Ken Harrison, CEO and chairman of Promise Keepers, explains that the collapse of marriage in our feminist age is due to the failings of men in When Men Mess Up, Women and Children Suffer
What I saw in my days as a Los Angeles Police Department street cop in South Central is that almost all the problems in this world come from the pride and the greed of men.
Calling men to be men isn’t chauvinistic or somehow against women, although it is countercultural and controversial. But it is a fact that when men check out of their families, women suffer the most.
And so do their children.
Harrison has a difficult task. He has to pose as fighting against the destruction of marriage while assuring everyone involved that Promise Keepers won’t threaten the status quo. Promising to not upset the apple cart is in fact the fundamental (albeit unstated) promise of Promise Keepers. To understand why this is the case, consider the two main groups in his target audience.
The first group is modern Christian (feminist) women. They have been freed by both the church and the state from the requirement to marry or remain married to the father(s) of their children. They can (from a practical perspective) reject not only making and honoring marriage vows, but their husband’s headship over them. This is of course the egalitarian position, so conservative Christians are careful to deny that they have for all practical purposes adopted the feminist status quo. This denial is essential, as it is all that separates conservative Christians from egalitarians. Without the denial, conservative Christians would lose their identity. However, the duplicity here is obvious to outside observers, as Dr. Russell More explains in After Patriarchy, What? Why Egalitarians Are Winning the Evangelical Gender Debate (emphasis mine):
Several other recent works have challenged, convincingly, the notion that grassroots evangelicals hold to male headship at all, at least in practice. University of North Carolina sociologist Christian Smith, for instance, in his Christian America, contends that American evangelicals speak complementarian rhetoric and live egalitarian lives. Smith cites the Southern Baptist Convention’s 1998 confessional wording on male headship and wifely submission as expressive of a vast consensus within evangelicalism. But, he notes, the Baptist confession could just as easily have affirmed “mutual submission” within an equal marital partnership and have fit the views of the evangelical majority.5 This is because, Smith argues, evangelicals have integrated biblical language of headship with the prevailing cultural notions of feminism—notions which fewer and fewer evangelicals challenge…
Modern Christian leaders have to carefully signal to modern Christian women that by telling men to man up and “lead” that they don’t actually mean for husbands (and churches) to return the family to biblical roles. Promise Keepers was from the very beginning recognized by modern Christian women as an organization that tacitly supports the wife’s headship. The implicit message to wives is send us your defective husband and we’ll fix him for you. Once wives were confident that Promise Keepers didn’t threaten their dominance in the home, they ordered their husbands to attend. From the same article by Dr. Russell Moore (emphasis mine):
Likewise, in her Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life Oregon State University sociologist Sally Gallagher interviews evangelical men and women across the country and across the denominational spectrum and concludes that most evangelicals are “pragmatically egalitarian.”6 Evangelicals maintain headship in the sphere of ideas, but practical decisions are made in
most evangelical homes through a process of negotiation, mutual submission, and consensus. That’s what our forefathers would have called “feminism”— and our foremothers, too.And yet Gallagher shows specifically how this dynamic plays itself out in millions of homes, often by citing interviews that almost read like self-parodies. One 35-year-old homeschooling evangelical mother in Minnesota says of the Promise Keepers movement: “I had Mike go this year. I kind of sent him. . . . I said, ‘I’m not sending you to get fixed in any area. I just want you to be encouraged because there are other Christian men out there who are your age, who want to be good dads and good husbands.’ ”7 This “complementarian” woman does not seem to recognize that she is “sending” her husband off to be with those his own age, as though she were a mother “sending” her grade-school son off to summer youth camp. Not surprisingly, this evangelical woman says she does not remember when—or whether—her pastor has ever preached on the subject of male headship.
The second group Promise Keepers has to convince that they won’t disrupt the feminist status quo is chivalrous Christian men. Like feminist Christian women, these men reject feminism in theory but in practice submit to their wives and call them lord.
H/T Nick MGTOW
Promise Keepers and Covenant Keepers were big in the late 90’s. i didn’t even know they were still a thing. I know some guys who jumped in head first. Me? The idea of sitting in a hotel room in a strange city , holding hands and praying and crying with a bunch of other guys had no appeal to me. At the time, I couldn’t really put it into words, because the stated goals of the groups seemed reasonable enough. But looking at pictures from some of the events made me cringe and grimace.
Haha. My buddies and I called them promise weepers. I did go to one and then myself and found nothing wrong with it. I can’t say that the of helping men to be better husbands and fathers is bad. However where is the female counterpart to Promise Keepers? Who is calling women to be better wives and mothers? They apparently have an innate ability to know this as focus on the family has stated
However where is the female counterpart to Promise Keepers? Who is calling women to be better wives and mothers?
That very question was asked a few years back on a manosphere forum. I believe it may have been here, but I’m not sure .Women’s response was swift:
“Sure that exists in every women’s Bible study”.
Seriously. That was the response. Funny stuff!
Dalrock, I’ve been following you since the the-Spearhead days, and I would like to thank you for all of your good work. I am only now commenting because I have something to add.
The problem is, the leaders of the Promise Keepers travel uniformly in Liberal Egalitarian circles. And while making an organization that helped teach husbands headship would be great for the average christian man, it wouldn’t be so popular in their circles. They would stop getting favorable media coverage (what’s left of it), or invites to fancy parties. They’ll choose the path of the kept conservative because it’s EASY. So screw everyone else.
