The Annual Easter Dinner of Leavened Bread

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. ² And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

³ For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.⁴ When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵ you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— ¹⁰ not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹² For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? ¹³ God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

St. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth that the unrepentant sinner should be cast out and excluded for the sinner’s sake: “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”, and so that he must face God and His judgment.

Christians today (including us) abhor this idea. We favor of the idea that we must preserve a sinner’s flesh and pretend his soul will be saved. We’d rather they don’t suffer, perhaps never meet God, die, and go to Hell. We think its better if we keep them in our hands than deliver them to the wisdom, justice, and (yes) mercy of God’s hands.

We celebrate the festival of Christ’s resurrection with the old leaven of malice and evil by making those the weights against which we measure our words and actions instead of choosing words and actions which have been measured according to  their truth and sincerity. If someone asked us we’d deny it, but when we make decisions based on what won’t upset the other guests, or won’t cause someone hurt feelings, or won’t make us look like judgmental hypocrites, then guess what? That is the measure of the old leaven of malice and evil.

God, have mercy on me.

Homefront Tactics Roundtable II: Your Mother and Stepfather and Thanksgiving

Your mother and father divorced when you were young. She married another man sometime later, but there wasn’t much if anything you could do about it. You didn’t even know there could be a problem from a Biblical perspective.

You are grown and learned and you have decided to accept the Bible’s teaching on marriage and remarriage. Now it is Thanksgiving, and your mother and step-father have invited the whole family over for Thanksgiving.

What do you do?

Homefront Tactics Roundtable I: Your Sister Divorced Her Husband

We needs solutions and I have top-notch commentors on Christian family life. I have an idea.

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Your sister divorced her husband.

He was shiftless; quick to relax, slow to work and often slow to replace a lost job. An apathetic father, he didn’t discipline their two children much, but he didn’t abuse them either. Your sister was safe from him as well since his response to conflict was to go watch television in another room.

What do you do?

Edited to add: I should clarify that I’m not asking for a prediction. I don’t want to know what you think you would do. I want to know what you think a man should do.

Foolish and Worldly Talk, by Okrahead

After my last post Okrahead had a great comment.  I asked him to expand into a guest post. It’s very good. 

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GW commented on Dalrock, and was then addressed by Cane, on the issue of young Christian women “whoring around,” and whther are not “loving Christian fathers” are okay with it; as Cane observed GW’s “coup de grace” was that this is “foolish and worldly talk.”

This statement caused me to reflect on what “foolish and worldly talk” really is in relation to what many churches teach young women today.  First, we need to be aware of what wise and spiritual talking is so we can tell the difference.  In Titus 2 the apostle Paul commands that the older women are to “teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children.  To be discreet, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”  (Titus 2:4, 5) In 1 Timothy 5 Paul addresses some young widows who apparently wanted to be strong, independent women who didn’t need a man, ordering them “I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.  For some have already turned aside after Satan.”  (I Tim. 5:14, 15)

What I find striking is that Paul specifically forbids the actions and attitudes that lead to the lifestyle of “finding herself”, or as Dalrock wryly noted, the “season of singleness.”  Paul describes young women who pursue the “season of singleness” as following Satan, even though they were members of the church.

