for the struggle for liberation of the entire female sex.”
Marxists saw marriage as a building block of capitalism and as a target in their social war. Marriages ensure property acquired during a lifetime pass to the offspring and is not redistributed. Thus, marriage inspired the drive to accumulate private property. Feminists joined to calls to dismantle marriage because they only saw women as oppressed and subordinated in marriage.
This is where modern feminists draw the “All sex is rape” nonsense. After all, if a person is not “empowered” by their standard, then they cannot give true consent. No true consent = coerced or forced sex, i.e. “rape.” If that logic sounds a little tortured, remember that Steinem also admitted that her views are, “broad ideas that required right feelings rather than intellectual understanding or hard choices.”
ballista74: This is not Catholic doctrine at all. All humans, men and women, are tainted by original sin. In your post above you state: “So, you believe, as the Catholics put it, that women do not possess original sin (and therefore are not sinners and consequently do not need a Savior)?” Not sure if you were asking another poster if they believed this or thought this was actually Church doctrine. Sections 388-390 of the Catechism discuss the basis of and theory behind original sin and its consequences.
@Patrick Maybe that sentence was a little confusing. I was just indicating that I was borrowing the phrase “possess original sin”, more than indicating anything else. Other than that, thank you for making my point – the feminist church doctrine indeed indicates that women are without sin.
Cane Caldo @ 1:39 pm:
“I believe that is wrong-headed, but we cannot fault women for trying to find good men where the good men have been sent.”
Those women didn’t want good men. They wanted the rock stars of Christianity. They wanted the rank of PastorWife. They hated me at first sight because I couldn’t be her Crown Prince, her personal, literal King David. They didn’t hesitate to show their disgust at my very existence… because being nice to no-status me would’ve killed the girl’s SMV.
Had they actually been looking for a “good” man then they would at least have smiled at me and participated in a brief conversation. I was tall, fit, well-mannered and took the initiative in approaching women… exactly what they SAID they wanted, and like so many other men I was confused when they punished me for following their advice. Those women were addicted to the tingles of status and preselection, just like unChristian women. I thank God those feral sluts hated me… what an AFC I might have made.
I will believe women are looking for good men when I see them giving IOIs to nerds.
@ballista
No, and that is the brazen deception that I accuse you of. Neither Roman Catholics nor those who preach that sin and death entered the world through Adam alone–just as God says in Genesis and so Paul teaches in Romans–teach that women are free of original sin, or that women are sinless. It’s not true; they do not teach that.
They may act like women are sinless and behave as if women are morally superior, but what you have said goes beyond that. You do them wrong. You are dismissive of Paul and his quotation of the Lord. The words “sin entered the world” do not mean that a sin was done for the first time. Paul tells us in Romans that sin was present in the world before The Fall.
The Fall is different because it is an upending of the whole order. Sin entering the world means that not only did Adam and Eve do things less than perfect, or merely while in ignorance, but now they were making informed decisions to upend the order–including the master of Earth, Adam. No one earthly could come along and correct the problem, or prevent its spread, and everything of the earth would follow Adam’s lead as he was still head of all. The earth was doomed to chase its own tail in chaos. Death is the only remedy.
Beyond that, if you maintain (in error) that sin and death entered the world through Eve also, then it stands that you must expect a New Eve to go with the New Adam; that she is necessary. You actually made a case for a teaching on Mary as the “New Eve” to go along with Jesus’ New Adam. Now, I don’t buy that because it’s senseless in light of Genesis 3 and Roman 5.
I take that as a sign of your confusion because I never would guess ballista would argue Marian doctrine.
I find it an odd quibble when people speculate on the authority/merit/propriety of Ahaseurus calling for Vashti. It was death to even approach the King if not called for, how is that for authority. I think that most of the quivering knees of the feminized Church are so alienated from the masculine and fearful nature of God that they cannot begin to stomach His severity. Is Ahaseurus a perfect type? Nope. Moses wasn’t a perfect type of Jesus either (he struck the rock the second time).
Cain you are failing to acknowledge which covenant was delivered at Mt. Sinai and which covenant answered to Jerusalem which is below (as written by the Apostle Paul). By doing so you fail to see the error that was made at Mt. Sinai. It’s not complicated unless you insist on the Pharisees representing the children of promise.
I find it an odd quibble when speaking to a manosphere audience. Ironic even. Next someone will be suggesting that the Persian sovereign represents the evils of the patriarchy.
@Cane Caldo Do you even understand anything that I wrote? Let’s try it another way. Does Romans 5:12 indicate in any way that Eve did not sin, consequently making it wholly Adam’s fault that she took the fruit? Simple yes or no answer there.
@Boxer and all “regular posters”
“”Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!””
When I read this comment from ER I was drinking a nice cold Heineken before going to bed.I almost spit up my beer,fell out of my chair and died laughing.Where ER got this I do not know(I would like to).Obviously ER has been following this sap for awhile.
Question:To all you “regular posters”.If we were going to place ‘wagers’ on his wife’s “N-count”….what would you say? Myself?….3…the one who popped her cherry……another one whom she had a serious LTR with……and another LTR,after the second.And she was screwing the 3rd guy while courting Driscoll……and he was not even getting a handjob,because she was trying to be the “respectable virgin”…and then she fessed up later to her N-count…after they were married…..LMAO.
Well gentlemen….what do you think?……I say 3!
Note to Mr.’D’:No thread jacking intended here Dalrock.This is just too great of an opportunity to pass up!……And I would like to here from the regulars!….I love reading their comments!!!!
@GIL
No one here, especially me, has called into question patriarchy, and patriarchy isn’t upended just because we admit a patriarch did something wrong.
My bishop has the authority to excommunicate me, but he doesn’t have the authority to excommunicate me because I wore red socks to church last week. Herod had the authority to call for a man’s head, but he didn’t have the authority to call for John the Baptist’s head just because some whore asked for it. A husband has the authority to lead his wife in prayer, but he does not have the right to make her pray to loa, or even the right to let her alone if she is! I am sure that Ahaseurus had the authority to call for Vashti to come before him, but he didn’t have the authority to get smashed and then expose her (whether naked or not) to a drunken crowd of sycophants.
In the same way, while I must have the humility to submit to the authorities, that humility does not extend to me the onus to commit perjury; not even against a known felon. I’d wear a wire if they asked me to, or whatever else legally and morally
I’m sure I fail to acknowledge many things, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Mark, she “cheated on him in a sexual way” a bit after they started dating.