The strong men of the Christian Right exposed as pussyhats. Truly we are living in ClownWorld!
We have passed all the exits leading to pleasant reconciliation. The counter-revolution, if there is one, will be ugly. My guess is that feminists’ will be dismissed by counter-revolutionaries not with logic and fact (staples of nice suburban guys like me), but a casual “Hoes angry.”
It is vital that documentation of our peril, done so well by Dalrock, not lead to despair. We have to explore for solutions. Here’s one:
“Under pressure, men might turn to the remaining reservoirs in America of masculinity and male pride, and learn from them: such as men who are African-Americans, Hispanics, migrants, far-Right extremists, military (active duty and vets), police, and Muslim.”
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2018/10/09/men-of-all-kinds-stand-together/
I think this was intended to be the female version of Promise Keepers:
https://www.guidestar.org/profile/84-1257556
My own experience with Promise Keepers was a trip out to the meeting in the LA Coliseum in May, 1995 with a group of men from what I hoped would be my new church in Tucson. The takeaway message for men was that our role was to serve our wives. To find their deepest needs and fulfill them. In other words, to listen and obey. Because we were bad people.
I quickly lost interest.
@timrean2444 That’s an excellent question. I think the underlying assumption is that women don’t need to be fixed in any way. My wife will admit she spent the first ~ fifteen years of marriage with this frame of reference, even though she had a very godly mentor whom I highly respect. Wives can certainly grow out of it, takes time and education and good mentoring.
South Central L.A.? Bury me a G…………. B.F.M.!!!
@NotaBene
Yes the men have promise Keepers in Samson Society and others to raise them up. These similar groups do not exist for women
My old Pastor for 20 plus years is full of hooyah bravado and machismo. Taught me the Westminster Confession of faith in the GI Williamson commentary on it . Then a woman comes crying into his office claiming emotional abuse. This is defined as withholding of time money or affection to all of which I plead guilty. He folds like a house of cards.
The women share their stories among other women including Elders wives but men don’t feel the same need to do this so I’ve now crawled off into isolation at least that my former Church of 25 years
@NotaBene
Wish I had the ability to edit a post here.
Anyways my ex won cash and prizes and now I work for her one day out of every five it was one day out of every three even though she’s very talented. This is all under the threat of jail
She can be free of me but I can’t be free of her. She gets all the benefits of divorce but gets to keep the money too and a future income stream. My attorney told me I had a decent deal because in Florida you can be stuck with lifetime alimony.
“14 Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant”
It is no longer Jewish men that deal treacherously with the wives of their Covenant.
it is Christian women who do this with a blessing explicit or implicit of our Christian leaders
My goodness this is depressing reading these comments. I am 40 years old now, single, no prospects, and a Christian. Am I going to get married? I don’t know, but more and more I find information and experiences like this makes me wonder if there is a “loving wife” out there.
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Tim2444. In our time we are witnessing why the bible says a woman shall have no authority over a man. They have no sense of justice fairness shame equity nothing! I work for mine about 1/3 the time. This whole system is propped by an idea about low income women this is a lie. Mine made 2x what i do she makes 6 figures in a extreme low cost of living state. I cannot afford anything except necessities and a few dinners out which i take just to keep my morale up.
There are no vacations, retirement, new vehicle which i need in my future. She is literally rich and blows money and im sure a few guys at the casino every week from what i hear. I cannot afford to leave town to go walleye fishing 1x per year. She asks me to do favors for her around her house! Like she didn’t just take our divorce atomic.
From the Warhorn link:
This makes me think of the fictional barrister Horace Rumpole, who referred to his wife as “she who must be obeyed”
A little trivia: Horace Rumpole was quoted in the O.J. Simpson trial.
My own experience with Promise Keepers was a trip out to the meeting in the LA Coliseum in May, 1995 with a group of men from what I hoped would be my new church in Tucson. The takeaway message for men was that our role was to serve our wives. To find their deepest needs and fulfill them. In other words, to listen and obey. Because we were bad people.
Back in the mid 90s, a bunch of guys from church went to that same one (the one in LA).They came back with their obsequiousness turned up to 11. Kind of glad I didn’t go either.
I’ll admit though, my problem with Promise Keepers, is on some level just a manifestation of my uneasiness around crowds and groupthink. Its why I don’t follow sports. Or go to rock concerts. For all my rantings about authority, corporate worship and such, it really is an internal struggle for me.
Ever been to a pentacostalesque church? No offence meant to those from traditions like that–but–I have been to a handful of them. And during the part where the piano is trickling out a soft melody while the pastor free-associates his freakshow “prayer” and everyone is closing their eyes, hands raised, I feel like I must be the one having the peculiar internal experience, even though they all look crazy to me, according to my training.
I think “nothing good can come of this. They are under a bizarre spell.”
And so it was, when my friends returned from the PK rally, I backwards engineered what the experience must have been like. I concluded that it must have been eight hours of holding hands and chanting “happy wife, happy life.”
Promise Keepers organization is NOT stopping thousands of men from committing suicide.
‘THE RATIONAL MALE” by Rollo Tomassi has a long track record
of stopping men from committing suicide
I attended one of its stadium events about 25 years ago.
Its core message then was the OPPOSITE of the life-saving,
marriage-saving content written by Rollo Tomassi.
