French poets, in the eleventh century, discovered or invented, or were the first to express, that romantic species of passion which English poets were still writing about in the nineteenth. They effected a change which has left no corner of our ethics, our imagination, or our daily life untouched, and they erected impassable barriers between us and the classical past or the Oriental present. Compared with this revolution the Renaissance is a mere ripple on the surface of literature.
Pastor John MacArthur outraged a large portion of the complementarian world recently by stating that Beth Moore should “go home” and stop preaching, since she has taken on an unbiblical role for a woman. You can hear the audio of the exchange at Pulpit and Pen.
There really should be no controversy among conservative Christians regarding MacArthur’s answer. Scripturally he is on quite solid ground. But (mostly unwittingly) chivalry has become the dominant religion for conservative Christians, despite the fact that what we call chivalry (courtly love) was created as a parody of Christianity. While scripturally sound, MacArthur’s comments are strikingly unchivalrous, and this is what has created so much consternation.
It was the chivalry of the founding complementarians that created the feminist role Moore has refused to be confined to. In Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism Drs. John Piper and Wayne Grudem rejected what they acknowledge was the traditional reading of Timothy 2:14, torturing the verse to permit women to preach to women but not men*. Their argument was that the Apostle Paul wasn’t saying women were more gullible than men, but he was merely saying men were created first (emphasis mine).
28. Do you think women are more gullible than men?
First Timothy 2:14 says, “Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” Paul gives this as one of the reasons why he does not permit women “to teach or have authority over a man.” Historically this has usually been taken to mean that women are more gullible or deceivable than men and therefore less fit for the doctrinal oversight of the church. This may be true (see question 29). However, we are attracted to another understanding of Paul’s argument. We think that Satan’s main target was not Eve’s peculiar gullibility (if she had one), but rather Adam’s headship as the one ordained by God to be responsible for the life of the garden. Satan’s subtlety is that he knew the created order God had ordained for the good of the family, and he deliberately defied it by ignoring the man and taking up his dealings with the woman…
If this is the proper understanding, then what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:14 was this: “Adam was not deceived (that is, Adam was not approached by the deceiver and did not carry on direct dealings with the deceiver)…
So the complementarian position from the beginning has been one of radical innovation to accommodate feminist demands. No longer are women prohibited from preaching because they are more easily deceived, instead they are to focus on preaching to other women because… Adam failed to protect Eve!
In a separate chapter dedicated to the subject, Dr. Moo reiterates that the Apostle Paul can not have meant that women were more easily deceived, because this would mean that women shouldn’t be preaching to women:
But a statement about the nature of women per se would move the discussion away from this central issue, and it would have a serious and strange implication. After all, does Paul care only that the women not teach men false doctrines? Does he not care that they not teach them to other women?
The complementarian objection to the plain meaning of 1 Tim 2:11-15 should be obvious. The Apostle Paul’s lack of chivalry is quite jarring (ESV):
11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
After reading the passage it is no wonder that Piper and Grudem were “attracted to” a chivalrous reinterpretation of the passage. It is also no wonder that Macarthur’s defenders have felt the foremost need to stress that his adherence to Scripture is in no way unchivalrous. Pulpit and Pen defended MacArthur’s chivalry in Let Me Explain That Laughter at Beth Moore Real Quick by explaining that the crowd’s reaction wasn’t an example of dreaded toxic masculinity, because women were laughing too:
First, contrary to what some have suggested, this was not laughter done by a group of “men” who were laughing out of an abundance of poorly misplaced testosterone.
In fact, there was a significant number of women in the room. This was not a pastors’ conference like ShepCon. The women also laughed. This wasn’t a man versus woman thing, as much as Critical Theorists who bathe in victim ideology would like to characterize it. This was not a group of oppressors laughing at the oppressed. This was a group of Christians laughing at a statement in regard to a false teacher.
Pulpet and Pen doesn’t explain why they would adopt the feminist frame of “toxic masculinity”, so it is possible that they have recently been won over by a group of Women’s Studies majors even while they claim to refute them. However, this is highly unlikely, and the far more obvious explanation is that they recognized the implicit charge of unchivalrousness, and that is what they were defending against.
Blogger Toby Sumpter likewise doesn’t come out and use the word chivalry in his post Beth Moore, John MacArthur, and Clobbering Girls in Football (reposted here as well). However, the hint is in the title, as well as the headline image. Sumpter makes a lengthy digression in the middle of the post to explain the proper chivalrous response to women pushing their way into men’s sports. Sometimes, he explains, the chivalrous solution is simply to forfeit the match to the woman.
A Preliminary, But Related Rabbit Trail Now in order to address this business, I’d like to draw upon a matter of considerable concern and discussion in my community, a matter that faces most communities in these dark days of ours, and that is the matter of girls showing up to play contact sports with our sons. From wrestling to lacrosse to football to hockey, it’s a real issue since we are committed to teaching our sons to honor all women as sisters and mothers, and the culture we live in is committed to the opposite. In some instances, the honorable choice is clear and obvious: our sons will not wrestle a girl. It’s immodest, dishonorable, and shameful. Period. Full stop. So our boys who wrestle forfeit any match with a girl.
Note that Sumpter doesn’t call this chivalry, because to him it is merely Christianity.
At other times, Sumpter explains, the chivalrous answer is for boys and men to make it safe for women and girls to push their way into men’s sports.
But when it comes to lacrosse and football there are a number of complicating factors, and there are real wisdom calls to be made. The first principle remains in place: our boys are instructed not to tackle or body check girls. Of course in these confused days, it is not always possible to know if there is a girl on the field. But to the best of our ability, we will avoid any and all roughness with girls.
Depending on the circumstances, what position a girl is playing against our boys, this is sometimes fairly easy to accomplish (like if the girl is a goalie or kicker), and sometimes it is nearly impossible (like when she’s playing running back). Our general commitment is to play hard and play as much as we can without compromising our Lord’s requirement to honor all women.
…On occasion, our boys are having to learn how to push a girl out of bounds as gently as possible.
…these problems are certainly not going away any time soon, and we (and our sons) need to learn how to fight, sometimes how to fight with one arm tied behind our back, and how to fight as honorable Christian men.
Sumpter explains that MacArthur was merely being chivalrous in telling Moore to go home**:
John MacArthur’s two word response was one of the best I could imagine. He blessed her even as he gave her a brotherly shove. Get off the field, Mrs. Moore. You are a lady. Your calling is higher. You have a different glory. You deserve better.
But the point to the lengthy diversion into the chivalrous way to handle women invading men’s sports primarily comes in Sumpter’s conclusion. Sumpter brilliantly turns the tables on MacArthur’s detractors and explains that it is John MacArthur that is being chivalrous (again without using the term), and Beth Moore’s supporters who are being unchivalrous:
Conclusion Ok, last thing. Maybe this is all a bit confusing or convoluted, and you’re not sure what to think or who to believe. Let me suggest this little litmus test: of the parties involved in this little spat, which would give you the most biblical answer regarding boys and girls in contact sports or women in the military? Would Mrs. Moore and her supporters tell you in no uncertain terms that girls should not be playing contact sports and boys should not be clobbering girls on a football field, and certainly not manhandling them on a wrestling mat? Would you get a clear, straightforward answer or would you get caveats and exceptions and relativistic blather? Should women be mustered for combat service or not? Who are you most likely to get a clear, biblical answer from? And if Mrs. Moore and her supporters insist that girls can too get clobbered on a football field, and they can too get blown to bits on a battlefield, then what is everyone up in arms about? Why are the very same people objecting to what Pastor MacArthur said? By their standards, Pastor MacArthur might as well be Mr. Rogers.
What makes the adoption of chivalry, a parody of Christianity, so insidious is that it’s adherents don’t even know they have replaced Christianity with something else.
H/T Oscar.
*Piper has since wiggled this loophole even wider, explaining that it is appropriate for Moore to preach to men so long as the men don’t “become dependent on her as [their] shepherd—[their] pastor”
**Note how similar this argument is to the chivalrous argument against women in the military here.
I’ll bet that this is a storm in a teacup, a kerfuffle that future historians will laugh at – and that nobody else will remember. All these “moderates” looking for a middle way will be left in the dust. Their middle muddle is a transitional stage. They’re not the future.
(1) Perhaps the remaining Christian churches that limit the role of women will convert to full feminism as their old members die off. Or …
(2) There will be a revolution of some kind in Christianity that replaces feminism with something else that interests both men and women (traditional roles, or something new). Or …
(3) Christianity will join Mithraism (its early competitor) in the long list of dead religions.
Which path will we take? That’s over my pay grade to even guess at. My Magic 8 Ball says “check back later.”
“Dr. Moo reiterates that the Apostle Paul can not have meant that women were more easily deceived, because this would mean that women shouldn’t be preaching to women:”
Honestly, women should NOT be preaching to other women. Women should not be preaching to anyone. They (the older women) are commanded to teach/train other (younger) women but only on a select few topics and none of these are doctrine.
Titus 2:3-5 – Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
(Context: In addition to permitting and engaging in pagan idol worship, the sitting, arch-subversive “Amazon Synod” is taking decisive procedural steps towards the ordination of women. Thousands and thousands of pseudopapist Beth Moor-ish goblinas incoming.)
Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 2:12 contains two, not one, specific clauses of forbidding: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” When he says to Titus (2:3-5) that “Older women … are to teach what is good, and so train the young women“ what they need for godliness, it seems as much about female mentorships as any didactic role (such as the teaching forbidden in 1 Timothy). And that’ll throw the Sunday School departments on their heads if they ever notice it!
The argument that Beth Moore should go home is much more simple than many folks make it. From the time of Ezra’s rediscovering of the Scrolls while rebuilding the Temple after the Babylonian exile, women have not been allowed on stage in the Temple – to do the reading of the scrolls and the attendant ministrations that went on.
Paul and the others Jews involved in building the New Testament church out of Jewish religious culture were working to determine what of the Law should be kept, and what discarded (see Acts 15). In what Paul said about women not preaching, he was announcing that at least he would keep that tradition from the Jewish rules and regulations re. the Temple. He was not creating a new ruling about women out of whole cloth.
The following information was found on a Jewish website that I can’t find the link to at the moment. The words are mine; the “facts” are theirs:
It was tradition in the Temple that women did not teach men. There have been two reasons offered for that Jewish tradition that I think are legitimate, beyond any argument about the relationship that God established between husband and wife (he the helped, “ruling over” by giving instructions to his wife; she the help, submitting her will to his by carrying out the instructions her husband has given her): That is, 1) it was an embarassment to the congregation that no man could be found that was educated enough to read from the scrolls and expound on them, and; 2) men are visual and are created to respond physically to the form and mannerisms of a woman. If a woman is reading the Torah, that makes it less likely that the men are focused solely on the message of the words being read. Rather, they are being distracted by the feminine attributes of the reader.
Some of these words were copied from my post here and my next post 4 or 5 posts below that.
this was not laughter done by a group of “men” who were laughing out of an abundance of poorly misplaced testosterone.
Lol. I would laugh because not only is “Go home” pithy, cutting right to the issue, it’s just also funny.
Anyone who wishes to argue that the churches are not feminized will have to explain how the above quote about “poorly misplaced T” is somehow “conservative” and “traditional” and very “manly”.
Do we need carefully misplaced T? Do we need poorly placed T? What does that word salad even mean? Aside from feminists, who else has a problem with an “abundance of … T”?
“Go home” is a great rejoinder because it flushes the feminists of every variety out of the underbrush and into the light were everyone can see them, and that includes “complementarians” without question.
Re. the “obnoxioius” sentence that is the gift that keeps on giving: we are attracted to another understanding
In the New Testament, there were folks who firmly believe that they were restricted from eating meat offered to idols. There were other folks who were attracted to another understanding. They believed that through the resurrected Christ, they had been given freedom from the food restrictions imposed by Jewish Law. They believed that they were free to eat any food that was safe to eat, including meat offered to idols.
Paul’s response to that connundrum was his proclamation that whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:23 That is – if you truely believe that God has forbidden a certain activity – whether he actually forbade it or not – and you do it anyway, you have displayed a willingness to disobey God. Backing out a bit, we can speculate that Paul was saying that God looks at a person’s displayed willingness (or unwillingness) to disobey him rather than a specific act that is in view. God looks at the person’s heart / motivation rather than at a particular behavior.
Paul was cautioning folks away from displaying a willingness to disobey God. Said Paul: If you think it is OK to eat meat offered to idols, eat away. If you think it is not OK to eat meat offered to idols, then don’t. Based on Paul’s argument, I expect that there will be both types of folks in heaven: those who ate meat offered to idols, and those who didn’t. But, based on this principle, will there also be both types of women in heaven? Those who preached and those who didn’t? Probably God is the only one who knows the answer to that.
John pipers entire ministry is built on twisting scripture. His first book introduced “Christian hedonism” into the evangelical world. He has been on that route ever since.
When I was a kid and we would drive through Panorama City I would always marvel at the sheer size of the Grace Community Church compound, it’s massive buildings and multiple ancillary structures and 20 parking lots taking up several city blocks.
So the complimentarian position from the beginning has been one of radical innovation to accommodate feminist demands. No longer are women prohibited from preaching because they are more easily deceived, instead they are to focus on preaching to other women because… Adam failed to protect Eve!
Cucks are gonna cuck.
This is further proof that there’s no rational argument to be had with Christo-Feminists.
Just gynocentrism by another name.
(1) Perhaps the remaining Christian churches that limit the role of women will convert to full feminism as their old members die off.
That would be far more honest. They’re not Christian. They’ve only kept the label. Constantly cucking to cunts is not Christian.
Ah yes, the timeless “we are attracted to another understanding” quote. That obnoxious sentence is the gift that keeps on giving.
Yup. All that means is they’re about to make more stuff up.
Looking at the backlash this has created really shows what a sacred cow Beth Moore has become. From what I’ve seen, most of the negative responses fall into 1 of 2 categories:
1) People feigning indignation about Macarthur’s “tone” saying that he wasn’t “charitable” enough all the while (deliberately) ignoring the content what he said.
2) SJW’s crying “misogyny” (a large percentage of whom don’t seem to have any interest in Beth Moore or the SBC, they just came to the party to take pot shots at someone who dared use the Bible to tell a woman “NO”)
What’s not being done is any attempt to criticize Macarthur’s statement at a Biblical level or argue the hermenutics that led him to a literal translation of pastoral qualifications. John Macarthur is basically the first and only A-list evangelical to call out women preachers like Beth Moore without gelding his rebuke with exceptions.
The one thing that really surprised me is how he flat out said that the real goal of feminism is NOT equality, but rather power. Hopefully, that will wake up some Christians and get them thinking about the consequences of reforming the church to cater to a disingenuous ideology.
I also like how he deliberately refused to get sucked into a complementarian semantics game by saying that he “doesn’t know about terms, I just know that women aren’t allowed to preach”.
No ambiguity, just here’s what the Bible says, take it or leave it.
Christian men can leave these assemblies and create new assemblies which adhere to genuine orthodoxy. Christian men are still “going with the flow” of the feminist replacement of true orthodoxy with their counterfeits. Once they figure out they have the power to simply leave by the millions and create new assemblies, victory will be on the horizon.
I have no doubt that many “wives” will divorce them as they leave the old feminist corrupted assemblies to join together and create new assemblies, but these women will be left on a dying withering vine while the men will be free to start anew on Christ’s actual vine.
It’s too late to reform the degenerate corrupt associations, leaving and starting anew is the way to victory.
Reading Dalrock is a breath of fresh air that dispels the foul odor of Feminism that contaminates everything it touches. And the church is not even immune from its poison as can be seen by Piper’s capitulation to the Feminists.
The bible is clear, women can not and should not preach or teach because they are more prone to being gullible than men are
In addition to permitting and engaging in pagan idol worship, the sitting, arch-subversive “Amazon Synod” is taking decisive procedural steps towards the ordination of women.
They don’t have the authority to do that. It would take an Ecumenical Council and I don’t see one being convoked anytime soon. Most likely those clowns will go in schism. Let them. Good bye to bad rubbish.
As for the gentlemen who threw those idols into the river: well done.