” I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating. It was so clear it was like watching a film — something I cannot really explain but the kind of revelation I sometimes receive. I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue, and waiting for her to wake up so I could ask her. I asked her if it was true, fearing the answer. Yes, she confessed, it was.”
AR posted the link above –
http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/mark-driscoll-real-marriage
For all we know, she may have been necking with the other guy.
“”Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!””
Mark
When I read this comment from ER I was drinking a nice cold Heineken before going to bed.I almost spit up my beer,fell out of my chair and died laughing.Where ER got this I do not know(I would like to).Obviously ER has been following this sap for awhile.
It’s detailed in the 2012 book on marriage co-written by Driscoll and his wife, “Real Marriage”.
Up thread I pointed to a couple of articles about this book. Here is a hostile article from 2012
with some mention of the issues:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/13/mark-driscoll-s-sex-manual-real-marriage-scandalizes-evangelicals.htm
Also, a search on “driscoll john macarthur” turned up a number of links, apparently Driscoll crashed a religious event organized by MacArthur. Some disagreement ensued. Here is one link:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/mark-driscoll-stokes-john-macarthurs-strange-fire-conference-with-impromptu-book-signing-107003/
You know what all this reminds me of? Is “promise keepers” still a thing?
Cane, Ahaseurus was an absolute monarch (like God), as such he did have the authority. He could have chopped her into pieces and served her up as stew. I think it’s the feminist who insists on injecting husbandly propriety into a story about absolute authority. It’s an alien concept to them and so they try to revise the spirit of the Book of Esther to their modern narrative.
Galatians 4 speaks of two covenants, one is for those who want to keep the law and was given to Moses at Mt. Sinai when the children of Israel refused to go up. Paul says that they are in bondage (and to throw them out because they will not inherit). The other covenant was given at Mt. Zion when Jesus (the seed promised to Abraham) died on the Cross for our sins. That makes those of the second covenant “children of promise” owing their lives to Jerusalem which is above “the mother of us all”.
We see in Esther the opposite of the account in Galatians. Going before the king meant possible death but instead of drawing back she said “if I perish I perish, but I’m going to see the King.” rather than “who can see God and live” and told Moses “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die”. Esther is the anti-type of Israel at Mt. Sinai, willing to bear her Cross (die to self).
(Sorry for butchering your name Cane, I’ve been distracted today).
I listen to John MacArthur fairly regularly. He is not an espouse of evangelical feminism in any way, shape, or form.
It should be easy enough to look for podcasts and listen for anyone who is truly interested. Third party Internet reviews are hardly reliable sources since people’s interpretation and filters are so varied.
Same with Allistair Begg.
@ballista
Yes, I understand what you wrote. You’re trying to distract from the fact that I called you out for deception when you wrote this:
and that you attributed it to any church or pastor who believes that Adam was nearby when Eve ate the fruit. Even if they are wrong on Adam’s location: You slandered them when you say they teach a heresy they do not, in fact, teach! They–including Eldredge and the Roman Catholic Church–don’t teach that Eve didn’t sin. They don’t teach that women don’t sin. Of course Romans 5:12 does not indicate that Even did not sin. You LIED to say that Eldredge, the RCC, and others teach such a thing. There are plenty of things wrong with church that need to be corrected without you bearing false witness against your neighbor.
I read your post on Wild at Heart, and I read the book ten years ago. It’s not great, but the book doesn’t say what you have claimed it says in regards to Eve or women being sinless. What’s more, above you wrote that Eldredge’s book claim that women were sinless. It’s a lie. You write that you quoted him saying that Eve was sinless. You couldn’t have because he didn’t write it.
That’s not true and has never been true. Catholic teaching has always been that Adam and Eve both sinned. (St. Thomas Aquinas actually lists five sins on her part, in the act of eating the fruit.) We sometimes call it “the sin of Adam” as a shortcut for the same reason that we call Jesus the “son of David”: in those times everything was traced back through the male ancestors.
Catholic teaching is that Mary was preserved from sin at the moment of conception, but even that salvation came from Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, which transcends time. No one was ever or will ever be saved from sin except by that sacrifice.
If you look at Catholic teaching prior to Vatican II, or track down some traditionalist priests, you’ll find plenty about women being the weaker sex and at least as prone to sin as men, if not more so. Starting with St. Paul’s letters, of course. Or take Aquinas again (my emphasis):
Ain’t that the truth.
@Cane Caldo
When you can’t refute anything I write, you lie and character assassinate and yes bear false witness.
I attributed it to any church or pastor that blames Adam for not stopping Eve because they believe him to be nearby, or any church or pastor that believes Adam was responsible for Eve’s sin, generically. If Adam is to blame for Eve’s sin for not stopping her, instead of Eve doing it of her own free will, then the claim can be made that Eve did not sin. This is true, no matter how anyone writes it or says it. The fact that no one is stupid enough to come out and directly say it doesn’t indicate that the belief isn’t present. That an article like this even exists is proof enough that the belief is out there and if the belief is out there then that means someone is teaching it either by commission or omission.
Whatever your motivations, you’ve proven you are incapable of discussing anything in good faith, so I’m done with you.
jack – a theology that believes all people are thoroughly depraved and worthless and that the vast majority of them are going to hell and deservedly so.
There is more to Calvinism than that, but more important is the fact that part of this is correct. We are all depraved and in need of a savior. Most people are going to hell and deserve to if the Bible is to be believed. However, we are not worthless as God valued us enough to pay the penalty for our sins that we might live.
@Cail Read my comment of January 29, 2015 at 2:39 pm
@GIL
An absolute king is not like God because there is still a king over him. And a king does not have the authority to murder, commit cannibalism, or force others to commit cannibalism even if he is an absolute monarch. The fact that there is no one with the authority to punish a king for wrong actions does not mean that a king has authority to commit wrong actions, or that his actions are right no matter what. All it means is that there is no one on earth with the authority to punish him.
Well, I would say that it is a misunderstanding about authority born from a rejection of reality. The reality is that sometimes there is no one earthly to punish those above us who do us wrong. It’s also reality that abused authority does not grant a right to rebel outright simply because of the reality that there is no one earthly to punish the authority who does wrong. We think there should be someone–and there will be–but out pride leads us to believe that should steal authority that wasn’t given to us.
As for the rest: I know all the pieces you are talking about, but I’m still not seeing it. I’ll take a look.
