Christian Domestic Discipline, “wife spanking,” Christian Patriarchy Movement, Spanking of Adult Children, Denominational Practices and teachings
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Two summers ago, I received a phone call from a pastor who shared his growing concern about wife-spanking in his family of churches. Months later, I finally reported on the topic of wife spanking in this article: The Christian Patriarchy Movement’s Dark Secret of Wife Spanking. Wife spanking is often referred to as Christian Domestic Discipline, as if to make it more politically correct. As far as I’m concerned, it should be called assault and reported to authorities immediately. The article was popular with over 600 comments. Since then, the most common search term which brings people to the blog is”wife spanking.” Some of the search phrases make me want to vomit.
I’m issuing a trigger warning for this subject. It is very disturbing to read. Please be careful if you are easily triggered by topics of abuse.
Last week, I received an e-mail from “Lauren,” a victim of domestic violence, “Christian Domestic Discipline” or “wife spanking:”
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Julie Anne:
I found an old post of yours from last year. Thank you for writing and shedding light on another form of domestic abuse that doesn’t get talked about very much. It’s one thing when it is a Ray Rice situation like in the news now. But I think there are probably other women in conservative or controlling “Christian” households where the husband thinks it is OK to spank his wife like just another child in the house.
I was in such a relationship for a while. I grew up in a very conservative, Southern household and was spanked at home until I left. So when my husband spanked me the first time, I was embarrassed, but I thought maybe it was my fault or somehow it was OK.
It was very difficult because it was not like I had a black eye or bruises. It was just always his open hand on my bottom which made me feel like I could never tell someone else or explain it. It took a long time for me to have the strength to leave him.
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My head went spinning. Did Lauren and her husband have any connections with the Patriarchy Movement? Or were they connected with teachings similar to an article I wrote, Wife Undermines Her Husband’s Authority in Front of Children, He Disciplines Her?
Update (12/28/15): previously, there were two YouTube videos posted of Dr. Phil’s show posted here. They have since been removed from YouTube. I was able to find the two snippets from the show below:
The husband in the article (and Dr. Phil’s show) also claimed to be a Christian (non-denominational background). He spanked his wife so he could get the “demons out” and to stop the bad behavior which he labeled as narcissism. He demanded that his wife call him “sir.”
Pat Robertson is another known figure in Christiandom who has said some shocking statements about how husbands should treat wives. He responded to a question from a husband about his unruly wife saying the husband could become a Muslim so he could beat his wife. See for yourself. The clip is just over one minute long:
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Where are these teachings coming from?
Is it limited to a specific area or denomination?
How can it be prevalent and endorsed in some circles of Christianity and yet called out as abuse in others?
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After reading Lauren’s letter and sharing back and forth e-mails, I had so many questions. I wanted to know how did Lauren get from the point where “wife spanking” was considered “normal” to the place where she said, “THIS IS WRONG – it is ABUSE!”
Lauren and I exchanged e-mails (edited slightly for brevity) and Lauren gave me permission to share with you our conversation, in the hopes that it will help other wives and also shed light on this dark secret in Christianity:
Lauren,
BRAVO for you!! I’m so glad you found the strength to leave your abusive marriage. How did you finally put it all together that wife spanking was wrong? Did you find someone to share with?
I know I am a question box but I also know that what you experienced is going on in homes around the country and people just like you are labeling it as “normal” just because of what you described – – because parents are taught that it’s ok to spank children even through adulthood as long as they are under the father’s roof. It makes complete sense that someone raised in this culture would extend it to domestic abuse.
How are you doing now? Did you get support from friends and family after leaving him?
Julie Anne,
I got support from friends and it was only when I opened up to them that they helped me see it was wrong. I am not estranged from my parents but I did not get their support. Instead, they wanted to know what I had done wrong to “need” to be punished and felt that I had abandoned my wedding vows when I left him. 😦
I think you are exactly right. I got spanked at home until I left to be with my ex when I was 21. Our church pastor growing up would talk about disciplining according to emotional age, not actual age. And I was told that since I was acting immaturely, this was the consequence. I don’t know where the line is, but looking back now I think I can say that spanking even at 14 or 15 was not right and certainly not up to the age I was.
It took such a long time because that line had been blurred from growing up and then being married. I didn’t see it as abuse. It was not like he was drunk and beating me with his fists. It was confusing because it felt no different than when I was at home. I would commit some offense that my parents/husband thought was wrong, I was told I was going to be punished, I would end up over a lap and afterward would be told to pray.
I am doing much better now and am very glad to be removed from all that. Not only him, but the church and the people there.
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Lauren,
Yes, that makes a lot of sense – it was a normal progression for you. You went from your father as protector/provider/authority to your husband as protector/provider/authority. It’s a logical progression.
[I then asked Lauren if she’d be willing to share her story anonymously.]
Julie Anne,
I think I would be OK with that, especially if anonymous. I imagine the biggest thing other women might be experiencing is that embarrassment, demoralizing, and feeling very disempowered. Especially in situations where the woman feels something is wrong but might not think of herself as “abused.” My husband was only two years older (but he is close to 6 feet tall and heavily muscled and I am around 5 feet tall and under 100 lbs). Yet I was expected to call him “sir” at all times and I was often addressed as “young lady” or “little girl,” which was a constant put-down that made me feel small and powerless.
Even the words used I think make some women question whether it is wrong or not. It’s not called “beatings” or “abuse,” which is what it is. Calling it just a “spanking” in some ways covers up what is going on, I think. I know for a long time I did not consider myself a battered or abused wife.
He wasn’t hitting me with closed fists or objects. It ranged anywhere from a swat or two over my clothing up to him pulling down my pants for episodes that left me bawling. But he never swore, or acted out of control. So I deluded myself to thinking that I wasn’t like those women in shelter’s scared for their lives. While he never threatened my life physically and I still think he would never have that in him, the fact is that the abuse did threaten my “life” in terms of making me feel very alone and afraid not very good inside.
Lauren
Lauren,
The size difference between you and he is considerable and would be very threatening. From what you describe, it sounds like he had a sense of entitlement over you – you were an object to be owned rather than a cherished wife to be treasured and loved.
Was your church part of a particular denomination? Were you homeschooled or was homeschooling prominent in your church? Did you hear of anyone else going through the same thing? How about at your own home growing up, was your mother spanked? Did you meet your ex-husband at church or was he from outside the church?
JA
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Julie Anne,
The thing is that he never raged. At times he could be very sweet and charming. But over it all was always this sense of control and “he was the man.” My wedding vows included a vow to obey and he would often remind me that God commanded wives to submit and obey their husbands as they were supposed to do towards Christ. The thing is I never felt “threatened.” Just utterly powerless. I never truly “fought back” as if I was fighting for my life. But often I would struggle or try to escape but he was big and strong enough to hold me in place and then would tell me I was getting more for disobeying and struggling.
Our church was non-denominational but was charismatic and evangelical. It was not required (since I know lots of kids in my youth groups were in regular schools) but home-schooling was definitely pushed. I was home-schooled and was raised to not even think about college. I don’t know how wide-spread the practice was, but I remember my parents had no problem threatening me with discipline where other people from our church were within earshot and don’t remember ever hearing any kind of shock or outrage from anyone else.
I don’t know if my Mom was ever spanked. I never heard or suspected anything growing up. Until I moved out, both her and my father spanked me, although he did most of it.
We met through church but I don’t know what his family background was. His mother had passed away long ago and his father died shortly after our wedding and I never got to talk to him much. Our church also pushed heavily this idea of “modesty” even at young levels. Church youth group leaders would tell young ladies that “modest is hottest” and make it clear that exposing any kind of skin somehow made a woman “loose” or “of a certain kind.” My parents had total veto power over what I could wear.
Until I left the house, with being petite along with their ideas of modesty, I still wore little girl style underpants. Comfortable, but very childish, very full coverage stuff. I remember being mortified our wedding night and wanted to find something sexy that would make me feel good (and I thought he would like, too). I bought some lingerie (nothing really scandalous) and wore a pair one night. He told me I was never to wear such “slutty” clothing and made me throw them all away (after beating my bottom).
Lauren
Lauren,
Ok, so this is more widespread than I suspected if it’s crossing over into charismatic churches. What was your parents’ response about the spanking? Were they surprised by it?
Because of his behavior – with no rage, just an expectancy of needing to control you, it makes me think this was normal within his background or upbringing. Did you tell him why you were leaving? What was his response? Was your church aware of what was going on? I’m wondering what their thoughts were on it? Are you officially divorced now?
The modesty issue and him not wanting you to get any kind of lingerie shows a real distorted view of sexuality. I can’t remember if you said how long you were married. Do you have any children? I’m just so pleased to know that you were able to break free. Are you able to support yourself okay? Did you go straight from home to marriage without any schooling?
Thank you so much for answering all of these questions and your willingness to share your story publicly. I know it will be very, very enlightening to many people. The church needs to know this is going on.
thanks again,
Julie Anne
Julie Anne,
Thankfully my friend helped me move and helped me get set up and even helped me secure a job. She was there every step of the way.
We had no children (thankfully) and we are fully divorced. When I left he was convinced that it was because of my friend and being led astray and away from God. He did not stalk me or anything but vowed to constantly pray for me to come to my senses and return.
My parents were a little surprised at first but I think they see spanking as not the same as abuse. They told me that I needed to do a better job of obeying and not being disrespectful or difficult and told me I needed to pray more to be a better wife. When I left him, they did not abandon me but at the same time were not fully supportive and told me they were praying for us to work it out. I love them but our relationship is often strained.
I am in my early 30s and this past 4th of July I was there and we had a bit of an argument. They threatened to spank me if I didn’t back down and I have no doubt it wasn’t an idle threat.
Lauren
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Conclusion (from Julie Anne)
Part of me wishes this practice of wife spanking was limited to just one denomination so it could be easier to expose, but it is clear from the above examples that we cannot. In the above examples, we see non-denominational, charismatic/evangelical, Reformed Presbyterian denominations represented.
