Payback

Nancy Carol Hastings Sehested writes in An open letter to Paige Patterson:

Dear Brother Paige,

We now have something in common. We were both ousted. Mine happened so long ago that you may not remember me. It was 30 years ago. I was among the first casualties of the war against women in pastoral positions in the Southern Baptist Convention. The church that I was called to pastor was “disfellowshipped” in 1987 for “knowingly calling a woman as pastor.” You may recall that it was after the SBC resolution to exclude women from pastoring “to preserve a submission God requires because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.”

Feminists have not forgotten that Patterson is the man who led the effort Ms. Carol Hastings Sehested is recounting.  In taking his scalp, they have won a long coveted victory.

Menwhile Dr. Jason K. Allen proposed a resolution to spike the football at the upcoming SBC convention:

WHEREAS, to the shame of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the very obscuring of the Glory of God, a number of Southern Baptist leaders, professors, and ministers have since our last annual gathering sinned against the Lord and against women by their ungodly behavior and language; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Dallas, Texas, June 12-13th, 2018 repudiate in the strongest terms any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman, and any behavior with a woman that would compromise the New Testament standard of a minister’s absolute purity and requirement to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:1, 5:2)…

Dr. Allen as you might recall is the president of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Allan’s seminary publishes articles from the far left of the complementarian movement, including one which complains that church leaders are “maddeningly male” (emphasis mine):

In the 35 years or so since then, liberal churches grew more liberal and the conservative—heaven help us. McQuinn uses the term androcentrism to describe the shift in neo-reformed environments in particular. It means being dominated by or emphasizing masculine interests or a masculine point of view. It wasn’t that the theology was all wrong, it was that the voices of church leaders were maddeningly male, through the male perspective, with male interests paramount, and evaluated by males.

Imagine with me for a moment a room of chimps all chimping about how to be a better room of chimps and pandas.

Dr. Allen’s resolution will go to a formal vote at the upcoming convention, but it has already been affirmed by a long list of SBC leaders, including both candidates for SBC President as well as Dr. Albert Mohler.

This entry was posted in Albert Mohler, Complementarian, Domestic Violence, Dr. Jason K. Allen, Dr. Paige Patterson, Midwestern Seminary, Southern Baptist Convention. Bookmark the permalink.

195 Responses to Payback

  1. earl says:

    Imagine with me for a moment a room of chimps all chimping about how to be a better room of chimps and pandas.

    Well if God is a Chimp that makes sense…and if women were a completely different species from men the panda-chimp thing makes sense…however a man is the image and glory of God and the woman is the glory of man who came out of men and was created for men. So this makes no sense.

  2. They are putting their institutions on the fast track to obsolescence. I see future churches with many empty pews, and those that are filled having mostly girls, women, and the elderly.

    Much like in Europe, as dead churches are repurposed into facilities more useful to their people.

    Darwin gets the last laugh, as evolution is also a social process.

  3. Pingback: Payback | @the_arv

  4. squid_hunt says:

    They are putting their institutions on the fast track to obsolescence.

    That really is the tragedy. These are the useful idiots Lenin crowed about. Just in my lifetime you can clearly see the two step movement of the progressives.1. Convince them to let go of their convictions. 2. Insert your own convictions.

  5. Anonymous Reader says:

    The Southern Baptist Convention is farther along the SJW / feminist convergence track than I had realized. It shouldn’t be too many years before it’s just another “skinsuit” church.

    Perhaps one of the more theologically educated men can help me out with the Bible quotes about payback, also known as revenge? I’m sure that no SBC woman would ever engage in behavior that wasn’t right out of the Bible…

  6. DrTorch says:

    The church she was “called” to pastor. Called by whom? I know the answer.

    But worth remembering, this opposing side is playing the long game. They are persistent, and are willing to use multiple tacks for their attacks.

    The Church was called to go on offense against Hell. Most leaders in the formal institution are now playing defense…and doing a poor job of it.

  7. Anonymous Reader says:

    Question:

    Will Beth Moore be crowned queen of the SBC this year, or later on?

  8. Clown World called her. But how does she care for all her cats?

  9. Anon Reader,

    “Will Beth Moore be crowned queen of the SBC this year, or later on?”

    Later, but sooner than most expect. These revolutions occur slowly, then at immense speed.

    70% of high school valedictorians are girls. But a decade ago girls were oppressed victims in school, needed a wide range of special programs.

  10. feministhater says:

    You cannot win by negotiating with women. You cannot win by groveling to them. You cannot win by giving them what they want. You cannot win by treating them as an equal. You cannot win by trying to be their partner. You cannot win by listening to them.

    You can only win by treating them like children, treating their tantrums with disdain and cutting them off when they do so. You can only win by letting them discover the true consequences of their actions. When women get involved everything, and I do mean everything, becomes about them and their feelings, you will be so wrapped up in trying to satisfy them that nothing worth while will ever get done. Furthermore, they are never satisfied anyway and will oust you out of the very thing you created to begin with. They are their to usurp your authority, not to be your helpmeet.

  11. Jason says:

    “…any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman” Presumably this includes suggesting that women are as much sinners as men or that they are complicit in the fall.

  12. feministhater says:

    “…any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman” Presumably this includes suggesting that women are as much sinners as men or that they are complicit in the fall.

    Soon these same women will be telling the men to ‘man up’ and ask them out but still demanding that men not ‘objectify them’ or ‘dishonour’ them by trying to court them.

    Hey, I gave up, there is no solution to this insanity. I’m sure Jordan Peterson will save us all though.. his followers sure believe so..

  13. SnapperTrx says:

    Mine happened so long ago that you may not remember me. It was 30 years ago.

    But me? I have never, ever forgotten. Not one single day.

  14. R.O.B. says:

    Rev 2: 20-29

    20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

    24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’

    26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 27 that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’[b]—just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

  15. Joe says:

    At the end of her letter it says

    “I have deep roots in Southern Baptist life. My middle name is Carol. I was named after my father, Carroll, who was named after B.H. Carroll, the founder of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.”

    Now what does that have to do with ANYTHING???

    “Look at me. My middle name is from the name of some one who was named after the founder of SWBTS. THEREFORE I haz kredibilitys”!!

  16. JRob says:

    “knowingly calling a woman as pastor.”

    My throw up threw up in its own mouth.

  17. thedeti says:

    Rollo:

    Josh Harris has gotten completely out of ministry. He’s now a “creative consultant”:

    Hi, my name is Joshua Harris and I’m the director of CLEAR+LOUD, a creative consulting agency. I’m a wordsmith, communicator, and content strategist. I can help you grow your business by clarifying your message.

    https://joshharris.com/about/

  18. DrTorch says:

    R.O.B.- Good citation.

  19. thedeti says:

    I missed this. He’s now producing a documentary about distancing himself from I Kissed Dating Goodbye:

    https://joshharris.com/documentary/

    For the past year, I’ve been inviting feedback on my book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” The following letters are stories from people who have read the book and given me permission to share them here.

    I’m grateful for the men and women who took the time to write me. Their honesty—both in the form of critique and encouragement—has helped me as I’ve wrestled with what is helpful and unhelpful about my book.

    Something about too little too late, days late and dollars short comes to mind.

  20. thedeti says:

    OT:

    Looking at the Top Posts on the sidebar, I’m noting that “More Grim News for Carousellers Hoping to Jump at the Last Minute” has been there a good long while. It appears to have taken over a long standing “best of” spot from “Are Women over 55 Done with Marriage?”

    Again, the most popular posts are the ones in which women are called out for their behaviors. Hopefully, men are reading these carefully.

  21. MKT says:

    “Dr. Jason K. Allen proposed a resolution to spike the football at the upcoming SBC convention:”

    Someone else has is proposing a resolution to combat all the social justice and egalitarian madness suddenly overtaking the SBC. I don’t remember his name (I’m not a Baptist) but I think he’s a pastor. I’m glad some are fighting the good fight, but I don’t like their odds of winning.

  22. Paul says:

    To me the stomach-turning part was in :

    “I’m grateful to live in this apocalyptic time, a time of the “revealing,” as that word means. Even the trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary are hearing the strong voices of women. Uncovering the truth about the abuse of women opens the way for healing. Think about the divine possibilities. Men can be released of the ancient sin of patriarchy in order to practice the joy of mutuality. Women can live in peace and unafraid.”

    How telling to call it an apocalyptic time! And calling patriarchy “the ancient sin”, can it get worse?

  23. KPP says:

    What. The. Freaking. Freak.

    “Sinning against women?” It would be laughable if they weren’t so deadly earnest. These SBC cowards race to genuflect before the Throne of Eve. Who will draw the line in the SBC? Who will stand in the gap? Is there a man among them?

    All things are being shaken so what cannot be shaken will remain.

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  25. James says:

    A documentary called “I Survived Kiss Dating Good-bye.” You’re a consultant and content strategist now, but your documentary is all about how you were wrong back then – so why should I listen to you now? Oh, wait a minute, despite being misinformation and the views of a 21-year-old on dating, the books were successful, so that’s why I should listen to you, because you know how to successfully market books. Doesn’t matter what you’re marketing, as long as you’re successful. Got it.

    I remember the big effect this slop had on dating in the gullible fad-oriented, celebrity-driven world of churchianity when it came out.

    I can’t stand that arms-crossed pose Harris uses. To me, it’s the same as the feminist arms-crossed pose you see everywhere. I always tell my wife to expressly not pose for photos using that body language.

  26. Lost Patrol says:

    It’s all about you Nancy. Always has been.

    1988 – early days.

    http://www.womenofachievement.org/heroism/nancy-hastings-sehested/

    “for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond:”

    2013 – apparently still going strong.

    https://jimsomerville.wordpress.com/tag/preachers/

    “One of the things I’ve appreciated about CBF from the beginning was its commitment to women, especially at a time when many who felt called to ordained ministry were being told they could not fulfill that calling within the Southern Baptist Convention. Nancy Hastings Sehested preached…”

    Current day – figuratively, but publicly, curb stomps Dr. P, and all SBC men. They resolve to feel more shame.

  27. Opus says:

    I had a brief read on Wiki about the Southern Baptists and discovered that after the Roman Catholics they are the largest religious group in the United States. I also noted however that in the last decade their membership has dropped by a million from sixteen to fifteen million worshipers. Why? (By contrast: Out of a total of some seventy million Roman Catholics no less than eleven millions have been added since the 1990s and although, most of these were Hispanic arrivers some two million were otherwise.)

    These power struggles within religions in this case the caving-in to the vanity of vaunting female ambition hardly persuade fence sitters such as myself that one might be inclined to raise the membership by one.

  28. Gunner Q says:

    That Nancy Carol Hastings Sehested is a real piece of work. I just fisked a sermon she gave last year, using Elijah to encourage the Charlottesville protests. I couldn’t do her insanities justice in a single comment.

    http://gunnerq.com/2018/06/11/wicked-witch-nancy-carol-hastings-sehested/

    A bio I found claims she’s a retired chaplain for North Carolina’s men’s med. & maximum security prisons. The red-pilled mind boggles.

  29. RICanuck says:

    So sad. And here I thought the Catholic church was super cucked. It does not make me feel better to watch the SBC turn into the bastard offspring of the Onion and the Babylon Bee on acid.

  30. BillyS says:

    James,

    Yeah, dating is so wildly successful for so many Christians! Why did anyone oppose it! After all, past generations were completely ignorant when they didn’t have it at all….

    /sarc

  31. BillyS says:

    I am not sure what Dating (Josh Harris) has to do with this thread except for an opportunity for some foolish individual to rant about his favorite recent invention.

  32. BillyS says:

    Ah, I just saw Deti’s comments.

    You are still off Deti if you thinking dating is wonderful.

  33. thedeti says:

    Dating is not wonderful. As difficult as it was when I was doing it in the mid to late 80s through the mid 90s, it is terrible now.

  34. Anonymous Reader says:

    Larry Kummer
    70% of high school valedictorians are girls. But a decade ago girls were oppressed victims in school, needed a wide range of special programs.

    Girls are still oppressed victims in not just K – 12 but college and then the world of work, perpetually needing a wide range of special privileges. This is likely one factor in the increase in men pretending to be women. “If you can’t out-compete them, join them”.

  35. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS
    You are still off Deti if you thinking dating is wonderful.

    Deti didn’t approve of dating, he pointed out that the author of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” is a hypocrite. I strongly agree with Deti.

    What’s your suggested alternative, BillyS?

  36. Locard says:

    Well sbc appears about only 20 years behind the Methodists. I didn’t see it coming this soon. Next will be rainbow flags out front like the Unitardians and Congregationalists I see around here.

  37. earl says:

    I won’t hide the fact the Catholic church has some problems with clergy…but you’ll never see the dogma devolve to some goddess feminist new agey dogma. I’d say if a church starts going down the goddess worship route, get out.

  38. Canon Rex says:

    Baptists think quoting Scripture on submission is “ungodly language”??? Who would’ve thought it would have ever come to this…

  39. earl says:

    Baptists think quoting Scripture on submission is “ungodly language”??? Who would’ve thought it would have ever come to this…

    Sola Scriptura doesn’t seem to hold up when the world view changes apparently.

    Heck at this point with the feminism infection prevelant I’d be reminding Protestants…you do know what Sola Scriptura means don’t you?

  40. Hose_B says:

    Baptists think quoting Scripture on submission is “ungodly language”??? Who would’ve thought it would have ever come to this…

    The Baptist preach submission……..but it begins and ends with Ephesians 5:21

    That seems to be the depth of what they teach, but they give themselves a pat on the back because they “boldly upheld biblical submission”. Meanwhile pushing the husbands “servant lead” wives………which just means “do as she says”. They put her feelings as the barometer of his righteousness and his judged righteousness as the deciding factor of her submission. All the while giving her “leadership opportunities”. I

  41. Oscar says:

    Earl,

    “Sola Scriptura” hasn’t’ been tried and found wanting, it’s been found difficult and left untried. Also, don’t get cocky, kid.