Ballista74, thanks for the clarification. And just to be clear myself: although it’s clearly heresy, you can find plenty of Catholic priests today teaching that women are basically sinless without ever saying it, just like Driscoll and FotF. So I wouldn’t blame people for getting the impression that’s what we’re supposed to believe.
If Catholics are any better off than Protestants today on this topic, it’s primarily because the absolute prohibition on women priests has slowed the full feminist agenda. But if Protestants are at a 9 on the 1-10 female imperative adoption scale, Catholics are at at least 8.9. There’s no measurable difference between the mainstream of each.
@ballista
Yes. As I said, you lied to us and you slandered them.
The burden of proof is on you, and you have not proved that Eldredge, the RCC, or even Driscoll said anything of the kind. In fact that have all said that women are sinful. Not only did you not prove it, you then LIED and said they did. Not only that, but you said
Which I showed is NOT in isolation but refers directly back to Genesis 3, and is NOT taken out of context because sin and death DID enter the world through Adam as God says, again, in Genesis 3. You LIED there, too, and you did it not out of love for them that they might repent, but out of hate.
Then you go out and find some clown at Drury Writing–who has never been mentioned in this conversation or even on this site–to support your claim that everyone who says that Adam should have stopped Eve from eating the fruit must be saying that Eve is sinless, and also therefore and by proxy all women are sinless. Man, that doesn’t even follow from one to the next.
But you can’t see that because all you got is hate. You hate on women. Then you hate on churches. Then you hate on men if they don’t hate women and they go to churches. This is tricky but important because there is a great need for repentance from women, churches, and men. But you exploit this to poison every conversation you engage. You’re malignant.
That’s another lie. I am having a conversation in good faith (on my side) with you right now. I even answer your question. And I had conversations in good faith with several people in this very thread; which puts the lie to your claim that I am incapable of them.
In continuing that good faith I have extend to, I will reveal my two motivations:
1) In the hopes that you would have wrote, “Ok, I shouldn’t have stated it like that.”
2) If that didn’t happen then others would take a warning and pay no further heed to the poison that you push.
@dalrock
“. . . . he notes the question and then unconditionally celebrates her girlpower:“Tell him to stuff it.” “But he thinks he’s the Lord God. He sits on a throne.” “Tell him to stuff it. Tell the Lord to stuff it.” “Okay. What’s he going to do to us? I mean, it can’t get any worse. You know? Alright, King. She says, ‘Stuffeth this.’” You know? That’s what she says.”
No need to stop there! Driscoll just keeps better as the Esther series goes on. While I can’t fathom the mind of anyone who would willingly put themself under the leadership of this fraud, I have to imagine that the Mars Hill masochists probably got an even bigger kick out of the next message (part 3 in the series), which happened to contain this golden moment:
“. . . And what she had done and what had been decreed against her. Then the king’s young men who attended him said—’ Let me just say this: if you’re having a hard time, and you’re really, really depressed, and you want counsel, don’t pursue the counsel of, quote, ‘young men.’ You will never get good counsel from young men. A lot of young guys are like, ‘Well, I disagree with that.’ Of course you would, you’re always wrong. That’s my point. The Bible has nothing good to say about young men. Nothing. I’ve read the whole book. Some of you say, ‘Oh, it says they’re strong.’ So are terrorists and pit bulls, you know?”
Hurts so good! It wouldn’t really be a Mark Driscoll sermon if he didn’t somehow find a way to trash the men in his audience while simultaneously praising the sin in the women, after all.
@Cail: “If Catholics are any better off than Protestants today on this topic, it’s primarily because the absolute prohibition on women priests has slowed the full feminist agenda.”
Most Catholic priests and bishops don’t understand feminism. They don’t understand the havoc it’s wreaking in our culture. The Church is too busy dealing with its many problems – paying for the sins of pedophile priests, declining membership, having to close/consolidate parishes, trying to promote the “New Evangelization”, which so far can only be described as an epic fail.
I find most priests and bishops tend to be gender neutral on the issue of who’s to blame for the decline of families and the decline of Christianity.
@DA
Haha!
@Cane, you sound like a French Revolutionary. Did you say you were a Catholic?
Like: Adjective: Having the same or similar qualities.
Cane, I could see you pointing out how the kingdom of heaven is not like a mustard seed because you can’t grind up heaven and put it on a ham sandwich.
@GIL
I think you are not understanding me.
No, I am not, nor have I ever been, Roman Catholic.
Institutional Controls don’t prevent when you don’t notice you’ve been in a Religious-based war for 200 years. No amount of structure can protect from blindness and foolishness. That’s the reality of it.
Ballista,
I do tend toward the idea that Adam was accountable as the head, but then he had to be the head for that accountability. The modern situation wants the headship for women, with none of the accountability.
GiL,
Hagar is not the first wife in any way, just the one who came by the flesh and was cast out. We need to take the full point of what the Epistles say, not just a small part. Hagar came long after Sarah. Her child may have come first, but not her.
Where did Hagar refuse to go up to anyway?
I am not sure if you believe the idea that the Church has completely replaced Israel in God’s plan, but that is what it believes. Complaining about the label is like complaining about Obamacare, Reaganomics or any other term that ties a subject to its core beliefs. It may not be positive to many, but that is too bad.
Cane,
[Gen 3:6 KJV] 6 And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
How do you interpret the man being “with her” in this case then? The clearest reading is that he was physically present. If I say I gave something to my wife who was with me, you would assume that she was close by, not just married to me or living in the same house, right?
====
A general note, while Adam is a clear individual, he is the one who called Eve by her name, not God. If the two become “one flesh” as we are told, then they share an identity to some point.
I do find some things to think about between
[Rom 5:12 KJV] 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
and
[1Ti 2:14 KJV] 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
One piles it on Adam, the other on Eve. Also, you could only say Eve was sinless, not her offspring, since all others shared sin from Adam. I don’t believe that Eve was sinless, but it is fairly clear that God placed the blame for the action fully on Adam, though Even had consequences as well.
Adam’s action was willful and that seems to be the main point to me. Choices by both men and women today are willful and thus no escape hatch exists for either of them.
Ballista,
Does Romans 5:12 indicate in any way that Eve did not sin, consequently making it wholly Adam’s fault that she took the fruit? Simple yes or no answer there.
A simple reading must assert that, since sin started with Adam and Even had eaten of the forbidden fruit prior to that.
It seems to me more of a case similar to the need for The Law – sin is not accounted without rules and intent. I will let others argue the specifics, but it would say sin came with Eve if she was the first.
