Since the old one was timing out on my high speed…
9,OOO+ comments later, and we have moved from specific works by patriocentric authors (So Much More, Return of the Daughters, Passionate Housewives: Desperate for God, The Prairie Muffin Manifesto) to the larger “global” picture of patriocentricty. Prairie Muffin, Thread 8 discussed single women, the Botkins at a recent convention, home schooling, modesty, Samaritan Ministries (a medical needs sharing organization), and much more.
Please see the index post here, for a detailed road map to our conversations.
*noting here that this is a continuation of Prairie Muffin #8 in case somebody is lost! (Karen)
July 9, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Impressive!
July 9, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Here’s the last bunch of comments from T8PM:
# Lin Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“You cant’ change everyone’s thinking overnight, but educating women is a good start. If we find our worth in Jesus. If we know that God never meant us to be forced into subjection, we find our identity in Him and the love we need in Him.”
Madam, post #759 could not have been easy to write for you. But it is chocked full of insight. I have wondered for the last few years how I could have been so sucked into the “no negative truths” allowed Christianity. I call it Anthony Robbins Theology with a fish slapped on it.
But scripture tells us to bear one anothers burdens. We cannot do that if we do not know what they are.
Corrie, I got to meet Corrie ten Boom was I was a little girl and I remember it well. My mom played for some event where she was speaking and I met her when it was over. She was NOT the grandmother type at all even though she looked like one. She was very much a strong willed, take charge, tell it like it is person. I was scared of her but my mom loved her!
)
But you are right about her not confronting false teaching or behaviors. Billy Graham is like that, too. I really think it comes from wanting to stay focused on one message. Problem is, we are short of Nathan’s and those who are public teachers have a responsibility in this regard.
# Stella Moon Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:24 pm
“You know? pants (trousers) that are tight ARE eye catchers. We naturally look at how clothes suit and fit people. Even men.”
This is a point that I almost never hear addressed in discussions about modesty. Women aren’t as visually stimulated as men in general, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be affected by how men dress.
I saw a link (as a negative example) to this site recently: (Warning! For the sake of your monitor, don’t drink any liquids while perusing it. There are so many logical fallacies and bizarre conclusions that it’s almost comical.)
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Womens%20Page/pants.htm
Granted, this is an extreme example, but though I suspect most Christians would find it absurd, I think it takes some of the prevalent views about modesty to their logical conclusions. If you’re going to use the logic that “Pants on women are adulterous in nature, and cause men to lust and sin,” you should extend that same principle to men who look good in their jeans or T-shirts. I remember seeing a shirt or bumper sticker at college that said “Wrangler butts drive me nuts” (there were quite a few aggies at our school
), and the sentiment was being expressed about men, not women.
# Cynthia Gee Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:30 pm
“I have Christian men who tell me that when I wear pants it causes them to lust so therefore I should not wear pants.”
That’s because they are victims of Fundamentalist Church Culture and Dress –they’ve been TAUGHT all their lives that women in pants are sex-crazed, rebellious floozies, and that women in skirts are virtuous, demure wives and mothers, pure as the driven snow.
Pants are no less modest than skirts, but because these guys think that seeing women in pants will cause them to become aroused, that’s exactly what happens. (Other men, notably in the Orient, have been taught since birth that women in skirts are “easy”, because skirts are Western dress and Western women have loose morals. When they see a woman in a skirt, they probably fantasize about Marilyn Monroe and hot-air grates.)
Imagine if some church taught its members that wearing a certain shade of yellow meant that a woman was “easy”, and was looking for a man.
Pretty soon, any time a man from that church saw a woman wearing ANY shade of yellow, he would stumble, even though there was no “eye trap” or biological stimulus present causing him to do so (orange would be “out” too, because it’s close to yellow); these guys would stumble sheerly through the power of suggestion, because their consciences had been damaged by wrong teaching.
By giving up yellow, the women from this church would have achieved a higher, heretofor unheard-of standard of holiness; this would soon cause other churches to ban yellow as well, since everyone knows that it’s a SIN not to strive to be as holy as you can be, even if it means never wearing yellow again….
# madame Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Lin,
Post 759 was an outburst…
no-negative truths allowed Christianity: I think people are afraid. We don’t know what to do with other people’s pain.
I think there are also a lot of people who consider it more Christian to stoically carry one’s own burdens, smiling and talking about how blessed they are. Nothing wrong with that, except if they slide into denial.
Joy,
You explained modesty a lot better than I could. It IS respect!
MrsW, ah those people… Well, tell them the Bible was written at a time when everyone wore long robes. Maybe men should start wearing robes again.
# Cynthia Gee Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Stella, that article is a HOOT, LOL…
But I wonder… for years we’ve been hearing that “women aren’t as visually stimulated as men” and accepting it as Gospel truth, but can anyone come up with any sort of study or scientific statistics which prove that it’s true?
Men in general (not ALL men!) don’t notice their surroundings as much as women — they don’t notice dust in the corners, they couldn’t tell you what color of T-shirt you wore the day before yesterday, some can’t even tell pink from lavender or blue from green, and most don’t notice what women are wearing, unless it’s outrageously sexy or outrageously dowdy.
# Cynthia Gee Says:
July 9, 2008 at 12:50 pm
“Maybe men should start wearing robes again.”
Yes, to keep their visually stimulated sisters from stumbling. Of course, they’ll have to avoid hot-air grates….
July 9, 2008 at 1:03 pm
“Wrangler butts drive me nuts”
And then there are chaps. Made a bunch of them for an Oklahoma production I was in for a Christian school. You should have seen how the guys swaggered and how the girls couldn’t keep their eyes off the “Wrangler butts.”
July 9, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I made this post at the bottom of the last thread after Joy started this one; copying it over here.
“You know? pants (trousers) that are tight ARE eye catchers. We naturally look at how clothes suit and fit people. Even men.”
This is a point that I almost never hear addressed in discussions about modesty. Women aren’t as visually stimulated as men in general, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be affected by how men dress.
Both of these are excellent points. Actually, when Claire was in the hospital she was located in the maternity ward, and I took particular delight in peeking in on the babies in the nursery, and watching new parents sit together and exclaim over the precious new thing they had done.
I also, however, had to very quickly take a few thoughts captive when I wound up walking behind a proud new father who had chosen to dress to exhibit his magnificent physique in a skin-tight shirt. He may as well have been wearing no shirt at all– I could see every bulge and ripple as he walked, and it left nothing to the imagination. I have a particular weakness for broad-shouldered men, and I had to do a very quick and quiet about-face and take a few moments, rather than focus on his biceps, to think about the wife and new mother who must surely be waiting for him to bring their brand new daughter back from the nursery (a little pink bundle of utter perfection, by the way!). I doubted she would appreciate me eyeing her husband any more than I would, were I in her place.
All that is not to harp on that sinful lascivious man for wearing that inappropriate T shirt. Much like teenagers who wear what they do simply because it suits them or pleases them, I really doubt he was aware his shirt might be a stumbling block (provided he even knows what a stumbling block is); at most I expect he had worked hard to achieve that toned upper body and was simply pleased with the effect of that shirt. It is to say, though, that men are no less capable of making us stumble than women are of them, and if Christians really must focus an inordinate amount of attention on the way we dress and how it affects others, I’d like to see a little more attention paid to this side of the coin, too.
July 9, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Thanks, Joy. I was just getting ready to begin a new thread!
July 9, 2008 at 1:25 pm
And how about men in uniform or kilts or period dress or acting out forms of aggression, like wargames?..the sort of thing VF promotes.
July 9, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Interesting thoughts about Matt Chancey:
He is running in Alabama against a woman who appears to be quite conservative herself. So why would he divide the party’s vote? My gut feeling is that she is part of the monstrous regiment of women who bring shame upon the country by running for public office. I am looking into this but so far can’t find a reason the oppose Twinkle.
Another thought about this…on July 1, James McDonald suggested that his readers send money to Matt Chancey’s campaign and placed that request in an article about homosexuality. I don’t know how the Alabama Public Service Commission president can influence that discussion, but no matter. Here is that request:
http://familyreformation.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/we-must-hang-together-2/
Now what interests me is that right here in Peoria Illinois, right in James back yard, there is a wonderful young Christian man who is running for Congress and it looks like he may be in for a tough race. Where is James’ endorsement of him or a solicitation for funds for Aaron Schock’s campaign? This man is a member of my church (my son was in the service when he was baptized and gave his moving testimony of his salvation) and has an awesome track record in the state legislature. I don’t get it.
July 9, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Oh, my favorite quote from that “article” (I use the term loosely for such junk!) was:
“The average person today scoffs at the idea that Rock-n-Roll, Satanism, and immoral sex go hand-in-hand, but they certainly do. When Rock-n-Roll came to America, so did pants on women become mainstream. Naturally, feminism, witchcraft, abortion, and homosexuality came as well. Rock-n-Roll is straight from the pits of Hell. ALL rock-n-roll women wear pants. Sexual immorality is a driving theme in rock. ”
The jury is in: witches, abortions, gays, all have their root in women wearing pants?
SHEESH!
I had a good laugh, thank you Stella.
I’m off to the pool with my kiddies in my very modest tankini with a skirt.
July 9, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You know, I read the lyrics to that song and it really was funny….I ask myself the same questions sometimes….how did I get all of this into these pants?!?!?!?!
July 9, 2008 at 1:38 pm
And, Normal, isn’t it funny to know that, once again, feminism has such powers….now we are responsible for witchcraft and gays, too? I am waiting to hear how mildew, ring around the collar, the war in Iraq, and the flooding in Iowa are somehow related to WWF as well.
July 9, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Andrea, your comments about the buff guy in the hospital reminded me of something funny I read the other day. I seems some girl is in a coma and her parents have contacted Johnny Depp to make a recording of his voice to play over and over to her to help her out of the coma. Somehow even his voice does it…
July 9, 2008 at 1:42 pm
That article reminded me 80’s when there was this man that went from church to church to talk about the evils of rock music. He even talked about how if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, it said “oh my sweet Satan” or something to that nature.
I was little then, but my older brother had to hide all his rock records from our mom so she wouldn’t throw them away. The fear mongering these people preached about was unbelievable.
July 9, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It is, Karen, it is. It’s all related to us nasty feminist women, with our powers and our charms! We can do anything, you know.
Don’t forget Katrina, illegal gambling, legal gambling, food shortages, and squirrels in the garden. Feminists caused all those problems too!
(sometimes this is fun! Gotta go, see y’all tonight!)
July 9, 2008 at 1:44 pm
I think that’s kind of cute thatmom! Knowing how Johnny Depp is, I bet he would do it too. He is the most gracious man in Hollywood.
July 9, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Becky in #12, there is some truth to the rock music played backwards thing. I’m not sure about that particular song though. Before I became a Christian I was involved in some satanic things and I recognized it in the music, and I would recognize some things when the music was playing normally too.
July 9, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Just a question though MrsW, did you only notice it because you were already involved in satanic things? I ask because I am wondering if it’s as noticeable to someone who isn’t involved in stuff like that.
Sorry to go off the patriocentricity topic! Music is my life so it’s something I’m passionate about.
July 9, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Becky, I am not sure. I want our kids to be careful with their music choices because I believe those kinds of things the devil might use to subconsciously get to them. I still notice it these days but not sure if that is because of my past or not. We will want our children to be careful and prayerful of music choices.
July 9, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I do understand that kids need to be careful about their music choices. I won’t be a strict as my own mom, but I also won’t allow gangster rap in our house either.
As a kid, I was forced to listen to Christian music (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith etc.) and it has taken me many years to be able to listen to Christian music again because I ended up resenting I still can’t stomach Amy Grant or Michael W. Smith, but thankfully the David Crowder Band has come out to restore my faith in newer Worship music.
July 9, 2008 at 2:01 pm
HAHA I can’t stand Amy Grant. Music in our home is going to be “filtered” but it’s not like they won’t be allowed any secular music, or even stuff we don’t like. We have a monstrous music collection ourselves and hope our children enjoy music as much as we do.
July 9, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I think when it comes to music, it doesn’t even have to be subliminal.
If you’re listening to music that glorifies death, suicide, depression, etc. in its lyrics, you’re going to be affected by it.
If you’re listening to music that encourages compassion, or courage, or what have you, you’ll probably think along those lines too.
(This coming from some one who is not a Christian music only type- a lot of what plays is John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, mixed in with Watermark, Shawn McDonald, some good old DC Talk, and instrumental hymns and Gregorian chant!)
July 9, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Funny story:
Dave Matthews Band has a song about standing up for what you believe and knowing what you believe, called “Don’t Drink the Water”.
[I often listen to DMB in the car]
There’s a lyric in that song that says, “don’t drink the water, there’s blood in the water”.
So here’s me and my kids bopping along on a long day of errands. We get out to go into the grocery store or something, and Isaiah is still singing. He then sings “don’t drink the water, there’s BLOOD IN THE WATER” really loud.
This lady drinking from the water fountain stands up really quickly and just stares at us. I could not stop laughing!
Seriously though, even at six and five, my kids and I have had some pretty in depth and amazing conversations about themes presented in music (of course, my boys favor country like their dad). I won’t let them listen to anything without screening it first.
July 9, 2008 at 2:21 pm
oh.my.goodness.
Don’t even get me started on freaky fear-mongering and music.
I once read a Gothard anti-CCM tract. It was over the top nonsense. But it ends up telling the story of a girl who’s heartbeat was erratic during a surgery. Turns out she was listening to Christian music with a BEAT. Her mom tearfully wails, “I told her only to listen to hymns!”
I’m actually a musicologist, so I’ve done a lot of studies on music and emotions, etc.
I personally think that music (in itself without text) can’t be evil in itself, but that it absorbs contexts and can be a really powerful reminder of places/ideas/etc., evoking personal memories, especially. Music is a physical thing, tied to emotions of course, but I don’t think that it is in itself evil any more than a smell would be. However, it can remind one of a context that could be a huge stumbling block, especially for someone who had bad experiences or experiences of sin connected with that. Maybe, going on with the smell analogy, like someone smelling incense. Not bad in itself, but if you associate it with raucous college shenanigans, it might draw you back into that experience.
I could go on and on, but I don’t want to hijack the thread.
I think I feel strongly about this because even many thinking Christians can approach music in an attitude of fearfulness, fearfulness that frequently isn’t commanded or called for. I’m not talking about one’s personal limitations (I totally respect that, MrsW), I’m talking about an almost superstitious approach to music that isn’t appropriate. And can also (sorry to keep going, hard to stop myself) can be tied deeply into some racist stereotyping, or at Western-centric attitudes.
I’ll stop now!
July 9, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I meant, “at least Western-centric attitudes.”
July 9, 2008 at 3:10 pm
On the topic of music….this is such a big part of our family and we have had so many discussions about the role a Christian should have in today’s world of the arts.
When we were in ATI, we were inundated with all those anti-rock teachings. Thankfully, we came to see them in the same light as the Jim Logan stuff. We do not believe that a born-again personal can be demon possessed.
One of our sons loves music and has taught me so much about his generation by giving me “concerts” of music by various artists. Invariably I will be talking about this or that and he pulls up a tune to play me where the lyrics are expressing exactly what I was wondering about. I think if parents might listen to some of their kids’ music with understanding rather than condemnation, they might learn a lot about the common fears and concerns kids have. I honestly believe that the media is THE most powerful tool we have today to present the Gospel and I have no issue with Christians taking their music into the mainstream. In fact, if they don’t, my only conclusion is that they want to keep the Christian market base for their income.
And don’t even get me started on the “cheesy” factor of the VF stuff.
July 9, 2008 at 3:13 pm
And about Amy Grant music. I would rather have my kids listen to music by secular artists who at least present a biblical worldview in their personal lives and music than a Christian artist who has committed adultery and hasn’t publicly repented of it. (If I have this wrong, please send me a link to read. The last thing I read, Amy was talking about her wonderful soulmate.)
July 9, 2008 at 3:18 pm
1st Timothy 2:9 clearly instructs women to dress MODESTLY, i.e., of good behavior. A woman’s clothing says MUCH about her character.
That I agree with, but their conclusion doesn’t follow from it.
So, since women who a approve of abortion also approve of wearing pants we should not wear them?? I’m sure they also see no problem with eating healthy food and getting exercise. Does that mean we shouldn’t eat healthy food or get exercise? Also, they’ve failed to define what modesty is. (Although the implication seems to be wearing skirts.)
That song doesn’t prove their point. Also, from what I can tell it’s talking about tight and too-tight pants, not looser fitting ones. I don’t see how they draw the conclusion that “Pants on women are adulterous in nature, and cause men to lust and sin.” I’m pretty sure I don’t wear pants to cause men to lust and sin. That just doesn’t make any sense.
Along with these swingy types of music came dancing, one of the biggest sins of all. Billy Sunday was right to preach against dancing, and by the way… ALL dancing is dirty dancing unless it’s between a husband and wife in the privacy of their home.
Um, where in the Bible does it say dancing is a sin. Also, dancing was around LONG before the 1920’s. If they were talking about a specific type of dancing they should have defined it. And how is “all dancing dirty dancing”. Is Irish dancing, Canadian step dancing, Highland dancing, or ballet “dirty”? I think not.
So if two things happen at the same time, they must be related? And since all rock-n-roll women wear pants and rock-n-roll is straight from the pits of hell and driven by sexual immorality, pants must also be straight from the pits of Hell? That just doesn’t flow. I’m pretty sure they wore shoes too, does that mean wearing shoes is also sinful?
And what they wrote is supposed to be evidence that pants are sinful. All that’s happened is they’ve attempted to link together a bunch of statements to “prove” pants are sinful. None of it flows and some of it is just outright false.
We also supposedly don’t need anymore evidence, but “just in case” they post another article. While the first paragraph is reasonable, the second uses the “culture argument”. (Which incidentally does not work…)
The culture argument being: in our culture dresses are distinctly feminine and pants are distinctly masculine so women should only wear dresses and skirts. Women wearing pants is part of the feminist movement.
Except that in our culture, pants are both masculine and feminine. It depends on the style. Yes, there are some immodest styles of pants, but that doesn’t mean that all pants on women are immodest.
July 9, 2008 at 3:19 pm
1st Timothy 2:9 clearly instructs women to dress MODESTLY, i.e., of good behavior. A woman’s clothing says MUCH about her character.
That I agree with, but their conclusion doesn’t follow from it.
So, since women who a approve of abortion also approve of wearing pants we should not wear them?? I’m sure they also see no problem with eating healthy food and getting exercise. Does that mean we shouldn’t eat healthy food or get exercise? Also, they’ve failed to define what modesty is. (Although the implication seems to be wearing skirts.)
That song doesn’t prove their point. Also, from what I can tell it’s talking about tight and too-tight pants, not looser fitting ones. I don’t see how they draw the conclusion that “Pants on women are adulterous in nature, and cause men to lust and sin.” I’m pretty sure I don’t wear pants to cause men to lust and sin. That just doesn’t make any sense.
Along with these swingy types of music came dancing, one of the biggest sins of all. Billy Sunday was right to preach against dancing, and by the way… ALL dancing is dirty dancing unless it’s between a husband and wife in the privacy of their home.
Um, where in the Bible does it say dancing is a sin. Also, dancing was around LONG before the 1920’s. If they were talking about a specific type of dancing they should have defined it. And how is “all dancing dirty dancing”. Is Irish dancing, Canadian step dancing, Highland dancing, or ballet “dirty”? I think not.
So if two things happen at the same time, they must be related? And since all rock-n-roll women wear pants and rock-n-roll is straight from the pits of hell and driven by sexual immorality, pants must also be straight from the pits of Hell? That just doesn’t flow. I’m pretty sure they wore shoes too, does that mean wearing shoes is also sinful?
And what they wrote is supposed to be evidence that pants are sinful. All that’s happened is they’ve attempted to link together a bunch of statements to “prove” pants are sinful. None of it flows and some of it is just outright false.
We also supposedly don’t need anymore evidence, but “just in case” they post another article. While the first paragraph is reasonable, the second uses the “culture argument”. (Which incidentally does not work…)
The culture argument being: in our culture dresses are distinctly feminine and pants are distinctly masculine so women should only wear dresses and skirts. Women wearing pants is part of the feminist movement.
Except that in our culture, pants are both masculine and feminine. It depends on the style. Yes, there are some immodest styles of pants, but that doesn’t mean that all pants on women are immodest.
~~~~~~~~
I’d also like to thank you ladies for your kind comments after my last post. I said I’m not good with words because people always seem to misinterpret what I have to say when I’m talking to them. (I guess you could say that I have poor oral communication.)
July 9, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“Don’t even get me started on freaky fear-mongering and music.”
I know a Pats family gifted in music. However, they are allowed only to hear standard hymns or psalms. I say hear, because the kids are not allowed to study an instrument. However, they have revealed their musicality to an older married brother whose wife is teaching them when they “escape” to her home. It’s all so sad.
The kids are told that anything but classic hymns is sinful even classical music is out because it could lead to pride.
The oldest daughter was not allowed to go to high school and was unhappy about the homeschool highschool available. She ran away and lived with a local sympathetic pastor family. She also reported her family to child protection agencies for child abuse of younger siblings. Her mother was charged with child abuse (spankings) and placed on probation.
They also won’t let the kids drink from pop cans as it might encourage drinking beer. The church they attend has a pastor who thinks IPods are bad and bordering sin because they distract you from “REAL” life. When we heard this from the pulpit our boys immediately dubbed our family iPods, HELL PODS.
It all makes me so tired. :/
July 9, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I burned, trashed, or sold my extensive music collection when I decided to follow God at age 19. I was really into music and had some amazing stuff. I am now so sad that I did that… I spent so long being AFRAID of music…as if it was something dangerous. I love how Joanna from England (I think that’s who said it) talked about fundamentalist views on music being “superstitious.” That’s TOTALLY how it is… viewing music as if it’s this evil magic spell, etc.
I’m slowly working my way back to having good music again. U2 has sure helped. (Listen to his song, “Yahweh” and then tell me that Bono never met God—betcha can’t do it).
Music is part of our world. Music that celebrates and discusses life in all its facets makes for a good companion in this life.
I don’t want my children listening to music that glorifies evil. But I *equally* don’t want them growing up full of superstitious beliefs that they need to be afraid of people making music about what it’s like to live life on planet earth.
July 9, 2008 at 3:29 pm
ROFLOL! Oh. My! Stella, seriously thank you for the warning against drinking liquids while reading that article.
Honestly, for a good way through the article I felt convinced it had to be a parody–I don’t think I’ve ever read something so over-the-top that WASN’T a parody. Whoa! Talk about taking a presupposition and cramming it into some Bible verses!
You know…this whole thing about modesty…the Bible says to be modest. There is no clear rule listed, no definite parameters. There are SO many issues for which we are given CLEAR commandments,CLEAR rules, and CLEAR parameters, it stands to reason that if there IS one modest dress code for women, God would be upfront about it in His Word. Doncha think?
I’ve read that “modest” refers to not drawing attention to yourself. Can anyone confirm this? If so, how does one determine what will draw attention to oneself? Since time eras, geographical locations, culture, and a multitude of other factors contribute to the idea of what clothing “blends in,” couldn’t modest apparel be different at different times and different places? As others have wisely mentioned, don’t differences in body types, etc. affect this, too? If we determine modesty by what MIGHT cause attraction by the opposite sex, then what articles of clothing WOULD be appropriate, as I’ve talked with men who feel even long skirts and dresses are alluring, not just short skirts.
Or should it come down to each person is responsible to examine his/her own heart when choosing clothing? Hmmm…that might mean one would have to just pay attention to what one’s own self is doing instead critiquing how “godly” everyone else is and seeing which women men can blame for their lustful thoughts. (Gasp!) What would that do to blogdom without immodest women to write about????
(Sorry, I am being a bit sarcastic. I am not intending to offend anyone, just weary of modesty being used as the measure of holiness.)
July 9, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Between feminism and pants wearing women–it seems every evil known to man has entered the world through women…does the Bible say that? ‘REBELLIOUS WOMEN are the root of all evil?’
What about REBELLIOUS MEN? Why are the men always kind of absolved of sin because a woman rather caused them to do it? Oh…right..it’s Adam and Eve again. He was just immature, but SHE was disobedient. (BTW, thank you to Cindy K for the link to your talk on the Patriarchy Movement–it was a very informative eye-opener!)
July 9, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Re: #31
Romans5:12
“Through Adam sin entered the world”
July 9, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Re: #31.
Oh but you know…As long as they are busy fixing us feminist wimmin’ they don’t have to pay attention to their own failings. (Sorry, my sarcasm is getting the better of me.)
Re #30:
I posted this on the last thread about an aspect of modesty:
I think there is an interesting side to modesty that is rarely discussed, and Madame briefly touched on it.
RESPECT.
If, I, as a woman, respect my own body. It’s strengths and weaknesses, the cottage cheese thighs but the amazing hips that have carried four kids…
I am going to dress in a way that respects my body and everything it is capable of.
Those that often dress…er…”forward”, often have no respect for themselves, it’s okay to dress provocatively because no one cares about my body and it’s just a thing that gets used.
On the hyper-P side, it’s cover every inch because my flesh (body) is bad.
Both discount the fact that the human body, male and female, is created in God’s image. And that the Holy Spirit dwells within.
There is a Normal Middle (bwahaha), a middle ground, that walks the line between ‘covering our nakedness’ and respecting the amazing creation that is our bodies.
It’s why Normal looks awesome (and modest) in a pair of capris and a v-neck top, and I don’t- but I do look nice in a swingy, artistic skirt that doesn’t chop my short legs up and a boatneck top that accentuates my nice collar bone while modestly covering my more than ample chest. We’re both respecting our bodies, and being modest.
It’s also a respect for the men in our lives. I can’t wear v-neck tops. I know that if I do, I will cause men to think things they shouldn’t. It’s not their fault that I am well-endowed. But it is my fault if I am always offering ample glimpses.
I think if we are dressing to respect our bodies unique attributes and needs, modesty naturally becomes a part of that.
July 9, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I love how Joanna from England (I think that’s who said it) talked about fundamentalist views on music being “superstitious.” (Molleth-#29)
Nope, I’m Joanna-not-from-England.
(joannabug here)
July 9, 2008 at 4:11 pm
It kind of made me think back to Lady Lydia’s comments about the older women in “pull ups” and Mary in TN’s compassionate response about the troubles that face elderly women.
The fact of the matter is, those women were dressing to respect their own bodies unique needs, and were plenty modest. It just wasn’t neo Victorian attractive.
I am not saying that we should walk around in sack cloth and ashes, but neither should we be worrying about emulating a specific “look” to suit a certain subset of people, because, 1) it is self defeating (you’ll never please everyone, and 2) it places an un-natural focus on the clothing you put on every day. Clothing is *just* clothing. It is not a status symbol (although we make it in to one) or an advertisement (although that happens too) or a test of our holiness (which happens way too often).
July 9, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Regarding the girl in the coma and Johnny Depp:
http: //www.chinadaily.com.cn/entertainment/2008-03/25/content_6563849.htm
He did agree to help, according to the link.
July 9, 2008 at 5:07 pm
The music thing always gets my blood boiling. Probably because I totally *heart* music! On my iPod you’ll find U2, Dave Matthews (waving to Joy!), John Meyer, and I must admit my sinful addiction to some, not all, but some hip hop! And my kids are total TobyMac fans!
You’ll find Christians all over the camp with this one. Some will tell you that Amy Grant is sinful to listen to because she’s divorced, and Michael W. Smith has too much rhythm and beat….and that anything besides hymns is sinful.
I’ll agree that some music is bad (ie-ultra gangsta rap ballads?), but music in and of itself is not bad. (kind of like anger! its how we ACT on it!)
You know, I think sometimes we fearful Christians give the devil too much power. Do you really, really, deep down, think the devil has so much power that rock music is going to cause us to go hazy-eyed and be entranced and made to worship Satan? I’m not saying the devil is not real and does not have destructive power in our lives.
