On Wednesday Pastor John Piper published a response to a single mother named Anna who asked if she had a biblical obligation to marry.
My question for you is one that I have wrestled with since the birth of my only child, a son. He is three. I’m a single parent and have been since his conception. I thank the Lord for his work in my heart that has transformed my soul and lifestyle from where it was then. Now, as I attempt to wrap my head around the overwhelming task of raising this boy into a man by myself, I do not feel called to marriage. But am I obligated to find a godly mate to complete the model of family that is clearly laid out in Scripture? As a single parent, is it forbidden for me to embrace a life of singleness and ‘unhindered service’ to the Lord as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7?”
She doesn’t say she knows she came to be in this position due to her own sin, and she doesn’t say she repented, she says God changed her soul and lifestyle. She is saying she is saved, and not that kind of girl anymore. This is especially important because there is a very common tendency for single mothers to deny their own sin and instead say something like “life dealt me a difficult hand”, and compare themselves to widows.
Not only does Piper not address the issue of sin and repentance, but he goes so far as to make the rationalization himself. Piper likens her to the widow in Luke 7:12–13. He speaks in the language of the harlot, saying life has dealt her a difficult hand (emphasis mine):
…First, Jesus, the incarnate Jesus that we know in the Gospels as an expression of God’s own heart, has a special concern for mothers who have children to raise on their own.
For example, in Luke 7:12–13 we read, “As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” Her husband is gone, the only son she has is gone, and this is the next thing we read: “A considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.”
…
He says to her, “Do not weep” (Luke 7:13). The point of the story is that he has power to raise the dead. He raises the boy from the dead. He does it, he uses that kind of power in the service of compassion, for someone for whom life has dealt a very difficult hand. That would be the case for Anna. The first thing, Anna, is to take heart that Jesus has a special kind of compassion for women in your situation.
Keep in mind that this is a message not just for Anna, but for all of the single mothers who are reading.
It takes a village.
But then Piper does something even more astounding. He explains that married couples are the old way to make a family. It turns out that women like Anna are a sort of cutting edge Christian:
Departure of the Nuclear Family
Second, never think of the family — the nuclear family: husband, wife, and children — as the only or the eternal or the main family with which God is concerned. The church is God’s main family on the earth. In the age to come, there will be no nuclear family because Jesus says in that age that we will “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30). The nuclear family is temporary. The eternal family is the church with God as our Father and all of us as brothers and sisters.
I want to elevate this. She didn’t mention the church, but I’m sowing the seed for her to think about it. I want to elevate the local church as the expression of God’s family for her life. That’s precisely where she should embed this child in relationships with the wider family — men, women, boys, and girls — so that the child will connect in all the varying ways that he’s going to need in order to be as rounded as he should be.
The third is just an expansion of it. The church is where this little boy is going to find or should find strong, humble, godly men in action.
“In the age to come, there will be no nuclear family because Jesus says in that age that we will “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30).”
I never knew the Kingdom of God would be found in the South Side at the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd. and 19th St.
I guess the Churchian “pastors” are realizing that it’s pointless to thunder at the men to man up and marry the sluts, so now they’re telling the women that they don’t need no stinkin’ husband.
Interesting times.
The mental picture I had after reading this, and specifically the quotes, were of Roadrunner going “beep, beep” and leaving a puff of smoke. Piper’s answer seems so quick to go to his pontification that I wonder if he would’ve given the same answer to which car oil is best for a little-driven newer car.
“The church is where this little boy is going to find or should find strong, humble, godly men in action.”
Outside of orthodox, traditionalist sects (what the NYT/ADL/SPLC/WaPo etc. would call “extremist”), good luck with that, kid.
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Dear Dalrock:
This is precisely why we need to start enforcing Soviet or Chinese style sanctions against these people. They can rationalize anything in their deluded, peanut brains. In the interim, these irresponsible chuckleheads will raise up another generation of dysfunctional citizens.
No one so irresponsible should be allowed to raise a child. The state needs to start giving custody at birth over to married relatives, where such children can be raised in an intact home. Multiple babymamas (repeat offenders) need to be sent to jail or some sort of work camp, for wasting social services money.
Normal, responsible couples, with good values, should never be forced to subsidize these people and their poor choices.
Boxer
Reminds me of ABC’s tagline: a new kind of family.
Also, “I don’t FEEL called to marriage.”. I don’t feel like having my money stolen from me to fund your degeneracy, nor do I feel like tithing to cucks.
This is how the “church” acts as a microcosm of progressive governance by incentivizing out of wedlock birth. The “church” and pastor by proxy act as the stand in father so women who sin in this manner never feel the full and natural brunt of their sinful actions. It shows a profound disrespect for women. The pastor, usually a lifelong lower beta, gets to have his symbolic revenge against all the Chads and build his own pseudo harem, stealing the rightful possessions of the men who, under God’s law, actually should own these women and children. Then they wonder why no men want to come to church.
Piper’s blind spots are glaring.
Should of thought of that before you fornicated and brought a child into the world.
I see that statement as nothing more than a rationalization of the fact she has some awareness that she lessened her marriage market value.
And yet God’s only Son was raised in a nuclear family. This sounds like sinister talk trying to destroy the family.
The truly loving response of a single mother is to give her infant up for adoption to a Christian married family. There are innumerable married Christians who are willing and eager to adopt. Intentionally sentencing a child to being fatherless simply to fulfill her own emotional needs is sinfully selfish and hateful to the child. Additionally, she needs to make an explicit vow of celibacy since she does not feel “called to be married.” When Paul spoke of Christians who had the gift of singleness he did not mean that they could still go out and get laid whenever they felt like it. None of the single baby mamas sitting on church pews that I’ve ever seen had the slightest notion of that concept.
Seems Piper takes the same position on the nuclear family as do the cultural Marxists. Gramscian damage from the pulpit. What could go wrong?
I don’t get the claim of knowing that Jesus has a special spot in his heart for single Moms. That seems more like a virtue signal of the writer than a truth statement. It tells me that he wants me to know that the writer is writing with passion and gentleness.
Observed at former (pre-frivorce, evangelical) church…. Baby mama with three kids, never married. Constantly getting help from church members for everything from medical bills to laundry (church ladies actually doing her laundry and cleaning her house for her). Two different bio-fathers, both drug dealers.
Baby mama with two kids, two separate fathers. Still managed to get some (third) schlub to put a ring on it.
Baby mama with two kids, two separate fathers, brought to church by boyfriend member who was looking forward to wedding day (oh good grief). He was roundly congratulated by youth pastor for manning up.
Baby mama with five kids, never married. Left angry when church cut her $ off, immediately found another church ready and willing to help foot her bills.
Baby mama with three kids all by now-deceased drug dealer. Oldest kid followed in dad’s footsteps and became drug dealer (specializes in pills).
Four of five are morbidly obese… at least 250 lbs. All expect constant help from other church members, including financial assistance.
Church wonders why men are leaving and/or refusing to give financial support. Only response is to condemn “un-loving” men.
Of course, if this woman had felt “called” to marriage, she would then have justified her revolving-bedroom-door as a necessity for finding her little boy a daddy. So sad. Speaking of daddies, unless she used an anonymous sperm donor there presumably is a father out there. How about encouraging some sort of relationship between father and son? I’m quite ready to believe that he isn’t, uh, optimal father material, but unless he’s actually abusive (hitting), alcoholic, or in jail some relationship is preferable to none.
My professional life gives me a daily view of the wrecks that single mothers make of their children’s lives. DOJ/FBI stats are out there for whoever wants to look it up, number one indicator of adult anti-social criminal behavior for boys is being raised without a father. This holds true across all racial/ethnic and social strata groups. Likewise for female promiscuity, with girls following in moms footsteps. Intentionally subjecting children to a fatherless home is child abuse.
I get Piper wanting the son to be around church men, but that advice seems like a quick quip and is okay for the world he lives in, which is an extremely busy one that values niceness and emotion. In his world, things aren’t so bad, so we can use syrup to meet the needs of milk and food.
Jesus does not say in the “age to come” in Matthew 22:30, he says “at the resurrection.” Big difference. We are in the “age to come” (the church age) as opposed to the Jewish age. furthermore, Paul does not teach in 1 Cor. 7 that it is always better for Christians not to marry. He says “in view of the present distress. . .” (1 Cor. 7:26). In Matthew 24, Jesus had prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple within a generation (A.D. 70) and the heat was on. Paul said the “time is short” in verse 29, and that “this world in its present form is passing away,” meaning the Jewish Temple system of worship and sacrifice. There were Jews who had converted to Christianity but were betrothed to spouses who had not converted. I think the question Paul was asked had to do with what these believers were to do, since betrothal was legally binding (Joseph would have had to legally divorce Mary since they were betrothed, even though they had not yet consummated their union). Paul tells them that they can either go ahead with consummating the marriage and expect trouble, or don’t. But he tells them that if they don’t go ahead with the marriage, they may not take a different spouse until their first spouse dies (which is likely to be very soon if they stay in Jerusalem) then you may marry “in the Lord” (verse 39). This passage has been twisted into a teaching that being single is more spiritual than being married. This is stupid and does not fit with the rest of Scripture which commands us to be fruitful and multiply and always describes wives and children as blessings. Paul is warning Christians that they will have troubles with Jewish spouses, not that they should have no spouse. The word for world (kosmos) means any organised system. Peter uses the same word (translated as adornment) in 1 Peter 3:3 to describe hair and makeup. It is the word from which we get cosmetics. I believe Paul uses the word in 1 Cor. 7 to refer to the Jewish religious system when he warns them that they will have worldly trouble and will be trying to please their spouse. When the Romans surrounded Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Christians got out of town as they were warned to. Imagine a Christian, married to a Jew in Jerusalem, trying to convince their spouse that they needed to sell everything and get out of town. Is that not the worldly trouble Paul was warning against?
Nothing in the text of the New Testament would suggest that Jesus, St. Paul, or any of the disciples would ever have encouraged this form of child abuse.
And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
Do single mothers cause their children to stumble? Yes, they do. Do these feminist priests who encourage them cause grief for these children? There is no question.
If a faggot like John Piper wants to do something meaningful about this woman he champions, then he should offer to adopt her children and raise them at his expense. Anything else is just so much phony “virtue signaling” bullshit.
Boxer
Typed “single mother” into google, first three results are: “scholarships, grants and help.” Typed in “single father” first three results are “meme, quotes, statistics.”
I don’t know it either. I do know in scripture God has a special concern for widows…but as we all know single mother and widows are two different things.
– Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. Washington D.C.: 2011.
– Children living in female headed families with no spouse present had a poverty rate of 47.6 percent, over 4 times the rate in married-couple families.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; ASEP Issue Brief: Information on Poverty and Income Statistics. September 12, 2012 http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/12/PovertyAndIncomeEst/ib.shtml
http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequences-of-fatherlessness/
– The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, DC, 1993.
– There is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father.
Source: Hoffmann, John P. “The Community Context of Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use.” Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (May 2002): 314-330
‘Typed “single mother” into google, first three results are: “beta’s provision, beta’s energy, and man up and marry her.”
Fixed
Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.
Sources: The Lancet, Jan. 25, 2003 • Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, MD, Centre for Epidemiology, the National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden • Irwin Sandler, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University, Tempe • Douglas G. Jacobs, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and founder and director, The National Depression Screening Program • Madelyn Gould, PhD, MPH, professor of child psychiatry and public health, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; and research scientist, New York State Psychiatric Institute.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030123/absent-parent-doubles-child-suicide-risk
– 71% of high school dropouts are fatherless; fatherless children have more trouble academically, scoring poorly on tests of reading, mathematics, and thinking skills; children from father-absent homes are more likely to be truant from school, more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to leave school at age 16, and less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications in adulthood.
Source: Edward Kruk, Ph.D., “The Vital Importance of Paternal Presence in Children’s Lives.” May 23, 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/co-parenting-after-divorce/201205/father-absence-father-deficit-father-hunger
Boxer, but you (or at least I do), have to wonder if you put more thought into your post than he did in his response to her. I think it possible, and is a reason he missed what you point out. He was writing on the S level you blogged about. What was the other level? While you are concerned with content and comprehensive analysis.
Dang Earl, that really burns.
Everything… Every last thing… I’ve linked to here is tacitly endorsed by Piper’s abandonment of God’s plan and provision for the rearing of children. Christ said that in Heaven we will be as the angels, and not married. We are not now in Heaven, and God has told us how He expects us to order our families and raise our children. Excusing child abuse on earth because we will not be married in Heaven is a ridiculous fallacy. Piper would do better to reflect on Christ’s warning that whoever offends one of the little ones who believes on Him would be better off being cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck, for he is perilously close to being one of those offenders.
While John Piper is spewing out this nonsense, Mises Institute President Jeff Deist had this to say about the family during a speech last week. https://anarchistnotebook.wordpress.com/2017/07/30/blood-and-soil-libertarianism/
“…It scarcely needs to be said that family has always been the first line of defense against the state, and the most important source of primary loyalty — or divided loyalty, from the perspective of politicians. Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny, forms a story in which the state is not the main character. Family forms our earliest and hence most formative environment — and at least as an ideal, family provides both material and emotional support. Happy families actually exist.
