A few days ago CBMW Women’s Studies professor Mary Kassian published a new post titled Does a Husband have the Authority?* The post follows the Duluth model framing headship as abuse, and the main image conveys the sentiment of the post quite well: Christian husbands are dangerous brutes.
The first question that came to mind when reading this post is who is Kassian teaching here? The possible options are:
- She is teaching other Christian women.
- She is teaching Christian men (directly).
- She is teaching Christian men via their wives.
When Kassian says that a husband has no authority, identifying the audience is critical to understand precisely what she is instructing. If the audience is Christian women, the instruction is to not feel pressured to submit to your husband. It is in fact a message to rebel against a husband that doesn’t meet Kassian’s standard of headship.
If the audience is Christian men, then Kassian is instructing Christian men in the proper way to exercise headship. Lastly, the third option is that Kassian is teaching Christian wives how they should instruct their own husbands in the proper way to exercise headship.
Clearly, Kassian is doing all three with this post. More importantly, the Bible makes it clear that she isn’t to be doing any of these three things. Titus 2:3-5 says that older godly women are to teach younger women to be obedient to their own husbands.
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Kassian is teaching the opposite of this. The other relevant Scripture to consider regarding Kassian’s post is 1 Tim 2:11-15:
11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
The traditional reading of this section of 1 Tim is that women are not to teach Scripture. Dr. Moo defines the kind of teaching the CBMW founders believed are restricted by Paul’s words above:
…we argue that the teaching prohibited to women here includes what we would call preaching (note 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach the word . . . with careful instruction” [teaching, didache ̄]), and the teaching of Bible and doctrine in the church, in colleges, and in seminaries. Other activities-leading Bible studies, for instance-may be included, depending on how they are done. Still others-evangelistic witnessing, counseling, teaching subjects other than Bible or doctrine-are not, in our opinion, teaching in the sense Paul intends here.
Clearly Kasian is teaching Scripture authoritatively here, as she is setting herself as the authority on how headship can and cannot be practiced. However, the CBMW has a novel interpretation of who Kassian would be prohibited from teaching in this way, arguing that women are only prohibited from teaching men. This is based on the CBMW founders’ assumption that when Paul wrote in verse 14 that Adam was not deceived but Eve was, that he wasn’t talking about Eve being deceived but instead was making an oblique reference to the creation order, cryptically reiterating what he had stated clearly in verse 13 (emphasis mine):
…what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:14 was this: “Adam was not deceived (that is, Adam was not approached by the deceiver and did not carry on direct dealings with the deceiver), but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (that is, she was the one who took up dealings with the deceiver and was led through her direct interaction with him into deception and transgression).”
In this case, the main point is not that the man is undeceivable or that the woman is more deceivable; the point is that when God’s order of leadership is repudiated it brings damage and ruin. Men and women are both more vulnerable to error and sin when they forsake the order that God has intended.
…Paul’s position in the pastoral epistles is, then, consistent: he allows women to teach other women (Titus 2:3-4), 17 but prohibits them to teach men.
But even indulging the CBMW’s creative loophole for 1 Tim 2:12, Kassian is still clearly prohibited from doing what she did in that post. According to Dr Moo and the CBMW founders, Kassian is not to teach men, and this would include teaching men the proper way to exercise headship. Even worse, since Kassian’s site is primarily targeted at women, Kassian is inviting wives to teach their own husbands on the proper way to exercise headship. No matter how you look at Kassian’s article, she had no business writing such a thing under even the most libertine complementarian interpretations of Scripture. Only an egalitarian would argue that it is appropriate for Kassian to teach what she is teaching.
Putting all of this aside, there is also the massive problem of the message itself. Kassian is teaching the Duluth model of abuse, a model that was developed by feminists to eradicate the idea of Christian headship. Unlike Focus Ministries (the domestic violence ministry Kassian endorses), she doesn’t call it the Duluth model, but this is exactly what she is teaching in her recent post (emphasis original):
… this truth deserves to be stated and restated with clarity: It is not the husband’s right to force or coerce his wife to submit. Submission is voluntary on a wife’s part, and her choice entirely.
…
The misuse/abuse of authority is an abomination to God…
According to the Bible, a wife’s submission is her choice alone. A husband does not have the right to force or coerce her to do things against her will. He does not have the right to domineer. He does not have the right to pull rank and use strong-arm tactics.
According to Kassian, a husband “pulling rank” is guilty of abuse. If a husband makes what complementarians would call the final decision in cases where the two can’t come to agreement, or the “tiebreaker”, this is abuse. While the Duluth model calls this “using male privilege”, and Kassian uses the term “pulling rank”, we are talking about the very same thing. Moreover, like the Duluth model, Kassian is just fine with coercion to lead a spouse away from sin, so long as it is the wife coercing her husband. In that case it isn’t abuse at all; Kassian calls it submission (emphasis mine):
Submission is neither mindless nor formulaic nor simplistic. Submitting to the Lord sometimes involves drawing clear boundaries and enacting consequences when a husband sins.
It would be thrice wrong for Kassian to teach as she is teaching even if she wasn’t promoting the radical feminist view of marriage and headship (the Duluth model). And it would be wrong for her to teach the feminist view of marriage and headship even if she weren’t going against both Titus 2 and 1 Tim 2 in doing so.
This is all the worse because Kassian is both a Women’s Studies Professor and one of the original people involved with the founding of the CBMW in the late 1980s. This is her area of expertise, something she has positioned herself as an expert on for thirty years.
But realistically while complementarians claim to take the Bible’s instruction seriously (albeit with novel interpretations), what Kassian is doing here doesn’t put her out of the mainstream of CBMW and complementarian thought. While in theory it is clear that even the complementarian interpretation of Scripture prohibits what she is doing, in practice she is actually on the conservative side of current complementarian thought. Kassian is merely attacking headship and submission, she isn’t denying the authority of male clergy or attacking male pastors as androcentric chimps chimping like the new guard of complementarian women are doing.
*HT Hmm
This brings me my family dynamic with the women I grew up with.
Pingback: Who is she teaching? | Aus-Alt-Right
Pingback: Who is she teaching? – Manosphere.org
I am honestly baffled by the intellectual acrobatics people use to weasel out of the obvious, plain interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12. In fact, put aside the clear language the scripture uses. Just ask yourself, logically, why would it wrong for a woman to teach men, but ok to teach other women? Why would God make this arbitrary rule based simply on the “creation order?” And if it’s not arbitrary, but actually reflects something meaningful, then what else could it mean other than that women are more easily deceived and thus not fit to teach? That’s clearly what Paul states in 1 Timothy 2:13-14. And so, logically, if women should not teach men because they are more easily deceived, then how in the world does it make sense to say it’s ok for women to teach other women?
I don’t understand LOGICALLY how they justify “women teach men bad, but women teach women good,” let alone scripturally. It’s like saying to someone, “you have no understanding of physics, so you can’t teach a physics class to people who do understand physics. But, it’s ok for you to teach a physics class to other people like you also have no understanding of physics.”
In a way, it’s impressive. It truly takes people with advanced degrees in theology to devise convoluted theories like this for political ends. Most women who read CBMW’s interpretation of 1 Timothy will rightly come away confused, but that doesn’t matter. All they are looking for is an excuse to disregard the obvious plain meanings of the verses so they can continue in rebellion, and these idiotic academic analyses give them that excuse. Kassain’s teaching is a case study in exactly why Paul wrote 1 Timothy 2:12 in the first place.
It is so easy to rebel. All ways but the Godly way start with this result and end in the pit.
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matthew 7:13-14
RPChristian.
The Titus 2 passage instructs Godly older women to teach younger women explicitly. No acrobatics required. The fact that there are none that are thus qualified in visible ministry roles doesn’t change this. It’s still a viable ministry format and given women’s herd mentality tendencies I think a highly valid one.