God is POWER. HE is mighty to save! Why do we focus so much on the miniscule power the little-d devil has?
I’m starting to think that anytime a Christian starts whining to me about clothes and music and alcohol, I’m going to turn the conversation to food. I see alot more Christians harming their body with a buffet line of fattening food and gluttany than I do with clothes and music!
Anyhow, could talk for HOURS about this stuff.
July 9, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Hey y’all…maybe we can come up with some sort of Victorian-esque (harpsichord anyone?) song, and mask it with subliminal “get of out patriarchy!” messages. We could then pipe it in to homeschool conventions everywhere….
Just an idea?
July 9, 2008 at 5:48 pm
About the modesty/lust thing – my perspective has changed so much on it when my faith went through a whole general deepening. I used to be scared of my body and I think it REALLY showed, but people were too nice to say anything about how ridiculously dowdy I looked as I draped myself with jumpers and long sleeves. A few friends did gently talk with me about it. But it all stemmed from an inadequate and simplistic understand of what sin and responsibility really were, I think.
It was a long time happening, but now I actually like having a body and I’m not scared of having breasts or legs, (everyone knows I have them anyway, I just don’t want to show them off) and clothes are actually getting fun, not stressful.
When I had my own thought life struggles to deal with, when I wasn’t just feeling perverted (Because of course women don’t struggle with that stuff nearly as much as men – so said the generalization.)I think I leaned towards blaming the person for what they were wearing. The problem is, if you’re in a sufficiently,um, horny mood, anything seems sexy. It just gets ridiculous.
So as God taught me how to deal with that, I found it more and more centering on what was going on inside me, not on what other people happened to be doing. Even the sight of a shirtless man, for instance, doesn’t bother me like it used to. It might not be the most appropriate thing at the time, but I couldn’t go and say it was wrong. But I know what would be wrong for me to do in response.
To sum up – God made some very beautiful beings and I don’t expect them to hide it – it shows very well even in normal jeans and t-shirt. And he made me beautiful too, even though I feel plain. So I don’t want to be paranoid about myself or other people anymore. Let me just be careful (not paranoid) and let God keep working on my heart, and I’m fine.
That’s my thoughts on the whole modesty thing, since we’re discussing it.
July 9, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Could call ourselves,
Pink Subliminal Moms
or
Lacy Pink Mamas.
Here’s a chorus based on Yellow Submarine tune:
We all live in a pretty little life,
perfect handsome husband, perfect pregnant wife.
Sorry, I guess the Beatles wouldn’t pass, might be too subliminal.
July 9, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Ah, music, wonderful music …
‘Fore I start – Lindsey, about comment 38 … *dies*
I am so ashamed of my attitude towards rock music that I harbored for a long time. I had some of that “Rock is Satanic” fear for a long time. I couldn’t agree more with Lindsey about how wrong it is to be controlled by fear. I used to just like classical and folk stuff – but you wouldn’t believe how dirty some old folk songs can be. Yet I thought it was better for me to listen to a bawdy old ballad than a modern rock one that glorified God. Because the first one sounded pretty, and I was controlled by fear and prejudice.
I can’t begin to tell how much rock music by believers has done for my faith. (I enjoy some unbelievers, too, of course. I just think it is fascinating that some people would label as “demonic” a very exciting and wonderful art form so many wonderful believers are in.)
I love Molly’s thoughts in comment 29. Molly, I’m musical like you (I sing, play a lot of instruments and enjoy so many different musicians.) and I’m the age you were when you started following God – and let me tell you – I am going to learn from you and throw any stupid fears down the drain and enjoy God’s gifts with all my heart.
July 9, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Re comment 40-
*dies again*
(Anne2, your sons kill me too .. “Hell pods” – Ha!)
July 9, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Beatrice,
I love your thoughts
Actually I appreciate you bringing up the way this modesty obsession changes our thinking, and not necessarily for the better. I don’t even buy into the idea that my elbows or underarms are innately sinful and cause men to lust (geez, have these women never SEEN an underarm? Go without shaving for a day or fourteen and WHERE is the sex appeal?!) but I still find myself falling into this trap of carnal thought.
Actually, on the bus just today there was a man across from me who just sat and STARED. I felt horribly exposed and uncomfortable. I started to wonder if somehow my loose cotton slacks and simple T shirt were cut in such a way as to attract his attention . . . for pity’s sake! God is so good, though, I really do credit Him with the idea that popped into my head halfway between home and my destination– that I was sitting directly across from this man, that it was a warm day, people were sleepy, staring . . . and that even if the man did happen to me staring at me in an inappropriate way, not just a sleep-stupefied way, he would probably stare just as hard if I wore a burqa.
I don’t know, there’s just something about me that doesn’t enjoy receiving attention on other peoples’ terms. I am happy performing on stage, giving a speech, all that, because I am doing them on my terms. I direct the attention of the audience. Sitting on a bus, though, having a strange man stare at me . . . it was enough to make me question an outfit I had already checked out in the mirror before leaving home to make sure it didn’t expose me overmuch. I guess I especially don’t appreciate the obsession over modesty because it directs my thoughts to the flesh SO MUCH that I autmoatically assume lust on the part of all men, which I think genuinely does them a disservice.
July 9, 2008 at 6:18 pm
This reminds me of something that happened to us in our uber-hyper-patrio-leaning “classical” homeschool group about 2 years ago.
Each week a family had to take the opening program. You were required to do the scripture reading, pledge, etc and almost ALWAYS each family provided some sort of mild entertainment to lighten things up.
Most families had their kids recite something, or their little mozart played chopsticks on the piano, or in many cases, the family sang a song together, etc. It was cute, but most of the time hokey and cheesey to the maximum.
When our turn came I started scratching my head because I knew my husband wouldn’t come (most of the dads were small business leaders, go figure! and they took the day off to participate in opening program with the wife and kids).
My daughter decided to dance. She takes lyrical ballet at a Christian dance studio. VERY, VERY, VERY beautiful and modest stuff.
So, anyhow, she dances a little piece to a Chris Tomlin song.
And later, I got talked about, behind my back of course, very badly because one, I’d let my daughter wear a white leotard with tights and worship skirt. Mind you, she was 6 at the time and as flat chested as a 40 pound 4 foot girl could be.
Second, half the mothers were angry about my music choice.
Later, one of the mothers came to “counsel me in Titus 2 fashion” about the music. I explained to her our family’s choice on music and noted that chris tomlin was a very reputable Christian artist. She would hear nothing of it.
Next week, it happened to be that mother’s family week. During devotional time they sang a song and then Dad gave a little talk on how we should guard what our ears hear.
Coincidence? I think not!
Oh—and by the way—-interesting note. Last night Joy and I were playing email tag and we have found out the lady who stalked me at my old blog and who has now found her way to WWF, is someone from my former homeschooling email group. She lives about 30 minutes from me. Scary, isn’t it?
July 9, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Beatrice said: “So as God taught me how to deal with that, I found it more and more centering on what was going on inside me, not on what other people happened to be doing.”
AND
“And he made me beautiful too, even though I feel plain. So I don’t want to be paranoid about myself or other people anymore. Let me just be careful (not paranoid) and let God keep working on my heart, and I’m fine.”
Beatrice, you sure you’re just a young little thing? Because you’re demonstrating a whole lot of wisdom here in your youth than most of the patrio front-ladies combined, I’d say. Keep it up!
July 9, 2008 at 6:25 pm
thatmom:
Amen to comment #25!
I too disposed of some of my music collection when I was younger. Am I ashamed of that? Somewhat. I needed to let some of it go, but not all of it. I am very glad most of it remains and is on my Zen Vision-M (Creative Labs’ version of the iPod). My husband and I have taught each other a lot about music during our 13 years of dating and marriage. He was exclusively classical until he met me. I guess I “corrupted” him. LOL
July 9, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Have you all discovered Sufjan Stevens yet?
He is an amazing Christian artist who has his own record label and his creativity combined with his ability to connect with the culture is refreshing. Check out his song about John Wayne Gacy on you tube. It will blow your mind. Gacy was a pedophile and a serial killer. Stevens points out the fact that all of us are sinners with our own secrets under our own floorboards. Chilling.
July 9, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Oh, I read an article about Stevens a while back in World! They mentioned that song. I was really impressed with how he is infusing his art with his faith. I’ll need to check him out. I also need to check out U2 and Watermark, since certain friends love them so much.
Thanks, Debbie. Can I just say say I was and am still a mess? The difference is now I am letting God work with my youthful mess to a degree I wasn’t before. I don’t feel wiser than people, though, I hope, though of course I believe that my opinion is the right one. I dunno how to think about it exactly.
Another thought about the modesty issue – I think when Christians get too obssessed with it, it’s just like theonomy or strict Sabbath keeping or whatever, something that is still geared to the Old Testament view of things in a New Testament world. Basically it’s this confusion of the material with the spiritual, and people find Scriptural basis for this because of the Old Testament. But they miss that God was just using material things as symbols of spiritual things. (When Jesus came, He had people misunderstand Him this same way when He used earthly symbols ALL THE TIME.)
I still don’t believe it’s ok to go around naked. In this fallen world, I think clothes are the norm and that the Genesis story of our shame after the Fall supports this. But always there’s a deeper spiritual issue and shame going on under this earthly reality. And when God had elaborate rules about clothes or talked about nakedness in the OT, I believe it ultimately to get us thinking about spiritual issues.
I think maybe Vision Forum’s “Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing Of America” and Mrs. Macdonald’s posts on her blog about modesty might lean an unhealthy way. And I know they would be going “We’re not being legalistic, we’re just trying to obey the Lord and that’s never legalism.” But I just can’t see this any other way – that there’s an unhealthy bent somewhere here.
So as a Christian after Christ’s coming, I don’t believe it is right to be obsessed with “covering my nakedness”. Since Christ was made naked for me, I can’t really find much reason to be make covering my nakedness a religious, laborious practice. Modesty is not a ceremonial, fixed science, but a constant heart attitude. (With absolutely no shame anywhere.)
July 9, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Sorry for the double verb in that last paragraph … I make so many typos and errors.
July 9, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Oh, and Andrea, I’m so sorry about your awful time on the bus. I like your thoughts too.
July 9, 2008 at 8:11 pm
” Billy Sunday was right to preach against dancing, and by the way… ALL dancing is dirty dancing unless it’s between a husband and wife in the privacy of their home.”
There was a gal in the Bible who thought that way…. Michal, I believe her name was:
¶ Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!
2Sa 6:21 And David said unto Michal, [It was] before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD.
2Sa 6:22 And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.
July 9, 2008 at 8:20 pm
“Now what interests me is that right here in Peoria Illinois, right in James back yard, there is a wonderful young Christian man who is running for Congress and it looks like he may be in for a tough race. Where is James’ endorsement of him or a solicitation for funds for Aaron Schock’s campaign? This man is a member of my church (my son was in the service when he was baptized and gave his moving testimony of his salvation) and has an awesome track record in the state legislature. I don’t get it.”
Perhaps because Mr. Schock is neither the Golden Boy of the VisionForum wing of the homeschooling movement nor Doug Phillip’s protege?
The Shepherds’ Journey , a patrio-homeschooling blog,says:
The following is an excerpt from an email we received recently from Mr. Michael Farris of the HSLDA and Patrick Henry College:
“Several years ago, a young home school graduate from Alabama, still in his teens, came to the Home School Legal Defense Association to intern with our National Center for Home Education.
We were so impressed with him that we offered him a job working as Chris Klicka’s personal assistant, and he remained in that capacity for several years before moving on to a successful career in business and public policy.
That young man was Matt Chancey, and I was delighted recently to hear that he had stepped forward to run for President of the Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC). This is a statewide office, so all registered voters in Alabama can vote for Matt. The PSC touches literally every household in the state and it needs real leadership-the kind that Matt Chancey will bring when he’s elected.
I was recently in Alabama speaking at a home school conference and I was able to spend an evening with Matt and his wife, Jennie, at their home near Birmingham. Matt told me about his vision for public service and his desire to serve the people of Alabama.
It is vitally important that we elect strong Christian leaders at all levels of government. But the PSC race in Alabama is especially important for homeschoolers. You have an opportunity to make history. To my knowledge, there has never been a homeschooler and home school graduate elected to statewide office in Alabama. “
July 9, 2008 at 8:56 pm
“think there are also a lot of people who consider it more Christian to stoically carry one’s own burdens, smiling and talking about how blessed they are. Nothing wrong with that, except if they slide into denial.”
I know this is off the music topic but I have to respond to this. What happens when Christians hide their burdens from their church family is that eventually people get a wrong view of Christianity. They start thinking it is a Osteen-lite kind of life.
Christian-life is good
Suffering- I am not being blessed. God is not happy with me.
When, in fact, sanctification can look like death to the worldy. As CS Lewis said, Suffering is God’s megaphone to draw us to Him. (or something like that.:o)
When Christ converted Paul, He told Ananias: He will suffer much for My Name.
The point is that people see Christ in us even in our suffering. That, I admit, is NOT easy.
July 9, 2008 at 9:45 pm
You gotta wonder if Matt Chancey’s opponent has brought up the fact that the Chanceys do not think married women should vote?
July 9, 2008 at 9:54 pm
re #53.
I have just experienced this in my own life, on the same day.
My family and I were suffering (not any more thanks to the second half of the story!) and when we mentioned it to our pastor at church, the basic response was, it must be your fault. You must have done something to make this situation happen.
That reality couldn’t be further from the truth!
I honestly believe that God had created this situation to test and sanctify us.
Later on on Sunday, I was really struggling against my fleshly response to the whole thing. I was so tempted to run out and “fix” things, which was clearly not God’s plan. I was feeling incredibly hurt by the way things had gone, and to be frank, it’s not the first time that my church “family” has burned me. I was really, really struggling.
I gulped down my pride and emailed a few friends that I knew as powerful prayer warriors, and asked them to pray for me to be patient and to trust. I’ll admit, as I sent that email, I was mighty scared that they would respond to me the same way my pastor did, and I knew it would hurt even more if they did.
Boy, was God planning something great for me, that I could not even fathom.
Within hours, each of the women emailed me with love and support in ways I couldn’t imagine. They were part of answering an immediate need because I was willing to let down my guard (something I find incredibly hard to do after being hurt and burned so many times). Not only did they help to answer an immediate need, they also helped to heal some deep hurts that had unsettled my heart for quite a while now. I had begun to feel that no one really cared.
God taught me two lessons:
1) I need to listen to Him, and trust His will, even if it might make me look like a fool.
2) There is still a remnant, still a “people of the Way” and I just hadn’t “seen” them yet, and I need to keep my eyes open from now on instead of shutting them in fear.
These prayer warriors helped me to bear my burdens and then some and it was such a huge blessing. A blessing that probably would not have happened if I hadn’t admitted to my struggle, for fear of looking “bad” or “not Christian enough.”
I guarantee these prayer warriors had no idea of what all was going on when they received my email, but they were used as mighty instruments for me and my family on Sunday. It was so far above anything I had expected or imagined.
James is already talking about it as a before and after, it changed us both so much. Before Sunday, we were very afraid, unsure, and after, we’ve got to tell the world how God came through for us!
That is our Mighty, Miraculous God. He used a situation that was causing us tremendous suffering and drew us closer to Him, in a way only He could have done or conceived, and I give Him all the glory.
July 9, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Oh, Joy, I totally know how that feels, to go searching for help and only get a response that drives you into further desperation and despair. I had to tell myself over and over again that suffering is NOT the sure sign of sinful behaviour, and that God would never drop me, not even when it got awful, and I didn’t have to choke back my tears – I was just accepted as I was and He would work with ME.
But I am so grateful that He sent me others after a while who did understand and told me what to do next.
Frankly, I think it’s easier for some people to deal with things they don’t understand or are threatened by by ascribing them to sin or saying you caused it somehow or should just be able to make it go away.
God hates suffering, but I see how He is turning it to good in your life and in mine.
July 9, 2008 at 10:25 pm
FOUND IT!:
re: Samaritan Ministries discussion in PMT8
There was another, short, discussion regarding Samaritan Ministries in “Online Interview with the Botkin Sisters” here:
http://truewomanhood.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/online-interview-with-the-botkin-sisters-sallie/
Comment # 64.
Karen Campbell asked me to comment on this forum, so I hope this will be helpful. However, I won’t have time to offer further comments.
Our desire at Samaritan Ministries is to reach as many like-minded Christians as possible who would like to stop supporting unbiblical health care practices such as abortion with their health care dollars. There is the added opportunity to eliminate other unbiblical health care practices like morning after pills, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, the use of psychotropic drugs, and the view of drunkenness as a disease, rather than a sin. We are surprised at the number of Christians who find it acceptable to mix their health care dollars with insurance companies that hold a cavalier view toward human life.
Vision Forum and Generations Radio Program have offered us effective and affordable opportunities to reach many like-minded believers. We have also advertised with sources as diverse as: World Magazine, HSLDA’s Court Report, Liberty Journal, New Man Magazine, Spirit-Led Woman, Single Parent Family (a Focus publication), Discipleship Journal (Navigators), as well as reaching out to groups as diverse as the “emerging” church. We try to be wise stewards in the use of the Lord’s money in order to reach out to those who share our disgust with abortion and the many other unbiblical lifestyle choices that most insurance companies support.
Our desire is to provide a network where the body of Christ can grow in unity and caring for one another in an atmosphere that we refer to as Authentic Biblical Community. (Ephesians 4:15, 16 & Philippians 2:1, 2).
We have members who would represent the patriarch viewpoint including Doug Phillips, Kevin Swanson, and James McDonald. We also have women members who are pastors of churches. We have members from a broad spectrum of the body of Christ. We have members that are in Christian Rock Bands, and we have members who would deplore Rock & Roll as being from the Devil. We may be one on the few places this side of heaven where two saints in the Lord who otherwise might not be able to sit at the same table and fellowship together, will, however, pray for one another, and share the financial burden of one another.
To answer a couple of your questions: Yes, we do have women that work at Samaritan Ministries.
Yes, we do rent a portion of our building to Providence Church, where James McDonald is the pastor. We have also made our building available to local homeschool groups, and when Providence moves on, we will likely look for a new Bible-based church to take their place.
Our desire is to promote unity in the body of Christ in spite of its vast diversity. In this way we strive to avoid one of the seven things that the Lord specifically hates: (Proverbs 6:16-19)
“one that sows discord among brothers.”
For The Kingdom!
Ted A Pittenger
Founder & President
Samaritan Ministries International
July 9, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Joy, you are fantastically dilligent!
There is the added opportunity to eliminate other unbiblical health care practices like … treatment of sexually transmitted diseases
Wow, so if a woman is raped and thanks to her rapist she contracts chlamydia, HIV, hepatitis or anything like that, Mr Pittenger contends that the treatment of the disease is an unBiblical health care practice?
Sure glad I live in Canada.
July 9, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Someone asked me last thread what I made of the depression article. As someone who has lost a family member and also a dear friend to suicide, I am all for medication when needed. Ironically there is a family member now who is bipolar and not on meds because they were told they were “cured”. This person is really bad. To the point of probably another funeral to attend in the not so distant future.
But praise God…this person isn’t taking any unbiblical psychtropic drugs (at least according to Samaritan Ministries).
July 9, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Ditto Andrea, that is if you can find a doctor. :/
July 9, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Actually, I can’t take the credit this time…I had looked through most of the threads and was coming up with beans.
James goes to the Google home page, tells it to Google True Womanhood specifically, and finds it in about 10 seconds flat!
I didn’t even know you could do that!
So, now ya’ll know too!
July 9, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Did I mention how much I love my geek? He’s pretty stinkin’ amazing at it. He was also the one tracking down Normal’s cyber stalker last night.
[Don't mess with a former sheriff's deputy, a computer, or one of his friends. Ha!]
July 9, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Well then Joy and James, you make a grand team!
Anne2, I hear you, lol! Don’t know where in Canada you are, but here we have three walk-in clinics to pick from; I’ve tried two out of three so far and have found that if I time it right I never have to wait more than half an hour to an hour to see a doctor, even without an appointment; I’d be more determined to find a family doctor if I planned to stay in this city, but really this is just a stopover til I find out where God wants me next.
I do miss the doctor I had when I was on PEI going to university, though; she was personable, respectful and direct, and I’ve never felt so comfortable with any doctor as I did with her. I do also sometimes miss the luxury of making an appointment and walking right in!
July 9, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Oh Andrea, I am jealous. PEI!?! Birthplace of my favorite character from literature?!? (Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables)
*sighs*
July 9, 2008 at 11:55 pm
#57 I just fell out of my chair. I am lying speechless and nearly unconscious on the floor, typing with my toes.
It is unbiblical to treat people with STDS??????????
What is the matter with this people? What do they smoke, what do they drink, what sort of delusional life do they lead in which it is acceptable in their minds to view life this way?
I am not a nurse. When I was young I did work as a trained medical assistant, on the very poor side of town, for an elderly Christian doctor who was willing to see the unfortunate souls who would not be accepted elsewhere. (Why was he willing to treat the dregs of society? Simple. He had the love of Jesus in him, and he felt compelled to treat the sick because those who were well did not need him.)
I was the back office assistant, so I was the one who listened to the tales of suffering that brought people into the office. They tended to tell me the whole story, and my job was to be the front line of compassion as much as it was to take their blood pressure, check their pulse, and record their current medications.
Dr. M. taught people more about Christ and more about basic decent humanity than all of these self-righteous hypocrites combined. He looked at broken and diseased people, suffering consequences of sin (whether their own or others’) and loved them. He taught his entire staff to treat absolutely everyone equally and respectfully.
That is Christianity. That is love. With Dr. M., image was nothing. These pharisees would not have been very impressed by that humble doctor, or his humble office on the poor side of town. They would have been horrified by his patients.
When I get to heaven, I expect to see Dr. M. shaking hands with Jesus while some others say, “Lord?” What?” Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you.”
July 9, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Of course the winking smilie does not belong in the above post.
July 10, 2008 at 12:30 am
Joy, oh, I could tell you so many stories . . . Islanders have a love/hate relationship with Anne. She almost single-handedly sustains their province through tourism but sometimes you get to a point where you think that if you see just ONE MORE REDHEADED PORCELAIN DOLL . . .!
That said, I don’t think there is a prettier, pleasanter place in the summer than PEI. The winters are brutal and raw, with nothing to block the wind, but that makes you feel all the more that you belong for having weathered it. And then in the summer . . . well my heart just breaks for the tourists who come each year, because there are ALWAYS some who somehow missed the fact that Anne was not a real person.
I actually had a friend who worked at the airport and she (poor Sarah) had to stand helplessly by as one elderly Japanese woman asked “we can see where Anne was born, yes?” only to be told that Anne had never actually lived. The women promptly burst into tears as if mourning a dear, lost friend, and Sarah hadn’t a clue what to do.
July 10, 2008 at 12:33 am
(I should explain that I specify Japanese because the Anne books are ragingly, phenomenally popular in Japan, where they were translated into Japanese following WWII. You are almost guaranteed a position as a tour guide anywhere on PEI if you can speak Japanese. The Japanese tourists are also the ones who most commonly believe that Anne was real, that she is still alive, that they can meet her . . . it would be heartwarming if it weren’t somehow so sad)
July 10, 2008 at 12:48 am
Amy (#65), I love that story. Thank you for writing!
There’s lots of good thoughts in this thread. I don’t have anything too coherent to add, but the modesty posts are helping me heal and process some things. Most modesty talks make me want to run and find a nice deserted island, but instead I’m feeling more thankful now.
July 10, 2008 at 7:15 am
AnneC, thank you very much! I told my kids about the “hell pods” and the story behind it and now my 17 year old keeps calling them that! Seriously, long car trips are all the more pleasant with a family now that they guys have their own hell pods. I have one kid who loves Tom Waits, another who loves to listen to books on Cd, and another who loves to listen to sound tracks from musicals. Dad and I prefer the quiet because we are old now.
July 10, 2008 at 7:25 am
Our family’s favorite doctor just died. She was about 90 and was an amazing woman. She had gone through the University of Illinois medical school back in a time when very few women did. She married and had 5 children, staying at home to raise them. Her husband taught school and they lived on his salary, which I believe was quite a sacrifice when you know how much more her income could have added to the family. During the summers they would all pack up and go to the poorest areas in the Appalachian Mountains or to Indian reservations out west and she would provide free medical care to anyone and everyone. (This was during the 50’s and 60’s.) When we moved back to my hometown in the late 1970’s, her children were all grown and she practiced from the front parlor in her house. (You often had to move the cat to get a seat in the waiting room!) She charged $6.00 for an office visit and so much of her advice was based on the many years of mothering rather than any textbook. Once my husband cut his leg with a razor knife and she told him to drop his pants and she stitched him up, no painkiller anda dstill charged him the $6.00.
When we began homeschooling, she was thrilled and told me that if she had it to do over again, she would have done the same thing. She told me how she had always been really shy and then when she was little and her family was quarantined because of an epidemic of measles, her mom schooled all the children around the table and she learned to recite out loud without fear for the first time. That sold her on homeschooling and she was one of my first and early supporters. I still sent her pictures of the kids and grandchildren at Christmas.
She practiced medicine during the days before you had insurance that covered office calls and if it hadn’t been for this woman, there are hundreds of people who would have gone without medical care. I always admired her and her Christian testimony. It was a sad day when she retired and we had to go to a local clinic and all that that brought with it!
July 10, 2008 at 8:13 am
Re: #70 “Seriously, long car trips are all the more pleasant with a family now that they guys have their own hell pods.”
A Hell-pod got me through 8 months of hellish chemo and two hellish hospitalizations. The same pastor who prompted our boys renaming the pods, came into my hospital room post-surgery when I was in absolute excrutiating pain. I was trying to shift in bed and simply could not from all the pain. I looked up, saw him coming in and said, “gotta’ gun?”
I’m a little bit British in my humour; dry, sarcastic, a bit morose. His response was the classic smash every sin and sinner you see with your big fat-butt sin-swatter, “Heyyy, don’t talk like that”, he growled. Literally, he growled. He totally p’d me off. And I’m a nice girl.
I told the CHRISTIAN surgeon the same thing, a most humble, gracious, smiling, gentle man. He giggled, squeezed my foot and said, “and this too shall pass.”
In the past I had been to the surgeon’s church. It was a joyous, alive place, lots of energy, directly opposite from that of the growling self-righteous pastor.
July 10, 2008 at 10:15 am
This is not strictly “patriarchy”. It irks me anyway! This is the first site you get if you google “biblical submission” It’s called Maranatha Marriage. Just add the Ws
maranathalife.com/marriage/mar-rel4.htm
Here’s a little sample of what it says:
” As leaders, men are responsible to God for everything that happens in their families. Don’t try telling God that you delegated it to your wife, He won’t listen. You’re the one He holds accountable.”
“The interesting thing, is that Proverbs was written to men….Training of children is the man’s responsibility. He can have his wife help, but he is the one accountable to God.”
” If the house isn’t kept clean, it isn’t the woman’s fault, it’s the man’s. Oh, she might be the one who actually does the housework, but it’s him that decides the level of clean that’s acceptable. If he doesn’t care, than she probably won’t do any more than is necessary. But, if he sets a high standard, she’ll do everything she can to meet it.”
” In our families, it isn’t the woman’s responsibility to teach the children about God’s ways, it’s the man’s. Yes, the woman can assist with the instruction, but if the man doesn’t take the leading role, the children won’t take it seriously. If they don’t see their father reading the Bible, they won’t read it either. Even if mom studies the Bible regularly, as long as dad doesn’t, they will see that they don’t have to either.
….Paul said “women keep silence in the churches…if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home…” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) ….Paul also makes it clear that a woman is to ask her husband, learning from him.”