But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected. So of course it attempts to break down families by taking kids away from them as early as possible, indoctrinating them in state schools, using welfare as a wedge, using the tax code as a wedge, discouraging marriage and large families, in fact discouraging any kind of intimacy that is not subject to public scrutiny, encouraging divorce, etc. etc.”
Piper is acting as a tool and enabler for the state and the evil it perpetuates against the family.
I’m a single parent and have been since his conception. … As a single parent, is it forbidden for me to embrace a life of singleness and ‘unhindered service’ to the Lord as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7?”
Huh? When Paul spoke of “unhindered service” I’m pretty sure he meant people not just unhindered by spouses, but also unhindered by small children.
So you can’t be a single mother, especially a single mother by choice, and then expect to lead a life of “unhindered service” to God. This single mother imagines that she meets a higher standard than that of mere married couples, that she meets Paul’s higher standard.
(S)urface and (D)eep are Chomsky’s terms, but it’s actually a common linguistic problem that goes all the way back to Aristotle. Frege’s Sense and Reference is an accessible modern primer on levels of reality when we translate the spoken or written word into our own primal image-language, and try to derive the semantic content of something someone else tells us.
I don’t believe that Piper can get off with this pleading, though I’m sure he’d try to excuse his virtue signaling that way:
you guys just didn’t understand what I was trying to say because you Dalrockians are all hateful misogynists, and you’re reading my words through the lens of your woman-hate etc. blah blah (these feminists are so darned predictable, I sweartagawd).
Aside from Frege, if you’re into a heady but very thorough exploration, you can check out Jürgen Habermas’ book Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas is a fellow Cultural Marxist, and member of the Frankfurt School (as I am, you know) so I recommend his work highly. A more fun, brief exploration is Italo Calvino’s novel If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveller….
Best,
Boxer
I just remembered something that probably plays a role. If his son has kids, then those kids are now being raised by a single Mom. Does anyone know if Barnabas has kids?
It’s important to translate this from Churchianese into plainspeak. For that we need the Q36B Space Hamsterlator.
“My question for you is one that I have wrestled with since the birth of my only child, a son. He is three. I’m a single parent and have been since his conception. I thank the Lord for his work in my heart that has transformed my soul and lifestyle from where it was then. Now, as I attempt to wrap my head around the overwhelming task of raising this boy into a man by myself, I do not feel called to marriage. But am I obligated to find a godly mate to complete the model of family that is clearly laid out in Scripture? As a single parent, is it forbidden for me to embrace a life of singleness and ‘unhindered service’ to the Lord as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7?”
Hamsterlation:
“I’m feeling really pretty guilty about having a bastard son three years ago – not because I feel like what I did was wrong or sinful and I need repentance, but because I’ve got myself into quite a pickle here. I’m a slut who screwed up and got knocked up by a hot douchebag who I was so attracted to I couldn’t help myself. But God is good, all the time!! and All the time, God is good!! God has really helped me out. I stopped having unprotected sex. I make the douchebags wear condoms now and I got on Norplant.
“Well anyway, it sure is tough being a single mom and I don’t know how to do this. I don’t want to get married because the guys at church just don’t do it for me. No way am I going to take care of a house for and have sex with some boring okie from Muskogee for the rest of my life. So, I mean, do I haffta? Do I have to get married so I can get a “dad” for my bastard? Can’t I just keep having sex with these guys— er, doing what I’m doing, and label it “life of singleness and ‘unhindered service'” (see what I did there? I’m going to give it a Scriptural name so everyone can see how Godly I am and stuff.)?”
How can she possibly think she’ll have a “life of unhindered service to the Lord” when she has a child? Paul says the unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, but a married woman for the things of the world. Anna doesn’t have a husband to please, but the bulk of her time will be spent caring and providing for her child, she no longer has an option of unhindered service.
The phrase “life has dealt a difficult hand” should refer to those who had no control over the circumstances – someone with a debilitating illness, or an accident that results in a lost limb. That is life dealing a difficult hand. Not people who deliberately do something stupid and whine about the consequences. These wishy-washy phrases are so annoying -“fell in with the wrong crowd,” “fell pregnant.” No, you “fall ill” if you pick up a flu germ. You got pregnant because you chose to sleep around, and you got into drugs because you chose make friends with bad people and purposefully tried drugs.
Dear Annie:
That’s a very charitable interpretation of this woman’s statement. I’m guessing you’re a disciplined, married woman and a competent mother, so (as Swanny would agree) you’re projecting your own norms on to this dolt, who is the subject of Piper’s monologue.
Back in my youth, when my standards were low, I dated single mothers. Usually their houses were a mess. They lived for themselves. On numerous occasions, I’d come over while five year old Johnny was watching television, only to have his mother straddle me on the couch for some action. It never ceases to amaze that I (a random stranger) had to stop such nonsense, for the good of the child, until we could get some privacy.
The typical single mom has so little regard for her station that she’ll have sex with strange men in front of the kid. Think about that for a while.
Boxer
Swanny,
Barnabas Piper has at least two children, both daughters.
Her problem will not be that respectable men who would be good fathers to her son don’t exist. Her problem will likely b an inability to be attracted to such a man. She was already impregnated through illicit sex with a man so unworthy of respect that he actually has a child he is not raising.
Having tasted sex and abandonment by an obviously sleezy man, a husband who would be a good father will bore her and consequently will be unattractive.
To thicken the plot, on e the child support and alimony are guaranteed, the temptation to cash out and resume thug chasing will be irresistible.
Her prayers should not be for a good father for her child. It should be for her unfortunate predilection for sleezy men.
Another part of that equation which I don’t see talked about nearly enough is the level of contempt and hardheartedness of a woman who has tasted fornication and abandonment. It’s an emotional heartbreak that I don’t think most men understand (but women will). The guy who marries her is going to get that baggage whether he wants it or not…(unless of course she’s gone to confession and repented of her sin).
I’d second that…I worked with single mothers in a previous job and if it wasn’t for my work ethic nothing would get done. They were lazy and complained when they had to do their job. They’d sure find their energy though when work was off and they went to the bar.
Piper does incorrectly compare single mothers to widows, but if you read the entire piece, he does encourage her to rethink getting married. He’s correct that she’s not obligated to do so, but a good third or half of that is Piper encouraging her to rethink and pray about this idea of singleness nevertheless. Though not a perfect piece by Piper this is far from the worse offending piece of writing out there.
The emphasis on The Holy Family as the role model for families can help Catholics here.
This is precisely why we need to start enforcing Soviet or Chinese style sanctions against these people.
In a democracy, unfortunately, the entire nation-state becomes subordinated to elevating these people. Remember, there can never be a mass class of single mothers in a non-democracy, as vote-buying is not a factor.
That is why the West is a laughingstock of the rest of the world. Even worse, the media messages that brainwash young women go overseas, into countries that are not wealthy enough to subsidize all these ‘feminist’ fantasies. In most middle-income countries, there are just not enough resources to subsidize a huge number of single mothers and make-work jobs for career women. But the US media and Hollywood normalization is out terrorizing the rest of the world all the same..
The best explanation is always to FOLLOW THE MONEY. My soon to be ex-wife is a member along with the rest of her family (including a single mother sister) to one of these New-Agey cutting edge “Christian” churches. The “customer base” for these churches is not made up predominantly of nuclear families wanting to hear traditional Christianity preached. If they hear that, they will go elsewhere.
One thing to understand in the modern era is that churches are just another service/product provider, and if you want to retain your “customers” you better provide the product they want, and that means affirming their lifestyle choices regardless of whether they comport with traditional Biblical Christianity. In most of these churches the congregation aka customers have a lot of power to get a pastor removed so a smart pastor is going to understand who and how is bread is buttered.
Dear Neguy:
I’d encourage you to read Piper’s piece in its entirety, and then to come back here and read Dalrock’s well-written arguments. Specifically, note this:
I want to elevate the local church as the expression of God’s family for her life. That’s precisely where she should embed this child in relationships with the wider family — men, women, boys, and girls — so that the child will connect in all the varying ways that he’s going to need in order to be as rounded as he should be.
Not only is this pronouncement contrary to the letter and spirit of the New Testament, it is precisely similar to the definition of radical feminism, which seeks to abolish the patriarchal family, replacing it entirely with some sort of communal child rearing. See Phylis Chesler’s nutty kook-rant, published with the appropriate title Women and Madness for more details.
Note that radical feminists are not necessarily contrary to marriage. (In fact, most radical feminists married men). They’re working against the social construct of marriage, and trying to replace it with something similar to what Piper is advocating here. The only difference between Piper and a kook like Chesler, is that Piper isn’t honest enough to call himself a male feminist (which he is), and that he wants his church to be able to capitalize on this new, radfem social structure.
Best,
Boxer
Piper’s problem isn’t that he’s taking a shallow look at this. He’s a (wo)man pleaser who makes money by telling people what they want to hear and avoiding offending them.
This question could have almost been written by his son, Barabas’ ex wife. She don’t need no man either anymore.
She is morally and biblically obligated to marry the cad she bore a child with, not some poor churchian beta. That child BELONGS to him. By not marrying him she has stolen his progeny. I doubt he would protest if she went to him submissively and surrendered to his ownership. If he wants other women too, that’s fine. She still is morally obligated to return his child to his household, and if she agrees to care for it I have no doubt he would provide for her shelter, food, clothing, etc. Many biblical families were polygamous in this way. It’s what’s best for children.
Also, remarrying and bringing a non-biologically related male into the home greatly increases the risk of violence, child abuse, neglect, and additonal divorce.
@Neguy
The other parts you describe don’t change the massive problems I pointed out with Piper’s response. Yes he says he wishes she would want to marry. But this doesn’t change the fact that he:
1) Encouraged her and all other single mothers reading to rationalize their sin as being dealt a bad hand.
2) Misrepresented Scripture to paint single motherhood as God’s new plan for the family.
That the rest of the response wasn’t as bad as the two horrendous parts I outlined doesn’t change any of this. Must every word of his response be deceiving for me to point out the worst part of the deception? If not, why are you criticizing me for doing so?
Moreover, the above two items aren’t the only glaring problems. I didn’t include every problem for brevity. Here are a few more: Piper claims she is a widow, and also says he can think of no Scripture that might apply, aside from words of encouragement for her new cutting edge family structure.
But if she is a widow, 1 Tim 5 would surely apply:
Also, as others have mentioned, he let her squeak by with a dodgy application of 1 Cor 7. She didn’t say she has no desire to have sex, she said she likes being single. Piper should have clarified the crucial distinction between not being tempted to fornication, and not wanting to be tied down to one man/submit to a husband.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, did not fornicate before she became pregnant with her first son to become a “single mother”. She already “felt called to marriage”, and was so faithful to her future husband she never so much as kissed another man.
Joseph, her future husband, knew how great a person she was that even when she was inexplicably found with a pregnancy, he was too compassionate to let her get the prescribed punishment for fornicators, which was death by stoning. The uniform testimony of those who knew Mary was that she was a great human being. Even an angel testified to that fact.
O no; this woman is no Mary.
It’s not their responsibility to raise the kid though…it’s the father’s. It annoys me to no end the suggestion that other men who have no relation at with the woman have to pick up the slack of raising the kid instead of finding the cad who produced the child.
You know, at some point, there might actually be good girls who don’t do all the bad things the nasty girls do, and you’d think it would drive a wedge between them and the church to find the following grouped in the same category:
a. A woman who marries, lives a long life, and is widowed late in life.
b. A woman who marries, becomes pregnant, and is widowed while young.
c. A woman who marries, becomes pregnant, and is then divorced by her husband.
d. A woman who marries, becomes pregnant, and then divorces her husband.
e. A woman who doesn’t marry, becomes pregnant, and then chooses to raise the child out of wedlock.
Because the Bible has different things to say about them.
a. To be provided for by the congregation.
b. To remarry.
c. The only thing that I can find beyond a life of celibacy would be stretching the “let an unbelieving wife leave” statement of Paul.
d. Simple doesn’t exist; women shouldn’t be able to divorce.
e. Is a harlot.
Piper engages in binary simplistic thinking so common to the American Progressive where he only sees two classes – angels and demons – us and them – and since he identifies with this woman, nothing she can do is wrong.
Frank K had it pretty much right up there. The shouting at men to “man up and marry the sluts” isn’t working. So now the exhortation is to the entire church to serve as surrogate family and all men in the church to be surrogate fathers. Now, the plea is for a man or other men in the church to take bastard children under their wings and provide for them what the cad father and short sighted, irresponsible mother can’t or won’t provide.
It would make more sense to round up the men in the church and form a ‘cad hunter’ squad…back in the old days if a guy knocked up a lady, there was a wedding. Now they can abandon their kids with pretty much impunity as long as they aren’t married.
I believe the nuclear family is eternal.
There is no reason to assume based on her comments that she repented or did not repent. Its unaddressed entirely. The fact Piper both assumes she repented and that being a slut made her a saint is expected and sad.
She is concerned with being a wife and having a nuclear family. It would have been nice for her to comment on giving her son a father.