The abuse comes in different forms. In Dr. Phil’s example, we see a bully who used rage and anger as he spanked/assaulted his wife. He did it in front of his children as they watched and cried, saying that mommies get spanked for bad behavior, too.
In Lauren’s situation, she described her husband as calm and never in anger, yet he referred to her in demeaning terms, “little girl,” as a father would say to a child. However, his “spanking” was always controlled which must have made it all the more confusing to Lauren.
Spanking of Children through Adulthood and Transfer of Headship
In my former church, we were taught by our pastor that civil laws regarding adulthood did not apply when it came to disciplining children in our homes. We were told that it was biblical to spank our teenagers, even ones who were over legal adulthood. This same pastor also told husbands to get control of their wives. Even without saying the word “spanking,” it would be easy for a husband sitting in a pew to take that kind of teaching and think that a pastor was giving his stamp of approval for wife spanking to get her under control.
We need to consider the importance of the correlation of spanking of children through adulthood and also the transfer of headship from father to new husband when a young lady gets married. It seems that both of these components make it much more likely for a woman to be the victim of domestic violence/wife spanking.
It’s important to note that Lauren was spanked as a child through adulthood. The last paragraph of Lauren’s e-mail revealed her parents sided with Lauren’s husband and believed her to be disobedient to her husband. They did not see his authority as abusive, but appropriate. Apparently in their world, girls do not grow up . . . ever. No wonder Lauren was so confused in her marriage. It’s quite amazing that she had the strength to leave.
This post has been very difficult for me emotionally. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. I had another thought about the “transfer of headship” in marriage. It seems the only difference between the role of a father and the role of new husband is that the new husband gets sexual privileges and now has someone to cook and clean for him, and bear children. I see no other difference in how these wives are treated compared to how they were treated as daughters. These abused wives are treated as children or objects to be owned.
We need to be aware of the existence of this atrocity in our churches and be bold in calling it out when we see it. It is insidious that this practice has continued in the name of God and Christianity. Young boys in these homes will likely learn this behavior of entitlement over women and repeat it. Young girls will also learn from the behavior and may find themselves with abusive men because of familiarity. In an abusive home, children do not have a sense of a normal healthy marriage, so this modeling of abusive behavior could affect generations.
When we protect and defend abused wives, we are also protecting and defending their children and future generations.
I’m very grateful to Lauren for her e-mail and being willing to shed more light into this abusive practice so that we can have more understanding of what she and many others are going through. May we all work to protect women and expose this shameful sin and crime in our churches.
photo credit: Chiara Cremaschi via photopin cc
Spiritual Sounding Board 
Anne Garboczi Evans, that is terrible!
A question to everyone here: If a man treats his sex partner as a child he should “discipline”, does that make him a quasi-paedophile?
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Dark child, your nickname tells me something about your view.
You are, by your writing, an intelligent adult. Yet you call yourself a child. And you seem to see yourself not as a good child, a child of the light, but as a dark child.
Someone or something seemingly convinced you that you are not a full adult, that you are a bad (dark) child who deserve “discipline.” Meanwhile, I assume, you do not see your partner as a bad (dark) little boy who need you to discipline him.
So: Do you see both yourself and your partner as people who need physical discipline? If not which of you 2 does? And why do that one, and not the other, need it?
And the part of the body does not change it from abuse to discipline – if you were to grab a stranger and hit him on the bottom, you’d be up for assault charges.
As for the judgment here – power imbalance, physically hurting your partner, enjoying hurting your partner, sexualizing the pain, making your partner believe that you are the good and right adult while she is the bad child who deserves punishment, etc. are not healthy in a relationship.
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Retha – I missed Dark Child’s comment. There is no such thing as physical discipline of a WIFE, period. That is called assault and battery and is illegal.
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I have a dear friend in a marriage filled with “Spiritual Abuse”. At least that’s his justification but this is far far more severe than spankings. Her treatment is horrid and nothing short of physical, sexual, and mental torture. She has has been hospitalized many times due to his abuse but somehow he has used his position and influence to escape legal action each time. He is refusing to let her seek treatment for her current injuries nor let her use pain relievers, ice-packs etc. saying she needs to feel the pain to remind her to whom she belongs and forcing her to do rigorous housework and chores.
Very interested in the resources available to wives repeatedly forced to accept this unspeakable treatment. Specifically, those which would facilitate the investigation and assessment of, and protection his threats of extreme retribution if she were to make public her treatment, pursue legal action, or leave the relationship. She has been assured by her family that even if she were able to successfully facilitate legal action and prison time for her husband and father, that other members of “their” community would come after her. She’s also been provided several examples of those that have tried to leave (e.g. mysterious death, disappearance, ending up in a vegetative state in a nursing home) and been assured that “they” are powerful, well funded, technically and legally savvy and any efforts to move and change her identity are futile.
Are these threats real?
Plausible?
If legal action is taken, what measures can be used to make sure it is successful and results is the appropriate penalties rather than a slap on the wrist?
Are there other women is situations this dire?
Have they been able to escape and at what cost?
What can be done to safely expose these abusers for what they really are and protect these women.
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DavidA
The woman you are concerned about is indeed at very high risk. I applaud you for wanting to help her.
The best way to get help for high risk cases of domestic abuse is to ring the DV Hotline in your country. Under our Resources tab at A Cry For Justice we have a page with links for Hotlines:
http://cryingoutforjustice.com/resources/hotlines/
Phone your appropriate holine and they will be able to refer you to DV services in your local area. There are high security refuges for women such as your friend, and some women do indeed change their identity to make it difficult for their abusers to track them down.
The professionals in DV services are trained (or should be trained!) to conduct what is know as Risk Assessment and from there, in conjuction with the victim, develop a personalised safety plan. The safety plan needs to be reviewed and modified whenever the situation changes — e.g. there is one kind of safety plan while the victim is still living with the abuser, and the plan gets modified when she leaves the abuser, and modified again when things alter significantly, such as if the abuser loses his job, if a court hearing is pending or has just happened, or when anything changes which might affect the risk for the victim.
The professionals are the ones to turn to. Keep asking, keeping phoning, keep knocking on doors. Don’t just believe what an individual survivor tells you: though survivors have much wisdom based on their own experiences, their own experiences may not be generalisable to others completely, and this applies ESPECIALLY in regards to legal options. Each jurisdiction has its own laws and its own policies for how law enforcement deal with domestic abuse. So what you hear from a survivor in one State or one County or one Country, may not necessarily apply in your friend’s case.
Another thing to bear in mind is that all Domestic Violence services are underfunded so the workers are vevy busy. This makes it all more more important for the victim and her supporters to be persistent in calling for help, and politely pressing for the workers and the justice system to do what they can do. I call it being a ‘polite, persistent, pest’.
You may also like to read our Safety Planning page:
http://cryingoutforjustice.com/resources/safety-planning/
And if you haven’t yet started following our blog A Cry For Justice, we encourage you to do so. And your friend, of course, if she is able to. But I know that some abusers prevent their victims from using the internet or they cyberstalk their activities on the web. We have a page for cybersafety in our Resources section too. 🙂
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Doesn’t look like 50 Shades of Grey is going to be well-received around here! I don’t know where I have ever read such a torrent of self-satisfied sanctimony. Now, I am not condoning what happened to Lauren, because it appears she was not consenting. But to broaden that out and say that no woman should ever be spanked tramples on individual conscience. It’s heavy shepherding gone mad.
The Bible keeps the door firmly shut on what goes on in the marital bedroom and so should you. Do any of you no-doubt scrupulously well-balanced people with whom all wisdom will die understand that there are all sorts of emotional triggers that turn people on, and that some women love being spanked and find it erotic? It might not be terribly feminist to say so, but other women like feeling powerless during conjugal relations. They like their wrists held, maybe, or even being tied to the bed. There may be role-plays or dressing up.
When you get to point of saying that none of these can be Christian women and if they are, they jolly well need to repent of their sin, then you are straining at gnats. There are some real sins out there. Try a bit of balance, do.
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Nope, A Lone Voice, I’m not going there with you.
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Never, dear Julie Anne, not for one second, did I imagine you would have the remotest understanding – let alone any empathy – for what I was trying to express. You have made my point.
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“Lone”, there are a few Biblical objections to role playing, S& M, and the like. Role playing, for starters, is spouses pretending they’re someone else–OK, isn’t that adulterous in its intent? It’s not physically another person, but it is mentally and emotionally.
S&M? Personally, I read 1 Corinthians 7 “render due affection” to indicate that if one spouse does something to render the other unwilling or unable to do so, that is sin. So things that would injure (whipping, anal sex) or humiliate would be right out. Moreover, “consent” is tricky in these matters for a simple reason; many will “consent” to a humiliating or injurious act out of fear of losing their lover–but the Biblical reality is that the person, despite their “consent”, has just been injured or humiliated.
Which is another reason that role playing is dangerous–“OK, I’m not good enough for you, but if I dress up as Kim Kardashian, that’s OK now?”
So while I believe that Biblically speaking, married couples do have a great amount of freedom in how and when they make love, that does not extend to humiliation and injury.
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Regarding:
I’d be interested in knowing if a Lone Voice is a man or a woman?
Anyway. Here’s this:
_50 SHADES OF GREY AND PATRIARCHY: WHAT EXACTLY DID WE EXPECT?_
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No, Bike Bubba, by ‘role play’ I meant dressing up as a type, not as another person. If you start fantasizing about someone else when you are making love, or at any other time, I think you are praying your partner out.
As for Daisy putting a link to a feminist website, again, my point is made.
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What do you mean by Feminist site? It seems that site is promoting equal rights for women. Do you have a problem with that?
As far as your “point is made.” You simply cannot say that as the visitors at my site are widely diverse.
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Oh, come on, JA; Daisy of course speaks for all of us, which is why Daisy debates many of us, I believe myself included.
(Daisy, it is my hope and prayer, by the way, that in the cases I disagree with you, I do so without being disagreeable–blessings to you, and my apologies for when I fail in this)
Seriously, “Lone”, as our gracious hostess notes, there are many disagreements on this site, which is why this thread has over 100 comments.