” As head, men are in a unique prayer position. They, and only they, can offer prayer protection and covering to their wives and children. Nobody else is in the unique position to offer that protection.”
This is on a marriage teaching site. So WAAAAAAAY OFF!!!!
July 10, 2008 at 10:32 am
We went to PEI on our honeymoon.
It IS the most beautiful place in the world, indescribably gorgeous. We rented a car and drove everywhere. I hope someday we can take our kids back there.
I’m glad that there’s some talk about music here. I think it’s part of the whole bundle of wax. The reactions to culture, the idealizaion of a past culture, wanting to withdraw from the present culture to “return” to the past culture, the strrreeeetttching of “Biblical principles” to mandate things that the Bible hasn’t mandated, and even the problem of being so trapped in their own cultural context that they can’t see the limited applications of these principles.
There used to be a missionary model, which thankfully in many areas has changed, that when you went in to a culture and people converted to Christianity, you told them that their own music was sinful and taught them Western hymns instead.
July 10, 2008 at 10:58 am
I once worked with a lovely ex-nun in a Catholic hospital. She had been a missionary nurse somewhere in Indonesia. She left the church because she could not understand why unconverted people were told their culture was evil and they needed to leave it behind in order to embrace Christianity. She saw nothing sinful with much of the culture that the Church was ordering her to change.
July 10, 2008 at 11:38 am
I told the CHRISTIAN surgeon the same thing, a most humble, gracious, smiling, gentle man. He giggled, squeezed my foot and said, “and this too shall pass.”
In the past I had been to the surgeon’s church. It was a joyous, alive place, lots of energy, directly opposite from that of the growling self-righteous pastor.
Ah, graciousness! It’s such a wonderful thing!
” As leaders, men are responsible to God for everything that happens in their families. Don’t try telling God that you delegated it to your wife, He won’t listen. You’re the one He holds accountable.”
This is a commonly held thought but you won’t find it anywhere in the Bible. Weird, huh? My mom was telling me this the other day, and she’s got the Scriptures memorized backwards and forwards, and I said, “Where is that at?” She hemmed and hawed and swore it was in there somewhere, she just couldn’t remember where…
July 10, 2008 at 11:41 am
After ruminating on this subject for a day or so, I’ve found myself still thinking about this insurance business and healthcare. This SMI thing is complicated.
They don’t want to legitimize sin or condone sin. They don’t want to be permissive about it and use this as a way of making a statement about sin. I can relate to that.
And it is a very nice ministry, especially in today’s society when many people cannot get healthcare benefits. That concept of sharing one another’s burdens is really wonderful as a concept.
But then we have the bureaucratic process of categorizing people and behavior. One of the dearest families I know (both the husband and wife and their children –loving kind wonderful Christians) were visited with Hepatitis C from his pre-Christian days with the disease going unrecognized for nearly 20 years. What do we do with that? Mr. Jones, your 20 years of serving the Lord accounts for little to nothing, and because of sins that God doesn’t even remember, we won’t pay for your care. Boy, that just bothers the tar out of me.
I wanted to be a missionary nurse, go to Africa and take care of people that no one really cared about. People in the US were not so interested in the Gospel as we are all fat and happy. Christianity gets more popular when times are tough, so you go to where people have needs where hearts are open and tender. What makes one tender and open to the Gospel? Feeling remorse over one’s sins and the healing balm of the kindness of someone who should really just be disgusted with you. When they offer you love and kindness when they don’t have to do so (we used to call this agape), you are much more well-disposed to receive their message. You love the people who care for you in your distress for many reasons, but the primary thing that gets your attention is the kindness that you bestowed on them in their need when they were unable to help themselves.
(Corrie mentioned how her son had been ill, and she was diligent to take good care of him. When he recovered, he thanked her for doing the routine care. It seemed to me that he recognized in that little growing mind that what she did mattered very much and that he was all the better for it. He appreciated her more than he did before. His trust and love for her deepened.)
Anne (2), you mention a this ex-nun in this post. I found myself thinking of how Mother Theresa went to India without a whole lot of hope for caring for those who would be able to qualify for deserving her care. She went to where the need was great and where the Christian message was rare.
It is easy to love those who meet our expectations. It is more difficult to return good when we see evil or when people suffer the evil consequences of their sins. But that’s what Jesus called us to do. And I think of Peter who said that it was nothing of consequence to treat people well when well-treated. It’s responding in love and respect to those who do not offer it to us that really shows the world that we Christians have something very different to offer.
Now, SMI is not a charity or an evangelical ministry to the lost. They are a business, presumably offering a service to Christians. I can see where they would seek to set standards. The trouble comes in deciding who sets standards and how. And why. And whether mercy can be extended. Is there an opportunity to throw oneself down on the mercy of the group to see if they will help with costs?
But there is an inherent problem in the allocating funds only for “non-sin.” We all sin. If this is applied to one condition or sin, it ought to be equally applied to all sins. Once could easily say that the type II diabetic who does not loose weight is sinning by doing so. The consequences of metabolic syndrome are serious. If one goes blind because an overweight and angry person refuses to heed the warning signs and manage their symptoms, should treatment of those conditions be considered? Why is grace offered to these people and not others?
It just troubles me. We offer care and love to the lost, but we do not offer the same compassion to those who stumble in their walk.
The psychotropic drug comment is beyond ignorant. Again, I defer to Daniel Amen’s website where the right drugs can make all the difference in the world for a person. For whatever reason, certain conditions cause blood to be diverted from where the blood and oxygen and activity is needed most. That kind of condition differs little from having a brain tumor. I mean, does an anticonvulsant qualify as a psychotropic drug? So if you are an epileptic or you have chronic pain or migraines or peripheral neuropathy, does that mean that an anticonvulsant is outlawed? They are pretty psychotropic. (I don’t remember where that quote came from that was offered here.)
From the beginning of this whole ectopic pregnancy issue/discussion, there are a great many people who speak with ignorance and basically assume they can practice medicine, despite their gross lack of understanding. Many of the drugs used to treat gastrointestinal conditions qualify as psychotropic. It’s funny in a way because people just get all the more wacko. I hope they continue to nosedive so that people will find it increasingly impossible to take any of them seriously.
We are supposed to be known by our love for one another.
July 10, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I thought about this too cindy in a similar fashion.
Today as I was driving to the grocery store, I was thinking about a man I know at church who is a diabetic and has lost a foot and does NOT control his diabetes whatsoever because “he doesn’t want to.”
When that man goes into a diabetic shock or coma, crashes his car into a family’s van and kills someone, is it any more “Christian” than the man who had one drink too many and got behind the wheel?
I think *both* of these scenarios are a moral slippery slope.
And yes, we’re back to psychotropic drugs being for people of ye little faith.
If it were not filled with so many ignorant statements based on “Christian” science of a sort it wouldn’t bother me so much.
And again, the claims about traditional health insurance paying for sinful lifestyles. COME ON! Like you or someone said earlier, if you refuse to “pay” for someone’s lifestyle you’d better stop paying your taxes, TODAY. We have government tax funded programs that give clean needles to addicts, people! Ever heard of methadone? Those programs are a dime a dozen, paying for ex-drug addicts to stay clean. And then there are safe sex programs provided for by the governement. Your tax dollars at work.
I don’t know the stats, and I have no idea how to find out, but as I illustrated in a former thread, most of your insurance premiums go to YOUR OWN family’s needs if you ever have claims. Most of us who actually have regular med issues will never “pay back” the insurance company for what they pay in. Like I said before, we’re already 326 years behind in paying off what they’ve paid for our daughter’s surgeries, NICU stay, treatment, and therapies.
Maybe these people really do need to head off to New Zealand or wherever and start their own country. Then they could make all these rules and leave the rest of us in peace.
July 10, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Re: Madame in #73
Ugh, how ugly.
“God won’t listen”!?!? As if they can read the mind of God! To know that God will turn away from a husband telling Him how he allowed his wife to help him carry the burdens that come with life! What a load of crock!!!
July 10, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Alisa,
Yes it’s ugly.
Isn’t that what patriarchy teaches? That a man is the priest of his home?
And the articles on that site get worse. Among the man’s many duties, he’s to spell it out for his wife, and give her consequences if she doesn’t do what he tells her to.
It’s sick…
Sadly, you have people like Bruce Ware out there, preaching to churches packed full of people that a husband has to rule over his wife. This is not just fringe patriarchy, this is one of the “walking Bibles”.
What makes me even more sad is that people worship the ground these people walk on. People put themselves “under their authority” and accept their interpretations unquestioningly.
July 10, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Regarding medical care and not supporting illnesses caused by a sinful lifestyle,
Did Jesus reject people “with a past”?
Did God tell us to do justly and love mercy only with those who fit our criteria?
July 10, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t been about much – our move went very well and we are happily ensconsed in our new place now! Andrea, I am praying for your Claire.
Here’s an interesting counterpart to Joy’s account of the Botkin sisters’ speech. Mr Botkin spoke “in June 2007 in Tupelo, Mississippi, to a group of home educators. His comments are directed to fathers.”
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Journal/stories.aspx?id=116154
Very, very concerning comments and well worth a read.
Some ‘highlights’:
“Daughters must receive affectionate instruction in sensible living.
One of the very best examples of this was a man named John Gregory who was living in Scotland back in the 1700s. His wife had just died. He realized he was dying [so] he sat down and wrote out sensible instruction to [his three] little girls.
He talked to them about some of the most basic things: what to eat, how to eat, how to dress, how modest to be and why. He said, “You’re representing women, you have a duty to dress and act and stand and speak as a woman created in the image of God for a purpose. Now how will you do that?” Dads need to talk to their daughters about these very basic things. ”
…..
“Children must see a maturing father in a delightful relationship with his maturing wife…… The duties of headship are protecting, rescuing, providing, sanctifying, cleansing, beautifying, cleaving to, and honoring our wives. In Ephesians 5 we’re commanded, “Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” This means we lay our lives down for our wives. That’s our job as the head. To make her holy, that’s the goal.”
It just makes me sad.
July 10, 2008 at 3:39 pm
HellPods. I love it.
What does this make ThatMom? A HellCaster?
July 10, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Hellcaster? Is that the opposite of a vision caster
?????
July 10, 2008 at 3:45 pm
From the above linked article: “You take the dad out of the picture for just one generation, and Christianity dies.”
He can’t be serious. All the Christian mothers, grandparents, siblings, pastors, counselors, etc. that have influenced the kids in their lives to lead a life for Christ didn’t exist? Yes, dads can have a great impact too, but I can give quite a few counter-examples to say one does not need a Christian father to become a Christian.
This frustrates me.
July 10, 2008 at 3:45 pm
http://heartsforfamily.blogspot.com/2008/07/let-me-be-clear.html
Hummmm…
July 10, 2008 at 3:47 pm
http://heartsforfamily.blogspot.com/2008/07/let-me-be-clear.html
I do not even know what to say.
July 10, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hey guys, my husband just called, and our car has died. (our paid for car)….
In the midst of our financial stuff with this layoff, we have had a car die. PLEASE say a prayer for us!
July 10, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Someone should go check out the heartsforfamily.blogspot.com blog. Isn’t that the Molly that comments here?
July 10, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I agree with Molly. 99.9% of the time.
July 10, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“From the above linked article: “You take the dad out of the picture for just one generation, and Christianity dies.””
Well, they can never balk at the term patriocentric when they talk like this.
These guys really think more highly of themselves than they ought.
Christianity will die if you take dad out of the picture for just one generation?
Funny, did anyone tell Timothy and Paul that? I didn’t have a Christian dad and I was the first believer out of my whole family. I led my mother AND my father to the Lord.
Ladies. Just give up now. It will be easier than fooling yourself that you actually are important to your child’s spiritual development. If your husband is not walking with the Lord, your children are already doomed and they belong to Satan.
Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that makes me think that I should just go sit in the bar and live my life the way I want to because the things I do and the sacrifices I have made and the spiritual lessons to my children don’t add up to a hill of beans.
And to think that mere men believe that Christianity rides all because of them? Narcissism at its finest.
July 10, 2008 at 5:32 pm
“Christianity will die if you take dad out of the picture for just one generation?”
Somebody needs to read Martyrs Mirror.
July 10, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“You take the dad out of the picture for just one generation, and Christianity dies.”
What about Timothy? The great commission is to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost. They’ve lost focus.
Re: #73
At the risk of “letting my slip show” as Nancy Wilson puts it, my dh DOES think he is ultimately responsible for me. (He doesn’t think he sanctifies me though.) Most of what is in #73 post is what he was taught from the time he was little, and what we continued to be taught by the reformed baptists and presbyterians.
It really creates some mad moments, believe me. For instance, I don’t let him know what I’m reading, I always get criticized or drilled about it. If he doesn’t actually SEE me doing X he supposes it was never done. That is kinda’ maddening and has caused some real brouhahas. I have to do exactly what he says all the time and having learned to live with micro-managing, ignore much of it and just keep doing what I do the way I do it.
That said I still always find myself rethinking how to do or say something when he’s around, to avoid the nonsense (criticism, instruction, admonishment, bleah!) I’ll get. I know the behaviour is just a derivative from this ultimate responsibility teaching.
It is a nasty thing. I can’t change him. I’ve been reading “Whose Pushing Your Buttons”. It has been very helpful to know how to deal with your as the book puts it, “difficult person”.
He knows I’ve pitched pretty much all we’ve been taught in the past. But certainly not how much nor what.
July 10, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I just wanted to quickly thank Molly for putting that info on Kelly’s blog. As a woman who is definately not quiverfull, I appreciate her sticking up for those of us who do choose to limit our family size.
Let me just say I’m tired of being asked “when are you going to have children?” and then getting the stink eye because I tell them the truth by saying “we’re not sure children are are in our future or not.
July 10, 2008 at 6:20 pm
From the same Maranatha article:
” In our families, we must become the example of Christ. As our wives strive to submit to us, we should be so much like Jesus, that they are submitting to Him. Just as Jesus was without sin, we too must endeavor to be without sin.”
Does this not sound a bit like Michael Pearl claiming he doesn’t sin?
Here are some of the responsibilities for the husband.
Do you recognize them Anne 2?
- Teach his wife to be submitted in her actions, reactions, and choices she makes
- Take the responsiblity and right to instruct and correct her
- Provide positive and negative consequences
- Not tolerate rebellion, manipulation , control… against his authority
- Motivate her to become more godly
- Have daily chats with her about issues before they can become large problems. Deal with these things – don’t passively ignore them
- Encourage her, praise her
- Know that what she wants is not always what she needs
I’ve chosen negative ones on purpose, but they taint any positive ones. It infuriates me to find stuff like this on the internet.
July 10, 2008 at 6:24 pm
# 86
Please, Lord, provide a car for Normal and her family. Amen.
July 10, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I skimmed through the Botkin article.
Why are families thinking 200 years ahead? I don’t find any Biblical teaching to support that notion, but Geoff is selling it as Bible truth.
The vocabulary he uses makes it all sound a tad surreal.
July 10, 2008 at 7:01 pm
“” In our families, we must become the example of Christ. As our wives strive to submit to us, we should be so much like Jesus, that they are submitting to Him. Just as Jesus was without sin, we too must endeavor to be without sin.””
This stuff is just so bad. Just as Jesus was without sin? Well, that would be because He is God!!! Unless they are gods?
Where are these things taught in the Bible? Are not all believers given the same admonition to put to death flesh and walk in the Spirit? Are we not all called to imitate Christ and to be like Him?
Eph 5:1 tells all believers that they are to imitate God and be like Christ.
I wonder if they fool themselves and think that they are almost without sin when their wives and families can see that they are not even close?
The more I walk with Christ, the more I see how truly sinful I am and how truly awesome and perfect Jesus is. I hope that if I ever think that I am so close to sinless Jesus, someone will lock me up.
July 10, 2008 at 7:28 pm
“” As head, men are in a unique prayer position. They, and only they, can offer prayer protection and covering to their wives and children. Nobody else is in the unique position to offer that protection.””
Are they kidding? No one else can pray for their family and offer the same sort of protection? Give me a break. This is so unbiblical.
And who is offering the protection? The husband or God? I thought it was God who answers prayers?
So, they must believe that a husband has an extra-measure of the Holy Spirit? Or God can hear the husband better than the wife or children?
Like I said before, it looks like we might as well hang it up, Ladies. Why even bother with all this spiritual stuff?
Not only do we not matter as far as carrying on the gospel to future generations but our prayers are not nearly as effective nor do they avail as much as our husband’s super sonic praying.
And you are totally up a creek without a paddle if your husband doesn’t pray for you or your children. Totally. Because, as we see, a woman doesn’t have the prayer power a man has and ONLY THEY can offer a prayer covering and protection to you and your children.
I am beginning to think that the Bible was written to men and men alone because if it wasn’t, then no one could teach this HUGE PILE OF SMELLY STUFF.
July 10, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Anne2,
Wow! You are a cancer survivor? PTL! I love my “hellpod”, too! It is great for when I was laboring and I use it all the time to keep me focused when I am jogging.
Normal,
I know that many of us will be praying about your car situation. You are loved.
July 10, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Hey, thanks (NM and Becky). lol… Apparently my comments over there earned me my very own blog post about why I’m wrong. I feel special.
July 10, 2008 at 7:40 pm
praying, Normal!
July 10, 2008 at 7:42 pm
“Teach his wife to be submitted in her actions, reactions, and choices she makes
- Take the responsiblity and right to instruct and correct her
- Provide positive and negative consequences
- Not tolerate rebellion, manipulation , control… against his authority
- Motivate her to become more godly
- Have daily chats with her about issues before they can become large problems. Deal with these things – don’t passively ignore them
- Encourage her, praise her
- Know that what she wants is not always what she needs”
Madame,
Interesting list. The only thing is that I don’t see most of them in the job description of the husband?
Frankly, it sounds condescending and as if women are nothing but immature children who will forever and a day need the mature guidance of a male.
Can the wife tell the husband that not everything he wants is a need? Or are all of a husband’s “wants” a need? I guess if he deems them so, since he is closer to God and has more spiritual clout than she does.
Provide positive and negative consequences? Like a spanking? A time-out? Loss of privileges? Loss of “mad money” for the Dollar Store? Where in the world is a husband told to do these things? And why would he even think he is in the position to do these things?
He is to teach his wife to be submitted to him? LOL!
Please, God, spare my daughters from marrying any man who thinks that these are his “rights”.
July 10, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Molleth,
Where is this blog everyone is talking about?
July 10, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Corrie:
heartsforfamily.blogspot.com
July 10, 2008 at 8:31 pm
heartsforfamily (as long as YOUR family looks like MY VERSION of a real family).com
Since when was my womb anyone’s business besides God, my husband, and I?
Gotta love the Christian blogosphere. So many little popes, so little time.
July 10, 2008 at 8:57 pm
re:106
*dies laughing*
Yup. I’m going to hell, and so is Molly. Because we are moms of many, and we stopped.
Only so that we could stay alive and actually take care of said many kids.
Give me a break.
I mean this literally: Where is the love?
I am so tired of “Christian” bloggers passing judgment on their fellow brothers and sisters…
what happened to encouraging and uplifting?
[and if my blog ever begins to resemble a clanging symbol, I beg one of you to tell me so!]
July 10, 2008 at 8:57 pm
*cymbal.
*blushes deeply*
July 10, 2008 at 9:11 pm
About that Rich Murphy article @ maranathalife.com/marriage/mar-rel4.htm
Corrie, some (definitely not all) of these quotes you balked about actually sound pretty good. None of this passing the buck to women — that if women get abused, they were asking for it or that women are the cause of all evil on the planet. At least Murphy was willing to attribute some responsibility for problems to the men, even if he misinterprets the “job description.” In that small respect, it was refreshing.
July 10, 2008 at 9:30 pm
“So many little popes, so little time”
Now, that is a classic!
July 10, 2008 at 9:35 pm
“If your husband is not walking with the Lord, your children are already doomed and they belong to Satan.”
Wonder how they explain away all the godly men I know who had no fathers around growing up?
These folks have no concept of the Holy Spirit, do they?
July 10, 2008 at 10:29 pm
“Wonder how they explain away all the godly men I know who had no fathers around growing up?
These folks have no concept of the Holy Spirit, do they?”
Apparently not, since they contradict the Holy-Spirit inspired words of Paul, who said,
“1Cr 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”
Honestly, just how much of the Bible are these people willing to throw away, in pursuit of their agenda?
July 10, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Re: #95
“Here are some of the responsibilities for the husband.
Do you recognize them Anne 2?”
The only thing that has been rarely in my experience would be provision of negative consequences, (probably less than a handful of times in 24 years of marriage). But everything else is there, yes. He is a very good man and I know he loves me to pieces. This thinking though has thoroughly embedded itself.
I once told him to talk to me like he would talk to God. I felt positively blasphemous saying it, but, he calmed down and apologized.
He was worse when the boys hit the teen years; he got really bad during our awful church abuse experiences as I think he could see the parallels(after I pointed them out, mind you.)
We never make any big decisions without discussion and consensus. He has never, pushed me to join any of the dingy churches we joined, even though I correctly saw glitches. I’ve only once openly defied him and that was on the spanking issue.
He is slowly coming around. But very, slowly.
I want to encourage any other ladies who may find themself in a similar situation.
About a year ago I found this website, I don’t recall how, but still even then thought it was somewhat provocative, for Christian ladies. However, I’ve had more time to read, study and recently found TW again googling some odd thing. Now, I can’t believe how much my thinking lines up with most of the ladies here.
Thankyou ladies!
Corrie,
Yes, a survivor of all sorts of things and now CA. What a ride that has been. When we first found out, the first thing my dh said was, “well, I bet they are all rubbing their hands now.” He was referring to the last church we were at who cursed us for leaving with our kids and sanity just barely intact.
Now, THAT tells you something of the nutty thinking we’ve been exposed to. When news of my diagnosis got back to this church, I received a sympathy card from the pastor. Sympathy cards are for families and friends of dead people. Isn’t that something? I could write a book.
July 10, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Cindy K,
I don’t know what is worse- the infantilizing of women and taking away their standing before Christ or the misogyny?
I mean, Murphy’s basic premise is that the husband is a little Christ to his wife by which he stands before the Lord on her behalf for her sins.
Either way, she is not a whole person with a fully functioning Holy Spirit. She is defective. She is either the devil’s gateway or she is spiritually insignificant and ineffective.
I will have to think a little while on the two extreme patriarchal views on women and get back to you on which I personally feel is better.
July 10, 2008 at 10:47 pm
“Honestly, just how much of the Bible are these people willing to throw away, in pursuit of their agenda?”
Cynthia,
All of it.
I may not agree with all that falls under the egalitarian banner but the comps/pats show a contempt for the Scriptures and proper hermeneutics. They ignore the whole for one little part. They take a shark out of the ocean and place it on land and rename it a cow. They take beauty and make ashes out of it.
The scripture you quoted is very good. The Bible never makes any distinction between the husband or the wife as far as who sanctifies whom. In fact, as you showed us, the Bible tells us that it is a mutual thing.
I have heard that marriage is not to make us happy but to make us holy. I would agree. And that would mean that it is making the husband holy as well as the wife. But, in Patrioland, the husband is holy and his job is forever and a day to train up his wife because she will never come to a full spiritual maturity like a man. The arrogance that must go into forming this doctrine is astounding.
If a woman claimed even 1/32nd of what these guys claim, she would be branded a Jezebel and thrown to the darkest pit.
I don’t even view my children like these guys view their wives.
July 10, 2008 at 11:04 pm
“I may not agree with all that falls under the egalitarian banner but the comps/pats show a contempt for the Scriptures and proper hermeneutics. They ignore the whole for one little part. They take a shark out of the ocean and place it on land and rename it a cow. They take beauty and make ashes out of it.”
Exactly, Corrie. And yet the PATS are COMPLAINING that it’s everyone else who is twisting and ignoring the scriptures:
On Generation Cedar (the blog that’s been giving Molly a hard time), Kelly wrote,
“The “new Christianity” that is so prevalent in the church, is just a humanistic theology with a “spiritual cloak”. Result? If you try to hold on to any absolute truth (besides, maybe, that Jesus died on the cross, and I’m sure this is being challenged too) you are dogmatic, a legalist, hard-nosed, judgemental, condemning person who shouldn’t even call himself a Christian.
The Bible is being literally re-written to accomodate this new opinion and it shakes the very foundation of the core of what we hold dear…the Word of God.”
July 10, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Interesting quote, Cindy.
The problem is that nothing will shake the very foundation of the core that we hold dear. God’s Word is as strong and steadfast as it always has been.
What is being shaken to the core is their manmade doctrines being taught as the very precepts of God. That is what Jesus did with the Pharisees- He shook the very foundation of the core of what they held dear. They also claimed that they had a corner on the market when it came to God’s word.
July 10, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Yes, but the irony is that the PATS are rewriting and ignoring Scripture to accomodate their newfangled opinions, and it WOULD BE shaking the very foundation of the core of what we hold dear…the Word of God — except that, praise be, “for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”, and “the foundation of God standeth sure”.
July 11, 2008 at 12:10 am
Okay…I am reading through the threads on Kelly’s blog. Wow!
I don’t even known where to begin. All I know to say is “Isn’t that special!” ala Dana Carvey doing the church lady.
Molleth, I had no idea your simple statements could have such an effect on people. Wowsers! She seemed a “tad” perturbed at you, no?
Here is one quote that made me scratch my head. This is from a commenter, not Kelly:
“On another note, my mom likes to make the point that there are women who spend most of their childbearing years on b/c to prevent God creating children, when He never intended to give them any anyway.”
Huh? So, what is all the uproar about? Maybe this is how God is preventing them from having children that He never intended to give them?
I realize that I just got done cleaning tiny little shards of glass from my kitchen floor for the past hour. They were mixed in with the crushed ice and liquid, too. (Cindy and Karen will know right away who the culprit is!) I may be overly tired but I just don’t get the reasoning.
How does this woman know that God never intended to give them any children?
Kelly says this in her main blog entry (I hear Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman Hear Me Roar” in the background):
“I just want to stand on the roof and say:
“WE DON’T MAKE BABIES!!! WE CAN ONLY PREVENT LIFE. IT IS GOD WHO CREATES LIFE. GOD SAW FIT THAT A WOMAN SHOULD GENERALLY HAVE SEVERAL CHILDREN IN HER LIFETIME. GOD DECIDED THAT SOMEWHERE AROUND THE AGE OF 45 WAS A GOOD TIME TO STOP.”"
Okay? So God did mean for us to have babies but we prevented them with birth control? I thought that God was totally sovereign? How can we prevent God from doing that which He planned before the foundation of the world? After all, each one of us were already planned by God before the foundation of the world, right? Now, we are to believe that God is not sovereign and that we have thwarted His hand in this matter and prevented Him from creating the lives He had planned before He created our world?
I am 42 with 10 children (out of 17 total pregnancies). I am thinking that 42 is a good time to stop……for me. I know, it is probably very arrogant of me to think this. After all, it is probably the anti-child feminist spirit that is screaming inside of me “You are done!” Or it could have been that my last several babies were VERY difficult births and God has impressed upon me that my quiver is full?
I am sure someone has an opinion for me. After all, I do not have the amazing power of discerning the will of God for my life like these women do.
July 11, 2008 at 12:31 am
Personally, with my 50th birthday less than a week away, I would love nothing more than to be pregnant again, but I certainly don’t fault those women who decide othewise. And if every conception occurs via the direct will of God, what about all of the out-of-wedlock births? Is God in the business of willing sin?
July 11, 2008 at 1:46 am
“They take a shark out of the ocean and place it on land and rename it a cow.”
That mental image made me laugh so much.
July 11, 2008 at 6:05 am
Corrie wrote: I will have to think a little while on the two extreme patriarchal views on women and get back to you on which I personally feel is better.