Piper seems to be taking the doctrine of some churches that family relationships do not continue in the next life and using that to justify giving them up in this life. Its a whole new level of doctrinal crazy.
Piper is in the slow process of capitulation to the dominent, Female Imperative serving culture.
He is now an enabler of bad behavior, like someone who keeps “loaning” money to an alcoholic and I gah-ran-tee his excuse will always be “But what about the children?”. Babymommas holding their children as hostages will always work with tradcons and other feminist sockpuppets.
Piper is caving in faster and faster, like a sandbank collapsing into a river during the rainy season.
I will get to this later, but the Piper quotes are from a transcript of a live talk. That helps me understand the focus on emotions. If he were a friend, I would tell him that his response wasn’t up to the level of his previous efforts and maybe he should revisit it in writing later, since he made too quick of an answer.
Dalrock isn’t attacking him and I don’t need to defend him, but I can see him just trying to make the best of it for the boy by keeping him in church. He may be well aware of the stats for fatherless boys and thought his suggestion as practical, not theological, or as it turns out, even biblical.
Just to be clear, the Bible teaches that two people caught in fornication are to get married and never get divorced unless her father refuses. She’s not called to marriage. She’s outright commanded.
Lets call a spade a spade here gents. Piper is dick-less. He is no different than the women he serves, except for the plumbing, but that can be fixed with a small rubber band. Anyone here have experience with livestock…
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I recall Christ’s little comment to the woman at the well: “You are right when you say you have no husband. In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.”
…
The Question @ 11:10 am:
“But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected.”
Not just government. Clergy have the same desire to dominate and micromanage, to position themselves as, for all practical purposes, society’s God. As Piper said:
“…Never think of the family — the nuclear family: husband, wife, and children — as the only or the eternal or the main family with which God is concerned. The church is God’s main family on the earth.” This in total, open defiance of God’s creation of the family.
If your family is the Church and Piper is the Church’s leader, then Piper is your god. That’s what all this undercutting of fatherhood is: consolidation of power into the hands those who seek to replace God with themselves.
Every single church in the West is converged, because the church has no authority to discipline anyone. The sole concern is fierce competition for the entertainment dollar from atomized individuals who have a surfeit of entertainments to spend their money on. Like everyone else, pastors have to eat.
@Swanny
I don’t get the claim of knowing that Jesus has a special spot in his heart for single Moms. That seems more like a virtue signal of the writer than a truth statement. It tells me that he wants me to know that the writer is writing with passion and gentleness.
He’s hardly the first to do this. Matt Chandler ran with a similar idea when he was doing his god-awful, egalitarianism-masked-as-bibical-obedience “Beautiful Design” sermon series:
I did enjoy how on Chandler’s version the single mother’s misdeeds could be excused because she thought she was getting involved with a man, but in reality he was just a pathetic little boy and how was she supposed to be able to tell the difference? Mary Kay LeTourneau is probably kicking herself right now for not realizing that she could’ve told the judge that was exactly what had happened to her.
Link for Chandler is here: http://www.tvcresources.net/resource-library/sermons/womans-purpose
Reflecting over the last 4-5 absolutely outstanding posts by Dalrock, it’s telling commentary that the best defense(s) anyone can come with are variations of, “that’s not the worst thing about that subject out there,” “some of his other stuff is good,” “you can’t criticize someone’s doctrine who’s ‘down there fighting'”, “at least he’s trying,” etc etc.
I don’t see how there would be any chance that any boy would (or should) find Godly men in a church that tells women that they don’t need men. Why would there be men in a church? If they are not supposed to lead anyone, how or why would a boy desire to learn from them? If a family does not need a man, and this woman admits that women can’t possibly raise a boy to be a man, then how is he supposed to become a man?
You yourself don’t need a man, but maybe you can borrow one from a Godly family. They like loaning out their men to women who say they don’t need or want a man around…until they need one.
You can call it an anger PHASE all you want, but being angry at injustice is not wrong and as long as the injustice continues to grow, I have a hard time not being angry.
@ unsigma
You make an important point. Anger is NOT necessarily sinful. Anger is neutral; it can be holy, sinful or mixed. God is routinely described as angry at the nation Israel as they abandon Him to whore themselves out to false gods. He then brings them famine or plagues or an invading army to chastise then (to turn them back to Him). Jesus plainly demonstrated His anger to the money-changers (even adding violence to His anger). To state the obvious, Jesus did not sin by such acts of anger and violence.
Today’s heretics and soft minded women falsely chide us that our male, conservative anger is sinful in itself. This is manipulative falsehood. Anger in such cases reflects God’s own holy response to such great human sin and rebelliousness. It is a virtuous anger.
I think the bible actually teaches that we should be more angry (and more violent in the right areas) towards the evil we see in our dying culture today.
He could have at least told the woman that the boy needs a positive male role model, but if that is a bridge to far….
Edit: re read and saw that bit about having the kid around the church folk. Good luck there.
Another part of that equation which I don’t see talked about nearly enough is the level of contempt and hardheartedness of a woman who has tasted fornication and abandonment. It’s an emotional heartbreak that I don’t think most men understand (but women will)
Even more perversely though, I think some women actually enjoy the drama of it. Heartbreaking yes, but also emotional rollercoaster which is at some level deeply satisfying. A stable, lifelong marriage is going to seem boring in comparison.
But really, if Pastor John there feels unwilling or unable to criticize women like Anna, then the politic thing to do would be just say nothing at all.
Gunner Q,
A side comment, but note that Jesus’ statement indicates all 5 of them really were husbands. She did commit sin having so many, but nothing made the 2-5th marriage invalid.
GENERAL COMMENT:
I grew up with a single mother (though I saw my father every other weekend). I had a desire in the past to help children in my situation more as a church outreach. I have been disabused of that notion over time, both due to seeing the reality of the situations (from places like this and elsewhere) and my own direct experience.
My heart still goes out for children caught in that, but no easy solutions exist and most of the sin is in the hands of the mother, not anyone else. (A few case are bad fathers who couldn’t be recognized ahead of time, but that is far more rare than most claim.)
Our society is ruining the lives of young men (and young women) in cases like this. They do not get the proper connection with their father they should and men who do step in put themselves at more risk than most should take today.
We will need a radical upheaval to change things, but change they will since this is not sustainable. What cannot continue won’t continue.
“The first thing, Anna, is to take heart that Jesus has a special kind of compassion for women in your situation.”
No, he has special kind of compassion for children in that situation who did nothing wrong and yet will probably suffer, and unjustly so, the most of all.
@Dalrock
Piper’s comment reminds me of a blog post of yours from a long time ago when you mentioned some kid of divorced parents had told your young daughter that moms and dads sometimes just stop loving each other and it bothered her until you explained that the boy’s mother was an idiot who broke up her family. Some readers got riled up that you would “judge” the mother, even if to comfort your own daughter in distress.
How people respond to stories such as these, and who they seek to protect, says everything about their belief on marriage. Piper has made his position on that very clear here.
Seems Piper takes the same position on the nuclear family as do the cultural Marxists. Gramscian damage from the pulpit. What could go wrong?
What did I say about modernism in my last comment in the thread immediately previous to this one? This is just one more example of it. In fact, Piper’s response to “Anna” is now de facto church(ian) doctrine.
Welcome to the “New ‘Christian’ Church,” folks. Time to put your “heretic uniforms” on.
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Comparing single mothers (either by divorce or never married to start with) with widows makes no sense at all. My father died in a hit and run accident when I was 10, leaving my mother with me and my younger sister and a farm. My mother has, to my knowledge, never even been on a date with a man in the last 18 years. She says she just still feels married to my dad, and has no interest. She also kept and expanded the farm. To compare that to a woman who frivorced her husband or was never even married, is extremely insulting.
I would think the best course of action for a single mother not a widow would be to marry a respectable man and model a good marriage so the child can have a father and good role models, or else stay single (really single) and focus on providing for and raising her child. I don’t see how that is a church’s responsibility.
Gunner Q says:
August 4, 2017 at 2:09 pm
“If your family is the Church and Piper is the Church’s leader, then Piper is your god. That’s what all this undercutting of fatherhood is: consolidation of power into the hands those who seek to replace God with themselves.”
Outstanding, searing insight. I think this truly explains what is going on here, in literally two sentences. Well done.
Upon further reflection…. How, exactly, has “life” dealt this woman a “hard hand?” Was she born with an infirmity? Does she suffer in poverty in a third world country? Was her hard working husband killed in an accident? No… she voluntarily spread her legs for a bad boy who gave her tingles, who proceeded to impregnate her with her full consent, and who then apparently moved on to greener pastures.
Life dealt her an easy hand. Moaning and complaining about your sins having consequences is very much a first world problem. Telling her it’s not really her fault just makes things worse. She needs to develop an attitude of gratitude if she wants to get right with God, and telling her that “life” is at fault for her round heels isn’t going to do it.
I never thought of it that way…since I’m a man and I prefer to have peaceful emotions rather than the roller coaster drama. But I can see your point that some women are attracted to that type of chaos. Again it goes to the heart of the woman and her choices rather than if the husband/marriage is indeed boring.
Reading modern Churchians makes me really appreciate that burning heretics was the humane option.
Life is funny that way.
I went to a local weekend Piper talk several years ago, an acquaintance and wife lived with him a couple of years in Minnesota, and I have read a couple of his books. If he isn’t dying to self and a believer, then the gate is very narrow indeed. He said some wrong things on that response to Anna but he actually wouldn’t surprise me if he read some comments here and responded by saying those are good points and that he wants to rethink it. These guys are pretty invested, so he might double down, but at least with Piper, I think he would pray about it first. Wilson,who knows. I am using a few of the lame arguments noted recently above, acknowledged. My purpose isn’t to justify his errors, nor to say the errors shouldn’t be pointed out, but to say with him, I think it wise to draw conclusions only about his wrong leading and not his position or person. The admonishment some of you had regarding him throwing a millstone on kids actually seems the best way of putting it, because that shows concern for him as a brother.
Why do we make the assumption that the father is a bad boy? Does she even know his name? (Either because she did not bother to learn it or she doesn’t know which one) Or he may have been willing to marry her, but she wouldn’t have him? (The ones who did it to me weren’t pregnant, but at least one cold easily have found herself a single mom if she’d let me know she wanted sex.)
I find the notion of others raising this woman’s child or otherwise contributing hilarious.
Now here’s my own take on this. As I remember it, there was nothing wrong with asking for help in taking care of a child, usually from a family member. After all, there were circumstances, i.e, mom had to work as well and no one else could be trusted, so the kids went to Granny or Auntie. There the kids had a square meal, got dressed and showered, usually had playmates in the form of cousins (bonus if the cousins were of the same gender), and Auntie had no problem giving discipline when needed. In exchange, Mom would reciprocate by babysitting, giving money, inviting her sister and kids over for dinner, etc.
What’s different here? Looks like this woman wants others to chip in for her bastard child without reciprocating. Not only that, but even without reading the whole thing, looks like her family has forsaken her and sent her packing as penitence. Considering hardcore Muslims still stone women for behavior like this, this is actually pretty lighthearted. And how much you wanna bet she went on a mudshark rampage?
And I figured in other times, a church might still help her, but them they would make her cook for the weekend potluck, or make her dust the pews. Not today it seems. After all, I might not be a Christian, but I disagree with the Salvation only crowd. It’s only logical that salvation should come with a hefty price tag. And I think salvation only line of thought has turned these people like this woman into spoiled narcissistic dicks who think just by saying sorry, if even, will set them straight morally. And people wonder where feminism got some of their base ideas from.
@RPC
Being made in the image of God not only comes with rights but its equivalent responsibilities. If women were not responsible then Eve wouldn’t have been punished.
All must follow God’s Law. And both sexes must pay the same penalty for the same crime.
@Dry Holes
And I think one of the chief characteristics that distinguish righteous anger from sinful anger is that righteous anger never loses control of itself. Jesus for example before he drove out the moneychangers spent a long term making his whip.
@Anon
There are countless initiatives that spread this feminist doctrines around the world like the UN and heretical “Christian” missions that along with the good they do like Hospitals and sanitation they also push for ”woman’s empowerment” or equality. Hence pretty much every country no matter how poor is infected with this disease.
Along with LGBT bullshit.
Swanny, road is narrower than you fear. Have you had the faith and manefestation of God in your life to do miracles?
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Like I said, glorified harem.
You’re too light on these false prophets, Dal. It’s not about fear, it’s about lust and avarice.
People just can’t wait to be destroyed by their own hand and then blame someone else when the consequences show up. *smfh*
mom ejected our dad when I was only a year old. she took us to church twice a week. I don’t remember any man or men stepping up to replace our dad.
the sermons ring quite hollow when the people most motivated to deliver them don’t practice what they preach.
PokeSalad says:
August 4, 2017 at 2:58 pm
Yup. Very kind of them to reinforce Dalrock’s points for him.
I should add that all this went down during the 80s.
the church has never been a haven for boys like me, my entire life.
that was also the same decade no fault divorce was instituted. the cancer was already irremovable by then. people expect me to throw down everything I love and enjoy so I can attempt in vain to cure this shit? they seem very bitter and displeased when I laugh in their faces.
