In the comments to my last post TFH pointed out that Donald Sensing has his own blog. From a quick glance it looks as I would expect for a Traditional Conservative, with a focus on his military past, second amendment issues, etc. I was however interested in his background as a preacher since he was so adamant that there is no hesitancy by modern Christians to preach biblical marriage roles to women:
Well, I have preached on that a number of times!
Maybe the author needs to get out more.
According to his Bio, he is a United Methodist pastor:
I retired in August 1995, answering my call to ordained ministry. I began classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School the same month. I was awarded a Master of Divinity in 1999 and have served full time as a United Methodist pastor since 1997. I was ordained an elder in full membership of the Tennessee Conference of the UMC in June 2002.
Knowing this helps us understand exactly what Sensing hasn’t noticed as a United Methodist pastor, leading him to dismiss Spike by saying he needs to get out more if he thinks the church is shying away from teaching biblical roles for women. Just what is going on in the United Methodist Church that Pastor Sensing hasn’t noticed? For just one example, see the UMC’s “What We Believe” section of their website, including Every Barrier Down: Toward Full Embrace of All Women in Church and Society. Here the United Methodist Church explains that Christ was a product of His times, and that only modern feminist women could correct His deficiencies:
As the Church of Jesus Christ enters its third millennium, women continue to heed the call to transform the Church and the world in the name of the One who names us and claims us all for witness, mission and earth-shaking transformation.
As much as he was a product of his era-one admittedly marked by gender, class, religious, and community exclusion — Jesus Christ brought to us a ministry of transformational invitation. The Living Christ invited — and still invites — to a common table of grace, justice, and power, people who had never before been invited to the religious power tables, including women, cultural and religious minorities, social outcasts, and disreputable community sinners.1 And women, in claiming their voice in the new faith movement ignited by the Messiah, became leaders in expanding that movement and in pushing further for inclusion of Gentiles in what was then viewed as Jesus’ renewal of Judaism.
Women, in fact, advocated for and sought to protect the inclusive equality of discipleship called forth by Jesus. In this way, they challenged the Jesus movement to remain true to the new vision of human relationship that Jesus initiated by extending its table fellowship, sharing the message of the coming Reign of God and inviting Gentiles (non-Jews) to share in that Reign.1 Jesus treated women with dignity and respect, challenged the conventional sexism of his day, and forever redefined the role of women in the church and society.
As with many expressions of the Christian faith, it took The United Methodist Church and its forebears a while to capture Christ’s vision…
Since that time, however, God’s call to women as preachers, teachers, administrators, mission workers, treasurers, lay leaders, trustees, peace-with-justice advocates, voting rights’ workers, Christian educators, and evangelists has blown a fresh breath across the globe and throughout the Church on the wings of the Holy Spirit, despite the rise and fall of our denominational enthusiasm for addressing sexism, gender bias, prejudice, and bad theology. God has done great things with us and, sometimes, in spite of us. Among the victories celebrated throughout our denomination’s history:
Read the whole thing to see their list of feminist victories, along with complaints that the church members aren’t progressing fast enough. Most of this could have easily been penned by your local college’s Women’s Studies department, including:
- a number of United Methodist congregations in 2007 still flatly refuse to accept a woman as senior pastor and are especially opposed to receiving a woman in a cross-racial clergy appointment. In 2006, a racial-ethnic clergywoman assigned to an Anglo church was allegedly menaced by members to dissuade her acceptance of the appointment. In another instance, laity threatened to leave the congregation unless the woman pastor wore a dress instead of slacks to prove she was “a real lady”;
- in a 2007 survey of local United Methodist congregations, 18 percent said they do not have women serving as ushers (an increase over 2004), and local church chairpersons of the Church Council, Finance, and Trustees are still overwhelmingly men and not women;
- United Methodist membership in the US is declining among young women (and men) and people of color, particularly among those in low-income communities. According to a Wesley Theological Seminary survey, women under 35 comprise less than 2 percent of elders in our denomination;
(Isaiah 6:10))
Jesus wept
So the Creator of the entire universe, the Alpha and the Omega is a “product of His time”? What time would that be? Time is a product of Jesus Christ. Someone needs to go back to remedial divinity school, I think they missed the basics.
And the fish said:
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So… if Sensing really preaches biblical roles for husbands and wives, why haven’t the Methodists defrocked him? Maybe someone should alert the womyn who designed the UMC web site about what he’s up to.
It’s great to know that the UMC is also for net neutrality, numeric quotas, and Obamacare. Why haven’t they just removed all the men from leadership and put in women only, since they admit the Methodist Church is a sexist, racist organization?
I find it funny that their argument for women pastors (I guess they prefer the term ministers) goes something like this:
1. John Wesley explained that the Bible, tradition, reason, and experience decide what is true.
2. The Methodist tradition has been to say that every baptized Christian is a minister of the Gospel.
3. Therefore, since by tradition all women in the church are already ministers, what’s the issue at all?
It’s still odd that they need paid clergy.
I heard from every other denomination and branch of Christianity in the family the same thing: There was always something wrong with the Methodists. Defining themselves as the rejection of Calvinism, they just pick up anything – “What We Believe” on a quick read includes numeric quotas, negative population growth for whites, renewable energy sources that are only now available, and the need to accept that Jesus was a sexist, racist, elitist Jewish revivalist who only turned outwards once some unnamed Jewish women brought the rest of the world to his attention, and the holy spirit has given those same women in the Methodist Church better intuition and understanding of all things than those before them.
So what can unmarried or never to married woman do inn the church to help the body ? Can we pray for woman to be healed, I know we can’t preach or teach but my pastor ask me to pray once and I was shocked. Yesterday a woman gave the message and I was uncomfortable the whole time
And I love this woman but I just uncomfortable… So what does a never to marry woman if she want to spent her life on things of enteral . Sorry if asking about this some trollish
@Renee Harris
The problem, of course, is that women see the handful of things carved out for men in the church, and decide – that’s it; that’s all; I want that; lop off these woman parts and make of me a man! That’s the old apex fallacy that says because there’s a rich man with a Lexus driving past the garbage man who picks up his trash, that every woman should have it like the rich man in the Lexus, as the garbage man is invisible to them.
Did you know in the books of Acts, the august office of Deacon was invented so that the elders would be free to pray and concentrate on teaching, preaching, and study, and these Deacons would do the labor and lifting and the crap jobs? And Stephen did all of these menial things unto the Lord. It is an office of service – one that I’ve heard several women look on enviously. Look at how the UMC women look on the service office of usher and want to take that from men — because they somehow think that it’s not a physical security thing, but a prestige thing — as if that was some sort of reason to gloat; just a way to satisfy women’s envy. The UMC says – how horrible! only 2% of our elders are single women under 35! – this is literal insanity to think that the elder body of a church should be made up of young women.
Not to indulge too much, as your question could be answered in volumes, but you should start with:
What does the Bible tell you to do? You should study and learn your Bible.
You should pray, actively, for the Will of God to be done. This is ordered to all Christians. Prayer is service and submission to the Lord and is every believer’s duty and privilege.
You should seek to listen to and learn from the elder women of the church and you should attempt to teach appropriate behavior to the younger women of the church.
Start with those. There are lots of other things. For example, you can be a blessing and support to the sick and the elderly members of the congregation.
Thank you
This reminds me of a talk by Dr. Peter Kraft on sexual symbolism – specifically about women and the priesthood.
He addresses the “product of his time” claim thusly:
“Imagine the absurdity and the arrogance of accusing Jesus Christ of the sin of sexism. If He wasn’t a sexist Himself, and only tolerated sexism in deliberately choosing only male apostles, then He is compromising with and fostering the sin of sexism by feminist standards. This does not fit the pattern throughout the gospels where we see Him unafraid to offend smaller and greater sensibilities than this one, for example when He and His disciples eat with unwashed hands and when He tells the Jews that they must drink His blood.”
I’ve never attended a church in which any MEN under the age of 45 or 50 were elders. Generally, about half of the elders were retired men, often over the age of 70. Men whose children are grown simply have more time to serve, and more life experience as well.
When I was a Presbyterian, the elders set a rather aspirational budget each year, and if the tithes and offerings fell short at the end of the year, I’m pretty sure they made up the difference out of their own pockets. Very few single women under the age of 35 would be of any use whatsoever in that situation. In what sense is anybody under the age of 35 an elder? A person that young isn’t old enough to be principal of a high school.
This reminds me of the story of the explorer William Parry, who tried to become the first man to reach the North Pole. One day he and his assistant walked due north all day long, only to find the next day that they were further south than they were the day before. Parry checked his measurements and coordinates to try to find what the issue was. He found that he and his assistant were indeed moving further and further north, but each day they ended up further south than when they started. Parry eventually figured out that he was in fact traveling on a giant block of ice that was drifting to the south faster than he and his partner could walk north.
That’s how the church, immersed in feminist culture, is today. The church pats themselves on the back for being further north than the world, while overlooking the fact that, because of the influence of feminist popular culture on everyone (the church included) they are now further south than even the world used to be a few decades ago.
I was an “elder” while I was in my 20’s, I could have been ordained in the denomination back then. I now attend a home church and rarely darken the door of a “sanctuary”. I can’t begin to describe what a monumental catastrophe that period of my life was.
Polly Phillips: My husband pays me a wife bonus, and I’m proud of it — it’s what feminists have urged for years
http://news.nationalpost.com/life/polly-phillips-my-husband-pays-me-a-wife-bonus-and-im-proud-of-it-its-what-feminists-have-urged-for-years
According to his Bio, he is a United Methodist pastor:
‘Splains everything. ‘Nuff said. You would hardpressed to find a more stereotypical example of modern progressive churchianity.
That’s what jumped out at me too. So they don’t believe this?: “In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. (John 1:1-3)” Or John 8:58: “Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM.” I would have thought Methodists believed those things.
Poor guy. If only He’d been born 2000 years later as the product of a different time, some feminists could have enlightened Him.
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I don’t know Donald Sensing, nor where he truly stands on this issue.
But I have a lot of experience with the United Methodist Church and their somewhat schizophrenic beliefs. With regards to the UMC “official” stances, the upper level leadership (Bishops, general agency staff) tends to be very liberal – they’re wannabe hippies who desperately want to relive the civil rights movement in some form or fashion. They’ve been trying to push through homosexual ordination and marriage for decades, but keep getting blocked by the largest demographics of the church – southerners and Africans.
On the other hand, many of the local church pastors are fairly conservative – unless they live in typically liberal areas (West coast, Chicago, New England). Just because the UMC website (via the Book of Resolutions) says one thing does not mean everyone is in lock-step with what that says. In truth, most UMC laity have no clue what the official stances of the church actually are – if a pastor is particularly liberal, the folks in the pew will run them out on a rail. If a pastor is particularly conservative, they will get reassigned to a three point charge in the sticks by a vindictive leftist bishop.
Though I will say the horse has long since left the barn as far as female ordination goes. The UMC I attended as a kid had a female associate pastor, and that was in the early 80s.
The Holy Spirit, being aware of all time and creation, inspired Paul to write this:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
(2Ti 3:1-9)
I think He and Jesus saw the UMC coming, even before they created everything.
All I can say is that I am thankful that Armageddon is coming and this mess will be straightened out. Many people will be severely disappointed. – God is not to be mocked.
