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I received a private message on Twitter a week or so ago from an elder at a church. He reached out to me after reading Beth Moore’s letter to Christian men. You may recall that Beth Moore, in her letter, asked men to put away misogyny and act Christ-like towards women. Here are a few key paragraphs from Beth Moore’s letter:
As a woman leader in the conservative Evangelical world, I learned early to show constant pronounced deference – not just proper respect which I was glad to show – to male leaders and, when placed in situations to serve alongside them, to do so apologetically. I issued disclaimers ad nauseam. I wore flats instead of heels when I knew I’d be serving alongside a man of shorter stature so I wouldn’t be taller than he. I’ve ridden elevators in hotels packed with fellow leaders who were serving at the same event and not been spoken to and, even more awkwardly, in the same vehicles where I was never acknowledged. I’ve been in team meetings where I was either ignored or made fun of, the latter of which I was expected to understand was all in good fun. I am a laugher. I can take jokes and make jokes. I know good fun when I’m having it and I also know when I’m being dismissed and ridiculed. I was the elephant in the room with a skirt on. I’ve been talked down to by male seminary students and held my tongue when I wanted to say, “Brother, I was getting up before dawn to pray and to pore over the Scriptures when you were still in your pull ups.”
I’m asking for your increased awareness of some of the skewed attitudes many of your sisters encounter. Many churches quick to teach submission are often slow to point out that women were also among the followers of Christ (Luke 8), that the first recorded word out of His resurrected mouth was “woman” (John 20:15) and that same woman was the first evangelist. Many churches wholly devoted to teaching the household codes are slow to also point out the numerous women with whom the Apostle Paul served and for whom he possessed obvious esteem. We are fully capable of grappling with the tension the two spectrums create and we must if we’re truly devoted to the whole counsel of God’s Word.
Finally, I’m asking that you would simply have no tolerance for misogyny and dismissiveness toward women in your spheres of influence. I’m asking for your deliberate and clearly conveyed influence toward the imitation of Christ in His attitude and actions toward women. I’m also asking for forgiveness both from my sisters and my brothers. My acquiescence and silence made me complicit in perpetuating an atmosphere in which a damaging relational dynamic has flourished. I want to be a good sister to both genders. Every paragraph in this letter is toward that goal.
The man who contacted me told me that Beth Moore’s letter was read at their elders’ meeting. He asked me how men could practically put into place what Beth Moore was talking about. Yes!!! I will include his questions and expand them with some of my own. This is the kind of conversations we need to be having in churches.
- There’s a challenge – especially with some cultures within church that the issue stops at the question of sexual immorality and understanding that there were other issues about how men and women relate – especially how male leaders relate were maybe not so easy to grasp for some. How can male leaders engage in healthy relationships with sisters in Christ? How can men uphold integrity for themselves and women in their day-to-day dealings with women both inside and outside the church?
- That whole fear culture – how do we get beyond that?Is there a way to move beyond that in a healthy way?
- How can we talk helpfully and appropriately and honestly as churches in dealing with misogyny?
photo credit: SMBCollege SMBC graduates serve as cross-cultural missionaries and ‘tent makers’ in locations around the world via photopin(license)
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I don’t think it’s fair, most would not go that far. But most muslims in the US would not go that far either. And muslim’s vary from country to country, many muslim women are quite well educated in other countries like Jordan, as compared to some Christian communities in the US which would keep women from away from higher education. I don’t hear anyone who wants to discuss that when they bring up sharia law.
I do think, if we are dead set on bringing up another religious tradition for compare and contrast, that this emphasis on keeping women who have been abused away from police departments and into a sort of ‘church court’, by means of elders and pastor generally, has some relevance.
JA linked some crazy article on her facebook page where a guy was ranting about the court system and divorce. He (or she I suppose, but probably not) was ranting about how evil it is to let women use the court system. What is the other alternative one might ask?
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So, you look at abusive Christian environments such as Hephzibah House mentioned above, which features abuse of women and girls, and you wonder, how can Christians put a stop to that sort of thing?
And why do so many Christians victim-blame teen girls who are raped by adult Christian men, such as,
_Teen allegedly raped, forced to apologize – US news_ – via NBC news site
-(and that news story happened in a Christian church in the USA, not in Sharia enforced, Islamic, Saudi Arabia)
And how can Christians put a stop to that type of thing? The specific question for this thread is how can Christian MEN help to fight this sort of violence against girls and women?
I don’t think telling people to believe in Jesus, recognize sin in the human heart is the root of all evil, or to repent, etc., is the solution.
These are people who already repented, already accepted Jesus as savior, who have already heard the message that all humans have sin in the heart, and they agree with that…
But they are still either doing the abuse to women and girls themselves, or, they are standing by defending the abuse, allowing the abusers off the hook, by way of their “men should rule over women” (complementarian or patriarchal) doctrines.
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Daisy, you asked “(is “D” the same person as “anongrace“?)”
No
Daisy, as Sharia Law progresses, it will and has already affected Christianity. Heck now in some cases the 2 have combined into “Chrislam”
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Lea said,
I do think some of them would go that far if they were allowed, if they felt they would not face consequences (such as jail time).
I look at these guys,like Doug Wilson, and I believe he’s already there. This is a guy who’s known to defend slavery, say it was good, and to think it’s fine to marry a pedo off to a young lady, etc, and that’s not even touching his sexist articles.
I also think of Christian guys like – what is his name, Julie Anne blogs about him – Ron Swanson? He thinks birth control (the pill) = abortion or some such. These men already have very, very regressive ideas about girls and women.
Some of them (was it Bruce Ware?) have written, said, and believe that women are not as fully human as God, but that women are only a derivative of men. Once one group starts casting another as sub-human, it becomes easier for them to justify and excuse treating other humans like garbage.
I never said all Muslims are wife beaters and sexists. I don’t believe they are. However, that some of them may allow their girls and women to get jobs, educations, etc, doesn’t change the fact they have a serious and severe problem with misogyny.
I find chatting with liberals on this point extremely vexing, because the habit is always jump to “Defend the Muslims” and diminish and water down any sexism that goes in in Islamic families, cultures, or nations – it’s like the American complementarians who want to deny that THEIR brand of Christian gender role theology enables domestic abuse and other problems for women.
Not all complementarian Christian men beat their wives and such, obviously, but that does not change the fact that American Christians (especially the complementarians) have issues with sexism here in the States, even in churches, and it ranges from mild issues (scolding women for wanting to work outside the home, if married) to more harsh ones (such as their views perpetuating domestic violence).
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Correction, I said,
“said, and believe that women are not as fully human as God, but that women are only a derivative of men.”
I meant, some of them don’t think that women are as fully in God’s image as men are, but that women are some kind of sub-species, not quite human as men.
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Lea said,
You’ll notice you sometimes don’t see me posting here or at the other blog or where ever for a day or more.
I sometimes take entire days off Twitter, too.
I find I need a break from this stuff at times.
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Daisy,
I answered your question. You asked “(is “D” the same person as “anongrace“?)”
No
Daisy, as Sharia Law progresses, it will and has already affected Christianity. Heck now in some cases the 2 have combined into “Chrislam”
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I don’t disagree, however when I see this as a way of avoiding problems in our own culture I think it’s a deflection. They are related topics, in that misogyny is built into culture in general, and it shows itself in specific ways in specific sub-cultures. If you are going to force a compare and contrast, we would have to realize that there are different cultures in different muslim countries and in our own country, just as there are differences between Christians in different countries and between fundamentalists, evangelicals, mega’s, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, catholics, etc…
So lets be specific. Beth Moore sees a specific problem, within a specific culture. Is dislike and marginalization of women driving theology in this specific group, or is theology creating problems of it’s own? I see some combination.
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AnonGrace, how do you know that there are more abusive relationships in the Kardashian family than among the Duggars? I don’t see how that’s been proven.
We already know that Josh Duggar cheated on his wife, or at least tried to. That’s one. And when he was much younger, he molested four (or five?) girls, including his own sisters. That’s at least five abusive relationships already, and those are just the cases we know about. Sure, the Duggars might put a nice face on TV, but that’s “reality programming” for you. Who knows what’s going on when the cameras aren’t rolling?
Isn’t it funny how patriarchy and obsessive scrupulosity didn’t keep protect the Duggar kids from abusive behaviour, or from doing evil things?
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Lea,
I don’t think including Sharia Law in the conversation of misogyny is avoiding problems in our own culture. Sharia Law is faith based and the origin of this faith is widely being accepted in our culture of inclusion.
If Sharia Law isn’t addressed, it will flourish and may end up making misogyny part of a culture that none of us will be able to identify.
We are turning a blind eye on our politicians who are allowing Chrisam like inclusion, in this society. Heck we have leaders from this nation bowing to leaders of nations that allow Sharia Law.
I think “all” faith based abuse and misogyny that is occurring shouldn’t be marginalized. Not exposing Sharia Law is marginalizing misogyny in that faith and that faith is here in this culture now.
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Looking back on the comments, and wondering how Sharia Law became a topic on this thread, I see that anongrace started on that digression. Then “D” took it and ran with it, using a whole bunch of unproven assertions and wingnut predictions. Just as a sample:
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Serving Kids in Japan, it’s much easier and less work to point in a different direction and say ‘look over there! Those people are bad’ then it is to talk about the issues in your own culture.
Patriarchy doesn’t protect women. That is not it’s design or purpose. I don’t know how many examples from history or today we need to make that point.
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Sorry everyone. I mis-clicked and posted my comment too early. Here’s what I wanted to say….
Looking back on the comments, and wondering how Sharia Law became a topic on this thread, I see that anongrace started on that digression. Then “D” took it and ran with it, using a whole bunch of unproven assertions and wingnut predictions. Just as a sample:
I don’t know about anyone else, but this sounds like CloudCuckoolander territory to me.
D, whatever support you think you have for these notions, you are bringing this onto the wrong article. Julie Anne posed a question for us: What can men do to eliminate misogyny from the organized church? That’s what this thread is supposed to be about. Your conspiracy theories about sharia law coming to America have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
I have no doubt that women are treated horribly under sharia, and I’d have no problem with Julie Anne bringing it up for discussion at some point. But I wouldn’t blame her if she never did. American Christendom has more than enough problems for us to deal with at present, and she doesn’t seem likely to run out of material any time soon. No need to entertain bizarre (and vaguely xenophobic) scenarios about a hypothetical future. How about we concentrate on the here and now?
So, D: What do you think men should do to get rid of misogyny in Christian churches?
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Hi Japan,
I did respond to your “free spirit” questions yesterday, granted if you are in Japan, then the time difference would make it a little tricky to follow.