Dry Holes said, “It is a virtuous anger.” Almost. It is righteous anger.
@ JustRae
I’m sorry you lost your Dad while you were only 10 years of age. But praise the Lord Jesus Christ that you at least had him until then. Your mother sounds like an exceptional woman. Kudos to her. And kudos to you for bravely enduring the loss of your Dad. The loss of my Grandad (on my Mother’s side) when I was 14 was devastating to me, but his spirit lives on in me. I’m sure your Dad’s spirit lives on in you too. All the best to you, JustRae.
JustRae,
Comparing single mothers (either by divorce or never married to start with) with widows makes no sense at all.
You think SENSE is what might give pause to these generates???
Most humans are wired to elevate the well being of the woman far higher than that of the man, for obvious biological reasons. The few people who have evolved beyond this obsolete state of being (since women no longer perform the function that warranted this special treatment in the first place) are concentrated on boards like this one.
*degenerates
infowarrior,
There are countless initiatives that spread this feminist doctrines around the world like the UN and heretical “Christian” missions that along with the good they do like Hospitals and sanitation they also push for ”woman’s empowerment” or equality. Hence pretty much every country no matter how poor is infected with this disease.
False.
Some basic lip service to ‘womens empowerment’ in China or Russia is just cosmetic. The actual money spent by the state is virtually zero. You won’t see a larger percentage of the economy wasted solely to turn most women into either single mothers or career women in make-work jobs, outside of a democracy.
Even Singapore, which is a richer country than the US per capita, is not required to waste money on this…
We all feel sorry for the kid. No matter how you look at it, he’s got a tough road ahead, and the odds are against him. But we shouldn’t let our pity for the child spill over to the mother. She bears responsibility for this situation, and unless she’s in sackcloth and ashes over what she’s done, her “conversion” somehow seems incomplete. A generation ago, the commonsense course of action when a woman had a child out of wedlock was to put the child up for adoption. A good friend of mine was one such child; he was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, raised in a solid family, and is now a family man himself with four kids and overall successful in life. What if his birth mother had insisted on raising him herself? All hypothetical, of course, but statistically speaking he would unlikely have ended up as successful as he is. If women who make the mistake this woman did really loved their children, they would put them up for adoption. Children are not pets, they are not chattel. They deserve to be raised in an optimal environment, and baby mommas cannot provide that.
“The state needs to start giving custody at birth over to married relatives, where such children can be raised in an intact home.”
“Normal, responsible couples, with good values, should never be forced to subsidize these people and their poor choices.”
Ummm.
Or the guy who knocked her up married her. Now we have women who seem to think they can get knocked up and decide not to get married…sentencing their children to a harsher life than it should be.
First step should be that we rightfully call out premarital sex for what it is…a sin, fornication. Then we point out all the ways a child out of wedlock has it harder in life. Adoption or marriage (it could be perceived as force but nobody was forcing them to do the marital act).
And before somebody comes in with the rape argument…there should be an exception for cases of legit rape. The guy should go to jail and the woman and child should be taken care of in some way. Again legit rape…not fornication she went with then she regrets it because the guy left and she now calls it rape.
@earlthomas
“And before somebody comes in with the rape argument…there should be an exception for cases of legit rape. The guy should go to jail and the woman and child should be taken care of in some way.”
While I agree with the sentiment and reasoning…………….I don’t find this supported by actual scripture. Biblically, even legit rape of a virgin was marriage (or the obligation of).
Much of scripture flies in the face of what we “think” should be.
My family serves meals at a local christian shelter for battered women and their children. A couple months ago when we served, my wife talked to a woman who was pregnant. During their talk, it casually came up how our daughters are adopted and how we have a great relationship with their birth mother.
A couple months later, when serving at this location again, the same woman was there but was no longer pregnant. She had decided to give the child up for adoption after seeing what a wonderful thing it was for our daughters.
That is how us supposedly mean-spirited Christians help. We give our own time and money of our own free will, and actually help people. The modern way would be for the government to send her money and force a sleaze to send her money so the child would be stuck with two parents who had no business being parents. Children born into such situations tend to have children who repeat the cycle.
This truly makes a difference. This child’s entire life has been changed for the better, as well as their future children.
I was thinking more about the pregnant woman at the shelter and her great decision to place her child with a two parent, married, mother-father home versus the woman in the original post and others like her. It’s amazing just how far gone we are and how much damage the government has done.
Think about it.
If a pregnant woman wants to slaughter her child in the womb, the full force of the federal government supports her.
If a woman wants to be a single mother (i.e., create an illegitimate child who is disadvantaged from birth), she has the full force of the government behind her from assistance programs and child support.
If a woman wants to dupe a man into thinking she is infertile or on birth control so she can have an illegitimate child and extort support from the guy she defrauded, the full force of the government is behind her.
If she wants to dupe a man, including her husband, into thinking another man’s child is his, the full force of the government is behind her.
If she wants to kick her children’s father out of the home to move a thug into her bed while keeping her husband’s assets, the full force of the government is behind her.
If she wants to pack up the children and move them 2000 miles away into the bed of a man she met in a chatroom, the full force of the government is behind her.
If, however, she realizes she has made a mistake and the child is better off being adopted by a married mother and father, and she wants Catholic Charities to help her place the child, the full force of the government makes that illegal (as it is in Illinois, and I suspect other state’s to follow).
Seems the government will enable any kind of deviation and fraud that destroys hope for a child, and only steps in to prevent doing something beautiful.
Then everyone wonders what is going wrong.
Ill have to look to find the marriage thing in Scripture…but I believe rape in the OT was considered theft from the father.
Have heard Mark Driscoll say on a few occasions from the clips from his sermons that are online over the years as well about “caring for widows” and then he throws in “single mothers” as well.
A few years back, a pastor even called “Mary” a “teenage-single-mom”
I was thinking that was Driscoll…trying to convince men to be like Joseph.
Well if the child was produced by the Holy Spirit and an angel in a dream convinces me…I will…otherwise there’s an earthly father out there not fulfilling his responsibility.
I found it…it’s certainly Mosaic law, so I don’t know how this would fit into Christianity. But the rapist had to pay the father money and he was married and couldn’t divorce her. I don’t know about you…but having your wife be your rape victim isn’t going to make for a happy marriage…so it’s certainly one reason (of many) that it is not a good idea to do it.
“If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.” Deu 22:28-30
I do know in the Catholic Cathechism it is certainly pointed out as an injustice and an offense against charity, which is probably the bigger point.
‘Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.’ (CCC 2356)
I’ll get back to my previous point…fornication and rape are two different things. And I do think if a couple fornicated and had a child result…they should get married. The child has their father and the father takes responsibility for the act. Then we don’t have strange men or the government/church forcing men to pick up the slack.
Emperor C,
I agree and will one up. I give my respect to all of you for putting up with this at the churches you attend. I have yet to find one that is any different as many pastor-bators idolize Piper and the like and emulate the ones they idolize the most.
Don’t know how you could miss this from the very beginning with any Christian manosphere blog. Pastors whole objective is to AMOG. They are absolutely no different than priests. “Hey look at me, and pay no regards to the man behind the curtain.
Dear Earl:
No disrespect, but even if the bible suggested that rape victims = widows (doubtful), it’d still be a dumb idea.
That policy would incentivize women to make phony rape claims in defense of their irresponsible sexual behavior, and simultaneously encourage rape victims (actual or imaginary) to never move on, but to continue to profit from eternal victimhood. It’d keep children in homes without fathers (the minute the mother re-married, all the sympathy and money would stop) where they’d grow up stunted.
Best,
Boxer
Dear Earl:
Imagine, if you will, a suave Roosh V. style playa, who has been caught lying with the town ho’. He laughs as the charges are read, ready to take his beating.
“You’re laughing before you got to hear the joke,” sez the judge… “Your accuser has begged for mercy on your behalf. The court sees fit to grant the father’s request. For years he has tried in vain to find a suitable husband for his uncontrollable slattern of a daughter. He will now be your father-in-law. Young Sally over there… you’re responsible for her now… Rejoice! Meet your wife!”
It’s actually a very clever punishment.
Boxer
No disrespect, but even if the bible suggested that rape victims = widows (doubtful), it’d still be a dumb idea.
I don’t think it does. The only place I could find where rape victims were addressed was in Deuteronomy (above)…and it was nowhere near the same as widows.
If you take the statements from Doug Wilson denegrading “prairie muffins” with this advice from Piper and look at its fruits you will begin to see a horrifying fruit becoming ripe. Youtube blogger Cole Labrant, famous for his good looks, virginity and commitment to Christ recently overlooked all virgins also committed to Christ to marry older Single Mom Savvanah Soutaas. She is stunning, has a beautiful 4 year old from a previous relationship and used her wedding vows to slam anyine who thought Cole should chose an actual virgin for marriage and to lay her single motherhood at the feet of the child’s father for not valuing her enough (though she admits they never were engaged, married or even living together). She now says Jesus is King on twitter but nowhere have I seen an actual testimony. This is where the American Church is. The GOAL is to marry a single mother and ignore chaste, obedient virgins.
And it would be stupid to compare widowhood to sexual offenses. Widowhood is a specific situation…death of the spouse which the other spouse (should) have no control over. Sexual offenses are a case of injustice and harms charity. So the mosaic law had the couple marry to satisfy justice. If a child did result from sexual offense I do think adoption to a family is a good idea…or repentance of both parties so the child can have both parents. Other than that it’ll be a messy situation.
They do that now, to zero effect. They not only lost the culture war, their own parishioners ignore it with impunity.
If a change is to happen it will have to come from father’s. That or the church will have to first repent from feminism and worldliness, but I’m not holding my breath.
They do? That’s news to me.
True…in this day and age with many slatterns it would be. However Deuteronomy law was for virgins. I’d have to dig around to see what they had for sluts.
They do? That’s news to me.
Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I heard a “no sex outside of marriage” message from the pulpit. Or indeed, any warnings against modernist behavior that is contrary to the teachings of Christ.
@Carlotta
Youtube blogger Cole Labrant, famous for his good looks, virginity and commitment to Christ recently overlooked all virgins also committed to Christ to marry older Single Mom Savvanah Soutaas.
Hmmm. Makes me wonder if his SMV/MMV is lower than appearances would have us believe. Or, just as likely, those “virgins also committed to Christ” had not 425-point bulletized lists of what they DEMANDED in a husband, but 1000-point lists that no Christian man, not even a handsome stud like Cole, could meet the criteria of.
She now says Jesus is King on twitter but nowhere have I seen an actual testimony
Testimony, as in a public declaration of repentance and entreating Jesus for forgiveness of her sins?
Hah! What a quaint yestercentury idea. Repentance? Hardly. In her mind she’s done nothing wrong and the church, mirroring, the culture, has encouraged and enabled her in that belief. She’ll probably soon be sporting a t-shirt that reads “Jesus ❤s Single Moms.”
Carlotta:
Googled them both now (being European never heard about either before) – ouch… Poor sap.
And she is four years older.
This is good too:
They were obviously in good enough terms, but the option of getting back together for sake of the kid probably never crossed their (her?) mind. Or it did, but would be too much work I guess.
I’ve noticed that trend too…not only is she a single mother, she’s also older. Makes me wonder if in her eyes her husband is just another older child who she can boss around.
I’d say so…for one just looking through her twitter feed the guy has a tattoo and there’s a lot of making out photos…plus she is wearing immodest clothing Those things make me question the legitimacy his virginity…because even the strongest man could be tempted pretty easily with that scenerio.
My bet is that his virginity was genuine, or if not he is just really utterly naive, otherwise I can’t imagine how a man with prior experience with women couldn’t see her for what she is and get so blinded by a prospect of a *ussy to almost directly marry her, with a ‘bonus’ attached, if he has been able to get some before.
Most likely naive…my spider sense would think he lost it to her before they got married. Single mothers can be pretty big temptresses in that department.
Dear Fellas:
As a rule, I never criticize any man for making an informed decision that I would not agree with (if I did that, I’d be at odds with most of you instantly).
We should remember that traditionally, men had the right to take any single woman they wanted as a wife. A healthy patriarchy also supports a man who wifes up a single mom. Granted, it has the potential to lead to awful consequences, but grown men can make their own decisions. There are some social upsides. Her bastards thereby become legitimate, and he becomes the natural and legal father through his choice. I’m committed to respecting this, even if I personally think it’s a foolish decision in many cases.
I also try to remember one of the eternal truths, popularized by my uncle Sig(mund Freud). I don’t have a quote, but I paraphrase him as saying that most people don’t really want to be happy or untroubled. Most people find meaning in their lives by having pointless conflicts and meaningless hardships. They bring such things on themselves.
If this fellow finds his calling in taking up this challenge, then I have to nod and smile, quietly giving thanks that his lot isn’t mine.
Regards,
Boxer
Well…..as John Lennon once said about a man who “demanded” an apology for “offending” him about his flippant comments about Christianity in 1966……Lennon looked at the camera and said: “You can have it. I’m sorry. If it really means *that* much to you. I apologize…..”
