Reader YS shared a video advertising the FamilyLife Weekend To Remember “marriage getaway”. The video starts with reassurance to husbands, who instinctively know what these kinds of events are like:
The look on your face says it all. Your spouse just invited you to the FamilyLife Weekend To Remember marriage getaway. You’re thinking:
What did I do wrong?
Relax, this is a good thing. So put away the fancy china and listen up. You aren’t eating crow tonight!
I’ve never been to one of these events, but Sheila Gregoire is one of the “experts” the video mentions, and she describes what they are like on her own blog:
My husband and I speak at FamilyLife marriage conferences around the country…
One of the interesting things about giving the wife talk is that, as I start to talk about what a woman can do to make marriage great, I see many in the audience looking distinctly uncomfortable and shifting in their seats. So, just like clockwork, about seven minutes in, I stop my talk, and say:
I know you women are uncomfortable with me saying all these things that you should do. But let me reassure you that right now my husband has all of your husbands in another room, and he is blasting them and telling them what they need to do, too, in no uncertain terms. So don’t worry.
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In Catholic circles this is known as “Marriage Encounter”.
A man I know packed the children off to grandma’s house and took his wife to one of these things.
The next year, they packed the children off, told grandma they were going to one of these things…and he took them to a different city for their own, private weekend.
Of the two weekends, I strongly suspect the second was more of a “Weekend to Remember” than the first.
Always amazing how aggrieved wives are that they are “doing so much” and unfairly done by… That the suggestion that maybe they could treat their husbands better is some kind of affront.
I went to one of them about a decade ago. I don’t remember anything really bad, but my head was much different then. I have always been somewhat red pilled due to my internal nature, but I did not know all the details and was likely quite blue pilled in many areas. It was the time my wife told me she had “decided to work things out” as we walked along a hall in the hotel complex. It hit me hard, though took years to really have its impact in my thoughts as divorce had not been a thought for me prior to that.
It turns out her commitment to that was not as strong as she thought, since she never did much work on her part to really build a solid marriage and finally filed for divorce last fall.
I don’t know that I would recommend the conference, but it wasn’t that horrid at the time.
I am much more discerning about what I listen to now though and I pick up on bashing men far more quickly now (where I would have probably just ignored it in the past), so that may play a role in my perceptions here.
This goes to a tad higher level on these concepts, but so much of this is simply the Structure of modern Christian life simply does not work. We’re used to paying for expertise (as the world is a complex place and, well, not everyone can be a surgeon), but all of our Institutions have been Converged. All of them.
Thus, there is no one to pay to help. There’s no one, openly, with enough understanding to even offer proper advice. For all of the 2000 years of Theology, we seem to be constantly stuck in telling every Christian to reinvent the “Wheel”.
I think a lot of wive’s nonstop criticizing and being told how bad they have it tires them out and makes them feel they do a lot more than they actually do. A pastor can “blast” husbands in 100 sermons in a row and wives will call it fair, but if he says something remotely critical of wives halfway through his 101st husband blasting sermon, the wives will say “why is everything always the wives fault? Can’t you hold men accountable once in a while?”
If you’ve ever heard the “Love and Respect” course by Emerson Eggrichs, it’s amusing how many wives march their husbands into the course thinking it is about showing love and respect to wives. In their mind, marinated in such from cradle through adulthood, don’t even consider that they are even a fraction of a speck of the problem.
Nothing like reassuring women that their envy is perfectly valid.
My husband and I speak at FamilyLife marriage conferences around the country…
Peddling the lie is very lucrative for those who peddle well.
I remember a female acq getting very angry when I pointed out that Beth Moore has a speaking/publishing empire, and her own private jet to take her to her lucrative speaking ‘rallies’ all over the country….
Off topic, a little vignette in the Guardian of a woman who lived the urban dream.
“Now in her mid-40s, she would like to have a child but “would never consider actually doing so, as I have no resources”. Part of the problem is her personal debt. Her credit card debt, for instance, equals $27,000. This all began because for years, she was making less and was unmarried.