I wanted to discuss something important that I think has not been examined and exposed enough.
The article a few weeks ago about housework revealed something evil :
Dalrock said :
You can test all of this by offering suggestions to the next woman who complains to you that her husband doesn’t do enough housework. My wife hears this complaint from other Christian wives all of the time. Each time she starts by giving them time to explain why their no good husband isn’t doing enough around the house. Then my wife offers suggestions that don’t involve the wife assuming authority over her husband and making him do work the the woman (falsely) believes is humiliating. For women with children old enough to help, she advises having the children do more of the housework. Other times she will identify time consuming work the woman is focusing on which could just as well be left undone. In other cases she will suggest ways to get a “problem” job done that better frees up her day (cooking with a crock pot, etc). The response is always the same, because the issue is not about the woman having too much work. Invariably once the discussion turns toward solutions that don’t involve making the husband do more housework, the women lose all interest in the conversation.
Emphasis mine.
Note that these are supposedly conservative women in intact marriages. Yet, there is a seething need to make the man waste time on unnecessary, mundane tasks.
We know full well how the cuckservative myth of ‘men earning more through marriage’ is a fraud due to obscuring incentives with necessity and assuming the woman is so magical that marriage to her showers some productivity pixie dust onto the man, but I question even that. In the above situation, what if the man is a highly skilled professional who earns $200, $300, or even $500/hour in his primary profession? Such menial tasks waste his valuable time. Even worse, what if such a man is an entrepreneur, where the job is 24/7 with a very uncertain payoff. To have these sorts of stupid demands on his time for nothing more than the woman’s need for passive-aggressive abuse, damages the potential for the man to succeed in his entrepreneurship.
For all the cuckservatives who claim that marriage increases a man’s earnings, we can counter with the fact that all the big tech entrepreneurs (Gates, Ellison, Brin/Page, Zuckerberg, Musk) did their first and big great innovations *before* getting married at all. If they had gotten married, they would have to do menial, needless housework which would have detracted from their entrepreneurship, which itself is a process that women oppose. How many great innovations were blocked because the man married before his great idea arrived to him, and he was not permitted to work on it due to the woman’s need to conduct abuse?
Question : Is it really this common for married women to conduct this sort of passive abuse onto their husbands, and take away their discretionary time, no matter how valuable his other work may be? If so, then I question whether even ‘stable’ marriages are even such a great thing in the information age.. Marriage conceals the anti-civilizational tendencies of women, and the opportunity cost of great male innovations being stifled is not quantified.
@ God is Laughing
I was referring to women in scripture-teaching roles like Kassian, not the sort of role described in Titus 2.
I’d forgotten that Titus 2:5 makes it clear that a disobedient wife is committing blasphemy. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sounds like she is trying to teach God.
This whole line of thinking comes from CBMWs having to serve two masters. God and their wives. Which really means they serve their wives and thus have to allow them to teach other women, otherwise they would hear constant bitching to the contrary. And being unable to say that men are less likely to be deceived than women, lest they be thought of as sexist, they have to go with the flow.
The problem with this is that the more they teach other women to rebel the more they want to rebel themselves and thus they will try and teach men as well, which is exactly what Ms Kassian is doing when she tries to teach what a man’s authority in marriage really is.
For which Ms Kassian has zero authority to do. She has committed a blatant rebellious act by commenting on how any husband is to conduct himself. She has no authority to do so and should be denounced roundly by all in the Christian community.
We need to bring out the title, “whore of Babylon”. It’s applicable here.
I have this useful little mental tool that I’ve found amazingly useful over the years. If my thinking clearly leads me to position where I’m either clearly being directed to make wrong conclusions or having to heavily rationalize a position, I go back and reexamine my assumptions. As there’s normally something I’ve assumed incorrectly.
Mrs. Kassian has worked very hard to convince herself she isn’t “of the world”, when she’s now clearly laid out that she is.
[D: See blog comment policy.]
Dear Feminist Hater:
That’s correct. In fact, if you look at the actual portion of the NT about women teaching other women, it says:
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
In other words, there are two qualifications for women to teach, namely:
That they be aged (i.e. old)
That they be above reproach in their behavior
This is assumed to be participating in the general restriction, found elsewhere in the text, that no woman should ever teach men or mixed groups.
Does Kassian meet the first qualification, set by Rav Saul of Tarsus/St. Paul? I would argue that she doesn’t. I looked around in vain to find that all dates have been scrubbed from sources on the internet. Even the date of her graduation has been withheld on her linkedin profile (!). Be that as it may, I believe she may be 45, tops. Her first book came out in the mid 1990s.
The fact that the first qualification is breached renders the second redundant. The text clearly restricts teachers of women to the “aged”; and, regardless of Kassian’s personal conduct, this is enough to disqualify her from exercising any influence over other Christians (with the obvious exception of her own children).
Regards,
Boxer
Dear Dalrock:
Thanks again for another excellent takedown. Really great.
Kassian’s shadiness in revealing her origins suggests (at least to a paranoiac like myself) that she might not have had a Christian upbringing at all. Her web page and her photo has a distinctly Mormon air about it. I wasn’t surprised to learn she hails from Southern Alberta (or as members of my tribe like to call it: Deseret).
I realize she works now for the Southern Baptist convention, but, these originary things are often relevant and important in understanding the motivations of the troublemakers.
Best,
Boxer
The teaching from CBMW in general and Mary Kassian in particular highlights an odd fact.
Any person [Christian or otherwise] will get a better understanding of the NT simply by reading it without all the commentary and teaching.
I suppose the constant re-packaging of rebellion provides an income for those thus employed.
Pingback: Who is she teaching? | Reaction Times
Sometimes commentaries/different translations are good. I always understood that certain verse in Genesis to say that the wife’s desire would be for her husband. Looking more closely, and using commentaries/different translations, it actually means that her desire would be to control her husband, or have a desire for his position. A not so subtle difference. I was shocked to learn this.
I am a Red Pill Newcomer and very much in learning mode.
To add to Boxer’s comment, not only does she not have the qualifications to teach she is way out of bounds on what she is teaching. We are severely limited to a few areas, an audience of women only, easily observed qualifications to do so and a severe warning about doing it wrong.
It also says no where that we are to be paid to do so or to turn it into a career. Mary is a fake and a wolf. May she repent of her evil rebellion and her false witness be stopped. May her followers wake up.
RPc, were in total agreement then and I misunderstood your comment. Thanks for straightening me out.
BubbaCluck says:
July 23, 2016 at 7:33 pm
I agree that some commentaries are good, I still use my Matthew Henry’s commentary more than 30 years after I bought it. But the repackaging of feminism as christian doctrine is a recent phenomenon that has caught many/most off guard. The crazy women with short cropped bright coloured hair are obviously immersed in feminism, they are not the problem. It’s these ‘teachers’ who have an audience in the church that do the damage. They need to be exposed and removed.
Christ made it abundantly clear: Mary Kassian’s father is Satan.
Christ made it abundantly clear: Mary Kassian’s father is Satan.
Ah, so she and Hillary Clinton are half-sisters, then?
No comments allowed in her article, either. Color me shocked.
Let me remind you,
She doesn’t want this guy pulling rank
Face it Mary
You got married under false pretenses and now want to encourage Christian women at large to rebel in order to rationalize your lack of attraction to your husband.
@Cail Corishev
My interpretation of that passage has always been that the wife’s un-Christian-like behavior causes non-believers who observe her to blaspheme (i.e slander) God’s Word, rather the the wife directly committing blasphemy herself. I make my interpretation in light of Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 14 and elsewhere on the need for orderly services in case an unbeliever enters. Thoughts?
UpInSmoke, that could be the case. That would mean a wife wouldn’t blaspheme directly by being disobedient, but would lead others to do so, still a sin in itself.
I’d forgotten that Titus 2:5 makes it clear that a disobedient wife is committing blasphemy. Thanks for pointing that out.