Believers know that the Truth is a person who never changes and stands outside of time, the problem with those that have a “form of godliness” is that truth is nothing more than a dialectic process by which we can ultimately arrive at any “truth” humanity’s imagination can bake up.
feeriker,
“You would hardpressed to find a more stereotypical example of modern progressive churchianity.”
Not very.
Compared to Episcopalians, Unitarians, and the post-Protestant Progressives (sic) that run the country into the ground, the UMC are pikers.
i have a friend who was dating a divorced woman … who was taking classes to become a UMC ‘pastor’.
leave aside all that ‘sexist’ talk in the Bible about how women should not be in authority over men, she utterly failed the biblical requirement that she be married and that her spouse have a good reputation.
Compared to Episcopalians, Unitarians, and the post-Protestant Progressives..
Yeah, good point. Any way you slice it, it’s a stretch to call any of them Christians.
bob,
“leave aside all that ‘sexist’ talk in the Bible about how women should not be in authority over men, she utterly failed the biblical requirement that she be married and that her spouse have a good reputation.”
It’s a strange situation. The leaders of the church believe things are desperate, so are willing to take anyone who shows up, while the sort of members who have any power think they’re on top of the world and so should be magnanimous with their great good fortune and not harsh anyone’s mellow.
The risible phrase “Jesus movement” says it all. My undergrad Methodist Religion profs were all agog about the “Jesus Seminar” and its gumdrop decoder for the canonical Five Gospels.
As a freshman, one ordained Methodist prof breathlessly explained their movement to have Letter from Birmingham Jail added to the New Testament canon.
Then there was the Native American shaman burning incense sticks and invoking the wind spirits from the altar of the campus chapel.
Perhaps the single biggest groaner, though, was when I completely stumped a hyphenated-named female divine by quoting the opening of Hebrews ch. 11. After some moments of blank looks and a rather too emphatic protest from me (“How can you not know ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for”!?), she rather unpersuasively mumbled something about Paul’s epistles being the important ones, and nobody really bothers to read the New Testament beyond those.
A good friend of mine, a club-bouncer, bodybuilding feminist (he knew how to score; I’m sure he’ll turn out okay), usually quite deferential, hounded me about that one for a while. “You need to go apologize to her. She had a hard time with the male chauvinist culture at Duke Divinity.”
I appreciated the inside baseball about her background at Duke, but I shrugged him off on that one.
Duke Divinity
I don’t even want to imagine …
Dalrock:
It seems that Pastor Sensing is doing just what Australian Christian leaders are:
Calling Christian men who have weighed the teachings of the New Testament regarding Christian marriage (1 Peter 3, 1 Cor 7) – wait for it – Heretics!
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/abuse-inside-christian-marriages–a-personal-story-20150301-13rrvr.html
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/doctrine-of-headship-a-distortion-of-the-gospel-message-of-mutual-love-and-respect-20150227-13q2xc.html
These articles, written “first hand” by a writer under a pen name is the classic method used by feminists: anonymously throw around bogus figures, add a leftist theologian (in this case a woman) – and watch the men – in this case the Archbishop – buckle and tell his flock that husbands are to be “servant leaders”. It is small wonder that the Anglican Church has itself said that it will be extinct within a decade.
“Christian men are the best husband material in the world”
I made this statement on this blog a while ago. I stand by it. I also think this is why Christian husbands are being attacked by feminists: if you can tar the best husbands with a black brush of abuse, the rest are easy and marriage is gone.
http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-umcs-not-so-slow-slide-to-suicide.html
By Donald Sensing
The Connectional Table says Farewell to the Connection:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2015/05/19/the-connectional-table-says-farewell-to-the-connection/
Forget about the headship of the husband and preaching that, it would seem that Rev. Sensing’s denomination has given up on the headship of Jesus Christ.
Lucius,
“How can you not know ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for”
That’s a fascinating one in the Greek. Almost certainly the translation that has come down to us is a committee cop out, although I once got into trouble for being a little too creative in my own exegesis of it.
Armageddon is coming
Yes, but we have no idea when and it could be a long way off. Many have thought it imminent since the days of the early Church. I have more faith in God than most, but I do not naively rely on the end judgment to make things right at any certain point. “Occupy until He comes….”
Lucius,
The risible phrase “Jesus movement” says it all. My undergrad Methodist Religion profs were all agog about the “Jesus Seminar” and its gumdrop decoder for the canonical Five Gospels.
Those are two very different terms. They may share the same “Jesus” word, but one follows Him and the other seeks to redefine him to modern sensibilities. Most in the former strongly oppose those in the latter as well.
Also note that it is quite likely Paul wrote Hebrews and left it unsigned to keep his target audience from rejecting it out of hand due to his association with it. We won’t ever know, but I would challenge her claim on that alone. Though it would probably be a waste of time and it would be better to just ignore her.
Well, Donald Sensing is correct in his reblogging of the patheos argument about a third way — which is anything goes, and no church discipline. Not that the UMC (or most mainline churches) have much discipline. Or they would confront husbands when abusive much less frequently than women who want to stray because their spousal unit is boring and they consider their feelings over the consequences to their children.
The progressive poison is deep within the committees and the instutitions. Local congregations are now forced to be subversive — indeed to keep the standards of a church is to be labelled cultic. Or abusive.
Spike’s comments from the sydney morning tabloid — and it is worth noting that a woman journo wrote them as if she has authority over church matters — shows the standard form of attack. Find a case where things went wrong. Use that to label all male led systems as wrong. Change the system. Geld it. Then ask it to have balls and a spine, and mourn that it now has neither.
Donald Sensing has been one of the good guys for a long time. As Rico notes, the position of the mainline church may not be shared by all ministers. Richard P is pretty conclusive about proving that in Rev. Sensing’s case:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/what-current/#comment-178498
We all have our battles to fight, and many are against our own principalities in one way or another. I salute him for not giving up on those who wish to remain faithful within their church, and fighting with them. RE: his sermons. If he says he has preached about this, he has. Period.
With that said, I don’t know how much of the Red Pill he has been exposed to. Very few here arrived at RP thinking without a pretty big change at some point. What I do know is that he has a good head and a good heart, and this is certain about Col. (Rev.) Sensing: if you treat him like a friend, he’ll be one. Argue, fine, but it need not be personal.
Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. There aren’t enough RPers yet, and if you look for friends instead of enemies in this sort of effort, you’ll create converts. Driving away guys like Sensing is closer to being wise as pigeons, and harmless as serpents. #Fail.
Isiah 3:12 Comes to mind
O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.
Or as my pastor says, “Jesus is always counter cultural.”
I was mining on turd mountain when I found this little nugget.
http://www.lfpress.com/2015/05/25/to-change-or-not-to-change
#mybodymybusiness
Another rebellious young woman who feels school dress codes do not apply to her.
Having watched the clip, her outfit doesn’t appear to be overly revealing, but that did not stop her from skewering the boys at her school with the following (inflammatory) statement:
“I don’t consider myself outrageous in my dress, but if it’s hot, I’m going to wear a tank top. (The administrators’) mindset is that it’s too distracting and we need to respect ourselves. If boys can’t handle the way we dress, we don’t need to change our outfit, they need to change their perspective.”
See? It’s all about the boys sexualizing her if she dresses in whatever way she deems appropriate. Never mind that ripped jeans are not appropriate in the workplace, let alone an institution of learning.
Perhaps the boys in her school can support her cause by wearing a banana hammock swimsuit to school. I’m guessing the girls would find that offensive; but their perspective would require no adjusting whatsoever.
No sure if this has been posted, but how long before this arrives on American shores:
http://news.yahoo.com/sweden-even-clergy-stylist-052912975.html
It’s not Sensing’s lack of understanding feminism that troubles me. It’s the raging heresy of his denomination and the fact that he is still a part of it. “Come out of her my people”.
Anyone who is an active United Methodist Church minister isn’t supporting social conservatism, traditional conservatism, or really anything “conservative” at all.
He could fairly easily switch allegiances to Free Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist, or even better, any of the denominations in the Conservative Holiness stream.
UMC wages are a lot higher, though, which is probably why he’s stayed.
@Casey
The lack of submission to dress codes is just another manifestation of the exaltation of individual choice and the lack of respect for authority.
@Spike
Christian men are indeed the best husbands in the world. The norm in most places is for men to beat their wives. It’s actually a lot of work to explain to new converts in the third world that a newly converted husband’s lack of wife beating is him trying to obey the scriptures, not him losing interest in his wife.
This is why I left the UMC in the 1990s and became Roman Catholic. The UMC in America is in a death spiral and once they approve gay marriage, which will happen any annual conference now, that will be the end.
@GIL
It is even worse. He isn’t just remaining there and remaining silent, but he is actively defending the feminists by denying the problem and shouting down those who would raise the alarm. He is a guard dog who is guarding the home for the thieves instead of the master. This doesn’t mean he is acting out of malice, which I’ve made clear from the very beginning. But those who say I shouldn’t call this out are doing the same thing Sensing is. They are working to further the aims of feminists by silencing those who would sound the alarm.
@Dalrock,
You are correct in your analysis of Sensing as part of the problem, not as a possibly ally. Fortunately, we won’t really have to deal with mainliners much longer:
Presbyterians Collapsing, or “Settling Into The New Thing God is Creating”?
The PCUSA is shrinking over 5% per year and will cease to exist, if present trends continue, in my lifetime. Meanwhile, its leadership quoth:
We should cheer this decline, but at the same time exhort young men to get out of apostate church institutions and seek fellowship with men who want to follow the scriptures. (Don’t worry – the women always follow.)
Joe Katzman @ 1:26 am:
“Donald Sensing has been one of the good guys for a long time. As Rico notes, the position of the mainline church may not be shared by all ministers.”
So, these ministers know their leadership is teaching lies yet they neither call out those lies nor leave their apostate organization? If such ministers don’t already share their leaders’ “position” then they will soon.
I’ve seen it happen personally. If pastors don’t fight evil then they end up embracing evil, no matter how good they once were. Nobody serves two masters.
@Gunner Q
First-wave feminism was basically invented by mainline Protestantism. If men in leadership had been brave enough 100 years ago to stand against it, we wouldn’t be dealing with it now.
@Dalrock
On his blog roll is a link to a blogpost about the Duggsars (whose situation interests me). It’s written by a woman who calls herself a pastor. Perhaps this link (unlike the others) is meant to be a window through which to monitor approaching enemies, but I doubt it.
It’s good to be reading you again.
I responded to Sensing’s comment in good faith that he was a God-fearing pastor that was simply in error. Had I have known the man was a full-blown apostate, I wouldn’t have wasted my time.
Dear Dalrock,
The remarkable thing is that the brave men and women
of our armed forces
are fighting all over the world
to make gay marriage and abortion legal
and often killing those
who oppose gay marriage
and abortion.
Where does Jesus or Moses ever advocate for gay marriage and abortion?
John Nesteutes says:
May 26, 2015 at 10:27 am
@Gunner Q
“First-wave feminism was basically invented by mainline Protestantism. If men in leadership had been brave enough 100 years ago to stand against it, we wouldn’t be dealing with it now.”
Oh really John?
@Cane Caldo, taking a look at http://christythomas.com/2015/05/23/duggar-family-sexual-abuse-counseling-nightmare/ , I can’t help but think that whilst I am strongly opposed to Bill Gothard / IBLP, I can’t find anything terribly offensive in the Gothard counselling stuff she cited.