“I was living by myself,” she says, “choosing to live on the Upper West Side,” an affluent area of Manhattan. Even though the rentals in the area were unaffordable, the costs associated with moving out were also prohibitive. “I wasn’t going to never buy clothes or never go out or never go on vacation. I’d just say ‘screw it’ and made a decision to put it on a credit card.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/may/11/outclassed-neighbors-income-happiness
The point I’m about to make has been raised repeatedly here and elsewhere, but looking beyond the husbands who are dragged to these things, think about the young men who observe how their parents respond to this video or the ensuing events. Would a young man be encouraged by what he sees? Does it inspire him and excite him to find a woman to marry? Or does it merely repulse him from any thought of tying the dreaded knot? Does it send the message that men who marry get put through the ringer?
I will be eternally befuddled at how obtuse the modern Church has been regarding this point. Not for a single moment to they stop to wonder how their actions and behavior come across to the very men who they want to “man up and marry.”
That might be the question to put to modern Christian church leaders; what message do you think you send to young men about marriage, women, and relationships, and how does it encourage them to marry?
@The Question:
They don’t think; they rationalize. If they thought too much about the problem, they’d quickly realize it is them. That’s why everything is about constant emotional reinforcement. It’s also why everyone falls into “just God HARDER!” trap, at least for Men. For Women, it’s just blame everyone else.
Since we were on about Promise Keepers in the last thread, in a similar vein, even as a fairly young child, I could see the problem inherent within the relationship structure of the Church. I just assumed, at the time, that there was a more complex answer that I’d come to understand in time. Which, in the end, is correct: humans are evil and they never kick the evil out of Church. Thus, it’s an infested place.
@The Question:
It’s also important to mention the way we’re all taught to avoid the harder questions. False Dichotomy. The instant you bring up the problems, the false statements start flying. It’s a sure sign you are close to the issue, but also so well-taught that you’re never breaking through.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Woman-denied-divorce-for-17-years-goes-on-hunger-strike-outside-Knesset-490143
Lol, get married! As if!
“They don’t think; they rationalize. If they thought too much about the problem, they’d quickly realize it is them.”
As Upton Sinclair once said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Those conferences are sure to increase the divorce rate. Red Pill marriage conferences would keep marriages afloat, but they would be sexist and the women would be fighting the knowledge for 2 straight days, so currently only men can learn and apply the wisdom on their own.
The FamilyLife Weekend Getaway theme song!
So…they’re the experts?
I was red-pilled hard by my divorce, and my ex-wife ate stuff like this up. It was always my fault, not matter what happened. These “marriage retreats” are a farce; no matter what is said or done, the husband is at fault, and the church has taken the feminist kool-aid, downed the whole batch, and did it all over again. As a Christian pastor, I’ve spoken out against the rebelliousness of women. So much so that it’s harmed me as a pastor. Looking at this couple, obviously knowing that she runs the show in the family, tells me that never in a million years would I take the advice of a couple who has willfully denied God’s Word on headship. The church disgusts me; we’ve turned Jesus Christ, the Son of God, into a bearded girlfriend who wants to give us tingles. Well do the words of Isaiah apply to us today, “woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”
Thanks for the HT, Dalrock. Yes, it’s amusing. The video, as I’m sure you noticed, tears men down at every instance. Even the scene which shows the couple on the porch in the bathrobes…I saw that and thought, “Oh, a couple in bathrobes relaxing in the AM, finally the gut punches to men stopped.” Then the husband gets hit below the belt by a flying newspaper.
The video starts with a false equality by saying, “So your SPOUSE has invited you,” but then later, the guy in the video says “fellas.” He knows who he is really addressing.
A final note…this could go on for hours no doubt, but they said 96 percent of couples who have attended feel that it “helped” their marriage, or some such. What percent who have attended in the past 40 years are still married? That would seem more relevant.
With the possible exception of Bathrobe Wife”wife” in the video was very overweight or clinically obese. Including Afro-American Wife, whose husband seemed to be pretty jacked.
every “wife”.
Why are they all fat?
Question
That might be the question to put to modern Christian church leaders; what message do you think you send to young men about marriage, women, and relationships, and how does it encourage them to marry?
You would get a lot of … words. Then some more … words. If you want to cause some real red-faced consternation in the average church leader, let them pour all those … words … out, and then calmly, and politely, point out that the visible actions don’t match the … words. Then stop, but look him the eye. Smile. Wait. The reaction will come.
Because as far as I can tell, having been a guest in a number of churches, the best that men can expect from church leaders most of the time is benign neglect. No “man UP” sermons, but never any real encouragement, never any instruction to married women on things like respect, and peacefulness in the home. Benign neglect is a lot better than the “beatings will continue until morale improves” approach. But it still doesn’t match the … words.
tl;dr
Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of most churches range from ignoring men / taking them for granted to beating them endlessly.