And if you’re going to argue that dressing as a different type is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than dressing as a different person….oh, please. If I put my wife in a “french maid” or “indian princess” outfit, am I not seeing, at least in part, a “french maid” or “indian princess”?
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Did Lone Voice respond if it is a man or a woman?
I get the feeling that LV may be a man trying to pass itself off as a woman.
I wouldn’t say the link I gave was to a “feminist” site so much as it is a Christian egalitarian site, the two not being the same thing.
As a right wing, social conservative, I disagree with most secular left wing feminism.
I don’t consider Christian mutuality to be the same thing as “feminism,” though there may some Christian women in the egalitarian community who are fine using the word “feminism” for themselves.
Re:
Huh?
And did you read the page I linked to?
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Julie Anne, your visitors are in the main grindingly politically correct and feminist and you are the chief, so much so that you cannot see that the Junia site, ‘advocating for the inclusion of women in leadership in the Christian church and for mutuality in marriage’ is not the slightest bit feminist and flying in the face of scripture (starting with Genesis 2:18 and 3:16 – funny how many great verses in the Bible are 3:16, isn’t it? – and going through Judges 4:9 all the way to Eph 5:23 and 1Tim 2:12).
Bike Bubba, when your wife dresses as a french maid, you still see her, albeit as a french maid, and not Kim Kardashian or some other woman (and I really fear for your taste as well – Kim Kardashian of all people).
And people, please take seriously my point about not thinking of other folk when you are in bed. If nothing else, take that away with you.
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I love how men take 2 verses in Genesis and squelch women for all of eternity. Women weren’t squelched when they were told to TELL MEN that Jesus had resurrected. God used women for a purpose, His purposes. What a shame men have come along and subverted His purposes for women.
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Daisy, my comment was actually a response to LV. He was suggesting that we’re all marching in lockstep with feminism, so I joked that we argue so much precisely because we agree on everything.
Get the joke now? Yes, I’m guilty of being obscure at times. :^)
And like you, I really enjoy being described as a feminist–it means a ton of different things, but generally it’s not something I get accused of, either.
Regarding your link, I’d actually view the success of “50 shades” as a consequence of so many women not having an example of real masculinity in their life–so they go for the fake, which is “Christian Gray” or whoever. Can’t get strength that will defend them a la Roy Rogers, so you get strength that will slap you around a la Gray or John Wayne in his worse moments. But just like a chocolate addict will eat carob in moments of dire necessity….
….which is really the same problem that I see with a lot of church and family leadership. Not a lot of leaders of either gender out there, but we go for the carob; controlling. It looks sort of like leadership to those who have never seen the real thing.
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Careful, Julie Anne, true alpha females don’t go over the top. No woman is squelched’ by wanting her man to take up his God-given authority and actually lead. And you just assume I am a man because it never enters your intolerant head that a woman could actually want to put herself under her husband’s headship. But when you seriously contend that there mere fact that our Lord appeared first to women and told them to tell the men negates the creation ordinance, Deborah’s curse of wimpy Barak and the clear words of the Holy Spirit on this subject through the Apostle Paul, then I suggest you have really lost touch with the will of God.
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Uh oh. I find your style offensive. Unless I agree with you 100%, I’m outside of the will of God? Give me a break.
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Yes, I apologize for that display of intolerance. The site must be rubbing off on me. Because, Julie Anne, is that not what you feel about any woman who wants to give her husband the authority to lead, let alone any women who would quite like to be disciplined or feel powerless in the bedroom?. Don’t you think a woman like that has no theology to support her and is outside the will of God?
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You see women in an inferior place. You imply that by talking about husbands with authority. What does that actually mean? How does a husband exert authority over a woman?
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It’s not just me that talks about your husband having authority, Julie Anne. It’s the word of God:
Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, … thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
1Cor 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
1Tim 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Pet 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
You take it up with him.
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When it comes to twisting, and even mistranslating, Scripture it is amazing how “[s]ome people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Coleman v. CIR (791 F.2d 68 at 69 (7th Cir. 1986).
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“When it comes to twisting, and even mistranslating, Scripture it is amazing how “[s]ome people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Coleman v. CIR (791 F.2d 68 at 69 (7th Cir. 1986).”
Yeah, it even helps to read an interlinear every now and then and do a bit of Greek/Hebrew study. But even then, it is always amazing how Eph 5:21 always ignored. Not to mention any basic understanding of Ezer Kenegdo where most of it starts concerning this issue. (Shh…God is referred to as an Ezer in the OT)
But if one has a “spiritual male head” then I would have to assume they need the qualifying phallic guidance for such things. As that is what it really boils down to. :o)
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Lone voice said,
Advocating for women being in leadership is asking for equality and for what the Bible teaches; that is not “feminism.”
Junia was a female apostle who taught men. That’s in the Bible.
Now, some Christian ladies are happy to accept the term “feminism” and apply it to themselves, so long as it is defined as something like the belief that women are equal to men and should be treated with respect by all.
I would be fine with the term myself if used in that manner, but the word “feminism” unfortunately is usually associated with left wing, radical types who tend to do things like support abortion, and a lot of them vote Democrat.
I am right wing, conservative, vote Republican, am pro-life.
I disagree with secular feminists on most topics and am not “politically correct.”
(Speaking of being Un-Politically Correct:
As a matter of fact, I get yelled at on occasion by homosexual marriage supporters on other sites for politely stating I disagree with how homosexual marriage supporters bully those they disagree with over the homosexual marriage topic.)
Your attempt to broad brush all who disagree with you as “feminists” does not work.
There are in fact right wingers and conservative Christians who take the Bible literally yet who also reject the gender complementarian position (which is what you are advocating). You need to give their views more serious study and attention.
Re:
Those verses are being filtered by you through a patriarchy lens; they do not teach or support male authority over women, nor do they limit all women of all times, cultures, and churches from leading and teaching.
Men ruling over women was a result of the fall, of sin entering humanity – it was never God’s intent.
One clue to you that your gender role views are un-bilbical is that they only apply to, are often only applied to, middle class, white American married mothers.
Your views are not applicable and do not work for women who are in poverty, who live in other nations, and who are never-married, widowed, infertile, divorced. If a principle were biblical, it could and work equally for all people.
Lone Voice said,
I asked you above if you are a man or woman and did not get a reply.
I take it that you are a man pretending to be a woman. If you actually are a woman, how sad that you are participating in your own second-class status and actually defending it.
I want any other women reading this to know that your (Lone Voice’s) position is NOT biblical, and God created women to lead and teach men if he gifted them in those areas, and God created women to be equals with men in marriage.
A lot of people, especially women who have been sexually abused by self professing Christian men or abused by a husband, are rejecting Christianity because of your sexist, un-biblical views.
The Bible does not teach that men have “God given authority” over women.
The only time the word “authority” is used in conjunction of marriage in the New Testament is when the New Testament states that wives have authority over their husband’s body.
Regarding Barak and Deborah:
_Deborah and the “no available men” argument_
Your desire to lord authority over your wife and get off on that and doing kinky acts in the bedroom is your personal preference, it is not biblical.
Really, if you get off on spanking your wife (or are a wife who gets off on being spanked by her man), just chalk it up to your personal choice and stop trying to find biblical proof texts for it. I would find that approach must less objectionable.
You’ve also been influenced by perverse secular culture. It’s perverse secular culture which advocates and promoted S&M kinky bedroom games – not the Bible.
Jesus taught that followers of his are not to “lord authority” over each other, but you are advocating that.
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Bike B said,
What you’re asking for is a form Benevolent Sexism.
_‘Benevolent sexism’: Men who open doors for women can be as sexist as those who are rude to them, study finds_
Women do not need men to defend them as a whole – if you see an old lady about to be hit by a car, yes, fine, shove her out of the way, but the same scenario could happen with an old man.
I have never married. I don’t have a man to “defend’ or “protect” me, I have to defend and protect myself.
Interestingly, while a lot of men fancy themselves Knights in Shining armor, I’ve never experience one defending or protecting me. Lots of the kids who bullied me until I cried in junior high were MALES. Not a single male rose to my defense.
When I got older and was being bullied or harassed by other men or women, you know who defended me? Me. Myself.
Men do not step up to the plate to defend women.
I was engaged to a man for several years. That jerk exploited me financially and was a self absorbed loser who took no interest in me or my career: he made the entire relationship about him and getting his needs met and didn’t care about meeting my needs. And he would sometimes spout off this genteel junk about how men should be nice to ladies.
The patriarchy guys, like what’s his name, Doug What’s-It? He preyed on his teen age nanny girl! He blathered on in his books or blogs about how men should be heroic and defend women and girls like the men who gave up their seats on the Titanic, but he was sexually assaulting a teen-aged girl for years, and stalking her!
Men who push the “defend women because women are little delicate flowers” view rarely to never actually defend women.
When you said,
“Can’t get strength that will defend them a la Roy Rogers, so you get strength that will slap you around a la Gray or John Wayne in his worse moments. But just like a chocolate addict will eat carob in moments of dire necessity…”
I am sorry, but that is beyond distasteful. I am surprised that nobody else spoke up about that.
No woman wants to “be slapped around,” and certainly not because it has anything to do with not being able to find a “macho man” to date. Women do not secretly want to be controlled and desired. The ones who claim they enjoy it have psychological issues, but it’s not due to wanting to be abused – that is sick.
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“It’s not just me that talks about your husband having authority, Julie Anne. It’s the word of God:”
Ahhh, proof-texting. You can literally make the Bible say just about anything you want with some crafty proof-texting. Meanwhile, what Jesus called the two most important commandments are completely ignored.
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I just don’t have the time or energy to debate people like A Lone Voice. When I see how women have been treated like objects by people who demand to have an authority position over their wives, demand obedience, demand submission, presume to be an intermediary to God. Nope, can’t go there anymore.
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Gary, You have said nothing. Pompous nothing, but nothing.
Lydia00, Eph 5:21 does not contradict what follows.
