Commenter Robert gives an example of how modern Christians can’t conceive of Christianity separate from what we call chivalry (courtly love):
I’m not clued up on chivalry, but Jesus loving us enough to die for us seems like chivalry to the max- and Paul tells husbands to love like that in Ephesians 5!
This is a very difficult snare to escape from. Conflating Christianity with the parody of Christianity is so natural, so effortless, and the idea of Christianity separate from courtly love is so horrifyingly alien. As I wrote in the comment thread before Robert chimed in that Christianity is chivalry (courtly love) to the max:
Christianity teaches that marriage is what makes sex moral (marriage is sanctifying), and that marriage is the moral place for sex and romantic love. Courtly love twisted this and taught that romantic love is what sanctifies sex, and that adultery is the only right place for romantic love. Christianity teaches that a wife should submit to her husband with fear and reverence. Courtly love taught that a man should submit to another man’s wife with fear and reverence. This is, in a word, evil, and the wreckage of this evil thinking is all around us.
It is worth noting that over the centuries the idea has been morphed, until the idea of courtly love was moved (to some extent) from adultery into marriage. If anything this only completed the corruption of Christian marriage. It also is the logical basis for no fault divorce, as a noted Puritan poet realized back in the 1600s. With this newly morphed version of the disease, whereas Christianity taught that it is immoral for a husband or wife to deny the other sex, modern Christians now believe that it is immoral for a wife to have sex with her husband if she isn’t in the thrall of sexual desire (which is difficult to distinguish from romantic love).
This is probably how legislators justified ‘marital rape’ laws as well. Having some expectation of fidelity (i.e. not denying sex) is misogyny and is considered “Not loving her enough” in marriage 2.0. Him denying sex is still domestic abuse I’m sure. Double standard.
Dalrock, you might want to re-think the order of the clauses in your final sentence. The first and third are logically connected, but disconnected by the second, which confused me intially. I read it as the second being a description of the first.
[D: Sorry, I’m not following. Can you propose what you think would be the correct wording?]
Please excuse my plain language.
Dalrock, I’m confident you are mistaken regarding the sanctifying power of the marriage “sacrament.” Marriage literally begins with sexual intercourse, not vows before a cleric. A marriage without consummation isn’t a marriage. As I’ve posted here and elsewhere, Jesus made this crystal clear when his disciples, upon learning that a man should not divorce his wife except for adultery, concluded it is better not to marry. Jesus responded, exhaustively, “If you can live without your dick, don’t marry.”
I like my dick, so I’ll keep using it to screw MY wife, and only MY wife, not some other man’s wife, and, per Jesus’ clarification, I’ll not be so hard-hearted as to ditch my wife unless she first screws some other man.
Said differently, a Christian man is not to screw whores, not women already committed to another man. Once a Christian man picks a woman to screw, which is to say, “wed,” he is obliged to that woman as long as she remains faithful to him. This is “marriage” without all the details.
It is important to comprehend that this plan for marriage is applicable to ALL MEN without exception. Paul describes additional constraints upon Christian men (which I’ll omit in this comment) but the plan for marriage isn’t subject to sanctification.
Wonderfully stated. Now where does the government fit into all this? In the U.S. Uncle Sam is the wife’s bull and the husband their indentured cuckold.
Ah, Lancelot. I mentioned in the previous thread how much I enjoyed Lancelot’s theme song, “C’est Moi.” What’s interesting to me personally is that even as a young teenager I picked up on the irony of Lancelot’s egotistical swagger and his being wrecked by his adultery with Guinevere.
The lesson I learned as a young Catholic boy was that as I tried to be chaste I needed to beware of gorgeous redhead thots when they come along. We didn’t call them thots back then, of course.
“The soul of a knight should be a thing remarkable
His heart and his mind as pure as morning dew
With a will and a self-restraint, that’s the envy of ev’ry saint
He could easily work a miracle or two
To love and desire he ought to be unsparkable
The ways of the flesh should offer no allure
But where in the world, is there in the world
A man so untouched and pure, c’est moi
C’est moi! C’est moi, I blush to disclose, I’m far too noble to lie
That man in whom, these qualities bloom
C’est moi, c’est moi, ’tis I, I’ve never strayed from all I believe
I’m blessed with an iron will
Had I been made the partner of Eve we’d be in Eden still
C’est moi, c’est moi, The angels have chose to fight
Their battles below and here I stand, as pure as a prayer
Incredibly clean, with virtue to spare, the Godliest man I know, c’est moi “
The husband/wife illustration is just one of many which God has chosen to describe our relationship to Him. There are several other biblical illustrations to how Christ relates to His People and I don’t think any one is a complete reflection of all the nuances of the relationship. There’s the king/subject, parent/child, shepherd/sheep, master/slave, creator/creature, and friend/friend aspects to a christian’s relationship to God.