Which is why it’s one of those verses that’s deliberately ignored and dropped down the memory hole.
Again, I’m really not sure why these people think the intellectual gymnastics are necessary. We now live in an age where there is more freedom than ever for the progtards at CBMW and their heretical fellow travelers to just come right out and declare the Scriptures to be a barbaric relic of a benighted, ignorant age that have no business being taken literally or seriously today. No one of any importance (to them) will object when they assert that the Bible, while sprinkled with occasional bits of timeless wisdom, is mostly just ignorant, superstitious, misogynistic scribblings of barbarous patriarchs who considered women to be subhuman chattel property. Sure, theologically grounded believers will point out the grotesque errors of such a POV but, being non-progs, no one will listen to them anyway. Everything that Saint Mary of Kassian proclaims is fully congruent with comfy modernism, so who in their right mind would object? It’s not as if the people who DO object are considered “of right mind” by the majority anyway, so why pay attention to them?
Doctor Moo. Paging Doctor Moo. Please report to the Bovine Trauma Unit, stat.
Are you with me, Doctor Moo?
Dalrock are you the only one actually calling out this kind of thing?
In a word, disgusting.
How much clearer than 1 Tim 2 / Titus 2 / 1Peter 3 can Biblical instruction be?
Kirkegaard was right:
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly”.
Kassian has applied the pretence of not understanding (ignoring) Scripture to insert the most extreme form of feminism on men who have long been proven to be the world’s best husbands – Western, Christian men. Anyone not believing me on this last sentence can ask any Asian / Indian / Eastern European woman who married a Western man why she did so. The answer will inevitably be: “because those men are better”, a statement lost on feminist-blindsided Western princesses.
Mary Kassian and the CBMW MUST have men who support her ministry. If so, they are perfectly within their rights to abandon the ministry. Stop the money, stop attendance, stop participating, stop enabling. The ministry would collapse overnight. Such men might temporarily lose access to sex from their wives who are the main reasons Kassian has a ministry, but they will literally get their balls back over time, and Christianity just might get sufficient balls back to tackle liberalism and Islam, two ideologies patently killing the Body of Christ.
(Please excuse the graphic language, but I think it necessary to express the crisis of masculinity in the Church).
People want to sin, but also want to be told that what they are doing is not sin. Thus there are these kinds of people preaching to others that their sins are not sin. The most popular people are those who cloak themselves with the authority of holiness and then tell people that their desires are OK and even commendable.
And since these preachers are the most popular, then they get the authority of that fact that many people listen to them.
“An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.” – Duke of Wellington
The way that Titus 2:3-5 is worded makes me think that the “teaching” women are to be doing is mostly through example rather than direct instruction. Actions speak louder than words.
The way that Titus 2:3-5 is worded makes me think that the “teaching” women are to be doing is mostly through example rather than direct instruction. Actions speak louder than words.
Maybe it’s in the way Kassian interprets the verses:
“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;”
Hmmmmm, well … “false accusations” doesn’t apply, because what she’s accusing men of (abuse) is TRUE. After all, no man who lives in the modern era can possibly believe that a wife would SUBMIT to him, right? The very idea makes him a knuckle-dragging troglodyte! The wine thing is no problem, as neither Mary nor her charges drink (well, not to excess anyway. She thinks). As for “teaching good things,” how can teaching wives to stand up for themselves NOT be considered a “good thing” by any non-knuckle-dragging troglodyte or any self-respecting woman, amirite?
“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,”
Easy-peasy for the first part. Again, Mary and her charges don’t drink (well, not too much, anyway – at least as far as she knows).
As for the second part, now WAIT A MINUTE: Mary gots a problem here. In Ephesians 5 Paul demands that wives merely respect their husbands, something most wives can force themselves to do, even if only grudgingly and at the expense of all of their inner strength. But LOVE them? That’s like demanding that a dog stick to a vegetarian diet: you’re trying to force the animal to do something it wasn’t designed to do.
The third part is easy enough; at least it doesn’t demand that wives love their children more than they love themselves, after demanding that wives love their husbands (Mary still wants to know where THAT bizarre fiat came from).
“To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”
“Discreet” is a pretty vague word, so Mary applies it to mean “not being obvious and blatant about cheating on or undermining your husband.” Easy enough in this day and age. “Chaste” is similarly vague, and Mary wants to know what it means for a married woman. Probably something similar to “discreet.” “Keepers of the home?” Most certainly: when wives eventually divorce their abusive husbands, to whom these ancient troglodytes unreasonably expected them to be “obedient,” they’ll definitely be keeping the home! As for the last part, what’s more blasphemous than expecting a woman to gladly and cheerfully embrace her role as chattel slave to a knuckle-dragging troglodyte? Surely a loving God didn’t write THAT! No, that was Paul the Knuckle-dragging troglodyte adding his own backward, misogynistic opinion to the mix.
@RPchristian
“I am honestly baffled by the intellectual acrobatics people use to weasel out of the obvious, plain interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12.”
Intellectual acrobatics is the core competence of the Protestant Revolt. It is hardly surprising that this is happening, rebellion IS the cornerstone of the so called “Reformation”. It’s why there are so many competing denominations and movements, and it explains the rise of the “non denominational” denomination, where Pastor Bob interprets the Bible according to his whims, or as we are now seeing, he will interpret it so that his little church is “seeker friendly”, meaning no one is really challenged and thus his interpretation of the Gospel is an easy sell (which leads to a fuller collection plate)
Evangelicalism will soon be indistinguishable from “mainstream” Protestantism. It is fascinating just how little time it has taken to get there and like its older sibling it will soon be consigned to the dustbin of history.
feeriker @
” We now live in an age where there is more freedom than ever for the progtards at CBMW and their heretical fellow travelers to just come right out and declare the Scriptures to be a barbaric relic of a benighted, ignorant age that have no business being taken literally or seriously today. No one of any importance (to them) will object when they assert that the Bible, while sprinkled with occasional bits of timeless wisdom, is mostly just ignorant, superstitious, misogynistic scribblings of barbarous patriarchs who considered women to be subhuman chattel property. ”
Yup, they are following down the same path as their mainline Protestant predecessors. Hardly surprising. I guess it’s what you have to do to be “seeker friendly”. None of that “pick up your cross and follow me” stuff. That’s for Papists or their Orthodox “twins” (AKA, “Catholics with beards”).
This is hardly new. Methodists, Presbyterians, UCC, etc. were denying the Bible over 100 years ago.
Avraham rosenblum @
“People want to sin, but also want to be told that what they are doing is not sin. Thus there are these kinds of people preaching to others that their sins are not sin. The most popular people are those who cloak themselves with the authority of holiness and then tell people that their desires are OK and even commendable.”
And the scriptures clearly warn us about these people. Small wonder they want to toss the scriptures into the trash. Unitarianism (AKA unbelief) is the end point of the Protestant Revolt.
@Frank K
“Intellectual acrobatics is the core competence of the Protestant Revolt.”
No my friend. The protestant revolt was the removing “Intellectual acrobatics”.
Thanks Frank K. What you wrote in your first comment has been my impression also. Also I think I saw such an idea is some comment on this blog also.
@Frank K:
To get in front of the situation, and to smack some sense into you, my classic response:
There would have been no Reformation but for the 200+ years the Roman Church refused to remove the corrupt & perverse. And they’re trending, hard, back in that direction again.
The “holier than thou” group posturing *always* looks pathetic.
Looking Glass @
Yet it is the “Reformed” who are denying the Bible and cranking out heresies with the efficiency of a well oiled machine. Curiously, it is Rome who reformed herself and remains faithful to the inerrancy of the scriptures.
I still wrestle with why this is only stated once. The Scriptural principle is to have 2 or 3 witnesses for every doctrine. Why did God not have it stated clearly more than once if it is a key doctrine?
You are full of it Frank, and it is not good.