Oh, this reminds me of Howard Phillips’ false dichotomy — when you vote for the lesser of two evils, all you get is evil. Which stirs my Celtic blood…
I’ve been drawn to the dramatic distinctions like this my whole life, and I’m tired of it. Anyway, it made me think of which poison might be better to take. If you take this poison, you can live for a year and die, but you will suffer the whole time. Or you can take this other poison, and you will live the same amount of time and die in the end, but you’ll feel great for the first six months. Only the last six months will involve suffering. Which poison do you take? Well, if the end result is death, I think I’ll opt for the poison that proves less painful. It makes for a more pleasant death…
Sometimes we have to be “pragmatic.”
July 11, 2008 at 6:21 am
Like Cynthia Gee I would love another baby, but my DH is happy with just our two. We planned our family, we use contraception (not the pill, it doesn’t suit me), we love our girls, I feel passionately about motherhood and being a homemaker. I know I’m a sinner, but I thought it was because of my pride, jealousy, my proclivity to judge others, sometimes I don’t put God first…I didn’t realise that my wearing jeans, listening to pop music and not having a large family made me a sinner too…oh, and I don’t homeschool! I didn’t even spot these sins in the Bible, perhaps it’s because I read the NIV.
I don’t mean to sound bitter. I think any Christian woman has the right to live by the courage of her convictions, but not perhaps the right to burden other women with their convictions. There seems an irresistible urge out there to place women in codified and stratified little boxes…a kind of “your either with us or against us” mentality which I don’t feel is healthy for Christian womanhood as a whole. I want to be united with my Christian sisters through the love of Christ, not divided from them because we do not share the same ideas about family, matters of dress etc, especially when we have so many very important things in common.
July 11, 2008 at 7:17 am
Confused by all this,
I have the same reactions to some of this. My husband was not particularly interested in having kids, especially when at 31 years old, his wrists developed arthritis. Within 5 years, he had no more cartilage left in both wrists (adding to his existing knee problems) due to a genetic disorder. (When he gets injected with steroid after falling, etc, the doctor had to grasp his middle finger and yank on it to open up a spot into which to even put a needle.) So we had “frequency” issues as when you are in pain, sex is not that big of a deal. And that is just one of a few chronic health problems that worsened after we married. (He spent a few years apologizing to me as he didn’t anticipate completely falling apart physically when he turned 40.) I went and got a doctorate in natural health and travelled from Maryland to about an hour outside of NYC to intern with someone who had the expertise to help my husband. Without the natural stuff, he would be on disability by now, but he is able to work and function because of natural products and through diet (other natural/organic related stuff), etc.
When I was in the middle of trying to figure out a way to help my husband (going all over the place to find something that would help as he has odd responses to many medications/did not respond favorably to traditional medicine), my pastor’s wife approached me about not having children. We look pretty good on the outside and look pretty functional, but people do not take into account the issues of pain and debilitation that we both face on a daily basis. She lit into me about why we had no children and why we weren’t obsessed with having children. Without wanting to get into the details (none of her business), I just sort of played along with her. At the time when the QF movement was just ramping up, it was scandalous to have more than about 5 kids according to her.
My brief explanations of the limits of our abilities and opportunities to conceive in general did not satisfy her. And unless I was taking steriods for asthma, I didn’t do anything other than natural family planning if that. So I figured statistics would catch up with me. I had 3 adult friends that got pregnant using condoms, 4 adult friends who got pregnant using the pill, 2 friends that had diaphragm failure and several friends that had multiple babies after tubal pregnancies. I didn’t discuss my reproductive practices with her, but I did express that if God wanted me to get pregnant or to adopt, He would put that in my heart, my circumstances and he would move on my husband and other loved ones to bring His Will for that to my attention.
As the conversation progressed, she became really pushy and said that I should essentially intervene and get more driven to get pregnant. In other words, I should get obsessed with having children. So I responded that I believed that God opened and closed the womb, but that I was understanding her to say that God needed a little more help on my part. I then directly asked her if she was suggesting that I lie to my husband and perhaps start taking fertility drugs or herbs, maybe start demanding sex when conception was likely and directly go against his desires (as his pain management and striving to keep up with the demands of holding down an job and then teaching seminary on the side which was his passion absorbed his available resources). I then asked if she was suggesting that I go out and find another man to sire a child. Of course, she didn’t respond to any of that.
The rhetoric of the patriocentrists just makes me laugh. They go on and on about God opening the womb as often as He wants, assuming that I am one who refused to surrender to God’s Lordship in my life. But that whole idea of God opening the womb works both for those who have many children and women like me who have borne none. He managed to open the wombs of my many friends, despite their use of contraception and some with only one remaining ovary. Why not me, then? Can’t that only mean that He chose not to open my womb? And that doesn’t mean that I resisted having a baby, just because I didn’t wander around obsessed by having one while my womb remained empty. I continued to love and support and help my friends that did have big families. I’ve even helped with their homeschooling.
So, looking at all of this stuff that’s preached to women from my perspective (one that is pretty melancholy for a host of reasons), their whole belief system is very flawed. It is only for the perfect and the healthy to start with. Their God is sovereign (considering that most profess to be Reformed), but somehow, that means that I can thwart God’s will and trump Him anyway. He’s not big enough to help me which must be proof that I’m not elect, so the club becomes even more exclusive. I don’t look, act or dress properly (though I actually tend to dress in the same way, in fact, about 50% of the time).
It’s all so full of so many wholes… and contradictory. Besides the fact that it’s nothing but a way of manufacturing those millstones for people. What that has to do with Jesus and the Great Commission, I know not.
July 11, 2008 at 8:25 am
What that has to do with Jesus and the Great Commission, I know not.
I’ve thought this regarding the reformed churches. They have many confessions to follow. We were accused of “not believing the Westminister” when we left with our family from the last church. They didn’t tell us what part after we asked though. But the point is, we were not accused of not believing the BIBLE.
A manmade document was held higher than the Bible. We came from a non-confessional background and see how the reformed churches, (having spent over 25 years in reformed churches) dwell on their church rules, forms of government, politics, confessions, ethnic church history, over direct Bible teaching. Yes, I know, the confessions are supposed to be an amplification of the Word. However, they are still manmade. There are problems in them. In the reformed presbyterian churches, we saw that there is absolutely no wiggle room for the pastors. For the people in the pews there appears to be some wiggle room, until you try to leave, ha!
They have all their theology figured out and nailed shut. The Westminister DIVINES having done all that work. That bothered me so much when I saw or heard DIVINES. It implied that you daren’t question them.
SO what else is left? Rabbit trails of life that’s what.
Each new generation has to come up with something. Why not uber patriarchy, uber motherhood?
Cindy,
I had a pastor’s wife make comments to me expecting an explanation while in front of the rest of the church women. I just acknowledged what she had observed was correct and said no more. It was so funny! They all kept staring at me and there actually was SILENCE for several moments, as she and all the room of women expected me to explain away. I had cottoned onto how they did things and refused to be pushed anymore. After that I was pretty much kept out of the loop.
July 11, 2008 at 8:31 am
Re: 119
God is totally sovereign alright. God stopped us after four. He used common sense and thrombophlebitis. My Obs/gyn told me you can keep going and die or stop now and live to raise your children. This was a man with eight children himself.
July 11, 2008 at 8:37 am
Alright ladies, let us stand up and hold hands and once again shout:
A PERSONAL CONVICTION IS NOT THE SAME THING AS A BIBLICAL COMMANDMENT.
CONVICTIONS ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS COMMANDMENTS!
CONVICTIONS ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS COMMANDMENTS!
CONVICTIONS ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS COMMANDMENTS!
July 11, 2008 at 8:40 am
I wanted to update y’all about the car. Hubby parked it at his parents house and they have 2 extra cars so they gave us one to drive for as long as we need to.
Our stimulus check is supposed to be here TODAY so we should have a little $ to fix the paid-for car…wasn’t what we were planning on using our check for, but do we EVER get to go by our plan when it comes to finances and emergencies???? NO!
So, prayer answered. If you want to pray today, please pray our check comes ON TIME. I’ve heard some folks saying their stimulus checks took longer and they got theirs a little late. And then I’ve heard some people who got the check before the letter! Go figure!
July 11, 2008 at 8:51 am
Confused,
I have three children. I got pregnant with my daughter while we were using contraception. In fact, I got pregnant shortly after telling my mother she didn’t have to start asking when I’m going to have number three, because we were going to take some time.
I wear jeans, my almost 5 year old is starting school in September, and I will probably try to return to work when my younger ones are in school. (at least as long as we live in Germany!)
I completely agree with this:
” I think any Christian woman has the right to live by the courage of her convictions, but not perhaps the right to burden other women with their convictions.”
I was a QF believer. I was raised in a QF family. My parents were given a hard time for having such a large family.
My husband was also raised in a large family. His father didn’t believe in birth control either.
My dad had a standard reply for people who asked him whether they were going to have more kids or not. He told them it was none of their business, just like it was none of their business how often and how he slept with his wife.
Rude? Maybe just a little bit. But people got the point. They had no business in my parents’ bedroom!
I wonder whether people who condemn birth control are aware that they are virtually stepping into other people’s most intimate relationship and trying to regulate it?
Cindy K, that’s the thought I had all the way through your post. You could have brushed off that pastor’s wife with a “none of your business”.
The marriage bed is holy. It should be kept so and I wish this were preached from the pulpits more often.
Sure, preach about the sanctity of life. Preach about the blessing that children are. I agree with Kelly at Cedar blog, Christians need to understand these things. There is a negative attitude towards children. I had my first child within my first year of marriage and I got a few questionable remarks that made me realize not everyone understood my happiness.
But I don’t agree with judging people for sins that aren’t even written in the Bible.
Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. (Matthew 7: 1-2)
July 11, 2008 at 8:57 am
*…my name has changed…I’m the artist formerly known as “Confused by All This”*
Oh Cindy, my heart goes out to you. To have a pastor’s wife judge you and your husband in such a way must have put a lot of unnecessary pressure on you and your relationship. I speak as an outsider (I’m Anglican and from the UK) but this insistence on conformity of thought, which has little or no biblical basis, is a millstone. I have not experienced it in real life, but I have online. Many of the stories I’ve read on True Womanhood amaze me because it shows how strong people’s faith really can be, to go through all of this and still have faith in a loving God illustrates how strong He really is.
My DH too doesn’t want to have further children because of health reasons. He is fit, but both of my girls developed severe eczema and asthma when they were around 6 weeks old, it has lessened as they got older and my youngest is just coming out of it (she’s nearly 5) but I’ve had years of sleepless nights, nursing AND mothering my girls, worry over asthma attacks and so on. I also had womb infections after both deliveries and although I would go through it all again, the DH doesn’t want to see me go through it, he wants us to enjoy our family whilst we have all of us in good health. (He’s also 7 years older than me).
As a side-note, my grandmother had a prolapsed womb after she had six children in quick succession. After the fifth child she begged a doctor to give her a hysterectomy, he refused as she was in good health and my grandfather was against it and he had the final say in all matters. Her health went to bits.
Large families are wonderful and a great blessing, but so are small families, and child-free families can bless the children in their communities in any number of ways. I always think that our Creator loves such diversity, we live in a beautiful and unique world , with many beautiful and unique people…it is the diversity within Christianity which will make it thrive NOT stultifying conformity. There is a narrow path, true, on one side is the precipice of abandoning God’s law, on the other side of the path is the precipice of a man-made legalism…we have to balance truth with freedom and this is hard in the modern cultural climate.
Anyway, I’m rambling on and I’m going a bit off topic. So I’m off to help my youngest ice cakes. God bless!
July 11, 2008 at 9:02 am
Anne 2, I loved your post 125!
I don’t think you missed much when they left you out of the loop. Doesn’t sound like a loop I’d want to be part of…
Common sense: Didn’t God give us our brains? When he gave them to us, did he intend for us to use them or not? Does it say anywhere in the Bible that God has casted our brains in the deep sea?
No. We are told to bring our thoughts captive to Jesus. So, we bring our common sense to Jesus in prayer. Seems logical to me.
July 11, 2008 at 9:23 am
Madame,
What bothers me most about these heartsforfamily type sites is that they absolutely do not take into account the mother who WANTS a big family, lots of kids, but due to true medical issues cannot make it happen. And then they sit around and say “well adopt then!” as if it were SO EASY to just adopt ten or so kids.
And when you mentioned the negative attitude about children, it reminded me of something. I just heard on NPR this week that AMERICA IS THE ONLY INDUSTRIALIZED NATION WITH A POSITIVE BIRTHRATE. We’re having 2.4 kids per household, it seems. While that is not a big family, we do tend to have more kids in the USA than any other country on average.
And let’s face it. The days of 8+ kids in America were by and large out of necessity. It wasn’t necessarily a “Christian” thing to do. Back then, non-Christian families had as many kids too.
1) The advances in medicine, family planning, and yes, birth control were not there. Trust me, if you could have offered my great-grandma, mom to 12 a tubal back in the day, she would have TAKEN IT and smiled!
2) Kids were workforce. Period. They helped run the farm. There was a good reason the school year ran from Sept-May. It took the summer harvest off so kids could be home helping their parents.
We want to make everything so scriptural, but in fact, many of our choices have been societal more than scriptural throughout history.
July 11, 2008 at 9:24 am
““They take a shark out of the ocean and place it on land and rename it a cow.”
That mental image made me laugh so much.”
…and who here is old enough to remember,
“Land shark!”
Moo!
July 11, 2008 at 9:26 am
Hi Madame
I loved this:
“I wonder whether people who condemn birth control are aware that they are virtually stepping into other people’s most intimate relationship and trying to regulate it?”
I really don’t think they do!
Again, I agree that any child is a blessing. I wholeheartedly agree and this is what I have in common (amongst other things)with women of patriarchal belief…but I just have a hard time accepting all of the “added extras”…it’s like a “Supersized” version of Christianity, I don’t need those extras they’re offering and they’re just not that good for me!
July 11, 2008 at 9:27 am
Dulce—Supersized Christianity!
I love it. I think we have a new sticking phrase here gals.
I guess you could call our family the “medium sized combo.”
Good stuff!
July 11, 2008 at 9:29 am
Ah, Madame,
I can imagine people saying that you are just advocating common sense for women and brain usage because you boast the name Rousseau! It’s the cult of reason! Bwhahhh!
It must have something to do with us silly French people? (I’m 25% on maternal grandmother’s side and progeny of three notorious brothers — the sons of Milot or the “militant” — who fought in the Am. War for Independence. And my maternal great grandmother was of Acadian decent.) I suppose that’s more reason to disqualify me from the Kingdom in the eyes of the pats!
July 11, 2008 at 9:53 am
Dulce Domum,
Thank you for your kind words. At the time they were posed to me, I’d already been through the wringer of the word of faith movement. It was all about how your faith and your works brought about healing, and if you weren’t divinely restored from whatever ailment you had, you essentially were entirely responsible for your own fate. So after fasting for weeks on end and all sorts of other craziness and anxiety wondering why I had not been caught up into heaven because of my striving for holiness, I started to figure out that God was going to do with me whatever He wanted.
I also read some things in the Voice of the Martyrs that stirred me including part of Fanny Crosby’s testimony. She said that if having sight would have caused her to not want Jesus or need God’s salvation, she would gladly choose to be blind all over again. I loved her hymns, with my piano teacher always telling me the story behind each one. I started to realize that if God was God, he would have His way with my life, particularly since all I did was stress about trying to find His will and follow Him.
By the time I was confronted with that little discussion (there were a few other ladies sitting there), I was pretty peaceful about everything. I worked hospice then, too. I’d just followed a patient, a pharmacist, getting him set up at home with home IV therapy and pain management for some weird leukemia. He was just a few years older than I was and had no children either, something that struck me as I did his admission paperwork. I also just recently followed another man in his 40s who died with liver cancer, without any notable cause. So what that perfect woman had to say really didn’t matter much.
It’s sad because my girlfriend used to say that she lived the “charmed life.” After we left (under their curses), they had a grandson that was born with cystic fibrosis. When I think of them or hear of them, I wonder what sin it was that they committed or what sin they blame on their daughter-in-law as the cause? Or for them, the curses don’t apply?
They are just really silly people.
And God is good to me, whether I get the life I ordered or not. He’s always provided for us. And I’ve had so many opportunities to nurture and bless others that I don’t mind so much. My children might be the way that I was able to help others stay alive to raise their own. I’ve also had many other ways that God has validated me and approved of me, so that the exoneration and such from these others pales in comparison.
Running around in FEAR over fecundity seemed about as unproductive as running around in FEAR over why I wasn’t healed or having signs and wonders following me everywhere. It robs one of the joy of just loving the Lord and following Him, serving him where you can find opportunity. I’m melancholy, but I’m not trodden underfoot.
I keep thinking of that haunting song that Karen posted on her blog about the “Beautiful Disaster.” There are a million things I would change as I “didn’t get the life I ordered. But I have a wonderful life in Christ all the same.
July 11, 2008 at 10:09 am
Cynthia Gee -
Land Shark… Candy Gram… Moo gram…
July 11, 2008 at 10:10 am
NM – “medium sized combo” that’s so funny! It’s the golden arches version of “via media”…
Cindy K – I’m pretty sure I would’ve gone to pieces under the circumstances you describe, you’re obviously a woman of strength. I’m so glad you’ve found your way through it all.
July 11, 2008 at 10:55 am
“Land Shark… Candy Gram… Moo gram…”
Milkman…
July 11, 2008 at 11:41 am
“Land Shark… Candy Gram… Moo gram…”
“Milkman…”
Plumber…..
Flowers….
I’m only a dolphin, ma’am….
Trick or Treat…..
Unicef……
July 11, 2008 at 12:22 pm
From the Dothan Eagle
“PSC Candidate’s Wife Says She Chose ‘Homemaker’ Job”
“Jennie Chancey supports her husband’s bid for public office, but from a biblical and historical perspective, she doesn’t think she necessarily has the right to vote for him…………..”
July 11, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hmmm…. that link didn’t come through:
http://www.dothaneagle.com/dea/news/local/article/psc_candidates_wife_says_she_chose_homemaker_job/26847/
July 11, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Let’s see … she doesn’t oppose women voting … but she doesn’t think biblically she has the right to vote.
I wonder if she in fact will cast an official ballot for her husband? If she does, she is being a hypocrite.
July 11, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Dulce Dommum,
I love your country! I lived in the UK for nearly 4 years, darn sarf (as my dear council estate neighbors said it)
Cindy K,
I don’t think I have a drop of French blood in my veins. I got the Rousseau from my husband. I’m still officially (on any photographic document) my maiden name, but I’m Rousseau on my marriage certificate.
Don’t ask how this works. It probably doesn’t.
July 11, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Interesting quote from the article referenced above:
“Chancey says he is “good friends” with Phillips and has been for some time. He says he does not believe in everything Phillips believes. Some of the Chanceys’ writings are published on the Vision Forum Web site.”
Really? Like what things? Examples?
July 11, 2008 at 1:13 pm
“Jennie Chancey said her views are not that far from constituents’.
“This is really a mainstream way of looking at things — especially in the South where men open doors for women,” she said. “You can call me ‘old-fashioned’ if you like. It all depends on how you define mainstream. If mainstream is homosexual marriage, then I am more than happy to be labeled old-fashioned.
“If telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers is mainstream, then I am most definitely old-fashioned. I don’t like the feminist movement dictating to me what is mainstream and what is acceptable for me as a woman.
“Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path. It’s highly ironic to me that I am encouraged to think for myself unless I think differently from mainstream feminists,” she said by e-mail. ”
Huh? Who says these things to her?
Who is saying that a woman can’t be a homemaker?
Honestly.
I drive by my neighborhood pool and I see that homemakers are ALIVE And WELL. I go to the store during the day and I see a lot of moms with their children.
July 11, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Huh? Who says these things to her?
The voices in her head.
July 11, 2008 at 1:22 pm
“Let’s see … she doesn’t oppose women voting … but she doesn’t think biblically she has the right to vote.
I wonder if she in fact will cast an official ballot for her husband? If she does, she is being a hypocrite.”
Light,
Yes, I totally agree and this is just one of several contradictions.
Another one was that she claimed that a woman casts a vote every time she talks to her husband but then states she thinks that it is silly that some are saying that her views in “Passionate Housewives” could affect her husband’s bid for office.
Which is it? Does she have influence over her husband when she “casts” her vote with him when she discusses these issues or does she have no influence over her husband?
Is she saying that her husband doesn’t agree with the things she writes in Passionate Housewives?
July 11, 2008 at 1:34 pm
““My wife is a homemaker,” he said. “If you practice this, you are dubbed weird. What is weird is, most people drop their kids off at daycare every day. It is not weird to be a homemaker. A woman can be whatever she wants to be, except a homemaker. People say, she is ‘only’ a homemaker, or ‘she doesn’t work.’ I am married to a working woman.””
Who says that homemaking is “weird”? I have been a homemaker since the early 90’s and I have never heard anyone make this remark nor have I read it nor has anyone treated me like I am weird.
In fact, people are often envious that I stay home and they wish that they could (financially) or that their husband would let them stay home. The women my husband works with constantly tell him that I must be a saint and they tell him that they admire me.
Not one hint that people think I am weird….for staying home. Maybe they think I am weird because of other things but not weird for staying home.
July 11, 2008 at 1:35 pm
OF COURSE Jennie made it out to be a question of whether women should be “allowed” the choice to be homemakers, and made it all into a choice between feminists who advocate gay marriage, and “old fashioned” girls who eschew the right to vote.
I made the following response, but the Eagle has not allowed it to post:
“Uh, no, Jennie. NOBODY is “telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers”, and nobody but you has brought up homosexual marriage, or said that it should be mainstream.
Feminsm has nothing to do with it.
Homemaking is still very much MAINSTREAM, and the concept of “one person, one vote” is likewise MAINSTREAM; conversely, in America today, the idea that suffrage should be limited to male heads of household — like the idea that homosexuals should marry one another or the idea that indentured servitude should be legal– is definitely NOT mainstream.
“Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path”, but when that path runs contrary to what most Americans consider normal and decent, and when when the person on said path is seeking to serve in a position of governmental authority, one can expect to have normal, decent folks to have questions about it.”
July 11, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hi Madame
I’m a midlander, but lived darn sarf for a while too! Whereabouts were you? I was in Hampshire.
July 11, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Cindy K,
How true this statement is:
I started to realize that if God was God, he would have His way with my life, particularly since all I did was stress about trying to find His will and follow Him.
I think that is where I have come to after a long confusing journey of faith. God is still in control, no matter how many boxes we want to put Him in, and He broke my chains, and I am FREE!
This too, struck me deeply:
And God is good to me, whether I get the life I ordered or not. He’s always provided for us. And I’ve had so many opportunities to nurture and bless others that I don’t mind so much. My children might be the way that I was able to help others stay alive to raise their own. I’ve also had many other ways that God has validated me and approved of me, so that the exoneration and such from these others pales in comparison.
Running around in FEAR over fecundity seemed about as unproductive as running around in FEAR over why I wasn’t healed or having signs and wonders following me everywhere. It robs one of the joy of just loving the Lord and following Him, serving him where you can find opportunity. I’m melancholy, but I’m not trodden underfoot.
I keep thinking of that haunting song that Karen posted on her blog about the “Beautiful Disaster.” There are a million things I would change as I “didn’t get the life I ordered. But I have a wonderful life in Christ all the same.
What Joy! I love this definition of my name: “Joy is the deep settled confidence that God is in control of all the circumstances and details of my life.” I fear that few Christians ever come to that kind of understanding. I struggle with it myself some days!
July 11, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Jennie Chancey clears up her views by saying she does vote.
“I don’t oppose women voting,” she said. “All I am taking is a historical viewpoint. I am not a revolutionary saying, ‘Let’s go back.’ I am just saying let’s stand back and think.”
Matt Chancey gives voters cause to stand back and think also, based on the manner in which his name is thrown around numerous religious blogs and Web sites.
Chancey is associated with Doug Phillips of Vision Forum Ministries, and a leader of the patriarchy movement, which embraces the biblical teaching that men lead the households and women take a more submissive role.
Um…so…can we politely just throw Passionate Housewives out in the garbage now? Because that news piece just tossed just about every single point she made in PHDFG right out the window.
YOU CANNOT SAY, “Do as I say, Not as I do” and call everyone else hypocritical. Neither can you label in “biblical.”
Oh dear, I feel my feminist tendencies showing again!
July 11, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Evidently the Chanceys feel that in the long run, they stand to make more money off of Matt’s potential political career than off of Jennie’s books.
July 11, 2008 at 3:14 pm
“I don’t oppose women voting,” she said.”
Seems to me the horse is already out of the barn. Think intelligent voters will notice? Welcome to the real world Matt and Jennie.
July 11, 2008 at 4:08 pm
““Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path”, but when that path runs contrary to what most Americans consider normal and decent, and when when the person on said path is seeking to serve in a position of governmental authority, one can expect to have normal, decent folks to have questions about it.””
That is except for working women who Jennie claims “blasphemes Scripture” by working outside of the home.
Also, women do not have a right to choose their own path according to their own theology.
I am wondering what Matt disagrees with Doug about? Infant baptism? Paedocommunion? His constituents could care less whether he sprinkles or dunks.
What they need to know is that Matt and Jennie agree with Doug’s ideology concerning women. I don’t care if they disagree concerning the mode of baptism or feeding babies communion (remember, his church is going to be part of James McDonald’s faux presbytery and they are renegade presbyterians while Phillips is Reformed Baptist (or close to it) ) and that is slippery politician speak for “we really agree about the issues that under scrutiny but I am going to throw you off the trail with my doublespeak and make you think that I am referring to Doug’s worldview on women but I really am not”.
Maybe this is a good time to look into his connections with the McDonalds, especially since McDonald is stumping for him and because Matt’s wife wrote a book with Stacy McDonald. Considering the comments about “white-washed feminists” in the Passionate Housewives book, the public needs to know who they are choosing to represent them in government.
July 11, 2008 at 4:38 pm
“A manmade document was held higher than the Bible..”
Anne2, I am seeing this all over Christendom and it scares me half to death. Confessons, Creeds, Calvin, Luther, Grudem, etc., all these writings are being elevated to scripture status. It just is not so.
July 11, 2008 at 4:42 pm
“Jennie Chancey clears up her views by saying she does vote.
“I don’t oppose women voting,” she said. “All I am taking is a historical viewpoint. I am not a revolutionary saying, ‘Let’s go back.’ I am just saying let’s stand back and think.”
Amazing how the ‘Chancey’ for politcal power can change one’s religious views in an instant. ;o)
July 11, 2008 at 5:02 pm
You know, if the Chanceys ever grow tired of politics and religion, they could always become a husband-and-wife ventriloquist act. I’ve never seen people so adept at talking out of both sides of their mouths!
Jenny doesn’t believe that women have a historical or biblical right to vote….yet she says that she votes…. and she says that she doesn’t oppose women voting.
The Chanceys have gone on record as saying that it is a sin for a woman to work outside the home, yet Matt says that he is open to women in the workplace.
Sheesh!
So tell me — when the Matt and Jenny Ventriloquist Show opens someday, who are they gonna get to be the PUPPETS?
July 11, 2008 at 6:12 pm
[...] You can read the threads here: #1, #2, #3, and some further discussion on the topic is found here. Obviously I’ve not been getting any popularity awards for my opinions. [...]
July 11, 2008 at 6:15 pm
http://familyreformation.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/we-must-hang-together-2/
Here is James McDonald trying to raise money for Matt Chancey.
Notice how he phrases who Matt is running against. It is a “dogfight” of a race? Well, is McDonald surprosed? Matt is the author of Mrs. Binoculars! Also, what does he mean by saying that Twinkle is a “mainstream” candidate?