Her post is also basically a cut and paste from Gawker and Jezebel, which should give one pause.
John Nesteutes @ 10:27 am:
“First-wave feminism was basically invented by mainline Protestantism.”
No, it was invented by Communist infiltrators sponsored by the Soviet Union. Read the Venona decrypts. See how the Commies consolidated power in Russia; it’s the same pattern as American feminism. Mainline Protestantism fell first because Commies prefer corrupting large institutions to convincing people (especially Cold War Americans) that their beliefs are valid and beneficial.
The Protestants’ problems today are not the result of Protestantism. Observe how Protestant principles like sola scriptura and priesthood of the believer are rejected wholesale by these blasphemers. They refuse to teach what the Bible says, refuse to hear the voices of the men in their congregations and refuse to serve as the conscience of America.
“If men in leadership had been brave enough 100 years ago to stand against it, we wouldn’t be dealing with it now.”
Protestants fell first because we were attacked first. The Communists have spared your sect because your isolationism and pacifism make you a low-priority target. You are no threat to Evil. Do not be proud of that.
Cthulhu will eat you last.
Forgot to mention, she’s a Dallas Theological Seminary alum (and worked there for a while too).
Seminaries make my skin crawl.
@Gunner Q
Huh? First-wave feminism started with teetotalling prohibitionists in the 19th century; the teetotalling movement was tightly linked to the women’s suffrage movement. Aspiring politicians and prohibitionists felt they could get women to vote for prohibitionists candidates, and the rest is history. (Basically under the idea “men will stop beating their wives if they can’t get drunk”)
Communism wasn’t something anyone cared about.
That’s why I said “mainline Protestant”, not Protestantism itself. I’m Protestant. I am at the point where I consider mainline Protestant a heretical sect – given that most of them don’t believe in the divinity of Christ or that Jesus it the only way to salvation, I think all of us can be in agreement there.
Russian Mennonites flourished in the 19th century after Catherine the Great’s invitation to them. The Bolshevists then slaughtered them en masse in the 20th century. The lucky ones managed to escape to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and various places in Central and South America.
Most of them died.
A few of them abandoned their long-held position of nonresistance and tried to fight back. They lost. They all died. The Bolshevists were too strong.
“When they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.”
I think a community of faithful followers of Jesus is a huge threat to evil. Isn’t that what Jesus basically told us to do?
My Bible reads “The gates of hell will not pervail against the church”. I am confident that those of us who continue to obey the scriptures faithfully, even unto death, will survive as a remnant in the world until our Lord’s return.
@Casey
Um… You can see her bra. The armholes are wayyyy to large to cover that up. Now a shell like this would be perfectly acceptable for the school rules. https://www.google.com/search?q=shell&rlz=1C1AVSC_enUS446US446&oq=shell&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.749j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#tbs=vw:g,seller:10046&tbm=shop&q=shell+tank+top
Also, how the heck does covering a bra with another bra make the shirt modest???? A bandeau top = bra.
This is interesting, I’ll post it here and in the older thread as well. The state Senate in Alabama has passed legislation to just do away with state licenses for marriage. Just abolish it. No idea how that will play out politically, kinda think it will fail in their House, but still it is interesting.
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/05/alabama-senate-passes-bill-to-effectively-nullify-all-sides-on-marriage/
@Gunner, 10:25 am:
“So, these ministers know their leadership is teaching lies yet they neither call out those lies nor leave their apostate organization?”
My post also refers to this: http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-umcs-not-so-slow-slide-to-suicide.html
I’d add: http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-no-one-takes-united-methodist.html
Sure looks like calling out to me, and there are other examples.
I have zero problem debating or criticizing people. I’ve done so with Rev. Sensing myself, on other issues. But I do draw the line at untruths about people – which is not what Dalrock has done, but some others are either on or perilously close to that road.
The truth is powerful. Introduce it to others in a way that will stick, and the truth will change them in time. Cast them out as heretics, and the conversation ends. Now, sometimes it is appropriate to end the conversation. There’s no other sensible way with someone whose worldview is actively opposed to truth as a concept. But Sensing is not that guy.
Joe Katzman
But those are separate issues. That he is willing to speak out against the church on Afghanistan and gay marriage doesn’t change the fact that he is ridiculing those who point out what is going on with respect to heterosexual marriage and sex roles. I would also not be surprised if you found another post of his decrying the church’s position on abortion.
@Joe Katzman
Our agenda here isn’t to keep things at the status quo they were in 1995, and try to prevent the United Methodist Church from affirming homosexual behaviour.
Our agenda is to restore biblical masculinity and femininity and restore scriptural marriage and teaching on divorce.
The problem with Sansing is that he’s not an ally on the latter front.
“This is why I left the UMC in the 1990s and became Roman Catholic. The UMC in America is in a death spiral and once they approve gay marriage, which will happen any annual conference now, that will be the end.”
Actually, each General Conference the votes to maintain the current stance on homosexuality keep increasing, largely due to the growth of the African UMCs. Of course, the libs are constantly trying to work around that, looking for ways to ignore the African votes or silo off each region so that they have their own set of rules to abide by.
First-wave feminism was basically invented by mainline Protestantism.
Pretty close, but you may want to clarify that this is first wave feminism in the US.
First-wave feminism started with teetotalling prohibitionists in the 19th century;
I think it got traction w/ the universalists of the early 19th C, even before the teetotalers. But the temperance push was certainly a way for it to leap from the heretical universalists to the main-line denominations. That wasn’t the only path either. Look at why Sylvester Graham invented his crackers (that done in 1829). And Charles Finney supported Graham, at least at first. And Finney and Oberlin were caught in the current of reform re: abolition, and ended up getting a co-ed seminary.
Again, all of that occurring in the early 19th C
“First-wave feminism started with teetotalling prohibitionists in the 19th century…”
The term “first-wave feminism” commonly refers to the modern feminist movement that is killing the entire Western world today. You’re the only guy I’ve heard use it to describe Prohibition.
“I think a community of faithful followers of Jesus is a huge threat to evil. Isn’t that what Jesus basically told us to do?”
No. Christ gave us the Great Commission (go out into the world) and described us as the salt of the earth (be involved in society to preserve it from rot). While I understand the desire for today’s Christian parents to disengage for their families’ safety, the Church advances through persecution not voluntary isolation.
“A few of them abandoned their long-held position of nonresistance and tried to fight back. They lost. They all died. The Bolshevists were too strong.”
God grant that I die as well as they did. They tried despite overwhelming odds. They resisted evil. They bled for Christ. And if they chose to stand and die when they could have fled to safety, if they abandoned nonresistance out of intolerance for evil, then I am truly impressed.
You should be proud of these men who gave all for Christ. So what if they had no mortal success? Neither did Christ Himself.
The Methodist Church became the UMC in 1968. Almost immediately, as I recall, they began to agitate for Blacks and social and racial integration. The slippery slope definitely began there. Their fall to the depths from that point is not at all surprising. I’m sure they were rotten with social gospel well before that time, however.
It’s a sad day, but we knew this was coming.
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/05/23/yes-side-joyous-as-count-starts-in-irish-gay-marriage-vote
“There was always something wrong with the Methodists. Defining themselves as the rejection of Calvinism, they just pick up anything….”
This is bunk. John Wesley rejected Calvinist Soteriology because it isn’t biblical. Toplady tried to brand Wesley a heretic, but the charge didn’t sick. OTOH, Wesley badly burned Toplady for his attempts and published a letter anonymously which ended, “believe this or be damned.” Toplady spluttered and spat, but pretty much left Wesley alone after that. The Methodist movement wildly outstripped the Calvinists and to this day, Armenians still wildly outnumber Calvin’s followers.
After studying Calvinism from John to the current bunch that is still trying to tell us that we’re a bunch of heretics, we still grow, they still splutter and spit in frustration, while their doctrines insult and blaspheme the God of the ages.
What is fun to watch is what the Evangelicals have been doing to teh libtards in the UMS in the General Conference. The Evangelicals had some mercy this last time, but the libtards are steeling themselves to what is probably going to happen to tehm next time. The libtards lost every battle they entered last time. They may find themselves finished off and branded heretics next time. And that’s as it should be.
“He could fairly easily switch allegiances to Free Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist, or even better, any of the denominations in the Conservative Holiness stream.”
All the denominations you list have serious problems with male headship in the church and are ordaining women.
“The UMC in America is in a death spiral and once they approve gay marriage, which will happen any annual conference now, that will be the end.”
The libtards have tried to sneak that in and make it an official policy. So far, they have lost decisively. The Evangelicals have saved the UMC through their work on the mission field. The libtards are trying to work around that, but aren’t having much success. If the Evangelicals leave the UMC, then UMC is finished. As much as a quarter of it will be gone in the US, and the overwhelming majority of the Mission work will be gone. It will be cut by more than 50% in a stroke. The institutions will have a stark choice at that point, and most of those choices will be how to wind things down and close the doors.
all about dat Ecumenical Movement. Part of prophecy, no point fighting it.
embrace the horror, my friends, and tickle no ears.
I began classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School the same month.
I attended a different grad school at Vanderbilt a few years ago.
I remember being surprised at meeting a straight(ish) white male from the Div school. I was totally unsurprised to meet numerous radical feminists, homosexuals, and “oppressed minorities”. While I’m sure it was different 20 years ago, this type of culture doesn’t spring up overnight.
If Sensing is citing Vanderbilt to bolster his pastoral credentials, it demonstrates his total immersion in the feminist environment.
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Single Parents (past or present) — Does Dating Distract from Parental Duties?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=962065
Glad to have you back Dalrock.
Pastor Sensing, if you read this blog (and you think you are man enough) post here and defend your clearly unChristian, unbiblical comments. I dare you.
TFH that post was excellent. Outstanding even.
First wave feminism started with Eve.
IBB,
“TFH that post was excellent. Outstanding even.”
Agreed. Joe, if you’re in contact with Rev. Sensing, I’d be curious for his response.
“Many staunch conservatives, who truly believe themselves to be committed to personal responsibility, small government, equal rights, and traditional marriage, still have no hesitation in jettisoning all of those principles when the prospect of appeasing a woman presents itself.”
If I’m not mistaken, it’s quite a bit worse than appeasement. It’s a way of using women against other men, with this behavior being rationalized ex post facto by considering those other men as uncouth, unenlightened, behind the times, fundamentalist, chauvinistic, etc…
The gauntlet has been thrown down:
http://orthosphere.org/2015/05/18/happiness-or-tradition-or-neither/
@Quartermaster:
Quartermaster,
I was unaware the poz was that bad. I’m trying to find other denominations to recommend, since some here are tired of hearing about plain Anabaptists.
The most interesting thing to me about United Methodism is that Methodists are actually still utterly Christian everywhere in the world except North America – thanks to what the evangelicals did by choosing to go out into the mission field and make disciples.
I hope the ultra-liberals can’t keep stacking the deck by denying the Africans their rightful proportional representation in charge of the UMC. Western Conference basically runs the show, despite being a drain on the denomination’s resources, keeping none of its youth, and winning no converts to speak of.
@desiderian
We’ve certainly come full circle:
“Make your kids happy. Feed them soda.”
