Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
–Titus 2:3-5, NIV
One thing my wife has often noted is how intensely critical Christian wives are of their husbands whenever they gather, far more so than women in secular culture. The difference is so stark that she can identify groups of Christian wives just by their intense disrespect for their husbands. Recently we took the kids to a local festival. While I supervised the kids at an activity my wife was in line behind a group of women who loudly complained about their husbands for over twenty minutes. My wife finally asked:
You ladies must be with a church group.
The ladies were delighted. Yes, indeed they were! Had she noticed that they were all wearing crosses? My wife explained that no, she couldn’t see their crosses because she was behind them, but that their extended discussion tearing down their husbands with a litany of petty grievances gave them away. She urged them to repent of this pernicious habit and instead try to focus on how blessed they are to have their husbands. They were as you can imagine dumbstruck. However, they eventually recovered and after talking with my wife about the importance of respecting their husbands they seemed genuinely happier.
In partial defense of these ladies and the many millions of Christian wives doing the same thing, while they are indulging in a very common female temptation (as Titus 2 recognizes), they are also being taught contempt for their husbands by pretty much all modern Christian leaders. This is deeply entrenched in modern Christian culture, which is why it doesn’t stand out.
The Kendrick Brothers Strike Again
Not long after the movie War Room was released my wife was at a social event for Christian mothers. One of the wives explained at length how she had forced her husband to see the movie, and that all husbands needed to be forced to see it. While my wife normally pushes back when other wives speak in this way, in this context she chose to bite her tongue*. The bossy wife made her way around the group, asking each Christian wife if they had forced their husband to watch this movie. Each of the other women indicated that they had already either forced their husbands to watch the movie or intended to do so soon. When she made it to my wife, my wife explained that we have not seen the movie, and have no immediate plans to do so. The woman was taken aback at first, but then tried a different approach:
Bossy Disrespectful Christian Wife: Has your husband watched the movie Fireproof?
Mrs. D: Yes.
Bossy Disrespectful Christian Wife: Did he take notes?
Mrs. D: Yes.
Bossy Disrespectful Christian Wife: Did he refer to those notes later?
Mrs. D: Yes.
Bossy Disrespectful Christian Wife: Good for you!
My wife in fact told the truth. I did watch the movie and I did take notes. I also referred to these notes when I wrote my posts on the topic.
Given how elated the bossy disrespectful Christian wife was with the movie, I wanted to see how good my guess was about War Room back in February after viewing only the trailer:
It is possible that the Kendrick brothers will make a U-turn and actually teach biblical roles in marriage. However, based on the preview, their past presentations, and the strong preferences of modern Christians I’m not optimistic. My guess instead is that the advice to the wife is a headfake towards submission while teaching her that her job is not to cultivate a quiet gentle spirit, but to become a warrior praying for her no good husband to get his act together.
For those who enjoyed seeing husbands and fathers put down in Fireproof, Courageous, and Mom’s Night Out, you will want to stop reading if you haven’t already seen War Room. The following plot summary from Wikipedia naturally contains spoilers:
Tony (T.C. Stallings) and Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla Shirer) have a big house, two nice cars, a beautiful daughter, and plenty of money. Despite their apparent success, they face a strained marriage. Tony, a pharmaceutical salesman, is almost never there for his daughter, Danielle (Alena Pitts). He has been abusive verbally with Elizabeth and doesn’t appreciate anything she does. He also looks lustfully at other women and has thought about cheating on her.
Elizabeth, a realtor, goes to work with the elderly Miss Clara (Karen Abercrombie) to sell her house. Miss Clara senses the stress Elizabeth is under, and suggests that Elizabeth fight for their marriage by praying for Tony. Miss Clara shows Elizabeth a special closet she has dedicated to praying, and calls it her “War Room” because as she puts it, “In order to stand on your feet and fight the enemy, you need to get on your knees and pray”. As Elizabeth starts to seriously pray for her husband, Tony is away on a business trip but is having dinner at a fine restaurant with a beautiful woman who invites him back to her apartment. Just as he is on the verge of going to the woman’s apartment and cheating on his wife with her, he suddenly gets an attack of nausea at the last moment and goes to a bathroom in the restaurant to throw up.
Shortly afterward, Tony is fired for inflating his sales figures. Realizing he has hit rock bottom, he rededicates his life to God. Unknown to Elizabeth and Danielle, he has been keeping several samples for himself. He now realizes that he has to return them, even though it could potentially send him to prison. However, Tony’s former boss is moved by his willingness to admit his wrongdoing and make amends, and decides not to press charges. Tony begins to show an interest in his daughter’s jump roping skills and offers to participate with her and her friends in the upcoming double dutch competition at the local community center. The competition goes great and Tony’s team takes second place. Elizabeth successfully sells Miss Clara’s house to a retired pastor who notices the knee indentations in the closet floor and realizes that someone was praying in the closet. Shortly afterwards, Tony is offered a job as the director of the community center. Although the pay isn’t nearly what he was making as a pharmaceutical salesman, he realizes that with the income from this new job combined with Elizabeth picking up extra work, the family can make a budget and survive.
The film ends with Tony giving Elizabeth her favorite dessert while he gives her a foot massage, something she loves, and Miss Clara, now living with her son, praying a powerful prayer in the still of the night.
See Also: Disrespecting respectability, dishonoring the honorable.
*I won’t go into the details of why this was the right choice in that setting, but I agree with her that biting her tongue here was the right call.
“The film ends with Tony giving Elizabeth her favorite dessert while he gives her a foot massage…”
Shameful.
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So…. thus far, we have every Kendrick brothers movie on this list include some deadbeat who is “reformed” by his wonderful knowing wife, either causing him to repent by her “love” or by, as you say, threatening to lower the boom. Not so suddenly, I see that all they say with regard to the “Biblical message” is little more than a veil to cover up some other agenda, one which requires the denigration of the male. But…. what agenda could that be? Increased revenue from women seeing the films? Cultural marxism with a Christian face? Daddy issues? What is the motive behind something so glaringly, patently rooted outside of Scripture? And I’m in training to become a pastor, too; I can see quite easily past the “look into the Greek and the context” excuse.
So the message of the movie is that if you pray hard enough, your husband will become your servant.
“So the message of the movie is that if you pray hard enough, your husband will become your servant.”
swiftfoxmakr2: SCORE!!!!! That’ the best statement defining all this Kendrick Brothers shit I’ve seen yet.
If War Room is anything like Fireproof, I’d rather watch a movie about Hitler than that. At least I’d learn something!
@Dalrock:
The Lord has blessed you greatly. Always be thankful to Him for that.
[D: He has indeed, and I am.]
As for the synopsis, the dodge really doesn’t show up until the end. Before that, it’s a pretty classic storyline. A lot of people don’t find God until they are no longer able to stop avoiding seeing him. (There’s a reason Alcoholics and Drug Addicts are pretty receptive to the Lord. Ain’t no where but Up when you’re at the very Bottom.) And a big of godliness & humility does go a long way in life, but then we get the “rub” (literally) at the end. A “willing servant” is apparently the result of Faith.
Let me not lose my breakfast over that.
In the Kendrick Brother’s slight defense, “Face the Giants” doesn’t have that message. That one ends up being “be Faithful to God and you’ll win Football Games & Life goes Good”. Though the catch is that I do know Christians that really is a part of their Life Story. So it’s schmaltzy (and with some bad actors around), but I didn’t have it offensive on the theological front.
But they did get someone from NFL Films to do the football scenes. So the action is pretty dang top notch.
““be Faithful to God and you’ll win Football Games & Life goes Good”. Though the catch is that I do know Christians that really is a part of their Life Story. So it’s schmaltzy (and with some bad actors around), but I didn’t have it offensive on the theological front.”
But that is theologically problematic. Following God does not necessarily lead to winning football games and having a good life. Following God just gives you a good conscience in whatever situation life throws at you. Those men that ISIS/ISIL slayed on the N. African coast were faithful and they were butchered like pigs for it. Look at the lives of martyrs for the faith. Look at the lives of the prophets.
Tying the American Consumerist Dream to the faith is an affront to Christian theology…at least sound, orthodox theology.
@bkilbour
We need to be careful not to get caught up looking too far afield for the source of the temptation. It is true that Christian movies like Mom’s Night Out are following an already well worn path by the culture in showing husbands and fathers as buffoons while the tattoo artist biker is a wise and godly man. It is also true that movies like Flywheel, Fireproof, Courageous, and War Room are following a similar pattern which is well established in secular movies, where failing no good fathers let down their morally superior wives and children. But there is a lie here we need to be vigilant of, the lie that as Christians we aren’t tempted to follow this same path all on our own. The lie is that deep down we (collectively) really despise feminism and love the Lord, but no matter how valiantly we fight the culture keeps dragging us down. This is closely related to the “seeker friendly” lie, where Christians rationalize tossing out instructions from God because someone, someone “out there” doesn’t like what God taught us. It wasn’t us who didn’t like it, we swear; atheists made us declare “subservience” a sin all wives need to be on guard over. It wasn’t us, we swear; the culture or the offering plate or [insert rationalization here] made us rebel against the authority of husbands and fathers.
We need look no further than our own hearts to find the root of the temptation. This should be obvious going all the way back to the fall, where Eve rebelled and Adam went along when he should have instead lead Eve.
In partial defense of these ladies and the many millions of Christian wives doing the same thing, while they are indulging in a very common female temptation (as Titus 2 recognizes), they are also being taught contempt for their husbands by pretty much all modern Christian leaders. This is deeply entrenched in modern Christian culture, which is why it doesn’t stand out.
I have always maintained that the average American woman is a victim, but not in the sense she thinks she is.
Right from the cradle to the grave, she is being exposed to every form of corrosive and utterly destructive ideologies, and there seems to be no escape for her wherever she turns.
Her mother is the Indoctrinator in chief. Having kicked out her father (or never allowing him to get close enough in the first place), she goes to assault the poor girl’s fragile sensibilities with impunity, telling her “Whatever boys can do, girls can do better!” Or, worse still, that “Girls are better than boys”, or that “Girls are good; boys are bad”. The media, her schools and the church are saying the same thing, though using different terminologies. And, if she holds out for a bit, because the messages she keeps getting are fundamentally opposed to her inner leanings, her peers don’t leave her alone. They bombard her with shaming and name-calling. “Susie is a nonconformist! Shame her into line!”
Over time, she succumbs, jumps on the carousel, and begin to spin and put her hamster in overdrive. By the time the wall hits her brain into reality, it is too late. She’s ruined for life. To make matters even worse, by this time, she has already began the ruination of another fragile mind.
Only men can change this dire situation. And I am very glad for the rise of the manosphere. We may not be able to save every fembot “from the fire” of feminism, but at least we can pull some of them out, or prevent them from entering in in the first place, while hating their flesh-spotted garment. (Jude 23).
By the way, welcome bkilbour.
>*I won’t go into the details of why this was the right choice in that setting, but I agree with her that biting her tongue here was the right call.
Did she at least meet up with her one-on-one afterwards so that she could reproach her and hopefully turn her back towards sound theological ground? That’s what the Bible says to do: first you call them out one-on-one, then you take two or three people along when you call them out to act as witnesses, then you call them out in front of the church. Matthew 18:15-17.
@dalrock Much obliged, thank you for the warm welcome. My struggle here is to get the motive these filmmakers have boiled down in case I have to respond to someone asking me when I have little time.
I understand that there is a temptation to please the world, as you are saying – telling the atheists “nonono, we’re not like THOSE Christians. We’re more tolerant, like you.” And this may be a misguided attempt at evangelism. And it is also true that whatever temptation happens to an unbeliever is going to happen to a believer. But surely the Kendricks have seen the stats on who goes to these movies; they cannot be blind to the audience that soaks up the distinctively anti-male message, and assume that Richard Dawkins is attending somewhere in the crowd. It seems more prudent to find financial opportunism in the face of feminist rebellion in their goals – otherwise, they would have moved on to Christian heist movies, Christian stoner movies, etc. in light of the temptation and respective lie you mentioned.
LMAO
Seriously though, look at the presumption in that exchange: Husbands are so distracted and so inured with The World they need to be corrected by their wives and not only forced to watch Christian® movies, but to take notes and refer to those notes in order to prove a learning of the formulaic message of that movie. As if they can only pass her test if they took copious notes and referred back to them in their study.
When you combine women’s natural affinity for “chick crack” with the meta-physical aspects of modern churchianity, and then add life-trained Beta Christian men who defer to the feminine imperative standing in for the Holy Spirit who are grateful that God came through and blessed them with a woman like the one you describe, you get a self-perpetuating feminine-primary cycle in the church that creates men like the Kendrick brothers.
@bkilbour
The Kendrick brothers make these kinds of movies for the same reason the audience goes to see them; this is the kind of movie they love. This isn’t to say that there aren’t financial rewards and related pressures, but at the core of the issue it is much simpler. They love movies that tear down Christian husbands and fathers. That they can get paid for making them is more of a bonus.
I know all about Clocks which look like Bombs and thus I know that every one of the twenty-eight million people in Texas (other than the half-dozen Muslims) is a knuckle-dragging Christian (or motor-cycle gang member). The women (with the exception of Mrs Dalrock) seem beyond awful.
