More Worthless than an Unrighteous Judge

BillyS writes:

No, modern society is undermining even the women it claims to support by letting them get out of the consequences of almost every one of their bad choices (when it can be shifted to a man instead).

You cannot hold anyone responsible for protecting another if you don’t give him control over that other person. Or technically you can, but the consequence is that you make it impossible for things to ever work.

Churches need to do their job better for sure, but it is working against a culture that promotes the opposite. That is missing from your post.

I agree that women are undermined by modern society and its culture. The first thing I want to point out though is that to talk about modern society and the culture is to talk about the same thing. But that thing isn’t a delineated and sentient forces separate from us. It’s just a shorthand way of talking about the aggregate of our individual choices.

What I did in the last paragraph of the post BillyS commented upon:

 When I think about our American society and how it treats women, I have to conclude that civil government is too permissive, but overall they still uphold their God-ordained mandate to protect (among others) women and their rights. It’s the churches which have failed to teach and discipline Christian men and women towards their Biblical responsibilities. It wasn’t required.

was separate the aggregate into two general groups of authority in America (civil authorities and church authorities), and make a judgment on my observations of them as the operate within their respective spheres.

We can know who is in authority by who we seek out. When a significant crime is committed against Christians we still call the police and follow trials. We still go to city hall to get building permits. We petition that our taxes be used to fix roads, fight fires, and all those things that are part of civic life. When push comes to shove, we still believe in the civil authorities of this world because they continue to demonstrate general competency and–importantly–the will to keep society going.

But increasingly Christians don’t go to church because we have observed that the church doesn’t practice authority over much other than pep talks, daycare, strenuous vacations, and busywork. We don’t go there to get rulings, wisdom, justice, or any of the fruits of authority.

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What Isn’t Believed Isn’t Required

In the Christian Men’s Sphere we put a lot of emphasis on women’s agency, and that is a good thing, generally. We want them to make wise decisions.

At the same time, we must admit that The Author of the Bible did not intend for women to run their own lives unmediated; that the rest of us in Christian society–men and women alike–should just shrug at whatever choices a woman wants to make.

The Author of the NT repeatedly warns us that women are weak, weaker, prone to deception, and unpresentable in ways men are not. These truths don’t mean men are better. It just means men should be in charge, and that women should be under men’s protection.

When I think about our American society and how it treats women, I have to conclude that civil government is too permissive, but overall they still uphold their God-ordained mandate to protect (among others) women and their rights. It’s the churches which have failed to teach and discipline Christian men and women towards their Biblical responsibilities. It wasn’t required.

Enjoy the Chore, not the Decline

Scott is to close his fourth blog to reduce the the tech noise that disrupts his family:

Everyone in my house has their nose in some device, most of the time. And this is true despite all our efforts to “limit” the use of electronics. In and of itself, I suppose consuming whatever it is we are consuming is amoral or a wash, if you will. If we were all using these devices to read Shakespeare and other works of fine literature, it might be justifiable. But that’s not what we are doing.

I come home at night and as soon as I walk in the door–or as soon as I am not being bombarded by my kids–out comes my phone. To check my email. To check to see if anyone has liked or commented on my blog. To see if some argument I am involved in on someone else’s blog has taken any new turns.

I sit and read Bible stories to my kids from the Orthodox advent book we bought–and in between I am doing it again. Or I look up and Mychael is on Pinterest.

TTWHHAK will, as far as I know, stay right here, but his concerns are justified. What we’ve done is cut back on much of what drags us into the attention destroying machine that is the Internet. Months ago I canceled our Netflix subscription.

One of the best things I’ve done is to turn off all the notifications on my phone except for text messages and app updates. Now I check my email maybe once a day, and some days not at all. I also removed my Cane Caldo email account from my phone completely. That account only gets checked every couple days now.

Another thing that has helped in this regard is that I quit smoking back in August. My pattern was: Every hour, or thereabouts, to go outside, light a cigarette, and pull my phone out of my pocket. Once I stopped going outside then my phone use dropped-off dramatically. My old friends that I kept up with on Words with Friends have suffered. I play a word about once a week now.

Instead we read books, play boardgames, and listen to music. We also do a lot more chores (cooking, cleaning, fixing, etc.) together because when you’ve recovered all this time, then who cares if you get your chores done as fast as possible? You have to fill it with something. This is actually a matter of attitude–of the mind ruling the heart. I had to realize that the best thing to do is to decide to enjoy the chore because work is what the living get to do.

Thar Be Monsters in our Sea of Chivalry

Game/MTGOW and Feminism aren’t Christians’ problems except as they appeal to Christians because modern Christian practice is both anti-Christian AND a losing proposition. Our problem is that Christians don’t actually believe in the word of God. They don’t believe that–as whole beings–women are weaker than men…even though we all observe it every day. They don’t believe that it is good that God gave women fathers and husbands to rule them… even though we live in a society of liberated whores. They don’t believe that women are more easily deceived…even though marketing and scams are overwhelmingly aimed at susceptible women.

What Christians actually practice is chivalry because they believe that chivalry is “real” Christianity”. Chivalry is the water in which Feminism and Game/MTGOW swim; what is necessary for their existence. If we want Feminism and Game/MTGOW to go away, we have to destroy the cultural environment created by chivalry.

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Repurposed from this comment at Dalrock’s.

Why It’s Who You Know and Not What

What I want–what authoritarianism just is–is a government in which authority is delegated. That’s so straightforward that, in a way, it’s hard to understand what I mean so let’s compare it to our current system of government: bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is the delegation of the tasks, rather than the delegation of authority itself. That’s why whenever I encounter bureaucracy it is something in my way and never what gets things done for me. That is why the bureaucracy was made. It’s design is to diffuse authority; to dehumanize power and mask responsibility.