“A jury in Dallas, Texas has ruled against Jeffrey Younger, the father who is trying to protect his seven-year-old son, James, from chemical castration via a gender “transition.” This means James’ mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, will be able to continue ‘transitioning’ him into ‘Luna,’ and now has full authority to start him on puberty blockers and eventually cross-sex hormones.”
Just recently in feminist -supreme Australia, the new Head of the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church in Sydney (Australia’s most conservative evangelical stronghold), Rev Glenn Davies, convened his first Synod (“parliament”). He told any ministers wishing to endorse and bless same sex marriages to “please leave now”.
This created a furor. He has been accused of trying to “split the church”, “cause division” , and of course be a “homophobe” and “bigot”.
I say, at last, an Anglican that has grown a pair.
In the Vatican, Pachamama, the Amazon fertility goddess, has been thrown into the Tiber, after Pope Francis fawned all over the pagan idol.
These events, along with John MacArthur rightly telling Beth Moore to go home and not be in a place where she should not be is a sign, however small, that there is push-back. There might be some hope on the horizon.
Scott Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00 people in there are faithful Christians.”
Not sure you want to go down that rabbit trail.
Yeah, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood digs seat 16,000.
One guesstimate places the seating in St. Peters, Rome, at 35,000.
Back when Hagia Sofia was still a church, it probably could hold at least as many people as Osteen’s place.
I went to The Masters College and Seminary, in Santa Clarita, California. The school is a small Bible college associated with Grace. McArthur is the president of the college.
At the time, several of my professors were elders at Grace, and I remember several conversations where we discussed church discipline in the context of “valid” reasons for divorce. This was the late 90s.
I did not attend church at Grace, so I could not verify the hardline stance they SAID they took. They also said they were fair with respect to which spouse was being dicsipined. That is, they argued that if a woman was cheating, and trying to divorce her otherwise standard nice guy husband, they would discipline HER (basically tell her should could not attend until she repented and came back to her husband).
Fortuitously, I went through a divorce EXACTLY like that, and the elders at my church accused me of bringing it on myself by “neglecting” her (read: not making her feel perpetuatlly courted and wooed).
Got that? No tingles? You deserve to have the sin of adultery committed against you.
I often wondered, would that have gone differently had I brought the issue before John McArther and his elder board? In the end it wouldn’t have mattered. She told me she didn’t care what the elders said or did, she was leaving.
So its not that I don’t respect for the organization. They at least paid lip service to doing the right thing.
In the days of Christ, many pagan religions had female clergy. The Jews did not. However, Christ didn’t give a fig for Jewish cultural sensibilities when it interfered with His aims–and He chose no women among the 12. Therefore, He didn’t want female clergy.
QED.
Cucks can cuckulate as much as they like, but the Truth will always be the truth just as 2 plus 2 will always equal 4.
Scott
Not All Churches Are Like that, obviously. You probably weren’t reading here when Jenny Erickson decided to frivorce her husband. However it did not turn out quite the way she expected.
Not trying to be the grammar police or anything, but thought you might like to know about a typo. Right after the first Piper/Grudem blockquote, you used complimentarian when I’m sure you meant complementarian, with an “e” rather than an “i”.
While I agree that the criticism of MacArthur in this particular dust-up is unwarranted, I find it very difficult to defend the man. I’m sure Scott has much more insider insight on MacArthur than I. My main exposure to him came through visiting the church a few times, and through friendship over many years with several people who formerly were members. But based on what I’ve observed and heard, Grace Community is one of the most misnamed churches around. They seem to be quite deficient in the “grace” department, and MacArthur comes across as an arrogant, totalitarian, asshat.
Please do not construe this as support for Moore or her defenders. It’s just that when I see two despicable, heretical people sniping at each other, I find it hard to care, even of one of them is technically right.
Men are blamed for not risking their lives to save her, a complete stranger.
Not to mention there was nothing they could have done. And had they been killed by the beast, who would have stepped in to care for their families? No one.
Can’t have it both ways cunts. You’re equal now. Hell, FAR more than equal now, Hey, you can do anything a man can do and do it better in high heels remember? So you can save yourselves.
Not to mention there was nothing they could have done. And had they been killed by the beast, who would have stepped in to care for their families? No one.
Nope. No one would have given a rats ass and he’d quickly be forgotten. Looks like a lot of men are finally getting tired of being cannon fodder for cunts.
Jessica Yaniv, a Canadian transgender activist, lost a court case she brought against estheticians who refused to wax her male genitalia.
“Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax,” the BC Human Rights Tribunal determined according to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms which represented five of the estheticians. …
Jay Cameron, the Justice Centre’s Litigation Manager praised the decision, saying, “No woman should be compelled to touch male genitals against her will, irrespective of how the owner of the genitals identifies.” …
In 2018, Yaniv, who identifies as a female but has male genitalia, asked several estheticians to remove her pubic hair around her groin. Numerous salon workers voiced religious objections while other said they lacked training.
The transgender activist accused workers of discriminating against her based on her gender identity and filed 15 complaints. The majority of the women Yaniv tried to get a waxing from were immigrants.
She has been ordered by the court to pay $2,000 each to three of the women.
Seems even trannies can’t always win when they oppose women’s interests.
Transgender activist Jessica Yaniv loses ‘wax her balls’ complaint against salon workers
Guess that’s where the line is.
It’ll have to console the inner sadist by forcing Masterpiece cakeshop to make a “I can’t get my snatch-balls waxed!” celebration cake.
John MacArthur is “heretical” because he teaches Lordship salvation which basically means you’re saved by your works and not by grace. He will vehemently deny that but other biblical teachers and scholars more proficient than me have called John out on this issue and exposed his law based salvation teachings.
This in no way means I support Beth Moore, no, not at all, and John is 100% correct in telling Beth to go home
“Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax,” the BC Human Rights Tribunal determined
That this was able to go to court in the first place shows that we are waist deep in clown world. This should have been immediately thrown out as a nuisance lawsuit and he should have been fined for even submitting it in the first place. At least he was forced to pay restitution to the salon workers.
Prager says that straights, gays and trannies all oppose this new policy. Only “the left” and “activists” support it.
Prager seems to want a big tent conservatism that unites straights, gays, and trannies, in that all support traditional male/female distinctions, unlike “the left” and “LGBT activists” (who are not to be confused with the decent gay/tranny silent majority).
At least that’s what I gather, from muddling through Prager’s confusing piece.
Like most professional conservatives, Prager is terrified of being labeled a hater, so he keeps shifting left, while pretending he’s still conserving something.
Some excerpts:
Needless to say, Air Canada never polled its passengers or its employees. The left believes in democracy only when it wins a popular vote. When it loses a popular vote, it regards democracy as defective. …
Everyone knows that had there been a vote among Air Canada passengers — say, all those enrolled in the airline’s frequent flier program — even liberal Canadians would have voted to retain “ladies and gentlemen.”
Even the infinitesimally small number of Canadians who are transgender would almost all vote to retain “ladies and gentlemen.” Remember, transgender individuals strongly identify as male or female they simply reject their biological sexual identity. …
The truth is no one but LGBTQ activists (including their cisgender heterosexual supporters) approve of Air Canada’s change. …
Someone did come to the rescue of the woman-attacked-by-elk.
They brought a truck.
Short of shooting, what else could have been done? I’m sure that if any white knight had shot it he would be in a heap of trouble and probably would have been arrested under multiple charges.
(3) Christianity will join Mithraism (its early competitor) in the long list of dead religions.
Not happening. It has survived 2000 years so far and will continue on until Jesus returns.
It is ironically growing more in places like China, where people have to take it seriously. Don’t push our idiocy on God not being reliable.
Though this does show that you do not have a Christian foundation if you can even entertain that option.
Billy is right. If Christ’s Kingdom depended on us for its existence, it would’ve ceased to exist centuries ago. Unbelievers have been predicting the imminent demise of faith in Christ for centuries, yet faith in Christ not only endures, but thrives.
Does it thrive everywhere? No. But if Westerners continue to reject Christ (and I’m not convinced that will continue for ever), then Christ will raise children for His Father elsewhere. He’s already doing that, as Billy pointed out, in China.
In fact, by some estimates there are over 100 million Christians in China, which means there are more Christians in China today than in any country in history.
Christ is also raising children for His Father in Africa. As I’ve pointed out before in this blog, in the near future, Africans may be evangelizing paganized Europeans and Americans. Check out this statement from Dr. Jerry P. Kulah, dean of Gbarnga School of Theology at United Methodist University in Liberia.
And then please hear me when I say as graciously as I can: we Africans are not children in need of western enlightenment when it comes to the church’s sexual ethics. We do not need to hear a progressive U.S. bishop lecture us about our need to “grow up.”
Let me assure you, we Africans, whether we have liked it or not, have had to engage in this debate for many years now. We stand with the global church, not a culturally liberal, church elite, in the U.S.
We stand with our Filipino friends! We stand with our sisters and brothers in Europe and Russia! And yes, we stand with our allies in America.
We stand with farmers in Zambia, tech workers in Nairobi, Sunday School teachers in Nigeria, biblical scholars in Liberia, pastors in the Congo, United Methodist Women in Cote d’Ivoire, and thousands of other United Methodists all across Africa who have heard no compelling reasons for changing our sexual ethics, our teachings on marriage, and our ordination standards!
We are grounded in God’s word and the gracious and clear teachings of our church. On that we will not yield! We will not take a road that leads us from the truth! We will take the road that leads to the making of disciples of Jesus Christ for transformation of the world!
Thanks to the faithfulness and courage of those African bishops, the United Methodist church did not change its doctrine to accept homosexuality.
If the Westerners completely abandon Christianity, that will be an epic tragedy, and the death of the West. But kingdoms rise and fall. They always have, and always will.
God’s Kingdom, by contrast, is eternal.
And if you doubt that truth, then please feel free to enjoy your spot next to all the other failed prophets of the doom of Christianity.
Ultimately, the ONLY thing that the church and the world is against is the Word of God …for it strips women of their glory …the woman who breaks trail for rebellion, her special Genesis 3:16 rebellion. The Word condemns the practice of worshiping the woman, angering the effeminate church at the thought of having to worship the masculine Word of God, and its representative, the man.
It is probably best to avoid the common trap of wishful thinking on the question of the survival of Christianity and its endurance of 2,000+ years on a planet that has been mathematically confirmed to be 4.6 Billion years old. We do live in an era of information, data and statistics. And what it tells us about ourselves is already rather damning.
On the question of whether Christ’s message will continue to proliferate and endure or not, it appears that it will for some time to come, but not comparatively to its religious contemporaries.
It would seem that the only reliable thing God has been doing on this matter is at best folding his arms in abject indifference, and at worst, actively ensuring Christianity dies out faster. Assuming He does indeed decide to intervene in human affairs from time to time, his penchant is for the message from the illiterate warlord, not from the poor, industrious, Nazarene martyr:
Of course, Muslims regard Mohammed, not Jesus of Nazareth, as the final prophet and messenger from God to guide humanity the right way. Their message is growing in number significantly compared to Christianity because their core religious dogma and culture has been well-presreved from meaningful religious reformations and schisms, secularism, feminism, the sexual revolution, human inquiry and science, and the printing of books. These are starting to influence Islamic culture, but not to the same degree they have already decayed Christianity.
“The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him” Psalm 81:15 NKJV.
They ‘act in deception’ …as does their father Satan. They cry “Lord, Lord…”
All women to varying degrees pretend submission to the man. And this has modeled His people pretending submission to the Lord …as they really worship, effectively submit to the woman.
Pretend Submission is in the church because it is first in the wife, and it is in the wife because it is first in the woman, her curse declared by God in Genesis 3:16.
All they have to do is declare the Pastoral Epistles to be fraudulent documents forged in the name of Paul. They and their awful, sexist language will be expunged from the NT.
The foundational problem in the church is that the church lives out: ‘THE WOMAN’S SHIT DON’T STINK.’
And it is all over the place, piles and piles of it, and they are still telling us it does not stink.
All problems are sourced in this issue, and when this is begun to be acknowledged and resolved, then other sub-issues can all begin. And, don’t lie to yourself: we are only treating SYMPTOMS on all other issues without dealing with her shit first.
In short, the woman needs to get the Hell [literally] out of the way. She needs to shut her mouth, she needs to get out of the room, she needs to get out of the gates of the city, she needs to Titus 2:4-5. That’s all.
That’s all folks. Or deny Christ the Word. The Deut 3:19 CHOICE is yours.
@sipcode In my experience, most Christian women are more than happy to submit to their husbands as long as their husbands do what their wives tell them to do.
Noticed some details about the the murder that catalyzed the extradition bill and mass protests in HK, which should be of interest to most here.
Game:
Before the couple set off for Taiwan last year, she gushed on Facebook, “He said I am his first and last girlfriend.”
. . .
Then, according to the account he provided the police, Ms. Poon revealed that an ex-boyfriend was the father of the child she was pregnant with, and showed Mr. Chan a video of her having sex with another man.
In a rage, Mr. Chan hit her head against a wall, struggled with her on the floor of their hotel room for about 10 minutes and strangled her, he said. He stuffed her body into a suitcase and went to sleep.
Ignorance of female nature is not an option.
Women leaders:
And yet Mrs. Lam sought to sidestep the legislature’s regular committee process and put the proposal on a fast track with an unusually short 20-day public review.
“The parents of the victim have not stopped writing letters to the government,” Mrs. Lam told reporters, according to Hong Kong Free Press. “There were five addressed to me. They were still writing this January. If you have read these letters from Mr. and Mrs. Poon, you would also feel that we must try to help them.”
Felt strong sympathy for the poor murdered girl, ignored proper process, stepped on political landmines, set the city she managed on fire …
One thing you can say about the furor concerning John MacArthur’s comments:
It’s long been a churchian dogma that a Christianised version of Ward Cleaver, who is serious about Scripture, loves God and takes Jesus’ teachings seriously, is irresistable to women.
Enter John MacArthur. Two words and this facade has been blown away completely.The man who follows God isn’t irresistable. rather, he is infinitely RESISTED by rebellious church women.
@drbeagle yep we know just dont beat your wife, drink at the bar all night, have a job, dont have autism and a woman will stay with you. They just want basic things. Those men who get divorce raped basically did it to themselves.
Wifes submit to their husbands as long as the husband does everything she says. Isnt that not submission? That’s doing whatever she wants and taking orders. What would a wife not submitting b? Cooking cleaning having sex with him all complaint and insane fem list demand free?
“Our general commitment [regarding our boys playing sports] is to play hard and play as much as we can without compromising our Lord’s requirement to honor all women.”
WHERE DID JESUS SAY, “HONOR ALL WOMEN,” IN ANY VERSION OF THE BIBLE.
Related to that, I thought this quote from … was interesting.
“…if Mrs. Moore and her supporters insist that girls can too get clobbered on a football field, and they can too get blown to bits on a battlefield…”
Reality being what is it, girls DO get clobbered in ball-games (and elsewhere), and they do get blown to bits on battlefields (and elsewhere), but there’s a difference between a man who fears Heavenly Father and one who doesn’t: the man who fears Heavenly Father loves his wife as his own self, and loves his own daughters just as his Heavenly Father loves all his children, so he won’t send his wife or daughters to risk being clobbered or blown to bits.
constrained locust:
“Of course, Muslims regard Mohammed, not Jesus of Nazareth, as the final prophet and messenger from God to guide humanity the right way. Their message is growing in number significantly compared to Christianity because their core religious dogma and culture has been well-presreved from meaningful religious reformations and schisms, secularism, feminism, the sexual revolution, human inquiry and science, and the printing of books. These are starting to influence Islamic culture, but not to the same degree they have already decayed Christianity.”
Nonsense.
Your premise that Christianity needs to win some sort of numbers game for validity is false to start with, and perhaps wishful thinking on your part. Jesus taught that Christians would be hated and persecuted everywhere. They were the minority from the beginning and always have been, both in global terms and within most historic cultures. You don’t become a Christian to be on the temporally winning team. You do it because it’s the truth.
Your premise that Christianity was “decayed” by “human inquiry, science, and the printing of books” is also false, and really ignorant of history. This brief period during which Christianity has been the dominant paradigm in Western Civilization is the CAUSE of modern “human inquiry, science, and the printing of books.” The good that came out of Western Europe over the past few hundred years is the fruit of Christianity, and as Europe and the West become post-Christian, we are now seeing that fruit dry up. If you brushed up on your history, you’d know that the Reformation and the printing of the Bible came first, and then came the Scientific Revolution, mostly touted by extremely devout churchmen.