  42. earl says:

    Cocky…if anything the Protestants are proving why things like not having women as pastors were said by St. Paul and put in Scripture.

    If they think submission is ungodly language, what about 1 Tim 2?

  43. Frank K says:

    While it might be tempting for those in the ancient apostolic churches to experience schadenfreude at the horrors happening on the Protestant side of the aisle, it behooves them to remember the admonition about who can cast the first stone.

  44. Red Pill Latecomer says:

    James: I can’t stand that arms-crossed pose Harris uses. To me, it’s the same as the feminist arms-crossed pose you see everywhere.

    I consider that the TV drama pose.

    I first noticed it over 30 years ago. Every year, TV Guide came out with the Fall Season issue, highlighting the new shows. Most shows were either sitcoms or dramas (the latter, mostly cops & detectives, though some doctors and executives too).

    Every sitcom’s cast photo had the actors with huge, laughing smiles and wide, giddy eyes, like they were all high.

    Every drama’s cast photo had the actors with arms crossed, or hands on hips, staring sternly. Like they were all such bad ass cops, oil executives, or surgeons.

  45. Sharkly says:

    earl says: I won’t hide the fact the Catholic church has some problems with clergy…but you’ll never see the dogma devolve to some goddess feminist new agey dogma.

    LOL Give your crazy new Pope a moment, and he’ll get out in front of this one.
    I suspect your gay priests will be slower to adopt vagina worship, but Your Pope will be flying the rainbow flag at the Vatican before too long.

    To each their own heresy! We all really need to start some new churches where we are not so beholden to the SJWs and the world’s satanic influence. We need to take the money and the earthly kingdom part away from the church. Once you’ve got a big fancy facility you’ve got something the world can take away and use as leverage on you. also people will need to be ready to be imprisoned for their beliefs. If you’re not ready to die for your beliefs, and see your children die for them, then the devil and his children will have that power over you.

    They’ll sort us out. As history has recorded.

  46. Lost Patrol says:

    Catholics have fought a more effective delaying action (here’s hoping they can keep up the resistance), but in my own lifetime I have seen encroachment.

    Ignorant but observant, I’ve been to Mass many times with my friends and relations over the last 30+ years. I remember the arrival of things I had never seen before such as altar girls, female lectors, female extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion; all of which have become commonplace but were rare to non-existent not too long ago. My Sister-in-law teaches the classes on the Catechism, though I don’t know if that is new or if women have always done it.

    Where else are they and what else are they angling for? I don’t know, but a quick search produces women theology teachers in Catholic institutions including diocesan seminaries –

    http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201211/what-women-theologians-have-done-church-26587

    along with groups stumping for woman deacons, and even ordination. They may never pull it off. But the point is boys, they are grasping for more and will not stop of their own accord, Bible and/or Church Tradition notwithstanding. They’re coming for us all.

    It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man (or a church)…

  47. BillyS says:

    AR,

    Harris may very well be a hypocrite. Plenty of those in churches, unfortunately.

    I don’t have any good solution anymore than I can suggest how to find a faithful wife. I just know that the modern dating system has HUGE flaws and is not appropriate. You don’t find out who an individual really is in one-on-one dating.

    Arranged marriages work much better, but require societal support, which is completely missing now.

    Though a lot of the application of Harris’s system was just dating under the name of courting, so it was bogus as well.

    Note that I already had that conviction decades before his book came out. Though even having God arrange a marriage doesn’t guarantee it will work in the long run, something I know from experience.

  48. BillyS says:

    Deti,

    Then I misunderstood your point. Sorry about that.

  49. Canon Rex says:

    Won’t happen. Can’t. Even if they push for it. Holy Orders can only be conferred on men in the RCC. Though yes, they will try.

    Thankfully priests have the power to allow only boys to be altar servers, if they decide in their parish.

    I’m going to my first Tridentine Mass next week. There’s still hope.

  50. earl says:

    There are women doctors in the Catholic church (although interesting there was no women doctors recognized until 1970)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_the_Church

    The issue is when these women teachers or theologians go off road from Catholic dogma to feminist dogma. This is the scum infecting the churches.

  51. Frank K says:

    along with groups stumping for woman deacons, and even ordination

    I think that it was unfortunate that JPII did not make an ex cathedra pronouncement forever forbidding female ordination. He abstained most likely because that (ex cathedra) is a problem for reconciliation with the Orthodox. Being how that most likely won’t ever happen, I think he should have closed that door (female ordination) for good.

    I seriously doubt Francis will ever fly the pride flag at the Vatican. Also, he is VERY old, and I hope his successor will be more like JPII.

  52. earl says:

    I’m hoping for more of a Pius X to be honest. But another JPII would be just as good.

  53. Frank K says:

    I’m hoping for more of a Pius X to be honest. But another JPII would be just as good.

    One step at a time. Hopefully Bergoglio will be the last Jesuit to sit on Peter’s chair.

  54. Jonadab-the-Rechabite says:

    “… repudiate in the strongest terms any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman, and any behavior with a woman that would compromise the New Testament standard of a minister’s absolute purity…”

    When they use the words objectify, dishonor and purity what they mean is male sex desire is bad, males thinking about sex is bad and women should be honored as goddesses to be served and adored without the slightest thought of sex; because sexual thoughts are impure, wanting sex with a woman is objectifying her and anything short of highest praise is a dishonor for such a pure holy angel of light.

  55. Spike says:

    “… repudiate in the strongest terms any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman, and any behavior with a woman that would compromise the New Testament standard of a minister’s absolute purity…”
    So… Christian men can’t:
    -Tell a woman she’s sinful (personal sin)
    -Tell her that she is part of fallen humanity (original sin)
    -Tell her that she needs to obey her husband in order to be a good wife
    -Tell her that her teaching from the pulpit is in biblical error if it is tested and found so.
    – Tell her that she is attractive
    -Tell her he’d like to ask her out….

    I take it that Christian women can only be used for two things:
    -To be put in a glass cabinet and admired
    -To be listened to unquestioned
    That’s about it.
    I think our collective sons are going to have to shovel away this stinking pile of manure when it all goes South.

  56. Opus says:

    I was wondering whether in the United States there is a social hierarchy of Protestant denominations. In England at the top (the Tory Party at prayer) come the Anglicans, followed by the tee-totalling Methodists, then the Baptists who are said to be like the Methodists but without the ability to read and finally as an offshoot of the Baptists the Salvationists and in outer darkness beneath them the Mormons.

  57. Scott says:

    They are putting their institutions on the fast track to obsolescence. I see future churches with many empty pews, and those that are filled having mostly girls, women, and the elderly.

    Much like in Europe, as dead churches are repurposed into facilities more useful to their people.

    Darwin gets the last laugh, as evolution is also a social process.

    As usual, Larry, your short comments are appreciated as they tend to encapsulate big ideas very succinctly.

    I’ve been sharing this Dalrock series around with friends (I’m Orthodox, but just based on demographics, you can imagine the vast majority of my Christian friends are protestants of some stripe) and I am struck by how this is not even a blip on the radar screen of any of them.

    The SBC and all of its ancillary and affiliated organizations has been “converged” to use a term Pukeko/Dark Brightness likes to deploy and its like “ho hum. Off I go to watch the latest Star Wars movie.”

    I think its actually too late to describe it as the “fast track to obsolescence” because that implies something in the future. Americans no longer rely on religious institutions to inform their faith, practice, behavior, morals, etc. They are already functionally obsolete.

    They stand as hollowed out buildings after a war has ravaged a city. A reminder of something that was once grand and beautiful but must now be razed and something rebuilt in its place.

  58. Scott says:

    I mean, come on…

    Resolved, that the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Dallas, Texas, June 12-13th, 2018 repudiate in the strongest terms any comment that would objectify and dishonor a woman, and any behavior with a woman that would compromise the New Testament standard of a minister’s absolute purity and requirement to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:1, 5:2)…

    The most pressing issue and biggest “sin” that these people feel needs to be urgently addressed at their next meeting is “objectifying” women?

    Really?

    Does anyone in what is left of “the West” still use this rubric to describe any phenomenon that occurs in reality?

  59. Oscar says:

    @ Earl

    I won’t hide the fact the Catholic church has some problems with clergy…but you’ll never see the dogma devolve to some goddess feminist new agey dogma.

    Then…

    There are women doctors in the Catholic church (although interesting there was no women doctors recognized until 1970)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_the_Church

    The issue is when these women teachers or theologians go off road from Catholic dogma to feminist dogma. This is the scum infecting the churches.

    Yeah. That’s why I said, “don’t get cocky, kid”. So, don’t get cocky, kid.

    I’m hoping for more of a Pius X to be honest. But another JPII would be just as good.

    Isn’t Francis infallible?

  60. Oscar says:

    @ Larry Kummer, Editor says:
    June 11, 2018 at 12:48 pm

    Much like in Europe, as dead churches are repurposed into facilities more useful to their people.

    Yeah, they’re becoming mosques, because those are Europe’s people now.

    But let’s not get cocky, because the same thing is happening here.

    http://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/buffalo/news/2017/02/3/st–gerards–catholic–church–buffalo–east-delevan–father-mazur–muslim–mosque

  61. Joe says:

    The SBC is objectifying women by making them into idols.

    The thing about idols…

    They ALWAYS demand a sacrifice.

  62. Frank K says:

    Isn’t Francis infallible?

    Only when he makes an ex-cathedra (from the chair) pronouncement, which he has never done.

  63. Frank K says:

    And by the way, IIRC there have only been two ex-cathedra pronouncements in all of history. And I still think JPII should have made one regarding female ordination.

    And contrary to popular belief, Francis has not “legalized” divorce and did not change the rules so that divorced and remarried people can receive communion, did not legalize sodomy, and did not change the English translation of the Lord’s Prayer, etc. What he does do is think out loud when he shouldn’t. Yes, he’s a liberal, which is why so many Catholics don’t like him, but he hasn’t made a single change to the Catechism.

    I really don’t know what the College of Cardinals was thinking of when they replaced him, but I hope and pray that next time they will choose better.

  64. BillyS says:

    I was going to say something like that Joe.

    Scott, they definitely objectivize women, just not the way they think.

    The sacrifices for that are going to get more and more expensive.

  65. MKT says:

    “any behavior with a woman that would compromise the New Testament standard of a minister’s absolute purity.”

    “Absolute” purity? Does that mean one just slightly off-color comment, joke or statement in a moment of weakness gets you fired? If they’re trying to be good Pharisees and demanding sinless, unrealistic perfection, they’re doing a good job.

    Don’t forget Mohler is the one saying husbands need to “earn” sexual privileges with their wives, contra Paul in 1 Cor. 7. In an age when porn is only seconds away on any phone or PC, let’s make it really difficult for husbands to have sex with their wives. What could go wrong there?

  66. Boxer says:

    …contrary to popular belief, Francis has not “legalized” divorce and did not change the rules so that divorced and remarried people can receive communion, did not legalize sodomy, and did not change the English translation of the Lord’s Prayer, etc. What he does do is think out loud when he shouldn’t. Yes, he’s a liberal, which is why so many Catholics don’t like him, but he hasn’t made a single change to the Catechism.

    I really don’t know what the College of Cardinals was thinking of when they replaced him, but I hope and pray that next time they will choose better.

    If he hasn’t done anything wrong, then why was he a bad choice?

    Personally, I love Pope Francis — especially for his proclivity to troll trannies…

    https://v5k2c2.com/2016/09/03/shit-happened-in-august/comment-page-1/

  67. Damn Crackers says:

    Wow! Find your favorite female pastor!! Did she make the list? Find out by checking out this link:

    https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-female-pastors/reference

    BTW, once you lost the the German Pietists, the SBC had no chance either.

    http://articles.mcall.com/1998-08-11/news/3213214_1_woman-bishop-provincial-synod-church-s-synod

  68. sipcode says:

    “Priests have profaned the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law” Zeph 3:4

    The church as we have know it for 500 years, with much man-made ‘structure’ and full time paid pastor, is in stage 4 cancer and will not survive,but will be replaced by individual men whom God has breathed over, reading scripture for themselves, then as iron sharpening iron, confront each other with its truths, in preparation for the coming great persecution.

    “I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand, and cause them to cease feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore” Ezek 34:10. “If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20. Routine becomes their downfall. Vain repetitions. Not connected to the Spirit. Carnal; doing it themselves. There is pride in routine, in the structure of the church. It becomes their god without reliance on the poverty in their own spirit; without surrender to and reliance on The Spirit. Pastors then have no light in them to shine on His Word.And …..having an idol, they “HATE ME” says the Lord. Exodus 20:4-5 “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.” Jer 23:1.

    “And now, O ye priests …because ye do not lay it to heart …behold, I will …spread shit all over your face” Malachi 2:1-3. Did I mis-translate? …the KJV says “dung upon your faces”?? No I did not. There is shit on the faces of the priests of God’s church …put there by God himself. See it. Accept it. Understand what is going in the church.

    Yes, shitfaced pastors, drunk on the wine of the Whore of Babylon. They are asking me to fear them and not fear God. Sure, there are “willingly ignorant” people for them to “merchandise” for Hell is and easy sell …but ‘Go with the flow?’ Me? Hell no.

    The church leaders “speak evil of those things which they know not” Jude 10. They know not because they are hung up in their own flesh, not willing to accept on faith all the Words of God. The “brute beasts.” Willingly ignorant. “Woe unto them …these are spots [contamination] in your feasts of charity …feeding themselves without fear [of God], clouds …without water …trees …without fruit …foaming out their own shame …their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage …who separate themselves [from God], sensual, having not the spirit” Jude 11-19.