What ends up happening when people encounter in the Bible uncomfortable subjects (authority/submission) is they come up with ways of redefining what is actually said. For example, people use Ephesians 5:21 “Submit to one another” to cancel out Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands” thereby inventing the nonsensical doctrine of “mutual submission” within marriage. And because people are cognizant of the illustrative relationship between a husband and Christ to a wife and the church you get this false doctrine of mutual submission applied to Christ and the church. Obviously this doesn’t work with any other of the biblical illustrations because a king wouldn’t be much of a king if he was submitting to his subjects.
There’s also somewhat of a false equivalency going on between the Ephesians 5:25 imperative for the husbands to “…love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” and “Christ is chivalrously and submissive to the church”.
If Jesus had been submissive, He would stay with His Mary and Joseph instead of “going about His father’s business”, He would have not “fulfilled all righteousness” and instead would have baptized John, His followers would have made Him king of Judea 2000 years ago, He would have been thrown off a cliff, His aunt would have her “sons of thunder” sitting at His right and left hand, He would have given Peter a sponge bath in the upper room, and The Romans would have been overthrown and all of humanity would be doomed to hell for their sins with no hope of salvation.
On my Facebook feed, someone shared a post about a wedding where the husband washed his wive’s feet specifically to replicate Christ washing the feet of his disciples. They quoted Ephesians 5:25 and cited that this act was a symbol of how the husband would from then on “give up his life for his wife.” The bride went on to say that “being a leader means being a servant, which means I get priority in deciding where to eat on date nights and he’ll get up in the middle of the night to soothe the babies when I’m too tired.”
It astounds me how everyone ignores the previous verse in Ephesians 5:24 in the ceremony, which, if we wanted to display what that verse talks about that would mean the bride vowing to obey her husband. That happens to be explicitly said in the verse, whereas people are only interpreting the servant leader aspect in the husband’s verse.
It really goes to show how wrong this interpretation is because solely relegating Christ’s role as “servant” is honestly blasphemous. As if Christ only ever acted as the servant of others without leading, rebuking, and commanding. When we look at the example of Christ, it’s clear that the latter was his main attribute and the former a complementary auxiliary. But for his subjects, being a servant is the sole attribute, without any injunction to lead, rebuke, or command Christ.
But no one wants to remember to include that in the symbolism…
Isn’t the sex=marriage thing disproven by the line “it is better to marry than to burn (with passion)”?
If sex is marriage, the thing done in the heat of passion–I should point out, then why say that? Wouldn’t “burn away in passion (with your one wife/husband)” be a more appropriate statement? There is considerable condemnation of acting on lust throughout the entire Bible, and the establishment of husbandly ownership of a woman is treated as distinct from sex with that woman as far back as Adam and Eve. Adam didn’t “know” Eve at the same time they were married. Gen 2:23, 25 illustrates what I mean here, in 23 Adam establishes that Eve is flesh of his flesh, and in 24 concludes with the logical operator “therefore” a man will leave his parents and become one flesh with his wife. The act of cleaving happens to a man’s wife, that is, she is his wife prior to the consummation of the marriage.
That passage also establishes that a husband and wife are considered a single entity, at least, that’s how I read “flesh of my flesh” and “become one with his wife”, not as poetry but as a literal description. An oath before God to become a single entity, to face the trials of life as a unit, appears first. Women railing against becoming a single entity with their husband is an explicit part of the curse placed on women in Gen 3:16.
Christ even draws attention to the fact that the prostitute at the well doesn’t have a husband. The prostitution is almost an afterthought to the sin of engaging in sex without a husband here.
As a note: I’m not suggesting that this singular husband-wife entity shares the burden of each other’s sins, just that the marital state is a deeper spiritual connection than what sex does.
Always interesting to see who shows up to change the subject, and how early in the comments.
Dalrock, you are clearly hitting some nerve lines with this issue.
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AR
It’s becoming less and interesting and more irritating.
Next let’s talk about who really killed JFK.
Or whether or not jet fuel can melt steel.
A couple other things that they avoid mentioning. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Self-sacrificing love is not exclusive to the husband, it is not even exclusive to marriage (as the martyrs can well attest). The analogy being employed is clearly being made in the more comprehensive sense of the shepherd/flock relationship, not death and receipt of grace.
One might also note that love and indulgence or permissiveness do not sit in the same corner. Rather rebuking and discipline is from love.
It’s becoming less and interesting and more irritating.
The Flat Earth society is probably growing in membership, too.
@AR
HAHA i was about to say the exact same thing.