Botched the image, here it is again.
>@Renee: “I know we can’t preach or teach but my pastor ask me to pray once and I was shocked.”
No, Paul wrote that women should not preach or teach MEN in church. Women are supposed to preach and teach other women and children. Paul’s very Red Pill admonition was because women were being contrary and creating drama in the early churches. I know how shocking and out of character for women that behavior must be to all of us (sarcasm off) but that is what was happening. Note that he said: “I do not let women…..” He did NOT say: “The Holy Spirit told me that women should never…..”
As for prayer, unless he asked you to lead the prayer, which clearly runs counter to Paul’s suggestions, are not all believers called to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? I don’t understand what is shocking about a prayer request.
@Dalrock: “Most of this could have easily been penned by your local college’s Women’s Studies department”
Want to bet that it was?
how modern Christianity merely exists to ratify state leftism.
I’ll have to think about that some, but it certainly captures one of my biggest concerns.
But leftism has its roots in many flavors of Christianity…from the authoritarian Puritans, to the 19th C social reformers, to the idolatrous evangelicals of today.
John
The NZ Methodists went full liberal and collapsed.
The Aussie Methodists went full liberal, became part of the uniting church of Australia, and that collapsed.
I think Donald Sensing is torn. The elite of his church clearly don’t want anyone who will preach the gospel, Yet he may be doing good work in his congregation.
Oh, and John Wesley is wrong on the soterology idea: Calvin was the more careful exegete.
It is off the subject, but it is too horrible to ignore: german, french and Swiss bishops and cardinals are actually advancing inside RCC the acceptance of gay relationships, since “the taching of the Church may be too hostile to the ordinary faithfull”
There also you’ll find some ideas of some of their advisors, that morality should be separated from the NATURAL LAW, and more in sync with the reality that we’re dealing with…
Thank God, the pope is not listening to these apostates.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/confidential-meeting-seeks-to-sway-synod-to-accept-same-sex-unions/
@DrTorch, of course it does – leftism is really just a perversion of Christianity, trying to live it without Christ. Witness the pathological altruism. Laying down your life for your enemy in order to follow Christ is admirable. Being forced to lay down your life for your enemy by the government is not admirable, but is instead quite evil.
@pukek60: Of course he is torn. I don’t even anyone stuck in full time ministry. There are so many compromises one would be forced to make. If I were in his shoes, I would simply get out.
“If I were in his shoes, I would simply get out.”
Something about salt and stuff. How can salt be effective if it is not present? But I do understand the concept of salt maybe being more effective in a different dish.
Whoever answered Renee should retract their statement!
The problem IS THAT OLDER WOMEN HAVE BEEN TEACHING YOUNGER WOMEN…. TOO REBEL.
Older women have ABSOLUTELY failed at their job and have not been called out!
We RPers constantly harp on women’s short comings and failure to ‘woman up’ (as we should), but look at the 20-50 year old women and maybe older. They failed in the last generation to teach and hold the younger generation accountable. Period! I am shocked that no one mentions that they should be called to the carpet for not teaching the younger women.
Of course we can say culturally that the older women fell into the 60/70s women’s feminist movement, but think about christianity in the 50/60s, there should have been many women still edifying and encouraging younger women to hold fast to the Word of God and to love their husbands and respect them.
I found out that my mother (now 68) intentionally withheld sex from my dad. They are still married. I was furious. My parents are still great looking. My dad use to get asked to sign autographs, because of where we lived and who he looked like. He still has a strong resemblance to the actor.
To no shock, my b-i-l cheated on my sister for sex. I am convinced my mother told her to withhold sex. I was angry at my b-i-l, now I am not after RP.
@jeff
I agree that the failure is with the older generation. Every young generation is rebellious and immature. Duh. If you want to see where things went wrong, look at the older generation that knows better, but continued to embrace rebellion into their old age.
One of my friends pinpoints faults on the “Greatest Generation” and I would agree. These held to a form of godliness, but denied its power thereof. They completely and utterly failed to pass on Christianity to their children.
@RichardP
That’s why I don’t want to judge the guy too harshly. Eventually I got so fed up with churchianity (and my own life of complete and utter sin) I was willing to make really huge sacrifices to get back into some kind of scriptural Christianity. It was well worth the cost.
I admire those who try to be vanguards who will try to have a prophetic witness in corrupt institutions, but it seems they more often end up corrupted themselves. It takes a lot of salt to turn a freshwater lake into a sea.
@Marko,
This isn’t the first time heretics have chosen to do this kind of thing in the Catholic Church. I seem to recall a fellow who didn’t like the fact the church didn’t let him keep divorcing and remarrying women, so he just split an entire country off and started the Church of England. It is now in decline, whilst the Catholic Church still prospers.
If these godless bishops and cardinals decide to sow this kind of discord into the Catholic Church, one of three things will happen:
1. The pope and the cardinals who are faithful will reject the change. The rabble-rousers will give up their striving and wait for another time. The church will stay intact.
2. The pope and the cardinals who are faithful will reject the change. There will be a schism, with the unfaithful cardinals and bishops leaving. This has happened many times before, and it will happen again. It will be a blip in the history of the church.
3. The pope will prove himself fallible and the church will adopt blatantly heretical doctrine. When that happens, the faithful laity will have no choice but to seek a church that stays true to Christ and the Apostle’s doctrine. Us Anabaptists will be waiting with open arms. I’m sure the Eastern Orthodox will be too. And as will the rest of the true, invisible church.
The gates of hell won’t prevail.
Also coinciding with prohibition and the temperance movement connected with the same people seeking to protect women from male sexual subjection:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_purity_movement
http://gem.greenwood.com/wse/wsePrint.jsp?id=id614
You fellas who are arguing about the foundations of modern feminism are in fascinating territory. I’ve often wondered if the mincing little lake poets didn’t have something to do with its eruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Poets
Their work was technically proficient and quite good in many respects, but they tended to emphasize a reaction to traditionally male thought patterns (rationalism, etc.) in favor of emotional expressiveness and intuitive ways of knowing.
It’s hard to really blame them, as a balanced individual will feel stifled if cultural trends (the industrial revolution, etc.) put him out of sync. Even so, a gloss of their work leaves me confident that I could label much of it “pre-feminism” or perhaps even “proto-feminism”.
@ BradA
“First wave feminism started with Eve.”
+1!!! Bingo!
You can talk about the origins of the Feminist boogeywomyn, but… Eph 6:12 (KJV) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
This evil began in the spirit world and manifests itself in the insecurities of the female sex. You can smite the political apparatus’ with all the white-hot, Alpha-Male fury you can muster, you’re simply playing “Rebellion Whack-a-Mole”. All of the obsession with the political origins of the feminist movement has a tendency to blind men to the truth that rebellion to God’s Authority is sewn into the bones of every woman that has ever lived, lives and will live. Curtailing the destructive impulses of women is a burden that men must bear. If you’re thinking in terms of political activism, you aren’t even approaching this issue from the right frame of reference.
Interesting:
turns out I was wrong all together..divorce
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=962188
Let’s see if I can get this image to show up here.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/1535025_10152758255018458_5244786290428897869_n.jpg?oh=4f7b32de70bdbf2cf8e3ed909e399577&oe=55FA028C
Ah well. I know I have seen them here already. I will give up trying though welcome pointer on how to do it or guidance on what made it inappropriate if it is not desired.
@bluepillprofessor I am a woman that is why I was stocked. I watch a mgtow video that said if a man sleep with 1,000 women he is automatically more righteous than a woman who slept with two men. As I’ve previously Bought into feminism, this was hard for me to hear. But now I realize this is how God about me. I never kissed and can’t due important things. I thought God punishing me for wanting to get married. I’ve since realized this is not
So why was I shocked, there was Man my pastor did not know in the room and he ask me to pray for him. God told me the church I’m at I have to stay at as I can leave after I get married
But I’m a virgin and Christian men I know( bold underline) don’t want virgins. You guys do but they don’t
I’ve often wondered if the mincing little lake poets didn’t have something to do with its eruption
Absolutely. The rise of the Romantic thought in philosophy and arts was a huge factor. It went far to pedestalize women, and certainly made its way into the Christian arts.
Something about salt and stuff
You forget the part about shaking the dust from your feet, and not throwing pearls in front of swine.
but think about christianity in the 50/60s, there should have been many women still edifying and encouraging younger women to hold fast to the Word of God and to love their husbands and respect them.
You’re right, but even by the 1950s the family was not being supported by churches. Check out the “ism” cartoon I posted recently; that was from the 1940s!
That’s why it’s useful to understand how these origins trace back into the 19th C. Wives were overtly w/holding sex during the late 1800s. It was a well known theme among “scholarly” women.
And it got pulled into the church by some heretics (I have a perfect example of that on my home computer) who were teaching that sex is only for procreation (sound familiar RCC lovers?) and married couples should abstain if not trying to conceive. (And don’t even think about enjoying it). And I mentioned Sylvester Graham as well. So it was those w/ the label of ultra-conservative who were pushing this heresy w/in the church.
In short, we have an enemy who is brilliant compared to us, and he has been playing out this strategy to destroy families for many decades. It has no one simple source (e.g. liberals) to blame, as “conservatives” can be manipulated too. That’s why we must be ever vigilant in our churches.
“…but think about christianity in the 50/60s, there should have been many women still edifying and encouraging younger women to hold fast to the Word of God and to love their husbands and respect them.”
There were but technology like television was a new wrinkle. Communist journalists like Walter Cronkite were pumping their ideas into Christian households across the nations with very little opposition. Not to mention the Baby Boomers’ optimistic trust in Progress and newness, which was not entirely unreasonable.
American society got hit from many different directions.
Which reinforces the idea that people are always a product of their times Gunner, something we often ignore.
Do you have a source for Cronkite being a communist? Thanks!
Dear John Nesteutes:
The more I study the New Testament, the more convinced I am that the peaceful teachings of Jesus were meant to be spread in a relatively homogenous population of like-minded believers and perhaps peaceable nonbelievers. People outside who meant to invade and do harm to the community were treated as such. Jesus wanted them to be dead, ASAP, and the believer’s job was to make it happen.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~jasingle/justwar.html
With this in mind, I think more Christians should start calling out your fellows who advise “turn the other cheek” to feminist infiltrators, etc. in your churches. Jesus doesn’t want you to lay down the lives of your children, so a bunch of rabid, feral women can live hedonistic, meaningless lives at their expense.
Best,
Boxer
The man-woman pair is a dynamic system designed for peak performance. Take a look at a jet fighter plane, and you’ll see the same conflicts in physical space. Anything built for peak performance is going to have enormous tensions, to the point that it almost falls to pieces.
It’s a rough analogy, but I think it fits. Man and woman find each other and are “thrown” (in the Heideggerian sense) into a stochastic, chaotic world, where they have to survive any number of unpredictable perils.
This is the real evil of feminism: by “empowering” one party, they hobble the entire structure of the unit, and cripple its ability to fulfill its primary function.
This is a perversion of actual Catholic teaching on the matter. I know this not because I’m RC (I’m not) but because I did undergrad at a Jesuit university and took the class.
Sex has a three-part (triune?) nature. You’re supposed to express the fullness of sex when you have sex. Artificial methods of birth control privilege one or two parts over another, and as such you’re not really indulging in a complete act when you do it. I don’t think they call it a mortal sin, but its a problem, like masturbation, or fucking a blow-up doll.