Maybe it is just me, but the video pitchman has a real “used car sales” air about him.
Sure, that scraggly beardlette with the moustache and the little patch under the lip is sorta hip now, I even met a churchgoing man last week who was trying to make that work. It still makes him look a tad sleazy. Will there be 3-Card Monte at the Weekend, too? Will he be the dealer?
@Looking Glass
Reframining is a typical way they avoid discussing the matter, but while it may win the argument, it doesn’t convince the young men who drop out of the church as they age.
@ Anonymous Reader
That has been my experience in the past, prior to the Red Pill. Since then, I don’t bother asking questions.
I am sure others will see this, but it fits this blog:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/11/most-men-just-want-woman-whos-nice.amp.html
I can never get back the time lost watching that video.
Question
About those young men. It looks like between 60% and 70% of high school aged people stop going to church after graduation. That stat is common on the net but I haven’t traced down a real source. Maybe Pew or Barna groups have some data. Anyway, I’ve been told that yeah, it is a concern, but most of them come back later on. “They get married and settle down and have kids and come back to church”. Probably that was the Boomer pattern and the X pattern.
But the age of women at first marriage is crowding up to 30. That would be over 10 years out of church. Might be a habit by then. This is one of the things that suggests church leaders are not just blind to what’s going on around them, it is deliberate. They don’t want to look because of what they will see. Their eyes can’t take it.
For whatever reason, my FB account plays videos with no sound. Now, my browser seems stuck with no sound.
The thing is, I’ve found that often if you watch a video without the sound, you’ll often get a much different picture of what’s going on than with the sound turned up.
In the video above, the narrator comes across like a sleazy used car salesman. At every point, the video is mocking the men.
Interestingly, if you watch the Cheerios video with the sound off, the dad comes across like he’s faking the entire thing. Sure, that’s part of the flavor of the video, but at the same time, without the sound, he seems unsure of himself, afraid to make a mistake. Well, that’s how it seems to me anyway.
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@BillyS
I think a lot of men are starting to ask : “Is this really the best we can hope for? That our wives and girlfriends would finally decide to be nice to us?”
Attitude and ingratitude are the perpetual daily special on the western woman’s menu.
Unsurprising that millions from the next generation of men will invest their time and endeavor elsewhere.
Every time I’ve seen Love and Respect used it was mainly used as another whip with which to control the husband.
Even the best Christian teachings I’ve seen on the woman’s role in the relationship inevitably make a point to reassure the wife that “it doesn’t mean he can be bossy or lord over his wife”, thereby canceling out everything just said.
Either he is head, leader, and lord (1 Peter 3:6) of the marriage or he is not. You can’t mix Christianity with feminism. Its Patriarchy or Matriarchy, for good or ill, there is no middle ground.
@Gary Eden: “Every time I’ve seen Love and Respect used it was mainly used as another whip with which to control the husband.”
__________
I’ve seen that too. Even though I think Emerson made a very good effort to be balanced and to emphasize respect, I think feminism influences the church more than church influences the culture. The same thing with Boundaries, what could have been useful devolved into “every time a man says respect he is really just trying to control his wife.”
These could-a-been-good series all cowered to feminism overlooking two elephants in the room: 1) using various whips, like respect or boundaries, to control is a tactic used far more by wives than husbands and 2) no matter how feminized churches become, feminists still paint churches as patriarchal leviathans because victimhood is their source of power.
That video should be submitted to CH for most punchable gamma shivving of the month
Great Marriages Don’t Just Happen but I’ll guess his wimpy goatee did. I’d make a more constructive comment about the video’s content except it didn’t say anything about the actual seminar. Only that 9 out of 10 dentists approved.
What marital problems will you help me with, Goatee? More sex? More respect? How to assert my God-given authority? Keeping wifey on a budget? Come on, now, you have to be better therapy than a weekend spent with friends, games and two Franklins in order to get my business. And my friends bring beer.
I’d make a more constructive comment about the video’s content except it didn’t say anything about the actual seminar.
GunnerQ, you have to buy the package to find out what’s inside.
Number 1 Turn-Off for me on this video: Husband and Father as Stupid Idiot.
It has often been said on this blog that the church follows the culture in fashionable trends. One of the most onerous trends is Husband / father as Stupid Idiot. We get it. We understand it from watching the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, a bunch of sitcoms, comedy movies and ads.