Before I go any further, I’d like to remind you, I’m not the enemy here.
No man in the church I attend would tolerate misogyny. The community I live in wouldn’t tolerate it either. Though there are those that are involved in heavy substance abuse that do in fact treat their woman like crap. If the woman in addicted and the man isn’t, then she treats him like crap.
My wife and I would not go into a church that has misogyny. I have blindly collided with a male chauvinist preacher who embraced a doctrine he kept a mystery trying to get him to disclose his doctrine, which he never fully exposed. He treated women like my wife like crap who is well versed on Wednesday night bible studies that use to be open format, which he eliminated.
Part of the problem with trying to end misogyny in some denominations is there are women who have an option to leave their aggressive methodology and choose to stay.
Essentially the best way to combat misogyny is either leave or press charges when laws are being broken.
When attendance drops off in those churches, then many of those that practice misogyny don’t have a congregation and will resign, which is what my former Pastor did. He may have believed in misogyny as being appropriate at times, but he would’ve never been able to get away with it, though he had a great dislike to woman who questioned him.
He probably thought I was weak for having a well versed wife who wasn’t afraid to share bible verses. She has a tender sensitive heart and if I wasn’t there he would’ve been in her face.
I even wrote a letter to the SBC, to report my former Pastor for not disclosing what he really stood for.
So if you go into a church, know the doctrine of the Pastor to see if it matches yours and if he is aggressively force feeding down your throat.
I also have a tendency to believe, that when a Pastor raises his voice,, scream fire and brimstone, it is rehearse in way to control the congregation.
.
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Men don’t want to end misogyny. It’s ‘God word and truth’. Give up. Christianity is for the penis, not for the damn hellish vagina. God even hates the title ‘mother’ for Himself, He NEED to be MALE. Female is… Trash, something inferior/diabolic for men shit/hit/sit in.
They’re the first gender, the ‘owners’… I envy them… God hates women. I have mind, soul, emotions just for men (ab)use, in His name… God hates me for something I didn’t choose.
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Ana.
Men who love their wives and women in general would not tolerate misogyny.
We live in a society that doesn’t mentor men and women to understand what it means to emotionally connect. We live in a society that isn’t nurturing or to be kind, by instead to verbally say mean things or retaliate.
I’m sorry if you are feeling pain or if you have been hurt and abused. I watched my mom deal with rejection and it saddens my heart.
I would find it surprising if Julie Anne and Kathi feels the same about God.as you.
I hope you can send them a private email as I think they can say peaceful and soothing things which stimulates the mind.
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Serving Kids: But KAS, how do you know that’s the kind of teaching that Paul was against? I’ve never seen the words “expository teaching” in that passage
The purpose of Paul in 1 Tim was I am writing these instructions to you so that, … you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.
With regard to teaching, instruction in doctrine (cf 1 v 3) he says to the women in 2 v 11 Let a woman learn in silence [quietness] with all submissiveness. So we have a teaching and learning in church context here. He follows this by saying I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men [a man]; she is to keep silent.
It’s not really that difficult to understand. He then grounds this in pre-fall creation and the fall.
What can happen but shouldn’t is this gets extended into other contexts when women can and should minister and have gifts. They may teach in the home like Timothy’s mother (vital influence here) or be a Priscilla, or older teach younger. Corrie Ten Boom giving testimony is fine. Interpert tongues, pray for the sick, evangelism, apologetics ministry ….. Paul clearly names several women who were co-workers whom he seems to have valued very highly.
There is a range of views across the complementarian spectrum, from the stricter MacArthur interpretation to my view above, which places little restriction on what women may do. Neither of them is misogynistic. Even if that understanding were wrong or not intended to be permanent, in the grand scheme of things, i.e. having forgiveness and eternal life, it isn’t that important. Not very many men have this ministry either.
That there are men with an attitude problem to women who hold the above doctrine I do not doubt (and those who don’t), or Moore wouldn’t have written her open letter, but this does not stem from the teaching itself. Such men need to change their minds and adopt Paul’s attitude towards women.
It is wrong to be unwilling to reconsider any doctrine, but in discussing this in the past if you give a sincere objection to an interpretation such as mutual submission in marriage, a man will ignore it and say ‘we’ll just have to agree to differ on this’ and a woman will in the end get defiant (which is not exactly the ‘all submissiveness’ Paul enjoined) when they can’t answer it. It’s hardly a persuasive reason to change your mind on this.
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“Neither of them is misogynistic. ”
Yes, they are. You are not the degraded subjugated woman. You are the puffed up elevated MAN. Self-elevating, elevating yourself above women to make yourself feel special and superior.
It is so sickening when a misogynistic man tells the people who are receivers of his misogyny “this is not misogyny.”
KAS, you seethe misogyny. You ignore everything women tell you about how your ideology has hurt them and is hurting them. Out of all the people who post here you are the least like Jesus Christ out of all of them.
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It would be nice if the men would do a bit more listening to women, and a bit less telling us about all these men who they don’t think are misogynists, even when they are saying things like ‘women are derivative’ and actively teaching to baby pastors…This IS comp theology. Deal with it.
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“If you are egalitarian in your understanding, stop saying the complementarian understanding is sexist, let alone misogyny,”
It is misogyny. Pure misogyny. It very much hurts abused women and raped little girls. Not that a selfish comp man would ever slow down and say my insecure selfishness is not worth heaping more hurt on raped little girls. If there is anything comp men excel at it is dismissing raped little girls as irrelevant subhumans.
Victims of the misogynistic misery that is complementarian can tell everybody that complementarian is misogynistic slop all we want. You are embarrassingly arrogant telling other people what not to say. I tell people complementarian was dreamed up by the same spirit that lived in Ariel Castro and the same spirit that promotes Taliban preferences in Afghanistan.
“and calling this sexist in front of a watching world harms the cause of evangelism.”
Complementarians like Bill Gothard, Josh Duggar, Jim Bob Duggar, Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips, Paige Patterson, Jack Schaap, Paul Pressler, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, and Tom Chantry do harm to evangelism as well. This list isn’t even naming the child raping, wife beating, comp perverts I grew up with.
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“It would be nice if the men would do a bit more listening to women”
What I learned from the man who sexually abused me about misogynist is they can’t THINK, CARE, or LISTEN. Thinking, caring, and listening is much too hard, scary, and selfless for them.
What if their brains and hearts lead them to the conclusion that other people should have the same rights as them and be equal to them?
What if they discover they need to get over themselves and they are actually very bad selfish people?
What if it hits them that they are actually heaping hurt on someone else for their own pleasure?
Comp is about selfish men who have the childish self-centered mentality of underage boys. Thinking, caring about, and listening to women and children’s pain is nowhere on their radar. Everything is about them. It is women and children’s job to feel bad to make the comp man feel better.
The comp man has to stand on women and children to elevate himself; he is that low.
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Christianity hurts,
I wish I can find the rights words to say, that is soothing to your mind and heart.
Many men (and even women, like my mom) were never mentored to understand what it means to emotionally connect, that left society to feed us garbage, much of it in social media, much of it from schools.
Even many churches aren’t mentoring young people (and adults for that matter) to know what it means to connect with their lover, other if “you are having sex, you better get married” instead of focusing on whether they actually love each other. Able to smile when the other is happy or feeling pain when she is distraught.
So much of society has been instilling a locker room/porn like mentality of how to treat a woman.
One thing I’m noticing is people simply don’t know how to talk to each other, when they disagree, which makes it harder for them to discover areas they can agree on. So already they don’t trust each other.
To be able to get inside the other’s mind enough to understand one another sensitivities and nurture those sensitivities rather than crushing the is what truly stimulates the mind, where they trust and care for each other enough to where they rarely or never raise their voices,,, it’s called being polite.
These are the sorts of things that should be talked about early in life, but even so it isn’t too late.
As for the pain you endured, that type of abuse may make my words meaningless.
But. you deserve happiness and it might have to be you that mentors a man on how to treat a lady, to discover compromises without colliding, to mentor him on what it means to emotionally connect, otherwise he’ll never have a clue.
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Avid Reader: “Empowering women is very important to the heart of God. That’s why we are going to keep preaching this until the church as a whole finally listens.”
Great post!
I think where D and KAS are (and where I was) in understanding the Bible was assuming that Moses, Jesus and Paul were out to set up the rules and regulations for having utopia on Earth. That is, that if we just followed their checklists – the Law, the Sermon on the Mount, and the letters to the churches, we could have perfect churches.
However, there are strong hints that this is not the case. For example, Jesus says, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives”. Paul says, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able”. The writer to Hebrews says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”
So, we have to understand that the OT rules and regulations were not to set up a PERFECT society, but to set up a BETTER society. A process of sanctification, which is strongly in keeping with what we see personally. In the same way, Jesus was probably prevented from having females among the twelve, not because he didn’t desire to break the gender barrier, but because that society, due to the hardness of their hearts, was not in a position to be able to accept it. Moses, Jesus and Paul taught about slaves, not to condone or encourage, but to protect, as much as possible, the evil of the current generation’s hardness of heart.
So, we have to take a step back and, instead of trying to argue what Paul did or didn’t say in the original Greek about the role of women and blindly structure our church around that, understand that he had limits (milk vs. solid food, he says) on the truth he could teach them, because they were not able to accept it. So, I think Paul’s letters to the churches were not about setting up PERFECT churches, but taking steps to be BETTER churches. I could probably make a few arguments why the church was not ready to have women leaders en masse at that point in history.
We have the same argument with church polity. In Acts 6, we see the congregation choosing (Congregationalism). Later, we see the gathered elders appointing (quasi-Presbyterianism), and even later, Paul commands Timothy to appoint elders (Prelacy/Episcopal). In Revelation, John is told to write letters to the angel/messenger of each church (Prelacy/Pastor-Elder presbyterian distinction)
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I agree that she deserves happiness.
I disagree that any man she meets will need to be ‘mentored’ on emotional connection. CH, if you find yourself interested in dating at any point, find someone who needs no mentor. Who has already figured these things out, like a grown adult person.
In my experience, the chief thing to avoid in men is a deep selfishness. That is the root of so many of these problems. Find one who actually cares, the rest will follow.
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But this is not about dating, this is about the treatment of women in the church. I also think much of this is rooted in selfishness, but also lack of empathy.
Are we teaching men in church to be selfish, looking after their own needs and not those of others, particularly women, in the church?
Does that lack of empathy come from being taught that women are not as important as men, that they are derivative copies of men, that they are equal only in some nebulous ‘worth’ but not in day to day interactions or life in general? That men only are worthy and up to making decisions on a regular basis, because despite being described as ‘equal’ they are not really thought of that way.