You protestants can laugh at them for it (my people do too) but it’s actually a very well-formed, philosophical argument. If sex is a religious ritual (which it is for Catholics) then believers ought to “do it up right” rather than just go halfway.
Best,
Boxer
Boxer, right. The idea that Catholics only have sex for procreation makes for a funny Monty Python joke, but it’s ridiculous. Medieval peasants didn’t have big families by having rare sex out of procreative duty. The idea that sex shouldn’t be fun is a modern misunderstanding, which actually comes from Catholics trying to be more Protestant (or what they think is Protestant) to fit in. Also, Gnosticism, which includes the belief that the spirit is good and the body is evil, is alive and well in modern society.
So they hear that some other Christians don’t drink, don’t dance, don’t have this or that kind of fun, and they’ve picked up the idea that physical pleasures shouldn’t be enjoyed too much. Then John Paul comes along and tells them how holy marital sex is, which is true, but is also hard for them to reconcile with “wild and nasty,” so they start thinking it’s supposed to feel like a church service.
“Do you have a source for Cronkite being a communist?”
Not a membership card, no, but Cronkite was a vocal supporter of Soviet Russia, world government, feminism and other Communist priorities. His opposition to the Vietnam War can only be described as propaganda. According to Accuracy in Media, in 1972 the CBS Evening News ran 1,400 anti-war pieces and 79 pro-war or neutral pieces on Vietnam.
Here are two excerpts from Cronkite’s acceptance speech for the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the United Nations, per Wikipedia:
“It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen.”
“Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience. They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me… I’m glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan.”
Good enough for me.
@Gunner Q:
Some sects of Christians recognised the evils of TV and radio and refused to watch or listen to either.
The principles behind why they did that are sound, and continue to bear good fruit today.
@Boxer:
Well, Jesus taught passages like the Sermon on the Mount that directly addressed a non-homogenous society: Jews living under Roman rule and dealing with being forced to do things by the Romans. “Laying your life down” means literally laying your life doing by not using violent force. It also means living in subjection to government authority, leaving the exercise of force up to the police or the military. “Laying your life down” isn’t an analogy to mean being a human doormat. “When they persecute you in one city, flee to the next.”
I agree that Christians should live as a homogenous population of like-minded believers. Nonbelievers are not welcome to come in and invade. We are not to be pacifists about just accepting any idea or vain philosophy that wants to come in. That’s why I think shunning and excommunication are important. I don’t think we can just start killing our ideological enemies, though. The best thing to do is to live separate from them.
Feminist infiltrators are extremely unwelcome amongst plain Anabaptists. The biggest problems we have with infiltrators are the “God & Country” types, or people who preach a very individualistic kind of Christianity. We know from experience that an army of feminists is never far behind them.
Nesteutes- Is “Mennonite USA” denomination traditional or liberal? Not getting warm fuzzies from their web site.
DrTorch:
Mennonite Church USA is a den of apostasy, sin, and heresy.
There are some good churches left in it. They are separating themselves into a new denomination called Evana. They are trying to salvage what they can from Mennonite Church USA, and then abandon that organisation and leave it for the liberals.
The thing you want to look for are “plain Anabaptists”. They aren’t much of a people for operating websites. There is one running at http://www.pilgrimministry.org/congregations/map
@DrTorch
Good point. I keep forgetting about the Universalists, who basically ran Congregational Christianity (the heritage of the Pilgrims) in New England into the ground in the early 19th century.
These same heresies are currently infecting most of mainline Protestantism (which rejected Universalism and Unitarianism in the late 19th century). They will end up the same way the Universalist-Unitarians did: go through all kinds of ecumenical mergers, continue to build statuesque institutions, and one day they will announce that Jesus probably never did exist anyway and that their church is just a social club.
They are currently running roughshod in Mennonite Church USA. The evangelical-minded folk are consolidating and pulling back, but they won’t ally themselves with the more conservative folk because they want to keep their women pastors.
Exactly the same thing happened with PCUSA – the evangelical-minded folk retreated into ECO; they didn’t want to just join up with PCA because then they’d have to give up their lady pastors. Similar thing going on with United Methodism, but I don’t know enough about the denominational politics to say more.
Ultimately I’m done with the whole lot. Universalists, women as pastors, divorce & remarriage as a near-sacrament… it’s all heresy.
@BradA
Your image at 1:43 am was hillarious 🙂
@ Renee
I cannot image any reasonably intelligent and honnest preacher stating a man who has sex with 1000 women is in any way a measure of righteousness. Maybe it was hyperbole or sarcasm or something. Or he was a nutcase.
And I am confident you can find a Christian man, or non-Christian man, who desires a virgin. A non-virgin is undesirable in many ways. Maybe the men to whom you spoke want a promiscuous girlfriend, not a wife. For those men, the fact of virginity suggests you have self-control and are caste, and thus not what they want.
A man who is actively seeking life-long marriage will have different desires and expectations however. Virginity is a large plus for this kind of man.
This second kind of man will want more than just virginity however. A woman who is friendly to him, easy to get along with, certain kind of body, certain age range, good morals in other important areas, etc. Maybe some of the second kind of men you know think you are not a good fit for him because of one of these other areas.
@Boxer
>…the more convinced I am that the peaceful teachings of Jesus were meant to be spread in a relatively homogenous population of like-minded believers and perhaps peaceable nonbelievers. People outside who meant to invade and do harm to the community were treated as such.
Your comments are frequently thought-provoking and well researched. Thanks Boxer.
>If sex is a religious ritual (which it is for Catholics)
Damn! So a Catholic wife will never refuse sex then, right? That would be fantastic 🙂 And by some strange coincidence, what is commanded in Scripture (1 Cor 7:1-9).
@John
>Ultimately I’m done with the whole lot. Universalists, women as pastors, divorce & remarriage as a near-sacrament… it’s all heresy.
Yup. A group of believers will always have disagreements, and we should strive to be united (John 17:20-21) and to forgive each other (Eph 4:28-32). Willful continuation of sin by a “believer” (1 Corinthians 5:11-13) or false teaching (Titus1:10-16) is not to be endured however.
The problem comes when two guys think they each have a solid basis for their beliefs, yet are in conflict… 😦
“Renee Harris says:
May 28, 2015 at 7:10 am
@bluepillprofessor I am a woman that is why I was stocked. I watch a mgtow video that said if a man sleep with 1,000 women he is automatically more righteous than a woman who slept with two men. As I’ve previously Bought into feminism, this was hard for me to hear. But now I realize this is how God about me. I never kissed and can’t due important things. I thought God punishing me for wanting to get married. I’ve since realized this is not
So why was I shocked, there was Man my pastor did not know in the room and he ask me to pray for him. God told me the church I’m at I have to stay at as I can leave after I get married
But I’m a virgin and Christian men I know( bold underline) don’t want virgins. You guys do but they don’t”
I really do not know what to make of this – As a strong MGTOW supporter, I know many have walked away from relationships totally. I can not fathom how any man who slept with a 1000 women could be righteous – I do understand how broken pair-bonding is harmful to women due to increased insensitivity to future mates. It is actually quite appalling that any group, in its quest to find a suitable mate, would do things to endanger the God designed mechanisms (pairbonding hormones) thereby creating a group no longer suitable for being mates for life.
Boxer,
the more convinced I am that the peaceful teachings of Jesus were meant to be spread in a relatively homogenous population of like-minded believers and perhaps peaceable nonbelievers.
The population of Rome and Israel before it was very hostile to those who followed Jesus, so I am not sure I could agree with your claim. Christianity is growing significantly in China from what I have read, a very hostile place, even now.
Some would even argue that the hostility is needed. I wouldn’t go that far myself, but Christianity does work better as a solution to problems rather than a self help book on the shelf.
@Renee Harris
”But I’m a virgin and Christian men I know( bold underline) don’t want virgins. You guys do but they don’t”
Are you considered by men as physically attractive?
@Cail Corishev
”The idea that Catholics only have sex for procreation makes for a funny Monty Python joke, but it’s ridiculous.”
I heard that apparently Saint Augustine Advocated sex only for procreation and that having sex for pleasure is sinful.
As well as his misandric doctrine of “demon rod”:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=dYYx-sHniI8C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=augustine+demon+rod&source=bl&ots=sgbXRS4Pr7&sig=iRw7lWX3gmZL7T7yAB3_dZNForg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CYiVUZSDGYjg8ATEzIHAAQ#v=onepage&q=augustine%20demon%20rod&f=false
”I heard that apparently Saint Augustine Advocated sex only for procreation and that having sex for pleasure is sinful.”
And I think indeed that conception is false. Except for his writings about the “Demon Rod”
Boxer writes: “You fellas who are arguing about the foundations of modern feminism are in fascinating territory. I’ve often wondered if the mincing little lake poets didn’t have something to do with its eruption.”
–Ignore the mincing eruptions behind the curtain in Frankfurt.
“Their work was technically proficient and quite good in many respects,”
–“Adonais”, “Tintern Abbey”, “Ode to a Nightingale”, “quite good”. “Technically proficient”, even. Most obliging of you. Master Byron, your O-level is in the mail.
–“but they tended to emphasize a reaction to traditionally male thought patterns (rationalism, etc.) in favor of emotional expressiveness and intuitive ways of knowing.”
–As do sociologists, psychoanalysts, and West African mail-order brides, of which I believe you’ve had a kind word for the lonelyhearts in our midst.
“Even so, a gloss of their work leaves me confident that I could label much of it “pre-feminism” or perhaps even “proto-feminism”.”
–For a professed peruser of Marx and Adorno in toto, and Jesuit theology too, this “gloss” sounds shockingly desultory, esp. when we consider that even teenage girls can read Shelley or Keats. “[C]onfident that you could label”?– what uncharacteristic withholding! Come, come, you haven’t dropped your monocle? It would astound if such an accessible topic as the English poetic canon could put a perspicacious polymath to such passive pondering. I myself have lost no courage in your capacity to “label”. Cast off this untoward albatross of reticence, comrade–Marcuse expects no less!
Dear Brad A:
Very true, at least in the case of Herod’s limited sway in Judea-Palestina. In other parts of Rome, in those early days, there was much less official persecution than common sentiment suggests (though it certainly still happened).
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html
Hostility works to some extent to solidify every ingroup. Freud covered this phenomenon pretty well in Civilization, Society and Religion. It’s easy to appeal to people’s cooperative nature if they feel they face a threat from outsiders.
I don’t know that the early Christians ever went to war outright with ordinary people who were just minding their own business. Early Muslims didn’t do this either. Both groups tended to use nonviolent social pressure and good examples as a carrot and stick for conversion. In both cases, though, there’s plenty of evidence that they went to war against hostile parties. Ask your priest what that flowery IHSV means, that’s embroidered on his official religious uniform as he gives you the eucharist. 🙂
This ought not to be construed as a call for violence in the present day. It’s only my hope that all you religious guys quit extending courtesy and niceness to feminists who spit on you. I see nowhere in the bible that you should turn your churches and children over to these looney tunes, who wreck and liquidate everything they get their hands on.