Was the message of Courageous really that bad, by itself? I liked it at the time, and found it somewhat inspiring to “be a better man.” The issue of men not leading like they should (especially in the spiritual sense) does look like a real world problem to me. In context with all the other Kendrick and similar movies, though, it is striking how the men are always failing and the women are always good and wise. I overheard a summary of War Room and thought “oh boy, here we go again.” But everyone thinks it’s great because it’s a wholesome Christian movie with a heartwarming good message.
@Reluctant Neo
I shared my own analysis of Courageous here, and yes in my opinion it really is that bad. I agree that men not leading like we should is a huge problem, but our lack of leadership is closely tied to our unwillingness to acknowledge bad behavior by women. Kendrick can’t lead men to fix this, because he is deeply mired in this himself. Telling other men to man up is a safe way to pretend to lead while avoiding the discomfort of actually leading. It feels heroic, but it is actually the easy way out.
It isn’t just women who are always good and wise. Tattoo artist bikers are good and wise, and so are children. The pattern is husbands and fathers are foolish and bad, everyone else is wise and good. The one exception would be pastors who are husbands and fathers.
The ladies were delighted. Yes, indeed they were [members of a church group]! Had she noticed that they were all wearing crosses? My wife explained that no, she couldn’t see their crosses because she was behind them, but that their extended discussion tearing down their husbands with a litany of petty grievances gave them away. She urged them to repent of this pernicious habit and instead try to focus on how blessed they are to have their husbands. They were as you can imagine dumbstruck.
Your wife was lucky that “dumbstruck” was their strongest reaction. I’ve seen churchians of both sexes react to rebuke, no matter how mild, in ways that differ not at all from those of unbelievers.
As I might have mentioned before, the petty whining by American wives, Christian or not, about their husbands isn’t going to stop until we reach full-scale meltdown/Mad Max stage (and possibly not even then).
“He has been abusive verbally with Elizabeth and doesn’t appreciate anything she does.”
That’s funny, because that plot line describes most wives these days. This idiot has it backwards as usual.
It’s probably worth a link to this.
A.W. Tozer’s “The Menace of the Religious Movie”. http://www.biblebb.com/files/tozermovie.htm
“If God has given wisdom to see the error of religious shows we owe it to the Church to oppose them openly. We dare not take refuge in “guilty silence.” Error is not silent; it is highly vocal and amazingly aggressive. We dare not be less so.”
Your wife is cool.
I will see the movie eventually.
My church pastor loved the movie, but I’m not sure he sees it within the pattern of other Kendrick movies. My pastor used it to reshape our Wednesday night prayer meeting to be much more focused on prayer. That is, it used to have songs and a reading from scripture and we shared thoughts. Then, we’d take prayer requests. Now, we have a song (single), he reads a short passage, we break off individually to talk with God and meditate on the Scripture, then we meet back for extended prayer (better part of 30 minutes in small group and large group sessions).
I’ve brought up my issues with Fireproof before at the men’s breakfast, but I think the pastor wasn’t able to make it that day. It struck a chord with the younger men. The older men (60+) seemed hospitable, but didn’t seem to grasp what I was saying.
It’s very easy for folks hearing the issues with the films to think you don’t think there’s value to it for men. That’s the craftiness of the message. Who will argue that men aren’t failing? No one here. But, as Dalrock notes, they deliberately stop when talking about women not submitting or even the need for women to grow spiritually at all (Fireproof).
I’m going to watch it and talk to the pastor about it. I have a good relationship with him and the other men at the church. I’ll update.
I should note, with respect to my pastor, that he’s more of an old school southern pastor. He doesn’t hold “Father’s Day” or “Mother’s Day” sermons. They’re not in the Bible and not the purpose of services (worship God). I think he may be receptive, if I have all my notes and refer to them.
I’ve been thinking about everything in this post. Like …. wow…. The timing of this post is spot on.
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In my Southern Baptist church, we never had any Beta indoctrination. Women were taught to the right way to behave & so we’re men. It made me the man I am today.
Colossians 3:18 was over the door of the women’s Sunday School classrooms for crying out loud. I have been to other churches & I see this submit to women bs a lot. It’s like culture shock for me. Especially moving from Tennessee to Texas! I assumed Texan Churches would be more Alpha, but I’ve encountered churches that are more of lights/smoke machine churches. It’s weird. I no longer go to church because of it. I can’t relate to this “new age” crap being pushed down men’s throats. The churches have been infiltrated by social science bullcrap to push men and women away from each other by promoting misandry.
Looking Glass,
That’s a fascinating piece, written decades ago. I thought point #4 was especially interesting.
ben,
Don’t give up looking for a church. Heck, if you can’t find one, build one. Ask God for help.
So here is what I’ve been wondering………why didn’t Elizabeth just do the love dare on her husband?
Your description of the conversation your wife had with the “did he take notes?” women perfectly summarizes what the whole “man up” mantra is about. It’s not about assuming leadership of the family and taking on the authority that comes with the responsibility.
“Manning up” really means “do what I’ve decided is best for you as a man” – in this case, it means watching stupid, poorly made propaganda films and micromanaging you to the point where you must take careful notes to prove to them that the blatant, in-your-face message didn’t go over your head.
Notice how this woman also told your wife “Good for you!” not “Good for him!” when discussing what you had done. It’s as if you’re not even a human, but a pet she’s successfully trained to behave properly.
Dalrock, it sounds like you have a really wonderful wife. YOU’D BETTER MAN UP AND SERVE HER PROPERLY BEFORE SOMEBODY ELSE SWEEPS HER OFF HER FEET!!
Let’s see… Highlights from War Room:
* “Submission means knowing when to duck so God can hit your husband” – Biblical submission is nothing more than a punch line. The worst part about this line? I heard the guys in the theater laughing much louder than the women.
* Give $5000 of the family’s money to your sister without talking to your husband first? Well, he’s the bad guy for getting upset about it. After all, it’s not her sister’s fault she married a bum that can’t hold down a job.
* I don’t remember the exact words, but wife is worried that husband might be cheating “because he isn’t getting it from me” (see Fireproof). Did Miss Clara the Prayer Warrior point the wife to I Cor. 7:5? Of course not.
And finally, in every Kendrick movie, everyone lives happily ever after once they have their come-to-Jesus meeting. All that stuff about the world hating Christians because they hated Christ? Obviously applies to other people. I would have loved to see an ending where the husband is sent to prison anyway – because he did in fact commit a crime, but nobody would want to pay money for that kind of movie.
I know zero people who have seen these movies. Basically, this story (while funny!) reflects a tiny sliver of American Evangelical culture, not Christianity. Traditional Christian women (say 4+ kids, some who homeschool & cook from scratch) lack the time for this sort of social angst.
@stickdude90
I remember a “redemption movie” with Denzel Washington where he did end up in jail called “the flight”. Secular movies have better morality than christian movies it seems, maybe a feature not a bug.
Crank
Dalrock’s old lady is married to a manosphere Christian alpha and the things he has taught her make her super woman. She is going no where. .
So good; as was benfromtexas’ comment on the corrosive effect of social sciences on churches.
Your repetition of “we swear” lie reminded me of the chorus from the song “Jezebel” by Iron and Wine. Whereas the seeker-friendlies and the Kendricks lie, Iron and Wine are honest.
Saying, “wait, we swear
We’ll love you more and wholly
Jezebel, it’s we, we that you are for
Only”
It is the truth under the Kendrick’s and seeker-friendly’s lie.
Dalrock,
“so that no one will malign the word of God.”
I think this is a very important part of the scripture. It also changes the emphasis of the passage completely. Why are the older women to teach the younger? Why are the younger women to act this way? Not, necessarily, because these things in and of themselves are pleasing to God, but perhaps so people aren’t distracted from the message of salvation by things of lesser importance such as a war of the sexes.
The Apostle Paul, in Corinthians, states, “all things to all people” as the way to spread the message. The mode doesn’t matter, just the message. However, it seems Paul, especially, understood people’s tendency to obfuscate the true issues with red herrings. Many of his instructions as to personal behavior seem less about being righteous and more about not giving deniers/enemies stones to throw, and by doing so, distract from the message.
An issue I used to have with the Gospel was the fact that Paul, or any of the disciples, or Jesus even, never addressed the issue of slavery. Paul writes to and about slaves, without ever calling out the evil of slavery. Was it because he didn’t realize it was evil? That’s possible, but I can’t bring myself to believe that. So why didn’t he call it out? I think it’s because he knew it would dilute the message. If he got people to follow Jesus, truly follow him, then those same people would have to eventually come to see the evil of slavery, and prejudice, and all forms of hate people hold on to. Moreover, they might have to wrestle with those issues without the help of the Spirit if they’ve truly failed to understand the Gospel.
When Phillip saw the Ethiopian Eunuch he didn’t take it as an opportunity to teach others how it was Christians should accept foreigners and/or eunuchs (which were strictly prohibited under the law). He didn’t take that opportunity to speak to the eunuch himself about those issues. He simply spoke to him about his own need for salvation and Christ. Everything else just naturally flowed from that without having to be made an issue.
Likewise, is focusing on the rebellion of women an issue if you’re trying to teach men? Do you honestly believe that a man who is truly following Christ won’t eventually come to see it? Do you honestly believe a man who is solid in his faith and ministry couldn’t handle a wife who wasn’t?
I regularly read your blog. I often come away feeling concerned, or even angry, with women. I don’t often leave it thinking about Christ, his word, or with the impulse to strengthen my own faith. I fully agree that Christians should warn each other of the pitfalls, but it feels like we’re simply content to hang out in the pit and tisk at how nasty it is.
Do you have any advice on how men should cultivate their faith and their ministry. Any advice on how to lay the foundations of a life long walk? How about how to recognize the voice of the Lord and how to cull out all the other noise?
Well, we’re a homeschooling family with over 4 children and my wife cooks from scratch, yet we managed to see it as a family last Tuesday.
Like most mainstream pop-Christianity, there’s good mixed in with the bad. I could easily give you plenty of moments and messages that, taken alone, would be excellent.
However, when you mix crap into a milkshake, the milkshake is much less suitable as food. Or unsuitable entirely.
There are two scenes that stand out to me. The first is the come-to-Jesus moment in which Tony falls to his knees in front of his wife who is sitting on the bed. Yes, he repents of his sins while literally kneeling at the feet of his wife. I seem to recall something of “I don’t deserve you,” at this moment, but I wouldn’t swear by it.
The second is the foot massage scene mentioned earlier. It’s not a simple foot massage. Rather, Elizabeth walks in to Tony filling a basin at the sink. He leads her to the couch and kneels at her feet with the basin after giving her the ice cream sundae she had mentioned in an earlier scene. As he begins working on her feet, she proclaims, “I’m getting a foot massage from my husband while eating an ice cream sundae! There is a God in heaven!”
Guess what we discussed on the way home from the theatre?
It’s one thing to just avoid this stuff, it’s another to confront it directly with your wife and kids. We ended up talking about the whole line of Sherwood films. It isn’t enough to say “this is bad, this is good,” you’ve got to confront them with these ideas and pick them apart and let the kids think critically about them. We do this with all films now.
I wasn’t red-pill aware with my older kids and there’s been much to regret in their choices. The younger ones, however, are getting both barrels and they are taking to it like ducks to water. My wife experiences cognitive dissonance with it all. She can’t refute what I say, but it’s hard to shake the programming.
Ah, forgot to say: the foot massage scene immediately made me think of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples and I would bet that that’s exactly what the filmmakers were going for: husbands as servants of the wives and the foot washing representing that.
@mdavid
They’re actually very popular in (what you have defined as) “Traditional Christian women” circles. It’s not a tiny sliver. Don’t believe me. Just reflect on the fact that these movies get released in theaters! They are not bootlegs surreptitiously passed around by hardcore fans of some no-name act. These movies are in fact products of the mainstream American Evangelical tradition.
Your wife was lucky that “dumbstruck” was their strongest reaction. I’ve seen churchians of both sexes react to rebuke, no matter how mild, in ways that differ not at all from those of unbelievers.
Yep. When my wife does this, she loses friends and is shunned at church mommy/book clubs. It breaks my heart for her that in some ways, I am her only true friend.
@Yogi
1 Corinthians 7:21
This follows immediately after one of several passages on the bonds of marriage; making distinctions so that the church in Corinth doesn’t wrap itself up in tangled theologies where the constrained and perverted outcome is a teaching that “bond=bad”.
@Yogi
It isn’t an either/or proposition. Paul explains in Titus 2 that it is important for wives to submit to their husbands “so that no one will malign the word of God.” Peter explains in 1 Pet 3 that a wife submitting to her husband “is very precious in the sight of God.” Paul isn’t contradicting Peter, and Peter isn’t contradicting Paul.
Men are failing women by going along with the rebellion. This is a very old temptation and sin, going back to the fall. You are saying to teach men how to be godly and they will know to follow the Bible. But this doesn’t just run one way. The instructions in the Bible also teach us how to be godly.
Feminist rebellion is an old sin, but it is also what we have elevated as a primary virtue in our time. You want me to remain silent about it and hope that other Christians just figure it out, because my discussing it makes you uncomfortable. Of course it is uncomfortable; why else do you think everyone else is remaining silent about it? If you want to read a Christian avoid the issue of feminist rebellion, you have a wealth of options to choose from. Why did you seek this place out, only to complain that it is different from the others?