No Cane, even though I have been distracted I think I’m understanding you quite well. I am clearly not a Catholic either but I have great sympathies with the monarchist trends amongst them and the Orthodox schools of thought. It makes sense that you aren’t given your take on absolute (in the secular sense) monarchies. You seem to have very republican/protestant sentiments. Most Catholics haven’t been force-fed a lifetime supply of dispensationalism either.
I tend to think that not being able to identify the Great Whore is a symptom of being married to one of her daughters. And the appeal to “come out of her my people lest you partake in her judgements” falls on deaf ears because of strong delusion. To which they say “surely He’s not talking to me”.
No, BradA the theology is called Covenant Theology and it was around long before Ribera/Lacunza/Darby/Scofield were on the scene. Hagar represents a covenant, one that answers to Mt. Sinai, who is that? What didn’t they do at Mt. Sinai? Why does the Bible call it “provocation”? Please, read the words.
“Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.”
(Gal 4:21-25)
That covenant was a MARRIAGE covenant. Unless you are suggesting that God wasn’t married to Israel. And maybe the other covenant isn’t a marriage covenant either (with His bride the Church)?
“For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.”
(Psa 95:7-9)
Instead Israel said:
“And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
(Exo 20:18-19)
A bullet point from the transcript of the sermon in question:
1. Your Father Adam (Genesis 1-3)
Adam and Eve both sinned, both are at fault, and both are cursed, but God held Adam responsible (Gen. 3:9).
HERESY! God held Eve responsible for daring to remove herself from under the authority of God and cursed every woman in her lineage as a result! God cursed Adam for refusing to keep his spiritual back-hand strong!
So I’m guessing these idolators of the feminine, Driscoll and company, would have us believe Adam’s failing was that he wasn’t “Man enough” around the Garden of Eden? He wasn’t listening to Eve enough, he didn’t express his feeeeeeeeeeelings to Eve, wasn’t picking enough berries, wasn’t naming enough animals, wasn’t performing well enough to keep Eve sexually satisfied, he wasn’t striving enough for a promotion @ work (in a company of 2) or doing enough to keep her perpetually entertained?
Adam’s sin was that he didn’t give a crap enough about Eve’s spiritual relationship with God, so he went along with the stupid broad to keep the peace and joined her in sin. He then tried deny his responsibility to God when he was confronted.
Adam should have slapped the apple out of Eve’s hand, stomped the serpent flat, admonish her to repentance and pray to Almighty God for mercy on their her behalf. Today, pastors like Driscoll would have called the police on Adam to have him arrested on DV and the congregation of Mars Hill would have comforted Eve with all sorts of enabling noise like, “Don’t worry hun, we know Adam made you do it.” and “Oh that Adam is such a brute! How could he! You need to meet my friend, Ananias. He’s a nice guy and he’s generous with his donations to the church!”
And I found this in only the summary of the sermon.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that we have a bunch of followers of “Personal Jesus: running around talking about how He died for their sins on His Cross while refusing to take their own Cross up and die daily and refusing to hear His voice today. It’s the self-same infection.
His sheep hear His voice.
Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
(Est 4:16)
Which Evangelical Feminist twinky is going to quote Esther? Which person at Mt. Sinai (besides Moses)? Which will embrace the last half of the following quote?
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
(Rom 8:14-17)
It’s funny that they don’t talk about Hosea. After all, that’s far more relevant to their goal of getting men to wife-up single mommas than, say, the story of Joseph keeping with Mary.
I figure there are two possible reasons:
A) They don’t know the bible as well as they act like, outside their favorite passages, so they just don’t know Hosea well enough.
B) Using Hosea’s sacrifice would openly compare single mommas to a sinful woman, and that’s not acceptable.
Yes, Driscoll’s wife was by his own admission sexually active prior to marriage, even while dating him!
Thanks DeNihilist for doing my homework;
“I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating. It was so clear it was like watching a film — something I cannot really explain but the kind of revelation I sometimes receive. I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue, and waiting for her to wake up so I could ask her. I asked her if it was true, fearing the answer. Yes, she confessed, it was.”
A bit more;
“Grace started weeping and trying to apologize for lying to me, but I honestly don’t remember the details of the conversation, as I was shell-shocked. Had I known about this sin, I would not have married her.”
In review
*I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue
*Grace started weeping and trying to apologize for lying to me
*I was shell-shocked. Had I known about this sin, I would not have married her
NECKING??? You say necking? Maybe you better read that again.
Listen, my point was never to destroy the reputation of Mrs. Driscoll. Her indiscretions are published. In fact as far as she goes I expect she’s probably near cream of the crop do to the sad fact that the proverbial crop of churchian women is exceedingly poor quality to begin with. I’ve dated ‘Christian’ women for decades. I could hardly meet a virgin even when I was dating 17 year olds. The church has raised a couple generations of young women (NAWALT) most of which are either sluts or too fat to f**K. Point was- Driscoll has to blame men or blame the slut he married and the other sluts in the church. He had it right the first time…
…..Had I known about this sin, I would not have married her…..
And that kids are what hymens are for.
Egalitarian folks would have us believe that sin came into the world through Adam because Adam’s sin was worse than Eve’s, whose sin was accidental and out of ignorance (not her fault). The feminism influence is unmistakable as the FI script is used to twist the meaning of the passages.
The true understanding of the scriptures, however, paints a different picture. Eve was not ignorant and knew the command that had been given to Adam. She is recorded as having paraphrased it to the serpent.
Gen 3:2-3 – 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
In spite of knowing the command (not ignorant), Eve was deceived and fell into transgression.
1 Tim. 2:14 “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression.”
Adam and Eve both sinned, but sin entered the world through Adam.
Rom 5:12 – “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned -“
Adam was the 1st man, and was the one in authority.
1 Tim. 2:12-13 – “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.”
The woman was made for the man, not vice versa.
Gen 2:18 – Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
The husband (the man) is the one in authority, like Adam was over creation, and like Christ is to His Church.
Eph 5:23-24 – “23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.”
1 Cor 11:3, “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ.”
It was through Adam that sin came into the world, because Adam was the 1st of creation and the one in authority. God’s created order exists, and ignoring it has been a problem since the beginning.
Cail, at the end of the day I’m pretty simplistic. We need to die to self, hear His voice and obey. This is a travesty to anyone infected with the rot that is the whore (called by any name you choose).