I’m kind of now in the same situation here with all of this. They can have it. I read the Word. I have a prayer life that would put most Christian pastors to shame. I’m humble. I know “who I hath believeth” and I know that sin is sin. I also FULLY comprehend the consequences of it, and what *I* have to live with from the consequences of my past sin (oh….and there are many)
I am thankful and grateful I got through it all with most of my brain cells still intact. I suppose that is enough……
In the meantime, I am planning my next solitary backpacking / canoe trip for next summer. Teaching adults how to read. I got so many books I am reading. I am in the best shape I have been in since I was skiing almost full-time in college…….sobriety that has held due to Christ alone now for almost 13 years. Life is good.
Why at my age (almost 50) would I consider getting involved with a “nice Christian woman”? What is going to be given to me in all of this?
From what I can see, and have seen inside our Christian Faith and Culture. Not too much if anything at all. No hate on the men here who are married, and are making it work. A polite and respected nod given……frankly, at this point…..I don’t see any merits of marriage at this point for a man my age who has never been married 😉
It is a noble endeavor and it does say a lot about the man who takes on that responsibility…the Achilles heel I think in almost all those cases is the woman and her heart…especially if she isn’t the repentant type.
The last wedding I went to was a man marrying a single mother. Now I know personally I wouldn’t go that route, but I still congratulated him for taking on that task…because her child does need a father. He seems like a good character guy too with a steady job…I just hope she doesn’t ruin it.
Dear Earl:
You’re repeating the very salient point you posted a few hours ago. After your pointer, I also went off to take a gander at the twitter page. Yikes!!
My own personal experience tells me that a woman who shows lots of leg and cleavage on social media is, generally speaking, a very poor candidate for any man’s trust. On a related note, a single mom who poses for public embraces with her babydaddy is not showing the due respect to the man who took up the challenge of marrying her. That photo might be interpreted as her publicly cucking her husband. I would hope that any other women who have the good fortune to be in her position, landing a quality man after a foolish youth, would be smarter than this. By appearances, this woman appears to have learned nothing from her mistakes.
The most attractive feminine quality is modesty and chastity. This will always be so. A married woman who plays the attention whore is surely getting lots of attention from random men, but she is actively making herself unattractive to the only man who should matter. Smart women know this already, and foolish ones are generally incapable of learning such simple truths.
Regards,
Boxer
@Boxer
“If this fellow finds his calling in taking up this challenge, then I have to nod and smile, quietly giving thanks that his lot isn’t mine.”
But this is not about a singular incident, nor about every man getting to chose his own wife. This is being held up as a standard, as BETTER then just marrying some prairie muffin. This is the issue. These churches substitute the truth of the Word for what makes them feel good. This is something that Yahweh calls sin and deserves repentence and should be being used to keep others from doing the same. It has been turned into a holy calling with lots of them sticking the landing. So what are godly women to do when their chastity and obedience are denegraded in word and deed, from the pulpit and by those they would seek for marriage? You can not call out young virgins for marrying harley mcbadboy while not also calling out alpha christian for picking a single mom. The cream of the crop should assortively mate up or what is the point?
@Earl
“I’d say so…for one just looking through her twitter feed the guy has a tattoo and there’s a lot of making out photos…plus she is wearing immodest clothing Those things make me question the legitimacy his virginity…because even the strongest man could be tempted pretty easily with that scenerio.”
He has proclaimed his virginity for years and there are thousands of girls who would have loved to be her and they could easily provide proof to take him down so I believe him. She told him he was saving her, the wedding vows on youtube are very hard to watch, and I guess being experienced she could escalate things quickly in a way a virgin who was told chastity was a good thing would never dare. As for the immodest clothing, she dresses like his Mother and most churchian women.
@ofelas
She just trashed him (the Father) in her wedding vows last month. Very sad.
@feeriker
I think he has been fighting girls off for years so I do not get the 180 except that she is beautiful and appealed to his need to save her. As for her testimony, yes, an actual one. For the record I believe him. I call bs on hers except that Jesus seems to be granting all of her wishes. I have seen this exact thing go really badly in real life. The churches push this hard. As someone raising obedient, chaste virgins …it royally makes me angry.
Carlotta: just one thing, that appears both poignantly accurate and ironic, given how the woman got ‘diagnosed’ in here: the video with the wedding vows on youtube, that you mention, is labelled under category ‘comedy’..
Haven’t noticed your comment while typing. Yes, just watched the whole thing, and during her speech my bullshit detector went through the roof..
You can not call out young virgins for marrying harley mcbadboy while not also calling out alpha christian for picking a single mom. The cream of the crop should assortively mate up or what is the point?
I agree. However, they each reflect the same basic phenomenon, which is this: when it comes to mate selection, a large number of men and women alike choose primarily on the basis of hotness, even among Christians, men and women alike. It doesn’t help that the church lionizes single mothers and urges guys to marry them, but to be honest it’s always been the case that the hot babymomma got a lot more attention from the guys in the church than the chaste but average looking virgin.
The other thing I wanted to add, before I hit the post button, was that in that key way the match was assortative — both are very good looking, and obviously expect very good looking mates. It wasn’t assortative on the basis of chastity, but looks-sorting is one the primary ways that mating is assortative. One might expect that Christians who are morally committed would not be that way, but one would often be wrong.
It’s only my speculation about him losing his virginity…perhaps he did hold out for her. My sense was he lost it to her before they got married (not to another girl). I’m just saying based off her actions on the twitter feed with him…if there is a type of woman who could tempt the guy out of it with her experience, it would be a single mother.
And she is wearing immodest clothing at times on the twitter feed. Hate to break it to the ladies but a two piece bikini on the beach isn’t modest.
@Carlotta
I think he has been fighting girls off for years so I do not get the 180 except that she is beautiful and appealed to his need to save her.
That’s a good point, one that I’m surprised that I didn’t pick up on or think of initially, given that that was what primarily motivated me, decades ago in my bluest of blue-pill days, to marry my now-ex-wife.
If “saving” Savannah is indeed what primarily motivated Cole Labrant to marry her, and if she is as genuinely unrepentant of (or at best apathetic about) her past as her digital scribblings make her appear to be, then God help Cole. He is going to be in for a universe of pain snd suffering in the future. Nothing good comes from playing “Captain Save-a-Ho.”
I agree that many messages coming out today are very wrong, but we need to be much more cautious judging the damnation of others. King David committed adultery and killed a man to cover it up, yet he is called a “man after God’s own heart.” Peter cursed and denied his Lord, yet was restored and had a great ministry.
We are told to “take heed lest we fall” when dealing with those in error for a reason. It is easy to get very judgmental and miss the main points, even while striving for truth.
The Protestant movement opened many calls of heretics and Protestants were as bad with other Protestants as the Roman Catholic Church had been. The RCC had its own squabbles before that, with popes and anti-popes galore.
Men will be men. We need to argue for the truth, but not proclaim ourselves as the ones to decide who is destined to hell and who is not. I don’t wish hell on even my vilest enemy. Most who freely throw it around have no clue how bad it really will be.
Just checked videos and all. These two are pretty into themselves and feel the need to broadcast their personal lives to the world. Reasonable, grounded folks stay clear of this.
These two are pretty into themselves and feel the need to broadcast their personal lives to the world.
Welcome to the 21st Century Western World, default setting.
@ofelas
Sadly, and I mean this sincerely, I was holding out hope for them until I heard the vows.
@Novaseeker
Agreed. Looks wise they are a good match. However their MMV is waaaaaasy off and shoukd have been a cautionary tale that no matter how hot you are you drop in MMV if you fornicate. The churches have removed this. She actually gained points because she is a single mom needing to be saved. This is wrong.
@feeriker
Sorry to hear about your own cautionary tale. I honestly wish no evil to them, and hope they make it. Regardless, they set a bad example.
@Billys
I am not condeming anyone to hell, I am calling out a dangerous evil in the church where evil is rewarded and obedience is denegraded. As for David, he repented and he and his people were punished severly because of his adultry and murder. That is right and merciful and a cautionary tale. He was not rewarded and Bathsheba held up as a prize.
@Earl
That is a really good point. You could push things so fast with a naive, virgin, Godly man that he could feel he would be sinning if he did not marry her. Of course this is the danger in dating someone like her, she tried the exact same thing at least once already. They were engaged in 6 months, married 6 months later. This is the speed a chaste girl would not be capable of with chaperones and such.
@Earl
“I’ve noticed that trend too…not only is she a single mother, she’s also older. Makes me wonder if in her eyes her husband is just another older child who she can boss around.”
This is the same thing as all the female teachers raping and molesting their students. Younger guys have a harder time getting sex from women. Older women throw it at them right away to trap them because that is their only trump card. The young beauties are at a disadvantage because while the guy may take the sex and move on, the young girl who loved the guy and was holding back sex to get a commitment lost his virginity to a whore and he has now broken her heart. The whore wins either way. The odds are really stacked against chaste girls.
I wouldn’t call that winning. Being chaste for a girl is still much more rewarding overall than the life of a whore…even if she traps a man. Trapping someone isn’t the basis for a good relationship.
Earl,
I find myself agreeing with Carlotta. What must it be like for a young woman who defies the culture, her friends, quite possibly her family, probably her schooling… To come to church to worship, and hear the “godly single mothers” praised while they trail behind them multiple children by multiple fathers. I fear that many churches are in point of fact discouraging chastity by the praise they heap upon the unchaste. Now I am sure most of the preachers doing this would argue, “Oh, I praise women who are chaste also…” But how often do they really preach it? Furthermore, the unbiblical equation of the single mother with bastards with the Godly widow is a de facto equating the whore with the wife. If whores are praised in the culture, praised in the school, praised by her friends, praised by her family, and even praised from the pulpit, what message has the church sent to a young woman trying to remain chaste?
Note also, whores are not praised by churchians for having repented and changed their ways…. They are praised for the very fact of being sluts and the bastard proof thereof.
I often think that praise comes because they are afraid of the hellacious screeching they’d get from the whore if they dare call out their sin or tell them to repent of their sin. That’s what happens when you build up their ego too much.
The encouragement I would give a woman striving to be chaste is that it isn’t meant to be for human praise…it’s for love of God (and her future husband should she get married). While the whore might get a lot of false praise from all sorts of secular institutions I guarantee you most men will still find that repulsive in their depths while finding the chaste woman admirable.
“The encouragement I would give a woman striving to be chaste is that it isn’t meant to be for human praise…it’s for love of God (and her future husband should she get married). While the whore might get a lot of false praise from all sorts of secular institutions I guarantee you most men will still find that repulsive in their depths while finding the chaste woman admirable.”
I agree, up to a point. The best way I can think of to explain my thinking on this topic would be the infamous fathers day sermons discussed here so often. I wonder if chaste women hearing sluts praised from the pulpit might not feel like fathers do being berated from the pulpit.
Carlotta:
I can tell you’re a woman, thanks to your entitlement complex. You’re wrong about his qualities anyway. See below…
Have you not heard the story about the fool and his money? I am fairly confident that this guy will be a customer of the divorce courts. I say this not because he married a woman with a sexual history… Many of the regulars on Dalrock have done the same, and they have good marriages. Difference being that their wives are not showing tits and ass to millions of strangers on Twitter. Also, those men’s wives with high notch counts don’t pose for portraits with babydaddies. They are reformed and honorable, loyal to the men who stooped down and gave them the dignity of being married ladies.
With all this in mind, you think this dope is a good catch for an honorable religious girl? He’s an idiot who just pre-emptively squandered a huge chunk of his lifetime earnings (barring some miraculous epiphany is had by this unreformed skank-ho). Why would any decent girl want to marry him?
Chaste women have their pick of men, and that includes men who aren’t idiots like him. The writing is on the wall. His fate is sealed. Best thing that can happen to him is that she divorces him before whatever threshold lifetime alimony is set at, and he can get out without being completely wrecked. Don’t feel sorry for him. He did it to himself.
Regards,
Boxer
yes , the church is where this boy will find strong servant leading men showing him how to be an excellent house husband and support his career slut wife….
SATAN is winning
Found this…if he had the strength and fortitude to keep his virginity while jet setting with her and her bikini collection to places like Hawaii and the Bahamas before they got married…he’s a stronger man than us all.
https://www.instagram.com/Sav.LaBrant/
Speaking generally, would you condemn a person for pre-marital sex if they later married the object of union?
How about people who have to wait around to get married for lack of a priest or civil authority?
It seems to me that if a couple are dead set on tying the knot, they’ve got the rings, and everyone knows they’re taken, then they may be considered to be in a “natural marriage” once intercourse occurs.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3V.HTM
A religious or civil contract-signing would be important, but would still just be a formality after the fact.
Fun note: I know tons of Mormon liars who will deny doing exactly this. Strictly speaking, it’s sorta shameful, but it’s the reality of the sex drive versus bureaucracy.
Boxer
@Boxer…
I don’t know if this answers your question completely, but this is the closest thing I could find from the Catholic catechism talking about morally legitimate carnal unions…
‘Some today claim a “right to a trial marriage” where there is an intention of getting married later. However firm the purpose of those who engage in premature sexual relations may be, “the fact is that such liaisons can scarcely ensure mutual sincerity and fidelity in a relationship between a man and a woman, nor, especially, can they protect it from inconstancy of desires or whim.” Carnal union is morally legitimate only when a definitive community of life between a man and woman has been established. Human love does not tolerate “trial marriages.” It demands a total and definitive gift of persons to one another.’ (CCC 2391)
No sex outside marriage is still preached across the more conservative fundamental sects of American Christianity. But it’s just talk and mostly ignored.