Is this an American (or southern evangelical) thing? On the most recent occasions (excluding birth death and marriage) when I was in Church, there was on the first occasion a sermon about children’s Xmas presents which had something to do with inconvenient truths. What, I am not sure; and on the second (after a prayer for the incumbent Lady Bishopess) we were reminded that it has always been part of British culture (but not in any history book I ever read) to welcome with open arms and open wallets immigrants both economic – is there any other kind? – and otherwise and not withstanding (I may add) that in the previous week one of those immigrants (legal or otherwise) had attempted – though unsuccessfully – Murder in the Cathedral Cloisters (now there’s a title for a play). Can that really be what is expected of a Christian? – the altruism I mean; not the woeful attempt at a stabbing. The stabber apparently nonchalantly rode off on a bicycle.
True. But that only supports what I was saying. Slavery, as a social condition, is not important to him, Yes, if you can get out of it, great, but why doesn’t he go further and tell all of the Christian slave owners to free their slaves? Or, why doesn’t he call for all the Christians to pool their money to free slaves, at least Christian slaves? Charity was huge for the early Church. “So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”
Why is he urging believers to “not be concerned about it?” Because, none of it matters compared to being in Christ. Not being free, not being a slave, no state matters if you aren’t first in Christ. Losing sight of that allows the conversation to drift into unproductive areas and casting stones.
The issue isn’t that men are being too servant like to their women, it’s that they’re being servants to their women before they’re being servants to God. That’s the problem with men; Christian or otherwise. Serving anything, including yourself, before serving to God will not lead you where you need to be.
Likewise, the issue isn’t that women aren’t serving their husbands, it’s that they aren’t serving God. Women don’t refuse to submit to their husbands because they find it offense to submit to their husbands, it’s because they refuse to submit to God because they find THAT offensive. If a woman won’t submit to God why would you expect her to submit to anyone else else, including her husband?
And to that end, it doesn’t matter what we men are submitting to, if it isn’t God, we don’t have the grounds to criticize women when they won’t submit to him.
Yogi,
You mentioned sometimes feeling angry after being on the site.
I (and others) think there’s a cycle to deprogramming and anger is a part of the cycle. In many ways, it’s like the classic cycle of how we deal with death/loss.
How long have you been coming here?
@stickdude90
You have to admit this is an absolutely masterful headfake to biblical submission. It says the words while teaching the opposite in spirit, and includes incitement for modern feminist wives to see their husbands (and submission) as abusive. All of the secular reviews of the movie that I read picked up on this specific dog whistle. Absolutely brilliant.
Ha. I didn’t pick up on that from the reviews. Good catch.
Another excellent catch, something the reviewers didn’t note.
Yes, and this is standard for the genre. In this case it reinforces the idea that wifely submission means your husband feeds you ice cream while giving you a footrub.
And to that end, it doesn’t matter what we men are submitting to, if it isn’t God, we don’t have the grounds to criticize women when they won’t submit to him.
No one’s actions releases another believer from God’s commands.
My sinfulness does not give anyone else a free hand to rebel. Further, my position as a sinner in no way invalidates the words I speak if they are God’s words. They are God’s words and commands. To shrug them off because they come from the mouths of a sinner is to rationalize the rebellion.
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@Yogi
See the book of Philemon. There is a consistent message of following authority in the Gospels as well as the Epistles.
No one said the issue is that husbands are being servants to their wives. The issue is that husbands are following when they have an obligation to lead (and thereby to serve). This is misdirection on your part, whether intentional or otherwise.
@Yogi
…we don’t have the grounds to criticize women when they won’t submit to him.
A husband admonishing and rebuking his unsubmissive wife is submission to God. He is to rule his household well (1 Tim #:4) and that includes her. He is to sanctify her by the washing and watering of God’s Word, (Eph 5:26) and he is to live with her in knowledge (1 Pet 3:7); knowledge of what sins have ensnared her, so that she can be free to live a holy life pleasing to her Lord.
It is exactly the sentiment that husband’s shouldn’t criticize women, because males are worse or it’s not loving, that has brought the church and the family to the precipice of destruction. It was a similar non-confrontational Adam that listened to his wife and ushered in the fall. If men are to repent, they MUST repent of the failure to confront female sin in their wives and daughters, and stop thinking that their cowardice is virtue.
Mrs. Gamer and I saw the movie and we both noticed that the wife was withholding sex from the husband (“he isn’t getting it from me”). Mrs. Gamer also noticed the ending with the dessert and foot massage. I don’t recall any hint of sex at the end. Mrs. Gamer noticed the wife’s unilateral decision to give her sister $5k.
As far as the jump rope stuff the daughter does, that’s the mother’s job to keep her daughter haaaappy, not the father’s. Daddy should hug and spend some time with his daughter, but getting very involved with her childish activities is wrong.
How about a movie where the husband is praying for sex while the wife is withholding and he gets it from a hot associate? Then some churchtard goes to reprove him and the husband slams the churchtard for failing to note the wife’s failure to fulfill her primary responsibility “to have and to hold.” The husband contacts Cohen and Cohen, divorces the wife, and lives happily ever after.
I’m curious if anybody has seen this yet? Is there any type of a tip of the hat to the solutions posited in “Fireproof”. Does Miss Clara ever tell the wife to:
Day 1: Not say anything negative to her husband?
Day 2: Make one expression of unexpected kindness?
Day 3: Buy him something that says she was thinking about him?
Day 4: Call him and ask if she could do anything for him?
Day 22: Say to him: “I love you. Period. I choose to love you even if you don’t love me in return.”
Day 38 :Ask herself what your husband would want if it was obtainable. Have her commit this to prayer, and start mapping out a plan for meeting some (if not all) of their desires, to whatever level you possibly can.
If so, I imagine you would here the shrieking from the parking lot. Seems like the “Love Dare” is for us idiotic sinful men, while becoming a fully formed power brokering prayer warrior is what is in the cards for the ladies….
Excellent analysis Dalrock. My wife loves Courageous, and was rather hurt when I did not like it. Sometimes it is hard to point out the faults in these films because they so easily missed, and many take the approach of “well there is so much good stuff too”. I think the wife is slowly coming around.
I’d like to get some of your thoughts on one thing…one of my elders daughters, in her mid 30’s, is a single mother. She became a single mother by adopting a young disable boy in China. She is currently finalizing her second adoption. My elder and his wife are much involved in the care of the boy, as are his two aunts. All three of the elders daughters are unmarried. I think it stemmed from partly a Jesus is my boyfriend/purity culture etc and partially because they are very homely, but maintain the weight a woman should.
Here is my problem. I tend to view single motherhood equivalent to child abuse, however Christ tells us to care for orphans. How would you view this situation in light of scripture?
@ Dalrock
First, criticizing women doesn’t make me uncomfortable. If I were asked to teach women about strengthening their walks with God, high on, if not on top of, my list of talking points would be the extreme form of selfishness that feminism teaches women to practice.
Also, 1 Peter supports my position. The issue in 1 Peter 3 is how Christian wives treat their unbelieving husbands (some translations say “Husbands who do not obey the word”) . They are encouraged to act so that they may be witnesses. Their method of witnessing is to be reflections of Christ’s light. It is this reflection, the woman’s own spiritual state, and her willingness to be a witness that God finds pleasing, The point here is clearly not that God finds it pleasing if a wife submits to her husband. He finds it pleasing that a woman has a relationship with him and can be a witness for him, even through complete submission. Submission first to God and then, for him, others.
I wasn’t positive you were criticizing the movie for having the husband soak/massage his wife’s feet. But if so, how is that different that Jesus washing the feet of all of his disciples in response for their competition to be his number one follower? When they were wrong, he showed them how they should be, he didn’t crack down. (Yes, he would also rebuke at times as well).
There is nothing wrong with a husband serving his wife–so long as it is an extension of serving God. Jesus washed the disciples feet to show humility. When Peter decried Jesus going to the Cross Jesus put Peter in his place-without hesitation. Serving the disciples was a necessary extension of serving God, it was not an end in itself. Likewise, serving your wife should be an extension of serving God, not simply to show your wife you’ll be her doormat and because you’re afraid of her.
If a wife fails to understand and to see Christ in her husband’s service, well, that’s why she needs Christ. Christ is supposed to transform us. It might also be that he aren’t reflecting Christ. Or, that she’s just not going to accept God (Judas spent every day with Jesus, still betrayed him). Regardless, you still serve God.
This is where a man’s walk with God becomes so important as a focus. It is not an easy walk. It requires more strength than most men can imagine. (I think this alone will have a huge effect on women–even Jesus seemed to incite intense interest from women). I also think walking with God makes men more “masculine” and women more “feminine” in the natural sense. I think one, to some degree, can judge one’s progress by the reaction of others. But it’s also why the walk needs to be the focus, a little success can open a whole new line of temptations.
I also have no intention of defending women. As stated above, I see selfishness in women most everywhere I look. It is as present in women as is the absence of love for God is in men. The answer is not to criticize women, or make them take their place. It is simply to follow God and be the example so others can do likewise. Service is very much a part of that. There is no shame in a man who serves. A Christian man should not feel anything positive when his wife serves him if he knows it’s because of her love for him and not because of her love for God.
I agree with helping Christians, men and women both, to see the ways in which the world tries every day to mislead us. I started reading your blog, along with others, because I needed help to see how feminism and secular equalism were being used to hoodoo people into erect cults to themselves. I, as a Christian, had, to too large a degree, bought into the notion that as a good Christian husband I was being a servant of God when I made my wife’s emotional state my number one priority. Your site absolutely helped me with that. I am very well attuned to those lies and so many of the ways they are delivered.
Still, I can’t lay the blame at anyone else’s feet. I believed those lies because I was letting something/someone other than the Lord instruct me. I have long known the word lies, even if I don’t know which lies it is telling. I know the Lord tells only the truth. If I was mislead, it’s either because I chose not to listen to the Lord, or I couldn’t recognize his voice.
My post wasn’t meant to attack you. But, I simply felt the need to point out to you, that wherein you often talk about how God should be the center, it doesn’t usually feel as though he’s at the center of your blog. The movies you are skewering aren’t wrong because they place blame with men/husbands and expect them to repent and serve. They do–that is God’s truth. The problem with those movies is they allow everyone else to believe THEY DON”T need to repent and serve. The problem with the bossy lady in the women’s group isn’t that she believed every male should be forced to watch it so he could learn from it. It was thinking that the message of repentance and serving only needed to be learned by men. Those movies are telling women that as women in the world, they are just fine with the ways they are. That simply is not God’s truth.
My concern with your blogging only has to do with what I’ve noticed is an ever growing resentment on your part to Christian men serving their wives. (And yes, I am redpill aware, and no I don’t reject it as a very likely biological truth. And no, I don’t believe serving means being a doormat and certainly not being afraid of your wife, but it does allow for caring for her.)
Yogi @ 2:03 pm:
“An issue I used to have with the Gospel was the fact that Paul, or any of the disciples, or Jesus even, never addressed the issue of slavery. Paul writes to and about slaves, without ever calling out the evil of slavery. Was it because he didn’t realize it was evil? That’s possible, but I can’t bring myself to believe that.”
Slavery isn’t inherently evil. People will always have masters and servants to some degree and owe each other money or service to varying degrees, so banning all involuntary authority over others would make civilization very difficult. Modern examples of slavery are financial debt, military conscription, the prison system and paying taxes.
It’s the potential for abuse that makes slavery evil. Considering slaves to be inferior people, inhumane working conditions, usury to enslave the unwilling… this, the Bible condemns quite vocally.
God doesn’t condemn slavery but He does require slaves to be treated well enough to ruin the profit motive behind slavery.
“So why didn’t he call it out? I think it’s because he knew it would dilute the message.”
God doesn’t work this way. If slavery had been evil then God (and His loyal followers) would not have sanctioned it even temporarily.
Furthermore, that belief calls the entire Bible into doubt. If what God wanted then might not be what God wants now, even though it’s what God said at the time, then the Bible is useless. I knew one pastor in particular who used “that was then, this is now” reasoning to put women in charge over men.
…
“Submission first to God and then, for him, others.”
This undermines the husband’s authority. Many women hear “God’s voice” telling them it’s okay to disobey her husband and many more women will use their church’s pastor to second-guess their husband’s decisions. Submission to her husband IS submission to God.
If the husband makes the marriage’s decisions unless somebody else vetoes him then he doesn’t make the decisions.
Yogi, why didn’t the movie have the wife wash her husband’s feet with her hair? And serve him a beer or coke and pretzels while he watched football? And sex him up in a negligee?
It is simply to follow God and be the example so others can do likewise.
Exposing lies is also following God. I think that you have a very narrow view of what following God means.
@Dalrock
Nice Post Mister ‘D’
“”Had she noticed that they were all wearing crosses? “‘
Obviously Roman Catholic. The Evangelical Church that I attend no one wears crosses.
“”She urged them to repent of this pernicious habit and instead try to focus on how blessed they are to have their husbands.””
Kudos to Mrs.”D”!!!!