The whore says:
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
(Rev 18:7)
and
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed.
(Pro 7:18-20)
And fornication is winked at and rewarded.
Driscoll is a Calvinist. He believes firmly in Calvinist/Augustinian theology – a theology that believes all people are thoroughly depraved and worthless and that the vast majority of them are going to hell and deservedly so.
I think it looks more like Driscoll is a neo-Calvinist (if there is such a term), because, in his preaching, only the men are depraved and worthless; the women are doing just fine.
There is a truth to Calvinism though. All people are thoroughly depraved unless they turn to Christ, where they find their worth and value.
1. We are unclean outside of Christ
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. Isaiah 64:6.
2. Our hearts are naturally wicked
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9
3. It is only when we turn to Christ that we receive a new heart
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
4. It is only then that we become elevated to be joint-heirs with Christ
Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Romans 8:17
I actually have to defend Driscoll’s wife here. The fact that she had fallen into sexual sin was by no means commendable, but Mark had no business making it public like that.
IINM, Joshua Harris did the same thing, though I’d expect it from a modern-day Origen like him.
God is Laughing @ 4:09 pm:
“Esther is the anti-type of Israel at Mt. Sinai, willing to bear her Cross (die to self). ”
This doesn’t really work because Mordechai had to threaten Esther into doing that. She initially refused to stop her own people’s genocide… because she might be killed if she tried. Female leadership! (As if kings were ever in the habit of killing their favorite sex toys for showing up and wanting a hug.)
Embracing Reality – I was raised a Catholic, and still hear the priest to this day, telling us boys, during sex ed (the film, From Boy to Man), that kissing a girl was a sin. So I was giving the Driscoll’s the benefit of the doubt, as he was raised Catholic also by the sounds of it.
🙂
@BradA
I don’t know how near Adam was to Eve when was tempted, or how close he was when she took the fruit. How much time was there between those events? I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters much. What matters is that from the moment Adam knew, he was not deceived. He chose to listen to his wife and eat the fruit with a clear knowledge, and that is what brought sin into the world, and death with it; not Eve eating the fruit, but him doing so. That’s what is recorded in Genesis. That’s what Paul re-iterates in Romans. Her sin did not bring sin and death into the world; it didn’t make it an inescapable part of life on Earth.
Neither did I defend the teaching that Adam nearby Eve as she was tempted. I defended those who had been lied about; just as I would want someone to do for me.
@GIL
Peace!
Regarding Vashti, I like what Esther 1:16-17 says:
16 In the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, “Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but also all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. 17 For the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women causing them to look with contempt on their husbands by saying, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in to his presence, but she did not come.’
If something weren’t done about the situation, Vashti’s conduct would have a bad impact through the copycat effect. The other women of the nation would show contempt to their husbands.
GunnarQ, Mordecai didn’t threaten, he warned. The Holy Spirit repeatedly warns us to take up our crosses and follow Jesus Christ, hear His voice and harden not our hearts. If we are unwilling to follow Him (loving not our own lives even unto dying) where are we left?
Esther made special preparations before she went into to see the king, As the ecclesia in Revelation are commanded to do. Vashti tried that sex toy maneuver too and she got obliterated for it.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
(Heb 10:31)
Cane, peace.
Six years ago John MacArthur spoke strongly against Driscoll:
At the 2009 Basics Conference, John Piper was given the opportunity to respond to John MacArthur’s fierce criticism of Mark Driscoll’s outrageous sermon on The Song of Solomon preached in Scotland.
In his critique John MacArthur, pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley,California, said that Driscoll’s method of preaching The Song of Solomon “is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way. Mark Driscoll has boldly led the parade down this carnal path. He is by far the best-known and most prolific popular proponent of handling the Song of Solomon that way. He has said repeatedly that this is his favourite passage of Scripture…”
The difference between me (Piper) and MacArthur is that I’m not drawing the line that John has drawn from the imperfections of Mark’s ministry to his unfitness for ministry. That seems to be where John has gone, he says it’s over, Mark should resign, nobody should go to his church.
http://www.driscollcontroversy.com/?page_id=654
The term “necking” is incredibly vague. It describes a wide range of activities, from kissing, to “hoping and groping,” to full on sex. It’s not really any of my business what Driscoll’s wife did before she married the man. It’s really none of his business either, except for the fact that it’s a good illustration of what happens if you don’t check out your future spouse before signing on the dotted line.
I suppose in a healthier society, it’d be a blemish on her father’s reputation (he’s the dude who was ultimately responsible) but these days, a father who sets boundaries risks being hauled into court on a child abuse charge, so I have a hard time blaming him also.
He may have married a former ho’ but most men do. Problem I have is with his endless promotion of feminism and the damage it has done to the gullible people who took him seriously because of his self-appointed position as a Christian preacher.
You’re way generous. If we’re defining sex as any activity that brings one or more parties to orgasm, I am guessing 5<x<25, and that's being conservative.
Bear in mind that many women selectively "forget" those one-time, no strings attached trysts that "just happen". I'm sure most of you dudes have had some dumb slut offer herself up, out of the blue, for some surprise action, at least a few times. That crap is standard procedure with these women. If you asked her how many cocks she's hosted, she might pass a lie detector with an answer around "3", but you can bet that's way lower than reality.
@Chris Dagostino
“”The fact that she had fallen into sexual sin was by no means commendable, but Mark had no business making it public like that.””
Great Point!…….I was thinking the same thing.Obviously,this shows a great lack of disrespect for his wife.That is something that should have been strictly kept within the confines of their household….and not made a public spectacle.If you hear in the very near future that they are separating,don’t be surprised.
Dear Cail:
Thanks for bringing up Hosea. That story was a constant puzzle to me, and the exegesis here helps me understand it (an analogy to an unfaithful “chosen people” is perfect).
IIRC: He didn’t just marry a single mom, but a repeatedly adulterous skank ho, who embarrassed him multiple times. Whatever Mrs. Driscoll’s faults, we don’t really see any evidence that she was all that bad. She probably kept fairly active as a teenager, but as far as I can see she has settled down. One thing I will say is that at least she hasn’t divorced him (yet). Not wishing him ill, but that often changes when a husband loses outward prestige or position.
Boxer
Pregnant, Unmarried, and Scared
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=942870
On Vashti, don’t forget that in a Monarchy, the Queen is the official “Queen Bee” of the culture. She *is* the precedent for them. Most Women in tribal/ancient societies could be a handful to deal with, just think of that situation when they’d have carte blanche for outright rebellion.