Daisy, I just quoted those verses. I’m about the only one here who actually quotes scripture. Male headship is followed all over the world. Feminism is merely a modern Western aberration. In the Garden, the serpent went over the woman, she went over her husband, and he went over God. God’s judgments from Gen 3:14 – 3:17 set matters straight, and gave the man more work into the bargain. Don’t just say my position is not Biblical, argue it, prove it – from scripture, of course. And Junia, may God bless her, doesn’t do it. In 1Cor 7:4, the wife and the husband having power or authority over each others’ bodies is in the context of them not refusing each other conjugal relations (‘due benevolence’). I can see from your posts that you have major issues with men, but please don’t filter the Bible through your own experiences. Finally, Daisy – be more Christ-like; keep your nose out of my bedroom.
BeenThereDoneThat, No, actually, you can’t. And no, actually, they aren’t.
Julie Anne, like Daisy, you too are filtering the Bible through experiences as well as using a logical non-sequiter. ‘Some men have apparently abused their authority, therefore any men having authority is bad.’ It doesn’t follow.
General: Don’t like scripture when it disagrees with your prejudices, you guys, do you? You get all edgy.
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“I’m about the only one here who actually quotes scripture.
Oh, the Pharisees were really good at quoting scripture. Even Satan quoted scripture. It didn’t impress Jesus.
“Male headship is followed all over the world.”
Yes, many Muslims and Hindus follow male headship. I’m sure you’d find plenty of support in those cultures.
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BeenThereDoneThat,
I’m afraid we’re wasting our time attempting to engage somebody who justifies the abuse of women. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 26:4-5 ESV). Beyond praying for their victims, and calling the police in instances where we have knowledge of actual abuse, there is nothing we can do or say that will make a difference.
Well, actually, to pray for abused women, even though we do not know who they are, is to accomplish much.
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@ Lone voice.
Male rulership of women is common all over the world, because it is a result of sin entering humanity, just as God had predicted: God told the woman man would rule over her – God was saying that was a result of the Fall. It was not God’s intent.
Your brand of Christianity, which insists on male rulership, is just like Islam and Mormonism.
Jesus Christ did away with male rulership over women and clarified that women are equals to men. Jesus bucked the patriarchal norms of his own culture to teach women.
Your position is unbiblical. You are interpreting the Scriptures in error, just as the Pharisees did.
Jesus said to the Pharisees,
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to Me (John 5.39, 40)
_DEFUSING THE 1 TIMOTHY 2:12 BOMB_
The Bible says that husbands are to submit to their wives, Eph 5:21:
There are no Bible passages that say that husbands have authority over wives, but one that says that wives have authority over their husband’s body.
(1 Cor 7:4)
Even interpreting the Bible in an incorrect way as you do to read authority into the Bible, your view only addresses married mothers, and is not applicable or workable for never-married women, widows, the infertile, the childfree or the divorced.
(You cannot find a single Bible verse that says that never married adult women must submit to a man – because there is no such concept.)
You said,” Don’t just say my position is not Biblical, argue it, prove it – from scripture, of course.”
You already have biblical examples of women leading and preaching men – such as Deobrah in the OT, Junia the Apostle, etc.
You are in error. There is no biblical support for your position – repeatedly quoting Eph 5.22 and the like is not proof for your stance, because you interpret such passages incorrectly.
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Post. Script.
Lone Voice said,
You’re the one admitting on a public blog that you like to be spanked. I’ll critique whatever you are making public.
The Bible does not support your kink. Just chalk it up to your personal preference and call it a day.
I think your preference is sick, deranged, weird, and a whole bunch of other negative stuff. You put it out there for me to read about, and I’ll say something about it. Don’t want me sticking my nose into your bedroom affairs? Then stop discussing it here and promoting it.
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Lone Voice said,
But you haven’t provided us with any Scripture that supports your sexist views of women nor raunch, in the form of spanking, in the bedroom. (There are no passages that support spanking.)
(Cherry picking or distorting verses such as _1 Tim 2.12_ and keep tossing them my way does not count.)
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Lone Voice says,
“I can see from your posts that you have major issues with men”
I don’t have issues with men.
Some men are sexist, selfish, or abusive pigs. I’ve dated a few, been engaged to one. Men are not the loving protectors that some claim that they should be under sexist teachings such as “gender complementarianism.”
You’re the one with issues… and hang ups in regards to sexuality.
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@ Lone Voice.
You said,
“Julie Anne, like Daisy, you too are filtering the Bible through experiences as well as using a logical non-sequiter. ‘”
You’re filtering Scriptures not only through your experiences, but also a previous assumption that God approves and condones patriarchy, and you read that back into the Bible.
You have also obviously been influenced by kinky secular culture, such as books and films that promote S&M.
If kink is your thing, that’s your thing, but don’t sit there and try to convince me or anyone else you got kink from the Bible – because you sure as heck did not.
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For anyone wanting many more articles, and explanations, and rebuttals to the sexist views
(also known as gender complementarianism, biblical womanhood, patriarchy)
of Lone Voice,
I would encourage you to visit the following site, especially their blog section
(the link to their blog is currently on the upper left hand side of the page):
_Christians for Biblical Equality_
_Headship in the New Testament_
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Dear Lone Voice,
When you first commented on here, I was prepared to hear you out — I know someone personally who has fetishes, and he’s admitted to me that can be a struggle for him in his marriage. But since then you’ve gone on to talk as though male headship is required in all Christian marriages, and as though “feminism” is some kind of dirty word. I can’t support you in that.
As far as I can see, no one in this conversation is opposed to the Bible or its teachings, but to your interpretation of them. Many of the verses you’ve quoted to support your position can be interpreted in more than one way. Are you insisting that your reading of these passages is the only possible correct one?
And please don’t discount the experiences of those who’ve suffered under religious patrio-centrism or just plain chauvinism. As a man and a Christian myself, I think all Christians need to listen to these stories. How else can we understand what we haven’t gone through, or learn to avoid causing needless suffering to those around us?
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@ A lone voice
How do you feel about men that have a fetish to be demeaned and abused in the bedroom by women?
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“his God-given authority and actually lead.”
As a sexually abused little girl growing up in misogynistic Christianity I always felt like god was my pimp.
My father and two of my grandfathers had no business leading, and had no business having authority. I could never respect any god that would put such sick, stupid, selfish, sexually sadistic men in those positions.
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@A lone voice
I was sexually terrorized as a little girl by a bible loving, bible verse quoting, church going southern Baptist Christian man as a little girl.
My father made us go to church three times a week, and he read us the bible every night. My father told me as a young teenager, “rape is not that big of a deal.”
My father told me the pain I caused my mother when she gave birth to me pleased him.
My father hated women and little girls, he hated raped little girls, he hated two year old little girls.
You just posted most of my rapist and fathers favorite bible verses.
“A Lone Voice
July 3, 2015 @ 12:56 AM
It’s not just me that talks about your husband having authority, Julie Anne. It’s the word of God:
Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 3:16 Unto the woman he said, … thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
1Cor 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
1Tim 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Pet 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; 2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
You take it up with him.”
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“the wife and the husband having power or authority over each others’ bodies is in the context of them not refusing each other conjugal relations (‘due benevolence’). I can see from your posts that you have major issues with men, but please don’t filter the Bible through your own experiences. Finally, Daisy – be more Christ-like; keep your nose out of my bedroom.”
A Lone Voice, you have major issues with women having the right to say NO to men.
My father and his loser ilk liked Christianity because no woman with any self respect would stay married to them once she got to know the real him, have sex with him, or have children with him. Christianity is a great world view for men who know very well they are unwanted by most women.
You need to be more Christ-like, Jesus never told a woman that she had to be subject to any man, have sex with her husband against her will. Jesus and Paul went with out sex.
As a little girl my biggest dream was to have the right to say NO to sex, NO to men.
I wanted to get far away from my vile self worshipping misogynistic Christian father, I never wanted to have sex again or be subject to a man again.
And so many selfish, heartless, sexually sadistic Areal Castro centric Christian men are telling women they cant refuse their husbands sex. If he loved his wife he would not want her to have sex against her will, if Christian men loved women they would not want them to have sex against their will.
Would Jesus (bad word) the church against the churches will?
I don’t remember a bible verse where Jesus said I had to be (bad word) against my will.
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“Male headship is followed all over the world. ” ISIS loves it.
Do you care if it hurts women and little girls? Or are women and little girls suppose to hurt to make Christian men feel good, I lived this life, it hurts so much.
I knew at seventeen that I would rather be dead than married to a Christian man.
“and gave the man more work into the bargain. ” How?
Women and little girls suffer through the pain and agony of pregnancy and childbirth. My sexually sadistic father found this to be a great way to sexually torture women and little girls and get away with it. My father could sit on his self worshipping bottom the whole time my mother suffered through pregnancy and birth, he did not have to dread horrific genital pain, he sure got a thrill that she did.
Women get to be slaves for men, while men lounge about reading their bibles trying to find bible verses that support their new sadistic fetishes to heap on their wives and children. Christianity is a lot harder on women and children than it is for men, the men are living like kings and gods, promoting their superiority and rule while women and children are living like trapped miserable bottom kissing slaves.
Sex is much deferent for women than it is for men, it is often miserable, especially when the vomit on you thinks you have to be submissive to him like a dog or sex slave, and you cant tell him no!
As someone that has been burned and sexually abused I can say there is nothing worse then intercourse with a misogynist, men that go on about male headship, female submission to men.
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“Lydia00, Eph 5:21 does not contradict what follows.”
I agree. Except the exegeises you have been taught, does contradict. That is the irony. I don’t expect you to see it. I suggested you start with an interlinear to see how the Greek is worded just for starters but I keep forgetting you need phallic permission. :o)
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Daisy, thank you for your usual good work in countering those who, like the satan, abuse and twist Scripture–in the present case to justify the abuse of women. And make no mistake about it, any husband, pastor or other supposed Christian who claims the right to exercise coercive authority over another, excepting only to counter evil, is an abuser.
