3 Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, 6 like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.
— 1 Pet 3:1-6, NIV
As he promised in August, Pastor Doug Wilson has revisited the subject of submission in his recent post Miserable Wives*. Much of the post is good, and Wilson does say that (some) wives should submit to their husbands. Yet there is a common pattern with Wilson where he seems to think that in order to teach something good, he must simultaneously teach something false so he doesn’t seem extreme in his adherence to Scripture. Sadly, Wilson follows this same pattern in this recent post. He awkwardly breaks from the subject at hand and assures us that if the husband a jerk, a wife’s godly responsibility is to oppose him and “bring things to a head” (emphasis mine):
Now before getting into what we see, I wanted qualify something first. I want you to know and understand that nothing said here would apply to a woman who was married to a genuine tyrant. I have often wished that more women would be willing to be Abigails in dealing with their Nabals, and those situations are scarcely rare. I know that there are marriages where the husbands are thugs and bullies, and that their wives need to learn how to bring things to a head. I know of such situations at first hand. When that happens, and it happens too often, I am firmly in the corner of the wife who is the victim. Many women need to learn to be an Abigail.
Wilson is teaching the opposite of what the Apostle Peter taught in 1 Peter 3:1-6. In the process he has substituted Abigail for Peter’s example of Sarah. Sarah as you will recall submitted to Abraham even when Abraham foolishly instructed her to say he was her brother and not her husband. Sarah complied, and but for the intervention of God this would have caused Sarah to have been raped! Sarah is the example Peter gave for Christian women to follow, to submit to their own husband even if he does not believe/obey the word**. If they do this, they will please God and be Sarah’s daughters.
Peter’s instruction to wives with sinning husbands is a hard teaching for us to accept. However, note that modern Christians are quite enthusiastic about this teaching once they apply it to the husband instead of the wife. Modern Christians love the passage if they can do some cross-dressing; it is only in the original form that they can’t stomach it.
Not only is Sarah (and not Abigail) the woman Scripture tells us Christian wives should emulate, Wilson is badly misrepresenting Abigail. In 1 Sam 25 Abigail does not take action to “bring things to a head”. In fact, her aim is to do the opposite. Abigail intercepts David on his way to kill her husband Nabal and pleads with David not to do so. Things were about to “come to a head”, and Abigail interceded just in time to prevent this from happening. Moreover, when Abigail returns home and her husband is drunk, she delays telling him what she has done to avoid provoking him in his drunken state.
It is true that Abigail tells David that her husband is a worthless fellow and a fool, but Abigail knows that David is God’s anointed and that Nabal had deeply offended this man in whom God has favor. Abigail is saying this in an effort to stop David from killing him:
23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. 24 She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant. 25 Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal[c] is his name, and folly is with him. But I your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now then, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from bloodguilt and from saving with your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be as Nabal. 27 And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. 29 If men rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living in the care of the Lord your God. And the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. 30 And when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince[d] over Israel, 31 my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”
*HT Hmm
**See Cane Caldo’s You Bowed Up When You Should Have Bowed Down for a discussion of the application of this when a husband instructs his wife to do evil.
This seems unfair. Abigail is an example just as Sarah is an example, and they teach different things in different moments. It is not facially unorthodox to suggest that some women may find themselves in a situation like Abigail, when helping their husbands may imply active resistance to a foolish agenda. That advice doesn’t negate the example of Sarah.
Unfortunately, none of us can think objectively all the time, and very few of us most of the time. Even when we think we are showing the courage of our convictions, subjective passions bubble up from within, distorting the edges and clouding our vision. In this case, Pastor Wilson is actually acting in a very rational manner, even if he does not or will not admit to his actual motives. He is distorting the truth in order to prevent damage to his basic well being. For the truth subtly unveiled in his writing, and much less subtly in the writing of countless other pastors, is that women control most families and thus drive church attendance. If Pastor Wilson preaches the pure patriarchal truth in scripture, with no compromise for a wife’s submission, his reputation would take a huge hit and his church attendance would dwindle. It’s a tough bind, and it’s not hard to have some compassion for his predicament, even while denouncing his cowardice in the strongest terms.
So, the fundamental truth here is that society has completely buckled under pressure from the original sin of Eve, and men in the church, most notably pastors, are the leading edge encouraging the passivity of Adam (how ironic that the best voices fighting Adam’s original sin are found from decidedly non-Christian figures like Roissy). The church is compromised and until men are actually leading their homes again, pastors like Doug Wilson will continue poisoning their 3/4 truths with veiled, reflexive, capitulations to preserve themselves in a feminist world. He does it without thinking, and because his behavior is born out fear and not objectivity, I predict passionate denials and incredulity from Wilson if/when he gets a whiff of this post.
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I wonder which is worse: To scratch itchy ears, or to put fleas in them?
I will point out that I had brought this up at a bible study one time (that Sarah obeyed her husband even up to the point that she was taken away to become another mans wife), and that nothing indicates Sarah was complaining or spilled the beans on her husband at any time. The “quiet guy” of the group nearly flew into a rage at my suggestion that a woman could be so obedient and submissive! He could not comprehend in his mind how any woman would allow such a thing to happen! This was a guy who had spoken two words then entire hour, getting quite animated at the suggestion that a woman who is long dead could have possibly been THAT obedient to her man. Funny stuff, the truth…..
@RPC
It’s hard for me. I save my compassion for the husbands who live in the shadow of Wilson’s (and others’) act of being the only man in the room.
Snapper,
can’t both Sarah and the quiet guy be wrong? I mean, on your account, he needs to control himself and not fly into a rage. But isn’t adultery a sin? Is there any reason to assume that Abraham’s trickery of the Egyptians was righteous, or that it was good for Sarah to go along with it? The text doesn’t condemn him, or her, explicitly, but neither does it call farming your wife out to avoid potential danger to yourself a really honorable thing to do. Before you get to claim that a thing that happened in the Bible is exemplary, I think you ought to show your work.
Reblogged this on Patriactionary and commented:
Typical Doug Wilson modus operandi…
Dalrock, good to see this posting as a followup.
Clearly someone needs to rewrite the old church camp song, “Dare to be a Daniel” into “Dare to be an Abigail”. Modernize it, keep up with the times.
@Cane
They aren’t mutually exclusive, but if we hope to win people like Wilson to our side (that is the goal, right?) then from a rhetorical standpoint I think condemnation with a strong dose of empathy is out best bet. We’ve gotta let some of these guys that are 75% there save face before they defect.
Dal,
One too many “m”s in the HT, but otherwise, you took this where I thought it should go. Maybe Doug should have used Jael as an example of how to “bring things to a head” rather than Abigail.
As I was thinking about this, a thought came to me: the Biblical discussion of wifely submission was written to a culture where the woman most often had no choice in marriage. Even a believing woman in an unbelieving family would often be married off to an unbelieving man. And divorce wasn’t an option for her in most cultures of the time.
Now one would hope that, if she had loving parents, they would have vetted her prospective husband. But some harsh men hide that side of them well when in public. And the scriptural advice is sound: be as submissive as you can, and try to win him over even without a word.
So how does this change in an age when the woman chooses her husband? What should happen if the man she marries isn’t what she thought he was? Doesn’t she bear some responsibility for her poor choice? And more so if she ignored the advice of her parents and others?
@Hmmmmm
Ha! Fixed. Thanks.
I wonder if his idea of bringing the situation to a head is wife going to the pastor to trash her husband so the pastor can be the white knight.
Christ and His apostles preached repentance. They did not preach saving face; which just pride.
Anyway, such face-saving is a runaway train. You could just as easily say, “We have to let revolutionary wives keep their pride.” No sir.
Hmm
Doesn’t she bear some responsibility for her poor choice?
Surely you must be joking, or perhaps writing in the purely abstract sense of the word “responsibility”.
This is the latest iteration of the “submit to your husbands, unless… I do remember having seen similar teaching at a church I used to belong to.
“Wives, submit to your husbands in all things. But, you do not have to submit to your husband if he:
–is sinning, watching porn, drinking too much, etc.
–isn’t going to church enough
–isn’t submitted to God/Jesus/the pastor/priest
–isn’t nice to you, the kids, your mom, etc.
–isn’t doing what you want financially
–isn’t in The Word enough
–isn’t doing things the way you think they should be done
IN which case, you do not have to submit to him, and you can report him to the pastor who will straighten him out and tell him what to do. The pastor will serve as an appellate court to review your husband’s decisions, and affirm/reverse/modify them as appropriate.”
It’s interesting how the Abigail passage is misinterpreted all the time. I went over it here:
https://deepstrength.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/how-do-wives-petition-or-win-their-husbands/
Abigail:
1. Hears that Nabal has wronged David v9-17
2. Prepares a gift and goes out to meet David to right the wrong v18-22
3. Gets down and bows to the ground (chaste and respectful attitude and actions) v23
4. Is willing to accept the blame for her [foolish] husband’s actions v24-26
5. Tells of her ignorance for what happened v25
6. Offers the gift v27
7. Again asserts willingness to accept blame for the transgression v28
8. Begs for mercy over judgment v29-31
9. Points out that shedding blood, even justly, may cause grief v29-31
Abigail is an example of a wife righting a wrong. To right the wrong, she “confronts” the “accuser” with:
1. Gifts
2. Bowing down and respectful behavior
3. Tells of her ignorance
4. Accepts the blame, even though it’s not her fault
5. Begs for mercy in a logical manner
It’s highly amusing that Abigail is always used as an example of how wives should angrily confront their husbands who are in sin because it actually says the exact opposite of what they claim.
The wife should bring things to a head…. by bringing the husband gifts, bowing down with respectful behavior, letting him know that she was ignorant of her job as helpmeet, accepting the blame, and speaking of mercy as she wants him to change her behavior (be more kind, etc.) toward her.
If she did that, according to the Scriptures, it probably will work. It’s pretty amazing how 1 Peter 3 and Samuel 25 are in alignment with each other if you actually read the text without feminist glasses.
@thedeti
This is the latest iteration of the “submit to your husbands, unless… I do remember having seen similar teaching at a church I used to belong to
The workaround I have seen (I’m not sure if it is a new approach or I just didn’t catch it in the past) is to in fact read the verses that pertain and declare “wives submit to your husbands”. period. Immediately followed by an explanation that this submission is strictly between her and The Lord, and is none of the husband’s business. She’s working it out herself, I suppose in like manner to working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
She is to say if he brings it up – “honey, that’s none of your business”.
All individual qualifiers that you mention absorbed into one.
So, Abigail’s daughters are women who betray their no-good, stay-at-home hubby in order to run off with the sexy murdering outlaw? This is bad theology but a perfect example of why men don’t go to church anymore. We’re all considered Nabals until we get prison tats and live-music contracts.
@Cane
I can guarantee you this: One sure-fire way to lose an argument every time, and look like a self-righteous asshole, is to tell people you disagree with over a matter of doctrine that they need to repent.
Now, I will say there is one area where Wilson probably does need to repent, and I alluded to it in my original post, i.e., there are probably selfish reasons he does not preach the plain meaning of scripture. Those reasons have to do with his reputation and church attendance. However, these motives are subconscious to Pastor Wilson, and improving his insight will take finesse.
I’ve been a follower of this blog for a long time, and I love most everything that is written here. However, I’ve also watched several attempts at “intervention” with misguided bloggers and pastors, and, while entertaining, the real-world effect was to make them more defensive and more resolute in their error. If the goal is to win people over we need to move beyond masturbatory exercises in venting and be wise with our rhetoric. As Peter said in the same chapter discussed in this post, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” (3:15-16)
So, let’s correct Wilson, but use gentleness and respect. Understanding his motives and assuming good intent is essential to helping him let go of his reflexive biases. This is what I meant by “save face.” The goal is to convince our nominal allies. Save the calls for repentance for those who reject Christ and intend evil.
Obviously any married churchgoing woman would behave as Deep Strength clearly lays out, if only her churchgoing husband was leading her properly. That’s the usual fallback position we have all seen, and if anyone actually was able to press Wilson to answer for his error it’s where I’d expect him to go. Bad behavior by women? All the fault of some man, one way or another.
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RPC,
Your take on the tactic of gentleness and respect one I agree with, but it takes maturity and I am often tempted by Wilson and others like him to wish I could see him taken down, and in front of his congregation to boot.
It’s a head-shaker to me, how CBMW made servility a sin, when it is the pastors themselves displaying servility to the rebellious women in their spheres.
Dalrock,
your reading of Wilson seems rather paranoid (not to say Inquisitorial), as if not to say something vehemently were the same as denying it. In my reading, Wilson is simply noting that human authority is not absolute, and that husbandly authority, like state authority or parental authority, is subject to abuse. Do you reject the principle that a husband can abuse his authority? Because if not, I don’t see how you can object to what Wilson wrote, for Abigail, whatever her manifest virtues, is clearly not submissive to her husband’s wishes – Nabal wanted to insult David, and she appeases him and brings him gifts. To point this out is not to condone wifely rebellion in general.
“Jody Day is giving a TEDx talk to a room full of people against a backdrop of signposts she has chosen for the occasion: “Crazy cat woman”, “Witch”, “Hag”, “Spinster”, “Career woman”. “What comes to mind when you see those words?” she asks the audience. They shift uneasily. Gently, she answers her own question: “All of them are terms used for childless women … I’m a childless woman. And I’m here to tell you about my tribe – those one in five women without children hidden in plain sight all around you.”
It was February 2009 and, at 44-and-a-half, she had left a bad long-term relationship and moved into a grotty London flat. “I was standing by the window, watching the rain make dusty tracks down the glass, when the traffic in the street below seemed to go silent, as if I’d put it on ‘mute’. In that moment, I became acutely aware of myself, almost as if I were an observer of the scene from outside my body. And then it came to me: it’s over. I’m never going to have a baby.”
We now know that 20% of British women born, like Day, in the 1960s, turned 45 without having a child. The number is double that of their mother’s generation…But who are the childless and how many of them wanted children? The closest we can come is a 2010 meta-analysis by the Dutch academic Prof Renske Keiser, which suggested that only 10% of childless women actively chose not to become mothers. That leaves 90% of women like Day. Only 9% of that 90% are childless for known medical reasons. “
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/02/the-desire-to-have-a-child-never-goes-away-how-the-involuntarily-childless-are-forming-a-new-movement
I guess no one told them that the party would ever end, or that the carousel might stop. I know a few fiftysomething childless women who are brave, intelligent, and in their youth were beauties, just made for motherhood. Such a waste (I don’t tell them that).
There are many dozens of reasons people become involuntarily childless. Day has described some of them in her post, Fifty Ways Not to Be a Mother, “but I could easily go up to 100,” she says – the list includes “being single and unable to find a suitable relationship from your mid-30s onwards”
RPC
If the goal is to win people over we need to move beyond masturbatory exercises in venting and be wise with our rhetoric.
I’m not Dalrock, but after re-reading his OP I do not see what you see. Would you please be so kind as to point out exactly which of Dalrock’s words are cleary examples of “masturbatory exercises in venting”, and what the “wise in our rhetoric” alternative would look like?
Thank you in advance.
@Farinata degli Uberti
This is a lie.
As Anon Reader brings up…when advice givers peddle their ideas, it’s not about fulfilling your particular role in the marriage well, it’s all about making sure the spouse is fulfilling theirs.
(and most of the time it’s the wives making sure the husband is fulfilling their role so they don’t have to ever work on what their role in the marriage is)
@RPC
True. This one guy did it and he got absolutely crucified!
My argument is a lie? You are claiming that I secretly think some other thing, but that, for reasons best known to myself, I am pretending to disagree with you? That’s not very reasonable. Doesn’t it make more sense to suppose that when I say “in my reading”, “it seems”, et cetera, I am expressing a genuine opinion?
RPC @ 2:28 pm:
“If the goal is to win people over we need to move beyond masturbatory exercises in venting and be wise with our rhetoric.”
The goal is to expose their evil. To force the wicked to own their beliefs and the consequences thereof. If they want to double down on wickedness in order to save face then that’s THEIR choice, not ours. God is not going to take us aside and say “he would have obeyed Me except you hurt his tender feelings while he wasn’t obeying me”.