    ”For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple” Rom 16:18. Who are they that speak so well, and what is this ‘such” with which they trick people? These are pastors, teachers, theologians, authors, etc. And they teach a doctrine that is contrary to scripture, but eaten up by ‘itchy ears’, those that are willingly ignorant and make believe that they are lovers of God. “I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause division and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them” Rom 16:17. And these lies and fables they teach and preach are what bring division in the church and separation from God. [‘author of 40 books’ ‘gifted speaker’ ‘PhD from Masters Seminary’ ‘uplifting presentation’ ‘President of Dallas Theological Seminary’ etc]

    “…prophets are light* and treacherous persons…priests have polluted the sanctuary; they have done violence to the law**” Zeph 3:4 (*sold nice sayings; **God’s Word)

    “Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word” Isaiah 66:5. Do you tremble at His word? Based on the discard of many of His commandments, I have to assume that most of the shepherds of the church do not tremble in fear and excitement at His Word …at Jesus, the Christ.

    Since when should we qualify God …His word, His authority over us? Why does the church add man-made aspects to Him …make excuses for Him, as if He is the eccentric weird uncle of our family. Make no mistake: the shepherds of the church are “ashamed” of God versus “My people shall never be ashamed” Joel 2:27. Peter was ashamed x3. The leaders of the church want us to agree with them, to buy their merchandise, at the costly expense of our souls, by denying Christ, the Word. They preach the damnation of our souls – “their damnation slumbereth not” 2 Pet 2:3. Are you ashamed?

    Shepherds of the church roar, and together destroy the sanctuary and name of God, willingly embraced by a foolish people; Psalm 74: “Why doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture? …the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Thine enemies roar in the midst of Thy congregations ….they have cast fire into Thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of Thy name …they have said in their hearts ‘Let us destroy them together.’ They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land …the foolish people have blasphemed Thy name”

    Shepherds of the church “do violence to the plainest language of Holy Scripture …and involve its interpretation in utter confusion. Read [it] without preconceived notions [bias, fables, wives tales] and the sense is plain” – Charles Ellicott’s Bible Commentary [at Gen 4:26]

    “Some having …vain janglings, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully.” 1 Tim 1:6-8

    “There is a conspiracy of [the] prophets in the midst thereof …they have devoured souls …they have made [them] many widows in the midst thereof. [The] priests have violated My law and have profaned mine holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and the profane …and I am profaned among them” Ezek 22:25-26.

    False prophets: “…vanity and lying divination, saying ‘The Lord saith’ …’Behold, I am against you’ saith the Lord” Ezek 13:6-8.

    General characteristic of the church: “after the working of Satan with …lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them …because they receive not the love of truth …that all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thes 2:9-12

    “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work, for they have made void Thy law” Psalm 119:126.

  69. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS
    Harris may very well be a hypocrite. Plenty of those in churches, unfortunately.

    Most of them don’t get book deals, national exposure and support from hundreds of pastors, though. See the difference?

    I don’t have any good solution anymore than I can suggest how to find a faithful wife. I just know that the modern dating system has HUGE flaws and is not appropriate. You don’t find out who an individual really is in one-on-one dating.

    How do you find out who an individual really is, then? I’m genuinely curious to know what you think about this. There are people in my social circle in their 20’s and 30’s who could use some advice, and the standard model isn’t working for them.

    Arranged marriages work much better, but require societal support, which is completely missing now.

    Outside of some rather tiny subcultures, I frankly can’t find any evidence that arranged marriages have been common in the US over the last 200 years or so. There’s no way to put that into effect at a society-wide level.

    So you are opposed to “dating” but have no real alternative, BillyS?

  70. Tubalcain says:

    Petty and sour grapes letter, but indicative of the feminized direction the SBC, and many other evangelical Protestant denominations are headed. As an Eastern Orthodox Christian (Antiochian Orthodox), I have no dog in this fight, but the largest Protestant denomination may be going the way of the many liberal Protestant denominations, and that means mass exoduses of disillusioned laity, and the subsequent death rattle of groups like the Southern Baptists.

  71. Opus says:

    Real estate is always changing hands. Where I am: the Muslims took over a public house which on the only occasion I went there thought myself lucky to escape with my life – they closed it soon after, the pub I mean. Under the Muslims it is set back and discrete. I was given an invitation to visit the Mosque but in the event declined the invitation. Then there were the Catholics who sold out to (((Tesco’s))) and built a rather horrid structure near one of the parks. The best church (designed in Greek Temple style) was sold to an Ikea Competitor and was known as St Habitat though they subsequently left. An evangelical church has been converted into an arts studio and another into apartments. At least one rather unprepossessing church has been razed and The Christian Scientists charming little building has been closed and is up for sale. The Salvationists have something with a tin roof and the Mormon’s are also not unrepresented. The strict Baptists have nice little building and its parishoners always look as if they have travelled back to the future from the 1950s – hard not to like that. All is not lost however as the main Baptists have a fine 1930s building and then there are still the Anglo-Catholic church (of which its spire has been removed) and various others though the one I really like dates back to to the 1690’s (this is a new town) and is not-a-Wren.

    Anyone might think we are not the Post-Christian heathens and scoffers we always claim to be.

  72. ray says:

    earl — “I won’t hide the fact the Catholic church has some problems with clergy…but you’ll never see the dogma devolve to some goddess feminist new agey dogma. I’d say if a church starts going down the goddess worship route, get out.”

    I’d say that too. And have, for a long time.

    earl — “I’m hoping for more of a Pius X to be honest. But another JPII would be just as good.”

    from the article “The Pope of Mary Co-Redemptrix”:

    “In witnessing to most every aspect of the story of Mary Co-redemptrix, John Paul II, the “Totus Tuus” Pope, exceeded all papal predecessors. The quantity of such testimonies is vast; their depth profound; their love inspired.”

    Vast. Profound. Inspired. Weep real tears for the Queen of Heaven! :O)

    The article goes on to celebrate glowingly the place of JP2 as leading historical proponent of the dog-ma of Mary as co-redeemer of humanity along with that other guy, hang on, uh . . . well I forget his name right now. Anyway, supposedly he’s part of it too! :O)

    “Goddess feminist new agey dogma.”

    Catholicism’s biggest problem isn’t homos in the priesthood. That’s the problem that satan wants the world focused on, because it further denigrates maleness, male authority, and the role of males (Christ) in the Catholic Church. Like #MeToo, the purpose of the homo-priest ‘revelations’ was to further subjugate the sons of Adam — lessening trust in males, increasing trust (and power) in females. It worked, too. Satan ran that entire dog ‘n pony show. Still does.

    Catholicism’s biggest problem is the one that Christ identified in Revelation 2:20. Most of modern Thyatira consists of Roman Catholics.

  73. ray says:

    R.O.B. —

    Oops. Wasn’t trying to steal your thunder, there. Didn’t see your comment until I posted mine.

  74. earl says:

    @ray

    It seems you are unaware the whole Co-Redemptrix thought has been tried to get into dogma, but isn’t. In fact everytime it has been brought it, it’s been shut down. I see no concern in Mary getting that title here.

    ‘It has always been controversial and has never formed part of the dogma of the Church.
    According to those who use the term, Co-Redemptrix refers to a subordinate but essential participation by the Blessed Virgin Mary in redemption, notably that she gave free consent to give life to the Redeemer, which meant sharing his life, suffering, and death, which were redemptive for the world. Related to this belief is the concept of Mary as Mediatrix, which is a separate concept but regularly included by Catholics who use the title Co-Redemptrix.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Redemptrix

    ‘In the early 1990s Prof. Mark Miravalle of the Franciscan University of Steubenville and author of the book Mary: Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate launched a popular petition to urge Pope John Paul II to declare Mary Co-Redemptrix ex cathedra.’

    If JP2 really wanted to go down that route he could.

    By 1998 it was doubtful the Vatican was going to consider new Marian dogmas. The papal spokesman stated “This is not under study by the Holy Father nor by any Vatican congregation or commission.”A leading Mariologist stated the petition was “theologically inadequate, historically a mistake, pastorally imprudent and ecumenically unacceptable.” Pope John Paul II cautioned against “all false exaggeration”; his teaching and devotion to Mary has strictly been “exalting Mary as the first among believers but concentrating all faith on the Triune God and giving primacy to Christ.” In his 1994 Apostolic letter, Tertio Milennio Adveniente, John Paul said, “Christ, the Redeemer of the world, is the one Mediator between God and men, and there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved (cf. Acts 4:12).”When asked in an interview in 2000 whether the Church would go along with the desire to solemnly define Mary as Co-Redemptrix, then-Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) responded that,

    the formula “Co-redemptrix” departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings. …Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything she is through Him. The word “Co-redemptrix” would obscure this origin. A correct intention being expressed in the wrong way.’

  75. Original Laura says:

    @Opus RE: Social hierarchy of denominations

    I read somewhere that the headmaster of St. Paul’s school for boys in New Hampshire told his students circa 1930 that in heaven, the Episcopalians would be on a somewhat higher plane than the Presbyterians.

    It used to be a common practice for ambitious men raised in fundamentalist churches in rural areas to join Episcopal or Presbyterian churches when they moved to the big city after college. I doubt that anybody has bothered with that strategy since the 1970s.

  76. Gunner Q says:

    Opus @ June 12, 2018 at 3:00 am:
    “I was wondering whether in the United States there is a social hierarchy of Protestant denominations.”

    No, the only significant conflict between denominations is Calvinism vs Arminianism. Most USA Prots would be hard pressed to describe any doctrinal differences between denominations, me included.

  77. DrTorch says:

    How do you find out who an individual really is, then? I’m genuinely curious to know what you think about this. There are people in my social circle in their 20’s and 30’s who could use some advice, and the standard model isn’t working for them.

    I’ve long argued that you do this by growing up w/ a person. Marriage of those aged 19-20 was fairly common throughout US history, and worked ok. There are several good reasons:

    -You know the person, how they developed, how they treat others, their work ethic… and you see much of this w/o the rose-colored glasses of infatuation and romantic love
    -You know their family background
    -You have shared experiences and commonality
    -You have a support network of friends

    Although anecdotal, some decades later, those from my youth who married their HS sweethearts seem to be faring better than others.

    It’s also no coincidence that it was the leftist, cultural Marxists, who wanted to tear apart families, pushed for extended education, and the notion that you should find someone in college to marry, b/c marrying earlier would lead you to “grow apart.” And as we now see is the norm, “conservative” Christians followed right along, sending their kids to Christian colleges to find a wife or get a MRS degree.

    As for those in their 20s or 30s, I’d recommend that they be purposeful in creating enjoyable social gatherings, so they can meet people and get to know them w/o the pressure of a one-on-one date. They can also see how they treat others, or simply who is more extroverted vs introverted (not that there is a right/wrong answer to this). This should include cookouts and pot lucks, so they can see work ethics and domestic skills. Look at who’s active in their church. See who’s managing their money well.

  78. OKRickety says:

    DrTorch said: “Although anecdotal, some decades later, those from my youth who married their HS sweethearts seem to be faring better than others.”

    I think DrTorch’s observations are significant. My experience is also anecdotal, but I am amazed at how many of the marriages from my high school days (40 years ago) are still intact. Most of these grew up and went to school together in a midwest small town of about 1200 people in a rural area, married young, and still live in the immediate area.

  79. Anonymous Reader says:

    I’ve long argued that you do this by growing up w/ a person.

    Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Rather irrelevant anyway.

    Marriage of those aged 19-20 was fairly common throughout US history, and worked ok.

    Several of my ancestors and ancestresses married in that age group, but not to anyone they grew up with . Don’t confuse “age of woman at first marriage” with some Lifetime movie. There was no “golden age” in the past, and even if there was we cannot return to it.

    I’m asking the men who condemn “dating” as a bad thing for their alternative. If it’s “sitting togehter on the porch swing not touching while Dad cleans his shotgun” then that’s just nonsense for a metric ton of reasons.

    “Dating” such as most men here practiced back in the 70’s and 80’s is largely dead for the under 25 group anyway and has been for a few years now. Don’t take my word for it, ask high school aged people. The hookup culture killed dating deader than any book tour.

    As for those in their 20s or 30s, I’d recommend that they be purposeful in creating enjoyable social gatherings, so they can meet people and get to know them w/o the pressure of a one-on-one date.

    A lot of high school and college aged people move around in groups / packs now, doing just that. However the dynamics of 20-somethings just out of college and someone over 30 is obviously not the same. In the real world I see post-college people often trying the things you list. Some marry, some wind up using online matching services. Some never marry. Thanks for the effort, though.

    Frankly, as far as I can tell most churchgoing people over 40 have zero idea what the marriage marketplace is like, because their own experiences are 20+ years in the past, and it’s not 1998 anymore. For sure it isn’t 1988.

  80. DrTorch says:

    Rather irrelevant anyway.

    Actually it’s not. Not in the least. It’s highly relevant.

  81. MKT says:

    “No, the only significant conflict between denominations is Calvinism vs Arminianism. Most USA Prots would be hard pressed to describe any doctrinal differences between denominations, me included.”

    There are a few other significant issues. Baptism (infant vs. “believer’s” baptism) is certainly one. To a lesser extent, the Lord’s Supper (what it really signifies, how frequently it’s practiced–weekly, quaterly, using actual wine vs. grape juice, etc.).

    Beyond the sacraments, there are huge differences in liturgy and worship styles, even in the same denominations. However, this has (sadly IMO) gotten a bit more uniform, with so many churches adopting 3-chord, “Jesus is my boyfriend,” sway-back-and-forth contemporary music. Still, among Protestants the liturgy ranges from Anglo-Catholic (which can be as high-church as any Catholic or Orthodox church) to free-range, flip-flops and Hawaiian shirt, do-whatever-you-want services.