What then might truly be foolish and worldly talk?  Foolish and worldly talk, as practiced in many churches today, as I have seen and heard first hand, is encouraging young women to put off marriage for college and career.  If a young woman loses her virginity at 17 on prom night the members of her church may act mildly embarrassed and titter, but few see it as a real problem.  If a young woman from that same church stays a virgin until her wedding night at age 18 the church will be scandalized; especially if she is a bright and pretty girl with “good college prospects.”  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk, as I have seen and heard first hand in churches I have attended, is when Christian fathers send their 18 year old daughters off alone to a college campus in a far off city where they will be surrounded by sexual immorality and expected to join in with the general bacchanalia.  She may be drunk and passed out in a frat house, but at least she’s in college and unmarried.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk, as I have seen first hand, is churches that discourage young Christians from getting married because they “aren’t ready yet,” and who mock Christian families who have “too many” children, often with snide remarks such as “don’t they know what causes that yet?”  It would be unthinkable in these churches to criticize a “godly single mother” who has a brood of bastards in tow when she shows up looking for a handout, but a young married woman who has never asked a dime of anyone at the church is fair game for ridicule because she and her husband believe that children are a gift from the Lord.  Truly, they call good evil and evil good.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is the practice by some Christian fathers of teaching their daughters from an early age that they must get as much education as possible, and advance their careers as far as possible, because there is no way that they can count on their future husbands to support them; because these good Christian fathers just know deep down that all those awful young men are going to leave their daughters destitute and abandon them, so it is imperative in them to inculcate distrust and disrespect for their daughters’ future Christian husbands as early as possible.  I have seen this one up close and personal; the fall out is more ugly than I can describe, but he was a good Christian father so what can I say?  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is the good Christian father, who together with his good Christian wife, calls their good Christian teenage daughter in and tells her how much they really, really trust her; but just to be on the safe side they are putting her on the pill.  They know she’ll always make good choices, but just in case she doesn’t, the pill will be there to save her.  This goes on at pretty much every evangelical church I’ve ever seen.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is defending the practice of sending your daughter to a public high school where the school counselor will provide her with condoms and advice on the best ways to be sodomized; and where the English teacher she really admires and looks up to is also sponsor for the gay-straight alliance club, and will happily introduce her to a cute lesbian just her age.  Of course this never happens at your local public high school; just some far off place.  I see good Christian fathers sending their good Christian sons and daughters to those places right now.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is defending the fact that you sent your daughter to prom dressed as a high dollar hooker.  Or defending the fact that you rented her a hotel room for her after party so that she would be in a “safe place.”  Because after all, you really, really trust her, but just in case she makes a mistake, at least she’s on the pill, and is headed off to a good college next fall and is definitely not getting married any time soon.  I have seen all this first hand for more than thirty years now, going back to when I was a teen and so many of my good Christian friends had these wonderful experiences provided by their parents.  This is foolish and worldly.

Foolish and worldly talk is members of the church mocking young women who somehow find the strength to resist the culture and set their hearts and souls to follow Paul’s admonitions.  Good Christian men and women, men and women with whom I prayed and sang hymns, mocking that strange young woman who has a head covering, who married young and never got to go to college, who has four or five young children, who makes a public show of being deferential and respectful to her husband.  She’s so odd.  I wonder if she’ll show up in a prairie jumper next week?  It’s so sad that she missed out on life.  This is what their own good Christian daughters here them say of such a woman.  God forgive me, in ignorance I did so as well.  No more.  Because this is foolish and worldly.

DoW IV: No Good Words for Bad Deeds

This is the final post in this series Discussion on Whores.It is long and full of Bible quotes. I believe them to be necessary, but perhaps someone else could have summarized more succinctly. Frustratingly, this won’t be the last time we have to deal with it because sentiments like below are everywhere in Christian culture:

Certainly not all young females who delay marriage do so because they want to fornicate with multiple men, and in the church this demographic is rarer. Normal women tend to want to get married. The number of loving Christian fathers who are okay with their daughters whoring around is zero. Let’s put aside foolish and worldly talk.

The bolded part is meant to be a coup de grâce for the whole conversation on why Christian women have the reputation for being whores. It is a reference to this passage of Ephesians 4:

²⁹ Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Good stuff, but I do not believe that God (through St. Paul) gave us this command to keep us from right thought and speech about corrupted things. Like the vast majority of Christians, GW lifted this one verse out of its context; which is much larger; in fact the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5:

4 ²⁵ Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. ²⁶ Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷ and give no opportunity to the devil. ²⁸ Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. ²⁹ Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. 

5 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. ² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

³ But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. ⁴ Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. ⁵ For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ⁶ Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. ⁷ Therefore do not become partners with them; ⁸ for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), ¹⁰ and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. ¹² For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. ¹³ But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, ¹⁴ for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

The bold part is what this blog is all about. I am sure that at times I am guilty of corrupting talk, but what Christians mean when they bring up Ephesians 4:29 is “Shut up! It sounds dirty when you bring the works of darkness into the light! The way of women is upon her. She’s not choosing to be disrespectful to her father and filthy. She’s just the way God made her.” Like Rachel, they want to hide their beloved household gods of romance and female headship under the cover of filthiness.

³³ So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the tent of the two female servants, but he did not find [his household idols]. And he went out of Leah’s tent and entered Rachel’s. ³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban felt all about the tent, but did not find them. ³⁵ And she said to her father, “Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you, for the way of women is upon me.” So he searched but did not find the household gods.

I do not believe God meant us to avoid clear speech on sin. Here is God, speaking through His prophet Ezekiel about the kingdoms of Israel and Judah:

⁵ “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors ⁶ clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. ⁷ She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. ⁸ She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her.

[…]

¹¹ “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. […] ¹⁸ When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. ¹⁹ Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt ²⁰ and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. ²¹ Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.”