“”Each of the other women indicated that they had already either forced their husbands to watch the movie or intended to do so soon.””
WOW!!!!……………I have never seen any of these movies.But,you have piqued my interest and I will be watching them.
I am glad to see that you have a very nice,loyal,faith orientated spouse.That is very nice to hear.If you would like to see women that are the complete opposite of your wife I suggest that you might find a local Synagogue in your area….and attend it! You will hear a lot more derogatory remarks about husbands than you will in the Christian sphere…….that is until the wives congregate and talk among themselves,and they brag about how “successful” their hubbies are……aka…”how much MONEY they are making,how big the new house is,what private schools the kids attend,the new Mercedes Benz{s}…….etc..etc……The Christian sphere is easy to deal with!………… Shalom!
Your wife sounds lovely, Dalrock. Any chance she will be starting a blog sometime?
I think that many women are in difficult marriages, and they definitely should be instructed to pray. But the thing is, they are not going to be perfect either.
I have been reading the Peaceful Wife lately, and the great thing about April is that when a wife comes to her with problems, she doesn’t just tell her top pray for her husband to be “fixed”. She asks about the wife’s walk with God,and how she has been treating her husband, etc.
Thanks for the kind words Mark.
I’ll have to ask, but my guess would be they were Evangelical. This must be a regional difference.
Yogi, why didn’t the movie have the wife wash her husband’s feet with her hair? And serve him a beer or coke and pretzels while he watched football? And sex him up in a negligee?
This is a fantastic rhetorical device. Can you imagine the uproar?
@ Gunner Q
“So why didn’t he call it out? I think it’s because he knew it would dilute the message.”
God doesn’t work this way. If slavery had been evil then God (and His loyal followers) would not have sanctioned it even temporarily.
I wasn’t saying that God felt it was unimportant. What I was saying is that it was unnecessary to draw significant specific attention to just this issue, because it was fully encapsulated in the Gospel. Slavery was to the Gospel what working out your biceps is to whole body health. Pursuing whole body health necessarily means working out your biceps. Of course it is taught, but never allowed to become THE issue. Anyone following Christ would come to see the evil of slavery, anti-slavery didn’t need be highlighted it was a necessarily inevitable result of following Christ.
“Submission first to God and then, for him, others.”
This undermines the husband’s authority.
No. Just no. It was Christ’s absolute submission to God, to the World and to all mankind that guarantees/justifies his authority and glory. He alone sits on the right hand of God. It’s him all the angles in Heaven now worship. If you believe submission undermines authority instead of warrants it, you have fundamentally misunderstood the Gospels.
Yogi
The quote comes from about midway through your comment, Its interesting that the quote is at the fulcrum position because that quote reveals the source of your confusion in how you interpret whats being written by others.
You are setting aspects of male female differences in what we/they DO, in how that is perceived, in how it is rationalized, etc. on a fulcrum, or as a dichotomy….a false one. That’s where you go wrong.
You cannot take a teeter totter that is crushed deeply into the ground on one side (male) and sticking up high on the other (female) and address the massive skew in the church by applying nice equal pressure on both sides. They don’t budge that way..
For Dalrock to point out a fictional character rubbing his fictional wife’s feet as a part of the over all propaganda of the film message says exactly zero about his opinion of a man actually rubbing his wife’s feet.
Its in the imagery. Its also that you fail to try and grasp how women hear and see the message versus how you are hearing and seeing it. If you take the female filter and her proclivity to seeing subtext in everything, imagine how she sees the film as it ends with such a pleasant (to her) scene. It accentuates the positive (from her perspective) since the woman in the film got a fixed husband who is now also a foot rubbing supplicant, and all she need do is head for the closet and she too can have a man happy to serve her and never prone to violating her boundaries.
Having an objective conversation on a blog site about a gender issue is not suggesting of anything beyond exactly and precisely what is explicitly stated. Your objections are to subtext you’ve inferred to Dalrock. For that reason Im not optimistic that you will grasp the simplicity of what i am saying here.
Side note for Empath:
I used the word “Empathogasmic” on my FB feed to describe the antics on the show “The View.”
Several of my friends asked what it meant so I linked to your definition.
It was a big hit. Baby steps for the uninitiated, I guess. Baby steps.
@ empathologism
I think the teeter totter is a brilliant image and if I’d have thought of it, I’d have used it to illustrate my point just like you do. I think they way you used it, in fact, illustrates my point exactly as to what I see as the issue I could not so adroitly state earlier. My wife and I are NOT a teeter totter. No man and wife is. It is absolutely not required for God to affect anyone else for him to affect me. Women do not need to be brought low in order for men to be brought up. Men’s walk with God has NOTHING to do with how their wives act. We don;t judge Jesus based on Judas’ betrayal.
I could not possibly agree more with D’s assessment of feminism and of the flat out rebellion of Christian women in the west. . I think D has previously discussed the western Church’s tendency to equate women’s desires with divine desires. I agree 100% that such a notion is as anti-christ as anything can be. I do, however, disagree with him that that rebellion is against their husbands. It is a rebellion against God. It is NOT a man-woman issue. It is a woman-God issue. That is not an issue men can solve by being any type men or husbands–they can’t even help. It is an issue only God can solve, and men help by being his servants. It has to be a spirit of service to God, not a spirit of men putting women in their place. I agree men who are sold with God are likely to know the difference, but what about everyone else?
That is why I posted asking him, or trying to ask him, now that we’ve identified the issue does he have any advice about the solution?
(And yes, I understand fully how women are likely to receive the message of the movie. So what? What does that have to do with men walking with God?)
@Empath
Well put. However, Yogi makes it a habit of subtly reframing everything, which puts her in the category of either a very sloppy thinker or a troll. I don’t hold out much hope that this will stop, as it is something she is consistent about.
Stryker, I hear you with the the “there is so much good stuff” in these films. You start talking to church people about how the Kendrick movies “tear down Christian husbands” and people will look at you with bewilderment. From their perspective, they’re just good movies about having a better marriage, being a good dad, praying, etc. It’s hard to even know where to start.
On a different note, I get stuck on knowing what to say when I hear this argument: “A husband is supposed to love his wife like Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus’ most important act was sacrificing Himself for the church. So a husband should be a servant and be willing to sacrifice himself and give himself up for his wife. He should be willing to make the first move and should love her and be patient with her and woo her even when she’s in sin, just like Christ does with us. A man should approach his wife with an attitude of servant leadership.”
What’s the best way to counter that one? In practice, it leads to the wife getting everything the way she wants it.
@Stryker
You didn’t ask me, and I’m not popular here right now, but maybe this helps.
1. Two loving committed parents are ALWAYS better than one loving committed parent.
2. One loving committed parent is ALWAYS better than no loving committed parents.
3. No loving committed parents always compels us to help.
If she did not adopt, how certain are you these children would have been raised by a loving couple?
Serving someone is not the same as letting them get away with behaving badly. Ever seen a mother who says she “loves” her kids too much to discipline them ? That is not really loving or serving them well.
A good leader is also a good servant.
@Reluctant Nero
The problem is with the assumption that Christ’s love means being passive and giving us whatever we want. The right response is to ground this in scriptural examples of Christ loving and leading. I touched on the same topic here.
@yogi – pretty much my take on it…it is unusual to say the least, but at least the boy has a parent vs no parent.
@Yogi
Of course it does. This is why you are spending so much energy trying to stop it. You aren’t here trying to constantly reframe the discussion because you don’t really care.
Nonsense. The same passage goes on to explain that it has always been this way, referencing Sarah and Abraham in Genesis:
Abraham is a pretty stunning example of an imperfect husband when it comes to submission, but he isn’t an example of an unbeliever. Peter is referencing the Old Covenant, and tying submission in with the New Covenant.
Nonsense. Peter says it is and always has been pleasing to God. But this offends your feminism, the feminism you think you have cleverly hidden, so you spin pure nonsense hoping no one will notice. If you just type enough words, and reframe long enough, you can baffle us with BS. It no doubt works on other venues, but it won’t work here.
It is a rebellion against God. It is NOT a man-woman issue. It is a woman-God issue.
Interesting.
No mention of “wife.” That would complicate the situation, according to clear Scripture guidance.
I wonder if this is the re-frame.
It is a rebellion against God AND rebellion of a wife against her husband. Another reframe caught and fixed.
@ Dalrock
Stated as simply as can be then. Peter is not talking about a woman submission to her husband for the sake of wives submitting to their husbands. He is talking about women submitting to God. As submitted servants to God they can then be his servants to others. Sarah was a Godly woman, that’s why she, including her submission to Abraham, was exemplified. Instead, what you quoted make clear, Sarah and the holy women of the past, “put their hope in God.” If Peter had referenced some woman who was known not to be Godly, but was submissive to her husband and as such that submission was pleasing, I’d have to concede your point.
You will never get women to submit, in large numbers, to their husbands simply by pointing out that they are wrong/sinning for failing to submit. Even if I concede your interpretation of Peter, and it is preached through the whole the world, women will reject it–if they haven’t accepted submission to God. It is not how women treat there husbands that is the problem, it is how they treat God.
Either from scripture, or even in your own life, can you think of a single woman through whom God clearly works, but who is not submissive to others, including her husband?
Compared to Hollywood, they are very much “good” movies. But that’s not what our standard should be. When you compare them to the correct standard, they fail miserably.
In general I think it is easier to submit to my husband than God overall. Husband is imperfect and therefore less demanding of perfection. Also there is very little interpretation issue with what he wants. If you cannot submit to an imperfect earthly authority there is little chance of being able to submit to a perfect heavenly one.
@ Anchorman
It is a rebellion against God. It is NOT a man-woman issue. It is a woman-God issue.
Interesting.
No mention of “wife.” That would complicate the situation, according to clear Scripture guidance.
I wonder if this is the re-frame.
@theasdgamer
It is a rebellion against God AND rebellion of a wife against her husband. Another reframe caught and fixed.
First of all, re-framing it is absolutely the correct thing to do when the original frame is wrong, Jesus did it all the time. So let me re-frame the issue again. Why would anyone, including women, who is not submitted to God care if he/she has not submitted to a role God has provided him/her? This includes being a wife.
Marriage is either a human construct or it is divine. If the former how can it be offensive to God in how you treat the role? If the latter, you’re not going to care if you’re not following God if following God isn’t a priority.
@ Mariah8
You raise very good issues. I have no problem advocating that loving others, loving ourselves and loving God is all interconnected. Each helps with the other. Loving ourselves set ts the standard for how much we should love others. Loving others, who we can see and knowing how much easier it is to love those we know shows how important it is to know God in order to truly love him. And of course, God is the source of all pure love.
But let me ask you. Are you saying it is more important to love your husband than it is to love God? If you had to choose, who would you choose?
Yogi:
Peter is not talking about a woman submission to her husband for the sake of wives submitting to their husbands.
What did Peter write? “5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord.”
Women put their hope in God AND submitted to their husbands as adorning evidence that they hoped in God.
First of all, re-framing it is absolutely the correct thing to do when the original frame is wrong, Jesus did it all the time.
And Jesus had the correct frame. You do not.
Jesus reframed to avoid a false dichotomy and flip the script.
Yogi,
Do you believe wives should submit to their husbands?
There is so much dancing around that question that I honestly don’t know for sure how you’d answer it.
@Yogi
More squid ink. You continue to claim it can’t be two things at once, where there is no support of that. Yes wives are to submit to their husbands out of obedience to the Lord, and yes God finds a wife submitting to her husband pleasing. Scripture tells us both, yet you persist in claiming it can’t possibly be both. The only contradiction is the one in your head.
You also keep shifting your argument. First you claimed that when Paul is talking about wives submitting to their husbands so that the word of God will not be maligned, this was proof that God doesn’t find wives submitting pleasing, he is just afraid of what the neighbours will think. I pointed out that Peter makes it clear that God does in fact find it pleasing, to which you responded that God only finds it pleasing if the wife has an unbelieving husband. When I proved that Peter was in fact referencing both unbelieving and believing husbands, you then changed your argument and stated that 1 Pet 3 only shows that God finds submission pleasing for wives who are “known to be Godly.”
This is nonsense, and part of your clear pattern of focusing on obfuscation over all else.
Consider yourself warned; I won’t permit your constant reframing and obfuscation to continue indefinitely. Disagreement is fine, but too clever by half trolling is not.
@theasdgamer
“They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord.”
And why did they do that?
Furthermore, show me one new testament passage where a husband is commanded to bring his wife in line through any means other than as a teaching servant of the Lord.
And what is the husband to teach? That she should submit to him as her husband? No, that she should submit to and love the Lord.
May I humbly suggest that since both commands are found in the Scripture, perhaps the husband should teach both?
@Mark: If they were Catholic, they would be wearing crucifixes, not crosses.
“A Christian man should not feel anything positive when his wife serves him if he knows it’s because of her love for him and not because of her love for God.”
If you love someone but do not serve them, you do not really love them, it is just words. I am pretty sure my husband would not feel very “positive” if I told him I was only serving him because I loved God.
“But let me ask you. Are you saying it is more important to love your husband than it is to love God? If you had to choose, who would you choose?”