Feminism and the sexual revolution are modern products of a secular age, far removed from the Christian invention of modern science and medicine. They are the result of apostasy. As Christianity declines, watch the quality of human inquiry and science decline with it, as feminism and progressivism increase.
(Even your use of “data and statistics” is not well informed. Islam is growing mainly through reproduction, while Christianity gains the most through adult converts. Even if Islam conquers the entire world, a thriving church is inevitable, because a percentage of those Muslims will end up converting to Christianity on the power of it being actually true. That’s the built in benefit of truth over error.)
Islam’s growth is caused by its strong birth rate, which is already decaying. Conversions to Islam are few and far between. I don’t assume Pew projections are infallible. Pew is a serious organization but sources about Muslim beliefs are not reliable. In particular, many Muslim stop believing in secret, because Islam condemns apostasy to death. Even if death is not applied in most cases, the sentence for apostasy is losing your family, friends, community and suffer social ostracism.
But, even if Pew projections were 100% accurate, you cannot extrapolate religious trends from only a slice of time. If you were born in 900 AD, it would be clear that the religion of the future was going to be Islam. Christianity was going to be a regional religion for the impoverished European countries while Islam had growth, wealth and won all the battles. So nobody knows what the future will bring. You cannot discover the future only by extrapolating current trends because history is full of surprise.
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00[0] people in there are faithful Christians.”
Churchianity is akin to a species of grain plant that contains orders of magnitude more tares than wheat, so much so that it’s not even worth harvesting for its nutritional value. Better to treat it as a species of invasive and destructive weed.
on a planet that has been mathematically confirmed to be 4.6 Billion years old
I have never seen that mathematical proof. You have a religion just as much as any Christian you may despise. No such proof exists. Many people believe it, but many people believed many other foolish things in the past.
The age of the earth is only proven until a longer or shorter age is needed for some reason, then the “mathematical proof” you claim will suddenly support that. It has happened before and will happen again.
I trust the only eyewitness account. You are free to believe whatever foolishness you want, but it is just another “creation myth” nothing else.
Dalrock, here’s a book you’d enjoy written by a Scandinavian man with feminists and witches as ancestors. Explores the relationship early feminism had with Satanic sympathy imagery.
I’d say that the solution to girls in football is to keep clobbering them, as hard as you would clobber anyone else. Given the inequalities in physical strength between men and women, the girls will probably decide fairly quickly that the football field is not where they want to be. The only alternative will be that the rules will have to be changed to favor girls, at which point it will become clear what the actual goal is.
It doesn’t surprise me at all to see that 19th century feminism had a pro-Lucifer attitude. Feminism itself was, if not rooted in the occult, was fertilized greatly by the Spiritualism movement that began in the mid-1840s. It’s a seldom-examined facet of the feminist movement that really should receive more attention.
For those who don’t know, spiritualism was a movement that took off in the 1840s after a family of young girls in New England began reporting knocks and bangs in their house, accompanied by messages from “the spirits”. The seance was developed in an attempt to “scientifically” communicate with the dead. It was quite a crisis for the religious communities of America at the time, and developed into a sort of pseudo-religion that sucked in many intelligent people.
Most spiritualists were complete frauds, of course, but the damage done to Christianity, as well as traditional culture, was profound. It set in motion much of the social/theological evil we deal with today, in everything from feminism to Scientology. Really fascinating subject. There’s a great book, “In Search of White Crows” that lays it out pretty well. If there is modern scholarship on the subject, that’s presented from a Christian perspective, I haven’t found it. All recent scholarship is quite sympathetic because, of course, it was women taking back their power from the evil misogynists. I’ll have to pick up a copy of Satanic Feminism.
I think we do a great disservice in not emphasizing Eve’s role in the Fall. Us women tend towards emotional reactions, solipsism, pragmatism rather than idealism. It’s easier for us to fall away from the path of good, and it’s easier for us to justify it to ourselves. We are as fallible as men, but we have unique weaknesses that seem to be celebrated as assets these days. The problem with women teaching is that we tend to pass along messages that reinforce our own life decisions, which means that our failures and sin are held up as virtues.
I remember my (Catholic) high school girl friends, declaring one after another that they were atheist because religion was stupid and they wanted to do as they would. I found it sad at the time; I find it alarming now. It’s not the embrace of a better truth, but Satanism. I wish we were told that more often.
Larry Kummer, If you wonder the forces driving this into the future, then let me quote the person who drew this “kerfuffle” to my attention…
““Please, for the love of Christ, ladies, could you please take this place over? You’ve got the numbers. There are millions more of you than men. Why aren’t you running everything by now? …
Don’t go home – go to the ballot box. Go to the church board election. The history is clear. Women are meant to be in ministry, and I for one would welcome our new female overlords . . . overladies? Whatever. We’re here for you.”
“Dr. Per Faxneld obtained a PhD in History of Religions at Stockholm University in 2014. He is a professor at Stockholm University, was a visiting professor at Cambridge University in 2014 . . . Satanic Feminism is based on Faxneld’s doctoral dissertation, which was awarded the Donner Institute Prize for Eminent Research on Religion. It discusses how prominent feminists—primarily between 1880 and 1930—used Satan as a symbol of their rejection of the so-called ‘patriarchal traits of Christianity’. It shows that these women were inspired by the period’s most influential new religion, Theosophy, and how the anti-Christian discourses of radical secularism affected feminism. Satanic Feminism sheds a new light on the early feminist movement. It discusses neglected or unknown aspects of the intellectual connections of early feminism with Satanism in a way that nobody before Faxneld has dared to do.”
@ Scott
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00 people in there are faithful Christians.”
I went out to to Grace over Mother’s Day (MD) to watch one of my younger brothers graduate from their seminary program. On MD, MacArthur preached a very atypical MD sermon. He preached on people who think they are Christians but will find out on Judgement Day that they really aren’t (Matthew 7:21-23). It was a pretty blunt sermon where he told the congregation that many people in the room who thought they were Christians probably werent.
This was my first visit to GCC and I found the whole campus to be fairly impressive. it had a much different, community feel to it than many of the other mega churches I have stepped foot in. Both my brothers in the seminary program love how all the pastors preach straight from the Bible and dont mince words to make the Truth something it is not.
From the mostly laudatory article, which appeared in The Times of Israel:
For the 49-year-old Jarry, there is not much conflict between being Jewish and a Satanist. As a matter of fact, the two identities have come to inform each other, he said.
“I see it like Buddhism,” said Jarry. “Satanism is something that can co-exist with being a Jew,” he said.
In addition to Jarry’s belief that Judaism and Satanism can co-exist, there are parallels with how Judaism and Satanism have been branded by their detractors, he said.
“The false accusations that have been thrown at Jews historically are similar to what some people say about Satanism,” said Jarry, mentioning accusations of blood libel and — more recently — fabricated allegations that Israel perpetrates genocide against Palestinian children
“I do not accept when people delegitimize Israel or use lies to marginalize Israel,” said Jarry. “I am an unwavering supporter of Israel, so long as it remains democratic, pluralistic, and protects human rights.”
Satanists, for the record, do not believe that Satan exists. Derived from the Hebrew root for “adversary,” Satan is viewed as a symbol, not an idol or deity.
The Church of Satan was founded by Jewish-born Anton LaVey in 1966. Known in his heyday as “the black pope,” LaVey seeded “grotto” churches around the country, and Hollywood figures including Sammy Davis Jr. joined the church. (Davis had converted to Judaism in 1961.) …
I remember my (Catholic) high school girl friends, declaring one after another that they were atheist because religion was stupid and they wanted to do as they would.
It reminds me of a cartoon I saw decades ago. In it a woman was in the Coliseum, ready to be thrown to the lions. She has second thoughts and says something like “maybe having lovers isn’t such a bad idea after all:”
The siren call of the carousel is indeed powerful. It separates the wheat from the chaff.
Yet men, including myself joined anyway—and continue to join.
Well, back then men, especially white men, weren’t hated and reviled as much as they are now.
Nonetheless, “economic conscription” is still a powerful motivator. Young white guys know that affirmative action will keep them out of most cushy government jobs and unless they are exceptional, Corporate America too. They can’t all be tradesmen, and for many the military is the only way out of their dead end flyover podunk towns. I know that at my kid’s high school that over half the boys try to get in the military upon graduation and my town is considered “vibrant and growing, with plenty of opportunities”. Many flunk out because either they’re too fat and out of shape, or they’re too dim witted (or both).
“I trust the only eyewitness account. You are free to believe whatever foolishness you want, but it is just another “creation myth” nothing else.”
Eyewitness accounts are not necessary to bring charges in a criminal case. Physical evidence is a big part of it and we have a LOT of physical evidence for an old earth, not the least of which is the fact that we can go out at night and see stars that are much much further away than 6000 light years.
Hubbell has already seen galaxies more than 1 billion light years away. But I suppose God made the light already on its way 6000 years ago so we could see it and foolishly think it took a lot longer to get here than appearances would indicate. God is such a big faker, isn’t he? Making the universe appear very old just to fool us.
I’d say that the solution to girls in football is to keep clobbering them, as hard as you would clobber anyone else.
Which is probably why they mostly try out for kicker positions.
The idea of them playing any other position is risible. An anecdote I’ve shared before is regarding the youth soccer team my son played for as a teen. It was one of those “competitive” teams, which meant try outs and often traveling over 100 miles to play a match.
Anyway, once in a while their opponents would have a girl or two on the team. I don’t know why this was allowed, as there are plenty of girl’s leagues. The unspoken rule was that if there was a girl on the opposing team that she was to be treated with kid gloves. My son’s team refused to do that and after a few perfectly legal slide tackles the girls would leave the field in tears. The ref would chew out the boys who would reply that they were doing nothing illegal. The ref knew that, so no yellow or red cards were issued, just an admonishment to “take it easy on them, they’re girls” and by the second half the girls would stay on the bench (youth soccer allows unlimited substitutions).
Anyway, if girls can’t handle playing soccer with boys, I don’t see how they could possibly handle American Football, unless maybe it’s flag football.
On the subject of faithful Christians standing up to paganizing forces in the Church, via The other McCain: Faithful Catholics Throw Amazonian Idols Displayed in the Vatican into the Tiber River
The precise identity of the mysterious carved female statue used in a ceremony in the Vatican Gardens is still unknown as the Vatican insists it signifies “fertility and life,” while volunteers where the statue is on display describe it as “Mother Earth” and “Pachamama.”
In response to a question from LifeSite at Friday’s synod press briefing, Paolo Ruffini, president of the Amazon synod’s information commission, reiterated that he believed the unclothed pregnant female statue, which indigenous people also carried in procession into St. Peter’s Basilica and has appeared frequently during the synod, represents a “symbol of fertility and life.”
“Pachamama” is an Inca fertility goddess that also appears in “Santeria” (literally “worship of saints”), which is a blend of African and Native American paganism with Catholicism.
For those who don’t “know” me (as much as one can “know” a random commenter), I’m a Central American immigrant to the USA, and I’ve criticized the Catholic Church for the Mary-worship that they not only tolerate, but encourage, in Latin America. What I hadn’t discussed before is the way that the Catholic Church in Latin America tolerates the blending of pagan idol worship with Catholic rituals, as long as Mary takes precedence in the pantheon.
Now that there is a Latin American Pope, the blending of pagan idol worship with Catholic rituals has been exposed to the world.
What Megan Fox – who wrote the article – doesn’t understand (because she’s not Latin American) is that Pope Francis isn’t a terrible Pope because he’s a Marxist, he’s a terrible Pope because he’s Latin American, and carries the rot that infects Latin America with him (which includes Marxism).
But faithful Catholics are pushing back.
I’m a Protestant, but faithful Catholics are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I commend their righteous indignation.
I have never seen that mathematical proof. You have a religion just as much as any Christian you may despise. No such proof exists. Many people believe it, but many people believed many other foolish things in the past.
That’s unfortunate. Scientists worldwide generally agree that the earth is approximately 4.54 million years old, + or – 100 million years. That is remarkable accuracy. How do they know this without eyewitnesses. It’s called radiometric dating technology. The process focuses on the ratio between the number of carbon-14 and carbon-12 isotopes in any once-living being: that ratio indicates how long it’s been since that being was alive. You then subtract those values from 2019 and bingo.
The age of the earth is only proven until a longer or shorter age is needed for some reason, then the “mathematical proof” you claim will suddenly support that. It has happened before and will happen again.
You are correct. Unlike creationists, scientists do not pretend to have all of the answers and in addition they remain open to new information and facts. But 4.54 billion years has been agreed upon for several decades now and seems to be on solid footing based on more recent analyses on other non-carbon isotopes that have substantiated the same values.
I trust the only eyewitness account. You are free to believe whatever foolishness you want, but it is just another “creation myth” nothing else.
That’s unfortunate also. Just my opinion. You are welcome to yours.
@imnobody00
I am sure Pew Research is not infallible.
I have not read any statistical studies indicating that the birth rates in Muslim countries are declining.
I don’t pretend to know what the future will bring. But I think we can see a trend, and have a pretty good indication about whether Christianity is growing or Islam is growing.
I don’t believe that’s even up for debate, but it genuinely surprises me the level of denial about the growth of Islam worldwide.
If Christianity is in fact the religion that is growing or even staying at pat, I’d love to see reports about this, if you can share.
Oscar “Pachamama” is an Inca fertility goddess that also appears in “Santeria” (literally “worship of saints”), which is a blend of African and Native American paganism with Catholicism.
Santeria is old hat compared to the newer thing in parts of Mexico: Santa Muerte.
The 15th century Aztecs would approve. So far, the Roman Catholic church in Mexico condemns.
“Scientists agree?” Please, take that appeal to authority and put it away forever.
First of all you said carbon 12/14 dating works off of the dead. Unless life existed the exact moment the earth was formed you would, at best, measure the existence of life not the earth itself. Please tell me how you would extrapolate the age of the earth we live on from the carbon dating of a living thing on it.
Secondly even Leftipedia disagrees with your use of carbon 12/14 to date things millions of years back. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating
” The older a sample is, the less 14
C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of 14
C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of older samples.”
50,000 years reliably dated turns, for the scientific atheist, into 5 million years! What a magic trick! I would ask you to teach me but, like most magic tricks, it’s just lies smokes and mirrors.
First of all you said carbon 12/14 dating works off of the dead. Unless life existed the exact moment the earth was formed you would, at best, measure the existence of life not the earth itself. Please tell me how you would extrapolate the age of the earth we live on from the carbon dating of a living thing on it.
The age of the earth was determined using uranium dating, not carbon.
The problem with any type of radiometric dating is that, in order to be accurate, you have to know the percentages of parent/daughter elements at t = 0, and you have to be certain that neither element was leached out of the sample, or introduced into the sample, at any time from t = 0 to the present.
Obviously, all of that impossible to know for certain.
“The problem with any type of radiometric dating is that, in order to be accurate, you have to know the percentages of parent/daughter elements at t = 0, and you have to be certain that neither element was leached out of the sample, or introduced into the sample, at any time from t = 0 to the present. “
Radiometric dating is extremely useful when applied to magma samples. It is correct htat Carbon 12 and 14 is not useful for such dating due to its much lower half-life, but scientists have applied other elements like Uranium 238 among others to radiometrically date the oldest rocks on earth from such samples to 3.4 to 3.8 billion year old, namely zircon crystals. But we also know that such samples are even older than that because like human skins the earth crust recycles over millennia.
Of course, there could be even older rocks that collided with earth from space. But many meteors have been radiometrically dated to 4.3B and 4.5B years old.
Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. But I am amazed at the readiness with which so many here are up in arms to attempt to discredit decades of scientific research.
I always thought there was a reasonable middle ground for modern day Christians – where science and religious dogma could potentially co-exist. Nope. Guess I’m wrong again.
But if the scientists are completely useless and wrong, then what’s your alternative? Ken Ham? Ray Comfort? Kirk Cameron?
C’mon man.
BTW, all I originally said was Christianity is not growing.