All of these ideas contribute to poor treatment of women in church and at home.
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Mark, I think Paul was just giving advice to specific congregations, who had specific issues. The advice you give to your friends differs based on their makeup, temperament and personal issues. It would be the same with churches.
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D, “Many men (and even women, like my mom) were never mentored to understand what it means to emotionally connect”
No, in fact, they were mentored NOT to emotionally connect. For example, if you read “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, one of the issues in dating that is raised is that it encourages an emotional connection that WILL lead to sinful behavior. Courting is meant to eliminate that emotional connection so that the couple can rationally consider whether marriage is their best option, then mostly hold the emotional connection for the wedding night.
If I understand Gothardism, “defrauding” is the term used for women who use means to encourage the emotional connection outside of marriage.
That is men/women. Women to women relationships aren’t discouraged so much, but men/men relationships are pretty heavily frowned on unless one of the men is a parent or church leader. That’s because there is an assumption that a non-leader, non-parent is in the relationship for some sinful reason – either promoting bad theology or potentially sexual, that’s because all ordinary members are guilty until proven innocent in terms of their motivations. (That’s probably why many pedophiles want to have an official church title).
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Lea, “Mark, I think Paul was just giving advice to specific congregations, who had specific issues.”
Yes, but that advice was moving them towards righteousness rather than expediency. Think of the Little League World Series. Experienced coaches I know say that these kids never make it to the professional leagues, because the techniques they’re taught are not ‘good baseball’, but ‘winning at 11-13 years old’. So, I think Paul isn’t telling them to do something expedient, but perhaps something that is better, but not best. You can’t necessarily teach 11 year olds to throw out a runner at home from the outfield because their arms are going to be too weak, so you tell them to always throw to the shortstop. In soccer, youth coaches tell their defenders never to kick the ball across the middle, but at higher levels, shifting the field is a pretty common thing. It’s because they’re not mentally and physically able to handle shifting the field at 11yo. So, the argument could be made that Paul is saying, don’t put a woman in charge, not because women are permanently barred from leadership, but because, at that point in the development of the church, the necessary pieces were not in place for women to lead from a cultural and educational perspective.
I think it is again worth noting that Paul and Jesus were both boundary pushers in terms of the roles they allowed women to have, compared to societal norms.
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Lea, “Are we teaching men in church to be selfish, looking after their own needs and not those of others, particularly women, in the church?”
Wow, you’re opening up all sorts of cans of worms.
My personal experience is that I was driven to selfishness. My “needs” were always secondary to the desires of my parents and church leaders. Their desire was to discourage selfishness, but it had the opposite effect. I had to constantly be aware of my needs and satisfy them rather than relying on others, because asking others to meet my needs was selfish. My life, then was externally about being selfless and helping others, but internally, I was completely self-absorbed because I had to be, in a sense, the adult provider in my life.
This comes up over and over in my marriage. In a sense, I take care of myself, and I give my wife and kids the necessities needed to provide for themselves, but my natural tendency is not to actually lift a finger to provide for them.
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Or he was just talking about that specific church. Or specific women at that church.
[or it wasn’t even paul]
I think if you really read Paul in whole letters, not just snippets he makes more sense. He meanders around to a point. He’s never giving you a lawbook. I appreciate him so much more now when I see the letters as a whole.
Paul talks how one person can eat idol meat and another can’t. How some get milk, because they can’t handle meat. Jesus often talked in circles to the Pharisees.
Ridiculous to go from that, from this complex book full of stories and allegories and parables and all sorts of other information to ‘here is a verse, done’.
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Goodness, Mark. I need to chew on this. I think you probably do more than you think you do, and that you’re even thinking deeply on these things is positive.
I will ask you, have ever read Brene Brown? I think maybe you would appreciate it. She talks a lot about the importance of vulnerability in making connections, which was helpful to me. Just a thought.
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D,
I noticed that you responded to my request for more background on your “free spirits” comment. I appreciate that, but I didn’t realize it was you, since you posted as “David” on the other comment thread.
You seem to keep losing sight of the question posed by this article. We’re supposed to be discussing what men can do to deal with misogyny in churches. In your last few posts, you say things like:
You’re making the problem about the women again, and foisting the responsibility on them to stop abusive attitudes. Yes, I’m sure they have a part to play, but that doesn’t answer the question being posed to us all.
Now if I may, I’d like to make a suggestion of my own, based on something you wrote to Christianity Hurts:
The best course of action in this case might be: Don’t talk. Listen.
This might be one of the first and most basic steps that we men can take, in order to combat misogyny. Let women like Christianity Hurts and Ana tell their stories, and share how abuse and entitled attitudes have marred them. We men need to listen and learn from them, and stop acting like we know what’s best for them just ’cause we’re men.
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Lea, I just realized you wrote this before I did, and should have noted that in my comment just above. Very well said.
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KAS,
But how do you know that this is in the context of a local church? Paul doesn’t mention “local church” at all in this passage. How do you know that he wasn’t talking about some particular woman (or group of women) in the Christian community who were taught bad doctrine, and were trying to pass on to men faulty stuff that they’d learned about creation? That makes a lot more sense to me than trying to squeeze gender hierarchy out of Paul’s instructions. Mark’s ideas above seem quite pertinent to this passage.
Proponents of gender comp keep dragging out this verse as though it’s the be-all-and-end-all of the argument. You don’t seem to realize that you’re reading a clergy/congregant situation into this passage, and it’s not necessarily there. Just like hierarchy isn’t present between Adam and Eve, unless someone reads it into the Genesis story.
You had better not mean that to apply to all men and women, KAS. You are dangerously close to suggesting that all women are more emotional and less reasonable than all men. I’m a man, and I will most certainly not agree to disagree with this. Keep it up, and you’ll see me getting defiant very soon.
I can see why Christianity Hurts finds it so hard to trust you…
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Lea, “She talks a lot about the importance of vulnerability in making connections, which was helpful to me.”
Yeah, vulnerability is not taught in comp. churches, except towards pastors, elders, parents and husbands. In each “superior/inferior” relationship, the superior is expected to be strong and capable and not need to be vulnerable. For example, most pastors in comp. churches do not talk about their faults and sin from the pulpit. Definitely getting better in that regard towards my wife, but there is still some superiority junk hanging around.
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Serving Kids in Japan,
I wrote: “I wish I can find the rights words to say, that is soothing to your mind and heart”
You wrote: “The best course of action in this case might be: Don’t talk. Listen”
I’m not going to collide with you. I have no quarrel with you, She is feeling hated and someone needed to make her feel loved, Being kind and understanding, is not judging, I acknowledge that society doesn’t do a good job mentoring men (and some women) how to interact in a polite and civilized way.
In my view, she needed someone to tell her she is loved, but also loved by God. if no one says anything soothing in return, it is a form hf rejection. I watched my mom deal with rejection throughout my life.
If I have been rude to you, I apologize. We have different styles in how we communicate, if my views come across as combating to you it might be best that we don’t respond back to one another’s comments.
I know you mean well. I also think both of us have seen insane abuse, but it doesn’t seem as if we have walked in one another’s shoes long enough, to start being presumptuous with each other.
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Serving Kids in Japan,
I did suggest the best to fight misogyny, is for people to not go to those churches.
In the case of the church that I was attending 6 years ago, the preacher was forcing his hyper-reformed doctrine down the congregation’s throats. The Preacher was spiritually abusing anybody in the congregation that raised questions to his beliefs and his methods, until just a few stragglers were still attending unable to have enough offerings to heat the parsonage.
Of course if laws are being broken, they need to be reported to law enforcement.
Otherwise the only thing left is for well versed men and women that choose to stay in that church is to expose his sin so he and the rest of the congregation to address it.
My suggestion is leave if possible, why financially support a church who hates people. My view if they hate women then they hate themselves.
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Serving Kids: The idea that Paul’s restriction in 1 Tim was due to uneducated women needing time to be instructed is the only interpretation that has nearly made me change my mind on whether this is a temporary instruction or not. I’m afraid it raises more questions than it answers even if at first sight it makes sense. (Is it really possible to believe the women there were so uneducated having had Paul’s apostolic input for 3 years? Priscilla and Aquila? Paul predicted men would come to the church there speaking perverse things …. )
If there is one thing the apostle’s teaching is not, it is not misogynistic. That ought to be something everyone agrees on.
Unlike many, I have no problem with the idea of hierarchy, we live in a hierarchical universe. I would, however, say Paul is less establishing a hierarchy in 1 Tim 2 (or the home) as a division of labour. The custodianship of the word of God, his law if you like, is something God gave to Adam rather than Eve, to male teachers and leaders in the church rather than women. God held Adam responsible for the fall rather than Eve, he wasn’t doing his job.
I am most surprised at your final paragraph. I have indeed talked about this subject on and off both in fellowships and occasionally on the internet (e.g. CBE who asked me to comment more!!). So I have listened, despite claims above to the contrary, and been willing to subject my views to opposing ideas.
The point I was getting at was the unwillingness of both men and women to discuss this if their interpretation appears to be falling apart. This is not going to persuade anyone to change their minds – and egalitarians should be prepared to do this as much as complementarians. I didn’t mention women’s emotions. Too many (not all) responses over the long haul have led me reluctantly to the conclusion that mutual submission in marriage is deception, it is an untenable doctrine. (I’ve had to deal with a lot of deception in the past, not through choice I may say, and you get to recognise it.)
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D, I agree people should leave those churches. But that would not stop misogyny and it would not help the people stuck there, like children, who are indoctrinated from childhood to believe some of this stuff is ok. Sometimes it takes them time, like it took Beth Moore, to realize these people are not well meaning folks who disagree on a point of doctrine.
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Wow.
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Seeing the opinions of men like KAS, Paige Patterson, Doug Wilson, and Bill Gothard get out of the bible I wonder how caring Christians can explain the bible is good when reading the selfish, sadistic, heartless, hateful, cruelty these men get out of the bible and want to heap on children and women.
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Christianity Hurts,
It’s all about power, as I’m sure you realize. The ones who’ve been trying so hard to rationalize the patriarchal system – the most prolific of commenters on this blog post – just cannot stand the thought of giving it up. I can picture them smirking as they quote the place of power from which they garner their inspiration — the Bible. I’m telling you, ladies. Use your own brain and tremendous personal power of your own.
I am also wondering if the ‘enquiring elder’ is following this thread. I hope he’s taken a lesson from all the mansplaining. It’s getting old, KAS. It’s also utter shite.