Must suck to write a whole blog post, gathering data for your post, providing links and sauce for every point made… only for some clown to show up early and take a shit.
There should be a spreadsheet recording all the times someone’s changing the subject, who’s doing it, how early in the comments, and which subject they are changing to. Heck, I volunteer lol
@AR
I hope god brings them home early. The fact that they are teaching it as gospel alongside the gospel of Jesus Christ is in my opinion a sin. May their foolishness be their own quick end.
@Anti-fem, I saw the same post on my feed, and it came through a guy I highly respect, an Orthodox seminarian whom, though I do not know him personally, has always been very helpful with my questions about Orthodoxy, and has been instrumental in my getting closer to the Orthodox Church.
I had seen before from other posts of his that he seems to share the “universal blind spot” modern Christians have in regard to this. Because I am to him more in a position of student, I don’t know how (or whether) I should approach the subject.
Ranger-
If you complete your road home to Orthodoxy, you will most likely go through a honeymoon period of sorts with the church. Then, you will realize, that the majority of priests have been converged on this issue and will have to come to grips with some kind of work around.
Orthodoxy has, however, as its main advantage a canonical tradition that is 2000 years old and with that in place has the best hope to return to sanity. A purge of the destructive “servant leader” canard is at least possible, in fact I pray for her sake, likely.
You MAY find some luck if you steer away from the churches that are more likely to engage in this nonsense, (like the Greeks and the OCA) and more toward a group that tends to resist change (like the Russians and the Serbs). But you still never really know.
I was growing quite fond of a particular priest who seemed to say all the right things about headship — even on social media he would do this. But then he would choke in the presence of any woman telling her sob story about how abusive her ex-husband was or would offer stupid non sequitur arguments like “well what if he orders me to rob a bank?”
He would go weak in the knees, totally unable to see that his natural male protective instinct combined with his position of authority was being manipulated.
I confronted him about a couple times, as respectfully as I knew how. I would do it off line. I would say “do you see how many men fled your presence right after you did that? How many left the conversation?”
I would explain to him about white knighting. I would explain to him that this is the worst enemy men who really want to lead their families have. He would appear to listen and hear me, but time and again it would happen. I think he is a good man, I just won’t follow him.
The best you can do is when you go to confession, frame the conversation to lead the priest down the path you need from him. It sounds weird, but it goes like this.
“I made a decision for my family and it did not go well. It did not work out as I wanted and now I have let them down.”
Any Orthodox pries who is at least able to recognize what is happening WILL NOT say “well what gave you the right to make a unilateral decision?” He WILL NOT go down the “if mamma aint happy, nobody’s happy” bullshit road. THAT would be a converged priest.
Instead, he will help you find better ways to not make the mistake again, without questioning your authority to make them. If you find that, stay. It really is the best you are going to get.
… just a little bit more
The reason an Orthodox priest — even one whose knee jerk instinct is something like “chivalry” — knows what to say in that situation is that he knows the all the church fathers and the saints have chimed in on this topic in the canons, the homilies, and they are in total consensus.
They are not permitted to go against the consensus’s of the fathers.
@scott, ar, whoever else
When you make claims people are allowed to respond. People viciously attacked Owen Benjamin, with more vitriol than they would an abortionist or tranny or maybe even a child rapist because he believes the Earth is not round. Is it evil to believe such a thing? Why does it bother you so much?
For the guy cursing me with death, repent.
@Tteclod
The law stated that a rapist (a person who took something that wasn’t his not necessarily by force) would be married. So they obviously felt some importance to the legal binding. Since the ceremony today has no legal value, it can be dispensed with, I think, so long as both parties are fully cognizant of what they are agreeing to.
As for the woman at the well I don’t see how she exists without being stoned without some piece of paper saying she’s married. She was engaging in serial monogamy from my reading of the passage.
Marriage is a contract with rights and duties. People having sex with no intention of entering a marriage contract are fornicators. To be married in the eyes of the church, the church needs to recognize the contract and ensure its validity, hence the need for a witness. Same goes for the state, though sometimes church and state have different ideas about what constitutes a valid marriage.
“@scott, ar, whoever else
When you make claims people are allowed to respond. People viciously attacked Owen Benjamin, with more vitriol than they would an abortionist or tranny or maybe even a child rapist because he believes the Earth is not round. Is it evil to believe such a thing? Why does it bother you so much?
For the guy cursing me with death, repent. ”
The problem is not the belief that many think is silly and unserious. The problem is WHY the silly belief is being promulgated. It is my belief, based on observations of the statements and behavior of Owen Benjamin and the dread ilk (their term), that they are deliberately sowing discord amongst people who otherwise would be beloved brethren, and, the Bible says, that is evil and wicked and a rotten thing to do. Those guys WANT us to be wrapped around the axles of these tangents instead of confronting the roots of our problems. Sowing discord can be as bad as other more infamous kinds of crimes.