We’re sick of it.
And now Christians belatedly get in on the act, long after the majority of men are sick of it.
Then they wonder why their churches are empty.
@GunnerQ
I think he was trying to sell that they are the marriage experts. That’s it. No further information given. The whole ad is farcical; pointless.
constrainedlocus: Attitude and ingratitude are the perpetual daily special on the western woman’s menu.
And women are proud of their attitude and ingratitude. I see women walking around with t-shirts that say: hear me sass. A modern variation on “I am woman, here me roar.
“Sassing” is a badge of honor among women. Sassing your teacher. Sassing your father. Sassing any man you disagree with. Essentially, being rude is something to be proud of.
Hollywood entertainment glorifies sassy young girls. A sassy woman is a strong, independent woman. Even though many females with “sassy” t-shirts appear to be of high school or college age, and thus totally dependent on family or government handouts.
I found this YouTube video about women bragging about their sassiness:
Reblogged this on Patriactionary and commented:
Ah, the churchian double-standard, once again…
Mother’s Day is this Sunday. If your church praises mothers on Mother’s Day, but blasts fathers on Father’s Day, time to find a new church: one that honours the Lord; one following the Holy Ghost, not the zeitgeist…
@Trust
Thing is, they are SUPPOSED to be patriarchies. But instead they do everything possible to wrest control away from men while providing cover for women who control their marriages.
Might be a habit by then. This is one of the things that suggests church leaders are not just blind to what’s going on around them, it is deliberate. They don’t want to look because of what they will see. Their eyes can’t take it.
Their guts and what little they have in the way of souls and brains can’t take it either. Because they’re callow, shallow, faithless frauds who can’t stand the thought of actually having to LIVE the faith that they claim rules them. The World is their god; playing church is just a way for them to take some of the edge off of the world’s cruder, rawer aspects.
“They get married and settle down and have kids and come back to church.”
Translation: better that they come back when they’ve made something of themselves, have figured the world out on their own, and can put some real money in the collection plate. Who wants to be bothered with broke, clueless kids who might dare ask us for spiritual guidance that we can’t even begin to give them?
Mother’s Day is this Sunday. If your church praises mothers on Mother’s Day, but blasts fathers on Father’s Day, time to find a new church: one that honours the Lord; one following the Holy Ghost, not the zeitgeist…
I’ve made a habit of staying home on both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Good luck in finding a corporate “church” that doesn’t follow the temporal narrative on both days. Too many collection plates depend on keeping vaginas happy in order to stay full to allow for following God’s design.
Historically, backsliding has generally been so gradual the backsliding people hardly noticed how far they had gone from the Lord, until they were confronted by Scripture presented under the power of the Holy Spirit.
To some of them, God’s word sounded like “idle tales”, causing them to dismiss it without much thought; to others, the word brought conviction, and forced them to “rend their garments”, and tear down their ungodly relationships (e.g. 2 Kings 22:10-12; Nehemiah 13:1-3).
To a backslidden people, the clear, uncompromised presentation of the word has always caused significant upheavals.
That is what awaits any modern day preacher who decides to present the Word without compromise.
“Sassing” is a badge of honor among women. Sassing your teacher. Sassing your father. Sassing any man you disagree with. Essentially, being rude is something to be proud of.
It is just basic solipism, nothing more. They like men who are jerks, and have tattoos, so women think this is what men want.
The fact that plenty of men are equally prone to solipism (effectively any mangina, cuckservative, or basic blue-piller) means that solipism is the least of women’s long list of inferior traits.
feeriker said :
Their guts and what little they have in the way of souls and brains can’t take it either. Because they’re callow, shallow, faithless frauds who can’t stand the thought of actually having to LIVE the faith that they claim rules them.
AND, they extol the sassy church fatties as ‘beautiful, beautiful, beautiful’ (three times).
This is manginatude, cowardice, and…….. a complete lack of genuine faith.
Nice post Mister “D”. I remember this Sheila Gregoire from another thread.She is Canadian. And what have I told the fellow posters here about Canadian wimminz?……stay the hell away from them. They are feminazis to the core.She is a snake oil saleswoman.She wears the pants in her marriage.Her hubby is nothing but a spineless mangina that bows to her every whim…….or face the Canadian Family Courts.Nice life?….Ya right!…No Thanks!