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Lea,
If the definition of Misogyny is hatred toward women, then it is impossible to force people how to think,
We can only mentor our daughters to best of our ability, to marry someone that shares the same vision as her. When neither has a vision, then they really don’t know each other enough to get married in the first place.
If laws are being broken, the abuser needs to be arrested.
Most people have the ability to stop going to those churches and it is the most effective way for those types of churches to fail, as it takes lot of money to run a church these days.
To free the rest, would involve some kind of “planting” of families, who specifically are there to adjust and be part of the membership. Then in a stealth way they take over the church.
But to “free” the rest of those that are completely trapped in an abusive circumstance and can’t escape mental abuse or indoctrination of hatred would be near impossible if the majority of these women, chose to marry these guys.
We can’t force women not to marry someone or force them how to think, anymore than we can force a man how to think.
Now granted there are a few women that are fooled if the man charmed her in a way that she was unable to see his true colors. Heck, even rich men and women get married to an opportunist, which is why there are prenups.
But there are too many couples getting married that aren’t fooled, they simply marry without taking to the time to see if they are truly in love, if they want the same things in life. They get married regardless then he or she or both decided oops, we should’ve never got married in the first place.
We can’t forcibly stop that from happening,
I know quite of few couples that get married only dating less than a year, never really had it together and many get divorced because they weren’t truly in love and that by itself would feel like both are putting themselves through mental abuse.
.
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Hatred is its root, but it is also defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women”.
We cannot ‘force’ people how to think, but we can address this errant thinking, and teach people, whether they be children, or grown men, that their thinking is wrong. Just as we have done with racism. It is not perfect, but we are, as humans, capable of learning and growing. That is what we should strive for.
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Great minds 😉
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D,
No, not that I can recall, although your online communication style could do with a bit more clarity. I sometimes find it a bit difficult to follow your reasoning, or to know when you’re quoting someone else’s words.
And I didn’t think you were being judgemental towards Christianity Hurts, but I was worried that you might be dictating to her. You seemed to be saying that, in order to find happiness, she needs to find a man and teach him how to be caring. Considering the horrors she grew up with, she needs to find her own way to happiness. No one can decide for her what that should look like.
Actually, I haven’t. I was raised by hard-working parents who did their best for me, in a healthy environment. I’ve been blessed to attend well-balanced and loving faith communities, with none of the uber-control issues we read about here. The worst abuse I’ve faced in my life is some very commonplace playground cruelty in grade school, and perhaps a few high-handed bosses here in Japan.
That level of bullying, however, was more than enough for me. It sickens me that anyone should experience something worse, and especially to have it inflicted on them in Jesus’ name.
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This seems to be a common assumption, if you care about people and abuse, even passionately, you must have been abused yourself.
That is incredibly sad.
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Lea,
I appreciate you taking the time to have this exchange with me.
This is difficult for me to figure out a complex solution when it should be as simple as “stop hating” and don’t go into churches that hate which makes it impossible to pay the church bills.
Cutting off the money supply can stop an organization or even a hateful toxic nation can be effective. But even so, if the economy is good, it is easier for an abused woman to flee from an abusive marriage.
We have lost our sense of kindness, we are more stressed than we should be, People are rude, road rage. Both parents working, kids home alone not being watched or mentored like they should, so they become more hardened.
Sometimes I want to blame the Federal Reserve for putting the squeeze on young families for the last 40 years, but to the abused the problem is now and some can’t escape the abuse.
But even so, we shouldn’t hate or say mean things.
So the root of hate is deep and very difficult to help someone in real need when we live in a hateful society already. It seemed like things were beginning to improve between 1980 and 2000, but has gotten worse since then, so maybe part of the hate also involves the economic meltdown.
In good economy, it is easier for a woman to escape abuse than in a bad one.
I even see the dialogue on this thread as being more combative (even swearing) and people being presumptuous not considering the path of one another’s has walked through to get to this point in their life.
So for me, I have look into my own root, Am I being hateful? The answer is yes. Now I find myself being a more “in your face” person trying to have a more gentle spirit.
I have a hard time loving a certain 2 or 3 people that have taken advantage of my wife, even though she is able to forgive, no matter how severe of the things they have done to her.
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It’s unfortunately not nearly so simple, although I have ditched churches that treat women differently than men systemically, and preach such theologies.
Bias, however, is much more prevalent than I suspect you notice. And harder to fight.
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One of the questions you raised to me is how do we stop misogyny in churches?
Aside from stop going and giving financial support to those churches is these churches to develop a true understanding of Husband/Wife/Children relationship building.
I just shared this verse with you on a different post,,, in Ephesians 25:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Christ did in fact was a servant to us and he wasn’t abusive to us, Husbands need to think about that in those churches. Christ loved us, so those practicing misogyny is practicing a contradiction of scriptures.
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D, it’s not just wives. It’s not just husbands who are a problem.
This is about all women in church. They all need to be treated with respect by men, or barring that, at least common politeness.
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I’ve not read every single post since I was last on here about 4 or whatever days ago.
I think I did drop in like 1 – 2 days ago, but I didn’t read all the posts then, either.
Re: this post by KAS as of MAY 24, 2018 @ 3:55 AM,
where’s he’s arguing over some Bible verses by Paul, and should women learn in silence, etc etc etc.
KAS, this isn’t my blog, it’s obviously Julie Anne’s, but I’m troubled how you consistently try to take a thread that is meant as a resource for Christian men wanting to halt sexism in the church, with input from women…
And turning it into a debate, where you’re wanting the Non-Complementarians here to explain each and every Bible verse the Bible has regarding gender roles.
Thank you to the men int he thread who are responding to KAS, by the way.
As a woman, I find it very draining to have to explain sexism to a man, how Christians perpetuate it, let alone get into a prolonged debate analyzing all of Paul’s comments about women in the Bible.
KAS, would you consider reading books such as,
Instead of asking or expecting the Non-Comps on here to prove to you that the Bible does not endorse complementarianism.
There are already egalitarian resources online and in print that can answer your questions and concerns, including much written about the favored clobber verses that Complementarians like to throw in the faces of Egalitarians all the time.
Maybe Julie Anne could make a special thread where Comps and Non-Comps can debate the nit-picky over specific Bible verses and so forth –
As she did over a year ago where the Calvinists and Non-Calvinists were derailing almost every thread on here to debate Calvinism.
I just find it troubling that a thread that is intended to help women is being turned into a deal where women have to go on the defensive. It’s just galling to me.
It feels like heaping abuse and disregard on women on top of the abuse and disregard women already get in church and by so many Christians (see recent Paige Patterson fiasco).
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D said,
_Abuse Is Wrong Because Women Are People, Not Because You Have Daughters_ on CBE’s site.
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Serving Japan,
That quote that you isolated was directed to Ana, not Christianity Hurts.
Ana, felt hated by God. When people feel hated, and no one responds to remind them they are loved, that is borderline rejection and can actually be very damaging and keep them in that “place” of feeling unloved.
If you have never experienced it, trust me it can be a very deep hole to be in.
Some may use meds, but also it doesn’t hurt to try and fill that hole up one shovel scoop up at a time with positive, loving energy, and mentally pat it down with our shoes, until that hole is filled enough so we can walk out on our own.
By-the-way, I’m not trying to stop people from telling their story here on SBB. If you think I’m one of those people, I apologize for coming across like that.
Likewise, I find it very difficult to interpret where you are coming from. It feels like you were taking the liberty of being an “in your face” type of person, then ask questions later or don’t even ask anything at all. Not even taking the time to walk in the shoes, of that person. Maybe you aren’t that way, but that is the vibe I got.
I get that we live in an “in your face society”.
It has gotten worse since the meltdown economic meltdown began as early 2005.
For the abused, a bad economy makes it even harder to escape while people who profess to be Christians (including abusers) continue to get meaner instead of reading their bible. Which directs us to “love” which also includes “love our wives, like Christ loved the church.”
To those abusers who embrace misogyny and the bible at the same time, they are deeply confused and living a life filled with inner contradictions deep inside.
As for bullying, you are right. It looks like it is being addressed in American society and hopefully there will be severe consequences to those who are mentally and physically bullying others. It will be a long process, starting as early as pre-school.
Sometimes people that mean well, rub one each other wrong. That is the case between on and I, whether we want to admit it or not, we are judging one another.
Which is one reason why I find myself apologizing to you. but also I really think it is best we don’t exchange thoughts with one another. You have your own style and I have mine.
My grammar isn’t the best and if you are someone who has exceptional grammar, that may also become bothersome to you as well, which I totally get as some find it annoying.
Hopefully that chain has been broken as I provided enough reading material for my kids. My wife was able to nurture them enough for them to all become English scholars, who like to help and playfully tease me with my grammar, which I enjoy and tease them right back, manufacturing words that do no exist.
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_Feeling Guilty About #MeToo? Three Ways Men Can Do Something About It_
Snippets from that page, which are applicable to Christianity, churches, and Christian men and women:
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KAS, “If there is one thing the apostle’s teaching is not, it is not misogynistic. That ought to be something everyone agrees on.”
I think this is my point. Paul’s teaching was not misogynistic for the Corinthian church. In fact, it was probably controversial and freeing for women. However, we are not the Corinthian church, and we’ve made significant strides in areas like slavery and women’s rights. So much so that trying to blindly apply Paul’s teaching to the church today without understanding the cultural context IS misogyny.
I keep having to beat this over and over again. Jesus said, Moses gave you divorce because of the harness of your heart. In other words, the divorce law was probably controversial and freeing to ancient Israel, and it was probably misogynistic from current standards. So, Jesus pointed to the purpose of marriage and showed how Moses’s divorce law did not quite meet the ideal.
In the same way, Moses and Paul both gave instructions to slave owners and slaves. We don’t (although this was argued 150 years ago) try to perpetuate slavery so that we can uphold this truly hateful institution. We might try to see how the “general equity” of that might apply to other human relationships, but as slavery, there is no holiness in going back.
Reformed pastors are careful to explain that Paul was writing to a specific audience, and that we are, as it were, just listening into Paul’s conversation with a completely different group of people. The problem becomes that we then try to apply that instruction as if it was written to us, or for people of all time as an absolute set of rules. Let’s say I read a speech of an army general to his soldiers about to deploy to the battlefront, but I read it to a group of school teachers without explaining the context. Will the teachers get the correct message? Probably not. So, why does the church try to preach this as if it is instruction for all people for all times? Why does the church take one verse completely out of context and try to apply it as broadly as possible.
We have situations like this elsewhere. Moses says, you must build a fence around your roof. How many Evangelical pastors preach this? Probably 0. I have yet to see a house with a roof of any pitch with a fence around it. We understand that this instruction was for a specific time and place and construction methodology. So, why do we quote one verse out of Paul’s letter as if it was written into the Ten Commandments?
