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.
Things that We have Heard and Known 
Hey, maybe we need to actually discipline, rebuke, and punish our daughters in both word and deed?
many in conservative culture would include rebuke, exhortation, and discipline under love.
So for many, the argument is over the definition of love: a biblical based definition, or the lust-driven emotion our culture worships.
Regardless, this discipline is lacking, to the shame of the church
Hilarious!
Ah yes, the layabout man holding alpha dad’s precious daughter of the king back. Didn’t we have an entire thread on that subject?
https://canecaldo.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/for-the-love-of-the-game/
“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.”
It was self-defense your honor.
If a man has been steeped in “Christian conservative culture” for most of his life, then becomes exposed to its anomalies via blogs like this one, it can take quite awhile to get it straight in his mind, even if he takes the interest and has the willingness to do so.
Then it takes longer to internalize the lessons, and perhaps still longer before he understands well enough to pass it along. Consequently it takes time to explain it well to another man, and that man has to be open to it rather than immediately set up his word volleys to counter uncomfortable information that probably feels like an attack on his “worldview” (as Novaseeker explains at Dalrock’s).
It’s probably why it’s such a long slog for the Christian bloggers. The light-bulb only comes on for one man at a time, and that sometimes reluctantly.
@ LP
Most of us accept the truths presented in blogs like Cane’s and Dalrock’s only because we were awakened to those truths by painful personal experience.
Few men are capable of accepting these truths without fist being kicked in the balls by at least one of them. But, once you have, you become a lot more willing to learn.
Few men are capable of accepting these truths without fist being kicked in the balls by at least one of them. But, once you have, you become a lot more willing to learn.
That’s generally right. Which is why there is much conflict with Christian conservatives who do not perceive that they have been kicked in the balls (whether they have in fact or not).
What GW fails to do is address the actual facts Dalrock presents, and which are readily available. The most pertinent facts in question are that:
1: The average age of first marriage for all young women, including “Christian” young women, has risen precipitously since circa 1980.
2: The average age at which most young women, including “Christian” young women, lose their virginity has remained steady.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/27/why-young-christians-arent-waiting-anymore/
Note the information here is from 2011, so somewhat dated at the rate things have been changing; Dalrock has a great deal more at his site.
And how do many evangelicals actually view women whoring around? Try not to puke:
“1. Single Christian moms are as pure as the sinless Son of God, which is more than you deserve in a wife.”
https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/single-men-consider-the-single-mothers-in-your-church
For those who like a little blasphemy with their heresy, I suppose.
BTW, the quote above is from a publication of an SBC seminary in 2016, BEFORE the liberals took over.
From the same source: “Far from being a burden, marriage to a single mom is brimming with gospel-displaying potential.” And, “Many single Christian men in our churches bemoan the fact that they desire to be married, but can’t seem to find a wife. Perhaps the problem is that their “market” is too narrowly defined.”
So for GW, this is how the “ultra-conservative” SBC views the notion of their daughters whoring around.
Great stuff, men! Okrahead, thanks for those links.
Cane,
Thanks, although after reading that article I was half afraid you’d ban me for posting the link.
From the CNN article okrahead posted:
Left unsaid and untried: get those kids married off earlier. Even Christians today freak out when a Christian couple marries at 18. But the rampant sexual immorality in the Church doesn’t seem to worry anyone.
As always, the comments are comedy gold. From the same CNN article:
@ Oscar
“But the rampant sexual immorality in the Church doesn’t seem to worry anyone.”
Church goers as a collective would say they are opposed to sexual immorality and that it is not a big problem (in the church) per GW’s opening comment. But as individuals they often can’t afford to take this attitude due to known situations within their own orbit of friends and family. Like Cane writes, the people in those known cases will still be invited to everything and treated as though nothing is amiss. It’s like together we’re against it but separately we each have a special case.
The thing to do individually and corporately is not talk about it, much less try to get them married off too soon as you point out. It could backfire and they quit going to church.
It’s one of those electrified third rails. If you touch it the train will stop running and you will be hurt or killed.
The worst thing I’ve seen is the open justification that it’s not “that bad” or even not really bad at all, like the quote from the comment to the CNN article (clearly no one ever explained the differences between the moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws in the Old Testament to her). I would argue that this approaches heresy which is worse than sins against temperance. People are weak and we all screw up, fair enough. Wiping your mouth and saying it’s no sin is so much more dangerous.
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Left unsaid and untried: get those kids married off earlier
Arranged marriages are unthinkable because of ‘muh freedoms’.
But the rampant sexual immorality in the Church doesn’t seem to worry anyone.
