Monthly Archives: January 2019

Seen and Heard to Heard and Known

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Okrahead asks:

If you have any thoughts I’d like to here them about what to do when you have older relatives/parents who espouse the teachings you deal with in this article. If, for example, (just for a friend who was asking, of course) you have older relatives who teach that women can and should speak out in the assembly, need not bother with head coverings, etc., how can you deal with that situation. I don’t believe that the lack of respect that they’re teaching women justifies a lack of respect to my elders, and they do not seem very inclined to listen when I object to their teachings and practices; teachings and practices with which I was raised.

The answer I have is not thrilling, but what I do is, basically, two things.

First, I practice and teach (repeat) what the Bible plainly says. Know it yourself, and tell others that God expects it to be obeyed as He does all His commands. Study the surrounding texts. Know the context so that you can refute arguments and redirect distractions back to the text.

Second, I keep in mind that my behavior is the ambassador of my message. If I am wild and unruly I won’t be respected when I speak up. And if I ignore the traditions they ask of me which sometimes aren’t so clear from the text, then they will disregard me as apathetic, or a reviler.

Third, I don’t back down from arguing what the Bible plainly says. It is not inherently disrespectful to disagree with elders. I think this remark from Peter and John in Acts 4 is the guide:

“Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 

I can picture them bowing their heads as the say, “you must judge”, but then standing tall as they finish, “for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” They don’t challenge the authority of the priests; in fact they recognize it. They don’t mock them, nor insult them. This is the opposite of common and childish attitude of today which demands, “Who are you to judge?”, or, “I don’t have to listen to you!” They are to judge. We do have to listen. But we don’t have to agree, and we shouldn’t pretend we do.

 

For the Love of the Game

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Within the Christians Men’s Sphere (and even in the larger Men’s Sphere) a theory holds sways when it should not. It is the idea that if a man will be virtuous enough, then it will overflow, and his virtue will overrun onto his wife and daughters. Those who believe in this theory are suffering under one or more errors. One of which is that every aspect of life can be explained with modern economic theories.

But the main error is this: They will not confront the truth that women sin because they want to sin. This is why the same man who says that he should be a better man so that his wife will be “attracted” to follow him (Hahahaha!) will–with his next breath–boast that he will teach his son to be virtuous. They do not believe that their virtue will trickle down to other men such as their son. No, no: Men must be taught virtue!

Do you smell the Traditionalist Feminism I’m stepping in?

It’s actually even worse than I have so far stated because the virtues of a man are not the same as those of women. Some expect that the man’s virtue of speaking a word in church will magically be transmuted into a woman’s virtue of silence in church. Others expect worse: That his women will take up manly virtue and raise their voices.

Every Christian men’s outlet I know runs away from this truth: The New Testament, especially The Epistles, explains to us clearly and forthrightly that:

  1. Men are the heads of women. Men are in charge and are to act like it; corporately and individually as the relationship defines. The Author of the Bible does not even say, “Christian men”, or, “Godly men”. It is so ordered through all Creation.
  2. Women individually are to be submissive and therefore obedient to their heads of households.
  3. Women are to be silent in church.
  4. Women are to pray with their heads covered as a sign of submission. There is to be no question about it. Everyone who sees a praying women should see a woman who accepts that her God-given role and glory is to be submissive to God, and her husband or father.

The impulse of men like Tim Bayly, Michael Foster, and Aaron Renn (Hey man, I been there.) is that men must be somehow able to fix themselves. They think this because they want to address our current distress, and because they rightly know that no one can control another person; we aren’t even good at controlling ourselves.

The truth is that American Christians have raised at least four generations of brassy whores[1] and all we can do is talk about how to be the kind of men brassy whores prefer to marry. Throughout these generations Christian leaders and men have been exhorting one another to virtue and godliness with the same terrible results. There are enough books and sermons telling men to be better to fill a hundred libraries. If we want more virtuous men and women, then order must be restored. This means church leaders (bishops, pastors, elders, husbands, fathers, older women [2]) must charge women to be submissive, and to display the signs of submission: covered heads and their silence in church.

The prudential nature of pastoral care demands that we consider the currents of popular culture swirling around us. Because of that I suggest for any leader who wishes to be taken seriously that no less than half of his engendered instructions should be directed at women to be quiet and have some respect.

Do NOT get distracted by the fact that many men within those generations were vicious rather than virtuous. This has always been the case. We’re Christians, we know this. There was not a sudden decline in male virtue which heralded in the generations of whores. Generation-wide whoring began after men signaled the sharing of headship when women were given the vote alongside us, and it accelerated when women stopped covering their heads at church. When American Christian women gave up submission and the sign of submission, their next step was to become whores..and not even for the economics. They are whores for the romance and excitement. They whore for the love of the Game.

If you need an economics tie-in to hear me: It’s the brassy whores, stupid.

[1] If she wasn’t a virgin at marriage, and she wasn’t raped, she whored around at some point. We used to discreetly acknowledge this with the phrase “make an honest woman of her”, but we’re way past the point now where discretion can be understood.

[2] As in, something like a grandmother. Paul wasn’t referring to a five years older bestie.

Yes, You Need to Be Able to Fix and Build Stuff

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9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Jesus was a carpenter. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fisherman. Paul was a pharisee who had to repent, and he began making tents. If you’re too smart to work, you’re too dumb to teach. The Bible is incomprehensible to the man who doesn’t know how to manipulate the material, unrighteous, world.

10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

Servants. Masters. Farmers. Vinedressers. Fishermen. Plowmen. Oxen. Donkey. Deer. These are the words of the Bible. There are–in the Bible–no parables, metaphors, or allegories for instruction for us to be like the righteous philosopher or the worthy wordsmith.