To Eternal Hell with these liars, these licensed, credentialed, experienced, published professionals who feel self-conscious whenever they do right. We follow Christ’s example; He did not force himself upon anybody but man, He had a tongue in His mouth and explained the crimes of the leaders du jour at length and in color. Christ’s masturbatory exercises in venting have echoed through the ages and we want to be like Christ!
Do you think we never tried the nice approach? These people can’t tell the difference between kindness and weakness. Wilson included. He’ll never stop preaching his lies until he’s ruthlessly and repeatedly exposed. Probably not even then because his salary comes from the wages of Original Sin. Come Judgment Day, Wilson can accuse me of being unkind and I can accuse him of heresy. We’ll both be right but only one of us will be Damned.
…
Farinata degli Uberti @ 3:24 pm:
“In my reading, Wilson is simply noting that
humanhusbandly authority is not absolute”Fixed it for you.
It’s all less a matter of the husband’s worthiness to be submitted to, and more a matter of the wife’s heart.
Is she being obedient to scripture? Is she obeying the command to submit to her husband in all things? Is she trying, in good faith and in prayerful consideration, to submit? Or is she checking for loopholes and escape hatches and exceptions? Is she evaluating the husband to see if she can or should submit? Is she submitting only when it’s comfortable and she agrees with his leadership? Or is she submitting with grace to his leadership even in the midst of uncertainty, disagreement, trepidation, and ambivalence?
@ Gunner, I already said that. What are you fixing?
Abuse of authority doesn’t mean the husband loses his authority. It’s given by God in the context of marriage.
@ earlthomas
Agreed, just as rebellious children don’t forfeit their parents’ duty of care. That doesn’t mean that what they are doing isn’t a problem that ought to be stopped. The question of how bad behavior ought to be stopped in the context of marriage is one that Wilson does not explicitly address, although it’s easy to think of bad ways of doing so that would tend to undermine the marriage. But if a husband or a wife can sin, surely the role of the pastor is to oppose that sin? To say that some husbands sin in the context of telling a wife to be submissive is not removing the authority of her husband. It’s not even similar.
Wilson serves up the equality of husband and wife — not separating their individual sin as individual souls — just like any other pastor, whether so-called liberal or conservative / reformed.
As good as Wilson is on many things, “…he that is not with me is against Me” means that Wilson, mixing in lies to appease women – to worship women – is against Christ …whether intentionally or ignorantly.
Wilson does this more than once. Recall his ultra-long apology for God in his post referred to us also by Dalrock: “It is far worse than he suspects” Posted on July 2, 2016, referring to Dougwils.com “The Peril of Zero Sum Counseling” Monday, June 20, 2016.
Wilson’s words there: “Now before reading any further, you the reader have to agree to remember all the qualifications I have made above.” Since when do we qualify God, add some man-make aspect to Him …make excuses for Him as if He is the eccentric weird uncle of our family. Make no mistake: Wilson is “ashamed” of God, versus ‘If you are “My people…” you “…shall never be ashamed”‘ Joel 2:27. Peter was ashamed x3. Wilson wants us to agree with him, to buy his merchandise, at the costly expense of our souls, by denying Christ, the Word. Wilson preaches for the damnation of our souls – “their [false prophets’] damnation slumbereth not” 2Pet2:3.
Wilson has become one of the many “merchandisers” of the church – “making merchandise of you”, also in 2Pet2:3; one of the ‘shepherds He is against’ — “I am against the shepherds” Ezek34:10.
Pastors have come to fear women more than God, and Wilson is no exception. And thus, the church now worships women.
Coming change: In Ezek34:10 “…and cause [shepherds] 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.”
Excellent, Dalrock”; you are a bloodhound for Christ, “proving all things…” … stiffing out God damned lies [yes, I know that is a redundant phrase] of the church.
@Farinata degli Uberti
Ok. I’ll accept that you really believe that:
So your expression of your feelings is genuine, and therefore I was incorrect to call it a lie. But this isn’t what Wilson wrote.
I quoted Wilson. I bolded the parts I most specifically disagreed with. I then explained why his claims were wrong. Please do me the same favor I did you and Wilson. Please quote the part you disagree with, and point out why I’m wrong. Telling me how you feel doesn’t help much.
I don’t think she has to search for escape hatches and exceptions, the people teaching her about submission have left built in escape hatches and exceptions that she will use when needed, all while feeling like she is still being obedient to the Word. She has been told her job is to BE evaluating her husband to see if she can or should submit and, when he isn’t in line with her training to justifiably disobey or report.
Dal, my goodness your ‘slow’ on this Monday afternoon! You forgot the #1 RULE of the Age,
FEELZ IS REALZ!
Lets see if she can pull up out of this nose dive.
But Dalrock did with his first Bible passage.
He can oppose the sin and preach repentence to receive God’s mercy, but he can’t undermine the marriage.
Farinata degli Uberti @ 4:12 pm:
“@ Gunner, I already said that. What are you fixing?”
So, your disobedience to Scripture comes from poor reading comprehension rather then a rebellious attitude. Let me try again:
If your husband orders you to play in traffic then you play in traffic. The police might arrest him later but you will obey him regardless.
@ Gunner Q says:
October 2, 2017 at 2:21 pm
“So, Abigail’s daughters are women who betray their no-good, stay-at-home hubby in order to run off with the sexy murdering outlaw?”
Abigail did not “betray” Nabal. On the contrary, she saved his life. Also, she didn’t “run off” with David. Abigail married David AFTER the Lord struck Nabal and he died (1 Sam 25:38), not before.
17 Now think it over and see what you can do, because disaster is hanging over our master and his whole household…
22 May God deal with David,[c] be it ever so severely, if by morning I leave alive one male of all who belong to him!”
34 Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, who has kept me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, not one male belonging to Nabal would have been left alive by daybreak.”
She saved not only her husband’s life, but every male that was in Nabal’s household. He was a wealthy and prosperous man – it would have been many that were slaughtered. I think the servants knew what was at stake.
Dalrock @Farinata degli Uberti
I quoted Wilson. I bolded the parts I most specifically disagreed with. I then explained why his claims were wrong.
Dalrock deals in facts. Farinata deals in feelz.
Telling me how you feel doesn’t help much.
Well, about that last point, “facts vs. feelz”…
kek.gg/i/6kpB23.png
Interesting how God rewards a truly submissive wife one way or another. Either the husband has a heart conversion to God or God strikes him down. Point being is she’s doing God’s will and God isn’t turning a deaf ear to her situation. How many pastors ever point that out?
@Anonymous
I wasn’t referring to Dalrock’s post. I was responding to Cane Caldo regarding his objection to my assertion that we should seek to understand people like Doug Wilson before we attempt to publicly humiliate them.
@Cane
You’re not understanding what I’m saying, and your analogy is weak. I never said that we shouldn’t tell people to repent. I said we should pick the right time, place, and approach…and make sure the person we’re telling to repent has actually done something that needs to be repented of, as opposed to holding an inaccurate doctrinal belief that simply needs correction.
I’m totally on-board with publicly rebuking false teachers, but our understanding of what constitutes a false teacher should be a little more nuanced. If someone proclaims Christ, and is 95% solid on doctrine, but happens to maintain one particular belief that is in error but also happens to be an error that is ubiquitous in the modern church, is he really a false teacher? Or is he a brother that needs correction? There are some pastors and progressive Christians who really are our enemies. They willfully worship a god of their own making, and need to repent. But does Doug Wilson fall into that category?
Uberti, “. . . not to condone wifely rebellion in general”?
The point of much of this blog and Christian men becoming disillusioned with the teachings from the pulpit is that the church can’t even seem to acknowledge wifely rebellion even exists!
Let me attempt this again.
Isn’t it interesting how many long, long, long time readers there are who never feel any urge to comment here until a celebrity preacher such as John Piper, Matt Driscoll, Doug Wilson, etc. is criticized? Then they just have to jump in, often with no real indication of what the longer term thread of topics here actually is.
Nothing else brings out the long, long, long, long, long time readers like that. Remarkable.
RPC
Thank you for your clarification. So what do you object to in Dalrock’s OP beyond the tone of it?
I’ve reviewed the OP yet again, and nowhere do I find any wording that calls Wilson a false teacher.
For example, this text:
Dalrock point to WIlson as teaching something good, but then teaching something false. Not “being a false teacher” but teaching something false. There is a difference, but I will agree it could be subtle to many readers. Is that what you are upset about? Genuinely want to know.
A memo to Pastor Wilson and to all hand-wringing pastors in the Western World, who for 30+ years of my hearing sermons on these passages, have said the same thing: All sorts of panic-like caveats about ”when to submit and when not to”, ”mutual” and ”voluntary” submission, and ”rebel if your husband is a jerk, (not that anyone here is)”:
”As iron sharpens iron, So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend”.
-Proverbs 27:17
Many men who have had lives of violence and excess have been changed by Christ in the church – by the influences of other godly Christian men.
It is up to men (specifically men in the church) to sharpen and curb the excesses of other men as they interact with them.
It is not up to women.If anything, women PREVENT this from happening, because then their men are influenced by someone other than them.
Man follows God. Woman follows man. That is the order. Here endeth the lesson.
In their final analysis, every pastor, author, theologian, counselor that I have ever heard or read in my 6+ decades places the authority of the marriage, the headship of marriage, firmly in the hands of the women. I have NEVER seen one exception to that.
That is the condition of the so-called church of God.
And, that is why God is in the process of removing His shepherds, and the church is becoming each man — that hungers and thirst for righteousness, reading scripture for himself. Then sharpening each other in that Word.
Well said, Spike.
Oscar @ 4:39 pm:
“Abigail did not “betray” Nabal. On the contrary, she saved his life.”
I was working off Wilson’s writings which as I noted, were bad theology. Abigail herself did nothing wrong in Scripture but Wilson’s unBiblical take on her is informative because he’s seeing things that aren’t there.
…
earlthomas786 @ 4:45 pm:
“Point being is she’s doing God’s will and God isn’t turning a deaf ear to her situation. How many pastors ever point that out?”
A woman of my mother’s acquaintance had an alcoholic husband. Mom convinced her to stay and keep her vows. A couple years later, he had a stroke. She helped him through another couple years, during which he reformed his drinking, rediscovered his affection for her and passed after a second stroke, leaving her a well-provided widow. She was very grateful she hadn’t divorced during the miserable years of drink and now enjoys grandkids & retirement instead of the nightclub cougar life.
THIS is what pastors are desperate to avoid promoting.
…
RPC @ 5:38 pm:
“If someone proclaims Christ, and is 95% solid on doctrine, but happens to maintain one particular belief that is in error…”
Original Sin is merely “one particular belief”?
“But does Doug Wilson fall into that category?”
He’s a decorated lifetime theologian who is consistently wrong about submission to God-established authority. One can make a very good guess about his true loyalties.
Don’t be a concern troll. If you believe we’re wrong about something then say it and we’ll debate it. If you think a nicer approach would work better then do it yourself and tell us how it went. The “are you suuuuure about this?” routine was the devil’s first trick to sow confusion and doubt.
Hi Dalrock, it’s me again with more mainstream bloggs. I can’t get enough!
“Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” my father used to say. It drove me crazy when he said that. Now, it’s dawned on me that he was right.”
She recognizes this when she looks (is) 50. Hm 🤔
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-are-good-men-so-hard-to-find/article36365252/?click=sf_globe
@Anonymous Reader
I have commented on this blog probably over 100 times during the past two years. I have no issue with Dalrock’s post. I thought it was fantastic, like virtually all his posts. My issue is with the group response his posts sometimes provoke. Namely, that the most productive way forward is to assume malicious intent and get out our pitchforks. There are true enemies where this approach applies, but Doug Wilson is not one of them. He clearly loves Christ and the scriptures, but has a blind spot in this particular area. We are getting perilously close to “judge not, that ye be not judged” by conflating sin with error in this doctrinal matter. Would you like our lord to hold you to the same standard?
As I’ve said before, clearly Wilson should be rebuked. It would be unloving not to. But, I also think it shows love for a brother in-error when we have empathy for his predicament at the same time we provide the rebuke. That’s all I meant in my original post up-thread that Cane Caldo responded to, causing this tangent. It had nothing to do with Dalrock’s post.
@ Gunner
Not trying to concern troll. I was responding to Cane’s criticism of my original post.
One can make a very good guess about his true loyalties.
Flip over the cards.
RPC
I have no issue with Dalrock’s post. I thought it was fantastic, like virtually all his posts. My issue is with the group response his posts sometimes provoke. Namely, that the most productive way forward is to assume malicious intent and get out our pitchforks.
Celebrities of any sort are not prone to pay much attention to the “little people” and celebrity preachers are often celebrities as much as they are preachers. Certainly that was the case with Mark Driscoll, although he may have toned it down since moving to Arizona. I can’t tell if it is so with Matt Chandler or not, although the recent announcement that the 10,000 member megachurch will be partitioned into 5 churches of 2,000 each is interesting and suggestive. Piper doesn’t seem to even be aware that anyone disagrees with him, and Keller has apparently allowed some very strange things into his church on Manhattan. All these examples are intended to highlight my statement: Celebrity preachers are celebrities.
Now, as to your concern for Pastor Doug Wilson. Frankly I’m skeptical that Wilson reads many of Dalrock’s postings, and doubly so that he reads any comments. So perhaps your concern is misplaced. Wilson projects an above-the-fray, avuncular but not stern image. Surely he’s not such a delicate entity as you suggest? If he really is so fragile that criticism from other men via the Internet would cause him to resist any correction, then what does that really suggest?
Celebrities in my pretty limited experience don’t have much time for the criticism of others, because they are quite sure of themselves. WIlson would accept criticism from elders in his church, and probably from other pastors in the denomination-that-is-not-a-denomination, and probably that’s it. In order to have standing to get his attention, one would have to have the appropriate credentials starting with “elder for N years in a church that uses the same statement of faith as Wilson’s” (where N is probably something like 40 or more) or “graduate of a seminary but not just any seminary, rather one of a very short list of seminaries”, something like that.
tl;dr If he’s reading here at all, he’s not reading very much, and not at all reading comments.
In any event, what do you propose? How do you suggest that the men scattered around the globe bring error to his attention? Or the attention of any other celebrity preacher?
Are you here to solve a problem, or are you here to discourage criticism of a pet pastor?
Gentlmen-
https://americandadweb.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/season-opener/
Carry on.
RPC,
So we should say nothing about really bad principles / doctrine that is put forth because that might make the one pushing it more resolute in their error? That is idiotic.
We should be looking for heresy under every rock, but we should not shy from confronting attitudes that are ruining countless marriages.
Farninate,
That is not what they teach. They use Abigail as an example of bringing the hammer down on her foolish husband. That is very a poor reading of the Scriptures and completely misses the point. It also encourages the rebellion that is destroying so many marriages today.
sipcode said on October 2, 2017 at 4:25 pm
‘Wilson’s words there: “Now before reading any further, you the reader have to agree to remember all the qualifications I have made above.”
[…]
Since when do we qualify God, add some man-make aspect to Him …make excuses for Him as if He is the eccentric weird uncle of our family.’
I believe you greatly misunderstand this statement by Wilson. He is not qualifying God or making excuses for Him. Please put aside your current assumption, and read The Peril of Zero Sum Counseling again. If you do that, you will find your assertion is incorrect.
Yet there is a common pattern with Wilson where he seems to think that in order to teach something good, he must simultaneously teach something false so he doesn’t seem extreme in his adherence to Scripture. Sadly, Wilson follows this same pattern in this recent post.
Wilson, like almost ALL pastors today, is ashamed of Scripture when it clashes with the modern world and seeks to either ignore it, or worse still, pervert it to please man’s sinful, itchy ears. God is going to want to have a word or two about this with Dougie and most of his colleagues come Judgment Day.
Since the NIV translation is about “believe the word” wouldn’t that mean that this only applies to non-christian husbands?
And that this doesn’t apply for Christian Husbands that believe the word.