  82. Anonymous Reader says:

    Torch
    Actually it’s not. Not in the least. It’s highly relevant.

    Demonstrate. Provide some evidence.

  83. Opus says:

    In my list of local churches I kick myself for failing to mention as I do now the Quakers and their meeting hall, The United Reform Church, another unnamed Evangelical Church, another two mainstream Anglican and another defunct church now masquerading as a theatre. There may well be others and I am not including those out of town half a mile away. No synagogue and whatever it is that Hindus, Buddhists or other non-christian religions have. I find this interesting as the common wisdom is that no one is interested in attending Church. Default Anglicanism is the only religion (pace Original Laura) that avoids the tag of being a religious ‘nutter’. A State-sponsored religion has many advantages and disestablishment – an idea that dates back to at least the Nineteenth century – never gains much traction. Did you know Her Majesty’s Gov’t pay Vicars and the like to attend Hospitals to minister to the sick and dieing as well as those incarcerated at her Majesty’s pleasure i.e. Prison? – no need for tithing. I particularly recall on one occasion in Court the Clerk saying to the witness who was an ordained Anglican minister – a case concerning an Ancient Monument in his Parish – that there was no need in his case to take the oath. Would that happen in America? Other Christian Denominations I do not recall being treated with such trust! (I always like working for the Anglican Church – good payers).

    When I was of marrying age the average age of marriage for females was just twenty point eight years. That is to say by that age half of all women who would marry which is to say almost all of them, were married. No one was forcing them and they were keen to set up home with their man. A baby on the way would secure the couple their own ‘council’ house or apartment. Unmarried women in their late twenties were ‘on the shelf’ either because of some personal quirk or because they held out just that bit too long for the Alpha male – I recall girls in both categories. Many girls were engaged to be married if not married itself whilst still at school. This was the high point of a low age for marriage and of course placed real pressure on men to catch someone whilst there were still goods available in the market. It also placed pressure on girls, though of a different type. The Boomers were the last early marryers. After that, most middle-class women were too good for any home-grown male – may they enjoy their cattery.

  84. feeriker says:

    Really?

    Does anyone in what is left of “the West” still use this rubric to describe any phenomenon that occurs in reality?

    The SBC has done the world a very big favor by publicly announcing its own irrelvance.

  85. Oscar says:

    @ Opus says:
    June 13, 2018 at 12:00 pm

    Did you know Her Majesty’s Gov’t pay Vicars and the like to attend Hospitals to minister to the sick and dieing as well as those incarcerated at her Majesty’s pleasure i.e. Prison? – no need for tithing.

    And you think this is a good thing?

  86. DrTorch says:

    Demonstrate.

    Already did. Huh, how about that.

    -You know the person, how they developed, how they treat others, their work ethic… and you see much of this w/o the rose-colored glasses of infatuation and romantic love
    -You know their family background
    -You have shared experiences and commonality
    -You have a support network of friends

  87. Anonymous Reader says:

    Torch, just a few questions to explore that relevance.

    What’s the average age of a woman in the US the day of her first marriage?
    Where do people meet their future husband/wife?

    In the last 3 years, how many people within your social circle and between the age of 20 and 35 have married? How many of them married someone they grew up with?

  88. Opus says:

    I deduce from Oscar’s response to mine that should I ever have the misfortune to be an in-patient in an American hospital (happily so far only once have I been an out-patient – D.C.’s Providence Hospital on Rhode Island Avenue) that although I may receive first-rate health care I will receive no provision for the care of my soul. Hardly encourages me to again risk life and limb in D.C.

  89. DrTorch says:

    Torch, just a few questions to explore that relevance.

    Those questions do nothing of the sort. How about you go back and read the original comment instead of pestering me w/ your pointless questions? Talk about irrelevant!

  90. Anonymous Reader says:

    Torch:
    Those questions do nothing of the sort.

    Yeah, they do. Probably that’s why you are running away from them. So sorry if a 32 year old woman can’t travel back in time to sit on the porch swing while Daddy cleans his shotgun, but … she can’t. Ditto for the 35 year old man who built himself up to marriageable, but finds that being a provider isn’t what is used to be in terms of attracting women.

    I’m pointing to reality. You’re watching some old TV show in black & white…

    How about you go back and read the original comment instead of pestering me w/ your pointless questions? Talk about irrelevant!

    Let’s take those “pointless” questions, then.

    Torch, do you really think that a 27 year old woman is marrying someone she grew up with?
    Torch, if a majority of people met their future spouse in a bar, is that someone they grew up with?

    Reality. It’s what’s out there even when you don’t want to see it.

    Your trip down memory lane isn’t relevant. Hardly anyone marries right out of high school now. A few more marry in college. More marry right out of college, but the average age of a woman at marriage is 27 in the US, so a lot of women are doing something else for at least 5 years if not 10. This has been mentioned on this blog multiple times. Too bad you missed it. But now you know.

    This applies to churchgoing people too. None of the weddings in my social circle in the last 3 to 5 years have involved people who grew up together. Zero. Three churchgoing women, married a man they met via Internet matchmaking. Two others married a man they met in college. Would you tell them they should not have married?

    Torch, you’re just another tradcon who can’t understand the difference between “Ought” and “Is”.

  91. Paul says:

    As for theological differences between churches, in my opinion most people cannot explain the differences, often the churches cannot even explain them. For MANY doctrines differences in theology originated in a difference in understanding and/or definition of certain key concepts. Most recently that is reflected in the acceptance of the Lutheran view on salvation by grace by the RCC, as well as the other way around, and similarly for the Reformed Churches. Another agreement has been on the ‘filioque’ issue, which has split the Eastern Church from the RCC for nearly thousand years, and is now concluded to be caused by a difference in understanding of the Latin versus the Greek definition of key theological concepts. It has resulted in dropping ‘filioque’ from any creed.

    Of course this does not mean that we cannot discern key theological elements that define orthodox Christianity. In the end, all that matters is if someone is born of the Spirit, and continues to obey the Lord by and through His Spirit.

  92. DrTorch says:

    Yeah, they do. Probably that’s why you are running away from them.

    Not at all. That’s why you are asking them, b/c you embarrassed yourself with your ridiculous comments, and are now doubling down w/ your additional statements. You play the fool by yourself.

    Like I said, read the original comment, take some time to understand what was requested, and stop imposing your snowflake sob-stories on the rest of us. “Oh, it’s so different now. The rest of you just don’t understand.” Boo hoo hoo. Special snowflake has it so hard, and is so wrapped up in herself that she can’t even read what was written.

  93. seventiesjason says:

    Opus…surprised you didn’t mention the Salvation Army, though I don’t think they are viewed as “nutters” as they were in the 19th century (well not as much). Always a small denom…..even back in its heyday (end of WW I thru the 1970s’)

    My move to Santa Rosa is done. Beautiful up here. Unpacked and will be looking for a church soon.

  94. seventiesjason says:

    Anon Reader,

    In my former local Corps (Fresno) Not one marriage in the ten years I have attended. Lots of older folks married (over 60). Tons of single moms (late 20-40’s)……but the single men (including myself) are “just not good enough” because you see “God has promised them a PERFECT man” and the evangelical culture even in the Salvation Army which indirectly says “don’t talk to ANY woman unless you are 100% sure she will agree to a date” and if the date doesn’t work out it’s the guys fault for not pursuing her ina Christ-like manner.

    So female logic rules the Christian dating scene today……like Josh Harris’s stupid book…….be able to read minds. Be able to discern anything or nothing she does. If you ask and she says “no” you didn’t “let God lead you” and if you don’t ask…you’re a “wimp” and “not a real man” for asking / pursuing a woman.

    I have TRIED to explain this concept to older folks in the church. I might as well be speaking Welsh to ssomeone who doesn’t understand…..because they don’t get it

  95. Bee says:

    Jason,

    “My move to Santa Rosa is done. Beautiful up here. Unpacked and will be looking for a church soon.”

    Congratulations on your move. I visited there a while back. It is a beautiful place to live. It is a nice sized town, not to big, not to small. Have you been to the Charlie Brown museum?

  96. seventiesjason says:

    No. I have not. I will in the next few weeks. Schluz is one of my heroes. I relate well to Charlie Brown. In fact, it was my nickname as a kid (dad always called me ‘charlie brown’…..”you ready charlie brown???”)

    I plan to ice skate extensively at the rink across the street from the museum that Schulz donated to the city.

    It’s a nice city…and a safe 45 minutes north of SF……looking forwards to actually going to SF Giants games again soon.

  97. info says:

    @DrTorch
    The success of marriages out of HS shows why school aged teens need to take courting their potential future spouses seriously.

    Because that person may very well be their spouse.

  98. Tubalcain says:

    Brother, I agree with your sound and wise words 100%. I’m now 60, never married (thank God), and the first 40 years of my life was spent in evangelical churches (they were an inch deep and a mile wide. Converted to the EOC 20 years ago, and only regret not doing it sooner). Your words are so…so true! In my 20s and 30s, I wasted precious life and time in these cultural Christianity, or religious fraternity, “singles groups”. True to your words, so many of these young average women were waiting on the lord to send them “Mr. Right”. They dismissed nice godly men with ease. Then you had the (often more attractive) women who went after the “unbelievers” (as evangelicals referred to them), or worldly men, and they slipped away into marriages with them. Funny thing was, years passed, and the average girls waiting for manna from heaven were still waiting. The attractive girls who wed up with libertine and ungodly heathens returned to the churches, now divorcee single mothers with broods of kids. Many left the evangelical churches and then became fodder for the liberal churches, or slipped into infamy. I remember the evangelical pastors sermons admonishing, and mocking, the Christian men for not “manning up and asking these women out”. Problem was, that the men who did ask them out (myself included) were viciously shot down, and chastised by the very pastors who advocated this. Case in point, when I was 30, I befriended a guy who was 32 and had just graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was working a secular job, and was trying to find a church to pastor. He asked a 22 year old woman out on a date, and not only did she rudely reject him, she went to the pastor and elders of the church, and gave some false narrative that this guy was a creeper. He was hauled before the elders and pastor (who’d evidently made up their minds that he was guilty), and was harshly chastised, threatened with expulsion, and made to apologize to the young woman simply for politely asking her out on a date. Shortly after, the guy left the church, and I soon followed. A friend of mine used to say “find a woman outside of church, then take her to church after”. Reminds me of a story I once heard about a young maiden who walked through an orchard looking for apples. The first tree had apples that weren’t ripe enough for her, so she moved on. The next tree had apples that were not colorful enough for her, so she moved on. The next tree had apples that were too ripe for her, so she moved on. Finally, she came to the last tree in the orchard. The apples were dried up, rotted, and worm infested. Problem was, all the other apples she passed on had all been harvested. Maybe these disconnected and feminized evangelical pastors need to us this story in their sermons!

  99. MKT says:

    “He asked a 22 year old woman out on a date, and not only did she rudely reject him, she went to the pastor and elders of the church, and gave some false narrative that this guy was a creeper. He was hauled before the elders and pastor (who’d evidently made up their minds that he was guilty), and was harshly chastised, threatened with expulsion, and made to apologize to the young woman simply for politely asking her out on a date.”

    Sheesh. Well, if it makes him feel any better, the Baptists are still pulling these stunts, and now victims include people who question the LGBTQ agenda.
    http://pulpitandpen.org/2018/06/13/erlc-allegedly-has-dallas-pd-toss-pastor-from-sbc-meeting-after-he-questions-revoice/

  100. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    I deduce from Oscar’s response to mine that should I ever have the misfortune to be an in-patient in an American hospital (happily so far only once have I been an out-patient – D.C.’s Providence Hospital on Rhode Island Avenue) that although I may receive first-rate health care I will receive no provision for the care of my soul.

    Because the only possible way a clergyman would ever minister at a hospital is if the government pays him to, right?

    Those are some impressive deductive reasoning skills.

  101. Anonymous Reader says:

    Yeah, they do. Probably that’s why you are running away from them.

    Torch.
    Not at all.

    Yeah, completely running away. Just like you did from the basic biology involved in weight lifting.
    Pretty sad.

  102. Anonymous Reader says:

    seventiesjason
    I have TRIED to explain this concept to older folks in the church. I might as well be speaking Welsh to someone who doesn’t understand…..because they don’t get it

    We can all see a very simple example of that in this thread.

    It’s a lot like some 60+ year old Boomer giving career advice: “Just do what I did: get a business degree, go to work for Kodak and every month invest in the company stock, it’s easy!”.
    Sigh.

  103. Jack Russell says:

    “He asked a 22 year old woman out on a date,…. Who is now 52 and probably single or divorced.

  104. Anonymous Reader says:

    Hey Torch, where does “Netflix & chill” fit into your mental universe?
    Just asking.

  105. info says:

    @Anonymous Reader

    To sum up your gripe with the anecdote that DrTorch gave. You basically are saying that DrTorchs situation is not representative.

    Probably only working best in particular conditions that is not representative of the country as a whole.

    Not all of us live in small times. I for example life near a big city. The dynamics are different. And hence the adaptive strategies are different too.

  106. Opus says:

    @Jason

    I trust that after the move to the attractive sounding Santa Rosa things go well for you. Perhaps a Welsh ‘Chapel’ – you should have moved to Pennsylvania – is what you need.

    So far as The Sally Army is concerned, they are liked because of their Sgt Pepper-style uniforms and – because they go round the pubs each Friday – are not distant in the way other denominations – who tend to stay inside their real estate – are perceived to be. Confusion can arise, for I had always assumed they were Charity Muggers rather than a Church – such was my Ignorance.

    @Oscar

    No doubt about it, the British clergy don’t even consider it worth getting out of bed unless they are enticed with coins of the realm. American clergy need to increase their tariffs.