But, given that society, they’d probably have just eliminated the Wives that followed that path. So banishing Vashti saved a lot of lives. (Doubly, since it setup for Esther’s position)
‘Most Women in tribal/ancient societies could be a handful to deal with, just think of that situation when they’d have carte blanche for outright rebellion. ‘
Imagine? We are living in it.
Pregnant, Unmarried, and Scared
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=942870
Did anyone notice how she showed absolutely no remorse for sluttery? The issue is not that she engaged in fornication, but rather for “having allowed a child to come into this situation”!
‘Did anyone notice how she showed absolutely no remorse for sluttery? The issue is not that she engaged in fornication, but rather for “having allowed a child to come into this situation”!’
Yes and from the story there was nothing but believing stuff would magically happen. Sounds like she was deceived and is paying the price for it. Hopefully she goes to confession and seeks God’s help for making the best of a bad situation.
‘The father is loving and supporting and we hoped one day to have a family in the coming years.’
But they decided to speed up the process with unlawful sex in an uncertain situation.
‘The father is European an lives there but had made plans to continue his studies in the US. He is a phd student, and we still don’t know where he will end up, or where I will.’
With such an uncertain situation between where both are going to be plus the fact he lives across the ocean…what a perfect time to do something that could bring a child into the world.
‘So with no money, no health insurance, with shame and fear at having allowed a child to come into this situation, with the father away, and facing traditional parents, I am scared.’
Now this to me is at least the sounds of regret. She realizes she made a mistake and is scared what to do next. I’d tell her to get that sin confessed and then ask for God’s help with this through prayer. Perhaps God will make it to where the father can be here so they can get married or lead her to have the kid adopted. Anything is better than abortion.
Cane,
The clearest reading is that the no significant time elapsed between the time Eve ate and when she gave to Adam (with her) to eat. Though thanks for clarifying. I will still go with the idea he was there, with all that may imply, since that is the simplest reading, even if that irks some.
@embracing reality
That situation with Driscoll and his wife is the same as mine. It brought me to the red pill, and like him I would have never married my wife if I she had not lied. It is a weird thing being married to a person you would not have married. If we had been married only a brief time it probably would have broken up our marriage but now we have kids so we suffer on. Life is interesting in the worst ways sometimes.
However, I find it odd that this brought him to be angry at the men. Dude – your wife was a slut. Accept it and deal with the reality that entails.
“You know what all this reminds me of? Is “promise keepers” still a thing?”
No idea. I confess that I went to a few conferences back when Bill McCartney was still prominent in the movement….but that was a long time ago…and I’d like to think that I’m a bit more aware now.
@Chris D
Agreed. We know way too much about her sexual past and their private sex life. Whether it is the vision of the time she cheated on him, or the “controlling” bad boy boyfriend she had before Driscoll who allegedly forced her to have sex, leaving her numb to sex with Driscoll.
Driscoll has a profound need to be seen as an expert on sex and Christian marriage, and that has gotten him into trouble over and over again, including the use of church funds in a scheme to create straw buyers to fool the bestseller lists.
Cail Corishev said “There was an ad (don’t remember for what) that ran during some football games this year, where a guy is walking through his house talking about how he’s doing “dad stuff.” His wife brings him coffee. He tells his son to turn his hat around straight or something like that, because “men don’t do that.” I wish I’d caught it and watched it more closely, because I’d like to praise the company that made it. But what I saw was simply a man — not a particularly macho man, just an ordinary suburban guy — being in charge of his family in a matter-of-fact way, and it caught my attention precisely because you never see that — even (maybe especially?) during football games.
If you watch the ad again, the Dad is the one getting the kids up and ready and right in the middle, they crystalize what the situation really is when it’s the dad turning around saying, “hot stuff coming through!” handing a cup of coffee to his wife, dressed in professional business attire who is on her way out, you can assume, to be the breadwinner. You now have a clear picture why you don’t see both mom and dad spending investing energy in getting the kids up. It’s because dad has no where to go. The subtle narrative being sold is that being a stay-at-home-cuckolded-joke is fun, cool, rewarding and the new normal. The only time being a Dad is praiseworthy in modern society is when he is in submission to his wife.
ARG, interesting take. My take is that it is a Saturday, so it’s dads’ day off. Mom looks like a real estate agent and is getting ready for a showing or some such. He is involved with his kids, which is good.
If you watch to the end and let the following clips appear, there are a few 15 second clips that can be viewed. In one he throws a Cheerio into the air for mom to mouth catch, she misses. Yes a woman is shown failing! In another he throws one for himself, reads the arc of the Cheerio, adjusts to the proper trajectory and BAM, in the mouth. Yes a man shown succeeding!
Sometimes you just gotta view things without a preconceived idea….
‘You’ve been glad-handed and buddied up and positive thinking and you’re a winner and Jesus loves you and you can do better. And I’m telling you, you’re a joke. And the real men in the room know it and they see it. And maybe there’s one woman that you fooled and she doesn’t see it because like Eve, she’s deceived.’
He’s mostly right, here. Although instead of insulting them and calling theme a joke…I’d change it to the fact that they’ve been lied to and the truth isn’t about feeling good. And that maybe they were able to game a woman with that lie…and she goes along with the deception.
ARG, that theme was not completely clear, but I noticed it myself. The fact that he gave his wife coffee instead of the other way around spins the “dad takes care of everything idea.” It wouldn’t surprise me they were trying to have a subtle house husband message here.
It is kind of sad that this is one of the only good dad messages we get today in commercials as well.
Does anyone else see
that Dalrock is the best pastor
because he does the true Pastor’s work
and then says
“Thanks, but I am no Pastor, not me.”
Those who humble themselves shall be exalted
and those who exalt themselves (Driscollzozlzo) shall be humbled.
Unlike Driscoclslslzzzllsa and MAcarthususulzoozozu, Jesus never had a church either.
lzozlzlzlzzzlzl
That situation with Driscoll and his wife is the same as mine. It brought me to the red pill, and like him I would have never married my wife if I she had not lied.
I had a similar experience. Fresh out of college, I was still a virgin at 26 when I got married. The girl had slept around, and her pastor deftly packaged her for me, knowing how naive I was. My, was I bitter for several years! More than that I absolutely despised her for a while.
Although the marriage later disintegrated for different reasons, I was very relieved when it finally ended. She got another man to marry her almost immediately. I wish her well.