First, I posit that a post on a blog (this one) that Wilson probably does not read is unlikely to bring the “error” to his attention. Nor is the onslaught of negative comments from what one could describe as like a blood-thirsty mob likely to help.
Instead, since part of the complaint is Wilson’s failure to adhere to Biblical truth, I recommend that the Biblical pattern of Christian discipline (Matt. 18:15-17) be followed. Every step of that process involves direct contact with the individual, something that this post and comments does not do.
How can this be done?
1. Ask if anyone knows Wilson. If so, ask them to speak to him.
2. Ask if anyone knows Wilson’s peers (his church elders or equivalent) or superiors (if any). If so, ask them to talk to these connections, and work toward talking to Wilson.
3. Find an email address or phone number for Wilson and contact him that way. Note: Not a barrage of emails, but a reasonable, courteous attempt.
4. Find out if Wilson is going to be speaking publicly, get someone to attend, and look for opportunities to speak with him there.
Of course, none of these may work. But railing about it on this blog is unlikely to do it, either.
”Sixth, the general tone of ‘submission’ verses for women is geared toward practical matters (and not more fundamental theological-authority issues). So, Titus 2.5: to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. and I Peter 3.1: Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,. In such a way, they appeal to more culturally-oriented values of the non-Christians around the church. So, just as Paul would suppress personal ‘rights’ out of desire to further the work of Christ (e.g. I Cor 9.1ff; I Cor 9.22f), so took we should ‘subject ourselves’ to each other, to move the Kingdom farther.”
Example of an argument an egalitarian would make based on this translation. Win over the non-christian by appealing to culturally-oriented values of non-christians around the church. Suppress personal rights to further the work of christ
http://christianthinktank.com/fem09.html
OKRickety
1. Ask if anyone knows Wilson. If so, ask them to speak to him.
Do you know Doug Wilson or have any connection to him?
But railing about it on this blog is unlikely to do it, either.
No surprise to me, we are all just ankle-biters in relation to celebrity preachers. The Mark Driscoll saga makes that very, very clear. Even his own “accountability partners” didn’t count for some time.
But this negates RPC’s concerns, by the way.
Now, would you please be so kind as to point to the part of Dalrock’s OP that constitutes “railing” in your opinion?
Thanks in advance.
OKRickety
read The Peril of Zero Sum Counseling again
Can do!
Re-reading that piece from 2016 I am once again struck by how extremely reluctant Doug Wilson is to even type the word “sin” and “woman” in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. That reluctance looks a whole lot like putting women onto a pedestal, a common habit among traditional conservatives, especially the older Baby Boomers. Like Doug Wilson, for example.
Wilson’s frustration with modern women that is rather obvious at the end of the piece makes me smile, to be honest, in a bit of schadenfreude. Because Boomer Pastors who have made apologies for women nigh on 50 years now are one reason why modern women are “that way”. To be really honest, re-reading once again the part where he is astonished to find that modern women can and will reject owning their own sin entirely did send me off into a fit of giggles…
@OKRickety
Can someone get a fainting couch and a glass of water? OKRickety is getting a case of the vapors!
Pastor Wilson isn’t just preaching this in his church. He is publishing this bad teaching on the web. I’ll note that you haven’t yet tried to actually defend the bad teaching, you just want to point out that the man doing the bad teaching is a swell guy, who might object to being told he is teaching something wrong. Moreover, the post I’m responding to is Wilson’s promised return to the topic after he read my original criticism of his 21 theses on submission. He doubled down on his teaching that wives with bad husbands need to not submit, and instead bring things to a head. He knows the criticism, and just like you he isn’t willing to defend the bad theology, because it would be a fool’s errand. He simply goes on teaching the same thing, no matter how much he has to twist Scripture to justify it. And you double down on the concern trolling.
Doesn’t really matter if celebrity preachers get the message that they’re in error, they got to be where they are preaching what people (read: women) want to hear. At least on the subject of authority in marriage, these jokers are up against the proverbial mop with torches and pitch forks if they change to the truth now. They’re going to give up their fame, status and income by preaching the truth now? It’s not going to happen. Doesn’t matter, we don’t need them anyway.
The red pill, game, MGTOW is growing, has been for several years now. Men, young and old, are starting to wake up. That’s who we need to reach with the message. Piper, Chandler, Wilson and the rest? Just go around them. The false church is already female dominated. When it becomes an exclusive club for beta cucks, broke single Moms and spinster cat ladies the leadership of those organizations will be obsolete.
@NickMgtow
Thanks for posting that link.I read that in last weeks G & M.Seeing that you are MGTOW and read the G & M?…Methinks that you might be a fellow Canuck?
@RPC & OKRickety
You guys (and Robert) are too effeminate, and you don’t understand to what people respond. Speak the truth, and then wait six months to see what happens.
I save my compassion for the husbands who live in the shadow of Wilson’s (and others’) act of being the only man in the room.
I have no compassion for neither. Any man who allows himself to be browbeaten into submission by any of the modern day preachers has no one but himself to blame. It is as much an act of godliness to reject the evil as it is to accept the good.
Any time Abigail comes up, the forces of Evil work very hard to miss what the story actually tells you. Abigail didn’t go against Nabal. Nabal rejected David’s request and pissed David off as a result. (A chunk of this is on David.) See: 1 Samuel 25:10-11.
Abigail’s response is 1 Samuel 25:18. 200 loaves of bread, 2 skins of wine, 5 sheep, 5 seahs of grain, 100 raisin clusters and 200 cakes of fig. This would be the supply of food she had for an unexpected but highly placed guest. She took the food supplies that she would have kept prepared (since Nabal was a rich man and it was a different world then) and brought it to the honored guest that just happened to be on the way to kill them.
Abigail’s plea to David runs from 1 Samuel 25:24-31. She actually showed up to take responsibility for Nabal’s foolishness. “She fell at his feet and said, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.” 1 Samuel 25:24 ESV
I reallllllly don’t see many people often make the point that “Your husband messed up, go take all of the blame!”. What, people don’t actually want to read the story?
The Lord leaves a lot of these little details in the Bible. It let’s you tell when someone is spinning a story, as they’re responding to the reality they want to push, not the story as presented.
It also should be remarked that after Nabal croaked, David took Abigail as his wife. Which I would have recommended every day of the week. You don’t come across that faithful of a Woman very often.
Sounds like you have a good mother. Being rebellious to the vows may provide some short term relief for the wife but long term pain from God (or the world)….being faithful to the vows and doing what Scripture says may have some short term pain for the wife of the husband but long term rewards from God. How often do pastors look at it from the point of view of God instead of the woman?
@LG
I see some women citing the case of Zelophehad’s daughters as standing up for women’s rights.
And the case of Esther coming into the presence of the King to save her people as “standing up to him” implying antagonism where it didn’t exist.
So, let’s correct Wilson, but use gentleness and respect. Understanding his motives and assuming good intent is essential to helping him let go of his reflexive biases.
We correct believers and pagans with respect and gentleness. The following are Some of Jesus’ word to the religious leaders. (You know……like Wilson) These words aren’t gentle or respectful.
1. Ye blind guides (Matt. 23:16).
2. Ye fools (Matt. 23:17).
3. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees…for ye are like whited supulchres…full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness (Matt. 23:27).
4. Ye serpents (Matt. 23:33).
5. Ye generation of vipers (Matt. 23:33).
6. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (Luke 11:44).
7. Ye are as graves which appear not (Luke 11:44).
@Infowarrier
Our SBChurch did a sermon on Ruth where she “challenged him to fulfill his responsibility”. There are no end to the odd twistings of scripture.
But railing about it on this blog is unlikely to do it, either.
If you are truly convinced this blog is a waste of time, you are free to depart at any time. But you won’t, will you? You go on concern-trolling, good sir, and the good folks here will continue their work.
Paul Opposes Peter
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.[a] 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” – Galatians 2:11-14
OKR – so is Pastor Wilson more immune from critical review than Peter himself?
@Hoseb
The funny thing about Ruth “challenging” Boaz to fullfil his responsibilities is that it wasnt his responsibility. He was second in line as kinsman redeemer as there was someone closer in family line.
Ruth did all the thing naomi told her to do before boaz squares away eith the kinsmen that was his “right” to take ruth first.
Perhaps outside of motherhood and by extension queen ship (when the son is the king)…women really don’t understand authority very well. They shouldn’t be trying to tell a man what his authority or responsibility is.
@ Dalrock
You said: “Sarah as you will recall submitted to Abraham even when Abraham foolishly instructed her to say he was her brother and not her husband. Sarah complied, and but for the intervention of God this would have caused Sarah to have been raped! Sarah is the example Peter gave for Christian women to follow, to submit to their own husband even if he does not believe/obey the word**. If they do this, they will please God and be Sarah’s daughters.”
You assert that because Sarah is praised by Peter for submitting to Abraham, any and all submitting that she did is normative. Doug counters (so to speak – obviously he spoke first) with the example of Abigail, who manifestly does not submit when her husband is gravely mistaken, and to all appearances is blessed for doing so.. You then charge Doug with “substituting Abigail for Sarah”, as if this were some kind of clever slight of hand that led to no women ever having to submit, despite explicit language in Wilson’s post that says, “lady, you should submit to your husband.” My point is that 1) that’s a very paranoid reading that requires you to think that Doug is secretly teaching the opposite of what he explicitly says, and 2) the examples of Sarah and Abigail are complimentary, not in conflict. Nabal really was an idiot, and Abigail really does undermine his agenda (on one issue, while remaining generally submissive); Sarah submitted to Abraham, and did well; Abigail did not submit, at least not in any obvious sense, and did well too. They’re both in Scripture.
Moreover, Doug doesn’t argue that a wife *ought* to rebel against a tyrannical husband. (I admit that his “bring the matter to a head” language you note could be read to indicate that angry wives can smash the crockery, but that’s not supported by anything else he wrote. It could also mean telling her husband that she thinks he is in sin, that they need to pursue counseling, or any number of other things.) Rather, Doug says that if this woman’s husband were tyrannical, his advice would be different in that case. If a woman is being maltreated by her husband, the solution may not be for her to submit harder – it is possible that she is primarily the victim and not the perpetrator. Rather, the way forward for such a marriage would be for the pastor who is counseling the couple to address the husband’s sins. That wouldn’t justify rebellion, unless you consider telling your husband you think he is sinning rebellion. But in such a case, the husband would be the priority.
I’d like to be fair to your view – I assume that you would agree with the substance of the last paragraph: that in a marriage, it is possible that the husband is causing the problems by being a tyrannical, rather than that the wife is necessarily in rebellion. Do I have that right, do you agree with that?
The weird thing is that Wilson wasn’t even talking about that. He specifically decided to write about a quite different sort of marriage in which that isn’t happening, in which the wife is unsubmissive, and his advice to her is literally “submit and respect your husband.” That you can read that advice, find a hypothetical acknowledgment elsewhere in the post, and conclude that Wilson is teaching falsehood seems unduly suspicious.
@ Embracing reality,
sure, some don’t think wifely rebellion exists. And they’re wrong. But choose your targets with care – there’s no shortage. To pick on Wilson by critiquing a blog post in which he tells an unsubmissive wife to submit to and respect her husband is not progress, it’s a purity spiral.
Mark says:
October 3, 2017 at 1:03 am
@NickMgtow
Thanks for posting that link.I read that in last weeks G & M.Seeing that you are MGTOW and read the G & M?…Methinks that you might be a fellow Canuck?
The first comment from the Globe article says it all. Toronto has more women than men, but any guy who has/had interaction with one quickly finds out what 99% are like. That includes me.
The recent passing of Tom Petty brings to mind these two lines from his song Free Fallin’
And all the bad boys, are standing in the shadows
All the good girls, are home with broken hearts
Thanks for correcting the misrepresentation of Abigail. It disgusts me when people twist the Bible like Wilson did. Infuriates me too, b/c they are preaching falsehoods.
@RedPillPaul & @Hose_B
Boaz & Ruth is an interesting one to dissect because you need to be mindful of the Legal environment, the cultural environment and just the nature of Male & Female interactions. Since almost no one in the Church is actually careful, it’s always just a means by which to fluff someone’s ego or get talk about people getting hot & heavy in the Bible. Even when that really wasn’t what was going on.
Ruth faithfully following Naomi’s advice is the core aspect of the story, but everyone wants to talk about the threshing floor. Yet, they always miss what’s going on. (Naomi had Ruth establish her positive qualities under Boaz’s servants, then when she showed up at the threshing floor, she could have made Boaz’s life pretty miserable. But she didn’t.)
I think it’s really important to note that most “Christians” approach the Bible from trying to rationalize their desires, not from wanting actual advice or understanding. That’s almost always the issue.
Late to the comment party, but I don’t like to go off half cocked. I read the linked article and skimmed through it a second time. It sunk in that Pastor Wilson was discussing a hypothetical situation. In which case the discussion of brutish husbands and his own white knight rescues of poor abused wives was completely unnecessary.
Let us assume that Pastor Wilson was counseling a real life Christian couple.
Firstly, it should not be a blog post.
Secondly, mention may be made that some husbands are brutes (because of the attraction that bad boys receive from many women), but it should be stated forcefully that the husband involved is not one of them. This would be done to preempt the squeaks of ‘NAWALT’ and ‘What about…”.
Pastor Wilson did well to discuss proper submission that St. Paul exhorted for Christian wives.
But it was extremely egregious that Wilson would not deal directly with the husband. The wife could say, “Pastor told me to tell you to stand up to my emotional storms!”. There is little that is more likely to destroy a wife’s respect for her husband. What he should have done was to say, “I will have a man talk with your husband. He will tell you what he feels you are ready to hear.”
The advice to stand up to her emotional surges should have been given directly to the husband, with the warning, that there would be some real emotional fireworks. The wording was different from Roissy has said, but I continue to think that Roissy is one of the better Christian marriage counselors on the web. (I credit (blame?) Roissy for saving my marriage). Believe me, the emotional storms that result when a man stands up to his with no fear can be awe inspiring. But, I am beginning to see slight signs of submission. I wish i knew about red pill, shit storms,and Roissy 30 years ago.
A woman of my mother’s acquaintance had an alcoholic husband. Mom convinced her to stay and keep her vows. …. She was very grateful she hadn’t divorced during the miserable years of drink and now enjoys grandkids & retirement instead of the nightclub cougar life.
Oh really? Well I’ve happened to see in several movies (‘The Rookie’ comes readily to mind) about older women who remarry and are infinitely more happy than staying w/ their abusive, lonely, first husbands. So it must happen all the time. /s
That reluctance looks a whole lot like putting women onto a pedestal, a common habit among traditional conservatives, especially the older Baby Boomers. Like Doug Wilson, for example.
Yes, Wilson has spent decades scolding men to “man up,” as he assumes a casual reminder to women to be good wives is more than sufficient.
As others have said, it’s actually worse than what Dalrock said, because Wilson is misrepresenting Abigail completely as well. Clearly her actions were 1) in order to do what’s best for her husband, not protect herself (or at least not primarily herself), 2) sacrificial, not demanding, and 3) absolutely required by the situation. If my wife has to call me stupid to save my life, I can live with that. If she calls me stupid because she thinks I am, then she’s in sin and needs to stop being rebellious.
He negates anything useful he has to say by creating a loophole large enough to drive a truck through and making sure we all see it before he gets started. Hardly anyone is going to hold themselves accountable when you’ve given them such an easy and obvious out, and anyone who would probably didn’t need the reminder. I would say this teaching is worse than nothing because it presents the actual biblical case but then makes it easy for anyone and everyone to think it doesn’t apply to them. God gives us no right to excuse ourselves from His commands, but Wilson teaches that a woman has that right if her husband is a meanie, in her opinion, and in that case she has a right to be rebellious. That’s absolutely false.
The reality would be to say, is what your husband is doing as bad as antagonizing a king with the power of life and death, or allowing you to possibly be taken as a wife by another man who could have you both killed if he finds out about it? Even in these situations, the Godly women of the Bible did as He commanded and tried their best to do what their husbands told them and do what was best for them. Your situation is easy by comparison. But Wilson won’t do that because it’s hard and will make some women feel bad.