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KAS, “The custodianship of the word of God, his law if you like, is something God gave to Adam rather than Eve, to male teachers and leaders in the church rather than women. God held Adam responsible for the fall rather than Eve, he wasn’t doing his job.”
Again, pretty crappy understanding. God gave Adam the command before Eve was created, but there’s nothing here that says Adam was male at this point. There would have been one sex – whether Adam could reproduce or not. Then when Eve is created, it is symbolic that Eve is taken FROM Adam. So, Adam after Eve is created is not the same as Adam before.
Now, who was responsible? First God asks Adam, then God asks Eve. If Adam was responsible, why did God ask Eve. Adam should’ve “Got ‘R dun” and if Adam was responsible, God would have completely shut down the dialogue of blaming Eve.
Think about this in a corporation. The board asks the CEO, why aren’t we making numbers? The CEO says, the CFO is fudging the numbers. What happens? The board says, CEO, the company is YOUR responsibility. The CFO is YOUR employee. YOU are responsible for the performance of the company.
So, the fact that God deals with Eve says exactly the opposite of what you’re saying. It says that Eve is NOT in a hierarchical relationship.
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Daisy – KAS, would you consider …. visiting and reading egalitarian sites such as Christians For Biblical Equality.
You didn’t read very carefully! I have indeed talked about this subject on and off both in fellowships and occasionally on the internet (e.g. CBE who asked me to comment more!!).
The people at CBE seemed to like discussing with someone who had a sense of humour and didn’t take offence. I didn’t comment much because a) you can’t spend all of your life revolving around this one issue, and b) you get bogged down in pointless discussions with commenters who seem almost completely unable to grasp what you are getting at or get personal. ‘Vain repetition’ as it were to endlessly clarifiy doesn’t seem to help.
I’ve looked at the Junia Project – Diffusing the 1 Tim 2 Time Bomb for example. Jory Micah. Even RHE, but she really is both deceived and on the road to leaving the faith. (This is sadly hardly an uncommon phenomenon amongst those who adopt a militantly strong egalitarianism. They jeopardise their salvation by doing this, a vastly more important thing than worrying about ‘roles’.)
I much prefer the British approach to this subject (e.g. Pawson, Roberts), as it avoids the extremes and additions that I will grant you some American complementarians have made. There is a strong cultural difference despite being ‘separated by the same language’.
I don’t think complementarians have everything sown up, but so many egalitarian arguments – it does get pretty predictable – seem to me to be trying to avoid something that is not liked or just don’t make much sense if you think about them. The question of ‘what is the will of God’ is not at the forefront. (If you don’t believe me, look at how often egalitarians will immediately assume you want power over people if you say you are complementarian.)
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This kind of stuff right here is so so wrong.
Why do you worry so much about ‘roles’, if you think it’s unimportant? It certainly doesn’t impact or your life, so why bother.
What doesn’t make sense is treating women like small children or invalids incapable of rational thought. What doesn’t make sense is ceding control of your life to men, especially the ones who have proven to be entirely selfish. That is what complementarianism teaches, at the end. That makes NO sense to anyone that isn’t a man.
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KAS, “I don’t think complementarians have everything sown up, but so many egalitarian arguments – it does get pretty predictable – seem to me to be trying to avoid something that is not liked or just don’t make much sense if you think about them. The question of ‘what is the will of God’ is not at the forefront.”
The egalitarians are asking the question, what is the HEART of God, rather than what is the WILL of God. That’s because Jesus said, “I desire COMPASSION and not SACRIFICE”.
I think your views come from a complete misunderstanding of who God is and what he desires.
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Lea,
I just wonder if roles is not such a bad thing in a marriage or even a church.
I mean, I think my role in a marriage is to pursue emotional connection. To be polite and considerate and to be sensitive to the needs of my wife wants and desires. To communicate in a civilized way.
Not to force feed my will or yell but instead to discover compromises without colliding, so we can pursue similar goals, wants and desires. To be good companions to each other. To be macho when she wants me to be, then to be a softy where she desires that.
Now for someone else, they may want to be with someone with a different set of goals, wants and desires, Either wanting someone strong or someone not so strong. Someone who is rich and someone who is poor. (I know a few of those)
The differences are so vast, that aside from truly sick people who batter or hate the human race, we still live in a society where if people don’t get their way, they argue and yell at each other in hateful ways.
I’ve seen 2 heavy handed preachers target certain people behind the pulpit who embraces life in a non-aggressive way, that embraces polite communicating who understands that a sharp tongue brings wrath, and the preacher will rebuke him/her their temperament and consider that a weakness or tickling of the ears.
The hardest verse that I struggle with, is a verse that I think many preachers struggle with as well, but for different reasons than I do.
1 Corinthians 13:13 “For these three remain, Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love”
For heavy handed preachers, they will (and have) interpreted that verse as ticking of the ears, or focusing on self-love too much. (though I think loving yourself is a good thing, so I don’t get where the one preacher was coming from)
My question I have for heavy handed preachers, is “how do you talk to your wives?” The other heavy handed preacher aggressive style, makes wonder if that is the reason why his wife divorce him a couple of years prior. Shortly after I heard him preach, his ministry failed.
1 Cor 13:13, doesn’t tickle my ears, but rather carry’s a much bigger challenge, not having a hateful spirit or to communicate with someone in a thoughtful way, when there is a disagreement. To not say mean things.
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Lea – Why do you worry so much about ‘roles’, if you think it’s unimportant?
Personally, I’m very laid back about roles in marriage. There is a basic framework and that’s it. Usually set out in your average traditional marriage vows.
What I actually said was They jeopardise their salvation by doing this, a vastly more important thing than worrying about ‘roles’.) Salvation is more important than roles, which doesn’t mean roles cannot be important in their own context.
I was hoping Daisy would seriously consider this. I’ve noticed on her blog that she increasingly is saying she is agnostic, questioning the faith, considering leaving the faith. Her most recent post dated only yesterday says There are several factors that have been driving me from a conservative Christianity I was raised in all my life towards agnosticism, or maybe deism.
Salvation is ‘from faith to faith’, you exercise faith for forgiveness at the beginning, and you go on being saved as you go on believing. Only those who are still believing at the end of life can have any assurance of still being right with God. There is enormous resistance to this in evangelical circles, where the ‘ticket to heaven’ ‘once saved always saved’ mentality makes believers lax in their personal behaviour after conversion because they think their salvation is unconditionally secure. Your standing before God is vastly more important than any other issue.
I can more than understand disillusion with churchianity, but if you finally abandon the faith, you abandon the salvation it brings to you. Yet woman will be saved …, if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
fwiw I think long-term abusers should be disabused of the notion that because they once ‘made a decision for Jesus’ and may even pastor a church their behaviour afterwards is not symptomatic of unbelief, a denial of faith, and that far from getting a ‘well done good and faithful servant’ they will face wrath, fury, distress and tribulation in the judgement to come.
Men who really are misogynistic ought to be confronted with this truth, because one day the Judge of all the earth is going to put right all the wrongs they have done.
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(part 1 reply to KAS
there will be a part two and/or three, etc)
KAS said,
Maybe you did not read carefully, because I’ve not been following this thread 100%.
I have said in at least two posts in this thread,
“Hi all. Have not read every post on here since I was last on here X days ago,” so it stands to reason I’ve not see all your (or everyone else’s) posts.
Just so we’re clear, I’m still not up to date on every single post in this thread. I periodically take breaks from stuff like this, or my blood pressure would go through the roof.
KAS said,
But you absolutely do spend your life commenting on this issue.
About any time Julie Anne or one of her co-hosts publishes a new post related to gender roles, marriage, etc, you always chime in to question egalitarianism or to promote complementarianism.
Also, a lot of Christians, especially men, make their life revolve around this topic, to the point they have an entire organization about it called “The Council For Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.”
Famous preachers, or Christian personalities, such as Mark Driscoll, J D Greear, Doug Wilson, Bill Gothard Owen Strachan, John Piper, Matt Chandler, etc, make Gender Roles a primary concern in their commentary and teachings, or at least comment on the topic often.
Yet others tend to imply that to reject Gender Complementarianism is to reject the Gospel itself, so they make it into an “essential of the faith”.
And you think egalitarians are the ones obsessed with the subject?
If anything, egals are responding to complementarianism, and its harmful fall out.
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(part 2)
KAS said,
I don’t agree with those ladies on every topic, but to argue they are deceived, etc, is a cheap shot.
One reason I have been waffling – I’m only somewhat Christian now, but on the road to Deism or perhaps Agnosticism – is due to several factors, but one of them is Gender Complementarianism.
It’s not egalitarianism that is causing me to reject the Christian faith, but complementarianism. And you need to own that, KAS.
Your precious “roles,” your complementarianism is one of several things pushing me out and away from the Christian faith.
(But I am still a conservative. One of the most common fabrications of complementarians is that all non-comps are liberal feminists. No, no, no, not true)
KAS said,
The will of God is not complementarianism.
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(part 3 to KAS)
KAS said,
No, the situation is quite the opposite.
Many complementarians depict egalitarianism as being nothing but a bunch of power-hungry women. Comps think women asking to be treated fairly is the same thing as being “unGodly” or it’s being “power hungry.” It is not.
I just had a comp on Twitter tell me this very thing about 1 – 2 days ago on Twitter.
It is so common for complementarians to make the same anti-egalitarian arguments, I have a series of posts on my blog that critique them, such as,
_Confusing the Issue: Asking For or Seeking Equality Is Not the Same Thing as Being Selfish or “Power Hungry”_
But yes, complementarianism is a case of Christian men having power and control over women (which Jesus says they are not to do, “do not lord authority over one another”), and comps seek to use the Bible to support this view.
But here we are again, taking the topic away from, “How can Christian men fight sexism in the Christian community,” to KAS driving it all off-topic to make egals defend egalitarianism, and he wants to promote Comp. Yet again. You do this every thread.
But you have the nerve to say egalitarians are repetitive, or make their entire life focus on this topic.
(You know what’s repetitive? Complementarians who always through the same 2 – 3 verse into the faces of egals, such as the ‘I forbid a woman to teach’ line – that one is a favorite.)
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Correction of post above,
“Who always through…”
should be
“…who always THROW the same…”
(part 4 to KAS)
KAS said,
You have the privilege of being lax about the subject because it does not affect you as deeply and severely as it does women, especially women who have been damaged by it, such as me, or the other women who post here, such as “Christianity Hurts.”