It is interesting to note that a our lone wolf twister of Scripture is not content to merely advocate for and justify the abuse of wives (again, all application of coercive authority is abuse). Rather he actually comes abusing by accusing. Yesterday’s post at ACJF, http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2015/07/03/a-typical-characteristic-of-an-abuser-he-never-stops-trying/, addresses this very phenomenon: “It is not surprising that abusers are accusers. They are, after all, of their father the devil who is known as the accuser of the brethren. Slander and lies are his stock and trade and so it is with his children.” I’m not prepared to claim that lonely wolf is a child of the devil, but I do suggest that there is plenty of reason for the exercise of discernment.
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100pinkapples,
I cannot begin to identify with you in your suffering. I am sorry. Still, and some may think I have gone way to far out on a limb here, I believe the misogynists you identify are not Christians. It is almost enough to make me hope that the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment is true, at least for some whose evil actions in this life are especially egregious. Well, even if it should turn out that punishment is proportional to the evil committed, and must eventually end for all, I am convinced that you will ultimately be satisfied with the consequences your abusers must surely suffer.
Oh, and if lonely wolf comes here and puts you down like he has done to others, if he comes abusing you by accusing you, we will know that he is just one more supposed Christian who has elected to do the devil’s work where you are concerned. IMO.
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Thank you so much Gary.
“I believe the misogynists you identify are not Christians.” I don’t believe they are Christians. I don’t believe Bill Gothard is a Christian, I think he is a sadistic man that worships himself and wants other people to worship him.
“Oh, and if lonely wolf comes here and puts you down” I ‘am sure I have heard worse than whatever he comes up with.
If men like you were running Christianity it’s reputation would be much better, and I am sure women and little girls would be suffer and much happier.
Have a Happy Fourth of July. Much Love.
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BeenThereDoneThat: I’ve heard that put-down of those who quote scripture before. The fact is: The Lord quoted scripture to the Pharisees, and floored them, and the Sadducees for that matter. (Do you know the difference between them?) Satan only quoted scripture in the Temptations once, when he ran out of patience, because our gracious Lord was quoting scripture to him every single time, from the book of Deuteronomy. Go back to the word (Luke 4:1-13) and see for yourself.
‘Muslims and Hindus follow male headship’. And the whole of sub-saharan Christian Africa. And the whole of Christian Eastern Europe and Russia. And the whole of the Christian Far East. I shall expect some racist comments. I see only 3.5% of Americans traveled overseas in 2009 (when the study was done). Just 3% of those (that’s 0.1% of Americans) went to Africa and Eastern Europe isn’t even mentioned: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-d-chalmers/the-great-american-passpo_b_1920287.html
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Gary W:
You accuse me of accusing. Example please? And then you call me a fool. Er …
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Daisy, just where in the Gospels did Christ say, ‘I say Genesis 3:16 is not to be followed any more?’ You write as though no woman in the Bible had any learning. Have you read Mary’s song, known as the Magnificat? She knew her Bible inside out, she just keeps quoting the Old Testament over and over. It’s brilliant.
Just asserting over and over that I am ‘interpreting the Scriptures in error, just as the Pharisees did’ is not a proof. You can get in my face and scream it, and it still won’t be a proof.
Similarly, just asserting ‘There are no Bible passages that say that husbands have authority over wives’ does not nullify all the passages I quoted which say the opposite to what you want to believe.
And then to quote half of 1Cor 7:4! Are you serious? The whole verse says: ‘1Cor 7:4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.’ And it goes on: ‘1Cor 7:5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.’
So husbands are not unilaterally to refuse conjugal relations to the wives, nor vice versa.’ I know some of each do as a weapon. It’s not right. By consent is OK, we read. but if one of them just says ‘No’ with no explanation or word of compassion then that’s fraud.
Deborah cursed Barak for not taking his proper male role, and the Apostle Paul, knowing all about Junia, still says a woman may not usurp authority over a man.
So don’t quote the half of a verse which you like, miss out the half you don’t and then accuse me of ‘distorting verses’ when all I did was quote them!
Daisy: ‘I don’t have issues with men.’ Then in your next paragraph: ‘Men are not the loving protectors that some claim that they should be …’ Er …
No, no previous assumptions, just submitting to the plain word of God will do for me.
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Serving Kids: Let’s get this straight. I am the only one who has had the honesty actually to quote passages of scripture. Then all the feminists have jumped around and yelled at me that I am mis-interpreting them. No-one ever gives a better interpretation, they just holler at me as if the one who shouts loudest must be right.
And no, the experiences, however bad, do not nullify the word of God. If you find a bad doctor you don’t rubbish the whole of medicine. You take the doctor to task. Similarly, abusing men need to be taken to task (no, I don’t know how, and in some cases they just never will be) but the fact of their existence does not mean God was wrong to say that the man is the head of the wife and that ‘he shall rule over thee’.
Lydia: Just saying my exegesis (please note the spelling) is wrong does not establish that it is. And being insulting doesn’t either.
Sorry Daisy, I forgot. When you wrote: ‘You cannot find a single Bible verse that says that never married adult women must submit to a man – because there is no such concept’ you had forgotten Numbers 30:3-5.
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“(Do you know the difference between them?)”
A Lone Voice, your voice will be really lonely in the SSB doghouse if you keep up with the condescending remarks. This is your warning.
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What does Er…. mean?
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100pinkapples: I am so sorry you have been so badly treated. It’s heartbreaking to read your accounts both here and elsewhere and if you were not in a rage it would be nothing short of miraculous. But God does miracles and he can deal with your pain, as bad as it is.
But having said all that, you have something practical, but difficult, which you must do. You are going to have to move to a place of forgiveness. I know it’s hard, but it must be do-able by the grace of God and the power of Holy Spirit because our Lord Jesus said:
Mark 11:25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Mark 11:26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
It’s in the Lord’s Prayer as well: ‘… forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’.
Anyone who can inspire such bitterness in us still has a hold over us. And they have no right to it. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Even praying to be able to forgive is a start. And to start confessing, ‘I am forgiving (or ever ‘going to forgive’) those who have wronged me’ is a step on the road to freedom.
Please go and speak to a pastor in a completely different church from the one they were in (I should recommend a sister in a Pentecostal church, but that’s just my personal suggestion) and I know you will get more than a sympathetic ear. You’ll get prayers and someone standing with you to get rid of the bad stuff and move on.
If Satan can keep you in the past, he will rob you of your future. He has already had too much of your life. Don’t let him have the victory for a day longer. Tell him to clear off out of your life. You are more than a conqueror through Jesus who loves you. But that pastor I am speaking about, if she is worth her salt, will speak better words than me.
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Julie Anne asks, “What does “Er….” mean?” It’s the soft and fading, though somewhat prolonged, sound of brain flatulence. It is associated with the ego deflation experienced by one who really, really wishes to say something pointed and clever, but they just can’t put their hands on anything of sufficient substance.
I feel that, for our lonely wolf’s sake, I might need to point out that flatulence is the polite term for the F word that rhymes with art. However, since it would not be good to, myself, come across as as condescending, I will not do that.
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Oh brother, that was too obvious. I thought the periods might have been missing letters for a larger word. Thanks, Gary. You never fail to amuse.
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“I shall expect some racist comments.”
Which only shows exactly where your heart and mind are at.
” I see only 3.5% of Americans traveled overseas in 2009 (when the study was done). Just 3% of those (that’s 0.1% of Americans) went to Africa and Eastern Europe isn’t even mentioned:”
I grew up in Europe and the Middle East. I have traveled to Africa, Asia, and many parts of the world. I think it’s quite funny that you make the cultural practices of other countries an argument for how Christians should live. There are many things practiced all over the globe that would not be suitable for Christians. The Bible advocates for stoning as do some Muslim countries. Should we follow suit?
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(I don’t have much time or interest right now to go through and read all comments left to me since I last was here, or comment on them all.)
———————————-
Lone Voice said,
“you had forgotten Numbers 30:3-5.”
Let’s look at Numbers 30.3-5.
It says:
That’s a rule for ancient Israel, for young women still living at home with their fathers.
What you got for American never married women over the age of 40, including ones who are not under their father’s care?
I’m over 40 years of age and in charge of my own life. I’m not a 15 year old kid still living under my father’s and mother’s authority.
I’ve also not made any pledges.
Even if I were to make a pledge, my father would have nothing to do with it. I’m an adult who is in control of her own life.
The Bible doesn’t say that never-married adult women have to submit to a man, or any men, certainly not American women in the year 2015.
You’re quoting a rule or law which only applied under the Old Covenant, for the Jews. I’m not a Jew living in Israel in 5,000 B.C.
Your horrible handling of the Bible does not inspire confidence in me at all.
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“But having said all that, you have something practical, but difficult, which you must do. You are going to have to move to a place of forgiveness.”
It is not for you to determine someone’s path of recovery.
“Please go and speak to a pastor in a completely different church from the one they were in (I should recommend a sister in a Pentecostal church, but that’s just my personal suggestion)”
We don’t advocate for nouthetic counseling here. Professional, licensed counseling is recommended.
And the thought of a Pentecostal being in to kinky, spanking fetishes is hilarious.
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Well, 100pinkapples, lone wolf comes around to accuse you of being in a rage. If accusations of anger are routinely hurled as thought stoppers by “Christian” tyrants everywhere, just think how effective wolf must think it will have been to accuse you of rage. Well, to hell with him.
But it gets even worse. Wolf goes on to demand—not suggest, but demand—that you forgive. Now, I will agree that vengeance itself is best left to God (and my experience is that He is quite good at it when we leave it to Him), but where people like wolf demand forgiveness, they contemptibly do at least two things:
1. They shift shame, fault and blame to the one who has been wronged.
2. They employ demands for forgiveness in a manner that makes forgiveness the Evangelical “Christian” F word. In other words, they basically say, you may be in pain, and you may have been wronged, but F___ you.
My suggestion that the word forgiveness gets employed as an F word equivalent is not original to me. I’m only part way through the rather long article, which was suggested by Lydia, but from what I have read so far, I can suggest that http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/160/the-f-word-forgiveness-and-its-imitations might be worth a look see.