Best,
Boxer
Dear info warrior:
I don’t think you’re entirely wrong. There was a guy named Origen who held that view (procreation only). He is said to have had a lot of personal emotional pain in regards to his own sexuality, so much so that he may have castrated himself (it’s an old story, but I have yet to see any real historical sources prior to the middle ages — but its been a very long time since I’ve studied this stuff).
Bear in mind that these early church fathers were doing the very best they could, and they were all great philosophers in their own right. With that recognition goes the expectation that they all would expect us to argue against their interpretations. (Philosophers don’t have fun unless they’re arguing with each other, then as now).
None of them spoke for his divine majesty, and none of them claimed to. I don’t think Origen’s interpretation was ever widely accepted even in those early days, and it certainly isn’t today, among knowledgeable religious peeps I talk to.
Basically, I was taught that sex in a marital union is supposed to be:
1. Recreation
2. Procreation
3. Affection
These are numbered, but it isn’t a well-ordered set. No element is more important than any other. Privileging any of these elements over another (including the procreation aspect, as Origen did), does not give a believer a complete experience of sex, and is thus deficient in the Catholic interpretation.
I hope that this is helpful, and perhaps Cail or some other actual RC bro could chime in.
Best,
Boxer
In Catholic theology, the primary purpose of marriage (including sex) is procreation and the education of the children, and the secondary purpose is unitive: creating a “mutual society” in the family and giving each other a remedy for concupiscence (which more-or-less means physical desire, or the “burning” St. Paul talks about).
As you say, though those are considered primary and secondary, it doesn’t mean the secondary is unimportant or may be left out. It would be just as wrong to procreate without the unitive aspect (the turkey baster method, for instance) as it is to have the unitive aspect while blocking procreation. Both are proper to the act, and the second one gives us the idea of “marital debt,” which says that both spouses have a right to the other’s body and are obligated to sex each other up on demand. In other words, one of your main jobs as a married person is to scratch your spouse’s every itch before it becomes a temptation to get it scratched elsewhere.
Nowadays, some Catholics claim there’s a third purpose: pleasure. But that’s already included in the unitive aspect, since the pleasure is a big part of what unites the couple. So as far as I can tell, that’s really just an attempt by modernists to water down the procreative purpose, because that might cause feelbad for the 90% or more of Catholics who illicitly use contraception.
I don’t know a lot about Origen except that he’s an important early writer who was not made a saint, so there must be reasons for that. Augustine of course is a saint and a Doctor of the Church, but as you say, they were still sorting out a lot of these issues back then. He had also had a pretty wild youth and was putting that behind him, so he might have been a bit overzealous in downplaying the pleasurable side of sex, a bit like an overzealous ex-smoker. In any case, one saint’s opinion doesn’t make dogma; that requires unanimity of opinion from many sources over time.
That was what I was going to point out Cail. I would strongly suspect Augustine’s positions were colored by his irresponsibility early in life. Kind of like an ex-smoker being rabidly against smoking.
Boxer,
Christians did have many periods of peace, but religious establishments tend to buck against any threat to their reign. Herrod’s Judea was not the point, the Jewish religious leaders were. Some did convert, but those who did not got very hostile.
The entire Book of Acts does portray the Romans as reasonable, always blaming Jewish leaders and such (with a few bad comments about the idol makers in Ephesus). Christianity faced plenty of challenges when expanding however.
They did not necessarily go hostile on their opponents though, so I may be missing part of your point. Their opponents were the ones being hostile to them.
I am not sure your view of early Islam is accurate though. I believe Mohammad was quite accommodating until he gained power, then the sword was the rule for all who remained opposed or had opposed his efforts. I would not equate the two as the founders advocated two very different approaches to spreading the message.
Renee,
”But I’m a virgin and Christian men I know( bold underline) don’t want virgins. You guys do but they don’t”
You say that frequently, but you don’t note why you say that. Rejecting you would not necessarily be because of your virginity. It could be based on your appearance or any number of other factors.
Have any men said directly to you that you were not marriage material because you were a virgin? The fact that Christian PUAs (a contradiction in terms) avoid you is a good thing.
Boxer,
This ought not to be construed as a call for violence in the present day. It’s only my hope that all you religious guys quit extending courtesy and niceness to feminists who spit on you. I see nowhere in the bible that you should turn your churches and children over to these looney tunes, who wreck and liquidate everything they get their hands on.
I am finding that a lot of my prior attitudes have been shifted by reality, especially in the past few years. I would certainly not advocate an open acceptance of whatever, but then I would argue with lunch speakers on campus years ago who would always claim we should just “agree to disagree”.
I won’t go out of my way to find them now, but neither will I back down to them.
@Boxer
A thousand times, yes. I don’t extend courtesy and niceness beyond what I extend to the most vile and unrepentant of sinners (which is, to say, quite a bit, but it is accompanied with a call to repent and be baptised).
Our churches are not meant to be places full of heathens. And our children are not to be taught and influenced by heathens.
This is ultimately a self correcting problem. Places that allow themselves to fill up with heathens and heretics eventually end up destroying their future generation, producing no children, and die off. The faithful to Jesus separate themselves from such.
What pains me now are all the men I discourse with here who seem to have chosen to separate, but they are isolated and alone – just 1. I want them to find fellowship with likeminded men.
We don’t have a systematic theology, but that’s exactly how plain Anabaptists view it as well. Probably because most of our doctrines derive straight from 16th century Catholicism, unless they needed revising. (Most of them didn’t.)
@BradA
I don’t go out of my way to argue, but I don’t accept them trying to invade our sacred spaces which should be safe for our women and children.
The only place that early Muslims could be said to have inconvenienced peaceable unbelievers was in Arabia proper. There was a proclamation by Muhammad, just before he died: “let there not be two religions in hijaz”. Non-Muslims were given notice to sell and get out, but were not really threatened, and many of them never left regardless. The edict has still not been completely carried out, except for a couple of towns (Mecca). One of ISIS main promises is to finally get the job done, some 1400 years after it was declared. There are still Hindus in southeastern Arabia, and there are weird polytheistic people in the south that are probably pre-Christian and pre-Islamic (some of them are fighting in Yemen right now). This doesn’t count the tens of thousands of ARAMCO and oil company Christians/Jews/Wiccans/Scientologists who live and work in Arabia pretty much permanently.
Anyway, I think both Christian and Islamic history give us a sound notion of proportionality. People who mind their own business and do their own thing shouldn’t be bothered, but people who are trying to infiltrate and subvert the institutions that civilization depends upon ought to be met with an appropriate response. This blog is a good example. Feminists and other nutjobs are extremely fragile and can’t handle being criticized or laughed at (suggesting that they know, as well as we do, that they are completely full of beans). Never miss an opportunity to point and snigger until they slutwalk their sorry asses out of your field of vision, and you’re left in peace once again.
Yep. The Roman Empire included people of so many different cultures and religions at that point that they didn’t care what you believed, as long as you didn’t speak against the Roman state religion or try to stop others from practicing their own beliefs. What they wouldn’t tolerate was troublemakers; keeping the peace was paramount.
The first time Paul was arrested, it was basically protective custody because the Jews of Jerusalem had tried to stone him and caused a riot in the process. (And the Roman procurator hoped Paul’s friends would pony up a hefty bail out of the alms they’d been collecting for Jerusalem’s poor from the various churches he set up. They didn’t.) Paul had to flee several cities to stay ahead of Jewish persecutors. The first time Christians were expelled from Rome, it was because the Jews were attacking them so much that the Romans got sick of the violence in the streets; so Claudius just kicked them both out, like a parent who says, “I don’t care who started it; you both go to your rooms.” It took a while for the Romans to notice the Christians enough to start persecuting them directly.
Boxer @ 11:18 am:
“The only place that early Muslims could be said to have inconvenienced peaceable unbelievers was in Arabia proper.”
Which, at the time, was the only place on Earth with Muslims.
Gunner Q:
Everything you write lately is absolute nonsense. Walter Cronkite is somehow a communist, because he said something about the united nations or some such (even though he never was a communist, this is good enough for you, etc.).
Is there something that’s going on in your life that you’d like to share; or, are you just joining Lucius in dancing for my attention?
Best,
Boxer
@BradA:
Some would even argue that the hostility is needed. I wouldn’t go that far myself, but Christianity does work better as a solution to problems rather than a self help book on the shelf.
Not that it is needed, but it is a predictable response that indicates one is right on target.
“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master.
It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!”
As far as I do not taste the contempt of the world for it, I feel less of a Christian.
Walter Cronkite is somehow a communist, because he said something about the united nations or some such (even though he never was a communist, this is good enough for you, etc.).
When someone takes action to materially support a certain cause, that provides indications of their thoughts and beliefs.
So what did Cronkite do? He used his public credentials to pain the Tet Offensive, a material defeat of the Communist forces, as a defeat for America, and helped transform it into a strategic victory for Communism.
Material support for Communism -> Communist is not a very big leap of logic. Maybe sympathizer is more accurate, but if you only want to nitpick that difference, you’d have conceded the overall point.
Dear Sir Hamster:
When men speak, they like to use well-defined terms, so that they know what everyone is talking about. This isn’t the gossip circle, where innuendo and “intuition” reigns, sister.
If you have serious historical evidence to support your contention, bring it. You don’t, because you’re a kook, who labels people “communists” in some weird 50s attempt to discredit them.
Hope this helps,
Boxer
If you have serious historical evidence to support your contention, bring it.
Already did. You don’t think the media portrayal of the Tet Offensive was significant? You’re ignorant.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/cronkites-vietnam-blunder-7185
“But Tet had been a desperation move by North Vietnam, beset by a relentless American killing machine. […] The North Vietnamese had sought to deliver the decisive military blow that would knock the Americans out of the region. They failed.
They failed so miserably that they lost their ability to wage war in the South.”
“Into this military drama, in the first weeks of Tet, comes Walter Cronkite of CBS News. He travels around, talks to people like a real reporter, presumably takes notes. And then he goes home and delivers a report to the American people that totally misses the story. At this pregnant moment of the war, when prospects of victory never looked brighter, he concludes that the war is a stalemate and probably unwinnable.”
It’s historical fact that the Communists lost the Tet Offensive from a material perspective. It’s also historical fact that the actions of a prominent reporter helped transformed a material defeat into a strategic victory for Communists. What’s next, a request for a citation from a professional credentialed historian before you’ll accept this as “serious historical evidence”?
You don’t, because you’re a kook, who labels people “communists” in some weird 50s attempt to discredit them.
Says the historical ignoramus who ignores the facts, while calling others “kooks” to discredit them. Physician, heal thyself.
I don’t need to discredit Conkrite by calling him a Communist. He discredited himself as a journalist by lying about a major victory and using his reputation to materially aid Communism. Maybe he was just a Useful Idiot rather than a card-carrying Communist … but Useful Idiots are practically Communists; the victims of Communism die all the same whatever you choose to label them.
I always enjoy the examples of k00k-lawgik that show up in comments sections like these. Earlier, someone claimed that a well-known television personality was a communist. A communist, mind you, is a well defined state-of-being, and the subject will fit into a few narrow criteria if he’s properly assigned.
For all I know, the individual was a communist, and if there were any evidence that this accusation were true, it’d be interesting for a number of reasons. It’s now clear that the accusers were simply making shit up. Rather than produce evidence or retract, they provide more of the same.