About the only sects that actually have virgin marriage to any extent would be some with strong homeschooling communities and the Amish. But no guarantees about either one.
However these same groups often have a very sex negative approach to scripture which combined with the dominant feminist culture doesn’t exactly lend to sexually fulfilling marriages.
@Anon
I have no disagreement on state involvement.However there are feminists groups all around the world that has been started up by feminists from the west as well as NGOs and other groups that I mentions.
@Novaseeker
Preferability there are women who have both to marry. But if there be a distinct choice between average looking but good character and good looks with awful personality. People should choose the former.
The life script of a young christian woman is so obvious, one’s even bothered to spell it out with added gifs. How this remains a mystery to anyone can only be explained as willful ignorance.
http://faithit.com/15-real-struggles-of-the-christian-girl-man-hunt/
Piper suffers from a centrepiece of modern Christianity, that didn’t exist in the New Testament, nor in early churches: Nice Guy Syndrome.
I don’t think he is being deliberately unbiblical, even though he unquestionably is. He just doesn’t want to be offensive, wants this woman in church (she’s taking him for a ride: she won’t, or will leave the minute it suits her to do so). He wants to be ‘nice’.
Far better for him to say to her what one contributor (feeriker? ) said in another context:
“If women cannot control themselves, then the Saudis have a point. They should not go out unveiled and unescorted. They should not drive cars. They cannot be given jobs with responsibility, so educating them is a waste of time…”
Don’t feel “called to marriage”? Fine. The New Testament is all about being a spotless bride. You aren’t spotless, because you fornicated. So you have to repent and accept the natural consequences of that fornication.
Carlotta (and others),
My comments were in reply to the discussion more about Wilson and Piper than the one you noted. I had not read that until just now.
My prediction is that Captain Save-a-Ho is going to face some nasty times in the future.
I am personally concerned that I will be vulnerable to that myself. My children were adopted, and most rejected me as adults (except for one son I am now close to and another who at least had the decency to acknowledge the value of my input raising him), so I do have some protection against another round of raising someone else’s children. Ironically, any woman I might be interested had kids very late in life if she is still raising them, for the most part.
Boxer,
I was just short of the next threshold for financial payments to my ex-wife. I believe God told me He accelerated what was in her heart for that and other reasons, i.e. she would have done this sooner or later and hindering me further was an even worse outcome.
Texas is great in many ways, but it really needs reform in this area. The wife should not be due any financial support “just because”!
@oldfashionedfellow
What a classic blog postm. Lets run down a few basics of this “christian” girl:
She goes clubbing (modern Bacchanalian worship service)
She hates betas with a mocking derision
She has a gaggle of judgemental friends (bonus points if she’s the “chaste” one of the group)
She absolutely needs sexual excitement and hyper focuses on this alone
In fact the vast majority of her criteria is based on physical attractiveness
She’s and admitted terrible judge of character (bonus points if she can instinctively discern which guys are “creeps” though)
She openly admits to rationalizations of wrongdoing
She also admits to “accidentally falling in love” (sex)
Again her criteria begins with “handsome”
Her only possible idea of how to attract said man is through sexual appeal (lipstick and short skirts)
She refuses to engage in honest discourse (I like you “insert boys name” would you be interested in dinner?)
She typecasts all men into two categories: 1) Hunk Jesus, 2) Aging Loser
She’s an admitted drunk, and she has no ability to self examine whatsoever.
And last but not least: she’s ten years past her prime and aging fast.
I’m just shocked that she’s still unmarried. Why wouldn’t a 6’4″ rich alpha male devout Christian who loves kids want her?
In fact the only man she found accnotable was the Gym Alpha and she acknowledged he already had the “perfect” wife, revealing 1) that she doesnt come close to adding up to this woman and doesnt plan to even try 2) that even her idea of a “good” wife includes ridiculous physical appeal as a main quality and 3) that she will not settle unless she’s batting way above her own league.
I would like to say this is Satanic influence sockpuppeting as a Christian girl to increase social pressure on real Christian girls to become unreasonable, shallow, sex-crazed drones; but this honestly does represent the majority of females in Christian society. One needs only to take a short “fishing” trip on any Christian or Catholic dating site to see this attitude in full force.
@Spike:
Far better for him to say to her what one contributor (feeriker? ) said in another context:
“If women cannot control themselves, then the Saudis have a point. They should not go out unveiled and unescorted. They should not drive cars. They cannot be given jobs with responsibility, so educating them is a waste of time…”
That wasn’t me (or at least I don’t recall making the statement), but I wholeheartedly agree with it. ANYONE who cannot control their basest impulses, to the point where everything they do causes destruction to everyone and everything around them needs to be put on a tight leash, if not confined. Women, in their natural and uncontrolled state, are the rpitome of such danger. Until recently this was recognized, which is why a combination of rigorously enforced social custms kept thing under control.
@SkylerWurden, oldfashionedfellow,
That’s a brilliant take down of the article linked by oldfashionedfellow. I was curious about the level of humor intended by the author so explored the faithit site a bit since I’ve never heard of it. Now I know as much about it as I ever hope to, more than, really.
There is an entire category on the website devoted to humor – the Christian girl manhunt story however is not found there – it’s found in the “Inspirational” category.
From their website @ About Us: “What if instead of sharing cute kittens, Game of Thrones memes and prank videos we helped launch stories that matter—stories that have the potential to change lives?”
Yes, what if? I don’t think they’ve arrived yet since intellectually speaking a lot of the stories are effectively some version of just those sorts of things. I felt like I should be wearing beads and a head band merely to browse some of the articles. If an unmarried man reads through the “relationship” posts he will be inspired to immediately join MGTOW for life. The female authors are feminists in the mold of: She lives to serve the Lord, experience the world, and eat macaroni and cheese in between capturing life’s greatest moments on one of her favorite cameras..(Bri Lamm) *Checks again* the male authors are feminists also.
Anyhow, if any man decides to start studying there regularly I won’t judge him. Peace, love, out.
But if there be a distinct choice between average looking but good character and good looks with awful personality. People should choose the former.
I think most serious Christians would agree with the “should” in theory, but almost no Christians, serious or otherwise, actually *do* that. Hot is hugely important, it trumps most other things, and, in my observations over the past 30 years or so in various churches, people are generally much more likely to overlook lacks in other areas than they are to overlook lacks in hotness, at least relative to their own attractiveness. Does this lead to problems? Yes, it does, but it’s how people generally speaking are when they are choosing mates.
The thing about LaBrant that is interesting is why pick this specific superhottie? I mean he’s a very attractive guy, right, so he could have picked another more Christian superhottie, right? Surely there are superhotties out there who are just as hot as she is but who are not 4 years older single mothers, right? Something seems amiss there. Perhaps LaBrant is very physically attractive but not as attractive in other ways from the masculine point of view such that the more Christian and moral superhotties were not as interested in him after getting to know him? Perhaps he has other personality quirks that are not obvious which led him to prefer this situation to others? Perhaps a part of it is, as has been suggested, the desire to “save” her in a way, but one has to wonder — it’s awfully convenient that the woman he chose to “save” also happens to be drop dead gorgeous, isn’t it?
oldfashionedfellow says:
August 6, 2017 at 2:11 am
Re: http://faithit.com/15-real-struggles-of-the-christian-girl-man-hunt/
What is astounding about this article is that ALL of her metaphors are New-Age and occult in origin:
“…it feels like you might as well be looking for an iridescent unicorn with golden wings, a diamond-tip horn, and a mane of silk-spun Egyptian cotton…that eats rainbows as it poops glitter….
So if you haven’t already scored Mr. Right (or settled for less than the rainbow-eating, glitter-pooping unicorn), then these struggles are probably the saga of your dating life….”
Add to that “short skirts are the devil’s playground”,as well as the devil figure making snow angels, and this article gives me the occult creeps* .
She doesn’t have a Christian man in her life because she is not a serious Christian woman. The first criterion of ANYONE following the Lord – who took our reconciliation with Him so seriously He entered humanity and died for us – is to take Scripture seriously.
*a spiritual gift that I have. I can very often and very intensely detect evil presences – in symbols, people, places, practices. It became a part of my life after my recent (4 years ago) re-conversion to Christ after a decade of atheism. Why, I don’t know. It just is. It makes my life awkward in a sense: my family and friends don’t / didn’t understand why I won’t do some things, go some places, enter some buildings, watch some movies, even when I explain it to them. The good thing is that 1) I witness to them about Christ and 2) when they look up whatever it is, they invariably find out that it has an occult origin /lore/ background story to it.
The repentance piece is the key, and it is, of course silly to argue that the nuclear family is somehow obsolete.
Ideals exist for a reason, and when you fail to meet that standard, you acknowledge the choices you made to get there, repent of them and then pray for mercy–a second chance.
It may or may not come. But that’s unrelated to the ideal existing.
Almost forgot–Ljubomir Farms will be adding another ranch hand soon (read to the end)
https://ljubomirfarms.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/move-trip-and-back-to-work/
Welcome back Scott, missed you! Hope everything is going well.
Thanks. Had a lot going on second half of June and all of July.
Still haven’t had internet turned on at the house, so I’ve been using my phone for everything.
Also had a weird interaction with a colleague about my online presence that made me figure the main blog wasn’t worth it.
I did notice a lack of anything referring to Jesus and a lot of superficiality. That’s pretty much the life script of a lot of young Christian women. Do these women even pray for God’s help/will in finding a husband?
Dear Novaseeker:
I think Blondie is reasonably attractive, but she’s not perfect. To me, she has the minimal chest and ass of a 14-year old girl. She also has a weird looking face. Her eyes are too far apart, or something. She looks like a newt or a salamander.
He picked her for the same reason she picked him — their first choices couldn’t stand them. It is the assortative mating that Carlotta denies, above.
Why didn’t blondie marry the father of her kid? She obviously still wants to, with lovey-dovey father’s day photos with him, for all to see on her twitter page. (Nicely humiliating her husband lol.)
Blondie didn’t marry babydaddy because he didn’t ask her to marry him. He didn’t ask her because he couldn’t stand her. Babydaddy knew too much about her character and personality, and hit the bricks when the opportunity arrived.
She must be just as awful as we all know she is, given that babydaddy abandoned an opportunity to raise his own son. If we were in his shoes, we’d probably understand the details. It’s enough to realize that a man found it preferable to just pay 20 years of child support, and he counts himself lucky that’s the extent of the interaction he’s forced to have with her.
Regards,
Boxer
Dear Carlotta:
Would you really want this attention-seeking dolt as a son-in-law? That’s not a trick question, and it’s not rhetorical.
Your girls will be able to find a high-quality man, who is serious about living the discipline of Christianity. He will have a real job and a future. Minor youtube celebrities with captain-save-a-ho complexes and cuckold fetishes are beneath your kids.
As Anton LaVey used to say, water seeks its own level. Blondie will work as a nanny or a housekeeper in one of your daughter’s houses. That’s exactly as it should be.
Regards,
Boxer
“I did notice a lack of anything referring to Jesus and a lot of superficiality. That’s pretty much the life script of almost all young churchian women. ”
FIFY.
Do these women even pray for God’s help/will in finding a husband?
No. Serious conversations with God are something churchians can’t be bothered with, except when they’ve gotten themselves into trouble and need a quick bailout, in which case they suddenly DEMAND that God start paying attention to their every word. “Prayer” is, otherwise, just flowery words spoken for show on Sunday morning.
The prayer meeting is all but dead in church today…..even the ones that claim to be “bold” for Jesus. When I have suggested “prayer meetings” at my local Corps…..all I get is “no one will come” and “people are praying constantly all day today”
What it means to me is that it is indeed all “talk”
They don’t believe in prayer, and the prayers they pray are microwave prayers. Give me the results in under three minutes, because “I am so busy”
Decomplicating your life for Christ is not easy. I am busier than ever, but I also now have time for God and myself. Kicking FB to the curb, cutting out people and places that hinder my walk with Christ. Asking myself objectively “Is (insert any situation) going to actually benefit my time, and will it compromise my walk with Him?”
Turning OFF the cellphone at work. Turning it OFF during evening devotional and prayer.
God expects our attention. I am tired of hearing Christians and pastors say “Jesus would have LOVED an iphone”
Brother Scott:
Someday, I hope that the main blog reappears, even if it’s just as an archive of old tributes, published anonymously.
The fact that it was so tasteful, accessible and polite is what made our enemies so angry. It was effective, and truly subversive work you were doing. You have a gift, and you shouldn’t hide it.
Best,
Boxer
I’ll echo Boxer’s statement…just because they look good superficially doesn’t mean they have good hearts. If your daughters are obedient, chaste virgins…they will have no problem attracting the right guy and will make the ones who aren’t good for them quickly disappear.