Cash and prizes without marriage: http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/archives/7296/
A Hall County man owes his ex-fiancee $150,000 for breaking off their engagement, a jury decided Wednesday.
The six-man, six-woman panel spent about three hours deliberating before ruling in favor of RoseMary Shell, who sued Wayne Gibbs for breach of contract after he called off their nuptials.
This news story is from 2008, but I just discovered it.
How many times have men been dumped by women? How many times have men been able to collect cash & prizes for being dumped?
Another solid reason for MGTOW.
Gregoire inadvertenly lets the cat out of the bag on the intent of these meetings and why they’re so popular. Women that support this sort of movement have no interest in doing what’s right to fix their marriage. They just want someone to yell at their husband for being an idiot. And if he is willing to go to one of these meetings to be yelled at, I’d say it’s well earned.
@Mark
You piqued my interest to find out who is Mr. Sheila Gregoire. This is him.
I don’t know if this bit from her bio page:
“Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20!”
is an admission that she needed to get her act together and did so after 5 years, or a shot at him for not getting in line for the first five years. Actually now that I think about it, what if it was the first 20 that were happy…?
The husbands getting “blasted” in another room would be a good thing if said husbands were getting blasted with the right things:
Hit the gym. NO excuses, lose the fat and grow some muscle so you have more testosterone in your system than estrogen. If that’s not good enough (because you’re past 40) then think about getting testosterone replacement therapy (TRT).
Learn Game and practice on your wife until she’s eating out of your hand. Start passing her shit tests and learn how to differentiate between shit tests and loyalty tests. If need be, understand how to use dread game. Reframe your relationship such that you are the prize she is pursuing, not the other way around.
Join a dojo and start learning how to fight. The confidence this develops is invaluable. So are the friendships.
Turn your back on the toxic doctrines of “mutual submission” and “servant leadership”. They are not only bad doctrines, they do nothing but hurt your marriage. Your wife wants to be married to a king, not a servant.
Get off of Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media, it’s the playground of the enemy. Cut TV and social media out of your life, these are mediums designed to change your beliefs and attitudes while stimulating envy of others and a desire for things you don’t need and can’t afford. They call it “programming” for a reason. Sitting on your couch watching TV is not a life, it’s wasting time. Time that you will never get back.
Make it your goal to never settle for mediocrity. Never use “what everyone else does or likes” as your standard of what is acceptable. The goal should be to dominate all the pukes who think mediocrity is acceptable.
Develop standards for your life and enforce them on yourself. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t do that” for yourself and “we don’t do that” for your family.
Establish yourself, take dominion and become the man that men want to emulate and women want to be with. When you reach that position of influence, teach other men.
Feminism delenda est.
I’ve made a habit of staying home on both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
It’s easy to understand and commiserate with that sentiment feeriker, but we’ve got to keep some scouts out also. Dalrock’s is the place where we can file the scouting reports from these annual events to see if the pattern will ever be broken. Naturally mothers, and women generally will be exalted on the day, and all males present will be admonished to increase their adoration; but what if a Father’s Day scout hears a sermon in praise and respect of fathers unadorned with what he ought to be doing better? It could happen, and reliable witnesses need to be there. Or could it?
Interesting that several of the commentors mentioned Emerson Eggerichs. My wife and I have recently been going through some of his video series.
I found him pretty solid, appears to be a devote man and one that has figured it out. My two critisizms are that he still throws out some blue pill jokes occasionally to keep the crowd compliant, and I couldn’t stand his wife. Otherwise solid stuff.
My wife has responded well to it and is really trying to emphasis her respect for me. Sometimes her actions aren’t in line with that but at least her verbal communication is most of the time.
Emmerson’s video on women and respect was almost 100% right on.
Anyway I was pleasantly surprised and thankful our church promotes his series. I’d be interested to hear Dalrocks or others opinions on Emerson.
Yes, but Churchianity has made its women the drooling infantile destroyers of civilization. They are the blind unknowing and all hungry Langoliers sent to piteously consume yesterday’s civilization with its reason and it sound doctrine based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The weaponized tantrums will not be stopped.
Re: Attending church on Mother’s Day.
Not only are scouts needed, but be encouraged. Not every church does the over-the-top Mother’s Day thing. It might even be fading in some areas. My church will not be doing it this Sunday.
Anonymous Reader @ May 11, 2017 at 7:22 pm:
“GunnerQ, you have to buy the package to find out what’s inside.”