Proverbs 6:
16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Interesting thread. I have enjoyed it.
In the RC church, I know of a priest who thinks that “the poor” deserve my stuff as a matter of “social justice”. It is not a matter of charity or mercy — SOCIAL JUSTICE demands that they get my stuff if they are in need no matter what they did to get in that situation. This idea is pernicious.
Perhaps our host will write about that one of these days. I would love to read that post and the comments that would follow.
@dpmonahan
But the church largely does not recognize the validity of marriages. That is the problem dalrock talks about all the time. The last people I’d give a shit about whether they thought my marriage was valid would be a church.
The state, church, conservatives, and liberals all agree on one thing. If a woman is unhappy she gets to go. They spiral about ridiculous examples like what if my husband asks me to rob a bank (actually inclined to say then rob a bank) and so encourage women to use their own judgement (something Paul warns against).
Paul says man has faith in God, and woman has faith in God by having faith in her man. It’s plainly written. His examples are stark.
God willing, I’ll marry. There is only one lawgiver I’ll care about as to the legitimacy of my marriage. It will probably not be in a church because the churchian system is wholly corrupt. It may not be legal, and it certainly won’t be if situation demands it. If the good Lord allows me it will be conducted by a friend because he’s the only Christian I personally know who is farther along the walk than me. If I have to conduct it in a church by an ordained minister and have the govt grant a license it will only be to avoid fights. The woman I marry will know the stakes and what she is signing up for in no uncertain terms. If she doesn’t like them there’s the door.
We can only trust God. My actual marriage contract will be a verbal one between me, my wife, and God. Putting trust in anything else is mysticism.
@Jake,
The problem with your stance is that big daddy government has already thought of such a scenario. Many Western countries have common-law marriages nowadays, so you can’t escape the clutches of government officials and family courts. Honestly, I’m not sure marriage can be a risk-free endeavour these days.
AR
It’s becoming less and interesting and more irritating.
Next let’s talk about who really killed JFK.
This, all day long.
Tired of the semantics and sophistry.
@Dalrock @Splashman
I think his issue is with “where Christianity teaches” and would be clarified if it said “whereas orthodox Christianity teaches”, but, yes, Splashman, the middle one is in contrast as what was forgotten of the true teaching of Jesus received through His apostles.
—
If they knew that John 16:27 said that God phileo’d instead of agape’d the disciples, not even that would uproot the belief for those who think the core teaching that husband-to-wife love is supposed to be a superhuman agape kind that is not expected to be reciprocated, but only phileo’d. They sure want to put additional weights on the back of Christian men who marry. Do those who think that there is so great a gulf between expected behavior of regenerate men and women in a marriage as to be comparable to the gulf between humans and God believe that Galatians 3:28 only applies when the leftists and Piper-feminists want to cudgel 1 Timothy 2:12?
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Relevant to Dalrock’s war against courtly love and Wilson & Friends.
I have been wanting to convey the point for a long time now, but the issue is not the issue. There is a greater problem than courtly love here. It will only get worse as people gravitate to Doug Wilson. As one of the few politically conservative christians with a following, people gravitate to him on politics, and then tacitly accept him as a sound teacher. The irony is that he shares the same theology as liberal John Piper. Their differences are superficial.
https://lexetiustitia.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/theological-rot-produces-christian-culture-that-agrees-with-courtly-love/
“Christianity teaches that marriage is what makes sex moral (marriage is sanctifying), and that marriage is the moral place for sex and romantic love. Courtly love twisted this and taught that romantic love is what sanctifies sex, and that adultery is the only right place for romantic love. Christianity teaches that a wife should submit to her husband with fear and reverence.”
These above statements from Bro. Dalrock is indeed factual and true.
Good stuff to read it “clarified”. Amen.
~ Bro. Jed
“The Enemy is subtle. How be it we are so deceived
When the truth’s in our hearts and we still don’t believe?
Bob Dylan – “Precious Angel”
The subtle inversion of sexual mores Dalrock alludes to is almost impossible to correct in the modern church. There is simply no stomach for the fight. The men in it want the back-stop of no judgement in case they fornicate. The women are worse: They want the back-stop of abortion so that they can avoid the consequences of their inevitable fornication. Rare is the woman who wants neither because she wants what is biblical.
That said, I don’t think anyone thinks adultery is moral, even in a context of chivalry. This would have been true even in the fictional Arthurian tales. Adultery is committed because we mindlessly follow passions and we don’t use our brains to think critically. What man in his right mind would do anything sexual with someone other than his wife in the era of #Metoo? In a legal environment where courts can legally strip him of everything?