And if I might take it to a higher level…if they are that way because they love the Lord and know it pleases Him…all the more to do it. They should have that same love and motivation to their future husband.
And to further clarify…virginity is a physical trait, chastity is a virtue in the heart. You can have unchaste virgins and you can have people who aren’t virgins but repented and are striving to live a chaste life with the help from the grace of God. If he was indeed a virgin before marriage…look at those photos and tell me if he is displaying chastity.
Positing the local church as Gods family for you denigrates the actual family and fits right with the amog/cuck theory of church. It’s no wonder they are so quick to ruin marriages and marital sex.
@Jason:
Your suggestion & the response runs into the core issues within the Modern Church: it simply isn’t “safe”. There is no one there you can trust properly because it’s still a vanity competition. This is the core issue when Christ isn’t “in charge” and the Women run the show. Everyone instinctively understands it isn’t worth sticking your neck out, as only the Lord is even on your side.
The prayer meeting is all but dead in church today…..even the ones that claim to be “bold” for Jesus. When I have suggested “prayer meetings” at my local Corps…..all I get is “no one will come” and “people are praying constantly all day today”
One of the very few –in fact, probably ONLY– “Churchian Oprah Book of the Month Club” books used in place of the Bible for “Bible Study” that I found worth the money spent and that I enjoyed reading was Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. I HIGHLY recommend it to anybody who wants to see how powerful a force prayer –REAL prayer– can be in a church.
In the book, Cymbala describes how he, in a moment of desperation, when he was at his lowest ebb as a new pastor of an impoverished inner-city church, when he felt like an abject failure, his church falling apart all around him, got down on his knees weeping, begging God to guide him and heal his broken church. He says it was the moment that changed his life AND his church.
From that point on, weekly prayer meetings became the primary focus of his efforts. These were meetings focused EXCLUSIVELY on prayer. No singing, no messages, no Bible study, just prayer. Whatever needs members of the group had were the subject of prayer. Fervent, focused, deeply personal prayer. And, according to Cymbala, God never failed to answer these prayers. When people pray in their most desperate hour, when prayer is from the depths of the heart and soul, God listens. The Holy Spirit’s presence is unmistakeable. Cymbala laments the fact that, incredibly, ths is the type of thing most Christians today just can’t get excited about or make time for in their own churches. And then they wonder why their churches are practically morgues, or are devoid of the Holy Spirit.*
I am tired of hearing Christians and pastors say “Jesus would have LOVED an iphone”
I’d be tempted to walk –no, RUN– away from any Christian (and their church) who made such a statement.
(*The pastor of the tiny Baptist church I was attending at the time was, shall we say, “less than enthusiastic” about Cymbala’s book [that being the case, I still have no idea why he chose it for our men’s “Bible Study”] and glossed over many of the messages that obviously made him uncomfortable – even though they were screaming out lessons on how to fix his own badly broken church [which, AFAIK, is still in the same condition today].)
We had a refreshing homily at church today, it wasn’t from the church of nice (or churchian)…a priest which stressed that what Jesus said is the most important thing (today was the feast of the Transfiguration….the verse included the Father saying ‘Listen to Him’) and that we need to serve Him. Jesus won’t tell us what we’d like to hear, but what we need to hear.
That’s the whole reason why Christianity exists. Trying to turn it into a secular get together fun time will make it no different from going to a bar or a bowling league.
Thanks for the encouragement men and the book suggestion. The men’s group I belong to at my Corps just finished “The End of Me” by Pastor Kyle Idleman. It was a boring read. How this man has one of the “fastest growing churches” in the USA is beyond me. A whole chapter about how men don’t ask for directions from their wise n’ wonderful wives and daughters was really spreading it thick. At one point a said aloud as we were reading it “It’s getting real deep in here”
Is there any church out there that doesn’t “talk” about God and actually WORSHIPS Him?
An Australian vegan cafe is charging men 18% more than it charges women, as a protest against the “gender pay gap”: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4176712/men-tax-pay-more-melbourne-cafe/
A CAFE is making waves after it began charging blokes more money in a bid to close the gender pay gap.
The feminist vegan owner of Handsome Her eatery in Melbourne, Australia, is making them pay an 18 per cent “man tax” as well as giving women priority over seating.
Owner Alex O’Brien told Broadsheet website: “I do want people to think about it, because we’ve had this (pay discrepancy) for decades and decades and we’re bringing it to the forefront of people’s minds.
“I like that it is making men stop and question their privilege a little bit.”
Isn’t this illegal? If a cafe had a policy of charging women more, and seating men first, they’d be charged with gender discrimination, no?
An Australian vegan cafe is charging men 18% more than it charges women, as a protest against the “gender pay gap”: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4176712/men-tax-pay-more-melbourne-cafe/
Given that the typical “vegan” is an SJW tard who has a gnat’s understanding of economics (or anything else about life in the real world), my visceral reaction to this story is to respond with “Sofaking what?” However, it would be interesting to see if any of these morons has the common(?) sense to 1) just take their money elsewhere where the owners of another vegan restaurant have better sense than to make business decisions so stupid and destructive to their bank accounts, or 2) start their own vegan restaurant.
is there any church out there that doesn’t “talk” about God and actually WORSHIPS Him?
Yes, but finding it usually means being invited to someone’s home on Sunday morning (or a weeknight).
How this man has one of the “fastest growing churches” in the USA is beyond me
That’s easy to answer: he panders to women. That’s pretty much all it takes these days.
They would…and be forced out of business quickly. My guess is with this business tactic he’ll go out of business naturally unless it is propped up by the government somehow.
I learn better if I play with something on my tablet when listen to a teacher, whatever the topic. Claiming I must sit their in rapt attention the entire time is very unproductive and sounds more like a spiritual luddism than wise counsel.
How you learn is not the point. Devotion to God and His Word is. Deal with the latter more than the former.
You could have plenty of people in a service with no mobile devices in sight and still have a very dead or even hostile environment.
Does it really matter what Piper says? I see him as just a beta cuck trying to appease women in order to keep them in his churches
I left the “church” because of pastors like him, the atmosphere is so anti-male now, it ain’t even funny
Oops! new to this wordpress blog thing….i sent my comment and it immediately disappeared
Help, did I do something wrong?
[D: It just held your first commetents in moderation until you have one that has been approved. Now they should go straight through.]
BillyS
Subjective. You also could be in a room with a thousand people and still be lonely. I had a coworker who once insisted that if he was allowed “to sleep” during meetings when I was at IBM that he would understand the memorandum and minutes “better” when reviewed them later. He was granted this because he was a snowflake and he was the weakest link in the department, but boy he was convinced he was the best.
Reading God’s Word isn’t some trite thing. As more mature Christians we know the power His Word has and delivers. Distractions need to be put away. Even Jesus with Mary and Martha wanted an attentive attitude and not to be puttering around with other things and situations. A Bible study should have a variety of methods of how we learn. Men at times will have to put the toys away and listen. Sometimes they can be used and applied. Thing is, we have to learn how to learn in applicable ways and yes, sometimes try to learn in a way we don’t like or are not use to. I prefer a more traditional approach but that has not stopped me from other methods. Your statement about devotion to God’s Word is like when a praise leader say s “we stand on His promises” and after the service you ask “what does Christ promise?” And you get a blank stare. Devotion to the Word at times takes a devotion from us to give it all our attention.
I slept my way through grad school, so I represent that remark!
Actually I can pick things up very quickly and that is what made up for my inability to stay awake during classes and such. I take some meds that help with that now, but I am not the norm.
My point was just that claiming “no electronics” is not necessarily wise. I may have disengaged from your talk if I do that in your meeting, but I am more likely to be paying more attention as my mind will go off someplace else if I just have to stare at you the whole time.
Sleeping does not help anyone take in anything, whatever the claims made. You have to be awake to heard what is going on, at least in the general case. Just because that guy was idiotic doesn’t negate my point.
Shaming me into just staring at you will not help any of us anymore than shaming me for being male will.
Though I would ask how much have people read (or listened to in my case) the Word and preachers? I would bet most do far less than a small sliver of what I have done. I usually put that on as background while doing other things, when others would be listening to worldly music or nothing at all. That may factor into my stance and how things work with me. I don’t fit many man-made holes. I am unusual, even if I am not a complete snowflake.
@Billy S
My apologies.
@Boxer and Earl
Encouragement appreciated.
Question: what does one do with the single mother that accepts her sin?
My suggestion is to marry her off to an older man who has children.
Ron,
My suggestion is to marry her off to an older man who has children.
What protections are in place for the older man?
I note that you said “marry her off“. Remember that such terminology is woefully obsolete, since the ‘off’ suffix implies the permanence of the marriage. Under modern laws, there is no such permanence.
Don’t let the presence of the M-word fool you about the nature of the government contract that lies beneath the surface. Too many Christians are still completely fooled by that, just because the M-word is used..
No problem Carlotta. I realized it would sound odd as I was reading through the other replies.
They made their bed, let them lie in it.
It is commonly observed that there are enough thirsty betas out there for any woman to marry if she wishes.
But finding a godly man or one she’s attracted to will be difficult to impossible. Most who would take her would only be made miserable. The only solution given in scripture for repentant feminists is the unspeakable of Isaiah 4.
How to protect innocent young men looking to raise the next generation is the more important question. How can we make marriage safe again?
earlthomas786: Deuteronomy 22:28 is not referring to rape. If it were, the penalty would be death. It is describing seduction with her consent. Here is Gill’s commentary on the verse: “and lay hold on her, and lie with her, she yielding to it, and so is not expressive of a rape, as Deuteronomy 22:25 where a different word from this is there used; which signifies taking strong hold of her, and ravishing her by force; yet this, though owing to his first violent seizure of her, and so different from what was obtained by enticing words, professions of love, and promises of marriage, and the like, as in Exodus 22:16 but not without her consent:
and they be found; in the field together, and in the fact; or however there are witnesses of it, or they themselves have confessed, it, and perhaps betrayed by her pregnancy.”
Tell her to go to confession, repent and get the mercy from God. Accepting and repentence are two different things.
Marriage isn’t going to fix the sin.
@Joe….
Thanks for pointing that out…Mosaic Law shows the difference between justice for rape and fornication. So Boxer’s idea that the father and judge declares the fornicating player is married to the slattern daughter is clever justice.
Reblogged this on Patriactionary and commented:
Another reason to ignore John Piper and all the celebrity pastors of the Reformed world – Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips, Tim Keller, Al Mohler, Mark Driscoll, etc. They are subversives; wolves in sheeps’ clothing. Ignore them, and definitely don’t buy their books, etc.
Books….a lot of this false teaching being pushed in the media would dry up were it not for the prospect of book sales.
earlthomas786 @ 8:07 am:
“Thanks for pointing that out…Mosaic Law shows the difference between justice for rape and fornication. So Boxer’s idea that the father and judge declares the fornicating player is married to the slattern daughter is clever justice.”
That isn’t quite how I read the law. The critical bit is “a virgin, who is not engaged”. The purpose of the law is to prevent sexual hoarding. If the father keeps holding out for ever-better suitors then he risks ending up with fifty shekels and not his choice of son-in-law. With the OT so fanatically genealogical, permitting this kind of free-love hookup is out of place except as punishment for the father demanding “only the best” for Barbie.
The net result of this law was young brides go on the market while they’re young and local suitors have the inside track. No “stay away from the boys until I hear back from Alpha McGorgeous, the king and that famous physician”.
Anyone care to lend me some help on a church issue? Recently the Sunday school class my wife and I are in showed the video mentioned in this post:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/he-was-like-a-little-boy-that-night/
I need some help in approaching the teachers to show them that it is a load of crap and so is FamilyLife/Dennis Rainey.
The church leadership is moving in the right direction so I think it is worth addressing. They recently terminated all Beth Moore material from being used and and purging other things as well.
I know dalrock has written about Dennis Rainey some but I really just need help putting together an approach to show my church why they should not use him. thAnks!
@Stryker7200
I would focus on the teaching in the specific video, not the man/organization (Rainey/FamilyLife). They are teaching that God speaks to husbands through their wives’ vaginas! This is a different religion than Christianity. Focus on this. Be calm but serious, as serious as your faith.
Sounds like some Freudian pagan goddess religion.
Take it seriously, because it’s a great debate tip.
I support your attempt to start a new religious movement. Such things are in keeping with our secular society and with the first amendment… but, why ride the coattails of Christianity? The inherent ambiguity is confusing and has the potential to make people angry. You should take pride in your beliefs, and name your new religion something else!
@ Boxer…
The current book I’m reading where the author researched Catholic feminists in the 70s 80s and 90s often tells of these women meetings they would go to and the feminist ethos was the bait to lead them to witchcraft or the occult. Often they would trade some or all of the faith for ‘the goddess within’. But they would ride the coattails of Christianity so they could change the religion from within. I imagine a lot of these Protestant types are the same.
@Okrahead
You nailed it. One of the readons we left a Church was because they just would not stop critcising me (submissive, covering my head, many children, homeschool, etc) and constantly said that since I had such a nice family our family should be serving those not as fortunate as me. In otherwords, I need to lend my husband out to all the single mommas and serve them food at teas dedicated to their unfortunate circumstances. Not once was there a tea or anything for Godly men or women. We were free servants for the pastor and any hard luck story. Not looking for praise, but not looking to worship these women either. Your comments are exactly what goes on. Women are herd creatures, they notice what behavior is rewarded.