It may not tickle the ears of bad feelz wives…but a pastor could almost give the same advice to wives regardless of what their husbands are doing.
Submit to him as to the Lord. Win him over with your behavior.
Pray for him.
Let God take care of it because He hasn’t turned a deaf ear to your situation.
It’s not the quick fix of rebellion or divorce, but they will be rewarded by God in the long run.
GunnerQ-
Your Oct. 2 7:50 p.m. comment is the problem. You compare a person being 95% right, but having one error, and compare that to Original Sin. An earlier post of yours was warming up the fires of hell for when Doug Wilson and others get damned for their teaching.
Be careful. Are you 100 percent right on everything you believe? Be careful. Wouldn’t want to be wrong on the 5 points of Calvinism or something. Which is it? 3? 4? 5? Better be right, or you’ll be damned. How do we work out submitting to government (Rom. 13) and when not to (as with the faithful Egyptian midwives in Exodus). Better be right in your beliefs, or you will be damned.
Thanks Farinata degli Uberti. This is much better.
Peter says be like Sarah, who submitted to her husband. She is the example given. It isn’t ambiguous.
Wilson is countering Peter, not me. Peter did indeed speak first.
Because he did.
Because it was. How many of his readers noticed this? Did you? Did any challenge him for doing this?
No. I acknowledged that Wilson said women with really nice husbands should submit. My objection was his caveat that this only applies to really nice husbands. Peter instructs wives with sinning husbands to submit to them as well, in the same passage where he offers Sarah as the example for wives to emulate.
Peter says all wives should submit to their husbands, even wives with sinning/unbelieving husbands. Wilson says that submission doesn’t apply to wives with sinning husbands. Peter says wives should win over sinful husbands through their submission “without a word”. Wilson says that wives of sinful husbands:
To give this a Bible feel, he says this is what Abigail did. That this is not what Abigail did is only part of the problem. The other part is that Wilson is teaching the opposite of what 1 Pet 3:1-6 teaches. Peter say submit to him and win him over without a word. Wilson says learn how to bring things to a head.
To the extent that Abigail doesn’t set a different example than Sarah, then it isn’t in conflict. But if Abigail couldn’t be used to craft a different message, why switch from Sarah to Abigail?
Peter says submit and win him over without a word. Wilson says bring things to a head. You interpret this as leading the husband by first instructing him, and then bringing in other authorities to make the husband do what she wants. This interpretation fits with what Wilson wrote in the original 21 Theses post:
Any way you read it, Wilson is repeatedly telling some wives they need to stand against their husbands. He isn’t saying submit to even a sinful husband but do not do evil. He is teaching what Mary Kassian and Kathy Keller teach: don’t be a doormat. This is a feminist message, not a biblical one. As I wrote in my response to the 21 thesis post:
Further down in your comment:
That this was an unforced error on Wilson’s part is exactly the point. It is as if it is a compulsion with him. When he sets out to teach something good, he reflexively inserts wrong teaching to counterbalance it. This was after all the whole point of my post. Wilson didn’t need to bring up wives with abusive husbands at all. Moreover, he didn’t need to point out that he thinks wives with abusive husbands should not submit to them, but instead bring things to a head.
There is, in our effeminate consumerist society, this overarching belief that a good man is a successful man, and the successful man is the man who can sell (things, ideas, even truth), and that the way to do this is to be flattering, and even to be pleasing to the things that come out of the hearts of men, and “empathize”. 1 Cor. 9:19-23 is often mischaracterized in just that way…
…so that we are falsely taught that we are to be nice, and that a man who isn’t able to sell the truth to this or that person must have done it wrong. But what Paul said was he became like the person. He did not “empathize”. He lived like those people, and spoke to them in terms they would understand. Well, Wilson is a Christian blogger and his tagline is “Theology that bites back”. What should being like Wilson look like?
We have two problems here. The first is the argument between Wilson and Dalrock. But the second problem is more pressing–if you can believe it–and it is that the great majority of men–especially Christian men–are effeminate consumerists ready to sissy-slap any man who isn’t a nice and empathetic salesman. (Such men don’t sissy-slap women because women are the arbiters of niceness and empathy, and you can’t hit the ref.) Truly it is effeminate and it comes from men. This second problem disgusts me, and I bet I’m not the only one. In fact, I bet that in other circumstances it disgusts some of the very men who are here doing the sissy-slapping.
Over the years I have endured a good amount of criticism and even ridicule, and sometimes from some fairly big fish in our little pond: Novaseeker, Vox Day, Zippy Catholic, Slumlord/Social Pathologist, to name a few. I count those as blessings, and those are all writers I still read because I can learn, and have learned, from them. It would be a gross error to ignore their sometimes rude criticisms of me merely because I felt they were mean to me, or not empathic enough. And the error would be mine; not theirs.
And if I can be foolish a little more: My own criticisms–which have sometimes been rude and bombastic–have cleared the mental landscape for other men to follow behind me, and has allowed them to be more patriarchal with more emotional and mental comfort. You’re welcome.
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I have never seen this as anything other than a Abagail trying to survive. It is a civil war situation in which king Saul and the old guard is at war with David and the young guns. Abigail and Nabal are caught in the middle. Nabal probably being Sauls man and Abigail understanding eventually that David will replace Saul on the throne. Takes action to protect herself interest. Abigail’s is simply trying to have good standing with who ever wins. Not so much disrespecting her drunk husband. Survival is Abigail only concern.
@ys
The Judaizers were probably right on some things. Let’s say they were right on everything but adherence to Old Testament rules. Would Paul’s very blunt and public takedown of them be wrong then? Jesus could’ve been calm and asked the money-lenders nicely to leave. He didn’t.
Why are you more concerned with the tone of the person pointing out that another person is teaching error than with the error itself, or the teacher falsely claiming it’s truth? Especially when it’s clear that this falsehood will cause other brothers and sisters a lot of grief and lead to serious sin.
When people claim to be teachers of the BIble, and it can be proven easily and clearly from the Bible that they’re teaching falsehood, they need to be called out for it — it’s loving to those they’re misleading, and it’s loving to them to give them an opportunity to repent. If it’s your own pastor, we’re admonished in the Bible to approach him in a kind way similar to your own father. But when it’s a guy opining on the internet, an internet response is reasonable.
Right Eidolon! And Dalrock’s criticism aren’t in my view particularly harsh anyway. Sarcastic sometimes, which is damn entertaining. On the occasions these posts are actually read by the church powers that be, hope it stings! The comment section has some good points as well, sometimes brutal. So be it. True that the brutality may diminish the effectiveness of the comments but I doubt they matter much anyway. I also doubt the pulpit puppets will turn from their course until there’s a lot of pressure on them to do so. Christian young men being recruited into the knowledge of the truth by sites like this and the Manosphere is more important than trying to turn false teachers.
@ Dalrock,
if there’s any sleight of hand here it is on your part – doubtless unintentional, but you’re distorting my argument by insisting on a very negative interpretation of what I say.
You said: “Peter says submit and win him over without a word. Wilson says bring things to a head. You interpret this as leading the husband by first instructing him, and then bringing in other authorities to make the husband do what she wants.”
A woman telling her husband that he is in sin is not leading him, any more than a woman is leading her husband when they dance by telling him he’s stepping on her foot. Nor is she even necessarily “instructing him” – the thing can be done humbly and kindly, without any overturning of the marital hierarchy. Of course there is an abuse of this feedback mechanism, where a woman is effectively back-leading or (in your distorted paraphrase) “making her husband do what she wants”, and I wouldn’t condone that. But that’s not what I said, it’s not what I am talking about. I used the word “sin.” If you need to twist my words to disagree with them, then I think you ought either to concede the point, or else dispute what I actually said.
I don’t disagree with Peter – a woman must be subject to her husband, even when he is a brute or a jerk or wants her to do unreasonable things. Those faults don’t make him not her husband, any more than a rebellious wife forfeits the privilege of her husband’s understanding and honor (1 Peter 3:7). But you seem to suggest that if a husband wrongs his wife, she isn’t even allowed to tell him that. Are you really going to take the phrase “without a word” in such a wooden fashion? Isn’t it more likely that Peter means “don’t argue with and nag your husband, but speak to him the respect that is his due, and if he doesn’t agree with you then submit to his judgment”?
But Christians generally are permitted, indeed, obliged, to help each other grow in grace, including helping each other identify areas of sin, and I see nothing in Scripture to suggest that this privilege is abolished because the Christians in view happen to be married. As to “bringing in the authorities”, what are the pastors of the church there for if not to shepherd the souls of the sheep? If a man is in a consistent pattern of unrepentant sin, his very soul is in jeopardy. To tell the shepherd that one of Christ’s sheep is at the mercy of wolves is not an act of rebellion but an act of charity. It’s not so different, in that sense, from the example of Abigail. But you are treating the spiritual guidance God instituted for his church as if the believing husband and wife are two children having a spat, and the girl is running off to tattle. I am sure that kind of thing happens, and it is very wicked; but the abuse of pastoral procedures doesn’t give us leave to treat our spiritual leaders like a occupying army.
I asked you a question in my last, and I’d like to know your answer. Do you reject the possibility that sometimes, in a counseling situation, it is the husband who is abusing his authority and maltreating his wife, rather than a wife who is rebellious? You say that it’s an odd tangent, but it makes sense to me: he says “sometimes husbands are the problem, and I would say thus and so in that case. That’s not happening here…” Do you agree that is possible, and hence worth mentioning (and hence getting out of the way) in Wilson’s post?
No, I don’t know Wilson. Now try asking if any of the readers do.
Rail’s definition: complain or protest strongly and persistently about. (Note there is no reference to the validity of the complaint or protest.)
I intended on this blog to include the comments, not just Dalrock’s posts. Dalrock said in Wife Beaters and …, “Wilson either doesn’t understand how this works, or is intentionally and repeatedly poisoning the well.”. In this post, “Yet there is a common pattern with Wilson where he seems to think that in order to teach something good, he must simultaneously teach something false ….”.
Little blockquote fail, certainly I’ve munged HTML enough times myself, I’ll try to sort this out.
I asked:
‘Do you know Doug Wilson or have any connection to him?
[…]
Now, would you please be so kind as to point to the part of Dalrock’s OP that constitutes “railing” in your opinion?’
OKRickety
No, I don’t know Wilson.
Ok. Do you have any connection to him? Any connection at all, no matter how minimal?
Now try asking if any of the readers do.
Can do! Do any readers on this blog know Doug Wilson?
Rail’s definition: complain or protest strongly and persistently about. (Note there is no reference to the validity of the complaint or protest.)
So “criticize” and “rail” are synonyms in your dictionary?
I intended on this blog to include the comments, not just Dalrock’s posts.
It would help communications if you were more clear in your writing.
Dalrock said in Wife Beaters and …, “Wilson either doesn’t understand how this works, or is intentionally and repeatedly poisoning the well.”. In this post, “Yet there is a common pattern with Wilson where he seems to think that in order to teach something good, he must simultaneously teach something false ….”.
Those are strong criticisms of Wilson that are based in fact. But if you want to label any critique of Doug Wilson to be “railing”, that’s ok with me. Do you plan to ever deal with the substance of Dalrock’s criticism, or is this all about tone policing?
Oh, and one more time: do you have any connection to Doug Wilson at all?
Just asking.
OKRickety you might want to comment on the latest posting, too. Seems like it would be right up your alley.
🙂 Nope.
You either completely misunderstand, or are taking the Insanity Bytes approach that you have special discernment of what I really meant. I was responding to the question “How do you suggest that the men scattered around the globe bring error to his attention?”. I pointed out what the Bible says about correcting sin, and now I am accused of white knighting Wilson. Your argument is based on silence, as I have made no stand on his statement.
I continue to believe that following the Biblical model is more likely to produce the desired result than your post and the resulting comments.
@Farinata
No. You’re just wrong, and you are writing as if in ignorance of Peter’s instructions which we have (perhaps foolishly) separated into chapter 2.
The Christian wife is to submit to her husband, and the Christian husband is to take care of his wife with understanding. No husband is to refuse to take care for his wife, and no wife is to refuse to submit. There are no caveats. There are no exceptions. Whichever wife does not submit is in sin, and whichever husband does not care for his wife is in sin.
No, he is not immune. But it’s ironic that this scripture you reference states that Peter was opposed to his face because I, in my suggestion to use the Biblical model, pointed out that each step involved “direct contact with the individual”. In contrast, you cannot truthfully claim that this blog and its comments are opposing Wilson to his face.
@nick
A week after that article their friends wrote about a 30 something having a real pump n’ dump:
https://www.thestar.com/life/2017/09/30/i-thought-he-was-the-one-until-he-took-a-number-two.html
@ Cane,
I pretend ignorance of nothing. (If anything I rather suffer from the opposite condition.)
You said: “The Christian wife is to submit to her husband, and the Christian husband is to take care of his wife with understanding. No husband is to refuse to take care for his wife, and no wife is to refuse to submit.”
I said that already, in so many words, in my own comment that you excerpted. Did you read it?
Now, another question: If a husband wrongs his wife, is she permitted to tell him so? I do not ask if she is permitted to rebel against him. We agree that she may not. But I want to know if you think the apostle means to ban all conversation between spouses?
Eidolon-
You misunderstood my intent. When I read the original Wilson post, before Dalrock blogged on it, I liked it, but was disappointed that he even brought up the Abigail issue. He even did it twice, each reference apart from the other in the post. Wilson overcorrected, and hampered the main point of his post by so doing.
My issue, though, is with those who think that Wilson getting this one issue wrong damns him to hell, which is why I questioned GunnerQ about it. You will notice, of course, they rarely apply it to themselves.
Your point on the Judaizers has merit, because that connects with the issue of what saves, and how (blood of Christ, and by faith). The other issues I mentioned in my earlier post were deliberately side issues…the five points of Calvinism, and so forth. They are not salvation-related. A person may be wrong on these and still be saved, if the blood of Jesus covers them. They will not be damned for that.
@Farinata
I’m not twisting your words. I’m trying to stay on point. You keep mixing your own argument with your defense of Wilson’s argument. My priority is addressing my own post, which was about what Wilson wrote, and why it is wrong.
As to your question, is a wife in sin if she tells her husband he is stepping on her toe? No. Neither metaphorically nor literally. I don’t think Peter is saying wives can never speak to their husbands. What Peter is saying is the wife’s focus should be on winning her husband via her submission, “when they see the purity and reverence of your lives”. Peter is telling us that this is not only right (beautiful to God), but incredibly powerful. We rebel against this because it is hard to accept, yet it is a profoundly beautiful thing. We want feminist moxie. We want the wife to stand against her husband, to bring things to a head. We hate the idea of a passive wife suffering a boor of a husband, patiently trying to win him over with her submission. We want her to bring things to a head! Like Abigail dealt with Nabal!
Except this isn’t what Peter says wives with sinning husbands should do. And it isn’t even what Abigail did with Nabal.
I Peter 2 and 3 mention several roles. But then, Peter gives 3:8-9 … a call to compassion, love, tenderheartedmess, etc. James says that godly wisdom is pure, peaceful, gentle, willing to yeild, full of mercy …. Paul writes against people and groups, clear rebukes like Dalrock gives. Paul’s WORDS are not always gentle, but that doesn’t mean his attitude was mean. I don’t think Jesus spoke about a brood of vipers with a snarl, but probably with sadness. To put it all together, written rebukes are Biblical, and can be harsh-sounding, if the person is livng James 4 wisdom.
I laughed…I imagine that story is more of the norm for the lady who wants to sample random penis. But faithful marriage to a man who loves them would be torture.
The first is instant satisfaction and gratification the second takes time (mainly God’s timing). Too often we want the instant results rather than patience.
@ Dalrock
when I say “a wife is allowed to confront her husband when he has sinned against her” and you respond with “so you think a wife can instruct her husband and then call in the authorities to make him do what she wants, huh?”, and then carry on as if I had said that, you are not dealing straight. I didn’t change my mind about whether we were talking about a sinful husband. You inserted a caricature of my point that was more easily dismissed.