KAS said,
It’s not “increasingly.” I’ve been saying this almost since I began posting to this blog, SSB, since Day One.
I think my Daisy blog “About” page also mentions my journey away from Christianity. It’s nothing new.
And I doubted Complementarianism while I was a teen ager, when I was still a true blue Christian. I accepted Jesus prior to age of 15, was a stal-wart, firm believer in Jesus Christ, too.
So, I was not quasi- agnostic when I dumped Complementarianism.
I dumped Comp prior to my semi- de-conversion. I dumped Comp while I was still 100% Christian, sometime in my 30s.
My quasi de-Conversion from Christianity did not start until around my early 40s, but I had dumped Complementarianism several years prior to that.
KAS, you fail to appreciate that it’s this very ‘Gender Role’ garbage you keep repeatedly defending on this blog (and which you say you are sooo gosh darn Laid Back about) that is an element in my choice to walk away from Christianity.
You apparently have zero appreciation for that fact. You’re making it worse.
Every time I come on here, and you keep defending comp or posting anti-egal rhetoric, it helps push me away some more. Maybe that’s your goal.
I sometimes wonder if the most vocal Christians on Twitter, forums, and blogs, are secretly trying to get others to de-convert from the faith.
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(part 5 to KAS)
KAS said,
Complementarianism is misogyny and serves as a supportive basis of misogyny in the church.
But, it exists on a continuum from “Soft Comp” – men who do not beat their wives, for instance – to the severe end, men who DO beat their wives.
The soft end of the scale contains a lot of ‘Benevolent Sexism,’ but it limits women all the same.
And all those men, on both sides of the scale, and the ones in-between, think they love their wives, they all think they are being “biblical.” Etc.
It’s like racism in America.
You no doubt had severe racists who believed black men should be lynched from trees…
…and the more moderate kind of racists who said,
“Well, no, hanging black men is wrong, but let’s just say that black people cannot drink from the same water fountains white people do, nor can they eat in the diners with whites… Blacks are separate but equal.”
BOTH forms of racism is WRONG.
And some Christians in American used to use the Bible to defend slavery and say it was morally fine with God for white men to own black men and women.
This is what complementarians are doing today with gender roles, marriage, etc.
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(part 6 to KAS)
Also, if you did any reading at CBE and other such sites, KAS, you apparently didn’t pay attention, or, you went in with your mind already made up, because you’ve apparently not learned anything from what you read.
I bet other than the “Diffusing the 2 Timothy Bomb” link I gave you, you’ve not actually read anything by egalitarians.
Had a Complementarian friend like you once.
I mailed that Complementarian friend of mine a Pro- Egalitarian book by a Christian author. Two weeks later, my Comp friend sent me an e-mail, said he read the book I had mailed him, then he went on to criticize the book for not mentioning “Topic X.”
I said to him, dumbfounded, “I have a copy here at my desk, read the book myself weeks ago, and the author spends all of chapter 5 on Topic X, how can you say you read the book? Did you honestly read it?
He replied, “No, I lied. I did not read it. I only skimmed the back cover.”
My Complementarian friend already had his mind made up that Egalitarianism was not “biblical,” so he was not willing to so much as read the book I mailed him on the topic. He lied about reading it, until I pressed him on the matter.
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As I noted in my blog post KAS referenced,
_“The Enduring Appeal of Creepy Christianity by D. French,”_, I said in that post on my blog:
<
blockquote>I haven’t completely rejected the Christian faith at this stage of life, but I’m finding it more and more difficult to stay, seeing how so many Christians do things like excuse, turn a blind eye to, or support child molesters, wife abusers, or support sexism (but they swear that they don’t; it’s just “biblical” to bar women from certain positions, due to their biological sex alone).
<
blockquote> I notice KAS didn’t mention that in his post, nope.
This blog I link you to here covers the favorite Complementarian clobber verses and other subjects:
In other words, this is another non-complementarian resource KAS could read but probably will not, and if he claims to have glanced it over, will seek to minimize the material by saying things like, the person is too liberal, is deceived, not conservative enough, etc,
_Women In Ministry_
Of course, the only “true” conservative in KAS’ world is a Christian who embarces Complementarianism.
Does KAS even acknowledge that a Christian can be Egalitarian and conservative? Because such creatures do exist.
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Daisy – I partly agree with you that discussing complementarianism could be a distraction from the topic, and I was hesitant to respond to a point Kathi made. It does have a limited shelf life.
That said, try KAS May 20, 2018 @ 8:31 AM in the older comments.
I don’t see why complementarianism bothers you so much, as you are not married. I am, and will have to give an account one day for whether I have obeyed the apostles’ doctrine when it comes to how a husband should treat his wife. The loving, nourishing, cherishing and all the rest of it.
It is certainly not an issue to abandon the faith over, this is much more serious.
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Daisy,
Thanks for your efforts to combat KAS’ deliberate attempts to use Julie Anne’s blog as his pulpit.
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Complementarians, like a lot of Christians, have faulty approaches to the Bible, but they all think their view and interpretation of the Bible, and how to interpret the Bible, is fool-proof and absolutely correct.
I kind of wrote a long blog post about that on my blog here:
_ A Critique of Kevin DeYoung’s Critique of Smith’s ‘The Bible Made Impossible,’ A Book About Evangelicals and Biblicism_
The Bible is not quite so clear on many a topic as complementarians (and other types of Christians) like to say it is.
And, I think the more recent post I did, “The Enduring Appeal of Creepy Christianity by D. French” is applicable to complementarians in some regards.
An excerpt from that:
-And tell me if that does not remind you of many conservative Christians, the Pentecostals, the “Wealth and Health” Gospel advocates, the Southern Baptists, the Complementarians of whatever denomination, your average American conservative evangelical, your Bill Gothards, Vision Forums, and all the other crack-pots who all think they know the Bible better than you or better than anyone else…
… and if you just follow THEIR understanding of the Bible, and follow THEIR rules, your marriage won’t fail, your business will be successful, your granny will never get cancer, etc. And they think only their interpretation of the Bible is the correct and “godly” one that is concerned about “what is God’s will.”
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KAS said,
Did you seriously just go there?
I’ve written blog posts on my blog that explains “why it bothers me so much,” and I’ve explained it here on this blog many times in the past on older threads.
Complementarians affects SINGLE WOMEN too, not just MARRIED ones.
Complementarian Christians begin brain-washing Christian girls in child-hood that Complementarianism is biblical, so you, as a girl, are brought up not just to believe in “wifely submission,” but also it is suggested that God loves men more than women, women are to blame for sin, women are too emotional, women aren’t as smart as men, women should be passive at all times around everyone, it is godly and a woman’s role to be a doormat, to lack boundaries…
You’re taught, as a girl raised in a Comp church and family, that secular ideals for women are “biblical,” so you’re taught in Complementarian sermons and books that being Codependent is biblical – because secular culture is really big on women being quiet, docile passive doormats who should not stand up to men.
American Complementarian teaching has ramifications on SINGLE women (and divorced and widowed) ones, not just on married ones.
I could write an entire book on how it impacts single women, but I would refer you to my blog if you’d like to read how and why.
The funny thing is, the majority of Complementarian teaching is OBSESSED with marriage and motherhood – Comps generally don’t have much to say to never -married, divorced, or child-free, or childless women.
That “family and motherhood and wifely submission” obsession drives single women away from complementarian churches. Comps offer nothing to singles specifically..
But their teachings still impact singles.
Some complementarians say that ALL females, even singles, should submit to ALL men.
Not all of them teach “women should only submit to their own husband.”
Nope. Some of them believe single women should submit to men at work, in their neighborhood, to all men.
Some of them don’t think women should hold secular jobs at all.
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Carmen said,
You’re welcome.
I actually spent the last few months deliberately ignoring his posts. I spent a few months just scrolling on by and trying not to read them. It’s hard in a blog format, though.
KAS and guys like him are really, really stuck in his Complementarian Bubble.
I used to be one. I have no idea how to get someone out of that Bubble. Maybe it’s not possible. Nobody argued me out of it, I found my own way out.
There are so many world views and assumptions going on with Complementarians, which makes it difficult to get them to consider, “Maybe complementariaism is wrong. Maybe there are other ways of understanding those contested biblical verses.”
Complementarians have a very specific way of how they interpret the Bible, and they think that any other way of interpreting it is “anti biblical” or “Liberal” (even if it’s neither).
They tend to ignore the historical context of some of their favorite “clobber” verses, they confuse the descriptive for being prescriptive (which it’s not). I could go on.
You know one group of Christians who questions complementarianism that I find interesting – the men who say they were raised comp, but later in life, comp failed them. Comp didn’t work. You have comp men who end up paralyzed, in a wheelchair, maybe they cannot hold a job any longer so the wife has to support the family
Such married men say that the constant messages on Masculinity from Comp pastors made them start to reconsider maybe Comp is bogus. You know, the typical Macho Mark Driscollian Comp sermon where he insults men who are single, who aren’t married, men who don’t have jobs or men who cannot afford a car.
➡ I think it’s a shame and suspicious (quite frankly) that for a guy (KAS) who says he’s “laid back” about gender roles…
He keeps, never the less, de-railing a thread asking, “How can Christian men fight sexism,” to keep offering arguments that are in favor of perpetuating sexism, or asking us to keep buying into a system or doctrine (i.e., complementarianism) that promotes and enables sexism.
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One would think that with reasoned pushback from you and Lea, he’d get the same lesson the Elder in this story is supposed to get – Listen. To. Women.
Except that some men just cannot give up — they seem to feel that if they keep mansplaining it’s bound to have an effect. KAS just doesn’t seem to realize that his evangelizing is having a negative one. 😦
One thing it’s done, though, is this. It’s served as a powerful illustration as to why women have such a difficult time overcoming their indoctrination. KAS is an excellent example of those who’ll do anything to keep women exactly where they want them – brainwashed into thinking an invisible man expects them to behave just like the women in the Old Testament — as possessions.
As I’ve said before, it’s bullshit.
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KAS said: “I am, and will have to give an account one day for whether I have obeyed the apostles’ doctrine when it comes to how a husband should treat his wife.”
Apostles’ doctrine?? That might be the problem. I think I’d rather give an account for obeying Jesus’ teachings.
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Are Complementarians Power Freaks? – from WIM blog
I find it funny that complementarians accuse egalitarians of being power hungry, or they take offense or whatever that egals say comps are power hungry:
Complementarianism by its very nature is power hungry and controlling, for it teaches unilateral submission of women to men, and, it INSISTS on male authority over women, claiming this is “God’s design.”
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Carmen – KAS is an excellent example of those who’ll do anything to keep women exactly where they want them – brainwashed into thinking an invisible man ….