Ezekiel wrote figuratively about the kingdoms. [1] What I write about (and the term Dalrock used which prompted GW’s comment: “cock carousel”) are these exact filthy acts which actually occur among confessing Christians at a rate which is much closer to 100% than to 0%. It is the pathetic case that Biblical teaching has been totally crushed among American Christians because we prefer worldly notions of success to Christ, and all Christians can do is refuse to talk about it, hope no one notices, and rebuke those who bring into the light one of the 90%+ cases.

Most of us are or will be married to former whores; like Hosea except that most of us weren’t any better. So don’t miss Hosea’s lessons because of silly sentiments.

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[1] See more here.

For Everyone’s Sake: Win

I want to redirect a little bit from Dalrock’s post The perfect response to Patrairchy Chicken in which he highlighted a response from commenter Junkyard Dawg:

That actually happened to me a number of years ago. I was in a park where there is a wide walking path. People walking toward one another from opposite directions usually each moved to the right (like on the roads) to let one another pass. I saw a woman coming my way and moved all the way to the right, to the edge of the path. I soon saw that she had no intention of moving and she also was all the way over on the right (in her case, the left), and for sure, I was not going to step off onto the grass to let her pass, nor move to the center of the path – why should I?

I didn’t know how I was going to handle it, as she was almost face to face and I didn’t have much time to consider. But just seconds before, I stopped, put on a big spontaneous smile and said, “Good morning, how are you?” (We were now both standing still, face-to-face, about a foot apart.) This apparently was unexpected and she seemed to come to her senses, said, “OK,” and then moved over and kept going, and I resumed walking.

Dalrock added:

This is perfect, because it defeats the passive aggressive intent of the “empowerment” and forces the ugly feminist to choose one of three responses:

1. State outright that she is playing childish power games.
2. Go around.
3. Engage in a friendly conversation.

If she chooses option 1, you can then respond with appropriate amusement.  But chances are she will do as the ugly feminist did in Junkyard Dawg’s experience and move out of the way.  Option three isn’t ideal, but keep in mind that being friendly is pure torture to an ugly feminist, so no matter how much you would prefer not to talk to one, she is far more bothered by being polite than you are.

It is also possible that she wasn’t actually an ugly feminist at all, but instead just not paying attention.  Note that this response is perfect for that scenario as well.

As Dalrock notes, this is an excellent response, but often the best response doesn’t come to us in the moment. I have a rule that I keep and tell other men; especially younger men and boys.

Never arm wrestle a woman. If you win: Then, big whoop, you beat a girl. If you lose: You got beat by a girl. But if you do: Win.

Here’s what I suggest men should keep in mind even if the response is less than perfect: Win. It is best not to fight with women if for no other reason than we men who are not raging psychopaths do not like the feel of it, but if she is bound and determined to have a confrontation with you: Win.

You can get lost in caveats and exceptions (and if you want to do so in the comments, go nuts) but in our liberal and egalitarian democracy there are few stations in life to be respected. This is a failure of our culture. Our correction of the economy of respect must start at the fundamentals.

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HT: Dalrock and Junkyard Dawg

DoW III: A Disagreeable Game

Carrying on from the two previous posts in the series, we’ll look GW’s second objection from his comment at Dalrock’s:

Certainly not all young females who delay marriage do so because they want to fornicate with multiple men, and in the church this demographic is rarer. Normal women tend to want to get married. The number of loving Christian fathers who are okay with their daughters whoring around is zero. Let’s put aside foolish and worldly talk.

Unlike the first two sentences, the third is a kind of word-choice Gotcha! trick instead of  misleading statements. (Follow the first two links for my meaning of misleading.) The design here is to drag you into a game of word tennis so that you can no longer have the time or energy to follow the target.

If you ask a loving father if he wants his daughter to be a whore, he’ll say no; very likely he will emphasize the response with anger and disgust. So, GW’s statement sounds true enough. But, in America, fathers who love their daughters regularly and routinely allow their daughters to descend into Dorm Brothels. They not only allow it, but cultivate in their daughters an aspiration and love for campus life. If he suspects that she is not chaste, he will ignore it unless it is shoved in his face; which his daughter knows and so will take pains to avoid until she is sufficiently comfortable that she can disregard his disapproval. If he cannot ignore her sleeping around, then he will invent for himself soothing statements like, “Well, at least she’s with her boyfriend and not just anybody.”