“This is an appeal for you to do more than get out and vote (although I pray you will). This is also a plea for you to put your money where your mouth is. Friends, we need to stand together. We should support those in local and statewide office who will stand for morality and law based on the Word of God and Constitution.
As a personal request, I encourage you to consider supporting Matt Chancey of Alabama. Matt is the first homeschool graduate I know of running for a major state office. I know Matt. I trust Matt. He is a young man who will boldly stand up for what is right.
And he is in a dogfight of a race. A runoff election will be held July 15th between Matt and a more “mainstream” politician. Her name is Twinkle Cavanaugh.
Matt needs funds to increase public awareness. If you have $10, $20, $50, $1000 whatever you can spare, to help Matt in this fight, consider donating – http://www.mattchancey.com/donate.html. If you are in Alabama, remember to vote for Matt on July 15th! And if you’re not in Alabama, forward this post to anyone you know who is.
Again, this is not about Matt specifically, this is about supporting any local or statewide Christian – look for those who not only name Christ, but live Christ. Actively support those who stand up for the truth!”
July 11, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Our family is “quiverfull” for want of a better word. However my husband would never sacrifice my life in order to have babies, and we also don’t try to tell other people how many children to have. We don’t really think it’s any of our business. But we do resent it when people (this has actually happened) come up and slap my husband and publicly berate him for having me pregnant twice in a year. We BOTH wanted another child right away before we “waited” a while. We are probably going to use some NFP this time so I guess that makes us not completely “quiverfull”.
July 11, 2008 at 6:41 pm
To the powers that be: I have a comment hung up in moderation.
MrsW,
I hear you. I get it from both sides and I have heard my fair share of some pretty rude and raunchy comments. My husband never gets verbally slapped. In fact, he gets a lot of “atta boys”. But, I get a LOT of sexualized comments and right in front of my older children.
July 11, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Anyone notice heartsforfamily.blogspot.com is gone?
July 11, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Corrie, my husband gets physically slapped by mostly stupid women.
July 11, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Try this… generationcedar.blogspot.com. The discussion there is still going. (It looks like she’s switching over to this address. Maybe that’s why the heartsforfamily address is empty.)
I cannot get over how convinced these women are that their reasoning must be the same as God’s!
A commenter (Kristi) just asked Molly, “You’re throwing around lots of baiting questions for Kelly, here’s one for you: since when did your reasoning become smarter than God’s?”
By saying this, she is implying that she knows exactly what God’s reasoning is, because she believes she is able to deduce that Molly’s reasoning isn’t the same as God’s (not that I’m saying it is). In order to ask a question like this, you are taking the position that we are not allowed to use our “reasoning” (intellect, brain, logic, etc) in our pursuit of knowing God’s “reasoning” (heart, plan, logic, etc). I don’t think the commenter realizes that what must inevitably follow is that we must assume that whoever says they know God’s reasoning does in fact know it, and we have no way of knowing if it truly is because we haven’t used our own reasoning to verify it!
Don’t know if that made any sense at all… I’m a bit sleep deprived this week, so please forgive my ramblings!
July 11, 2008 at 7:45 pm
MrsW – “Corrie, my husband gets physically slapped by mostly stupid women.”
I don’t even know what to say to that… Except, where do they get off???
July 11, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Please God, save us from the Jennie Chancey’s of the world.
And that is all I can muster to even say about that.
(must go sit on the porch and sip a mint julep before I allow my mind to be too scholarly and think for itself too much…)
July 11, 2008 at 8:44 pm
On this quote:
“My wife is a homemaker,” he said. “If you practice this, you are dubbed weird. What is weird is, most people drop their kids off at daycare every day. It is not weird to be a homemaker. A woman can be whatever she wants to be, except a homemaker.”
OH PUH-LEASE.
Homemaking is still alive and well, indeed, as mentioned above. Helloooooo!?!? A good number of us “feminists” here on this board and over at WWF are at-home moms.
I wonder then, what Mr. Chancey is saying. I think he means HIS VERSION of the homemaker is dead. Perhaps the homemaker who stays home ALL day is becoming a little endangered. The one who bakes all her cookies from scratch and laments of which choice of freshly pressed floor-length Victorian dresses to wear for the day. The homemaker who is never caught without matching nail polish and a tightly coiffed bun swept up off her neck. Perhaps the homemaker who has a ladies tea and luncheon for all the women on the block is becoming a little bit endangered. And yes, Mr. Chancey, the woman who CHOOSES NOT TO VOTE and EDUCATE HERSELF is probably quite close to being exinct.
But, in my world, there are plenty of full-time, bona fide homemakers at work. Mr. Chancey, you probably haven’t noticed them, because they are the women who are running the PTA at the public school. They are the ladies in the matching track suits at the YWCA catching a workout before they have to meet their husband for lunch. They’re the homemakers who have bunco nights with the gals down the street, and tonight it is their turn to provide chip n’ dips and bring the vodka.
You wouldn’t know these homemakers Mr. Chancey, but your wife would. She co-authored a book about the “marble sink soccer moms who buy organic baby food.”
Try asking her about homemaking in the 21st century.
July 11, 2008 at 11:58 pm
You can find info on donating to Twinkle’s campaign at the at twinkle4psc dot com.
.
The home school movement should be ashamed they are coming out against this lovely, Christian lady.
July 12, 2008 at 12:03 am
On the homemaking bit, I had dinner with some girlfriends last night. Each month we get together and everyone brings a dish. I’m the youngest but about 20 years. Anyway, I made brownies with frosting from scratch. I also made some little handmade treat boxes with chocolates for my friends. One of the lady’s said, “Oh Sarah, this will come off wrong, but you’re so Domestic for your age.”
July 12, 2008 at 3:34 am
This is a serious question….
Is this a Christian blog? I’ve never seen so much slander, back biting and “yuck” in a place that claims to be “Christian”.
I followed the heartforfamily link and I didn’t read that she had forbig birth control anywhere. I understood her to be concerned with the notion that most people consider children to be more of a burden than a blessing. Which is not biblical.
I’m not believing this blog, though. It makes me sick at my stomach. I won’t be coming back.
July 12, 2008 at 4:36 am
Sad…unsubstantiated accusations, questioning the faith of the believers here, then a cowardly “I won’t be back.”
Is that how a Christian ought to behave? If we were at all as terrible as Amy claims we are, she fell down on her duty to show us truthfully what is so wrong about the discussion here, and model mature Christian exhortation to us. I fear what she did instead, is typical of the fruit borne by those who idolize legalists and fear the truth-tellers who see through their works-based “righteousness.”
I’m sure the applause from her friends will be music to her ears. That’s how these things work. Drive-by shooters rarely return to discuss differences, they just hope to intimidate those they can’t refute. Why, I wonder, don’t they ever figure out that it doesn’t work that way? We’ve lived way too much life to be intimidated by sock-puppet one-time dive-bombers.
I know we’re not perfect, but we’re hardly the non-Christian “yuck” Amy accused us of being. News flash: Kelly and her friends aren’t perfect, either. If their comments are supposed to be models of respectful Christian discourse, then Amy’s discernment could stand some work.
July 12, 2008 at 8:34 am
Madame said some while back:
‘I skimmed through the Botkin article.
Why are families thinking 200 years ahead? I don’t find any Biblical teaching to support that notion, but Geoff is selling it as Bible truth.’
Because thinking two hundred years ahead means you don’t have to focus on the beaten and broken in the uncomfortable here-and-now.
I can’t get on to hearts-for-families either.
July 12, 2008 at 9:47 am
Amy,
I am sorry you feel “sick at your stomach”. There was a lot more to Kelly’s statements about birth control and a lot more there concerning words directed to women who have chosen differently for some very good reasons. Too bad you don’t feel well enough to stick around and engage in a reasonable discussion.
Karen,
I think you should get a “Mr Yuck” button and put it on your blog so others will be warned and not get sick “at” their stomach.
h@@p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkT4peQdbs
July 12, 2008 at 9:56 am
I just posted a gripe about another subject today on my blog, and that subject is NURSING!!! I’ll just copy and paste from what I wrote, so ignore the parts that are irrelevant like me complaining that I can’t afford the baby carriers I want lol.
“Anyway, we managed to obtain the nursery furniture after all, and I love it! It’s great to know I’ll be able to rock the new baby when I was never able to rock my son. Hopefully I’ll be able to nurse this time too, I have some things I am planning on to make that easier. My midwife says I was “hindered” last time, not only because of the issues I had with my son not taking the milk, but because I have family members who when I am at their house want me to go hide to nurse because they don’t want their children to know that babies get fed from a breast, so even nursing with a cover is not allowed…you have to hide it away. So we just won’t be going there for a fair while after the baby’s birth…like about two months my midwife said to be able to get used to nursing without a heap of pressure. There was just SO much pressure to hide away with nursing and I was basically told that although it was natural, it was also shameful because feeding a baby the way God intended insn’t “modest”. Never mind that her kids would ask me questions that I had to either evade or outright lie about (was easier than facing the her wrath if I answered their questions). However, as my husband says, it’s “their house, their rules” and I can live with that, but what about when I’m expected to follow their rules when they are at MY house? It always works out that I have to follow their rules when they come here to in some apparent move to be “respectful”.
My midwife has shown me the nursing thing by example because she has a four month old baby. She nurses when she’s here, and nobody really sees anything much, and she wears just regular shirts. She said I can learn how to do that too. She told me that the thought that nursing must be hidden away because it’s shameful and immodest really does hinder moms from wanting to do it. Who wants to be doing something shameful and immodest when you can just stick a bottle in the baby’s mouth? Of course, I had other issues too but this was the biggest psychological one for me. I couldn’t understand why God would design something a certain way that is supposed to be beautiful and then suddenly make it shameful.”
SIGH.
July 12, 2008 at 10:10 am
Sarah,
I agree that people should be ashamed for coming out against Twinkle Cavanaugh but she is a woman, after all, so we should understand that her very presence will causing gnashing of teeth.
James McDonald called her a “mainstream” candidate. My rearend. Mr. McDonald didn’t do his homework before making such a ridiculous statement. What does he mean by “mainstream”? That she is not like him and his wife? Well, she hasn’t been divorced, as far as I can tell. So that makes her less mainstream than the McDonalds in that respect.
On one blog, some man accused Twinkle of “gay bashing”. Wow! If he thinks she was hard on the issue of homosexuality, then he really needs to understand where the Chancey’s are on this issue. Also, on the same blog, a woman accused her of calling Democrats “heathens who abort their children”. Sounds like she is getting the right kind of criticism.
She has been a Sunday School teacher for most of her life. They are active members of First Baptist Church. She belongs to numerous Republican organizations. Her and her husband are involved with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Missions to the Deaf, the Humane Society, Sav-A-Life (a PRO-LIFE organization in her area- savalife.org), Brantwood Children’s Home.
She has NUMEROUS recognitions from government leaders.
The only thing she has against her, according to the VF crowd, is that she is a MONSTROUS WOMAN FROM THE MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN. Chancey’s wife, Jennie, appeared in that documentary. The documentary is all about Knox’s First Blast of the Trumpet against what appears to be women, because they are NOT FIT to be leaders in government, but on second glance and further examination, Knox was merely against CATHOLIC female regents, not all female regents. When Queen Elizabeth entered into the picture, he did not seem to have a problem with her reign because she was a Protestant.
Does anyone from Twinkle’s campaign know about this connection with the Monstrous Regiment of Women?
They should know. I have to believe that the reason they are going against her is because she is a woman and that she, as a person, is a Christian who seems to love the Lord.
July 12, 2008 at 10:16 am
Gov. Mike Huckabee is endorsing Twinkle Cavanaugh. He states that she is prolife and a dedicated wife and mother.
Hmmm…..she sounds like a horrible person…..NOT!
I would love to know what Matt’s problem is with Twinkle? Why should we support Matt over Twinkle? He is running against his sister in the Lord. It seems to be redundant. There is no reason for him to run in this election unless this is only a stepping stone for future hopes?
July 12, 2008 at 10:45 am
Why didn’t Matt volunteer to work for her campaign? What is he going to bring to the table that she doesn’t already have? They are both conservative, pro-life, Christians and it makes no sense that Chancey is running AGAINST her. NO sense at all.
She obviously has way more experience than he does. Maybe he could have learned from her by working in her campaign?
I would really like to know what Chancey’s issue is against Twinkle Cavanaugh besides the fact that she is a woman?
July 12, 2008 at 11:10 am
On this quote:
“My wife is a homemaker,” he said. “If you practice this, you are dubbed weird. What is weird is, most people drop their kids off at daycare every day. It is not weird to be a homemaker. A woman can be whatever she wants to be, except a homemaker.”
I agree with what all of you have said about this. I have always been perplexed when I read articles where others say they are belittled or made to feel less than accepted because the woman is a homemaker. I am 44 and have been a full-time homemaker for the last 10 years, and never I have I EVER had anyone say anything to me that even hinted that they disapproved of my being a homemaker.
I currently live in the south, but I’ve also lived out west and I don’t notice a difference in attitudes about stay home moms. Honestly, I feel like people really don’t care one way or the other.
It almost seems like the patriarchs are trying to create a crisis where none exists. For what purpose?????
July 12, 2008 at 11:12 am
I live in the south too and have had people tell me that I’m lazy and useless because I’m a stay at home mom and that I should be ashamed of myself “making my husband do all the work” so I can see where they are coming from, personally.
July 12, 2008 at 11:34 am
“Lady” Lydia just said this on the Dothan Eagle:
“We know women work, and we have nothing against it. ”
I am aghast at the lengths these people will go to in order to lie about what they really think, believe and espouse.
http@@//www.dothaneagle.com/dea/news/local/article/psc_candidates_wife_says_she_chose_homemaker_job/26847/
July 12, 2008 at 11:41 am
Peaches,
“It almost seems like the patriarchs are trying to create a crisis where none exists. For what purpose?????”
They make a lot of money with their solutions for these manmade crises. It is actually very clever if you think about it.
This covers both the supply and the demand side.
July 12, 2008 at 11:50 am
Does anyone have time to listen to just a little ranting?
I received a homeschool catalog yesterday, from a well-known Christian bookstore.
They used to offer a little bit of everything. This year, I would estimate that more than 75% of the offerings were from Vision Forum, or other patrio-leaning people and groups.
It offends me to see Elsie Dinsmore offered as some sort of righteous supplementation to a young girl’s education.
I’m also offended by the Vision Forum dolls. I have some objections to the American Girls materials, but my problem is that the books do not contain good writing. It is hardly literature. However, I think it is complete and total snooty snobbery to disdain the books because they aren’t “godly” enough.
The daughters of these patrios are too good for Kit, who was plucky and helpful during the Depression? Too good for Kirsten, who encouraged her family and adapted to great changes when they moved from Sweden to America? Too good for Addy?
I’m ashamed for them all.
This enmeshing of freakish, extreme supposed family values with the homeschooling has to be one of the biggest lobbying coups of all time. How did they do this? How did the patriocentrists come to “own” Christian homeschooling in the USA?
More to the point, how can we boot them out?
I’m a little worked up this morning about these issues. If I were Ms. Cavanaugh’s team, I would take Chancey’s ticket and punch it for him. Expose him for what he is and who he represents.
It is time for conservative Christians to take a huge step away from these people. They are hurting our witness and they will bring about the loss of freedoms by the time it is all over, in my opinion. We are not on the same side.
July 12, 2008 at 12:21 pm
“I’m a little worked up this morning about these issues. If I were Ms. Cavanaugh’s team, I would take Chancey’s ticket and punch it for him. Expose him for what he is and who he represents.”
Amen, Amy R!
Which catalogue was this, can you say?
I had a little time to do some “independent research” of my own (Mrs. Bino readers will appreciate the words in quotes) and I am pretty fired up about the Chancey vs. Cavanaugh situation.
James McDonald claims she is “mainstream”.
Jennie Chancey says this to the media about “mainstream”:
“The candidate in Matt Chancey asks what their personal lifestyles has to do with sustainable energy and regulating public utilities.
While their ideas are not mainstream, Martin said the Chanceys’ views do not have to align with the general public.
Jennie Chancey said her views are not that far from constituents’.
“This is really a mainstream way of looking at things — especially in the South where men open doors for women,” she said. “You can call me ‘old-fashioned’ if you like. It all depends on how you define mainstream. If mainstream is homosexual marriage, then I am more than happy to be labeled old-fashioned.
“If telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers is mainstream, then I am most definitely old-fashioned. I don’t like the feminist movement dictating to me what is mainstream and what is acceptable for me as a woman.
“Naturally, everyone has the right to choose his or her own path. It’s highly ironic to me that I am encouraged to think for myself unless I think differently from mainstream feminists,” she said by e-mail. ”
So, what is McDonald saying about Cavanaugh with the back-handed put down of “mainstream”?
I think Cavanaugh’s team needs to expose the “Monstrous Regiment of Women” link.
monstrousregiment.com
From the “Monstrous!” (referring to women in government office) website:
“The Monstrous Regiment of Women, The Gunn Brother’s second documentary, goes all out to demolish the feminist worldview. From a consistently Christian perspective, they show how feminism has had a devastating impact on the church, state, and family.
Starting with the infamous 16th century essay written by the reformer John Knox against the reigning female monarch, the Gunn Brothers find plenty of application to America’s political landscape; where feminists vie for every possible office including the presidency.
Featuring an all star, all female cast, the Gunn Brothers prove that feminism has in fact restricted choices for all women, brought heartache to the lives of many, and perpetuated the largest holocaust since the beginning of time. “
July 12, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Again, from the Dothan article:
“Martin said voters want to know if the candidate is able to separate personal opinion from work. Is Chancey open to women in the workplace?
He says yes, since he has worked under women, over them and beside them for years.
The candidate in Matt Chancey asks what their personal lifestyles has to do with sustainable energy and regulating public utilities.”
Who wants to work with a man who will put up with women in the workforce? Tell me that his underlying attitude that women in the workforce, especially the “Monstrous” kind of woman who is in politics, is not going to affect how he treats women?
He had a female boss? He is working with women as equals? He has a “helper” other than his wife (women who work “under” him)? This is TOTALLY against his worldview and the teachings of VF which him and his wife support in their own teachings.
What does his views on women have to do with him being president of the PSC? Everything. How will this domino to jobs for women within these public utilities? Promotions for women within these entities? Viewing how women are not “fit” and are too “frenetic” for work outside of the home. (Just read Knox’s “First Blast of the Trumpet” and see what he says about all women and see how Chancey and others laud the Gunn brothers for their documentary. This should be enough to make people very concerned.)
His constituents should be very aware that his views have everything to do with how he chooses people to work under his jurisdiction. He can’t help himself but to have bias against women working in these organizations. This goes to the very CORE of his beliefs. Their doctrine of “biblical womanhood” is right next the doctrine of the deity of Christ.
July 12, 2008 at 12:35 pm
“This enmeshing of freakish, extreme supposed family values with the homeschooling has to be one of the biggest lobbying coups of all time. How did they do this? How did the patriocentrists come to “own” Christian homeschooling in the USA?
More to the point, how can we boot them out?”‘
Just keep on exposing their agenda and how their teachings are not in line with Biblical teachings.
They can move to an area and think they will take it over with their shmoozy, faux-tolerant and faux-mainstream ways but not everyone is fooled. They believe they are being persecuted for righteousness’ sake but it is really protecting the Church from being overrun by fakes, phonies, liars, charlatans and hirelings.
July 12, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Regarding Chancey’s comments about “telling women they shouldn’t even be allowed the choice to be homemakers is mainstream,” I wondered whether she might be referring to the views of Linda Hirshman and others, namely in “Homeward Bound,” in which she bemoans the failure of choice feminism and calls for a return to feminism’s more judgmental roots. She believes that feminists should be more vocal about condemning the choice to give up or scale back on a career for home and family and make sure women know how opting out of the workforce harms society.
I’ve seen other similar views expressed around the blogosphere and in other media in the past few years. Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake seems to be more widely accepted in the mainstream than Hirshman’s radical views.
July 12, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I don’t see how you ladies can say that there isn’t a problem with homemakers being looked down on at all, I’ve experienced it several times like I stated above. I’ve been told that I’m lazy and no good for “making” my husband do all the work. My husband WANTS me to be home with the children. People go on and on at me about how hard my husband works, my standard answer is usually to turn around and say “yes, and when he walks in the door after work, he’s ‘off’ of work. I’m a mother and I NEVER get time off.” But apparently I’m still a lazy, useless leach according to most people around here. So, my experience has been very different so this is one of the things I would support what they are saying.
July 12, 2008 at 1:13 pm
“This enmeshing of freakish, extreme supposed family values with the homeschooling has to be one of the biggest lobbying coups of all time. How did they do this? How did the patriocentrists come to “own” Christian homeschooling in the USA?”
IMHO, it’s because there’s a market for what they’re selling, they have a central message that people can unify and rally around, and they’re good at getting the word out about their products and their message. There are growing numbers of secular homeschoolers and non-fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers, but they tend to not be as vocal (except in the blogosphere) and they are such a diverse group in terms of homeschooling methods, beliefs, and political views that they are not united by a common goal or worldview other than home education.
July 12, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Mrs. W, yes, I occasionally hear or read put-downs of women who stay home, particularly ones who are on a high-horse about how sinful women who work away from home are. And yes, I hear–to often, I’m afraid–how sinful I and other women who work away from home are, simply for doing so. You’ve read some of the quotes of such people here.
The thing is, there will always be people who are more interested in declaring others wrong for not living exactly as they do, than in working on their own walk with the Lord (if they even ARE walking with the Lord). IMO, there’s not even a problem until it’s Christians doing it. We ought to expect worldly people to behave in a worldly fashion. I’m simply sick to death of Christians tearing other Christians apart over whether they’re earning wages away from home — or NOT doing so. Sorry to say, I’m hearing and reading a lot more CHRISTIANS doing this to wage-earning women, than to at-home women. I’m disgusted by it whichever direction it goes, however. You SHOULD be offended if a Christian brother or sister puts you down for choosing to be at home. I’m just wondering when the last time is that a Christian did that to you. But if I remember correctly, you’re in the UK, right? I would certainly allow for a wide difference between your experience of the matter there, and mine here in “Bible Belt” USA.
July 12, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Stella,
Never heard of her but I will look her up.
It seems that the VF/Chancey/McDonald contingent are on one extreme end saying that women should not work or have the choice to go to work/college since it is non-normative and sin and it blasphemes the word of God and then you have Hirshman saying the same thing on the other far extreme end but just reversed.
It seems like the pot calling the kettle black- one extremist criticizng another extremist for the same exact thing.
I am glad to see that they cancel each other out and that there is another way that allows women to be what God called them to be without being in bondage to manmade rules.
July 12, 2008 at 1:25 pm
IOW, Jennie Chancey simply is NOT being accurate about floods of people putting her down simply for being an at-home wife/mother. Now I think she should expect some backlash over things she’s said about OTHER women in PHDFG and on her website, including from other Christians. She puts it out there; she should expect people to engage her critically on what she has written. But widespread Christians in Alabama criticizing her for being at-home? Nonsense.
July 12, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Psalmist,
It is nonsense. Early on in this whole thing, I searched far and wide for all these blogs that put down moms who stay at home or women who eschew a career to take care of their homes and families. Couldn’t find them.
And the people in Alabama should be irritated that someone is claiming that they view her as “weird” for staying at home with her children.
They might view her as “weird” for some other things but not for being a SAHM. Read her book, Passionate Housewives. You will even see an “us vs. them” mentality between SAHMs. They are not like the other SAHMs who drive their kids to soccer and have marble sinks. They are not “professional mommies” like the other SAHMs. They are TRUE biblical women and are a cut above the rest of their fellow SAHMs.
If anything, they are the ones criticizing other women for how they live their lives, even the ones who gave up EVERYTHING to take care of their homes and families.
July 12, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Psalmist, I’m very deep in the “Bible Belt USA”.
July 12, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I only have a second, here (we white washed feminists are always short on time) but I wanted to quickly mention the name of the catalog. It was from christianbook.com
July 12, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Here is just a little sample of what I found when I Googled housewives, lazy, weird, should be working…
h@@p://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080628135904AA3Q5FE
July 12, 2008 at 2:08 pm
My apologies, Mrs. W, for forgetting where you live.
I’m still curious if it’s Christians who put you down for being at-home, or secular people. I think there’s a big difference in what our response should be, depending on who’s pointing the finger.
July 12, 2008 at 2:11 pm
And FWIW, the Dallas area (where I live) is often called “the Buckle of the Bible Belt,” and I’ve lived here for going on 20 years now. I pay attention to the rhetoric here and elsewhere in the region. I simply don’t hear or read widespread criticism of at-home women from Christians.
July 12, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Hey, if it’s in Christianbook.com, that can be a good thing. They offer lots of close-outs, selling at a discount those books that don’t move at full price on the shelves. So if they’re pushing VF at reduced prices, that’s a good thing.
July 12, 2008 at 2:25 pm
http://homeliving.blogspot.com/2008/06/hopelessly-devoted-to-garden.html
Go to the end of the article and read the words about wearing “costumes”.
Costume: a set of clothes that is worn by an actor or performer for a particular role or by someone attending a masquerade
July 12, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Well, if people are playing prescribed “roles,” why shouldn’t they wear costumes while doing it?
(eg)
July 12, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Long time reader but very infrequent poster. I’ve moved to comment, however, on the whole put-down-of-homemakers thing. These complaints (and they go both way) really irk me because I think that this is an issue that has really been blown out of proportion. From my perspective (live in Texas, lots of family in the deep South, three kids –one in college and two in high school, been everywhere on the working spectrum, mainly worked part-time but now working full-time), this is a non-issue to 98% of moms but one that has been blown out of proportion by (1) the media, who love to write about these kinds of conflicts,especially if they can write it up as some sort of cat-fight and (2) groups who use it further their own agendas. I do not doubt that there are SAHMs who have had to endure unkind comments from people about their choice. But, on the other hand, there are moms who work outside the home who have had to endure the same thing. I once had a woman that I had just met tell me, “I could never work outside my home! I care about my children too much!” That’s pretty darn insulting, but you know what? It was just the comment of one rude person.
At my childrens’ schools there has always been a lot of parental involvement and, frankly, the moms who worked outside the home were just as involved as the SAHMs. But, more importantly, I never saw any animus or resentment between the two groups. (And I hate to say “groups” because I hate to categorize like that–let’s just say the individual moms worked together and got along fine– and many enduring friendships were forged.)
Finally, I know a lot of moms who have gone in and out of the workforce, and when they are in the workforce, many moms work part-time. Most are smart enough to know that it’s not wise to be too judgmental since this year’s SAHM could be in the workforce next year (or vice versa).
July 12, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’ll come out of lurking to comment on Lady Lydia’s blog post on roses and costumes. I’m surprised to see her quoting Emma Goldman (“I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.”). Is there another Emma Goldman I don’t know about, meaning one who doesn’t have an abortion clinic in Iowa City named after her?
July 12, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Just wanted to say that my experience has been much like that of MrsW’s on the put-downs issue. In my case, I earned my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees back to back, prior to my marriage and birth of my children. I quit my job one week before I gave birth the first time. Since then, with VERY few exceptions I have had nothing but negative remarks, both directed at me and my husband.
We either hear that “it must be nice to make soooo much money that you/your wife (depending upon which one of us is receiving the comment) can just stay home;” or “I can’t believe you would waste/you would let your wife waste all her education on staying home with your children.”
From Christian families I have gotten these comments as well as from non-Christians. Some of the comments from Christians have been among the worst–questioning why I have no more AMBITION than to stay home with my children, instead of using my intelligence. ???? Huh? Most days I feel like it is very ambitious! LOL!
I am truly glad to hear many of you hear nothing but admiring remarks for staying home or homeschooling, but I must say my experience has been QUITE the opposite, sadly.
MrsW–I hear you about the comments about having babies back to back, as well.