  107. DrTorch says:

    To sum up your gripe with the anecdote that DrTorch gave. You basically are saying that DrTorchs situation is not representative.

    No, to sum up her gripe with me is that she didn’t read what was written but wants attention for her situation.

    Note that she wrote this, “Frankly, as far as I can tell most churchgoing people over 40 have zero idea what the marriage marketplace is like, ”

    The term “the marriage marketplace” explicitly specifies that there is one such marketplace. Another absurd comment b/c the marketplace in Delphos, OH is much different than the marketplace in Dallas, TX. The marketplace at a small private Christian college is different than at 40,000 State U.

    Anonymous has some view on a narrow slice of the world and thinks she knows it all. (Exactly like the clown who posted about strength and speed for 15 year olds, wh/ Anonymous brought up even though my points were completely valid and readily demonstrated there too).

    But even more to the point, the question wasn’t “analyze the current marriage marketplace.” The request was “There are people in my social circle in their 20’s and 30’s who could use some advice, and the standard model isn’t working for them.” And I provided advice when I wrote, “As for those in their 20s or 30s, I’d recommend that they be purposeful in creating enjoyable social gatherings, so they can meet people and get to know them w/o the pressure of a one-on-one date.”

    Anonymous didn’t like the advice b/c it wasn’t easy, and didn’t pay tribute to how haaarrrd she has it. See, she’s special and her generation is special, and no one else knows anything about how hard the world is now.

    But the recommendation is sound. That doesn’t mean it will work for 100% of individuals, but it’s still sound.

  108. BillyS says:

    AR,

    So you are opposed to “dating” but have no real alternative, BillyS?

    I noted that arranged marriages are much better than dating. Even the late part of this thread discussed still another dating attempt that was shot down. Are you really presenting it as a strong option for most men? On what basis?

    I am not to FH’s level, but I cannot recommend modern marriage either. Would you say I should “man up and marry those sluts” as people around here like to use sarcastically just because the alternative is being alone?

    A choice is not good just because no strong alternatives exist. Sometimes a little dog crap ruins the dish, no matter how little or much it is.

  109. BillyS says:

    Also, keep in mind that modern dating is a very recent (relatively) invention. How did society survive before it became the way to find a mate?

  110. BillyS says:

    AR,

    Most of them don’t get book deals, national exposure and support from hundreds of pastors, though. See the difference?

    That was years ago. This is now. People do regret what they have done in the past many times, whether they are completely right or not in that regret.

    I didn’t follow him much at the time. I just know I agreed with the outward idea because I had applied it to my own life more than a decade before. The principle is right. Modern dating benefits few and sets people up for divorce. Freely making and breaking emotional connections does not help make a stable base for a marriage.

    Outside of some rather tiny subcultures, I frankly can’t find any evidence that arranged marriages have been common in the US over the last 200 years or so. There’s no way to put that into effect at a society-wide level.

    You are really asserting that modern dating was rampant in the 1820s? Really?

    Why are you so wedded to it? What is so great about modern dating that you support it so much?

  111. BillyS says:

    DrTorch,

    As for those in their 20s or 30s, I’d recommend that they be purposeful in creating enjoyable social gatherings, so they can meet people and get to know them w/o the pressure of a one-on-one date. They can also see how they treat others, or simply who is more extroverted vs introverted (not that there is a right/wrong answer to this). This should include cookouts and pot lucks, so they can see work ethics and domestic skills. Look at who’s active in their church. See who’s managing their money well.

    Exactly. Christians should be building these kind of connections in many ways, yet so few do, married or not. That is one reason I am very alone overall. Even the church I am at talks a good game about groups being very important, but most people who attend still split as soon as they are done and ultimately don’t allow many long term connections to grow.

    Our society is very isolated and finding people who share your interests, especially with a godly backing, is very difficult. This goes beyond just dating, but it is the same problem. We expect the individual to fix a social problem, when most is outside of that control.

    That is why telling a man to date is encouraging stupidity. Either it helps him get shot down repeatedly, or it helps him make emotional connections that will end up being destroyed.

    How can anyone claim this is a good path?

  112. BillyS says:

    Jsaon,

    So female logic rules the Christian dating scene today……like Josh Harris’s stupid book…….be able to read minds. Be able to discern anything or nothing she does. If you ask and she says “no” you didn’t “let God lead you” and if you don’t ask…you’re a “wimp” and “not a real man” for asking / pursuing a woman.

    So modern dating sucks, except opposing it also sucks? That is not logical in the slightest.

    The modern system is completely broken in so many areas. What is your alternative?

    AR,

    How many success stories of dating can you present? Tell us how it can/should work well and be effective? Answer the same questions you throw at others.

  113. earl says:

    How did society survive before it became the way to find a mate?

    They did things like have patriarchy and family decisions on the matter. Now it’s all confusion.

  114. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS
    I noted that arranged marriages are much better than dating.

    Your opinion doesn’t seem to be matched in US history with facts, though.

    Even the late part of this thread discussed still another dating attempt that was shot down. Are you really presenting it as a strong option for most men?

    No, I’m asking for your alternative. Nowhere have I defended “dating”, in fact I have pointed out that it is mostly dead and has been for at least 10 years. Please put your strawman argument aside.

    I am not to FH’s level, but I cannot recommend modern marriage either.

    Then you no longer have any skin in the game.

    Would you say I should “man up and marry those sluts” as people around here like to use sarcastically just because the alternative is being alone?

    No, I would not.

    A choice is not good just because no strong alternatives exist. Sometimes a little dog crap ruins the dish, no matter how little or much it is.

    So?

    BillyS says:
    June 14, 2018 at 8:19 am
    Also, keep in mind that modern dating is a very recent (relatively) invention.

    True. So?

    How did society survive before it became the way to find a mate?

    Lots of ways. Do you have a point to make?

  115. earl says:

    That is why telling a man to date is encouraging stupidity. Either it helps him get shot down repeatedly, or it helps him make emotional connections that will end up being destroyed.

    How can anyone claim this is a good path?

    That’s basically all I’ve learned from dating, rejection and emotional distress. In a sense it’s like a mini-divorce when you get into the modern creation of boyfriend-girlfriend and that weird stage ends.

    I never experienced it when it happens in a marriage…but I do know there is some switch in women when they decide emotionally to reject you. It is almost like you never existed to them. This is why a father’s decision in my mind choosing a mate for her is better than her making the decision.

  116. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS

    You are really asserting that modern dating was rampant in the 1820s? Really?

    No, I’m not. I am asserting that arranged marriages were not common in the US all the way back to the founding. My assertion is based on both literature and history, as well as family records.
    You appear to be engaged in binary thinking: either arranged marriage or late 20th century “dating” with no other alternative. Perhaps if you read some of the literature of the 18th and 19th century you would see there were other ways.

    Why are you so wedded to it?

    I’m not. why do you keep making up falsehoods and pretending they are true?

    What is so great about modern dating that you support it so much?

    I’ve stated multiple times that “dating” is dead, killed by the culture. Nowhere have I supported it. Perhaps you could try reading more carefully, and stop making things up?

  117. Anonymous Reader says:

    Most of them don’t get book deals, national exposure and support from hundreds of pastors, though. See the difference?

    BillyS
    That was years ago. This is now. People do regret what they have done in the past many times, whether they are completely right or not in that regret.

    The effects of the book linger on. If you bother to read deeper, you could see that Josh owes a very deep apology to a lot of people. But so do all the church leaders who were foolish enough to blindly endorse the “thinking” of a 21 year old man on marriage, although I doubt any of those are adult enough to step up and admit it.

    Faddish groupthink is not a good way to make life decisions.

  118. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    When my dad had a stroke, a Catholic priest ministered to him at the hospital. Later, as my dad received hospice care at home, that same priest visited him at home and ministered to him there.

    Involving Caesar in the Church’s business is one of the worst things any culture can do to the Church.

  119. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS
    How many success stories of dating can you present?

    I’m not defending “dating”. That is mostly dead thanks to social changes.
    Perhaps you could try reading what I write, rather than just making things up and pretending I wrote them?

  120. Anonymous Reader says:

    Torch
    No, to sum up her gripe with me is that she didn’t read what was written but wants attention for her situation.

    Funny stuff! Thanks for the laugh.

  121. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl
    They did things like have patriarchy and family decisions on the matter.

    What was a “husking bee”? What is “square dancing”? What is a “barn raising”? What does “elope” mean? What did it mean when someone “went West”? There are plenty of books about the 18th and 19h century, many of them written at the time, that describe the society of the time as a backdrop for a story. It isn’t difficult to learn a bit about the foreign country called “the past”, if a man wants to do so. Of course there is a great danger of discovering that the “golden age” never existed…

    At the risk of invoking da GBFM, there are great books that men should read. Tolstoy, Flaubert, Jane Austen and others wrote fiction that includes male / female interactions that are still relevant.

  122. Anonymous Reader says:

    info
    To sum up your gripe with the anecdote that DrTorch gave. You basically are saying that DrTorchs situation is not representative.

    That’s close. Torch offered one suggestion (‘form groups’) that is useful but not new – up thread I responded to that – then launched into his trip down memory lane to a place that isn’t just “not representative”, it’s something out of a Lifetime movie. It’s largely rose-colored-glasses fiction.

    Now he’s bashing another strawperson, and it is funny to watch.
    Plus I doubt he’s lifting, the emotionalism suggests low T. I doubt he lifts now, if he ever did…

  123. DrTorch says:

    Now he’s bashing another strawperson

    As you go into your ad hominem attack.

    You were shown to be wrong, then you doubled down. There’s a word for that kind of person.

    And maybe, just maybe, you have such a hard time w/ dating b/c you’re annoying. You blame it on the era, but in reality, it’s you.

  124. Anonymous Reader says:

    I blundered and commented in the wrong thread. Here is the reply to BillyS.

    BillyS

    Then why do you demand strong alternatives if you say dating isn’t working anyway?

    1. Wrong thread. This is supposed to be in “Payback”.
    2. Asking questions is not issuing a demand.
    3. Because fixing part of a problem, even if only at the micro level, is better than just whining about it. Your mileage may vary, though.

    I’m going to copy/paste this comment to “payback”.

  125. BillyS says:

    AR,

    You are the one demanding an alternative to dating, thus having binary thinking.

    No, I’m not. I am asserting that arranged marriages were not common in the US all the way back to the founding. My assertion is based on both literature and history, as well as family records.

    They were arranged in some manner. Keep in mind that arranged marriages do not require that the parents on both sides decide things. Others can arrange connections of likely mates.

    The Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof would be a form of an arranged marriage.

    Perhaps you were just thinking of “only the father decides”. That would not work well today since most fathers would have to stop being passive and their children would have to respect them. Both hurdles are far too high now.

    While I personally expect to end up remaining single now, I would be glad to have a connection arranged through someone who had God’s interests in mind. My father is long gone (and was a bit of a cuck), so that will clearly not work now. No older relatives either, but that doesn’t mean some form of arrangement could not work, however unlikely it is.

    I will never participate in hookup culture. Far too much risk that way, ignoring the fact it violates God’s Will. No good social groups either, so I have absolutely no options. It sucks, but that is life.

    Dating led to the hookup culture BTW. Would you have as much of a problem with a book that said “I Kissed the Hookup Culture Goodbye”?

    What is Josh Harris proposing now? A return to random dates to find a mate? The value of one-on-one fakery?

  126. earl says:

    What was a “husking bee”? What is “square dancing”? What is a “barn raising”? What does “elope” mean? What did it mean when someone “went West”?

    ‘a gathering of farm families or friends to husk corn, usually as part of a celebration or party’

    ‘A square dance is a dance for four couples (eight dancers in total) arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square.’

    ‘A barn raising, also historically called a raising bee or rearing in the U.K., is a collective action of a community, in which a barn for one of the members is built or rebuilt collectively by members of the community.’

    ‘run away secretly in order to get married, especially without parental consent’

    it meant they were going to die

    There’s also courtship.

    https://iblp.org/questions/how-courtship-different-dating

  127. Anonymous Reader says:

    Now he’s bashing another strawperson

    Torch
    As you go into your ad hominem attack.

    You don’t know what that term means. Would you like me to Google it for you?

    You were shown to be wrong, then you doubled down. There’s a word for that kind of person.

    What is the word? Is it Thunderbird?

    And maybe, just maybe, you have such a hard time w/ dating b/c you’re annoying. You blame it on the era, but in reality, it’s you.

    Funny stuff! Thanks for more laughs!

  128. BillyS says:

    BTW, that “No, I’m not.” I quoted from AR had nothing to do with my comment just before it. That was about dating in the US 200 years or so ago.

  129. earl says:

    ‘In a dating relationship, there is little if any accountability for the couple and little or no interaction with family members. The dating couple is merely attracted to one another in some way and often pursues an exclusive relationship that is independent of others’ influence or counsel. Since the boundaries of the relationship are self-determined, the couple may easily succumb to temptation and fail to consider their responsibility to honor each other in purity and genuine love.

    A couple participating in courtship seeks the accountability of their parents or other mentors. As they establish guidelines for their relationship, they can more easily recognize that God also holds them responsible to honor one another. Receiving God’s grace and the support of others strengthens them to maintain their commitment to purity.’

  130. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl, good job on finding trees. Now, can you see the forest?

    Regarding elopement:

    ‘run away secretly in order to get married, especially without parental consent’

    it meant they were going to die

    Everyone dies someday, Earl. But if you truly believe that elopement meant immediate death in what is now America the 20th century, or the 19th century, or the 18th century, or even the 17th century…that’s just dumb.

    courtship

    Which can take many forms. Including group events such as “barn raising” and “husking bees”…if there are a lot of trees in one place, what’s that called? Is it hard to see?

  131. earl says:

    if there are a lot of trees in one place, what’s that called? Is it hard to see?