That’s just the price of freedom.
@ GJ
I’m not even talking about arranged marriages. Christians today actively discourage young couples from marrying.
Left unsaid and untried: get those kids married off earlier. Even Christians today freak out when a Christian couple marries at 18. But the rampant sexual immorality in the Church doesn’t seem to worry anyone.
Yes, indeed, that’s the whole “life script” issue. Most Christians are fully bought-in to the life script whereby the 20s are devoted mostly to education and early career formation, self-discovery and other claptrap, and the “appointed age” for marriage is generally between the later 20s and early 30s in the bigger metros now, Christian or no.
Everyone — and I mean everyone, including parents of the individuals involved — knows that rampant fornication is taking place. Simply everyone does. No-one expects that most people, including most Christians, are going to be active in dating/relationships from 15 to 30 while never having had sex at any time in that period. There are a few people who do hold out despite being actively involved in dating and relationships during these years, and then there are those who are not actively involved in the dating/relationship scene during those years for various reasons (often not attractive enough to participate very much). But most Christians are having sex before they marry, and in fact are having sex with every BF/GF they have before they marry. Everyone knows this. No-one talks about it.
Why? Because at the end of the day most parents think this is a better outcome than the other one of marrying early. As between avoiding fornication and marrying early, and fornicating and marrying later, most parents prefer the latter, and so actively choose to overlook the obvious rampant fornication that is taking place. Essentially they are much more concerned about the material well being of their kids than they are of the moral well-being, and that’s more or less across the board.
This is also one big reason why the church has lost most people under 35-40 when it comes to the teachings on homosexuality. These younger people know that the church doesn’t really seem to care much about its sexual teachings when it comes to themselves — noone is disfellowshipping young attendees with BFs/GFs whom everyone who isn’t a complete village idiot knows is fornicating — and everyone is in on the ruse. The young people don’t see any reason why the same “ruse” can’t be adopted for gay people, so that’s how they view it. Perhaps it’s true that if the church cracked down on young people fornicating the few that do attend would simply stop coming, and maybe not even come back later once they are married with kids. But that has not been tried, really. Instead the entire church has basically chosen to give young people a waiver on the rampant fornication that is taking place, because the rank and file church (parents) prefers that the emphasis be placed on ensuring material outcomes rather than avoiding serious sin.
(CC: Nova, I took out the format tags. If you want me to put them back in for some reason (can’t imagine why, but perhaps) shoot me an email.)
@ Novaseeker
Last summer, I left a church where one heterosexual couple was living together out of wedlock, and a lesbian couple was married. The lesbians didn’t get married in the church, and the pastor technically believes that homosexuality is a sin, but he won’t do anything that 1 Corinthians 5 commands.
So, my family and I left. When that leaven leavens that whole lump, at least my kids won’t be there.
These younger people know that the church doesn’t really seem to care much about its sexual teachings when it comes to themselves
the pastor technically believes that homosexuality is a sin, but he won’t do anything that 1 Corinthians 5 commands.
Yes, they don’t actually believe in Scripture. This is the primary reason why Christian conservative culture is failing.
Most Christians are fully bought-in to the life script whereby the 20s are devoted mostly to education and early career formation, self-discovery and other claptrap, and the “appointed age” for marriage is generally between the later 20s and early 30s
My current theory is that this is essentially motivated by feminism, it is a feminist life script. Women are now not supposed to marry early and have children, and if women don’t marry young it’s virtually impossible for young men to do so..
Re the post:
If she lives with her boyfriend, her father may not approve
He does not agree with her whoring around, but will defend to the death her right to do so.
Does anyone else see Novaseeker’s comment in a scrolling box?
@ Cane
Yes, it’s in a weird scrolling box.
@Cane
Yes, his comment is inside a code HTML block for some reason. That blocks the browser from reformatting the text so that it is presented as written.
@GJ
I believe feminism is a symptom of Machiavellian Necessities, Enlightenment precepts of individualism, and Marxist precepts of property rights when expressed under the condition of Eve’s consequences. Novaseeker has it right when he says:
i.e., the love of money is the root of (all sorts of) evil.
You are right about the love of money. But the church leadership love money too, if the married women stopped working and raised a family at home their cashflows would take a big hit.
Churches have a direct financial benefit from ‘you go career grrrrl’.
Churches directly benefit from encouraging the young (both male and female) to follow the ‘life script’ and prioritise careers over marrying early.
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I just found two other copies of Novaseeker’s comment in the spam. He must have been trying to correct it also. Not sure why it was spammed in the first place.