How could I love my husband, or anyone really, if I didn’t love God first? How can I love one more really unless you mean only , who will I obey more? Why would it be an issue? I really would be hard pressed to think of anything my husband would tell me to do that would be grossly disobedient to God. Not like he is going to tell me to convert to Satanism. In that case, yes, I would probably disobey my husband and take my chances at the judgment throne
And what is the husband to teach? That she should submit to him as her husband? No, that she should submit to and love the Lord.
Are these mutually exclusive?
Whoops. Stickdude90 beat me to it.
@Dalrock
” First you claimed that when Paul is talking about wives submitting to their husbands so that the word of God will not be maligned, this was proof that God doesn’t find wives submitting pleasing, he is just afraid of what the neighbours will think.”
That’s not what I said. I actually said:
“Not, necessarily, because these things in and of themselves are pleasing to God, but perhaps so people aren’t distracted from the message of salvation by things of lesser importance such as a war of the sexes.”
My point was to give explanation as to why Paul wrote what he wrote, not to begin a discussion on what God likes or why. That is STILL Paul’s point regardless of what God does or does not like. (I still stand by my assertion it isn’t being a submissive wife that God finds pleasing, its being a submissive servant to him that he finds pleasing.)
“I pointed out that Peter makes it clear that God does in fact find it pleasing, to which you responded that God only finds it pleasing if the wife has an unbelieving husband.”
Again, that’s simply not what I said.
The issue in 1 Peter 3 is how Christian wives treat their unbelieving husbands (some translations say “Husbands who do not obey the word”) .
First, you say that I deny God finds it pleasing at all, then say that I claim he only finds it pleasing when the husband is an unbeliever. I’m not the one shifting or misrepresenting.
I was pointing out the context of the scripture, just as I was doing with Titus. You cannot read only those portions you want to read. When a modifying clause such as, “so that none will malign the word of God” or “so that, even if some of them do not obey the word, they may be won over” is included, it must be included in the understanding of what is being said and why.
But all of this is an attempt to avoid the big issue I raised repeatedly but which you’ve not touched. This is not a man-woman issue, but a woman-God issue. We don’t solve it as men or as husbands, but as servants of God.
“I agree that men not leading like we should is a huge problem, but our lack of leadership is closely tied to our unwillingness to acknowledge bad behavior by women. Kendrick can’t lead men to fix this, because he is deeply mired in this himself. Telling other men to man up is a safe way to pretend to lead while avoiding the discomfort of actually leading. It feels heroic, but it is actually the easy way out.”
So, so good.
Young pastors reading this: this a rock upon which you can build an effective pastoral ministry in this time. You might be surprised how many young women are thirsty for this kind of courageous truth speaking.
“Your wife was lucky that ‘dumbstruck’ was their strongest reaction.”
I’d say that had a lot to do with her temperament while delivering the rebuke.
Yogi,
Do you believe wives should submit to their husbands? It feels like you’re arguing against a point that nobody here is making – that somehow wives should submit to their husbands independently of submitting to God. In fact, wives can and should do both.
Young pastors reading this: this a rock upon which you can build an effective pastoral ministry in this time. You might be surprised how many young women are thirsty for this kind of courageous truth speaking.
I’m no hero/super alpha. But when I talk like this around my wife and her friends, they put up a fight for a second then they calm down and go home with their husbands. Then they start slowly adding biblical principles to their marriages and we hear about it later.
(Or they just stop interacting with us like I mentioned up thread. But the success stories are worth it)
empathologism says:
September 25, 2015 at 4:17 pm
I truly admire your powers of perception and your uncanny ability to explain complicated concepts with an easy to understand illustration. Well done sir.
I should note that I am referring to the post in general and the teeter totter example specifically.
And what is the husband to teach?
He is to teach the Word as given by God through His apostles and Prophets.
1 Cor 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
@Yogi
Then why speculate that God doesn’t actually like it, if your point wasn’t whether God liked it or not? It should have been a small point, something easily dispensed with, but you can’t concede it.
I’m not avoiding anything. What you claim is the “big issue” is nonsensical. All sin is a rebellion against God. Genesis tells us that wives will be tempted to rebel against their husbands. Our role as Christian husbands is as servants of God. These three things aren’t mutually exclusive. As I have repeatedly pointed out, men today are failing women (and God) in exactly the way Adam failed Eve (and God) in the garden. We are going along with feminist rebellion when we should be leading.
@Stickdude90
Indeed.
Dalrock on September 25, 2015 at 9:50 am
Thank you for this comment. This is something I struggle with greatly and one very good man in my church who has the patience and empathy to hear my grievances has been trying to teach me. And he gives me good scripture recommendations to study on the sabbath.
As a multiply divorced WM, I solved the problem a different way, by:
(A). Becoming a Quaker (and thus eliminating the need for a pastor … collection plate … choir … missionary work …demands for tithe … heavy mortgage on a ‘church’ … etc.).
(B). Courting and marrying an African American woman (no constant disrespect … end-runs … crying … going home to mother … chronic over-spending … constant threats of divorce).
@Stryker . Interesting idea that the Jesus is my boyfriend mindset might lead single women to adopt children on their own rather than marry first and then give birth or adopt within the marriage. This never occurred to me before but you just might be on to something.
@Opus .The pathological altruism that you are seeing in your local church is almost certainly linked to the pastor’s vanity. If he can guilt trip his congregation into donating substantial time and money to immigrants he can attract scores of immigrants to his church services which will show the bishop (sorry, it’s Bishopess in your locality, isn’t it?) what a dynamic Man of God he is. Nearly every medium size or larger church in my neck of the woods has some kind of Hispanic ministry at this point even though this area had very few foreigners of any kind up until five years ago. Lots of churches do precious
little to assist elderly widows who are longtime members of their congregation while falling all over themselves for the grifter immigrant Rice Christians who traipse from church to church, and charity to charity for free food, free diapers, free legal assistance ad infinitum. A pastor with a well to do congregation can sometimes come pretty close to doubling his attendance numbers if he can offer enough goods and services.
Maybe there is another Anglican church nearby that wouldn’t chide you for wanting to form your own opinion as to the desirability of embracing violent foreigners but maybe you get assigned to a parish church based on your address over there.
Yogi @ 4:16 pm:
““Submission first to God and then, for him, others.”
This undermines the husband’s authority.
No. Just no.”
Stings, doesn’t it? I’m satisfied you’re a troll so I’ll have a bit of fun at your expense then start my weekend. Your initial argument, summarized:
1. God wants women to submit to unbelieving husbands.
2. Therefore, women are loyal first to God and second to husband.
3. The husband, being imperfect and/or an unbeliever, will inevitably push her to disobey God.
4. Therefore, the wife has a duty to disobey her husband if she thinks God wouldn’t approve of his decisions.
5. Therefore, God was wrong to order wives to submit.
6. This contradiction is okay because God sanctioned evil, evil slavery back then, too, and we’re much smarter today that the first-century Christians were. Wives obeying husbands was just a temporary thing, like tolerating slavery, and today we’re mature enough to do away with God’s Word as we see fit.
Epic fail.
…
@Mariah8,
Well said. I’ve often thought about how much easier it would be to follow Christ if He gave me as much immediate feedback as husbands give their wives. Waiting until Judgment Day to find out if Christ is happy with me is frustrating.
Funny, because when I was working as an usher at the local arena, it was when I was working a Christian women’s conference that I first ever heard a woman say, “…there’s just too much estrogen in here.”
I watched the movie “War Room” this evening, and while it has faults, I have to wonder if others that are referencing the movie saw the same movie I saw.
Miss Clara is pretty hard on Elizabeth about her hard feelings towards her husband. She’s not easy on Elizabeth prayerlessness and the lack of prayer for her husband. She shows Elizabeth that grace is not something deserved and that her ow gracelessness is much of her problem. Being faced with Tony’s arrogance and inconsideration, and news of him seeing another woman on the road, brings her face to face with her own sin and cries out to God in repentance and for help. God often brings people to the bottom so they have to look up for help. Even before she reaches the point of conviction, she’s not taking the feminist road which would have her divorce the bum, just the opposite.
There is nothing in the movie that hints that Elizabeth is depriving her husband sexually. Men often don’t reach for their wives when they feel distant from them. The constant bickering when they are together is sufficient to see their is quite a large distance between them. It could just as easily be him depriving her as the other way around. There’s nothing in the movie allow the viewer to conclude one way or the other.
Elizabeth changes her attitude because of a proper prayer life (a common occurrence in my observation), and Tony isn’t constantly faced with a negative attitude when he comes home, in the end Tony is convicted of his sin, the ending message of the movie isn’t even about the marriage, but a call to battle, not just for families and marriages, but for society in general. While the carrier plot is a bit too saccharine for me, the end message is important to the Church. To think that Tony is making something of a fool of himself by giving his wife the Sundae she said she would “kill for” and rubbing her feet, or is somehow knuckling under to some sort of pressure, is simply silly. I took my wife to a motel and got us a room with a jetted tub on a cold snowy day. I did it because I loved her and I knew she would love it, not because I was some sort of hen pecked mangina.
Yogi is correct about the problem being a result of a lack of a proper relationship with the Lord. Works are not salvific, they are an outflowing of the faith that saves. If a man has a right relationship with God, he will love is wife as Christ loved the Church. If a wife has a right relationship with God, she will submit to her husband as to the Lord. She will do that even if he is not believer, but yet is still willing to stay with her. Paul tells us why she should stay if he is willing to stay with a believing wife:
For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? 1 Corinthians 7:16
In the end, the movie is not about the marriage of Tony and Elizabeth, but what is shown at the end. The war room is the prayer closet, and far more than marriages are dealt with in the prayer room. I think y’all are straining at gnats and swallowing camels. many times the red pill attitude can mask what you really need to be seeing.
Dang Dalrock, you have one ball busting wife right there. Funny stuff!
As for the Kendrick brothers latest apostasy? I just puked in my mouth. This will be tough to hold frame and bite the tongue if it ever comes up in public conversation. I might freak out if somebody demanded that I see this movie.
@Reluctant Neo:
>”On a different note, I get stuck on knowing what to say when I hear this argument: “A husband is supposed to love his wife like Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus’ most important act was sacrificing Himself for the church. So a husband should be a servant and be willing to sacrifice himself and give himself up for his wife. He should be willing to make the first move and should love her and be patient with her and woo her even when she’s in sin, just like Christ does with us. A man should approach his wife with an attitude of servant leadership.”>
Then we shall have to look at how Jesus dealt with those who disobeyed him. Did he calmly, gently whoo the sinners or did he confront them in public, often brutally. Did he whip the sinners who impugned the temple? Ultimately, did He not say if a wife (town, wife, what’s the difference? Both are temporary respites that can turn on you instantly) rejects you and won’t have sex with you, dust off your feet and go on to the next woman…or something like that.
Servant leadership requires actual power or else it is just “servant” with no leadership. Do you have the actual power in your marriage? Let me guess you can’t call 4-5 large men to your house to come beat up your wife, chain her up, and throw her in a cage.
But she can.
@Yogi: Dalrock, I was going to suggest dumping this troll. Her posts are full of gibberish. The Bible doesn’t say women submit to husbands, but to God? You mean, except when it actually DOES say that?
Everybody is dancing around the submission thing- it means one thing and one thing only: Thou shalt fuck thy husband when he wants and shut your trap instead of nagging.
There, I defined “submission” for y’all. Is it really that hard? I mean every generation in human history before these last two did it.
I went to pour myself a bowl of Wheaties this morning and discovered that someone replaced them with Fruit Loops.
In other news: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-caitlyn-jenner-can-legally-change-name-l-a-judge-rules-20150925-story.html
Women are called only to submit to God not to husbands, any appearances of a wife submitting to a husband should be considered mere happenstance. She’s actually only submitting to God. If I, as a single man, marry, I won’t actually have any real authority to go with all the biblical responsibilities and obligations scriptures clearly put on the shoulders of a husband. My obligations will be real but not my authority to lead? Got it! Yep, thats it, I’m staying single.
Thanks Yogi!
ER, otherwise known as deep fried ice cream or peeled grapes Christian Husband Leadership for those manly enough to man up.
@RobJ
@Mark: If they were Catholic, they would be wearing crucifixes, not crosses.
Excuse me for my lack of knowledge but,I always assumed that a cross and crucifix were the same thing?
To quote others, you can use <blockquote>quoted_text</blockquote> which displays as
Yogi said:
I see no reason to wait for a man to “eventually” find the truth. Teach him the truth. Do not allow opportunity for false teachers to confuse him.
Yes, I believe a wife can rebel against her husband and against God. If man can turn from the perfect, loving God, then a wife can certainly turn from an imperfect husband, too.
There must be the foundation of being in Christ, but then you build on it toward the goal of being like Christ. The Christian moves from milk to solid food as they grow in their faith. As this happens, it would be appropriate to deal with more complicated issues.
Of course, the non-Christian man has no grounds to criticize Christian women, but the Christian man absolutely does, but only in love. This is in line with Matthew 18:15-17 where Christian discipline is taught.
I think you’re correct, but, unfortunately, the majority of the viewers do not recognize this, especially the “Christian women” in the audience. You should have said “they allow Christian women to believe THEY DON’T need to repent and serve.” That teeter-totter needs to have some balance, and these movies are making it worse. Dalrock is making an effort to even it up, but it is going to be difficult to overcome the inertia that exists.