Nor will we condemn sexual sin, because we are afraid of being called hypocrites. Yet the “hypocrite” label is a straw man. That’s because a hypocrite pretends to hate a sin. Someone who hates a sin, struggles with it and lapses back into it isn’t a hypocrite. He is a sinner.That difference has been lost.
@Ruz
I’m not trying to make marriage risk free. No gain without risk. If you want risk free you are a pussy. I seek to minimize risk, because that is prudent. I recognize the church, the state, and to a large extent my family as not an ally in this regard.
No such thing as common law marriage in the state I live. I believe that’s true in a large part of the us.
Truly, in the end, if I don’t want to be enslaved by alimony and have my house stripped from me I could always burn the damn thing down. She gonna take half my chickens? Or take my worldly possessions. Take them all. It’s just stuff.
Weird story but video game called Eve. Lots of scummy behavior in there. Basically spaceship wars but when they blow up they are gone forever. The best ships are incredibly rare and expensive and there was this one dude who liked flying them in pvp. This is insane behavior but he found it fun. He made a friend and they flew these ships together racking up kills and fighting a ton (you don’t really decline fights against a 50bill ship just in case you get to claim the kill).
Eventually he gave that guy hangar access and after a bit the guy betrayed him and stole his entire collection. When asked by the in game journos how he feels about the betrayal he said of course it sucked, but in the end it was just internet spaceships. He’d get more. What truly hurt was he lost a friend. He wondered if the guy felt the same way.
All the fighting over the material dross. Bible specifically forbids wiring about that
@spike
The whole point of the Arthur Lancelot Guinevere love triangle is the elevation of impossible love. Lancelot is considered holy because he burns with passion for another man’s wife. Jesus calls this adultery. Guinevere also loves Lancelot. This is also adultery. Instead of quelling their temporal passions they dwelt in them. Gloried in them as if burning with unrealized passion is the holiest you can be.
Because this is indeed retarded, they ultimately realize their passion. Guinevere commits treason and is not made to pay for it because Lancelot slays a just man to protect an adulterous woman. This is painted as a righteous act.
Sorry if double post
@Ruz @Jake
Common-law marriages is only found in seven states in the US at this point. The trend in the US is actually in the other direction with most states that previously recognized it passing legislation over the years eliminating it where it was otherwise recognized (my own state eliminated in 1852) and I believe Alabama was the most recent to eliminate it around 5 years ago. You will see some community property laws that deal with people that cohabitate, but they’re a function of splitting up co-owned property held by both parties but they’re not extremely common either.
There is some common-law marriage in other Anglosphere countries, but it’s not as common as people think because of the general misuse of the term. It won’t exist in non-Anglosphere countries (those that at one time were part of the British Empire), because their legal traditions are different.
@Dalrock:
Not Splashman, but I think I see what he meant. Edits in bold to clarify the sentence is an aside and not the point.
With this newly morphed version of the disease, whereas Christianity taught that it is immoral for a husband or wife to deny the other sex, modern Christians now believe that it is immoral for a wife to have sex with her husband if she isn’t in the thrall of sexual desire.
[D: Thanks. Technically Christianity hasn’t changed what it teaches, but I can see how this would clarify the larger meaning. I’ve changed it accordingly.]
This is probably the third trumpet judgement, the bitter waters. The second trumpet judgment was the fall of Rome by some accounts, and the forth trumpet judgement the religious wars following the reformation. The timing fits 11th or 12th century.
@cshort
What is called “common-law marriage” in anglosphere countries is called “civil union” in countries with the Continental law tradition.
As far as I know, there is very little difference between the two institutions.
No ranger, not the same thing
At least in Brazil, if you are living with someone (and in some notable cases, even when the couple is not living together), it is pretty much the same thing. Though it CAN be got into voluntarily, by going to a notary together and giving a statement, it can also be determined by a court to have existed after a separation, giving ailmony rights, child support rights, and rights to division of assets acquired during the union.
Which is pretty much what a common law marriage is, isn’t it?
At least in Brazil,
Brazilan law and custom has no authority in the Anglosphere, it is not relevant.
In the US child-support model of marriage, “birth of child” = de facto marriage. There are men in US prisons who have never been married but who owe enough back child support to be deemed criminals. Actually being married in the eyes of the anti-Family court gives a father a little more leverage, a few more rights, than unmarried. Not much and it may require a lot of legal gymnastics to exercise those rights, but it’s still better than effectively zero.I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
However at least this subtopic is relevant to the original posting in a tenuous fashion.
“.I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.”
And yet you contemptuously disdain people who make choices contrary to your own ignorant bias?
This is why it’s so hard for me not to lapse in to vociferous denigration.