    A forest. Isn’t that the point you were trying to make?

    But if you truly believe that elopement meant immediate death in what is now America the 20th century, or the 19th century, or the 18th century, or even the 17th century…that’s just dumb.

    No, that’s the meaning of go west (couldn’t find went west). It meant you were going to die.

    Do you know the meaning of went west?

  132. Anonymous Reader says:

    BillyS
    You are the one demanding an alternative to dating, thus having binary thinking.

    Not demanding anything, but I am asking questions. Does it bother you when other men ask questions?

    No, I’m not. I am asserting that arranged marriages were not common in the US all the way back to the founding. My assertion is based on both literature and history, as well as family records.

    They were arranged in some manner.

    Oh, defintion games? Ok. Let’s say that Joe and Sally meet from time to time at the husking bee, at the squaredance, in church socials. IF they spark up, start meeting in secret from time to time then marry, how was that marriage arranged?

    Keep in mind that arranged marriages do not require that the parents on both sides decide things. Others can arrange connections of likely mates.

    Yes.

    The Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof would be a form of an arranged marriage.

    Yes. That work of fiction is set in the 19th century Russian empire in a Jewish subcommunity. Not quite the same thing as the 18th and 19th century America, is it?

    Perhaps you were just thinking of “only the father decides”. That would not work well today since most fathers would have to stop being passive and their children would have to respect them. Both hurdles are far too high now.

    Previously your solution was arranged marriages, now you say it is too difficult. Do you see a problem with this?

    Here’s another question to ponder: when Albert and Alice meet each other through a Christian online website, then spark up, spend time meeting in private and then marry – is that an arranged marriage?

    While I personally expect to end up remaining single now, I would be glad to have a connection arranged through someone who had God’s interests in mind. My father is long gone (and was a bit of a cuck), so that will clearly not work now. No older relatives either, but that doesn’t mean some form of arrangement could not work, however unlikely it is.

    There are matchmaker services online…

    I will never participate in hookup culture. Far too much risk that way, ignoring the fact it violates God’s Will.

    No one is suggesting that, Billy. I have pointed out several times a reality of the teenaged / early 20’s social scene.

    No good social groups either, so I have absolutely no options. It sucks, but that is life.

    Why no good social groups where you are, BillyS? Is every person around you sour, grumpy, hard to talk with, etc.?

    Dating led to the hookup culture BTW. Would you have as much of a problem with a book that said “I Kissed the Hookup Culture Goodbye”?

    That would depend on the contents of the book and the advice given, as well as how big a bandwagon was carrying it down the road.

    What is Josh Harris proposing now?
    A return to random dates to find a mate? The value of one-on-one fakery?

    It appears that he’s more fond on one-on-many fakery if it leads to more money for him.

  133. Anonymous Reader says:

    But if you truly believe that elopement meant immediate death in what is now America the 20th century, or the 19th century, or the 18th century, or even the 17th century…that’s just dumb.

    No, that’s the meaning of go west (couldn’t find went west). It meant you were going to die.

    Ah. Sorry I was not clear. That’s one definition.

    Do you know the meaning of went west?

    In some parts of the US, when people pulled up stakes to leave, they would write “Gone West” on the door of their dwelling. This indicated it was an abandoned building.

    People what is now America managed to marry with neither “dating” nor “arranged marriage”. There were other alternatives. Sometimes it looked like a variation of “courting’ as your link defined it, other times it did not. It was not a golden age, contrary to some popular beliefs.

    Are you trying to make a point, Earl?

  134. earl says:

    Are you trying to make a point, Earl?

    Yeah courtship. We should return to that. Dating doesn’t seem to work well and it seems arranged marriages only means the parents decide who marries who.

  135. earl says:

    It was not a golden age, contrary to some popular beliefs.

    I doubt though it was a such a dark age like what we are in now.

    Not only did they manage to get married…there was a lot more people married.

  136. Opus says:

    @Oscar

    It is entirely predictable that you as a proud American should feel as you do. Obviously, I see the passengers on the Mayflower as a bunch of winging sjw’s ruining it for every one else. I also tend to agree with Thomas Hobbes that it is for The Prince to determine the country’s religion not that I am looking forward to the coming and compulsory Islamization of England.

    @Earl

    Before the Sexual Revolution most people tended to marry the girl next door who would probably be their first girlfriend. This strikes me as almost akin to arranged marriage – all the benefits of choice when in fact there is no choice. A schoolteacher of mine shocked me greatly when he informed us pupils as to his marriage that when it came to it there were really only two or three girls who in practice he might marry. These days I think my teacher far too optimistic and think the figure is either one or more likely none at all. Mixed marriages (such as my parents) which is what we get are not I think a good thing.

  137. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl’s point:
    Yeah courtship. We should return to that.

    At the societal level it is not likely. At the individual level…what’s stopping you?

  138. earl says:

    At the individual level…what’s stopping you?

    Finding the right female to do this with. Anything that even hints at marriage (and that’s what courtship does) seems to drive them away in this day and age.

  139. earl says:

    Of note I have tried it and that’s what happened.

  140. earl says:

    A schoolteacher of mine shocked me greatly when he informed us pupils as to his marriage that when it came to it there were really only two or three girls who in practice he might marry. These days I think my teacher far too optimistic and think the figure is either one or more likely none at all.

    There is a dearth of marriageable women.

  141. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl
    Anything that even hints at marriage (and that’s what courtship does) seems to drive them away in this day and age.
    Of note I have tried it and that’s what happened.

    You have my sincere sympathy, Earl.
    It is really ugly out there in the marriage market for all the reasons that keep getting listed on this site. I know several people who couldn’t make anything work locally, who have used the various online dating matching services and they were eventually successful.

    @Others:
    That statistic “average age of US women at first marriage = 27” isn’t just some number in the ether, it is a piece of reality that affects men like Earl as well as churchgoing women. If we put Earl in a time machine back 25 years he’d be married off in probably 18 months at the outside. But it’s not 1993, so he has a bigger challenge than most people over 45 can understand.

  142. earl says:

    I’ve heard of some online dating services that resulted in success…couldn’t find it there either when I was in it.

    It hasn’t been for a lack of trying, it’s been mostly a lack of success. The women I have dated were usually out of college and under 30…so that’s a prime area for them to not want to be married (even though that’s their best chance of finding someone decent to marry). The whole waiting until 27 bit should be firmly placed on who’s driving it…women. It’s not men fearing commitment, it’s women.

    But it’s not 1993, so he has a bigger challenge than most people over 45 can understand.

    Heck it’s not even 2003. It’s amazing how much has changed in 15 years.

  143. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    It is entirely predictable that you as a proud American should feel as you do.

    It’s not a “feeling”. It’s a logical conclusion arrived at through personal experience (including immigrating to the US, and extensive travel throughout the world), observation, and historical fact.

    I also tend to agree with Thomas Hobbes that it is for The Prince to determine the country’s religion not that I am looking forward to the coming and compulsory Islamization of England.

    “The coming and compulsory Islamization of England” is the 100% predictable consequence of (among other things) giving Caesar control over the Church. You could have learned that from historical examples, but since you still refuse the learn the lesson when it’s unfolding right in front of you, clearly learning from historical examples is impossible for you.

    When England becomes another Islamic hellhole, please stay in place and deal with the inevitable consequences of what you believe. We have enough people who refuse to learn from history.

  144. BillyS says:

    AR,

    Previously your solution was arranged marriages, now you say it is too difficult. Do you see a problem with this?

    You had the narrow definition of arranged marriage, not me. The examples you give are closer to arranged than the dating system you claim to despise but really support.

    Here’s another question to ponder: when Albert and Alice meet each other through a Christian online website, then spark up, spend time meeting in private and then marry – is that an arranged marriage?

    Rarer than finding a spouse by dating, contrary to what sites claim.

    There are matchmaker services online…

    Not really. Many claim that, but the success rate is not high, which is why they hype very limited success examples.

    No one is suggesting that, Billy. I have pointed out several times a reality of the teenaged / early 20’s social scene.

    Why are you limiting it to a narrow age range?

  145. BillyS says:

    Opus,

    The people also have a right to overthrow that leader. It is ironic that the Islamic invasion that was pushed back many years ago is now succeeding, but I suspect that the common people may get much more violent at some point, in backlash. Remember how long it took Spain to eject the invaders.

  146. DrTorch says:

    But it’s not 1993, so he has a bigger challenge than most people over 45 can understand

    Of course he does snowflake.

  147. opus vitae says:

    RE: Dating

    The issue we are grappling with here is that it takes two to tango. Face facts, the typical modern woman WANTS the present hookup culture to persist. This is why they duck and run at the first hint of something serious, as in earl’s experience.

    RE: Londonistan

    Spain is not the only place to have been invaded by the Muslim hordes, some places did not fare nearly as well as the reconquest of Andalusia. Constantinople comes to mind. Sadly, the Anglosphere has more in common with Byzantium than it does with the kingdom of Castille.

  148. Joe says:

    “I wasted precious life and time in these cultural Christianity, or religious fraternity, “singles groups”.
    ******************************************************************************
    That was not the case with me. It was the best thing I ever did. It was a great group, and we were and still are, very close. Most of us met our spouses in that group, including myself. She didn’t want to go to the “singles class” but was talked into it by one of the other girls who saw her sitting alone in the Church service.
    Most of us are still friends 34 years later, and we still periodically get together. It’s like stepping back in time when we do. We’re all so comfortable with each other, and each others spouses.
    We all got married within just a few years of each other, and all had kids at the same time. The wives started a baby sitting co-op that lasted until the kid were big enough to be left on their own.

    What a great group of people. I’m so glad I walked in that door that Sunday. It changed my life forever.

  149. Opus says:

    Oscar writes as if, somehow, I am entirely responsible for the fact that – since 1536 – the Church in England has been ‘established’ that is to say under State control. Perhaps the purported control exercised before that date by the Bishops of Rome is also my fault. Either way: without a first amendment it is impossible to speak freely and my lips must remained sealed on the subject of the Religion of Peace, the Gay Mafia, Cross-Dressing as well as my views on the Female of the species.

    It is in conversations like this that no matter the language we use being the same the split being American and being English becomes apparent. To deprive Her Majesty of her role as Head of the Church divinely appointed would be the equivalent of impeaching her (whatever that may be).

  150. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl
    It hasn’t been for a lack of trying, it’s been mostly a lack of success.

    You are out there, engaging women with the intention to marry. That puts you far ahead of those who do not even try, for whatever reason.

    The women I have dated were usually out of college and under 30…so that’s a prime area for them to not want to be married (even though that’s their best chance of finding someone decent to marry).

    It is their best chance. But the standard script for girls that’s taught to them in their teens is “school first, career second, then marriage” – which is exactly the track that men used to follow. It’s projection; they pretend to be the man they want to marry.

    That said, three women in my social circle married in the last two years: one about 22, one 24 year old and a 27 year old. All were active in a theologically conservative church (all 3 Prots). So…it isn’t impossible.

    I’ve heard of some online dating services that resulted in success…couldn’t find it there either when I was in it.

    Some people I know used mulitiple services. One woman was looking for about 5 years before she married last month.

  151. Anonymous Reader says:

    AR,
    Previously your solution was arranged marriages, now you say it is too difficult. Do you see a problem with this?

    BillyS
    You had the narrow definition of arranged marriage, not me.

    Where did I offer any definition of “arranged marriage” at all?

    The examples you give are closer to arranged than the dating system you claim to despise but really support.

    I don’t recall saying I despised dating either.

    Here’s another question to ponder: when Albert and Alice meet each other through a Christian online website, then spark up, spend time meeting in private and then marry – is that an arranged marriage?

    BillyS
    Rarer than finding a spouse by dating, contrary to what sites claim.

    Is that an arranged marriage or not?

    There are matchmaker services online…

    BillyS
    Not really. Many claim that, but the success rate is not high, which is why they hype very limited success examples.

    Billy, do you want to work on solving your problem, or just complain about it?

    No one is suggesting that, Billy. I have pointed out several times a reality of the teenaged / early 20’s social scene.

    Why are you limiting it to a narrow age range?

    Because in my limited experience, that is the age range most active in the hookup scene. Evidence to support this can be found in public health data under the heading of “STD’s”.

  152. feeriker says:

    It’s not men fearing commitment, it’s women.

    Men DO fear committment nowadays, and for damned good reason. Committing to the wrong woman (no matter how carefully in advance that he might vet her for meriting commitment) will ruin his life when/if she decides on a whim to trash that committment.

    Men who DON’T fear committment are clueless idiots.

  153. Anonymous Reader says:

    I wrote about Earl
    But it’s not 1993, so he has a bigger challenge than most people over 45 can understand

    Torch
    Of course he does snowflake.

    More comedy gold! Did you forget to include a comma, or are you calling Earl a snowflake? Either way are you really going to tell Earl what his own life experience is? That’s always a winning argument, it works so well for feminists and other ankle-biters. I’m wondering, at what point will you tell me to get off your lawn?

  154. earl says:

    That said, three women in my social circle married in the last two years: one about 22, one 24 year old and a 27 year old. All were active in a theologically conservative church (all 3 Prots). So…it isn’t impossible.

    I’m not sure if you would know this…but did these ladies want to be married or have a desire for marriage? All the ones I know that got married young wanted to be married. What I’m finding is a lot of them either don’t want to be married or say they do in a general sense but when they finally find someone the truth comes out.

    It certainly isn’t impossible…but it is getting harder to find marriage minded women. A lot of them want the college/career and something you forgot to point out the party/travel/hookup with random men lifestyle. Then perhaps when their ovaries are down to three eggs they finally start thinking of marriage. But by then they’ve shown nothing that makes them marriagable. That’s the reality the people under 45 probably don’t see.