How many marriages (and lives) have been destroyed because of PK?
I was invited, more than once, to attend a Promise Keepers event. I always politely declined. And I too recall the subtle message that no matter how good a husband I was, that I was broken and they would fix me.
Even worse, some Catholic laymen tried to create a copycat movement, the St. Joseph’s Covenant Keepers. I think it still exists, if only in name. I haven’t heard a peep about it since forever.
I think the Promise Keepers was a reaction to accusations that Christian evangelicals were sexist.
In the 1970s, Christians evangelicals were among the leading forces to help defeat the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). They were also in the forefront in the battle against abortion, and in favor of traditional family values. As a result, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Hollywood and the media portrayed Christian evangelicals as sexist misogynists.
I think Christian Evangelicals formed the Promise Keepers as an attempt to prove that they didn’t hate women. That Christianity was pro-women.
Christians have long been on the defensive, trying to prove to the world that they aren’t sexist, racist, or homophobic.
@Daniel I know marriage can still work even in this day and age. Dalrock’s does, Rollo’s does, mine does. There are lots of solid marriages in the ‘sphere. But I can’t in good faith recommend a *state* marriage to anyone. It means nothing to me and screws a lot of men out of their money. Who is the state to license anyone to get married, anyway?
@Scott I feel exactly the same way. About literally everything you wrote. I teach music for a living, and I can’t stand most of it in church. In fact I think I would eliminate it completely if I could. I’m equally as sensitive to emotional manipulation in church, especially when it’s the same type of emotion every time. Lately I’ve been reading Psalms and noticing the huge range of emotion that isn’t forced, it’s anger and rage and regret and sadness and all of it, not just wistful longing with hands in air while praying.
@RPL Yes, I think it’s a deep fear that we’ll be labeled those things, so we go to absurd lengths to prove we’re not. I’m about ready to just label myself sexist, racist, and homophobic just to save time and effort.
Hah! This is typical. Men are always to blame for everything. Child starts using drugs because wife is a junkie herself? It is the husband’s fault for working 70h a week to support their home. Marriage fails because wife cheated? Man’s faulty for not “managing his household” or “not being good enough in bed”. Just pick one form list of “man’s faults”. It never ends.
Men are told in church and by some psychologists or whatnot to “lead their households” and when they do, wife files for divorce or calls cops to have the husband tossed out of the home. How can anyone lead when those who have to follow refuse to and the only two avenues to enforce compliance are incentives that men no longer have at his disposal (fear or rewards)? Make any threats (fear) and you will be arrested, given a court order to stay out of the home, or will be ratted out to DCF through your children via their school. Any rewards you can offer for good behavior can be obtained by woman through divorce, via court orders (enforced by local police). Divorce is a way to have their cake and eat it too, women almost always get even more financial rewards through divorce, no strings attached.
Incentives are the only true motivators in life. As long as divorce is incredibly beneficial to women, at men’s expense, and as long as women have no consequences to their bad behavior (including for committing crimes and never being punished or even bad reputation at their church/social group for adultery and divorce), marriage is a total abdication of a man’s life, dignity, finances, and freedom. It is a fool’s errand. Ignoring this reality is the quintessential Blue Pill way to life and guaranteed path to suffering. Guaranteed!
My fav part of this article: “If it’s true that 70 percent of men in the church look at pornography twice a week or more, then who are our daughters supposed to marry?”
I love it when women equate watching a video online to actual adultery. To them, for man to seek out a h00ker and to watch a video online (often out of desperation since they are deprived by their spouse, either due to her obesity, for instance or just unilaterally withholding form the man) is the same thing. LOL It is so absurd and illogical, typical emotional, reactionary mindset.
Given almost all “Christian daughters” today try to emulate the Kardashians and have ridden the Carrousel quite a bit with mommy and daddy’s permission most often, it is actually a relief to hear young Christian men only watch videos online. At least they avoid STDs.
Lost Angeles is a 3rd world country, not even part of America, so whatever this guy’s experiences may be reflect a foreign country, where most American men not living in a foreign Shitropolis would not associate with. I live in “middle America” and I have literally zero in common with a random guys from LA or San Francisco and probably much more with a random eastern European dude these days. America cannot be compared to foreign countries like California, so the LA cop’s experiences are completely irrelevant to this discussion.
I keep hearing a lot about “men need to man up” or as this dumb article says “almost all the problems in this world come from the pride and the greed of men” as this LA street cops states.
Does that include Angela Merkel flooding Western Europe with 5 million Muslim invaders over a couple year’s time and permanently ruining an entire continent? Is that man’s fault too? Or how about President Dilma Rousef of Brazil single-handedly empting out the nations coffers and allowing her cronies to steal the funds and bankrupting the nation? Man’s fault too? Or Andrea Yates murdering her 5 young kids, probably her husband’s fault too. I bet the man who had his penis cut off by Lorena Bobbitt deserved to be mutilated as well. It is his fault his wife suspected he was cheating.
Can anyone tell me what is the reward to being a husband or father in America today, besides being mocked for it? Everything you work for and build can be taken away by the wife, unilaterally, with a phone call to cops or a ruling by a biased judge. Seriously, why would nay guy sign up for that these days is beyond me.
I hear a lot of men’s faults and responsibilities, all obligations to do this and that… but any actual, DURABLE rewards attached to it?
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I am shocked to learn that Horace Rumpole is fictional.