Finally, at the risk of getting my very own self consigned to the SSB Doghouse, who is this “Lone Voice” who comes around lecturing on forgiveness, especially when he gives every evidence of being the sort who is highly apt to provoke the very need forgiveness—and that on an ongoing basis. And now for the part that might get me consigned to the doghouse: He is one pompous donkey.
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Yes, guys, best leave 100PinkApples raging away because it suits your purpose better to have her stay unforgiving and bitter. What a heartless bunch. And I expect I was twisting or misinterpreting scripture with the Mark 11 quote, wasn’t I? That’s it. Time to go. Enjoy each other’s smug, judgmental company.
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And with that final parting shot, we can all say good bye and good riddance to Lone Voice. Trouble is, he will not be able to help himself. He absolutely WILL be back. He may try using a different name, or he may try some other such subterfuge, but he WILL be back.
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“best leave 100PinkApples raging away because it suits your purpose better to have her stay unforgiving and bitter.”
And there goes the “bitter” card. How boring. As 100pinkapples said earlier, “I ‘am sure I have heard worse than whatever he comes up with.” Many of us have heard worse. A Lone Voice just proves him/herself to be another dime-a-dozen abuser.
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No, I’m sorry, you are acting heartless. You sit there on your high horse telling a survivor what her recovery should look like. That is inappropriate and now you are now in the doghouse. I will monitor all of your comments now.
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The article I linked to at 4:14 PM distinguishes between unforgiveness and grieving. I find this very insightful. And helpful. Anger is not sin, although we can sin in our anger. I suggest that there is no sin in anger born of grief. In fact, if such anger is not expressed, it must be suppressed–only to come out sidewise at some unexpected time.
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Lone Voice,
Not sure whether you can hear me in the doghouse (or if you’re even hanging around anymore), but I’d like to offer some insight as to why you might have ended up there.
No, you didn’t misinterpret Mark 11, but I suspect you misapplied it. You are telling 100pinkapples that she needs to take a Christian response to her abusers and to her own pain, and to see a pastor for counselling. But you don’t know whether she’s a Christian. After everything she’s been through at the hands of bible-spouting men, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s given up on the faith. (I’ll let her tell you one way or the other, if she wants to.)
As believers, we aren’t allowed to dictate to people outside the faith how they should live their lives, or deal with their suffering. I can’t imagine anyone here wants 100pinkapples to suffer from her trauma forever. But she will heal in her own good time — none of us can force that on her.
As a Christian, I’m not trying to “nullify” the Bible by my experiences, or anyone else’s. But I do reinterpret it in light of those experiences, and the light of common sense and human decency. That’s my responsibility as a believer and as a thinking adult.
Just to give one example of an alternate interpretation: I understand the phrase “he shall rule over thee” as a description of one outcome of the Fall, not as a command that would restore things to their proper place. God was saying that, in our post-paradisal state, spousal relationships would become much harder, in part because many men would be tempted to become abusive and domineering. I’m sure not everyone will agree with me, but in light of common sense and Jesus’ character, it’s what makes sense to me.
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Thank you, Serving. I was too worked up to explain. Cooler heads prevail and your words are so helpful, not just for A Lone Voice, but to anyone else who may stumble across this old thread. Thanks again!
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You’re welcome, JA. Glad that I could help.
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“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons [and daughters] of God.” (Matthew 5:6,9 ESV)
As one who is more inclined to the pursuit of justice, which I take to be included as an aspect of righteousness, my potential reward no doubt pales in comparison to the reward awaiting Julie Anne, Serving Kids in Japan, and all the other peacemakers here. And yet.
It never occurred to me to suppose that 100pinkapples might not be a Christian. Nor, based on his presentation here, did it ever occur to me to just assume that Lone Voice is a Christian. I submit that, no matter what, 100pinkapples is our sister, and that Lone Voice is not to be received as a brother. I submit that every target of physically, emotionally or spiritually abusive behavior is our sister or brother, and that no perpetrator, absent real repentance, is to be embraced as family.
Please, please, JA and Serving, do not receive this comment as condemnation, or even as criticism. Rather, please accept it as simply expressing a differing point of view.
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And with those words, The Lone Voice Show is over and Spiritual Sounding Board returns in its channel and time slot.
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Here is a tasty quote AGAINST wife-spanking: Jim Alsdurf, a forensic psychologist who evaluates and treats sexual psychopaths and is the author of a book on abuse in Christian homes, says CDD isn’t about religion—it’s an outlet for emotionally disturbed men with intimacy deficits. “No fool in his right mind would buy this as a legitimate way to have a relationship,” Alsdurf says. “A relationship that infantilizes a woman is one that clearly draws a more pathological group of people.” Now here is the hilarious part you may have missed… did you catch the guys credentials? “a forensic psychologist who evaluates and treats sexual psychopaths and is the author of a book on abuse”
Soooo… he is a modern psychologist? Didnt the APA decide homosexuality is just fine? And isn’t transsexuality also ok? Did you know the APA approves “gender reassignment surgery” as the best way to HELP a male patient who reports his “inner self” is really female? Modern psychology openly approves homosexuality. Modern psychology approves a surgeon cutting off a guys penis, surgically creating a fake vagina, and will then prescribe estrogen hormones for the dude to look like a lady. All of that IS ok? But if some Christians decide a little S&M is good for them? That’s too much? Weenie-chopping? Check, good to go! Spanking your wife because your tiny little denomination thinks that’s holy? Oh, stop the press! THATS JUST WRONG!
Welcome to grown up land folks. Weenies are gettin chopped yall. Its happenin. People wanna chop their weenie, so thats what they do. Homos are gettin married. Its happenin. 4000 kids a day get killed for being conceived in the wrong womb. And guess what? A few folks are gonna paddle each other. Its gonna happen.
Somewhere out there, a guy is trotting around his living room on all fours, wearing a leather thong and nothing else but a saddle on his back. His wife is swatting him with a riding crop because he failed to “be a good pony” and iron her clothes. Who cares? If he gets tired of his dominatrix, he needs to move out. If he is afraid, he can call the cops. I dont think he has stockholm syndrome or any other excuse, he just likes being her highness’s good little stallion. He’s not a victim, he’s a kinky dude with odd underwear.
The all knowing psychologist above is concerned with “a relationship that infantilizes a woman.” Me too. How come society thinks women aren’t bright enough to dial 911? Why are saddle-wearing men seen as free agents, capable of free thought, in direction of their own life? Why are women in a similar, and even more benign relationship seen as victims, non-free agents, and not capable of the free thought it might take to walk out the door? Unless the woman is locked in a basement like something on an episode of CSI Special Victims Unit, she is there by choice. Always portraying women as feeble-minded helpless victims is the worst kind of infantilization.
Wife’s getting spanked like being spanked. Thats their thing. Let these people do their thing. If it makes it hotter for them to mix in some faith? Well, that’s their altar. And don’t tell me you never wanted to have sex on an altar! Wait? Is that bad now too?
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Did you even read the post? This wife did not like getting spanked.
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I love DD. I’m the one who recommend it, it really helps the relationship for me. It is not “abuse” if both people consent, maybe she should have talked to him about it and he would have stopped.
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Jennifer, I moved your comment to a new post so more people could see it and respond. Here is the link: https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2016/06/30/wife-asks-for-input-regarding-her-husband-who-paddles-her/
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I got spanked as a child and so did my brother and we turned out great! I think there were many times two which I was so disobedient that my parents would have not known what to do unless they had given me a spanking and set me straight. Yes, I believe there is a cut off line as to how old a child should be when he gets a spanking though. Most will realize when they watch Pat Robertson’s clip on moving to Saudi Arabia so a husband can’t beat his wife, that Pat Robertson was joking not insisting. I went ahead and watch that whole video of him on that day and it would have been more in context as to what Pat Robertson was sharing. I did go back and find the entire 700 club episode from that day and InContext it was very understandable.
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Interesting. Pat Robertson talks about moving to Saudi Arabia, so that makes me want to tell Lauren to move to Canada. Here spanking children is not illegal per se, but it does have its limits. Since that law came out in 2004, I have yet to hear of a spanking incident as such, and I haven’t even seen anyone spank their child in public. Although it is still a hot topic between parents throughout the web.
Here are the limits: No spanking children under 2, and no spanking teenagers.(no spanking adults goes without saying, though your parents just may provoke Prime Minister Justin Trudeau TO say that)
Use only an open hand, no objects
Do not strike faces or heads
Do not do it in any degrading way; some articles suggest not to spank children with special needs; I’m sure that’s some kind of grey area
Building an adult-adult relationship with parents is a difficult transition, but it can be done. It may be more difficult in your 30s, and may never happen. But yes, you do have the right to not contact them at all, or seriously restrict it. Such as, not seeing them alone, only meeting in public, and if you need overnight accommodations to see them, NEVER stay at their place or let them stay at yours. If adults have the right to spank those who disagree with them, well, I shudder to think of all the spank-fests that’d happen on every count; in every church meeting, every work-place. Let’s keep working on putting a stop to it.
Carrie, what conclusion did Pat Robertson come up with to help this husband? Or did he simply say a prayer for him and his wife, that they would be able to work it out in a godly way?
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Sorry, have not read anything here yet! In the 70’s went screaming for Radio Talk Show Host to interview abused women in the church; we haven’t come far have we? Been hearing about abuses for OVER 50 years. I’m giving this to couple famous author’s who write books on abuse and see what they want to do with (one has Radio)!
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Hi, I read some of these odd comments about the bible, written by men in this case perverted old patriarchs. In order to have an honest justice and economic system, every citizen must have equal rights under a legal system that is uniformly enforced. Your beliefs are no excuse for assaulting another person. This bullying is a means to exploitation, like most bullying.
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Why isn’t child spanking just as abusive as wife spanking? I was hoping the article was good no to come out and say that all hitting, whether it is an adult or child, is assault, but I didn’t see that. Why can’t we just boldly say spankings is always abusive, because hitting people is abusive? The article talked about it being abusive to spank children up to adulthood, but why is it only abusive if it is done up to adulthood. Why can’t we just say hitting people is abusive whether it is a child or adult being victimized.