My husband has been treated like an ogre for this and we’ve both been treated like we’re crazy for it. Funny, I NEVER thought of questioning/commenting on the closeness of anyone’s pregnancies, always assuming it was non of my business. It was an eye-opener when we announced our second pregnancy mere months after the birth of our first. Oh well… I don’t feel the need to involve my self in what everyone else does, and have been really shocked at others’ doing so.
Just my $.02
July 12, 2008 at 7:27 pm
“Hey, if it’s in Christianbook.com, that can be a good thing. They offer lots of close-outs, selling at a discount those books that don’t move at full price on the shelves. So if they’re pushing VF at reduced prices, that’s a good thing.”
Unfortunately this is not the case with their home schooling catalog. They only sell the most popular materials available.And I noticed the the large Vision Forum section in the last couple of catalogs.
July 12, 2008 at 7:41 pm
http://elizabethesther.typepad.com/threes_a_crowd/2008/07/speaking-of-getting-rid-of-junk.html#comments
You gotta check this out!
I did the same thing… I went from someone who ordered Pearl books in multiples of five, to someone who started being more cautious about who I passed them onto, to someone who stopped handing them out, to someone who threw all the remaining copies AWAY.
July 12, 2008 at 7:41 pm
“This enmeshing of freakish, extreme supposed family values with the homeschooling has to be one of the biggest lobbying coups of all time. How did they do this? How did the patriocentrists come to “own” Christian homeschooling in the USA?”
Well, I can tell you a little bit about this. You take a job as executive director of a large statewide home school organization, offering to donate back your entire salary, in essence working a salraied high level position as a volunteer. Then you have some control over the organizations direction (although they were kinda headed in this direction anyway). Then you have some say in who gets to keynote the state conferences, and of course you do your fair share of speaking as well. Of course now you have recordings of these speeches at a statewide organization in which you are executive director that you can send out to other state orgs. You, of course, have hobnobbed with the keynotes that you have invited to your own state conferences and now have people to recommend you as a keynote yourself.Meanwhile you write a couple of books that you can promote on the radio show that you now host, as well as get people all excited for the new high school curriculum that you are writing that they are going to have to have.Brilliant wouldn’t you say?
July 12, 2008 at 7:42 pm
That Dothan article is driving me nuts. I am the “Grace” who posts there because I couldn’t sign on the screen with “Lynn.”
I agree with Corrie’s comments — they are trying to downplay, equivocate (Jennie really does vote, she really does), and in general, get nasty as **** when someone simply and calmly says “This is what Jennie SAID, and this is WHY I disagree with her.”
So I broke a rule I made to myself, since I was accused by Lady Lydia of spending hours online running people down, I sort of said I must be like http://mrsbinoculars.com/ .
Drat!
Personally, I think this election has been decided quite some time ago, and it was decided when Mike Huckabee gave Cavenaugh his endorsement. But I’m no prophet, so we’ll have to wait and see . . .
If you care to go to that page CJ gave the link to some umpty umpteen comments ago, I got the biggest kick out of Lady Lydia telling me that writing a book was as easy as writing a blog post! As a matter of fact, that just about made my day.
July 12, 2008 at 7:49 pm
cbd.com really has gotten into the whole Vision Forum thing… *shrugs* I don’t know what their personal standards and doctrines are, but I’m sure it might be beneficial if they got some letters detailing some of the more eye-brow raising concepts being promoted in the VF-esque books they’re selling.
Having VF books right next to Saxon math sort of makes a statement: says that these people are normative, proven, etc. Whereas a responsible book-seller really should either put up a disclaimer when touting wares like Visionary Daughters (warning: reading this book may destroy your life abnd/or the lives of your kids), OR offer the opposing side’s books on “what to do with your daughters,” and “how to have a happy family.”
Sell the patriarchal books, but *also* sell the egal books, you know, like Rainbow Resource does. Btw, I really appreciate Rainbow Resource. They sell almost everything, but they’ve not bought into all this VF garbage. They also have incredibly low prices.
Maybe that would be a good approach for CBD: let them know that we won’t be purchasing from them as long as they continue to sell VF as if it’s a mainstream product. If they a,) stop selling VF altogether, or b.) put a warning label on the VF product or some sort of indicator that it is a fringe group, or c.) start offering the equivalent texts from other Christian perspectives [like "Families Where Grace is in Place," etc], THEN we’ll happily come back as customers.
Anyone up for organizing a letter writing campaign?
July 12, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I guess I am fortunate. 99% of the people I associate with…a good number of them Christian and a good number not, never make me feel guilty for my years at home! In fact, if I get any emotion at all, I get a little bit of jealousy from friends/family who really would like to be home full-time, but cannot.
It strikes me funny that it isn’t okay for anyone to criticize an at-home mother, but there is PLENTY of Christians out there wagging tongues and fingers at us working moms for being so “selfish!” and “insensitive!” and whatever.
Odd.
July 12, 2008 at 8:16 pm
OK, I’ll accept that at least in Mrs. S’s case, there are significant numbers of Christians who put at-home women down for various things, including being at-home, having children back-to-back, etc. I’m sorry that’s the case for you. I think that’s just as bad as the common issue of Christian women putting down outside wage-earning women. That’s simply the overwhelming majority position of accusers that I hear, fortunately not in my own church.
July 12, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Normal, Elizabeth in TX: I really am amazed at the nastiness in some of the accusations you mentioned (especially the “I love my children too much” thing, E.). I honestly don’t know how someone can look another human being in the face and say something like that.
What kind of pain must such an accuser be feeling inside, to let such venom loose on the outside?
July 12, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Yeah and on the other side of it I’m getting comments like “I love my kids so much that I work so I can buy them extra things to make them feel special.” Anyhow, the comments I get are from Christians and non-Christians. Our old pastor (NOT our pastor now) told me to my face that I was selfish to want a lot of kids because my husband “couldn’t afford it” even after my husband himself told him that HE also would love to have seven kids if the Lord allows. He would also say stuff like “you guys need to use birth control” KNOWING that we didn’t believe in doing that. Apparently it was his duty to warn us that we shouldn’t be having a lot of kids. And according to him we should have “waited” and had time together as a couple before getting pregnant (I was married a whole two weeks when I got pregnant lol).
July 12, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Again, I think it’s terrible whatever direction the judgment takes, Mrs. W. That’s not the way Christians are supposed to behave.
July 12, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Interesting about CBD. I didn’t realize how strongly they were promoting VF at the full price.
I used to occasionally purchase things from them in a “wise as serpents” mode; they would occasionally have books that most of the chain stores would refuse to sell (you know, those “L” word commentaries, certain Bible translations, things like that), and sold them for just a few dollars a copy. I would also go to Lifeway’s and Family Christian Store’s clearance tables, and still do that a little at Mardel, if they’re selling the “dangerous” books cheap. Sorry, I have no interest in most of their full-price drivel. But now that I’m in music ministry rather than pastoral ministry, I’m not buying as many books, at least not that such chains ever sell even at clearance prices. IMO, the music resources at such stores are so abysmally bad that unless you want popular artist recordings or trax (and generally, I don’t), it’s a waste of time to even look.
I really, really hate the dumbing down of Christians by the retail censorship of what’s available for sale these days. It’s all spin and hype of a few religiously-popular authors, and those who want to read some meat have to really hunt for it. Gimme my bow!
July 12, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I’ve joked with my working mom friends and my stay at home mom friends that we should make shirts with all of the comments we have ever heard, so the critics can just point to the # they are getting ready to say, we can roll our eyes, and everyone can go on about their day.
I’ve come to the point that I’ve realized ugly comments either way (and I’ve had both) 1) are none of the commenter’s business and 2) it’s no skin off my nose.
That being said, I have a wonderful DH that helps me laugh when it hurts.
As a mom who finished up her Bachelors with a then 3 and 2 year old (14 months apart), worked while pregnant with #3, (my only girl) leaving for maternity leave and deciding staying at home would actually cost less with my large brood, became pregnant with #4 (again, #3 and #4 are 14 months apart) and stay at home while also working from home (graphic designer), and a home schooler— I have literally heard it all, from both sides of the tracks.
*It’s not a war.* As Molly says, Don’t draft me. You won’t hear me criticizing on either side of the aisle, and you will hear me defend my working mom friend just as quickly as my stay at home friend. How many kids my friends have, and how close together or far apart they have them, is their business, and God’s glory.
July 12, 2008 at 8:52 pm
AE,
Thanks for that information.
Wow! Emma Goldman was a Lithuanian born feminist, anarchist, atheist and close associate of Alexander Burkman.
I wonder why Lady Lydia didn’t use this quote from Emma on her blog?
“I may be arrested, I may be tried and thrown in jail, but I will never be silent. I will never acquiesce or submit to authority, nor will I make peace with a system that degrades women to a mere incubator. I now and here declare war upon this system and will not rest until a path has been cleared for a free motherhood and a healthy, joyous and happy childhood.”
or this one:
“In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, however, woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, “until death doth part.”"
And there are many more where these came from.
July 12, 2008 at 8:58 pm
“Corrie, my husband gets physically slapped by mostly stupid women.”
MrsW,
Are you saying that your husband has been slapped across the face or hit because you are pregnant with your second child??????? And more than once?
How many times has this happened? I just can’t imagine.
So, how does this happen? He merely tells these women that you are expecting and they slap him? Weird.
I have had rude comments and I am not saying that I haven’t but in all my 17 pregnancies, my husband has never been physically assaulted nor have I because I am having another baby.
The South must contain a rough bunch of women! LOL
July 12, 2008 at 9:06 pm
“*It’s not a war.* As Molly says, Don’t draft me. You won’t hear me criticizing on either side of the aisle, and you will hear me defend my working mom friend just as quickly as my stay at home friend. How many kids my friends have, and how close together or far apart they have them, is their business, and God’s glory.”
Joy,
Here! Here! I totally agree and this is what I believe, too.
I have seen nastiness on both sides of the aisle and I have experienced rude comments from both sides of the aisle, too.
When I had my stillborn, I got pregnant soon after he was born. One woman came up to me and questioned me about the timing of the pregnancy and how I didn’t wait like the OT instructs women to wait. I got a lecture when I was still incredibly grieving for my little boy and after being blessed beyond measure with another pregnancy so soon. I just sat there, dumbfounded that people would be counting the days after the birth of our dead baby and figuring I didn’t obey the Bible concerning waiting after his birth.
I remember fearing that God was going to punish me for getting pregnant too soon after Oliver’s birth and for disobeying His word.
I have had QF types inquire as to whether or not I am using birth control because my babies are spaced farther apart than their children. My average was 20 months……so that means I was pregnant before the baby turned one. This is suspect in their minds?
July 12, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Oh, I remember one time that I went into the doctor because I had a sinus infection. I was about 6 months pregnant with my 8th. The nurse was looking in my ears when she exclaimed “Aha! I found the problem!” I asked her what it was. She stated that I didn’t have a brain.
Hardy….har…..har……
Just let us say that I stared at her, not saying anything because I couldn’t think of something nice to say.
I think she could see it written on my face, though.
Some people say stupid things. I try to let it roll right off my back. I actually feel sorry for them that they say such stupid things.
Having a lot of children has not been an easy thing and I am not saying that. It has been hard and I have had to endure a lot of things- both physical and emotional. But, I view it as the curse in action. Satan is after women and it says so in Genesis 3. Of course he is going to target women because he knows that we are life-givers and through a woman, the Christ would come and through women would come God’s spiritual children. I believe that is exactly why he went to Eve and not Adam. He didn’t go to her because she was weak. He went to her because she was so important to God’s plan of his destruction. In fact, the Bible tells us that the devil will go for the strong man and bind him so he can get to the rest of the household. Interesting. He knew God’s plan for a Savior because it has ALWAYS been in the plan. He knew that the Christ would come through a woman. He saw her as the enemy and he has been throwing everything he can at women ever since.
What I have learned most is how to laugh at myself and I try not to get offended by ignorance. Sometimes just giving them a look of “I feel so sorry for you that you are so pathetic” is enough.
July 12, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The South must contain a rough bunch of women! LOL
Speaking of such — where’s Lady Lydia from ? What book did she write?
July 12, 2008 at 10:28 pm
MrsW,
I want to apologize to you on behalf of America… you have encountered some of the rudest people! I hope they haven’t tainted your impression of us as a whole!
July 12, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Corrie, that’s awful! That’s a new level of shamelessness, I dare say.
I still can’t believe someone slapped MrsW’s husband~ I’d love to hear the whole story surrounding that one…it’s got to be good. I’ve had people come to close to physically harming my husband over QF, but not actually do it…
LOL!
July 12, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I believe Lady Lydia and her husband Stanley Sherman live in Oregon: last I heard he pastors the Lancaster Church of Christ in Junction City, Oregon.
July 12, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Lol yeah I know not all American’s are like that. I have actually had some be rude to me because I’m a LEGAL immigrant and they don’t like ANY kind of immigrant. Takes all types to make the world.
I wasn’t really complaining, just saying I could understand women saying that homemakers were talked down to and treated bad sometimes.
July 12, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I’ve had one TERRIBLY rude comment made about my family by a young college-aged incredibly-know-it-all Zero Population Growth advocate.
Other than that, the majority of comments and looks we get are ones of sheer delight!
I took offense to a lot of comments early on when I had three, but I think I was just way over-sensitive (the fear-based QF world kind of sets you up for that. I mean, you hear that, “the world says you are stupid, the world says you are crazy,” and you soon start to see persecution around every corner, when in reality, most people asking, “Aren’t you exhuasted,” really just wondered if I was exhausted having three babies in three years.
They were NOT slamming me or reviling my choice to have children, they were feeling sorry for me because it was an exhausting phase of motherhood, and, shoot, looking back at it, *I* feel sorry for me too! It WAS exhausting! LOL
But because I was on the defensive against the percieved persecution, I felt major pressure to put on a happy face and act like I totally had it together. Comments about the work of motherhood and comments expressing worry about the toll of having so many babies so close together were simply NOT comments from “worldly anti-child” people. They were loving people who were concerned and just taking a moment to see if I was okay.
But when you’re brainwashed to see everything in sharp shades of good and evil, nice caring comments expressing concern aren’t nice: they’re worldly thinking cloaked in a deceptively sweet tone of voice.
July 12, 2008 at 11:43 pm
HAHA by the way it was worse for me when I visited the north. I was treated like the worst sinner because I dared to wear culottes when I was apparently supposed to wear a skirt because that church thought culottes were ungodly…I’d never encountered THAT before. So yeah it takes all types but I’m not ever returning to that church, visit or not.
July 13, 2008 at 12:01 am
#226, thanks CJ, do you know the title of the book she wrote?
July 13, 2008 at 12:08 am
http://www.lulu.com/content/478809
I bet it’s this one.
July 13, 2008 at 9:31 am
I frequently order from CBD. I like the prices and selection. One needs only search a bit to find that CBD represents no cohesive doctrinal position which governs the choice of inventory. A plethora of books extolling one viewpoint and a great many others which directly oppose those same points may all be purchased together from CBD.
If someone writes to warn about fringe groups, it may make a difference to whomever reads the letter. However, I highly doubt it will impact what is sold there. I would imagine that the bottom line is CBD’s bottom line–if there is money to be made from selling books to those considering themselves to be Christian, they will carry those books. Here is just a short list of examples:
From CBD one may buy several books authored by Benny Hinn, as well as a book written to expose his confusing teachings.
You may pick up a copy of Crazy for God by Frank Schaeffer, in addition to nearly every book written by his parents.
Yes, CBD sells VF materials and CBD also sells countless books that both oppose VF teaching and which VF would oppose. It just seems to me that CBD sells what is popular = what will make money and the discernment over what is good or bad to buy is left up to the consumer.
July 13, 2008 at 9:39 am
Lady Lydia has written some “ebooks” I believe. Which, are a dime a dozen in the Christian blogosphere. You can buy just about any ebook for $4.97!
July 13, 2008 at 10:32 am
I had some musings I wanted to share…
I was thinking about the whole working controversy and unkind comments made on both sides. Sad, sad, sad! Personally, I feel I have enough to tackle following Christ myself and pursuing what God has called me to right now, and I have NO time or right to figure out what everyone else should be doing and inform them of this. I am far from perfect, but the Lord is working to make me in Christ’s image, and He is ever caring and encouraging in those pursuits, rebuking gently and showing me the way.
I think if we are women with husbands and/or children, we have clear directions from God’s Word about the importance of caring for the needs of our household and serving, not merely from Proverbs, Titus 2, etc., but indeed, from all over the Bible as we are taught that followers of Christ should care for and serve others. At this point, my WORK is in my home, largely. For others, their WORK is largely outside the home (plus what they must do inside when they get home!). Overall, the WORK of the Holy Spirit is to convict sinners of their sin and direct on the new path.
I feel strongly about trying to be home with my family if at all possible, because I feel all family member benefit from that arrangement. I see commandments in the Bible, they kind of stand out and are even labeled as commandments.
I didn’t notice not working outside the home as one of those commandments–I see a directing of what our focus should be as wives/mothers. I take that seriously, as I know you all do as well–it comes out in all the comments. As I see it, we are to strive to maintain that focus in the situations in which the Lord has placed us in His sovereignty. This is how women in slavery could serve the Lord despite the heart-wrenching situations in which they found themselves. This is how women are serving the Lord despite the outside-work situation in which they may find themselves.
Can we lose our God-given focus? Sure! A woman may not NEED to work, but is choosing to for selfish reasons. But I have a confession: Sometimes I choose to do things here at home that are for selfish reasons, when I know there is something else I should do instead. Am I any more wrong than that hypothetical working woman? I think not. Do I wish for others to look at me and decide when I have been selfish or not–calling me names and heaping condemnation on my head? Please, no! Remind me of what God’s Word says and encourage me to do it. Pray for me. Likewise, no one should not look at a working woman and decide when they are being selfish or not–calling names and heaping condemnation on their heads.
My thoughts, for what they’re worth.
July 13, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Mrs. W
About breastfeeding in public. I only hid away when I was breastfeeding my first child. After that, I just discreetly pull up the shirt and put baby’s head under it. If I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone, I’ll usually excuse myself and turn a bit to the side I’m going to feed from, so nobody is offended by the sight of my bare breast, should it be visible for a couple of seconds.
I usually wear something fairly loose and stretchy.
So far, I’ve only had people look away or seem a bit embarrassed, but when they realized they hadn’t seen anything, I often got amazed remarks.
A good way to be very discreet is to use a pouch sling. If you’re strapped for money, you can find free patterns on the internet. I never got around to making one, but they look very easy to sew and you can make them out of old sheets or even old fleece blankets.
I hope breastfeeding works out for you this time around, it’s soooooo easy!
July 13, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I think all the patrio talk is getting way far in my brain. I thought you guys would get a kick out of this.
Last night I had a dream that my husband and I were invited to “In a Shoe’s” house to spend the weekend with them. We had a great time at first playing with their kids and showing my husband the house they built. Then Mr. and Mrs. “In a Shoe” sat us down and had a talk with us about our choices in having children. We were doomed to hell because we didn’t have any after being married for 6 years.
Later in my dream we were involved in a car chase (thanks to just watching Vantage Point) with them chasing us in their big Econoline van.
I’ve spent way to much time reading this stuff!!
July 13, 2008 at 12:43 pm
MrsS said: “A woman may not NEED to work, but is choosing to for selfish reasons. ”
Well, I think the converse is true. There are plenty of women who stay home and are bankrupting their family because their husband cannot simply do it alone. And they bully their husbands by saying “It is BIBLICAL that I be at home and not have a job!” and then there is this river of animosity between the husband who is breaking his neck to make ends meet, and despite having no cable and eating MAYONNAISE (anyone catch that from WWF?
)sandwiches they still can’t make it.
This is precisely what is happening in our home. And rather than bully my husband about getting a third part time job to make up for his layoff, I am choosing to go to work and help pay the bills and avoid the animosity between us.
We each have UNIQUE situations.
And, all this focus on married wives/mothers? there are TONS of Christian women who are neither, and they count for something.
July 13, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I think I came up with a new term to add to Supersized Christianity.
Bible Bullies!
That is what some people are. They bully each other with the Bible (and their own interpretation of it to be sure). How about letting the Holy Spirit be the one to bully us?
July 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Becky wrote: Later in my dream we were involved in a car chase (thanks to just watching Vantage Point) with them chasing us in their big Econoline van.
I’ve spent way to much time reading this stuff!!
Yeah, well. I don’t know what’s worse. I keep dreaming about trying to hug Bruce Ware and not letting him go until I feel the love of God flowing into him and back out towards me. And it doesn’t happen. Last night I dreamed that with me holding tight to him that we turned into a cartoon outline sketch. It was very vivid, and I can even see three folds in crease of his suit jacket at his elbow. Then the cartoon turns yellow at the shoulders where my shoulders touch his (with me leaning forward because he’s about 5 inches shorter than me in real life, also translated into the dream. The yellow color starts at both our shoulders and shines outward. Then the dream is over. (Except in the dreams where he stands rigid and I give up and back away.) I think a good econoline van chase would be much more straight forward and entertaining.
July 13, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Normal Middle wrote: I think I came up with a new term to add to Supersized Christianity.
Bible Bullies!
My Jewish friend calls “Bible Bullies” the “God Squad.”
July 13, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The same Jewish guy who is the only Jew that I know that votes Republican said that my husband and I are not God Squaders but we are to the right of Atilla the Hun!
July 13, 2008 at 1:39 pm
MrsS said: A woman may not NEED to work, but is choosing to for selfish reasons.
MrsS, years ago I would have agreed with you. But over time I have come to a very different conclusion. What you say in the statement above, if I’m understanding it correctly (and if I’m not, holler!) is that the only legitimate reason for a woman (mom) to work is if there is a financial need.
I disagree. I don’t think it is a sin for a woman to work other than because the household needs the money. Perhaps she is good at something, because she loves it, because she believes God has called her to it … even if her husband is making lots of money and they don’t need her income. The Bible certainly never calls that sin. I do think it is a sin for a mom to neglect her children. There is a huge, vast area in between those.
I hear so many Christian women apologize for working outside the home, and hasten to explain they need the income. Fer Pete’s sake, nowhere in the Bible is that called sin. A woman is far more than a wife and mother. She has other interests, other gifts, and why should society not benefit from those as well? I know the hyperpat’s would say she can use those gifts some way at home, or by volunteering, but working for wages is not sin. Quite often, the best opportunity for someone to make fullest use of their gifts will not be in ministry, but in business.
July 13, 2008 at 1:41 pm
And call me crazy, but how is Jennie Chancey & Stacy McDonald writing a book NOT a career of sorts?
I mean, it did take time to do, and surely they got paid and are still getting royalties for it?????
So even they, are “career” women by their own camp standards!
July 13, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Bible bullies… is that a new take on “bully pulpits”?
July 13, 2008 at 3:31 pm
243, Normalmiddle
I agree. They are authors and speakers. And they aren’t just teaching women, they are also teaching men.
July 13, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Light said: “MrsS, years ago I would have agreed with you. But over time I have come to a very different conclusion. What you say in the statement above, if I’m understanding it correctly (and if I’m not, holler!) is that the only legitimate reason for a woman (mom) to work is if there is a financial need.
I disagree. I don’t think it is a sin for a woman to work other than because the household needs the money. Perhaps she is good at something, because she loves it, because she believes God has called her to it … even if her husband is making lots of money and they don’t need her income. The Bible certainly never calls that sin. I do think it is a sin for a mom to neglect her children. There is a huge, vast area in between those.”
Consider me “hollering” in the friendly sense.
As I stated in my above-mentioned post, the Bible NEVER commands women to not work outside their homes, and therefore I NEVER said it is a sin to do so. What I did say is that those of us who have husbands and/or children, are specifically reminded to care for and serve our families. For some of us that means being at home full-time, and for others that means going to a job outside our homes full-time, and all points in-between. I apologize if choosing the word “need” was a poor choice–I suppose I should have said “be called to” instead, as I was thinking.
Unlike a woman who is neither married, nor has the responsibility of children, a wife/mother has people other than herself to consider when taking any action, as immediate family member are affected greatly. As you mentioned, this is where considering whether or not children will be neglected comes in. Clearly, children can be neglected by mothers who “stay-home,” as well.
I was pointing out that a stay-at-home mom cannot be assumed to be unselfishly following God’s call on her life, nor can a work-away-from-home mom be considered to be selfishly doing so. I said that God knows if we are striving to honor what He has called us to and we ought to encourage one another, instead of critiquing.
I sincerely hope this clears up the confusion.
July 13, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I am finally catching up on comments after being gone for 3 days and Mrs W’s really seemed to stand out to me. Let me see if I have this straight…
You have had men tell you to your face that you wearing pants causes they to lust after you.
You have had people tell you to your face that breastfeeding is immodest.
You have had people belittle you for being a stay at home mom.
ETc. Etc.
Mrs. W, I don’t know where you live but where I come from those things are considered to be just downright rude,not to mention that fact that my husband would probably be in the faces of those people and a fist or two would probably land right on the noses of the lusting church goers.
July 13, 2008 at 4:20 pm
“I was pointing out that a stay-at-home mom cannot be assumed to be unselfishly following God’s call on her life, nor can a work-away-from-home mom be considered to be selfishly doing so. I said that God knows if we are striving to honor what He has called us to and we ought to encourage one another, instead of critiquing.”
Well said, and FWIW, I thought you expressed this point rather clearly in the earlier post as well.
July 13, 2008 at 4:21 pm
a note about Rainbow Resources….it is a company that is owned and was started by a homeschooling mom. (perhaps she is a white washed feminist, too, I don’t know.) It has become quite successful and I would encourage everyone to shop there BECAUSE they don’t carry Vision Forum products.
July 13, 2008 at 4:22 pm
All this discussion about Matt Chancey and Jennie’s flip flopping around is making ME sick to MY stomach now.
July 13, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Unlike a woman who is neither married, nor has the responsibility of children, a wife/mother has people other than herself to consider when taking any action, as immediate family member are affected greatly. As you mentioned, this is where considering whether or not children will be neglected comes in. Clearly, children can be neglected by mothers who “stay-home,” as well.
I was pointing out that a stay-at-home mom cannot be assumed to be unselfishly following God’s call on her life, nor can a work-away-from-home mom be considered to be selfishly doing so. I said that God knows if we are striving to honor what He has called us to and we ought to encourage one another, instead of critiquing.
I’m glad you hollered, MrsS.
I thought that’s what you meant, but I wasn’t sure. And And, of course, dads need to take this sort of thing into consideration as well. A few years ago, my husband was considering getting his doctorate. This was after having gotten his masters while working full time, and if he got his PhD, it would mean even more time away from the family. Since the PhD was really just more for his personal satisfaction and wouldn’t result in any career advancement, he decided it would be far better to invest the time in family. (Tho I have a sneaking suspicion when we are empty nesters, he may revisit this.)
July 13, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Rainbow Resource owners ARE white-washed feminists.
They openly share that they are egalitarian, but that they respect other people’s views hence offer material from *both* perspectives in their family resources section.
That gets my applause and my business every year, hands-down.
July 13, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Well three cheers for Rainbow Resource! They were always my favorites at the homeschool conference because they had HUGE selections and low prices. I remember buying things from them that were CHEAPER than buying the same thing from the vendor’s own booth (for instance, Rod & Staff readers were more expensive at the Rod & Staff booth than they were with RR!)
I also liked that the RR people had plenty of staff and even though their booth was always slammed, you got in and out quickly because of the customer service.
And now I find out the founder is a WWF? Yay!
July 13, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Molleth, I would love to see documentation on Rainbow owners being egal. Could you link for me? Thanks!
July 13, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I love Rainbow Resources and I buy a lot of my materials from them.
I especially love their reviews on the products because they are objective and very informative.