The phrase ‘she, who must be obeyed’ derives from H. Rider Haggard’s 1886 novel entitled She concerning one Ayesha and set in east Africa who may I seem to recall have been white (at least she was when Ursula Andress essayed the role). Literature seems to be full of terrifying women who men seem to be prepared to risk all to tame – Gozzi’s Turandot is another as to some extent is the unnamed daughter in the first scene of Shaespeare’s Pericles.
Is not the premise behind Promise Keepers then a version of ‘save a ho’ and working on the assumption that if a man risks enough the woman will be eternally grateful and if she isn’t then the man is not quite hero enough and thus does not deserve the ‘pearl of great price’. Composers love terrifying women: Turandot, Brunhilde, The Queen of the Night.
Off topic levity: Are you an Instagram husband?
@NoteBene:
On church music, I am happy to belong to a congregation whose pastor and musicians 15 years ago began putting together a complete modern Psalter from which we sing one or two every Sunday morning. In fact that Psalter project was the basis of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal last year, which brought mostly modern versifications of all 150 psalms into many churches.
So we are able to sing the joyful Psalms, the penitential Psalms like 51, even the dark ones like Psalm 88. And we do. We don’t sing only Psalms like some congregations do, but they are a strong focus of our worship.
@LiveFearless
When challenged with facts, the churchian will respond that they have saved the souls of the thousands of “christians”, which is more important than saving men from suicide. The modern church is a well-oiled machine that already has a response prepared and packaged for whichever criticism it might receive.
timrean2444 says “Who is calling women to be better wives and mothers?”
Answer: Lori Alexander of “The Transformed Wife.” Here is a good example: https://thetransformedwife.com/he-wont-take-out-the-trash/?fbclid=IwAR11GdhP8TkbqG7MqROOzZGFR2rfgh1QB5ABNT9qzTY1OGG1z8G4jbdX8ZY
@ wilandmari
As good as Mrs. Alexander is, she’s just one lady with a blog. She’s not a nationwide organization supported by entire Evangelical denominations, with thousands of pastors browbeating wives to attend her rallies.
RPC-
I was confounded by that line about porn in the article. I wondered “are they saying that any man who has ever looked at porn is automatically a no go?” Or something else?
My anecdotal evidence from just a few months of practice on the outside has begun to confirm the manosphere-based hypothesis that within marriage, porn use is a function of sex starved husbands desperately trying to take the edge of of their sexual energy while remaining faithful through a “lesser of two evils” rubric.
It goes, “I can’t cheat, but I need to be able to focus and get through the day. I have not had sex in way to long, so I need to calm my nerves.”
These men are trying every day to be the best husbands they can be, minus the thing they need most from their wives. Its like they are being told “you must continue to do all the things that are required of you as a husband. If you complain about the lack of sex, I will make sure you feel selfish, perverted, creepy, until you shut up about it and take the kids to soccer.”
Christians have long been on the defensive, trying to prove to the world that they aren’t sexist, racist, or homophobic.
An honest reading of Scripture demonstrates that God can be all of those things, and for obviously good and valid reasons. Yet most self-described “Christians” have never parted ways with the World, and thus have staying in its good graces as their life’s highest goal. This is why they are palpably ashamed of what God’s Word says and seek to constantly reassure the World, which of course takes offense at all of God’s ways, that He “doesn’t really say what He very clearly says.”
“Between 1970 and 1990 the South LA area went from 80% black and 9% Latino to 50.3% black and 44% Latino. In the 2014 census, the area of South Los Angeles had a population of 271,040. 61.0% of the residents were Hispanic or Latino, 28.7% were African American.”
To piggyback feeriker’s comment, a favorite being how tolerance is championed.
Patience, indifference, acceptance- all qualities of God. Tolerance? The entire premise of sending the Son to die was because the Father is incapable of tolerance.
Love is antithetical to tolerance. False believers conflate the two: making of them synonyms.
Dal – I’m a regular reader of your and Rollo’s blogs. This is easily the best and most succinct post of yours I’ve ever read. It is also an absolutely damning critique of where modern churches have gone off the rails. Four stars sir.
[D: Thank you. Welcome.]
@ ikr
That’s false. The problem is that few today understand what “tolerance” means.
Most conflate “tolerate” with “celebrate”.
In reality, to “tolerate” means “to put up with”. In King James English, “tolerance” is called “long suffering”.
And, guess what? Long suffering is a characteristic of love, and a characteristic of God. God puts up with our sin. If He didn’t, we’d all be burning in Hell already, just as we deserve.
However, God will not suffer our sin for ever. He will judge, because there may be judgment without love, but there is no love without judgment.
@ ikr
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/long-suffering
Definition of long-suffering
: patiently enduring lasting offense or hardship
Synonyms
forbearing, patient, stoic (or stoical), tolerant, uncomplaining
At least the leader of Promise Keepers is upfront and honest. From the opening of his article:
Men are what? Drudges, servants? He doesn’t say.
This is the opposite of missionary work. It is striving to turn men off from Christianity. It is the anti-Gospel, the Bad News.
NotaBene says:
July 16, 2019 at 2:13 am
@Daniel I know marriage can still work even in this day and age. Dalrock’s does, Rollo’s does, mine does. There are lots of solid marriages in the ‘sphere…
*********************************************************
This is true. I have one as well.
Marriage can work.