Game recognized: John Mcarthur is Alpha.
Telling a woman pastor to go home isn’t just brass balls behaviour, it’s also funny. The women in the audience obviously enjoying listening to an alpha, and were tittering in response.
“I always thought there was a reasonable middle ground for modern day Christians – where science and religious dogma could potentially co-exist. Nope. Guess I’m wrong again.
But if the scientists are completely useless and wrong, then what’s your alternative? Ken Ham? Ray Comfort? Kirk Cameron?
C’mon man.
BTW, all I originally said was Christianity is not growing.”
Hyperbole and binary thinking. If the atheist scientists are completely useful and 200% correct, why not let them chop off all the weiners of boys with a higher energy level than others? Or blast their infant brains with adderall? After all the modern scientific community is more than willing to excommunicate anyone who says otherwise. Didn’t you hear DNA is racist! Rule by scientific consensus right?
To get back to the point the modern scientific community is as faith based, possibly moreso, than any religion. The modern institutions are just as corrupt and decayed as the worst Catholic hellholes. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and to claim that Christians say their institutions are infallible is also incorrect (unless they are themselves deluded). Institutions are as fallible as their humans and Christians say that humans are fallen and evil by nature. Only scientists, apparently, claim to “”not pretend to have all of the answers and in addition they remain open to new information and facts”. If you have spent any time in academia you would see how laughably incorrect that is. Steady State/Big Bang, Quasicrystals, Phamra-money chasing, doctoring global temperature data, over prescribed meds, etc. There are good individuals, be they priests or scientists. No need to cherry pick or no-true-scientist here.
To address the latter point Christianity is growing hugely in China. The Chinese era, if it ever comes about, may be another Christian one.
For those involved in the creation/science discussion, you may wish to check this out.
What if Genesis doesn’t actually deal with the age of the Earth? That’s John Walton’s hypothesis as set forth in a three-video presentation he made at the 2016 Hayward Lectures at Acadia Divinity College in Canada.
On the age of the earth/universe: indeed in current dominant thinking the universe and the earth appear much older than 6000 year. As someone who has followed such debates in depth, I can say that “science” of the history of the universe is based on a load of assumptions which are in itself unproven. More than once such assumptions have been proven false by e.g. radioactive carbon measured in diamonds, helium in rocks, polonium radiohalos, modern oil formation etc. I’m enough of a realist to know that although science of the history is probably wrong on some points, I cannot prove it, but on the other hand I do still believe in God’s revelation in Scripture, because that is how God has revealed Himself to me. I’m now satisfied to live with such scientific uncertainty while fully trusting God who has revealed:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
From 7 children per woman to less than 3 per woman, it seems a decline to me. But this is the aggregate. Countries like Iran or Lebanon are 2.1 births per woman. These are data until 2017. The 2019 data are even lower:
The demographic transition has arrived late to the Muslim world but it has arrived. Only Sub-Sahara Africa has a strong demography and they are mostly Christians.
“I don’t believe that’s even up for debate, but it genuinely surprises me the level of denial about the growth of Islam worldwide.”
Everything is up for debate, because religion is not a simple phenomenon that can be measured in a poll such as age or income. Religion is a multi-factorial phenomenon. Even Christianity and Islam are not directly comparable because of the different culture associated with every religion. You treat Pew report as if it was the law of gravity, something that it is not even up for debate. But the sources of this report are not completely sound.
I am not saying that Islam is not growing but I think it is debatable. Debating is the core of a rational argument.
“If Christianity is in fact the religion that is growing or even staying at pat, I’d love to see reports about this, if you can share.”
Well, you didn’t even bother to watch the video I sent you so why should I become your research assistant without salary? When you said that “I have not read any statistical studies indicating that the birth rates in Muslim countries are declining”, you didn’t even care to google it and you showed your ignorance of a EXTREMELY BASIC fact. I have better things to do than wasting my time searching stuff that you don’t want to read because you have made your mind.
@Emery
I didn’t realize Christianity was growing to such an extent in Communist China.
Do you have some information or research you can share on this?
If true that would be a very interesting change to watch.
Just 2% of 1.4B (2017) is already a lot of Christians.
Regardless of the age of the Universe, I want to clarify that Christianity does not require a literalistic reading of the Genesis.
This is not breaking news. Saint Augustine (fifth century) claimed that Genesis should not be interpreted in a literal way. Saint Ireneus (130-202AD) was one of the oldest Christian intellectuals (disciple of Polycarp, who was disciple of apostle John). He claimed that Adam and Eve never existed.
Of course, other Christian thinkers have thought otherwise. But the literalistic reading is not mandatory to be a Christian.
I think that the takeaways from the creation story could be:
1) The universe doesn’t exist by accident
2) Our personal existence isn’t per some random chance or event.
3) God was pleased with His creation. So much so that when Sin separated us from Him, He sent his only begotten Son to make things right.
Can I propose an alternative to forfeiting because sonme girl shows up at a Football game or wrestling match?
We are told 24/7/365 that “women are strong, powerful, and amazing”. We are also told “anything men can do, women can do better.” Ok. How about we test that out in real life?
How about the boys CHARGE and knock her out silly? How about they play Football as if 120lbs little Nancy is a 350lbs pissed off linebacker and CHARGE as if our lives depended on it?
How about we grab little Nancy and slam her on the ground as if she was a ragged doll and win the match?
Maybe there would be a national outcry. Maybe parents would be outraged. Maybe, just maybe little Nancy and all girls watching would understand not to get involved in male sports.
We need a chance in strategy here. The “trans men” competing in women’s sports have taken female-only scholarships, won trophies, and have changed female-only priviledged sports real quick. Maybe the “trans” men understand this scam and are gaming the system. Maybe it is time we hetero males do the same.
Those pesky viruses and bacteria need to get woke!
In the early 1980s, I was studying Microbiology. One of the topics was Epidemiology.
The CDC’s results of the Gonorrhea (once called “more common than the common cold”)epidemic had just come out.
The results: More than 50% of sexually active women and 12% of sexually active men had an infection.
We were shocked. Wasn’t sex, after all one-on-one?
The 80/20 rule was present, alive and well, and we couldn’t comprehend it.
In epidemiological studies since, this rule has been replicated with HPV, Chlamydia and certain aspects of HIV.
It has also too been replicated with Tinder and all other on-line dating apps: 80% of women will sleep with 20% of men.
Freud got psychoanalysis wrong because he tried looking at patients as individuals. Statistical studies of the sort outlined above give a much more accurate picture of human, particularly women’s behaviour than ever psychoanalysis could.
I want to clarify that Christianity does not require a literalistic reading of the Genesis.
literalistically speaking that is true, however God spoke to Moses and gave him two stone tablets of the covenant law on which it was written by the finger of God Himself: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
“literalistically speaking that is true, however God spoke to Moses and gave him two stone tablets of the covenant law on which it was written by the finger of God Himself: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Is that also reading it too literalistic?”
7 is the number of completeness and perfection. Was Jesus named Immanuel?
God exists outside of time, and during the events of creation there is no earthly reference point for days. Did he literally rest on the 7th day(relative to what would this 7th day be)?
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. There is moreover, no Sabbath day in the laws of Noah. The Old Testament is difficult to understand without the New Testament, written in metaphor and allegory. If it might simply be understood literally, what then is Jesus’s role as revelation? You know how God taught us in the flesh, why would his manner of teaching differ from age to age? I do not find in the Bible lessons on astronomy, horticulture, or architecture.
Consider how often God portrays himself as wrathful, and then consider Jonah’s complaint against God for His merciful nature. Is God wrathful? Is God jealous? Or does He discipline those He loves?
Thanks for the article link. That shocking CNN article you posted was something else. The leftwing-tinted article states: “…girls are most at risk. The CDC estimates people ages 15 to 24 acquire half of all new STD cases, while one in four sexually active adolescent girls has an STD”.
You are likely correct that the Paretto Principle, the famous “80/20”, appears to be even more reasonable and even more plausible when you look at the STD stats. When looking at singles in America using the 80/20 principle, 80% of single women and banging 20% of the single men. That would explain why STD rates are so much higher in women then in men.
A large group of women are sharing the same limited pool of men, thus enabling a smaller group of men to have very high rates of STDs and a wide number of women to have some STD.
I would bet if we looked at the women and men in question, we would probably see the 20% male cohort would overwhelmingly share similar traits: alpha, good-looking, wealthy, with status. Like the “prank” videos we see of goofy nerdy kids pulling women on sidewalk because they have a Ferrari, for instance.
Then we have the victim mindset of modern women today. They say girls are the real victims of HPV. Really?!?! Guys can ONLY get HPV from women and when they get it, they almost always get it through oral given to women and it turns into throat cancer for men.
But the issue, the article concludes, is not science and how human sexuality works and how diseases are transmitted. Oh NOOOOOO. The issue is SEXISM. Viruses, bacteria, and diseases target poor, innocent women! -_- Diseases are sexist!
What is also terrifying is to think how now the most basic. Of scientific fields are now being treated being treated as some sort of “sexist social construct” instead of pure biology and disease transmission.
To view STDs and their transmission, which according to the CNN is some sort of social construct, is completely insane. There is no way around it. But that is where science is going now; it is getting politicized and also used to further female victimology mentality. See, women are the victims here. Female promiscuity and seeking after 20% of the top men is not the problem. The problem is disease transmission is sexist.
Did you hear that Seattle public schools are now teaching that “math is a racist tool of oppression”? Yeah, these Seattle kids are gonna do great in a globally-competitive economy.
@vandicus: I find it difficult to extract a single line of thought out of your reply, maybe you’ve condensed it too much into a seemingly too loosely connected series of questions.
Is God wrathful? Is God jealous? Or does He discipline those He loves?
Yes, yes, AND yes, but you seem to think these are contradictory.The only way we know this about God, is because that is what He has revealed about Himself, to His prophets, and to His servants, and which is faithfully recorded in Scripture.
If it might simply be understood literally, what then is Jesus’s role as revelation?
Jesus came to reveal God the Father, and to reveal what was hidden from the beginning: that God Himself would provide for a sacrifice, and that God Himself was that sacrifice, to let us die towards our sinful nature, and be made alive again in rebirth by the Holy Spirit, so that the trinity can indwell in each of us and have communion with us, and create us into the mystical body of His Son, the Church. That same Holy Spirit has been given to lead us into the truth, together with all the saints, especially in knowing God. At the same time some things are not yet revealed to us, and we see a mystery.
God exists outside of time
That’s only a half-truth; God has chosen to interact with His creation inside time, especially during revelation. The nature of Scripture is that of recording of and of being God’s revelation. Without Him revealing Himself, we would be fully left in the dark. One of the pinnacles of God’s revelation in history was Him descending upon mount Sinai, giving the Sinaitic Law to Moses on two stone tablets, written by God’s own finger. It’s at the core, at the very heart of the Old Covenant, and was 100% confirmed by Jesus the Messiah when He came to fulfill the requirements of the same Law, such that all those who believe in Him will die in Him to the same Law, to be born again into a New Covenant, which He established by the shedding of His blood.
The Old Testament is difficult to understand without the New Testament, written in metaphor and allegory.
The Old Testament is written in much more than only metaphor and allegory. It contains poetry, songs, laws of all kinds, history, and most importantly, it contains the words God directly spoke to His servants, which is one of the most astonishing things one can imagine.
“As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up and the Lord said to him [..] ‘Go down and bring Aaron up with you.’ [..] And God spoke all these words : ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’ [..] ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. [..] For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.’
Not everywhere where you see a factor 4 popping up, the Pareto Principle can be called in. The PP describes a feature of power law distributions where ~ 80% of the effects come from ~ 20% of the causes. In the above case that cause is supposedly ‘men with STDs cause STDs in women who have sex with them’ (the article complains about women getting easier infected), which would when the PP is applicable would translate into 20% of men with STDs cause 80% of the STDs in women without STDs who have sex WITH THEM. I don’t see how that translates into “80% of single women bang 20% of single men”, enlighten me.
I think the observations though are very interesting, and hearing a remark from a scientist to call bacteria and viruses ‘sexist’ sounds like feminism obscuring good scientific practice. Women are 4 times more likely to get STDs than men, is that because they are 4 times more easily infected, or have 4 times more sex, or …?
Not to say he condones it, much less approves. But He is, although not “behind this mess,” allowing it to go on. He permitted the stealth-takeover of every important Western institution by Satanists (call them Communists, socialists, New Agers, whatever–they’re all Satan’s children). While He didn’t exactly bless them, He permitted them to brutalize, ruin, and destroy the decent people who stood up to them, with no real Earthly consequences. The Left and Evil have been on the winning trend for a very long time, because God permits it.
Moses successfully stopped God from punishing the Israelites, when they richly deserved it, several times. How? Moses argued and pleaded. As Christ, Himself, said in the parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8), inundate God with your supplications, and He will listen.
Around here, there’s a lot of intense, albeit pointless, infighting about minutiae like the age of the Universe. Or who has the Official Divine Truth (TM) about religion.
If we expended that energy on “storming heaven” with pleas for mercy, justice, and an end to injustice, God would listen. We can’t predict how or when, but it WOULD happen. And if this is The Final Days, who’s to say that our prayers won’t moderate the ugliness of Revelation?
God in the Old Testament is not fully revealed. He expresses himself in a such a way that humanity can understand him. Justice looks wrathful or jealous to us because we do not comprehend how grave sin is. Our relation and connection to God was severed or veiled in some fashion by original sin, and restored by Jesus as the last Adam. If one reads the Old Testament as might have the Jews, they will have the same understanding as the Jews.
God does not change His mind. Genesis mentions God feeling regret for having created man, is this literal?(I will disagree with you that God is wrathful and jealous, this is Him representing Himself in a fashion comprehensible to humans) TheTraveler also mentions Moses’s intercession for the Israelites. I maintain that the intercession was what God was aiming for.
In short:
1. God often does not communicate in a strict literal sense, but rather to some effect or purpose.
2. We have reasonable evidence that suggests the universe and all things living in it were not created in 7 days(6 rather, strictly speaking)
3. Therefore it is reasonable to hold that in this instance that what is communicated is not literal. It would have no theological import moreover.
Two articles about Chinese Christianity. It should be noted, as the articles say too, that many churches in China have to be underground because of government action. They (government) did recently dynamite the largest Christian Church in China because it was getting too large.
There’s also a sharp divide between foreigner missionaries and the domestic ones because the gov puts restrictions on any foreigner trying to evangelise but let Chinese Nationals do so if they wish.
“If you want to be a faithful follower and minister of the Word of God in China, the first theological course you need to take is not ‘Systematic Theology’, or hermeneutics, it’s called ‘Prison Theology’.”
That’s one reason why there are more Christians in China than in the USA.
I think the observations though are very interesting, and hearing a remark from a scientist to call bacteria and viruses ‘sexist’ sounds like feminism obscuring good scientific practice. Women are 4 times more likely to get STDs than men, is that because they are 4 times more easily infected, or have 4 times more sex, or …?
To view STDs and their transmission, which according to the CNN is some sort of social construct, is completely insane. There is no way around it. But that is where science is going now; it is getting politicized and also used to further female victimology mentality. See, women are the victims here. Female promiscuity and seeking after 20% of the top men is not the problem. The problem is disease transmission is sexist.
I remember almost 40 years ago when a young female acquaintance of mine complained of the unfairness that only women had to suffer menses, menstrual cramps, pregnancy and the child birth. As if biology was sexist. Nevermind that women on average live longer than men. Where is the fairness in that?
Did you hear that Seattle public schools are now teaching that “math is a racist tool of oppression”? Yeah, these Seattle kids are gonna do great in a globally-competitive economy.
Yeah, I saw that. Of course the UMC will enroll their 1.1 children (or is it 0.9 children?) in private schools. I know that Parochial Schools have transformed themselves from an affordable choice for working class families into schools for the Church’s UMC as the prices have skyrocketed. Some home school and others go the charter school route, understanding that regular public schools have turned into holding pens and brainwashing centers for those who will someday be depending on “Universal Basic Income”, welfare and charity to get by.
@Scott: I didn’t realize you’d gone to The Master’s College. Was Dr. Charles Smith there when you were? He was a mentor of mine in his teaching position that pre-dated TMC.