And not only campus life, but whatever desire she wishes to follow as long as it is not lived at the service of a man until she is ready to give-up on chasing her dream and have her Best Life Ever “cut short” in marriage. If she lives with her boyfriend, her father may not approve, but he will still invite her and her boyfriend to come around. He will not reclaim the car he gave her. He won’t bring up her whoring at family gatherings because technically–he soothes himself–she’s earning her money at work. It doesn’t count if her boyfriend pays half her rent and food. Better yet if the boyfriend a layabout: No one can say that she’s taking a man’s dick for the money when she’s paying for everything! Come to think of it (he tells himself ironically): That boy needs to learn to be a man and pay his non-whore when she’s screwing him.

If his daughter marries one of them (there are almost always more than one screwed boyfriend in the past if there is one), and then later divorces him, her father will take her side because he will feel she needs support in her time of desertion.All those past feelings of her boyfriend-cum-husband’s worthlessness will boil back to the surface. He will “remember” how the boyfriend just used her for sex while she was supposed to be out living her Best Life Ever and then abused her emotions and sentiments to trick her to cut short that life in a marriage that he fooled her to desire.

It is at this point that the word-tennis is played. GW, or someone like him, will respond to all this by saying, “Well, that father wasn’t really loving. If he were really loving then he wouldn’t have let her do those things.” If someone like him is steeped in Christian conservative culture he may well add that if such a father had been loving enough, then she wouldn’t have wanted in the first place to go out whoring in the world. In a moment of cynical rhetoric the father’s investment of time and money and compassion otherwise are wholly discounted by men like GW.

That’s not a just judgment of the situation, but at the same time it’s true that the loving thing to do isn’t to excuse or ignore the daughter whoring around. The point of the statement is to keep the conversation from progressing; to keep anyone from asking, “Hey, maybe we need to actually discipline, rebuke, and punish our daughters in both word and deed?” If you ask that, and seek the answer, you’ll see the impotence of the Christian conservative culture which is on display all around us.

No Real Post This Week

Truck is still not starting properly, but it has been started.

Second interview for new job was yesterday. I’m supposed to hear back today. If I get it, life becomes much simpler as I will be able to resume normal human operating hours.

Gimme a Second!

This is a filler post to let y’all know I haven’t gone away or lost the thread. I’ll write DoW III this weekend or early next week. Right now I’m hunting for a new job and also working on my beloved Excursion; which nears a score of years in age and needs some lovin’.

DoW II: Diversity Plus Proximity Equals Whore

Carrying on from the previous post in the series, we’ll look GW’s second objection from his comment at Dalrock’s:

Certainly not all young females who delay marriage do so because they want to fornicate with multiple men, and in the church this demographic is rarer. Normal women tend to want to get married. The number of loving Christian fathers who are okay with their daughters whoring around is zero. Let’s put aside foolish and worldly talk.

Just as with the first sentence (you can read about it by following the first link in this post), the second is, again, factually true, yet still misleading; just as anti-missile flares distract because factually they are hot.

Normal women want to get married, but normal women don’t necessarily get normal  instruction and discipline (by historical standards) to be good wives. It is also quite normal for normal women to want to end their marriages. This is because of sin nature; both what women suffer directly and also what they have to suffer by proximity to their husbands’ sinful natures.

Nature teaches us that women should be submissive to men, and that women are most beautiful when covered. Men grow in stature and their heads are uncovered when at their most manful. This is not true of women, who are covered even at their most feminine; yet they want that kind of manly glory even though it is harmful to them.

Today weddings are practiced in such a way that they begin with a man’s submission to a woman when he bribes her to marry him with expensive jewelry (preferably while kneeling). The wedding proceed as a celebration of her in as full feminine regalia as can be purchased; usually beyond affording. It ends without her declaration to obey him. All of which is to say that a modern wedding conveys no symbolism about the thing it mocks. I mean it has nothing to say about Christian marriage. So why do normal women want to get “married” if they are in rebellion against, or in ignorance of, Christian marriage? Two reasons: They want to be celebrated, and because if she doesn’t get a husband she can’t pursue her sinful desire to rule him. When that doesn’t work out to her satisfaction (It never will; that’s some of the trouble with sin.) she starts thinking that she must have been fooled into marrying the wrong man. She begins to think she needs someone stronger, gentler, kinder, tougher…better. Thus normal women are strongly tempted to entertain the idea that what they need is a new marriage to a new man.

This brings us back to the motivation behind GW’s objection that, “Normal women tend to want to get married.” The unavoidable implication is that generally what normal women need are superior men than what God has provided them from which to choose. It is a statement of encouragement to a woman that they deserve a better man; that in a just world they’d get a man who understands her needs. He is saying women should get a man like him.