Of course you don’t have to engage with my thoughts and questions: this is your blog and I want to respect that. But you are raising an issue about the intersection of traditional patriarchal norms, scriptural examples, and modern feminism that is of interest to me, and I am trying to poke at your view a bit to see what there is to it. I think your critique is fair in places, but other bits seem less solid.
For example, I completely agree with this:
‘What Peter is saying is the wife’s focus should be on winning her husband via her submission, “when they see the purity and reverence of your lives”. Peter is telling us that this is not only right (beautiful to God), but incredibly powerful.’
That is totally right, and I am willing to concede that Wilson may give too much attention to notion of wives “pushing back” against their husbands. I am not sure, frankly. I think anyone sensible has to admit that here is a complex dynamic in marriage that involves both give and take. Abigail is not behaving simply and exclusively as the agent of Nabal’s will when she goes out to meet David. If she is an example of submission in that moment, then it is at least a very funny kind of submission. I would call it sabotage. Granted, she is sabotaging Nabal’s folly, but he was not unclear to her in how he wanted to proceed. Abigail knew that Nabal refused to extend hospitality and gratitude, and she takes the family’s resources to do precisely that. Can you really say that you think Abigail is submitting to Nabal and trying to win him over without a word when she deliberately goes against his will? I think this points us to the fact that Sarah’s example, if commended by Peter, is not the only place where Scripture speaks to this issue, and that it ought not to be interpreted like a block of wood. The way I would put it would be to say that submission is the overwhelming rule, but a wife may also initiate the normal process of reconciliation that operates in the Church at large, including, in extreme cases, church discipline. She doesn’t forfeit her standing as a Christian and a member of the local church when she gets married.
Now of course there are other possibilities: one could say that Abigail was in sin, for instance. The commenter above who thought a woman ought to go play in traffic without another word if her husband says so would presumably agree take it that way, for instance. One might say that there were special circumstances operating her case, and it can’t be made a general rule. But you have to do something with it, and it seems insufficient to attack those who appeal to it without showing your work.
@Farinata
I didn’t twist your words. Here is the exchange I believe you are referencing (emphasis mine):
A wife telling her husband they need to go to counseling “or any other number of things” if he doesn’t do what she wants absolutely is a wife instructing her husband and calling in the authorities. At the very least, she wants a third party to take on headship. But in reality she knows that it is all but guaranteed that the counselor will make her husband do as she says. The counselor is brought in as Wilson says, to stand against the authority of the husband:
@Farinata
I did not say you pretended to it. How you came about your ignorance isn’t much concern to me.
Haha! What a question! It answers more than it asks.
@Dalrock
Totally irrelevant because Farinata posed a headfake as a question. What is relevant is that, to Farinata, the thing which is marital conversation’s gist, majority, essence, and reason for being–is the wife’s ability to complain. Farinata irrefutably implies that if a wife cannot complain or point out sin, then husbands and wives can’t converse at all!
Of course that is a strict reading. Farinata may mean that they can’t converse meaningfully, or truly, or “from the heart”. Heh. All we know for sure is that, to Farinata, the central matter of marital conversation is whether or not a wife can complain.
@Dalrock
Yes. Abigail wasn’t engaged in sabotage precisely because David was in fact her king, and he had come to them–his subjects–with a just demand. Yet even here Abigail does not complain, but does very well is a highly stressful situation.
To make out a myth of Abigail as a rebel or saboteur is obnoxious and says more about the inventor of that myth than about Abigail.
One of the problems in the back and forth here re: counselors is that the probability of finding a counselor, (“Christian” or otherwise) who will adhere to Christian proscriptions about the marriage hierarchy is essentially zero.
Anonymous Reader,
“Little blockquote fail, certainly I’ve munged HTML enough times myself, I’ll try to sort this out.”
Yes, it failed. It would be nice if this comment system would allow one to see the final result before posting, or at least allow editing after posting. All I missed was the closing bracket on one HTML tag, and I have no way to correct it.
[D: Such a feature would indeed be nice. I think I was able to fix the comment in question.]
You are awfully persistent on the question of me knowing Wilson. Full disclosure: No, I don’t know him. I only know him through reading his blog. That’s my connection. I don’t love him, I don’t hate him.
‘So “criticize” and “rail” are synonyms in your dictionary?’
No. However, I do think some criticism is complaining. In this case, I consider Dalrock’s “criticism” of Wilson’s digression to Abigail to also be a complaint, which is how I get to “railing”.
Maybe this will help to clarify: “I intended the phrase ‘on this blog‘ to include the comments as well as the posts.”
“Do you plan to ever deal with the substance of Dalrock’s criticism, or is this all about tone policing?”
What a novel idea! To actually deal with the substance of the writer’s work. </sarcasm> (Sometimes I get my HTML correct.)
Contrary to interpretation, my intent was not “tone policing”, only to suggest that the post and comments might be pointless in effecting change in Wilson, whereas following the Biblical model might be effective. However, in spite of all the supposed Bible experts here, no one has yet addressed the substance of that idea from a biblical perspective. Instead, I am told that it won’t work, a real man just states the truth bluntly and forcefully, etc.
@Farinata
Your point about making things come to a “head” is a lot like throwing china until you get your way (for your long time readers). It is not in a womans authority to make things come to a head. Why is the man obligated to respond when a woman does this. I will take the far extreme for augment sake and state that it is the mans right to completely ignore this. Who do you answer to, who is asking questions.
The person who ask is in power, the person who answers is under that power. You see the dynamic where coming to a “head” is forcing someone to answer? So if the husband is answering to the woman, who is in charge? This is what is being noticing, the power dynamic.
@OKR
In contrast, you cannot truthfully claim that this blog and its comments are opposing Wilson to his face.
Well, perhaps if early Christianity had had blogs and the Internet, Paul and Peter could have engaged in a flame war 😀
My point was that NO one is immune from doctrinal criticism, even one of Christ’s disciples. But, you naturally seized on the strawman of the fact Dalrock hasn’t hunted Wilson down and literally shouted in his face. I’m sure Wilson is perfectly free to address his viewpoint here, as any of us can do so on his blog – D and W have had some interchanges already. In this day and age, that may be as close to “to his face” as we get.
Or, we can start a GoFundMe to bring these parties together and have a good ole fashioned doctrinal debate in the same room. I’ll buy a ticket!
Hugh Mann (October 2, 2017 at 3:32 pm) shared this.
You know, I don’t actually want to be cruel, but sometimes merely pointing out the simple truth to deluded, self-absorbed people is hard to distinguish from cruelty.
Let me distill the entirety of that article down to its essence: “Jody Day [wants attention]”.
I know this woman. I am in her age-cohort. I dated (or consciously avoided dating) any number of her. There is nothing about her. That is why she is childless. She was self-absorbed when she could have made a family, and now she is self-absorbed “because” she didn’t.
She’s the sort of woman who assures a man (i.e., hypothetically prospective husband) how very, very happy he would make her. Period. No clue of the concept of reciprocity. I bet she couldn’t boil water without burning it. Probably in debt most of her life (living beyond her means). Highly intelligent, well spoken, two or more university degrees, and insufferable company.
She deserves (and all the women like her across the West deserve) no pity or compassion.
But most importantly, deserves (and deserve) no attention. Not then, not now. None.
PokeSalad,
I agreed with your point on immunity from doctrinal criticism. Which was itself a strawman. If you look at my comments, you will find I never suggested that Wilson should not be corrected. In fact, I suggested it be attempted according to Jesus’ teaching on biblical discipline. While I recognize that my suggestion was not well-received, it was not an attempt to protect Wilson as you and others seem to think. I continue to believe that the original post and the comments are unlikely to effect a change in Wilson’s behavior.
“… Dalrock hasn’t hunted Wilson down and literally shouted in his face. I’m sure Wilson is perfectly free to address his viewpoint here, as any of us can do so on his blog ….”
Since you mention it, I do not see that Dalrock has commented on the relevant post at Wilson’s blog. As you point out, that could be done rather easily if desired. I wonder if Dalrock desires Wilson to hear his criticism.
@OKRickety
1. Wilson has a blog, with comments enabled. He also reads responses from other blogs, and responds to those. This is the way of Internet discussion. Dalrock has not failed to follow Jesus’ prescription of Matthew 18:15 because this is not a case of “If your brother sins against you […]”. It is an Internet argument. It is the equivalent of arguing at Areopagus, or in the outer courts of the Temple.
You understand this, I assume, because I see that you have not waited for a response from your privately addressed email to Dalrock…provided you sent one, of course. Did you send one? Wilson understands this. That’s why he has comments enabled on his blog, and that’s why he (at least sometimes) reads other blogs.
2. I actually commented on Wilson’s post “Masculinity in Trace Elements”. There I wrote:
You can read the whole comment here: https://dougwils.com/s7-engaging-the-culture/113526.html#comment-202228
He obviously did not take my warning. Now what I am supposed to do; take two or three commenters back with me? As luck would have it, THREE other commenters agreed with me. You can see their replies right below mine; threaded and everything. Even if blogs should function according to Matthew 18:15 rules (which they shouldn’t) we have already met the criteria. Does Dalrock need to file a separate Matt 18:15 application with the appropriate church? What church would that be? He has his own church that he started. Not only that: He has his own denomination, his own seminary, his own Christian schools, and his own assocation of Christian schools. There is no one above Wilson to whom one can appeal! There is no alternative except to address him publicly. You may not like it, but Wilson created the situation. Your problem is with him.
3. The desire to change Wilson, or to affect change in Wilson seems to be entirely Your Problem. I won’t presume to tell you what Dalrock’s intention is, but my intention (whenever I write a rebuttal) is to portray the truth as clearly as I can. As I rule, I do not try to effect change in someone else by any other means. Whenever I do try to do so it is usually dissatisfying for both parties, and then I remember why I don’t try it.
@OKRickety
Also: This…
…is tone policing. When you lump what is wrote in the OP with comments from (for example) Gunner Q, you are actually talking about two (or more) distinct criticisms. There is an exception to that, and it is if you mean to talk about the “overall tone of the blog and comments”. Yes, you were tone policing as Anonymous Reader said.
Don’t do that. It’s lazy. If you disagree with the OP, write your disagreement. If you disagree with Gunner Q, address his comments.
OKR,
Who says that getting Wilson to “repent” is the primary goal? That might be a great outcome, but it is highly unlikely to happen no matter how things are done.
The main purpose I see is to influence others who may be misled by such errant theology. Standing up for truth so others can see it is very important.
Dalrock,
Wilson (and others) address Christian husbands so this command does not apply, right? /sarc
Here,
That is not the impression the context leaves. Did Jesus also drive the money changers out of the Temple with sadness? Not the kind of sadness you are implying.
Read the Book of Revelation if you want to get a clear view of how strong Jesus can get. You are continue the false idea that He was always wimpy.
Yac-Yac,
Good points, except that the educated part is not required. The idea is that the husband must continually seek to please the wife, and she has little to no obligation to do anything. Expecting anything made you demanding, etc.
It is a really bad state and can mess up her mind if it ferments.
BillyS-
You said: The main purpose I see is to influence others who may be misled by such errant theology. Standing up for truth so others can see it is very important
If the main purpose is that, and not to get Wilson to repent, then it would be more important for the tone to be gentle and respectful. If there was anyone who was a regular reader of Wilson’s blog, came here, and saw how he was discussed, they would be horrified and instantly, in their minds, leap to his defense. They would miss the salient doctrinal points, because of the tone.
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@YS
If only there were people reading here who were experts in the proper tone to use in explaining these things to Wilson’s readers, people who know how Wilson’s readers will respond. If such people existed, they could comment at Wilson’s blog explaining the theological error.
Looks like the only objectionable thing Abigail did was call her husband a fool behind his back. Otherwise she is trying to keep Nabal alive and she is calling his punishment upon herself. Also this IS one of those cases that feminists wish for, where the Lord and a wife’s husband are at truly at odds and a wife is faced with something like a mutually exclusive choice between the two. Not remotely comparable to a mutually exclusive choice between a wife’s husband and her pastor, which is what we usually see. Indeed, many women need to learn to be an Abigail.
ys @ 9:19 am:
“If there was anyone who was a regular reader of Wilson’s blog, came here, and saw how he was discussed, they would be horrified and instantly, in their minds, leap to his defense.”
That’s BLM thinking, not Christian thinking. My race, right or wrong?
Heck with proper tone, shame em! They deserve every last bit of it.
Dalrock-
Have several times, thank you.
GunnerQ-
That response by people isn’t BLM thinking. It’s very reflexive, and is what is in all of us. It’s been me before, so, look at what happens here, whenever there is a dissenter. Look at the feelings many here have when Insanity Bytes rips Dalrock and other manosphere authors. Everyone does it.
There are several choices, for those who lolz at what they call “tone policing”
Gentleness and respect. Proverbs 15:1. This is the path for those who wish Wilson would repent, or, for those who hope to persuade some of his followers. Either way, down this path you go.
If you want neither of those, but just want your Two Minutes of Hate, then have at it.
@YS
Excellent. Then we have all of our bases covered. Each of us can now carry on with our respective strengths.
ys
That response by people isn’t BLM thinking. It’s very reflexive, and is what is in all of us.
What you described was people becoming alarmed because of tone, as in “Oh, my, look how these ruffians communicate in comments at this blog! My skirts are dirtied merely by viewing a single comment thread!” although you probably don’t see it that way.
It’s ingroup preference, or perhaps borderline tribal. “Circle the wagons” thinking. Something that adult, thinking humans are supposed to avoid and resist.
It’s been me before, so, look at what happens here, whenever there is a dissenter. Look at the feelings many here have when Insanity Bytes rips Dalrock and other manosphere authors.
Speak for yourself. Bytes rants either leave me laughing at how easy it is to troll such a bitter ideologue, or shaking my head over her mental instability.
Everyone does it.
Solipsism much?
There are several choices, for those who lolz at what they call “tone policing”
Let’s pause for a moment. You may well, in your solipsistic manner, sneer at the term “tone policing” but it is a real thing; it is the rejection of reason and the embrace of emotion. It is arguing about the color of the drapes over a broken window, because admitting the window is broken somehow is not acceptable. That’s what I’ve been seeing from several commenters who flatly refuse to debate Dalrock’s point about the Bible context of Abigail, but who are all over the improper tone taken by the disreputable ruffians here.
Gentleness and respect. Proverbs 15:1. This is the path for those who wish Wilson would repent, or, for those who hope to persuade some of his followers. Either way, down this path you go.
If you want neither of those, but just want your Two Minutes of Hate, then have at it.
Nice binary thinking, Officer Tone PolicePerson. You are quite sheltered if you think comments here are “Two-Minutes of Hate”, that is quite obvious.
So, ys, what do you have to say about the substance of the discussion, that is the reading of Bible quotes regarding Abigail vs. the interpretation / spin Doug Wilson put on them? Do you think that it is a good thing for a pastor to encourage rebellion in wives? Just asking. Nothing personal.
@ys
For my part, I don’t disagree. What I disagree with is that the disagreement in the OP is ungentle or disrespectful. And I disagree that the weakest–the nicest–among us gets to set the limits of gentleness and respect, or that they can rightly judge such.
Dalrock
Then we have all of our basis covered.
Basis? You meant “Bases”.
[D: Yes. Thank you. Fixed.]
Dalrock
Excellent. Then we have all of our basis covered. Each of us can now carry on with our respective strengths.
All your basis belong to us….
Nick Mgtow, 10/2:
Re Regnerus’ book “cheap sex” and the notion that sex is cheap for men:
Sex is cheap for SOME men, A FEW men. Most men cannot get anything from today’s marketplace, because they have nothing worth anything to any women.
@Deti
Note that Regnarus also apparently includes “fapping to porn” in the category of “cheap sex”. Facepalm, right?
A false premise can’t lead to any meaningful conclusion.
@ Cane
I responded because I thought you were making a serious argument. If you still wish to do so I am happy to answer, but if you’re just going to sneer and take cheap shots I have better things to do. Good day.
@ Redpill
You said, “Your point about making things come to a “head” is a lot like throwing china until you get your way (for your long time readers). It is not in a woman’s authority to make things come to a head.”