And yet you contemptuously disdain people who make choices contrary to your own ignorant bias?
No, I am pointing out the facts as I have learned them. As Dalrock has pointed out multiple times, in the US “marriage” is now a child-support system, and that means the state is set up to extract child support from men. Therefore attempting to father children outside of marriage is even more dangerous for the average man than within it. This is a pro-marriage blogsite, the default preference is for marriage. Dalrock is openly Christian in his outlook, there are clear instructions in the Bible regarding marriage. In an anti-family court in the US a “common law” marriage will be treated pretty much the same as a regular marriage. So there’s no advantage to be gained.
Suggest you calm down and stop being so angry at everyone else. It doesn’t do you any good, and it doesn’t help anyone else. So what’s the point?
@Anonymous Reader
It is very difficult when the state butts it’s nose into marriage. I am a proponent of marriage before God and not the state, but it’s hard to reconcile it with ‘give unto ceasar’s what is ceasar’s’. Then again man’s laws, when they contradict what God says, make God’s law of no effect and are wrong. Marriage is something God made for man/woman so a manmade law messing with it is not simply giving Ceaser his due. I don’t know.
Would fleeing the state/nation for a man charged/divorced be an unsinful way to resolve it? Apostles have fled hostile authorities before. Or, as I said, simply refusing to file with the state? Or maybe wiping the dust of the western nations off your feet. Or simply prayer and hope for deliverance. I don’t know, but then again I’m not in a divorce so it may simply not be my place to discuss what to do in it. What are your thoughts?
It is very difficult when the state butts it’s nose into marriage.
Yes. The child-support model that has metastasized like a cancer over the last 30+ years has a lot of tentacles.
Would fleeing the state/nation for a man charged/divorced be an unsinful way to resolve it?
Proverbs 28 is a concept deeply embedded in US law: “flight is an admission of guilt”. A man who flees the US won’t be able to return under that situation, except to probably go to jail.
Apostles have fled hostile authorities before. Or, as I said, simply refusing to file with the state?
At this point the state doesn’t care about cohabitation, but cares a lot about child support. As I pointed out before, childbirth creates a child support obligation, which is de facto marriage.
Leaving the US is an option, but renouncing citizenship costs money over several years. There is a kind of exit tax.
I’m a bit terse over this because there was a multi-month long discussion at Rollo’s Rational Male about the whole “how can a man have children but not risk the divorce industry”. The tl;dr of that long, and sometimes pretty heated argument was : Not.
Sure, Rod Stewart has children born by three different women, he’s also pretty rich and not at all churchgoing. Not exactly a role model for the average 20-something churchgoing man.
tl;dr
if marriage scares a man that much, he should not marry. Churchgoing men who claim the Bible as their guide should read it and follow it. A man who wants to marry needs to have his mental frame of reference fully functional, understand the true nature of women (“The Glasses”), vet very carefully and be prepared for some difficulties. His church won’t back him up, either. See Deep Strength’s book for details.
Attempting to end-run the system will fail for any of us, and even more so for men who are Christian. Sorry for the length, I did not have time to fully think this comment out.
@Expat Philo
“Christ even draws attention to the fact that the prostitute at the well doesn’t have a husband. The prostitution is almost an afterthought to the sin of engaging in sex without a husband here.”
What source do you get that the woman at the well was a prostitute? Wasn’t she just married many times and living with someone not her husband?
Here is where we get into trouble defining who in the Bible is a whore, slut, harlot, etc. Does just sleeping around make one a harlot? If so, how many Christians violated St. Paul’s dictate about joining oneself to a harlot in Corinthians by marrying a non-virgin?
I follow the OTs definition of fornication as having sex with people or things you shouldn’t. There, sexual taboos are laid out fairly well in Leviticus and the lure of other women away from true belief, such as the Moabite women in Numbers at Peor. The Roman sacred harlots St. Paul mentions in Corinthians mentions these women.
Even married, Esau was accused of fornication with his wives in a popular work written around the time of Jesus called the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. Esau was blamed for fornication because he married FOREIGN wives.
At least in my home state the legal norm is fifty fifty custody. That directly impacts the child support calculation.
This is not from fear, it is preparation. Knowing the battlefield before I end up on it is prudence.
Seeking to avoid the field by vetting and stark honesty is also prudence. I show the way I’m going God willing and if she wants to follow then good.
It’s backwards from Courtly love. Lancelot doesn’t make any sense. I physically cringed the first time I read that foreword that vox posted
@ Jake: get a different church. Jesus founded the church, it can’t be completely corrupt. It is true that most denominations are shot through with garbage but as Scott mentions above, some churches at least have established canons and traditions you can hold them to.