  155. Opus

    The Sally Army going around to the bars……its called “pub booming” and it all but dead in the USA. I was doing it briefly in Fresno, until a new US Territory “policy” required at least two and it had to be “men” so a male and female Salvationist who were not married could not do this together…..it killed the whole thing because I went by myself…..and to quote Paul “what can mere men do to me at this point?” was my attitude. Women can do anything a man can in The Salvation Army (so we are told) but nothing dangerous, nothing that may put the fair woman alone with a depraved Christian brother…..

    When I went to college in the slate belt of Vermont, we had the local “Welsh Methodist Church” and ol Reverend Ellesworth Jones preached fire and brimstone to an empty church. When my parents came up for “parents weekend” my mother always wanted to attended services there……..

    Most of the Welsh who do practice Christianity today tend to be Methodist……because their pastors came to the quarries to preach in Welsh……..

    My mother was COE to the bone. She loved “high church”

  156. earl says:

    Men who DON’T fear committment are clueless idiots.

    That’s actually fear of the state rammifications, which is a real thing. If the no-fault and family courts wasn’t so mostly one sided the fears wouldn’t be legit. Women actually do fear commitment because they are the ones who seem to blow up marriages most of the time.

  157. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    Oscar writes as if, somehow, I am entirely responsible for the fact that – since 1536 – the Church in England has been ‘established’ that is to say under State control.

    No. I write as though you haven’t learned from history, nor will you learn from current events, because you haven’t, and you won’t.

    Here’s a phrase you might want to commit to memory: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

  158. feeriker says:

    Most of the Welsh who do practice Christianity today tend to be Methodist……because their pastors came to the quarries to preach in Welsh……..

    My Welsh-born paternal great-grandfather was raised Methodist, but I don’t think he was raised in a Welsh-speaking household, at least not according to Dad. A pity, as it’s a language I’ve always wanted to learn, just in case I ever get a chance to go locate any cousins I might still have over there.

    I can’t imagine that the state of Christianity in Wales today is any better than in the rest of Britain, no matter how traditionally religious Wales has always been.

  159. Opus says:

    Naturally I take a different view from Oscar, but we must be indebted to him for making clear the fault-line no matter the pretence of common-interest that forever separates the England from its former Colonists, namely; that Americans believe revolution to be justified and that they needed to escape to a Brave New World to practice their chosen religion.

    I would be minded to have a word with my neighbour a devout member of the religion of peace about all this but last Saturday night at midnight just as I was about to retire I heard a walkie-talkie and venturing outside to see what was going on I saw two white and obviously Islamophobic police-officers escorting my neighbour to their parked motor-vehicle. He had with him his suitcase on wheels so I suppose he is being given at our expence a one-way ticket back to Bangladesh.

    To read Oscar and Feeriker one might assume that death-squads roamed the island searching out Christians to be put to the sword. Given that our Head of State is also Head of the Church and God’s annointed representative (God being too busy to micro-manage) and much as Oscar may disapprove, most schools being avowedly Anglican, I don’t think the rot is as far gone as is here being supposed. So far as the Welsh are concerned Feeriker they all speak English but unless they come from North Wales they are most unlikely to speak Welsh. Those in the South have a sing-songy accent whereas in the North it is more breath-y. The Welsh tend to have dark good looks – was not Elvis Presley of Welsh decent? – surely the namely Presley is a corruption of Pressily as in the Pressily mountains of Wales. Let us not forget also that Henry VIII (1491-1547) who instigated English Protestantism was Welsh.

  160. Lost Patrol says:

    Opus points out that we are forever separated, but senses like we all do that we are also forever bound. Where do you think those wild and crazy revolutionaries got the idea they could thwart the Royal Will? From the rebel Barons at Runnymede! Admittedly a drawn out and messy affair, but so go most revolutions. And where would we be today without the Magna Carta to set the stage?

    The matter at hand however, since we have Opus on the ground and our communications haven’t yet been severed, is will Brexit stick? One gets the idea it is being undermined, perhaps to the point that the people’s will in this is to be set aside?

  161. Hmm says:

    Earl,

    When you suggest returning to the courtship model, you fall right into Josh Harris’ “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, which apparently screwed up a lot of folks by his own accounting. One of the things that the courtship frame does in the modern world is it raises the stakes of getting to know a woman too high – there’s always the subtext of “is she the one?” That kind of thinking is fine later in a relationship, but it can be unbearable pressure early on when you are just trying to find out whether you are interested in each other.

  162. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    “To read Oscar and Feeriker one might assume that death-squads roamed the island searching out Christians to be put to the sword.”

    Your making light of the trajectory on which your country placed itself proves that you’ve learned nothing from history or current events. So, thanks for proving me right.

    “Given that our Head of State is also Head of the Church and God’s annointed representative (God being too busy to micro-manage) and much as Oscar may disapprove, most schools being avowedly Anglican…”

    Actually, I disapprove of government schools in general.

    “… I don’t think the rot is as far gone as is here being supposed.”

    Keep telling yourself that. And remember; “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

  163. seventiesjason says:

    When I have spoken Welsh to people from Wales I have met in California (tourists) over the decades, they don’t speak Welsh, or if they do….they incessantly “correct” me by interrupting and are aghast that I didn’t learn how to speak *exactly* like they do. So full of pride and their own “methane” its no wonder they don’t sprout daisies. I speak just as well as anyone on Welsh language television. It’s the stupid arrogance the Welsh *must* show to anyone who wasn’t born there…..this attitude is the reason why more people DON’T speak this dead language. Including the Welsh themselves.Oh…..and since I don’t hate / blame the English for every social problem and ill facing that fair land, I must be a “sellout”

    As for dark good looks? The only thing I got from the Welsh side in appearance is my thinning and now balding head. I got my height and blue eyes from my dad’s side for sure. Mom, grandpa, my uncle Thomas all my cousins have nice dark eyes and hair in thie youth

  164. earl says:

    That kind of thinking is fine later in a relationship, but it can be unbearable pressure early on when you are just trying to find out whether you are interested in each other.

    I wouldn’t present the courtship scenario before you’ve decided to be in a relationship.

  165. dvdivx says:

    I think too many are feeding the Anonymous Reader troll. Nothing wrong with dating. There is something wrong with giving a crap if the answer is no or even a nuclear blow out. Learn how not to give a sh#t. I’d ask out women for other men because I just didn’t care about rejection or if they got offended for asking. First one must grow a pair and not care what women think. Otherwise any advice isn’t really going to work.

  166. seventiesjason says:

    Women in dating the dating world decide today….Christian or not, she decides. You could be the most holy, mighty man of God….she doesn’t *feel* an instant spark. You’re doomed. You could be outgoing, involved, have cool hobbies…..you can even dance…………she doesn’t *feel* an instant spark within five seconds of seeing you or whatever……you’re doomed.

  167. MKT says:

    “When you suggest returning to the courtship model, you fall right into Josh Harris’ “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, which apparently screwed up a lot of folks by his own accounting.”

    While I never read Josh’s book, I was familiar with the concept and loosely followed it in my own marriage. While I’m sure it has its flaws, let’s look at the alternative:

    – Kids start serial dating as early as elementary school. By the time they’re ready to marry, they’ve had many emotionally-driven, “serious” go-steady relationships…that all ended. Besides all the temptations for pre-marital sex (or at least foreplay), how does this fall-in-love/break-up/meet-someone-else cycle prepare them for marriage?

    – What’s the point of dating anyone if marriage isn’t possible within a few years (based on age, finances, maturity, etc.)?

    – How many people have been “screwed up” by this model?

    Many of the people complaining about courtship are anti-patriarchy types (the girl’s father plays a big role). Quite a few of them are “Homeschooler Anonymous” apostate types who are rebelling against everything their parents/churches taught them. Granted, some were from overly stuffy, legalistic households, but it doesn’t mean we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’ve encountered these folks online, and they’re amazingly bitter, full of gossip (trying to take down everyone in the “patriarchy” space) and are almost all now progressive SJWs (whether so-called Christians or atheist/agnostics). I’m convinced some of them have exaggerated their “horror stories” about courtships and their childhood.

    As for Josh, it looks like he’s reinventing himself as a hip, sensitive, TED-talking, CNN-soundbite kind of guy who has the respect of the Christianity Today crowd. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my initial impression.

  168. earl says:

    There is something wrong with giving a crap if the answer is no or even a nuclear blow out.

    Those aren’t the things that bugged me…I’d prefer them to be honest in that regard. It’s the saying you want one thing and then revealing later on you really don’t.

  169. Tubalcain says:

    IMO, If you’re not a Christian Gray, and you don’t give them the tingles, you might as well walk away then and there. Today’s women are incredibly delusional and far too picky! Traditionalist/Conservative men, and Evangelical Christian men in particular, are instilled with the belief of, and expected to be, “nice guys”. Although noble, those of us that fall into this camp, sadly, are victims of our own honor, faith bases, and upbringings.Truth be told, most modern single women, even the evangelical Christian girls (former evangelical here) want the “bad boy Alpha Chads”, and look down at “the nice Godly fellows” as weak and ineffective. A bitter pill for traditionalist and Christian men to have to swallow, but a realistic one in today’s culture. Experienced this firsthand in seeking employment too, with HR women, especially the younger ones. Not so much your skills, work experience, or cultural fit, as it is “you don’t float my boat, so you’re dismissed. But the wall is the poetic justice here. Once the expiration date hits, the market value drops, and you have a surplus of spinster cat ladies, with chips on their shoulders like telephone poles, and a penchant for filling up liberal mainline Protestant churches, and evangelical Protestant churches. Just one man’s view here.

  170. earl says:

    Well given the choice between striving for the Kingdom of Heaven or submitting to wimminz tingles by what they so desire…I’d choose the first. The second is very temporary even if you are an Alpha Chad.

  171. Tubalcain says:

    Can’t agree with you more. The kingdom of God is greater than any woman.

  172. Tubalcain says:

    I’d also submit that way too much emphasis is placed on appeasing women and/or trying to marry up with them (as seen from commentary here and on other similar sites). While I believe that marriage is a Sacrament, the primary intent of marriage (within most traditionalist faith bases) is to procreate and sustain or nurture a nuclear, faith based, and intact family. I doubt early Christians put a lot of emphasis on “dating”. For me (now 60), I put women in my rear view mirror, and I thank God daily for this. While I find MGTOW and the manosphere to have a lot of animus and vitriol towards both older men, and men of faith, I do agree with the MGTOW monk route for many men of faith today. The time, money, and emotion I personally wasted on trying to date and mate with women when I was a younger man was futile. The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

  173. feeriker says:

    Truth be told, most modern single women, even the evangelical Christian girls (former evangelical here) want the “bad boy Alpha Chads”, and look down at “the nice Godly fellows” as weak and ineffective.

    The tragedy here is that the best of the Alpha traits that attract women are NOT mutually exclusive from the “Godly Christian man” traits that are pushed as ideals by traditionalists. The problem is the virtue signalers, be they pastors, parents, teachers, or other older adults in positions of influence, who equate GCM traits with milquetoastiness and who inculcate that behavior into the young boys in their charge. There’s a speciasl place in Hell awaiting all of these people, no matter how noble their intentions might have been, for the irreparable damage they’ve done to three-plus generations of men.

  174. earl says:

    The reason why Godly Christian man traits are milquetoast is that the traits are often more described as appeasing to women or your wife…aka chivalrous to the FI. It has very little to do with God the Father, masculine virtues, or honor among men.

    Alpha Chads are more of the rebellious side…even rebelling to appeasing women which is why they have some short term success at attracting women. But staying on that path will always lead to a long term failure.

    So rather than appeasing or rebelling…whatever happened to leading? That’s what’s been lost.

  175. feeriker says:

    – How many people have been “screwed up” by this model?

    Given the prevalence of hookup culture, an obscenely high divorce rate, and the equally obscenely high bastardy and sexually-related mental illness rates (especially among women), the answer to that rhetorical question would have to be “something close to a majority.”

    TL;DR version: humans are addicted to the poisons that are steadily killing them.

  176. Opus says:

    Oscar is like a dog who has with its gaping maw got hold of my leg and will not let go. I don’t suppose he will release his grip if I point out that Anglican schools are just that and not Government schools or that whatever Christian denomination one adheres too – or none – Islam is entirely alien to the British. Indifference – which is where we differ from America – is our default religious position, (though we expect it to be there when required – it is the idiot son of the family who joins the church) and the militant Atheist is viewed with the same suspicion as the staunch Protestant or devout Catholic.

    I tend to think that the obituary for the death of Britain has been prematurely printed and a few too many times. Thomas Paine was singing that lyric over two centuries ago and I too have heard it and on the last occasion that I recall doing so the country that was being touted as the future – and would the last person to leave this benighted island switch the lights out – was [drum roll] Sweden. Sheeesh (no offence to any Swedes reading this intended).

    I have to disagree with Jason however who to my amazement denies that all ills come from England. Even I think we slave-driving colonial masters are the problem; always have been and always will be as we are born members of the awkward squad and ‘bloody-minded’ is our middle name. Enthusiasm is seen as bad form. Wrapping oneself in the flag is said to be the last refuge of the scoundrel and displays of national pride are mortally embarrassing such that we would prefer the earth to open and swallow us whole. England is the reverse image of America. How the hell did that happen?

  177. Anonymous Reader says:

    Earl
    I’m not sure if you would know this…but did these ladies want to be married or have a desire for marriage?

    Mostly yes, although one or two may have been “settling” they still were intent on being married rather than just getting married.

    All the ones I know that got married young wanted to be married.

    Yes, I see that too in my part of flyover.

    What I’m finding is a lot of them either don’t want to be married or say they do in a general sense but when they finally find someone the truth comes out.

    Lots of girls in their 20’s want to get married … someday. As they get closer to 29.999 some of them move “someday” to “soon” to “now!”. Thus we get a median age of women at first marriage = 27.