As to your complaint I do not listen to women, I have read extensively in egalitarian literature on and off for years, with as open a mind as I can muster.
Regarding the above sentence, the invisible God took on human form and became man in the person of Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. What he said and what he did. Read a gospel or two with as open a mind as possible. All Christians agree on this right across the spectrum of views on marriage and church ministry.
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JA: Apostles’ doctrine?? That might be the problem. I think I’d rather give an account for obeying Jesus’ teachings.
The NT is a unified whole, it is liberal theology that sets Jesus in the gospels against usually Paul. I think it a profound mistake. And the fact remains Jesus only chose 12 men as his apostles. (But let’s not go there.)
The apostle Peter was in the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples. He knew him as well as any other man alive except perhaps John. Yet he still wrote in his epistle, like it or not, that wives were to submit to their husbands, and the corresponding duties of husbands to wives, and to both jointly. I cannot believe he wrote something Jesus would not have approved of, so we have to wrestle with the text sensibly to see what it means for us today.
It wasn’t just Paul. And I don’t doubt that Paul’s apostolic authority and the inspiration of the NT text are not in doubt when it comes to the epistle to the Galatians, chapter 3 in particular! And what subjects are conspicuous by their absence in that epistle?
The NT additional to the gospels respresents the more things Jesus wanted to say to his disciples prior to his death and resurrection, and are just as inspired as the gospels themselves.
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KAS
In an on-line Gateway Bible KJV, it says in Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Ephesians 5:21-25
Instructions for Christian Households
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
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KAS and Everybody Else,
I’ve taken the liberty of interpreting Ephesians 5:21 and also sharing what the word “submit” means,
In Eph 5:21, it must mean that both husband and wife are to equally “submit” to each other. Both the husband and wife are to be devoted to each other. When physical abuse occurs, those vows are being broken.
Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Definition of submit: submitted; submitting
transitive verb
1a : to yield to governance or authority
b : to subject to a condition, treatment, or operation the metal was submitted to analysis
2 : to present or propose to another for review, consideration, or decision; also : to deliver formally submitted my resignation
3 : to put forward as an opinion or contention we submit that the charge is not proved
intransitive verb
1 : to yield oneself to the authority or will of another : surrender
to permit oneself to be subjected to something had to submit to surgery
2: to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another
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Kas, this base belief that women are less then men sinks from marriage and church into every facet of life. Women end up treated as lesser, told they are ’emotional’, which is code for irrational and I could write a book on how dumb that is, treated as temptations and not people. This doesn’t just affect married women, it affects everyone. It may even affect single women more because in such churches women are treated as extentions of their husbands…no husband you are nothing.
I deeply disagree with this idea that egalitarianism is the road to losing your salvation. The fruit i see from the comp world tells the true tale.
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Lea,
My definition of “emotional” is passionate not irrational. I suspect most men must feel the same way. If anybody calls you emotional, take it as a compliment.
e·mo·tion·al
ADJECTIVE
synonyms: poignant · moving · touching · affecting · powerful · stirring · emotive · heart-rending · heartbreaking · heartwarming · soul-stirring · uplifting · impassioned · dramatic · harrowing · [more]
(of a person) having feelings that are easily excited and openly displayed.
“he was a strongly emotional young man”
synonyms: passionate · feeling · hot-blooded · warm · ardent · fervent · excitable · temperamental · melodramatic · tempestuous · overcharged · responsive · demonstrative · tender · loving ·
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Interesting for all of KAS’s desire to submit to the Bible, whenever I quote the Bible, KAS runs away, and most of KAS’s arguments stem from vague “submit to the apostles” – style name-calling and not actually parsing and searching scripture.
My interpretation is… KAS just goes in with a “my church doctrine says it’s true” viewpoint. When that viewpoint is challenged from scripture, it becomes an ad-hominem-style attack “egalitarians are power hungry” “egalitarians [RHE] are deceived and close to leaving the faith”, “why do you care – you’re not married”
KAS, I think we have a lot of pretty scholarly people here. Your style of belligerent assertion isn’t going to do anything except annoy people and waste screen space. Instead of claiming you read all sorts of egalitarians, or blah blah common egalitarian argument, it seems better to actually put your money where your mouth is and tell us how we are misinterpreting scripture. I was a comp. and I know pretty much all of the comp. arguments. What I’ve discovered lately is that the arguments are all siloed. If you take a comp. hermeneutic to a different passage, it doesn’t work.
Just as a small example, comps. love to quote “wives submit to your husbands”, but the same hermeneutical approach and theological baggage comps. apply to that verse fails when you then try to understand “submit to one another”, because submission in a comp. sense cannot be done to an equal. And, in a comp. lens, there are NO equals. Every relationship has to have a superior and an inferior. I read a comp. article where even a business partnership had to be complementarian – one had to take a superior role and one had to take an inferior role. Even though CBMW rejects “superiority” and “inferiority”
For example, if Adam is the Federal Head in the complementarian sense, the CEO of the earth, why did God ask Eve to give account for her actions? That was Adam’s responsibility. The buck stopped there. Complementarians say Adam threw Eve under the bus, and that’s somewhat true, but a complementarian God would not have allowed that.
There are many other problems. For example, Complementarians claim to believe that we must obey all proper authority. Proper meaning a person in an authoritative role. However, this then gets sliced and diced and bifurcated to the point where complementarian organizations such as HSLDA say that we do not need to obey the policeman or social worker who shows up at our house (a clear Biblical authority relationship), because that policeman is ‘outside the bounds of his authority’ when entering the house (a correct viewpoint), but then the same complementarian organizations fight tooth and nail to reject any limits to parents’ “authority” over their children, as well as pastors’ authority over their church.
As a case in point, members of a congregation can be excommunicated when they do not obey the commands of the elder board or pastor. However, pastors and elders do not want to be held accountable when they command members not to report domestic or sexual abuse. This is complete hypocrisy. Either they are to obey the law and report, or they must understand that their authority has bounds and commanding members with respect to non-reporting of criminal behavior is clearly out of their bounds.
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Mark – thanks for your comment. I have been reading your comments, but time is limited to keep replying to everyone even when I wanted to.
I’ll give you just one example of an egalitarian wrong argument. Gal 3 does not say we are all equal. The nearest you get to this is not v 28 but 26, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. There is an equality in our standing before God here, our justification, inheritance, even the gift of the Spirit, all with the privilege of sonship. In this sense there is ‘neither male or female’.
Now amongst all these ‘sons’, some have greater responsibility than others, the obvious example being younger to elders. There is submission (coming into rank, a suitable level of deference) here, and this is not mutual. Not all sons are equal in responsibility, and this applies to both male sons and female sons (if you get my drift). You can’t use this Galatians passage to nullify differences elsewhere. Paul ends the section by saying you are all one in Christ Jesus, which is not quite the same thing as saying ‘equal’.
Submission by definition is never mutual regarding the person or institution we are enjoined to submit to. Humility, however, is mutual.
Why do the apostles not give the same instructions to both husband and wife if there is essentially no difference between them? (This is essentially all there is to my kind of complementarianism, which is why I have constantly been going on and quoting what God commands husbands to do as the answer to the mistreatment of wives.)
On a personal note, I am blessed to be able to take a break over the next week, so I won’t be ignoring you if you reply and I don’t. The long-term effects of the abuse of one of my own children surfaced again last week, it’s heartbreaking to see, so I would never support or condone any system that in any way helped to perpetuate or enable this, believe me. And I’m afraid egalitarianism in this instance didn’t stop abuse.
Off topic, but I also feel rather down over the Irish referendum on liberalising the abortion laws there. To see people actually rejoicing over this, and see on the BBC “Irish health minister Simon Harris tweeted: “Will sleep tonight in the hope of waking up to a country that is more compassionate, more caring and more respectful”.” More compassionate and caring? About the only thing left I have respect for regarding the RCC is their stand on this issue. It’s a very sad day.
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KAS
As I said in a post above, contrary to what you were implying about Christian women who reject complementarianism, the reason I am leaving the Christian faith is due in part to Complementarinaims – not due to Christian Gender Egalitarianism.
I am not leaving the Christian faith due to feminism. Not due to liberalism, either.
(I am not a liberal or a feminist.)
It is not Egalitarianism that is causing me to quite possibly reject the Christian faith, but complementarianism (among other reasons).
You and other complementarians need to own that.
Stop blaming egalitarianism, feminists, feminism, and liberalism for why so many Christian women dump comp and maybe later dump the faith too.
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KAS, you’ve done more harm than good in this thread (and previous ones). You don’t seem to care.
In spite of the fact I pointed out several times over, in posts above, in the last four or five days that you keep derailing this thread – the basis of the original post is asking how can sexism be fought in churches – you want to keep coming back here to argue theologically and analyze Bible verses.
You’re arguing in favor of maintaining the status quo that contributes to sexism in the church (i.e, complementarianism, male headship). And you’re, again, doing this in a thread asking how the church can stamp out sexism.
I really wonder why someone who realizes that Complementarianism has caused obstacles for, and personal pain in, women would continually post to threads about this.
You even said up thread something like,
“Hey, this complementarian stuff is no biggie to me, I’m laid back about it!,”
and yet you continually post to threads about this topic, and not post in a helpful way.
Complementarianism is an abstract topic for you, one that you enjoy having intellectual debates with when talking to Mark, but this is not and abstract subject for me, and women like me, who have been hurt by this doctrine.
This doctrine has had personal, problematic ramifications on myself and many other Christian women.
You don’t seem to care about how your doctrine has damaged people, but you just want to keep criticizing Egalitarian verse interpretations, or implying in one post that Egalitarians are not saved, etc.
Jesus had to correct the Pharisees on their insistence to keep arguing doctrine and respecting doctrine over how they mistreated people.
You say you believe in the Bible yet you remain amazingly blind to its main lessons.
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KAS said,
What does that even mean?
Complementarianism not only does nothing to stop the abuse of girls and women, but it contributes to it.
We have complementarian pastors telling abused wives to stay with their abusive Christian husbands, for one.
As I explain on my blog, Complementarian doctrine sets girls and women up to be attractive, easy targets for abusive people.
Egalitarianism does not instill those same messages of codependency and passivity into females (hence making them easy abuse targets) as does complementarianism.
KAS said,
_What Galatians 3:28 Cannot Mean_
_Galatians 3.28: Our Identity in Christ_
_Women In Ministry Gal 3.28_
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(My post above with links to articles refuting the KAS / complementarian interpretation of Galatians 3.28 is sitting in mod a I write this post) [mod note: not anymore. 😂😂. -ja]
KAS said,
As to your complaint I do not listen to women, I have read extensively in egalitarian literature on and off for years, with as open a mind as I can muster.