Linx @
“No my friend. The protestant revolt was the removing “Intellectual acrobatics”.”
I guess it depends on what you mean by “intellectual acrobatics”. For me, interpreting the scriptures to mean the opposite of what they clearly say is “intellectual acrobatics”
I’ll give Martin Luther credit for at least being honest and wanting to remove the parts of scripture that were at odds with his theology, instead of spinning the hamster to say that they mean the opposite of what they say.
@Frankfurter
Curiously, it is Rome who reformed herself and remains faithful to the inerrancy of the scriptures.
lol…only where there be unicorns and balrogs…all churchianity has become odious to believers…doesn’t rome still teach that the only acceptable purpose for sex is procreation?
@ Frank K
“I guess it depends on what you mean by “intellectual acrobatics”. For me, interpreting the scriptures to mean the opposite of what they clearly say is “intellectual acrobatics”.”
Scriptures? Which scriptures do you think have more or even equal authority to the Bible? Sola Scriptura. You are the one adding parts to Scripture that are at odds with God’s Word in order to have them mean the opposite of it says.
“I’ll give Martin Luther credit for at least being honest and wanting to remove the parts of scripture that were at odds with his theology, instead of spinning the hamster to say that they mean the opposite of what they say.”
Those will be the catholic scriptures parts not parts of Scripture. Things like purgatory, Mary being co-redemptrix, Mary being mediatrix of all graces, papal infallibility ect?
Rome did not reform itself. Luther, and those that followed in his wake were the responsibility of Rome, and I think it’s fair enough to say that they were sent as a message to the Catholic Church (whether they heard the message or not). As I’ve said before, the Catholic Churches theology seems closest to correct to me, but the Churches leadership? Read the first story of The Decameron, written in the 14th century. They’ve been off course for quite a while.
While Protestantism and the Reformation have contributed at least as many problems to the faith (having read a history of Ireland, most of Ireland’s oppression seems to have been the result of the Anglicans fear of Catholics after the War of the Roses), the Catholic Church has not reformed itself as of yet.
GiL said
>The Titus 2 passage instructs Godly older women to teach younger women explicitly. No acrobatics required.
Boxer correctly commented that the Titus 2 passage gives two qualifications for the women teachers:
That they be aged (i.e. old)
That they be above reproach in their behavior
A third restriction however is what those women teachers are to teach. The passage itself says what topics they are to teach, and Scripture/theology are not on the list:
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Carlotta mentioned the above, plus she mentioned the interesting point that the passage does not tell women to make a career out of this teaching. Since one of the things to be taught is for the wife to be “busy at home” (in NIV), this is an important point.
Further to Carlotta’s comment about Mary being a wolf, Matt 7:15-20 talks about us being able to identify a false prophets by their fruits. Feminists, are thus obviously false prophets, given the damage they cause.
With respect to commentaries or translations, I think other translations are more valuable and less potentially damaging than a commentary than may give the author’s explanation for why the passage means the opposite of what God’s message taught (Titus 1:9).
It is great if you are able to read a translation in a language other than English. This (mostly?) gets you away from the English biases, in particular equality and feminism.
@Frank K:
>Intellectual acrobatics is the core competence of the Protestant Revolt.
Nice try. The reformation was an attempt to remove the errors of the roman catholic religion and get back to Scripture, and direct obedience to God rather than blind obedience to man’s traditions (Col 2:8).
Of course, being sinful men, they failed to become perfect, as should be expected. And I obviously fail also. People who claim to be able to be infallible (e.g. vicar of Christ) are either seriously confused or are willingly blasphemous. Only God is infallible.
As for your critique of non-denominal churches, I encourage you to give me the verse that states the denomination of the various NT house churches. They were not being conducted in the religious buildings, so by no definition could they be deemed part of the roman catholic religion or any denomination. You are correct that the “one-off” group could be radically incorrect in their teaching. And they could also be radically obedient to the Scriptures, preferring the word of God to the words of religious professionals, like paid pastors or priests/popes.
Personally, I am interested in obeying Christ, not man. I encourage you to read Matt 15 and 23.
>Curiously, it is Rome who reformed herself and remains faithful to the inerrancy of the scriptures.
Really? So the roman catholics now admit that Mary and all the canonized-saints are absolutely useless for interceding with God for us? That is what submission to 1 Tim 2:5-6 and 1 John 1:8-2:1 would require.
I had not heard that the roman catholic religion had reformed this obvious heresy.
@Emily
EXACTLY! If she has not been walking the walk and been known for doing so she cannot be qualified to teach others. By their fruits and all that. If a women is busy doing what she ought to in the seasons that she has been ordained to she could not possibly have spent 20 years building a teaching career. Show me your closets, your pantry, your children, your grandchildren and your marriage Mary and we shall weigh them against the word of Yahweh to see if you should be teaching anyone anything. Put up or shut up!
To add, I mean 20 years teaching as a women in her 40s.
If a husband needs to do anything in Kassian’s list, he should probably divorce his wife, so Mary Kassian’s post is moot in my view.
If a wife calls 911 on her husband, for example, when he isn’t threatening her with bodily harm, then she is bringing other people into the home and violating the exclusivity provision of the marital contract. Women like to use the authorities to bully their husbands and steal from their exes.
A husband shouldn’t take his wife’s phone to prevent her from calling 911. He should leave and use his own phone to call a divorce atty.
“Yet ye say, The way of the LORD is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not my way equal; are not your ways unequal?” Ezek 18:25
The Lord tells us here that his people complain that His way is not equal. They prefer to make iniquity and righteousness (v26) interchangeable: that is – no truth or ‘you have your truth and I have mine.’ “Equal” used here is 8505 in Strong’s = “arrange” or God’s order; and His equal, His order is that male and female are not equal on earth. That is part of the Gospel, part of Jesus as the Word become flesh. That is Jesus as the Truth. Men and women only become equal when time is no more, when there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor master, male nor female Gal 3:28, Luke 20:36.
The common thread that holds on to death is the concept of equality (actually, we have no rights, just responsibilities). Eve desired to be equal with [as knowledgeable as] God. Since that obviously does not happen she when to Plan B: take her man with her. This rebellion, this witchcraft of equality spreads to each succeeding generation (Gen3:16). And that web of death spreads horizontal also with the forsaking of Titus 2, etc. Sad to see on YouTube Nancy Demoss eating up every word of Mary Kassian.
The reason for this blog and non-Christian like MGTOW is because this tear down of God’s equity has gone from covert to overt …in men’s faces. Even the slowest of men [me] are having to stand up and resist the BIG LIE.
“Advice for girls: be loud and gross and take up space. Stop saying ‘sorry’ and start saying ‘don’t interrupt me’ …’because I said so.’ Say ‘no’ and ‘none of your business’ …be snide and sarcastic and wear your hair as you like it. Help out other girls and be vocal about what makes you mad. Be masculine and feminine and both and neither [ever wonder where sexual perversion came from?] and unapologetic. Don’t set aside your comfort for boys’ egos.” – an Instagram
This, above, is from Lori Alexander’s blog 7-23-16 and speaks to what has been happening the past few decades, or longer. What is their next step? (Possibly??: I had one lady tell me “Women know how to use guns, too. Yes, that was a threat.)
God does not want women in the man’s space. And that space is much bigger than most people realize. Dalrock’s “Comment Policy” section speaks well to this ‘space’ and the Instagram above knows this all too well. Disrupt men and you hide God from His people.
Rock on Dalrock. Rock it to em’. And, rise up men.
Advice for girls: be loud and gross and take up space. Stop saying ‘sorry’ and start saying ‘don’t interrupt me’ …’because I said so.’ Say ‘no’ and ‘none of your business’ …be snide and sarcastic and wear your hair as you like it. Help out other girls and be vocal about what makes you mad. Be masculine and feminine and both and neither [ever wonder where sexual perversion came from?] and unapologetic.