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You raise a good point, Matthew.
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Just to let you know that this comment section is an echo chamber of “better than thou” and “how can this folly even exist” people. I wished people like you existed since the beginning of times so the world would be a much better place – even though apart from labelling people victims and abusers, your general philosophies do not do much to help relationships work as is evidenced by the disfunctional state of marriages today that have become a mess just at the same period your ideological ideals started to become turned into laws.
Just compare the divorce rates in 1960 with those of today. With regards to this “new craziness”, deepen your research and you will find that it was very common for men to spank their wives, to the point that archives of advertising campaigns referring to this then cultural norm can easily be found online.
Reading this comment section is like reading a handbook of how liberal thinkers (and do not assume that I am a conservative), go about turning people who think differently than them into mentally sick people. I do not find your opinion disguting, but I find this tactic disgusting.
The notion of automatic mental vulnerability and the basically mandatory victim status of the woman. The call to statistics to justify that since it has to be abusive most of the time, it would be better to simply outlaw it. This tendency you have to talk about people practicing it as if they were some sort of deranged people or animals inferior to you.
This practice is about two consenting adults who are free to leave the relationship at any time, period. You go to great lengths to make it a mental sickness and an abuse which it isn’t. I do not ask you to embrace this way of life, the only thing I ask you is to stop being on the wrong side of history with these disguting tactics.
While social sciences are a useful tool, you perfectly demonstrate how they can be used as a convenient tool to outlaw deranging opinions and lifestyles by justifying the move by supposed facts.
There are millions of non christians practicing domestic discipline, and millions of Christians practicing it too. It is not because you happen to discover it now that it is new thing. For this is also the main way families have been organized for thousands of years. Feminism and egalitarianism everywhere-everytime are very new concepts. Let’s see what passes the test of time and let’s judge everything by its fruits (even though the negative and confusing fruits of your radical ideollogy can already be seen after a generation only. couples are a mess, for all the talk women abuse is nowhere close to being fixed but now masculinity is also in a crisis. People are lost and growing frustrated).
Finally, I would suggest that the fix you are suggesting are the reasons domestic discipline has been making a come back lately and is here to stay. Because people are increasingly dissatisfied by the standard domestic arrangements proposed by social scientists are looking for alternative arrangements more in line with human nature. For playing against human nature is playing against the pursuit of happiness, you will never deter people from seeking it.
If you are truly interested in learning more about that “folly”, there are plenty of websites and blogs and practicers on the internet. Many of them are even written by women in these relationships. This is not some sort of dark movement where people are held in chains in basements. These women are most of the time mature, mentally strong and educated. Right now, you have decided that you were morally better and intellectually superior to these people and that they are in need of medical care and social assistance which is quite an arrogant position to have for someone who admits not knowing much about the topic. You have decided that you are better than everybody, however humility and open-mindness are the beginning of knowledge.
You do not need to agree with this practice, but you must be tolerant. Right now, you are in a state of intellectual intolerance that you try to justify by invoking science. I do not agree with your philosophies and fixes, but I feel no drive or desire to label you as mentally sick. On the opposite, I hope that we will maintain an environment in which we can all live our lives in our own terms, however this obviously doesn’t seem to be your agenda, you seem decided to “fix” society and down-look at people who think in a way radically different than you
If you only have tolerance for lines of thinking that you are happy to tolerate, then you are intolerant. And do you realize that labelling people as “abusers” is a very serious and insulting thing to do ? However be prepared because I do no think this movement is going anywhere. It is only going to increase as people go frustrated by the negative effects of domestic ideology on their happiness and increasingly get to the point of questioning everything.
In a certain sense, your intolerance will only amplify the “problem” and at some point people will throw the baby with the water even though not everything you say about the need to protect vulnerable people generally speaking is off the mark (in my opinion). This is the reason tolerance is essential if you want your ideas to pass the test of time.
I do not want a world in which wife beating makes a come back with rage because people have had enough of having ideology inconsistent with human nature pushed down their throat. If you get to the point were you are ready to prevent two contenting adults from living the way they choose, you are making a big disservice to any cause you pretend to serve.
For keep in mind that you are in a very difficult position in that you are promoting an ideology which is against nature. Domestic Disciplining is consistent with the natural instincts of men and women which is why it has been practiced for so long, and why it will keep coming back over and over whether you like it or not. So the real question is, do you want to be shortsighted, or do you want to position the cause your serve in a way that will allow it to pass the test of time.
For this purpose moderation and tolerance are key. Wacky science isn’t fooling anyone, even if people are not always able to verbalize it, they feel within themselves that something is wrong and this autism makes them explode at some point. Make sure that everything you support is not flushed down the toilet because of arrogance, intolerance and a misplaced desire for controlling people’s lives.
You’ve really got to be ok with the idea that people may live a life that you feel totally unacceptable for yourself if they freely consent to live that life. If some of them change their mind at some point, this is ok, but their testimonies do not make the lifestyle an abuse. For anything can be labelled an abuse with this method. The truth is, the abuse labelling has less to do with the fact itself than with your opinion on the matter and your decision to condemn it and declare it morally unacceptable.
I do not normally comment on web forums, but I wanted to counter-balance this thread. I think nobody bothered to really answer because your self-proclaimed moral superiority, and arrogant psychiatric doctor tone make you guys look close-minded and beyond hope. For, right now most people in this thread seem to be in a bubble of self-righteousness that tends to look ridiculous from the outside, especially when the scientists obviously know nothing about the object of their analysis.
This is how people get confused when Trump is elected. But I do not want a day when people wake up confused because women rights have been flushed down the toilets.
When this day happens, the laws will already have been written but will not be enforced or taken seriously anymore, so with many regards, the state of women will be worse than it used to be because they’ll be nothing clear they can do to improve their fate. So without knowing it, the type of extreme feminism you promote is currently working toward its own destruction.
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TIL hitting your spouse is the key to making relationships ‘work’. Instead of, you know, just talking to each other.
Wife beating never went away.
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English Common Law said that wives were the property of their husbands. If they divorced or left their husbands, they had no means of financial support. In addition, they were ostracized by the faith community which was one of the few means of assistance for the poor. Most jobs that could provide a living were male occupations. So, a wife divorcing her husband unless she was independently wealthy was quite possibly a death sentence. That’s why Hollywood had/has such a high divorce rate – two stars who were independently wealthy married and then when the marriage went south, the wife knew she could divorce without losing her livelihood. When women were welcomed, for the most part, into the workforce and had independent means of support, the divorce rate skyrocketed.
Yup, just like the playground bully. Does that make bullying okay? And, isn’t that just your whole argument? Isn’t bullying between two consenting children? Does the power differential matter? So, if you’re the family bully and that’s the way it’s always been, does your wife really consent to being bullied?
What do you pray when you’re hitting your wife? Jesus, gracious and merciful savior, the one who didn’t punish me for my sins, but sacrificed yourself on a cross so that I could be forgiven before your just and holy father, in whose name I love and cherish my dear wife and sister in Christ, please help me as I beat her black and blue for disrespecting me!!
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As a society have always restricted what two consenting adults can do. For better or worse, most states had laws restricting what was allowable between husband and wife in the bedroom. States have laws restricting consent to marry a person who is already married. States have laws restricting contracts between two consenting adults. States have laws limiting marriage of close relatives. States have laws restricting what people in a position of influence can do with those they employ or counsel or pastor or treat.
I don’t think we’re terribly concerned (to the point of lobbying against these laws) that teachers having sex with their adult students is going to come back with a vengeance just because it is human nature. We continue to call it abuse, despite the fact that it happens between two consenting* adults, and we continue to prosecute those teachers who abuse their students.
the problem with domestic discipline, as with teacher/student sexual assault is that it is improbable that there was true consent. Just as with contracts, there can be duress in various forms, be it a demotion and other forms of financial abuse, bad grades and other forms of potentially public defamation, and just the simple threat of increased violence.
When I got in trouble, the threat of not letting my mom hit me with a wooden spoon was that my dad would belt me, and the threat of not letting my dad belt me was essentially unimaginable. None of us ever dared. To say that I “consented” to be spanked, or to say that even an adult woman “consents” to being spanked simply because she remains in that situation is to make a mockery of the word consent.
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“Wacky science isn’t fooling anyone, even if people are not always able to verbalize it, they feel within themselves that something is wrong and this autism makes them explode at some point.”
science is wrong on domestic violence because… you said so?
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Just like there are many realities behind the word “marriage”, there are many realities behind the term “domestic discipline”. I am therefore by no mean the spokeman of everything that’s being done under the sun (and couldn’t even if I wanted it). What I can however say is that what you describe isn’t generally speaking the spirit of domestic discipline. This is a tool among others, people do not “hit” as a substitute for talking unlike what you suggest.
I think you should take the time to study what you want to criticize for you do not know what you are talking about (and this is not some sort of insulting rethoric, this is to be taken literally). There is plenty of information out there, why don’t you do your research instead of spreading intolerance and hatry. People here sound like anecdotes outraged them so they decided to throw the baby with the water and prosecute, prosecute, prosecute no matter what. I see no interest whatsoever on your side on actually studying what you are talking about.
Despite what you think, domestic discipline is not some sort of mindless activity done by brutal men and victimized women. I think you’d be surprised at how educated these people are. Take any instructional material on domestic discipline and you’ll notice two things : knowledge symmetry (the man and the woman must comprehensively discuss and understand every aspect of this lifestyle), and psychological sophistication : the many psychological effects of physical disciplining (which only is one aspect of the lifestyle) are presented at length to both the man and the woman. So people actually choose to add their prefered dose of physical disciplining to leverage these psychological effects, it is an extra tool they use as part of their commitment to make things work with regards to the shared vision they have for their life (in which you have no business). At the very least, the reality is miles away from what you are trying to make it, please do your research.
If you are really interested in having an informed opinion, a good starting point would be to search “getting started with domestic discipline” on the internet. This will allow you to see the educational materials people use and therefore to understand their rational and mindset. In light of this typical “new customer journey”, I think it’s reasonable to suggest that people choosing this lifestyle put much more thinking into their relationships and are more intellectually alert than the average person going the default way. Especially when you factor in that they are free to leave these relationships anytime.