@Damn Crackers
I think in part you’re running into translational difficulties. Fornication in the modern use of the word means sex, particularly out of wedlock sex. In some translations it is used in place of what might better be termed as sexual immorality(a broad word). The greek word is porneia.
Either way, becoming one flesh is used to refer to sex, and not marriage.
Since the context of that passage is sex and not marriage, I think what is being condemned is use of prostitutes. Otherwise there would be some oddity in having sex with a woman who was a virgin but where neither party was married being acceptable in the initial instance but not afterwards.
If the state (Caesar at any jurisdictional stratum) decides to assist and affirm Godly (monogamous, M/F) marriage, then there is no sin in assenting to the laws of the state in entering into that covenant. It is when we let Caesar tell us what marriage is (M/M, F/F, M/Truck, F/Bridge, F/self) that we are giving to Caesar what can only be God’s.
@Vandicus “Otherwise there would be some oddity in having sex with a woman who was a virgin but where neither party was married being acceptable in the initial instance but not afterwards.”
Yes, that was acceptable in the OT. Deuteronomy 22:28–29 –
28 If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
Note, there is no sin here. No blood needs to be shed. It is only a payment the man has to pay the father if he allows.
So, chivalry requires men to sacrifice themselves to women, and sigh at the women’s feet doing so, just in the hopes of her recognizing him–and granting him her favors, if she do condescends. Sounds an awful lot like feminism.
So, what’s in it for men?
“because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.”
Slightly before that you will find that a married woman not being a virgin is “playing the harlot in her father’s house”. Clearly this act renders a woman otherwise unmarriageable. To suggest there is no sin in such an act would be absurd. It is also silly to suggest the first instance of sex=no sin, second instance of sex(with the same man)=sin from Paul’s statement regarding uniting with harlots.
You’ll note the passages around it mention no sin sacrifice(penalties are often not discussed here), so your claim that it implies no sin is incorrect. Why should there be any price paid or obligation incurred if there is no sin?
The Mosiac law is not comprehensive on the nature of sin, and is indeed filled with accommodation and laws specific to the situation of the Israelites. Much of it is related to ritual purity, and not sin at all.
If you hold to the view that sex=marriage, the term betrothed used here does not mean engagement, it means marriage prior to consummation(ie certificate of divorce required and adultery considerations apply). Clearly the text considers the two to be distinct.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. – Acts 2:42-47
@dpmonahan
I did. We started an actual church. Let the pca, who vaunt themselves so highly, have their annual debate on women deacons. I will not engage in foolish talk with fools by attempting to use church law against the same snakes who wrote it. You spend any amount of time taking the Bible seriously and you will be a pariah at almost all modern churches. You need look no further than the apostles of this modern age. A pastor friend watched MacArthur sign a Bible. You are all aware of Piper. I’ll admit to ignorance about the up and comers but dalrock’s analysis of bayly wasn’t very promising.
I believe I’ve said it here before. It’s a ravenhill wore but he basically said seminaries are a place where a young man full of love for the Lord goes to have the for put out.
@Vandicus – “The Mosiac law is not comprehensive on the nature of sin, and is indeed filled with accommodation and laws specific to the situation of the Israelites. Much of it is related to ritual purity, and not sin at all.”
I guess this is where we part ways. I find much of the talk here on marriage and sex to follow the heresy of Marcion. But, I understand the orthodox position even though I don’t believe it.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to argue theology in a venue that is dedicated to the sanctity of marriage. We’re all brothers in Christ.
Hebrews 9:22 According to the Law, in fact, nearly everything must be purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Before Jesus dies for anyone He confronts the Hell out of them.
Before Jesus is a Savior He is a Lord [for we have no need for a savior if there is not a lord to confront us]. The church is full of people who rave and swing their hips that Jesus is their Savior while clearly blowing off His Lordship. Ahh …they then have no Savior.
And that is likewise marriage, for the wife clearly says [with the endorsement of every shepherd I have seen} “What lord?” Women don’t need husbands any more because they don’t need a savior in the home …for they allow no lord to confront them.
“Hath God said?” A clear and resounding ‘Fuck NO …and get outta my face!” by the woman, church shepherds, with many sympathetic and effectively effeminate men.
I’d like to think God is laughing at this pathetic bullshit, but He is angry as Hell, for it is the ONLY blasphemy against the Word of God that He breathed.
Tell them “Read the Scriptures” but they have, and they have ‘no ears to hear.’
Morons. Death walking.
“As for the woman at the well I don’t see how she exists without being stoned without some piece of paper saying she’s married. She was engaging in serial monogamy from my reading of the passage.”
Dude, she was the village whore.
No. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” That came before we were cleansed and renewed.