My reply? “Lol, silly girls. Women who try to be men are 2nd rate women and 3rd rate men.”
I was discussing hair with a woman bartender who said that long hair is more feminine, but short hair is easier to care for. She had long hair.
Undermine the masculine by innuendo, guile and/or main force. It has been plain to see this in secular western society for quite some time, but a new understanding for me that so much of it also pervades the church.
I think this is called ad absurdum – but what if men just go ahead and concede these battles. We understand that you are all SIW, equal to men in every way, entitiled to all the privileges men currently or ever have enjoyed; real and imaginary. We affirm that you have the right to run your own life as you see fit, you are the master of your fate, you are the captain of your soul, etc. But an actual man has no interest in actively participating in this with you, nor does he want to constantly hear about it. (One sympathizes with the MGTOW guys). So we break contact.
We have a church for men and a church for women (notwithstanding the fact that something akin to this does happen here and there – ours is conceptual). In the men’s church we will worship God The Father, and extol the manly virtues imparted to us by His Grace and for His Glory. Honor, courage, commitment, etc. We will teach and sharpen one another toward the goal that every man may say ‘I am a soldier of the Living God, I obey only His will.’ There will be reverence, camaraderie, and even humor.
In the women’s church they can teach each other and discuss……..ah……………men’s failings? Who cares?
How long before a flock of women are over at the men’s church seeking admission? Meanwhile, approximately zero men are seeking admittance to the women’s church, possibly not even the most hopeful PUA.
This is a conundrum, especially for a young man. Women are capable of being both endlessly annoying, and endlessly fascinating.
The major problem in the West is that the women have been left on their own in the name of “equality” and “progress”. Women are like a garden (Song of Solomon 4:12). When manicured and tended, they are a delight. But, left to themselves, they grow into unsightly eyesores.
Maybe we should take a step back and look at churchian culture…it’s sterile, asexual, and juvenile…keeps men from maturing out of boyhood…doesn’t provide a place for romance…awkward singles groups, lolz…encourages women to delay marriage until after college and career is well under way.
Maybe we should take a step back and look at churchian culture…it’s sterile, asexual, and juvenile…keeps men from maturing out of boyhood…doesn’t provide a place for romance…awkward singles groups, lolz…encourages women to delay marriage until after college and career is well under way.
It is truly fascinating, as well as more than a bit amusing, that for all the loud and nearly ceaseless verbal flatulence one hears inside of a typical churchian franchise about “families” and how holy and precious they supposedly are that there is so little ever done to either encourage their formation and growth or preserve their stability. It would be equally fascinating –and very instructive– to ask a random sampling of churchian franchises both how many marriage preparation classes they conduct each year* AND how many weddings they conduct as a follow-on (as an entertaining sidebar, it would also be interesting to find out how many funerals a typical churchian CEO presides over each year compared to the number of weddings).
For all the buzz about “families,” their creation, care, and nurturing apparently is “somebody else’s” responsibility other than the church’s.
(*the utility and long-term effectiveness of which are admittedly questionable)
It doesn’t matter. She’s white. Christianity has nothing to do with white people:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/24/christianity-owes-very-little-to-white-people.html
The author is named after a fungal infection.
but….but…..but………The Bible was written in a different time. If…..if the men actually just “manned up” none of this would even be needed. We’re filling the gap….and besides, Jesus knows her heart! Also…by you EVEN pointing this out you are being a “pharisee”
Sarcasm of course…but this is a mantra of most churchian women. I always ask, “Do you believe the Bible or not? Because one day, someone IS going to read it and actually believe it”
CBMW? No idea what this is. Please spell out acronyms on first usage for people who aren’t “insiders” here,
@Damn Crackers:
The only conclusion from that piece, that I can come to, is the author is a blithering idiot. Either that, or Italians & Greeks are no longer “White”.
CBMW, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Complementarians going into the maw of the Matriarchy.
You dudes will love this!
OT: paging thedeti and others who were wondering about the fate of Aunt Haley from Haley’s Halo back in May. I heard from someone who claims to know her real-life identity, who says she is alive. I posted an announcement about this on my own (also mostly dormant) blog.
CBMW, Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Complementarians going into the maw of the Matriarchy.
Alternate working definitions are “Can’t Be Mean to Women” and “Changing Brutish Men into Women.”
@theasdgamer:
‘doesn’t rome still teach that the only acceptable purpose for sex is procreation?’
No.
Here I come, spewing truth.
Rome will deny you the sacrament of Holy Matrimony if you are permanently impotent or otherwise disfigured genitally such that you cannot perform intercourse.
Alternatively, if you are merely infertile or sterile, marriage is a go. And have all the sex you want with your wife.
(Pretty sure I’ve covered all that here before. Disinformation dies a hard death.)
Were you claiming Lori Alexander was saying that sipcode? I found it on someone’s Facebook post and your quote says Instagram. Lori was speaking against that attitude. I have no idea what else she says, but that post was not errant. Encouraging a better spirit in young women is appropriate.
====
I was showing my wife the base picture in the post by Mary Kassian and it looks to me like the woman is smirking rather than cowering. It was clearly a setup, but they couldn’t even get cowering right. The smirk comes through, at least to me.
I believe the point in the RCC is that sex should always lead to the possibility of procreation. Thus preventing pregnancy in any manner (other than the rhythm method I believe) is not allowed.
The idea is to not prohibit procreation, not that sex can’t be fun and frequent.
Though I do wonder if all in the RCC understand that point. I remember reading several years ago that Martin Luther was a strong proponent of lots of sex in marriage, implying to me that he was changing from what he had before. I have not researched that part much however.
Oscar
8mm Mauser ain’t shit to the power of the vagina (aka stink hole)
the fact that all the big tech entrepreneurs (Gates, Ellison, Brin/Page, Zuckerberg, Musk) did their first and big great innovations *before* getting married at all.
And now Musk is getting mixed up with that lesbian Golddigger Amber Heard. Yet another example of a guy who can be smart as all get out, but a complete retard when it comes to women.
Novaseeker,
Perhaps. Most tech guys are blue-pill, which detracts from the aura of ‘genius’ others have for them.
But the larger point is that despite the notion that marriage increases a man’s productivity, the housework abuse tendency described above means that marriage arguably decreases a man’s innovation and entrepreneurship, and replaces it only with rote, brute-force productivity.
I mean, if women are obsessed with making their husbands do housework that is explicitly not needed, no matter what else he could be doing with his time, that is a huge point and should be explored. It is an immense silent cost on male potential and well-being.
And now Musk is getting mixed up with that lesbian Golddigger Amber Heard. Yet another example of a guy who can be smart as all get out, but a complete retard when it comes to women.
Musk is the ultimate state-corporatist welfare queen. Any misfortune that comes his way through bad judgment over women is well-earned just desserts.
@Novaseeker:
Musk has married & divorced the same Woman, twice I believe, now. The guy is utterly brilliant at playing the “crony capitalist” game to do what he really wants to do, but, yeah, relationship advice? No. But I’ll let him talk about rockets all day.
Thx, pivot, do you have a link?
@theasdgamer:
‘Thx, pivot, do you have a link?’
Wish I did. Learned this stuff from a othodox-as-the-day-is-long priest in college theology class 30 years ago.
I’ll look and see if I can find you something.
There was an ex-priest teaching stuff like maturbation is ok, sex changes are cool, divorce and remarriage isn’t any big deal (basically just about anything that dissents with Catholic doctrines on sex and marriage).
My priest currently teaches at the pontifical seminary in Columbus, OH. If he was teaching what the ex-priest was teaching, safe to say he would be anywhere but there.
I had transcribed an old class handout onto my MySpace blog like 8 yrs ago, but that’s long gone. Maybe I’ll redo that one on one of my existing blogs and let you know.
Bottom line: if one cannot consummate a marriage, it’s grounds for annulment. If one cannot have children, no such problem exists.