You have to choose wisely, and you must act wisely.
Don’t fall for the “servant leader” model.
Don’t fall for “complentarianism”.
Don’t listen to the Church in general when it comes to marriage.
It’s a patriarchy.
I have not seen one that teaches it right (except the Church I was going to when I met my wife). I have see even this year a Church teach “choreplay” (doing chores for sexual access). I feel sorry for all the younger guys that were there who’s wives heard that taught as a good thing. My wife and I have sex for one reason: we want to. No matter if it’s once during a week, four times in a week, or like last week three times in one day. In all our 3 decades years of marriage she’s never, not once connected sex to anything but simply wanting it.
An overlooked author is Bruce Bryans and his series of books. Like “What women want when they test men”. If you haven’t read that, check it out.
‘I don’t really have a heart for men’s issues. I have a heart for women and children.’
Because men and their needs don’t matter, except as they impact women and children. PK is now (if it wasn’t before) fully feminist. Well, now we know.
Yeah, yeah, we’re all beasts of burden, nothing more. We get it.
Feminists/Complimentarians: “The Bible is a patriarchal text that subordinates the value and worth of women under the headship authority of the man.”
Me: Yup.
Something totally unrelated.
https://ljubomirfarms.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/pocivaj-u-miru/
Take care
Very troubling. Takes me back. I married and had my first son and was drawn to raising my family in a church environment. I didn’t grow up a Christian and went to church exactly once, in the 8th grade, with the girl I liked, because there was a pancake breakfast afterward. It is hard to describe how it felt later as a 26 year old newbie trying to fit in at church. Man, they roped me into everything right away and I never said “no”. Usher, bell ringer, liturgist, congregational prayer leader; all right off the bat and I wasn’t even “saved” or anything yet. Then a group of men invited me to Dallas for PK and I went. Squirmed the whole time: endless prying from the local group I was with and some form of confession from each one at some point of the weekend, none of which I wanted to hear. A tax cheat, an adulterer, an alcoholic, a porn watcher, an “emotional abuser”, hell, I thought some of them were just making it up in order to say something. Oh yeah, and as previously stated to death- so much crying- men just holding hands and openly crying. Every message from every preacher and every speaker during the numerous altar calls had one recurring instruction for every man there: Go home at the end of the weekend and wash your wife’s feet.
I’m divorced and just made my last payment to the ex. My sons are grown. I found some good Christian mentorship over the years and continue in the Faith and in the Word. I never go to church. Never.
Ken Harrison says “I don’t have a heart for men’s issues” but in the next breath says “we must change the hearts of men”.
How do you propose to change a man’s heart if you can’t reach a man’s heart? How do you expect to change a man’s heart if you don’t know what’s in his heart? How do you expect to know what’s in his heart if you don’t care about what’s going on with him? Not his wife, his kids, his job, or whatever else is external to him, but the man as an individual? What he wants, needs, desires, fears, and is passionate about?
Ah. I see. The answer is that a real man ignores all these things, stuffs them, and casts them away in favor of becoming Boxer in Animal Farm. “I WILL WORK HARDER!!” A Real Man selflessly ignores the needs of his own body and soul, eschews the love and sexual congress with the woman who vowed to him and to God that she would provide him those things. A Real Man isn’t a Real Man unless he’s in church weeping with the wife who won’t have sex with him rubbing circles on his back.
Ok.
Add John Patch as reason number 2039482039842 why I have chosen to do what I do.
I wish you all the success in the world, brother.
There is a cliche about staying up to day, i.e. “Generals who are fighting the last war”.
Ken Harrison goes further, he’s a General busy losing the last war all over again.
Headline: “Giving birth at a young age helps protect women from breast cancer. Could a drug mimic that effect?”
https://www.inquirer.com/health/pregnancy-breast-cancer-risk-jose-russo-fox-chase-20190716.html
It isn’t good news, but you face a challenge Daniel. I am about 2 decades your senior and I face it even worse. I thought I had what you are seeking (for almost 30 years), but it turned out the love was never present as I examine it now.
Women have been trained to not be a loving wife, but to be a demanding woman who is never satisfied. Women’s conferences now teach how wonderful a woman is with no challenging words at all, except maybe to get past all the bad things that happened to them in the past. Those bad things are never viewed as their fault, implying that others (men) did it to them, not their own choices.
Snowflakes do exist, but they are rare as we live in the heat of summer and they melt quickly, so they are no longer snowflakes. Really tough for a man today.
I am not sure on the practical details, but find a group of men to connect with if you can. That seems much more stable, though that is only my speculation at this point since I have not found one.
Man, they roped me into everything right away and I never said “no”. Usher, bell ringer, liturgist, congregational prayer leader; all right off the bat and I wasn’t even “saved” or anything yet.
That’s absolutely typical of Churchianity, Inc.; they’re all about works (most of which don’t ultimately matter) and are utterly indifferent to matters of faith. Although I’ve seen them attempt to conscript both sexes as slaves/workhorses, at least with the women they make some halfhearted pretense of caring about their spiritual wellbeing. The men, however, they treat as nothing more than disposable animals. They no more care about the spiritual health of the male workhorse than they would care about the spiritual health of a floor mop or a vacuum cleaner.
Was anyone involved with Ed Cole in the decade prior to Promise Keepers (he had died by then). He laid the groundwork, but I can’t clearly remember how different his teaching was. It seemed challenging to me instead of the pablum they have now, but I was in a much different mindset then and I can’t remember.