Bureaucracy isn’t why you have to stand in line. That’s authority imposing its power whether anyone under that responsibility likes it or not, and even though we don’t think about it very much because of the mask and diffusion.

Bureaucracy is why, when you get to the front, the woman sitting there can’t solve your problem…unless she is a friend. Then she feels free to resort to her authority.

Things Head Coverings Discourage

Kimberly Santleben-Stiteler wanted to burn her wedding dress upon the finalization of her divorce, but then the patriarchy stepped in:

” ‘I wanted to remove all things from our marriage from our house,’ she told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ‘Photos in the attic, ring in the safe (but probably going to sell it) and the dress I wanted to burn.’

It was her dad and brother who suggested upping the ante and adding explosives [CC: 20 lbs. of Tannerite] into the equation. […]

‘To me, the dress represented a lie. I wanted to have a divorce party to burn the dress,’ she said.”

Some facts from the article that stood out to me:

• Hyphenated name
• She’s 43, and was married for 14 years. So, married at 29, and then got tired of it when she felt the loss of her beauty.
• Wearing a vulgar shirt that says, “Hey Y’all, I’m Single AF”
• Has access to wealth and enough land to blow up a dress from 200 yards away
• Note the “tough” cowgirl aesthetic
• Since she divorced him, it was her lie which she celebrated.
• The ring, like all her valuable wedding tackle, is for sale.

This is what the values of rural Texas offer in the modern world, to our shame.

CoE VIb: We Must Start at the Head and Work Down

Before we talk about pants and what should cover the lower body, we must start at the head. I’ve written several posts on women wearing pants, and how that custom has weakened and blurred the distinctions between men and women in the Western World. I stand by most of what I wrote in those posts, yet we should start at the head–the command of our faith, and source of the same–which is the Word of God taught by the Apostles to us, the Church. We must start at the head, and work down.

If you asked me what needs to be done to begin to reintroduce good order to Western churches, my first change would be for us to be obedient to the Word of God from 1 Corinthians 11 on head coverings; and to require obedience to it upon pain of refusal to worship, or even excommunication. The individual church’s heads must teach head coverings for women but not for men, and the church body must obey. The family head must uphold it, and–supported by the church heads–the family body must be expected to obey. We must start at the head, and work down.

Those who are in submission, which is all of us, must look to our individual heads and see that it is suitably covered or uncovered so that our responsibilities are clear to ourselves and others. We must individually own those responsibilities, and take joy in them. What I mean is: I can’t expect someone to act as my subordinate if they will not accept that truth. If she won’t take the teachings on head coverings, then pants are a moot point because she will not accept the sign, symbol, and practice of submission. We must start at the head and work down.

COE VI: We Have No Such Custom, on Head Coverings

In March of 2016 I wrote a post about the “Head Coverings” passage from 1 Corinthians 11.

³ But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

⁴ Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.

⁵ But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.

⁶ For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

⁷ For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

A pretty good discussion followed in the comments. One of the parts which was not good was my reply to GK CHesterton wherein I wrote:

I think a fair reading of Paul’s teaching is that a woman’s long hair is an acceptable covering of itself, but perhaps I am just a big lib. But it must be long, and–as one under authority–the owner of the hair is not the one to decide how long is long enough to be a covering.

It’s one of those times where what I wrote was correct, but yet still not good. A woman’s long hair is an acceptable covering generally, but it is not an acceptable covering for prayer or prophecy, if I accept that 1 Corinthians 11 is truly God’s word. Verse 6 is the lynchpin.

⁶ For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

Paul said that a long-haired woman who won’t cover her hair should have her hair cut off. That is a simple statement which makes it clear that obedience on head coverings is not covered (rimshot) by long hair. Paul addressed my mistake directly because it is important that the conspicuous sign of submission by head coverings was not optional.

I had no excuse for my error except that:

1. I lacked the imagination to think that there was a time when women really were disciplined (discipled) at church.
2. I feared a battle with my female relations over something that no one else obeyed; which signaled that it was an unimportant custom. Did I really need to start a fight that would end with me being angry at them all, and them at me? I would have been angry if I did not get obedience, and they all would have bound together.

Well, after I wrote that post in March 2016 I was, in my spare time, hassled by 1 Cor. 11:6 until the following fall when I read the passage to my wife and daughters and asked them if they could see any way around it. They did: They said (like I had) that long hair was a covering. I brought it back to verse 6. They were unhappy, but they obeyed God and did not grumble at me too much…though they were sometimes “forgetful” until I was “remindful”.

“But! But! But! Times have changed…” Indeed they have. It is common in Christian circles, when it comes to time pray, for one man to remind another that he still has his hat on. When we do that we harken back to that custom that a man should not pray with his head covered. What time changed was whenever it was that a woman would be reminded to cover hers up.

Paul closes the section on head coverings with:

But if any man seem to be contentious [CC: about the custom of head coverings], we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

Pep Talk

Tomorrow, for the first time since 2004, I’m going to vote. In 2000 and 2004 I voted for the Libertarian candidate because that political system pleased my white high-IQ sensibilities even though it (by it I mean I) was ignorant and and unworkable.

Sarah Palin was a deal-breaker for me. She was a logical conclusion of women’s suffrage, but as I said I was ignorant until I realized we were about to elect a female to be vice president; which is like the internship for president. I have principles, but I also have fundamentals. I’d vote for a socialist man before I’d vote for a female. So I didn’t vote and the habit took.

Democracy is a terrible way to choose leaders who are several steps removed from yourself, but it is the way we do it.

I mean, I gotta live here, you know. Robert Francis O’Rourke is a twerp, and hates the white working class.