    The standard model for young women in the US is school then career then marriage. “Be established then marry”, which was standard advice for men in parts of Europe and the Anglosphere for centuries. It was the basic “provisioning ability” that was expected and required.
    Well, second stage equalist feminism decided that men and women are the same, so…men’s attraction triggers have to be just like women’s. Because equalist blank slate theory must be true! So men are supposed to find women with a kick-ass resume attractive…

    There is also churchgoing version: school, then “mission work”[1] and/or “internships” then marriage. God is supposed to drop a man into the mix somewhere along the line.

    Whether career for money or career for career, it’s just an unspoken expectation, and those women who marry before the age of 25 to 27 get a lot of passive-aggressive pity of the “oh, you poor dear, you’re missing out” from their friends & larger social circle.

    Homeschooling may make a difference. Two of the women who were most intensely intentional about being married were homeschooled. Don’t draw conclusions from my tiny data set.

    [1] Not to pick a fight but some forms of “mission work” look a lot like “paid travel” to me. Just earlier this week I listened to a chubby 20-something explaining to her friend how excited she was to go to India for two whole months this summer to work in a mission, and how her team would then have some down time in Paris on the way back home. I’ve heard similar stories, some of them told very proudly by fathers. “Mah little girl, Ahm so proud, she’s taking Bibles to Guatamala!” as if that hasn’t already been done a few times in the last 200 to 300 years.

  178. earl says:

    I try my best to live by God’s will…so I’m not going down the Alpha Chad route…and I do my best to keep the appeasement of women’s whims out (it is our kryptonite). I suppose if you live that way that’s about as successful as you can be in this day and age.

  179. Anonymous Reader says:

    PS
    Earl
    but it is getting harder to find marriage minded women. A lot of them want the college/career and something you forgot to point out the party/travel/hookup with random men lifestyle.

    The cock carousel is assumed, especially here on Dalrock’s blog. But you are correct, I failed to include it, and that’s my error.

    Notice that many girls attempt to qualify themselves to a man not just with their job history / resume / C.V. but also with their travel experiences. “Oh, I spent a Year Abroad right after college”…

    I don’t know why, but it is obvious that a lot of men just don’t realize how easy it is for 20-something girls to rack up a sexual partner count in just a few years. It’s arithmetic, not algebraic. One steady “boyfriend” in an LTR that lasts a year or so, plus a couple of “it just HAApened” flings per year, for example. Three different men in her bed per year. Do that for 6 years and she’s had sex with 18 different men. That’s not really all that slutty by the standards of 2018, either.

    Churchgoing girls can, and do, avoid this but only with some hard work and keeping in their group situations. One of the women in my social circle who married this year lived in a house with two others; they all went to the same church, and had “house rules” about visitors.

  180. OKRickety says:

    Anonymous Reader said: “Lots of girls in their 20’s want to get married … someday.

    Based on what happens later in many cases, I suspect many of them are more interested in having a wedding than in being married.

  181. Oscar says:

    @ Opus

    I don’t suppose he will release his grip if I point out that Anglican schools are just that and not Government schools

    I don’t suppose you’ll understand my statement any better if I point out that I never stated that I oppose Anglican schools. I stated that I oppose government schools.

    Islam is entirely alien to the British.

    Not for long, because…

    Indifference – which is where we differ from America – is our default religious position

    Indifference is no defense against an expansionist, supremacist religion. Your indifference is precisely why you’ll need to remember: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.”

  182. Hmm says:

    @MKT:

    I wasn’t suggesting the modern dating scene when I dismissed courtship – frying pan and fire.

  183. MKT says:

    Hmmm,

    So what are the other alternatives? Is there anything besides modern dating, courtship and arranged marriages (or some combination thereof)? I think courtship with some dating (at an appropriate age) may be workable, with arranged marriages in some situations (probably very limited in our current culture). There obviously needs to be flexibility. No book or guru has a one-size-fits-all solution. Or is there a completely different alternative I’m missing?

  184. Sharkly says:

    earl says: So rather than appeasing or rebelling…whatever happened to leading? That’s what’s been lost.
    Obviously you haven’t manned up and married you a ho yet. If you had, you’d know that it isn’t usually the leading that is lacking, it is that the rebellious ho will not follow, no matter how good you are at leading other people.
    My case may be different, but here it is: When I got married I was Alpha Chad Thundercock,(I’ll spare you the details) I owned my own business and was worth millions on paper, I custom ordered my new Ho a huge lakeside home with bedrooms we never even used. I was well respected, had a sense of humor, and had the confidence of not only being the “total package”, but being created in the very image of God Himself. You’d think a woman could be happy with that. However, I blindly chose one with ‘Intimacy Anorexia’, Plus two diagnosed mood disorders and a diagnosed thought disorder, and she really has never been tested or evaluated so she may have other conditions as well. Anyhow, she began “distancing behaviors” on our honeymoon, and by the six month point in our marriage when we went back to visit her family, she had badmouthed me to them so much already that they were already out to try to separate our marriage. Perhaps because of all I had going for me, I was able to limp the marriage along for a decade before she ran out on me the first time, but don’t imagine that being “Chad” or a good leader, or trying anything and everything will ever make a ho as precious as rubies. Only God and the ho have the direct ability to change her, and God usually defers to people’s free will and lets those who want to go astray, go their own way. Breaking a fool of her Feminism, is like breaking a Junkie of his addiction. You can’t just say “quit that Sh1t, it is unhealthy for you”, and expect them to follow your sensible leadership. I have also met men who seem to have almost trouble free marriages,(even though some of them lack ‘people skills’) who really, by all measures, would not be expected to be the one with the better marriage. It is the wife that makes that harmony possible through respect and submission. A few hundred years ago most women were trained to submit, and most did. Even the most wretched or misfortunate of men then could usually keep their homes intact if they chose to. Being a good leader and practicing good leadership will certainly help in marriage, but it is no guarantee of good results, especially in this age of rebellious Godless Feminist culture and laws. I hope others can learn from my misfortune and will not have to experience it.

    Opus says: England is the reverse image of America. How the hell did that happen?
    Selection! Those with earnest religious beliefs, willing to risk their lives and comfort, crossed oceans in sailing ships, and ventured to a wild land with hostile natives, just to have the opportunity to worship as they(not the established church) saw fit. Other brave souls ventured here for other motives. And some like debtors and prisoners were sent here in indentured servitude. The key being they all chose to leave or were expelled because they never fit in well back in jolly old England. Not then, not now. Those who did well in English society and enjoyed it stayed there.

    Even today there are still some who get fed up and leave, while others are sneaking in to join the United Kingdom. FYI I am directly descended from your King,(one named Edward I was told) so please respect my royal highness, or I may be forced to come back and reclaim my Kingdom from the current despots. Even now, with a Monty Python accent, I pronounce; “I am your king!”

  185. earl says:

    Obviously you haven’t manned up and married you a ho yet. If you had, you’d know that it isn’t usually the leading that is lacking, it is that the rebellious ho will not follow, no matter how good you are at leading other people.

    Thank you for pointing this out. I’ve seen delusional guys talk big about how they can make women submit through all sorts of things, including using physical force,…but I figured none of that matters if she’s on the rebellion train.

  186. ray says:

    earl —

    Catholicism speaks outta both sides of its mouth concerning their Queen of Heaven. So do their popes. As for the people, have you ever visited and lived in Latin America? Most practical worship is directed towards Mary — most fervently by the local women. Indeed, when I was a child under Catholicism, in the U.S., the church held parades and festivities in honor of the Queen of Heaven. Very memorable. No parades for Jesus, however. Even in Fifties America, the popular passion of the Catholic Church already was focused on Mary, and nobody else. And that was BEFORE the Total Feminism Takeover.

    “At the General Audience of 9 April 1997, the Holy Father [JP 2] continued his catechesis on the role of the Blessed Mother, calling attention to her unique “role of co-operator in the Redemption, which she exercised throughout her life and in a special way at the foot of the Cross.”

    Your diffusions, earl, sound like Dalrock’s modern ‘pastors’ trying to legitimize, and square the circle, of Christian Feminism. You tell me JP2 fought tooth-n-nail against Mary as Co-Redemptrix, and then I find multiple instances of JP2 saying exactly that, in different words. In the example above (I can cite many more if necessary), JP2 calls Mary ‘co-operator in the Redemption’. OK earl, so Mary WAS the ‘Co-Operator of Redemption’ . . . but she WASN’T Co-Redemptrix??

    LOL, I understand the distinction now. :O) Plain old straightforward casuistry.

    It’s like the Prots: “Our churches are ruled by females, but we’ll yammer about God the Father the whole tiresome morning. It all adds up to the same thing.”

    More weaseling: JP 2 was “exalting Mary as the first among believers but concentrating all faith on the Triune God and giving primacy to Christ.”

    Now we’ve sidled away from JP2’s Mary as ‘Co-Operator in the Redemption’ (but note, NOT Co-Redemptrix!), and bunkered-down with Mary as ‘first among believers’.

    The WHAT? Who told any of you that? Does anybody in the Catholic Church read the BIBLE anymore? Hows about the prophet Isaiah, who prophesied Christ’s arrival SEVEN CENTURIES before the Queen of Heaven was born . . . and born in SIN, btw? Isaiah doesn’t count as a believer, he was just a male after all. Yep and Mary was Co-Operator in the Redemption because she SHARED EQUALLY in Christ’s suffering and death. LOL! Got an explanation for that artificial elevation also, earl? Cuz it ain’t in my Bible.

    I waste time on this subject because the Marian deceptions of the past (Fatima, Lourdes et al.) by no means have ceased. They were preparatory fakes by satan, set-ups for not only the current rule of the West by feminism, but for the global deception waiting just ahead. My primary purpose herein isn’t to change your mind (which I won’t) but to warn others about the trajectory of this longstanding duplicity.

    Cheers in Christ.

  187. ray says:

    earl —

    P.S., I see that officially the Catholics haven’t adopted the ‘co-Redemptrix’ title as dogma, which I erroneously reported. In haste! :O)

    However, adoption in the spirit is a separate matter.

  188. earl says:

    As for the people, have you ever visited and lived in Latin America?

    No but I live in a largely Hispanic community in the United States.

    Most practical worship is directed towards Mary — most fervently by the local women. Indeed, when I was a child under Catholicism, in the U.S., the church held parades and festivities in honor of the Queen of Heaven. Very memorable. No parades for Jesus, however. Even in Fifties America, the popular passion of the Catholic Church already was focused on Mary, and nobody else. And that was BEFORE the Total Feminism Takeover.

    We just did a parade through town with Corpus Christi. We also did a parade through town during Good Friday to display Christ’s passion. All about Jesus. To this point I’ve never seen our parish do parade through town about Mary. The only time Mary is brought up in Mass in depth is during her main feast days like the Assumption and Immaculate Conception and it’s all focused on why she was made this way because God set her aside to be the Mother of Jesus.

    Could you be more specific about why they were parading Mary through town?

  189. Boxer says:

    However, adoption in the spirit is a separate matter.

    The Catholic church has always been quite enthusiastic about publishing its edicts. Anything the papists adopt in spirit is likely recorded (and recorded, and recorded…) in print.

    The Mary-hate that’s done by prods, against cats, strikes me as one prong of a pincer movement, the other being the depiction of her as a skank-ho single mom, by protestant priests like Marc Driscoll and the like. Protestantism was motivated, from the beginning, by rebellion against authority, so their adoption of trannies and wimminz as priests is a feature, not a bug; but, here I digress.

    Bottom line: Mary is a legitimate hero of the text. More people should study the character, because she charts a course for honorable womanhood, in a world where very few girls have worthy role models.

    Best,

    Boxer

  190. seventiesjason says:

    Opus.

    Plenty of “blame” to go around about who has blood on their hands……..I mean, really…….when did the UK “get over” the Viking invasions / plunder????? Wales was subjectated in a war. They lost. They shoul;d be grateful there is some autonomy left. They should be thankful that the heir apparent is named after Wales.

    My mother was proud Welsh Daisy on St David’s Day/. Potato-leek soup. Love sppons. The language. Estiffiod. She also was proud of the accomplishments of The Crown. She was a “good subject” and a good Us Citiizen when she became naturalized. She considered herself “proper” British……..I’ve mentioned before….she met someone once from London while we were shopping in the large mall in Albany……..out came the more “posh” accent. Polite.

    I asked her why she didn’t bust that out more often…..she just said “Keeping up appearance Charlie Brown” (my nickname). She continued “British from London and that area usually think anyone from the provinces live in thatched huts and don’t have running water yet.”

    I miss that, and I liked how she “kept up appearances” I mean……she even heated pl;ates before she served the family dinner. My dad was lucky to have had her for 44 years of marriage

  191. seventiesjason says:

    Opus…..also, I am an Anglophile. For my sixth birthday my parents got me that comp “The Beatles 1962-1966” and that was it.

    I was fashion wise a “Mod” all through high school and college appearance-wise. I still wear skinny rayon ties from the 1960’s. I drink “typhoo” tea. I eat eels. I have a Vespa, and I like “fashion” in a sense suitable for my age…….my upcoming trek to the UK in 2019 I plan to shop (or is it shoppe???) for vinyl and clothing. I am buying a suit at Harrods while there. No debate on this. Been into Northern Soul since the end of my high school years…….

    Many Brits will probably have a snicker over me while there “oh the poor lad, doing it all wrong” but it’s who I am. I am a pround US Citizen but I am also proud of where and what my mother came out of and from. You may think it “silly” but so what? The UK and the USA have much more in common today than they think. We share a language, some cultural linkage, and the nation that birthed the greatest country has much to be proud of……and Churchill was half-American.

  192. Pingback: Mama ain’t happy. | Dalrock

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