Jake,
Who says they want marriage to be risk free? You are raising an absurdity. The risk is way out of whack for the reward now though and some have withdrawn because of that. That is not evil, it is weighing the options.
Jesus said that someone should think about things and count the cost before taking action. Why do you insist men not do it for marriage?
The modern system has made many men eunuchs (“made eunuchs by men”). Don’t blame them.
“As for the woman at the well I don’t see how she exists without being stoned without some piece of paper saying she’s married. She was engaging in serial monogamy from my reading of the passage.”
She was a Samaritan, not a Jew. Perhaps their laws were different?
Serial monogamy may not be approved, but is allowed under both Samaritan and Jewish law.
As for her being with a man she wasn’t married to, she wasn’t in a state of adultery. The Bible does have a category “concubine” which is allowed, distinct from “wife”, or perhaps a subset of wife. It isn’t really lain out or defined clearly, but historical and current usage of the Hebrew term “pilyegesh” could well fit the Samaritan woman’s lawful state.
@billys
Wasnt talking about mgtows. This is simple. I call bullshit on them being made eunuchs. It’s just not how it works. Rather what I think is happening is men are tugging away while watching soul cancer. That is a problem. No one cares if you are practicing actual chastity. Being made eunuchs by men is not the same thing as MGTOW. It’s just not. Being a eunuch in spirit is not the same thing as MGTOW. Indeed, I would say MGTOW is an extremely carnal reaction. It comes from the flesh, not the spirit. It denies the power of God. It says he is incapable of protecting you, of providing for you, it is a denial of his love for you.
Has his arm grown too short? Does he not guide your way? We are told not to worry about food, but we have to worry about where to get our nookie?
Off topic, but something I think readers here might find amusing.
The writer here:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/opinions/indiana-professor-racism-syracuse-university-hate-zakaria/index.html
…is Rafia Zakaria, and hilariously, and unironically, she demonstrates the exact traits that she believes are “sexist” to point out in her rant.
She refers to Takis Mag without naming it as an “obscure website” and the original author quoted by the professor who this article is about is Christopher DeGroot.
In doing so, she is manifesting her desire to round up the badthink and label it “obscure” in order to stay in the conforming herd that roams around the country now looking for “bigots” to destroy.
In the original article, DeGroot is consolidating and paraphrasing the overwhelming consensus of the intelligence research that shows IQ is not normally distributed and that the center of gravity on genius (known in Weschler terms as “very superior” intelligence) is concentrated around men for pretty straightforward reasons.
It has nothing to do with women being considered “lesser beings” as Zakaria suggests, but she has zeroed in on a soft target (an old white guy teaching business classes at a small southern graduate school) which requires absolutely zero courage. Again, proving the point about agreeableness, and conformity in her own writing style.
@Scott
It may be that Eric Rasmusen reads this blog. His pastor is Tim Bayly, who yesterday wrote a defense of Rasmusen that can be summarized as: Eric is a harmless nerd who didn’t actually commit the crimethink. He only retweeted it.
https://warhornmedia.com/2019/11/25/my-friend-prof-eric-rasmusen/
With this kind of bold stance it’s a mystery why everyone isn’t flocking to the right!
” the heresy of Marcion”
If by that you mean to tell the guy that ritual purity is important in the context of obeying God meticulously, then I agree with you. His remark brought to my mind the time that the fellow who reached out to steady the Ark of the Covenant was struck suddenly dead because he wasn’t supposed to touch it.
I Samuel 15:
22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
Came
Like I always say, stupid.
I cry to the heavens for Him to lift this scourge of irrationality from us. Or at least give us the tools we need to smash it to bits. How much longer, Lord?
It’s so hard to live in this stupid world that’s been constructed around us.
” It denies the power of God. It says he is incapable of protecting you, of providing for you, it is a denial of his love for you.”
Colossians 3:
23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
Romans 14:
4 Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
Of course, a God fearing Christian man will be MGTOW much differently than will the Turd Flinging Monkey sort. A man who fears God wants to eschew even the appearance of evil, and will live chastely and with circumspection.
But even given that, I refuse to judge a secular MGTOW who fornicates or otherwise acts unseemly more harshly than I judge you for being a pigheaded arrogant self righteous false accuser of people you don’t even know.
It has taken me a while to realize that sexism, as currently defined (the belief that men and women are fundamentally different with different roles to play in society), is a rational and realistic rather than something evil to be scoffed at and ridiculed.
Correction, it looks like the tweeted article was the one Lance Walton (Unz review) wrote, in response to Degroots article at Takis.
Jake,
You weren’t talking about MGTOWs and then you go out of your way to slam them, ignoring the fact that following that path can easily end in chastity.
Are you really that foolish?
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