Just wondering for anyone who has been around a while.
Scott,
The reason those worship elements bother you is both because you are in a traditional practice kind of church (Orthodox IIRC) and because it is close to what can be a genuine experience.
The fake always comes close to the real. A modern (going back 50 years or more) mocks worshiping God. It has many of the same elements. Think of the people who watch Elijah defeat the prophets of Baal in ancient Israel. They did many of the same outward things after Elijah “won” the battle, but their outward words didn’t indicate an inward heart change.
It is a similar reason that dirt poor people in the Middle Ages paid through the nose to build expensive beautiful cathedrals when they might even die of hunger along the way. Man is designed to like beauty and worship of God, yet can get redirected from the proper target so easily.
I prefer that style over the RCC or Orthodox Church, but I am also tired of the entertainment aspect it has become. I don’t mind lights and even smoke machines, but the result should be measured by how people are transformed, not how they act in church. (That would apply to the RCC and Orthodox Church as well.)
Unfortunately, we are too focused on the experience today and don’t see it as a part that recharges us to go out and carry on a mission for God, but rather as a fun time that it also “spiritually approved” to go to. Some get that same feeling met through a music concert, but it is the same thing. It is not good or bad per se, but the underlying focus does impact it.
Hope this makes sense.
@BillyS
I have no answer to your question, but it would seem to me that if any male Christian figure had publicly and unabashedly espoused and preached a genuinely Christian Red Pill philosophy in the past, he would have been very publicly pilloried, defellowshiped from every church and Christian organization imaginable, loudly and endlessly compared by mainstream churchians to Caligula, Nero, Ghenghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all roled into one; and would have had his name infamized.
So, that said, it’s very likely that Ed Cole was in the same milquetoasty, supplicating, churchian mangina mode as his successors – at least when it came to putting anything on the line.
Imagine an article i want women to b the best. I dont care if they are dying of cancer getting beaten or happy. The real problem i see is not enough great home cooked meals and clean houses. When women are their mans sexual pet it really helps men out this is a huge concern. There are too many single women eschewing their responsibilities to society by staying single. Who are my teenage sons going to physically abuse in the future after a warm meal? I cant believe this.
A bigger problem for me is the swaying, hand raising stuff seems like holiness theater for everyone else.
I find myself looking around at all of them thinking “Are they experiencing something I am not? Am I not really a Christian?”
And the comments people make to me afterwords makes me think thats actually the point.
Then I remember. this is how Jim Jones got all those people to commit suicide.
What this reminds me of is how the concept of private property came into being. As it formalized it became alienable and dissolved the obligations that property represented in the first place. By formalizing marriage into honey do lists and choreplay, they break the bonds of obligation.
Ken Harrison goes further, he’s a General busy losing the last war all over again.
I’m very tempted to believe that Harrison is a more extreme version of the typical Churchianity, Inc. CEO today: an agent of Satan who is deliberately attempting to sabotage and destroy all that God considers good and holy.
Feeriker,
Personal experience would be necessary. Ed Cole was preaching in the 70s and 80s, long before the modern stuff had fully taken over. I doubt many here will have heard him though, so I may not get an answer. I just asked it in case I could!
Scott,
It certainly can be, but then so was giving for many in Jesus’ day. It wasn’t for the widow that gave the 2 mites however. Jesus didn’t condemn the practice, just the motivation. He dealt with the underlying motivation in many cases (see the Sermon on the Mount for many examples). Don’t immediately condemn practices just because you don’t like them, though always watch for motivations. You can’t control others, so only control yourself.
I know I never raise my hands to please others. I am almost contrarian myself, going against the crowd in those things. I want to focus on Him with a group of like-minded people, whatever the form. Many are like me, though we have gotten lost in the modern crowd in most cases.
Scott,
I also tend to shock people when I do things that are considered “emotional” since I am not in most cases. I have never worried about being part of the crowd, since that will never happen anyway. (The loneliness does get frustrating, but that is another issue.)
Just another perspective for you to ponder.
For anyone interested:
https://www.edcole.org/
I heard his sons made his stuff a profit center though, killing his ministry, so I am skeptical and cannot comment on the value of the site. Just sharing it for context on what I asked.
Modern evangelichicks will not deign to serve anyone in the local church. They will, without hesitation, jump at the chance to take a Christian vacation, er, mission trip to Mozambique and serve those deemed More Special (TM) by the Hive. Then they fly back and Farcebook everything to show how heroic they are. Keep in mind I’m omitting the “sleeping with the natives” behavior that often occurs from this comment.
The death of modern Churchianity is beneficial. There exists the true believing remnant, as always.
Hard for me to say, as I never participated. But the guys (mostly coworkers) who endlessly cajoled me into attending seemed very blue pill, which in hindsight is probably what turned me off to it.
My wife and I once attended a “Marriage Encounter” and we both found it to be rather useless. Never did it again.
I find myself looking around at all of them thinking “Are they experiencing something I am not? Am I not really a Christian?”
Been there, done that. A lot. Husband helped me get over it long ago.
Doesn’t mean that those people aren’t sincere or having a genuine experience. It’s just not how I experience God.
Elspeth, yeah I am pretty much over too. It just seems like a really weird coincidence that all those people who are experiencing something “real” all found the same building.