Yes and no. I agree that there is a very rebellious way for that conversation to go, where a woman is bossing her husband around. What I deny is that a wife may not ever make a humble and gracious complaint to her husband. Perhaps (as I allowed somewhere upthread) the phrase “make it come to a head” implies an unfortunate level of control for the woman. I don’t claim to read Wilson’s mind, but what I mean by it is that if a wife perceives her husband to be in sin, may bring it to his attention and call him to repent as a sister in Christ. Would you object to that?
Anon Reader:
Regnarus also apparently includes “fapping to porn” in the category of “cheap sex”. Facepalm, right?
I get that masturbation is sexual conduct. But it’s not “getting sex” and it’s not “having sex”. It’s not what men want. They’ll do it if it’s the only way to get sexual release. But it isn’t sex and it isn’t getting sex and it isn’t having sex. I understand why they make the argument – because elevating masturbation to “cheap sex” lets researchers blame men for women’s problems in the SMP/MMP. More importantly, it allows them, (and tradcons and Catholics) to claim that men don’t have any problems with sex or having sex, that they can get what they want, and that they have no cause to complain about anything in today’s SMP/MMP.
Today, most men can have all the sex they want for very little cost – no fancy dinner required.
That just plain isnt’ true. What is true is that most men can have all the self-induced orgasms they want because high quality pr0n is so available. But that is NOT “[having] all the sex they want”.
Masturbation and intercourse are two very different things. Lumping the two into ‘cheap sex’ in a sense ‘cheapens’ the female sexual immorality side of casual sex.
Anonymous Reader-
This word you keep using in reply to me, solipsism. Here, let me help:
http://www.thesaurus.com/
http://www.dictionary.com/
Cane-
I would think the wisest person should set such guidelines, with scripture as the marker.
@Farinata
Just because you can’t take the shots doesn’t mean they are cheap. I did make a serious argument. Then you replied flippantly. In turn I met you at your level. The fact is that–among other things–you deceitfully and noxiously equated a wife telling her husband he’s wrong with all conversation. I do not think it was a boneheaded error on your part, but a legitimate attempt to poison and pervert.
ys
This word you keep using in reply to me, solipsism. Here, let me help:
Thanks, it’s good to have confirmation in definitional accuracy and synonym.
That shoe may pinch, yet it fits you so well. You might ponder why in your spare time.
AR-
Look, no need for us to devolve into a pointless side feud. Solipsism was the overused manosphere word of 2014 or so…maybe sooner. In 2015-16 it was cuck. 2017, you decide.
Not everyone who disagrees with you is suffering from a bout of the solipsism. You destroy the meaning of words when you misapply them and use them as insults for anyone who disagrees with you, but please don’t take that correction as tone-policing, whatever you do.
You asked me what I thought of the OP and Wilson’s post: As I detailed above, Wilson had some good thoughts, which he sabotaged by needless qualification and incorrect referencing of the Abigail account in 1 Samuel. I trust we would agree on these issues.
Wilson’s basic premise is very good. Many Christian wives are never satisfied, no matter how “good” their husbands are. Their husbands love them, in word and in deed, except for being “too nice.” But these wives do not feel loved, they are self-centered.
The qualification that Wilson should should have made is this: There are a few husbands who really do not love their wives, and abuse them – and only in that case, the wife feeling unloved is accurate, and does not require this correction.
Peter calls wives to an ever more spiritual subjection, progressing thus: external obedience < chaste conversation < regenerate heart < a meek and quiet spirit. Sarah is set forth as the ultimate example when she considers Abraham her master in her heart. This is the attitude that Christian wives should aspire to.
It’s not hard to answer questions about what a wife may or may not say if you ask the same question regarding a servant or a child. May a child complain to his father when he feels wronged? May a subject complain to his lord when he feels wronged? The obvious answer is: Yes. Respectfully.
@ Dalrock,
You said: “A wife telling her husband they need to go to counseling “or any other number of things” if he doesn’t do what she wants absolutely is a wife instructing her husband and calling in the authorities.”
Do you not see the difference between “doing what she wants” and “repenting of his sins”? To me those are worlds apart – in one case, the wife is calling the shots. In the other, she is reminding her husband of the common authority that is over both of them. I believe you if you say you don’t see a difference, but it seems very clear to me. It’s the difference between me reminding a fellow about gravity and pushing him off a building.
I any case, I missed your reply until I read the “blog abusers” thread. Your point is well taken that in practice there may be little difference between a wife asking her husband to pursue marriage counseling, and a wife looking for someone to trump her husband’s authority. I can see how that process could lend itself to abuse, and even with the best of intentions I agree that there’s a tension there. It certainly doesn’t feel like submissive behavior. On the other hand, if one Christian sins against another, the Bible clearly lays out a process for reconciliation and, failing that, church discipline. If for a wife to call the elders is an act of rebellion by definition, does it follow that the Matthew 18 process is only available to men?
The problem I see with your application of 1 Peter is that the Scripture is far sharper here than your point will allow. For not only are wives told to endure wrongs with patience: in chapter two the command to suffer in silence is applied to everyone. And yet, as 1st Corinthians and Matthew 18 clearly teach, there is meant to be a process in the Church for one believer to accuse another of sin, and thus preserve the purity of the community. If wives are cut off from that process, how can anybody take advantage of it? If no-one can take advantage of it, why is it in Scripture?
So, while I grant that you have a point, and the “wife gets to call the church police on her husband” view has some problems (and is certainly abused in our day), I’d like to know how you would resolve the other problem that your view implies.
@ Cane
your “serious argument” took the form “No, you’re just wrong.” Then you repeated something I’d already said. That was the substance of your initial rebuttal.
As to my deceitfulness, and generally obnoxious habits, if only you knew! Nevertheless, despite my many flaws, I am still able to speak with courtesy.
Like I said, if you want to engage in a meaningful exchange of views, I’m here. Make your case, or not, as you wish.
@ Daniel says:
October 4, 2017 at 2:45 pm
“It’s not hard to answer questions about what a wife may or may not say if you ask the same question regarding a servant or a child. May a child complain to his father when he feels wronged? May a subject complain to his lord when he feels wronged? The obvious answer is: Yes. Respectfully.”
Precisely. It’s not complicated. Not even a little. How do you talk to your boss when you feel the need to bring a grievance to him? You do so respectfully. In fact, you probably think up two or three possible solutions to recommend to the boss.
You don’t whine. You don’t throw a tantrum.
By the way, women understand this. They may not understand it as well as men do – as a general rule – but they do understand. Women who easily submit to a boss, a professor, a police officer or politician still react like Linda Blair when they hear that they should submit to their husbands.
Why?
Genesis Chapter 3.
The root cause of the conflict is spiritual, not logical or reasonable.
@ Anonymous Reader says:
October 4, 2017 at 11:33 am
“Note that Regnarus also apparently includes ‘fapping to porn’ in the category of ‘cheap sex’. Facepalm, right?”
Hopefully not in that order.
ys
Look, no need for us to devolve into a pointless side feud. Solipsism was the overused manosphere word of 2014 or so…maybe sooner. In 2015-16 it was cuck. 2017, you decide.
This is funny. You’re assuming much that is not in evidence. For a start, I don’t care what words the “kool kidz” are using, or are not using. But it looks like you care, quite a bit. Why is that? Maybe you could ponder that, too.
Not everyone who disagrees with you is suffering from a bout of the solipsism.
This is a true statement. It is also not relevant.
When someone says “everyone does it” about something that everyone clearly does NOT do, that’s highly suggestive of a solipsistic mindset; i.e. “I do this, my friends do this, therefore EVERYONE does this!”. When that someone takes the word “solipsism” very personallly, that’s even more interesting and ties in with your very clear preference for “feelings” over reason.
However, since Dalrock has been criticizing Wilson on the issue of reason and accurate reading of the BIble, feelings do not enter into the discussion. Except, of course, for the feminine among us…
@ Oscar
Women who easily submit to a boss, a professor, a police officer or politician still react like Linda Blair when they hear that they should submit to their husbands.
Ah, so. Because she really knows that husband guy.
Boss, professor, etc. (don’t forget the pastor) is one category. Another is anonymous anybody that is not the husband. I remember the days (thankfully now over, I think) when my wife could be dissuaded from nearly anything I’d asked her to do by girlfriends, salesmen, mechanics, or some lady she met on the bus on the way to do the errand. A frameless man is a sad thing.
ys @ 10:37 am:
“That response by people isn’t BLM thinking. It’s very reflexive, and is what is in all of us.”
Exactly my point–reflexive human stupidity. That’s completely BLM, whose typical reaction to a black cop shooting an “unarmed” black perp with a knife is to riot & loot to protest evil white cops. One doesn’t reason with such emotional people. One pitches the facts to them straight and they either listen or double down.
You demonstrate a similar lack of intelligence and morality when you respond to “Wilson is disobeying Christ” with “you aren’t being nice enough to say that”.
I tried the nice thing for years. You know what? It didn’t work, not once. You know what does work? Forcing people to take a side. No more wiggle room. No more gray areas. Either you stand with Wilson or you stand with Christ. Not both.
I don’t care to see Wilson repent. I care to see Wilson be honest. All Wilson need do to make me happy is to publicly announce “the Bible is wrong here. We should not obey God on this topic”. But of course, that would give away the scam. The wiggle room. The gray areas. So instead, Wilson pretends he’s “upholding while fixing” Scripture, like a Republican “repeal and replacing” Obamacare, while you groupies try to defend Wilson without actually talking about what Wilson is doing wrong.
Farinata is engaging in motte and bailey reasoning here.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
Hosea 4:6 – “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge”. On all fronts we have to rebuild within from the pew to the pulpit. Every untruth will eventually have to be uncovered, better now than for those who will face future penalties.
Wraithburn,
That link was educational, thanks. I see Farinata as another Liz, who swooped in to argue with Dalrock being presumptive about Nagemah (sp) Abedini. I think the Motte and Bailey explains it more accurately than my formulation of “Straining at the exception. “
GunnerQ-
Being a little binary there with being either with Wilson or Christ…
It’s not even about being nice, it’s about being factual. Saying someone will burn in hell for being incorrect on an issue like this isn’t nice, but it also isn’t true.
You talk of being disobedient to Christ, as though doing it once will damn you. But Christ also said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” While Christ said this, you say, “I don’t care if Wilson repents.” See the connection? Also, Christ said, “By the standard you judge others, so you will be judged.” The standards by which you damn Wilson to hell could not be kept, by you or anyone. Yet you speak the falsehood.
AR-
Trying to pin something on me like “caring what the cool kids think..” I don’t. Again, with the digs of me being a woman. It was said by others, not me, but if that’s what you’ve got for someone who disagrees with you, then you don’t got much. You’re trying too hard.
You’re welcome Swanny. I find it actually useful to understand that motte and bailey is a doctrine, and not a true fallacy. As such, there are multiple ways to use it including going both directions!
I can advance a weak form of argument (motte) and fall back to the strong form (bailey) when challenged.
I can take my opponent’s strong position (bailey) and convert it to a weak position (motte) I attack.
I can advance an argument based upon false premises and twisted logic (motte) and when called on it I can retreat in “confusion” to different meanings and definitions (bailey). Nevermind this undermines the original argument. Once I beat off the attack, I can commute the victory to the original argument.
I can argue from a strong position (bailey) and then transform that into a more expansive weak form once I win (motte). Abortionists try this regularly.
That’s what I can think of off the top of my head anyway.
BillyS was kind enough (October 4, 2017 at 8:59 am) to reply to my somewhat intemperate rant about the (cough) Centre of Attention in an article in the Manchester Guardian:
BillyS, I don’t think we’re really in disagreement, here.
What I meant was, the more education such women pile up, the more insufferable (lying, inconsiderate, rude, manipulative, lazy, just plain unpleasant for days on end, drama queenish — take your pick of any or all …) they think they have earned the right to be.
It’s as of they think every college credit they earn is a sort of “be a terrible human being” coupon.
I think that you understood what I mean right away, though, judging from the totality of your reply.
ys
Trying to pin something on me like “caring what the cool kids think..” I don’t.
You’re the one who brought these things up, remember?
Solipsism was the overused manosphere word of 2014 or so…maybe sooner. In 2015-16 it was cuck.
Again, with the digs of me being a woman. It was said by others, not me,
Was “everyone” saying it? Just asking.
but if that’s what you’ve got for someone who disagrees with you, then you don’t got much. You’re trying too hard.
I’m not trying at all. I’m just noticing that you don’t do much argumentation from fact or reason, but plenty from emotion. Because I just scrolled back to the top of the comments and reread every one of your comments. Every one. Nowhere did you discuss Wilson’s interpretation of the Bible quotes on Abigail. Not one of your comments actually addresses Dalrock’s reading.
Nope. Every comment in this thread is either an attack on one of Wilson’s critics or an attempt to get people to be nice, i.e. tone policing. You’re not here to defend Wilson’s thinking, you’re here to attack his critics, often in an emotional way. Your own words show this to be the case.
Are you a member of Wilson’s church, by any chance?
I had a few further thoughts about Jody Day‘s demands for (let’s be honest here: adult male) attention. The Guardian provides a nice synopsis at the start of the article:
So, let’s reason this through: this is a cohort of women born between 1960 and 1970, which means they would have hit the age of twenty between 1980 and 1990. Ms. Day suggests in the article that the magic age of f♀rty-five is where the epiphany of their “involuntary childlessness” kicks in. So, again, that would be happening, for this cohort, between 2005 and 2015.
Which is to say, we are talking about a broad cohort of women whose childbearing “window of opportunity” extends from about 1980 to about 2015 — by Ms. Day’s own “reasoning” (or special pleading, or whatever the h3ll it is). So, we all know that ab♀rtion on demand was in full force, and we also know that this (1980-2015) is Sexual Revolution Prime Time, interspersed with regularly occurring but soon forgotten panics about venereal diseases: AIDS, herpes, chlamydia — whichever disease was most prominently “not to be shamed” in whichever particular half-decade you wish to ponder within these bookends of 1980 and 2015.
To get to my point: of the 20% of women in this cohort who are (Ms. Day assures us) “involuntarily childless”, what fraction of them had one or more abortions? Not none of them, we know that for sure — not when, in the middle of that time-slice, the National Organization of Women tried to launch a “Proud to have had an Abortion” T-shirt campaign.
And, similarly, what fraction of the 20% “involuntarily childless” women are infertile because Cock Carousel Chlamydia™ (or whatever) rotted their fallopian tubes away through Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, by their mid-twenties?
In other words, how many percentage points out of that 20% of “involuntarily childless” women, were genuinely involuntarily childless. You see: killing your kids doesn’t count as “involuntary childlessness”, and being so sexually dissolute as to basically be playing the infertility lottery with every f*ck, for a couple of thousand f*cks, doesn’t count as “involuntary childlessness” either.
Cause, meet effect. Behavior, meet consequences.
So, I call bullsh!t on Ms. Joy Day.
And you know the real irony of this situation (roll with my “solipsism” here 😉): my rant was all about how Ms. Day and her ilk didn’t deserve the least scrap of the attention they (she on their behalf) demand. And here, fool that I am, here am I doing just that: paying attention to the wh♀le charade.
The Blue Pill™, it dies hard, it does, it does.
Pax Christi Vobiscum
@Wraithburn
Nailed it.
Here, in the real world, courteousness and integrity are conjoined.
Cane Caldo,
“I won’t presume to tell you what Dalrock’s intention is,….”
However, you have presumed that you know my intentions. You are wrong, but, in your arrogant pride, you suppose that your understanding must be correct. Specifically, you claim I am tone policing, failing to recognize that my comment was a response to a question from Anonymous Reader on how to bring Wilson’s error to his attention, not a response to the OP. In fact, you are being lazy in not recognizing this. Instead, you focus on what you believe to be tone policing, rather than the substance of my response.
“… your privately addressed email to Dalrock…provided you sent one, of course. Did you send one?”