What makes you privy to “why Paul wrote what he wrote”? How do you know what “Paul’s point” is? You can have your opinion, but be careful of stating it as fact.
To restate the position stated multiple times earlier, being a submissive wife is an instance of being a submissive servant to God. The two states are not mutually exclusive. I think I understand your point, but I think continuing to give it is not beneficial at this time.
Finally, Yogi, I recommend you step back from this thread and re-evaluate how to proceed in this blog. I think you have been “branded” and it’s going to take a while for it to go away.
By the way, unless Yogi is a liar, Yogi is a man. He says:
and
Beauty carries a heavy cross too.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=979892
That these women enter into War Rooms is typically subtile. It’s supposed to be about solitude and praying to God, of course, but in their psyches it’s another clever and novel Empowerment Tool — what fun! — to plan control over their husbands, to craft silly selfish wickedness.
The Kendricks don’t really measure up as film-makers, nor as men, and obviously are subject to their wives, and to the world of their wives. God says don’t do that.
“They love movies that tear down Christian husbands and fathers. That they can get paid for making them is more of a bonus.”
The Kendricks, like many American pastors, collude with the F.I. by appealing to the indirect demands of females, while simultaneously pretending to represent Father and Son. It’s rebellion, and is willful, as you mention. This grovelling Romanticism is common in the American churches, with men who are immature both spiritually and intellectually ‘leading the flocks’. The Kendricks tell females what they want to hear, not what they need to hear to approach God. Eden again, always.
As big as the internet is, there’s not much real truth when it comes to exposing the more cunning deceptions, like these various (anti)Christian movies — the deceptions and inducements aimed at the feminine. Even with the hour so late, guys just can’t bring themselves to confront the FI, whether it’s Planned Parenthood or Rape Culture/False Accusations.
As with prior material — both the last piece, and this one, chop this suey up quick, as we look into popular American Christianity and find that, yes Once Again, there ain’t no Jesus there. Comments are often good too.
@Mark –
A crucifix is a carving or statue that shows Jesus hanging on the cross. That is sometimes also called a “cross”, but “crucifix” is the more correct term if you’re trying to distinguish them. However, just because Mrs. Dalrock used the word cross, I personally wouldn’t conclude either way whether it was a cross or a cruicifix. She probably wasn’t trying to be ultra-precise in her use of language at that time, as it was irrelevant to the point she was making.
If your wife ever decides to blog, please let us know. I would seek her counsel. Thank you for sharing her example.
Apologists for the movie’s foot washing/rubbing scene ignore the fact that when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, they had the grace and spiritual maturity to recognize that this was backwards and that they did not deserve the service Jesus was performing for them; Peter even attempted to refuse the service. The apologists are also ignoring the fact that this was a one-time event, to make a point, and that it was the first time Jesus had ever done it (hence the disciples’ surprise) — the disciples had been with Jesus for three years and this had never been the pattern of His leadership before. Contrast the disciples’ reaction with the wife’s in War Room (and, no doubt, the reaction of the overwhelming majority of Christian women in the audience): “This is what he should have been doing for me all along; this is how he proves he’s finally right with God; this is not backwards but is as it should be; I deserve this.” Treating the two as parallel is ridiculous.
A young woman once said that her major reason for becoming an atheist, despite being raised in church, was because her church leaders constantly told her that what she read from the Bible did not mean what they clearly said.
What better way to make the word of God “of none effect” than to claim that the command to women to submit to their husbands does not mean that? I mean how much clearer can the command be? Apostle Peter even went further to state that the wife’s submission is not dependent on the husband’s submission to God at all.
Beauty carries a heavy cross too.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=979892
It must be a really nice cross, because many women are spending billions of dollars every year to carry something resembling this “heavy cross”.
The agenda is pretty simple really. The brothers are just cashing in on an evangelical niche, which they know how to hit just right. Almost every church creates these big launch parties for the movies urging the congregation to go on church movie night.
@bluepillprofessor:
Dalrock has a masterful thread and his responses to Yogi are brilliant. But you, sir, won this thread hands down.
While Yogi might be short for this website, I did want to smash one point really hard. And she can answer it very easily: Have you (Yogi) ever taken out a single cent of debt? If you have, then you already have your answer on the question of slavery. (Ignoring that you don’t actually understand why Christians find the systems objectionable & evil)
@MarcusD:
The funny bit is that while pretty Women do get a lot of attention, they generally don’t then go seeking validation while they complain about it. “I’m so pretty, please validate me!”.
I’m actually kind of impressed by the narcissism.
Dalrock, outstanding post. You sir are standing in the gap and it’s much appreciated. I’ve been lurking a couple of years and have to agree with everything that I have read. I am in the middle of a divorce. My wife filed 3 years ago on the grounds of cruel punishment. Needless to say she is on her second lawyer because the first one gave up trying to prove it. I live in Mississippi where you have to have grounds. I counterfiled on grounds of adultery and she is ready to sign off that. We were involved at a Southern Baptist Church outside of Memphis for 14 years and I always have been faithful to my wife and kids.
To take the focus off her activities, my wife slandered me to everyone at church who would listen. Even after they found out about her adultery, I was told on several occasions that I was gonna lose my family if I didn’t go ahead and forgive her. I would respond that she is still involved with her boyfriend. The response would be something like: “you got any proof?” I even went to the senior pastor to see if he would talk to her. His response: “Let’s let the Holy Spirit convict her”
Not once did they tell her that she would lose her family because of her adultery. I know this because I asked them. I am floored and devastated that the church didn’t have my back. This church has definitely lost its salt. I am through with the SBC where the divorce rate is higher than secular population in general. I even mentioned this to the pastor and a asked him to make a stand. I honestly think that women can do no wrong in their eyes.
I am extremely angry over this whole thing. I hope that God sees it as righteous indignation. In the meantime stay strong and keep doing what you’re doing. We need you.
@OKRickety:
Dalrock is deliberately referring to Yogi as a female. She had me going, too, but “No. Just no.” gave away the game.
Dalrock, I hope you take up CCM sometime as well. Probably you have, but I thought this was fascinating to get someone expressly saying something I’ve always guessed. I suspect that Christian movies play to “Becky” as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1x5yli/i_am_a_secretly_atheist_female_backup_singer_for/
Scott,for the ladies on The View Id alter my term to empathogastric
Thant Yogi says
My wife and I are NOT a teeter totter
Is more proof that Yogi is female. This sophomoric trick where in response to an analogy I used about teeter totter the response is to claim they are not a teeter totter is one of the most common female go-to cleverisms that abound online. Ive seen women rally in numbers behind that kind of argument
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This is not a man-woman issue, but a woman-God issue. We don’t solve it as men or as husbands, but as servants of God.
So, if you’re a woman, you should cut off your hair and your breasts and sew your vaj shut, so that you can be a neutered servant of God and be consistent with your position that one cannot be both. If you’re a man, you ought to emasculate yourself.
Since I don’t agree with your false dichotomy, I won’t follow you in your foolishness.
Mrs. Gamer is slowly coming around to seeing how churchianity is pushing a weak form of feminism. She thought the film was wonderful because it’s message was to let God change the husband instead of the woman doing it herself. Mrs. Gamer was taken aback when I pointed out how the woman needed to be changed in relation to how she treated her husband. The film only showed the woman praying to be changed to treat her daughter better.
Mrs. Gamer saw yet again that the churchian message is always that the man needs to treat the woman better and never that the woman needs to treat the man better.
@ Gemini
The “slavery” amongst Christians in the 1st century was basically the equivalent of live-in maids/butlers of today.
Excepting agriculture and mining slaves. Workers in those industries have always had it rough.
Quartermaster must be a new troll.
Nah, Quarter is just Blue Pill. Blinders firmly in place.
I saw this movie on opening night and was wondering when you’d cover it. I thought it was better than Fireproof, but still had room for improvement. A few thoughts:
– This has been mentioned already, but I’ll bring it up anyway. It’s more or less implied that the wife is denying her husband sex, yet she worries that her husband may be cheating (which he almost does). Why does her mentor not reprimand her on this? The movie just sort of glosses over this issue.
– I felt like they tried too hard on the husband’s flaws. It’s not enough that he’s not the best husband and father who almost cheats on his wife, let’s also make him steal from his job so he can sell products on the side! His wife also gets robbed and he doesn’t appear to be too concerned aside from a phone call to check on her. They made the character super “Alpha” but on more of the jerk side of the spectrum, if that makes sense.
– The above mentioned robbery scene was a bit much. Dude shows up with a knife and the older woman yells “leave in the name of Jesus”…and the dude runs off. I’m not saying that this is impossible in real life, but it just seemed a little over the top.
– I saw this brought up in the comments as well; why does the movie make Tony look bad for his wife casually giving 5k to her sister without notifying him. It’s made clear that her sister married a bum with no intention of getting a job (her family warned her about marrying him, even), yet she doesn’t understand why Tony doesn’t want to give them a handout.
– On a positive note, I did like the fact that the wife’s mentor emphasized the fact that men don’t like it when their wives nag! I think half the men in the theatre clapped for that one.
– In general, I felt that the execution of the movie was much better than what Fireproof pulled. Elizabeth doesn’t win her husband over through nagging or trying to get revenge, she just prays until her husband gets convicted of his actions. The whole “winning your husbands without a word” bit. Later on you even see the husband taking the lead in family devotions, which I thought was nice.
@ Walkin Tall
I am extremely angry over this whole thing.
I feel for you and your hurt. If you want help, read all of my posts about the Song of Solomon. Then put what you learned into practice, especially Dread. You don’t have to actually fakk in order to instill Dread. Just being out and flirting and discovering you have options will do what you need to do. I’m doing this going on my second year and our marriage is better than ever. Not only the sex. Mrs. Gamer is sweeter, more submissive, makes more sammiches, is less emotionally volatile, etc.
Also read my post about relationships.
@Walking Tall,
I’ve heard the rumors the members of my church have spread about me. I must have been “secretly” abusive. My wife was an adulterer but it must be my fault. I’m the one that needs to change and repent. Everyone knows that a woman’s vagina, oh I mean her “heart”, could not lead her wrong. If my “wife” was “forced” to find her needs through other men’s cocks it’s because I must be a bad man.
This despite that my wife left the congregation immediately when she stopped coming with me. And now she no longer believes in God at all.
The churches have become fertility cults. They have lost the feminist rebellion. And they are too blind to see it.
Welcome to the board and I’m sorry for how you have been treated.
Did you get to go through the domestic violence kangaroo court circus?
It’s not enough that we have to cope with an adulterous wife. We also have to cope with the theft of our children and being turned into a child support slave. And constant ridicule from almost every media source, from our own church, and our brothers and sisters around us.
No wonder we seek out the manosphere.
@Looking Glass
The funny bit is that while pretty Women do get a lot of attention, they generally don’t then go seeking validation while they complain about it. “I’m so pretty, please validate me!”.
I’m actually kind of impressed by the narcissism.
Well, she is a model, and the industry she’s in definitely has a lot of narcissism to go around. Throw in religiosity, and you’ve got quite a mix.
Dalrock,
Does your wife have any sisters who are single and looking? Because she sounds like a gem.
@theasdgamer
If the the truth is trolling, so be it. I watched the movie and evaluated it on that basis. As for your opinion of me: I. Don’t. Care. It’s very clear few of the posters here have seen the movie.
Maybe there is a common theme in these movies because it has some truth in it – that is, that men need to get their act together and work harder and not be little boys.
@Amy
If someone were willing to accept that and agree to it, would you agree in turn that women need to get their act together and not be un-feminine fat sluts?
No, I thought not.
There’s always this pathetic dodge, isn’t there? “I’m just telling these Vikings how indolence is bad and they shouldn’t be lazy. You’re not in favor of laziness, are you?”
>men need to get their act together and work harder and not be little boys.
Of course! Men need to DO MORE. Women just need to pray. Got it. The fact that the culture, the law, almost ALL women, almost ALL men, the churches, the courts, and every other social institution is against men and for women is not important. Those little boys need to work longer and rub those feet harder. You are vile, sinful, disgusting and emblematic of all that is wrong with Western civilization and churchianity.
@Walking Tall: You have found the right place, brother. A lot of guys here have suffered through exactly what you describe. You are not alone.
I would find another church and file for divorce ASAP. Hopefully you are aware that you are free to do so under Ecclesiastical law given her infidelity? I would try the Sunday morning night club at a new church and hunt fresh game. Once she cheats, what is the point? Seriously. Once she maligns your good name (as MOST women do in a divorce) then you need to protect yourself. Leave. Get a younger, prettier, tighter version of your wife and ride her all the way to paradise where you can dribble out droplets of water to your parched ex-wife while she screams in the fire forever.
Now if that image doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will.
@Mark: A crucifix is Jesus on the cross. There might be some places where Catholics use plain crosses, such as an adornment at the top or front of a church building, but they use crucifixes everywhere else – in the sanctuary, on rosaries, as religious gifts, and so on. Generally speaking, Protestants use the plain cross much more frequently than the crucifix.
@Eidolon: Ignore it and it will go away.
“Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”
-Marshall McLuhan
“There might be some places where Catholics use plain crosses, such as an adornment at the top or front of a church building, but they use crucifixes everywhere else – in the sanctuary, on rosaries, as religious gifts, and so on. Generally speaking, Protestants use the plain cross much more frequently than the crucifix.”
Protestants in general, and especially Evangelicals, are theologically an Easter people. At Easter, Jesus is no longer on the cross, he’s Risen in Power. Catholics focus more on the sacrifice for us and our salvation embodied by Christ on the cross, hence the crucifix and the central role of the Priest in the Eucharist.
“It’s not enough that we have to cope with an adulterous wife. We also have to cope with the theft of our children and being turned into a child support slave by the State that churchians worship more fervently and whom they fear more than the God of Abraham.”
Fixed, for clarity.
that is, that men need to get their act together and work harder and not be little boys.
Maybe if there were any real women out there worth expending the effort on they’d start to feel motivated enough to care about doing so. Unfortunately, any one of them stands a better chance of stumbling across a snowman in the Arabian Desert.
I’m a little late to the party.
I’m not a fan of these Christian movies as a main character explains in my novel, I Like The White World, where a media minister of a Mega church in Aliso Viejo has to create one of these films for church edification and its coffers.
My stories present faithful Christians in a much more realistic and fair way than these movies usually do, and illustrate the long and difficult haul of people trying to be faithful over many years, and the aspects of faith which change with time.
But more than that, this novel is fun, witty, and intelligent. Honest look at the evangelical church and RC, and American culture to some extent.
Free eCopy to any who wants to review it.
Previously reviewed in VDare, TOO, the Noisy Room.
http://www.amazon.com/Like-White-World-Mark-Butterworth/dp/1468199846/ref=la_B000APN0UM_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1362810391&sr=1-5
@Quartermaster
There are enough comments in this thread that his must be true, but it does not follow that straining at gnats means one is necessarily swallowing camels. I presume you have also read:
Perhaps, I should clarify things a bit.
I am not a writer of “Christian” novels, especially not those found in those bookstores. I am, like Walker Percy, a Christian who writes serious novels about the way things are, and as befalls Christians and non-such. Sometimes my moral and spiritual themes are overt, sometimes camouflaged like Tolkien’s LOTR. My goal is to be interesting and entertaining to the intelligent, and a little challenging.
The issues posted and discussed here make up a large portion of my tales.
As for life and faith, I’ve been through the wringer, and lived to tell the tale. You’ll find an unspoken but underlying wisdom and faith in my stories that lend them some sublimity and a few holy moments.
Anyway, I’m always looking for reviewers so you can email me at johnmark@surewest.net
and look at my author’s page at Amazon for Mark Butterworth.
My writing is so good that you don’t even notice it until much later since I believe in the dictum that “art shows not its art.”
Married, so why do I “feel” lonely?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=980151
Giving up on marriage
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=980195
The truth about NFP
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=980188
Emerson Eggerichs teaches women to respect their husbands and for men to love their wives:
Not sure what he teaches about wifely submission. His daughter, Joy E., believes in mutual submission.
Not sure what he teaches about wifely submission. His daughter, Joy E., believes in mutual submission.
Unless the opposite message comes straight and clearly out of Daddy’s mouth, it’s probably safe to assume that his little girl is a chip off the old block.
@CAF via MarcusD:
The OP on the Catholic boards was told to leave her husband by the good “Christians” at CAF. She responds:
“I am glad I did not leave and those who told me to where wrong. They told me to leave to shock my husband into doing what he should. This was wrong because those who said this merely looked at his behaviour and said don’t put up with it thinking if I left he would change. He would not have, and he changed by my staying and dealing with matters in a better way. Doing so may well have saved my marriage. ”
To which a bevy of posts decry how she is a bad mother, how she should have divorced her no good husband, and how she must have lied about her husbands alcoholism cuz we didn’t advise anybody wrong. No, can’t happen. We are women. We can NEVER be wrong.
These Catholic harpies recommended she leave because her husband drinks to much according to the wife. They did not recommend the Christian solution (prayer, submitting to God and your Husband or even trusting in God).
They did not recommend the Red Pill Solution (taking action, self-improvement, building yourself up, submitting to your husband and resolving to be more agreeable while withdrawing her availability when he chooses to drink or be an a-hole).
They did not even recommend the Blue Pill solution (talking to the husband and therapy).
They went straight for the Devil’s Solution- divorce. Leave the evil, abusive man and take all his stuff while alienating the children. Don’t try to fix it, don’t make yourself a bigger prize encouraging him to fix it.
This tells me all I need to know. These people are the Devil’s spawn and the ideology come directly from Screwtape whispering in their ears. Get behind me Satan.
@bluepillprofessor:
John 15:5-6 (ESV)
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
The fire cometh.
“His daughter, Joy E., believes in mutual submission.”
Translation: She’s really a rebellious little harpy.
@ Quartermaster
If the the truth is trolling, so be it. I watched the movie and evaluated it on that basis. As for your opinion of me: I. Don’t. Care. It’s very clear few of the posters here have seen the movie.
You wouldn’t know truth from a turnip. I have seen the movie as well and I KNOW that your powers of perception are severely lacking.
@ Amy
Maybe there is a common theme in these movies because it has some truth in it – that is, that men need to get their act together and work harder and not be little boys.
The manosphere certainly encourages men to improve themselves. However, your comment distracts from accurate criticism of the movie. It’s a dodge, as Eidolon pointed out.
“Maybe there is a common theme in these movies because it has some truth in it – that is, that men need to get their act together and work harder and not be little boys.”
Yuck… most men I see everywhere ARE working harder, ARE “manning up” and carrying more than their weight plus women’s load (BV’s term “drafthorse” anyone?), and are still being called by women like Amy “little boys,” when they’re upset at it never being enough. It’s not that there is a common truth, it’s that our society only wants to pretend that men have all the flaws or faults that need to be fixed and that women can do no wrong.
Maybe they should start making movies about Christian wives that need reforming (lol the thought is funny)… Seriously though, movies about wives that don’t respect their husbands when then, throughout the course of the movie, have to learn the hard, humbling way of truly relying on God and their husband, maybe coming to financial ruin and having to work at a fast food place to combat their pride and learn true submission? Or movies about how all these women have let themselves go (physically and spiritually), and need to get back to when they were dating their husbands again – how they treated their husbands with sweetness and kindness, and watched their weight, made sure they looked their best for him?
Dalrock, your wife is brave! Us women get A LOT of backlash for saying things that need to be said when hearing husband bashing in public, or even for just being identified as an anti-feminist. I recently had a woman from my own church go ballistic on me for blogging about treating your husband well and trying to look good for him. She actually said in the comment that she was “furious” over the idea that a woman should try to look nice or treat her husband a certain way. Her family is extremely involved in our church, and she comes from a big family (but we also have a large church so it isn’t too bad). But she and her sister (who attacked me years ago on facebook of all things for posting my thoughts on being pro-life when I was pregnant), all have children the same age as mine, so we do see them at times, they’ve even been my son’s Bible teachers before at one point. 😦 It’s horrible when you realize that your kids could be possibly paying the price for your husband’s and your views regarding feminism. But what is the alternative? Not to speak up? Isn’t that evil in itself? Your wife did the right thing, but what if she had remained silent just so that she and your family isn’t looked at badly?
I asked my husband what to do and he gave me great advice about just not caring what they think (I always care too much), and continuing on with writing… any “persecution” from fellow church ladies is part of the “cost.” He did say that if they are ever our sons’ teachers again, that he will have them moved and we will talk to their boss (who happens to be one of our friends) who runs the volunteer/workers for the kid’s activities about these women’s true characters.
Thinking on it more… I didn’t mean to say that women somehow have it worse than men when we suddenly speak up like your wife did, compared to the backlash that a man would receive, even sometimes in his own church. I actually think y’all have it much harder in being able to be open about your beliefs, hence the need for so much male anonymity. A woman can say almost anything she wants and might receive a tiny bit of backlash (that of course, feels horrendous to her personally), but in reality, it’s nothing like what would or could happen if a man dared to publicly say the same thing.
Part of me wonders if the paradigm shift towards victimhood (as a way of gaining power) has lead to women bashing their husbands (e.g. women bash their husbands to show “how bad they have it”). Basically, they want a higher place in the ‘progressive stack’ and thus they seek to demonstrate that their lot in life is ‘terrible’. Following from that, there would be female intrasexual competition in that realm that would present itself as groups of women all bashing their husbands.
@Dragonfly:
As Christians, we forget the “you *will* be hated” bits of the Gospel. Because the World hates the Lord. Part of discipleship used to include parts of learning to adapt to that. We kind of lost that part of the plot a while ago.
As for Men having it worse, I don’t disagree, but the situation is always different because of the interpersonal relationship nature of Men & Women. For the unprepared, “go along to get along” Christian Man, it’s probably far, far worse. But if the Man has learned that the “bark is far worse than the bite”, then it isn’t a problem. You start to realize you can get away with massively more than anyone else, which is actually what the shaming is about: preventing God’s order from taking hold.
To illustrate that, I prefer to use John 8:31-32. In the ESV, it reads: “31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ”
We love to miss that the phrasing has dependent clauses. It’s “Abide -> Truth -> Freedom”. Without abiding in Christ, the truth doesn’t set you free. It terrifies you because the truth is you are under eternal judgment for your Sin. This is why, especially in Churches, speaking the Truth always gets a nasty reaction. Because the Truth is Christ, and Christ is hated. So speak the Truth and let the Spirit convict the fools.
@MarcusD:
There’s definitely an aspect of that, as Women are always status seeking in that regard. But it always has more to do with hard & sinful Hearts. Their words reveal their Heart and pretty it ain’t.
@Eidolon
how is a group of women complaining about their husbands any different than all the commenters complaining on this blog about women who are “un-feminine fat sluts” as you call us?
It is exhausting being a woman. We have to organize the household and work outside the home, pop out some babies and look gorgeous. I bust my butt to do all these things, but it is totally exhausting. And yeah sometimes some women are going to complain about their men. I wouldnt do it personally because if I get a break to relax, the last thing I want to do is sit around and listen to a bunch of Whiney women.
I like this blog because I do believe men and their qualities are not properly valued in our society, but I do not understand what you expect from women and what women are supposed to do
Amy,
First, this (the manosphere) is the only places men can COMMENT HONESTLY (not whine) about women. Where in reverse, it’s open season on men everywhere, including by wives.
One’s role is taught, harped on punished if done or not done- men’s role. One is not taught, praise is lavished and with no consquences if the role is not done.
I won’t list men’s responsibilities but I will say that the biggest reason you are exhausted is because you are forced to work outside the home. But you blame men for this, but overwhelmingly it is either a direct choice of women or an indirect choice by women that forces this.
I don’t think anybody is claiming men are currently on the fast track overwhelmingly to being all that God has called us to be but unlike women, who if one lives out a godly life (like Dalrock’s or some of ours) she is treasured beyond belief, there is a tendency in the modern church to feed the godly man through the meat grinder. The church praises rebellion in women and disciplines men who are godly. Which is why we post anonymously in the one place we can gain wisdom in order to how to live godly lives but seek wisdom from many counselors to lessen the meat grinder effect and change our marriages, families and churches for Christ. But if we can’t call a spade a spade nothing will ever change.
Sorry you are exhausted, but you are blaming the wrong folks. Blame your feminist Christian sisters and our modern Christian teachers, not men calling the situation honestly as it currently is.
@ MarcusD says:
September 27, 2015 at 2:43 am
“Married, so why do I ‘feel’ lonely?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=980151”
Check this out from Focus on the Family.
“I have heard a million times at my seminars, in my therapy office, oh, just one after the other, good solid Christian women. I am so lonely. I love my husband. He’s a good guy. He’s not in a serious sin and … and he loves me, but … and then they go into what these ladies just said. We’re not together a lot. There’s no real intimacy. I’m dying inside. And the key is, they’re not letting the husband know that. The guy has no clue. He’s perfectly happy. So, when that woman hits the wall and leaves him, he is the most stunned guy on earth.”
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/media/daily-broadcast/moving-from-loneliness-to-intimacy-in-your-marriage-pt1
Take a wild guess as to what they never mention as a possible cause for the wives’ loneliness.
LOL at Mrs. Dalrock “recognizing” women by how they trash their husbands and getting stunned response, as I’ve seen this a time or two myself. The older version of this – lovey in public, ice queen or raging head case in private – is no better, it’s just not as public.
All of this makes me miss Elspeth’s comments.
@ Oscar
Alpha widowhood?
Amy,
Men are overt, so when a man says i want respect and sex, there is no hidden meaning….
1 peter 3: sums it up
Even if he is disobedient win him with actions not words. Women are so solipsic they think there is some kind of hidden meaning. They have exchanged love with a feeling of romance that they cannot see past their own face. Try just doing and not saying.
By the way when you say you are exhausted from domestic duties we get it and understand…. You need to understand we are too. That is one of wives lack of empathy that poonts to FI.
@Oscar,
My guess:
The wives feel lonely because they are no longer taught and expected to be their husbands helpmeet and focus on his mission. Instead marriage has been atomized, subdivided into two “equal” parts. Both the wife and the husband are to have their own individual careers and also their individual ministries.