But I learned some valuable lessons though. I realized for the first time that I really had no reason to be bitter against her, or to see her as being less than me, her slutty past notwithstanding. It was my responsibility to screen my future spouse well, and be sure that she met my expectations before I married her. It was a lesson learned the hardest way.
So, someone way up thread was shocked that Driscoll wasn’t more “balanced” on gender teaching.
Balance is today’s substitute for saying something that actually means something specific and objective. Balance is a feminized concept that serves as a work around, it has no relationship to the actual meaning of the word. Its utterly subjective. It is used to put aside things that make people uncomfortable. It is used to allow two people who have significant differences and opposing opinions to say they agree with one another. Then its converted to a sense of action. “We need to see that that is approached in a more balanced manner”.
All that’s left then is to write the bill and get the President’s signature and balance is codified. everyone wins.
Time to pull down your sites Dalrock and others. Nothing left to settle. All agreed? Balance it is.
This forum IS a church. I feel I am a better Christian (every day) for having read it.
Right. God commanded Hosea to marry a sinful woman, as an allegory for God’s constant love for Israel despite her unfaithfulness. So the first part seems like a natural fit for the preacher who wants to shame men who are holding out for virgins, or holding any standards at all. But dwelling on that story too long would make the women in the pews uncomfortable, because single mom = sinful == badthink. Thou shalt not call women sinners, especially for the noble act of childbearing.
Also, Hosea’s story isn’t as simple as “find a whore and marry her,” as from Introduction to the Bible by Fr. John Laux:
Ouch. Yeah, they’re not going to want to hear about how being a wife is a “high privilege” that a man gets to bestow, or that a sinful woman would have to earn that by proving her repentance over time. Badthink, badthink!
ARG, you may be right, though I didn’t get a house-husband feel from it. As I said, it’s not perfect, it just stood out from the dross.
Compare it to the “fatherhood” spots the NFL has been sponsoring (with the feds, I think), where fathers are encouraged to spend time with their kids, but you only see Dad and Kid together, reading or playing, never a family. The message is “spend a few hours with your kids,” not “be the head of your family.” They’re defining “fatherhood” down to something most anyone could do — an uncle, a kindly neighbor, a Big Brother — and leaving out the things that actually require a father.
@ Mark: Driscoll’s wife had 3 partners conservatively? By the immutable laws of the manosphere, that means she tasted at least 9 cervix stretching meat grinders before Driscoll boy dipped in for his sloppy 10ths. The biggest bonus is how she made the big, tough Alpha preachers wait while continuing one of those **cks. Could the story be more perfect?
This entire sermon is projection at its finest and while I am not one to pass judgment (heh, heh OK, yes I am) I have a suspicion that God Himself might just tell a few things to Driscoll at the proper time:
HOW DARE YOU…BECOME A HENPECKED HUSBAND AND LET YOUR WIFE CONTROL YOU.
HOW DARE YOU…ABDICATE YOUR HEADSHIP OF THE HOME.
HOW DARE YOU…ENCOURAGE MEN TO LOOK TO THEIR WIVES AS MORAL LEADERS.
HOW DARE YOU….ATTACK MEN AND WEAKEN THEM WHEN THEIR WIVES ARE IN OPEN REBELLION.
HOW DARE YOU…ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO DENY THEIR HUSBANDS AND SAY “NO” TO THEM.
HOW DARE YOU…DISTORT AND TWIST SCRIPTURE.
YOU ARE A WORTHLESS GROVELING MAN…
AND I NEVER KNEW YOU.
@Regular Guy: “So I’m guessing these idolators of the feminine, Driscoll and company, would have us believe Adam’s failing was that he wasn’t “Man enough” around the Garden of Eden? He wasn’t listening to Eve enough, he didn’t express his feeeeeeeeeeelings to Eve, wasn’t picking enough berries, wasn’t naming enough animals, wasn’t performing well enough to keep Eve sexually satisfied, he wasn’t striving enough for a promotion @ work (in a company of 2) or doing enough to keep her perpetually entertained?”
Yes that is exactly what they are saying. Plus when Eve wanted to Just Be Friends Adam was supposed to be niiiice and show her he is not like all those haaawt Neanderthol dudes.
‘Ouch. Yeah, they’re not going to want to hear about how being a wife is a “high privilege” that a man gets to bestow, or that a sinful woman would have to earn that by proving her repentance over time. Badthink, badthink!’
Yeah it’s dangerous thinking to suggest a woman is sinful and in need of repentance…even though she desperately needs that thinking. Telling a woman she is blameless of all her sins is putting her on the road to hell. The flip side is to suggest that all men do is sin and should have no chance or don’t deserve repentance. It puts them on a road to hell too.
Sometimes I think,
that we all grow all too used to the fact
that we must remain
anonymous.
Throughout history a man’s name was his Honor,
but Jay, Madison, and Hamilton
understood
that when tyrants ruled
We had to write with the name Publius. 🙂
MarcusD-
Xantippe on Catholic Answers tells the pregnant, unmarried and scared girl that since she and her boyfriend wanted to get married and have a family anyway, that “biology just sped things up!’
Sure, her body just made itself pregnant! Might as well marry the guy I am having sex with.
Off topic: Mitt Romney is officially out of the running for POTUS. Like we didn’t see that coming.
I liked the #HowToDad overall, but I finally connected the dots on something that bothered me. In the last part, he holds up 2 fingers as a sort of backwards V sign. That’s an insult/obscene gesture in UK/AUS/NZ/etc.
It’s an American ad, so it’s probably trying to be a “hip” gang-sign rather than an FU … but it still detracts points. That said, he’s competent and actively leading the kids, and that’s a positive change from the past decade.
Regarding http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=942870, the takeaway quote is
“I am catholic and I do not want an abortion.”
Once upon a time a “Catholic” girl would have been encouraged t say, “I am catholic and I do not want a fornication.”
But today it is, “I am catholic and I do not want an abortion.”
@Scott
“Xantippe on Catholic Answers tells the pregnant, unmarried and scared girl that since she and her boyfriend wanted to get married and have a family anyway, that “biology just sped things up!’”
Xantippe is borderline anti-Catholic. She’s also (quite openly) pro-feminist. But I repeat myself.
‘Xantippe on Catholic Answers tells the pregnant, unmarried and scared girl that since she and her boyfriend wanted to get married and have a family anyway, that “biology just sped things up!’
And now after the deed the girl is realizing that they weren’t married and she might have to raise a kid on her own. Oh how ‘biology’ has deceived her.