On many occasions, I have wanted to communicate to Dalrock privately. Since I don’t have his email address (nor does he provide a Contact page for non-comment communication), of course I have not sent one to him. If you have it, please provide it to me. If you don’t have it or are unwilling to provide it to me, then don’t be an ass.
Supposing that you consider me to be one who “live[s] in the shadow of Wilson’s (and others’) act of being the only man in the room”, I see no evidence of your “compassion”. Your actions speak louder than your words.
In effect, it appears you consider yourself to be one of the most important men in the room, with special knowledge that the ignorant (like me) should properly recognize. However, I don’t find you (or Wilson, Dalrock, or many others) to be deserving of such respect. I’ll listen, but I will “test the spirits to see whether they are from God”.
Crap. The Clean Tags Version…
@OKRickety
I see. I understood that you were answering AR, but you emphasized “on this blog” with bold. Bold does not usually denote a quotation or summary. So I did not understood that your use of “on this blog” was in reference to yourself earlier when you wrote:
in which, ironically, you used bold, and it was not as a quotation, or summary of a quotation. You can see how this can get confusing…
Regardless, it still looks like tone policing to me, and I’m not the only one to say so.
Obviously I can’t concern myself too much with those who get in the way when they really ought to know better.
No. First of all: I don’t know who all’s in the room. Secondly: Dalrock is the most important man in the room. It’s his blog, filled with his words and insight which have drawn all these commenters–which is a truly impressive collection. Even from a just a purely material perspective there is an enormous collection of brainpower here. Third: Wilson is a more important man than I am by far. I suspect he is more important than anyone else either in here or mentioned. His rightness or wrongness doesn’t change that. Fourth: I don’t have special knowledge, and have never claimed I do. I read the same Bible as everybody else, and I am indebted to a large number of men who shared their knowledge with me. I don’t think I have been shy about saying so, either.
I’m going to quote this again, because I just find it incredible:
Sounds pretty damned miserly to me.
@ Wraithburn,
no I’m not. It would be a motte-and-bailey if I first made a strong statement and then retreated from it when challenged. But I don’t accept Cane’s prejudicial exaggerations as an accurate account of what I’m saying, so there’s no retreat in view here. I made my point more than once, and I stand by it.
Cane Caldo,
‘… you emphasized “on this blog” with bold. Bold does not usually denote a quotation or summary.’
I apologize for the confusion. I did not use quotes as I should have, and I agree that bold face does not indicate a quote. It’s a blog and mistakes happen. For example, “Crap. The Clean Tags Version…”. 🙂
“Regardless, it still looks like tone policing to me, and I’m not the only one to say so.”
Yes, you and others have assumed, in spite of my repeated denials, I intended to police tone. I believe that comments here often display a confirmation bias. This claim that I am “tone policing” is an example. One claims it, then others assume it is truth.
“…but my intention (whenever I write a rebuttal) is to portray the truth as clearly as I can. As I rule, I do not try to effect change in someone else by any other means.”
I have no objection to the truth. However, determining the truth is not always easy. Individual beliefs are often stated as truth. For example, Artisanal Toad claims he knows the truth about polygyny, marriage, etc., and he portrays his beliefs as clearly as he can. But is it really the truth? I have no doubt that you also believe you only state “the truth”. But is it really the truth?
Cane Caldo,
I wrote: ‘However, I don’t find you (or Wilson, Dalrock, or many others) to be deserving of such respect. I’ll listen, but I will “test the spirits to see whether they are from God”.‘
After considering your response, and recognizing my error, I will change this to:
Although I do find you (and Wilson, Dalrock, and others) to be deserving of respect but not infallible, so I will continue to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God”. “But he who is spiritual appraises all things, ….” (1 Cor. 2:15)
AR-
Please read my Oct. 3, 2:04 p.m. comment. Carefully. If you struggle, please use the links I referred you to earlier. Or feel free to ask questions and I will answer what I can in areas you don’t understand.
In case you don’t, though, you’re wrong. I said Wilson hampered his main points by unnecessary over-correction. No problem with Dalrock for pointing it out. And, again, it isn’t tone, it’s fact. Wilson was wrong for what he wrote, but he won’t be damned to hell for it, which is what some were saying. Interesting you refer to emotions. Those aren’t emotions, they’re facts. Rather than engage them at an intellectual level, you accuse me, again, of being a woman, being emotional, etc. I hope that isn’t what you do every time you don’t understand something.
Coincidentally, here is my memory verse for today:
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. 2 Timothy 2:22-25
Italics mine. This controversy is not ignorant or foolish. It is extremely important. But, I still think the second part applies.
@Farinata
You’ve retreated from Wilson’s statements that Dalrock has countered and moved to a more defensible position. You have also made the potential situation a woman has to deal with more extreme to overcome your opponents. Since neither of these is the point under discussion, what are they for? I postulate you brought them up to defend the original position. This fluid shifting between an expansive weak position and a focused strong position is classic motte and bailey.
@ Wraithburn,
You make two charges:
1) You’ve retreated from Wilson’s statements that Dalrock has countered and moved to a more defensible position.
2) You have also made the potential situation a woman has to deal with more extreme to overcome your opponents.
I do not see my view represented in either of these. I submit you may have misunderstood my meaning. As to pt. 1, what thesis of Wilson’s, in your view, was I defending in the first place? I would say it was the idea that a wife may, if wronged by her husband (Wilson’s word was tyranny, which I take to involve some kind of sin), respond to or confront her husband in some fashion, and that such intervention, even if it involved the elders of the church, was not necessarily rebellion on her part. I think that’s basically what Wilson said, I pretty much still think that, and I have defended it in many comments so far. How then, am I retreating?
As to point 2, I am not sure what you are talking about. The point I always had in view was some kind of husbandly wrongdoing – sin, tyranny, abuse of authority, whatever you want to call it – and I am not aware of using any particularly dramatic rhetoric to talk about it. Would you mind telling me what to comment in particular you refer?
@RPC
This can’t be the real issue, because I’m much gentler to Wilson than I am to the CBMW, not to mention raging feminists. Yet the “concern” only comes up when I gently point out a problem with what Wilson is teaching. Sure, he is teaching something false, but he’s a good guy…
If you concern trolled every post I wrote, it would at least be consistent.
ys @ October 4, 2017 at 7:50 pm:
“Being a little binary there with being either with Wilson or Christ…
It’s not even about being nice, it’s about being factual. Saying someone will burn in hell for being incorrect on an issue like this isn’t nice, but it also isn’t true.”
An issue like this? This is Original Sin that Wilson is committing: women rebelling against their husbands’ God-given authority and the likes of Wilson helping them rebel. It doesn’t compare to something trivial like the Calvinist/Arminian debate.
To undermine the father’s authority is to undermine the Father’s authority. Don’t pretend this is the moral equivalent of getting dates & places wrong. I’ve heard that in Soviet Russia, there were men who discovered & followed Christ on the strength of a single page of Scripture. Christianity is not about having your facts in order. It’s about confronting the darkness inside you. Wilson helps wives NOT confront their darkness inside.
@Farinata
You mean like opening with the Bailey:
And then switching to Motte:
Then immediately switching back to Bailey, in the same comment:
Then when challenged, back to Motte:
More Motte:
Note that this directly contradicts your opening argument:
Then, in the same parenthetical sentence, back to Bailey:
Then back to Motte:
I could go on, as the pattern is relentless. But this should suffice.
ys
Please read my Oct. 3, 2:04 p.m. comment. Carefully. If you struggle, please use the links I referred you to earlier. Or feel free to ask questions and I will answer what I can in areas you don’t understand.
Done.
In case you don’t, though, you’re wrong. I said Wilson hampered his main points by unnecessary over-correction.
Yes, that’s correct, you did not take issue with Wilson’s reading of the Bible. Exactly as I said.
No problem with Dalrock for pointing it out.
No engagement on the actual issue of substance, either.
And, again, it isn’t tone, it’s fact. Wilson was wrong for what he wrote,
Be specific. Exactly what was Wilson wrong about, beyond “unnecessary over-correction”?
but he won’t be damned to hell for it, which is what some were saying.
Do you understand that “some” and “all” are not synonyms?
Interesting you refer to emotions. Those aren’t emotions, they’re facts. Rather than engage them at an intellectual level, you accuse me, again, of being a woman, being emotional, etc.
If you don’t want to be thought of as an emotional person who doesn’t play well with facts, then dial back your emotional blurts from 11 and start with the facts. If you don’t want to be treated as a woman, stop acting like one.
I hope that isn’t what you do every time you don’t understand something.
You’ve got to troll harder than that.
Bacl to facts:
Do you agree with WIlson’s “bring things to a head” reading of the Bible or not?
One of the things that comes out in perusing Wilson’s site is his sheer ownership. He has no problem breaking up marriages if he deems the woman to be at risk. So a marriage in Wilson’s church is a kind of 3-way: man, woman and Wilson.
Farinata degli Uberti would you like some nice, fresh-off-the-grill fried ice?
Direct challenge to OKRickety, ys, and RPC: choose one or both options below.
1. Scroll back to the original post. Copy and paste the Bible quotes Dalrock has posted. Write about Wilson’s position on Abigail in the context of the Bible. Directly quote from the Bible in support of your position.
2. Scroll back to the OP and copy / paste what Wilson said about “bringing things to a head” in a marriage. Write about this idea in terms of The Glasses. Be specific about what good thing is supposed to happen after a third party encourages a wife to rebel against her husband, contend with him for leadership, defy him while deferring to the third party, the Only Man In The Room.
Bible based or secular reality based. Choose one or both, and analyze Wilson’s advice on the basis of facts. Can y’all do it? Or is it just not what you really are interested in?
Suggestion: write your text in a logical, orderly fashion using a text editor then copy/ paste to the comment box. Do not write a meandering, emotional rabbit trail that has no real point. That won’t meet the challenge.
AR-
Thank you for actually reading my post, like I asked. I appreciate it. It will take a while before you can admit you were wrong in your accusations, son, but your mom and I are proud of what you have done so far.
Quit trying to pick a fight where there need not be one. You are coming off angry where there need not be anger.
@ Dalrock,
okay, perhaps, as you say, I am zig-zagging chaotically between two different points of view in the same comment, sometimes in the course of a single parenthetical sentence. (Although that wouldn’t be a motte-and-bailey as I understand it – isn’t the “bailey” part of the argument meant to come in *after* one has been criticized as a defensive move? Aha, you say, but that’s just the kind of subtle trickery we would expect from your type!) But isn’t it also possible – and a good deal more likely – that I am not contradicting myself all over the place like a crazy person? I use several sentences to qualify and illustrate my meaning. That isn’t some bizarre debating tactic – it’s the normal way to explain complicated things.
And the matter is complicated! My whole point has been to suggest there may in some cases be a non-rebellious (that is, non-sinful) way of confronting or opposing one’s husband. I have advanced – at length – some biblical reasons for thinking this way, reasons to which I have not seen much response around here. I’m sure I am capable of contradicting myself sometimes (although I don’t think that would really qualify as a motte-and-bailey tactic either) but you are pulling examples that don’t actually contradict each other. The idea that “a wife shouldn’t rebel” doesn’t rule out the concept of “helping her husband via active resistance” unless you start from the premise that my whole point is nonsense. You’re welcome to prove me wrong if you can, but it’s a bit presumptuous to charge me with incoherence because I don’t reject my own ideas.
Besides, even given your very pessimistic assumptions about my ability to follow my own argument, your examples hardly do the job. There are two terms in play “active resistance to a foolish agenda” and various forms of “response to a husband’s sin”. I am not – obviously – drawing a sharp distinction between them, because they are not, in fact, very different. In the context of a discussion of Scripture, where folly and wisdom are inevitably moral qualities, “foolishness” is the same as “sin” is the same as (in a leader) “abuse of authority.”
Active resistance to that, of which Abigail is one example, illustrates the principle that submission is not the same as slavery; that “be silent and subject” is not a universal statement that applies to every imaginable situation. But call it “folly”, call it “sin”; call it “active resistance”, call it “confronting him when he sins against her” – is there some bright and obvious distinction between these terms that you see that I am missing, or are we just quibbling over which adjective I happened to pick?
In fine, I reject your charge, because I haven’t changed my mind, nor my basic argument, in any substantial way. Indeed, why would I – most people here have offered little in the way of substantial engagement.
RPC @ 10:36 am:
“Coincidentally, here is my memory verse for today:”
Not a coincidence. You are passive-aggressive today.
“So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. 2 Timothy 2:22-25”
Quarrels here refers to foolish and ignorant controversies, as actually stated in this quote. Defending a false teacher by complaining about a critic’s lack of kindness & patient tolerance of evil does not fit that description. As demonstrated by Christ, Paul, Stephen and many others.
You are Protestant, yes? Sola Scriptura, yes? Then why are you even tempted to follow Wilson into disobedience against both letter and spirit of Scripture?
Or are you non-denominational? What anchor do you have for your faith if neither Rome nor Bible? I hope you are not combining Catholic trust in hierarchy with Protestant lack of structured accountability. That’s a personality cult.
…
Farinata degli Uberti @ 1:09 pm:
“@ Dalrock,
“I use
several sentencesmultiple pages at a time to qualify and illustrate my meaning. That isn’t some bizarre debating tactic – it’sthe normal way to explain complicated thingsa typical smoke-screen debating tactic.”FIFY again. Tip: the normal way to explain complicated things isn’t “maybe you’re right and maybe I’m right, and maybe we’re both kind of right in different ways”.
ys
Thank you for actually reading my post, like I asked. I appreciate it. It will take a while before you can admit you were wrong in your accusations, son, but your mom and I are proud of what you have done so far.
Troll harder.
Quit trying to pick a fight where there need not be one. You are coming off angry where there need not be anger.
Irony.
This doesn’t even come close to meeting my challenge. Try again.
AR-
I don’t care about your challenge, because that was never my original interest.
@ Gunner,
maybe, while you’re fixing things, you could explain how I’m wrong? I’d be very grateful.
Farinata degli Uberti @ 3:49 pm:
“maybe, while you’re fixing things, you could explain how I’m wrong? I’d be very grateful.”
Sure. You agree with Wilson that a husband’s authority should be contingent upon his good behavior; that a wife can disobey him if he’s “abusive”, maybe after getting a priest to take her side. However, it is plain in Scripture–from the verses Dalrock cited to the Biblical example of Nabal himself–that a husband’s authority is not conditional upon the husband’s good behavior.
God is real and will not allow an evil man to go unpunished forever. But you don’t trust God; therefore, you (and Wilson) usurp the husband’s God-given authority “as needed” and hide your evil under a blanket of feelings and good intentions.
TL;DR: Fear God, serve your husband and keep your vows. Do not look for an alternative. Do not make an escape plan.
ys
I don’t care about your challenge, because that was never my original interest.
Excellent. Rarely get confirmation from a troll that quickly. Thanks!
AR-
As we have said before, just because I disagree, does not make me a troll. Someone disagreeing with you doesn’t make them emotional. Let me let you in on a secret: We’re talking by typed text. It’s exceptionally difficult to tell emotions that way. Some people bold or go all caps, but I haven’t done that. You called me emotional because that was your way of disqualifying me. Disqualifying me…for what? That my original premise was that a person getting one part of the Bible wrong in their teaching doesn’t damn them to hell? Fine. Debate me on that. You didn’t. You would lose.
@ Gunner,
thank you for the answer. Are you saying, then, that Abigail, when she does the very thing that Nabal commands should not be done, is being submissive and obedient to him? That’s a very expansive definition of obedience, and seems to present a major difficulty with your view.
Secondly, would you say that the Matthew 18 process for settling problems of sin within the church, running from private rebuke to excommunication, is something wives are not permitted to make use of? That is where I would ground the right of a wife to bring the elders into her marriage, and I would like to hear if and why you think they are excluded.
Apparently, his contemporaries thought he was a heretic, because he believed …
I hadn’t heard of him, so I looked it up.
Of course, internet personae can have whichever name for whatever reason.
“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority ….” (1 Peter 2:13)
Are work bosses authorities? Are governments authorities? Are church leaders authorities?