With respect to whether male passersby were at fault for not intervening to help the woman who was attacked by an elk: There is no obligation to risk oneself to help another. That’s why we call those who do heroes. Men are often better positioned due to superior physical strength to perform acts of heroism – and we applaud them (as we should) when they do. But heroism is not confined to one gender. When you keep your eyes open, you see stories of heroic women all the time: https://bcheights.com/2019/09/29/woman-saves-man-dog-drowning-reservoir/
I have always been naturally a “hero type”. But taking the Red Pill before 30 was a game-changer for me. I stopped being a hero (“white knight” of sorts) and not only I ended my liability for getting involved, people respected me more.
Being a hero in America today will get you a blurp on the news and open yourself up for civil litigation if something goes wrong or if you do not act like a medically-trained EMT.
Dalrock discussed this at length about the heroic men of the Titanic, going down with the ship to save “women and children”.
But back then, there was actual GRATITUDE to the heroes. There was praise. There were memorials. Today, there is almost no praise and tons of risks and even scorn for “heroes” especially male heroes.
Try breaking up a girl-boy fight on the street. Even if you call the cops or break-up the fight (where she is getting pummeled), she is not gonna want her “hot” abusive boyfriend in jail. She is going to turn on YOU and accuse you for “getting involved” and abusive boyfriend is getting laid tonight while you are now gonna go through jail booking and spend thousands to get an attorney to defend you in the case. The arrest record will show up online for life.
The guys taught me this rule in Ukraine: “mind your affairs”. I started doing that, like the locals. The women there appreciate their men much much more than the women here appreciate the white knights douchie-types.
MacArthurs associations on the doctrine of justification are deeply disturbing, and sad to see. Time has made that more clear.
He endorsed Piper and the idea of Christian hedonism long ago. Phil Johnson says he is a close friend of Doug Wilson (an apostate for numerous reasons, but especially on justification).
MacArthur blurs the line between justification and sanctification, while saying he is reformed. The truth is he redefined terms.
I know a lot of people mention it, but macarthurs comment about taking the mark of the beast and remaining in the faith directly contradicts revelation 14. And he is supposed to be an expert on eschatology.
I am glad to see all these charlatan idols fall. However, the churches in the west have been torn asunder by false doctrine and wolves.
This is where Dalrock loses me. I love a lot of what he has to say against feminism and find much of his perspective to be very insightful. However.
It seems like a far more reasonable take on Sumpter would be to say that they both agree that men shouldn’t tackle women, but while Dalrock would just be more direct and say “no” to the girls that want to play on boys’ teams, Sumpter is more lenient about it.
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to try to pain what Sumpter is saying as some kind of insidious feminism. It’s really not that hard to say, “yes, we both agree that men shouldn’t tackle women.” This is as believable to me as a feminist saying that men holding the door open for women is somehow oppressing them. It’s as believable as communists who think that low wages are oppression, but so are high wages because that’s just the capitalist class trying to buy off the worker class.
To the extent that Dalrock views nearly everything as infected with feminism and “chivalry” is the extent to which he appears to me to be as ideologically constrained as the feminists he argues against. When examples (men justifying women preaching) as well as their counter-examples (men defending MacArthur) are both held up as proving the same point (insidious feminism), I think we’ve gone overboard.
The Federalist had a tagline recently (I don’t have the link): “Feminism is a woman’s nagging fear that she may have been inadvertently generous to her family.” Sometimes Dalrock strikes me as being so paranoid of feminism that the same is true of him: “Dalrock’s anti-feminism is his nagging fear that he may have been generous to a woman.” It seems wrong to characterize Sumpter’s obviously sincere concern for the well-being of women as being a kind of “unconscious bias” revealing his inner feminist.
Again, generally love what I find here. Just trying to say that I think it goes overboard sometimes.
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This is further proof that there’s no rational argument to be had with Christo-Feminists.
I’ll bet that this is a storm in a teacup, a kerfuffle that future historians will laugh at – and that nobody else will remember. All these “moderates” looking for a middle way will be left in the dust. Their middle muddle is a transitional stage. They’re not the future.
(1) Perhaps the remaining Christian churches that limit the role of women will convert to full feminism as their old members die off. Or …
(2) There will be a revolution of some kind in Christianity that replaces feminism with something else that interests both men and women (traditional roles, or something new). Or …
(3) Christianity will join Mithraism (its early competitor) in the long list of dead religions.
Which path will we take? That’s over my pay grade to even guess at. My Magic 8 Ball says “check back later.”
“Dr. Moo reiterates that the Apostle Paul can not have meant that women were more easily deceived, because this would mean that women shouldn’t be preaching to women:”
Honestly, women should NOT be preaching to other women. Women should not be preaching to anyone. They (the older women) are commanded to teach/train other (younger) women but only on a select few topics and none of these are doctrine.
Titus 2:3-5 – Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
[D: Agreed.]
Meanwhile, at the cathcuck mothership:
That wasn’t very chivalrous.
Non habebis deos alienos coram me.
Gotta start somewhere.
B_A_S_E_D _ E_A_S_T_E_R – W_O_R_S_H_I_P_P_E_R_S
(Context: In addition to permitting and engaging in pagan idol worship, the sitting, arch-subversive “Amazon Synod” is taking decisive procedural steps towards the ordination of women. Thousands and thousands of pseudopapist Beth Moor-ish goblinas incoming.)
Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 2:12 contains two, not one, specific clauses of forbidding:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” When he says to Titus (2:3-5) that “Older women … are to teach what is good, and so train the young women“ what they need for godliness, it seems as much about female mentorships as any didactic role (such as the teaching forbidden in 1 Timothy). And that’ll throw the Sunday School departments on their heads if they ever notice it!
The argument that Beth Moore should go home is much more simple than many folks make it. From the time of Ezra’s rediscovering of the Scrolls while rebuilding the Temple after the Babylonian exile, women have not been allowed on stage in the Temple – to do the reading of the scrolls and the attendant ministrations that went on.
Paul and the others Jews involved in building the New Testament church out of Jewish religious culture were working to determine what of the Law should be kept, and what discarded (see Acts 15). In what Paul said about women not preaching, he was announcing that at least he would keep that tradition from the Jewish rules and regulations re. the Temple. He was not creating a new ruling about women out of whole cloth.
The following information was found on a Jewish website that I can’t find the link to at the moment. The words are mine; the “facts” are theirs:
It was tradition in the Temple that women did not teach men. There have been two reasons offered for that Jewish tradition that I think are legitimate, beyond any argument about the relationship that God established between husband and wife (he the helped, “ruling over” by giving instructions to his wife; she the help, submitting her will to his by carrying out the instructions her husband has given her): That is, 1) it was an embarassment to the congregation that no man could be found that was educated enough to read from the scrolls and expound on them, and; 2) men are visual and are created to respond physically to the form and mannerisms of a woman. If a woman is reading the Torah, that makes it less likely that the men are focused solely on the message of the words being read. Rather, they are being distracted by the feminine attributes of the reader.
Some of these words were copied from my post here and my next post 4 or 5 posts below that.
Ah yes, the timeless “we are attracted to another understanding” quote. That obnoxious sentence is the gift that keeps on giving.
this was not laughter done by a group of “men” who were laughing out of an abundance of poorly misplaced testosterone.
Lol. I would laugh because not only is “Go home” pithy, cutting right to the issue, it’s just also funny.
Anyone who wishes to argue that the churches are not feminized will have to explain how the above quote about “poorly misplaced T” is somehow “conservative” and “traditional” and very “manly”.
Do we need carefully misplaced T? Do we need poorly placed T? What does that word salad even mean? Aside from feminists, who else has a problem with an “abundance of … T”?
“Go home” is a great rejoinder because it flushes the feminists of every variety out of the underbrush and into the light were everyone can see them, and that includes “complementarians” without question.
Re. the “obnoxioius” sentence that is the gift that keeps on giving: we are attracted to another understanding
In the New Testament, there were folks who firmly believe that they were restricted from eating meat offered to idols. There were other folks who were attracted to another understanding. They believed that through the resurrected Christ, they had been given freedom from the food restrictions imposed by Jewish Law. They believed that they were free to eat any food that was safe to eat, including meat offered to idols.
Paul’s response to that connundrum was his proclamation that whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:23 That is – if you truely believe that God has forbidden a certain activity – whether he actually forbade it or not – and you do it anyway, you have displayed a willingness to disobey God. Backing out a bit, we can speculate that Paul was saying that God looks at a person’s displayed willingness (or unwillingness) to disobey him rather than a specific act that is in view. God looks at the person’s heart / motivation rather than at a particular behavior.
Paul was cautioning folks away from displaying a willingness to disobey God. Said Paul: If you think it is OK to eat meat offered to idols, eat away. If you think it is not OK to eat meat offered to idols, then don’t. Based on Paul’s argument, I expect that there will be both types of folks in heaven: those who ate meat offered to idols, and those who didn’t. But, based on this principle, will there also be both types of women in heaven? Those who preached and those who didn’t? Probably God is the only one who knows the answer to that.
John pipers entire ministry is built on twisting scripture. His first book introduced “Christian hedonism” into the evangelical world. He has been on that route ever since.
Suppressed like it was centuries ago
When I was a kid and we would drive through Panorama City I would always marvel at the sheer size of the Grace Community Church compound, it’s massive buildings and multiple ancillary structures and 20 parking lots taking up several city blocks.
Mega churches seem weird to me now
Cucks are gonna cuck.
Just gynocentrism by another name.
That would be far more honest. They’re not Christian. They’ve only kept the label. Constantly cucking to cunts is not Christian.
Yup. All that means is they’re about to make more stuff up.
Truth is, they seemed to weird to me then
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00 people in there are faithful Christians.”
Looking at the backlash this has created really shows what a sacred cow Beth Moore has become. From what I’ve seen, most of the negative responses fall into 1 of 2 categories:
1) People feigning indignation about Macarthur’s “tone” saying that he wasn’t “charitable” enough all the while (deliberately) ignoring the content what he said.
2) SJW’s crying “misogyny” (a large percentage of whom don’t seem to have any interest in Beth Moore or the SBC, they just came to the party to take pot shots at someone who dared use the Bible to tell a woman “NO”)
What’s not being done is any attempt to criticize Macarthur’s statement at a Biblical level or argue the hermenutics that led him to a literal translation of pastoral qualifications. John Macarthur is basically the first and only A-list evangelical to call out women preachers like Beth Moore without gelding his rebuke with exceptions.
The one thing that really surprised me is how he flat out said that the real goal of feminism is NOT equality, but rather power. Hopefully, that will wake up some Christians and get them thinking about the consequences of reforming the church to cater to a disingenuous ideology.
I also like how he deliberately refused to get sucked into a complementarian semantics game by saying that he “doesn’t know about terms, I just know that women aren’t allowed to preach”.
No ambiguity, just here’s what the Bible says, take it or leave it.
Christian men can leave these assemblies and create new assemblies which adhere to genuine orthodoxy. Christian men are still “going with the flow” of the feminist replacement of true orthodoxy with their counterfeits. Once they figure out they have the power to simply leave by the millions and create new assemblies, victory will be on the horizon.
I have no doubt that many “wives” will divorce them as they leave the old feminist corrupted assemblies to join together and create new assemblies, but these women will be left on a dying withering vine while the men will be free to start anew on Christ’s actual vine.
It’s too late to reform the degenerate corrupt associations, leaving and starting anew is the way to victory.
Reading Dalrock is a breath of fresh air that dispels the foul odor of Feminism that contaminates everything it touches. And the church is not even immune from its poison as can be seen by Piper’s capitulation to the Feminists.
The bible is clear, women can not and should not preach or teach because they are more prone to being gullible than men are
And now I went to their website and they have “sun valley” as the address
Kind of a Southern California inside joke but that’s pretty funny.
They don’t have the authority to do that. It would take an Ecumenical Council and I don’t see one being convoked anytime soon. Most likely those clowns will go in schism. Let them. Good bye to bad rubbish.
As for the gentlemen who threw those idols into the river: well done.
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“A jury in Dallas, Texas has ruled against Jeffrey Younger, the father who is trying to protect his seven-year-old son, James, from chemical castration via a gender “transition.” This means James’ mother, Dr. Anne Georgulas, will be able to continue ‘transitioning’ him into ‘Luna,’ and now has full authority to start him on puberty blockers and eventually cross-sex hormones.”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-jury-rules-against-dad-trying-to-save-his-7-year-old-from-gender-transition?utm_content=buffer82138&utm_medium=LSN%2Bbuffer&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=LSN&fbclid=IwAR2-BdQNNUVJyj1brv9eJD2ELS23nRhCN-xP9Zku8HUl5ug7LiNQN6YU1kQ
as sick as it gets. Giving her son to Moloch, as far as Im concerned
Just recently in feminist -supreme Australia, the new Head of the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church in Sydney (Australia’s most conservative evangelical stronghold), Rev Glenn Davies, convened his first Synod (“parliament”). He told any ministers wishing to endorse and bless same sex marriages to “please leave now”.
This created a furor. He has been accused of trying to “split the church”, “cause division” , and of course be a “homophobe” and “bigot”.
I say, at last, an Anglican that has grown a pair.
In the Vatican, Pachamama, the Amazon fertility goddess, has been thrown into the Tiber, after Pope Francis fawned all over the pagan idol.
These events, along with John MacArthur rightly telling Beth Moore to go home and not be in a place where she should not be is a sign, however small, that there is push-back. There might be some hope on the horizon.
Scott
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00 people in there are faithful Christians.”
Not sure you want to go down that rabbit trail.
Yeah, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood digs seat 16,000.
One guesstimate places the seating in St. Peters, Rome, at 35,000.
Back when Hagia Sofia was still a church, it probably could hold at least as many people as Osteen’s place.
So…..what?
Buildings are buildings.
Scott
“sun valley” as the address
Heh. Paging Frank Zappa…
AR-
I went to The Masters College and Seminary, in Santa Clarita, California. The school is a small Bible college associated with Grace. McArthur is the president of the college.
At the time, several of my professors were elders at Grace, and I remember several conversations where we discussed church discipline in the context of “valid” reasons for divorce. This was the late 90s.
I did not attend church at Grace, so I could not verify the hardline stance they SAID they took. They also said they were fair with respect to which spouse was being dicsipined. That is, they argued that if a woman was cheating, and trying to divorce her otherwise standard nice guy husband, they would discipline HER (basically tell her should could not attend until she repented and came back to her husband).
Fortuitously, I went through a divorce EXACTLY like that, and the elders at my church accused me of bringing it on myself by “neglecting” her (read: not making her feel perpetuatlly courted and wooed).
Got that? No tingles? You deserve to have the sin of adultery committed against you.
I often wondered, would that have gone differently had I brought the issue before John McArther and his elder board? In the end it wouldn’t have mattered. She told me she didn’t care what the elders said or did, she was leaving.
So its not that I don’t respect for the organization. They at least paid lip service to doing the right thing.
In the days of Christ, many pagan religions had female clergy. The Jews did not. However, Christ didn’t give a fig for Jewish cultural sensibilities when it interfered with His aims–and He chose no women among the 12. Therefore, He didn’t want female clergy.
QED.
Cucks can cuckulate as much as they like, but the Truth will always be the truth just as 2 plus 2 will always equal 4.
Scott
Not All Churches Are Like that, obviously. You probably weren’t reading here when Jenny Erickson decided to frivorce her husband. However it did not turn out quite the way she expected.
https://www.jennyerikson.com/2013/05/21/10-years-9-months-12-days-and-2-kids-later/index.html
https://www.jennyerikson.com/2013/05/22/divorce-piety/index.html
https://www.jennyerikson.com/2013/06/12/bitterness-truth-twisting/index.html
She was expelled from that church. Her soon-to-be-ex husband was not. Oopsie. Not all churches…
Hey Dalrock,
Not trying to be the grammar police or anything, but thought you might like to know about a typo. Right after the first Piper/Grudem blockquote, you used complimentarian when I’m sure you meant complementarian, with an “e” rather than an “i”.
[D: Thanks!]