No this is not like the playground bully. No one arranges to be bullied, however couples consensually arrange these relationships before entering them. No one is tricked or trapped into that, even if you seem to have the concerning desire to save people from themselves because “it just can’t be right”. However, this is nothing more than intolerance even if you think you mean well.
No this isn’t the argument at all. You do not understand what you are attacking.
This may help you win a popularity contest in this community, but if you really are a spiritual man and aspire to justice, I would quote Proverbs 28:5 : “Evil men do not understand justice, But those who seek the LORD understand all things”. Your inability to understand your counterpart speaks volume and certainly does not honour you. Why are you so eager to judge that which you do not understand and have obviously no interest in understanding ? You think you are just but you are what the Bible calls a mocker. Aspire to knowledge and aspire to love, declare yourself ignorant and humble and you will find justice and wisdom for God does not reveal himself to arrogant people and this is why you are in darkness on this matter.
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As far as this message is concerned I understand and respect your point. I would however disagree with the notion that these laws were well-inspired. On the one hand, they are too arbitrary (why should the age of consent be 15 and not 16 or 22, or even 30 especially since you suggest that even adults can be tricked into domestic discipline. Oh yes, statistics. It doesn’t matter if millions of legitimate lives deviating from the average are frustrated and destroyed in the process, these are just data points).
On the other hand the very fact that you would use these laws as precedents legitimizing the outlawing of something as personal and initimate as domestic discipline proves on its own that these laws are problematic. For where does it end ? Good intentions yield more good intentions.
I personally do not support enforcing religious views by law because I believe in God-given freewill. So I would not use such laws as legitimate precedents for anything either. The worst things always begins with good intentions, but it only takes a couple of “fixes” to totally corrupt God’s truth and turn order into confusion. Let’s treat adults like adult and let’s avoid the temptation of playing the role of God.
Focusing on building our own happy families is the best law we can pass and the best data science we can make because it will make a lasting impression on people and they will engrave in their hearts. The wife-beater will remember our image before he raises his hand to punch his wife, not after he is jailed. For this is what Christianity is about. Christianity is about inspiring free hearts, not forcing them with laws.
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Any marriage in which one partner is exerting control over the other IMHO is wrong.
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You choose to call it domestic discipline. I’m arguing that the word discipline entails a superior/inferior relationship and therefore not true consent.
I’m also arguing that you continue to blow bullshit and try to make it sound like wisdom. For example: “Evil men do not understand justice, But those who seek the LORD understand all things”
YOU are calling domestic discipline justice. Justice is not a consensual relationship. There is a judge and there is a criminal, the judge proclaims a sentence against the criminal which is carried out. The criminal has relinquished consent by the act that requires justice. So if not understanding DD is not understanding “justice” then you are already acknowledging that DD is non-consensual.
“You think you are just but you are what the Bible calls a mocker.”
1 Kings 18:27: “It came about at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Call out with a loud voice, for he is a god; either he is occupied or gone aside, or is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened.””
I’m in good company.
“No one is tricked or trapped into that, even if you seem to have the concerning desire to save people from themselves because “it just can’t be right”.”
Really? No wife who has ever been spanked by her husband submitted out of fear? So, the testimonials in THIS VERY THREAD of wives who were shamed and beaten by their husbands are false simply because you declare them so?
“I think it’s reasonable to suggest that people choosing this lifestyle put much more thinking into their relationships and are more intellectually alert than the average person going the default way. ”
Why? I don’t look at the guy next to me smoking a cigarette or drinking a beer and just because I understand that cigarettes and alcohol are self-destructive assume that they put significant thought into deciding to start. Instead, I understand that person to be trapped in a self-destructive pattern of addiction. Domestic Discipline is the same sort of addictive behavior.
“Aspire to knowledge and aspire to love, declare yourself ignorant and humble and you will find justice and wisdom for God does not reveal himself to arrogant people and this is why you are in darkness on this matter.”
“I think you’d be surprised at how educated these people are. ”
My dad was a PhD and he beat me with a belt without my consent. Those “wacky” scientists have way more education than you or I, so obviously you cannot correlate education with wise and good choices.
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Just about to board the 2nd leg of my flight to Chicago. Please remember blog rules. Debate is fine. Personal attacks are not. Carry on. This subject makes me sick. Where’s the barf bag?
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This is really strange, as it seems the husband turned a non-consensual sex fetish into his personal gratification and not his wife’s, while hurting her mentally and physically through some crazy fabricated punishment,
Maybe I’m miss re-reading this.
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“Let’s treat adults like adult and let’s avoid the temptation of playing the role of God.”
God told the Israelites to pass laws and enforce them. Those laws included things that happened in the bedroom between consenting adults. Moreover, God created us in his image, and I don’t see you can claim that beating the image of God is okay because it’s supposedly consensual.
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D – “husband turned a non-consensual sex fetish”
The argument is that it’s consensual. I guess I fail to see how the one couple in the galaxy that can carry this on consensually should override the millions of women that are in domestically violent relationships. When the policeman is at the door because the neighbors heard the wife screaming in pain, does she say “all is well” because it is truly an egalitarian, consensual relation, or does she say “all is well” because she knows that he is going to physically hurt her, or her kids or her family or whatever.
Rock, if you want to read about domestic violence, read about Jamin Wright, a good-ole’ boy from Doug Wilson’s church in Moscow ID. Here are some tidbits of the arrest report:
From what I can tell, Jamin remains a member in good standing at Doug Wilson’s church.
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Not commenting on the way you cherry pick Bible verses out of context to make them confirm what they do not even talk about. Elijah did not begin by being arrogant, dogmatic, self-congratulating and dismissive (like you have been in this discussion). He began by making a case for many years. And even then, he was only sarcastic in this verse because he was about to perform a miracle before them (the context is that Elijah challenged them to perform a miracle and they failed, they agreed that they would first perform a miracle and that then Elijah would perform one to see who was serving the true God). So he has this attitude, because he is about to bring them irrefutable proof (which you are not doing). And if it wasn’t enough, beyond this exceptional event it’s pretty clear that mockery is absolutely not the normal approached followed by preachers, teachers and prophets recorded in the Bible. So I personally see no company around you, you are alone here.
As far as justice is concerned, I do not think that Rock was saying that Domestic Discipline is justice. He/she was saying that men truly working with the wisdom of God understand everything, both God’s justice, and the theories of their counterparts, rather than only understanding their own theories and thinking that everybody else is a fool (like you do). Rock showed the stars and you looked at the finger.
What’s the problem with superior/inferior relationships? What’s the problem if certain people want a superior/inferior relationship? Because Mark does not like them, people having this vision for their life should go to their jail? You are a very dogmatic person. You are not making any case, you are simply asserting that your personal religious views are better and therefore should be turned into laws.
@Mark You are convinced that a woman can only be tricked into that kind of relationship, and you have decided to be quite closed minded with this regard to the extent that you think that people who think otherwise are sick. I am amazed to see so much intolerance.
I disagree with you, but like Rock, I do not think that you are sick. However you and Anne, and all the other self-congratulating politically-correct thinkers in this thread are quite prompt to label other people mentally sick.
Here is a challenge for you that will expose your hypocrisy: your argue that a woman can only be tricked into that kind of relationship. You seem to imagine that the relationships start like a normal date, and then once the woman is “trapped and vulnerable”, the man shows his true colors, or initiates the discussion at a point when the woman “cannot truly consent”. This perception betrays the fact that you are hating what you do not even understand. So let me ask you a question.
If a man and a woman are not dating yet. They first have a conversation about Domestic Discipline. They then work out a document, a 30-page document describing every aspect of the relationship (the superior/inferior nature and all its practical implications, when and how spanking is to be performed, what the man can and cannot do, what the woman can and cannot do etc…). Then, they sign this document in the presence of lawyers, and witnesses (friends and/or parents of the woman). Here is my question to you: are you implying that the woman is a victim even if this situation and cannot truly consent?
What you need to understand and accept is that people having this type of relationship proceed in a way closer to this scenario than the romantic date approach you imagine. Many people even literally proceed in the manner I have just described. People practicing Domestic Discipline are typically very mature and proactive people who really think through these aspects of their relationship. They are not like traditional couples who improvise a relationship and work it out on the go. They plan these relationships and there is no knowledge asymmetry.
You all seem to be very sincere people, but you also seem to be very dangerous ones, because you have decided to be driven by ideology and intolerance. You think that your intolerance is acceptable because you are on the side of political correctness. But intolerance is intolerance, and here you are intolerant against religious freedom.
When I read you, I see sincere people suffering sort of post-traumatic disorder. Maybe you’ve experienced a lot, maybe you’ve seen a lot, and this experience has lead you to be more emotional than rational and to err on the wrong side of history. For your prescription is to amputate all arms because some hands could possibly get infected at some point in the future.
I totally respect that your religious view (whether or not you consider yourself atheists, this really is a religious decision, a lifestyle choice), I totally respect that your religious view may be equality-driven feminist relationships. You are free to live this lifestyle. You are even free to self-congratulate and to think that your lifestyle makes you morally superior to others. However you are not free to force your religious views on others.
You may be at war with Domestic Violence, and this is an honorable fight. But when you come back home, keep in mind that the world is not a war zone. Beware of your own Post-Traumatic Disorders and aspire to respect individual freedoms in general and freedom of religion in particular. You should address your own problems before aspiring to protect people against themselves.
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I come to believe that spanking is needed to protect the marriage. I would like to give a example: The husband asked the wife to wash the dishes she said tomorrow that resulted in a spanking. Now ( standard marriage) she refused to wash the until tomorrow as a result of this and her attitude the marriage is over. Note: 51% of standard marriages result in divorce DD marriage are maybe 1% Is it better to receive a spanking or get a divorce?
You people that believe that spanking is abuse you have no comperhesion as to what it’s like deal with a hellish marriage and the damage on children. It mush be nice to be self righteous don’t you think.
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