And so you should drop the caricature. It’s the product of ignorance.
“Submitting to the Lord sometimes involves drawing clear boundaries and enacting consequences when a husband sins.”
-Mary Kassian
Isn’t this what Naghmeh Abedini said to Saeed after he unexpectedly got released, and she knew the abuse gif was up?
Mary Kassian, the founder of Girls Gone Wise, is an award winning author, internationally renowned speaker, and distinguished professor of Women’s Studies at Southern Baptist Seminary.
Ok…So Protestant seminaries officially have women’s studies departments like secular schools? Is this the norm or is this seminary an exception?
The bible references the things that people will do so it corrects them, thus you can find out what people do by reversing it.
Titus2:3-5
…
not false accusers, – as we are beginning to see false accusations from females is an epidemic
not given to much wine, – female drunkenness is quite a big issue
…
That they may teach the young women to be sober, – as above
to love their husbands – as they dont\wont and are exceedingly liable to frivorce
to love their children – as they dont\wont and are exceedingly liable to frivorce and have abortions
To be discreet – nope
chaste – nope
keepers at home – ?? caretakers at home grumbling about hubby not doing enough after his 60hrs wk – so not really
good – rarely
obedient to their own husbands – never
that the word of God be not blasphemed – as it will be by exasperated men+ those around them
A screaming wife can easily set the tone for the whole neighbourhood. Not surprising the word would be blasphemed under those circumstances.
@feeriker>>>
“Again, I’m really not sure why these people think the intellectual gymnastics are necessary. We now live in an age where there is more freedom than ever for the progtards at CBMW and their heretical fellow travelers to just come right out and declare the Scriptures to be a barbaric relic of a benighted, ignorant age that have no business being taken literally or seriously today. No one of any importance (to them) will object when they assert that the Bible, while sprinkled with occasional bits of timeless wisdom, is mostly just ignorant, superstitious, misogynistic scribblings of barbarous patriarchs who considered women to be subhuman chattel property.”
This is a bittingly accurate synopsis of secular world view for the bible and essentially all religion. So if you go ahead and make that declaration, you’ve lost your niche and have fallen into the herd in general. Bending biblical principles to your will can achieve the effect you want, whilst allowing you to leverage the inherent authority of the source.
At this point, they still need the bible to have some legitimacy.
Satan will forever keep this controversy going. If we read James 4:8 we see that if we draw close to God, He will draw close to us. Now, it easy to understand that if you and God are close, and growing closer, that He will reveal what He expects from both the Husnand and the wife, including that of the husband giving his life, as did Jesus, for his bride.
BillyS says: “The [Catholic] idea is to not prohibit procreation, not that sex can’t be fun and frequent.”
Yes. Not willing for sex to result in procreation if God so wills? Don’t have sex. (Aside: It is amusing how for 500 years, Catholics have been slandered in secular culture both for having too little sex and for making too many babies.)
“I remember reading several years ago that Martin Luther was a strong proponent of lots of sex in marriage, implying to me that he was changing from what he had before.”
True to a certain extent, due to historical influences. St. Augustine was a reformed horndog, and his writings occasionally swing the pendulum hard in opposition to his former life. He was also brilliant, and the most influential Western theologian overall until Aquinas. But Augustine is not himself the magisterium; anything in his writings should be compared against the official Church teachings and never set above them. There was also the influence of St. Dominic’s religious order, created specifically to preach against the Albigensian heresy (apparently a revival of the libertine varieties of Gnosticism). Not knowing more I couldn’t say, but it makes sense that widespread preaching against sluttish licentiousness would go overboard on occasion. Good thing that kind of thing could never happen on internet blogs, because this is 2016 and We All Know Better Now. 😉
Maybe we should take a step back and look at churchian culture…it’s sterile, asexual, and juvenile…keeps men from maturing out of boyhood…doesn’t provide a place for romance…awkward singles groups, lolz…encourages women to delay marriage until after college and career is well under way.
Yup. Very explicit in the “conservative” churches I attend.
Been trying to raise my sons differently, but it will be a challenge to find suitable mates outside of my family.
Question is, when will parishioners start openly demanding that their pastors STOP using these sorts of materials to teach from, and STOP supporting (in any direct or indirect way) seminaries that employ these false teachers?
to love their children – as they dont\wont and are exceedingly liable to frivorce and have abortions
In every frivorce, women insist that they have their childrens’ best interests at heart. The divorce is necessary for the children.
If the mother in unhappy in a marriage, she is duty-bound to her children to get a divorce. Children need a happy, fulfilled mother. Daughters especially need a happy, Strong, Independent Mother as a role model.
Thus, every frivorce is an immensely unselfish act, motivated by a mother’s love for her children, whom she is only protecting from an abusive father, even if his only abuse was making the mother unhappy, thus denying the children’s need for a happy mother.
Just watch any TV movie and you’ll see that divorced single mothers are unselfish heroes. Not only Lifetime TV movies, but SyFy Channel monster movies.
There’s an epidemic of Strong, Independent, Single Mothers on the SyFy Channel — all of them brilliant scientists or military or journalists — who team up with an Alpha Male to destroy the monster, after which the Alpha Male marries the Strong Independent Single Mother, kids and all.
OT:
Hermes: I had heard from at least one other person that Aunt Haley is alive and well. Thanks.
@Red Pill Latecomer says:” In every frivorce, women insist that they have their childrens’ best interests at heart. The divorce is necessary for the children.”
Good point, even though the abuse\murder rates for the children in her “next” formed family unit are sky high when compared to her original family. But hey ! lets all think of the children and what could be.
Frank K: The Catholic Church tells women that they don’t have to obey their husbands:
http://www.cuf.org/2009/09/ask-cuf-septemberoctober-2009/
It’s “mutual submission” all the way with the RCC.
It is amusing how for 500 years, Catholics have been slandered in secular culture both for having too little sex and for making too many babies
It’s amusing to see RCs continue to set up straw men to distract from the obvious mess they’ve caused real Christendom over the past several hundred years.
Ok…So Protestant seminaries officially have women’s studies departments like secular schools? Is this the norm or is this seminary an exception?
It is not surprising at all. Plus, remember that certain types of women get aroused when they hear the word ‘seminary’…The pronounce it ‘semenary’.
Parody – or is it?
http://babylonbee.com/news/college-sophomore-loses-third-girlfriend-jesus/
Parody – or is it?
Nope. The Babylon Bee, just like The Onion is going to discover that satire can no longer compete with reality.
@Dal, all, it’s important to remember just how ensaturated the Feminine Imperative has become in mainstream evangelical Christianity. Women’s empowerment “ministries” are a franchised juggernaut now:
http://www.womenspeakers.com/
Becoming a Christian women’s “speaker” is a hot, do-it-yourself career for all of the “real estate” agents who lost their asses in the housing bubble.
http://christiancommunicators.com/2016-info
Women speakers are enjoying a wealth they’d never dreamed of prior, and they find that an accommodating ‘progressive’ male church only affirms them even more. You’re not gonna tell them to stop “teaching”.
BillyS @ July 24, 2016 at 11:08 am:
“I still wrestle with why this is only stated once. The Scriptural principle is to have 2 or 3 witnesses for every doctrine. Why did God not have it stated clearly more than once if it is a key doctrine?”
You mean older women teaching younger women but not men? The books of Ruth and Esther come to mind. The women in Christ’s travels are on record helping without teaching. Priscilla & Aquilla were very careful to not present themselves as authorities while evangelizing. And describing marriage as a symbol of Christ & Church is as good as a command for wives to respect and obey their husbands.
Patriarchy is a consistent theme throughout the entire Bible.
…
craig @ 9:29 am:
“BillyS says: ‘The [Catholic] idea is to not prohibit procreation, not that sex can’t be fun and frequent.’