While I agree that the criticism of MacArthur in this particular dust-up is unwarranted, I find it very difficult to defend the man. I’m sure Scott has much more insider insight on MacArthur than I. My main exposure to him came through visiting the church a few times, and through friendship over many years with several people who formerly were members. But based on what I’ve observed and heard, Grace Community is one of the most misnamed churches around. They seem to be quite deficient in the “grace” department, and MacArthur comes across as an arrogant, totalitarian, asshat.
Please do not construe this as support for Moore or her defenders. It’s just that when I see two despicable, heretical people sniping at each other, I find it hard to care, even of one of them is technically right.
Oops. Should be “if one of them” not “of one of them” in the last sentence.
“There are no feminists on a sinking ship”. Raging Golden Eagle
Women gets attacked by wildlife. Men are blamed for not risking their lives to save her, a complete stranger.
“There are no feminists on a sinking ship”. Raging Golden Eagle
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/09/28/somebody-help-elk-attacks-woman-in-park-men-casually-walk-away-831806
Not to mention there was nothing they could have done. And had they been killed by the beast, who would have stepped in to care for their families? No one.
My 1st impression when I first heard John Piper preach is his effeminacy and weak masculinity.
Geeze, people, this situation during the elk rut is nothing that couldn’t be solved with girl power.
Larry,
Not happening. It has survived 2000 years so far and will continue on until Jesus returns.
It is ironically growing more in places like China, where people have to take it seriously. Don’t push our idiocy on God not being reliable.
Though this does show that you do not have a Christian foundation if you can even entertain that option.
Can’t have it both ways cunts. You’re equal now. Hell, FAR more than equal now, Hey, you can do anything a man can do and do it better in high heels remember? So you can save yourselves.
Nope. No one would have given a rats ass and he’d quickly be forgotten. Looks like a lot of men are finally getting tired of being cannon fodder for cunts.
And there is no guarantee a TMS affiliated church would be similar to what the seminary itself teaches.
Not sure why you view MacArthur as heretical.
Reformed churches tend to struggle with being graceful. Even those affiliated with GCC.
Phil Johnson has been affiliated with some pretty nasty people in the past.
John did endorse John pipers first book, which introduced the concept of Christian hedonism. I have never heard a retraction in the matter.
Look at a picture of his wife
John MacArthur does directly oppose the Scripture by forbidding speaking in tongues.
I had listened to him quite a bit in the past, but I can’t handle his rants on things like that now.
I do agree with him about Beth Moore though.
Feminists trump trannies: Transgender activist Jessica Yaniv loses ‘wax her balls’ complaint against salon workers: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/transgender-activist-jessica-yaniv-loses-wax-her-balls-complaint-against-salon-workers
Jessica Yaniv, a Canadian transgender activist, lost a court case she brought against estheticians who refused to wax her male genitalia.
“Human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax,” the BC Human Rights Tribunal determined according to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms which represented five of the estheticians. …
Jay Cameron, the Justice Centre’s Litigation Manager praised the decision, saying, “No woman should be compelled to touch male genitals against her will, irrespective of how the owner of the genitals identifies.” …
In 2018, Yaniv, who identifies as a female but has male genitalia, asked several estheticians to remove her pubic hair around her groin. Numerous salon workers voiced religious objections while other said they lacked training.
The transgender activist accused workers of discriminating against her based on her gender identity and filed 15 complaints. The majority of the women Yaniv tried to get a waxing from were immigrants.
She has been ordered by the court to pay $2,000 each to three of the women.
Seems even trannies can’t always win when they oppose women’s interests.
OT
AR, Minesweeper,
I have the “Dave from Hawaii” comment/guest post about Agree & Amplify and Marriage Game. I made it into a PDF, 9 pages.
If anyone wants the PDF, email me
Beework att comcast dott net
@ Scott
I prefer Sun Valley, Idaho.
Transgender activist Jessica Yaniv loses ‘wax her balls’ complaint against salon workers
Guess that’s where the line is.
It’ll have to console the inner sadist by forcing Masterpiece cakeshop to make a “I can’t get my snatch-balls waxed!” celebration cake.
Someone did come to the rescue of the woman-attacked-by-elk.
They brought a truck.
My spouse is doing his part, he’s out hunting them right now.
@Lexet Blog
John MacArthur is “heretical” because he teaches Lordship salvation which basically means you’re saved by your works and not by grace. He will vehemently deny that but other biblical teachers and scholars more proficient than me have called John out on this issue and exposed his law based salvation teachings.
This in no way means I support Beth Moore, no, not at all, and John is 100% correct in telling Beth to go home
That this was able to go to court in the first place shows that we are waist deep in clown world. This should have been immediately thrown out as a nuisance lawsuit and he should have been fined for even submitting it in the first place. At least he was forced to pay restitution to the salon workers.
Dennis Prager writes a confused article on Air Canada’s decision to no longer use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen”: https://www.dennisprager.com/air-canada-to-its-passengers-screw-you/
Prager says that straights, gays and trannies all oppose this new policy. Only “the left” and “activists” support it.
Prager seems to want a big tent conservatism that unites straights, gays, and trannies, in that all support traditional male/female distinctions, unlike “the left” and “LGBT activists” (who are not to be confused with the decent gay/tranny silent majority).
At least that’s what I gather, from muddling through Prager’s confusing piece.
Like most professional conservatives, Prager is terrified of being labeled a hater, so he keeps shifting left, while pretending he’s still conserving something.
Some excerpts:
Needless to say, Air Canada never polled its passengers or its employees. The left believes in democracy only when it wins a popular vote. When it loses a popular vote, it regards democracy as defective. …
Everyone knows that had there been a vote among Air Canada passengers — say, all those enrolled in the airline’s frequent flier program — even liberal Canadians would have voted to retain “ladies and gentlemen.”
Even the infinitesimally small number of Canadians who are transgender would almost all vote to retain “ladies and gentlemen.” Remember, transgender individuals strongly identify as male or female they simply reject their biological sexual identity. …
The truth is no one but LGBTQ activists (including their cisgender heterosexual supporters) approve of Air Canada’s change. …
Short of shooting, what else could have been done? I’m sure that if any white knight had shot it he would be in a heap of trouble and probably would have been arrested under multiple charges.
BillyS says:
Billy is right. If Christ’s Kingdom depended on us for its existence, it would’ve ceased to exist centuries ago. Unbelievers have been predicting the imminent demise of faith in Christ for centuries, yet faith in Christ not only endures, but thrives.
Does it thrive everywhere? No. But if Westerners continue to reject Christ (and I’m not convinced that will continue for ever), then Christ will raise children for His Father elsewhere. He’s already doing that, as Billy pointed out, in China.
In fact, by some estimates there are over 100 million Christians in China, which means there are more Christians in China today than in any country in history.
Christ is also raising children for His Father in Africa. As I’ve pointed out before in this blog, in the near future, Africans may be evangelizing paganized Europeans and Americans. Check out this statement from Dr. Jerry P. Kulah, dean of Gbarnga School of Theology at United Methodist University in Liberia.
https://pjmedia.com/faith/conservative-african-methodist-denounces-the-racism-of-progressive-american-bishops/
Thanks to the faithfulness and courage of those African bishops, the United Methodist church did not change its doctrine to accept homosexuality.
If the Westerners completely abandon Christianity, that will be an epic tragedy, and the death of the West. But kingdoms rise and fall. They always have, and always will.
God’s Kingdom, by contrast, is eternal.
And if you doubt that truth, then please feel free to enjoy your spot next to all the other failed prophets of the doom of Christianity.
Ultimately, the ONLY thing that the church and the world is against is the Word of God …for it strips women of their glory …the woman who breaks trail for rebellion, her special Genesis 3:16 rebellion. The Word condemns the practice of worshiping the woman, angering the effeminate church at the thought of having to worship the masculine Word of God, and its representative, the man.
Oscar wrote:
in the near future, Africans may be evangelizing paganized Europeans and Americans.
It’s already happening.
https://globaljournalist.org/2019/02/nigerian-missionary-to-england-highlights-changing-christianity/
It is probably best to avoid the common trap of wishful thinking on the question of the survival of Christianity and its endurance of 2,000+ years on a planet that has been mathematically confirmed to be 4.6 Billion years old. We do live in an era of information, data and statistics. And what it tells us about ourselves is already rather damning.
On the question of whether Christ’s message will continue to proliferate and endure or not, it appears that it will for some time to come, but not comparatively to its religious contemporaries.
It would seem that the only reliable thing God has been doing on this matter is at best folding his arms in abject indifference, and at worst, actively ensuring Christianity dies out faster. Assuming He does indeed decide to intervene in human affairs from time to time, his penchant is for the message from the illiterate warlord, not from the poor, industrious, Nazarene martyr:
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
Of course, Muslims regard Mohammed, not Jesus of Nazareth, as the final prophet and messenger from God to guide humanity the right way. Their message is growing in number significantly compared to Christianity because their core religious dogma and culture has been well-presreved from meaningful religious reformations and schisms, secularism, feminism, the sexual revolution, human inquiry and science, and the printing of books. These are starting to influence Islamic culture, but not to the same degree they have already decayed Christianity.
The Church lives in Pretend Submission:
“The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him” Psalm 81:15 NKJV.
They ‘act in deception’ …as does their father Satan. They cry “Lord, Lord…”
All women to varying degrees pretend submission to the man. And this has modeled His people pretending submission to the Lord …as they really worship, effectively submit to the woman.
Pretend Submission is in the church because it is first in the wife, and it is in the wife because it is first in the woman, her curse declared by God in Genesis 3:16.
And His nostrils are flared in fire and anger.
This made me laugh!
All they have to do is declare the Pastoral Epistles to be fraudulent documents forged in the name of Paul. They and their awful, sexist language will be expunged from the NT.
The foundational problem in the church is that the church lives out: ‘THE WOMAN’S SHIT DON’T STINK.’
And it is all over the place, piles and piles of it, and they are still telling us it does not stink.
All problems are sourced in this issue, and when this is begun to be acknowledged and resolved, then other sub-issues can all begin. And, don’t lie to yourself: we are only treating SYMPTOMS on all other issues without dealing with her shit first.
In short, the woman needs to get the Hell [literally] out of the way. She needs to shut her mouth, she needs to get out of the room, she needs to get out of the gates of the city, she needs to Titus 2:4-5. That’s all.
That’s all folks. Or deny Christ the Word. The Deut 3:19 CHOICE is yours.
Choosing: The Ultimate Reality.
@sipcode In my experience, most Christian women are more than happy to submit to their husbands as long as their husbands do what their wives tell them to do.
Noticed some details about the the murder that catalyzed the extradition bill and mass protests in HK, which should be of interest to most here.
Game:
Ignorance of female nature is not an option.
Women leaders:
Felt strong sympathy for the poor murdered girl, ignored proper process, stepped on political landmines, set the city she managed on fire …
So what you are saying here Dalrock is a preacher type speaks from the bible truthfully the christian women of the church get pissed off huh?
One thing you can say about the furor concerning John MacArthur’s comments:
It’s long been a churchian dogma that a Christianised version of Ward Cleaver, who is serious about Scripture, loves God and takes Jesus’ teachings seriously, is irresistable to women.
Enter John MacArthur. Two words and this facade has been blown away completely.The man who follows God isn’t irresistable. rather, he is infinitely RESISTED by rebellious church women.
@drbeagle yep we know just dont beat your wife, drink at the bar all night, have a job, dont have autism and a woman will stay with you. They just want basic things. Those men who get divorce raped basically did it to themselves.
Wifes submit to their husbands as long as the husband does everything she says. Isnt that not submission? That’s doing whatever she wants and taking orders. What would a wife not submitting b? Cooking cleaning having sex with him all complaint and insane fem list demand free?
“Our general commitment [regarding our boys playing sports] is to play hard and play as much as we can without compromising our Lord’s requirement to honor all women.”
WHERE DID JESUS SAY, “HONOR ALL WOMEN,” IN ANY VERSION OF THE BIBLE.
Related to that, I thought this quote from … was interesting.
“…if Mrs. Moore and her supporters insist that girls can too get clobbered on a football field, and they can too get blown to bits on a battlefield…”
Reality being what is it, girls DO get clobbered in ball-games (and elsewhere), and they do get blown to bits on battlefields (and elsewhere), but there’s a difference between a man who fears Heavenly Father and one who doesn’t: the man who fears Heavenly Father loves his wife as his own self, and loves his own daughters just as his Heavenly Father loves all his children, so he won’t send his wife or daughters to risk being clobbered or blown to bits.
That isn’t love.
“They” would also need to edit Jesus’ own words, beginning with “Go and sin no more.”
constrained locust:
“Of course, Muslims regard Mohammed, not Jesus of Nazareth, as the final prophet and messenger from God to guide humanity the right way. Their message is growing in number significantly compared to Christianity because their core religious dogma and culture has been well-presreved from meaningful religious reformations and schisms, secularism, feminism, the sexual revolution, human inquiry and science, and the printing of books. These are starting to influence Islamic culture, but not to the same degree they have already decayed Christianity.”
Nonsense.
Your premise that Christianity needs to win some sort of numbers game for validity is false to start with, and perhaps wishful thinking on your part. Jesus taught that Christians would be hated and persecuted everywhere. They were the minority from the beginning and always have been, both in global terms and within most historic cultures. You don’t become a Christian to be on the temporally winning team. You do it because it’s the truth.
Your premise that Christianity was “decayed” by “human inquiry, science, and the printing of books” is also false, and really ignorant of history. This brief period during which Christianity has been the dominant paradigm in Western Civilization is the CAUSE of modern “human inquiry, science, and the printing of books.” The good that came out of Western Europe over the past few hundred years is the fruit of Christianity, and as Europe and the West become post-Christian, we are now seeing that fruit dry up. If you brushed up on your history, you’d know that the Reformation and the printing of the Bible came first, and then came the Scientific Revolution, mostly touted by extremely devout churchmen.
Feminism and the sexual revolution are modern products of a secular age, far removed from the Christian invention of modern science and medicine. They are the result of apostasy. As Christianity declines, watch the quality of human inquiry and science decline with it, as feminism and progressivism increase.
(Even your use of “data and statistics” is not well informed. Islam is growing mainly through reproduction, while Christianity gains the most through adult converts. Even if Islam conquers the entire world, a thriving church is inevitable, because a percentage of those Muslims will end up converting to Christianity on the power of it being actually true. That’s the built in benefit of truth over error.)
@constrainedlocus
Islam’s growth is caused by its strong birth rate, which is already decaying. Conversions to Islam are few and far between. I don’t assume Pew projections are infallible. Pew is a serious organization but sources about Muslim beliefs are not reliable. In particular, many Muslim stop believing in secret, because Islam condemns apostasy to death. Even if death is not applied in most cases, the sentence for apostasy is losing your family, friends, community and suffer social ostracism.
But, even if Pew projections were 100% accurate, you cannot extrapolate religious trends from only a slice of time. If you were born in 900 AD, it would be clear that the religion of the future was going to be Islam. Christianity was going to be a regional religion for the impoverished European countries while Islam had growth, wealth and won all the battles. So nobody knows what the future will bring. You cannot discover the future only by extrapolating current trends because history is full of surprise.
Related to the topic:
@Spike
Lemme try:
“Well, we didn’t mean that sort of Bible reading! Certainly not! Because Deborah! And Phoebe! And…ooooh, MEN! So ANNOYING!”
[stamp foot, backturn]
Or something like that. Because “said ‘Go Home” to Beth Moore” means “not Christian enough” or maybe not at all.
Fried ice. We must always protect our precious supplies of fried ice!
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00[0] people in there are faithful Christians.”
Churchianity is akin to a species of grain plant that contains orders of magnitude more tares than wheat, so much so that it’s not even worth harvesting for its nutritional value. Better to treat it as a species of invasive and destructive weed.
Pingback: The Church Effeminate – The Lexet Blog
No. Tackle the girls even harder so that they may learn from the harsh teacher of God’s world.
constrainedlocus,
I have never seen that mathematical proof. You have a religion just as much as any Christian you may despise. No such proof exists. Many people believe it, but many people believed many other foolish things in the past.
The age of the earth is only proven until a longer or shorter age is needed for some reason, then the “mathematical proof” you claim will suddenly support that. It has happened before and will happen again.
I trust the only eyewitness account. You are free to believe whatever foolishness you want, but it is just another “creation myth” nothing else.