Lamplighter Rare books is another place that I would suggest shopping. They have great resources besides the old books they reproduce. And the Hambys are great people.
July 13, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Stacy McDonald and Jennie Chancey owe the feminists a big debt of gratitude for being able to write books and travel around promoting their books. It is used to be a scandalous and shameful thing for a woman to be an author.
They do have a career. Google Jennie Chancey and you will see a huge amount of hits come up concerning her sewing business. Hollywood people have used her for period costume consultations.
While people denigrate us for spending too much time on the internet they get to spend an enormous amount of time on the internet and pursuing other endeavors that take them away from their household chores.
Why is okay to engage in self-promotion and turn around and mock women with marble sinks?
July 13, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Normal,
” and then there is this river of animosity between the husband who is breaking his neck to make ends meet, and despite having no cable and eating MAYONNAISE (anyone catch that from WWF? )sandwiches they still can’t make it.”
Huh? Do explain! It sounds very interesting.
Cindy K.,
I canNOT get the image of you hugging Ware and not letting him go out of my mind. LOL!
July 13, 2008 at 8:35 pm
#228
Molleth,
You are exactly right about the fear-based QF teachings.
I have seen some hyper-sensitivity to comments people make sheerly because the pump was primed by all the propaganda coming out of the QF movement.
They do not know how to laugh.
And they say that feminists have no sense of humor? Ha!
July 13, 2008 at 9:44 pm
“Why is….it oK to mock women with marble sinks?”
Good question…. especially when many of those marble sink owning women don’t have swimming pools or household help to clean their sinks, as do certain women in the Patrio movement.
July 13, 2008 at 10:02 pm
It seems to escape some of the celebrity authors among the patriarchs’ wives, that they will be judged by the same measure they use to judge others. But of course, it’s “gossip” when others notice the hypocrisy, while it’s merely gracious non-gossip for them to mock marble sinks and the women who own them.
Seriously, I think that authors who have nothing better to focus on, have way too much time on their hands, and so those who read such junk cover-to-cover and urge others to buy. With so much sin and misery in this world, I think it’s the height of hypocrisy to label some women “whitewashed feminists” and impute to them motivations and spiritual states that the authors can know nothing of. They reveal their ignorance, their privilege, and their hypocrisy quite clearly in their writings. It’s time for people to wake up and start recognizing their gossip for what it is. If being at-home is the be-all, end-all for the real Christian woman, then they need to be at-home, wholeheartedly and full-time, like they insist women should be. No loopholes for rich authors of glitzy books.
Their goal seems to be sowing seeds of dissension among the people of God, and they’ve done a mighty good job of it. People read Stacy’s and Jennie’s lies about “whitewashed feminists,” and appear to be taking the criticisms they made up as real ones coming from real women. Just as Jennie Chancey was quoted as saying during the campaign brouhaha, there are supposedly all these women saying she’s everything except a child of God for staying home with her children. Notice she doesn’t actually quote a single real live person. It’s just more invention, and people read it and take offense at all these horrible things that working women say about at-home women.
I still say it’s nonsense. Yes, there are a few rude folks out there, and quite a number of them are saying some really rude things, like calling women “whitewashed feminists.” But I really do think that the vast majority of Christian women are doing the best they know how to follow Christ, and they’re too busy doing that to be overly concerned with whether wage-earners or at-homers are in sin for where they spend their days.
Sowing seeds of dissension. It needs to stop.
July 13, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Psalmist,
#260
Wow! You really nailed it!
July 14, 2008 at 1:00 am
Psalmist,
The other thing that bothers me is the double standard that the prairie muffins set. They chastise those who do the unthinkable by closing their wombs through contraception (or by physical illness, etc.), but they offer no rhetoric concerning those whose wombs have not opened. The closing of the womb does not fit their paradigm, so it does not exist. Selective attention…
Another double standard can be seen in the openness about their personal lives. Teachers and leaders are held to a higher standard than others, are they not? They make examples of their family practices and make money off the examples of their lives, yet they are not so open to discuss those aspects that are “inconvenient” for them. The Word says that deacons and elders and leaders in the church should be the husband of one wife (and I assume the wife of one husband), yet we have the example of the McDonalds who are both divorced and remarried, yet boast their family of ten.
Then we have the Scripture that requires that leaders have their families well in order — families that they used as examples and in photo-ops to work themselves up to where they are in the homeschooling set. But what happens when those families don’t come out like the pie in the sky examples like they boast? They are preaching fool-proof methods, based on the integrity of the Word of God as evidence, all before many of them have children that are old enough to have flown the coop. Yet some of them have flown the coop, yet we are not permitted to discuss them.
Is it not reasonable to wonder what happened to James & Stacy McD’s eldest son? He used to be featured in all sorts of things, and now he is notably absent from all family events and such. In their holiday photos, their new son-in-law makes up for the missing son who is now never mentioned. (But lets see if he will be featured on a blog this week…) We also have Karmon Friedrich who appears here in this thread, offering a response that I don’t even understand — one that is far more revealing about her family circumstances than the original, public comment that provoked her chiding and chastisement. If it’s common knowledge, why is only the pleasant stuff common knowledge? Look at comments in this thread. I falls somewhere in the first handful of them, and I take this as Carmon saying that all discussion of her grown children is off limits. Sorry… I would think that these grown children are the proof in the eating of the pudding that they cooked up.
http://truewomanhood.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/women-dont-need-to-go-to-college-to-be-wives-and-mothers-sigh-again-karen/
July 14, 2008 at 1:15 am
Just to clarify — the comment from Carmon is not in this thread. I meant “this” thread as the one corresponding to the posted link.
It’s just sad. I think everyone has compassion for people when things don’t turn out right, whether someone develops a heath problem (following from the SMI discussion) or whether you get a kid or two that doesn’t turn out like you’d like. It’s heart wrenching, like nothing else. I would think that it would rival the death of a child to some of these people in the patriarchy movement, as I know several patriocentric parents that disowned their kids. But there’s not a whole lot of transparency and a whole lot of condemnation when people question the outcomes of these ways of living.
But I think people would be more compassionate if families had not been the main focus of everything. Add that to using families as advertising on top of condemning others for their different convictions (yes Normal Middle — convictions are not commandments!) as examples of people on the path to destruction. So when it turns out that your guaranteed by the integrity of the Word plan is not foolproof and after you’ve declared it open season on anyone who holds to a different interpretation of the Word, I think it’s unreasonable to expect to be above reproach.
It all just seems to fall to the level of children crying “Na, nah, nah” in a playground. (Oh wait. PM’s don’t every have that happen because kids don’t go the playgrounds without close supervision directly under the family unit as a whole. Ah, yes. There’s the loophole. I mean rub.)
And people are not expected to be offended and cynical?
July 14, 2008 at 2:16 am
Thatmom,
On documenting the Rainbow Resource folks egal position, I read it in their catalog. I don’t know if it’s in this years one, but it was in a description they gave in whatever the section is called where they have the CBMW and Discovering Biblical Equality stuff… They talk very very very graciously about their views, and briefly, while totally respecting other views.
I’ll go grab my current catalog and see if they mention it again this year.
July 14, 2008 at 2:25 am
It’s on page 735 of the RR catalog I just got in the mail. They have three sections:
1. Patriarchy,
2. Complementarianism
3. Egalitarianism.
They do not share their own personal position in this catalog, however I could “swear” they did in their former catalog and said they were egals.
In introducing the three distinct camps, they say this:
The “Gender Issue” has been referred to as the greatest debate in the church today, or the most divisive issue among Christians. Perhaps it isn’t an issue at all to you— perhaps you’ve long since decided on what’s truly “biblical.” However there are many facets to this discussion and each “side” of the debate earnestly believes they are taking “the” biblical stance.
As with other divisive issues, much fo the debate is as old as the debate over Bible translations or whether the Bible should be translated “word for word” or “thought for thought” or other hermaneutical considerations. One of hte most crucial determinations is our understanding of God’s pre-fall design for mankind — and more specifically his design for each gender. While we don’t propose to resolve these issues here, we are attempting to provide you with books representative of three distinct positions on the “gender issue” and pray that the Holy Spirit will guide you in your personal convictions on this issue…
July 14, 2008 at 7:43 am
Molleth, we know from that description that at least they aren’t patriarchal. The female subordinationists typically don’t even acknowledge there are other legitimate viewpoints, and they certainly wouldn’t call any attention to resources for people to think for themselves!
July 14, 2008 at 8:31 am
Excellent point, Light.
The egalitarians are not the least bit offended or upset by hierarchalists choosing to follow a different practice or even to profess that this is their interpretation of the Word. What is difficult and a matter of discussion (not accusation) is that those who interpret the matter as a central/critical issue turn the matter into a litmus test of whether one is a Christian. The logical conclusion, whether it spoken or not directly communicates all the same and is understood: those who deny the hierarchical view are worshipping a false God. It is inevitable because in redefining the “roles” of authority and function within the Godhead, they are creating an odd type of tritheism. If you’re a monotheist, through and through, you’re going to have an inevitable problem.
BTW, Jeanette just posted a new article (great as usual):
http://talibanrising.blogspot.com/2008/07/real-men-married-to-brotherhood.html
July 14, 2008 at 8:33 am
Thanks, Molly.
It also says a lot that they make a distinction between patriarchy and complementarism.
July 14, 2008 at 9:12 am
Too true, Cindy, both about those with closed wombs, and the double standard of transparency of the teacher’s life.
As one of the “closed womb” society — and closed by God, given that I was abandoned by my husband with whom I had only one miscarried child, divorced after many years of abandonment, never remarried, and now am in the final stages of menopause — it’s always interesting to see how people like Stacy and Carmon and Jennie don’t deal with people like me. We don’t exist in their churches, we don’t exist on their blogs, we don’t exist in their cloistered little worlds. We’re an inconvenient reminder that they don’t have all the answers. Single women without children, living for Jesus Christ, apart from the “covering” of a mortal man — we’re proof that if a “covering is even needed, Jesus Christ is more than sufficient.
And transparency? Yes, I’m afraid that is demanded of those they castigate in their writings, but evaded in their own lives. Silly me…I wasn’t aware there WAS an oldest son! I haven’t done the math; is he one of the Blended Ten?
July 14, 2008 at 9:22 am
Psalmist,
I am liking your last posts a lot.
Cindy K, comment 267
” those who interpret the matter as a central/critical issue turn the matter into a litmus test of whether one is a Christian. The logical conclusion, whether it spoken or not directly communicates all the same and is understood: those who deny the hierarchical view are worshipping a false God.”
This is something that bothers me too. Even in complementarian teaching.
I listened to Moore’s preaching about husbands and wives (Back in June, it can be listened to on Denny Burk’s blog), and he said that married couples that aren’t living out the authority-submission pattern are failing to show the Gospel.
They seem to forget that we will be known to be His disciples by our love.
However “soft” and gentle the leadership may be preached, if it’s made to be central to the Gospel, the indirect message is that anyone who doesn’t believe and live out their marriage like that is in sin.
No wonder Russel Moore says there are loads of homosexual marriages out there and that the couples don’t know they are homosexual!
That type of comment leaves me cold. I can’t deal with it. Because those “homosexuals” are the best example of the unity and love relationship of Christ and the church!
July 14, 2008 at 9:39 am
Psalmist,
The eldest child is “James Michael McDonald, VI,” no less. So I am told. He once was a prominent fixture in their parade. James the Sixth is James’ firstborn to his first wife (Sandra/Sandy) who is now painted as the worst sort of abusive human being. I guess that makes everything okay, from remarriage to the fact that Stacy boasts as though all these children proceeded from her own womb so as to market their image.
As someone who took stripes from my own sister-in-law over my feelings over their new blended family’s treatment of “his kids and my kids,” it’s ironic that I note what could be a great ministry of the McDonalds. Knowing just how many blended families there are out there, they could be a great resource and source of encouragement to many parents in similar circumstances, and those challenges are great. My husband and I voiced our concerns and our hurt that his sister did this with their then young children, as we were discouraged from “adopting” the two boys into our world as family along with my husband’s sister’s two children. In retrospect, I appreciate the honesty of my sister-in-law. And she never exploited matters for personal gain or book sales, either, so I don’t think that the comparisons are all that fair or accurate.
There are cryptic and fleeting references to the eldest son of James if you look for them. Without looking back and finding links, someone online once explained his absence from a family gathering because he chose to visit his extended family in Texas while the rest of the brood stayed in their new home in Peoria. I think he actually lives in Peoria and works for Samaritan Ministries, none the less, but I would have to check.
I just find it curious that he was once boasted and now is never seen and rarely mentioned at all, while the other events of their remaining blended family are exploited for effect.
I hope that the now grown child is well and happy and has a growing relationship with the Lord, just as I hope and pray the same for all those who follow patriocentricity. I wish none of them harm or hardship, save only that that cease to preach this pagan strangeness at the least and recant and come clean regarding the truth about the rest. I hope that they have not ostracised him from the family (the ten children and the wonderful home of famous dishes and exotic chocolates and fine wine offered to visitors) because he has chosen to follow a course other than the patriocentric path. I know personally how brutally painful that path can be, every stretch of relationship and personal growth scapegoated on to religious differences to avoid parental responsibilities. One can hope that the guy grew up into his mid twenties by now to be a shy one, just unappreciative of having his life paraded around on the internet. But if that’s the case, I think people would understand if his absence were prefaced in such a way. Instead he is just conveniently MIA.
July 14, 2008 at 10:00 am
Madame quoting Russell Moore: he said that married couples that aren’t living out the authority-submission pattern are failing to show the Gospel.
Madame,
This just tickles me every time I see someone else refer to these odd statements from the CBMW/SBTS fellows! I was told that I was in error because I made connections between the patriarchy movement and the SBC, that is on the part of these in the SBC as contributors to the patriocentric paradigm. (Jim Jones was known for that quotable quote that those who do not remember the past will repeat it, but that does not necessarily make George Santyana who is attributed with the quote a cultist or one having anything at all to do with the tragedy of Jonestown, Guyana.) Doug Phillips could quote Russell Moore as much as the Unification Church quotes Phillips, but that does not make Phillips a Moonie. But if there is no connection between patriocentricity and the SBC, why threaten the apologetics organization that invited me speak and why did they get a new director at that time for authorizing my outline for presentation? Hmm. Seems like a lot of overkill to me if there’s nothing to my tracing their ideas to the rightful roots.
If you look on Cheryl Schatz’s website at http://www.strivetoenter/wim, in the comments there, someone mentions that they believe that this whole issue will eventually have to divide the Evangelical church. I agree with him. If you carefully read Ware, he states that we are worshiping a false God because they so strongly and wrongly attach gender directly to God’s nature and identity in ways that far exceed what responsible hermeneutics allow. Russell Moore and Al Mohler and others call for a culture war. This is what they want. They want an ethnic-gender cleansing of the true church.
July 14, 2008 at 10:59 am
Cindy K,
that all doesn’t surprise me at all. It all starts when they take the Christ and the church -husband and wife analogy too far, in the wrong direction. It makes me cringe.
It also makes me cringe when they start using the Trinity to explain the “roles” within marriage. Some teaching is ok, but some of it is just so waaaaaay off!
I read an article by a respected German pastor this morning. He was telling men to take their “role” as priests in their home seriously. The article was positive, but he threw in the usual authority, greater responsibility and leader stuff. I think most men can’t cope with that without using it, at some point, to get what they want. It’s sad.
July 14, 2008 at 11:28 am
” If you carefully read Ware, he states that we are worshiping a false God because they so strongly and wrongly attach gender directly to God’s nature and identity in ways that far exceed what responsible hermeneutics allow. Russell Moore and Al Mohler and others call for a culture war. This is what they want. They want an ethnic-gender cleansing of the true church.”
yes, they are calling us “Open Theists” and strongly hinting that those of us who do not subscribe to their view of hierarchy within the Trinity… and paralleling this teaching with the marriage relationship… as not believing in the True God.
And, I agree that it will eventually divide Evangelicals but I don’t think it will be over the gender aspect of this but over their false teaching of the Trinity that there is an eternal hierarchy within the Trinity. A chain of command denoting separate wills.
But, I do believe the majority of professing believers will agree with them. A consequence of using Grudem’s books in seminaries in place of scripture. A whole generation of young pastors are buying into this.
It has gotten to the point that they have made earthly authorites an ‘idol’. Authority is their idol. They NEVER focus on servanthood or service to the Body or within marriage. It is all “submission to a human authority” within Christendom. That is not scriptural!! To the point that they have taken on ancient heresies (Arians) that have been refuted biblically for centuries. They ‘redifine’ words and try to resell these heresies. And, it is working. People are gushing all over it.
No one can be your “priest” but Christ. Anyone else notice that Jesus Christ is being put in a back seat with too many Christian preachers/teachers/professors today? As a matter of fact, many references to Him from these guys is one of being lessor to God. I have been listening and watching carefully.
That is not Biblical. And it is something to be aware of and keep your eyes open.
July 14, 2008 at 11:30 am
I just read about some child abuse from those who follow the Pearl’s teachings. This family refuses to give their kids food after 6.30 pm because they “don’t want the kids to go to bed on a full stomach”. Their child has been asking for food all the time and they are treating it as disobedience instead of thinking that the poor kid might actually be hungry. When I wrote that he might actually be hungry, people started saying “it doesn’t matter, if the husband doesn’t want them eating after 6.30, then it doesn’t matter if he’s hungry, he’ll have to wait”. How sick.
July 14, 2008 at 11:32 am
Mrs. W.,
If that truly happened as a result of reading that book, then that is a tragedy! I’ve never read the book, but I do plan to. I’ve heard from you that it’s bad and I’ve heard from close friends that it was wonderful, yet very convicting. Could it be that this family you mentioned took what’s in the book to a huge extreme?
Rebekah
http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008 at 11:41 am
Ladies,
I have to say I’m shocked by some of what I’m reading here regarding Ephes. 5, the Trinity, etc. What do you all believe about the Trinity and the teachings in Ephes. 5? I would like to understand where you’re coming from, if possible.
Here is what I believe: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are 1. They are all equal and are equally God. However, the Son submitted to His Father’s will in the Garden of Gasthemane, and when He died on the cross(the Scriptures very clearly teach this). There’s also a passage(I’m sorry I can’t think of the reference at the moment; I’ll have to go look it up) which says that the Holy Spirit is doing the will of the Son. So, while they are all equal, the Son submitted to the Father’s authority and will. And the Holy Spirit, our comfort, does the will of the Son. Those facts don’t lessen the fact that they’re all equal one bit, if you correctly understand them.
Regarding Ephes. 5: this is such a beautiful passage! The husband and wife are CLEARLY equal in worth, etc. The husband is not more important than the wife, nor is the wife more important than the husband. Both roles and lives are equally important to a successful, God-honoring marriage. The wife has a blessed opportunity to reflect Christ in the way she submits to her husband. She is showing the world a picture of our merciful Christ and His loving submission to His Father, in dying for our sins. The husband, likewise, has the opportunity to reflect God, the Father, in a beautiful way. He is commanded to love his wife perfectly as Christ loved the Church(which I have to say, would be WAY harder than submitting to a loving husband!). This is how the marriage relationship reflects the Trinity.
Sincerely,
Rebekah
http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008 at 11:44 am
MrsW—this is why children grow up to develop eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with sex, food, drugs, and whatnot.
So much of who we are and why we do things is formed by what happens in our childhoods. I’m not one to blame parents for everything and play the “victim” card as adults. But—-one thing is for sure, parents have the ability to build up or tear down a child as an adult one day.
I came from an incredibly wonderful home, had great parents, and a beautiful childhood. But my dad was a perfectionist. If it wasn’t straight A’s, it wasn’t good enough. If I spilt something on the floor, I must clean it up before he saw it, or there would be strong words for me. BUT—he loved me. I know that. However, I’m a perfectionist of sorts now as an adult, and I realize it came from being an only child in a very perfectionist household. I’ve had to learn to relax, or else my kids will follow the cycle and be just like me.
So when you deny kids food and make them only eat at certain times, etc. THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE FOOD ISSUES ONE DAY!
I know this borders on “psycho-babble” to some in the church, but the mind is a powerful thing. We need to remember Christ’s words and use “love covers a multitude of sins” more often with our children. We must be flexible.
WHICH…is why some of us detest the Pearls’ writings. There is NO flexibility in their modus operandi of discipline. Do this, get a swat. Do that, get a swat.
Life isn’t so cut and dry.
July 14, 2008 at 11:52 am
Cindy K.(comment #242),
I can sort of understand where you’re coming from in thinking it’s wrong to say that married couples that aren’t living out the authority-submission pattern are failing to show the Gospel. That may seem sort of foreign. I hope to present this Biblical truth in a clearer manner.
First off, Ephes. 5 teaches this! The Christian marriage relationship(with male leadership and female submission) reflects Christ and the church-essentially, the Gospel itself!! The wife reflects the way Christ submitted to the Father and died for us sinful wretches. The husband reflects the love Christ has for His Church. The Lord has been so gracious to allow His Church to reflect the Gospel of Christ by simply living out day to day life! What a blessed opportunity to be a witness to the lost!
Secondly, we must understand what the word “Gospel” meant when it was first used when the NT was being penned. Today, it simply means good news, and reflects the fact that Christ died on the cross to save sinners. That’s not all it meant when it was used however! At the time of Christ, a common and popular phrase was the “Gospel of Caesar”, which referred to all of Caesar’s laws, decrees, admonitions, etc. The NT writers(under the inspiration of God Almighty) used this word for a reason, and those reading the NT Scriptures(what would become the NT when it was all compiled, that is!) at the time they were written, would understand the “Gospel of Jesus Christ” to be referring to all His commands, decrees, laws, admonitions, etc. That includes the command for women to be homemakers, the command for women to submit to their husbands, the command for men to love their wives perfectly and not be bitter or tyrannical towards them, the command to love your neighbor as yourself, the command to not let any unwholesome word to proceed from your mouth, etc. etc. etc.
That’s why the above mentioned man said what he did. I hope this comment clarified his(as well as my) position.
In Christ alone,
Rebekah S.
http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008 at 11:55 am
Normal Lindsey,
I call it the “Duck Test”
They can reject it as psychobabble, but it it walks, talks and looks like the ducks that psychology describes, then it is a duck. God gave us common sense and reason as a gift made after His likeness. Most of those things today, to qualify for inclusion in the legitimate SCIENCE of psychology today must meet the same statistical rigor that diseases and new medicines are subjected to. The statistics that these things are evaluated with must meet staggering mathematical tests of validity and accuracy, etc. It’s not speculation anymore.
The other new field that validates this stuff from modern psych comes from brain imaging. When people who survive spiritual abuse show the same brain scans as people who have survived domestic abuse or shell-shocked war veterans with PTSD, and have all the same symptoms, it’s not something you can continue to wink at.
July 14, 2008 at 11:56 am
Rebekah,
What you have to remember is that we each discern and interpret scripture differently. I am not going to stomp and demand you see Eph. 5 in the same light as I do. It is like reading a book and wanting everyone who reads it to like the characters the same, and get the very same meaning from it.
The Ephesians 5 passage we’re discussing? Some will use it to say that because the husband is “head” of the wife, then she must not disobey him in any way, she cannot vote, hold a job, etc. Some will twist it further and say that until a girl is a wife, her father is her “head.”
It all falls down to what you believe “head” means. If you do some examining in the original Greek, you’ll find (unless you’re unwilling to be open to it) that “head” doesn’t mean leader in the way some people use it to mean submission. In the Greek it means alot more towards what we know to be the “head” of a river….all flowing together/source of origin.
If you go back to GENESIS, the first words in the Bible, you’ll see that God teaches us MUTUAL SUBMISSION. I prefer to focus on that. But then, I’m not really a complementarian anymore.
Am I still a Christian? You betcha. Might be a white-washed one, but I’ve lived 30 some years and been married 10 of them, and I know what the picture of Biblical marriage looks like in our household. We truly are two who have become one. Yet, we focus more on submitting to one another, rather than me to him and “obey this! and obey that!”
I see on your blog you are turning 16 (Happy Birthday!!! Honest heart-felt wishes, too)
I can only say that there are some mysteries of marriage that one cannot understand until you’ve been there also.
July 14, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Rebekah S,
Here is a link to everything on my blog concerning Ephesians 5.
http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/search?q=Ephesians+5
There’s quite a bit there, but in general, I believe that “the above mentioned man” is guilty of twisting the Scripture into proving his own thesis and presuppositions. It is proof-texting that does not follow good hermeneutics. They’ve even redefined who Jesus and diminished His Deity to support their gender arguments.
If you go to my site, also look in the tags for the Patriarchy Video where I discuss the development of some of these ideas and the inherent problems in it.
Please feel free to contact me through the blog or website if you have more questions and I will be happy to answer them.
July 14, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Since we’re talking about the patriarchy/complementarian/egalitarian thing, I have been wondering something – where I fall in it all. I now see that what I was mostly raised in (complementarianism) had a lot of serious crap going on and also primed me for patriarchy, so that I didn’t notice it when I was exposed to it in little bits at first and then with a big bang in the Credenda Agenda magazine (I loved it and didn’t know there was so much better I could have been reading as a young, brainy Christian.) and the NFIC church I had to go to, and some other things and events.
From what I have seen of egalitarianism, I think I have a LOT of sympathy with them and that they are truly on to some things that other parts of the Body have missed – and I finally feel open to consider their points, when before I would have just closed my mind.
Yet I feel like I might still be a soft complementarian in some areas, though only the softest of the soft. I would not feel right preaching a sermon or being an elder, though I think I need to really study what Paul said about those things again -but it all seems so confusing to me. I’m still thinking and unsure about the submission in marriage thing – whichever way God wants it is fine with me, if I ever get married. But then almost immediately after this I say that I feel I have an equal standing with any Christian man before God, and I have the same gifts of prayer and witnessing and testimony that any believing man does, and in the course of my life I am sure I will edify and help both men and women, as men and women have both helped me.
Does there seem any contradicion here to any of you? I know a lot of you do think women can not be pastors, but you still oppose all this women-are-spiritually-lesser stuff. Again, if God doesn’t want women being pastors, I’m fine with that (and fine with it if He blesses it) but why would He not want women being pastors unless they were spiritually lesser beings? I can’t see any other reason. And you all vehemently oppose any idea of women being spiritually inferior. It’s so confusing to me.
I do feel like a practical egalitarian in many ways – little story from yesterday – I was watching a movie and I wanted my brother to watch it with me, but he said “Sorry, I would, but I’m too busy shooting aliens.” and part of me wanted to nag, but I just said “OK.” Now before I would have thought of this action as my respecting his masculinity – now I see it simply as respecting a person – it’s just not nice to nag people, period. You have to let them go after a point.
(I know these three camps do not cover the sheer complexity of beliefs within Christendom, and it’s so much more complicated, but I just used the three camps delineated by Rainbow Resource for convenience, because I had to stop somewhere in a few paragraphs.)
July 14, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Anne2(comment #6),
I and my Vision Forum friends are by no means skirt-happy, so to speak(no matter how it may seem!). We simply believe that the Scriptures teach in such a painfully clear manner, that the Lord detests it when there aren’t clear distinctions between men and women. Deut. 22:5 and 1 Corin. 11 show that it’s shameful and an abomination to God when men look like women and women look like men. He made them male and female, and obviously desires them to look like such! He wants men to be masculine, He wants women to be beautifully and distinctly feminine.
Having said that, I’m not saying at all that I believe ALL women at ALL times in ALL cultures should wear ONLY skirts and dresses. I don’t believe that! For instance, if we lived in Scotland, and all the men over there ever wore were kilts, then women shouldn’t wear skirts in that country! That would be sinful androgyny(which the Lord detests)! Rather, women in that country should wear pants or whatever else is distinctly feminine in that country. God calls women to not do anything to deminish their God-given femininity.