But hey…at least she’ll have the memories of that passing thrill she always wanted.
‘Once upon a time a “Catholic” girl would have been encouraged t say, “I am catholic and I do not want a fornication.”
Well ‘fornication’ has been replaced with ‘hooking up’, ‘casual sex’, ‘sowing your wild oats’, or whatever other PC title they use to whitewash it and the world does nothing but encourage you to do it. We need to go back to calling a spade a spade.
SirHamster said, he’s competent and actively leading the kids, and that’s a positive change from the past decade.
Cail said, ARG, you may be right, though I didn’t get a house-husband feel from it. As I said, it’s not perfect, it just stood out from the dross.
Denihilist said ARG, interesting take. My take is that it is a Saturday, so it’s dads’ day off. Mom looks like a real estate agent and is getting ready for a showing or some such. He is involved with his kids, which is good.
If you watch to the end and let the following clips appear, there are a few 15 second clips that can be viewed. In one he throws a Cheerio into the air for mom to mouth catch, she misses. Yes a woman is shown failing! In another he throws one for himself, reads the arc of the Cheerio, adjusts to the proper trajectory and BAM, in the mouth. Yes a man shown succeeding!
Sometimes you just gotta view things without a preconceived idea….
I would agree the overall message is, for the most part, a good pro-dad message. My assertion is that the only context we see this in publicly is in a controlled-narrative of the male’s power being kept under reins. Ask yourself, why didn’t this rare positive male image play out to the end of the commercial with the Dad going out to tackle the world for the sake of his family?
The Feminine Imperative will not permit a man to be publicly seen in positive male role without his power being curtailed in some way by a woman. Women will not allow this in the same fashion they do not allow men to discuss their hardships in closed circles with one another by derailing the discussion to make it all about her, her vagina or her feelings. The need for women to control men is subtle, subconscious and an ever present driving force.
Kevin said:
“That situation with Driscoll and his wife is the same as mine. It brought me to the red pill, and like him I would have never married my wife if I she had not lied. It is a weird thing being married to a person you would not have married. If we had been married only a brief time it probably would have broken up our marriage but now we have kids so we suffer on. Life is interesting in the worst ways sometimes.”
Thanks for sharing that, you sincerely have my deepest sympathies. I can only hope you find some way to make the best of it. “Forgive and forget” would likely be the advice from the average failure in the pulpit but I wager your wife isn’t really sorry, regretful or repentant about what was her moral failures. The very fact she brought it up later points to her rubbing your nose in the fact and it gives her pleasure. Am I on the right track?
I wasn’t far from where you were in times past. Having dated many an x-tian slut I usually brought the sex question up early in the relationship. I learned to introduce it when they were starting to relax but not yet pushing an agenda (for our future). I also learned to expect the worst so as not to be disappointed, I was nearly always right. What I wanted from them, what I wanted to know was simple. Does she regret it? The usual answer was a prideful “No, I wanted that experience” or some such. I heard that numerous times. Isn’t repentance the basic fundamental act of a Christians faith? Admitting the mistake has tremendous implications for a woman. What it means, what it makes her. Thing is, she’s still a harlot repentant or not but an unrepentant harlot is even worse.
I’m so disillusioned with these single women, that go to a church, at this point I’m not sure I can even date them anymore. I see them with pity, disgust, they’re lowly creatures unworthy of any of a man’s time let alone his devotion.
Just backing up Bro. Marcus, for those of you men who don’t know this feminist cunt and her tricks.
Xantippe is one of the more dangerous people to take advice from, as she couches her feminism in lots of “middle-of-the-road” semantics. She’s so slimy and devious about spreading feminism, that I actually admire her.
She often works on the tough cases with a hardcore, in your face type. (Blue Eyed Lady has been her accomplix several times in my experience). Together, those two run the good-cop/bad-cop scam on unsuspecting women, and work together to shame any antifeminists who may show up there.
It’s a real freakshow on that forum, and there’s very little of authentic Catholic sentiment in those parts, as I understand it.
Boxer
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I’ve noticed that too. The girl I mentioned who just had a child out of wedlock insists to friends that she’s not ashamed of anything she did — so I guess it’s just a coincidence that she changed churches and avoided all her friends for the last few months of the pregnancy. It couldn’t be that she was ashamed to face them.
What’s so terrible about shame? I’ve done many things in my life that I was ashamed of. In some cases, I still feel some shame, because I didn’t make it right at the time and now the opportunity is gone or bringing it up again would make it worse. So what? It’s a reminder that I need to do better. Sure, you shouldn’t let shame cripple you, or let people shame you for things that aren’t wrong. But when you sin, shame is normal and useful. Claiming to be a sinner and yet never feeling shame is either a lie or pathological.
‘Isn’t repentance the basic fundamental act of a Christians faith?’
Yes…repentance and following the will of God.
That’s an understatement. The best you’ll get from a few of them is, “technically, Catholic teaching is [this], but don’t let that rule you.” The rest preach nothing but their own feelings. Anyone who states Catholic dogma bluntly, as if it’s non-negotiable, is shouted down. The only exception is abortion; you probably won’t see anyone there pushing that. Everything else is negotiable and comes down to circumstances and personal feelings.
It’s a tragedy that they own a domain that makes it look like they’re some kind of Church-approved informational source. Non-Catholics, please don’t form opinions about Catholic doctrine based on anything you read there.
‘What I wanted from them, what I wanted to know was simple. Does she regret it? The usual answer was a prideful “No, I wanted that experience” or some such. I heard that numerous times. ‘
Good call. I’d specifically ask if she confessed the sin to a priest. If they want to hang on to that alpha thrill in their head instead of seeing it as the sin of fornication…that mindset is not going to go away.
If I heard that answer…it would be do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars time.
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Cail, Yes where’s their shame? I too have shame and deep regrets. I repent of old shames regularly. So many of these women are prideful because they are so weak. One of my deep regrets is being so generous to the silly x-tian sluts I’ve dated in the past. It’s very hard to forgive myself of that one. So foolishly generous to people generally has been one of my faults.
Earl, “”No, I wanted that experience””- “If I heard that answer…it would be do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars time.” Yeah, but I can almost count on it with these x-tian women, nearly every time. I honestly don’t know why I even bother. Pursuing them, investing the time, buying them meals, entertainment. I’ve even paid for travel expenses for out of state dates. So foolishly generous.
@Chris D.
What do you mean?
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