If you’ve “read extensively in egalitarian literature,” color me unconvinced, because you don’t act like it.
You’ve even raised a few of the same usual comp talking points or clobber verses that egalitarians have already answered and refuted in their blogs, books, etc., such as the bit about Galatians 3.28 not teaching equality, etc.
Your mind does not seem open to me. You come off as though you’ve already got your mind made up, there is NO WAY (in your view) that the comp position can be wrong.
You’ve done more talking in this thread, talking at women, and accusing them of being unsaved just because they’ve dumped comp, than actually listening to any women in this thread and really mulling over what they’ve written to you.
I don’t get the sense you are talking WITH me, but talking AT me, and talking AT other women on this blog.
About the only person in the thread you’ve really tried to deeply and meaningfully discourse with are people with male screen names.
Perhaps I should sign up for Julie Anne’s blog under the name of “Rick” or some other masculine name.
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KAS asked Mark
Egalitarians have already answered this objection / ones similar to it, in some of their blog posts and online articles.
-But you would know that if you’ve actually read their work already, which you claim that you have, but I don’t think you have.
KAS asked Mark
Complementarianism does not work in abusive marriages.
Complementarian understandings of marriage and certain biblical passages only work in a certain type of marriage – usually ones of middle class financial stability where the couple is living in a functionally egalitarian marriage.
Even when abused wives follow Comp doctrine and Comp advice, their husbands still abuse them –
Because as any DV (domestic violence) expert will tell you, a big reason, and major cause of abuse, is ENTITLEMENT. The abuse has nothing to do with wifely “submission” (that the wife is not submitting enough).
The only connection is that submitting more to an abuser enables the abuser.
And what do you do KAS, in all the complementarian marriages where the husband is NOT “loving the wife as Christ loves the church,” but rather, beating her or verbally abusing her daily or weekly?
Complementarian instructions about submission, headship, and all the other complementarian male authority rot they like to endorse, actually ENABLES marital abuse; it does not stop it.
_Control: The Reason [Complementarians] Cannot Actually Condemn Spousal Abuse_
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@ KAS
Do you care if your ideology, your selfishness, your misogyny heaps more pain on raped little girls? It does heap more pain on them. As a little girl living in rape, I felt the misogyny of complementarian. It hurt very bad; very bad! I (((NEVER))) felt loved or respected by the vile misogynistic complementarian God. I knew the misogynistic sky tyrant loved the rapist and wanted the best for him. He created me to be a disrespected used slave.
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This writer put it nicely – this applies to all complementarians (including you, KAS), the parts I have emphasized:
_Source for above quote_
I have noticed in the public responses by Southern Baptists such as Al Mohler and etc, they have doubled down on complementarianism, when it’s complementarianism that contributes to domestic violence, when it’s comp that played a role in Patterson’s negative views of women and his horrible advice to them.
Comps show absolutely no willingness to study or consider that maybe their doctrine is sexist and harms women, that comp is a big part of the. Comps keep wanting to treat comp as a solution when it’s actually the problem.
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KAS, “Gal 3 does not say we are all equal.”
And your point?
On the other hand, 1 Cor 12 says “And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. … But earnestly desire the greater gifts.”
Now, who is the audience?
“To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:”
So, while we can’t say that men and women are considered in every way equal, we see that Paul is not qualifying men vs. women when he is writing them what the spiritual gifts are and who should be desiring to be granted them.
Now, it’s intriguing that prophets are listed second – a superior gift to “teachers”, and yet it is blatantly obvious (not even comps. disagree) that Philip’s daughters were prophets. “On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses.”
So, here we analyze some complementarian hypocritical arguments:
1) The fact that they “prophesied” doesn’t mean they were prophets.
– Yet, for MEN, it is clear that the action and office are intertwined. One who teaches is a teacher. One who is a servant is considered a deacon. For example Epaphras is considered to be a church leader, yet Phoebe is just a believer on a business trip.
2) Paul is just enumerating gifts and not offices and there is no superiority implied – yet Eph 4:11 is considered both a ranking and offices even though there are no numbers and no later verse in context implying an ordering.
3) The only problem with interpreting 1 Cor. 12 as a ranking of gifts is precisely because the complementarians want to deny that women can participate equally in spiritual gifts, and that denial is based on silence in scripture and a presupposition that women are inferior. Yet, we have Deborah who was a prophetess, Philip’s daughters who were prophetesses, and Mary Magdalene who was given a message to tell the apostles, as well as a promise in Joel, saying that the Spirit would be poured out on all, specifically naming those who were “inferior” in Patriarchal Israel as being those who would receive gifting from the Spirit.
“Submission by definition is never mutual regarding the person or institution we are enjoined to submit to.”
Yet we are told to submit to one another, which means that you must either prove why THIS occurrence of one another is different than all the other occurrences, which are assumed to be mutual, or you must prove that this usage of the word submit is definitionally different than other uses of the word submit, because the reading of the text in relation to both “one another” and “submit” is mutual submission.
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KAS, “Why do the apostles not give the same instructions to both husband and wife if there is essentially no difference between them?”
Perhaps because in THAT CHURCH at THAT TIME they needed to hear that instruction – that is why Paul was writing a letter, right, to correct issues at the Corinthian church – the husbands needed to hear what Paul wrote and the wives needed to hear what Paul wrote.
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Thank you, Julie Anne, for clearing my post above to appear.
I only mentioned it was in mod for KAS’ benefit, so whenever you did approve it, he could scroll back up and read it if he so chose.
Mark, bless you for having the patience to deal with KAS on these detailed examinations of Bible verses, but you know, I’m afraid you’re reinventing the wheel, which makes me feel bad for you.
Most, to probably all, of KAS’ problems with Bible passages I’ve seen him raise on SSB blog have been answered over and again in or on egalitarian sites, books, and magazines.
KAS claims he’s read such egal sources and egal rejoinders to complementarian arguments, but based on his commentary here on SSB, I’m highly skeptical of that.
Christianity Hurts (regarding your post of MAY 26, 2018 @ 4:39 PM), yes, I’ve asked KAS that very question a time or two myself in this thread.
Debating about Complementarianism is all abstract and intellectual for KAS.
KAS has not actually suffered as you and I have under complementarianism. (Not that I’ve suffered in the same way or on the level that you have, which I actually thinks comp look even worse – which maybe a story for another post).
Anyway, it’s easy to sit around and glibly debate and intellectualize a doctrine such as Complementarianism when you’re not the one being hurt or negatively impacted by it in some fashion.
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Daisy said, “I do think some of them would go that far if they were allowed, if they felt they would not face consequences (such as jail time).
I look at these guys,like Doug Wilson, and I believe he’s already there. This is a guy who’s known to defend slavery,”
I think they would also. They hate women with a bloody passion.
My father not only hated women he also hated little girls. He was cruel to toddler baby girls. His favorite punishment for underage girls who he did not like and who would not flirt with him was for them to get pregnant. He wanted our sixteen-year-old cousin to die from pregnancy because she got pregnant without being married. Of course, he wanted men who raped underage girls to have their @sses kissed.
Doug Wilson and Mark Driscoll remind me very much of my scum-bag, POS, comp father.
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“It’s not egalitarianism that is causing me to reject the Christian faith, but It’s not egalitarianism that is causing me to reject the Christian faith, but complementarianism. ism. ”
I was born and raised in complementarianism; Christian patriarchy. In my late teens, I started realizing Christianity was not created by any good loving god but by unattractive, sexually sadistic, pro-slavery, pro-rape, embarrassing, insecure, bottom of the barrel men. I started thinking this because of the many complementarian men in my family. These dumb selfish pigs needed to have trapped submissive women and children under their childish thumps; kissing their undeserving @sses.
Complementarianism initiated my atheism. Christian patriarchy made me stop believing in a God. I saw as a young teen how Christianity does absolutely nothing good for women and little girls. It does greatly help sexually sadistic abusive jerk men. My father got a trapped slave and his embarrassing feeble ego stroked. My mother was nothing but a slave. I was a trapped, demeaned, used, self-hating, slave in training.
The complementarian God is nothing to women and little girls but a heartless pimp in the sky. He tells us everything a pimp who rents out chained up sex slaves in the basement does. You have to have sex against your will, take beatings, never tell the man no, the man owns you, can do anything he wants to you, you have to be submissive like a dog. As a little girl in sicko comp world, I always felt like God was my pimp.
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“KAS’ deliberate attempts to use Julie Anne’s blog as his pulpit.”
KAS has appointed himself Reverend of Spiritual Sounding Board. As if most of the people who come here are not familiar with Bill Gothard, Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips, James Dobson, and Michael Pearl. KAS has not said anything they don’t promote or complain about. Like them, KAS does not give a tiny d*mn if his selfishness, hatefulness, and heartlessness hurts women and raped little girls.
Keeping with comp man mentality it is always women and little girl’s job to hurt to make the comp man feel better.
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“KAS has not actually suffered as you and I have under complementarianism.”
How could he? He has decided he deserves to be on top. The man actually said, “Unlike many, I have no problem with the idea of hierarchy, ”
Kim Jong-un, the Saudi royalty, ISIS, and Boko Haram do not have a problem with hierarchy either; because it is a bunch of thug men at the top. None of these men are pro-equality.
ISIS, Boko Haram, and comp men will not have women being able to escape them.
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Mark – there is a fundamental difference of opinion here. The NT was written to the early church, but for us as well. We are in essence no different. I don’t believe the trajectory hermaneutic, that we have ‘moved on’ from the NT because our culture is different or even more enlightened. This system of interpretation is being used to justify disregarding the bible’s teaching on homosexuality, and is a repetition of the ‘did God say’ theme.
Re: submit to one another. It means one (either as an individual or a group) submits to another (either an individual or a group), for example a wife to her husband in context. It does not mean everybody submits to everybody in a reciprocal fashion (although I used to take it to mean this before looking at it more carefully). I could give you 10 or so reasons why the ‘everybody to everybody’ interpretation doesn’t work in Eph 5, but haven’t got the time. It’s not about winning an argument.
For those of you who think I am overdoing this perennial theme, I have done give or take 23 posts on it and Daisy 56. Just sayin’.
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KAS, I’m going to tell you this once but I’m sure it won’t penetrate that arrogant, narcissistic persona of yours.
You’re an asshat. (Since JA runs a family blog, I’ll not use other adjectives I could pick). You’re also an asshat who’s wrong.
“It’s not about winning an argument”. Then why not shut up about it?
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