In America, however, where pants have always been men’s clothing, and where countless females today are desiring to dress more and more like men(and some who do so, not even necessarily wanting to look like men), we must be distinctly feminine! We’re commanded by God to be. That’s why I believe the best thing by far is for women to only wear skirts and dresses here in our country. Because if you do, there’s no guessing as to whether or not you’re a female. Someone can glance at you from a mile away and know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re female!
My mother and I were looking through the JCPenney fall/winter catalogue we got in the mail today. It was so saddening seeing beautiful females cover up their femininity in men’s clothing! There was a beautiful lady wearing a jacket that looked like it could have come from my father’s closet along with cargo pants that looked like men’s as well. It was really sad! This women had beautiful feminine hair and a pleasant face. But when you looked at her clothing, that’s where all the gorgeous beauty ended, because her femininity wasn’t there. She looked androgynous-her hair was feminine, her clothes weren’t. This is why I’m so passionate about this subject. It was tragic to see women cover up their God-given beauty of femininity. Likewise, it would be tragic to see a man walking down the street in a floor-length gown! This is not the way God designed it. In whatever culture or country you’re in, He wants women to be feminine and men to be masculine, whatever that looks like in that particular country.
Sincerely,
Rebekah
July 14, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Rebekah wrote: Those facts don’t lessen the fact that they’re all equal one bit, if you correctly understand them.
Rebekah,
Another quick comment to cut through a lot of reading. I understand what you are saying here and the crux of where I disagree concerns the view of whether Christ’s submission was a function of His incarnation as a human or whether this was His eternal condition.
While Christ was emptied of his fullness of the Godhead in order to be fully man, yet not taking his power as a thing to be grasped, he was in a unique state of being that also did not diminish His deity.
CBMW, Ware, Grudem, Moore, etc. state that Jesus was eternally subordinate. Another in their group (if you look at the Trinity references on my blog by looking at that tag) states that Jesus forfeited equality by “going for” incarnation. That Jesus could not have both, so that he is the same stuff of God the Father but is not equal to him. You can listen to it in his own voice — Denny Burk — the editor of CBMW’s Journal and a new dean at SBTS. The God they teach is not much different in many aspects than the God of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the same verses that they distort are the same ones that JW’s distort to promote their view of Jesus.
Again, CBMW and their evangelists skirt the issue, but when you evaluate what they teach, they argue that Jesus and the Father are not equal and are guilty of many aspects of the heresy of Arius. What they teach contradicts the creeds of the church. And they can say until they are blue in the face that they are teaching that Jesus and the Father are equal, but it is nothing more than propaganda. It’s like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar telling his mother that he doesn’t want, like or eat cookies, with crumbs hanging on his face.
July 14, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Normal said: But then, I’m not really a complementarian anymore. Normal, I knew I liked you for a reason!
Beatrice said: I now see that what I was mostly raised in (complementarianism) had a lot of serious crap going on and also primed me for patriarchy
Beatrice, good insight there. The complementarianism that’s been evolving over the past few years really is “priming” people for patriarchy. Perhaps you know that one of the founders of CBMW resigned a few years ago because he thought the term complementarian was too wussy, and they should be unashamed to call themselves patriarchal.
Again, if God doesn’t want women being pastors, I’m fine with that (and fine with it if He blesses it) but why would He not want women being pastors unless they were spiritually lesser beings? I can’t see any other reason. And you all vehemently oppose any idea of women being spiritually inferior. It’s so confusing to me. You might want to pick up a copy of Rebecca Groothius’s book, Good News for Women. She does a beautiful job of articulating that contradiction that you see, and demonstrates the illogic behind “equal in being, unequal in function.”
July 14, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Rebekah,
I understand what you’re saying. I would like to challenge you to lay aside what these others have taught you and to just read the Bible without their twists. I respect your choice to believe however and whatever you want, but it is my opinion and those regularly participate here that the teachings of the Vision Forum affiliated folks do not interpret these things honestly and properly, only in ways to prove what they already believed apart from the Bible.
I would ask that you think and pray about reading only the Bible for a period of six months or so, praying for the Lord to open up your understanding to what the Bible says and no one else. The Word promises to lead us and guide us into all truth and that He will accomplish His good pleasure in our hearts and lives. Don’t read anything except the Bible, and I would start with the Gospels. I’d probably jump to the Epistles of John and maybe Phillipians next. I believe that if you pray and ask God to reveal this truth to you that He will open your eyes. Just look to him. Don’t even read the internet and stuff from people like us. I believe that you will be quite surprised to realize many different things in the process.
July 14, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I would like to know what a “complementarian” is if someone could fill me in.
Rebekah is a nice girl, I read her blog often. What she needs to remember though is that she is young (a teenager) and the Bible says that it is up to the OLDER women to teach the younger. I think you’re a great girl that loves the Lord Rebekah but I will caution you to just be careful in how you say things.
July 14, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Cindy K,
Thanks for the link to the newest article on Taliban Rising. It was very good.
In it, she referenced a CD by Doug Phillips on developing manly men friendships as opposed to the emasculated kind…..I guess.
When you follow the link in the article, there is sound clip from part of the CD.
Interesting stuff. Phillips blames men not being able to develop manly man friendships with other men because of working women. Surprise!!!! Not.
Who knew that masculinity was so very fragile and so very much like a rare delicate flower that withers in the sunlight?
Men, also, can no longer comport themselves as men and treat women like sisters because they are forced to work alongside them as equals.
And here I thought that one went to work in order to WORK? I thought developing deep and meaningful friendships was to be done on my own time and not on my employer’s time? It just shows me how little I know about the real manly man world.
Who opposes manly friendships? That is just not true. This is just more of the same old patriocentric propaganda. Men are free to be manly men if they want to be. They need to start acting like men and stop blaming women for their own insecurities and effeminacy.
Here is the quote from the clip on the VF site:
“I would like to suggest that we have lost manly friendships, in part, because our lifestyle and the culture of the modern world is in opposition to manly friendships. Our workforce does everything it possibly can to destroy manly friendships. Can I tell you that manly friendships will not emerge in a co-ed working environment. They cannot emerge. Because an environment where men and women are competing one with another or having intimate relationships one with another and men are no longer acting as protectors and defenders…as deferential, taking on the roles that God has laid before them in Scripture, the nature of the relationships change. The way men comport themselves change. The opportunity for men to walk with men in a manly manner changes and men become emasculated. What I have just said to you is fighting words in evangelical churches all across America. I’ve just drawn the line in the sand just by questioning the cultural milieu. But I submit to you today, that we don’t have deep, rich, meaningful friendships because we have set aside the culture of the Christian family. And our modern culture is in opposition to Christian culture. We’re missing something. And we are missing the kind of relationships that should characterize the roles of brothers and sisters in Christ, men and women. Where men look at their sisters in Christ with a form of deference and spiritual love, as if they are true sisters that should be defended and cared for and spoken of with the most noble of terms. “
July 14, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Rebekah’s comment in 284 got me thinking. I believe that beauty is such a profounder and more mysterious thing that we often realize. I have many girl and women friends who wear pants regularly and I don’t feel they are covering up their beauty at all – they wear these clothes so that they can function easier in the wonderful lives they live for God. They look good in dresses too, but it doesn’t matter what they wear – it’s the light and love in their faces that I think of when I think of them. God made them and God defines them – not whatever garment they happen to be wearing. Beauty ultimately springs from the spirit, and even if these women were stripped of their clothes by poverty or a rapist, covered in mud and blood, or any manner of repulsive things, they would still be beautiful. Beauty is so strong that nothing can cover it or hide it – certainly not a two-legged garment.
And I don’t care whether feminists started wearing pants – I am not afraid of any mistakes they made, and I accept any good they did. But no everyday woman even means to be a feminist or thinks of a controversy a hundred years ago when she puts on her pants – so I think it is a moot point about feminism and pants to begin with. And about it making us look like men – who defines what is male and female in the first place? Do we even know? Can we not just let God know that and be dynamic human beings for Him?
July 14, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Rebekah,
“Having said that, I’m not saying at all that I believe ALL women at ALL times in ALL cultures should wear ONLY skirts and dresses. I don’t believe that! For instance, if we lived in Scotland, and all the men over there ever wore were kilts, then women shouldn’t wear skirts in that country! That would be sinful androgyny(which the Lord detests)! Rather, women in that country should wear pants or whatever else is distinctly feminine in that country. God calls women to not do anything to deminish their God-given femininity.”
Really?
It would be “sinful androgyny” for Scottish women to wear skirts if the men so CHOSE to wear skirts?
So, the men are the ones who decide what is men’s wear and what is women’s wear, not God, then?
That is what you are saying. If the men like to wear skirts, then a woman wearing a skirt would be sinful but if the men like to wear pants, then women need to wear skirts? Very confusing.
I know the Bible does not allow men to make up their own rules and then pass them off as mandates for others.
Pants are NOT men’s wear. For most of history, men and women wore the same thing- robes. Yes, there are distinctions. My husband would not be caught dead wearing my pants. I look every bit the female in pants as I do in a skirt. There would be no mistaking that I am “distinctly female”. In fact, most women I see wearing pants look like women and the men look like men and I am not confused at all.
There are the rare few who do look androgynous and I have a hard time figuring out what sex they are. Kind of like the “Pat” skits on Saturday Night Live. But that is so rare that it really is not an issue.
The Bible does not say that pants are for men. Nor does it say kilts are for men. Nor does it say that skirts/dresses are for women.
Look at England a few hundred years ago. Men were wearing the equivalent of capris, high heeled shoes with buckles, long, curly wigs, blouses with ruffles….all quite feminine.
I will not allow a man to dictate to me what I should wear nor will I allow a man to define my clothing for me as a woman. I am very proud of the fact that I am a woman and I do NOT want to be a man and my clothes reflect my femininity, whether I am in pants or a skirt.
If a man wants to wear a skirt, that will not stop me from wearing one. If a man wants to wear pants, that will not stop me from wearing my pants. I have no idea why we are allowing men and the traditions of men to define our clothing choices and that we should be subject to such faddish, cultural trends just because.
July 14, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Beatrice,
Let me assure you that I do NOT for one minute believe that women are spiritually inferior either! The Scriptures do not anywhere teach that or condone that false idea. Gal. 3 says that men and women are equal….the are clearly equal in worth, in dignity, in value, in spirituality, etc. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t men who have more spiritual knowledge than certain women, and vise versa. Having said that, that does not mean that they aren’t different or that they don’t have different roles, for they very clearly do. You and your brother are equal in the sight of your parents, but the two of you are clearly different in areas, and probably have different roles in the home-different chores perhaps,etc.
The reason women are not to be pastors, is because God is a God of order and back in Gen., He created the order He wanted in society. Before the fall and before the curse, male leadership was put into place. I will be doing a post on my blog in the (hopefully) near future explaining this and showing why it’s true. But, for the sake of clarity right now, I will explain some ways we KNOW male leadership was God’s desire and existed before the fall.
First off, Adam named Eve. In Hebrew culture at the time of the writing of Gen., much importance was placed on names, who named who, etc. Always, the one who named another had authority over that person, animal, or whatever. Adam named Eve. This shows male headship, and would have been quite evident to those reading this book at the time it was written. Secondly, humanity is called Mankind or Man. Thirdly, God spoke to Adam first after the Fall. Fourthly, the command to not eat of the Tree was given before Eve was even created-thus, it’s evident that the responsibility was given to Adam to teach his wife the commands and ways of the Lord. These are just some of the ways we know male headship was originated in the Book of Genesis(or the Book of Beginnings). I will elaborate on these and others in my future post, so I encourage you to be looking for that.
In Christ,
Rebekah
http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Beatrice,
Great points about women and wearing pants.
I think of the long hair and beards and the blue jeans of the 60’s. That was a cultural statement but it is no longer even though Bill Gothard teaches that beard-wearing men make people think they are “rebellious” to authority. So NOT true.
Do we look at men in blue jeans and beards and think that they are rebels? No.
Then why should we look at women who are wearing pants and think they are radical feminists?
July 14, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Cindy K.(comment 285),
I disagree with this man as well, if that’s what he truly said and meant. Jesus was fully man, yet fully God while on earth. He did not empty Himself of His equality with God-He WAS God! So, I disagree with this man as well, and I did not say any such thing(like he did) in the comment I left. Therefore, I don’t see why you would necessarily disagree with what I said. Perhaps, there was some clarity needed.
At the same time, 1 Corin. 11 does say that the head of God is Christ, which is what we saw in the Garden of Gasthemane. But you can have a authority/submission relationship, and still be equal in worth, deity, etc.
In Him,
Rebekah
http://www.byhisgraceandforhisglory.blogspot.com
July 14, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hi Rebekah,
It may be hard for you to put yourself in my place – but while I believe that many who believe in male leadership would NEVER say or even believe (though I can’t see hearts) that women are spiritually inferior – things they imply (without realizing it, very likely) and other very hurtful things do give off that message that women are lesser.
I have go now and will be gone some of the day – but I do have one question – why can’t Adam just have named Eve because he loved her? Have you never named or nicknamed anyone or anything you loved? Or were you trying to express leadership over the person or thing?
July 14, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Corrie(#293),
I do not believe that all women who wear pants are radical femininsts-I never said such a thing! Some obviously are, but by no means all! Neither do I believe that men today that have beards and wear blue jeans are rebellious. My own pastor has a beard and sometimes wears blue jeans during the week!
My point was that we musn’t do anything to deminish our femininity and that men musn’t do anything to deminish their masculinity.
July 14, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Rebekah,
The “men named above” teach that woman is the indirect and the derivative image of God. Man is made directly in God’s image and woman is made directly in man’s image. She is one step removed in their eyes. As a result, people like John MacArthur teach that a woman cannot speak the same Word of God with the same effectiveness as a man under the same conditions because she is so much lesser than a man. This is why she cannot fully bear the Image of God. This is also why the folks at Vision Forum teach that a woman needs a man for spiritual sanctification. They make it sound as pretty as they can, but how can man who is totally depraved with a heart that is so wicked that no one can know it — helpless to help himself become holy — make another human being holy? That’s idolatry. We have no intercessor. If you can find one other verse in the Bible other than that blatant misrepresentation of Numbers 30 to support that women need men for sanctification, let me know. There aren’t any other such verses, and that twist on Ephesians is not what the Bible says. It was not even remotely true of Judaism, let alone Christianity until these characters dreamed it up. Some of it came from the Confederate Presbyterians and the rest started with George Knight III’s book in 1977.
July 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm
“My mother and I were looking through the JCPenney fall/winter catalogue we got in the mail today. It was so saddening seeing beautiful females cover up their femininity in men’s clothing! There was a beautiful lady wearing a jacket that looked like it could have come from my father’s closet along with cargo pants that looked like men’s as well. It was really sad! This women had beautiful feminine hair and a pleasant face. But when you looked at her clothing, that’s where all the gorgeous beauty ended, because her femininity wasn’t there. She looked androgynous-her hair was feminine, her clothes weren’t. This is why I’m so passionate about this subject.”
This is sad because it reminds me of the ugly judgmentalism that was so rampant in my own thoughts when I was entrenched in the patriarchal movement. Always examining OTHER women and judging and measuring them based on external standards imposed upon me by others.
I have the JC Penneys catalogue and I flipped through there and I do not see women who look like men at all. They all look distinctly female. A woman’s purpose is not to be gorgeous any more than it is a man’s purpose to be Guy Studly.
I could never look at another woman without judging her and whether she measured up to the patrio-standards of femininity and dress.
A woman’s gorgeous beauty does not end because she wears cargo pants.
This reminds me of the airport and shopping mall exercises that we used to do in the ATI curriculum with my children. My older ones still remember us sitting in the van outside of Walmart looking at people and commenting on how they were dressed or how they walked or how they looked. I still feel the sting of shame to this day remembering how I fell for this stuff.
It went against my better judgment and I will never again allow those with an agenda to control my thinking.
July 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Corrie and I are both gloriously feminine in pants, BTW!
July 14, 2008 at 12:55 pm
With the whole “being equal yet having different roles” thing. Just think for a moment about the Trinity. God the Father did not die on the cross(in a sense anyway-the whole “being 3 yet 1″ is sometimes baffling to the human mind!). Jesus, the Son did that. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter-that’s His specific role but not necessarily the Father’s. They are all fully equal yet have different roles-just like in the marriage relationship. That’s sometimes hard to grasp with our finite minds, but it’s true nonetheless.
July 14, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Corrie(#298),
If I came across as being judgemental, I’m very sorry! I never meant to be that way. I am judgemental at times because I’m a sinful human, but I have no desire to be that way. We didn’t look throught the catalogue to see how we could pick those women apart because of what they’re wearing. We were looking for items we may want to purchase, and just happened to come across some pictures where it appeared that women were dressing very closely to women. We weren’t opening the catalogue to see if that was the case.
Again, please forgive me for coming across as judgemental-that was the furthest thing from my mind.
Alao, I wasn’t saying that women have a responsibility to be gorgeous!
July 14, 2008 at 12:59 pm
typo! I meant women dressing very closely to men. sorry!
July 14, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Cindy K.,
You know it, girlfriend!!!
Not to mention gorgeous, too!
Rebekah,
I didn’t say that you said that.
My point was that we cannot allow our culture to dictate to us. That is what you are doing when you say that if a culture wears skirts, the women can’t.
We also can’t choose things based on the past. Just because it was associated with something bad in the past does not make it bad. That was the point Beatrice was making.
I don’t think we should diminish our femininity, either. I don’t see how wearing pants will do this for a woman any more than a kilt will do this for a man.
You stated that the men get to choose the fashion and women have to wear the opposite. I don’t see that supported by scripture.
If men started wearing evening gowns, would we women have to wear tuxedos?
July 14, 2008 at 1:02 pm
“This is sad because it reminds me of the ugly judgmentalism that was so rampant in my own thoughts when I was entrenched in the patriarchal movement. Always examining OTHER women and judging and measuring them based on external standards imposed upon me by others.”
That’s exactly what I thought too Corrie. Why can’t the VF “skirts only” followers just focus on the person and their heart.
I Samuel 16:7- for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
July 14, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Rebekah,
I believe you’ve bought into a dangerous lie. I don’t know how else to say it. Lay aside these teachings and read only the Word of God for a period. Don’t read anybody’s anything else.
Read Genesis and write out what it actually says there. Discern for yourself what it really says there. What they tell you it says is not written there, they read it into the text. If Adam was responsible for Eve, why didn’t God challenge Adam in his punishment? If Eve was supposed to be lead by Adam, why did God not challenge her and rebuke her from disobeying and usurping Adam’s role? God didn’t ever say those things and He certainly would have if that’s what we were to understand. But it’s not written and we can only build doctrine on what we know is written.
You didn’t comment on what you thought about turning off these teachings and fasting from them for a time, reading only the Bible. Don’t read anything but the Bible for a time.
Ask yourself why no Christian prior to 1977 believed that gender was directly tied to Christ’s Deity? What sets these men who started publishing books after 1977 apart from all the Christian minds who came before them?
July 14, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Rebekah,
You seem like a very nice and thoughtful girl and I mean nothing personally.
It is just that people entrenched in the patriarchal movement have no idea how their thoughts permeate everything, including how they view others, no matter how unfairly. The teachings of this movement skew everything and it really changes the way you view the world around you.
That is a danger and it wasn’t until I was out of it that I saw how off I was.
Of course I was never “judgmental”, either, but I really was, no matter how nice I was about it. It is just something that can’t be helped when one has the patriarchal mindset.
I would highly recommend using critical thinking skills and examine EVERYTHING you are taught as truth. I mean EVERYTHING. Compare all that you are taught with scripture. This is what is missing in the patriarchal movement.
July 14, 2008 at 1:11 pm
About women wearing pants….
Since Corrie has already established for us that the Scriptures don’t require women to wear only dresses and Rebekkah has established that her views are, at the core, based on man’s views of what women and men are supposed to wear, I want to look at this in another way.
There is a phrase that is used in law that refers to “the reasonable person” that is, your average person in this culture and how he responds to facts. And lets be that reasonable person just for one minute.
If the reasonable person sees a person who has feminine hair and make-up and jewelry and that person is also wearing pants, what does that reasonable person think? That he is looking at a woman or another man? It is silly to think that wearing pants defines someone as masculine.
My father-in-law was big into the family Scottish heritage and liked to attend the Clan Campbell gatherings. One time he took my husband and sons along with him and he came to get them dressed in full regalia. He wasn’t in Scotland, he was in Canton, Illinois. He was wearing knee socks, extremely large ones at that because he was 6′3″ tall and weighed about 350 pounds at the time. Now do yo think there there is a reasonable person who would have driven past our house at the time and saw this man in his kilt in the front yard and thought it was a woman because he was wearing a skirt and skirts are supposed to be feminine attire?
In fact, in our culture today, women usually wear pants and are considered to be women, and quite feminine at that. And men where I live carry man bags, which are like shoulder bags, a style that came from Europe a few years ago. It makes more sense to me than carrying a brief case. Does this mean that they look like girls? That they aren’t masculine? I don’t think any reasonable person believes this and trying to superimpose Scripture on peoples’ preferences is what the Pharisees did, not what we ever see Jesus doing.
July 14, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Cindy K(#297),
I have the John MacArthur study Bible. He firmly believes that both women and men were created in the image of God-it says so in Gen.!
Period. At the same time, he also believes what is said in 1 Corin. 11 about man being the glory of God and woman being the glory of man. Here’s what he says on 1 Corin. 11:7: “Though men and women were both created in the image of God, it is man who bears the glory of God uniquely by his role.” Meaning, headship and leadership.
Also, if you listen to MacArthur, he does NOT believe that women are less than men. He praises his wife Patricia and says that she’s far better than he is.
Thirdly, you’re right-our only intercessor is Christ. This is what Vision Forum, John MacArthur, and our family believe. You’re misunderstanding what they’re saying. Here is John MacArthur’s own note on Ephes. 5:23: “As the Lord delivered His Church from the dangers of sin, death and hell, so the husband provides for, protects, preserves and loves his wife, leading her to blessing as she submits.” On verses 26 and 27 he writes: “This speaks of the love of Christ for His Church. Saving grace makes believers holy by the agency of the Word of God so that they may be a pure bride. For husbands to love their wives as Christ does His church, demands a purifying love. Since devine love seeks to completely cleanse those who are loved from every form of sin and evil, a Christian husband should not be able to bear the thought of anything sinful in the life of his wife that displeases God. His greatest desire for her should be that she become perfectly conformed to Christ, so he leads her to purity.” Meaning, basically, that he would keep her from polluting influences, sin, etc. This is what fathers(and mothers!) do for their children-they try to keep sin from the home. This is what MacArthur and others are clearly referring to, without a shadow of a doubt. They’re NOT saying that a husband can save his wife or a father his daughter. That would be blasphemy! He’s saying that the husband or father should seek to keep his family pure and unpolluted as much as possible. Here is MacArthur again, this time writing on 1 Cor. 7:14: “This does not refer to salvation; otherwise, the spouse would not be spoken of as unbelieving. The sanctification is matrimonial and familial, not personal or spiritual, and means that the unsaved partner is set apart for temporal blessing because the other belongs to God. One Christian in a marriage brings grace that spills over on the spouse-even possibly leading them to salvation.”
And that is what he actually believes, not that men save their families spiritually. Now your mind can be set at ease, I hope.
It is now time for lunch, so I’m leaving and will be back later to respond further.
In Him always,
Rebekah
July 14, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Boy, I hate when stuff posts before I get a chance to respond and then I miss comments in the fray.
Rebekah,
I meant nothing personal. Corrie and I are girly and have leftover dreams of Jessica McClintock’s Gunniesack peasant dress craze in our blood. I have a personal fettish for leg-o-mutton and doloman sleeves (I think they’re called) which look very Victorian, in fact.
I agree with Beatrice that it is an internal thing, and I could likely look wonderfully feminine in masculine clothing. So much emphasis is put on the outer significance, it all smells to me of what is more akin to dead mens tombs full of dead men’s bones. I’m no man, don’t want to be a man and don’t look anything like a man, slacks or no! I’ve never desired or attempted to downplay my femininity. I don’t think it’s possible!
July 14, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“My mother and I were looking through the JCPenney fall/winter catalogue we got in the mail today. It was so saddening seeing beautiful females cover up their femininity in men’s clothing! There was a beautiful lady wearing a jacket that looked like it could have come from my father’s closet along with cargo pants that looked like men’s as well. It was really sad! This women had beautiful feminine hair and a pleasant face. But when you looked at her clothing, that’s where all the gorgeous beauty ended, because her femininity wasn’t there. She looked androgynous-her hair was feminine, her clothes weren’t. This is why I’m so passionate about this subject.”
You know, I really relate to what Rebekah is sharing. When I was in the patrio camp, I had similar experiences. I remember when I thought that headcoverings were for today (long time ago): I would literally not be able to concentrate on what was going on in the church, because I would see all those uncovered heads and be filled with genuine grief.
This is one of the reasons why I would say that the patrio camp is idolatrous. Our God grieves over the widow and the orphan (says the Scripture, over and over and over again). I am grieving over the lack of “godly” gender order (that I think He wants) and He is grieving over the fact that a bunch of orphaned refugees just died of starvation and none of us know or care.
In the Gospels, we see no outrage from Christ over gender roles. We see Him bucking the tide, actually, and doing a lot of things with women that “good men” weren’t supposed to do (like let married women leave their husbands at home and travel around with Him, etc).
When Jesus did get outraged, it was because the poor were being taken advantage of, and because religous leaders were feeling righteous because of what they did.
In all, there is just too much to get into regarding why I can love the Bible and yet see it saying something very different from what Rebekah’s parents are teaching her. When you read the Bible under that paradigm, it’s very difficult to see it saying anything else at all.
Rebekah, if you would like to hear why egalitarians can strongly believe the Bible yet don’t see it supporting Vision Forum’s world, I’d recommend “Disovering Biblical Equality.” It’s a scholarly work, but you certainly appear to have the brains for that kind of thing. At the very least, it would help you get why many Christians feel that Vision Forum is really off track, even if you don’t agree. I also found a lot of food for thought in the book, “Why Not Women?” by the leader of YWAM. Really delves into the Bible and explains some of the real difficulties with the way that Vision Forum types interpret the women passages.
Warmly,
Molly
July 14, 2008 at 1:26 pm
For husbands to love their wives as Christ does His church, demands a purifying love. Since devine love seeks to completely cleanse those who are loved from every form of sin and evil, a Christian husband should not be able to bear the thought of anything sinful in the life of his wife that displeases God.
Ah.
I lived this.
It was one of the most damaging things that patriarchy brought into our relationship. Truly.
Basically, the husband is told he is to be the Holy Spirit to the wife. What the Holy Spirit is to do in our lives, now the husband is to do.
The funny thing is that Ephesians 5 never tells husbands to do that. It says that Christ did that for His Church, and the point is that He was *so* loving that He got her ready for the marriage.
In this time period, women were to prepare themselves (with their friends/family) for the groom’s arrival, yet in our case (the church), we couldn’t prepare ourselves. Christ did it all for us, as Ephesians 1 and 2 delightedly exclaim. HE made us pure, HE made us that spotless bride.
Paul is showing husbands the kind of love that Christ has for the church: He does His job and He even does hers—-He doesn’t expect to be served, He served her.
That humans take this to mean that a husband is to be the Holy Spirit to his wife…is a gross misinterpretation of a text that doesn’t even say that a human husband is to wash and cleanse his wife spiritually in the first place.
July 14, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Rebekah,
You’re mistaken.
Listen to John MacArthur in his own words.
Some are posted on this website. The others are on my blog, but you can purchase McArthur’s sermons to hear his comments in his own voice if you don’t believe what is written in the transcripts of his sermons on his blog that link from the post of quotes on my blog.
I havent put any words in anyone’s mouth!
http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2007/08/17/are-womens-gifts-