The death of modern Churchianity is beneficial.
Right on. No tears shed here.
There’s messed up stuff in every denomination, charismatics, pentecostals, paptists, high church, catholic, orthodox, everything.
Do you fear God and put your hope in Jesus who came in the flesh, died to save us and was raised to life? If you are no longer an enemy of God, but a servant, what else can be asked?
Nota Bene, that is an interesting name, being Italian for “pay attention” (note well). 🙂
We are moving towards a system where you have to prove your innocence, ie. when accused of “racism”, for instance, one has to prove otherwise. The default is guilt. Same with the now-largely defunct MeToo hysteria, all men are guilty when accused, unless they can prove otherwise.
That is a trap set by the Left, since one can now be black race and be racist against blacks and someone not black can marry and have kids with someone who is sub-Saharan African and yet “be racist”. This new world they want is one where the Left determines who is racist and who is not and the definition of such terms varies given your religion, political affiliation, opinions, country of birth, etc.
Ilhan Omar’s is the newest one-trick pony who spends all her time calling everything and everyone “racist”. Same with “The Squad (The Four Morons of the Apocalypse). Disagree with anything they want or say and you are called a racist, even if you are black or Hispanic or Arab or whatever.
Good news is, the more they overuse racism, the more it will lose its meaning and relevance. People are growing tired of it already. Remember Hillary 2016, she claimed misogyny so often, people rolled eyes when they heard it by November.
How to deal with it: Agree and amplify is how you deal with it, just be sure the mockery is clear and obvious. Do not give in, unless, of course, you are dealing with legal matters or at work. In these cases, become outraged and claim you yourself are a minority or whatever.
Otherwise, Agree and Amplify! It works beautifully against absurd accusations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.
Racism examples:
Ilhan Omar: not allowing at least 100 million Muslims to immigrate to the USA is racist!!!
You (online): Did you know I am so racist that H!tler learned from me? He was my student. BTW, I am in love with you Ilhan, I am madly in love with your beautiful headpieces and your hateful, yet loving eyes! Let’s get married! *grin smiley*
AOC: sign up for the “Green New Deal” or you want to kill “children of color”.
You (online): The only way to save the planet is to end ALL human reproduction worldwide! If you have a kid, you are racist. And if you havae kids, it kills the Earth, and that means you hate Mother Earth, who is a woman, so that is misogyny too! Be sure to tell the Africans having 10 kids each to stop having kids! *smirk face*
Homophobia example:
Triggerly Triggered woman: You are a homophobe!!! Hater!!
You: Oh no! Did you find my gay lover’s website already?!?! *shocked smiley*
Sexism example:
Triggerly Triggered woman: You hate women! You want women barefoot in the kitchen!
You: I don’t care if they are barefoot or not, as long as they stay in the kitchen 16 hours of each day. You can wear shoes or flip flops if you want to. Oh and I like my grilled cheese using Swiss cheese. Screw it up and no kiss for you! *smirk smiley face*
Be as absurd as possible. Saul Alinksy was right about one thing: ridicule is a great weapon against your opponents. Use the weapons of the enemy against them.
Oh yeah, and as previously stated to death- so much crying- men just holding hands and openly crying.
This is actually helpful in dispelling any further confusion. If you see this all your other questions are answered. You are in the wrong place and should go somewhere else.
@Oscar
You red-herringed me, proceeded to discuss patience. Patience was already stated as being a virtue of God. Review instead the connotations and contexts that make tolerance and patience dissimilar- rather than the ways they are nigh similarities- to gain the clear picture.
Tolerance is the acceptance of perfection together with imperfection. This definition is understood and shared socially and physically (eg. manufacturing). God cannot be in the presence of imperfection. The cost of blood is blood. The standard- like God- is unchanging. Solution? Send His Son, as a substitute sacrifice so that the standard is met.
Fall down? Patience as you learn to walk. Different skin? Indifference as God sees the heart. Acceptance: come as you are. But tolerance? Nope.
Failing to understand this will leave a would-be believer without ability to grasp the concept of ‘love the sinner, hate the sin.’
“What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that? So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead.”
“If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Humanity is both body and spirit, both the action and the sentiment matter.
There is a futility to saying to oneself, this man is saved, or that man is not saved. This man is a Christian, that man a Samaritan, the other a Levite. Regardless they our are neighbors. Rebuke when rebuking is needed, help when help is needed.
Any group that devolves into attempting to prove one’s Christianness has missed the point.
@Notabene
The problem is not music but the type of music. The music that predominates is “Jesus is my boyfriend/husband” romantic music which do not belong in worship since its inherently erotic and effeminates men.
Unfortunately only orthodox with their liturgies have appropriate music.
John Marcucci says: Promise Keepers and Covenant Keepers… The idea of sitting in a hotel room in a strange city, holding hands and praying and crying with a bunch of other guys had no appeal to me. But looking at pictures from some of the events made me cringe and grimace.
Your last name is Marcucci , so I am assuming you are Italian or Sicilian? If you have any cultural influences left from your Italian ancestry you are more masculine “naturally” than the average beta cuck in America today. I know that I am half purebred Italian myself, so I grew up surrounded by masculine men. The kinds of guys that get picked by women when they “vacation” to our coast. lol
That is why holding hands with strange dudes in a motel room is “weird” to you. It is weird and disturbing to me. The only time a man should be crying to/near another men are:
1) The one day when he converts to Christianity and truly has regrets about his sinful ways and cries in repetenace, not to humans, but to God;
2) When a close relative dies tragically in front of him (or at their funeral, alone, later);
3) When in a battlefield and loss of teammates overwhelms him (or at their funeral shortly after).