Dalrock, here’s a book you’d enjoy written by a Scandinavian man with feminists and witches as ancestors. Explores the relationship early feminism had with Satanic sympathy imagery.
I’d say that the solution to girls in football is to keep clobbering them, as hard as you would clobber anyone else. Given the inequalities in physical strength between men and women, the girls will probably decide fairly quickly that the football field is not where they want to be. The only alternative will be that the rules will have to be changed to favor girls, at which point it will become clear what the actual goal is.
> “older women are likewise to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine”
Kek, it seems to refer to wine aunts.
Heresolong
Changing the rules to favor women is what the army did decades ago with the double standard PT test.
Yet men, including myself joined anyway—and continue to join.
Irrational systems can go on for a very long time with the proper amount of shaming those who point it out.
It’s one of the reasons Christ (and all the martyrd saints) was so effective.
Staking didn’t work on him. Even unto torture and death.
@Charles
It doesn’t surprise me at all to see that 19th century feminism had a pro-Lucifer attitude. Feminism itself was, if not rooted in the occult, was fertilized greatly by the Spiritualism movement that began in the mid-1840s. It’s a seldom-examined facet of the feminist movement that really should receive more attention.
For those who don’t know, spiritualism was a movement that took off in the 1840s after a family of young girls in New England began reporting knocks and bangs in their house, accompanied by messages from “the spirits”. The seance was developed in an attempt to “scientifically” communicate with the dead. It was quite a crisis for the religious communities of America at the time, and developed into a sort of pseudo-religion that sucked in many intelligent people.
Most spiritualists were complete frauds, of course, but the damage done to Christianity, as well as traditional culture, was profound. It set in motion much of the social/theological evil we deal with today, in everything from feminism to Scientology. Really fascinating subject. There’s a great book, “In Search of White Crows” that lays it out pretty well. If there is modern scholarship on the subject, that’s presented from a Christian perspective, I haven’t found it. All recent scholarship is quite sympathetic because, of course, it was women taking back their power from the evil misogynists. I’ll have to pick up a copy of Satanic Feminism.
I think we do a great disservice in not emphasizing Eve’s role in the Fall. Us women tend towards emotional reactions, solipsism, pragmatism rather than idealism. It’s easier for us to fall away from the path of good, and it’s easier for us to justify it to ourselves. We are as fallible as men, but we have unique weaknesses that seem to be celebrated as assets these days. The problem with women teaching is that we tend to pass along messages that reinforce our own life decisions, which means that our failures and sin are held up as virtues.
I remember my (Catholic) high school girl friends, declaring one after another that they were atheist because religion was stupid and they wanted to do as they would. I found it sad at the time; I find it alarming now. It’s not the embrace of a better truth, but Satanism. I wish we were told that more often.
Larry Kummer, If you wonder the forces driving this into the future, then let me quote the person who drew this “kerfuffle” to my attention…
““Please, for the love of Christ, ladies, could you please take this place over? You’ve got the numbers. There are millions more of you than men. Why aren’t you running everything by now? …
Don’t go home – go to the ballot box. Go to the church board election. The history is clear. Women are meant to be in ministry, and I for one would welcome our new female overlords . . . overladies? Whatever. We’re here for you.”
Democracy.
Paging Dalrock…
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/10/women-under-the-spell/
@ Scott
Like “yeah, I’m sure all 40,00 people in there are faithful Christians.”
I went out to to Grace over Mother’s Day (MD) to watch one of my younger brothers graduate from their seminary program. On MD, MacArthur preached a very atypical MD sermon. He preached on people who think they are Christians but will find out on Judgement Day that they really aren’t (Matthew 7:21-23). It was a pretty blunt sermon where he told the congregation that many people in the room who thought they were Christians probably werent.
This was my first visit to GCC and I found the whole campus to be fairly impressive. it had a much different, community feel to it than many of the other mega churches I have stepped foot in. Both my brothers in the seminary program love how all the pastors preach straight from the Bible and dont mince words to make the Truth something it is not.
Speaking of Satanism: In haunted Salem, a Jewish church founder preaches the art of ‘Satanic’ social change: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-haunted-salem-a-jewish-church-founder-preaches-the-art-of-satanic-social-change/
From the mostly laudatory article, which appeared in The Times of Israel:
For the 49-year-old Jarry, there is not much conflict between being Jewish and a Satanist. As a matter of fact, the two identities have come to inform each other, he said.
“I see it like Buddhism,” said Jarry. “Satanism is something that can co-exist with being a Jew,” he said.
In addition to Jarry’s belief that Judaism and Satanism can co-exist, there are parallels with how Judaism and Satanism have been branded by their detractors, he said.
“The false accusations that have been thrown at Jews historically are similar to what some people say about Satanism,” said Jarry, mentioning accusations of blood libel and — more recently — fabricated allegations that Israel perpetrates genocide against Palestinian children
“I do not accept when people delegitimize Israel or use lies to marginalize Israel,” said Jarry. “I am an unwavering supporter of Israel, so long as it remains democratic, pluralistic, and protects human rights.”
Satanists, for the record, do not believe that Satan exists. Derived from the Hebrew root for “adversary,” Satan is viewed as a symbol, not an idol or deity.
The Church of Satan was founded by Jewish-born Anton LaVey in 1966. Known in his heyday as “the black pope,” LaVey seeded “grotto” churches around the country, and Hollywood figures including Sammy Davis Jr. joined the church. (Davis had converted to Judaism in 1961.) …
It reminds me of a cartoon I saw decades ago. In it a woman was in the Coliseum, ready to be thrown to the lions. She has second thoughts and says something like “maybe having lovers isn’t such a bad idea after all:”
The siren call of the carousel is indeed powerful. It separates the wheat from the chaff.
Well, back then men, especially white men, weren’t hated and reviled as much as they are now.
Nonetheless, “economic conscription” is still a powerful motivator. Young white guys know that affirmative action will keep them out of most cushy government jobs and unless they are exceptional, Corporate America too. They can’t all be tradesmen, and for many the military is the only way out of their dead end flyover podunk towns. I know that at my kid’s high school that over half the boys try to get in the military upon graduation and my town is considered “vibrant and growing, with plenty of opportunities”. Many flunk out because either they’re too fat and out of shape, or they’re too dim witted (or both).
@BillyS
“I trust the only eyewitness account. You are free to believe whatever foolishness you want, but it is just another “creation myth” nothing else.”
Eyewitness accounts are not necessary to bring charges in a criminal case. Physical evidence is a big part of it and we have a LOT of physical evidence for an old earth, not the least of which is the fact that we can go out at night and see stars that are much much further away than 6000 light years.
Hubbell has already seen galaxies more than 1 billion light years away. But I suppose God made the light already on its way 6000 years ago so we could see it and foolishly think it took a lot longer to get here than appearances would indicate. God is such a big faker, isn’t he? Making the universe appear very old just to fool us.
Which is probably why they mostly try out for kicker positions.
The idea of them playing any other position is risible. An anecdote I’ve shared before is regarding the youth soccer team my son played for as a teen. It was one of those “competitive” teams, which meant try outs and often traveling over 100 miles to play a match.
Anyway, once in a while their opponents would have a girl or two on the team. I don’t know why this was allowed, as there are plenty of girl’s leagues. The unspoken rule was that if there was a girl on the opposing team that she was to be treated with kid gloves. My son’s team refused to do that and after a few perfectly legal slide tackles the girls would leave the field in tears. The ref would chew out the boys who would reply that they were doing nothing illegal. The ref knew that, so no yellow or red cards were issued, just an admonishment to “take it easy on them, they’re girls” and by the second half the girls would stay on the bench (youth soccer allows unlimited substitutions).
Anyway, if girls can’t handle playing soccer with boys, I don’t see how they could possibly handle American Football, unless maybe it’s flag football.
On the subject of faithful Christians standing up to paganizing forces in the Church, via The other McCain: Faithful Catholics Throw Amazonian Idols Displayed in the Vatican into the Tiber River
https://pjmedia.com/faith/faithful-catholics-throw-amazonian-idols-displayed-in-the-vatican-into-the-tiber-river/
“Pachamama” is an Inca fertility goddess that also appears in “Santeria” (literally “worship of saints”), which is a blend of African and Native American paganism with Catholicism.
For those who don’t “know” me (as much as one can “know” a random commenter), I’m a Central American immigrant to the USA, and I’ve criticized the Catholic Church for the Mary-worship that they not only tolerate, but encourage, in Latin America. What I hadn’t discussed before is the way that the Catholic Church in Latin America tolerates the blending of pagan idol worship with Catholic rituals, as long as Mary takes precedence in the pantheon.
Now that there is a Latin American Pope, the blending of pagan idol worship with Catholic rituals has been exposed to the world.
What Megan Fox – who wrote the article – doesn’t understand (because she’s not Latin American) is that Pope Francis isn’t a terrible Pope because he’s a Marxist, he’s a terrible Pope because he’s Latin American, and carries the rot that infects Latin America with him (which includes Marxism).
But faithful Catholics are pushing back.
I’m a Protestant, but faithful Catholics are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I commend their righteous indignation.
@Billy S
That’s unfortunate. Scientists worldwide generally agree that the earth is approximately 4.54 million years old, + or – 100 million years. That is remarkable accuracy. How do they know this without eyewitnesses. It’s called radiometric dating technology. The process focuses on the ratio between the number of carbon-14 and carbon-12 isotopes in any once-living being: that ratio indicates how long it’s been since that being was alive. You then subtract those values from 2019 and bingo.
You are correct. Unlike creationists, scientists do not pretend to have all of the answers and in addition they remain open to new information and facts. But 4.54 billion years has been agreed upon for several decades now and seems to be on solid footing based on more recent analyses on other non-carbon isotopes that have substantiated the same values.
That’s unfortunate also. Just my opinion. You are welcome to yours.
@imnobody00
I am sure Pew Research is not infallible.
I have not read any statistical studies indicating that the birth rates in Muslim countries are declining.
I don’t pretend to know what the future will bring. But I think we can see a trend, and have a pretty good indication about whether Christianity is growing or Islam is growing.
I don’t believe that’s even up for debate, but it genuinely surprises me the level of denial about the growth of Islam worldwide.
If Christianity is in fact the religion that is growing or even staying at pat, I’d love to see reports about this, if you can share.
Oscar
“Pachamama” is an Inca fertility goddess that also appears in “Santeria” (literally “worship of saints”), which is a blend of African and Native American paganism with Catholicism.
Santeria is old hat compared to the newer thing in parts of Mexico: Santa Muerte.
The 15th century Aztecs would approve. So far, the Roman Catholic church in Mexico condemns.
@constrainedlocus
“Scientists agree?” Please, take that appeal to authority and put it away forever.
First of all you said carbon 12/14 dating works off of the dead. Unless life existed the exact moment the earth was formed you would, at best, measure the existence of life not the earth itself. Please tell me how you would extrapolate the age of the earth we live on from the carbon dating of a living thing on it.
Secondly even Leftipedia disagrees with your use of carbon 12/14 to date things millions of years back.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating
” The older a sample is, the less 14
C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of 14
C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of older samples.”
50,000 years reliably dated turns, for the scientific atheist, into 5 million years! What a magic trick! I would ask you to teach me but, like most magic tricks, it’s just lies smokes and mirrors.
@ emery
The age of the earth was determined using uranium dating, not carbon.
The problem with any type of radiometric dating is that, in order to be accurate, you have to know the percentages of parent/daughter elements at t = 0, and you have to be certain that neither element was leached out of the sample, or introduced into the sample, at any time from t = 0 to the present.
Obviously, all of that impossible to know for certain.
Wow. Incredible.
So how old is the earth, fellas?
@Oscar
Game recognized: John Mcarthur is Alpha.
Telling a woman pastor to go home isn’t just brass balls behaviour, it’s also funny. The women in the audience obviously enjoying listening to an alpha, and were tittering in response.
OT
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/24/health/stds-are-sexist-against-women-wellness/index.html
Those pesky viruses and bacteria need to get woke!
The precise age of the earth has never had any impact on my belief in a God who created it all and who has placed demands on my behavior
“I always thought there was a reasonable middle ground for modern day Christians – where science and religious dogma could potentially co-exist. Nope. Guess I’m wrong again.
But if the scientists are completely useless and wrong, then what’s your alternative? Ken Ham? Ray Comfort? Kirk Cameron?
C’mon man.
BTW, all I originally said was Christianity is not growing.”
Hyperbole and binary thinking. If the atheist scientists are completely useful and 200% correct, why not let them chop off all the weiners of boys with a higher energy level than others? Or blast their infant brains with adderall? After all the modern scientific community is more than willing to excommunicate anyone who says otherwise. Didn’t you hear DNA is racist! Rule by scientific consensus right?
To get back to the point the modern scientific community is as faith based, possibly moreso, than any religion. The modern institutions are just as corrupt and decayed as the worst Catholic hellholes. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and to claim that Christians say their institutions are infallible is also incorrect (unless they are themselves deluded). Institutions are as fallible as their humans and Christians say that humans are fallen and evil by nature. Only scientists, apparently, claim to “”not pretend to have all of the answers and in addition they remain open to new information and facts”. If you have spent any time in academia you would see how laughably incorrect that is. Steady State/Big Bang, Quasicrystals, Phamra-money chasing, doctoring global temperature data, over prescribed meds, etc. There are good individuals, be they priests or scientists. No need to cherry pick or no-true-scientist here.
To address the latter point Christianity is growing hugely in China. The Chinese era, if it ever comes about, may be another Christian one.
For those involved in the creation/science discussion, you may wish to check this out.
What if Genesis doesn’t actually deal with the age of the Earth? That’s John Walton’s hypothesis as set forth in a three-video presentation he made at the 2016 Hayward Lectures at Acadia Divinity College in Canada.
On the age of the earth/universe: indeed in current dominant thinking the universe and the earth appear much older than 6000 year. As someone who has followed such debates in depth, I can say that “science” of the history of the universe is based on a load of assumptions which are in itself unproven. More than once such assumptions have been proven false by e.g. radioactive carbon measured in diamonds, helium in rocks, polonium radiohalos, modern oil formation etc. I’m enough of a realist to know that although science of the history is probably wrong on some points, I cannot prove it, but on the other hand I do still believe in God’s revelation in Scripture, because that is how God has revealed Himself to me. I’m now satisfied to live with such scientific uncertainty while fully trusting God who has revealed:
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
@constrainedlocus
“I have not read any statistical studies indicating that the birth rates in Muslim countries are declining.”
You only have to google it and you go straight to the World Bank Data. This is the aggregate for MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=ZQ
From 7 children per woman to less than 3 per woman, it seems a decline to me. But this is the aggregate. Countries like Iran or Lebanon are 2.1 births per woman. These are data until 2017. The 2019 data are even lower:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-fertility-rate/
The demographic transition has arrived late to the Muslim world but it has arrived. Only Sub-Sahara Africa has a strong demography and they are mostly Christians.
“I don’t believe that’s even up for debate, but it genuinely surprises me the level of denial about the growth of Islam worldwide.”
Everything is up for debate, because religion is not a simple phenomenon that can be measured in a poll such as age or income. Religion is a multi-factorial phenomenon. Even Christianity and Islam are not directly comparable because of the different culture associated with every religion. You treat Pew report as if it was the law of gravity, something that it is not even up for debate. But the sources of this report are not completely sound.
I am not saying that Islam is not growing but I think it is debatable. Debating is the core of a rational argument.
“If Christianity is in fact the religion that is growing or even staying at pat, I’d love to see reports about this, if you can share.”
Well, you didn’t even bother to watch the video I sent you so why should I become your research assistant without salary? When you said that “I have not read any statistical studies indicating that the birth rates in Muslim countries are declining”, you didn’t even care to google it and you showed your ignorance of a EXTREMELY BASIC fact. I have better things to do than wasting my time searching stuff that you don’t want to read because you have made your mind.
@Emery
I didn’t realize Christianity was growing to such an extent in Communist China.
Do you have some information or research you can share on this?
If true that would be a very interesting change to watch.
Just 2% of 1.4B (2017) is already a lot of Christians.
@Everybody.
Regardless of the age of the Universe, I want to clarify that Christianity does not require a literalistic reading of the Genesis.