I was going to say how women’s failures are obvious to men and can be easily verified by statistics (>70% of women self-report 2+ sexual partners, meaning the real number is at least 85%; women initiate ~2/3 of all divorces; most American women are obese; the number of American women who have had at least one abortion and are happy with it in their lifetime is nearly 40%, etc.) but I don’t think it’s warranted.
First, Amy, we’re not talking about you personally. Do you understand that? If you read something and your first thought starts with one of these:
-But I don’t…
-But my friends don’t…
-But my husband doesn’t…
-But my family doesn’t…
then anything that follows is pure solipsism and is irrelevant to what we’re talking about. Nobody cares what you or your friends or your family are like. Nobody said “Amy badmouths her husband all the time.” Unless and until that exact phrase is used by someone, nobody is talking about you.
Secondly, what you’re really upset about is that anyone anywhere is criticizing any women. Even though the majority of women in the US are demonstrably bad, you refuse to accept that any men anywhere might say anything negative about them. Maybe you don’t do any of the bad things I mentioned above — that’s a good start. But the Bible teaches us that your duty is to a) not do those bad things, b) teach other, younger women not to do those bad things, and c) correct those women who do engage in those bad things. You are clearly failing at both B and C, and are therefore in no position to talk about how great you are.
Finally, everyone works hard. Everyone is tired. Women have their responsibilities and men have theirs. You don’t have it worse than men, so don’t try to convince all the men here, many of whom probably work in physically demanding fields, that it’s so hard for you because you have to shuttle the kids around. The women who came before you did more and complained less.
I know this is unlikely to get through, but I feel like someone has to repeat this every once in a while. Maybe it’ll get through to a lurker somewhere.
“Take a wild guess as to what they never mention as a possible cause for the wives’ loneliness.”
My money is on “sexual refusal”.
@craig
Ha. Do you one better. No mention that perhaps, just perhaps, your husband oughtn’t be expected to be your “best friend”. Husbands are husbands. Since he is so gravely deficient in the noticing my needs and catering as my best girlfriend would do, why should one spend more time with him being annoyed by his foibles? I’ll get back to you when I know the answer. Or perhaps not. I need to discuss the exact wording with my best friend first and gab about what I’m wearing to the office tomorrow and if Linda was really being a !@!# to me at work and why does my chocolate melt only when I put it in my purse and aren’t the kids next door just so adorable I wonder when I’ll have some of my own but I only want girls so I can braid their hair and….
@Looking Glass
“But if the Man has learned that the “bark is far worse than the bite”, then it isn’t a problem.”
Yep, my husband’s definitely got that one down. He takes verbal abuse for a living… along with threats, violence, from manipulative assholes on a daily basis. So he doesn’t care at all what people think or say, it doesn’t even phase him. it’s always been something that made me crazy about him.
All of these Kendrick movies are about the wife demanding that a large sum of money be given to one of her female relatives
Part of me wonders if the paradigm shift towards victimhood (as a way of gaining power) has lead to women bashing their husbands
@MarcusD:
There’s definitely an aspect of that, as Women are always status seeking in that regard. But it always has more to do with hard & sinful Hearts. Their words reveal their Heart and pretty it ain’t.
I tend to agree with LookingGlass. Bashing the “other” group is always a huge temptation, especially when you think you have a grievance against the group. Employers bash employees as being “lazy”; employees bash employers for being “unfair”; the rich bash the poor as being “unproductive, and looking for handouts”; the poor say the rich are “greedy”. And that is how you have it everywhere: whites vs blacks; educated vs illiterates; politicians vs the citizens; etc, etc. It’s definitely an evidence of a sinful heart. Most of us do it to a certain degree, because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Yet, God’s word is clear:
“Speak evil of no one” Titus 3:2
First, Amy, we’re not talking about you personally.
Are you sure about that?
@ theasdgamer says:
September 27, 2015 at 7:25 pm
“Alpha widowhood?”
Actually, that hadn’t even occurred to me. Good one.
@ Bee says:
September 27, 2015 at 7:55 pm
“The wives feel lonely because they are no longer taught and expected to be their husbands helpmeet and focus on his mission.”
Another good one. Of course, that never came up.
@ craig says:
September 27, 2015 at 8:16 pm
“My money is on ‘sexual refusal’.”
Also received zero mentions.
@ Isa says:
September 27, 2015 at 8:35 pm
“No mention that perhaps, just perhaps, your husband oughtn’t be expected to be your ‘best friend’.”
Yep. Treating a husband like – and expecting him to behave like – a girlfriend. Definitely a big problem. Definitely zero mentions.
My first thought when I heard the FotF episode was, “Golly, gee, whiz, Batman. Maybe wifey got fat and bitchy, and hubby would rather put in longer hours at work than put up with her.”
The point is that there are many things wives do (or fail to do) that make their husbands prefer to spend time elsewhere – anywhere but with them. FotF explored exactly zero of them. The only thing the wives did wrong – according to FotF – is fail to complain enough about their husbands. Furthermore, FotF never bothered to mention that detonating a family because “I feel lonely” is sinful.
Yeah, I know. It’s par for the course.
The point is that there are many things wives do (or fail to do) that make their husbands prefer to spend time elsewhere – anywhere but with them.
I’m reading the Anonymous Conservative’s e-book on r / K and while some of it I don’t buy, the part on the amygdala is very enlightening. The amygdala is the part of the brain that recognizes dangerous patterns and alerts other parts of the brain as well as the endocrine system. The amygdala enables a theoretical African plains dweller to see a scrap of yellow/orange in the brush and immediately climb a tree, because Lion! and without thinking about it.
The amygdala is involved in aversive stimulus: “This environment looks bad, I want to either leave it or fix it”. Yes, that is where fight / flight / freeze starts up, the amygdala. It is trainable, it can be trained to trigger on all sorts of things, and it can be detrained.
If a woman’s presence in a room is accompanied by bad behavior enough times, a man’s amygdala will train to recognize her as a low grade threat. The amygdala can be trained by a single event, if it’s dire enough; look how many men who approach a woman and are hit with a nuclear rejection have to take time to work that over, unless of course they understand Game.
A wife who engaged in nuclear rejection of her husband would be training him to avoid her with one event and he’d have to work on getting over that; his amygdala would stir up fight / flight the next tie he approached her regardless of what his logical mind tells him.
A wife who enaged in constant low level bad behavior in one particular room would be training him to avoid her in that room. Why do some men stay out of the kitchen? Because it’s unpleasant to be in there with wifey, his amygdala warns him “Trouble here!”. Bonus points if she does that stuff in the bedroom.
The amygdala is part of the human brain, whether anyone likes it or not, and it’s part of our self protection system. It can be trained, and detrained, but detraining it takes work. A man whose amygdala has learned to associate “wife” with “bad times” will have to work on creating good situations to detrain his amygdala.
That would be easier if the wife changed her behavior at the same time, but apparently that’s too much to expect in some cases. So as usual, “fixing” things is up to men, and men alone.
Wow I love how I am now assumed to be a nasty slut who hates her child.
I have not seen this movie, but based on the blog summary we have a man who is verbally abusive to his wife and lusting after other women. Is that acceptable? In my opinion any man or woman treating their spouse that way needs major prayer. If the man is verbally abusive and openly lusting after women (not sure if the character was openly doing that?), then I would think it is natural for a woman to feel unappreciated. Now the movie certainly goes to a ridiculous place With the message that happy ever after is a man that can double as a spa employee rubbing the woman’s feet and bringing her dessert. In my opinion, an that verbally abuses his wife needs to grow up.
Sorry my last sentence should have read:
Any man that verbally abuses his wife needs to grow up.
@Amy
The problem at hand is not that the man portrayed in the movie is “verbally abusive” or “lusting after other women”. It’s a movie, it’s fiction. What it is *not* is real. The effect that it has on real people is what is the problem. How the movie effects the minds of women and instructs wives in how to deal with marital issues is the problem. The precedent it tries to set for a good Christian marriage is the problem. We have seen the effects of female headship and know that it is ungodly.
It should also be said that it is not the wife’s place to correct her husband, or her place to decide when he is in the wrong.
1 Pet. 3:1, 2
“Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.”
She is to obey her husband even if he does not obey the word. This duty is given explicitly. How churches have managed to avoid it for so long is very impressive. Not good, but impressive.
@GeminiXcX
I proudly popped out my precious, first born gorgeous baby boy not even a year ago. I hope to be blessed to pop out a couple more.
@TGW
“The problem at hand is not that the man portrayed in the movie is “verbally abusive” or “lusting after other women”. It’s a movie, it’s fiction. What it is *not* is real. The effect that it has on real people is what is the problem. How the movie effects the minds of women and instructs wives in how to deal with marital issues is the problem. The precedent it tries to set for a good Christian marriage is the problem. We have seen the effects of female headship and know that it is ungodly.”
I really appreciate your explanation. That makes a lot of sense.
…but based on the blog summary we have a man who is verbally abusive to his wife …
There’s the “A” word again. I was told by another feminist that if a man bats his eyes at his wife he is beating her. Yep, he drank the same kool aid your trying to sell. I don’t think your average 1st world woman even knows what abuse is. You really need to get back in the kitchen and start making sammiches.
It should also be said that it is not the wife’s place to correct her husband, or her place to decide when he is in the wrong.
The Amy’s of the world need to hear this all the day long every day (hopefully while making sammiches).
The main male character in War Room wasn’t verbally abusive. He was angry and said angry things, but nothing “abusive.” The only way to describe it as abusive is to consider anything said in agner as abuse. In that case, she’s equally abusive.
Asking a woman in this part of the world to stop complaining is like asking her to stop breathing.
Gemin, the purpose of this blog is to educate men on how things really are. It is not meant to teach women. A few show up here, but I cannot see Dalrock say he is aiming at women.
He is free to correct me if I am off base on this, but look at who write most of the comments. They are the target.
Amy,
Any man that verbally abuses his wife needs to grow up.
That is a hole big enough to drive a truck through. Many women think saying a meal was poor is verbally abusing them! Do you really expect a husband to always be perfect in speech? Is that really an appropriate expectation? Note that I didn’t ask whether it should be his aim point, I asked whether he should be perfect at it.
Women can consider men to be mean, and thus abusive, for very minor things.
Oscar,
A wife who is not properly communicating desires to her husband should likely communicate better, if she can avoid falling into the nagging trap. This is a tricky area as it can easily be used as an excuse to complain rather than to just share a deep desire.
You are completely correct that many other actions cause far more harm however and should be dealt with. A big one would be learning to do the things he likes to do. How many wives would learn to play computer games to spend more time with their husband? I would bet that number is very small among those not already playing those games. That isn’t the only thing, but is likely a big one today.
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@GeminiXcX,
“4) No one called you a slut.”
Many, many women, including Amy, magnify slights into major insults and abuse. Women are the ones promoting “emotional abuse” and “microaggressions.”
@ Bee
Some women are extremely sensitive to criticism. Cluster Bs, for example. Yes, they magnify minor slights….
Dread can make women more sensitive to criticism.
Terms like “abuse” and “rape” have been rendered virtually meaningless by feminists. “The boy who cried wolf” is now “the girls who cried rape”, and “abuse” has become as common as broken laws in an all powerful state. You can’take get through a day without breaking at least three. Likewise, I “abuse” my wife on a daily basis. She doesn’the think so, but unlike most people in this country she isn’t a feminist.
It is interesting that so many of you are on my case for calling the man verbally abusive. I did not see the movie and was relying on Dalrock’s description of the husband as verbally abusive. I assumed that Dalrock’s description was not hyper-sensitive and that his description of the man as verbally abusive was accurate and reliable. However, some of you seem to have forgot that Dalrock is the one who came up with that description, not me. In my opinion, any spouse that is verbally abusive needs to grow up.
Amy,
That was Dalrock quoting Wikipidea, not his actual view of the husband. His whole post was about the nonsense of the how the movie is viewed.
My brothers, I couldn’t take it any more and had to go see this movie for myself. I decided to provide play-by-play and color commentary of this blessed event via live dictation into my Evernote app. I could do this because it was the last show tonight (Tuesday) and there was not another soul in the theater.
So I give you -LIVE – (redacted only for spell-check) the Pedat Ebedediyah rendering of:
In my opinion this was merely some overrated, corny, churchian foolishness.
While I understand the concerns the brothers have with the Kendrick brothers, and I see where they could have done things differently, this movie was hardly worth going on about.
It was just another half-baked silly movie geared toward churchian sheeple who are young in their walk.
We’re just too deep for the room, friends.
As a group, “men” can’t do anything more for you (and your Anglosphere sisters), Amy. We have bent over backwards for Western women who, as a collective, have life handed to them from cradle to grave — stop complaining.
Isn’t that the real problem—men pedestalizing women to the point of the ridiculous? How else did feminism take root, and grew into such a humongous barking monster? Did the women carry batons, and beat the crap out of the men? Did they shoot their way into victory?
Tried as we may to ignore the obvious, the fact still remains that men indirectly created feminism, and men are propping it up with their laws, their resources and with their blood. Feminism will continue to prosper as long as men continue to support it. The only encouraging fact these days is that feminism is under attack, because men are waking up and refusing to support it.
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