The above command to submit provides no exceptions. Would you obey it unconditionally, or do you think there are exceptions?
@OKRickety
Good enough for me. Usually we are on the same side. Peace.
@Farinata
1. Nabal does not command that David and his men not be fed. Nabal says (1 Sam 25) “10 And Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. 11 Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?” Those are questions. Leading, smarmy, and stupid questions? Yes. They are still questions.
2. Nabal actually has the answers to those questions. Otherwise he would not ask, “Who is the son of Jesse?”, as that was not part of the greeting David sent to Nabal. So the discerning person can answer Nabal’s questions in the affirmative. In 1 Sam. 25:3 we are told that Abigail is indeed discerning. So she rightly can feed David and his men since David and his men meet Nabal’s requirement.
3. Abigail herself was not the recipient of even Nabal’s foolish questions; much less commands which he did not make. We are told a servant had to go find her and tell her about the conversation between Nabal and his young men.
4. Abigail, as the wife of Nabal, is a legitimate ruler over Nabal’s servants. She can legitimately direct them to feed David and his men; which she does.
5. David is actually the anointed king of Israel, and of the house of Judah (a prerequisite for legitimate kingship [Gen 49:10 “The scepter shall not depart from Judah”]). Saul, a Benjaminite, is not the legitimate king. David commands the submission of both Nabal and Abigail.
In conclusion: Abigail–in no way–rebelled or usurped her husband. That’s what makes it a great story. That’s what made Wilson’s comment…(“Now before getting into what we see, I wanted qualify something first. I want you to know and understand that nothing said here would apply to a woman who was married to a genuine tyrant. I have often wished that more women would be willing to be Abigails in dealing with their Nabals, and those situations are scarcely rare. I know that there are marriages where the husbands are thugs and bullies, and that their wives need to learn how to bring things to a head. I know of such situations at first hand. When that happens, and it happens too often, I am firmly in the corner of the wife who is the victim. Many women need to learn to be an Abigail.”)…so foolish, an obviously twisted interpretation.
I don’t think you’re ready to discuss that until you have the more basic issue sorted.
” I wanted qualify something first. I want you to know and understand that nothing said here would apply to a woman who was married to a genuine tyrant. I have often wished that more women would be willing to be Abigails in dealing with their Nabals, and those situations are scarcely rare. I know that there are marriages where the husbands are thugs and bullies, and that their wives need to learn how to bring things to a head. I know of such situations at first hand. When that happens, and it happens too often, I am firmly in the corner of the wife who is the victim. Many women need to learn to be an Abigail” -Pastor Doug Wilson
– Many times Pastors have stated that they know of violent and dangerous husbands in their marriages. Every time I have heard this, it is as an anecdote and an aside in a sermon. In life, I have only come across one man who was a genuine hell raiser before he was changed by Jesus Christ. As he was older, I had him tell my parents his story as a witness. I know of only one other case of a husband who was a child molester. That’s in 30 years of church attendance.
Since so many Pastors use the violent husband as an aside or anecdote, does anyone else on this blog know whether this is a genuine hazard that pastors face?
I’m not trolling, but genuinely asking.
@ Gunner,
you concede Abigail a lot of flexibility… look at the story.
1. David sends a request for a gift (1 Sam. 25:8)
2. Nabal refuses that request and insults him (10-11). Note that his “questions” are obviously rhetorical: everyone understands that he is answering David in the negative. Which is why David decides a massacre is the best response. Come on, are you really going to say that you don’t know what a rhetorical question is?
Now, the crux of it: you say “Abigail herself was not the recipient of even Nabal’s foolish questions; much less commands which he did not make. We are told a servant had to go find her and tell her about the conversation between Nabal and his young men.”
This is special pleading. Nabal’s questions are a command: they show that he has made a decision in the case, and they are interpreted by every single character in the story as a comprehensible answer to David’s question. None of the servants are shown wandering around saying “Golly, we have no idea what our master means to do. He was asked a question, but he just asked some other questions in response. It’s so confusing!” That is not a credible interpretation.
3. Not only has Nabal obviously refused David’s request, but this is made known to Abigail, as you agree. So now we have a case where the husband’s wishes in a matter are clearly known – a messenger has told Abigail everything she needs to know about the current household policy. If her duty is to submit to her husband’s wishes without question or pause, her course is clear. Or does “submission” to you only mean “obeying the precise letter of explicit verbal commands”? As if Abigail could really look her husband in the face and say “you didn’t even really tell the servants not to feed David, let alone me. How was I supposed to know what you wanted?”
Would you take that kind of evasive reasoning from your wife or children? “Sweetie, didn’t I tell you not to draw on the sheets with marker?” “Yes, Daddy, that’s why I drew on the pillows and the comforter.” Surely you see that this becomes absurd?
No. Abigail clearly knew what Nabal wanted. He was not ambiguous in the slightest. And she clearly didn’t do that. Stop avoiding the obvious sense of the text.
Cane,
That was not always true.
Saul’s rebellion cost him the Kingdom, not any illegitimacy. God told Samuel to choose Saul. That was not God’s ideal, but it could have worked out, according to what Samuel says above. God, being outside time and seeing how Saul would ultimately act, correctly indicated it would be Judah, not Benjamin, but that does not mean it could not have been otherwise if Saul had been repentant as David was when it came to sin.
ys
As we have said before, just because I disagree, does not make me a troll
True, but irrelevant. You aren’t here to discuss the OP, you aren’t here to discuss Wilson’s error, you aren’t here to defend Wilson via the Bible, you aren’t here to defend Wilson in a Red Pill sense. We know this because you said so.
What does that leave? Well, concern trolling for one thing. Tone policing for another. Attempting to use shaming language on some of Wilsn’s critics for another. None of this is new, it’s been seen before in the androsphere for years. Now I’m wondering again if you haven’t posted here previously, perhaps under multiple handles, because this whole style is familiar.
That my original premise was that a person getting one part of the Bible wrong in their teaching doesn’t damn them to hell?
Dalrock said no such thing in the OP. You are moving the goalposts in order to squid-ink.
Fine. Debate me on that. You didn’t. You would lose.
GunnerQ wrote that. You disagreed. I have taken no position either way, so this feeble attempt to drag me into your personal squabble with another commenter is ridiculous. Furthermore, pretending that your private disagreement has anything at all to do with the OP is dishonest.
You won’t actually discuss the OP. You said so yourself. Case closed.
Are you a member of Wilson’s church?
Spike
Since so many Pastors use the violent husband as an aside or anecdote, does anyone else on this blog know whether this is a genuine hazard that pastors face?
Good question. I’ve wondered that myself. If I remember, Mark Driscoll used that a bit, and it always struck me as classic psychological projection. Most preachers I’ve met in real life are pretty mild mannered. Once in a sermon I heard a pastor refer to a shocking thing that had happened in his house, i.e. he and his wife had become so crosswise to each other that they raised their voices to each other, something that had never happened before in 10 years of marriage.
Feminism has redefined “abuse” via the Duluth protocol and VAWA to include many things that people foolishly do as part of a verbal argument. This equates holding a door shut “you can’t leave until you hear me out!” with broken bones.
Given the mild nature of many (for sure not all) pastors and the redefinition of “abuse” over the last 30+ years, it is entirely possible that pastors who use the “violent husband” as an anecdote or example are just parroting a feminist lie. Unconsciously so, because we all swim in the sewer of feminism, but still parroting that lie.
I’m open to correction. Having known some actual “she got a black eye” men in my time, it’s possible some churches have real-deal physical abusers. But frankly I need more than “pastor said so” now, because of over a generation of feminist lies.
As an aside, one of the better ironies of that thread over at Wilson’s site is the reaction of Bytes. Wilson bends over backwards to include feminist tropes in his meandering monologue, and caters to Bytes in multiple comments. Then she declares him an abuser of an imaginary woman and rushes off to her own blog to post a diatribe that is a remarkable feminist fantasy. Wilson’s reward for catering to Bytes whim? To be abused by her in text. A teaching moment for those who can learn; catering to feminists just gets more bad behavior.
“Are you saying, then, that Abigail, when she does the very thing that Nabal commands should not be done, is being submissive and obedient to him?”
You invent a command from Nabal to Abigail that Scripture does not describe.
“[Matt. 18] is where I would ground the right of a wife to bring the elders into her marriage, and I would like to hear if and why you think they are excluded.”
This contradicts Scripture. Wives submit to husbands, not priests. Either the husband is the top authority or he isn’t. Either he’s the leader of his family or he’s subject to Church supervision & correction. You’re trying to have this both ways.
If you don’t want to submit, female, then don’t get married. God did not intend marriage to come with an exit strategy.
This is tedious. I don’t think you want to listen so I quit.
@ Gunner,
“This contradicts Scripture. Wives submit to husbands, not priests. Either the husband is the top authority or he isn’t. Either he’s the leader of his family or he’s subject to Church supervision & correction. You’re trying to have this both ways.”
This is the fundamental problem – you imagine that a husband is either sole arbiter or a thrall, when the truth is that he is both the authority in his family, and under the authority of various other parties – the government, the church, and ultimately God. These also have authority over his wife, who is in turn (by delegated authority) ruler over their children. You complain that I am trying to have it both ways – it is both ways: we all both rule and are ruled in turn. If that’s too complex for your taste, then your dispute is with reality, not with me; in which case I shouldn’t wonder you find it frustrating.
@ Spike, AR,
I share your genuine curiosity about this. I don’t know how the facts could ever be brought to light, but I have been to many churches due to job related moves, and I am unable to correlate the men I see at them with domestic violence. They just seem way too passive for that. It probably is out there because eventually everything happens but it’s hard to imagine the numbers are anything but minuscule.
AR-
You are truly ignorant if you think me talking about a side issue, not the main point=trolling, because many do it here. You’re just trying to score points. Not trying to drag you into a different side issue, was pointing out my original intent for posting. I already said where I disagreed with Wilson. Your attempts, again, to pin me down on something seem desperate.
Here, let me help you with your comeback: “Seem desperate, you’re projecting, like all women, you’re femine, AWALT, derp, derp.”
My style seems familiar? Well don’t beat around the bush. Who do you think I am, from previous experience? This is the only handle I have ever used on this blog.
Again, all of the stuff you allege against me could be alleged against you. Your hypocrisy shines through.
Gunner Q,
“Either the husband is the top authority or he isn’t. Either he’s the leader of his family or he’s subject to Church supervision & correction. You’re trying to have this both ways.”
It’s not a case of “trying” to have it both ways. It is truly both ways because that’s what the Bible teaches. The overall principle regarding Christians and authority is this:
It seems you want to make the authority of a husband second only to God.
“This is tedious. I don’t think you want to listen so I quit.”
Are you using the definition of listening found in Not Listening where Dalrock says ‘Saying someone “isn’t listening” very commonly does mean the person isn’t doing what you told them to do.’? Farinata could make the same claim about you.
However, it seems more likely you are like the kid who didn’t like the way the game was going, so he took his ball and went home.
I am unable to correlate the men I see at them with domestic violence. They just seem way too passive for that. It probably is out there because eventually everything happens but it’s hard to imagine the numbers are anything but minuscule.
If there is any DV going on in churchian marriages to an unusual extent, it is almost certainly, in nearly ALL cases, the wives abusing the husbands. These guys are passive and cowed for a reason: they’re trapped in marriages to bat-shit crazy and know that NOBODY within the church would believe them if they spoke up about the abuse. In fact, they’d be demonized and mocked even more ferociously than ever. They’re truly in a no-win situation.
But how will they be able to have their cake and eat it too?
The widespread use of the exit strategy and their sexual immorality before the marriage are not going to keep the (secular) instituion up much longer.
ys
AR-
You are truly ignorant if you think me talking about a side issue, not the main point=trolling, because many do it here.
Insisting that I debate you on a side issue, rather than the op, looks a whole lot like trolling.
Why? Because it is an obvious attempt to change the subject away from Wilson’s actual words to something else.
You’re just trying to score points.
Irony.
Not trying to drag you into a different side issue,
You want me to debate you over what GunnerQ said about Wilson – that’s a side issue I have no opinion on, as I have clearly stated before. It’s got nothing to do with the OP. You are close to lying.
was pointing out my original intent for posting. I already said where I disagreed with Wilson.
Yes, you disagree with Wilson on a side issue, you have not yet expressed anything about how Wilson reads the story of Abigail – which is the original point that you keep running away from.
Your attempts, again, to pin me down on something seem desperate.
You’ve pinned yourself down as a troll.
Here, let me help you with your comeback: “Seem desperate, you’re projecting, like all women, you’re femine, AWALT, derp, derp.”
My style seems familiar? Well don’t beat around the bush. Who do you think I am, from previous experience? This is the only handle I have ever used on this blog.
Not sure yet, but your passive-aggressive dancing around the topic looks familiar.
Again, all of the stuff you allege against me could be alleged against you. Your hypocrisy shines through.
Oh, goody, another side issue. It is so obvious that you just do not want to compare and contrast Wilson’s reading of the Bible with the plain text. You’d rather go on at length on anything else for some reason or other.
Again I ask this question: are you a member of WIlson’s church?
AR-
First, I was tone-policing. Now you’ve dropped that by saying I am just running around debating side issues. Crimes have changed, but you are sure I have committed one. I don’t care if you debate me on the side issue. I pointed out that was my original comment. I am not trying to score points on you. This is quite tedious, truth be known.
For fun, I won’t answer your question about if I am a member of Wilson’s church. I’ll leave it for you to decide. I don’t answer because, you obviously think I am one, so I can either confirm or have you say that I am lying. Either way it makes no difference. Same with my opinion of Wilson’s interpretation of Abigail. You don’t really care what I think, so I don’t know why you ask. Again, tedious.
ys
First, I was tone-policing. Now you’ve dropped that by saying I am just running around debating side issues.
That is correct. You commenced your trolling here with tone policing, then you got into a side issue with GunnerQ – nothing wrong with that, it happens all the time – but then you admitted you had no interest in discussing the OP, rather you wanted to debate that side issue.
I don’t care if you debate me on the side issue.
Well, it’s your prerogative to change your mind.
For fun, I won’t answer your question about if I am a member of Wilson’s church.
Ok by me.
I’ll leave it for you to decide.
But I don’t care all that much.
I don’t answer because, you obviously think I am one, so I can either confirm or have you say that I am lying.
I ask because I want to know the answer.
Either way it makes no difference. Same with my opinion of Wilson’s interpretation of Abigail. You don’t really care what I think, so I don’t know why you ask. Again, tedious.
I ask for your opinion on Wilson’s reading of Abigail because I want to know, and you have not bothered to write about that so far. The main topic, and you haven’t written about it. Interesting.
Pro-tip: keep track of your own words, and it will be easier for you to defend them.
Well AR, it was amusing watching you confuse me with OKRickety in the “helping victims stand against their abusers” thread. Your not-cleverness was exposed and I got to just enjoy it, rather than do it.
You are wrong. My first comment was only about the side issue with Gunner, it wasn’t tone-policing. Don’t expect you to get that, though, you can’t seem to keep up with who you are talking to, or about what.
I’ll answer your silly questions though, since at this point it would be piling on to keep pointing out your ineptitude.
1) I am not a member of Wilson’s church. Hard for you to keep track of comments, I know, but I have said before that I have lived in the Midwest my whole life. Maybe you missed that.
2) I think Wilson’s reading on Abigail is more in line with what the Bible says, but irrelevant. Even if Abigail was right to “bring it to a head” and be a rebel to her husband, she was doing so in service of the man God declared would be king on the throne, David. In the same way that some have said Prov. 31 women can’t exist today, I think that even if Wilson’s reading of Abigail is on point, there are no “Abigails” today, because there isn’t a man God has appointed to the throne for them to appeal to, as Abigail did to David. As Dalrock, and some at Wilson’s blog, observed, Sarah is the example for Christian wives. If Abigail was intended to be, then a NT author like Peter or Paul would have used her.
Your need to pick fights needs to be worked on. Flame wars went out with the 1990s.
Submission is a funny word. When you break it down a sub-mission is the mission below the main Mission. I enjoyed reading your post Dalrock – thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!
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