That is about it. No man should be crying like a little girl around other men. Period. It is demoralizing and embarassing. It makes men weak. It is a form of self-cuckolding.
And NO holding hands with men, unless the other man is falling off a cliff, he is is blind or severely handicaped and needs help, or it is your child and you need cross street.
If men acted in a masculine way that is normal to them, most of the “problems” we have with men and masculinity today would be gone.
My step mother and father were very involved with Marriage Encounter years ago. It didn’t do anything to stop her from divorcing him for no reason at all several years later after a long marriage.
I was not married at that time (and under 18 IIRC), but it doesn’t seem to have accomplished anything for them even though they led it a few times. My dad was a natural leader in many ways, but my step mother was not a follower unfortunately.
Red Pill Christianity: If you have any cultural influences left from your Italian ancestry you are more masculine “naturally” than the average beta cuck in America today. … That is why holding hands with strange dudes in a motel room is “weird” to you.
@ ikr
False. Tolerant and long-suffering are synonyms.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/long-suffering
Definition of long-suffering
: patiently enduring lasting offense or hardship
Synonyms
forbearing, patient, stoic (or stoical), tolerant, uncomplaining
False again. Tolerance is not acceptance. They’re not even synonyms.
Synonyms
forbearance, long-suffering, patience, sufferance
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tolerance
By conflating “tolerance” with “acceptance”, you’re making the same mistake “liberals” make.
@Oscar
Repetition, same technique being a simple look-up of synonyms, with re-assertion and a mild proxy ad hominem. I’ll resort to the same (sans ad hominem), with the definition that demonstrates the root, succinctly, of the correct understanding:
” Tolerance is the acceptance of perfection together with imperfection. This definition is understood and shared socially and physically (eg. manufacturing) “
AnonS says: July 16, 2019 at 7:52 am – So you’re saying that the statistics clearly reveal that the males whom the retired police detective referred to in South-central Los Angeles for that period were black and mestizo ignorant deceived Democrats most of whom identified with some sort of neighborhood street gang (while the females largely lived as generational welfare ratchets). Being in SoCal that entire time, I’d have to agree with your analysis as 100 percent correct!
PK still exists? Who knew?
I thought it died with Bill McCartney.
@Daniel.
40 year old and not married but want to get married? At your age you probably have some decent assets saved and a promising and good future income stream.
I say go ahead and get married but just make sure you have a damn good prenuptial agreement.
If I wasn’t Christian I would say never get married but we still have those tricky verses in the Bible to deal with.
Remember that women files60 to 75% of all divorces. No man ever goes into marriage thinking he’s going to get raped financially and be in bondage even years after his wife has divorced him. And it is absolutely shocking how nasty things can turn when it comes to money
@ ikr
Your argument is not with me, Humpty Dumpty; it’s with the dictionary.
EO fast-tracked diversity feminist general the Marine Corp lowered physical standards to accommodate. She never shot an enemy combatant in her entire life but will send men out to do the killing and dying. Breasts, periods, weaker, more emotional, average intelligence, etc…
https://www.theepochtimes.com/female-soldier-becomes-the-first-black-woman-general-in-history-of-the-us-marine-corps_3007009.html
Red Pill Latecomer, you do realize The Godfather movies is about Sicilians, not Italians, right?
It is considered to be a personal insult to ask someone you know not to be Sicilian and say “I thought you were Sicilian?”. It is an affront, an insult. And it is rude to say to a Sicilian “you are Italian”, they will reply “No, I am Sicilian. Sicilian!!!!!!!”. It creates quite the commotion.
The Sicilian capital is Palermo. We have a term “Palerma” in Italian, which means “from city of Palermo”, but it is used in the slang context that the person is a fool.
Italians and Sicilians are totally different, not only genetically, but culturally and ideologically too. Sicily operates like a separate country. Think Taiwan/Hong Kong and China.
Sicilians are only “part of Italy” when they need welfare cash, EU bailouts, and during the World Cup.
Kinda like California is “part of America” when it is time for Federal disaster relief, illegal aliens counting for Congressional redistricting, and 56 Presidential Electoral College votes. Besides that, California operates like a foreign country, because it is a foreign country. That is Sicily and Italy too.
So they are Italians, they just don’t want to admit it!
No no no! Italians are not Sicilians and vice-verse! That is like saying Mexicans and El Salvadorians are all the same because they are near each other (they are Aztecs and Mayans). Or that Taiwanese are fully Chinese. Sicilians have their own little 3rd world country, their own president, their own laws.
We are talking different levels of IQ, of good looks, of charisma, and everything. It is ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and ideological.
Danny DeVito, John Travolta, and Leo DiCaprio are all “Italian”, except DeVito is Sicilian, Travolta is central-Italian (mixed), and DiCaprio is northern Italian. They look, act, and perform totally differently.
Sicilians are always angry because they are short, bald, dumb, and often fat. Italians are the cool smooth cats, they are ones who land the “visitor” gals. 🙂 Trust me, Sicilians and Italians are totally different, my friend. Don’t insult each of them by thinking they are all the same.