I wrote:
And “Sir Hamster” responded:
I read the rambling, lengthy, elliptical response as carefully as my short attention span allowed. I didn’t see reliable sources for Cronkite’s speeches to the Communist party meetings, or photos of his “red card” signed by Gus Hall.
While there are almost no communists extant today (I’ll allow that there might be a few octogenarians still reminiscing) there were millions of union workers and intellectuals who were members in the twentieth century, and it wasn’t anything that people could be punished for in the US. (You have heard of the first amendment, I think, haven’t you “SirHamster”?). If Cronkite actually was a communist, he probably would have mentioned it, or one of his fellows down at the union hall / commie moose lodge would have mentioned it.
I write peer-reviewed journal articles. You write fatuous nonsense on the internet. “kook” is not an insult to you. It is the accurate and appropriate term, as “communist” would be to Gus Hall, but not, apparently, Walter Cronkite.
I hope this has been helpful.
Boxer
@Boxer
Your longsuffering here is an inspiration to me.
A communist, mind you, is a well defined state-of-being, and the subject will fit into a few narrow criteria if he’s properly assigned.
Ah yes, a well defined state of being:
“a person who supports or believes in the principles of communism.”
So when the question is raised of whether Mr. Conkrite is a communist, this would only be correct if Mr. Conkrite supports or believes in the principles of communism.
For all I know, the individual was a communist, and if there were any evidence that this accusation were true, it’d be interesting for a number of reasons. It’s now clear that the accusers were simply making shit up. Rather than produce evidence or retract, they provide more of the same.
“Boxer”, before I address this point, would you like to take a stance on whether helping Communism win a war against non-Communist groups to conquer a country qualifies as “supports the principles of communism”?
A simple “Yes” or “No” will suffice. I won’t ask you to strain your lofty intellect by writing a peer-reviewed journal article on the topic.
I write peer-reviewed journal articles. You write fatuous nonsense on the internet.
You’re a smug brown-nosing academic idiot who is waving his credentials around in lieu of argument. Who asked you to flash your ePeen?
I note that you didn’t bother to list what field you publish your “peer reviewed journal articles” in. Perhaps your output is able to match the quality of computer generated nonsense. You can imagine how impressed I am by this revelation.
For the record, I had no negative opinion of you in my first response. “Maybe [communist] sympathizer is more accurate” points at the imprecision of word definitions when quick comments are made in an Internet setting.
But if you want to change the game to Name Calling and Appeal to Irrelevant Expertise, I am willing to play on the terms you choose. Though I wonder … wouldn’t it be rather embarassing for a peer reviewed scholar to lose an argument to a “kook” and a rodent with false claims to the well defined state-of-being of landed gentry?
Maybe you could start listing the academic letters you’ve earned as a threat display to scare the rodent off. Surely the mere mention of words like “Ph.D.” will strike fear into its tiny mammalian heart.
Dear Kooky “Sir Hamster”:
A long, long time ago, someone wrote something on a rock. We can read it today (it’s in classical latin). It said something along the lines of: the burden of proving a thing belongs to him who asserts it.
Your latest tome is directly related to this same concept. Please tell the class how.
So ends today’s Intro Logic lecture. I trust this has been illuminative.
Boxer
“Boxer”, would you like to take a stance on whether helping Communism win a war against non-Communist groups to conquer a country qualifies as “supports the principles of communism”?
If you do not wish to answer the question, then I have already satisfied the burden of proof, since you do not dispute the definition of “communist” that I provided, or the historical facts I have listed.
I can see you are a true scholar, however. 71 words to avoid answering a direct question.
Dear Kooky “Sir Hamster”:
Please see inside text:
What are you babbling about now, in a lame attempt to shift the boundaries of the discussion? It doesn’t matter I suppose.
Since you’ve gotten yourself all tied up in your own inane knots, I’ll repeat: your assertion is that Walter Cronkite is “a communist”. Your duty is to provide a single reliable historical source supporting this.
If you’re right, it shouldn’t be too hard. He was one of the most recognizable people in the twentieth century.
Note that for all I know, he might have been. He was way before my time, and I’ve never researched him. It seems unlikely, though; given your current kookiest.
That’s not how grown men seek truth. Your own jibber-jabbing is especially humorous, however, and I hope it’s instructive to the other brothers here, many of whom can do with an example of debating a feminist — since you’re using all the same banal sophistries they tend to employ.
Nonsense ad hominem snipped for brevity’s sake.
I hope this has been helpful,
Boxer
Dear John Nesteutes:
I actually like this blog’s liberal attitude toward posting stuff in the comments section a lot. It gives us all a chance to hone our arguments, that we might be more effective rhetorically in general. (Most of us need the practice.)
In any event, I was reading random stuff, and came across an article on this random blog.
http://thinkingpacifism.net/2014/02/28/will-mennonite-church-usa-survive-reflecting-on-three-decades-of-struggle-part-2/
I think all organizations have this weakness, but Christian churches seem especially apt to see issues in all-or-nothing terms.
Of course there are going to be homos in any large group of people, but the fact that you ask them to behave themselves in public doesn’t mean that you’re advocating that they be rounded up and murdered. Where do people get the idea that either you have to perform phony fag weddings, or you have to become affiliated with Westboro Baptist, and there is no middle ground?
Ironically, if I took whatever floozy I had scraped off the vodka stained floor of the nightclub to church, and was pawing her during the service, I’m sure whoever was in charge of this “inclusive” congregation would ask me to get down someplace else. Not only do fags get the right to demand a mock wedding, but they get to openly display aggressive implied sexuality in this congregation, which I have to assume wouldn’t be tolerated with unmarried heterosexual couples.
Thoughts?
Boxer
“Boxer”,
Since you’ve gotten yourself all tied up in your own inane knots, I’ll repeat: your assertion is that Walter Cronkite is “a communist”. Your duty is to provide a single reliable historical source supporting this.
Do you dispute or accept that a communist is “a person who supports or believes in the principles of communism.”?
Do you dispute or accept that Conkrite misinformed the American public about the results of the Tet Offensive, which was a contributing factor to the loss of American support for anti-Communists in Vietnam?
Do you dispute or accept that Conkrite’s actions supported Communism by undermining American support?
That’s not how grown men seek truth.
Someone who has used name-calling and shaming and dismissal from the beginning of the conversation wishes to lecture on manhood and truth-seeking. When “Academic” becomes a slur, know that it’s not because people are trying to discredit you; it’s because you and your peers’ own scummy behavior discredited the word.
Our main disagreement is on the level of precision we wish to use for the word “communist”. An academic setting may choose to use the word strictly and narrowly … but this is not a peer-reviewed journal. Your use of the word in that way is not wrong; but neither is a broader use of the term in an Internet discussion forum. Pointing at a not-wrong use of the word to dismiss someone because Peer Reviewed Scholar is inane idiocy.
I’ll repeat: your assertion is that Walter Cronkite is “a communist”.
And since I’m not a dishonest academic, I should point out that I did not assert that Cronkite was a communist. I consider the label defensible and appropriate, which is a different thing. Someone who prides himself on scholaristic precision and being a grown man seeking truth shouldn’t have trouble seeing the difference.
“Useful Idiot” captures Mr. Conkrite’s role well enough.
Dear Kooky “SirHamster”:
Did you forget, already, what you wrote? Here, let’s go over it again…
First someone sez:
Then I wrote:
And of course, original poster couldn’t pony up, but said that Cronkite was in favor of the United Nations, so that was “good enough for [him]” (fuck’n lol! so was Bobby Kennedy).
At which point, you jumped in, and said:
And your historical source for his “material support for communism” is,
(drumroll please)
“the media portrayal of the Tet Offensive”
Of course, anyone who was critical of the Vietnam war was a communist, thus millions of average Democrats and Republicans were “communists” and “communist sympathizers”. Heck, by that standard, even George Lincoln Rockwell was a “communist”.
Unfortunately, that’s not what “communist” means. It’s not what “communist sympathizer” means, either. Most people who are opposed to the current meddling in the middle east aren’t members of Islamic State or the Ba’ath party. Normal people recognize these subtleties without too much trouble. If you have any self-awareness at all, I hope you will ponder your own inability to do so.
I’ll leave you to kookfart another series of long ass responses now. You’re welcome to your opinion, and I trust all the regular contributors here have found your dancing useful (or at least humorous). We’ll do it again soon, I’m sure. 🙂
Regards,
Boxer
Did you forget, already, what you wrote? Here, let’s go over it again…
I did not assert “Walter Conkrite is a communist”.
Do you retract your claim or do you stand by your lie?
And your historical source for his “material support for communism” is,
(drumroll please)
“the media portrayal of the Tet Offensive”
Of course, anyone who was critical of the Vietnam war was a communist, thus millions of average Democrats and Republicans were “communists” and “communist sympathizers”. Heck, by that standard, even George Lincoln Rockwell was a “communist”.
You should have just opened with this. While you’d still be wrong, at least a direct criticism can be answered. As it is, you chose to lie and misrepresent and disqualify, even when it was not remotely necessary.
Propaganda is a thing, and it can affect history when lies are treated as truth by trusted media personalities.
Does it not make you curious how a significant military defeat of Communist forces got spun into a “stalemate”? Spreading lies to aid communist forces gain a political advantage is a different thing than just being “critical of the Vietnam war”, and burning a strawman of an argument you know I did not make does not reflect well on you, seeing how proud you of your academic credentials.
Funny how you, as a self-styled champion of seeking truth, prefer misrepresentation and namecalling over correctly understanding and restating an opponent’s ideas. How do you plan to correctly criticize an idea when you’re not even describing it right?
Unfortunately, that’s not what “communist” means. It’s not what “communist sympathizer” means, either. Most people who are opposed to the current meddling in the middle east aren’t members of Islamic State or the Ba’ath party.
So you do not accept the Google provided definition. You do not accept that Conkrite lied, and you dispute that Conkrite’s activities could be considered support of Communism. Why not just provide a direct answer to direct questions? Is evasive-ness a manly attribute?
“Communist” is not limited to card-carrying members of the Communist Party, just as “Islamist/Jihadist” is not limited to gun-toting members of ISIS. More importantly, opposing a course of action is a different thing than spreading propaganda and lies to aid the enemy. It’s the difference between loyal opposition and treason. Why would anyone want to blur the line between the two? Got some skeletons in your closet?
I offered a definition and showed how it can objectively be applied. You have not offered a competing definition, and ignore that particular point since it is fatal to your position that anyone who uses “communist” for Conkrite must be a “kook”. I guess I should be impressed by this sort of rhethoric because you write peer reviewed articles. /golfclap
Normal people recognize these subtleties without too much trouble. If you have any self-awareness at all, I hope you will ponder your own inability to do so.
So you consider Conkrite’s actions acceptable, to the point of using his same methods of lies and misrepresentation. Thank you for sharing your inner character and its values. I’ll keep it in mind for future reference.
@Boxer,
Churchian Christianity is essentially 20 years behind the times; everyone else has been busy for a while trying to aggressive accept homosexual behaviour (right down to nonsense like the Folsom Street Fair). (The music is similarly 10-20 years behind the times.)
My opinion is that institutions that embrace churchianity are doomed. They are trying to be acceptable to the host culture, which Christianity simply won’t be. (Maybe it was in the 1950s, but not now.)