This is not breaking news. Saint Augustine (fifth century) claimed that Genesis should not be interpreted in a literal way. Saint Ireneus (130-202AD) was one of the oldest Christian intellectuals (disciple of Polycarp, who was disciple of apostle John). He claimed that Adam and Eve never existed.
Of course, other Christian thinkers have thought otherwise. But the literalistic reading is not mandatory to be a Christian.
@imnobody00
Thanks for the response and sharing the links. I will study these.
I think that the takeaways from the creation story could be:
1) The universe doesn’t exist by accident
2) Our personal existence isn’t per some random chance or event.
3) God was pleased with His creation. So much so that when Sin separated us from Him, He sent his only begotten Son to make things right.
Can I propose an alternative to forfeiting because sonme girl shows up at a Football game or wrestling match?
We are told 24/7/365 that “women are strong, powerful, and amazing”. We are also told “anything men can do, women can do better.” Ok. How about we test that out in real life?
How about the boys CHARGE and knock her out silly? How about they play Football as if 120lbs little Nancy is a 350lbs pissed off linebacker and CHARGE as if our lives depended on it?
How about we grab little Nancy and slam her on the ground as if she was a ragged doll and win the match?
Maybe there would be a national outcry. Maybe parents would be outraged. Maybe, just maybe little Nancy and all girls watching would understand not to get involved in male sports.
We need a chance in strategy here. The “trans men” competing in women’s sports have taken female-only scholarships, won trophies, and have changed female-only priviledged sports real quick. Maybe the “trans” men understand this scam and are gaming the system. Maybe it is time we hetero males do the same.
Just an idea.
Frank K says:
October 24, 2019 at 3:48 pm
OT
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/24/health/stds-are-sexist-against-women-wellness/index.html
Those pesky viruses and bacteria need to get woke!
In the early 1980s, I was studying Microbiology. One of the topics was Epidemiology.
The CDC’s results of the Gonorrhea (once called “more common than the common cold”)epidemic had just come out.
The results: More than 50% of sexually active women and 12% of sexually active men had an infection.
We were shocked. Wasn’t sex, after all one-on-one?
The 80/20 rule was present, alive and well, and we couldn’t comprehend it.
In epidemiological studies since, this rule has been replicated with HPV, Chlamydia and certain aspects of HIV.
It has also too been replicated with Tinder and all other on-line dating apps: 80% of women will sleep with 20% of men.
Freud got psychoanalysis wrong because he tried looking at patients as individuals. Statistical studies of the sort outlined above give a much more accurate picture of human, particularly women’s behaviour than ever psychoanalysis could.
I want to clarify that Christianity does not require a literalistic reading of the Genesis.
literalistically speaking that is true, however God spoke to Moses and gave him two stone tablets of the covenant law on which it was written by the finger of God Himself: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Is that also reading it too literalistic?
“literalistically speaking that is true, however God spoke to Moses and gave him two stone tablets of the covenant law on which it was written by the finger of God Himself: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Is that also reading it too literalistic?”
7 is the number of completeness and perfection. Was Jesus named Immanuel?
God exists outside of time, and during the events of creation there is no earthly reference point for days. Did he literally rest on the 7th day(relative to what would this 7th day be)?
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. There is moreover, no Sabbath day in the laws of Noah. The Old Testament is difficult to understand without the New Testament, written in metaphor and allegory. If it might simply be understood literally, what then is Jesus’s role as revelation? You know how God taught us in the flesh, why would his manner of teaching differ from age to age? I do not find in the Bible lessons on astronomy, horticulture, or architecture.
Consider how often God portrays himself as wrathful, and then consider Jonah’s complaint against God for His merciful nature. Is God wrathful? Is God jealous? Or does He discipline those He loves?
@Pokesalad: On transgender children and Molech, the Bee speaks:
https://babylonbee.com/news/moloch-will-now-accept-forcing-your-kids-to-become-transgender-in-lieu-of-actual-sacrifice
You’re welcome.
@Gage
What’s the sermon called? I would like to search it up.
@Spike
Thanks for the article link. That shocking CNN article you posted was something else. The leftwing-tinted article states: “…girls are most at risk. The CDC estimates people ages 15 to 24 acquire half of all new STD cases, while one in four sexually active adolescent girls has an STD”.
You are likely correct that the Paretto Principle, the famous “80/20”, appears to be even more reasonable and even more plausible when you look at the STD stats. When looking at singles in America using the 80/20 principle, 80% of single women and banging 20% of the single men. That would explain why STD rates are so much higher in women then in men.
A large group of women are sharing the same limited pool of men, thus enabling a smaller group of men to have very high rates of STDs and a wide number of women to have some STD.
I would bet if we looked at the women and men in question, we would probably see the 20% male cohort would overwhelmingly share similar traits: alpha, good-looking, wealthy, with status. Like the “prank” videos we see of goofy nerdy kids pulling women on sidewalk because they have a Ferrari, for instance.
Then we have the victim mindset of modern women today. They say girls are the real victims of HPV. Really?!?! Guys can ONLY get HPV from women and when they get it, they almost always get it through oral given to women and it turns into throat cancer for men.
But the issue, the article concludes, is not science and how human sexuality works and how diseases are transmitted. Oh NOOOOOO. The issue is SEXISM. Viruses, bacteria, and diseases target poor, innocent women! -_- Diseases are sexist!
What is also terrifying is to think how now the most basic. Of scientific fields are now being treated being treated as some sort of “sexist social construct” instead of pure biology and disease transmission.
To view STDs and their transmission, which according to the CNN is some sort of social construct, is completely insane. There is no way around it. But that is where science is going now; it is getting politicized and also used to further female victimology mentality. See, women are the victims here. Female promiscuity and seeking after 20% of the top men is not the problem. The problem is disease transmission is sexist.
Did you hear that Seattle public schools are now teaching that “math is a racist tool of oppression”? Yeah, these Seattle kids are gonna do great in a globally-competitive economy.
@vandicus: I find it difficult to extract a single line of thought out of your reply, maybe you’ve condensed it too much into a seemingly too loosely connected series of questions.
Is God wrathful? Is God jealous? Or does He discipline those He loves?
Yes, yes, AND yes, but you seem to think these are contradictory.The only way we know this about God, is because that is what He has revealed about Himself, to His prophets, and to His servants, and which is faithfully recorded in Scripture.
If it might simply be understood literally, what then is Jesus’s role as revelation?
Jesus came to reveal God the Father, and to reveal what was hidden from the beginning: that God Himself would provide for a sacrifice, and that God Himself was that sacrifice, to let us die towards our sinful nature, and be made alive again in rebirth by the Holy Spirit, so that the trinity can indwell in each of us and have communion with us, and create us into the mystical body of His Son, the Church. That same Holy Spirit has been given to lead us into the truth, together with all the saints, especially in knowing God. At the same time some things are not yet revealed to us, and we see a mystery.
God exists outside of time
That’s only a half-truth; God has chosen to interact with His creation inside time, especially during revelation. The nature of Scripture is that of recording of and of being God’s revelation. Without Him revealing Himself, we would be fully left in the dark. One of the pinnacles of God’s revelation in history was Him descending upon mount Sinai, giving the Sinaitic Law to Moses on two stone tablets, written by God’s own finger. It’s at the core, at the very heart of the Old Covenant, and was 100% confirmed by Jesus the Messiah when He came to fulfill the requirements of the same Law, such that all those who believe in Him will die in Him to the same Law, to be born again into a New Covenant, which He established by the shedding of His blood.
The Old Testament is difficult to understand without the New Testament, written in metaphor and allegory.
The Old Testament is written in much more than only metaphor and allegory. It contains poetry, songs, laws of all kinds, history, and most importantly, it contains the words God directly spoke to His servants, which is one of the most astonishing things one can imagine.
“As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up and the Lord said to him [..] ‘Go down and bring Aaron up with you.’ [..] And God spoke all these words : ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’ [..] ‘Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. [..] For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.’
I’m good to trust God on His word.
Not everywhere where you see a factor 4 popping up, the Pareto Principle can be called in. The PP describes a feature of power law distributions where ~ 80% of the effects come from ~ 20% of the causes. In the above case that cause is supposedly ‘men with STDs cause STDs in women who have sex with them’ (the article complains about women getting easier infected), which would when the PP is applicable would translate into 20% of men with STDs cause 80% of the STDs in women without STDs who have sex WITH THEM. I don’t see how that translates into “80% of single women bang 20% of single men”, enlighten me.
I think the observations though are very interesting, and hearing a remark from a scientist to call bacteria and viruses ‘sexist’ sounds like feminism obscuring good scientific practice. Women are 4 times more likely to get STDs than men, is that because they are 4 times more easily infected, or have 4 times more sex, or …?
God is allowing all of this evil to happen.
Not to say he condones it, much less approves. But He is, although not “behind this mess,” allowing it to go on. He permitted the stealth-takeover of every important Western institution by Satanists (call them Communists, socialists, New Agers, whatever–they’re all Satan’s children). While He didn’t exactly bless them, He permitted them to brutalize, ruin, and destroy the decent people who stood up to them, with no real Earthly consequences. The Left and Evil have been on the winning trend for a very long time, because God permits it.
Moses successfully stopped God from punishing the Israelites, when they richly deserved it, several times. How? Moses argued and pleaded. As Christ, Himself, said in the parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8), inundate God with your supplications, and He will listen.
Around here, there’s a lot of intense, albeit pointless, infighting about minutiae like the age of the Universe. Or who has the Official Divine Truth (TM) about religion.
If we expended that energy on “storming heaven” with pleas for mercy, justice, and an end to injustice, God would listen. We can’t predict how or when, but it WOULD happen. And if this is The Final Days, who’s to say that our prayers won’t moderate the ugliness of Revelation?
@Paul
God in the Old Testament is not fully revealed. He expresses himself in a such a way that humanity can understand him. Justice looks wrathful or jealous to us because we do not comprehend how grave sin is. Our relation and connection to God was severed or veiled in some fashion by original sin, and restored by Jesus as the last Adam. If one reads the Old Testament as might have the Jews, they will have the same understanding as the Jews.
God does not change His mind. Genesis mentions God feeling regret for having created man, is this literal?(I will disagree with you that God is wrathful and jealous, this is Him representing Himself in a fashion comprehensible to humans) TheTraveler also mentions Moses’s intercession for the Israelites. I maintain that the intercession was what God was aiming for.
In short:
1. God often does not communicate in a strict literal sense, but rather to some effect or purpose.
2. We have reasonable evidence that suggests the universe and all things living in it were not created in 7 days(6 rather, strictly speaking)
3. Therefore it is reasonable to hold that in this instance that what is communicated is not literal. It would have no theological import moreover.
Two articles about Chinese Christianity. It should be noted, as the articles say too, that many churches in China have to be underground because of government action. They (government) did recently dynamite the largest Christian Church in China because it was getting too large.
There’s also a sharp divide between foreigner missionaries and the domestic ones because the gov puts restrictions on any foreigner trying to evangelise but let Chinese Nationals do so if they wish.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/china-accused-emasculate-christianity-secret-conference-communist-party
“If you want to be a faithful follower and minister of the Word of God in China, the first theological course you need to take is not ‘Systematic Theology’, or hermeneutics, it’s called ‘Prison Theology’.”
That’s one reason why there are more Christians in China than in the USA.
You’re welcome.
I should sue for infringement 😉
Well, we can’t have slut shaming, can we?
I remember almost 40 years ago when a young female acquaintance of mine complained of the unfairness that only women had to suffer menses, menstrual cramps, pregnancy and the child birth. As if biology was sexist. Nevermind that women on average live longer than men. Where is the fairness in that?
Yeah, I saw that. Of course the UMC will enroll their 1.1 children (or is it 0.9 children?) in private schools. I know that Parochial Schools have transformed themselves from an affordable choice for working class families into schools for the Church’s UMC as the prices have skyrocketed. Some home school and others go the charter school route, understanding that regular public schools have turned into holding pens and brainwashing centers for those who will someday be depending on “Universal Basic Income”, welfare and charity to get by.
@Scott: I didn’t realize you’d gone to The Master’s College. Was Dr. Charles Smith there when you were? He was a mentor of mine in his teaching position that pre-dated TMC.
With respect to whether male passersby were at fault for not intervening to help the woman who was attacked by an elk: There is no obligation to risk oneself to help another. That’s why we call those who do heroes. Men are often better positioned due to superior physical strength to perform acts of heroism – and we applaud them (as we should) when they do. But heroism is not confined to one gender. When you keep your eyes open, you see stories of heroic women all the time: https://bcheights.com/2019/09/29/woman-saves-man-dog-drowning-reservoir/
@constrained locust
When Islam was at its height. Was it a coincidence that Mongols burst out of Asia like how God determined Babylon and Assyria?
@Lurker
Its also that heroism is more tied with male sex role. Which makes such more frequent among men. And the fact that sperm is less valuable than eggs.
@Lurker
I have always been naturally a “hero type”. But taking the Red Pill before 30 was a game-changer for me. I stopped being a hero (“white knight” of sorts) and not only I ended my liability for getting involved, people respected me more.
Being a hero in America today will get you a blurp on the news and open yourself up for civil litigation if something goes wrong or if you do not act like a medically-trained EMT.
Dalrock discussed this at length about the heroic men of the Titanic, going down with the ship to save “women and children”.
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/the-gift-transformed-into-a-debt/
But back then, there was actual GRATITUDE to the heroes. There was praise. There were memorials. Today, there is almost no praise and tons of risks and even scorn for “heroes” especially male heroes.
Try breaking up a girl-boy fight on the street. Even if you call the cops or break-up the fight (where she is getting pummeled), she is not gonna want her “hot” abusive boyfriend in jail. She is going to turn on YOU and accuse you for “getting involved” and abusive boyfriend is getting laid tonight while you are now gonna go through jail booking and spend thousands to get an attorney to defend you in the case. The arrest record will show up online for life.
The guys taught me this rule in Ukraine: “mind your affairs”. I started doing that, like the locals. The women there appreciate their men much much more than the women here appreciate the white knights douchie-types.
Something to think about.
MacArthurs associations on the doctrine of justification are deeply disturbing, and sad to see. Time has made that more clear.
He endorsed Piper and the idea of Christian hedonism long ago. Phil Johnson says he is a close friend of Doug Wilson (an apostate for numerous reasons, but especially on justification).
MacArthur blurs the line between justification and sanctification, while saying he is reformed. The truth is he redefined terms.
I know a lot of people mention it, but macarthurs comment about taking the mark of the beast and remaining in the faith directly contradicts revelation 14. And he is supposed to be an expert on eschatology.
I am glad to see all these charlatan idols fall. However, the churches in the west have been torn asunder by false doctrine and wolves.
Yup you nailed it….awesome comment my friend 😊
This is where Dalrock loses me. I love a lot of what he has to say against feminism and find much of his perspective to be very insightful. However.
It seems like a far more reasonable take on Sumpter would be to say that they both agree that men shouldn’t tackle women, but while Dalrock would just be more direct and say “no” to the girls that want to play on boys’ teams, Sumpter is more lenient about it.
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to try to pain what Sumpter is saying as some kind of insidious feminism. It’s really not that hard to say, “yes, we both agree that men shouldn’t tackle women.” This is as believable to me as a feminist saying that men holding the door open for women is somehow oppressing them. It’s as believable as communists who think that low wages are oppression, but so are high wages because that’s just the capitalist class trying to buy off the worker class.
To the extent that Dalrock views nearly everything as infected with feminism and “chivalry” is the extent to which he appears to me to be as ideologically constrained as the feminists he argues against. When examples (men justifying women preaching) as well as their counter-examples (men defending MacArthur) are both held up as proving the same point (insidious feminism), I think we’ve gone overboard.
The Federalist had a tagline recently (I don’t have the link): “Feminism is a woman’s nagging fear that she may have been inadvertently generous to her family.” Sometimes Dalrock strikes me as being so paranoid of feminism that the same is true of him: “Dalrock’s anti-feminism is his nagging fear that he may have been generous to a woman.” It seems wrong to characterize Sumpter’s obviously sincere concern for the well-being of women as being a kind of “unconscious bias” revealing his inner feminist.
Again, generally love what I find here. Just trying to say that I think it goes overboard sometimes.