@Spike
Have the same gift. It is not fun but very handy.
Piper and his fellow-traveler ‘pastors’ are in willful and knowing rebellion against God. Doubtless, however, they fully expect to be raptured. So, at least there’s some humor in this pathetic situation.
Piper and the hordes like him will repent and preach the truth, or they will get ‘raptured’ somewhere, all right. In fact, I’d be glad to punch their tickets personally.
Piper and the hordes like him will repent and preach the truth, or they will get ‘raptured’ somewhere, all right. In fact, I’d be glad to punch their tickets personally.
I confess that it would be incredibly entertaining to watch Piper, Wilson, Driscoll, et al. standing in front of the table on Judgment Day spitting out excuses for why they thought it necessary to corrupt and pervert God’s Word.
@Dalrock
Thanks for the response. My approach was going to start with something like this:
Why did Dave repent? What was he repenting for?
I’m thinking their response would be for not loving his wife. However, that then brings up the question – if his wife determines if he is loving her then he is beholden to her emotions, and her emotions are the ultimate authority in the relationship, not Him. So really it is about worshipping the feelings of the wife.
It seems like it would be really easy for Protestants to challenge this, because they have that sola scriptura claim. There are fun, general purpose rebuttals we could think up right now, right?
Where in the new testament does it say I should defer to my wife’s temper tantrums when making decisions?
Where does St. Paul refer to the “goddess within”?
Where can I find the doctrine of “joint headship”?
etc.
The feminist priest will, fo sho, twist the bible into an entertaining, illogical pretzel, trying to justify this crap, but then all one has to respond with is a question about why the bible doesn’t just spell out his feminist claims plainly. The bible (at least the KJV) is not difficult to understand. No scholar or “guru” was ever required to interpret its meaning. In fact, that was the point of both the reformation and also (for Catholics) part of Loyola’s impetus for starting the Jesuits. Does Pastor Steinem-Dworkin think we need to go back to the days of priests selling indulgences, or what?
Boxer
Boxer @ 10:19 am:
“It seems like it would be really easy for Protestants to challenge this, because they have that sola scriptura claim.”
It is really easy, which is why most Protestant pastors do not allow laymen to have any voice without first being vetted into yes-men, if even then. Which is Catholicism without their peer review. Double fail for a Prot.
Their reactions to “that isn’t what the Bible says” are informative, frustrating and often straight out of the SJW playbook.
The easiest way to challenge that is to ask them what verse in the Bible that explicitly says ‘Bible alone’ as infallible rule of faith and practice.
There is however verses that speak of apostolic tradition and the fact not everything Jesus did was recorded in the Gospel.
It is really easy, which is why most Protestant pastors do not allow laymen to have any voice without first being vetted into yes-men, if even then. Which is Catholicism without their peer review. Double fail for a Prot.
Their reactions to “that isn’t what the Bible says” are informative, frustrating and often straight out of the SJW playbook.
The point at which a “pastor” obviously cannot defend his position with Scripture while having an egotistical meltdown when this pointed out to him is the point at which a believer leaves both him and his church in the dust. True belivers will be doing this on a very regular basis, as the vast majority of Protestant congregations are thoroughly compromised in this way and are led by p***y-worshiping heretics who grovel in appeasement to the vagina while corrupting the Scriptures to justify their heresy.
That would work earl if it weren’t for the fact the RCC violates the apostolic traditions Paul gave in writing. Even if ‘Bible alone’ isn’t true, tradition doesn’t override the scriptures. Christ had something to say about that.
When it comes to feminism, both protestants and RCC have repenting to do.
“The point at which a “pastor” obviously cannot defend his position with Scripture while having an egotistical meltdown when this pointed out to him is the point at which a believer leaves both him and his church in the dust. ”
This attitude is why protestants cannot hold ground and fracture.
Retreat, retreat! Surrender the field!
Boxer,
A couple of answers for the easily-misled to your first question: Romans 14:15 if your wife is a believer (entire chapter really) and walking two miles with your wife if she is an unbeliever.
What apostolic traditions are being violated?
@Boxer
Well with the NT the feminists play with the greek like Authentein and Exousia. Or how headship merely means source and not authority. Or mutual submission bullcrap. Or mistranslate 1 peter 3
@Earl
This is not the forum to proselytize for the RCC. Too many men here know the Scriptures.
>The easiest way to challenge that is to ask them what verse in the Bible that explicitly says ‘Bible alone’ as infallible rule of faith and practice.
2 Tim 3:16-17. “Something” is sufficient for the man of God to be “thoroughly” equipped for every good work. Can you guess what the “something” is? And if that “something” results in him being “thoroughly” equipped for every good work, what need does he have for anything else?
>There is however verses that speak of apostolic tradition and the fact not everything Jesus did was recorded in the Gospel.
Oh, yes. You are right. Here is a good example about tradition from Col 2:8:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits[a] of the world, and not according to Christ.
There is only one verse that comes close to successor apostolic authority that I am aware of, and that verse could be referring to Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, or to Peter himself. In context, the first is more likely, especially given the remainder of Scripture’s insistence that we are saved through submission to God directly. E.g. Rom 10:9-13, John 14:21-24, etc.
Plus, that verse says absolutely nothing about Peter having authority to pass his authority to anyone else. I wonder why no one challenges the RCC on this obvious problem.
Matt 28:18-20 says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me [Jesus, not whatever bishop]. Therefore, go and make disciples…” Who has authority? And who was told to go do Jesus’ commands? No, it does not say, “Go and make disciples for yourselves…”
Titus 1 talks about appointing elders in the local congregations — nothing about appointing super-elders that wield authority over people in every nation, or even every city within a single nation. The RCC is of course not alone in this error. The Ukrainian Orthodox church has their Synod, which claims for itself the authority to dictate the truth in all matters faith. Too lazy to look up the exact wording now, but I have looked it up in the past. I suspect other Orthodox churches have similar structures, but someone with experience should comment on that, not me. I only have experience with the Ukrainian flavour.
@Gunner Q
>which is why most Protestant pastors do not allow laymen to have any voice without first being vetted into yes-men, if even then
This is so unfortunate. I encourage men to read the Bible and follow God, not me (or any other religious organization).
We should be pointing men to God. Any human group that points to itself as the gateway to heaven is, in my mind, very clearly a cult / satanic group. The offense some of you will see in that is perhaps regrettable, but if you question WHY you feel offense that I would prefer a man to follow God than you, perhaps you will come to repentance and to God. And that would be a good thing 🙂
@Boxer
Not trying to kiss your ass, but I do appreciate your frequently wise words and effort to share. Reading through the comments on this thread, it popped out a few times that you, a supposed atheist, had comments more in line with the wisdom from God’s word than some of the religious dudes. Respect.
I’ll give you 2 earl.
First, the headcovering as given in 1 Cor 11 and practiced by all Christians everywhere for 1900 years until feminism came on the scene.
Second, the requirement that elders/priest/pastor/bishop be the husband of one wife and manage his household well and have believing children (Titus 1 and 1 Tim 3). The celibate priesthoods not only violates this requirement, but runs it afoul of 1 Tim 4:3, meaning the RCC is among the class of those who ‘depart from the faith.’
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Dear Dale:
Thank you my brother.
Boxer
Pastors fear women more than God.
We worship who we fear. Pastors worship women. Piper is no exception.
Ezekiel 34:10 “Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against the SHEPHERDS, and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.”
The church will end as we have known it for 500 years. This is in the process of happening. Men hungry for truth, for the scripture, for their real life, are figuratively and literally leaving THAT church and beginning the church of Christ, not in an edifice, but in a living, grass-roots fashion, in response to the spirit [His word]. I sense Dalrock and many of his readers are that coming real church of Christ.
Isaiah 56:10-11 “His WATCHMEN are blind, they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber …They are greedy …shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, everyone for his gain.” Big heads from 40 books published and 4 decades notoriety.
“Many PROPHETS and RIGHTEOUS MEN have desired to see …and have not seen” Matt 13:17. Why? V15: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears of dull of hearing.” They feed people what sells.
Isaiah 8:20 “If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Routine becomes their downfall. Vain repetitions. Not connected to the Spirit. Carnal; doing it themselves, scheduling everything. It becomes their god without reliance on the poverty in their own spirit; without surrender to and reliance on The Spirit. Exodus 20:4-5 “…having an idol, they “HATE ME” says the Lord.”
Jeremiah 23:1 “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.” A scary state for a pastor to be in, hearing: “woe …woe” from the Heavens.
“Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness” Jer 12:10. DOES IT GET ANY MORE CLEAR THAN THIS? BTW: vineyard = men. Men are His portion, created in His image. [side but related topic: Go to Proverbs for what drives men to the wilderness]
The real church …such as men writing here:Paul describes in Acts 20: “I kept back nothing …for I have not shunned to declare unto you ALL the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock …of your own selves shall MEN ARISE, SPEAKING PERVERSE THINGS, to draw away disciples after them.”
God’s word is an ultimatum. God does not build His kingdom on consensus, collaboration, negotiation or compromise that has taken over the church. He has given us His ultimatum: His word — ‘Do this or all Hell breaks loose.’ Scripture deteriorated into religion as shepherds created fables, feeding itching ears.
“It is much easier to do something for God than to trust in Him. We would much rather work for Him than believe in Him.” — Oswald Chambers. Pastors more than ever.
“We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful”– CS Lewis in the ‘Abolition of Man’. Yes, EVERY pastor I have ever heard or read has stripped the man of his God given authority in some material fashion and then lambasts them for shirking their responsibility. Responsibility without authority cannot happen. Scoffing at God’s representatives on earth –men – will come to an end.
Pastors fear women more than God.
We worship who we fear. Pastors worship women.
Fuck that shit, man.
And I’m glad to see Dalrock and his readers doing just that.
Well that’s because of feminism.
And yet Paul made the statement that being celibate for the kingdom of God was considered an even better path than marriage which is good.
I’m sorry but you can’t have it both ways
I think it hypocritical in the extreme that we castigate this women for being a single mother and not wishing to marry WHILST at the same time we pathetically judge ALL women and men for living in the sin of adultery if they choose to get remarried
As believers in Christ we need to stop this judgmental hypocritical bullshit and at least be consistent. …no wonder the world hates us and critiques our hypocrisy.
The same judgmental pricks who are castigating this woman for her sins will immediately jump on her case and call her an adulteress if she chooses to marry someone.
I’ve seen enough of the comment sections in these threads to see that the consensus of opinion is that unless you marry a Virgin and get her virginity then she is still married to her former husband so therefore to marry a divorced woman is living in the sin of adultery
Judgment must begin at the house of God , and I hope to God that he judges us for this hypocritical bullshit
@earlthomas786
*”And yet Paul made the statement that being celibate for the kingdom of God was considered an even better path than marriage which is good”*………….end quote
No Paul didn’t, in fact i don’t know how you could come to that conclusion, unless it’s because you’re reinterpreting the bible with the lens of the anti-sexual asceticism of the wicked Roman Catholic Church.
1Co 7:26 “I suppose therefore that this is good for the present DISTRESS, I say, that it is good for a man so to be”
Only in light of the fact that Paul thought the rapture of believing saints would occur during his lifetime, and the persecution Christians were facing from ROME, could Paul say that celibacy was to be preferred over marriage
I keep telling people that they must read scripture in CONTEXT for that helps to see the meaning, especially for difficult passages.
Considering that this is the same Paul who said that those who forbid marriage, i.e advocates of celibacy, are actually teaching DOCTRINES OF DEVILS, and I for one happen to agree with him.
Anyone today who teaches “celibacy” are teaching a doctrine conceived in the pit of hell, straight from Satan’s lips……….1Ti 4:1 “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils……….Forbidding to marry”
Marriage, i.e sexual intercourse is God’s ONLY method to avoid fornication….so anyone who opposes people getting married are fighting God
Jesus left us a Church, not a book.
John Piper putting up a shingle marked “church” doesn’t make him head of his own Church any more than serving hamburgers makes me head of my own McDonalds.
Got a dispute about what Christians are supposed to believe or how Christians are supposed to behave, take it to the Church. The Kingdom of the Lord is not a democracy nor an every man for himself free-for-all. The Bible is not a complete self-study do-it-yourself How To Be Christian guide. If you want to know what the Bible is saying, ask the Church whose book it is. Accept no redacted substitutes.
I’m certain there’s a better place to post this, but I’m hoping Dalrock sees it. This is from my very own church, which I have always considered a rock of the faith, and while they certainly preach at the altar of Feminism from time to time, it’s rarely so obvious:
From our bulletin, an announcement for MOPS (Mothers Of PreSchoolers)
“MOPS: Free Indeed. Choosing freedom is a deeply spiritual act, one that our souls long for. That is why this year, we choose wild, unexpected freedom. Freedom that is so contagious, the people around us are compelled toward their own liberation. Mothers of Preschoolers have their first meeting….”
Sounds like an ad for Eat, Pray, Love…