I do not have a good explanation for the overwhelming urge that homosexuals and their sympathisers have to seek acceptance from church institutions. I am guessing they have some kind of weird love for organisations and social clubs and feeling like they have social acceptance.
@John Nesteutes
My former Denomination compromised and changed the titles of Minsters so they could look like they are “doing the right thing.” They now ordain women and changed the rank for men to “Ordained Bishop.” Bishops are already ordained, so I have no idea what they thought they were accomplishing. The Pentecostal Denominations have all gone that road now, and the decline is beginning to set in. The Nazarene Church lists the wives of Pastors as “Co-Pastors” now. It really is getting sickning.
I’ve found myself at an independent Baptist Church. Their resistance to the world’s desires is admirable and comforting.
@pukec060
“Oh, and John Wesley is wrong on the soterology idea: Calvin was the more careful exegete. “
You can believe that if you wish, but it has two very serious problems. First Calvin’s soteriology was never seen prior to Augustine. Second, Calvin was not an exegete. He simply stole it from Augustine, and he was quite open about it.
The only way you can get Augustinian/Calvinist soteriology is though twisting broad swaths of scripture and blatant eisegesis. Calvin’s version of predestination is not even Christian. It was imported from Greek gnosticism by way of Persia through Augustine’s Manicheeism. It’s simply fate in a not very Christian wrapper. A lot Augustine;s trash is clearly Neoplatonist, and Calvin’s institutes show the deep influence of it.
You are, however, correct about churches adopting liberalism and collapsing. People turn to Christianity looking for something beyond what the world offers. If all you have is the same sinful nonsense the world offers, they will walk away, and you’re “Church” will die for lack of reproduction.
@Marko Saric
“Thank God, the pope is not listening to these apostates. “
Bergoglio is simply slowing them down to allow for the “decent interval” to pass before his jesuitical mind suddenly has an epiphany. The RCC is already nothing more than an heretical social club. It solidified that at Trent when it refused the reformation and chose maintaining power over fidelity to Christ.
@infowarrior1
Your May 28 @ 9:24pm is correct. Augustine had many views that were imported from his Manicheeism. The idea that the physical world was some how sinful in itself was part of this. He also believed that original sin was passed on through sex. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin was unbiblical and was part of the supposed argument with Pelagius, where Augustine simply got carried away and got more extreme at every turn.
Augustine would probably have been disfellowshipped by the Ante-Nicene Church. His later disciple, John Calvin absolutely would have been.
@Boxer
SirHamster did answer your question/challenge. You seem to be ignorant of the fact that many communists in this country flew under the radar so they could escape the very sort of claims you wish to make here. Cronkite supported the North Vietnamese through his intentional misreporting. Therefore, he was a communist agent and a traitor to his country. If that isn’t good enough for you, then you have avery strange set of criteria to make such judgments and they are not reasonable.
Your May 30 @ 1:35 am is fatuous nonsense. That you write “peer reviewed” articles is utterly irrelevant. If what you base your judgment of who is/is not a communist in evidence there, then you are an idiot who knows not what a communist is. They still exist in US Universities and are quite common.
In posts before this one, and after, you shift the boundaries then pretend Hamster did. You were answered and you flaked as I would expect an academic idiot being called out would do.
@John Nesteutes
Perhaps Boxer is long suffering, but the post I responded to above is not evidence of it. That was simply a bit of utter nonsense. What I’ve seen of him the exchange above tells me that we have an idiot that can’t really deal with being called out for his foolishness. His appeal to authority marks the man as a poseur.
@ Quartermaster:
Thanks for the confirmation. It eases the frustration of talking to someone like Boxer to know that the audience sees it as well.
Dear Quartermaster:
Please see inside text…
No, he didn’t.
Let’s see if you’re better at the game of historical revisionism than he, shall we?
Yes, fo sho’! They’re all around us!
Do you have any sort of historical source for this, or is it entirely based upon your paranoid delusions of the previous sentence?
Communists believe certain definable things, kooky. For example:
1. The abolition of the state (or at least state power).
2. Collective ownership of property at the community level. Communists believe that your town council will distribute farmland, housing, etc.
3. The abolition of money, as we know it. Communist societies tend to have floating currency schemes based upon hours of labor, with expiring bills, etc.
Now, can you support your insane statement that Walter Cronkite was a fervent admirer of any of these concepts?
I didn’t think so.
Furthermore, calling him a “traitor to his country” is ludicrous. Had Cronkite been convicted of treason, we’d all know it. He was never suspected of any such thing.
Of course. I need an internet loony to teach me what a communist is. *Snark*
Name some specific communists employed at US universities (who are under the age of 70).
Let me spell this out to you clearly: You are a kook. You are a loon. You are a ranting, delusional nutcase, and exactly the type of psychotic that makes traditional people look like morons. In SirHamster’s case, I think he’s a true believer. You, I suspect of being a black propagandist. Your nonsense is simply too corrosive to men coming together to explain any other way.
All that aside, I find it humorous, and encourage you to continue.
Regards,
Boxer
Dear Kooky SirHamster:
Really? She didn’t seem to have any sources either. I’m pleased that you’ve found a sister-in-arms to make you feel better (it’s all about “feelings, isn’t it honey?) but I don’t think he provided anything useful to the discussion.
Still waiting for those historical sources that will make me eat my words. Men need these things. Facts, you know… It’s a man thing.
Boxer
@To the Honorable Manly “Boxer”:
Do you retract the false assertion that I claimed Conkrite was a communist, or do you stand by it?
You don’t actually need to answer that question, by the way. You’ve already discredited yourself as a lying self-important academic who babbles words without meaning; the question is if you wish to restore credibility with me and anyone else who’s reading. I’m going with “No”.
Still waiting for those historical sources that will make me eat my words. Men need these things. Facts, you know… It’s a man thing.
I never said I would make you eat your words. Why are you expecting something of me that I never offered?
I gave you historical facts and a plain definition of “communist” that you refuse to dispute or accept. Men can disagree openly without playing a game of not making an argument while posturing that they’ve already won the argument they refuse to engage in.
When you’ve established yourself as a “man” of no intellectual integrity, your insulting description of “kook” becomes a badge of honor. I’ll take it.
@SirHamster
Stop playing the game where you invent your own definitions of words. “Communist” has a well-accepted meaning in rational discourse of the kind Boxer is engaging in.
Now, I do use “communist” in colloquial speech, like so:
John: “Did you know you can’t buy that kind of 13-inch trowel anymore? That’s why mine are all old and used.”
Jimmy Joe-Bob: “Really, wny?”
John: “The communists in OSHA said they caused repetitive strain injuries.”
Jimmy Joe-Bob: “Those safety minded communists are ruining our country.”
That’s how grown-up men talk. At the same time, grown-up men do not think that OSHA is staffed with card-carrying communists who could quote Charlotte Wilson or Friedrich Engels.
Your assertion that Walter Cronkite is a communist is utter tomfoolery. It is akin to vaccine denialism, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and thinking that the government in Alaska is doing experiments to control the weather.
People like you are a large part of why I abandoned neoreaction (the other reason why is that I got born again). I got tired of being surrounded by ignorant fools.
@John:
Stop playing the game where you invent your own definitions of words.
I provided a Google definition earlier, which defines communist as “supports/believes communist principles”. Here are some other objective definitions of “communist”.
Dictionary.com:
3. a person who is regarded as supporting politically leftist or subversive causes.
OED:
2. Freq. with capital initial. Of or relating to Communism (communism n. 2); advocating or supporting Communism, esp. Soviet Communism.
I’m not inventing any new usages of the word. To counter my point, all you have to do is make a case for how Conkrite’s lies did not support Communism such that the dictionary definition does not apply. But so far Boxer has declined the challenge, and you have shown more interest in making false assertions about me and questioning my manhood than to address the actual point.
That’s how grown-up men talk. At the same time, grown-up men do not think that OSHA is staffed with card-carrying communists who could quote Charlotte Wilson or Friedrich Engels.
Card-carrying communists are a subset of communists. I have not confused Conkrite with a card-carrying communist, and I even pointed out alternative terms that adequately describe his role, like “Useful Idiot”.
If you want to appeal to a non-dictionary definition … go for it, but then acknowledge you are not working with a “well-defined” meaning.
Your assertion that Walter Cronkite is a communist is utter tomfoolery.
1. I did not assert that Conkrite is a communist. Either quote me or acknowledge your factual error.
2. I am asserting that it is accurate and acceptable according to the dictionary definition of the word to call him a communist.
If you do not distinguish between 1 and 2, you are being sloppier with your words and definitions than you are accusing me of. I am working within the dictionary definitions. You are confusing accurate observation of a position with taking said position; you might as well accuse our host Dalrock of being a feminist for accurately describing how their “logic” works.
SirHamster,
I suggest you go read Vox’s articles on “Graduating Gamma”. They would be useful for you.
I suggest you go read Vox’s articles on “Graduating Gamma”. They would be useful for you.
I have not lied about you or Boxer. Neither have I lied about Conkrite. I cannot say the same of you two of me.
The articles are useful nonetheless, but not because I am being intellectually dishonest here.
@SirHamster
The reason you need to read “Graduating Gamma” is because you think that your logical chain of reasoning where you “prove” Walter Cronkite is a Communist sympathiser actually (a) impresses anyone, and (b) means you’ve somehow risen above is in the socio-sexual heirarchy.
Here’s a hint: you haven’t.
@John:
Your items (a) and (b) presume I speak to impress to raise my status in the socio-sexual hierarchy.
You are wrong. I spoke because I thought Boxer’s response to Gunner was unreasonable – a personal attack on Gunner’s communist statements after Gunner pointed out Islam’s tendencies towards violence wherever it is.
Boxer’s response to mine has been to mock my manhood and call it kookery. If you are familiar with Vox Day’s blog, surely you have read his posts on dialectic and rhetoric. Which of the two is being employed by whom, here?
your logical chain of reasoning where you “prove” Walter Cronkite is a Communist sympathiser
I am attempting to prove no such thing. I am pointing out that the uncontested historical facts make calling Conkrite a communist reasonable. “Prove” involves making the conclusion indisputable. I am aiming much, much lower.
And the reasoning I use is the same reasoning Dalrock uses to call Churchians feminist – judge them by the fruit of their actions. Even if the pastor doesn’t call himself a feminist, if his directives end up making men grovel to their wives, he has adopted a feminism-advancing worldview.
Conkrite’s fruit was to help transform a major US victory in the Vietnam war into a PR victory for the communists. He is not solely responsible for the result of the war, but his actions helped the Communists. “Communist” is used to describe allegiance, and Conkrite’s Vietnam lies for communism, communism’s enmity for truth, and Conkrite’s failure to own up to his lies all point towards an allegiance not of his nominal country of citizenship. Media reports are like a loaded gun – when you shoot them in the direction of someone, “I didn’t know it would cause harm” is an unconvincing defense of innocence.
I am not asking you to agree with the conclusion. You can think of Conkrite as patriotic as you wish … but perhaps you can offer the same benefit of doubt you offer to Conkrite to the people who do not think so highly of him.
Here’s a hint: you haven’t.
As a Vile Faceless Minion of the Dark Lord, let me tell you a secret: I don’t care.
When you show an ability to correctly restate what I actually said, I might start doing so. Until then, no dice.
He is a United Methodist State Incorporated 501c3 HIRELING SHEPHERD.