That’s how my country ended up with Obamacare. Is this the same guy?
My Catholic church isn’t so bad about Mother’s Day/Father’s Day.
On Mother’s Day, praise for mothers, talk of Mary, and at the end of Mass, the priest gives flowers (as a gift) to all the mothers in church.
On Father’s Day, praise for fathers, talk of Joseph — and brief, additional praise for mothers (lest they feel left out). No gifts for fathers.
That’s the difference. Mothers get praised on both days, fathers only on Father’s Day. And only mothers get gifts. Even then, most of the praise goes to fathers on Fathers Day, so it’s not like the praise for mothers overshadows fathers.
I saw where Sheila baby said she writes for the Promise Keepers in Canada. I had no idea Promise Keepers was still around in any country. It cracked me up that any man would have given that organization the time of day, since Bill McCartney was its founder. Bill McCartney was the football coach at the U. of Colorado back when it was widely considered the dirtiest program around. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I noticed that not once in the entire ad did a women get laughed at all or hit in the crotch. I notice they did the not so subtle dig at men’s abilities, disparaging them as ‘do nothing low lifes’. The usual fan fair of men making silly mistakes and being goofballs that just cannot get a child’s toy together.
Makes me really want to go..
Search on Dalrock’s blog for both Sheila Gregoire and Susan Walsh. Seeing two conservative women up close; seeing how their minds works is priceless. The comedic value of the comments is also great. Not in a bad way though, some truly funny stuff!
My parents met in 1964. Mom was 18, dad was 29. Dated for six months. Decided to get married. They were not “church going Christians” but were cultural Christians. They took their wedding vows seriously. They never kept “score” on each other. They were poor when they met, but built something together (dad was in journeyman school / classes, and mom was a nursing student). Their “yes” meant “yes” and their “no” meant “no” when dealing with problems and each other in their marriage. They had a great marriage for 44 years until mom died from ovarian cancer.
I sent this video to my dad asked his opinion on it. He replied with “What a crock! if husbands and wives just upheld their vows before God there wouldn’t be a problem.”
@Gary Eden: “Every time I’ve seen Love and Respect used it was mainly used as another whip with which to control the husband.”
__________
This comes straight out of the narcissistic personality disorder handbook. They gaslight men by denying them the reality. “We did respect you! What are you talking about, that’s crazy!”
http://www.daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/gaslighting/
@FeministHater
If you watch it on the Youtube site, there are also several female commentors saying how “hilarious” the video is. Lol indeed. Sadly, one or two men also felt the need to call it hilarious.
Other comments above are correct. When I was a kid, The Simpsons was condemned as a TV show by Christians for how Homer was portrayed as an incompetent father, etc. Fast forward to now, and it’s Christians (this video, Mom’s Night Out) openly making fathers the punchlines of jokes and objects of ridicule.
From the video:
“And if old Betsy doesn’t turn on like she used to, well, it might be time for a tune-up.”
Because a wife is a machine that you can manipulate rather than a living, organic, sentient creature with her own desires, motivations, and temptations.
It’s mildly amusing that there are still people out there who think Christian leaders are foreign to psychological tricks and other manipulation tactics, i.e., Game. It’s just an older version from an older, less egalitarian, less Feminist, less effeminate, and less technologically advanced, society. It wasn’t Biblical then, either.
@RPL – Pretty much the same thing at my Parish, except no flowers for the moms, and only dad gets mentioned on father’s day. I can’t visualize fathers being bashed on Father’s Day, but then again I don’t go to Evang churches except maybe for a wedding, where instead of Holy Vows I usually hear the Bride and Groom express how awesome each other is, along with saccharine expressions of romantic sentiment. Pure Churchianity.
My church doesn’t acknowledge either Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. (Last year, the elder doing announcements did say “Happy Father’s Day.”) Mothers and fathers are held in great respect at my church, but Sunday is the Lord’s Day.
@Cane – ” Game. It’s just an older version from an older, less egalitarian, less Feminist, less effeminate, and less technologically advanced, society. It wasn’t Biblical then, either.”
+1. We aren’t going to clean this mess up by acting like pagans, which is frequently proposed by Return Of Kings. I find it risible how they publish articles on how to pick up hot girls and bed them, then in the same breath the complain that there aren’t any good women to marry. They even claim that it’s OK for men to bed as many women as possible, and that such men make the best husbands. I guess we should all be tattoo covered bikers, shagging as many women as possible, leaving a string of bastard children in our wake. That’ll save western civilization from collapse.