Yes. Not willing for sex to result in procreation if God so wills? Don’t have sex.”
The only way “abstain if you don’t want another kid” can not be hypocrisy towards a general prohibition on birth control is by equating sex with reproducing.
If society gets young adults married(1.0) and having fun in marriage then kids are going to happen with no need for church oversight and regulation. Men used to be proud of fatherhood; now the idea worries us for excellent reasons and the church’s oh-so-typical response to those worries is increasing the marital burden. Even in Prot circles, the denial of a middle ground between “celibate bachelor” and “married with kids” does a lot to sexually frustrate young men stuck between student debt and a collapsing economy.
Been reading Malachi Martin’s very informative book “The Jesuits”. Specifically informative are the sections dealing with the formation of Liberation Theology in Latin American Marxism/Catholicism and the war that the Popes going back to Vatican II were fighting against the Jesuit/Marxist revolt. One that they have lately lost. It’s sad and it’s why I find it ironic when Catholics start casting rocks at Churchian glass houses
Women speakers are enjoying a wealth they’d never dreamed of prior, and they find that an accommodating ‘progressive’ male church only affirms them even more. You’re not gonna tell them to stop “teaching”.
Even where there’s no money directly involved, it’s still “all women, all the time” in most evangelical churches. Example from yesterday in my own church: this last weekend the women of the church (well, a few dozen of them, anyway, headed by the pastor’s wife) went on a retreat* (a.k.a. hen coven for perfecting rebellion). Nearly HALF AN HOUR of yesterday’s service was wasted parading these women in front of the congregation and letting several of them rattle on about … well, nothing, really. Not a word about WHAT, IF ANYTHING, THEY LEARNED FROM SCRIPTURE on this retreat. Not a word about how they learned to be better wives and mothers based on Scriptural prescriptions. Not a word about how their experience is going to lead them to better serve the church in the way God intends for women to serve. I can only imagine the source of the “study material” used on this retreat – if they in fact “studied” anything at all.
Nope, it was “we had a blast and we need to do this EVERY YEAR! Won’t you all pitch in and make it happen?!” Followed, of course, by some mild and subtle (for now) shaming in advance for anyone not instantly and enthusiastically on board with the idea.
Try telling me that this sort of thing isn’t the norm in most churches today. And remind me again of why growing numbers of BELIEVING men are leaving these modern-day Temples of Diana in the dust?
(* I won’t insult your intelligence by asking even rhetorically if there has ever been a men’s equivalent of this at this church)
P.S., I’m not suggesting that Catholics are worse than Protestants or Orthodox Christians, just that we are all fighting the same infection and that no matter your sect it’s running an infection.
P.S., I’m not suggesting that Catholics are worse than Protestants or Orthodox Christians, just that we are all fighting the same infection and that no matter your sect it’s running an fever.
feeriker- I saw exactly what you described from kids returning from a youth “retreat” a few years ago. Then I realized, what else would we expect, when these retreats started with youth (who had time to get away) 30-40 years ago…these same people, now adults (who continue to expect time to get away), keep doing the same things they grew up with.
It’s all about, “The weekend was so awesome! I’m now closer to God,” which apparently leads to lots of goodfeelz for the pastor, if not chaste, quiet women.
Mary Kassian skirts 1Tim 2:12 by claiming authority to teach men as long as it is outside of the main weekend church service.
“I generally turn down invitations to speak on Sunday mornings. The passage indicates that the doctrinal teaching delivered in the context of the regular church meeting is the responsibility of the church “dads.”
“I have also taught men in multiple venues that didn’t qualify as a church service — like camps, conferences, seminars, seminary classes, and workshops.” – Mary Kassian
This is so clearly against the CBMW’s own instructions.
“It is sometimes argued that the prohibitions of 1 Tim 2:12 do not apply to those who teach in a theological college or seminary… We disagree with this assessment for two reasons.”
“The same biblical principles about teaching men and exercising authority over men apply in the context of a parachurch ministry.”
– Women in Ministry: Practical Application of Biblical Teaching
“It is sometimes argued that the prohibitions of 1 Tim 2:12 do not apply to those who teach in a theological college or seminary… We disagree with this assessment”
I should hope so. But it makes me ponder about women teachers at Christian colleges, since so many claim (or used to) that they integrated faith and learning in all subjects. Ok, that means you’re going to teach a bit of theology for every subject. Maybe you can believe it’s innocuous for math or chemistry, but what about literature or psychology?
I think Christian organizations have been playing with this fire for many decades.
Gunner Q,
I would still like more direct commands that “women cannot teach in public.” Teaching younger women is noting what should be done, not a direct prohibition.
I need to pull all the related Scriptures together and will add it to my list of things to go over in my relatively new blog.
Ruth and Esther have great principles, but are not absolute bounds on female activity in the NT Church.
Even Esther stepped out of her role by walking into the king unrequested, a necessary part of her action.
“It is sometimes argued that the prohibitions of 1 Tim 2:12 do not apply to those who teach in a theological college or seminary… We disagree with this assessment for two reasons.”
“The same biblical principles about teaching men and exercising authority over men apply in the context of a parachurch ministry.”
And yet CBMW continues to let Kassian run like a loose cannon. This indicates one –or both– of two things:
1. Like every other “Christian” organization in the Western World today, the CBMW fears (wo)man more than it fears God.
2. CBMW no longer believes or intends to enforce –or never believed or intended to enforce in the first place– in its own prohibitions.
I’m voting for “both of the above.”
“Nope. The Babylon Bee, just like The Onion is going to discover that satire can no longer compete with reality.”
Yeah. But meantime, the Babylon Bee is making its contribution, which I applaud. Every good effort is welcome.
@Andy Oldham
Not sure I understood your point but this is what I took away:
Husbands do not give their lives for their wives [as in disappear]. Scripture says they ‘love their wives as Christ loved the church.’ That love is everything about Christ. The first thing we have to discard is salvation: a husband cannot forgive his wife’s sin. That leaves everything else, which starts with confrontation: love confronts. What does it confront? It confronts ‘powers and principalities’, that is bad thought and action on her part as she has embraced the wrong father — Satan. It does not mean he rolls over and plays dead and gives his authority to her. But that is what the church has been feeding us [our effeminate church 1Cor6:9]. Love, by definition, is keeping His commandments and a husband is first and foremost to spend his time exhorting [yes, pulling or pushing her] to keep His commandment. And then the kids. And then the brethren — the church. But since the church as made the fable of ‘do not judge nor confront’ …we’ve got what we’ve got: Hell on earth.
No idea who Nick Batzig is or his background. It appears to be part of a theological argument, however there is one point I want to highlight. Because he claims to have counseled married couples and he’s not as bad as older preachers.
http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2016/07/wisdom-and-biblical-principles.php
A bit more than half way gown there is this:
Concerning less volatile marital situations, I have learned two things from carrying out counseling sessions over the past ten years in ministry: First, nearly every couple has the same problems. Husbands abnegate their responsibility to lead; wives, in turn, disrespect their husbands; the husband then gets bitter toward his wife; and, a vicious cycle persists
In Game terms, it would be “husband gets Betaized, wife starts fitness testing, husband fails tests and gets butthurt, wife doubles on fitness testing”.
However, it is clearly missing something either way. From personal observation, abnegation or Betazation often is preceded by control attempts or usurping. Attempts to control / usurping is intrinsic to women, one could consider it the initial fitness test. In Game terms it’s the desire to control a man as a resource. In Bible terms it’s part of the original sin of Eve.
So IMO this man is closer to reality than most other preachers, at least he recognizes what contempt does to men (although it’s been known for over 20 years…) but he still cannot really see the reality of women. Methinks like every other preacher he’s a bit of a pedestalizer and thus a bit of a White Knight.
Rollo
Women’s empowerment “ministries” are a franchised juggernaut now:
Looks easier than selling Mary K and more profitable than real estate.
Plus totally FI approved.