“Mothers and fathers are held in great respect at my church, but Sunday is the Lord’s Day”
I understand where you are coming from. Perhaps it would be better to say “Sunday is the Lord’s Day first.” After all, it could be your birthday on a Sunday, Would it not be your birthday that day?
Curiously, in some other countries, Mother’s and Father’s days are not celebrated on Sundays. For instance, in Mexico,it is always May 10.
@Frank K: Oh, certainly, people in my church celebrate these days–but never in church, just as I wouldn’t be announcing my birthday in church. There are no special “topical sermons,” no flowers for the mothers, etc.
Neither in my church. Just a greeting at the beginning to acknowledge if it’s a “special” day, and that’s it. Of course, since we have a liturgical calendar, the readings for the day are predetermined and have nothing to do with the special day. The homily will refer to the readings of the day, and not the special day. In this Sunday’s case, it’s the fourth Sunday of Easter, and the readings are:
Acts 6:1-7
Psalms 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19
1 Peter 2:4-9
John 14:1-12
I know this seems odd to Evangelicals, but the calendar ensures that over a three year period that the entire Bible is covered (if you attend Mass every day), as opposed to having Pastor Bob only covering his favorite verses.
That approach has some value, but I learned very little about the entirety of the Scriptures in my RCC days. Few attend Mass each day as well. The RCC may have merit, but this is a weak argument Frank.
We’re already getting heartening reports on past Mothers and Fathers Days in churches. Scouts out for this year.
That you learned little says more about you than the Church. I stand by my comment that Evangelical pastors cherry pick the scriptures that they like for Sunday readings, which end up being a small subset of the scriptures. Does your pastor ever cover the scriptures regarding wives obeying their husbands? Because you will hear that at Sunday Mass, assuming you’re paying attention and not goofing off during the readings.
Also, the Orthodox take the same approach, IIRC. Even Lutherans and Anglicans have a lectionary and the readings are not at the Pastor’s discretion.
I’ve met Evangs who had never heard of “pick up your cross and follow me”, which is not surprising as most Pastors would rather talk about escatology and “rapture”.
I’ll bet a dollar to a doughnut hole that Gregiore’s hubby is a closet queer.
Over 20 years ago my fiance and I attended a FamilyLife marriage weekend retreat/seminar. We were married 2 months after the seminar. Before the seminar we both had a high opinion of FamilyLife and thought the weekend would help to “divorce proof” our marriage. The seminar was led by a middle-aged African American couple with I believe 3 children. I don’t remember the names of the seminar leaders. We were given a workbook with seminar outlines and fill in the blank note taking pages. Much of the teaching was the leading couple telling personal anecdotes about their marriage, their children and how they were raising the children. I remember more focus on the children than on each other.
At the time of the seminar I was your typical blue pill, passive, nice guy who had my fiance on a high pedestal. I was taught to defer to and serve my wife. At the time I would rate the seminar as a C+, I did not learn anything new or anything that challenged my churchian thinking. My wife would rate the seminar as an F. The leader wife had a scornful, dismissive attitude towards her husband which came out in stories she told about him. My wife was disappointed, appalled, and disgusted that FamilyLife would chose and allow such a couple to lead a Christian marriage weekend.
The good news from this weekend was it thoroughly inoculated my wife from ever wanting to attend any other marriage retreats, marriage classes, or marriage seminars.
I recently dug out the workbook and looked it over. Surprisingly I found that it had a section on wives being submissive and this material was very good. But, I don’t remember the seminar leaders emphasizing that topic. FamilyLife uses lots of different couple to lead these weekends, the quality is very dependent on who your leaders are that weekend.
Side note; the workbook had several pages of short bios for the many seminar leader they were using at that time. The bios tell how many years each couple was married and how many children they have. I noticed that most of the couples only had 1, 2, or 3 children. Hardly any had 4 or 5 children. Disappointing that most of these Christian marriage experts were not physically multiplying the church by having 4 or more children. Years ago Napoleon Hill studied successful business executives and entrepreneurs and noticed that most of them had 5 or more children.
“Years ago Napoleon Hill studied successful business executives and entrepreneurs and noticed that most of them had 5 or more children.”
I read recently that a growing percentage of executives and entrepreneurs not only have no children, many are now single, never married.