What’s not to like?
mike says:
July 24, 2016 at 12:50 am
“Let me remind you,
She doesn’t want this guy pulling rank”
She may have gotten married under false pretenses Mike, but whether she likes it or not, she married him for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love honor and OBEY, until death do [they] part.
So, pull rank he’s most entitled to under the marriage contract if they are both Christian. But will he kill the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs?
Put this into stone somewhere for all men to read through the remainder of time
Heard this from my aunt a week or so ago. A supposedly learned Christian woman. I believe her heart is in the right place, but that bible doesn’t always deliver feel good words. The truth hurts sometimes.
Thanks Darlock for these efforts.
I have a question for anyone – give an example of a non-time limited decision where the husband may pull rank and demand obedience to his will. I think Kassien and her ilk are all wrong in the way they think about marriage and headship but if I approach this from the direction of believing that husband are the God given authority of the home I reach almost the exact same conclusion. I do not have the right to tell me wife, “Because I am the man.” Submission is a choice just like all other Christian actions, and the tools of leadership are Christian attributes not authoritarian ones.
I have a responsibility to teach her the Bible, to expect her to submit like she expects me to lead in love but I don’t see how I can demand. What if she rebels? I cannot enforce my will only persuade. Violence is off the table from a Christian perspective, never mind a legal one. The only avenue available is the same that Christ used when alive, love and persuasion. Those may involve identifying sin and rebellion in clear terms as Christ did. I don’t mean to say it is all happy time. Christ was clear and brutally honest about sin and rebellion just as he was incredibly loving and forgiving.
If the husband and wife have gone over an issue and disagree, there might be rare situations where the husband resolves the conflict is the needed thing but it seems rare. Almost no decision is important enough or where I am so clearly right that I need to end a disagreement by fiat. It’s important in emergencies where urgency and expediency matter.
I think it s right that husband and wives acknowledge headship as proper. However, practically the wife must choose submission and a man has no ability to enforce his will unless she does accept it. Like a pastor extolling someone to repent, the pastors authority may be granted from God but practically it exists only to the degree the member of the congregation accepts and acknowledges it.
[D: Please see comment policy.]
[D: See comment policy.]
The husband is to love his wife as Jesus loves the church.
Reading Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, Jesus is calling out His church in sometimes not so nice terms. To the church in Laodicea he is about to “spew” them out of His mouth. To Thyatira He is calling them out for tolerating the woman, Jezebel, who were also practicing the deep things of Satan. “I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the the minds and hearts…”
He also has some good things to say but doesn’t mince words in rebuke. I think the church probably knew He wasn’t bluffing.
Submission is a choice just like all other Christian actions, and the tools of leadership are Christian attributes not authoritarian ones.
If both husband and wife were Christian at the time of their marriage, then she chose to submit to him by exchanging wedding vows with him and becoming his wife. It’s really that simple, just as when you accept Christ as your savior you are submitting your life and will completely to Him. If I, having accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, refuse to submit to His will, then I am in rebellion against Him and will be punished accordingly. Ditto for the wife who refuses to submit to her husband.
Is Jesus “authoritarian” when He disciplines His church? Maybe. Or even probably, but it’s for the good of the body, to prevent it from slipping into sin and destruction. By another name, we might call it “tough love.” Actions have consequences.
Yup. Good luck convincing the “Christian” cucks and white knights of the world though.
Authority without the ability to apply force is not authority. This isn’t difficult to understand.
The problem I have is not the recognition that you cannot force a wife to submit. Corner of the roof and all that…
My problem is that there is precious little teaching that submission is non-optional for Christian wives. Just because you cannot force a wife to submit does not relieve her of the obligation to do so, and of course you occasionally have to pull rank and remind her of that. Why in the world is that verboten? Kassian spends most of her time teaching caveats. When/where does she ever treat submission as the price of admission rather than merely an extra-credit option for wives?
@mrteebs:
When your Mind, Body & Spirit are in the wrong place, you’ll work very hard to “get past” the concepts that don’t serve you directly. Mrs. Kassian can’t withstand the temptation to get all of the benefits while taking on none of the responsibilities.
The core of Rebellion against God is the Rebellion against your own Responsibilities, properly understood. When one desires absolution without repentance, all theology will be twisted until it suits the purposes of the speaker.
@Kevin
“I do not have the right to tell me wife, “Because I am the man.”
No you don’t have the right because you are the man. You have the right because you are her husband.
“Submission is a choice just like all other Christian actions, and the tools of leadership are Christian attributes not authoritarian ones.”
By the same measure a husband can then interpret that loving his wife is also a choice and that
Ephesians 5:”25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”
instructing a husband to love(sacrifice) of their wife is nothing more than an authoritarian interpretation by women.
So submission is either an instruction or a choice and loving is either an instruction or a choice. However if a wife claims that submission is a choice then by default she also claims that her husband can choose not to love her. If she claims that submission is an instruction then she can claim that her husband is obligated to love her. Which one do you think gives her more “power” in a marriage?
Violence is off the table from a Christian perspective, never mind a legal one. The only avenue available is the same that Christ used when alive, love and persuasion.
First, to concede that the culture has changed to anti-Christian, so we can’t act Christian is a fallacious bit of reasoning.
Second, “the only avenue available,” I’d suggest you read the Bible, or be more cognizant of what you mean when you use a word like “love”…
Hebrews 12: 5-6, 8-11
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts…
If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
True disciples understand there is discipline involved.
@ Kevin
While violence is off the table, there are other ways to discipline a disobedient wife. When a wife rebels, she is often acting like a child. When my children rebel I don’t use “love and persuasion.” That would only encourage more rebellion, and the same hold for wives. Rather, I enact consequences and enforce boundaries.
Examples include a verbal rebuke. If she is being disrespectful in public then rebuking her in public may be appropriate. Limiting her access to finances and limiting her spending may be appropriate.
This is all obviously highly abusive per the Deluth model, which means we are on the right track!
Larry Solomon has some good ideas on his blog: https://biblicalgenderroles.com/2015/10/03/7-ways-to-discipline-your-wife/
Those are some great ideas and in a sane world they would probably work but good luck enforcing them when all she has to do is get a lawyer, cry abuse, or pick up the phone and your life is completely destroyed. Even if she doesn’t the threat is always there, like an axe just waiting to come down on your neck with your head on the chopping block that YOU voluntarily placed there. Heh, some authority where the husband is sweating wondering if his wife is going to ruin his life or not with a simple phone call. And it’s so easy to do (check the divorce rate or how quickly bitches these days will scream abuse to the media or the police). No thanks.
Yup. As I said in another recent thread, by all means go ahead and exercise biblical headship over your wife: just be prepared to be martyred for doing so. God will be your only ally in that endeavor and your only reprieve will be death and life everlasting.
Sorry, that last was in response to Jim’s post of July 26, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Headship should just be referred to as ‘hership’ for that is all it is. Steering her ship. I don’t get what all the point of this is? Marrying to be constantly in fear of my own life, limb and property. My own sanity, my own soul and well being. Marriage has become impossible and the state will just keep clamping down on men. Everything is sexists, everything is abuse, men trying to explain their reasoning is just ‘mansplaining’. There is no way out, no way to have a Biblical marriage, not with the idea that true headship is abuse, and certainly not with a whole machine of industry ready to come down on your arse for daring to try and lead such a life.
Biblical marriage has been destroyed, the whispers were heard, acted upon and destruction wrought. There is no marriage, full stop.
Agree 100%. There’s no way you can be the leader when the one under you can just dispose of you at her convenience. Hell, not even just get rid of you but destroy your life so completely that you are now beginning to see a few guys either just kill their harpy wives, killing themselves, or doing things like burning down their own houses so the cunt wife can’t get it and so on. And it’s happening to men no matter what their religious beliefs are.
Pingback: Best to leave it to the experts. | Dalrock